Bake Sale

The youth at church frequently hold bake sales. This year, the Artist is participating for the first time.

She loves to bake, so I buy her ingredients and happily leave her alone in the kitchen. I think the Christmas Star Cookie recipe she found looks interesting. And she had fun with the process.

After working solo for a little while, the Engineer pulled up a step stool to watch. Soon he was declaring that she was the chef, and he was the helper.

The recipe is from a Bible Food Fun cook book the Artist received as a gift several years ago. She has made several of the recipes from the book, including the fish (shaped) pizza and the cheesy lions featured on the Amazon dot com link. All have been quite good so far.
The candies melt and give a stained glass look, they are so pretty!

Baking

The Engineer invents a new piano-playing posture.I broke into baking today, my most-dread Christmas chore. First I made the marzipan.

I asked the Artist to make the press cookie dough. She did a great job, then for the third year in a row the cookies came out of the press looking pitiful. And the press kept falling apart as I tried to use it. Frustration reigned. I yelled at the kids, swore under my breath and got short with Rick when he called from the office, "How is your day?"

Time to clean up the kitchen. I need a nap!

Tomorrow the Artist can mix up some gingerbread cookies. When she goes off to her evening appointments I hope to attempt springerle again this year. They are one of my favorites, but I have not had much practice. The dough can rest Thursday night and hopefully I'll be happy with them on Friday.

Humble Pie

My in-laws brought some 40 apples to us the other day. I thought it would be nice to make some apple pie and apple crisp and apple pancakes and...you get the idea.

Yesterday I had a chance to make a pie. For the first time since I'd been given some silicone bake ware as a gift I was making a pie just for the family -- not for any guests. This was finally my opportunity to try out the silicone pie dish.

I've been very pleased with the silicone loaf pans and I don't use metal ones any more. I use the silicone muffin pans less often, but they are easier than their metal counterparts as well, especially in the cleanup phase.

As for the pie plates, their diameter is a little larger than my metal pans. This makes them a wee bit too big for the Pillsbury prepared pie crusts. (I hate making and I don't like eating my own pie crusts.) It was hard to make a good seal and impossible to crimp the edges.

When using silicone in the past, I have not noticed any variations in bake time compared to using metal bake ware, so I did not even consider that there may be a difference using the pie plate. I popped it in the oven, set the timer, and continued with my day. After ten minutes it was time to reduce the oven temperature and reset the timer. Everything looked good.

When the timer went off again the top was a wee bit burnt. Not badly enough that I was smelling it through the house, but badly enough that the pie didn't look so good. I picked a few blackened pieces of apple from the vents before taking this photo. Rick to the rescue...
To solve the problem of how the pie looked, I called Rick at the office to ask if he could buy some vanilla ice cream on his way home. It is amazing how ice cream can cover burnt crust blemishes!

The last straw for the silicone pie plates was the difficulty I had in removing slices of pie from the plate. I served the pie a la mode in bowls because it would not remove from the dish without falling apart. Those pie plates are likely destined for the Goodwill store.

Quite a Cake

This weekend I was swamped with a big list of things to do. I asked the Artist for help with making a birthday cake for the Quipper's party. She had made cakes under my supervision before, and she always wanted to be a baker. And this time, I had a cake mix. What could go wrong?

I learned not to confuse the desire to be a baker with baking experience! With recipe books it usually works out well to follow the directions listed and add the ingredients in the order they are listed in the instructions. Not with this box! The poor artist put the cake mix, eggs, and then the butter into the mixer.

Let the experiment begin!

After enough beating, it looked all right, and it poured all right. The volunteers who licked the beater the spoon and the mixing bowl all gave their approval. But when it came out of the oven and cooled we had a problem.

The cakes did not want to come out of the generously oiled and floured pans. One submitted to coaxing and the other rebelled. So we had this:

The Quipper was very kind about it and did not seem to mind. Was it the fresh half layer of chocolate cake he and the kids got to eat as a surprise snack that eased the pain? Or was it the promise of pineaple and shrimp kabobs for dinner -- two of his favorites served with honey ginger sauce.

Family Time

Yesterday was a family day. After church my dad, brother, and my family went out to eat to celebrate my father's birthday. After a good lunch we all came to my home for cake and presents. Thank you, Indiana Jane for the Harvey Wallbanger Cake recipe. I didn't think to get a photo of it before we enjoyed it!Next time I think I'll leave the vodka out and use more orange juice and Galliano instead. I bet it is wonderful with the glaze, we had the powdered sugar top instead. The deep yellow-orange color would look nice garnished with some maraschino cherries too.

After the festivities we had fun watching the kids play with (and joining in!!!) some of their new Christmas and birthday toys.