Sweet New Zealand - December 2012

Merry Christmas and a happy new year everyone! Welcome to Sweet New Zealand, this is my first time hosting, how exciting! This month’s recipes are perfect for entertaining in the festive season, with everything from Christmas mince pies to delicious coconut ice we’ll have to bookmark this for next December. Isn’t it nice to know we’re all still alive after the predicted apocalypse, what better way to celebrate than baking up a storm?!

First up to get us in the festive mood, Alessandra Zecchini proves that her Christmas tree can look good and taste good too! Alessandra’s Fondant Christmas Tree Decorations look spectacular, especially in contrast to the traditional green tree. Oh Christmas tree indeed!

Next up Alessandra graces us with another mouth-watering entry from her Only Recipes blog, Cupcakes with Dried Blueberry Slices and Blackcurrant Powder. These cupcakes look delicious and simple to create, what’s better is there is no icing needed! Bonus!

The lovely Frances from Bake Club mixes things up a little with this totally raw, gluten free, dairy free and sugar free recipe for her Raw Chocolate Mousse Tart. This recipe requires no cooking which automatically puts it in my good books! Plus, you’ll be able to keep everyone happy with a recipe like this, even your diabetic/gluten free/dairy intolerant friends!

All I want for Christmas is some Ooooey Gooey Cinnamon Swirly Buns! These bad boys look like something I could demolish in a few seconds (just like Michelle’s boys I think?) Michelle from Greedybread sent in this entry that makes me want to whip up a batch so fast you won’t believe. Not only am I a sucker for cinnamon buns but this recipe look nice and easy to follow with no confusion over ingredients and no fussing over cutting things to precise sizes. Can’t wait to try these!

If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas look no further than this delicious Coconut Ice recipe from Michelle at Greedybread. Michelle brings up a great point, why is it that we don’t eat this heaven-sent coconutty goodness all year round? I say we start eating it once a month, I’m in! Anyone else?

This next entry by Allison from Pease Pudding is going to make you wish we had Christmas more than once a year. Alli made these adorable Christmas Mince Pie Pops, yes you read that right, POPS! I always say everything tastes better on a stick! Oh so cute and fun to eat too I’m sure!

It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas! Well, at least that’s what I imagine when I think of spiced cakes at Christmas time. Especially with my husband’s Dutch family, spiced food is pretty much all they eat! This delicious Spiced Apple and Walnut cake by Shirleen at Sugar & Spice sounds like a superb idea for a Christmas dessert or snack. I love Shirleen’s “random thoughts” which accompany her recipe quite nicely!

If there’s one thing I love about Christmas time, it’s the cherries! I am one of those people. The cherry people. The ones who adore anything with the word cherry in it and you can’t get much better than the real thing, that is, unless you throw it into some delicious moist chocolate brownies. That is just what Lesley at Eat Etc did when she submitted this delicious looking recipe for Chocolate Cherry Brownies. I like how Lesley has explained that these brownies are the fudgey kind, not the yucky cakey type, it’s good to get that kind of information before you start baking. Nothing like biting into a brownie that tastes like bland cake (yes this happened to me yesterday). Can’t wait to try this recipe!

I’m a big fan of giving homemade (edible) gifts at Christmas time and I know I would LOVE to receive a box of these Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles from Nicola at Homegrown Kitchen. Not only has Nicola used fresh locally grown hazelnuts but she’s thrown cocoa nibs in there too, which has got me very intrigued (never tried them!) but also craving a taste of these beautiful looking truffles.

I know Santa Clause is a big fan of this next entry, decorated Sugar Cookies by Anita from On To The Plate. Anita suggests getting the family around to decorate cookies at Christmas time, I think that’s a great idea, it could even become a family tradition!

Anita has been so kind as to send in another recipe for us to drool over, this time it is Chocolate Pecan Brownies which look delicious! She made these for Thanksgiving, I bet everyone was thankful for them!

Lastly, I decided I should contribute something to the Sweet NZ round up (seeing as I forgot last month) so I’ve added my tutorial on these cute Mini Gingerbread Houses that sit on the side of your mug. I’m not going to lie, these are pretty time consuming, but they are so much fun to decorate and much more fun to eat with your coffee or tea than a plain boring gingerbread man!

So that’s it for December’s Christmasy Sweet New Zealand recipes. Thank you for stopping by, hopefully you will be inspired to bake your way through 2013. I hope you all have a wonderful new years celebration whatever you have planned. I will be sleeping through this new years eve, which I’m actually excited about (never done that before!) Take care and be safe!

Next months Sweet New Zealand will be hosted by Arfi from HomeMadeS, I can't wait to read all the sweet recipes for the new year!

