Christmas Cooking
 

Here's my afternoons work.

Attachment 35509

Not quite finished yet, but they probably wont all be on the bench together again after tonight.

I baked the cakes last week and iced them all today.

There's a few dodgy bits, but just try not to look too close. :)

Really beautiful, Ali. Nice work. The frosting looks sooooooo smooooooth!!

Do you freeze them?

Lovely, Ali. Quite exceptional.

Down in Reception, they have been making mini-Christmas cakes for the last two weeks.
The children help to weigh and stir, then they are put into small baked bean tins to cook. As long as the lip of the tin is removed they work as perfect moulds. Who removes the lips? Yup, we spent more than a few playtimes with can openers in the staffroom.

Being heavy fruitcakes, they will last without freezing, as I am sure Ali's will.
Marzipan (bleurgh) and icing are next, and they get to cut out a shape for decoration.

It's hugely labour-intensive, but wonderful for the parents. I imagine many photos of a child's first Christmas cake make their way onto social media. Or into albums, if they are old-fashioned like me.

Thanks Bri. It's actually what they call plastic icing. It's like what they put on formal wedding cakes and so on. Goes pretty hard after a while. It comes in a lump and you kneed it for a short while to soften it, then roll it out like pastry and apply it to the cake.

I don't use marzipan Sundae. I don't like it. ;)

Our traditional Christmas cakes are covered with Royal Icing - which sets hard as ice. And for wedding cakes too.

Although the draped effect makes me wonder if you have used fondant icing. Which you roll out with a rolling pin? You know your icing far better than I do, I'm only trying to get the translation right ;)
Pleased to hear it. I was gutted when I visited Italy and saw all the beautiful tiny works of art made of marzipan. Tiny, exquisite, hand painted... oh, but they are marzipan. Yucky.

ETA - I keep thinking the crimson one is a cheese.
Sorry.
It would be a yummy cheese.

EGGGGSALANT Ali !!

You're right Sundae. It is a type of fondant. I'm using a different brand this year, which is smoother and should set a lot harder than the stuff I've used previously. I have found that in some ways it's better and easier to use, but on one of the little cakes, the icing has gone sort of wrinkly over night. I'm not really sure what's caused that. It's just surface wrinkles on the sides, so I'm wondering if I was smoothing it with my hands for too long and it heated underneath the surface (which while smoothing is coated in cornflour to stop sticking) and just kind of slid down a bit or something. Anyway, I think that cake is getting a nice fat ribbon around the sides later on today. lol

I did the red cake to take up to Dad's place. They're hosting Christmas lunch this year, and Ma loves the colour red, so I thought I'd do something a bit different to thank her for the effort she'll be putting in for us. :) Now that you mention it, it does look like a big cheese. lol I hadn't noticed that before though.

Thanks Zippy. :)

Oh and Bri, Sundae is right again. They'll keep for yonks because of the rum in the cake and the icing being just sugar. The only issue can be humidity up here. Occasionally I've had the icing go a bit dodgy because it can sweat a bit, and the moisture can cause mildew which of course we prefer not to eat. :)

In one afternoon - that's pretty impressive, Aliantha! I remember doing Christmas cake decorating in high school home ec class, but I was pretty crap at it. Not smooth at all.

Nice, Ali! :thumb: Didn't want to attempt fondant, too time-consuming. But then again, I was going to make it from scratch. Perhaps one day I'll buy the pre-made one.

It's really the prep that takes the time. Once you get started on the actual icing it doesn't take too long at all.

My back was sore by the end of it though just from leaning over slightly for about 6 hours (around about I think). Now I'm just trying to find places to put them all so the cats don't make a mess of them.


Lola, I didn't make the icing. I bought it in a 2.5kg tub. Two of them although I only used about a third of the second one. It'll last though. I'm sure I'll have another cake to do sooner or later. lol

It takes most arm strength than I have to make that icing, and I don't have a mixer that'd cope with it. The one i have used to be my Mum's and it's nearly as old as I am, and I KNOW the motor would overheat if I tried a trick like that with it. lol I'm scared to even try to make marshmallow with it.

I didn't even know you could make marshmallow.
I thought it just grew ;)

Mum's mixer is a Kenwood Chef - nearly as old as me.
I over excited it one afternoon and dirty grey smoke came out of the back and set off the smoke alarm.
In alarm myself (do you know how much those things cost these days?!) I switched it off and put it back nonchalently in the cupboard. COWARD.
It worked though. In that it still works and no-one is aware I nearly killed it.
I've just handled it a bit more gently since.

My bro's wedding present to me was a food processor with all the whistles and bells. I left it when I left my husband. Shame. It wouldn't have survived all my running away it's true, but I do occasionally mourn the loss.

Yes I know how much they cost. lol The new one I want is over $500 retail. You have to do a lot of baking to justify that I can tell you.

Some friends of mine are urging me to start having a big baking day on Fridays and taking my cakes to the market on Saturday mornings. They seem pretty convinced I could make a decent amount of money. If I did decide to start doing that I might be convinced to fork out the money. Or I might actually need to spend the money once the old one blows up. lol

People have suggested that to me too, Ali.
I simply don't have enough self-belief to seriously contemplate it.

The most I will do is make a bunch of cakes for the next May Fayre and put a sticker on them - I might get a commission for a birthday cake. Although me being me, I would probably be too embarrassed to charge any more that the actual cost of the ingredients, if not less.

I have a really good Krupps machine, but I want a new shiny Kenwood or Sunbeam...I cant justify it at the moment, but one day....

Beautiful work, Ali.

Whoa, Sundae! I just noticed we signed up at the same time, I really need to lift my posting game....but it would all be dribble, my posts would be no where near as eloquent.

