Vitafamiliae

Today was Christmas Baking day.  Aunt Katie came over and we did the Sugar Shenanigans that are customary around this time of year.  We didn’t quite complete everything on my “to make” list (the children made me promise we WOULD do peppermint-hammering soon), but we accomplished quite a bit.  Oddly enough, nothing on my “to make” list actually involved BAKING.

I’ve reinstated an old tradition of making marshmallows at Christmas time.  (And by “old,” I mean that I made these a few years back in the day when I only had 2 or 3 or 4 kids under 2.) I got to use my new gigantic restaurant-style pans and they made me happy.

Last week I made 48 cups of granola in two pans like this.  Somewhere, angels sang.  That will feed us breakfast for like… a week and a half.

Here’s a pile of finished marshmallows.  I scattered powdered sugar over every corner of the kitchen.

I let the boys dip marshmallows (and pretzels) in chocolate.  See how focused they are?

I think they come by it honest.

Apparently, chocolate application is a serious art that takes concentration and grimacing.  No fun allowed.  (Like my apron, Smockity?)

Aunt Katie even managed to accomplish some baking of her own, despite a handful of sugar-buzzed children being underfoot and overwhelming.

We did have us a bit of a “moment” when Aunt Katie sat the beaters down next to the bowl and Ellen turned them back on again, flinging some creamed butter and sugar around.  It wasn’t messy, just a bit traumatic.  She doesn’t look very repentant, does she?

I’ve got a few more recipes to try, but for now, we’ve got a TON of marshmallows and some delicious espresso toffee to hand out to neighbors and friends.  Y’all come on by…

Please don’t be creepy stalkers and steal these photos.  I’m too tired tonight to watermark them and they’re blurry anyway, so I don’t know why you’d want them.  But they’re MINE.  And so are the people in them.