Christmas Whirlwind Part 2

I was a baking MACHINE this year.  With 9 different kinds of cookies and 3 pies.  I usually do gift baskets for my parents and my brothers and their families, with cookies and chocolates and goodies.  This year I opted to do cookie buckets for them and some of my other friends.

I spent 4 nights in a row after work up until after midnight baking and baking and baking and then cleaning and scraping and washing   It was all worth it as everyone enjoyed the tasty treats come Christmas Day!

This is what my counter top looked like every night after work for about a week.  Bags of sugar and flour, mixers, measuring cups and measuring spoons.

I am SO glad I went to Costco and bought the huge bags of brown, white and confectioners sugar there.  It’s MUCH cheaper and I probably would have run out half-way through my baking.  And NOBODY likes having to run to the store in the middle of baking something!

I made Russian Teacakes or as we have always called them, “Snowballs”  which are always a favorite at Christmas.  Here they are cooling on the cookie sheet before being rolled in confectioners (powdered) sugar.

Here they are after being rolled in sugar and waiting to be packaged up for gifts.

By special request I made some Snickerdoodles for someone very close to my heart   xoxo

Frosted sugar cookies are probably in the top 3 of Christmas cookie favorites.  These are usually one of the first to disappear from the plate.

These were so RICH and delicious!  Cookies made from devils food cake and frosting made from sugar and cream cheese….YUM!

This doesn’t even show all the types of cookies I made (oh and there’s mini loaves of banana bread in the back too).  But this is what my dining room table looked like for about 4 days before everything was done and I could box it up.

They were all delicious tasty treats!  I spent SO much time in the kitchen… maybe next year I’ll just make the top 3 favs   Maybe I’ll add a few of these recipes here to share with you all later

xoxo

Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving

Oh how I do love to bake during the Holidays!  I don’t like to cook (I can, I just don’t enjoy it as much).  But I DO love baking pies, cookies and pastries to share with and give away to my loved ones during the Holidays.  It really is a warm-fuzzy for me.  I turn my Pandora radio onto Holiday music, plug my headphones in and bake the night away.

That’s what I did for my Thanksgiving Pecan Pie this year.  It turned out DELICIOUS and it was fun to make.  I decided to document it with my camera this year.

• Preheat your oven to 375º
• Prepare a pastry for a 9 inch one crust pie
• 1/3 cup plus 1 Tbs shortening
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water

I mixed the dry ingredients (flour and salt) together.  Then I added the shortening and used a pastry blender (which I highly recommend because it’s so much easier) to blend the shortening in with the flour and salt.  The trick with this pie crust is to blend and blend until there is no longer a “powdery” consistency in the flour.  You want it all to be absorbed by the shortening, until it looks like large crumbs.  Then I added 3 Tbs of water sprinkling it on one at a time and tossing with a fork.  Then I gathered all the dough together into a ball and squished it out flat.  I put it on my floured counter top and rolled it out to about 1/4 inch thick.

It can be tricky getting your pastry into your pie plate without it falling apart.  I usually place my rolling pin in the center of the pastry and roll one half of it over the rolling pin then I place my pie plate right beside it and use the rolling pin to drag it up over the plate.  Once I got it in the pie plate I pushed it down around the bottom before trimming off the excess leaving about an inch hanging over.  Then I folded the extra underneath before putting creases all the way around.

Next it was time to get out the BEAST (aka my kick-ass Kitchenaid) to mix the ingredients for the pie filling.  You can always use a hand-mixer or beater if you don’t have a beast like mine

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup stick butter or margarine
• 1 cup Karo syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs

I then mixed all the above ingredients until it was smooth.  After that I added the pecans.  The recipe calls for 1 cup of pecans but I usually just put the whole bag in and I haven’t had a single complaint yet!   I would recommend using a spoon or spatula to mix in the nuts as my mixer tends to pulverize them :p

I took the empty pie shell and put it on the oven rack and poured the filling in.  After that was done I made a “tent” out of aluminum foil to place over the top.  It’s my experience when baking pies with such a high sugar content they tend to burn or scorch on top really easily.  I baked my pie for the first 35 minutes with the foil on and for the final 10-12 I removed the foil so the top would brown a little bit.  But keep your eye on it once you take the foil off because it will turn brown really fast.  Bake your pie for 40-50 minutes until the center is set.  The pie is done when you give it a half-turn and the center barely jiggles.  It can jiggle a little bit because the pie will continue to cook after you take it out of the oven.

Taaaadaaaa!  A delicious Pecan Pie for the whole family to enjoy!  It was WONDERFUL!

Happy Holidays everyone!  Share your love and caring by baking goodies for your loved ones this season   The “Mmmmmmm!” sound is a gift in and of itself

XOXOX

Kim

It’s time for PIE!

So every year for the past several year I am in charge of pies for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I kind-of volunteered myself for the task when I offered to do it one year.  I had so much fun and the pies came out SO good that I’ve been doing it ever since.  For Thanksgiving I usually make pumpkin and pecan and sometimes apple too.  For Christmas it’s pecan and apple for sure!  Although I’ve been dabbling in the cheesecake department lately and last year’s cheesecake came out AWESOME!

Anywho…here’s a picture of my lovely pumpkin pies.  Tonight – I make PECAN!  YUM YUM!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  May you all stuff yourselves silly and content!

xoxox