Is it too early...

... for Christmas?

So I've started to think about what I'm going to bake and give away for Christmas this year. I know it's not even Thanksgiving or Halloween yet but I always get really excited for Christmas way in advance. This is especially as I have to start thinking of Christmas cards to design and treats to bake and how I'm going to package them.

Last year I made these Italian Wedding Cookies although sometimes it's called Mexican Wedding Cookies or Russian Tea Cookies. Sometimes they're shaped into crescents, and sometimes they just come round and sometimes they're different sizes. No matter what shape or what they're called they taste delicious. My husband came home with some a while back that his co-worker had made and so I decided to try it out.

I used ground almonds instead of the regular pecans which I like since almond is my flavor of the year. I sifted the dry ingredients an extra time to make them even more melt-in-your-mouth and powdered them with the confectioners sugar twice - once right after you take them out of the oven and once again after they have cooled down. I made them into little bite-sized (1 tsp) balls and ended up with over 90 pieces. I packaged 8 little bites into each cellophane bag that I had leftover from my wedding and then tied them with pretty bows and a handmade festive holiday tag. It's quite a bit of work for these cookies, making them uniform size, rolling them out and coating them in the sugar twice. They are very delicate because they're melt-in-your-mouths and quite brittle so when making these cookies you have to be careful not to break them.

They're perfect little treats to given away as gifts or favors because they're kinda fancy but really easy to make. And they look really cute in the packaging! Perhaps I'll make them again as favors but not for 2 Christmas' in a row, maybe for a different occasion. I do have an idea of what I'm giving out for Christmas this year, but you'll have to wait and see. I'm excited!



PS. I'm thinking of setting up shop on Etsy. So check me out there soon! same name, ThreeSweetTiers