So, this past month I joined a group of online people called The Daring Bakers.
Daring Bakers are a group of people online who tackle one recipe a month, then blog about it all on the same day. Here is more detailed information about how it began if you are interested in it http://daringbakersblogroll.blogspot.com/2007/07/welcome.html.
So, what was December’s Challenge you say? It was a Yule Log!
(Mine isn’t the prettiest, but I think it’s pretty good for my first Daring Baker’s Challenge. 
We made a genoise, buttercream frosting and either marzipan or meringue mushrooms.
I made the genoise first. It was a little tedious whisking the eggs over the boiling water, but I made it. I whipped it up in my mixer, put it in the oven and waited for it to be done. I had read if you roll the log as soon as it comes out of the oven, then unroll it, it won’t crack when you try to roll it after it has been filled. So, I did that. Did it help? I don’t think so, you be the judge though….
But don’t worry, I didn’t throw in the towel just yet. On to the buttercream frosting… I decided not to use the coffee flavoring, so I needed something to make my buttercream brown. So I bought some food coloring…. except I left it at work…. ooops, so after a quick trip to my office to get the food coloring I was ready to go! More whisking of eggs over water? seriously…. (I guess I should’ve read through the recipe first, I just looked at the ingredients, lol). So, the buttercream went well, no incidents, everything is how it’s suppossed to be…. so far….. yay!
Next Marzipan. Hmm, almond paste? I don’t think they sell that in my town, or I can’t find it at least, so I used the recipe for almond paste…. (maybe I should have looked harder in the stores…) As I’m making the recipe for almond paste, I’m noticing it calls for a food processor, oops, don’t have one of those, BUT I do have a blender, surely it’s the same concept…. so off I go making my almond paste. I don’t really know what it’s suppossed to look like, but it seems to be working… next to turn the almond paste into marzipan…. hmm, this is really really really runny, quick how do I fix it! So, I just kept adding more and more “blended” almonds, then lots of powedered sugar, and finally some flour. Yay, the flour worked! Now, it’s more sticky and less runny… hmm, how will it taste though… oh well, we’ll worry about that later.
So, after looking at other people’s marzipan mushrooms, I realized that a food processor and blender apparently cannont be interchanged… most people’s marzipan is white and smooth, where mine is full of brown chucks (almond skin perhaps…) But, thankfully we were making mushrooms with the marzipan, so I think the flecks just make it look more authentic, hee hee. That’s what my story is and I’m sticking to it. Here are the beloved mushrooms.
Oh yea! I almost forgot my buttercream disaster! I made it a couple of days early since it was mentioned that it would keep for up to 3 weeks in the fridge. So, I pulled the icing out to frost the log and uh-oh… what’s this? This is all hard and yucky, what happened to my dear buttercream that I labored so hard on! Luckily, my dear friend Nikki (http://crazydeliciousfood.wordpress.com/) happened to be on gchat so I frantically messaged her asking what to do. She mentioned I might try putting it in the mixer and try whipping it. So, I tried that, no go… nothing changed. Then, she mentioned maybe adding a little milk. So I did that and it looked like chocolate syrup with big chunkies in it… uh-oh, it’s getting worse… So, Nikki said since it can’t get any worse try adding a tiny bit of powdered sugar in it. So, about half a bag ( ) of powdered sugar later I had my pretty buttercream back! Yay! Thanks Nikki for helping make my Daring Bakers adventure not a huge disaster.
My work Christmas party theme was “Around the World” so I figured this would be perfect. All of my coworkers seemed to enjoy eating the cake very much also.
So, there is my yule log story. (Now you know the secret recipe is Clara ) I hope you have enjoyed it. If you would like to hear other Daring Bakers retell about their adventure visit http://daringbakersblogroll.blogspot.com/
Oh yea, here’s the recipes and instructions in case you want to make a yule log also.
Today is my momma’s birthday. She’s the best momma around in my opinion, so I hope you have a very very happy birthday!!
On Monday night I was in the mood to make Christmas candy. I haven’t really made candy before, but I had a couple of good recipes so I figured I should give it a try.
First up: Turtles!
My Granny has always made Christmas candy. One of the things I always eat tons of are her turtles. I remembered her vaguely telling me how to make them a couple of years ago, so I put my memory to the test. Here are my very detailed instuctions, lol.
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Place pecans on waxed paper in groups of three.
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Put a dollop of melted carmel in the middle of each pecan group, let cool.
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Put a dollop of melted chocolate on top of the caramel, let cool.
