The 12 days of Christmas bakes

Early in the month of December, I got it in my head that I was going to celebrate the season by baking 12 different kinds of Christmas cookies. Where I suddenly got this energy from, I have no idea. (It's been a hard mental health pandemic). The first week of baking actually went really well. I started my mornings with getting butter and eggs out of the fridge to get to room temperature. I was ready to go. (This is a lovely bonus of working from home. I would take a break to mix up the dough and then let it chill for a few hours while I went back to work). 

Then week two came and I was switching up my antidepressants medicine and I came to a screeching halt. (Insert record scratch). For those of you who have not made a switch like this, there is a "detox" phase where you reduce what you're taking as you slowly start taking the new stuff (at a lower level at first). It's pretty terrible. It felt like I had molasses in my blood stream.

Despite that mental health hurdle, I kept baking, although I had to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to bake 12 different types of cookies. But I continued just the same. Baking is good for my mental health even when I have no energy for it. Having a project with a beginning, middle and end is actually a good thing for mental health in general. So I forced myself to do it. 

In the end, I am actually surprised at how much I accomplished. Here's what I made:

Almond confetti sugar cookies (Joy the Baker)

Brown sugar gingersnaps (Joy the Baker) - I actually made these cookies twice (since first photo). But I made the first batch when I was very angry and messed up the recipe somehow (they were so flat). The second batch had less rage and more success.

Cranberry cheese Danish cookies (Joy The Baker)

Nussecken aka "nut corners" (a German cookie from Luisa Wiess)

Brownie cookies with a peanut butter swirl (Sarah Kieffer) 

Amaretto truffles (Shutterbean)

Coconut meltaways (Smitten Kitchen)

Olive oil sugar cookies with limoncello poppy seed icing (Sarah Kieffer)

Bakery style butter cookies (Smitten Kitchen)

So technically, I did 10 bakes at home, if you count the one I did twice. By this time it was time to hit the road for our Christmas road trip to Illinois and Ohio. In both places, I ended up doing some baking, so I counted that too. 

In Illinois, my niece and I made sugar cookies (Smitten Kitchen) and recruited some little Christmas elves to help decorate. 

In Ohio, I had volunteered to make my annual Yule log. This was my third year of making one for New Years Eve, and even though it was a bit tubular, it was still delicious. (This year's was a black forest cake inspired Yule log). 

Overall, I am impressed that I made it mostly through this goal, given the mental health stuff as well as traveling. The clear winners were the gingersnaps and the danish cookies. (Well and the coconut meltaways. I always make those because they are bangin.) Levent also really liked the butter cookies; so I'll probably put those in the rotation too.