New Years Resolutions

Happy New Year!! 

I'm going to tell you a secret - I HATE making New Year's resolutions.  Somehow, I feel compelled to make the same resolutions every year. 

I'll work less.
I'll drink more water.
I'll actually go on vacation.
I'll give to charity; do all sorts of fun stuff; cut out the stress in my life.

None of that actually happens.  Fine.  I drink more water...but everything else is vastly unsuccessful.

I don't think I'm going to make any New Years resolutions this year.

How about you?

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Pucker Up, Buttercup (New Year's Eve Cookies)

Mr. E & I didn't meet on New Year's Eve, but I like to say that's when we fell in love. 

His roommate had been dating one of my best friends for a while.  So, we knew each other, but never given one another much thought.  At a New Year's Eve party, while my girlfriend Laura was running around finding her cousin to introduce to Mr. E and some guy to introduce to me....we ended up talking.  We never did meet that cousin or that guy we were supposed to have been set up with.

At midnight, Mr. E kissed me on the cheek.  I was smitten.  A little over 3 years {and one breakup} later, we were married. ♥

So, New Year's Eve has a special place in my heart....even though we won't be going out, we'll be sipping champagne at home (well, he'll be sipping a beer), watching the ball drop in Times Square on TV.

I'm running out of time to get these posted, so no tutorial, but you can see from these pictures how the cookies came together:

{I used my candy corn cookie cutter. These were decorated with royal icing, with a touch of luster dust on the hats and food coloring pens for the girls' cheeks.)

Here's a little video on applying luster dust:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

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10 for 10 : 10 of my favorite cookies from 2010

My friend Jen over at Tatertots and Jello did a great post on her favorite projects of 2010 (be sure to click over; she is SO fun).  I loved seeing her round-up....it reminded me of her projects I actually tried and those that are still on my to-do list! ;)

So, I decided to go back through all of Bake at 350's posts from 2010 and come up with my favorites.

{And, y'all....after going through EVERY post, I am no longer wondering how I gained 6 pounds this year.}

Top 10 of 2010....in no particular order:

Scrabble Engagement cookies for Meg & Sean

Garden cookies

Uncle Mike's Birthday cookies

Strawberry cookies in berry baskets 

Beer & Hot Dog cookies

Darth Vader cookies (these are probably kiddo's favorites)

Back-to-School Apple cookies

Pink Posie Cake cookies for a Sip 'n' See

Harry Potter cookies

All Saints' Day cookies

If I get my act together, I'll have one more set of cookies for 2010...then, lookout 2011, here we come!!!

{OH! I almost forgot. If you look at the navigation bar at the top of the blog, there is a "cookie index" link.  That page is now up-to-date (I think. I hope.). If you are looking for a certain decorated cookie from Bake at 350, you'll find the link there.}

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Boxing Day Turkey Dinner

Roast Turkey

This year we did our Turkey dinner on Boxing Day, so that we could have the whole family together.  After previous turkey dinners, I think I've honed my family's perfect Christmas turkey dinner...

Turkey Feast

A Boxing Day Turkey Dinner for 8

Roast Turkey

Onion Gravy

Roast Potatoes

Red Cabbage

Cranberry Sauce

Chestnut Stuffing

Bread Dumplings

Christmas Cake

We did all the cooking over a leisurely afternoon, and then sat down and stuffed our faces, hehe!  I've blogged all of these items before, so I'll just show some brief "in-progress" pictures.

Here's our turkey, a 6.3kg free range beauty from Rendinas Butchery.  (They finally have a website!  Those of you who followed me during the Sarah Discovers How to Eat blog will remember that I would buy meat from them all the time).

6.3 kg free-range Turkey

I don't stuff or brine the turkey, but just rub it generously in butter.  (Nigella recommends a maple-syrup basting to help it crisp up, but you don't need that if your turkey isn't damp from brining).  And as you can see from the top picture, the turkey was ridiculously crisp and golden.  Or as my niece described it: "covered in turkey crackling".  And I baste the turkey in beer while it's cooking.  (Apart from adding moisture, it helps make fabulous pan juices for gravy later!)

Buttering up the turkey

The bread dumplings are a Czech recipe, which made their way to Germany.  I've blogged them before, and love making them.

Making Dumplings

Uncooked dumplings

I'm still working on getting my dumplings smooth and pretty, but I'm sure with time and practice I'll get better. (They already look better than last year's attempt!)

Cooked dumplings

You can't have turkey without gravy, and I like a good onion gravy.  This time I sliced the onions very very fine, and cooked them for ages on a low heat, so that once they were combined with flour, marsala, stock and pan juices, they melted into the sauce and didn't need to be whizzed in a food processor.  Super delicious.

Onion Gravy

Then there was chestnut stuffing (cooked in a separate tray)...

Chestnut Stuffing

... red cabbage...

Red Cabbage

... and of course, my specialty, roast potatoes!

Roast Potatoes

All that was left was to carve the turkey...

Carving

... and crack open the champagne!

Dom Pérignon 1996

Thank-you to my cousin Barry for the delicious DP.

We had Christmas cake for dessert, and that was that.

Merry Christmas everybody! Hope you've all enjoyed the holidays!

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Hoping you had a Holly Jolly Christmas!

