Holiday Traditions

When it comes to holiday baking, Wendi certainly has me beat on volume and variety, but I managed to get a few things done this year. My favorite holiday baked goods are mini quick bread loaves. They make the perfect gift -- more than enough for one person to nosh on and (if they aren't greedy pigs like me) enough to share with a friend as well.


This year, I went back to my favorite gingerbread recipe. Out of a church cookbook, which when it comes to comfort foods, is really your best recipe source. This recipe calls for dark molasses and ginger in plentiful amountage, which gives it more than your token-nod-to-ginger taste and makes it a beautiful rich sable color. I didn't have time this go'round, but next year hope to make an orange-honey butter to go with it (mmm, drool).



Since I had some snacky leftovers from my annual soiree this year, I decided to whip up a batch salty-sweet treats. Chocolate-dipped Honey Wheat Pretzel Sticks. I would have taken a photos but was lost in a deep chocolate-salt daze and forgot. The messiest part of the process was rolling them in the sprinkles without getting sprinkles all over the counter. When you package them up in a decorated cellophane bag tied with a ribbon, they looked might pretty.


Another treat that looks like you spent hours, but didn't, are Meringue Pops. I used to make them with mini chocolate chips, but just by themselves they're pretty too (it's really all about the packaging). If I'd been feeling adventurous, I would have sprinkled some colored sugar on them before putting them in the oven, because seriously, can you have too much sugar at Christmas?


And finally, for the first-time ever, I made my Grandmother's Scottish Shortbread Cookies. Some years before she died, she sent each of us grandkids her recipe. Well, I hate to admit that that was nine years ago, but for my dad's Christmas gift this year, I decided to revise an old family tradition.



When I was growing up, every Christmas we'd get a box from MA and the first thing we'd do was tear it open to find the kleenex box. Now this wasn't any ordinary box, this was THE box. Grandma Kay always filled it with individually-wrapped shortbread cookies. The first thing we'd do once we got our greedy little mitts on the box was to stick in the freezer and wait until the cookies reached that perfect chilled state before doling them out like rare gold coins. It's one of my favorite Christmas memories from childhood.

Until now, I never gave much thought as to why she'd take the time to wrap each one up separately. These puppies would never survive banging up against each other in a kleenex box free-for-all. Rich and crumbly. The recipe calls for one stick of butter AND one stick of margarine and that's practically all. These are the very definition of melt-in-your-mouth and for those watching their weight, well, just keep moving along, nothing to eat here, these cookies are definitely not your friend, my friend.



I hope that everyone enjoyed revelling in their own Christmas (or non-Christmas, we try not to discriminate) traditions this year. The TCC wishes you all the very best for a Happy New Year and look forward to another year of trial and error and show and tell!


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