Annual Baking Day!!

We had our Annual Baking Day on December 4th and it was a BLAST! I always get really excited when Baking Days comes because in case you weren't aware I love to bake! I'm sure you had no idea from my blog posts but I can never get enough of baking and cooking :-)

Back in the day it used to be all the woman in the family getting together at my Grandparents home and baking up a storm for hours and hours! After speaking to my Grammy she said the most we did one year was 177 dozen cookies!! Crazy right??

Since some family moved to Reno our annual baking day people started to get smaller and smaller. And then my Grandparents sold their home and moved out of town. We no longer (and haven't for a few years) do baking day with all the woman in my family or at my Grammy's house. But that doesn't stop us from doing our own (doesn't stop my cousins either who also continue to carry on this tradition YAY) Baking Day in December. While Mom and I are the only two who bake, my Seester still joins in on the fun and hangs out with us, she even decorates sugar cookies and is happy to sample all the cookies!

Here we are ready to get our bake on at 9 am!!

My Mom made these (requested by Mandy) Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Caramel Bar! These are so yummy!! My work agrees to as I brought in a plate of our cookies and these were devoured!

Next up is a new recipe I tried this year called Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies from Paula Deen. And yes they are as amazing as most of her food LOL!! Totally bad for you but worth it!

Inspired by the chocolate ones we decided to try these with lemon. Now this recipe is super easy to substitute the flavor because you use a cake mix, so my Mom grabbed a lemon cake mix and voila. Instead of Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies, we made Lemon Gooey Butter cookies! These were even BETTER than the chocolate ones. And we've decided they are a recipe to make every year!

Of course we had to have our Peanut Butter Kiss cookies. Mom made these and they are so good!! And you can see in the left corner we also made Party Peppermint Patties (another must have cookie).

I made another new recipe this year and they were Peppermint Meltaways. So easy and so yummy. While I was the only one in the family to really like this these ones they were another favorite at work! They were just loved by my coworkers! In fact I dropped them off Tuesday morning and Wednesday when I came in all of the peppermint ones and the caramel bars were gone!

Here's my goofy dad! He got to hang out with us most of the day and of course sample cookies!

Not only did he sample cookies but he also became a cookie artist! Can you tell what?? Yes you guess it right it's the United States! While at first it was a "What are you doing you weirdo??" it turned into a "Wow that's pretty cool" LOL Props to my Paps for being creative!

Here we are with the finished products! It was such a successful and fun baking day! And we made.............

35.75 dozen cookies. A total of 429 (add a few more for those eaten before we counted)! Considering Mom and I were the only ones who baked I would say it was a SUCCESS!! We had plenty of cookies!!

Here's a list of all the cookies we made that day and the totals of each. I create a "spreadsheet" each year so we can track them and see if we made more or less than the year before!

And of course I'll leave you with some yummy shots of all the cookies I brought home! Underneath the kiss cookies are awesome caramel bars!

These were so good! I made a pretty big plateful for work because not only do I not want a bunch of cookies that I LOVE sitting at our house but my coworkers would be upset if I skipped a year of bringing in cookies. I think they look forward to it :)

With one baking day down I have one left. My girlfriend Alycia and I are starting  a new tradition of our own baking day too! I am so excited to get our bake on and try out ALL new cookie recipes! So keep your eyes posted for a bunch of new cookie recipe posts! They will be coming your way shortly :)

What are some of your holiday traditions?