first cookbook review

A few years ago in a kitchen shop in Wyoming my mom bought me this cookbook:

Rather than just a collection of recipes this book is an education in candymaking of many kinds. The book starts out describing the ingredients that will be used and explaining how to select quality ingredients.  Seven pages alone are devoted to chocolate.

The author then goes on to talk about the tools and equipment that are used in candymaking. She follows that up with a chapter on techniques.

Next she gets to the recipes.  Each recipe chapter has its own index of the candies found within that chapter.  Following the index is a page or two talking about the candy type found in that chapter.   The first recipe chapter is on truffles and there are recipes for 26 different truffles.  Each recipe has several variations using different chocolate.  The first truffle recipe classic chocolate truffles is made with bittersweet chocolate but there are instructions to make a white chocolate version as well as a milk chocolate version.

Following the chapter on truffles is a chapter on more chocolate candies, a chapter on caramel candies, as well as chapters on nut brittles, marzipan, fudge, nougat, divinity and fruit candies.

The title page of each recipe chapter has a full page photo of a candy from that chapter and there are other full page photos as well within the chapter.  The photos are beautifully styled usually depicting finished candy but occasionally a step in the candymaking process is shown.

cookie share

Each Christmas season I bake a few decorated cookies and I bring them to my mom and dad's house for our Christmas celebration.  I also share some of the cookies with others.  This year these cookies were part of my cookies that were shared.

Recipes

peanut clusters
chocolate covered cherries
oreo truffles
reeses peanut butter balls
snowflake cookies
Russian tea cakes
Scandinavial almond bars
peanut butter blossoms
snowman faces
snowman cookies
holly and berry cookies

snack day

We have always made a bunch of snacky stuff each Christmas.  We always make the original chex mix, some caramel puffcorn and puppy chow as well as my grandma Alma's popcorn balls.  I have my grandmother's old red shortening tin that she would load up with popcorn balls or rosettes and bring out each Christmas.  I package our treats into single serving plastic bags and load them up into the tin. 

filled and ready to haul to Christmas at my folks'

packaged and ready to load into the red tin

Recipes:

caramel puffcorn
puppy chow
chex mix
oscar and alma's popcorn balls

Christmas brunch

As has been our custom in recent years we celebrated Christmas at the farm with a Christmas brunch.  We shared our stockings first, had brunch, and then opened gifts.

Menu

mimosas

Danish puff

oatmeal pecan muffins

individual souffles

crepes with Nutella or Marscarpone filling, strawberries and whipped cream

the table

individual souffles

danish puff on top and oatmeal pecan muffins

souffle (left) and crepes (right)

Recipes

Danish puff
oatmeal pecan muffins
individual souffles
crepes with marscarpone filling

candy day

I generally make a few candies as part of our goodies that we take to my mom and dad's for Christmas and share with friends.  This year when time got to be of the essence instead of looking for a few new recipes to test and use, I ended up going with our old favorites.  This year I again made four of our traditional candies.

L to R peanut clusters, oreo truffles, peanut butter balls

 

chocolate covered cherries

Recipes:

oreo truffles
reeses peanut butter balls
chocolate covered cherries
peanut clusters

late night wine and dessert

We celebrated our family Christmas early as part of our family would be traveling this year and gone over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Our usual routine has been for the kids to visit their paternal grandparents and my parents on Christmas Eve fitting in visits to both places.  We would have our stockings, presents and brunch on Christmas Day morning.

This year all of the kids arrived in the evening on Friday and without multiple commitments we were able to spend the evening together.  I had made two desserts and served small portions of each.

With dessert we sampled this bottle of Chianti that was bottled at the winery that the girls and I visited in Italy last year. 

The first dessert was a bittersweet chocolate tart in a cracker crust with a whipped vanilla Marscapone cheese topping made with homemade Marscapone cheese. 

chocolate truffle tart with marscarpone filling

 The second dessert was a chocolate pecan torte.  Four thin layers of chocolate cake filled with chocolate frosting between the layers and a rich chocolate glaze on top.   The frosting covers the sides of the torte and pecans are pressed into the frosting.

chocolate pecan torte

Recipes:


chocolate pecan torte
chocolate truffle tart with marscarpone topping

planning for Christmas 2013

In the past our Christmas celebrations have squeezed in a visit to both sets of my children's grandparents usually on Christmas Eve and our celebration at home was on Christmas morning with presents and a brunch menu.  This year one of my children will be traveling over the actual holiday so we will be celebrating early.  I am liking the idea.  I am picturing a more leisurely celebration and perhaps more than one meal.  I think it will still be a brunch but it will be Saturday morning but I am  thinking that depending on arrival times on Friday that there might be an opportunity for a Friday night meal or dessert and a late afternoon supper on Saturday before the travelers head back home to pack for the airport and their balmy holiday vacation.  I would also like to include the grandparents at some point as at least two of my children will not be here for their celebrations.  Perhaps this year we can do presents before brunch and include the grandparents for brunch or even presents on Friday evening with dessert and stockings in the morning followed by brunch and then an early supper.  I will have to poll the group...

Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2013

Each year my family  gathers at my parents' home for Thanksgiving.  My mom  prepared the turkey, stuffing,  potatoes and gravy, corn casserole, a pasta salad, a sweet salad and pumpkin pie.  As usual it was a terrific meal. Later we had the leftover turkey in sandwiches, relishes and dip, and two more salads.

My sister brought a coconut cream pie and her signature French silk pie.  She also brought a boozy, minty hot chocolate drink that was so rich it could have been served in expresso cups.

Our contribution was deviled eggs, a tray of goodies, an almond cake, Caitlin's pumpkin crunch cake and  Nikole's lefse.

photos

I did not get a lot of photos but here are some of our contributions.

 rosettes, almond bars, krumkake, peanut blossoms and tea cakes

scandinavian almond cake

crunch cake with whipped cream and nutmeg

links to the recipes:

Scandinavian almond cake
peanut butter blossoms
Scandinavian almond bars
Russian tea cakes
rosettes
krumkake
Caitlin's pumpkin crunch cake