Kicking off the great holiday cookie project

I was getting back into Greek drama today by reading Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and Antigone. I found a translation of the Oresteia by Peter Meineck, and I am loving it.  Firstly it’s available for Kindle, and secondly the focus of the translation is that of performance rather than solely being poetic or whatnot. My Greek drama course has a performance slant so this translation is perfect. I digress from the important business of cookies. I’ve been knee deep in serious cookie porn for the last few weeks as I gathered potential receipts for my holiday cookie project. I have around 10 people that I want to bake for so my plan is to have a marathon bake-a-thon session on Sunday. Get it all done in one go, and then spend Monday dropping them off. And hopefully, there will be enough leftover for me.  The problem is that there are so many holiday cookie recipes out there and everyday the foodie blogs I read post more and more. I think I need to cap it at 3 or 4 cookie types but I am having an issue whittling it down. These are the ones that have caught my eye so far:

• Tangerine & Ginger Cookies
• Glittering Lemon Sandwich Cookies
• Iced Oatmeal Cookies
• Chocolate Orange Cookies
• Pistachio White Chocolate Cookies
• Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies
• Christmas Cherries
• Lemon Gems

Which ones should I pick?

The Chelsea Bun Project

When I was in the UK in October I took a trip to Cambridge with my Mum, and we had tea at Fitzbillies. Fitzbillies is famous for its Chelsea buns, and I can confirm that they are amazing. Just as an aside a Chelsea bun is similar to a cinnamon bun but less cinnamony and just as sticky but with lots of dried currants.

When I came home I started looking for a Chelsea bun recipe and I came across this one at Let Her Bake Cake’s blog.  I tried it out over the weekend and even thought I screwed up the yeast I still managed to bake tasty (if a little heavy) buns. Next up I am going to try these sticky lemon buns (and also breakfast rolls) and fingers crossed I’ll master the yeast.  Can you tell which Chelsea bun is from Fitzbillies?

FTW Wednesdays

Let’s just try & concentrate on the positive…

• Snagged a $100 Amazon voucher through my office’s health & wellness program (all to be spent on school books)
• After much research I managed to find snazzy travel mugs to be used in our new car
• Since I have finished unpacking & cleaning I can finally paint my nails without the fear of premature chipping
• I’ve got six topics to read through tonight whilst Alex is off with his new colleagues
• Smitten Kitchen’s pear bread is amazing
• Two days till Caprica
• Made it to yoga so can be super lazy for the rest of the week
• Over caffeinated  thanks to two trips to La Colombe today

Christmas Eve

I am so so happy that it is Christmas Eve, and that 2009 is almost put to bed. It was only a half day in the office, so I was able to meet up with Alex to watch a matinee of  ‘Up In The Air’. (Really enjoyed it.) Once we got home I buzzed about the kitchen prepping for tomorrow whilst we listened to a This American Life podcast. It was pure middle class bliss. I made another match of mince pies, this time I have the pastry recipe down and Alex is a much better roller than I am since my pie crusts were uneven and an inch thick. Then I moved on to making Smitten Kitchen’s winter fruit salad and Baked’s sour lemon buttermilk scones. With the scones I followed Smitten Kitchen’s advice and flash froze them so I can bake them straight from the freezer tomorrow morning.  And since the recipe yielded way more scones than we can eat in the morning I will have some tasty breakfast treats to look forward to. We will have the scones (plus tea) in bed whilst we open our Santa socks (and listen to Morning Edition), and then breakfast proper will be the winter fruit salad and Pioneer Woman’s savory bread pudding.  We are going to friends for an early Christmas dinner around 5pm so I need to make sure that we don’t go hungry and graze on mince pies all afternoon!

I am so happy happy to be on vacation for the next week. No big plans just plenty of cooking, eating, studying and watching Band of Brothers again.

Happy holidays, or to follow Richard Dawkins’ lead and celebrate the creation of the universe.

Sweet treats

I’d like to say that I am up late because of studying or waiting up for Alex, but it is because I just finished baking and now I need to defrag. Watch a little bit of The Mentalist and catch-up with what is going on in the bloggie-verse.  It looks as if I have once again over baked for the office’s Halloween bash. As well as the pumpkin spice muffins and red velvet cupcakes in the photo below I made brownies. I just couldn’t stop myself. I was on a roll and tomorrow I get to wake up at 6am to decorate them.