Baking and Making - Part 2

The past two weeks were quite an adventure in the Baking and Making category! As mentioned in my last post - I am attempting to meet the "Holiday Baking" theme. Interestingly enough... I ended up more on the candy making side. What can I say.... all the Pinterest posts looked so delicious on the candy making side... I had to give them a try.

So first up was an attempt at those "Gingerbread" Houses that people do every year. I figured how hard could this be... right? Well boy, was I wrong on that. I was often wondering to myself throughout this process of how parents could do this activity with their kids. Especially those perfectionist, crafter people... sheesh :-P. The whole process took me like maybe 2 days (I had to take breaks in between because I was getting frustrated).

In no way did the final product look like the picture. Below are a few snaps from the process and the finished product.

Next up was Fudge. This is typically a "holiday" themed food item. But also something that is very popular throughout the year. Most of the research I did on this made it seem very easy to make. And it was. Once again with this recipe, I picked and choose variations of the a dark chocolate recipe from people online and consulted with my "chef" co-worker (she has been great sending me tons of baking and crafting ideas :D). Below is the combination of the research and consulting I did.

Also - I fixed my recipe from last post, click here to go to that one if you want the updated "Truffle Recipe".

Fudge Recipe:

Ingredient Photos:

Final Fudge Product!

And as if the gingerbread and fudge making wasn't enough (it wasn't...) I decided to do some "quick and easy" stuff :-P. Pre-made Chocolate Chip Cookies "Annie's Organic" kind. Let's consider this a "review" of the brand and how well they did cookies.

Overall (of course) the cooking process was easy. Preheat oven to temperature defined, take the cold pre-made cookie dough pieces out, put them on a pan, place pan on middle rack. Cook.

I usually only bake the cookies for the shortest amount of time it states and then take them out and let them sit on top of the oven. This makes sure that they harden up a little... but retain their gooey taste. I like soft cookies so doing this way makes sure that happens most of the time.

Rating/Score: 9/10 . I would say if I had to rate these against Tollhouse cookies and pre-made mix then I would have to put Tollhouse at the 10/10. But these came very close. One of the best pre-made chocolate chip cookies I have had.

This week I will be posting several articles as I am off-work! Yes, my day job is cut off from me this week so I can get some much needed downtime and celebrate the holidays with my husband and close family.

Until next time all - enjoy!