Christmas Baking

Ahhh. Christmas baking. It's almost like we are back home, having a real Christmas with real trees and snow! One downside..it was about seventy-five degrees out. Now, don't get me wrong, the weather was totally amazing, but it was totally wrong for the day we had planned to Christmas bake! Lots of other things were Christmas-y though: we had a Christmas Classics radio station playing, a......okay, I guess that was really all that was Christmas-y. The tree was fake, the house was tiny and hot, and the recipes weren't American (I was baking with two German girls..), but overall it was nice to have a day baking with friends!

Our finished Linzer cookies, with the fake tree in the background. We had to make do with what we had, meaning no rolling pin, no cookie cutters, and only jam whose first ingredient was sugar, not fruit!

Holding the tray of cookies we made! The actual cookies weren't that sweet, but the super-sweet marmalade definitely made up for the lack of sweetness in the dough. I actually loved eating the dough before it was baked! :) But it seems that I always eat about half the cookie dough before I bake it, anyway.

We didn't have a scale or any method of American measurements, so we estimated the whole thing. They turned out pretty well despite having nothing that we would usually make them with. According to Zissy, they tasted nothing like German Christmas cookies... They definitely weren't my type of cookie, so I didn't take any home, but the whole experience was really fun.

A few recipes that have caught my eye and I hope to make this week:

Chocolate Banana Bread

Butternut Squash Gnocci

Berry Banana Bread

Mini Bagels (since I haven't had a bagel in six months!)

Bran Enriched White Bread