Christmas Baking

“On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: six Geese a Laying, five Golden Rings, four Calling Birds, three French Hens, two Turtle Doves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.” – Frederic Austin

Many people associate delicious baked goods with Christmas. People start baking and preparing weeks in advance making sure that they get all of the Christmas favourites baked and ready for the big day. I'm not quite at that point where I do lots of Christmas baking yet. I make a special dessert for Christmas dinner (it varies each year) and I make chocolate chip cookies each Christmas Eve that we would always lay out for Santa. Nicole’s family on the other hand has a big Christmas party each year and they bake lots of yummy sweets in advance. She’s going to share a few of those very delicious and popular sweet treats this week.

Hope you enjoy,

Samantha


Hi! Nicole here...just sharing some of my favourite Christmas recipes.

*This first cookie is a Christmas classic…Shortbread! This is my Nana’s recipe and my dad makes it every Christmas. Sometimes he just makes them plain, but often he will lightly sprinkle them with sugar sprinkles before baking, or after they have cooled he will dip them in chocolate.

Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:     - 1 lb. butter

                        - 1 cup berry sugar

                        - Scant 4 cups flour

Directions:       1. Cream butter thoroughly. Cream in berry sugar. Add flour a little at a time.

2. Turn out on floured board and knead lightly. Make long rolls. Refrigerate overnight.

3. Slice into cookies or roll and use cookie cutters.

4. Bake at 300°F in a convection oven for 22 minutes (adjust time accordingly for a conventional oven).

*This next recipe would be wonderful any time of year, but it came from a Christmas edition of Martha Stewart Living, and has become one of my family’s favourite Christmas cookies. It’s deliciously sweet, yet the coarse salt means it’s salty too…which may not sound good, but trust me…it’s amazing!

Chocolate Thumbprints

Ingredients:     - 2 cups all-purpose flour

                        - 1 cup plus 1 Tbsp. unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa power

                        - 2 tsp. coarse salt

                        - 8 ounces unsalted butter, softened

                        - 1⅓ cups sugar, plus more for rolling

                        - 2 large egg yolks

                        - 2 Tbsp. heavy cream

                        - 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

                        Chocolate and Vanilla-Bean Ganache

Directions:       1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a small bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium, and add yolks, cream and vanilla. Scrape sides of bowl. Beat in flour mixture until just combined.

2. Roll balls using 2 teaspoons of dough for each, and roll each in sugar. Place 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. With the handle of a widen spoon, press gently in the centre of each to create an indentation Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are just set, about 10 minutes (9 min in convection oven). If indentations loose definition, press centres again. Let cool slightly on baking sheets. Transfer cookies to wire racks and let cool.

3. Spoon warm ganache into centre of each cookie. Let stand until firm, about 15 minutes.

Chocolate Vanilla-Bean Ganache

Ingredients:     - ⅓ cup honey

                        - ⅓ cup heavy cream

                        - ½ vanilla bean, split an scraped, pod reserved

                        - 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (preferably 61% cacao), finely chopped

                        - 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened

Directions:       1. Combine honey, cream, and vanilla seeds and pod in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, and cook, stirring until honey dissolves. Remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 20 minutes.

                        2. Place chocolate in a food processor. Return cream mixture to a simmer, then strain through a fine sieve. Discard solids. Pour cream mixture over chocolate, and let stand for 1 minute. Process until smooth. Add butter, and contimue to process, scraping down sides occasionally, until butter is incorporated. Let cool slightly, and then use immediately. (Makes just enough for the Chocolate Thumbprints).

*This last recipe is a quick and easy Christmas treat, and makes a great, edible, gift as well!

White Chocolate Candy Cane Fudge

Ingredients:     - ¼ cup butter

                        - 4 cups marshmallows

                        - 1 cup cream

                        - 2 cups sugar

                        - pinch of salt

                        - 3 cups white chocolate chips

                        - crushed candy cane

Directions:       1. Melt butter, marshmallows, cream, sugar and salt in a saucepan. Simmer, stirring, for 5 minutes.

                        2. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate chips until smooth.

                        3. Spread in a foil-lined 9x13 inch pan and top with crushed candy canes. Let cool; cut into squares

                        **For extra candy cane flavour, try adding ~Tbsp. of crushed candy cane to the mixture while simmering.

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as I do!

