The f word

So last Tuesday I'm sitting at work and all I can think about is..... fudge. I posted it on a status line in Facebook, then there were many other people who suddenly wanted fudge, I told a couple of people at work, and the infection spread. People were cursing me left, right, and centre. What's a girl to do? Go on the Internet of course and find a whole bunch of recipes for fudge, stop at the grocery store on the way home, and voila!

From Food - 2010

This version was named after someone's aunt and was made of milk and semisweet chocolate, evaporated milk, butter, marshmallow fluff, vanilla, and nuts. Getting marshmallow fluff out of the jar is a big pain in the butt. You really can't get it all out and it sticks to everything. It never really got creamy and I had to add more evaporated milk to it to thin it out.

From Food - 2010

I found it a bit gritty, but I took it to work and everyone seemed to like it. I've been nibbling at it too and it's growing on me, but I know I can do much better. Thus begins the great fudge-making endeavour of 2010!
Everyone get out your fat pants......there's gonna be some tasting.

Stollen

Ok, so the food thoughts are piling up. This year I finally wanted to make stollen again. For so many years I haven't gotten around to it at Christmas, but this year I vowed to make the time. The first one that I tried before Christmas was a disaster! The yeast was dead, and I steadfastly thought it would pull itself together if I just kept at it. I wasted ingredients, I wasted half a day, I ate some of it anyway because it was soooooo good, even flattened and unworthy of photography!
After Christmas was over and I had some free time, I went back into the kitchen and tried again, and this time, success!

From Food - 2010

Stollen that I see everywhere has that log of marzipan in the middle. I hate that, it reminds me of a hard-boiled egg and I find it hard to eat and ugly. Sometimes I don't use marzipan at all, but I found a version where you cut the marzipan up into small pieces and mix it into an almond paste you put together with butter, almond meal, and rum. The results are out of this world: a moist bread with a gooey sweet layer of almondy yum inside the sweet bread dough with citrus peel and cherries - your entire mouth hums when you take a bite.

From Food - 2010

I found myself wondering why I do not make this all the time. Ok, so I would weigh 500 pounds, but that'd be ok, wouldn't it?

Give me something sweet

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love baking. It started with cookies, chocolate chip cookies to be precise. When I was a kid I went on the quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, and I made batch after batch with different recipes and different chips until I found a combination that I loved. I drooled over Kitchenaid mixers like some people drool over sports cars, and for my bridal shower my friends all chipped in and got me one. It is the most beautiful appliance ever. I like eating what I bake, but to tell the truth I don't actually eat that much of it; the pleasure for me is watching other people enjoy it, giving it away and watching people smile and eat. For many people baking is like a lost art, they think that making a batch of cookies or baking a cake is almost impossible or it takes too much time (it really doesn't). I think that it goes beyond the fact that it tastes one hundred times better. You are offering people love when you give food, something that you took the time to prepare, something you planned and made the effort to create for them. That is what is so amazing about the gesture.

But really people, it's just a cookie :-)



So this weekend I made up some Christmas cookie doughs and headed over to Lysanne's place for cookiepalooza. I brought gingerbread, spice, and cinnamon sugar, she made up a batch of pistachio cranberry biscotti and these moist molasses cookies that were divine and kinda healthy, and we baked all afternoon and each got some of the other's goods.



I still have much more baking to do, but it was a great start and it's so much fun getting together with a friend and sharing a laugh and some recipes.
The kids still have to help me with some gingerbread too, it's my favorite part of the holidays. They love to roll the dough and cut out the shapes and decorate, and then eat - love in every delicious bite.

Little weekend recap

Naomi's birthday party was a success!



It was her first party with little friends and four girls showed up and played, and screamed, and giggled in their party dresses. Then Maggie's boys showed up and Robert was a good sport and pretended to be a monster, eliciting more screams and running up and down the hallway. Last year the cake was Disney Princesses vs. Dinosaurs and this year Naomi insisted that her cake also have princesses and dinosaurs, so after a conversation with my friend Dan, the concept of the tea party was born. I think it turned out pretty good, and Naomi loved it.




After a little more playing everyone went home and then it was on to trick-or-treating! The kids got into their costumes and we went out. We only did two streets, but it was a lot of fun and the kids were great and polite and so excited about the candy.


I was supposed to go to an adult party that night, but was too pooped so I went to bed instead. Perhaps one party is all this old lady can take in a day.

dough, dough, dough

Got four cookie doughs in the fridge ready for tomorrow. Spice, cinnamon sugar, and two types of gingerbread. I also have a batch of ginger bens done. Stephie's coming over tomorrow for some baking which is great because we haven't seen her since the end of October. One of the things I love about Steph is trading crazy parent stories, between the two of us we have a truckload. She's also a crazy artist, so her view of life is nicely skewed. When we were first looking for a shadow for Ben, I put an ad on the university sites for a cheap student, hoping to find someone in psych who was interested in autism. We found Steph instead, an art education student, older than most of her class, from St Catharines so her French was so bad that she was looking for an anglo job that didn't involve telemarketing. What we ended up discovering was a perfect match for Ben in so many ways, she truly understands so many of Ben's quirks and sensitivities. A kindred spirit. Even after she left, we've continued to be good friends and she's still incredibly attached to Ben. In fact, everyone near Ben forms a strong attachment to him, it's part of his charm. His ability to become part of your heart so quickly has made finding people to work with him, and even go out of their way to help us, so easy. He's learned the first rule of people, and while I'd like to teach him not to abuse it, it has served him well.

Just one piece left

I made an apple cake for fika this week to share with my colleagues. I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs. It's apparently mom's recipe, so I had quite a bit of faith in it. It said to cook it for 90 minutes, but at 75 it was well on its way to being over baked, so I would start checking it after 60. It filled the bundt pan used, and was moist. I might step up the batter a bit, it felt a little bland, maybe mix half the apple mixture into the batter and layer the rest.

At the end of the fika, there was only one little piece left that I brought home for Steve. A resounding success, but I found a few more similar recipes, so I'll have to play around a bit, you know me ;-)