I dedicated today to baking all the goodies we need to send in our Christmas care packages to Larry's relatives. What? Where are all the goodies we baked last week? Oh, yeah, those....well, we weren't quite prepared last week...by the time we procured all the cute little tins and boxes to pack the sweets in, well.....they were all gone, okay? The lemon bars, the peanut butter cookies, most of the fudge was no more. I am one person who takes my holiday weight gain quotas seriously.
So this time I planned it right. Boxes at the ready, I decided to just whip right through all the baking in one day and get those babies out of here. By the time I was done, I was seeing double from sugar overload. I'm not trying a baking marathon like that again without a medic standing by to administer insulin as needed. And a pox on outdated cookbooks. The lemon bars recipe called for "granulated sugar," as in what everyone else in this day and age calls just "sugar." As in, not confectioner's sugar, which really didn't work well at all.
The fudge did its part by refusing to set properly. As I couldn't cut it into discrete squares, I settled for packing it in one big lump per recipient. I nestled the lumps in white tissue to give them a more festive look, but....honestly? They resemble nothing so much as wads of poop wrapped in toilet paper (in decorative tins). Theo suggested that instead we put each lump in one of those plastic pooper-scooper bags (provided free at the local dog park) and tie the bags with ribbon. You know, to make a good gag gift. Get it? Gag? We laughed ourselves silly. (Hey, even Anna smiled at that one.)
I am sick of sweets, but I still have to bake the #%$&* (sp?) cranberry bread for the party tomorrow night. And mail off those wads of poop, I mean fudge. Before someone around here eats them. Yum.
Oh, SC, everybody knows you have to have a practice round of holiday baking. Sort of like the first round of buying Halloween candy. Can you send poop through the USPS?
ReplyDeleteYou are a better woman than I am, thats for sure! I made birthday cupcakes - mini ones - on Monday. I woudl put a tablespoon into the cupcake pan, and then a tablespoon into my mouth. And I am on a diet, LOL. Can you imagine how many cupcakes we would have gotten if I wasn't on a diet. NONE. I would have eaten the whole batter probably.
ReplyDeleteI did find something on holiday eating tips - they are awesome. Check them out here...
http://losinghalfofmyself.blogspot.com/2007/12/tips-for-holiday.html
I read somewhere - I think my Rachael Ray mag - about a woman's fix for her non setting fudge. She put it in little jars, affixed little labels calling it "Chocolate Butter" and played like that is what she had meant to make in the first place. People were wild for it and asked her to make it again the next year - of course the next year and all subsequent years since, the fudge has set up just fine.
ReplyDeleteI can NEVER make fudge. It never works. Or bread. Or, well, anything. This is why I bring everyone large batches of rice crispy treats. I swear though, what you described sounds so much like what my mom did every year when we were growing up. We would always eat everything before she could get it out the door. Especially the banana bread. Yum, banana bread...
ReplyDeleteYou already had me laughing with the poop in tissue paper. Was it really necessary to go for the "loss of control over bodily functions" laugh with the (sp?)after the cursing symbols? Thank you for a great laugh on a stressful day!
ReplyDeleteNestling little lumps in white tissue for a more festive look? Oh My Gosh... VERY funny!!!!!!!!!! So funny in fact, Anna even laughed :)
ReplyDeleteMmmmm. Nothing like opening a holiday package and finding little nuggets to enjoy.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone returns theirs, you can send them to me. Because I don't care if it looks like a bowel movement as long as it's sugar and chocolate. I'm like that.
Ohhhhhhh, I'm laughing at your expense. LOL I'm sure friends and family will be happy to get fancy wrapped "poop". As long as it tastes good, who cares what it looks like??? LOL!
ReplyDeleteYou know, it doesn't matter that your fudge looked like poop...as long as it is nestled in tissue paper and packed in a pretty tin, nobody would ever suspect that it is anything other than fudge! Pretty packaging goes a long way!
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I just try to bake at least one kind of cookie a day and freeze them. If I bake more than that, the kitchen becomes a disaster area and I'm too tired to clean it up!
ReplyDeleteI eat it all before I send it, too! It's awful! But the poop thing was hysterical!
ReplyDeleteHey, can I have the cranberry bread recipe? I'll pass on the fudge/poop. I make things like that without help.
ReplyDeleteI would do it, I would honestly send the fudge in the pooper scoopers. I heard you can just thin the fudge out and use it on top of ice cream.
ReplyDeleteMmmm. Fuuuudge. We've reduced our holiday baking to an annual gingerbread house. When I say "we" I of course mean My Lovely Wife. She has it down to a science. She usually does a house that looks like wherever we're celebrating Christmas. Last year she did Northwestern's main library, since we were at her sister's in Evanston. She makes up a big batch of icing sugar and the kids spackle on lots of candy.
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