Part 1 - Cookies.

butterscotch and chocolate chips, ready to melt..

melty goodness..

haystacks.. you MUST have these.

powdered sugar and peanut butter for buckeyes..

more..

the original shot is blurry but the combination of pink spatula meets melted chocolate, i loved..

buckeye soldiers, waiting patiently to be dunked.

dunked in all their glorious-ness.

There was a lot going on and boy do I have a l lot of pictures so I am going to start out with the cookie baking session - it should have actually been a lot more than it was but my cooking baking time got cut in half by a case of the flu, thankfully I only had it for a couple of days but for those couple of days I was really wiped out... so I didn't get around to making nearly the different types of cookies this year and I really wanted to try some new ones, but oh well.. I stuck to what I knew and did end up with a new one on a whim..

the new cookie - the new tradition.

These are absolutely the new tradition in our household - we promptly named them Doigts de Noël - christmas fingers or fingers of christmas. They started out with a simple sugar cookie base, then was added butter nut extract, almond extract and roughly grated orange peel. Then went in the flour and such, next up was toffee bits, dried cranberries and dried cherries. We formed it into a long bar and let it rest in the freezer for an hour. Took it out, cut each cookie into a little bar and popped them into the oven. WOW! These lil' guys are amazing! Soft, a lite crunch from the toffee, full of fragrant fruits.... so, so yummy.

I love when that happens!

Well, to be continued.. in the meantime I hope all of you are having a wonderfully, relaxing holiday.