Christmas Baking

Christmas Baking

Oh the cookie baking! Happens to me every year! I inherited the Christmas cookie baking disease from my mom. She always baked lots and lots of cookies for Christmas. She used to fill several Charles Chips cans to the top (Charles Chips were awesome pretzels and potato chips that were delivered to the house in huge tins). For the past several years, I have baked my own huge batches of lots and lots of Christmas treats. I use Christmas decorated clear bags found in craft stores to make individual servings of the cookies and treats. I either arrange on trays or box up in USPS flat rate boxes to mail to my family in other states.

Here are all the cookies and treats I made a couple years ago. I took all the pictures, but never had time to post to my blog. There's no telling how many pounds of butter, flour, sugar and chocolate were used to prepare this crazy large amount of calories. BTW...That's the first Christmas tree in the middle of the cookies we bought so many years ago. It's fake and not so pretty, but I enjoy decorating it every year. It's nice remembering.

 Russian Teacakes - YUM! My mom used to bake these every year and I don't think there has ever been a Christmas that I have not baked them! Have to say they are an all time favorite in my family for years and years.

Russian Teacakes all bagged and ready to share!

 Spritz Cookies - This is one of my favorites. The little buttery cookies made with a cookie press. I used to make different colors or designs, but I've pretty much settled on making green trees for the past many years. Adds some color the variety of cookies.

Green Tree Spritz Cookies all bagged and ready to share!

 Pinwheel Cookies - I LOVE these cookies, probably my very favorite. My mom used to make these from Betty Crocker cookbook. A little time consuming, but so worth the effort. Mine are never perfect, but they always taste wonderful.

Pinwheel Cookies all bagged and ready to share!

 Sugar Cookies - I added these yummy cookies a few years back when my friend, Kathy, shared this recipe with me. I am forever grateful. This is the best sugar cookie I've ever baked. So light and airy. Perfect every time and extremely easy. Mix, shape, roll, smash, bake! Makes a large amount of cookies, and usually a single batch makes lots of bags of cookies.

 Million Dollar Fudge - This is the best chocolate fudge recipe I've ever made. The recipe makes 6 lbs of fudge! Now that's a LOT of candy and pure sweetness! My friend Betty shared it with me a few years back and I've made it a couple of times for Christmas. Every Christmas needs a little fudge.

7-Up Bundt Cake - This is my favorite cake of all time. The best pound cake recipe!  I have two mini Bundt pans. Using a No-Stick Baking Spray with flour is a must. You can find it with the Pam in the stores. Don't use regular Pam, use one with flour included for the less chance of cake sticking to the pan.  The light frosting is perfect because it hardens enough so it does not stick to the bag. I put each one in a separate bag. Such a special treat.

Good grief...This is a lot of mini Bundt cakes!

 Chex Mix - With all these sweet recipes, you need something crunchy and salty. Chex Mix! The link to my recipe was taken from a box of Chex cereal, but I added some of my own ingredients. I buy 3 or 4 boxes of Chex, figure out how many cups I have and then decide how many times the recipe I need to make. I use a huge Roasting pan, large enough for a 25 lb. turkey,  to mix and bake it in.

White Chocolate Pretzels - The perfect mix of sweet and salty.

 Here are some pictures of the gift packages ready to share.

All bagged and ready to mail!

I mentioned my mom used to store here cookies in a Charles Chips can in the 60's. My HS friend Kathy just posted this fabulous picture of the Charles Chips delivery truck and the cans. Such a great memory. You would put the empty cans on the front porch with a check for them to be replaced with filled cans. Nothing better than those chips and pretzels!

 Here's a picture of a can that my friend Vera lent me for a picture. Guess they are no longer in business.

A Box of Halloween Treats!

A Box of Halloween Treats!

When you have Grand-kids in two different parts of the country, it's just fun to send them special treats.
Hope my pictures give you some ideas to put together your own Halloween Box!

Here is the finished gift box.

I can fit a LOT of stuff in this  USPS Medium Flat Rate box!
This box contains treats and goodies for three Grand-kids.

Finished Box of Halloween Treats

 Here are some pictures of the the baked Goodies and Treats included.

 Found this wonderful Chocolate Reese's Pieces Cookie recipe here:

Chocolate Reese's Pieces Cookies

I made some alterations by doubling the recipe and adding a bag of Baking Mini Reese's Pieces to the amount in recipe. I also rolled the dough in small balls, rolled them in sugar and pressed them down with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.
You can't have too much sugar and too many Reece's Pieces!

Chocolate Reese's Pieces Cookie

 I baked mini loaves of my Sour Cream Coffee Cake.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

I put together these very fun Delicious Acorn Cookies. The recipe can be found here: 

Delicious Acorn Cookies.

Delicious Acorn Cookies

  To send the Acorn Cookies, I put them in a mini loaf pan and added a printed business card created in Microsoft Word. Here is a picture of my little note:

Here's a sample of a "treat bag" from some little things I collected from Wal-Mart

and the 99 Cent Store.

  

  

 Here's some candy treats and bagged.

 Here's the Sour Cream Coffee Cake bagged and ready.

 Here's the Reece's Pieces Cookies bagged and ready.

Finished Box of Halloween Treats-Ready to close up and mail!

Box of Sunshine

A Box of Sunshine!

I found this wonderful idea on Pinterest. Here are to links to these sites for more ideas... Happy Money Saver and Preserving Life's Moments.

I put together a Box of Sunshine for my sister. It was so fun walking around Walmart choosing fun yellow and happy items: Lemon Cookies; Burt's Bees Lip Balm; bath scrubbies; lemon hard candy; honeysuckle candle; yellow lollipops; Pretzel Combos with cheese; a CD; pot holders; a water bottle. Not pictured, I also added a couple Lemonade Capri Suns.

All the items were put in a USPS Medium Flat Rate Box. So no worry about how heavy the box was getting!

Boxed and read to mail!

Message Text: Sending You a Little Box of Sunshine to Brighten Your Day!

Here is a Box of Sunshine I put together for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. Never know what to send her, but I hope she will enjoy opening this box! She's diabetic, so I included sugar free items. Here are some of the items included: sugar free lemon pudding and Jello; Crystal Light candies; Dove Sugar free dark chocolate; decaf teabags; honeysuckle candle; crossword puzzles; Goldfish; Crystal Light Lemon Raspberry drink packets; raisins; box of Tomato Basil soup; yellow dishtowels, dishcloths and pot holder. I purchased the tissue paper and cellophane at the .99 store.

Again, all the items were put in a USPS Medium Flat Rate Box. So no worry about how heavy the box was getting!

 

Boxed and ready to mail!

Message Text: Happy Mother's Day! Sending You a Box of Sunshine to Brighten your Day!

My lunch group also put together a "Box of Sunshine" for a friend who needed a lift. We all brought in some yellow or happy items to put in the box. Someone else put it together so I  don't have a picture, but it was so fun because we all contributed something different.

Here is the graphic I used to print the Sunshine on yellow paper. I inserted the .jpg into a Word document. Copied and pasted it several times in different sizes. On the largest one, I inserted a text box to write a message and chose to have no fill or outline. Then printed on yellow paper and cut them out. Ok...it was not really fun cutting them out, but they turned out pretty cute!

This is such a fun idea and the possibilities are endless!

Make a Box of Sunshine for someone today!