Back to It

Hello and Happy New Year to you!  I know I’m a little late saying that, but up until last week, I was still sick with that annoying bug that I had last time I was here.  It has been a long time since I was sick for that length of time and towards the end, I must admit, I was losing my patience with it.  Anyway, I am feeling much better now and really glad to get back to things that got neglected while I was sick.

The first is this Nor’easter sweater by Thea Colman.  I started this back in September with the goal of finishing by Christmas.

Well, it didn’t quite happen.  While I was sick, there were whole days that went by without knitting a single stitch of anything.  However, a week and a half ago, when we were expecting a big snowstorm, I pulled it out and decided to try to finish it.  I had the entire yoke and collar left.

By this past weekend, I had made it to the collar, woohoo!

And now it’s all done, yay!  Well, almost.   There are a couple of things I have to do first.  First, I need to pick buttons.

Awhile ago, I was helping a friend clean out her apartment for a move, and she gave me her entire button collection.  What a treasure trove!

After spending some time digging through them, I chose four options.

Which do you think?

There’s also a little problem with one of the sleeves.

See that funny line of knitting in the middle of the sleeve?  The yarn went all weird and wiry there.  In true denial fashion, I kept knitting, thinking that maybe it would correct itself in the blocking.  As you can see, it did not.  So, my next plan is to do a duplicate stitch over that section because the last thing I want to do is rip out the sleeve.

After finishing the knitting on this one, I felt that maybe I could ride this finishing wave, and I got out all my other wintery sweater projects that are in progress.

This is Strokkur by Ysolda Teague.  The bottom of the body is done and is awaiting sleeves to go on.  I also need to choose two out of the three colors in the photo to use for the colorwork yoke.  I think I’m leaning towards pink and white.

This is Boreal by Kate Davies, also awaiting sleeves in order to move on.

Do you see a theme?

I must really want a dark grey yoked sweater very badly, but I guess I don’t like to knit sleeves!  Well, we have another little snowstorm coming soon, so maybe I can use that to make a little more progress on one of these.

Or maybe not.  Because I have been into starting new projects lately.  More on these later.

How’s your 2018 going so far?

Limping Along

This past week I have been sick, not horribly so, but sick enough that I’m not getting much sleep and daily activities seem to require a lot of effort.  The kind of sick that requires lots of over the counter measures and an all day supply of hot tea to be functional.  Germs don’t really care if you have 20 dozen cookies you want to bake or gifts that need to be bought or loaves of bread to bake.  They just come on in and take over your life when they feel like it and we just have to sit back and watch it happen. What little energy I have, has been devoted to baking.  The house is a mess, no presents have been wrapped, and meal planning for the holidays has been almost nonexistent.  I did buy a ham.  That should feed us for a couple days.  We’ll survive on cookies and ham this Christmas.

The boys were a big help to me over the weekend when we baked up cookies for packages that needed to be sent and for a cookie exchange.

Most of these doughs were made and frozen before I got sick and they just required cutting, decorating, and baking.  Then, when the pizzelle maker came out of the pantry, the husband got in on the action as well.

Making pizzelles is a four person operation: one to scoop (that was me), one to time, one to remove the cookies, and the last one to cool and pack them.

The boys also did most of the packing up.

We put each type of cookie in its own tin  so that flavors and moisture levels don’t mingle.  Then the boys bagged up a lot of cookies and packed up the boxes we wanted to mail out.

Which reminds me that I never announced the winner of my giveaway!  It was  Sara, also known as crazysheeplady on Instagram.  She has a great blog called Punkin’s Patch where she documents her life as a sheperdess.  Hopefully, her package will get there in the next day or so.  Thank you to everyone who entered!

Once those cookie boxes were sent out (also known as stage 1 of Christmas baking), I turned my attention to stage 2: breads.  First on the agenda was Panettone.

I make these every year with the same recipe.  The only thing I change is to substitute candied chestnuts for half of the fruit/candied peel mixture.  This year I also decided not to do the glaze.  It’s very messy and stuff falls everywhere when you turn them upside down to hang.  I just sprinkle them with a little pearl sugar and it looks pretty enough for me.  This year, I also tried a version with dried pear and chocolate.  We’re looking forward to trying that one.

One advantage to being sick and homebound is that it has allowed me to develop a rolling schedule for feeding the starter and building these bread doughs.  If I time it right, I can bake a pandoro in the morning and a panettone in the evening.  Of course, last night’s pandoro did not rise in our cold kitchen, so it is getting some remedial time in our furnace room which is the warmest room in the house.

Hopefully, these will turn out well and we’ll have some yummy bread to go with our cookies and ham.  Maybe I should try to cook something red or green, too.  How about these.  Would these count as a vegetable?

I thought we were done with cookies, but I had to squeeze these in for my younger son.  I’ll tell you the story next time!

Hope your holiday preparations are humming along!  What are your strategies for getting it all done when time is running out?