 

Christmas!  It came and went!  But, I'm still celebrating because there are still CUPCAKES!!!

These are coconut cupcakes and they are delicious!  The cake, the frosting, everything!  They're from Ina, you know, the Barefoot Contessa.  Don't you wish you lived right next door to Ina?  I'd like to live right in between Ina and the Pioneer Woman with maybe Martha the next block over....I don't clean enough for Martha to live next door.

I trust Ina....and this recipe is no exception.  I've made them several times and make the recipe exactly as she writes it.  No tweaking, no modifying....it's perfect.

Here is the recipe for the coconut cupcakes and the frosting in their original perfect state from Ina. (I did use large eggs instead of XL, but that was all I had on hand.)

{Just to give you an idea of how good it is.....the frosting starts like this:

....with 3 sticks of butter and a pound of cream cheese. Yep, it's good.}

For the holly, I planned to make fondant, but December 25th kept getting closer and closer.  I saw marzipan on the grocery store shelf and decided to give it a try.

You guys....it was EASY!!!  Marzipan is basically ground almonds and sugar.  Inside the box, it comes wrapped in a tube.

I divided it and used my AmeriColor Gel Paste food coloring in Super Red and Leaf Green to color it.  (I put my hands in baggies while kneading in the color because I didn't have any gloves....and we were going to a Christmas party and I didn't want to scare anyone with red & green hands.)

To shape the holly berries, I just pinched off pieces of the colored marzipan and rolled it into balls.  For the leaves, I rolled out the marzipan and used a tiny maple leaf cutter. Then with a paring knife, made the leaves a little more pointy.  I used the knife to make veins in the leaves as well.

Once formed, the marzipan can be left out at room temperature.

I do hope you had a HOLLY jolly Christmas. We did...and this picture about sums it up...

{Have a favorite from your holiday baking? Or a favorite from someone else? Feel free to leave a link in the comments.}

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Tuesdays At The Table - Snow Stacks

Did everyone have a good Christmas?  I hope so!

In honor of the ginormous snowstorm here in the North East, I'm sharing snow stacks this week.  I've heard them called other things, but given that we've gotten almost two feet of snow - and that I had to hijack the computer at my parent's house because I don't have power at my house (and the fire department says not to expect it until at least mid-day tomorrow) - I'm just going to stick with "snow stacks".

Snow Stacks

2 Cups mini pretzel twists
2 Cups Golden Grahams
1 Cup Cashews
1 Bag White Chocolate Candy Melts (I use Wilton)

In a medium microwave safe bowl, slowly melt the white chocolate candy melts.  Mix in all other ingredients.  On a wax paper lined cookie sheet or tray - drop heaping spoonfuls.  (These spread, so leave plenty of room) Let set and eat!

What's cooking in your kitchen?

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Icing my Christmas Cake

Ta-dah!

As promised, here are the photos of my Christmas cake!  This is the first time I've actually done the whole marzipan and white icing thing - usually I just enjoy my fruit cakes plain.  But I've really, really wanted to try the proper white Christmas cake thing for ages, so I finally bit the bullet this year and did it!

Let's have a look at the steps I took.  (N.B. This is not intended to be a prescriptive how-to guide, just a record of how I did it).  I did a double layer of icing - one of marzipan, one of that rollable white icing.  I used the standard supermarket packets, but I guess if you were so inclined, you could go to a gourmet shop and get yourself an expensive brand.  If that makes you feel better.  But I don't think anyone actually eats the icing anyway - blergh - so I don't see the point.

Here's the cake... it's interesting that after a couple of weeks all wrapped it, the top got a bit smoother than when it was first baked.

I think you're meant to slice the top flat, but I didn't want to lose any cake, so I left it as it was.  (You'll see that the finished product at the top is a bit bumpy, but I didn't mind).  I filled in some of the holes with little balls of marzipan...

... rolled out the marzipan...

...and draped it (rather messily) over the cake.  I wonder if having a bumpy layer of marzipan defeats the purpose of having marzipan at all.  Oops.

I let it dry out overnight, and then draped a layer of the white icing over the top.  You're meant to dust the work surface with icing sugar, but I was doing it at my parents' house and they didn't have any, so I used castor sugar.  It actually gave the finished cake a sparkly, shiny effect, like snow!

And as I was only doing an 18cm cake, there was quite a bit of leftover icing...

Cutting out shapes

The only festive cookie-cutters that my mum has are a bell, a Christmas tree, and a mini gingerbread dude, so I used them, attaching the shapes to the side of the cake with a little water.

And that was it!  I let it dry out for a bit longer, and we had the cake for dessert at our family's Boxing Day turkey dinner.  (To be blogged soon!)  My niece said the cake looked cute, not like one of those "classy cakes" that you'd be afraid to slice into, hehe.

Here's what it looks like on the inside...

The cake was good, not great.  I found it very sweet, and slightly too fruity.  I prefer my Christmas cake to have a bit more crumb to it.  (I do realise this is in direct contrast to my comments on our Christmas pudding this year, which I thought was too cakey and not fruity enough!)  I guess I like my cakes and puddings to be true to their original nature.

Even though I can't say I'm a huge fan of Nigella's classic Christmas cake, I'm glad I tried it once.  Next year I am definitely going back to Nigel Slater's wonderful Christmas cake.

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