just another busy weekend...

...but I feel like I have a handle on the baking now.

I spent all day Saturday in the kitchen. My goal was to get the fruitcakes and pumpkin bread done and in the freezer. For years, I've baked thee in mini-bundt pans—the pans are a pain to clean, but for the most part, cakes and breads unmold without any problems. This year, nothing but problems! I managed to get 15 of the 18 fruitcakes unmolded, but the pumpkin bread was a disaster...I only got 6 of the 12 unmolded! Now, I do know to let them cool in the pans for at least 10 minutes (if not longer), so that wasn't the problem. The %&@#! pans wouldn't release them for anything. The only thing that was different this year was the brand of cooking oil spray I used on the pans. Hmmmm, does PAM really make that much of a difference?

After that fiasco, I decided my day would be best spent making cookie dough and not baking anything else. One of my other goals was to make the cookie dough for the cookies that require chilling before baking. On Saturday, I made:

1. Sugar cookie dough for the cut-out cookies
2. Spumoni slices (cherry, pistachio, and vanilla layers)
3. Cherry Kisses
4. Chocolate Coffee ribbons (chocolate, espresso, and vanilla layers)
5. Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Pinwheels
6. Mexican Wedding Cakes
7. Mexican Chocolate Wedding Cake

On Sunday, we went to the Christmas tree farm to cut down our tree. This time we got a 9-foot tree...it's sitting in a bucket of water waiting to be brought into the house. We figured that if we'd bought a precut tree, it would have cost $20-30 more. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the tree farm:

After we got the tree, I ran a couple of errands and got back in to the kitchen. After starting a crockpot of beef stew, I baked another batch of pumpkin bread using foil mini-loaf—no unmolding necessary! I made a couple more cookie doughs and then made two batches of sugared nuts.

1. Cherry Pistachio Mexican Wedding Cakes
2. Chocolate Crinkles
3. Amaretto-Cinnamon Walnuts
   
4. Grand Marnier Pecans
   

When I got tired of standing, I'd take a break and work on my secret project. It's coming along and I'm pleased with how it's turning out.

Despite the bundt pan problems, it was a good weekend!