Why wait for Christmas?
On the weekend I´ll be having some friends over for an afternoon tea and I just finished deciding on the menue. It was very hard to bring it down to the 'absolute minimum' as my head is full with new recipes I want to try. The result is a super rich mouthwatering sequence of sweetness with a little kick from the egg nog. An indulgence for the holiday season. As you know: Christmas calories don´t count.
Front Porch Christmas Decoration
This year the front porch Christmas decoration is all about ribbons and making it cozy for Santa so that he feels comfortable, stays long and leaves a lot of gifts behind for me. You must know I have been very good this year. I tried to set it up like it could be his living room. If he is up for a little skiing he can do that as well.
Setting up the Christmas Decoration
This weekend, my hubby is in trouble as I told him that we`ll be setting up the Christmas decoration. Since he is responsible for outside lighting, this means serious work. Only 4 weeks to go, so stay tuned, there'll be lot's of pics coming up. Since the hubby was not willing to get photographed standing on the ladder grumpy as nothing seemed to work, here´s me adjusting the front porch.
I smell something Yummy - Christmas from the Oven
I promised some more photos from the season opening Christmas buffet at Dani's store. The cookies and cakes are mostly about presentation and making the people feel comfortable. The guests who are coming, knowing already that the taste of gingerbread and co will be amazing, so I tried to show off a really "picture perfect" buffet table, which is stylish and meaningful. First, I am very proud of my Hemisphere Chocolate Cake impression of an English Christmas Pudding. The problem here nobody dared to start eating and cutting it.
I tried to also make cake buffet signs that look like wooden signs. For the actual black signs I used very dark chocolate cookie dough with red sugar icing and a little white icing for the snow on top of it. The white signs are regular cookie dough flooded with white royal icing. For the booth itself I simply used the one that I created in summer and gave it a little Christmasy look.
For the Chocolate Cake Christmas Tree, I used a new baking mold which appeared to be pretty difficult to handle as the top of the tree is very thin compared to the bottom leading to different baking times. I applied some tin foil to the top for cooling.
To create the Ginger Bread Christmas Tree, I used a special Cookie Mold that I found at Lakeland in the UK. Lot´s of stars in different sizes irregulary glued together with icing make a perfekt crooked tree with a Ginger bread man on top of it.
Since we do not have any tableware in the store, people need to eat out of their hands. Millionaire Shortbread and mini Christmas Guglhupf cakes come in handy here. I also made small Pumpkin Spice cakes that were gone with two bites.
The rest of the cookie dough I used for smaller Christmas Trees or little Hangtags and a very cute Reindeer Cookie featuring, of course, a red nose.
I tried to also make cake buffet signs that look like wooden signs. For the actual black signs I used very dark chocolate cookie dough with red sugar icing and a little white icing for the snow on top of it. The white signs are regular cookie dough flooded with white royal icing. For the booth itself I simply used the one that I created in summer and gave it a little Christmasy look.
For the Chocolate Cake Christmas Tree, I used a new baking mold which appeared to be pretty difficult to handle as the top of the tree is very thin compared to the bottom leading to different baking times. I applied some tin foil to the top for cooling.
To create the Ginger Bread Christmas Tree, I used a special Cookie Mold that I found at Lakeland in the UK. Lot´s of stars in different sizes irregulary glued together with icing make a perfekt crooked tree with a Ginger bread man on top of it.
Since we do not have any tableware in the store, people need to eat out of their hands. Millionaire Shortbread and mini Christmas Guglhupf cakes come in handy here. I also made small Pumpkin Spice cakes that were gone with two bites.
The rest of the cookie dough I used for smaller Christmas Trees or little Hangtags and a very cute Reindeer Cookie featuring, of course, a red nose.
First Christmas Cake Buffet of the Season
Last Saturday my friend Dani from Danröschen had her annual Christmas event for customers in her store. Traditionally this is my "season opener" for Christmas baking. Everything needs to be perfect, I even draw a 'map' where to put things. I also try new recipes and new cake decorations. This is a short preview of the result. I will be posting more pictures with details soon.
My Book and Me
Today is really a big day for me. Our publisher sent me the first copies of our German book 'Backen mit Love - Rezepte aus dem rosa Haus'. I am speechless. Something that started as 1.000.000 tiny 'crafty' pieces glued onto hundreds of pages and 10.000.000 calories in cakes, has finally become real. If you have not yet had a peek into it, please visit www.backenmitlove.de. I am so happy.
Halloween Pumpkin Pom-Pom
Happy Halloween! Instead of carving out a real pumpkin, this year I decided to go for these Pumpkin Pom-Poms. The name alone is a very cute tongue twister. Don´t believe it ? Try to say it 5 times quickly. Pumpkin Pom-Pom, Pumpkin Pom-Pom, Pumpkin Pom-Pom ...... Although we live in an area with no Halloween tradition what so ever, I told the hubby to buy things for trick or treators. Just in case. You´ll never know.
The Scariest Halloween Cookies Ever
Pretty scary, but extremely yummie. That´s how it should be, right? For these Oreo Halloween denture cookies I simply had to start with home made Oreos. You can easily find recipes online. After baking, just cut it in half and put on the filling, which I dyed in scary teethridge color. For the teeth, I was lucky enough that I still had some mini marshmallows that I brought over from the UK. Unfortunately they are mixed, so I had to think about what to do with the pink ones. Do you have any ideas? I have one, hehe. As you can see, you need to be very fast with the marshmallows as during Halloween a swarm of mini bats can get attracted by sweet things very quickly. It was fun to play dentist for one afternoon.
Sunday Halloween Coffee
I decided to kick off Halloween week with the appropriate coffee. I love these glass mugs that come in different sizes and have beautiful lids with ornament holes in them. The coffee is, of course, best served together with freshly baked cinnamon rolls. However this time I made "cinnamon knots" to honor a special holiday I have heard that they have in Sweden: Cinnamon Roll Day. I missed it and I am not really sure if it´s really a holiday, but do you really need a reason ?
Cute Cupboards
Here´s a tip for you that always works. If my hubby complains about way too much "stuff" lying around in our living room, I always buy new cupboards, have him fix them on the wall and store the "stuff" in them to make room for more "stuff". It´s the circle of cuteness. You would not think of it, but I got most of those cupboards in the pictures from TK Maxx.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
