Making Christmas Treats

You never know until you try!  I really wanted to make butter tarts this year without resorting to store-bought pastry shells.  So, I found a recipe from a trusted site and made them.  I didn't really have a cut out that was the right size for deep tarts so they turned out very shallow but tasty nevertheless. (results in the photo below)  The pastry was very flaky and light.  I impressed myself...or more accurately the credit goes to the recipe!  Check out MGCC for the details.  The next day I wanted to try again.  I wanted tarts that were deep and I wanted the filling a bit more gooey.  So I used a recipe for the filling that my aunt passed along to me.  I got a tip from my mom on making the shells just the right size.  She just puts a ball of dough in each muffin tin and presses it up the sides and bottom.  Essentially making the tart right in the pan.  They turned out super!  No photos for these ones...but they are almost all gone.  I saw them in the kids lunches all week so the boys must have discovered them! 

Yesterday the boys and I decorated the sugar cookies I had baked the week before.  It's nice to do sugar cookies in a two step process.  By the time you've made the dough, chilled it, rolled it out and baked them, decorating seems rather daunting.  So you can just bake them and put them in the freezer until you have mustered some more energy!  Today was the day and we had a great time making them as colorful as we could.  They are not works of art and we are okay with that!