Christmas Cookie Roundup!

Heading into the holidays, I have been thinking about traditions. When I was little, my mom and I used to have a yearly tradition of baking several types of Christmas cookies and taking plates of them, wrapped in cellophane, to all of our neighbors.

This was one of my favorite parts of the holiday season because I got to help my mom bake what seemed to be thousands of cookies. My favorite to make were the candy cane butter cookies because I got to help roll out the dough into long snakes of red and white. But my favorite to EAT were the chocolate crinkles. So chewy and fudgy, omg so good. Those are still one of my favorite types of cookie, and I'm really getting in the mood to make some. Although, that's highly dangerous as I'm likely to eat the whole batch.

In my Christmas cookie recipe search, I found this Chocolate Crinkle recipe, and it's really great! I've made a couple of batches, and they're soooo good. Plus I added chocolate chips to make them even chocolatey-er.

I haven't carried out this cookie giving tradition in years, but this year I am inspired! Since moving out of my parents' house years ago, I really never have gotten to know my neighbors at any of the other places I've lived. I think that is kind of sad! After years of renting, last year, I finally bought my own home. I think maybe that means getting to know the people who live around me, yes? Even though I've been here for about a year and a half, I really only know ONE of my neighbors, and just barely. Why is it so hard for us to get to know one another? To remedy this, I'm thinking of putting together Christmas cookie plates for my neighbors this year.

I found this great list of Christmas cookies on Pinterest (my not-so-secret love), and these spiral cookies from Sprinkle Bakes look so good! I'm going to have to include them in the mix!

Photo from Sprinkle Bakes

What are some of your favorite Christmas cookies? Did any of you do the neighbor cookie tradition?

HUGE NEWS!

Tartlet Bakery will now be selling items at Cafe Pascal near the Richmond Marina! HOW EXCITING!!! This cafe is soooo cute and sells really yummy french inspired food and desserts. The owner, Joe, is awesomely nice and encouraging. He said that I could sell my things there and can even use his kitchen! So, starting on Monday, I will be going there super early in the morning to bake fresh goodies three times a week! YAAAYY!

This is such a step forward for me! If I can keep up this progress, I'm on track to being able to do this full-time!


Also, check out these amazing photos of Tartlet macarons, taken by Randy Aquilizan! He's so talented! I want to eat them off of the screen!

Honey Lavender

Vanilla Lemon

Mint Chocolate

Pretty!

New things! New things!

Alright, I've finally gotten a couple new flavors of macarons that I will be putting up on Etsy this week. Last night (I think) I perfected a French Toast macaron. SO GOOD! It makes me want to grab some bacon and eggs to go with it. I'll also be putting up a Mint Chocolate option, as well as a Lavender Honey option. YUM!

Image from Milk Chai Honey

I'm also working on some mini upside down cakes in the following flavors:

Caramelized Banana
Glazed Pear
Blueberry Crumble

I've gotten some pretty great feedback on the banana ones so far, but I'm still testing the other two flavors. Hopefully they'll be up for sale soon!