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Eat and enjoy.
Next up: Stained Glass Hard Candy!
April (http://wineloverscookingdiary.blogspot.com/2007/12/hard-candy.html) tried this recipe this weekend, so I thought I’d give it a try.
Here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
3 3/4 cups white sugar
1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
1 cup water
1 tablespoon orange, or other flavored extract (I used strawberry for this particular batch)
1/2 teaspoon food coloring (optional)
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Directions
In a medium saucepan, stir together the white sugar, corn syrup, and water. Cook, stirring, over medium heat until sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil. Without stirring, heat to 300 to 310 degrees F (149 to 154 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard, brittle threads.
Remove from heat and stir in flavored extract and food coloring, if desired. Pour onto a greased cookie sheet, and dust the top with confectioners’ sugar. Let cool, and break into pieces. Store in an airtight container.
Some Nikki tips – do not add the flavoring until the bubbles have gone down in the boiling mixture. Also, if you get some of the mixture in your pan and it gets hard before you clean it, run really cold water over it to make it crack and it will come off. I had to actually pick at mine with a butter knife to get some of it off, but it’s not so bad.
I also made Strawberry flavored, I’m going to make cinnamon and some other flavors, but I have to get some more cornsyrup first. Here are a couple of pictures.
After it cooled and I flipped it ontop my counter, so pretty!
All broken up and ready to eat.
Some of my blogging friends and I had an ornament exchange. Nikki drew my name and she is stinkin’ amazing! She went above and beyond and sent me some amazing ornaments and Christmas stuff. The pictures aren’t the best (John was doing something with my Christmas gift, so he told me to open my box in my room, so you can see my lovely sheets in the background. )
All my loot!
Clara and Nikki were talking about these adorable ornament ramekins from Target. I really wanted some, but we don’t have a Target near by so I was bummed. But Nikki came though, she sent me 8 of them! I’m going to try to use them at dinner tonight, so keep looking for them in my food posts.
Next is this gorgeous red and gold ornament. (I’m not sure what that yellow spot it though… maybe my flash reflecting??)
A cute little snowman.
A Willow Creek girl holding a blue sparkly star. She fits in great with my other Willow Creek figurines.
AND the CUTEST little ornaments from Halmark. They are baking ornaments! I found these online last week and was telling my mom how cute they were, but they were too expensive for me to buy right now. Somehow Nikki new. And I have the perfect size tree for them too.
My individual picture didn’t come out too well, so here’s Halmarks stock photo, sooo cute!!
So, thank you so much Nikki for making my day. I love all the ornaments. (I’m secretly hopeing you draw my name for all future exchanges.)
Filed under: Candy
Last night Angela and Bo came over to do some cooking. Bo is one of the football coaches at the high school with John. Angela and I made Buckeyes and Marshmallows while John and Bo watched Deal or No Deal. They helped dip some of the buckeyes though….. (well, they would dip 2, then eat 1 and then repeat the scenario. Silly boys.)
The buckeyes turned out really good. (again, my picture skills are not the best)
Buckeyes
INGREDIENTS
3 cups creamy peanut butter
1 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
3/4 pound semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup shortening
DIRECTIONS
Line a baking sheet with waxed paper; set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and confectioners’ sugar with hands to form a smooth stiff dough. Shape into balls using 2 teaspoons of dough for each ball. Place on prepared pan, and refrigerate.
Melt shortening and chocolate together in a metal bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth, and remove from heat.
Remove balls from refrigerator. Insert a wooden toothpick into a ball, and dip into melted chocolate. Return to wax paper, chocolate side down, and remove toothpick. Repeat with remaining balls. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to set.
Now, the marshmallows are a different story. Marshmallows do not taste very good without vanilla, be sure to add it, don’t forget like we did.
Filed under: Entrees
April posted this recipe on her blog yesterday (http://wineloverscookingdiary.blogspot.com/2007/12/alfredo-bake.html). It was so yummy, several of us made it for supper last night. My picture isn’t the best, so just trust me that it is delish! (I took it in the breakroom at work, so it has a yellow tint for some reason…)
Alfredo Bake
Ingredients
8 oz pasta, cooked and drained
2 cups broccoli florets
1 cup mushrooms
1.5 cups chicken, cooked and shredded or diced
1 jar alfredo sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 Tbls butter
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees-
Coat the bottom of the two small or one medium baking dish with a thin layer of alfredo sauce. In a medium bowl, mix the pasta, broccoli, mushrooms, chicken, garlic and alfredo sauce until combined.
