I think I found my Christmas Baking Mojo today . . .  I've spent the whole day immersed in sugar and flour and eggs and Christmas Carols . . . as memories of Christmas Past played around in my head like sugar plums.  Christmas has landed, and not a moment too soon!



My mother didn't bake an awful lot at Christmas time when we were growing up but we could always rely on a few things that she would bake each year . . . it was the only time we would have these baked treats, and we all looked forward to them.  I plan on sharing them with you over the next few days.  I am sure you all have in your main ingredients for your Christmas Lunch (dinner) and so these posts are just for fun.  You may see something that may inspire you to bake an additional treat at the last minute, or you may not.

 

These Feather Squares are exceptional and something that if you were to ask each of us what our favourite Christmas Treat is they would be if not at the top, very close to the top of the goodie list, their only drawback being that they are not something which keeps for very long.  Usually only about a day or two at the most.  They are fabulous though, and it just would not have been Christmas in our home without them . . . and even today I find myself wanting to bake them sometime during the last day or two before Christmas.

 

Really I should keep them for baking on Christmas Eve . . . but the child in me just cannot wait to dig into them.  You have a traditional plain buttery sponge cake base . . . baked until golden brown, but still moist, and then slathered all over with sweet raspberry jam . . . (Oh I do love my jam!)  Then the jam layer is covered with a beautiful marshmallow-like soft meringue, and sprinkled with flaked coconut.



Banged back into the oven to brown the coconut and meringue . . . so that it looks like a field of  downy feathers . . . lightly browned and covering a fluffy blanket of snow . . . covering that jammy field of cake deliciousness.

 

Altogether . . . quite, quite blissful . . . and festive.

It just would NOT be Christmas in our home without them.  A tradition we can not give up.  Hoping that you will give them a go and enjoy them as well.



*Mom's Christmas Feather Squares*
Serves 12
Printable Recipe

When I was growing up, I knew that when these delicious bars were in the larder, Christmas could not be too far behind.  Christmas was the only time my mother made these and we certainly looked forward to seeing them every year.  A moist and delicious cake type base covered with sweet raspberry preserves and a lovely meringue topped with toasted coconut on top make these holiday winners!

4 TBS butter, softened
3 large eggs, the whites and yolks carefully separated and put into two different bowls
1 cup sugar, divided (190g, in two lots of 95g each)
2 TBS milk
1 tsp baking powder
1 TBS cornstarch
1 cup flour (140g)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup raspberry preserves (4 large dessertspoonfuls)
1 cup flaked sweetened coconut (75g)



Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/350*F.  Lightly butter an 8 inch square baking pan and dust with flour.  Set aside.

Cream together the butter and 1/2 cup of sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time.  Stir in the vanilla.  sift together the flour, baking powder, cornstarch and salt.  Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk, mixing together until smooth.  Spread this mixture into the prepared pan.  Bake in the heated oven for 20 minutes, until lightly browned and the top springs back when lightly touched.  Remove from the oven and immediately spread with the raspberry jam.  

Beat the egg whites until foamy.  Continue to beat, adding the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar slowly until the mixture it stiff and glossy.  Spread this over the top of the jam and sprinkle with the coconut.  Return to the oven and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes, until golden brown and the coconut is toasty.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool before cutting into squares with a wet knife. 

 

When the children were growing up I used to spend weeks and weeks baking ahead for Christmas.  There would be seemingly no end to the goodies I prepared.   Cookies, squares, tea breads and cakes . . . mince pies.  Then there would be fudge and peanut butter balls, butter tarts, logs . . . each one being a labor of love and wrapped tenderly after baking . . .  and then frozen in preparation for the big day.



We always had lots of family around for the holidays and I liked to gift special friends with some of the goodies as well, and had a lot of people that would drop in over the holidays . . . so it all got used.  |Nothing ever went to waste.



