Christmas 2012

Today will be few words and many pictures.

I was lucky enough to marry into a family that has an amazing talent for cooking, baking and everything to do with food.  My mother-in-law, Carol, makes amazing hand-dipped Christmas candy and she had taught me how to do it!   But! This year for Christmas she was in town and we were able to make the candies together.  It's always more fun with a buddy.

First you make the centers....

Coconut centers

Caramel centers

Marshmallow centers

Step 1 of butter-cream centers

Step 2 of butter-cream centers

Step 3 of butter-cream centers

Final step of butter-cream centers

Peanut-butter centers and butter-cream centers

 And then there is chocolate....It starts like this, the biggest candy bar you have ever seen!

Hello, welcome to the kitchen

Melting

Tempering (bringing the chocolate down to the right temp for dipping and ending up with a shiny pretty finish)

Sea salt caramels

Mallows

Peanut butter

Peanuts in milk

Butter -creams all ready to go!

We didn't get any pictures of us dipping due to the fact that we were both covered in chocolate and unable to handle the camera.

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Christmas Eve is Carol's birthday so we celebrate it as a birthday party instead of Christmas.  Jennifer and Kip made a wonderful dinner and we had food, drinks, family, and friends.

Appetizers

Chris and Otis

From left: John, Otis, Carol and me

Molly and Chris

Happy Birthday Cheesecake

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Christmas day we celebrated at our house with gifts, and brunch.  Later we went my my aunt and uncles home for dinner (and to Skype-open presents with my parents!) but I forgot my camera for that. Bummer.

Someone is excited to open presents! (Check out Elka taking a sneak peek!)

Nana, Papa, and John

Deedle deet

Kain

Nala Bear

Elka Bean

Deet likes the hut

I got kind of involved in Christmas and stopped taking pictures once the open of gifts started.  I just wanted to enjoy the time and not worry about getting good shots of everyone.  Hope you all had a magical Christmas and are off to a great start this new year!