Last thing you baked?

[walkonby]

Good on you @SnowFlakey ! Mmmmm, Tollhouse cookies! All your prep work will pay off on Christmas Day.
I've cooked up and frozen individual sizes of the savory things that I will be gifting 2 of our kids and my sister before they leave after the dinner.
So far I have 6 Steak & mushroom pies, 3 French Onion Pasta Bakes, 2 kinds of cannelloni ( butternut and a spinach, both have ricotta in them ), 4 mini loaves of Maple glazed Turkey meatloaf, and 24 Beef Empanadas.
I am holding off baking anymore of the gingerbread men cookies, or starting on the bacon bark, Pumpkin Pie tarts, Baklava, snowball cookies, Apple Strudel along with a couple other sweets and the " kaiser " bread. It may turn into a crazy last minute rush, but I do work well under pressure...lol

Have fun!!

[walkonby]

Decided to try a " test run " of this recipe called Bacon Bark. Didn't want to use up all the expensive chopped nuts so I just did a half recipe.
Since I've enjoyed peanut brittle and almond bark over the years I figured this would be a savory/salty/spicy version of bark, maybe?
The plan is to have some out for nibbling on Christmas Eve and if any remains on Christmas Day.
DS#2 and DH will be the deciders if this is worth serving. Uh oh.....I JUST nibbled some, it is amazing!
That sweetness of the maple syrup/brown sugar fighting alongside the cayenne. The heat hits you more after you're done swallowing it all. lol!!



As the brittle was baking I mixed up a double batch of gingerbread dough. Instead of making all the cookies with traditional " men " cutters, I dug out our 2 DS's Power Ranger cookie cutters. ( you mean no one else bought these back in the 90's? )
I'll cut, bake and freeze all the cookies until we have a decorate-a-thon on Christmas Eve.

[crafter]

Decided to try a " test run " of this recipe called Bacon Bark. Didn't want to use up all the expensive chopped nuts so I just did a half recipe.
Since I've enjoyed peanut brittle and almond bark over the years I figured this would be a savory/salty/spicy version of bark, maybe?
The plan is to have some out for nibbling on Christmas Eve and if any remains on Christmas Day.
DS#2 and DH will be the deciders if this is worth serving. Uh oh.....I JUST nibbled some, it is amazing!
That sweetness of the maple syrup/brown sugar fighting alongside the cayenne. The heat hits you more after you're done swallowing it all. lol!!



As the brittle was baking I mixed up a double batch of gingerbread dough. Instead of making all the cookies with traditional " men " cutters, I dug out our 2 DS's Power Ranger cookie cutters. ( you mean no one else bought these back in the 90's? )
I'll cut, bake and freeze all the cookies until we have a decorate-a-thon on Christmas Eve.

Yum, Yum, Yum... do you have a peanut brittle recipe you can share? Would I need a candy thermometer or can I use the hard candy boil test in a glass of water...i.e. when dropping a bit of the mix in cold water it hardens right away.

[walkonby]

awww, sorry @crafter but I have never made my own peanut brittle, just came close to breaking my teeth over the years on some store bought stuff. It has been a long time since I've enjoyed any since all my teeth are now " high risk " ! ha ha
I decided to use up the remaining gingerbread dough on a house! ( A simple A-Frame. )
My back was killing me after cutting those cookie shapes today, maybe a double batch of dough was not a wide choice.
They are all in the freezer now.
Hmmm, If the pieces of this A-Frame bake up well, maybe I can just glue it together with Royal icing and let everyone help with decorating it after they do the cookies! That could use up some Christmas Eve time.
If I keep offering everyone another drink of their favourte booze, the house could end up looking amazing to us!

[crafter]

awww, sorry @crafter but I have never made my own peanut brittle, just came close to breaking my teeth over the years on some store bought stuff. It has been a long time since I've enjoyed any since all my teeth are now " high risk " ! ha ha
I decided to use up the remaining gingerbread dough on a house! ( A simple A-Frame. )
My back was killing me after cutting those cookie shapes today, maybe a double batch of dough was not a wide choice.
They are all in the freezer now.
Hmmm, If the pieces of this A-Frame bake up well, maybe I can just glue it together with Royal icing and let everyone help with decorating it after they do the cookies! That could use up some Christmas Eve time.
If I keep offering everyone another drink of their favourte booze, the house could end up looking amazing to us!

Lol sounds like the perfect house build. Full of fun and merriment. Okay thanks I will search on DH and DD love peanut brittle and a small box at a discount store was 6 bucks each ... that's a lot for something that gets polished off in one night .

