Have you ever had these?

My friend Joyce pointed them out to me on Tuesday and they are so good! They're a German gingerbread but since I can't read the German on the package I only know that because Joyce told me. They taste like gingerbread but with candied peel and some other dried fruit flavours mixed in (they must puree everything - there are no lumps). They have a very thin layer of icing on top and a layer of chocolate on the bottom. I've been trying to decide if they are more like a small cake or a very large cookie. We had them for dessert on Tuesday night and then breakfast on Wednesday (desserts make wonderful breakfast).

Now I need to get some more.

p.s. February's Martha Stewart magazine has a whole article about cupcakes! So yummy.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. We were able to spend lots of time with family and a little time at home with our critters (dog and cat). It's been a lovely few days with plenty of good food and good conversation, cold weather and warm fires, and many good wishes.

I was responsible for making the pudding this year. I was a little intimidated at the prospect. I have made Christmas pudding before to share with friends, so I knew how the recipe worked, but it was a little different to be making The Pudding. The Pudding that is lit on fire and served following Christmas dinner. One of two traditional desserts that we all look forward to for that special evening (and again for breakfast on Boxing Day).  Suppose it didn't hold its shape? But it did and it tasted just like it always does.

Our family pudding is a plum pudding (sugar plums, as in candied fruit, not actual plums). A full recipe is huge so I made half and it filled Mum's large pudding basin (40 oz?) with just a little room to spare for rising. Everything is measured in weights which I find rather fun and is a lot easier than having to level stuff all the time (especially the stuff that doesn't level well - like raisins). My mixing bowl wasn't big enough by the time I'd added half the stuff so I turned it into my stock pot to be able to stir. I discovered (because it turned out all the mixing spoons needed washing) that a rice paddle is great for mixing heavy pudding batter. The last thing added is a half glass of brandy and that smell mixed with all the dried fruits was Christmas to me.

Just before I packed the pudding into the basin I grabbed a button, wrapped it in waxed paper and stirred it in. Before we cut the pudding I asked everyone to agree on some meaning for the person who found the button (the traditional bachelor/old maid meaning was not going to work for our gathering). It was decided that the person who got the button would do something for everyone else but no one was too concerned with what.

We had a festive Sunday here. It started off with candy making. I'm not totally sure why but when I got up I really wanted to make some candy. I started with the candied orange peel - which I've made before - and moved on to the peanut brittle and sugared almonds - both recipes I discovered just the day before when we couldn't find any candied nuts at the grocery store.

The peanut brittle was by far the easiest; I don't know why I've never tried it before. Melt two cups of sugar in a heavy pan stirring constantly. I used my cast iron fry pan but something with higher sides would be a little safer and less spill prone. Add one cup of shelled roasted peanuts and pour the whole thing onto a rimmed cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil (for easy clean up and because my sheet was open on one end). Break it into piece once it's cool. It's really yummy but gets stuck in your teeth.

Rob's sister came over to meet Abby in the afternoon. She's been away since June and it was nice to see her again. Abby was (somehow) on her best behaviour and did a minimum of jumping around crazily. Carolyn brought over some vinegar so we could try making sponge toffee. This was the only candy I made that involved the thermometer and, therefore, the most intimidating. We managed to get to the right temperature and not beyond though and added the baking soda to make everything foam up. It look pretty cool but apparently requires a very specific amount of stirring: enough to mix all of the soda into all of the syrup but not enough to deflate the foam. I erred on the side of caution and our candy is more like a thin layer of sponge on top of some clear vinegar flavoured candy. Interesting flavour. Rob says we should try again while we've still got the vinegar.


Sunday was the day we had set aside to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We were both ridiculously excited to be doing this in our new car; it warms up so nicely and the windows don't frost over (doing this in our old car involved stopping after a little while and scraping off the insides of all the windows so we could see again). Our light-viewing tradition involves going to the convenience store and getting weird hot milky drinks (mine was "two bite brownie" and Rob's was "cinnamon sticky bun") and hot dogs (last year there were hot dogs but no buns - so disappointing). We drove all over one of the neighbourhoods and even managed to pick up a little local radio station (range is only about 2 Km) playing all sorts of cool Christmas music.
When we got home we set up our tree. We'd been procrastinating on the tree to limit the amount of time Abby will have to get at it. We had a garland with lights and a few ornaments and some other things (high) up but it really made our house look cozy and Christmasy to have the tree up. You can see the lights through the front window so our house looks festive from the outside too. We kept the actual decorations on the tree to a minimum - just the lights, a garland and a few sturdy non-chewable ornaments that will survive if the tree is pulled over or if Abby manages to pull something off. We sat around admiring it for a bit after we put Abby in her crate for the night. Zeke came out to see what we'd done and rubbed his cheeks all over the lower branches - I guess this is his tree now.