Red Velvet Christmas Trees Brownies

Well, Christmas is over, done and dusted. Now it's just a few days until the new year is upon us! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed at least a few days off from your busy lives. I have got one more week off (lucky me!) then I'm back to temping , in February I will be back to student life. Better enjoy wearing corporate clothes again while I can!

I came up with the idea of making red velvet brownie Christmas trees a few months ago and I'm not sure if the concept was better than the real thing. I had never tried red velvet brownies before so was just going with my knowledge of red velvet cake but I think I should have stuck to the recipe on this one! Most recipes call on a white chocolate buttercream to top the brownie but noooo, I chose to pair it with cream cheese icing, like the cakes traditionally have. Little did I know the brownie would turn out to be rather boring. My suggestion would be to add a good serving of white chocolate chips or white chocolate chunks into the batter, either that or white chocolate buttercream (like the original recipe suggests). Next time I'll definitely try this!

Despite the blandness of the brownies (okay, they weren't that bad, I'm just hard on myself!) I actually quite liked how these looked. I tried to find a cream cheese icing that would keep its shape when I piped, unfortunately this meant that the icing tasted more buttery than cream cheesey and I didn't like it much. But as for the decorating, I tried out different tips and surprised myself with what could be done with the tips I had on hand! I personally quite like the fat zig-zag one whereas Mr S said it reminded him of something rude and proceeded to laugh at it. Nice. The sprinkles were my favourite bit. You may have noticed that they are in a colour sequence and that may just point to me being a weirdo obsessive compulsive freak. Who knows?!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone! TI will be spending the day with my husband (just us!) which is the first time we have had the day to ourselves. We were going to go out for a picnic but the whether is quite miserable so instead we're having a yummy cooked breakfast and opening gifts, later we'll move the coffee table out and make an indoors picnic. Later in the evening we will be going to my friends place for dinner which will be nice too.

I'm so glad I've finished my Christmas baking finally, I feel like I made a thousand things this year!

What are your plans for Christmas?

As a little Christmas present from my family to yours, here is a video of Pecan playing with a Christmas present we got - a USB powered flower fan, enjoy!

So have yourself a merry little Christmas, if you're out on the roads please please drive safe, if you're drinking please drink responsibly, if you're eating...well, eat as much as you can and don't feel guilty! Remember the reason for the season and enjoy this time with friends and family, much love to you all from my little family to yours! xx

Mini Gingerbread Houses for Your Mug

Is Christmas time always this exhausting or am I just getting old? I worked (teaching preschool) for a full day, then spent an hour and a half finishing off some Christmas shopping and I felt like I should be awarded a medal of honour. I neeearly poured a glass of wine to congratulate myself but chose juice instead to save the calories for Christmas day wine consumption.

As much as I love the silly season I'm beginning to see why others don't. It is pretty tiring. In fact, I'll admit that I had a mini melt down in the middle of the mall today while shopping with Mr S for his Christmas present, I actually said "I hate Christmas!" ...okay it was more like this "I HATE CHRISTMAS!!!" then followed up with "I finally admit it, I hate Christmas just like everyone else." Now that I'm cool, calm and collected (and have my feet up) I can tell you that I do not in fact, hate Christmas, Christmas just hates me this year. I know I have put myself under too much pressure and tried to do everything. Next year I think I'll try and take it easy.

Even though this years Christmas has raised my blood pressure and probably aged me more than any other, I have enjoyed all the baking I managed to get in. The latest baking gift I made are these adorable little gingerbread houses that sit on your coffee cup, ready to be dunked in and enjoyed with a nice cup of hot chocolate. I found out about these cute creations last Christmas when Pinterest was still new to me and have been wanting to make them ever since. I am so grateful for Megan at Not Martha for her extensive research she put in before blogging about her creations. From all of her notes I was able to make the mini gingerbread houses knowing exactly how to go about it. I kept reading in the comments on her blog post people saying "gosh that's a lot of work to put in but well worth it" and I'm thinking, psssht, it doesn't look like that much work...famous last words. These bad boys take up a lot of time but yes, I do think they are worth it.

I actually took a tonne of photos so if you would like to see some more detailed shots of the other decorated gingerbread houses head on over to my Facebook page and check out the photos!

