Cookiextravagnza!

You may recall the long day Melissa and I spent making Christmas cookies last year. We were only able to squeeze in a weeknight this year, and last night was it!

Fortunately, I made the spritz and mexican wedding cakes dough the night before. Otherwise, we may have seen the sunrise before we finished!

I bought a new spritz cookie press last year after the difficulties we had with my old (yet still new-ish) one. Well, this one was not better! We couldn't even get the dough to come out without cutting it off the press. JUNK!! Or user-error, but I find that hard to believe! :)

Melissa's solution puts any spritz cookie I've ever seen to shame. Look at these beautiful wreaths and candy canes!

Melissa gets all the credit for both design and implementation. It was quite time-consuming, as you can see from her process below.

My far less creative, albeit quicker, solution was to slice the dough and sprinkle some colored sugar on the cookies. Next year I think we may devote the whole cookie day to Melissa's new designs. I will say that the dough tastes fabulous. It was a new recipe with a secret ingredient! The first taster who guesses the ingredient wins a prize - another cookie!

We also made mexican wedding cakes. There must be about eight dozen and I'm not thrilled with the taste. I'm eating one now and they're ok, but not as good as last year.

Does it look like Melissa did most of the work? I think she did! I made two types of fudge - one (with nuts) that I've tasted and is so-so and the other (fudge with peanut butter topping) that I hope is better.

Next year I hope the cookie baking will be different in two ways: on a weekend so it will be more relaxed and maybe in a newly remodeled kitchen (although that's what I said last year).

Regardless of how it all turns out, cookie baking with Melissa is wonderful time that is now becoming a tradition!