Month: December 2016

On the 19th day of Christmas-Bake Day

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This weekend I started baking all those cookies for the kids. Luckily I’ve been freezing some cookie dough prior to this weekend, so I only had to unfreeze those and bake them. I stored them all in plastic with a little note with the dough’s name and bake time on it.

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After a whole Saturday of baking I packed the cookies in 10’s and wrapped them in cling wrap until I can pack them in our little bags on Tuesday.

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On Sunday morning I baked some more cookies and then started on the icing, which ended up looking like a blood bath 😦

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So….. my husband said he’ll do the icing, it turns out he is more creative than I am.

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I have a few more batches of cookies to make before Thursday, but at least most of it’s been done.

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The lonely Expat Christmas

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When choosing to leave your home country to live in another country, it all sounds really exiting and cool. Truth be told, it is mostly cool and exiting. But then sometimes, its not…

When you leave your home for whatever reason, there will be some unforeseen troubles along the way. Things that will make you miss home. Or sometimes you’ll just need a hug, but there will be no-one to hug you.

One of the things that you need to consider is whether or not you’re willing to give up the precious time that you have with loved ones. One of life’s infinite truths are that we will all die. Its inevitable that someone you know will leave this world, and depending on how long you’re away from home, you might not be there in their final hours of need.

It is a choice that you will have to make before you leave home. You could have spend a few precious moments with that person and you didn’t. But just because you can’t be there in person, make sure that you are there for them in different ways. Remember to call home ever so often. Send Christmas and Birthday gifts. Show them that you care for them even though you’re not there.

One of the things that we have to live with is having no one for Christmas. This year Christmas falls on a Sunday meaning that our Christmas holiday isn’t long enough for us to visit our families. They might put a few minutes aside for us during a Skype call but after that, we’re all alone again, and if they forget to call then you’re whole Christmas is ruined.

This Christmas, remember your loved one in far off distant lands, whether you’re the one away from home, or them. Give them  a call or send them a little card just to say I LOVE & MISS YOU!!!!

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On the 15th day of Christmas

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Its almost time for me to bake all those cookies for the students at school. Out of all the recipes I’ve picked a few favorites.

I’ve chosen the ones that are the most cost effective, and also ones that the kids will really enjoy.

These were the ones that turned out the best. I really liked the double chocolate crinkle cut cookies but one of my students commented that he didn’t like white powder on his cookies. I’m not a fan of wastage so I’d rather make something that I know they will eat.

In addition we’ll be visiting my brother over New Years and I’ll take them some cookies too.

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On the 14th day of Christmas – Shortbread sticks

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For the past few weeks I’ve been baking every single weekend. It hasn’t been good for my waistline at all… but at least I’ve been able to experiment with various recipes. I feel that I’ve learned a lot these past few weeks. Some of the things might seem obvious to most people but as someone who’s never baked a cookie in her life it wasn’t. I’ve also accumulated a lot of dough. I only baked about 6-10 cookies with each batch, I have frozen the rest of the dough so that I can bake all the cookies this weekend for my schools cookie event next week. From my month of cookie baking I’ve learned the following.

  1. 1 Cookies don’t always need eggs. I dint’ know this. When I saw the recipe for the shortbread I thought “this can’t be right”… but turns out, it can.
  2. Use baking parchment paper. This is important for two reasons, firstly it keeps the cookies from spreading too much. Secondly, it decreases the amount of dishes you have to wash afterwards.
  3. Chilling the dough is important. At first I found this really time consuming, I’m not very patient, I want things done immediately, but now I plan ahead. Chilling he dough makes it more manageable and for some reason the cookie just turns out better.
  4. Measuring is important. This past weekend I thought I could get away with not using the instructed amount of cocoa, because its only a flavour , but it turns out, not using the correct amount and not substituting it caused my cookies to be too soft and the spread too much in the pan. The result being extremely big and flat cookies that sticks to the parchment paper and breaks into pieces when you try to remove it.

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For today’s cookies I’ve used the rest of the shortbread cookie dough that I had left. I got he original recipe from Sally’s baking addiction. I used her shortbread recipe for her Raspberry Almond thumbprint cookies.

I chilled the dough and rolled little flaky balls of dough in my hand until it formed a ball. I then rolled each little ball of dough into a stick

I baked them for 14 minutes. Once they cooled I melted some chocolate pieces with a tablespoon of milk and dipped the shortbread sticks in the chocolate. Immediately after I sprinkled some rainbow sprinkles on each stick and left the chocolate to dry.

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These cookies are really good with some coffee or hot-chocolate!!!!

Recipe Rating 8/10

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On the 13th day of Christmas -Candy Cane Cookies.

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Ever since I saw the candy cane cookies on Pinterest I just had to try them. It has a distinct Christmas theme and they look colorful and easy. To my surprise they weren’t as easy as I thought they would be. Overall my whole weekend of baking was a disaster. Nothing came out as I wanted it to. First my inside out chocolate chip cookies came out flat. My dough for the candy canes were too dry and every time I rolled it, it broke into pieces. So I went with an easy recipe that I know would work. Admittedly rolling this dough was also not as easy as I thought but it eventually came out the right way.

For the Candy Cane cookies I used the same shortbread recipe that I used for the Raspberry Thumbprint cookies.

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Ingredients

  • 1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
  • 2/3 cup (134g) granulated sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon rum extract/almond extract ( depending on your choice)
  • 2 cups  (264g) all-purpose flour

Directions

  1. First cream the butter until soft then add the sugar and extracts and mix further until creamy and light in color. I don’t have a hand mixer so I just used a spoon and mixed it together.
  2. Then mix the flour with the wet mixture until the dough is soft and flaky.
  3. Chill in the fridge for 3 hours.
  4. After 3 hours take the dough out of the fridge and let it stand outside for 20-30 minutes. ( If the dough is too flaky just knead small amounts in your hand until it form a solid ball.)
  5. Take half of the dough and knead red food coloring into it. Its pretty messy with your hand but for me it was the best way to mix the color into the dough
  6. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
  7. Take 2 teaspoons of dough of each color and roll each one out separately
  8. Then roll them together. Lay them out in the shape of a candy cane on a baking sheet
  9. Bake for 14 minutes.
  10. Take them out of the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before moving them to a wire rack

Recipe Rating 7/10

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