Thursday, December 31, 2015

Season's The Reason for Spices and Seasonings (And Lots Of Cake)

On the last day of the year 2015, I'm trying to play catch up with the baking I've done since my last post. This will be kind of a no-frills update, so bear with me.

I baked quite a lot this holiday season. Not that this is any different from the last few holiday seasons; I just like being able to say it because it's something that brings me a lot of joy. Most of my baking was, as per usual (which makes me exceedingly happy) for my family. I shipped sixteen Sour Cream Lemon Pound Cakes to three different cities in two different states across the country. (I also made a few of these to give to a work colleague who appreciates my baking.) In addition to the lemon glaze, I decorated them with some candied lemon peel – rather poorly, I'll admit. But I'm stretching some wings here, so give me a break.

The full-ish compliment to the family.

In detail.

Yeah, I've got to practice with that lemon peel.
I made the full-sized version for Christmas Eve dinner at my in-laws.

Lots of drizzled lemon glaze. Yep. Working on that, too.
Oh. And challah, using this recipe. 

One of my better braids. Working on that, too.
I had a slice the next day, spread with some wonderful honey a friend in Hawaii sent us.

Mmmmmmmmm! Working on finishing off that jar of honey!

But wait! That's not all! I also made Russian Pastries for Christmas Eve dinner.

Pastries of the Russian variety. And, yes, I'm working on these, too.
These are normally made like little pies but they're such a pain in the but to fill and crimp that I decided to enclose them more like little pot pies. Sort of. They're still just as good but much easier to make and bake. I want to figure out the right type of pastry is best to use for this technique.

Christmas dinner was spent at the apartment of a couple of friends. Everyone brought something and it was a potluck instead of a big sit-down. Everything was delicious. I brought a lemon ripple ice cream pie. I had planned on bringing another challah, this time I use the recipe from one of Peter Reinert's book but things went awry and I had to trash the dough. This is an inferior recipe in my opinion. I'll never use it again. Oh. And more Russian Pastries. My apologies for not having any pictures of anything from this meal.

And we had dinner the next night in the same place, with a much smaller group of folks. But I'll have to tell you about the bread I baked for that one later. It's getting on towards midnight and I want to post this before the new year rings in.

May 2016 be a banner year of good things for us all! 

Currently listening to: Beethoven's 5th Symphony in C Minor

2 comments:

  1. 2016 must be busy for you. Or are you on a diet and not baking?

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    1. It's the former. We're preparing to move apartments, so I haven't had the time to write or bake much. I've got a couple of posts started but they're going to have to wait until we're in the new digs before I can finish them.

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