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!

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.

Thankful

I am so thankful to have this husband. He singlehandedly planned and cooked Thanksgiving dinner for nine. All I had to do was make desert (cheesecake and pecan pie, if you're wondering.) And yes, his cooking is delicious! 

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.

Busy

We've got chocolate shortbread (not iced yet),

chocolate coated orange Springerle,

Linzer cookies made with homemade

cranberry-cherry-orange jam,

and traditional Scottish shortbread.

So far...

Hooray!

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

Truth in Advertising

Homemade bread in less than one hour? Let's look at the directions:

 

Hmmmmm. Let rise for two hours, rest for 40 minutes and then bake for abut 25 minutes - that adds up to three hours and five minutes. Shame on you Krusteaz, shame on you. I know what you're thinking -they were talking about the baking time, but that's not what 75% of the people picking up the box will think. It's a good thing I have all day...

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.

New Furry Friends

 

I'd like to introduce you to Lucas and Sylvester; my youngest child's pet rats. (Fancy rats as I am regularly reminded.)  They joined the family back in September and have been a positive addition - partially because they are so darn cute. Initially, I thought their long naked tails would gross me out, but the overwhelming cuteness completely overpowers the tail ickiness. I mean just look at that face!

 

They love Cheerios, attention, and paper towels. And did I mention how cute they are? They have the cutest little noses and whiskered cheeks that wiggle when they munch on treats.

They spend most of their time snuggled together in their nest. It seems like they are snuggled together 75% of the time, though they will separate - especially if there are Cheerios involved.

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.

Bakewell

During quarantine this spring I discovered The Great British Baking Show. It's right up my alley - chock full of delicious sweets and British humor. Of course, I've had to try a few things. This week it was the classic Bakewell Tart, which to be honest, I had never heard of. Though the kids and I do think we ate one in Iceland last summer. (We didn't know what it was really called because when  Google translated the Icelandic into English it came up as "Chum.")

It was delicious! (And not overly complicated - though you do need almond flour.) The crust was very similar to the crust in a treacle tart. Instead of making the raspberry jam the recipe called for, I used blueberry jam I made last summer. This was so good and so easy - I see more of these in our future. I just need to get a bigger tart pan!

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!

Cooking

I'm not a big cook. I don't really enjoy it; to me it is more chore than fun. It just takes so much... time. Well, time is something I have in abundance these days, so I've gotten more adventurous in the kitchen lately. So, I present to you, drum roll please...

Moroccan beef and vegetables served on homemade Naan bread. 

Delicious, if I do say so myself. But it's bread, and I pretty much love any and all breads, so it wasn't a hard sell. Nor was it hard to make. You'll find the meat recipe here and the Naan recipe here. 

I've made these twice now and my Naan turned out much better the second time. The secret was to let the dough rest (in a bowl covered with plastic wrap) for a few hours. It turned out much better than the batch I cooked right away.

I think quarantine has gotten to me and I've officially lost my mind; the footstool talks to me, the pasties were happy to be eaten, and now the Naan seems to be smiling at me. It may be time to go out for a walk.

Feeding an Army

Last week the kids and I set out to make pasties.

A lot of pasties. The goal was to make enough so we could have dinner and then freeze the rest for another meal or two.

We used this recipe and were quite happy with the results.  (We did add carrots into the mix.)

At the end of the day we'd chopped enough vegetables and rolled enough dough to make 25 pasties and two meat pies. (At the end of the day we got lazy.) Plenty to share with the neighbors, feed us dinner, and stash 20 pasties and one meat pie in the freezer for later.

The only down side - I think the pasties are in league with the step stool. Just look at that smile. I would have thought they would've been more upset at the idea of being eaten...

Yum

The other day my friend, Lynn, posted about the doughnuts she and her boys made. My daughter saw the post and decided we needed doughnuts, too. Luckily, we had one of these, so whipping up a batch was a breeze. 

I think I need to reign myself in a bit. Now that I have lots of time I want to bake something sweet every day.

Trial & Error

I made bagels.

They were...  OK. 

Not great, but not awful either.

 We ate them toasted, with cream cheese and homemade blueberry jam. I used the recipe from my favorite bread book, but they were quite heavy. In a way it has been nice to have the time to try things like this - I probably wouldn't have taken the time to make these in "normal" times. Next time I try them, I think I'm going to try a traditional bagel recipe - maybe they'll be a bit lighter.

Connections

This winter during my family's annual Christmas cookie baking extravaganza, I found this recipe in my cousin's recipe book. I almost teared up when I realized it was written in my grandmother's handwriting. Somehow it made it seem like a little part of her was there baking with us. I think that would have made her smile.

Until, that is, my cousin and my mom started disagreeing about how much flour to put in the Nuremburgers. At that point the smile would have disappeared and Grandma would have informed us of the, ahem, correct way to do things. And they would have been perfect...

Who Would've Thought

Hands down my kids' favorite vegetables these days is Brussels sprouts. Which, by the way, I always thought were called Brussel sprouts not Brussels sprouts, but I was wrong. And then there's the question of why no does Brussels not have an apostrophe, but I digress. Anyway...

My kids love them. Like, love them enough to ask to have them for dinner. That said, they have to be roasted Brussels sprouts.  They asked my mom to make them once and forgot to specify the roasted part, and my mom boiled them. Talk about two unhappy teenagers. I think the word "ruined" may have been used to describe them, and as you can imagine, grandma did not appreciate that commentary on her cooking. For the record, she happens to love Brussels sprouts; boiled with lots and lots of butter. 

So, if you are looking for something new to try with your kids, give these a whirl. You might be as surprised as I was. And even if your kids aren't into them, you might be...

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

You'll need: 

• About 1.5 pounds fresh Brussels sprouts (I use two mesh bags from Meijer to feed 4.)
• Olive oil, maybe a tablespoon or two
• Salt and pepper, OR your favorite spice blend (I like this one.)

 

What to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F (about 205 degrees C.)
2. Cover your cookie sheet or baking dish with foil for easy clean-up. (This is optional.)
3. Peel off any outer leaves that look brown or wilty.
4. Cut the bottom end bit off each sprout.
5. Slice each one in half lengthwise. If they are bigger than a gold ball, quarter them. If they are tiny, you can leave them whole.
6. Toss  the sprouts with a tablespoon or two of olive oil.  Use just enough to coat them. 
7. Spread in a single layer on a cookie sheet or in a large baking dish.
8. Sprinkle on your spices.
9. Roast for 25 minutes or until they are slightly browned on the outside and tender in the center. (My daughter loves the blackened crunchy bits the best.)

Favorite

Hands down, this is my favorite bread-making book. (Check out the authors' other books here.) I love bread. And when I say love, I mean love. No question, my daughter inherited her weakness for all things bready from me. 

My favorite thing about this recipe is I can come home from a long day at work and still have fresh bread on the table for dinner. (Which actually never happens any more since Allen does all the cooking on school nights. Yes, I know how lucky I am to have a husband like that.)

So now I enjoy easy-peasy homemade bread on the weekends.  As often as I can.