Happy Easter

Easter tends to be pretty quiet at my house - TV, baking, that kind of thing. This year I made these cute little cookies for us to munch on. Let me tell you - I am in love with rolled buttercream. It looks like fondant, tastes like buttercream frosting, and it's easy. The only caveat is you need to have something to mold it with (think cookie molds or embossed rolling pins.) My family does not appreciate the flavor and texture of royal icing, so discovering this has been wonderful. Plus I have a gazillion cookie molds, so I was good to go.

We celebrated today with some cure bunnies for Easter and suns for spring; 'cuz everyone on Mackinac Island is ready for sunny weather!

The "Real" World

Michigan's Upper Peninsula isn't really known for its shopping. I'm ok with that - I'd rather be surrounded by beautiful landscapes and the Great Lakes than be close to big box stores. That said, when I am in the neighborhood of these stores, I take advantage of  what's available. Sometimes though, I'm a bit overwhelmed at their sheer size!  I wonder who thought a person might need to pick up vitamins, pajamas, and an entire frozen lamb in a single stop. For the record, the lamb did not come home with us; and we're not going to discuss how much I spent at Costco. Let's just say my sister-in-law is looking forward to her cash back check.

What we can discuss is the cheese isle at Kroger (or "Krogers," as we Michiganders say.) Walmart's cheese selection is abysmal, but Kroger's was amazing! I'm glad I took the time to look at the choices, because their marketing person is hilarious.

Click on the picture to make the text larger; trust me, it's worth your time. The d'Affinois sign made my day; whoever wrote those signs definitely deserves a raise. While I didn't see it quiver, it it did beckon and it was creamy and delicious.

2024 Christmas Cookies

December kind of snuck up on me this year, so I have been a cookie-making machine lately. This year's varieties include: zimtsterne, zitronenherzen, caramel springerle,  Nurnberger, spritzgeback, Scottish shortbread, ginger, stamped chocolate, Oreo truffles, peanut butter blossoms, and pretzel turtles. 

I just love making Christmas cookies. OK, who am I kidding? I enjoy making Christmas cookies, but I love eating Christmas cookies!

My kids, both home for the holidays, love eating them, too. Hopefully they will read my note so I'll have enough to pack into the cookie tins I give away.

This year I had a custom cookie mold made. The maker did an amazing job - I was a little worried about those tiny spots in the top of the bridge, but the springerle mold worked beautifully with both the springerle and chocolate dough.

Yum Yum

 

Store made pizza in January may not be a big deal to you, but to those of us living on Mackinac Island this winter, it's a huge deal! Being able to get hot, fresh, not-made-at-home pizza in January is a real treat! Island Slice has never stayed open in the winter, but I'm guessing they decided to this year due to the numerous building projects going on. We'll see what they decide to do if / when the boats quit running, but until then my daughter and I are going to get pizza once a week just because we can.

Banner Year

After three years of virtually no blueberries, Mother Nature made up for it this summer. We discovered a new picking spot that was just loaded with berries. There were so, so, so many berries! Three of us picked for about two and a half hours and brought home 28 pounds (12.7 kg) of blueberries. (That was the weight after cleaning.) I'm not going to have time this week to make jam, so they all got frozen. We debated going back again to pick more, but our freezer is packed full!

Allen is hoping I can make blueberry cream cheese galette for him, but if you've got any other blueberry recipes you love, send them my way!

Deliciousness

Due to a few scheduling constraints, my family and I weren't able to get together for our annual Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza. Which, to be honest, was a huge letdown. So much of the fun of that weekend is spending time with a few lovely people I rarely see, and, of course, there are cookies...

Since I couldn't get together with them, I was determined to make cookies myself - so I started early. Of course, I made the family favorites: zimtstern (cinnamon stars), zitronenherzen (lemon hearts), Nurnberger (roll out sugar cookies) spritzgeback (cookies made with a press, Mandlebarge (almond mountains) Scottish shortbread, and springerle (this year with orange essence and dipped in chocolate.)

I also made a few others including Linzer (jam sandwiches), ginger cookies (because we love them), glazed chocolate shortbread cookies (to try out some new cookie stamps), Earl Grey Cookies (because they sounded amazing),  and pretzel turtles (made with Rolo candies.)

Some changes I plan on making for next year:

1. I reduced the amount of cocoa in the chocolate cookies (as per the recipe's instructions) but I will decrease it even more next year. Instead of adding in flour to offset the decrease in cocoa, I will try using powdered sugar instead - at least for half of the flour. I will probably also add in a small amount of baker's ammonia to see how that changes the texture. They also need to bake for a bit more time than given in the recipe..
2.  I will add even more tea to the Earl Grey cookies. (I also glazed them with a glaze made from strong tea and powdered sugar.) Next year we are also going to try making a batch with Constant Comment tea.