Now there is just the two of us . . . and not much call for a lot of Christmas baking.  There are still a few things I like to make though, which we will enjoy a portion of and the rest be gifted out.  It's nice to gift people with Christmas baking . . . and is always well received and appreciated.



I tend to pick and choose these days when it comes to my Christmas baking.  I love the spicy things most of all . . . mince pies, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake . . . and these tasty little bar cookies.  Hermit Cookies . . . delicately spiced, moist and chewy.

 

This particular version are baked as logs which are then cut into bars.  Oh so tender and moist and filled with lots of chopped sultanas and candied ginger root.  Easy to make and quick to do as well, as you bake them as an entire log and then cut them into bars after baking, cooling and drizzling with a tangy lemon or orange glaze.

 

Moist and chewy from the fruit, they are a real treat during the holidays!  I enjoyed a few this afternoon with a nice hot cup of herbal candy cane tea in my new tea mug . . . and early gift to myself from Susan Branch.   Somehow I think it added to the tastiness of my afternoon break.

 

I just love the holidays, don't you??

 

*Hermit Cookies*
Makes 1 1/2 dozen cookies
Printable Recipe

Chewy and incredibly moist.  The best hermit cookie ever. You need to start these the day before you plan on baking them, so plan accordingly.

150g of sultana raisins (1 cup)
2 TBS crystallized Ginger-root, finely chopped
8 TBS unsalted butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground allspice
200g plain flour (2 cups)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
150g of soft dark brown sugar
75ml of golden syrup
75ml of dark treacle
(For these you can substitute an equal amount of mild molasses, 125ml or 1/2 cup)
2 large free range eggs

For the glaze:
1 1/2 TBS lemon or orange juice
100g of icing sugar, sifted (3/4 cup)

 

Place the butter in a saucepan and heat over medium low heat until it is nut brown in color, swirling occasionally.  Don't let it burn.  Add the cinnamon and all spice.  Heat until it is fragrant.  Set aside to cool. 

Place the sultanas and ginger root into the bowl of your food processor.  Blitz until they are finely chopped, and the mixture begins to stick together.  They should be only small pieces.  Stir in the butter mixture.  Set aside.

Whisk together the flour, soda, salt and brown sugar in a large bowl, breaking up any lumps in the sugar.   Beat the eggs and syrup/treacle into the butter mixture.  Add all at once to the flour mixture and stir together until well combined.  The mixture will be quite sticky.  Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.  I like to leave it overnight.

The next day, preheat your oven to `80*C/350*F/ gas mark 5.  Line two large baking sheets with baking parchment.  Divide the chilled dough into 4 equal sized pieces.  Roll each piece into a 10 inch long log with your hands, on top of a lightly floured surface.  Place two logs each on one of the lined baking sheets, leaving plenty of space in between for spreading.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until only a shallow indentation remains on the edges when lightly touched.  Switch and rotate the baking sheets after 10 minutes.  They should still look soft in the centre.  Allow to cool on the baking sheets for five minutes, then slip the parchment off onto wire racks and allow to cool completely.

Whisk the glaze ingredients together until smooth and drizzable.  Drizzle over the cookie logs.  Allow to set and harden.   Cut the logs into 2 inch bars.  Store in an airtight container for up to five days at room temperature.

I have never been much of a bread maker.   Bread and I don't get along very well, and that is kind of sad to me . . . for after all, isn't bread considered to be the "Staff of Life?"

I don't make bread, I make doorstops.  Nice, heavy, doorstops.



Point in case, yesterday . . . I thought I would make this lovely cardamom scented vanilla bread, but by heck, what did I end up with?????



A lovely cardamom scented door stop.  The only thing missing was the handle.



I'm not sure what my problem with bread is.  Oh, I make nice enough bread in the bread maker, but then the bread maker does all the work, I just dump the ingredients in, cross my fingers, and hope for the best!



I do make good biscuits though . . . and they are a form of bread.  Yesterday I dusted off an old recipe of mine, that I have had for donkey's . . .



