Eve of Christmas Eve

Also known as... preparations. Louie was very into it. I love to bake, but, I don't do it often as I don't like to bake and have a batch of goodies go to waste. Christmas is the perfect reason to bake though and I was so excited to be able to spend a day doing that!

I went over to Jon's mother's house for some baking. She was in charge of pies- pecan of course! Oklahoma may not be the deep south- but we're pretty close to it so...

I was in charge of cookies- French ones bien sur! Now, don't judge me too harshly. I do not have the guts to make my own puff pastry- so store bought it is!

I decided to make palmiers. One batch with jam and one without. It was my first time making these delictable cookies (not to mention the first time dealing w/puff pastry) so I was a bit nervous.

During my experimentation Jon's mother used the leftover dough and pecan pie batter to make mini-pecan pies! She's a pie making pro.

First batch of palmiers ready to go!

Mmmmmm..... pie.

My palmiers! Not too bad for a first go. They don't look too pretty, but, they tasted great. I'll work on my presentation next time around.

Jam palmiers. Next time I'll roll in some sugar on both sides before layering in the jam. I loved making these cookies! Pretty easy to make and oh, so, delicious.

I made macarons as well. 'Supersized' macarons! I soooo did not intend to make them this big or chunky. I was in a rush and didn't pay attention to detail. I can hear the bakers at Laudree crying in horror!

Despite all the baking I managed to get to Best Buy to buy Jon's gifts AND I was able to wrap them while the macarons were cooling I wrapped them up. All in all a very busy and successful day of Christmas preparations.

The irony is that we're under a blizzard watch today and we probably won't be able to have a holiday gathering if the weather does what the weather man is predicting. Ah well! Still it was a fun day and I will take a White Christmas if it means staying curled up on the couch with Jon watching the snow come down.