My Life

The Christmas Candy Baking Extravaganza 2007 has commenced!!!

If you don't already know this about me, I absolutely LOVE making candy at Christmas!! Starting in October the girls and I put together our lists. One is the master list of what we'll be making. Another is the ingredients list. And the final one is who we'll give candy gifts to. Once that list is made I start buying ingredients. I'm like a crazy squirrel who's scurrying for nuts because she knows winter is coming and she needs to hoard them away.

The week before Christmas we start our official break from school and spend the week baking. In years past (and usually when we do any baking/cooking) I had all the girls in the kitchen helping me with each thing. This year things are going to be different. Last week we made some cookies and I had them all in with me. Once we got through the bickering about who was going to put what ingredient in, who was going to stir, who was going to sit where so they could see or do their job,...we finally got the cookies made. Oh....and throw in a two year old who is yelling at everyone because he wants to be in the middle of it all too but he can't be because he's licking EVERYTHING he can get his fingers on (ya know...baking cocoa doesn't taste so good by itself!). So I made the executive decision that this year, only one child would assist with each candy.

Today we put up our candy list on the wipe-off board. I wrote my name by the things I will do alone: Peanut Brittle and English Toffee. They require being at the stove quite a while and when it's poured in the pan, it's VERY hot. I then told the girls to look and see if there was anything up there that they wanted to do and didn't need to argue with each other about who would do it. Surprisingly, they were able to do that and only leave two things that we needed to draw names for!

All we got done today was to start the Cranberry Gumdrops (they take a couple days to make) and to make Fudge. I'm not sure what happened to my fudge but for some reason this year it's not right. I used butter for the first time and the recipe calls for margarine. Since I don't like eating plastic, I thought I'd try butter. I have a feeling that it may have been a mistake and that the plastic helps give the fudge a creamy taste. Oh well...regardless of the odd texture, it still tastes yummy!

I'm not sure what we'll tackle tomorrow. Probably Peppermint Patties.