After that first failure of the day, I just had to have some success at something . . . besides . . . I was hankering after bread.  And what's a gal to do when that happens . . . you bake biscuits, which are not bread . . . but are sometimes better than bread.  These are fabulous.  Especially when spread with cold butter whilst still warm from the oven.  Oh my . . . oh my . . .



*Cheddar Pan Biscuits*
Makes 12
Printable Recipe

Cheddar cheese and basil makes these home baked pan biscuits a tasty supper accompaniment.  They are wonderful with stews and soups, and incredibly good with cold meats and salads.  I guess they just go well with everything!

1/3 cup butter (75g)
2 1/4 cups flour (225g)
4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (1 cup)
(plus about 1 ounce more for sprinkling on at the end)
1 TBS baking powder
1 TBS sugar
1 tsp dried basil leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk (250ml)




Pre-heat the oven to 200*C/400*F/ gas mark 6.  Place the butter in an 8 inch square baking pan and set it into the oven to melt.  (3 to 5 minutes)  Remove from the oven and set aside.

Meanwhile whisk together the flour, cheese, baking powder, sugar, basil leaves and salt in a large bowl.  Add the milk and stir it in just until the mixture is moistened evenly.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead for a minute until smooth.  (about 6 or 7 turns)

Pat or roll the dough out to a 12 by 6 inch rectangle.  Cut into 12 1-inch wide strips.  Dip the strips into the melted butter in the pan, one at a time and then fold each strip in half.  Place the folded strips in 2 rows in the same pan as you have melted the butter in. Sprinkle the 1 ounce of shredded cheese evenly over top.

Bake for 23 to 28 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Serve warm with cold butter for spreading and enjoy!!

( a picture of our decorated lounge 2012)

If you're looking for a fabulous appetizer or spread for your party buffets and dinners this holiday season, look no further. This one is the best!  It's easy, impressive and quick to make . . . and it always goes down a real treat with anyone who tries it.  They always want the recipe.

 

I often made this as an appetizer for the many dinner parties I catered when I worked at the Manor.  It was a real favourite with my bosses and their guests.

 

It combines simple ingredients together to create a fabulous rich spread that goes very well on breadsticks, crackers, toasted baguettes . . . and I confess . . . spread onto celery sticks.  (A fab way to munch on the leftovers. )



You don't need to use best quality smoked salmon . . . I usually use the smoked salmon scraps you can buy in the shops.  You are going to chop it coarsely anyways, and the scraps are already chopped for you.

 

The leftovers are also fabulous spread onto slices of sour dough bread that you toast to a golden brown under the grill.  A squirt of lemon and a few grinds of pepper and you have a fabulous lunch . . . all the creamy pink deliciousness melting into the toasty crevices of the crunchy toast is quite, quite irresistible.



*Smoked Salmon Spread*
Makes 2 cups
Printable Recipe

This is the perfect Christmas treat.  Serve it with breadsticks, crackers or slices of toasted baguette.  Deliciously different!

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature (340g)
1/3 cup dairy sour cream (40g)
6 dashes of Tabasco sauce
1 TBS fresh lemon juice
3 spring onions, white and green parts, thinly sliced
3 TBS capers, rinsed and drained
8 ounces smoked salmon, coarsely chopped
3 TBS chopped fresh dill, or 1 TBS dried dill tops
fresh ground black pepper to taste
fresh dill to garnish

Put the cream cheese, sour cream, Tabasco sauce and lemon juice in a food processor.  Blitz to combine.  Add the spring onions, capers, salmon, chopped dill and pepper.  Pulse to blend.  Scrape into a serving bowl.  Garnish with the dill and serve chilled or at room temperature.  Fabulous!

 

I was recently sent some really nice things to do some Christmas baking with.



The first article was the Tala Beech Revolving Rolling Pin.  (Identical to above, except mine has pretty pale green handles).

