Holidazed

The Holiday Celebrations are continuing apace and I've been feeling a bit like our tree-topper.

Green chopstick to the rescue. Stiffen up that spine and carry on.

Korben decided that the only decoration that needed to be fought with were the Santa hats.

The usual Cioppino for Christmas Eve.

The cats were having fun under the tree so we didn’t put any presents out until the last second.

DS Alex gave us a lovely ceramic skull, almost life-sized.

Korben enjoyed the furry tops of the empty stockings.

Honey baked spiral ham is the traditional Christmas Day feast at my parent’s house.

The other hit present was a new spaghetti strainer (FSM approved), combined here with the skull that probably needs a name.

I made “modern” almond spritz cookies because I ran out of time to cool the dough enough to use in the cookie press.

And now we’re enjoying spending time with my brother and his son at my parent’s house.

Pshew! a lot of fun stuff but not enough time for sewing. Tomorrow hopefully 🤞 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all!

I am resolution-free as of the moment, although that may change.

This is a picture of the cake I made for the Winter Solstice this year. It is a conglomeration of a few recipes and I'm going to write it out here so I can make it again because it was worthy of being enjoyed for many more years. Someday I will successfully turn out a bundt cake without it breaking, but alas, it was not to be, luckily that does not affect the taste.

So...the recipe along with my best-wishes for a wonderful new year:

Cranberry Almond Mandarin Bundt Cake

Ingredients:
3 Large Eggs
1.5 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup + 2T Butter, melted
1t Baking Powder
1/2t Salt
1.5 Cups Cake Flour
2 1/3 Cups Chopped Almonds
1.5 Cups Whole Fresh Cranberries
1 Cup Satsuma Mandarins, peeled, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350F

Beat eggs, gradually adding the sugar.
Continue to beat while adding the melted butter.
Add flour, salt, baking powder, missing until well-blended.
Stir in the almonds, gently mix in the cranberries and mandarins.

Pour/Press mixture into spray-oiled bundt pan.

Bake for approximately 50 minutes., use the toothpick test to check.

Frosting:
Combine
2T melted butter
1 Cup Confectioner's Sugar

Add in 1/2 t Lemon Extract
1T Limoncello
1 T Key West Lime Juice

Mix until smooth. Drizzle over cake.
Decorate as desired.

Apple Surplus

We have too many apples around here.
I shouldn't complain, but I can only eat so many fresh apples.
They are taking over the kitchen.
They fill an entire drawer in the fridge.
They fill several big bowls out on the counter.
There are still more on the trees in my yard.

So what to make with them?

I'm not up to making applesauce (not this week, hopefully that will change soon), so I thought I'd bake something, that wasn't a pie.

I chose a cinnamon roll dough recipe from my breadmaker cookbook, it is a simple sweet dough recipe. I love making dough in the breadmaker, so easy. This dough turned out really lovely. I rolled it out into a big rectangle, and filled it up with sliced apples which had been mixed with cinnamon and brown sugar. Rolled it up into a big loaf pinching the edges closed. Brushed the top with a beaten egg, sprinkled some more cinnamon and sugar on top.
After baking, here is what it looked like. Pretty gigantic, and man did it ever smell good.

Here's what it looked like inside.

Yummmm.

Alex said "Mom this smells better than Cinnabon at the mall." High compliment indeed.

It only used up six apples though.

Halp!