Cookies Galore!!!!

For the past three weeks, I have been in Alexandria, VA visiting some friends and staying with my second family, the Hatchers.  It has been a fun and busy time.  With the upcoming holiday, the Hatchers and I have been busily preparing for two cookie exchanges and a HUGE holiday party, complete with a visit from the "Big Guy."  Needless to say I've been spending many hours baking cookies.  I've tried to do some fun festive recipes.  I started out with one of my favorite cookies, gingersnaps.  This recipe makes a soft flavorful gingersnap.  It does require a ton of flour, so I was very happy to have access to a KitchenAid mixer.  

I also tried a couple of new recipes.  The one is very sweet, but looks very pretty and festive.  The other is super yummy and is the perfect dessert for the Christmas season.  The first one is a Chocolate Crinkle Cookie.  It's basically a chocolate cookie rolled in powdered sugar.  The powdered sugar has the illusion of snow.  Super fun for December on the east coast (though we have no snow in Alexandria).

The last recipe is a Red Velvet Whoopie Pie.  These are super pretty, though there were a few mishaps involving the red food coloring.  I'm not sure how long my hands will be pink, but I guess that's part of making a red velvet whoopie pie.  The finished product was well worth the slight pink color on my fingers and hands.

So, I didn't get a chance to take a pic of the final product of the whoopie pies, but they were yummy and a big hit.  I had plans to take pictures of the whole spread at yesterday's party, but it was so crazy and busy that it didn't happen.  
There were also sugar cookie cut-outs made, but I was lazy and didn't make those from scratch.  They were a fun project to do with the kids and I should have taken some photos of how messy we were, but like I said we were messy.  


The party was a big hit and it was followed by a small dinner party where I did attempt Yorkshire pudding for the first time, but there were no photos taken, so stay tuned for Yorkshire pudding round two along with prime rib for my Christmas-like dinner in Oregon on Thursday.  


Happy Christmas and Happy Cooking!