Gift Ideas

“On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: five Golden Rings, four Calling Birds, three French Hens, two Turtle Doves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.” – Frederic Austin

Christmas is really not that far away which is a little stressful because I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet! Most years I say that I will be on top of things and get all of my shopping done throughout the year but who am I kidding, that never happens. We’ve decided to put together some gift ideas for the important people in your lives. 

 

When you are little it is always fun to get toys and things that you can use right away and play with. I personally love to get little stuffed animals for younger kids and cute picture books. For my friend’s little girl I do like to get clothes, but let’s face it...most kids hate getting clothes on Christmas morning. I like to buy board games and craft activities also, for example, I found this really cool cardboard castle at Michaels that you colour and decorate yourself, such a cool thing!

When it comes to older friends and family I like to find things that are unique and specific for them. I’m big on giving calendars according to personalities. I also like to get useful things for the home and things that allow others to pamper themselves. Movies are always fun to give as well. I’m also really getting into the idea of giving an experience rather than material things. I think giving a manicure or a spa treatment, a ticket to a show, or an “activity” can be so much more fun and can allow you to create more memories than just handing over a gift. 

Those are just some of my thoughts on Christmas gift giving this year. Hopefully I've given out some useful ideas!

Samantha

Family Christmas Traditions

“On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: four Calling Birds, three French Hens, two Turtle Doves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.” – Frederic Austin

Quickly before we delve into this week’s post, I wanted to share a couple of pictures from our very first craft fairs. This weekend we participated in two craft fairs in one day! It was a long day but we had fun, got our cards and business out there, and we learned some helpful hints for the next craft fairs! 

This week we are going to share with you all some of our most favourite family Christmas traditions.

In my house we always put up our Christmas tree and decorations on December 1^st; that’s also when we start playing the Christmas tunes on the radio/CD player (I’ll be posting up some pictures of that when December 1^st comes along this year). Another tradition that mom and I have is that we watch Christmas movies every weekend leading up to Christmas. We start at the beginning of December and watch them until Christmas day always watching It’s A Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve and White Christmas on Christmas Day. Another fun thing that we do in my house is that we all read The Night Before Christmas together on Christmas Eve, a little bit cheesy but it’s always a fun time!

Samantha

 

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In my house we don’t have quite as many traditions now as we used to have when we were younger. We too start putting up some Christmas decorations on Dec. 1^st. We always get a real Christmas tree, so it doesn't get put up until closer to Christmas, but things like Christmas lights and our Nativity scene get put up sooner. Two of our most anticipated traditions are my mom's homemade Christmas card and my dad baking Christmas cookies. My mom always draws our card, and it usually would include me, my brother, our dog, and sometimes my parents. Christmas is probably the only time of year that my dad bakes, but he always makes a number of different, fancy, absolutely delicious cookies, so it’s worth the year-long wait! Another thing we do every year is attend a Christmas Eve service at our church. When we were younger we’d come home from the Christmas Eve service, my mom would make a fire in the fireplace and hot chocolate for everyone, and then read a Christmas storybook. She’d get a new one each year, including “Jacob’s Gift,” “A Christmas Carol,” “King of the Stable,” and “The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey” to name a few. 

A fun tradition we had as kids was kind of like our own take on an Advent calendar. We would set up our Nativity scene on Dec. 1^st but we wouldn't put the three wise men and the camel at the stable; instead, we would put them somewhere in our room, and each day my brother and I would take turns moving them somewhere else in the house, until just before Christmas when they would finally arrive at the stable.

Another fun tradition we had growing up was painting cookies with mom. She would make sugar cookies in Christmas shapes, and ice them with white icing; then we would take paintbrushes and food colouring and paint the cookies. My mom is an amazing painter, so sometimes her cookies would look too good to eat! One of my favourite Christmas traditions that I still do now is go and look at all the Christmas tree displays at the Fairmont Empress Hotel. It’s a fundraiser, and different local business and organizations decorate trees that are then displayed all around the hotel. I used to go every year with my family, but the last couple of years Samantha and I have gone together. We plan on going again this year so it’s very possible that you’ll hear about that on another one of our twelve weeks of Christmas.

Nicole