Almost Last Minute

Is it just me or does time speed up in December?  I always start off with grand plans and lists and intentions, but halfway through the month, it seems I have barely made a dent in all the things I would like to do.  I’m sure there are many of you who feel the same way.  This is the point in which we have to make peace with not getting everything done and buying some gift cards.  It’s the though that counts and I’m not just saying that.  I know I’m not the only one with a list of people to get gifts for and for half of them I can’t think of anything to get.  I spend a lot of time racking my brain over these people and, if nothing has come to mind by this time of the month, gift cards are a wonderful invention.  That leaves me some spare time to try to finish off my Christmas baking wish list, yay.

The last time we talked, my list was really long.  Unfortunately, it only got longer and now has reached the point where it has to be trimmed.  I can’t make everything I’ve made in previous years AND add a few new things I’ve been itching to try.  Mostly, I am now baking whatever I feel like baking, because I really believe that if one is going to bake during this crazy season, it better be something you REALLY want to make.

Unfortunately, as sometimes happens when trying new things, the new stuff does not always work out the way we wish they would.  Like these Lebkuchen.

I had high hopes for this recipe since I love this cookie.  I made a recipe last year that was quite good and I  thought this one would be better and more authentic.  This year’s recipe is from Classic German Baking, which I mentioned last week.

There is no flour or leavening in this recipe and, as a result, what you you put into the oven is what you get when they come out.  They do not spread much or change really.  The dough was pretty sticky and hard to spread onto the papers, so that made for lumpy bumpy cookies.  I thought maybe the glaze would help its looks, but no.  The glaze was also a pain to apply evenly.  They taste ok, but I’ll just say that next I will go back to the recipe I made last year.  At least I got some good quality time with this cutie pie who helped me assemble them.

After that disappointment, I moved on to a new cookbook with some great Christmas recipes, Sweet by Helen Goh and Yotan Ottolenghi.  This is the book the husband used last week for me birthday cake.  I wanted to try the Soft Gingerbread tiles with Rum Butter glaze.

After I figured out how best to use the cookies stamps with this dough (coat them with a light film of oil for each cookie), these were fun to make, especially since I had some help from the husband.  The dough is easiest to handle when chilled and rolled between sheets of parchment.  I also found that the rum butter glaze was best applied by dipping the cookies into the glaze rather than brushing each cookie individually.  These might be our new favorite gingerbread cookie.  I love the look of the stamped ones, but I want to make another batch in some other shapes, too.  Maybe I’ll be able to get to that this weekend.

I’ve also got my sweet sourdough starter going to prep for pandoro and panettone baking next week.  On a whim yesterday, I decided to try out a sourdough kugelhopf recipe instead of discarding the unused portion of the starter.  I wasn’t sure if it would work because I have a stiff starter, whereas the recipe calls for a liquid one.  I just made up the difference in weight with water and a little extra flour.  The dough came together quite well.

However, it didn’t seem like it was very active for a long time, even after I transferred it to the pan for its last, long rise.  It seems, though, that a watched dough doesn’t rise.  I just had to ignore it for a few hours and it rose just fine.  It did take a couple extra hours, but our house is pretty cold, so that does not surprise me.  Once baked, it looked great.

What I was really impressed with, though, was the crumb structure.  It’s spongy, but firm, elastic, and yet sort of cakey, moist, and fine textured.  It was a little tangy from the sourdough and just a little sweet.  The bits of rum soaked fruit was a perfect complement.

It was so good, I decided to make another one today.  I love it when experiments work out like this!

Now that time is getting short, I don’t know how much more I will be able to get done before Christmas.  But, I’ve promised you a giveaway so I’m just going to keep it simple this year.  Leave me a comment on this post by midnight this Saturday, December 16, and I will randomly pick one winner to receive a box of goodies to be shipped on Monday, December 18th.  This giveaway is limited to United States addresses.  Only one comment per person, please!  Tell me what you’re doing to get ready for the holidays.  Are you baking a lot?  Shopping?  Making any gifts?  Trying to get over a cold (as some in our house are doing) or avoid illness (the others in our house are doing this)?  I’ve been tempted to go on a diet in preparation for the holiday week of treats, but it’s hard to do that with all the baking that is happening here!

 

Underway

Ok, after my head start last week on Christmas baking, things stalled for a few days while we were busy with other things.  One of these things involved a fantastic cake made by the husband!

This is the Blackcurrant cake from Sweet by Helen Goh and Yotam Ottolenghi. The cake is made in a big sheet pan and then cut into strips.

The strips are spread with buttercream and then rolled up into one big spiral.  The result is a small, tall, and incredibly cute cake.

Here’s what it looks like when you cut it open.

Isn’t it fun?  And it was tasty as well.  We did not have blackcurrants, so we used some strawberry peach jam instead.  The jam made it extra sweet, so next time I would try to pick something that has more tart than sweet flavors.  A lemon curd would be yummy or, better yet, passionfruit!

