Holiday Hustle

As much as I love the holidays (and I'm coming to enjoy them more and more every year), they are way too busy! Between Christmas parties, Christmas shopping, and Christmas baking, I barely have time to go to work to pay for everything!

That's not too say that I don't enjoy it; spending time with family and friends and showing them how much you appreciate them is priceless. However, things like little old baking blogs end up going on the back burner for a while! Sorry it's been a while since my last post, but never fear! I'm back, and boy do I have a lot of baking to post about.

This past weekend, my family and I decided to host a Holiday Open House, which we called "Santa's Sweets". The idea was to have family and friends over for a dessert tasting, while sharing good cheer and a glass of wine (or your drink of choice). Mid-November I felt inspired to bake my heart out and just share the results with friends, and I thought an open house would be the perfect opportunity.

So it began 3-4 weeks in advance, baking desserts that would hold up in the freezer, and as the event neared, the amount of baking increased! My freezer was filled with zip-lock baggies full of dessert, and by the end I had taken over my fridge as well! Everything was cut into bite size pieces and I think in the end I had close to 1000 individual servings of dessert. I couldn't have done it all myself though, so I need to give my mom huge thanks for helping with the baking. The menu included:

New York Cheesecake with Berry Coulis

White Chocolate Candy Cane Cheesecake

Milk Chocolate Truffles

White Chocolate Cranberry Biscotti

Gingerbread

Spritz Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Christmas Brownies

Orange Cranberry Scones

Scottish Shortbread

Whipped Shortbread

Lemon Poppy Seed Loaf

Eggnog Bread

Mini Galliano Cupcakes

Mini Red Velvet Cupcakes with Candy Cane Frosting

Chocolate Bark

Rice Crispies

Chocolate Crinkles

I think that's it? I may be forgetting something... oh well! Needless to say, there was tons of food! And some of it nearly didn't make it out onto the table before guests started arriving. Some of the favorites were the chocolate bark, the truffles, the red velvet cupcakes and the shortbreads.We also had a selection of cheeses and veggies and dip, for when the sugar got to be a little too much!

Although it was a lot of work, it was so rewarding to see people truly enjoying the food we made. It made it all worthwhile. And, since we had excessive amounts of everything leftover, we have been able to bring the food into work and share it with even more people. If you'd like to know the recipes of anything I baked, let me know and I can send it to you!