Christmas Cookie Extravaganza!

This year I had a plethora of cookies I wanted to bake, and boy did I make a lot! Here's the cast of characters.

A whole lotta butter. I got a Costco membership as a wedding gift last year and I like going and eating samples and buying jumbo sized packages of things. I ended up not need as much butter as I thought, but hey, it freezes well.

Next up, some good recipes... I use a delicious sugar cookie recipe that was D.'s grandma's and I found a recipe last year for gingerbread boys that I like to make. I also made marshmallows, yes I know back a couple of years ago I made a horrible batch of gloopy marshmallows but I found a new recipe from Ina Garten and they turned out great!

Fixins for spritz cookies and sprinkles for the sugar cookies.

Cookie stamps that you can customize, these are fun but a little difficult to cram the little letters into place.

See, my marshmallows turned out just right and they were the yummiest topping for chocolate surprise cookies, I just didn't add the chocolate frosting that would actually make these cookies a surprise.  Delicious nonetheless, recipe here.

The final product: spritz.

I made some "fancy" sugar cookies which means I bought meringue powder and iced them. It was labor intensive but they turned out pretty cute.

I couldn't help myself.

I passed these out to our neighbors, but D. was afraid I was giving too many away. Don't worry D. we still have about 4 dozen left! Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, homemade marshmallows are scrumptious on hot chocolate. 

Merry Christmas Eve!