Place mixture into baking dish and top with mozzarella and Parmesan cheese. Cut the butter into small pieces and scatter on top of the cheese.
Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is hot and bubbly
This recipe was sooo tasty! I think I’ll make a coupe of changes next time though.
- Stir the cheeses into the casserole
- Put a layer of bread crumbs on the top
- Use grilled chicken
- Probably some other things too, but I can’t think of any right now…
Also, we are trying to eat healthier, so I used reduced fat and no fat everything. Still tasted great!
Last night I finally got some Christmas table cloths and a centerpiece put together.
For the centerpiece, I just used a white ceramic bowl (I got it on sale from Pier 1 for only $10!) and filled it with Christmas balls. It takes more balls than you would think to fill the bowls, I used 54!
Everything was bought with gift certificates that we recieved as wedding gifts, so no out of pocket money was spent. Yay!
I’m finally getting around to finishing my Christmas decorating. My mom and I love shopping at Hobby Lobby the couple of days after Christmas when the leftover stuff goes to 75% off, then 80% off, then to 90% off! I saw these gingerbread people and thought they were so cute. So at Christmas time, I have a gingerbread kitchen.
The family that started it all. Daddy, Momma, and Baby.
I saw these cute rugs, so I got 2 for the kitchen; one under the sink, one by the garage door.
My friend Kristina got me this gingerbread guy a couple years ago. She sits on my window ledge by my kitchen sink.
When John and I first started decorating, I began collecting Department 56 – North Pole Village Christmas houses. Almost everyone on his dad’s side of the family collects these houses. I always enjoyed looking at the villages and Joe and Patti’s house, so I thought I needed to collect them also.
There are going to be a bunch of pictures in this post, so if you don’t like pictures, just don’t read it.
Normally, we put the houses on the mantle and above the tv. But this year the nativity is on the mantle and we got a new tv stand that does not have room on top for houses so we had to be a little creative. In the “dining room” there are two built in corner cabinents on either side. John and I started thinking last night, I bet we can fit a few houses on those shelves. Much to our suprise, we fit them all! Those selves are bigger than we though.
Okay, so this is a bad picture of the cabinets, but you get the idea.
Here is Santa’s Workshop. This was the first house made for the series. Santa and Mrs. Claus are waving and checking his list out front. To the left there are 2 little elf sledders on their way to visit Santa.
These are numbers 2 and 3 in the series. This is the Elf Bunkhouse and Reindeer Barn. If you look closely you’ll see two elves training a couple of the reindeer.
Here is the Real Plastic Snow Factory. The Department 56 brand snow is called, Real Plastic Snow, so it only makes sense to have a factory where it’s manufactured. There are a couple more sledders off to the left.
These are some of the first houses in the series also: Candy Cane and Peppermint Shop and Gift Wrap and Ribbons. There are some elves hard at work painting some candy canes out front.
Here is the Twinkly Brite Glitter Factory and Elsie’s Gingerbread. The Gingerbread house has a chimney that smokes, but since we can’t hook any of the houses up to electricity, the chimney had to stay in the box. 
There are several elves walking around with baked goods and a couple elves off to the left dipping some ornaments into glitter.
I like to get houses that mean stuff to mean. When John and I first started dating we always met at teh coffee shop to hang out. So when I saw Caribou Coffee Shop, I had to get it. It even has a “real” Caribou waiting outside. The other house is the Chapel. Joe and Patti got it for us last year.
One of the pieces I have always admired is the Peppermint Skating Party. Lucky for me, Mrs. Weaver gave it to me a couple years ago.
Last, but certainly not least, is the Sleigh and Eight Tiny Reindeers. They are hitched up and ready for Christmas Eve.
I’ve had so much fun typing up this blog and remembering all the stories behind the houses, so I hope you have had a fun time reading it.
Filed under: Family
This weekend we didn’t get out of the house very much. We have officially had our first Ice Storm of the Winter. All the news channels are calling it Ice Storm 2007, so I think I will borrow that.
This Ice Storm is different from the years passed. This year I had my husband at my house all day long with me. (We weren’t married last year, so he would just come over for a little while in the previous bad weather storms). We decided to build a fire to save a little bit of money by not running the heater. Here is the beautiful fire.
I love fires and cold weather; it reminds me just how close Christmas is. Zerbie didn’t really know what to think about the fire. She was very interested in it though.
“What? Why are you taking pictures of me?”
