Mounds Bar Cookies

Have you made your list and checked it twice?  Your cookie list, that is!  I hope your baking season is off to an excellent start!  All of this commercialization is taking away from the real focus of the holidays: baked goods!  I’ve been tinkering with my holiday cookie list since we first turned on our heat.  I think I finally have it squared away.  It is a carefully honed list of 14 super secret items.  Some are cookies.  Some are candies.  Some are just flavor ideas right now.  To get all 14 made, I’m going to have to make a plan and stick to it.  Luckily making the plan is half of the fun of holiday baking!  Raise your hand if you love making baking lists and timelines!  Ahem, I hope I am not the only one wildly waving my arm in the air.  Regardless, this is a great time of year because you get to bake so many great things and share them with so many wonderful people.  The world would be a better place if we had more baking-focused holidays!
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Fudge Drops

Hi there!  It has been a busy few weeks.  You can rest assured that I have been baking and tinkering around in the kitchen even if I haven't been posting.  I'm sure my lack of posts was at the forefront of your thoughts.  Truth be told, I'm only posting this now because I wrote part of it on my cell phone on my way home from work.  I hadn't even thought about doing that until Nancy reminded me today that I have finally joined the modern age of smart phones and have a handy little computer at my finger tips.  Thanks, Nancy!  How convenient!  I love multitasking! 
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Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Because sometimes you just need to make (and eat!) a classic....
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Cranberry Orange Pistachio Thumbprints

Whoot!  I am super excited to share these cookies with you!  They are amazing!  If you had walked past the front of our house this afternoon and looked in the window when I tried one, you might have thought I was a touch crazy.  That's because with my first bite, I had to let out my inner dance.  [Full disclosure:  I was listening to the Mariachi El Bronx (II) album, and how can you not dance when it is on?]  Even though I took my share of modern and ballroom dance classes in college (admittedly, this was a while ago now...), my inner dance still scares the crap out of Scott.  I'd like to believe that is because my dancing is so amazing that it intimidates him, but honestly, it's because I look like a crazy person.  Generally, I try to keep my inner dance harnessed until the curtains are drawn to minimize his embarrassment (and mine), but with all rules, there are exceptions, like this afternoon when I ate my first cranberry orange pistachio thumbprint.

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Pumpkin Muffins

I have been enjoying these muffins all week.  In particular, I have been eating one along with a fudge drop cookie as a snack around 3:30 or 4 pm at my desk.  Muffins make the perfect afternoon snack, don't you think?  Plus, these muffins contain both a vegetable and some whole wheat flour, so you can wear your baked-goods-masquerading-as-a-healthy-food halo.  Score!
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Caramel Apple Sour Cream Crumble

A few weeks ago, we bought some beautiful apples on our way home from my parents' house.  At the time, I was certain the apples were destined for a perfectly cooked pie.  I had told a friend that we would bring a dessert over the following weekend for a get together, and I hoped that my apple pie, paired with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, would make everyone swoon.  All week long, I thought about making the pie.  Its crust would be flaky and golden brown, and the apples, mounded impossibly high, would retain their structure so the filling wouldn't collapse into apple-cinnamon mush. 
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7 Layer Bars

The only redeeming quality of jet lag is that it can turn even the most stalwart of morning sleepers (i.e., me) into early morning risers.  Don't get me wrong; I am no longer a sleep-until-noon kind of person, but I can still manage to sleep in until 8 (or occasionally 9 am!) on a weekend and historically have been known to require 3 alarms to get up.  Yesterday morning, jet lag got the better of me and I had my feet on the floor at 4:57 am, was sending emails by 5:20 am, and Scott and I were traipsing about in the wet grass of the backyard to measure the distance for our new clothesline before the first rays of the sun sent their silvery fingers of light over the horizon .

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