Made from Solid Beech

Excellent for Non Stick Surfaces

Splinter Resistant

100% Pure, From well-managed forests

It really is a lovely rolling pin.  It moved easily with no effort at all and worked wonderfully.  If I had any complaint about it at all, it was that the product label was actually stuck to the rolling pin and I had to soak it to remove it.  I am not in the habit of washing my rolling pins.  I quite simply like to brush them off and rub them with a clean cloth when I am finished.  The label did eventually come off though and I will be able to keep seasoning it as I normally do.  It is really quite a nice rolling pin, and at £5.99 in most locations, very affordable and good quality for money spent.

 

The next article was this lovely set of Tala 4 Snowflake cutters.  All five fitting into a compact tin for storage.  They range in size from 1 1/2 inches in diameter to 3 inches in diameter.



They did a really lovely job of cutting out with really nice clear cuts and were very easy to use.  I was well impressed.  Sometimes cookie cutters with such intricate edges can be a bit difficult to use, with the dough catching into the edges and not wanting to be released.

 

As you can see this was definitely not a problem with these cutters.  Al;so reasonably priced at £6.99.  I was so excited at the lovely snowflake short-bread biscuits  I envisioned on serving up to guests over the holidays.  I thought they would be quite beautiful dusted with icing sugar using the Tala Sugar Shaker.


 Created in their retro style and made from Stainless Steel, this is a lovely Sugar Shaker, also very reasonably priced at £6.99.  I didn't get to use it though . . . because the stupid cookie recipe I decided to try was a real total flop.



It rolled out nice and cut nice and I thought they would be beautiful biscuits.  Alas when they were baking they spread out all over the pan and ended up hard and crisp and very horribly burnt in the time alloted.  I sure hope that the remainder of the recipes in this book are not as horribly out.  This one was a real loser. I was so disappointed not to mention annoyed at all that waste of butter and sugar.  I can only think that the proportion of butter to everything else was way out.

From now on I'll stick to my old reliable whipped short breads for my Christmas biscuits. They always turn out and are so easy to make.  Delicious too.



*Whipped Shortbreads*
Makes about 2 dozen
Printable Recipe

All the yumminess of shortbread cookies without any of the hassle of having to roll them out, etc.

8 ounces of butter (1 cup) room temperature
210g of plain flour (1 1/2 cups)
70g icing sugar (1/2 cup)

 

Preheat the oven to 180*C/350*F/ gas mark 4. Line several baking sheets with baking parchment. Set aside.

Place all of the ingredients into a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer for 10 minutes until light and fluffy. Drop by the teaspoon onto the baking sheets. (Leave about 2 inches of space in between each to allow for spreading.) Sprinkle the tops with a varieity or sprinkles or coloured sugars, or chopped green and red cherries.

Bake for about 17 minutes until the bottoms are coloured light brown. Allow to cool on the baking sheets. Store in an airtight container.

Many thanks to Eddingtons and Tala for sending me these lovely new baking tools.  I am going to use them all again before Christmas to bake some Gingerbread biscuits.  I can't wait!  They'll look lovely dusted with sugar I think.

 

There is something intrinsically soul enriching about a pot of homemade chicken soup. Something which speaks to the very essence of our being and at once nourishes as much as it comforts.  Homemade chicken soup is like a nice warm hug in a bowl.  I love it.

 

My mom has always been the consummate soup maker in the family.  She has always been able to make soup out of absolutely anything . . . and it's always fabulous.  Everything I know about making soup . . . I learned holding on to her apron strings.  When my marriage broke up some 14 years ago . . . I was living in a rented room in a strangers house . . . not a very nice time for me.  I was feeling very much unloved and estranged from my family.  It was early in the Canadian Winter . . . and I had a horrible cold.  I was sick, sick, sick.  My mom showed up with some of her homemade chicken soup and a hug and I instantly felt better.  Mom's and chicken soups . . . they just go together . . . kinda like peas and carrots.

