Soren made his very first batch of Christmas cookies this year by following my new favorite holiday recipe for Chocolate Thumbprints. We started with a double batch of dough–half which was used to form the chocolate thumbprints (tip: baby spoons make the perfect dent), and the other half we rolled out to make shortbread shapes with our mini cookie cutters. A classic sugar cookie dough would have been better for shaping and sprinkle adherence, but as a last minute baker with a two-year-old pastry chef I only had time (and the patience) to follow one recipe.  The buttery mixture mimicked play-dough, so Soren had fun re-rolling and manipulating it. And chocolate thumbprint or not, they were still incredibly delicious.

A big hit from last year was the spiced nut recipe which Adam Miller shared on GHG. I roasted a batch of his family’s savory/sweet traditional gift and packed them up in decorative cones I found at Ikea. You can’t go wrong with these any time of the year.

I also made a sugary body scrub concoction based on an easy tutorial from Prudent Baby. The lavender and grapefruit essential oils I picked up seemed a bit weak, so I just kept adding aromatic drops to the jars. I’ll have to await feedback on this one to find out if I went overboard on the fragrance.