Restorative Baking

Ah, real life.  Let's face it, it tends to encroach one's inner joyfulness from time to time.  Even during the Christmas season.  Especially during the Christmas season.  When you feel all of that pressure to be jolly.  So what's a girl to do?  But find a way to get it back.  I recently had a little heart to heart with a designer friend of mine, about how sometimes you just have do something.  (As in create something.)  Anything.  It's true.  There are few things that make me feel better than the creative process. Having an idea, putting it into action.  Seeing the fruits of your labor. So, I have been very productive.  I decorated a stocking, planted a terrarium (separate post on those two items to come), and then decided to do a little baking.  Baking can be simple and easy as well as restorative. 

I made a couple of Cranberry Orange Buttermilk Snacking Cakes, not sure what I'm going to do with them yet.  (Eat them, I guess.)  But when I saw the recipe on Say Yes to Hoboken, I couldn't get the beautiful pictures of it out of my head. I just loved the stark contrast of the red cranberries against the white cake.  Very Christmasy. As the original blogger states, it would make a lovely neighbor's gift this holiday season.  (If you want the cake to be sweet, it is a cake after all, I suggest bumping up the sugar content to 1 cup.  I also would go ahead and spring for the raw sugar for the topping.  I didn't and think that it would cut the bitterness of the cranberries quite a bit.  You could also easily substitute lemons for the oranges.)  Delicious with your afternoon cup of tea.

Cookie baking.  Does any other culinary experience feel more like Christmas than baking cookies?  I was not feeling terribly patient, not patient enough for the rolling out the dough, cutting out the cookies, decorating with piped frosting variety.  So I took a different route.  I followed this guide for the Slice and Bake Cookie Palette from Smitten Kitchen.  The dough recipe is simple and you can add in a few optional ingredients to add a little something, or not, you can just follow the original recipe.  I kept it pretty simple and just added orange zest. Especially since I was intending on decorating.  I also liked that I could make this dough ahead of time. I ended up making the dough on Saturday, baking on Sunday and decorating on Monday for a party Tuesday.  It definitely makes things less overwhelming to be able to break things up over a few days.

These look like snowflakes, right?  Not quitting my day job.  Still felt good to make something. They taste much better than the look.

After all, the Christmas season brings a thrill of hope, right?  Don't forget about the traditions of the season to keep the spirit with us.  The joy is there.  It is.  Even if you have to work at it.  It's worth getting it back.

Christmas Craft: Candy Cane White Chocolate Pretzels

I enjoy making treats, but only if they are quick and easy. I'm not one to embark into an 8 hour session of sugar cookie making. However, I am more than happy to melt some chocolate, smash some candy canes and dip some pretzel flats in both items and call it a delicacy. And definitely package it into a pretty cello bag. That pretty much makes up for my lack of endurance in the kitchen, doesn't it? The recipe and idea are found here, on Cooking With My Kid.

We Need A Little Christmas: Baking!

In the spirit of the season, I decided to make some homemade peanut butter cups. I had some ambitious plans about making some for everyone I knew, but you know how best laid plans go... I had read some about chocolate and melting chocolate and how you shouldn't use chocolate chips, so I started out with a big bar of chocolate from Trader Joe's (the pound and a half one). Unfortunately, I needed way more than said chocolate bar and didn't have a chance to go back to Trader Joe's and decided that I would go ahead and follow the recipe and make the remaining peanut butter cups with hersey bars and chocolate chips. Bad idea. The batch made with this method ended up grainy and didn't taste right. So sadly, I only ended up with a small amount of peanut butter cups that are good enough to give out. What are you going to do? So, lesson learned, go with your first instinct. I started with this recipe, but would recommend using an equivalent of a good chocolate bar, instead of using chocolate chips. Word on the street is that the wax in the chocolate chips does not lend to good melting. (Upon reading more about melting chocolate, turns out that the grainy chocolate outcome may have been caused by water! Apparently the littlest bit of water in chocolate causes it to seize up. I was working by the sink in my mini kitchen, so I guess it's possible. Just a word of caution if you happend to attempt to make these.)

A Little Autumnal Baking...

Last weekend, I bought a few too many apples at the Apple Festival, so I searched and searched this week for some sort of apple recipe. I finally came across this Whole Wheat Apple Muffin recipe on Smitten Kitchen. If you're at all interested in cooking blogs, I highly recommend Smitten Kitchen. Not only can this girl cook, she can also take a really beautiful picture. (Cannot help but to link to her posting for her son's 1st birthday cake-so adorable!!)

I did not officially, make whole wheat muffins, as I didn't have whole wheat flour on hand, but used 100% all purpose flour and it seemed to work out fine. These muffins are so moist, so delicious. Definitely worth making from scratch. And while my surplus of apples is finally dwindling, I have no idea what I will do with a dozen muffins and 16 mini muffins....

A New Baby and A Mini Cinnamon Roll Bouquet

Earlier this week, my friends Heather and Oliver had their 2nd child, a little boy named Linus. Isn't he darling? I went to visit him at the hospital and brought with me a Mini-Cinnamon Roll Bouquet. Although I haven't blogged much about it, I do love to cook and bake. And while I cook all the time, don't bake much-I can (and should) only eat so many sweets, so I was excited when I found this tutorial on From Glitter to Gumdrops. It was surprisingly easy to put together. (Basically-rolling out cresent dough, sprinkling with brown sugar and cinnamon, rolling the dough back up, cutting into small pieces, baking in mini muffin tins.) And very well received! (And do you remember the basket from the flea market finds?)