If you would like to make these sweet little gingerbread houses check out Martha Stewart's gingerbread recipe (or use your favourite) and be sure to give Not Martha's blog post a good read to find out how to bake them properly (it's trickier than it sounds!) here is my run down:

How to make mini gingerbread houses:

• Prepare cookie dough as recipe suggests and make sure it is very chilled.
• Preheat oven.
• Roll out a third of the dough mixture onto a foil or baking paper sheet nice and thin (1/8th of an inch if you want to be exact).
• Cut out the pieces of your gingerbread house and cut away the excess (instead of moving the pieces) this makes sure that the house pieces will stay in shape.
• Pop the foil or baking paper sheet in the freezer for 15 minutes.
• Bake the gingerbread, keep an eye on it and take them out when they are just starting to brown.
• While one batch is baking cut up another and put in the freezer. I managed to get 2-3 houses on each tray.
• Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the tray then peel them off and let cool on a rack.

How to assemble mini gingerbread houses:

• Prepare royal icing (I always use meringue powder and this recipe)
• Once cookies are completely cool get each house ready in front of you with two of each piece.
• Fill piping bag with royal icing fitted with a #2 tip or small round tip.
• Pipe two lines on the outer edges of the door pieces.
• Attach walls to one door piece and let it stand.
• Attach the other door piece to the walls and let it sit for about 2 minutes or until it is reasonably stable.
• Pipe two lines along the roof top and attach the two roof pieces.
• Make sure to work fast when working with royal icing or it will set and try to hold pieces in place for a few seconds before letting go.

How to decorate mini gingerbread houses:
You can decorate your mini gingerbread houses however you like, I used a #1 and #2 tip and royal icing to decorate some of the houses, just going free style.

To coat with crushed candy canes:

• Refrigerate or freeze candy canes until they are chilled.
• Pulverize them in a blender or food processor until they resemble rough crumbs.
• Pipe an outline of royal icing on the roof of the gingerbread house.
• Spread royal icing with a knife over the entire roof, making sure to spread it to the edges.
• Dip houses in a bowl full of candy cane crumbs, pressing down firmly.
• If there are missed spots sprinkle some candy cane crumbs on and press down.
• The candy cane crumbs will stick together when they are not chilled so in between dunking houses put the crumbs in the fridge to keep them cool.

I am submitting this recipe/tutorial for December's Sweet New Zealand (which I'm hosting whoopee!) Sweet New Zealand is a monthly blogging event where Kiwi food bloggers share their sweet recipes. It's lots of fun so do check it out if you're keen to get involved!

Cookie Gift Box

It has been a busy few days in our household. Last Wednesday, which happened to be 12.12.12, two of our very close friends got married! You might remember Mark and Leanne's engagement cake? Well I made them a wedding cake too which was really cool. I loved being a part of their big day, helping out in any way I could (which was mostly just taking hundreds of photos) but I think my favourite part was the cake, mainly because of having done their engagement cake too. It just felt kind of special to me. They are such great friends of ours and their day went perfectly (as I thought it would) I'm so happy for them! Mr S was the best man (I think he's the best man ever!) and he made a beautiful speech...then proceeded to try and drink the beer menu...twice. Needless to say, the rest of the night was amazing, filled with drinking, dancing, more drinking, line dancing (I always end up line dancing when I'm at weddings for some reason), Gangnam Style, disco music and more drinking!

The next day we drove back down to Auckland, feeling a little worse for wear, and stopped off at Albany to see the Hobbit in high frame rate. I was so happy to finally be seeing it, after all these year, after all this time, after saying way back in the day 'wouldn't it be cool if they made the Hobbit' it was finally happening! I wasn't disappointed. In fact, quite the opposite. I was impressed by the way that Peter Jackson had done it again. Everything felt the same, only lighter. The music and mood matched that of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and yet managed to stay light and fun, just as intended by J.R.R. Tolkien when he wrote it for his kids. The high frame rate was interesting, I felt like the indoors scenes were a little intense and it really felt like they were just there in front of me. However, I would like to see this in 2D as it's what I'm used to with Lord of the Rings and I missed the very picturesque scenes that reminded me of artwork from Alan Lee.

...back to reality. It's nearly Christmas day so we've been giving Christmas presents to friends and family when we see them. This particular present was an idea I had last year after seeing this pin on Pinterest. I basically saved a box from a roll of foil, then wrapped it and filled it with small cookies. Don't be fooled by how easy this may look though, wrapping the foil box was much harder than it looks!

I made the cookies using the recipe from the Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies (only halved) and they tasted fabulous! I was actually glad to be giving them away so I could get them out of the house, I couldn't stop eating them! If you want to make a cute home made present like this it's easy as pie, take a look below for instructions.

