Holiday Baking Championship

Our favorite TV show this past November and December was the Holiday Baking Championship on the Food Network!!!  We started watching it after Celeste was born and recorded every episode so we could watch it as a family.

 When it came time to make Christmas cookies in mid-December, I suspected it would be a difficult project for me.  I needed to choose the cookies, and how many to bake, and then actually bake them with an infant and 5 other kids around.  Then, just before Christmas, I had an idea:  what if we had our own "Holiday Baking Championship!"

So I had each child choose a cookie to bake:

Sedric didn't really choose his cookie--
that was all me.  I LOVE Russian teacakes!

James was the first to get started (after I made a double-batch of the Russian Teacakes, that is).  We worked together to get the peanut butter dough ready, then he rolled them into balls:

Sedric helped with unwrapping, and surprisingly he did not
eat any chocolate until I offered it!!

 Later in the evening, the girls got baking too:

Bunny is chopping walnuts for baklava, and Posa is
mixing the gingerbread dough.

Bunny, James, and Mariposa needed very little help from me.  They know where all the baking tools and ingredients are located, and they know most of the techniques.  I did make sure to double --triple!-- check all their ingredients as they were adding them.  None of us wanted to go through all this work only to find we mistook the tablespoon for the teaspoon!

Gemma was ready to go--I had made her dough myself to
save some time and to let Gemma get straight to the fun part!

At this point, it was bedtime and I was "done."  But through the grace of God I kept my patient, positive attitude for a little longer.  We set a timer for the decorating (which easily could've taken hours) to make it just like our TV show.  When the 10 minutes was up, I had the kids throw their hands up in the air, just like the contestants had to do!  :o)  Then, straight to bed for the littles so I could clean the kitchen to have it ready for Christmas Eve.

Bunny still had to pour the honey mixture
on her beautiful cooked baklava.

All in all, this little project was a HUGE success and will most definitely be a new tradition in our house!  We had cookies to munch on all week and even had plenty to give away and take to parties.  YUM!!!