Hello baking friends!

Every year, there is a tradition in my family of baking all the holiday cookies over the first weekend in December.  It’s called “Cookie Bake” (and sometimes “Cookie Insanity”).

This started back in 2004 with my cousin and I doing this alone – all in a Chicago apartment kitchen (ever seen one of those?  They’re not all that big).  Now it has evolved to include my mom and dad (my dad being the dishwasher and go-fer), as well as anyone else we can bribe and/or threaten into helping us (sometimes an aunt, sometimes a friend).  We run three mixers, three ovens and just go and go and go until everything is done and boxed up.

Every year we get rid of a few cookies and try some new ones, unless something is truly spectacular (more on that later).  This year, due to price of ingredients and all that includes, we decided to try to make less batches, but smaller cookies (so hopefully we’d still end up with crazy amounts of cookies).

Final tally for 2011 (including my guesstimations on some cookies): 2,467 cookies.

Yup, you read that right.  And that’s probably totally under-estimated. Continue reading →