Step by step homemade baking recipes
When Paul and I first started dating, Christmas was only two months into our relationship. Can you say awkward? I had no idea what to buy him and ended up getting him some gift certificates to somewhere I don’t even remember. It was a total cop-out, but I didn’t know him well enough to get him something more personal.
During that first Christmas, I tried my first Italian Peach Cookie. It was amazing! When Italians get together, there is never a shortage of food. Never. A dessert tray is no different from a main course or the third, or the fifth- there is always a ton of food. The cookie platter that held the peach cookies, had a bunch of other pastries and sweets as well, so I’ve got a lot of cookies to replicate in the years to come.
Finally last year, I tried to replicate the peach cookies on my own, without help (my stubbornness shining through!) and didn’t succeed. This year, with my Mother In Law in better spirits (she has had some heart problems in the past), I approached her about teaching me, and then teaching everyone in a YouTube tutorial. Being that she is 80 years old, she has no idea what YouTube is, and barely understands a computer. But, being the strong, confident woman that she is, she was willing to do something that she didn’t really understand the purpose behind. She has been wanting to help us for years in our business, and she was so happy to finally be able to do so.
Paul and I will cherish this video for many years to come, and we are so lucky to have been able to include Pina in our tutorial.
Next to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and Love Actually, How the Grinch Stole Christmas is up near the top of my favourite Christmas movies. I’ve definitely been watching my share of Christmas movies already this year, as I decorate and think up new cake ideas. It helps put me in the mood. It’s for research people!
I love the Grinch book more than the movie. If you’re a frequent reader of this blog, you might have heard that statement a couple of posts ago in regards to Hunger Games! It’s the teacher in me. I prefer the books. Dr Seuss had a magical mind, and he was able to put it into the pages of many books for us to read. He is the creator of the original Grinch story if you didn’t know that the Grinch existed before Jim Carrey brought him to life in the movie.
Making these Grinch toppers is super simple. You only have to be good at tracing! Who can’t trace something?!?! Everyone can! The link to the download is posted below in the recipe area.
I knew I was going to be making these cupcake toppers this year, as they were on my list from last year, so I ordered the lime green melting wafers from Wilton a couple of months ago. You might even be lucky and able to find them on clearance in the Halloween section of a craft store! I don’t have any stores like that where I live, so I had to be planned.
For the other chocolates, I use Merckens melting wafers that I buy from the store Bulk Barn in Canada. True chocolate purists will say that it is not actually chocolate, and technically they would be right, but for a project like this, there is no point in tempering and colouring pure chocolate. That would add a ton of work, and time to the idea. If you’ve got more time than me, by all means, I’d love to see you do it, and I would be so proud of you.
The heart sprinkles were an addition that I thought completed the cupcakes. But if you don’t like them, you don’t have to add them. I get asked that type of question in the comments on YouTube all the time- if it’s a decorating element, you can decorated however you want, but, if it’s a recipe element, you need to follow the directions to be successful.
Merry Christmas, I hope you enjoy these cupcakes!
Recently, we were asked by the local cable company, Shaw TV, to come and do an interview with us while I baked with one of the hosts, James Farnan. I agreed immediately, as we had worked with both of the crew members before, and James happens to be our neighbour. We know that he likes to mow the lawn at 10:30 PM- when we’re trying to film- and it’s dark! Who does that?? Just James. It must be an Australian thing. He’s awesome! We had a great time filming and joking with each other!
When we started our baking business, way back in 2011/12, Shaw TV came to interview us back then. We did the interview in the kitchen space we were renting, so this time, we were all crammed into our kitchen, both filming a video for our respective channels. Shaw TV will have their piece airing on local television during the week before Christmas, and they’ll also have their video uploaded to their YouTube channel at that time.
Making this sugar cookie Christmas Tree is skill wise quite simple, but it does take a day or so to bake, ice and allow to dry. So plan accordingly. It is an excellent activity that can be done with kids, as they can take part in the recipe creation, cutting and rolling of the cookies, as well as the decorating portions.
The first task is to cut out the cookies. Each cutter (there are 10 of them) need to be used twice, to cut out 2 cookies per star size, so all in all, you will be icing 20 star cookies. You can ice them with royal icing like I did, or you could use buttercream. I chose royal icing as I wanted to have a more smooth look to my tree, but if you’re doing this activity with kids, you could easily use buttercream for them to decorate with.
Once the icing has dried, the next step is to stack the tree, and this is done from largest cut out, to the smallest one. Each star should be offset on the previous star. In order to “glue” the stars together, place a small dollop of royal icing in between each cookie. Once it is dried, you can wrap a small line of LED battery operated Christmas lights around the tree, and continue to decorated as you wish. In order to get larger “ornaments” onto the tree, I used melted green chocolate as the royal icing wasn’t strong enough.
Hopefully you enjoy this Christmas treat!
Does anyone else hate having a Christmas tree? I’m not being a Grinch here, I’m pretty much just being lazy. Every year Paul and I go hunting for our own Christmas tree, as well as one for my parents, way out in the bush somewhere. Having never done this as a child (other than going down to the local grocery store parking lot) it is a tradition that I look forward to every year (even though I don’t like putting up the tree anymore). I think the reason that I don’t like putting up the tree is because I don’t like taking it down. When I was younger and living at home with my parents, every year I would pull all of the boxes out and decorate the house with such excitement- and then I would leave the mess for my mom to put away after the holiday. Since Paul and I have lived together we have had a tree twice but in the recent years, we’ve only gone out looking for my parents. I just can’t get over putting all the ornaments away and taking the tree down! It’s pathetic.
So instead up putting up a tree in my house, I’ll happily put up a tree on a cupcake! This is a different twist on how to make a Christmas tree cupcake, rather than just piping a huge pile of buttercream on top (not that I don’t love that variation) but this one is more for looks!
As a food YouTuber and blogger, I find myself trying to tell you how things taste when I post recipes. It is actually very hard to do and trying recipes for taste is something that you have to do yourself. What I like, might not be what you like (even though it should be) :). With Christmas right around the corner, what I love for seasonal tastes are gingerbread, eggnog and sugar cookies. So with this recipe for Eggnog Gingerbread trifle, I’m getting two of my favourites in one! If you like either of these flavours, you’ll love this! If you don’t like either, just make it anyway.
When my friend Karen (Toronto Girl West) posted about joining a Christmas Blog Swap hosted by Leigh (All You Need is Love), I immediately threw my hat in the ring (name on the comment list!) and volunteered to take part!
I was teamed up with Lisa from Jogging on Coffee, and we were to send each other our favourite Christmas gifts/symbols etc with a spending cap at $20.
Since I spend all of my free time in November and December at the Farmer’s Markets selling my cupcakes and cookies, I found what I wanted to send Lisa there . . . glass ornaments from a local glass artisan, chocolate from a local chocolatier and a red glittery (natural) nail polish! These were all symbols of Christmas too me . . well, maybe not the chocolate, but it is too delicious not to spread the love across the country!
