Baking Day

My older daughter is going to a cookie exchange party later on this afternoon, and this evening, my wife and I are going to a Bunco/White Elephant Christmas Party, so my morning and early afternoon are going to be spent in the kitchen...something I pretend to dread, but my wife knows I really enjoy baking.  Strike that...I really enjoy eating the results of my baking...playing in the kitchen is a relaxing way of producing things I like to eat.

For the cookies in the morning, my daughter wanted to make chocolate chip cookies, so I busted out a tried and true cookie recipe for this one...Whole Wheat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

I have made these cookies many times, with many different fillings.  Sometimes it's basic chocolate, or my favorite, butterscotch chips.  This time it was a fancy bag of Nestlé's 50/50 Dark Chocolate Chips and Mint Chips...very seasonal.

The only negative great part of this recipe, is that it makes a huge batch of cookies.  There were still two cookie sheets in the oven when I took this picture. 

After finishing the cookies, it was time to start on my 'grown-up' dessert for the evening.  When it's time to break out the big guns, I usually have to 'go-to' sources, Alton Brown, or The Range.  In this case, I went with Brigid, because she just recently posted a recipe for Bacon Butterscotch Brownies with a Salted Caramel glaze. 

More than a few eye-brows were raised when I described what was on the plate...and those that were brave enough to try them, enjoyed them.  The one thing to note, is that Brigid was just looking to make a small batch of brownies...so what you see on that plate is the result of quadrupling the recipe(well, doubling it twice...made two 8 X 8 pans, using two 12-ounce packages of bacon.)