After we polished off that cake (It didn’t take long; the cake is only 5.5 inches in diameter), I continued my Christmas baking with a new bread recipe from the Bake from Scratch magazine.  Have you heard of this magazine?  I first came across it a couple of years ago and was taken in by the great photos and feature articles.  The current issue has an article about Christmas wreath breads, and you know how much I love sweet bread recipes!  That, and the fact that a few of them are Scandinavian inspired, just compelled me to buy the issue just to try them.  The first one is a twist on a Norwegian Julekake.  It has a cranberry jam swirl that is made by prepping the dough cinnamon bun style.  Then you slice it in half lengthwise and twist it to make this pretty shape.

The recipe called for candied lemon peel, but we thought that chocolate would go well with the cranberry.  From what I understand, a Julekake is usually made in a boule shape and is studded with dried and candied fruits and peels, so this is quite a “twist” on that traditional bread!

The dough was wonderful to work with and gave me no trouble at all.  I doubled the recipe and made three loaves.  The bread is beautiful once baked, and is wonderfully scented with cardamom.  Sadly, two of the loaves are a little over baked.  After a year and a half, I still feel like I am getting to know my oven.  This time, I learned that I can’t bake two large loaves side by side in the oven or else the edges will burn.  This is actually probably true of most ovens.  If you don’t leave enough room for air to circulate around your pans, you get uneven baking (sad face).

Anyway, the bread is supposed to get an icing, which I will do when I serve it to a larger group, but for now, it is perfect with a cup of tea or coffee at breakfast! That’s all the baking for now, but I have done some prep work for future baking.  I had to make a new batch of candied orange peel because a batch I made earlier had gone moldy (another sad face here).  Also, I was able to find a really nice buddha’s hand citron over the weekend, so I made some candied citron as well.

Some of you may remember that I usually do a giveaway this time of year with a 12 days of Christmas theme with 12 posts.  I’m not sure that I can do 12 posts this year because of our crazy school and sports schedule, but I still plan to do a giveaway.  More details soon, so stay tuned!

 

Advent Season

Hello friends!  It’s been a crazy busy couple of months here as we continue to adjust to our high school/middle school schedule.  We were not prepared for the increased work load and all the issues that come with that.  It kind of threw us all off mentally and left hardly any time for extra things, especially during the week.  Oddly enough, now that the older one is swimming 2 hours everyday, our schedule seems to be settling down.  Maybe he just needed regular exercise to help his mind focused?  Or maybe we’ve all just adjusted our expectations.  Anyway, I’ll take it and run with it for now!

And now, it’s time for Christmas baking to begin!  Squeee!!!  I’m super excited this year for all the baking.  I think the early Thanksgiving holiday really helped us to get a head start on all things Christmas.  Already this week, I have tried three new cookie recipes:

Pfeffernusse from Classic German Baking by Louisa Weiss

Springerle, also from Classic German Baking

and Bakery Style Butter Cookies from Deb Perelman at Smitten Kitchen

I have literally been waiting for months since I got Classic German Baking to start baking some of the recipes in the Christmas chapter.  I love that that she has a special section for Christmas!  I chose to make Pfeffernusse and Springerle first because they are long keepers.  In fact, they are supposed to get better as they age.  This is perfect for including in packages that might go a long distance, like to a different country.  Neither one of these cookies has any butter in them, which makes them a different texture than most cookies out there, but we don’t mind that.  Actually, it’s probably better for our waistlines at this moment!  Both cookies are really yummy.

The Pfeffernusse are like a dry, bready, and chewy gingerbread.  The lemon glaze on that one really compliments the cookie well.  It was a very stiff dough. Next time, I might try a cake flour to get a softer dough.

We also made Springerle last year, but I used a different recipe, which I actually like better.  These are drier, but that could be because I baked them too long.  Next time, I will pull them out earlier.  That being said, those of us who like anise, preferred this recipe.  I preferred the fruity/floweryness of the recipe from King Arthur Flour.

The third cookie I made mostly because I had two egg yolks lying around and a container of sprinkles I wanted to use up.  These were a bit of a fiasco to make, only because of my choice of equipment.  I did not have a big star tip for piping and I actually dislike piping anyway (it hurts my hands).  Instead, I decided to use my cookie press.  We had a hard time getting them to press out evenly (a lot of them curled into strange shapes) and making them a uniform size was also quite challenging.  Not to mention, loading the press was a three person job (one to unscrew it, one to hold it, and then one to fill it).  Good thing there were three of us!  Anyway, despite all that, they are quite delicious.  I could do without the chocolate dip and sprinkles.  I left some plain, with just jam sandwiched between and those were my favorite.  The kids prefer the sprinkled ones, so everyone is happy, really.

This is a great start to the Christmas baking season.  There’s still a lot left.  So far, we are up to 9 different breads/pastries and 10 different kinds of cookies.  We just need to add a few more and we’d have enough to populate an advent calendar!