12 Days of Christmas :: 2 Macarons

Macarons are one of those things I've always wanted to try but have been too intimidated to. I haven't even tasted one, let alone baked them. From the horror stories to the legends about how hard they are to bake correctly, I put it in the "one day" basket. I decided I was going to finally tackle this fickle beast for this Christmas. I spent many hours researching recipes and advice and all the what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos. The more I read, the more confused I became. There is so much conflicting information, sworn by recipes, refuted techniques. It's enough to make you want to throw in the towel.

After one such evening I finally closed my internet browser and decided that was enough. It's only a meringue. I can do meringue. I needed to just get in the kitchen and have a go.

Turns out, there's a whole lot of fuss about not much.    These are completely achievable…

12 Days of Christmas :: 1 Christmas Cookie Tree

Do you know when the 12 days of Christmas are? I didn't, so I visited my best friend – Wikipedia. They begin on the 25th of December. Of course. Christmas is about Jesus' birth, after all, so naturally the 12 days for follow it. I'd always thought they were the 12 days leading up to Christmas. I felt a bit silly.

Being non-religious, Christmas to me and my family has always been about taking time to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate the wonderful people and experiences in your life, a time to say thank you. Christian celebrations have not entered into it, so I figured this lack of exposure to it was probably responsible for my derp moment. So I asked my Christian boyfriend, for whom his faith plays an important role in both his daily life and his family's Christmas celebrations, when he thought the 12 days were. His assumption was the same as mine. In fact, everyone who I asked, regardless of faith, assumed the same thing. So we all learnt a little something new.

I'd be planning a 12 days of Christmas blog series, assuming the 12 days where somewhere in December. Sharing recipes after Christmas felt a little moot. Besides, I won't be around much after Christmas, let alone for the 12 days proceeding. So we're going to do this the untraditional way. Every second day from now til the 23rd I'll bring you one of12 Christmas recipes.

This first recipe is something that's becoming a bit of a yearly tradition. Each year, I look for a way to reinvent it. Here's this year's take on it.

1 Christmas Tree…

Daring Bakers: 12 Days of Cookies

This month in the Daring Baker's challenge, we got a little bit festive. Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us. She gave us 12 cookie recipe to choose from and challenged us to bake at least one of the 12 cookies, as well as our own celebration cookies.

Here's the two I baked for the challenge.

Double the noms…

Candy Cane Cookie Garnishes

One of my favourite things after a massive feast is a warm drink to cleanse the pallet and help digest — or to at least trick yourself into feeling so.

I love making a little something to go with the warm drinks at a party. Chocolate dipped spoons are an often revisited idea, but my theme this Christmas was to try things I had never done before. Cue brainstorming session.

The result was a resolve to try edible garnishes. My first thought was to try mini gingerbread houses. But a) that would be overdoing the gingerbread-ness, and b) I couldn't think of a way to do it that wouldn’t take up considerable mug space and result in either half filled cups or soggy cookies.

In the end I decided to alter one of my favourite sugar cookie recipes and fashion another Christmas icon out of them: candy canes.

Candy cane girl – don't you know your name, girl?

Gingerbread Boxes

As if one attempt at making gingerbread for the first time wasn't enough for one Christmas, I decided to try it twice.

Last year I set the table with take home goody bags. I loved making them, but they were made last year when I was only working part time in between tertiary courses and actually had free time. They're also not the sort of thing you want to give away every year lest people find themselves with a stash of them. So I decided an edible take home bag was the way to go this year.

I also didn't have time to make napkin rings this year, and so the idea was for them to function doubly as placeholders.

Open yours up…

Chocolate Gingerbread House

Gingerbread houses are one of those Christmas traditions I've never embarked on. Largely cause I seldom like the taste of gingerbread. That's what happens when you're solely exposed to the store-bought variety: it's just never a true representation of what the fresh baked stuff tastes like. So I decided it was high time I gave it a go.

I'd wanted to try something more elaborate, but decided that instead of setting the bar too high, I should attempt a simpler design first. Turns out, these babies are easier to make than I'd imagined and lots of fun!

Come inside…

White Christmas Cake

Wow, Christmas was an eventful one this year. I spent three days baking the week before Christmas then froze everything while I was away on holidays. I came home on the 24th and proceeded to decorate the defrosted goodies and prepare all the canapés for my annual Boxing Day feast and fell into bed at 4am with a whole list of things yet to be done. Spent a relaxing lunch with the boyfriend's family then came home to visit my dad.

Then the storm hit. Amidst the biggest hail storm anyone in the area can remember, me and my boyfriend drove to my house to rescue my puppy who was outside in it. He was thankfully not seriously hurt. But when we attempted the drive back to my dad's in time for dinner we found the roads flooded. People were swimming on the road, cars were abandoned after people had tried to drive through them and shorted their cars, trees snapped clear in half and most people were standing out on the street in awe of the swampland that had been clear in the light of a beautiful summer's day only hours before. Apparently there was even a small tornado right near my house, though we never saw it through the hail. Thankfully we found one road in that hadn't been flooded and made it back in time. Phew!

Melbourne. She is a crazy place to live.

So it was a bit odd the following day when I had mine and my boyfriend's family over for lunch and everything was normal again. As always I made far too much food and filled up every corner of stomach present in the house. It was lots of fun to make everything and lovely that everyone was so appreciative.

I have so much to show you guys. Today I'm going to start with this.

Some months ago I had an idea for a Christmas cake I really wanted to try. I had no idea how to do it or if it could work as I'd never seen it tried before. Oh well, only one way to find out!

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…

Christmas Bakerage Part 4: Cookie Tree

Here’s for the final instalment of my Christmas bakerage 2010: the cookie tree.

This tree marks a pretty important milestone for me. See, this time last year I was failing with fondant. I couldn’t even get holy leaves to work for the cookie tree. So it had red berries and that was it. While this tree involves minimal fondant work, it reminds me of how much I have learned in a year. It also reminds me that I have so much more to learn, and so much more time in which to learn it. I’m forever getting frustrated at my ‘failures’, never happy unless it’s perfect (which it invariably never is). This reminds me that I haven’t been at this long; so here’s to a chin up and hopefully many more successes (or should it be less failures?) for 2011.

But enough of that and more of the tree, hey?

Christmas Bakerage Part 3: Truffle Tree and Truffle Puddings

Here’s one that’s slowly becoming an annual tradition. The Truffle Tree. This usually involves a week-long one -[wo]man truffle creating extravaganza that leaves my fridge full of containers hosting hundreds of truffles.

This year, I decided to downsize the effort a little bit. One tree instead of two. Which basically meant a few hundred less truffles than usual. Oops.

Peek under the tree…

Christmas Bakerage Part 2: Stained-Glass Cookies

Stained-glass cookies are something I have been wanting to do for an age. I was never quite sure what theme I would go for, however. The one time I had seen them done was as targets. Covered in hundreds and thousands, which, I felt, completely cheapened the whole thing. No, my theme would be better.

Cue mind blank.

Sometimes, the best thing to do is just store the idea away and wait for inspiration to hit.

Or just a massive excuse to bake. Like Christmas.

Much more under the tree… I mean, cut…