Christmas Baking

I went to my parent's house on Friday for a Christmas baking marathon. I think I may have gotten a little carried away. I wanted to make a lot of cookies because we had a party/jewelry sale yesterday that we needed them for, and I wanted to have some for gifting. Most of these recipes are from the Martha Stewart Christmas Cookie Magazine, which you should be able to find at newstands now.

Salted Toffee Chocolate Squares

Coconut Macaroons (recipe here)

We didn't have candied ginger on hand and I really wanted to make the Lemon-Glazed Candied Ginger cookies. Mom made candied ginger from scratch with fresh ginger! I'm glad she went to the trouble because this was one of my favorite of all the cookies we made. I may be making these again this week, because we didn't make that many.

Candied Ginger and Lemon Peel

Gluten-Free, Dairy Free Chocolate Pecan Cookies
My second try at these and the size is right, but I think I cooked them too long. I want a chewy center, but these are crispy throughout, still delicious though.

Sugar cookies, I added red food coloring and the pearlized sugar around the edges.
They taste as good as they look!

Mom made mini pecan pies (her own recipe)

Raspberry Thumbprint cookies
Made with the Cream Cheese dough and Raspberry jam.

The ones on the far left are the Lemon Ginger cookies (my fav), the ones on the top are mom's traditional Christmas recipe, Cocoa Kiss Cookies, which I don't have on hand.

All packed up and ready for giving!

So from the magazine we made:

Cranberry Coins (not pictured here, but delicious)
Jam Filled Cream Cheese Cookies (but we made them into thumbprints)
Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Chocolate-Pecan Cookies
Iced Sugar Cookie Cutouts (didn't ice or cut out, but rolled in silver sugar and dyed red)
Lemon-Glazed Candied-Ginger Cookies
Pecan Sandies
Salted Toffee Chocolate Squares

We also made:

Cocoa Kiss Cookies
Coconut Macaroons
Amaretto and Peppermint Truffles
Mini Pecan Pies

Wew, that was my first Christmas activity of the season and though it was exhausting, I fully enjoyed it. Now to clean the house, start Christmas shopping, maybe a little decorating, grocery shopping, etc. I'm a bit overwhelmed this year!