It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas
Since I had a day off today, and since this was more or less the only truly free day in my schedule between my return from WV and Christmas, I decided to get as much of my holiday baking done today as I could. I started around 8am, and I'm pretty darn close to done now. I think, for the first time in my adult life, I've finally reached my baking tolerance.
The house smells like sugar and vanilla and chocolate. The kitchen is a shambles, despite my best efforts to clean as I cooked. Everything is covered with flour - the counters, my nose, my jeans, the cat, the stove, everything. I haven't had to turn the heat on yet, since the stove has been on for the past seven hours. There are two kinds of candy chilling in the refrigerator, four kinds of cookies cooling on racks and tables and plates and cutting boards and empty lasagne pans and any other flat surface I could find. The next-to-last round of cookies is in the oven. I had plans for one more batch, but I don't know where I've put it.
Between Tuesday's candy-making and today, I've used three pounds of butter, five pounds of flour, a half-pound of baker's chocolate, a pound of coconut, nearly a pound each of regular and confectioner's sugar, and I've lost track of how many bags of walnuts, almonds, and pecans.
Tomorrow evening I will ice the cookies that need it, fill some others with jam, and figure out how to reattach the severed head of one poor decapitated gingerbread bear. Right now, though, I think I'm going to go put the last sheet of cookies into the oven, change my clothes, and hunt down some non-buttery, non-sugary, completely baked-goods-free dinner....
The house smells like sugar and vanilla and chocolate. The kitchen is a shambles, despite my best efforts to clean as I cooked. Everything is covered with flour - the counters, my nose, my jeans, the cat, the stove, everything. I haven't had to turn the heat on yet, since the stove has been on for the past seven hours. There are two kinds of candy chilling in the refrigerator, four kinds of cookies cooling on racks and tables and plates and cutting boards and empty lasagne pans and any other flat surface I could find. The next-to-last round of cookies is in the oven. I had plans for one more batch, but I don't know where I've put it.
Between Tuesday's candy-making and today, I've used three pounds of butter, five pounds of flour, a half-pound of baker's chocolate, a pound of coconut, nearly a pound each of regular and confectioner's sugar, and I've lost track of how many bags of walnuts, almonds, and pecans.
Tomorrow evening I will ice the cookies that need it, fill some others with jam, and figure out how to reattach the severed head of one poor decapitated gingerbread bear. Right now, though, I think I'm going to go put the last sheet of cookies into the oven, change my clothes, and hunt down some non-buttery, non-sugary, completely baked-goods-free dinner....