Every year, I do this Holiday Baking Extravaganza. Some elements are the same each time, some are new, some rotate depending on my mood and what fits into the mix well. This year I did three recipes I always make (Grandma Brown's Gingerbread, Cherry Pie Filling Bread, and Soft Molasses Spice Cookies) and tried five new things. All of them were fabulous!
First, Grandma Brown's Gingerbread. The story can be found in the link, but long story short, this is the recipe my great-grandma used. It was lost for a while, but then I found it in a drawer and after a bit of research and figuring, started making it myself. Since the recipe makes either a 9x13-inch pan or two 9-inch (round or square) pans, I give it as gifts to my sisters and my dad and stepmom. Grandma Brown was Dad's grandmother. This is an old-fashioned cake-like gingergread, not the hard stuff from which you make houses or the firmer stuff you roll and cut out to make men.
Serving suggestion: Serve warm, with a generous dollop of real whipped cream. It's amazing!
Cherry Pie Filling Bread! This is another incredible recipe, and one I make every year. However, for reasons unknown, it always seems to be the last thing left on the tray whenever I bring it somewhere. So this year I tried an experiment and called it "Cherry Pecan Bread" instead. It was like magic! First thing gone from the trays, and people asking if I had any more. Just goes to show you that while a rose by any other name may smell as sweet, it's hard to get people to stop and sniff if they don't like what you call it.
Soft Molasses Spice Cookies. These also get made every year, because I could happily eat two dozen of them in a single sitting. I usually try to limit myself to 2-3, though,for all the obvious reasons. These are soft, sweet, and almost remind me of molasses candy without being at all that chewy. The recipe I adapted called for rolling the dough and cutting out shapes, but I don't do rolling pins. Instead, I roll the dough in balls, roll them in granulated sugar, and then bake. Round is a shape!
Not cookies, and you'll recognize the picture from my 2017 Holiday Food Report, because while these were one of the items from the Baking Extravaganza, they also were an item I used for Hanukkah in a Box. These Spiced Apricots in Dark Chocolate are almost criminally easy, and definitely criminally tasty, and I'll be making them again for a random snack or if I suddenly find myself needing to bring something for a potluck.
Soft & Chewy Gingersnap Cookies! These are now my favourite gingersnap recipe, because I am not a fan of the hard kind. They kept their softness for almost two weeks (stored in a plastic container), the freeze well without changing their texture, and even the few I purposely left out for three weeks were still good if getting a little dry. I added some chopped crystallized ginger to the batter, and it made something extraordinary out of something that was already pretty darn fantastic.
Classic Chocolate Brownies. I did some things to these, as you can tell from the picture. Instead of making them like traditional brownies in a square pan and cutting them, I took a good friend's suggestion and used mini muffin tins. They rose a bit more than I was expecting, but they made perfect two-bite brownies. The recipe calls for an 8x8-inch pan, and I got 24 mini muffin size brownies out of it. I also added 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips to the batter and sprinkled the tops with chopped pecans before baking, but only half of them for those folks who don't like nuts.
Christmas Shortbread Tidbits are another almost criminally easy recipe that tastes almost criminally good. I quadrupled the batch for two 9x13-inch pans, which after cut into squares filled my giant cookie sheet so I only had to put two batches through the oven. Because it was Christmas, I was able to use the red, green, and white nonpareils, but I'll be making these for other occasions using other colours as well. Crisp, buttery, shortbread is one of my favourite things, and I always thought it was hard to make. Turns out not at all!
These are not cookies. These are Triple-Layer Cracker Toffee Bars, and I don't know where they've been all my life. Talk about easy! And inexpensive, too. Club crackers, milk chocolate chips, and toffee you make in 10 or so minutes with condensed milk and some other stuff. Amazing!
Now we move on to something I actually made for a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house, but it's still a holiday and it was baking, so I'm including it here. Pumpkin Bread with Cinnamon Honey Cream Cheese Spread. The recipe makes two full-sized loaves, but I opted for one full-size and two half-loaves. The cream cheese spread is the exact same recipe I've been using for ages, and it is some tasty!
Funny thing: I chopped pecans to put in the bread. Know when I found them? As I was moving the loaves to cooling racks. Apparently my slapdash method of baking in which my kitchen gets utterly destroyed means I lose things on the counter. That bowl of pecans was hidden behind an empty flour bag. So be it... the bread was fabulous without them anyway.
This was something I threw together when I had a last-minute change of plans for a family Christmas party. The value in keeping a well-stocked pantry is you can come up with a dish to pass without having to go back to the store again! It never occurred to me to take pictures in process so this one doesn't get its own blog post, but...