Tcha.
I sometimes reread my posts and think - blimey, that was well written!
When I say sometimes I mean almost never. I did read one about rhyming poetry I don't remember writing but am quite proud of.

90% of the time it is nonsense/ drivel/ just silliness.

I remember seeing both Ali and Monster as noobs.
Seems silly now.

What's silly is that I still feel like a noob often.

Yup, that's silly :)
5+ years is a big commitment in internet terms!
Hell, it's longer than my marriage.

lol...I know I'm an idiot.

I've posted about this feeling before and always get shouted down for it. I know it's dopey and all, and after some of the crap I've been involved in here, you'd think I'd be feeling right at home.

I have that general feeling of disconnect from my real life too though. Like I just don't quite fit in somehow. I've always had it. Who knows. I'm sure if I mentioned it to a shrink of some kind they'd have plenty to say about it.

No shouting here babba.
Infi has had the same issue. She's said so on the board so I'm not breaking confidence.

I have had a real issue about being left out all my life.
My most disturbing dreams involve my Mum and sister and them hiding things from me. I am so angry/ distressed I physically attack them. A dream where I smash my sister's head into concrete is extreme but not unknown.

Here though, I am quite relaxed. I was paranoid as a newb. But not now.
Although other things can seriously bug me. I PM'd someone recently about a response I'd had. I took it VERY personally. The person I PM'd gently suggested a different way to read it, and they were right. I had read far too much into it, as later posts proved.

This is a good place, all round.
Look what Mari endured and then came back as bigger, better, more.

Longer than my marriage too.

My el cheapo frying pan lasted longer than my marriage too.

hee hee!!

Me, too!

On both the marriage(S) and pan(S)

:)

ah, well. Live and learn.

does it count if I say I've been posting here for longer than I've been married? lol So no matter when my marriage falls apart (let's hope it doesn't) I will have been posting here for longer. ;)

Yep - do not ever ever ever get married again.

New pans are acceptable.

I didn't have an el-cheapo frying pan.
At least not one which made any impact on my memory.
I left my Le Creuset pans behind me though. Although that wasn't a regret. Things were too bloody heavy to be practical. And try making popcorn in one!

The casserole (Dutch Oven) was gorgeous, but I had to have help getting it out of the oven when I was cooking for company.

But that would be a great way to meet guys!

just swank up to them and say, "Could you help me get something gorgeous out of my oven?"

Is the phrase "bun in the oven" current in America?

evidently not current enough...... either that or "would you like to come up and see my afterbirth?" is considered an acceptable chat-up line

I just read this.

I know all those feelings.

It's like "we can't know you if you don't show us" yet sometimes when one tentatively reaches out one 'feels' as though their hand was slapped away. As if to say "you are not good enough."

It's quite painful to be obviously dismissed, too, when one is reaching out the best they know how (I almost typed 'the beest they know how' sorry monster!) and are ignored. I'd rather be yelled at than ignored. Ignored does indeed say "you are not good enough." So be it.

This is MY hang-up, I know, in my more lucid less convoluted times. I just keep riding the waves.

Oh hell, I got nuttin' about cooking.

Maybe I"ll post some of my grandma's recipes. I inherited her little recipe box and was going through it this weekend, as a matter o' fact.

Anyone ever heard of a homemade candy called 'sea foam'?

look. I'm trying to be helpful.

If you two don't appreciate my attempts at getting our gal Sundae married off to a nice, toothsome, oven-loving, country-estate owning bachelor I will take my suggestions elsewhere!

*storms off whilst applying black eye-liner*

If I find a nice toothsome oven-loving country-estate owning bachelor, I might have a go at him myself. :lol:

But wait, what is 'toothsome'? Does it mean he has SOME teeth? Which ones?

No. Tell me about this mysterious thing. Please.

Grandma made it all the time. I think it's hard to make. she always put a walnut on top. There aer recipes online but not exactly like Grandma's, I don't think.

They're a light airy sugar candy. Very different.

This picture looks most like what she made, sans walnuts. As with anything, there are a lot of options and variations.

And yes, it looks weird but is yummy. And it looks like uncooked dough but it' snot. ;)

It has the slightest 'crunch' to it.

I think I've had that before. Kind of like a meringue. Whip up some sugary egg whites and bake them?

No baking, but yeah. Egg whites, sugars, vanilla extract et al.

Oh, here's my grandma's recipe. It took me a minute to decipher it. Her handwriting...worse than mine!

2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. water

Boil until med hard ball in cold water (until about 240 degrees on candy thermometer

Pour into 2 egg whites, beat until stiff (don't go there boys.)

Drop by taps onto buttered sheet when it will hold shape.

English walnut on top if desired.

That's it! I guess there is no vanilla in this one.

did your gramma write the "don't go there boys" bit?

Gingerbread
 

We have snowmen, christmas trees and snowflakes.

Attachment 35658

I hate you Ali! I just bought a few cookie cutters, but I am not artistic at all and there is NO WAY I can decorate mine that well. :(

Imma make 'em and just eat 'em now.

classic, the trees and snowflakes were easy. Just put the icing on then press them into a bowl of sprinkles or coconut as I've done. So easy! The snowmen would have worked out better if I'd had more practice, so I might have to make another batch of those down the track. :)

I was pretty happy with them, and best of all, they taste pretty good too. :)

Love them snow flakes and Christmas trees. As for the snowmen, if you had outlined the edge, the icing wouldn't have spilled, or at least as much. ;)

Classic, if I could decorate them Angry Birds cookies, you could decorate them Xmas cookies just fine. ;)

I was just doing a quick job lola. I'm nowhere near the artist you are. ;)

Peanut Brittle
 

:yum:

You're a little South of Brizzie now, aren't you?

lol yeah. Getting closer Zen.