I was just eyeing the Oreo Cookie house and trying to figure out if it's vegan for DD and SIL ...it would be a fun xmas activity

[walkonby]

A friend from University shared her recipe for Bacon Butter tarts with me, but there was no oven temp listed so I googled Bacon Butter Tarts and this extra special version popped up.....so I made 12. They are all frozen and vacuum sealed now waiting for Christmas.




Maple Pecan Bacon Bourbon Butter Tarts

Makes 12 tarts.

1egg
1 cup brown sugar ( I used 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup maple syrup)
1/2 tsp vinegar
1/6 cup melted butter
1 tblsp Bourbon
1/2 cup pecans chopped
3/4 cup cooked chopped bacon ( 6-7 slices )
1/2 tbsp Maple flavoring .

Using a hand mixer, beat the eggs, sugar, butter, maple flavor and vinegar. Beat until foamy.
Mix in Bourbon. Place cooked bacon and pecans in a separate bowl and mix together.
Add a bit of the filling to the bacon/ pecan bowl, then put a tsp into each tart shell evenly doling out some for each tart.
Add the liquid egg/butter/sugar mixture over the bacon/pecan layer in each tart.
Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 mins.

[walkonby]

well o.k. NOT really baked, pan fried and finished off in the same cast iron pan in the oven, so an oven was involved. lol


Has anyone in here ever heard of or tried making Polenta fries? If you love fries period, especially if you like sweet potato fries or spicy fries, these ones satisfy that craving.

Using the entire tube of Polenta ( Aurora brand ) I cut it all into thick " fry shapes ".
Then coated them by shaking about in a mixture of onion & garlic powders, S & P, smoked paprika, and cayenne.
Into a shallow layer of hot oil in a cast iron pan on the stove for 5 min. Flip them over, and pop them into a 450 degree oven for 15 min.

[walkonby]

I was quite anxious to try making a new recipe, a batch of gluten free peppermint choc. chip cookies.
The process seemed nit picky with making a slurry of green colour from boiling, blending and straining spinach. I even bought the recommended monkfruit?? Had no idea it was a sweetener.
Despite those investments I'm happy I made them as they look lovely and taste delicious.
They are flash freezing atm, I'll bag and store them once they harden up.
Another Christmas cookie made up ahead.

Next I was all set up to make a batch of Royal Icing that I intended to freeze right in the piping bag so it'll be ready to go when I need to construct the gingerbread house pieces. Snag! My carton of pasteurized egg whites froze in the fridge! So did my bottle of ReaLemon....guess the temp is a bit too cold in there. New fridge, new learning curve.
I hope once the egg whites thaw at room temp they'll still be o.k. to make the icing with.

[SassyAshley]

I have some applesauce in my pantry that needs to be used up so I made a batch of Sour Cream Applesauce muffins except I used Greek Yogurt as I also had some of that to use up.

Decided to make a double batch, freeze half of them to take me with to work next weekend. Recipe said it made 12 standard muffins, I ended up 30 muffins from a double batch.

[crafter]

Hooray the buns turned out! Brownies are in the oven
2 types of muffins on deck for this afternoon

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

[SnowFlakey]

Most of my christmas baking is done. I just have to get my act together and bake my Cherry Pound Cake and them im done. Done Done Done!

[walkonby]

hilarity ensued last night as I attempted to do the initial construction of the A-frame gingerbread house. For some reason the 4 pieces that I baked and froze solid were kind of " not hard enough ".
I swore they were cooked crisp at the time, maybe moisture and the freezing of them caused this.
I also mixed up a batch of Royal icing, placing it right into the plastic pastry bag, then tightly wrapped and frozen.

The idea was all of us would add the remaining icing decor and candy decorations on Christmas Eve, but really DH and I could barely stop laughing at the dilapidated structure once the icing attached the walls, etc.
......well, we'll still have fun with it.

Then today I baked up one recipe of walnut Snowball cookies ( my yield was just 16 cookies! ) perhaps I rolled the balls a titch larger? Then cooked up a full recipe of Bacon bark. Came out extra crunchy!
I'll start the 2 types of mini muffins tomorrow ( those are all for take home baked gifts ).
It's Jeopardy time now!! Gotta run

[lizzie bargain]

DH made some homemade buns today-which we served homemade burgers on for dinner-Yum.

[walkonby]

The kitchen was a buzzing today and is still.
Just put the last batch of mini muffins in to bake...these are apple/oatmeal with maple syrup topping!





The first batch was Crunchy Carrot-topped muffins. As the first batch of muffins were doing their thing I got started on the Chana Aloo.
Man did it ever turn out spicy ( but so yummy! ) Lots of spices all intermingling. ( turmeric, coriander, cumin, chili powder, garlic, ginger, tamarind paste. I just might have a small bowl tonight! The cook gets to do that.

[walkonby]

Baklava! Just taken from the oven.....this time I used pistachio nuts instead of walnuts.