In case you are wondering why the names of some of the cookies are capitalized: 

I wasn't sure about capitalizing the names of the German cookies with names derived from cities so I Googled what to do, here is the reason  I chose to capitalize them.

Hooray!

Tomorrow is December so cookie season will officially begin. Hooray!

My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things abut summer is fruit salad! So sweet and delicious. I love to get myself a bowl and enjoy it outside in the shade. It's the perfect summer afternoon treat.

First Attempt

I have always liked the look of cookies iced with flow icing, but I've never tried it. Until now. My youngest child decided they wanted an Animal Crossing themed birthday party this year, so it seemed a perfect time to try. 

I 3D printed an Animal Crossing cookie cutter and got to work. I will never again complain about how much these cookies cost! Not only are mine marginal at best, but decorating them took forever - and I only flooded one color! I shudder to think about how long it took to make cookies like these. 

K loved them, but due to Covid-19, we had to enjoy them at home and pre-packaged doughnut holes went into to school to celebrate. Despite the gigantic mess in the kitchen (and trust me, there was green icing everywhere) it was fun to give this new technique a try.

Still Baking...

I present to you, my very first Victoria Sandwich cake. Another bake inspired by the Great British Baking Show. It looks impressive but it was easy. (Though it wouldn't have been with a two hour time limit and virtually no recipe like the bakers get in the show.)  It's just two layers, buttercream icing and jam. The cake isn't very sweet because the sweetness of the jam would be too much with a super sweet cake. The only changes I made were I used blueberry jam instead of raspberry and I iced the top and bottom edges. (I had extra icing so, why not.)

Baking Again...

Orange meringue pie this time...

Our neighbors had some friends up to visit, and as is common on Mackinac, those friends brought presents. People realize it's a little more complicated to get things on the island, so when they're coming to visit they usually offer to bring up anything we might need. (When our friends ask, we generally request cases of caffeine-free diet coke, if you're wondering.)

Their friends brought two bags of oranges and our neighbors didn't think they could eat all of them before they spoiled, so they gifted a bag to us. We weren't going to get through our bag before they spoiled either, so I used fresh squeezed orange juice to make the pie.

Not the best picture, but trust me it was delicious! Although if I make it again, I will substitute the lemon juice the recipe calls for with more orange juice.

Swapping

Two days ago I started making homemade clotted cream. It is simple to make but it takes about 24 hours, so it can't be rushed.  (I now understand why the stuff is so darn expensive.)

I made the clotted cream and my lovely neighbor made cherry almond scones.  And then we each gave half of what we made to the other. It was the best breakfast I've had in weeks: homemade scones and clotted cream - delightful. We'll have to do it again when we can enjoy breakfast together!

Berry Picking Time

Blueberry picking is one of my favorite things about August. I love torturing my children by dragging them out into the woods and not feeding them until they reach their hourly berry quota. Yeah, I'm that mom.

Seriously though, the kids are usually pretty willing to pick for at least a few hours, especially if the weather is cooperative. Luckily my son remembers the amazing blueberry pie filling I made a few years ago. Now, all I have to do is suggest that we are getting close to having enough berries for pie and jam and he gets a renewed burst of energy. (Regular snacks help, too.)

We almost didn't go this year because summer had been so dry. I'm so glad went after all because the berries were better than they've been in two or three years. The four of us managed to pick 12 pounds (abut 5.5 kg) of berries in just a few hours.

My daughter even spent an additional hour winnowing with me when we got home. I think she's hoping there will be some blueberry jelly in her future...

Icelandic Brown Cake

One of my favorite things to do while I travel is to eat every dessert I can get my hands on. One we all enjoyed was  Brúnterta (pronounced broon-terta) or Icelandic Brown Cake.  Cake is actually kaka in Icelandic and terta is tart, but terta is used when referring to a fancier kind of cake.

The only change my American palate wanted was another layer of frosting on the top. I found two different versions of the recipe (in English) one using golden syrup and one using brown sugar. I'm going to have to try both of them when I get home and see which one I like best.

Brown sugar version
Golden syrup version 

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ísbúð

Ísbúð, pronounced Es-booth, is Icelandic for ice cream. The name of the shop, Ísbúð Vesturbæjar, means West Village Ice Cream Shop or West Iceland Ice Cream Shop, depending on which translate program I use. One of their locations was just a quick walk down the street from our house and made for a perfect evening out. Everything I read before coming to Iceland said that ice cream is the favorite treat of Icelanders, so I wasn't surprised when we found this place jumping.

