Baking Day

Last Friday, my best friend Tracy and I had a baking day in preparation for our annual Christmas party, which was the next day.

She came over around 11 AM and we got to work because we had a lot to do!

First, we put her four month old son, Quinn, inside the dog pen and got him situated.  We knew we couldn't just leave him on the floor because my two dachshunds are fascinated with him and probably wouldn't leave him alone.  And since the baby is less mobile than the dogs, we thought it best to put him inside the pen and keep the dogs outside the pen.

Here he is, the cutie:

 

 

 Then we started cooking.  The counters were covered with ingredients and cooking tools.

The first thing we made was lemon cheesecake.  It was pretty good, but the crust was too thick so if I make it again I'll adjust accordingly.

  

Next we made red velvet cheesecake cookies with a white chocolate drizzle.  They're made with a red velvet cake box and have cheesecake filling.  These were super easy and delicious!  Here's the recipe in case you're interested.

 

An interesting note about these:  the cake mix is brownish but once it gets red it turns bright pink.  I thought it was weird!

Let the record show that I am NOT a good drizzler, but these were still tasty!

We also made shortbread Christmas tree cookie sandwiches with raspberry preserve filling.  These were inspired by something I saw in a magazine, and they were also delicious.

Here's the recipe I used for the shortbread.  The only difference is that I rolled the dough out 1/4" thick and used a tree cutter rather than using  a cookie press.  I don't have one of those, but I want one!

We also made peanut butter fudge and put together cookie ingredient jars, which Tracy gave away as gifts.  They were super cute.  Have you ever made those?

After that, Tracy and Quinn had to go home, but I wasn't done.  I had to make these onion rolls for our Christmas party, so I put them together the next morning.  These were very good but the onion taste was VERY strong.  If I make them again I'll use two onions instead of three.

In other news, these photos prove that I am not a good food photographer.  I would love to have this book because I think it would help me learn more about taking appetizing pictures of food.