Last day at work, last week of treats

My last day of work was this past Thursday. For my last week, instead of bringing in a dessert on my usual Monday, I decided I would bring in something every day as one last hurrah for my coworkers. I told them they could get skinny after I leave. Until then, I was baking. They didn't seem to mind and, like squirrels stuffing away nuts for winter, the baked goods started to disappear faster than usual each day.

Monday - Lofthouse Sugar Cookies

I was so busy and working longer hours than usual during my last two weeks that I was caught off guard in keeping my pantry and refrigerator stocked with baking staples. I didn't have time to make a Costco run but I did manage to eke out what I needed to just enough, running down to 1/2 stick of butter, 2 eggs and half a canister of flour by Wednesday night. Do you know how close to the edge that is for me???

Tuesday - Peanut Butter Crunch Brownies with Snickers

Wednesday - Nutella White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Since I didn't want any baking failures for my last week - had to end on a good note, after all - I did a combination of "safe" new recipes to try and previously tested recipes. I'll post the new recipes later as I still have a backlog of other posts to put up.

Thursday - Soft & Thick Snickerdoodles

On Wednesday, the day before my last day, my coworkers also threw a dessert party for me. How appropos was that? I didn't know ahead of time what they were planning (what dessert do you bring a baker?) but shortly beforehand, I discovered we were having ice cream sandwiches from Cream. Cream! First, I didn't even know Cream was mobile and could come to you. Second, I was fascinated by how they did it because, just like at any Cream store, the cookies were warm and they made the sandwich in your choice of cookies and ice cream flavors right in front of you when you ordered it.

The very nice crew from Cream

This mobile Cream crew brought a freezer container of ice cream, a warming oven with fresh cookies and all the accoutrements they needed to crank out their ice cream sandwiches. Best of all, no 30-45 minute wait as you typically experience at any of their store locations. What an awesome idea and a thoughtful one by my coworkers.

Mango Mousse Cake

Artfully decorated fruit tart

My summer intern also brought me a mango mousse cake from Moos Bakery while another coworker brought a fruit tart from a bakery in Oakland (she didn't mention which one). It was a really nice gathering and made it that much harder to leave the next day, knowing I was leaving behind a really good crew of people, many of whom had become my friends as well as my coworkers.

I also have to give props to the goodbye "card" our design team made for me. It was actually poster size and people wrote their greetings on it, wishing me well. Awwwww. And if my cup didn't already run over, a few of my coworker friends surprised me with some very thoughtful gifts throughout the week that were very "me".

Although I'm looking forward to my new job, new company and new challenges, all of this made it harder to leave than I expected. And maybe that's a good thing because it certainly validates that the last 3+ years were well spent and I have no regrets. Which is all I could ever ask for.