Cookie Plates

My what a season of ideas and trials in the kitchen! It has been glorious. Wish I could say I had accomplished more but that is the same theme every year, right? What would the holidays be without unreal expectations and regrets? Seems the whole Santa thing sets us up for that when we are little.

The final cookie plates have been assembled and delivered so I wanted to share what they finally looked like. Remember that huge list of all the baking I wanted to do for the cookie plates? I'm easily distracted. However, I have some of the old and some new ideas on each plate. It has been a wonderful journey and I have my partners to thank for ideas and energy! Thanks for sharing Debbie and Beachgirl!

In the center of the plate is my mom's recipe for snowball cookies. At the very back with the pink icing is my version of Debbie's Rum Cakes. I went a little crazy with the recipe and will explain that later. To the right of the rum cakes are the chocolate molded Santas that I made for the Red Velvet cupcakes. All leftovers go on the plate as they are Kim's favorites and this is her plate! On the front right is the wonderful Peanut Butter M & M Bark that I stole from Katrina's Kitchen! Super yummy and easy. These will be a constant at our house for the holidays! On the front left are the Hershey's Peanut Butter Blossoms. These were all easy and fun to make. Can't wait until next year. The baking will begin sooner!

O.K. about those rum cakes... Debbie sent me an awesome package of all her wonderful baking as a present! How thoughtful and enlightening. Before I received it I wanted to make her rum cakes because I love them (who couldn't, they have RUM in them). However, I did not have butter cake mix in the pantry. So I used spice cake! I decided to try using that pan that has the cobwebs on it, you know, the whoopie pie pan. I made one batch in traditional smaller cupcake form and one in the whoopie pie pan. I found the whoopie pie pan much easier to use, since I over filled the cupcake liners and the cakes ended up too tall and a little dry. The whoopie pie pan produced the smaller, flatter and more moist version. Either way, hers are sooo much better. But on with my experiment (accident?) I went. I decided to make cream cheese frosting instead of royal just to dress them up a little for the cookie plates. Then of course I got a little carried away with piping and decorating. I had great fun. Again, they don't taste as good as Debbie's but they were such fun to make! I've learned what I will do differently next year to get the added moisture (make them smaller). I promise they will be closer to Debbie's yummy Rum Cakes! At least I will try!