Holiday baking?

[mindehankins]

We had a pretty neat thread going, last year, with lots of good ideas for holiday baking. I'm going to go search for it, and put the link here.
In the meantime...bakers, start your engines!

Here's last year's link: http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... sc&start=0

[jayseadee]

That was a great thread.

I never did make those cran-crackly things.

[liamsaunt]

I am steaming my Christmas pudding right now. I had way too much batter after filling the pudding mold, so I used the rest to fill two cake pans and I will be making a layer cake with that. I'll freeze the layers until closer to Christmas and then ice it later--maybe a brandied buttercream? My house smells so good!

[liamsaunt]

Here is a picture of the steamed Jamaican Christmas pudding, with the baked Christmas cakes in the back. The cakes are now in the freezer, and the pudding is in the fridge. You are supposed to keep feeding it rum and port over the next month but considering that it already has an entire bottle on rum in it as well as 3/4 bottle of port I think I am going to skip that step!!


<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/28539958@N00/5210382282/" title="jamaican black cake by liamsaunt, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4125/521 ... af5856.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="jamaican black cake"></a>

[mindehankins]

Oh my gosh, those look amazing! You have some kind of crazy self control, being able to wait a month to taste!
This is my shopping weekend, and maybe some mixing. I am really going to try Lindy's method of freezing the doughs, this year.

[Lindy]

Minde - Freezing the doughs and baking later worked out great for almost everything. I think I'll make some adjustments for the stickier or extremely delicate cookies. I found some forgotten cookie dough in my freezer and baked them about a month ago and they were STILL delicious!

[California Girl]

I made two batches of cookies today and they are all in the freezer! More to come! I love this method of doing cookies!

[bubblybrenda]

LiamsAunt, I've scoured the 7 pages of last year's posts and don't see the recipe for the Jamaican steamed pudding. Thought maybe you shared the recipe with us previously but I scoured my recipe index and can't find it. Can you please post the recipe or a link to it?

Thanks. By the way, your cakes looks scrumptious and the brandied butter creams sounds delicious too.

[cocosmom]

All my "bark" made and bagged (60) for my fellow teachers!

[California Girl]

I got the centers for 220 peanut butter balls made today. Tomorrow I'll dip them all in chocolate.

[cocosmom]

220?? WOW I am impressed. Any new candy ideas? My friend made a white bark with dried cherries & pistachios..said it was great. No samples yet

[California Girl]

I was surprised at how many I made too! I think next year I'll make them bigger. And I totally forgot to sprinkle the red & green jimmies on them before the chocolate set-up, but for better or worse, here they are! Eventually I'll put them in red or green foil candy papers and tuck them in-between the cookies I send to my relatives.

Peanut butter centers


In the fridge chillin' overnight (it doesn't look like 200, does it!)


Dipped


Back in the fridge!

[mindehankins]

Beautiful, Margo! They look great! I am on a 5 day "bake-cation" and am DONE with my holiday baking already!
Another year of not trying the freeze the dough trick, but I didn't need to do that with all this time off!