Choco-LOTS!

It has been a super busy and very productive weekend for me.  It all started bright and early Friday morning with a great friend and her two girls coming over to make fondant.  I'll admit I was a bit nervous as I've never made fondant without my mother being within arms reach.  First batch went off without a hitch and we were thrilled.  Then we hit a bit of a speed bump - had a couple of batches that turned to sugar (never happened before), but after an emergency call into my mom, and diagnosing what we may be doing to cause it, we were able to complete 3 more batches. 

I must say they turned out gorgeous.  Soft, creamy and just the right texture.  We were so excited!  It was a long and tiring day, but the results were great and our kids had lots of fun playing together.

After Shelley and the girls left I pulled out the ingredients to make cookies for the Primary Christmas Activity on Saturday.  I tried out my Christmas gift from one of my visiting teachers - a small scoop!  I'm always saying I'd like a small ice cream scoop to make cookies with but have never purchased one.  It worked awesome - making uniform, perfect cookies every time.  Thank you Vernetta!

After the Primary Party (see tomorrow's post)  Shelley and the girls came back over to roll and dip the fondant.   The kids were a huge help, I love that Ashton is interested in participating.  He loves to roll and actually does quite a good job.

Then the dipping began.  As this is my third time making chocolates this year (I was going to blog about chocolate making at mom's but I forgot my camera) - I must say my dipping skills are improving.  I just need to work on the consistency.  If only I could get them all to look like these ...

The three in front - ALMOST TOO PRETTY TO EAT!!!

The girls getting into it!

Then my boys decided to help.  I was hestitant at first so I let them try dipping the coconut ones.  Ashton dipped it into the chocolate and dropped it into the coconut, then Bowen would cover it in coconut and put it on the cookie sheet.  They did a GREAT job!  I was so proud of them.  Ashton then went on to dip a couple of the maple walnut chocolates and even put a little swirl on top!  I guess if I don't have a girl to pass down the chocolate making tradition too I'll just teach it to my boys!

We had so much fun with our friends and hope it becomes a tradition for us to make chocolates together.  Also, if you're not already my friend you just might want to be - just saying - we've got alot of chocolates to give away this year!