Orange-Cranberry Jello Dessert
Serves 16
2 cups water (boiling)
6 ounces orange juice concentrate
1 (14 ounce) can whole berry cranberry sauce
1 (20 ounce) crushed pineapple (undrained)
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 (3.4 ounce) white chocolate instant pudding mix
1 cup whole milk
Dissolve Jello in boiling water. Stir in orange juice until completely melted, then stir in cranberry sauce until only berries remain. Pour into a 9x13 glass dish, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 4 hours until firm to the touch.
Place cream, sugar, and vanilla in a medium glass bowl. Beat at medium speed with a hand mixer until soft peaks form; set aside. Rinse and dry beaters.
In a large bowl, beat pudding mix and milk until starting to set. Fold whipped cream into pudding mix just until completely blended, taking care not to stir too much. Spread pudding evenly over Jello layer, making sure to get all the way to the edges and smoothing the top. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 more hours, up to one day, before serving.
Per Serving:
Calories: 157
Total Fat: 2.4g
Saturated Fat: 1.4g
Cholesterol: 8mg
Sodium: 139mg
Total Carbohydrates: 31.7g
Dietary Fiber: 0.9g
Total Sugars: 27.4g
Protein: 1.9
Finally, for that same family party, Marinated Olives & Feta. These had great potential, but we found the lemon overwhelming. Next time I'll skip adding the zest, I think. I doubled the batch and used 1 cup kalamata olives and 1 cup black olives. Also next time I'll dice everything smaller, almost to the size I would do tapenade, to make it easier to serve on crackers.
I thought this might be fun... I'm going to call it the Evolution of the Holiday Baking Extravaganza Kitchen. This was taken before I made anything, when I'd merely gathered the ingredients, utensils, and bowls needed to make the molasses spice cookies. Shortly thereafter, the tornado would strike my unsuspecting kitchen.
Still not too bad, with the dough for the molasses spice cookies complete and ready to be moved to a smaller bowl, covered, and refrigerated overnight.
Later that night, after having put away ingredients I didn't need again and getting out more. This is as I was about to start mixing batches of gingerbread batter. This first wave (I did four) was a 9x13-inch pan so I could cut it and use it on trays, plus a 9-inch round for my sister and a 9-inch square for a friend.
Day two! Mixing batter for brownies, with one pan of two dozen already on cooling racks, one pan in the oven, one pan filled and ready to go, and the last batch mixed and waiting for a pan to become available. I made four dozen with pecans and four dozen without. In the background you can see a bowl with butter softening in it... that was for the shortbread tidbits. There's also butter on the counter, softening for gingersnaps.
I foolishly decided to just make the gingersnap dough without first clearing out what was there before, while still waiting for the last pan of brownies to go in the oven. It was almost a disaster! Usually because I know how messy I am, I put all the ingredients I've not yet used on my left, then move them to my right after I add them to the bowl. Clearly that is not the case here. I had to backtrack several times, but based on how they turned out I did it right!
By the way, if you're going to make the gingersnaps, here's a thing about which you should be aware, especially if you're going to double the batch. At some point, you're going to find the dough is too stiff to continue using your hand mixer. I suggest paying more attention than I was so as to avoid this particular catastrophe! Luckily, the beaters just popped out of the mixer and it startled me so much I shut it off quickly so nothing bad happened. But still... Don't do this. It's not good for your mixer. Stirring by hand also burns calories, so you'll be further ahead on more than one level!
I walked in from the other room and realized I'd taken over the entire kitchen with my stuff. This is the aftermath of gingersnap dough, which by this time was covered and chilling in the refrigerator. It's also the aftermath of brownies, and because there are cookie sheets as well I think I may have baked something else... maybe the shortbread. It's really hard to keep track sometimes.
Day 3 didn't garner any interesting pictures, since that was specifically planned so I didn't have to spend much time standing in the kitchen. I made the cracker toffee bars, baked the cherry pie filling bread, and dipped the apricots. But I did need to clean up, so I snapped a photo of my counter because I could actually see it again.
The tray photo at the top of the blog is the one I brought to my mechanic. Which reminds me! Helpful hint: Bring baked goods to those who do services for you! I took a tray to my mechanic, one to my chiropractor, and this one with the signs was what I brought to my favourite dive bar. Not only do people appreciate treats they didn't have to make, it's an easy way to put some good Karma points in the bank. Who couldn't use some good Karma points? Besides, it makes people happy, and I like spreading happy.
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