Yesterday I wrote a little about the Christmas cookie baking frenzy that occurred here this past weekend. I thought this one weekend of baking would begin and conclude all of the holiday baking I would be doing, because seriously, how many cookies can we really eat? Well, three days and a visit from my two stepdaughters and my fiance’s mother, I have an answer to that question: a few dozen.

I posted a picture of one of the batches of cookies I made on Facebook, and was informed by my dad that he expects a batch of his own on Christmas. You know what that means–a second phase of Christmas cookie baking will be taking place before next week. I’m not complaining, though. I recently discovered that I really love baking. I even have a baking project coming up that I will be telling you all about after Christmas. (How exciting!)

I’m actually glad that I have an excuse to whip up a few more types of Christmas cookies; and between my family and my fiance’s family, I know for sure that they will be enjoyed. Better yet, a small tin of homemade cookies make a fabulous homemade holiday gift that won’t break the bank.

So here are the results of the Christmas cookie baking I did this past weekend:

As with any good cookie, I started out with a whole lot of softened butter. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Paula Deen would be proud.

butter, ya’ll

The first batch I made were Chocolate Crinkle cookies. They took the longest to make because after I made the dough, it needed to be refrigerated for two hours minimum or overnight. I opted to refrigerate it overnight because the dough was really gooey and sticky; so much so that I joked about succeeding in making chocolate glue.

I followed lolfoodie’s recipe, which is also included my roundup of 11 Christmas cookie recipes from around the blogosphere.

My Chocolate Crinkle cookies didn’t spread out quite as much as lolfoodie’s, but for my very first effort I went ahead and gave them an A because they are delicious and my fiance ate about four of them in under five minutes once they came out of the oven.

My fiance absolutely loves peanut butter, and he firmly believes that any baked good in existence would be made infinitely better by the presence of peanut butter. So naturally, I couldn’t not make a peanut butter cookie, and I decided on peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

I did a quick Google search for peanut butter cookie recipes and found the recipe I wound up using for these peanut butter chocolate chip cookies on About.com Southern Food.

They came out great. After trying one of the first cookies from this batch as they came out of the oven, it was so good that I couldn’t wait for my fiance to wake up and so I woke him up out of a deep sleep with a warm cookie. Not the worst way to wake up, right?

I am a huge fan of Andes mints, so when I came across a mint chocolate chip cookie recipe, also from lolfoodie, I bookmarked it immediately. So good, you guys!

So that is phase one of my Christmas cookie baking frenzy. Phase two will include another batch (or two) of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, a thumbprint-type cookie, and I think I may also make some fudge. Oh, the possibilities…