Christmas Baking!

Merry Christmas, lads and lasses.
I must confess I haven't been up to much that I deem blog-worthy lately. I've been going to work dinners, making weekly trips to the post office taking long evening walks before the winter winds begin to howl. I feel that I must take advantage of the nice weather while it lasts. I've been really lucky so far with how nice the weather has been... I fear that mentioning it will jinx it and it'll be nothing but heaps of snow for the next 6 months, but... I'll take that chance right now.

Well, now that I think about it, there was some excitement downtown that I came across on my way to the post office... there was a building on fire and a growing crowd out front. I could hear the sirens approaching and snapped the photo before getting out of the way of the en route firefighters. I will never understand why people feel the need to drive closely to such things, especially when you can HEAR that help is on the way and would be able to get much closer if your stupid little kei car wasn't in the way.

... but I digress.

I feel like celebrating Christmas this year, wished that I had my wee xmas tree. Especially when a gift arrived for me and I realized I had nowhere to put it until the 25th. I dressed my Jade plant, Charlie, with some baubles that I had around. 2 were sent to me by Stace last year. I'm looking forward to seeing what Brittany sent me, but I also can't help but feel loved when I look at it. Thanks, ladies.
I can't bring myself to spending money on decorations, I'm far too thrifty for that. Besides, why buy when I can use things around the house that I've gotten from friends and family. I knew there was a reason why I decided to hang onto the xmas cards I got last year.

Now, the reason we've gathered here today...

While dressing up my living quarters I was struck with the realization that, unless I made some myself, I would have to go another year without any Christmas pudding. That simply wouldn't do.

Christmas Pudding (1/2 recipe)

Pudding Ingredients:

65g Carrots: grated
90g Potato: peeled and shredded

70g all purpose flour

65g white sugar

65g butter

85g raisins

3g (1tsp) baking soda

1g (1tsp) ground cinnamon

1g (1tsp) ground all spice

1g (1tsp) ground clove

Method:

1) In a small bowl grate potato and mix in baking soda

2) In a large bowl mix everything else, then add in the potato/backing soda.

3) Heat about 2" of water in a large pot, pour the mix into a jar/can/cake pan, cover with wax paper and place it in the pot of water. Steam for 2 hours.

Sauce Ingredients:

65g butter

70ml milk (it called for heavy whipping cream, but I used homo milk from school lunch and yogurt. :P)

65g white sugar

4ml vanilla extract

Method:

Thicken over heat with corn starch. 

Serve hot. Yum yum!

I've made 2, now, the 2nd time I substituted the butter with 1/4 C of apple sauce for a fat-free version (without the sauce, obviously. Deeeeelicious!)

White Chocolate Macadamia nut cookies

Ingredients (makes 2 doz)

1/2 C butter, softened
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1/4 C white sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C chopped white chocolate
1/2 C coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract

Method:

1) Preheat oven 350F (175C)

2) In a large bowl cream butter, brown sugar & white sugar until smooth. Beat in egg, then stir in vanilla and almond extracts.

3) Combine flour, baking soda & salt, then slowly stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in the nuts and chocolate. Drop dough on ungreased cookie sheets.

4) Bake for 10 mins or until golden brown.

Peanut Butter Cookies (makes 3 dozen)

Ingredients

2 C peanut butter
2 C white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
1 pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1) Preheat oven @ 350F (175C), grease cookie sheets

2) In a medium bowl, stir peanut butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in baking soda, talk and vanilla extract.

3) Roll dough into 1 inch balls, then space evenly (app 2" apart) on the cookie sheet. Press crisscross pattern with a fork.

4) Allow to cool approx 5 minutes before moving from cookie sheet to cooling rack.

Annnnnd finally, what my most favoritest of favourite things my Mummy bakes:

Gramma Boone's butter tart filling recipe!

Butter Tart filling (makes 20 small tarts, I did a half recipe for a small pie shell)

Ingredients:

2 C raisins

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1C brown sugar

1/4 C melted butter

Method:

1) Plump raisins in hot water, then drain

2) Preheat oven 350F (175C)

3) Mix everything in a bowl, pour mixture into shell(s), bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

So... now you know what you're getting for Christmas, hope you're not too mad that I've spoiled the surprise. ;)

I promised my friend at work that I would bring in some Christmas pudding on boxing day to share with everyone. She seems SUPER excited to try it, and that was just from some pictures that I sent her.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and all the best in 2014!

My first resolution is to make ginger snap cookies. I hope one of the import stores carries molasses!