baking-palooza 2012 - day 1

Day 1 Group Photo on the Cooling Rack

Today marked the start of "Baking-Palooza 2012." Yay! 

This year, "Baking-Palooza" is being split into a three-day event because :

a) baking dozens and dozens of at least four types of cookies and baking cupcakes in one day (as I've done in previous years) is exhausting and... 

b) let's admit it, I've got the time this year ;) 

That said, I'm raising the stakes and making six different cookies this year. 

Today, I completed three of the six, totaling about 9.5 dozen cookies. The common thread was peanut butter and/or chocolate :)

I also prepped the dough for the Chocolate Crinkles and Sugar Cookies I will shape and bake tomorrow after the dough has chilled overnight. 

Here's the scoop + yummy food photos for today's batches:

Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies*

These are super easy, as long as you remember to unwrap your Hershey's Kisses before you take the cookies out of the oven. Because once the cookies come out, you have a very limited amount of time to stick the kisses in them before they harden. I am proud to say that this year, I remembered to do this ;)


*Note: Recipes linked to are not necessarily the friends & family recipes I used, but are close enough :)

 

Peanut Butter Truffle Cookies

Also super-easy! And a great, quick way to get rid of the peanut butter in your pantry that you bought back in June because you wanted to make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich... and then never did. 

Entertainment Bonus: These look a LOT like chocolate chip cookies (since have chocolate chips in them). So it can be very entertaining to watch people react to the bite of peanut butter they thought was something else. (Of course, some people have peanut allergies, so to purposely feed these to random strangers for your own amusement would be evil and irresponsible.)

Celiacs Take Note: These cookies have no wheat and are therefore gluten-free. That means my friend Susie, who was also at one time allergic to lettuce, can eat these. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Not really a Christmas cookie, but a classic. Also something that comes in tubes of refrigerated dough that someone might have had sitting in the bottom drawer of her fridge and decided to throw in the oven while it was conveniently already heated to 350 degrees. (I'm making five other cookies. Gimme a break on this one cheat :)