A TIME TO BAKE

If there ever was a time to bake and

cook that would be now at Christmas

time.  The house should smell delightful

and there should me Christmas

music filling the air.

We had an event at my store

so I made numerous dishes like

this Cranberry Apple Crisp.

And we always have English Trifle:

Sugar Cookies with Ribbon Candy below:

Sugar Cookies with Ribbon Candy: You will need to purchase one box of ribbon Candy!

Ingredients: 1 cup of butter, 1 tsp vanilla,1 ½ cups of sugar ( in high alt.

Decrease 1 1/2 Tb), 3 eggs, 3 1/2 cups sifted flour, 2 tsp cream of tartar,

1 tsp soda (in high alt reduce ¼ tsp), ½ tsp salt

This recipe will make 24 large or 36 med-large cookies or more smaller!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (400 high alt)

Cream butter & vanilla and add sugar gradually till fluffy.  Add eggs

One at a time and beat after each.  Sift dry ingredients together.

Add this to creamy mix.  Chill for about 30 minutes

Roll on floured surface –sprinkle with candy which

Has been crushed with a mallet.

Cut to desired shapes and bake on ungreased sheet for

About 8 minutes.  No need for icing here as the

Candy makes each cookie colorful!

Bernideen’s Aspen Mulling Spice

Apple Cranberry Crisp

For the Filling you will need:

1 Carton Original Aspen Mulling Spices, 5 Large Granny Smith Apples or other baking apples, peeled, cored and sliced, 1 cup chopped cranberries, 2 Tb Light Brown sugar, 2 Tb melted butter

For the Topping you will need:

1 ¼ cups all purpose flour, 1 cup rolled oats, ½ cup granulated sugar, ½ cup packed light brown sugar, 1 ½ sticks of cold unsalted butter, cut into bits.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Make the filling by combining ingredients in bowl and put into 9 x 12 Rect ovenproof dish which has been buttered.

To make the topping:  Combine all ingredients until crumbly and sprinkle over first mixture. I like pushing some of it down into the filling too! Bake 35- 40 minutes – watch for browning Let cool – it will thicken as it cools! 

Olde English Trifle

made with English Devon Custard

In a glass bowl or compote layer the following:

Split lady fingers turned sideways around the edge of the glass bowl or cubes of pound cake, fresh fruit of your choice or according to seasonal availability, raspberry jam and Devon Custard (repeat layers again to the top)

At the top of the bowl, pile on the lovely

**whipping cream (cool whip could work too) – maybe maraschino cherries on the very top!

**To 2 cups whipping cream – whip in ¼ cup of powdered sugar till stiff

MEYER LEMON AND CRANBERRY SCONES ARE YUMMY!

At Christmas Time there were some lovely Meyer Lemons at the grocery store!  Perfect for scones and I saw a recipe I had printed out and saved in one of my many scone folders.  It was from a wonderful blog I frequent which is Smitten Kitchen

I have learned to freeze cranberries when I see them because of all the times I failed to freeze them - I learn most things that way!

Do you have a zester - this is a handy gadget and a must have for scones lovers! Lastly, be sure and chop the cranberries in two so they will be sweeter to the taste!

My husband and I were hungry

 and the smell was heavenly!

We each ate (inhaled) three scones!

ORANGE CRANBERRY TEA CAKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

I have made this tea cake so many times!  It is a "tea cake" in the truest sense of the word!  It has tea in the cake!  I got this recipe from my Mom and I think it is from the 60's! 

What I do is double the recipe and actually the cake above is the smaller one of the two cakes...the larger one was put in the freezer. 

Besides traditional round or square cakes - there are many other types of tea cakes!  Some are individual cakes dipped in icing and other are "loaves" which are sliced.  This Orange Cranberry Tea Cake is made in a tube pan.  I double it and make 1 large and 1 smaller one which is the one pictured at the top of this page. The cake is very moist and delicious.  Make sure you chop the cranberries open!

You will need: 1 1/2 cups water, 1 cup orange juice, 4 teabags/black tea, 3 cups sifted flour, 1 tsp baking soda,a/2 tsp salt, 1 cup sugar, 4 TB soft butter, 2 eggs, 1 cup chopped cranberries, 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  In a small sauce pan bring the water and juice to a boil. Add the teabags and brew 5 minutes, remove the teabags...let it cool.

In another bowl, combine flour, soda and salt. In a larger bowl, mix sugar, butter and beat in eggs.  Now beat in the cool tea mixture, add flour and soda mix and mix till blended.  Stir in cranberries and walnuts.

Turn into a tube pan and bake for 1 hour- watch for burning the top. Cover with foil if browning too much!  Cool 10 minutes

Brush with orange juice (I forgot this) and sift confectioners sugar on top(I forgot that too)  The confectioners sugar will make it really pretty if you remember to do it!