Christmas Cake & Cookies

Christmas arrived so quickly this year that it was hard to keep up, however, I was happy to get most of my baking checked off the list. 

Gingerbread cookies are a tradition at our house and my recipe makes a big batch which always comes in handy. We had both big and small gingerbread men, a Gingerbread Star Tree and a few little reindeer. The mini gingerbread men and reindeer were used as toppers for my gingerbread cupcakes which were served on Christmas Eve. We had more cupcakes than we needed so shared some with our next-door neighbors who have young children which was fun. 

For dessert on Christmas Day I made a Buche de Noel, also known as a Yule Log. 

This year I used a new recipe. It was really good however the one I have made in the past is a bit easier to assemble so next time I may use combination of each.

This cake was nice and light as was the whipped chocolate frosting and mascarpone filling. The sugared rosemary was from our garden and looked so festive with the sugared cranberries. Definitely a fun cake for Christmas!

Happy Monday!

DIY Holly Jolly Santa Card

Another fun Christmas card that was made in the wee hours of the morning. That seems to be the best time to work on projects around here.

Here is how this card was created: 

The first step is to sketch out my idea.

Step 2: refine the drawing.
Step 3: resize it.
Step 4: cut it out and try it.

Step 5: repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 until I am satisfied. 

For the nose I used my heart punch and cut it as shown above and for the ball on Santa's hat I used my flower punch. Using 2 flowers gave it a little more dimension. The belt is just a strip of black and the buckle is a square. Since this was a large square I made slits on two sides and slid the belt through. The notches were made with a hole punch as were the eyes.

The North Pole  on the inside of the card is a border sticker cut to size and a red gem for the top. 

To embellish the hat I used holly stickers and red gems.

There you have it. My Holly Jolly Santa that was finished and mailed just in the nick of time!

Ho Ho Ho!

Santa Suit Card / Boarding Pass

The absence of 6 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas is noticeable, to say the least, and makes a big difference during this busy season.  We are definitely feeling it, however, I have managed to squeeze in a little time here and there to make some DIY Christmas cards.

This cute Santa Suit card was so quick and easy and also features a fun Boarding Pass on the back for our new holiday carpool. I just made a few edits to my 3 Sisters Associates, LLC Thanksgiving Ticket and it was ready to go.

Only "5" days until Christmas

according to our neighbors cute Christmas Countdown Sign

but who's counting? 

Hopefully that will be just enough time to share

a few more DIY Christmas cards and maybe some baking.

Happy Thursday!

not your mothers Gingerbread Bundt Cake

Gingerbread cake of any kind served warm out of the oven is great and even better with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and a little whipped cream. It is festive no matter how you make it however I wanted something a bit more fancy to take to our Annual Christmas Party. 

This is my new Christmas version which is 

dirty frosted 

with

Salted Caramel Swiss Meringue Butter Cream,

topped with 

Salted Caramel Drip

 and garnished with

Sugared Cranberries! 

I chose a salted caramel frosting for the cake because it sounded wonderful and I had some homemade salted caramel leftover from the dessert I made for Thanksgiving. 

Once I was finished frosting the cake it still seemed like it needed something so I sugared fresh cranberries to use as a garnish. By this time I was beginning to second guess my idea and wondered if it looked too messy or would be too sweet but we were on a tight schedule for the day so had to call it good. 

To my surprise our friends raved about the cake and most of it was gone by the end of the evening so my fears were relieved. The frosting was light but added just a little flare to the gingerbread and the best part was it was easy to do. 

Happy Monday!

one more thing....Corn Husk Favors

The absence of those extra days between Thanksgiving and Christmas has not gone unnoticed here. So many things on the to~do list and so few days to check them all off however before I move onto Christmas there is just one more thing I want to share from Thanksgiving...these adorable Corn Husk Favors.

They were so easy to make and fun to fill with homemade Chex Mix or Scramble as it is referred to in our family. It is the recipe I always use and is very similar to other Chex Mix recipes. 

The snack mix fit perfectly in the little corn husks. 

It makes a lot so I put the remainder in a clear glass canister with a lid and put a scoop inside for easy serving. 

Only one more day until I begin my Christmas baking so I will be back soon with more to share. 

Happy Wednesday!

DIY Holiday Table Boxes

Thanksgiving weekend was extra busy this year with lots of fun activities which put me a little behind so bear with me. There are a few wrap~up posts that I am excited to share starting with our Count Your Blessings raffle prizes. 

