December 2014 Wrap Up

If I would have written out a list of what I would be baking in December at the beginning of the month, it would have looked very different from what I ended up making! I expected to do a lot of my usual Christmas baking and to try out a few new seasonal muffins, but instead I filled my baking and decorating time with lots and lots of sugar cookies and my first ever gingerbread men cookies! I also got to make two birthday cakes, which I knew about far in advance, thanks to my friends who are also super-plan-ahead-ladies, like me!!

Breads & Muffins

When my parents came for Christmas, they brought along some of their sourdough starter. After purchasing an appropriate baking vessel, we tried out a couple loaves of sourdough bread. The first one was a bit short and far too crusty. We reduced the baking time and increased the rising time for the second one, and it had much better height and baked much better. I think I will experiment a bit more to find out what works best in our climate and in my oven and then I will share the recipe I come up with along with my Mom’s original. She also has shared recipes for sourdough noodles, sourdough rye, and sourdough chocolate cake that all use the starter that I can try out, as well. I had also pinned a recipe for chocolate sourdough a long time ago and have also come across a sourdough focaccia recipe that I am eager to make at some point soon, so be on the lookout for a post with all sorts of sourdough recipes within the next few months!

An amazing bread recipe I will share with you right now is for this 5-minute overnight focaccia. It is so simple and amazingly delicious. I’ve been making it for the last year ever since a friend shared the recipe. It’s really amazing that you get such a fantastic reward for so little work! Some notes: I never measure the oil in the bottom of my pan and just pour in enough to lightly coat it, I never use any fresh herbs on top, and I don’t add salt on top either because the Kosher salt I use in the dough is plenty salty.

Brownies & Bars

I made these mint chocolate brownies as part of my contribution to the teacher appreciation cookie bar at the kids’ school. Just like when I made these before, they were completely amazing! The only change I made to the recipe was to omit the thin mints this time around. Not because they don’t taste good, but because I didn’t have any! Both times I have used my own brownie recipe as the base and not the boxed one recommended, by the way.

When I hosted friends for a holiday mommy morning get together, one of the things I made was pumpkin cranberry coconut granola bars (recipe previously shared in this post).

Cakes & Cupcakes

As I mentioned, I had planned on making two birthday cakes this month, but before working on those two, I made a butterfly cake and cupcakes for Ashton. For Hannah’s birthday, I made a Frozen-themed cake (last year I made her this Cinderella cake and cupcakes), and for Maddie’s birthday I made a winter gingerbread man cake. The details of Hannah’s cake can be found in my Frozen post. Maddie’s cake was inspired by the following pictures found on Pinterest: gingerbread men circling around the cake, candy cane ropes, snowy tops, and white snowflakes coming out of the top and sides on floral wire. I used a cute edible image to make the #4 topper for the cake, but I wished I would have put it on a white backing of fondant instead of the brown since the brown showed through more than I would have liked. Always something new to learn with edible images!

Cookies

For the first time, I made some gingerbread men cookies. I have made gingersnaps in the past, but never roll out gingerbread. I looked for recipes online and asked around for good recipes to try. As usual, there was something different I liked about many of the recipes, so in the end I combined them to create my own. The recipe can be found in my Christmas Baking post. The inspiration recipes were: Joy of Baking, Sweetopia, Anna Olsen in Chatelaine and three written out for me by friends.

Along with the layered mint brownies, I also made glazed eggnog cookies and peppermint meltaways for the teacher appreciation cookie bar at the kids’ school. I attempted to make Heath bar shortbread, but after dumping the bag of Heath chips into my delicious shortbread dough, I noticed that the chocolate had gone rancid and it all was tossed into the garbage can. All three of these recipes can be found in my Christmas Baking post.

I decorated lots of sugar cookies this month, including this Teal & White Christmas Cookie Collection, this Red, Green & White Christmas Cookie Collection, and some Santas, snowmen and wreaths made with Creative Uses of Cookie Cutters.

Decorations & Toppers

For the different cakes and cupcakes I made, I made three different special toppers: Sparkly personalized star cupcake toppers, Number 6 topper, and Number 4 topper.

Pies & Pastries

Christmas meant pumpkin pie time! I used my same pie and crust recipe I’ve given before.

Scones & Biscuits

For my holiday mommy morning get together, I also made these maple oatmeal scones again.

Other Goodies

Another menu item for my holiday mommy morning get together was these 45 minute cinnamon rolls are so incredibly easy and so delicious. I highly recommend making them! Pin or bookmark this recipe, and thank me later! I do find that there is too much cream cheese icing in this recipe, but I always forget to cut it down when I am making it. Maybe now that I’ve written that, I will remember!

Two items I enjoy making as part of my annual holiday baking are cinnamon sugar pretzels (as seen in the photo at the top of this post) and vanilla and peppermint homemade marshmallows. Both recipes can be found in my Christmas Baking post.