First you choose what kind of ice cream you want - old or new. Don't ask me how they are different - we weren't able to do a comparative taste test - yet. There were too many people in line behind us, so we went with our server's suggestion.

Next, do you want a cone? If you do, do you want it dipped? Or, do you want it in a cup with toppings? Or would you prefer your toppings to be blended in with the ice cream (like a DQ Blizzard)?

For blended treats, the sizes ranged from 1/4 of a liter all the way up to the giant one liter size.

For the 1/4 liter size, you choose three scoops of deliciousness to get mixed in. (I chose three scoops of chopped up Mounds bars.)

In Iceland they love licorice, so there were numerous licorice options (shredded, gummy, chocolate coated, big chunky pieces, tiny little pearls - you name it, they had it.)

Just watch out for the powder that looks like malt - it is most definitely not malt! It's a salted licorice powder that is incredibly strong. We tried suckers in Amsterdam that were filled with the stuff and quickly learned that, how shall I put it... it was an acquired taste. (Translate that to, I thought it was awful, and that's putting it mildly. I've been told that most Americans can't stand the stuff.)

It may not look like it, but I'm holding the 1/4 L size - the smallest blended option!

The ice cream was slightly different from Americtan ice cream. It wasn't as sweet and it had a slightly different texture - almost like it was made with more milk and less cream. Either way, we all thought it was delicious and the kids have already asked when we can go back.

Albert Cuyp Market

Yesterday we spent a few hours exploring the Albert Cuyp Market. The market has been in the same spot since 1905 and according to their website, it's the biggest day market in Europe - with 260 stands. We didn't see all of them, but the market had something for everyone: cheap souvenirs, clothes, books, flowers, fresh fish, fruits & vegetables,  sweets, fabric, toys...  I really liked that shoppers appeared to be a good mix of locals and tourists.

We had fun rooting around the different stands looking for bargains. For many items, the prices were negotiable. K got herself a €3.50 book for €1.00.

The fabric prices were fixed - €8.95 per meter for each of these knits. It's a good thing we only have carry on-sized suitcases, or I would have bought a whole lot more! There were several fabric (stoffen in Dutch) shops in the market. Some sold drapery material, one quilting cottons, and another had a little bit of everything. Lots of them looked small at first, but then zigged and zagged way back into a building. S found some sweatshirt fabric he liked and K found some cute cotton and asked for shorts. She really wanted some tulip fabric for a maxi dress, but since we didn't have a pattern and had no idea how much to buy, we had to pass.

  

The fresh-squeezed drinks were interesting. Many of them contained fresh ginger and they were incredibly strong - like open-up-your-sinuses-strong. S opted to try the orange-ginger, but wasn't too keen on it. Luckily, I love ginger and was happy to finish it for him. Later in the day he also tried banana-pineapple-yogurt, which he liked a whole lot better.

While we were there we had to try fresh stroopwafels. I mean, c'mon!

We watched the Stroopwafel Man roll the dough into a ball and then press it in the wafelmaker. When it was done, but still hot, he sliced it in half.

Next, he coated one of the halves with caramel for K and me, while S opted for caramel and nutella. (The Dutch appear to love nutella. We see it as an option on practically every sweet thing: cookies, croissants, pancakes and wafles.)

Grandma, on the other hand, was more interested in finding something for dinner. She found some lovely red snapper at one stand and fresh asparagus at another. 

As we were leaving the market we noticed this stall. The Dutch Cookieman's stand had the biggest macaroons we'd ever seen - they were the size of a scoop of ice cream! (My mom called them  macaroons, but he refers to them as Belgische Cocosbols on his website.) They were amazing; giant chewy balls of coconutty goodness - with the bottom outside edges just a little but more cooked than the inside  - they were absolutely perfect. And at three huge cookies for €5.00, the price couldn't be beat. My  even now my mouth is watering just remembering how good they were. Dang it, now I want another one...

Lucky

While out and about yesterday we were lucky enough to stumble across the Friday Antiques Market, or the "Curious Flea Market" according to the sign. I'm not sure, but apparently, this market opens up every Friday during the summer months.

There were tables filled with everything you can imagine:

wooden shoes,

spools of lace,

vintage plates,

and this little fellow. 

I would have loved to know more about this little sewing machine, but sadly it wasn't going to fit into my suitcase.

We also found this lovely lady selling Echte Poffertjes - "Real Pancakes;" available with butter and sugar - yum.

She was making them right there, on her gas cooker. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Delicious!