TWD-Finnish Pulla

This will be short and sweet as I am in the midst of baking Christmas cookies.  I was anxious to try this recipe because it looked so pretty in the picture and I have never made braided bread before.  I made this in a hurry and found it fairly simple.  I would have liked to have had more time to do a tighter and more precise braid, but overall I really liked it.  I liked the sweet flavor of the bread and I thought that the book gave a good recipe tip not to over bake it because I could see this becoming dry quickly.  I did not spring for the cardamon as the night before I made this my car was towed costing me $218 to retrieve it.  So cardamon was part of the budget cuts so as not to fall off a Christmas fiscal cliff.

Happy Holidays to all and here's to baking in 2013!

TWD-Gingerbread Baby Cakes

On Saturday I am hosting our neighborhood ladies' Christmas brunch.  So it is crunch time to get the house clean and the decorations out and the food ready and the silver polished.  I almost didn't make this because I thought I should be doing brunch preparations and we had a repairman in the kitchen fixing our disposal.  But I looked at the recipe and had all the ingredients including some fresh ginger my husband had bought to make some ancient-Chinese-secret cold remedy. So I made them on a whim and boy am I glad I did.  My husband and I have been married for over 21 years and I have baked consistently for those 21 years.  So when my husband said "Wow, this is the best thing you have ever made," you know you have a winner.  I thought the fresh ginger would give it an unpleasant bite, but I was wrong.  It had a nice grownup taste, but even my daughter enjoyed it. Since "this is the best thing I ever made" I can see this becoming a holiday tradition.