Extreme Christmas Cookie Madness

You can't avoid it. You can't beat it. You can try to work it off, ignore it, fight it, run from it. But eventually you just have to give in. To Christmas cookies. Delightful, delicious, fattening, full of butter and sugar. Come on people, its just once a year. And for goodness sake, just give them away. You don't have to eat them yourself.

I decided to tackle a Christmas cookie project this weekend. But not the typical sugar cookies with gross icing in various shapes and colors. Nope, I decided to go all out and make a variety of cookies for the ultimate cookie tray. I wanted to make five different kinds of cookies. I did my research and found five cookies that were different and interesting. Lemon bars, nutella cookies, ginger molasses cookies, chocolate peppermint cookies, and sour cream sugar cookies.

Saturday morning I ambitiously started out with my cookie baking schedule. Lemon bars were first up. I decided on lemon bars because I needed a. a bar cookie, and b. a fruit cookie. Perfect.

Devine.

I found the recipe from this awesome cooking blog, In Erica's Kitchen. Here is the link to the lemon bars. I obviously covered mine with powdered sugar. I used two fresh lemons, which didn't quite make the 5/8 cup of lemon juice this calls for. So I added some lime juice I had in the fridge. The color was still a beautiful yellow and the flavor was nice and citrus-y. 

Next up, nutella cookies. These were actually the only cookie I had made before. Nutella cookies are so so so good. Chocolate-y but unexpected.

The hub loves these.

This awesome recipe comes from another fantastic cooking blog, Simply Recipes. Here is the link to the nutella cookies. This recipe is also great because it makes about a million cookies if you stick to the tablespoon size of dough per cookie. I also only bake them for 10 minutes because I like my cookie a little chewy on the inside. These cookies got rave reviews from a Christmas party we went to.

I wanted a classic gingerbread or ginger snap but I don't love hard gingersnaps that kinda snap off your teeth. These ginger molasses cookies were soft and full of flavor. They were also quick and easy to make. Also, I've never used molasses before and it was fun. Just saying.

Heavenly.

My darling cousin Nicole directed me to this awesome website for like any kind of food you would ever want called Food Gawker. OMG I could spend hours looking at recipes and gorgeous food pictures here.  Here is the cookie link.  This website is where I found these yummy cookies, which were featured on this super cute food blog, Living Lou. Here is the ginger molasses cookie recipe. These little babies are good warm with a glass of milk and a Christmas movie. Someone at work asked me if they were homemade. I said yes. Ha.

Ok, after three batches of cookies I was starting to get pretty winded. My fourth batch of cookies requires some fridge time so I decided to make the dough and call it a night. These chocolate-covered peppermint cookies caught my eye because they looked like Thin Mints, the classic Girl Scout cookie. Since I was a devout girl scout until the 5th grade, I will always love a good thin mint.

Beautiful beautiful beautiful.

The cookie was easy because you just shape the dough into a long roll and slice it up as thin or thick as you want. The hard part was dipping all the cookies in chocolate and not making a massive mess. I used a slotted spoon and knife to kinda get the excess chocolate off the top. Also found this recipe from Food Gawker. Its another cutie blog, Becky Bakes. Here is the cookie link! These cookies got the most rave reviews. People at my work couldn't figure out how I made them. The Christmas party loved them. And they are so so yummy cold or frozen. And it also makes like a million cookies. Perfect!

Ok so I was pretty much Christmas cookie'd out by this time. Caleb kept asking when I was going to stop baking cookies and hang out with him. Also my kitchen looked like a tornado had gone through it. So I'll leave the sour cream sugar cookies to my bff Kerry who promised she would blog about them soon. I'll post the link when she does!

Do yourself and everyone you love a favor and make some of these!

I sent four plates worth of cookies (middle pic) to work with Caleb. He said they were gone by 9:30am.

I finally got the last of my Christmas cards sent yesterday. I feel a little late but that's ok. I've been picking up overtime and between that and a weekend of cookie baking there hasn't been much time for anything else. So today I'm going to wrap the hub's gifts, make appetizers for work tomorrow (holidays at work=lots and lots of food), clean our place, maybe go to the gym...

Enjoy the weekend! Eat lots of food, enjoy your family, have fun giving and opening gifts, and remember that God loves you so much that he sent Jesus as an itty bitty baby two thousand Christmases ago! To our families: we miss you SO much and wish we could be there SO badly! I even tried to switch out a few days to make it possible but no one would switch with me (imagine that!). And then I asked my boss if she would just take me off the schedule. She said no. Then I told Caleb I could just call in sick. He said "We don't do that." In a very stern voice. But anyway, we love you and we miss you and we will be there in two short weeks!

Thankful List:
1. That I'm taking care of sick people during the holidays...and not one of the sick people!
2. My sweet husband and that we get to spend Christmas together this year
3. That my gym is just across the street...no excuses for burning off cookie calories!


Merry Christmas!