One of the things I always looked forward to during the Christmas season was my cookie marathons with my mother. There's nothing quite like the smell of cookies baking, the scent of Christmas candles burning, and the festive atmosphere of a busy kitchen during the holiday season.
For many years my Mother and I would reserve 3-4 days in the weeks before Christmas for our annual cookie marathons. We would spend two days baking cookies and then one day packaging the cookies for our friends, loved ones, and several senior centers and nursing homes.
Every year we would select the cookies we would be baking from our list. For the most part we kept making ones that we knew were really good. Once in awhile we would add a new cookie, but it had to be exceptional to bump another cookie off the list. Sometimes we added fudge and chocolate candies that we'd made. We knew that our cookies were good - how could they not be with many, many years of experience honing our cookie making skills? As our list continued to grow we even had people asking to be put on our list. So, of course, we added them and the list continued to grow and grow.
During this period we really took over the kitchen, the dining room, the family room and the sun-room. Let's face it during our cookie marathons we basically took over the house. There were tables everywhere for cooling the cookies or cookies on cookie sheets waiting to go into the oven or tables for the bags of finished cookies. Everywhere you looked there were cookies, but the smell was irresistible.
During the Christmas season hubby and I would inevitably attend one of the larger and more popular craft shows in our area. One show, in particular, always had a fudge booth which I loved seeing. I couldn't resist all the different types of fudge. I wanted to try making some so I started saving fudge and candy making recipes I thought might be good.
During one of our cookie marathons I told my mother I wanted to make some fudge and candy. She thought it was a great idea. Given how we were distributing our cookie containers and the time frame involved with doing so we decided that we would only make fudge and candies that didn't require refrigeration and selected several types of fudge we wanted to try. We created the fudge and then put each into a long rectangular Tupperware container for setting and then put it into a large cooler we had in the garage so it could set overnight.
The following day my mother and I emptied the containers and went to cut them. They were too big for us to easily cut so hubby lent a hand and cut them into 1" by 1" cubes. With the fudge done we started making the cookie recipes we had decided on. Since we had the fudge we didn't need quite as many cookies that year
It was a good thing we both were really organized and had similar kitchen styles for baking, washing, and cleaning up. While one was putting the cookies in the oven the other was taking cookies off the cookie sheets for cooling on the racks. While one was adding new cookie dough to the cookie sheets the other was washing some of the dishes. While one was mixing new dough the other was adding the cooled cookies to the plastic storage bags.
Two cooks in the kitchen spoils the brew was never a true adage during our cookie marathons. It was more like a Mother and daughter so in-tuned ;with each other they would be reading each other's minds at exactly the right moment. ;Knowing exactly what to do without speaking a word.
Oh, what fun we had. What warm memories to last a lifetime.
Over the years when I've seen different fudge and candy recipes I thought might be nice I'd save the recipes to a folder. As you can imagine my folder got quite large so you can imagine how happy I was when Pinterest came along. A fudge and candy making Pinterest Board was a perfect solution for storing recipes I wanted to try. So, I set one up.
I LOVE making fudge and candy and I'm always on the lookout for new recipes to try. Here's a few that look yummy!
If you love my I LOVE Making Fudge and Candy board please follow my board by clicking on the links above.
Have fun making your fudge and candy.
No comments:
Post a Comment