I made my dessert offerings (plural because I made two - blueberry strudel turnovers and Nutella chocolate chips cookies) as did MFH - she made Irish Whiskey Cookies. We were only a few people who actually made their desserts. Many folks "cheated" by purchasing their cookies from a bakery or store. Hmmmmph.
Here are my blueberry turnovers, which many people seemed to like...
Inthe back are storebought Mexican cookies. They have a checkerboard pattern of mini pink and white snowballs. I had one and they tasted like coconut. They are by "Gamesa", a Mexican cookie brand. The cookies in the front were made from scratch by MFH - she busted her @$$ making these. She is not one to cook or bake so this was a major achievement for her. The recipe also called for "citron" which she made herself since you can't really buy that at the stores. I was so proud of her!
Another woman brought ready made shortcakes and topped it with this organic blackberry jam and fresh blueberries.
Someone brought in an apple pie from Julia...
I had a bit of that crust from the pie...not the filling!
The drinks stations - hot coffee and hot tea, as well as cider.
One lady brought in these popcorn/nut/candy balls. I had a small piece and found that they were super hard. I bit into several unpopped kernels. After that fun experience, I discreetly threw it away. Not enjoyable at all.
More and more people kept coming in...the frosted cookies in the lower left corner are from Hans and Harry's bakery in Bonita. There was also a platter of storebought chocolate chip cookies. I only tried the homemade stuff...
I was never a fan of frosted cookies. They are always too big and tasteless. They look quite attractive but don't taste exciting to me, so I always skip out on those. Unless someone makes a really kickass version of frosted cookies, then I'll be a convert but for now...no go.
These look like mini blueberry muffins with whipped cream and fresh blueberries. The whipped cream was melting so I skipped on tasting these. As mentioned earlier, there wasn't any actual food. Well, there was a small platter of cheese and crackers but that doesn't really count as actual real food. But, I did have a few bits of the crackers and cheese so I wouldn't be so sugared out.
Okay, maybe it's because I was the sole Filipina (or Asian for that matter), but I did not like these. Someone brought in coconut milk drenched rice topped with fresh fruit and mangoes. While the fruit was good, I thought the rice was all wrong. The few times I've had rice with fruit, the rice was sticky. This was NOT sticky rice. You know WTF kind of rice this was? It was jasmine rice. Many of the women there were not Asian (most were Latinas) and they really liked this. The rice wasn't sweet which was what I was expecting. I politely ate half of mine and gave the rest to TC who liked it).
Here is a sampler plate brought in right before I left. I had one of her Florentines (love those cookies) and dried fruit chocolate bar. Yummmm! She also made jam thumb print cookies - so pretty.
MFH and I had a good time there. My daughter was the only kid there but she kept herself busy by playing with the dogs (there were 3) and by helping picking out names for the raffle. This was the first cookie exchange hosted by my hair stylist. Her house was beautiful, spacious and decorated to the hilt. Plus, she just had her kitchen redone - cabinets, appliances and marble topped kitchen island. Makes me wish I had a bigger kitchen to work with, but I'm not complaining!
I'm trying to not OD on all these sugary sweets. My gym is closed for the holidays (they are remodeling) so I am watching what I eat to some degree.
2 comments:
Kind of a bummer people mostly brought store bought stuff... if I went to a cookie exchange I would expect homemade cookies!
me too! i was kinda irritated actually. wtf, right! any my friend (the non baker/non cook) even printed out her recipe! shit, i didn't even do that, but i took the time and effort to make 2 desserts.
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