Weeks 20-22: Falzone Christmas baking extravaganza!

My sister-in-law, Tracy, told me that I'm falling behind in my blog.  I thought, "huh, it hasn't been that long since I posted, has it?"  Turns out she's right - it's been 5 weeks. Sheesh.  It's not that I haven't baked anything during the past 5 weeks...it's that I've been so busy baking that I didn't have time to stop & write about it.  Yes, that's it.  It's certainly not that I've been too lazy to write about it.

Here's a recap of the Falzone Christmas baking extravaganza that filled weeks 20-22:

Week 20: I took the weekend off baking because Chuck & Brett Jr. made a great yellow cake with chocolate frosting for my birthday.  Thanks, guys!

Week 21, part 1: Chuck's dad & Aunt Marie came into town to help us make traditional Italian Christmas cookies.  Aunt Marie has perfected these recipes over the years, resulting in delicious cookies.  Here's Aunt Marie, Chuck & Brett rolling the chocolate spice cookies (one of Aunt Marie's secrets for these - rub a little olive oil on your hands to prevent the dough from sticking):

Next up were fig cookies.  They're pretty labor intensive, but they are seriously good.  Here's a shot of Aunt Marie carefully placing the filling on dough she's just rolled:

I took over rolling and filling for a while, and Aunt Marie giggled and made fun of how big my cookies were.  She said it reminded her of the days when she'd bake these with her mom - the longer they spent rolling and filling cookies, the larger her mom's cookies would get (because her mom was getting tired of rolling).  Aunt Marie would then yell at her mom, "You're making them too big!"  Aunt Marie's cookie philosophy is that you should make them small so that people can eat several.  My philosophy is that you should make them large and still eat several.

In the end, we had 17 dozen cookies.  Whew! 

Week 21, part 2: Chuck & I made Giugiulena, an Italian sesame cookie. He's made these many, many times with his dad & Aunt Marie, but it was my first time.  Far less labor intensive than the fig cookies, for these you just dip them in egg & roll them in sesame seeds.  We made quite the mess while preparing these...perhaps it had something to do with those bottles of wine & the wine glasses in the background of this pic:

As was the case with the chocolate spice, these cookies spread more than when Aunt Marie makes them.  She smiled & told me they were 'Mericanu cookies (which, as you might guess, is a slur for American).  Still, they turned out delicious:

Week 21, part 3: my sister-in-law, Julie, asked us to bring a dessert to Christmas Eve dinner.  I have been wanting to try this recipe I found for a triple-layer eggnog cake, and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity.  It was a huge hit:

Many of the cookies in this post made their way to assorted Falzone families, some headed into the office for our co-workers to enjoy, and a few dozen made their way out to Iowa for the Ekhardt family gathering we refer to as "Christmastime Again" (more on that soon...).