I'm actually rather proud of that cake. It's 4 tiers tall and over 100 diapers went into it. I even managed to coordinate the colors with minimal insight from the hostesses (not that I blame them - it's just hard that I live 200 miles away from everyone else).GIS Day was mid-November and I made globe cakepops. They were such a big hit I'll bust out with Christmas tree ones later this month. Please forgive for the globes not being geographically accurate. Working with candy melts is harder than it looks; that's why most of them just spell out G-I-S D-A-Y in the background.
Following that came Thanksgiving where I spent I week in the frozen tundra that is Wisconsin. My grandmother and I covered a lot of ground - she supervised me making a batch of rolls, making little suggestions along the way, I baked a batch of Martha's Grammy's Chocolate Cookies which my grandma liked as well as 2 batches of her famous Christmas cookies. First we made the cut out cookies and I was impressed with how few times she rolls her dough. I positively let mine get tough but I think it's easier to cut that way. She did like my idea about chilling the dough for a while although we didn't really need to. We also made some of her spritz cookies that are colored like Christmas trees. I made the red dough, so my hands looked like I'd murdered someone. Here she is in her tiny kitchen. Isn't she cute? She said the rolling pin fell of the table many years ago and that's why it only has one good handle. And she really only busts out that table cloth when she's baking, even though it is holiday appropriate right now.
I made sure her pantry and freezer were stocked and left my present with her - 4 trips to beauty parlor. The big family Thanksgiving dinner was downsized a bit since part of the family branched off on their own this year. We didn't mind - it meant we could actually have a conversation over dinner and more leftovers for Grandma.Secret Santa has started at work and I have a new employee. He filled out his form rather thoroughly as far as likes & dislikes but I had a hard time finding things to get him. So improvised and basically, all he's getting from me is goodies. Mostly store bought, but tonight I'm testing out Martha's peanut butter cookie recipe from her book. She hasn't steered me wrong until this point. The recipe says the cookies bake for 25 minutes, rotating halfway. I adjust time and temp down due to my wacky oven but even then, my cookies were burnt. I lowered the time again and yet another tray of blackened cookies. If it weren't for that dozen cookies, I would almost have the amount called for in the book and a few leftover to share at work. It looks like he'll get most of them. I guess that's OK.
My littlest helper, Bert, isn't so little anymore. He weighs at least 10 pounds now and doesn't fit in that blue bowl anymore so I have a hard time weighing him. He's discovered that he can jump up on the kitchen counters without assistance, so no place is safe anymore. He's also renewed his love of boxes and I'm afraid if we'll need to stage a box-hab intervention.
