Ahhh the holidays....

The baking madness of the holidays has consumed me full on and kept me from blogging. Yet again I have come down with a case of the nasty cold... bleh!

So about 2 weeks ago M emails me and says that there is going to be a cookie contest at work. Well that gave me a little over a week to figure out just what I was oging to bake. After going through dozens of cookbooks, calls to my mother, and perusing the internet's various cooking sites I narrowed down the choices. We had to bake 1 of each of the following categories: butter, chocolate, and novelty. I decided to go with my grandmother's potato chip cookies which I fully remember from childhood as being these buttery salty goodness sweets. For chocolate i went with the infamous chocolate kiss wrapped in butter dough. Last but not least was the bourbon ball cookie for the novelty.

Starting 2 full days before the contest I made my first batch of the potato chip cookies. Somehow these were NOT the yummy goodies I remember. Hmmm, perhaps I didn't use the proper butter, or vanilla? Well, I decided to try the bourbon balls. Easy enough recipe, just turned my hands into a chocolaty mess. They didn't turn out half bad, as long as you like bourbon! :)

The following day (thursday) I resumed full on into baking mode. Waking up early and into the kitchen I went. Another batch of bourbon balls was finished, then I took a crack at buttery cutouts. Those didnt' turn out so good. Dang, I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I took another crack at potato chip cookies making a few modifications, this time they turned out a bit better but still nothing like I remember. Ahhh, that would have to suffice as it was the last batch of the night and it was about 10 pm.. I was pooped! I also made 2 batches of the kiss cookies, each with different types of kisses.

Oh, lest I forget that somewhere in between batch 4 & 5, my trip to the grocery store, and the 2nd load of dishes... the kitchen got flooded! OI! Yeah, one of the pipes under the sink fell off and flooded the kitchen. Ugh... I got that mess cleaned up and finished the cookies up.

M took the cookies to work for the contest the following morning. I had no hopes of actually winning as I thought most of my cookies turned out pretty fair if not bad. Someone made a chocolate chip bacon cookie that won, there was a devine butter cookie, and a double chocolate something or other. No big deal, it was fun just to make them. Oh, but wait... there is one more prize, the overall bestest cookie. Who do you think won that?! ME! My bourbon balls won! Woot! I can't believe that I actually won. I think that the only reason people liked them was due to the alcohol, but that is ok because I AM A WINNER!!!

May the holiday season find you with plenty of cookies!