Earlier in November I had asked the hubs if he could make me a couple table boxes out of his scrap wood pile. As an example I showed him a picture Miss E sent me of one she really liked and his response as usual was "piece of cake". He made a couple of sample boxes which were just what I wanted. In fact, I liked them so much I put in a bigger order and also asked for different sizes. He used all types of old wood including old fence boards he had saved. He stained some of the boxes and I also painted one. To give them a little extra character he added old recycled drawer pulls to the ends which he has collected over the years. 

At this point I decided these would make perfect Count Your Blessings Raffle prizes as well as centerpieces on our Thanksgiving tables.

Our raffle was a hit and we gave away the two Table Boxes that we filled with Poinsettias.  We thought it would be a fun way to start the Christmas Season. 

The 4" mini poinsettias fit perfectly in the boxes.

On the bottom of the boxes I used my wood burning tool to add a heart with the date and our initials. 

The DIY Table Boxes were easy to make, fun to fill and even more fun to give away to the winners of our Count Your Blessings Raffle.   

Happy Monday!

Chocolate Pumpkin Mousse Cake: Thanksgiving dessert

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is already over. Everything is cleaned up, put away and the Christmas lights are now up however we are still enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers which includes this   4 layer mousse cake { 5 if you include the chocolate ganache on top }.

This dessert was on my menu early on however I ran into some snags and actually and was not sure it was going to happen. It also required approximately 4 hours to make which made scheduling difficult.

However, I finally carved out some time at 3:30pm on Thanksgiving Eve. Not the ideal time to begin such a big project with unknown results but I pushed forward. I was determined to try it especially since I had invested in all the ingredients. { another reason I hoped it wasn't a flop } So I set in and began the baking. 

This tall cake required a cake collar which I did not have. In fact, I actually started to make this recipe earlier in the week when I realized that I had missed this very important item in the instructions. I made the first layer, which is a chocolate cake, and while it was in the oven I discovered the recipe required the cake collar. There was no time that evening to run out and find one so we ended up eating that cake. Over the next few days it occurred to me that I had some plastic that I might be able to make my own. It worked perfectly! I was ready to try again.  

Several hours into the process of making this cake I ran into another snag. The caramel mousse, which is the forth layer, requires thick salted caramel sauce which I completely overlooked. It was about 8:30pm on Thanksgiving Eve and the cake was so close to being finished I couldn't quit however it was really too late to go to the store and there was a chance they might not even have it. That meant my only option was to make my own salted caramel sauce, which I did. Since I have made it before I knew it would take approximately 30 more minutes but so worth it.  Once it was finished it was too warm to use so I put it in the freezer to speed up the cooling process which did help. Once it was room temperature I was ready to pick up where I left off. To top it off I set another one of my Chocolate Turkeys in a cloud of whipped cream.

Pumpkin Pies are a must so I made two of those as well, however, the Chocolate Pumpkin Mousse Cake was a hit.

It does take a long time to make this recipe and there are a lot of ingredients however I would definitely make it again. 

Happy Saturday!

Thanksgiving Invitations & Raffle Tickets

Thanksgiving is almost here and we are busy getting ready. This year I decided to send invitations because I wanted to invite everyone to participate in our new

Count Your Blessings Raffle!

It is always fun to get something special in the mailbox so I made an invitation with the detachable raffle ticket at the bottom which they can bring and enter in our drawing. Since we are counting our blessings, which in my opinion are many, I made extra tickets that can be filled out on Thanksgiving Day and entered as well.

My hope is the container will be overflowing with blessings. Our drawing will be held during dessert and, of course, there is a story behind the surprise we are giving away which I will share soon. 

As you can see it has been all about tickets the past couple weeks.

Now I need to turn my attention to the kitchen so that everything is ready and on schedule Thanksgiving Day. 

Happy Tuesday!

Garlic Cheese Bread

This bread is so easy to make because it is all done in my food processor. 

The mixing and kneading is finished in just a matter of minutes.

I love to knead bread however there are days when time is short and I could use the extra minutes to check something else off my list. 

Not only does this loaf of bread look beautiful but it tastes amazing too.

Melted cheese, garlic and fresh parsley from our garden all rolled up in the middle. What could be better than that? And it was perfect with our Lasagna and Copycat Olive Garden Salad. 

Apparently, I was so distracted by the wonderful bread that I forgot to take a picture of the lasagna. That's okay...

...because it is all about the bread anyway!

YUM.

Have a Wonderful Weekend!