How to make a cookie gift box

You will need:
Empty foil, baking paper or cling wrap box
Glue stick
Scissors
Cellotape
Wrapping paper
Bow

• Firstly, remove the serrated part of the box very carefully, you don't want your present to be a cookie trap! Ouch!
• Cover the entire box with glue.
• Cut a large rectangle from the wrapping paper, making sure that it is big enough to cover all sides of the box plus a little extra for the edges.
• If your wrapping paper is thin (like mine) then you might like to cut two small rectangles to go on top of the top and front of the box so that the box packaging is not to visible, just glue these on before gluing the wrapping paper down.
• When attempting to wrap the box, remember to cut lots of slits so it is easy to fold
• Bake cookies according to instructions (check out these cookie recipes) and let them cool completely before popping in the box.
• Line the inside of the box with a small piece of baking paper.
• Place cookies inside the newly decorated box, try to get as many in as possible!
• Top the cookie box with a bow then give to someone you love dearly...or keep for yourself from "santa"

Home Made Christmas Cards

Have you seen how cheap Christmas cards are to buy nowadays? Were they always that cheap? I'm not sure. I tend to buy some each year after Christmas just to keep my Christmas storage box stocked. This year I decided I wanted to get creative and make some cards, just to give them that personal touch. I had seen some cute finger print cards floating around Pinterest so tried my hand at them. I didn't really have to right kind of paint or any coloured ink so I just went with what I had. It was quite fun actually! Especially when I blasted out Christmas music while making them!

Are you making any home made Christmas crafts this year?

A special card for you-know-who, can you spot Pecan?

Pecan wanted to help!

Dutch Spice Bread

Last weekend my husband's family celebrated Christmas early, as is the tradition in Holland. As Mr S is Dutch they actually celebrate Sinterklaas, or as we would call it, Saint Nicolas. There are lots of traditions (like one which involves a black slave child who throws mini Dutch cookies at you) but the one tradition we do each year is definitely Dutch food! There is always plenty of Dutch baking to go around and you can bet that they are all full of delicious spices.

Dutch Baking!

The other tradition which we've taken part in recently is that we each give one present to every person in the family, the gift can either be recycled, crafted or if you have to spend money then no more than $5 per person is to be spent. Last year I struggled a bit, I had plans to make lots of things but in the end buying presents was cheaper! This year I got smart and starting planning for recycled gifts (gifts you've been given but don't want) throughout the year. I also made a couple of gifts which was fun, I will have to share that with you later!

"Welcome Saint Nicolas"

My contribution to the Sinerklaas feast was my favourite Dutch bread called Ontbijtkoek (I pronounce it ON BAKE COOK -though that's not technically right) When we were in Holland last year we would buy this cheap as chips (actually cheaper) breakfast bread and have it for morning teas. We sometimes packaged them up, sliced and buttered, then took it with us when we went out to do some site seeing. It was definitely my favourite Dutch baking, I couldn't get enough of it! It seems like a cross between a cake and a bread and tastes very similar to gingerbread, only with more spices and is a bit more soft and chewy. Imagine my surprise when I found out there was a whole game dedicated to eating the stuff while blind folded! So when Mr S's family asked each of us to bake something for Sinterklaas I knew that was what I wanted to make.

This is the grass and carrots they leave out for Saint Nicolas' horses

This was my first time baking Dutch food and for the second time in two weeks (like the Pumpkin Pie) I didn't completely read the recipe before making it. It turns out you are supposed to bake it then leave it for at least 24 hours. After talking to the Dutch family turns out most Dutch baking is like that and the longer you leave it the more tasty it becomes! So I tried the bread on the second day and then on the third and I can safely tell you that third-day-old Dutch spice bread tastes better than fresh!

Me in a Zwarte Piet (the black slave boy) wig

You can use Molasses if you like, I didn't use it because the last time I tried using it I hated the smell and taste, something about it just makes me feel ill so I went with treacle instead which I found out is pretty much just a darker version of Golden Syrup (mmmm Golden Syrup!) You can also use fresh grated nutmeg but for the sake of keeping things simple (and I didn't want to buy nutmeg) I just used the dry stuff!

Consistency and colour of the batter

Dutch Spice Bread

Dutch Spice Bread (Ontbijtkoek) 
Adapted from CDKitchen

2 C Flour
3t Baking Powder
1t Salt
1/2 C Dark Brown Sugar
1/3 C Treacle
1 C Milk
1 t Ground Cloves
1 t Ground Cinnamon
1 t Ground Ginger
1/2 t Ground Nutmeg

• Preheat oven to 150 degrees C and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
• Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl.
• Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and combine with a whisk to form a smooth paste.
• Pour batter into loaf tin and bake for one hour.
• Remove from oven and cover with foil.
• Leave to sit for at least 24 hours before eating (I recommend three days).

Dutch Spice Bread

I love family traditions especially when they revolve around food! Do you have any special family traditions or traditional foods?