 

They be perfect medicine for whatever ails you.  December this year has been a challenging month in many ways, not the least of which has been my mother being diagnosed with Lung Cancer . . . I'll be flying home to be with her soon . . . but in the mean time it is really hard to be so far away.  She who has always sustained me . . . is in need of some sustenance herself.  I am entering that stage of life which we all have to go through . . . that time where the child now becomes the parent . . . 



My good friend April posted this fabulous soup recipe  on her blog, Dimples & Delights the other day, and it was just the perfect thing for me to fall upon . . . just like a warm hug from a friend, which I very badly needed.  Sustenance for the soul.  It looked so good.  I just knew I had to make it . . . April is like a breath of fresh air to me.  We have never met in person, but I just adore her.  We have become kindred spirit friends, and even though I am old enough to be her mother . . . the scales of age just fell away from the get go . . . we be sistas!  I love it when that happens . . . it is a rare and beautiful thing, that instant connection.

 

I made her soup for us yesterday and . . .  at the risk of sounding like a mama bear . . . it was just  right . . . it was delicious . . . and very much like a warm hug.  I felt the love . . . beautiful.  The best part of all is it's delicious AND easy . . . and as you all know by now . . .  I am a rather lazy person.  I had to make a few adaptions due to a lack of availability of ingredients here in the UK.  We don't get frozen egg noodles here, in fact . . . I have never seen any kind of egg noodles here. I used potato gnocchi in stead. 



They enabled me to keep the integrity of the original recipe and also please my pasta hating husband.  Somehow he doesn't see gnocci as being pasta . . . and he loves a thick soup and this is just thick enough to be very pleasing to him.

 

In all to me . . . it was just like chicken pot pie . . . in soup form.  Wonderfully comforting and beautifully tasty!  Thanks April!  I know you think I could teach you a thing or two about cooking . . . but I want you to know that you have a few tricks up your beautiful sleeve to teach me too.

 

I love it when a friendship is a give/give thing, don't you?  Friendship, love . . .  and comfort in a bowl.  What a fabulous combination!

 

*Chicken and Gnocchi Soup*
Serves 4
Printable Recipe

A delicious soup based on a recipe from my good friend April.  It's mostly her recipe but with a few twists of my own due to unavailability of certain ingredients.

2 to 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 large brown onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 to 3 sticks of celery, washed, de-stringed and chopped
3 to 4 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds, about 1/4 inch thick
1 medium leek, trimmed, washed and cut into rounds (white and light green parts)
6 to 8 cups of chicken broth (I used the Knorr chicken stock pots, 3 in number plus 1 1/2 litre of boiling water)
2 TBS butter
2 TBS flour
1/2 tsp dried thyme
freshly ground black pepper
salt to taste (probably not necessary)
fresh chopped flat leaf  parsley
a couple large handfuls of potato gnocchi (1/2 of a 500g (1 1/4 lb) packet)

Place the chicken breasts in a pot along with the chicken stock pots and water.  Bring back to the boil, then reduce to a slow simmer and simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes, just until cooked through.  Remove the chicken from the broth and set aside.  Strain the broth through to a clean jug.  Shred the cooked chicken and reserve. Wash the pot and then return to the stove.  Add the butter and allow it to melt over medium low heat.  Add all of the vegetables, the dried thyme and some black pepper and a bit of salt.  Give it all a good stir, Cover tightly and sweat over low heat until the vegetables are becoming tender.  It may be necessary to add a TBS of the reserved stock from time to time.  You do not want the vegetables to brown, just soften.    Once the vegetables are softened, sprinkle the flour over top and stir it around.  Cook for about 1 minutes and then ladle in the remainder of the reserved stock, stirring as you go.  Bring back to the boil and then throw in the potato gnocchi as well as the shredded chicken.  Simmer until the potato gnocchi float to the top. Taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.  Scatter with some chopped parsley and serve in heated bowls to enjoy!  We had ours with some crusty bread.  Scrummo!  Thanks April!

   Do hop on over and give her a nod!  Tell her I sent you!  I guarantee you will love what you find.  Dimples & Delights