Holidays 2010

Christmas is over for another year. I have been so busy and unmotivated that I have not been posting anything. I did make some great goodies this year that everyone loved. I am glad that I decided to go the food gift route this year because we had no money and no time for store-bought gifts.

This year I made Fruit Gelées from Not So Humble Pie. These were my great triumph this year as I had never made anything like it before. They came out perfect! I want to make them again and again because it was so easy and so awesome. I did take some photos with my phone so they are only ok.



By the way, do not do what I did and scatter extra sugar on the bottom of the container. Even though I *know* sugar sucks up moisture (after watching years of Good Eats how could I not know!) I added more to the bottom. Two days later when I was ready to make up my gifts there was a layer of goo at the bottom because the sugar and moisture in the air made a thick syrup. I salvaged as much as I could, not wanting to give my friends sticky candy, and only threw out about a third of what I made.

I am very excited to try making these again. I need to find a good place to buy pectin at a reasonable price because I don't think more than $5 a box is reasonable when I need two for the recipe.


My gifts this year had a yellow theme apparently. Also included in my gift boxes this year were these Lemon Burst Cookies. These cookies were delicious and delightfully fragrant. I do not own any fruit extracts so I made up the difference with extra zest and extra juice. The photo for these came out better than the candy photo.



Unfortunately I over baked one batch of these cookies. Fortunately it didn't make much of a difference in taste, they were just a bit darker. These were a big hit and I recommend anyone who enjoys lemon to make them. Also it is a good idea to chill the dough before rolling in the powdered sugar, it will be less sticky.

You have to have fudge for Christmas. I think it is a rule somewhere. I tried two fudge recipes. One failed and one surpassed my expectations. The first recipe I tried was Chocolate Philadelphia Fudge which sounded great. Why not replace the marshmallow creme with cream cheese, sounds delicious, right?

This did not come out right at all. If you click on the link and check out their photos, it looks like real fudge. Here is a photo of how mine looked.



It came out really light colored and did not set up at all. Furthermore it didn't taste very good which is odd because it is basically chocolate cream cheese frosting. I don't know what I did wrong but even freezing this fudge didn't help. I had to throw it out. If anyone decided to make this, please let me know the result.

My second fudge recipe came on the back of a baking bar that I bought to make the Philly fudge with. I do not remember the company but I think it was Tollhouse or Nestle. Here is the recipe for the fudge, it is very simple.

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces semi sweet chocolate, chopped*
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Combine condensed milk and chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave on high for one minute**
Stir and microwave 15 seconds more if needed.
Stir in vanilla a pour into an 8X8 pan lined with foil***
Refrigerate at least 2 hours until firm.

*I used chocolate chips because that is what I had on hand
**Don't worry the chocolate won't burn
***The recipe calls for a loaf pan but I felt that would make really thick fudge so I used a larger pan

Sadly, I have no photos of the yummy fudge but it did come out excellent and is my new favorite recipe. I used it to make, not only regular fudge, but chocolate mint fudge as well by using the dark and mint chips from Nestle. They were very well received.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and great food!

Sam

Thanksgiving

I freaked out a little bit yesterday when I realized Thanksgiving was a mere two weeks away! How did this happen? Somehow it is almost Christmas! I am really looking forward to the holidays this year because last year my dad was sick and in the hospital and our holidays kind of sucked. I told my mom we should go all out this year (at least with the decorations around the house) and she agreed! I am anticipating some fun days of decorating ahead.

For Thanksgiving this year we are most likely celebrating with some of my parents' friends and some of their family. This means that we will be making more food and my mom and I are going to be perfectionists in the kitchen. We are also having some non-traditional foods this year.

We are making a goose instead of a turkey and I am really excited to try goose as I have never had it before. Along with that we may be making some sort of fish as a second main course. We plan to roast vegetables and make traditional stuffing. Since the Cinnamon Pear Bruschetta was such a hit I am making that again for dinner. I knew when I made the Brownie Cheesecake that I wanted to make a pumpkin version for Thanksgiving and I found the exact recipe that I needed. Now that we are having dinner with others I have to get candy melts and decorate the cheesecake, but that is OK by me! For a second dessert I want to make these Apple Tarts. They are from Alton Brown so you know they will be good and easy to make.

I think we are going to end up with way too much food but I also think it is going to be a lot of fun. I only know these friends of my parents' in passing but they sound like good people. You can bet that I am going to be taking photos galore so there will be plenty to see in a few weeks.

On a slightly related note: this upcoming week KOST 103.5 should start their 'Month Long of Christmas Song'. I am of course more than ready to start listening to more Christmas music. Brandon is less than enthused. He knows that whenever we are in the car, whether in our car or in my mom's car, that station will be on and we will be singing along with Bing and Nat and everyone else. I <3 Christmas!

Pear Cake

Remember this? I knew I wanted to bake a pear version of this cake and one day while I was out shopping I found a bag of bartlett pears for $0.97! They were smaller than the ones I usually bought but the bag had enough in it to make up for size. So I ate a few and let the rest ripen just for this cake recipe.

As I was gathering all of the ingredients for the cake I noticed that I probably did not have enough white sugar to fulfill the two cups needed. Luckily I did have an even one cup so I used brown sugar for the other cup.

What an amazing difference! This cake was waaaaay better than the peach version and the brown sugar was the only difference. This cake is so tasty and tastes just like fall. Perfect way to start the season.

I posted this recipe on The Pioneer Woman's website, Tasty Kitchen, so I am going to make you go to that site for the actual recipe. I urge you all to make this cake and then serve it warm, perhaps with some vanilla ice cream. But for now you can see some photos of this lovely cake.

Blogging and Baking

All of the baking I have been doing to keep this blog moving forward (as well as keep me happy) has really made me want to work in the food industry. The problem is, I don't want to work in a restaurant or a bakery or a grocery store.

What I really want to do is to be able to sell baked goods out of my home. Just a small business that I would be able to keep up with by myself.

I don't know if this is ever going to be something that I can achieve but it is a goal of mine.