I have been taking lots of pictures and have been waiting to update my blog! This is the first of a couple of "Christmas-themed" blogs to come in the next few days.
This first one is dedicated to holiday baking! I love, love to bake, and I have been doing that all throughout the Christmas season.
Each year I give my grandfather and uncle a treat basket for Christmas. It is full of their favorite Christmas candies, I spend days preparing all of this candy. My kitchen is overtaken and before long the candy is set out drying all over my house!
Some of their favorites are haystacks, ambrosia crunch, and chocolate toffee bars. This year I used a sugar cookie as a gift tag for the baskets.
I have been also baking lots of sugar cookies! When I say lots I think I stopped counting around 250 cookies!! I've been making these for friends, family and all sorts of holiday parties. They are fun to make and they taste really great too!
On Christmas morning my mom made us all a wonderful breakfast. Upon my brother's request she made shrimp and grits and sausage bread. You can find the recipe for shrimp and grits in almost any southern cookbook, I'd love to share a recipe with you but my mom just whipped this up. She didn't use a recipe but as you can see it was absolutely delicious!
Each year we make a birthday cake for Jesus. He is the reason for the season! We all sing "Happy Birthday" and remember His glorious birth. Actually a funny story...when I was about five years old my family had all gathered around to sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. I, being the only grandchild at the time, had the pleasure of blowing out the candles. I got a little too close and burnt my chin on the candles, being a drama queen I completely went hysterical and thought I needed much doctoring, although it wasn't that bad. I don't know that I've blown out the candles on Jesus' cake since that Christmas!
This was a little creation of my own. I took the recipe from the chocolate-peanut butter cup cake and changed it to a white chocolate-vanilla cake. I personally like white chocolate more than milk chocolate and thought this would be a good spin on things.
Here's the white chocolate-vanilla version of the recipe:
1 box french vanilla cake mix
1 small box Jello vanilla pudding
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
16 oz. white chocolate chips
Another holiday favorite is cranberry sauce! Cranberries are my favorite, I love cranberry anything! I found this great recipe for fresh cranberry sauce in the Southern Living Christmas Cookbook. It's great!
- 1 (12-ounce) package fresh cranberries
- 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon grated orange rind
- 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
- 2 tablespoons almond extract
Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat 10 minutes or until thickened; stir in extract. Cool completely. Serve at room temperature or chilled.
This recipe makes your house smell wonderful as it cooks!
My family and I had a delicious holiday! I hope yours did too!
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