Baking

I'm back to regular baking as of today.  The usual fare of cookies and banana muffins had been  put on hold as the frenzy of Christmas baking took over.  I had to make room in my tins, so the Yuletide treats got tossed in the compost bin.  I loathe the waste of food but sometimes it can't be helped.

The seasonal baking was considerably diminished this year partly because of time constraints (it doesn't matter how early I start, I still run out of time) and partly because I've finally come to the conclusion that nobody really likes it.  Oh, they'll have a couple of sugar cookies and a piece of shortbread but most of it still ends up in the bin.  

I made Mars Bar squares which are like Rice Krispie squares except made with melted Mars Bars instead of marshmallow and a coating of melted chocolate on top.  They all got eaten before I could take a picture. That's the only thing they do eat.

ScienceGirl requested sugar cookies this year.  I found an easy recipe from Canadian Living that didn't require the dough to be rolled out. You just made a ball and then pressed it down with the bottom of a glass.  I used a Royal Meringue Icing mix from the Bulk Barn which was dead easy - just add water and boom you've got a good icing for decorating.  I made asked SG to help me decorate the cookies since she asked for them in the first place.  Hers reminded me of some of the crap  artwork that came home from nursery school when she used all the glitter and all the stickers and all the ribbons and all the pom-poms in the art supplies box.  Bless her heart. Turns out, she didn't like the taste of them. And nobody else did either.  Except me.  And I'm diabetic so shouldn't be eating any of it.  I won't be making these again.

I wanted to try these palmiers after I saw a recipe in the Canadian Living (I really should stop reading the Canadian Living).  I had never baked with puff pastry before and wanted to give it a try.  I used ready-made pastry because I wasn't dicking around with all the rolling and turning and flipping that seemed to be involved with making it from scratch.  I think I folded the pastry too tightly so it didn't puff too much.  If I make them again, which is highly unlikely since nobody seemed to eat them, I wouldn't use as much sugar.  You had to roll the pastry out on a sugar covered surface and you had to sprinkle sugar on the cutting board when you cut them.  They ended up like little candies there was so much sugar. 

LudditeGranny has fiercely guarded the domain of baking the shortbread over the years but this year she turned up her nose when asked if she was making the shortbread this year.  But she gladly passed along her recipe.  I don't know what I did wrong but the dough was quite crumbly - I had a hard time rolling it out but I got enough for 2 dozen cookies.  They tasted okay though.  Apparently, it's Himself's favourite Christmas cookie and the only one he really eats but he forgot they were there so they didn't get eaten.  Hell's bells.

This is my Christmas Crack.  Officially, I think it's called Crackle but crack is a better description.  This shit is the easiest stuff to make - you line a cookie sheet with tin foil that you spray with Pam, then lay out soda crackers.  I like to use the ones with the salted tops - the salt goes nicely with the sweet.  You boil up some butter and brown sugar for 5 minutes.  It doesn't have to reach a certain temperature, no dicking around with soft ball, hard crack nonsense.  Nope, just 5 minutes then you spread it on your crackers and stick it in the oven for another 5 minutes until it's bubbly.  Bring it out and sprinkle on your chocolate wafers.  I like to use the dark chocolate stuff because it's  not as sweet. Spread it around a bit, pop it back in the oven for 2 minutes.  When it comes out, you sprinkle on your toppings.  I tried crush candy canes which were quite nice, pretzel sticks which were not as nice and slivered almonds which was okay.  Again, nobody likes it except me.

I'm going to have to seriously  reconsider the whole Christmas baking endeavour.  It's a huge waste of money and food to have to throw so much of it out after Christmas.  I would have had more to throw out like Nanaimo bars and empire biscuits but I just ran out of time and didn't end up making them. I can't eat all of it.  I stood and looked at nice trays of treats in the grocery store several times - a little bit of  everything - some macrons, butter tarts, fancy cookies.  Even if I bought two or three of these trays, it still would have been cheaper than baking the stuff I did.  Must remember this.

But this was a weird year.  Nobody came to visit. Nobody took trays of treats into work or  choir practice.  We didn't go visiting (I usually take a tray to Auntie Maggot). So I'll hold off on making a decision until later in the year.  Maybe we'll be back to visiting by then.

We can hope. 

Stay sane.