The Amazing Baking Girl

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Rose has been baking like a fiend getting ready for Christmas. Thank heavens, because I have made one batch of cookies (Amaretti). Hannah made Mexican Wedding Cakes (she has the touch and, besides, she took the batch Rose made last week to her Ancient Philosophy class for a party).

Rose has made Sugar Cookies, Peanut Butter Bears, Chocolate Biscotti, Gingersnaps, Buckeyes, some sort of delicious chocolate cookie and some gingerbread cookies that none of us like. After we got past the Gingersnaps I told her to just please herself and I've been to the store two days in a row buying things like corn syrup and coconut.

We also planned fudge and peanut brittle using the recipes in Short & Sweet. Rose learned that if you are not careful with condensed milk it burns to the bottom of the pan so thoroughly that it will take 3 people more than two days of occasional scrubbing to clean it up. Every so often one of us will walk by and grab the steel wool to do a little work on the pan. We have a large clear patch in the middle but there's still plenty of scrubbing ... we are gonna be well conditioned by the time this is through!

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