Tis The Season...

for baking.

This only happens about once a year, so I captured the moment on film to prove that we actually bake around here.

The guys headed out for the LSU game this morning, so we girls decided we didn't want to spend the day cleaning house alone. After sitting in the orthodontist's office for several hours of the last 2 weeks, we came across this recipe in the Family Fun magazine. That's what happens when you have 2 kids going in/coming out of braces. You gain weight from all the recipes you read in the office.

So, after a grocery store run and cleaning the playdough off of the rolling pin, my daughter and I made these.

You don't believe me?! It is sort of hard to imagine, but look~

Rolled out pie crust, fall leaves and acorn cut-outs. I know the acorns look like goldfish crackers with a tail bump, but trust me they are acorns.

The recipe calls for 4 tsp. of the chocolate chip/pbutter chip mixture. No way. Our cookie cutters were obviously too small.

Two things to note in the picture above~

1. No, I do not own a pastry brush. Remember I said I don't bake. Since we were the people eating them, we figure pointer fingers work just as well as the pastry brushes that someone likely spent $22 on at the William Sonoma store in the mall.

2. Notice 2 of the leaf cut-outs are gone and have been replaced by more acorns. The acorns could hold way more filling chips!

How much sugar is TOO much sugar anyhow!?

The finished product. (Yes, the acorns look even more like goldfish crackers now. I know.)

A few changes I would make to the recipe~ Use larger cookie cutters, use pie filling instead of the chips which turned out dry and not really great (cherry filling would be pretty and tasty or apple filling would be great in some apple cut-outs), and use more egg wash and sugar on top.

That's the baking for 2008.