The First Pie of Spring

This feels like the longest winter in history. It’s just never-ending.  I’ve been so busy since I last posted in November that most of this never-ending winter has seemed to pass by quickly, but it still feels as if it should be over by now. 

I spent part of the winter watching old episodes of Pushing Daisies each evening, a TV show that came on a few years ago about a piemaker named Ned who has the magical ability to bring dead people, animals, and plants back to life, with the catch being that he can’t touch them again or he will kill them forever. On the show, they always showed images of huge mouth-watering pies displayed in Ned’s pie shop, the Pie Hole, in the background. My favourite part of the show was when Ned’s brought-back-to-life girlfriend, Chuck (a.k.a. Charlotte) would bake pies with gruyère cheese baked into the crust and homeopathic liquid antidepressants dropped into the filling for her two mourning, cheese-loving aunts, who didn't know that she had returned from the dead. Chuck would make the pies and then have them secretly delivered to her aunts to cheer them up.

I don’t know that this winter has been bad enough to start baking antidepressants into my desserts (although putting cheese in the crust is something I definitely have to try), but in my attempt to will spring into existence, I decided to make the first pie of spring today.

It’s apple, peach and blueberry. I made half of my favourite Perfect Pie Crust recipe and I used the leftover pie dough to cut out flower and leaf shapes. I baked these on a separate baking sheet and then placed them on top of the pie once I took it out of the oven to cool.

This pie reminded me of some pies that I made in December: a Christmas chicken and broccoli pie and some starry lemon mini tarts.

For the Christmas chicken pie, I cut out small Christmas shapes (snowmen, reindeer, and stars) and baked them separately for a few minutes on a baking sheet, and then added them to the top of the pie once it came out of the oven, just like I did with the spring pie. The pie filling was made of chicken, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, garlic, milk and cheese, with flour to thicken, that was cooked ahead of time before being added to the crust.

I also made starry lemon mini tarts.

I made my own lemon curd for the tarts. These tarts were made to look like traditional British Christmas mince pies with the star on top, which I’ve never made and never tasted. There’s something about the word “mince” that turns me off. I’ve never seen mincement in the stores and I don’t know if I want to make it myself. I think I’d like to try these little tarts with a chocolate filling. Maybe Nutella with chopped, toasted hazelnuts mixed in.  Hazelnuts are pretty Christmassy.

Looking at these pictures of my Christmas pies reminds me that I still have a bunch of photos of Christmas food from last year that I haven’t had a chance to share. When I get time, I will post them. Hopefully before next Christmas.

And in case you are still digging out from this long, miserable winter and don't have access to a pie with cheese and antidepressants baked into it, here’s something that’s sure to help brighten up your day: a Mini Maestro from Kyrgyzstan who takes her conducting very seriously and very cutely.

Christmas 2011: Part 2

And now, after Part 1, it's time for Part 2 of my Christmas 2011 busyness in which I outline the other goodies that I made to eat and/or give away as gifts.

A Chocolate Butterscotch Rocky Road Fudge Wreath.




I made this as a last minute dessert for a small get-together to watch Christmas shows on TV. It was made with leftover odds and ends, like semi-sweet chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, marshmallows, and salted mixed nuts. I added some Smarties to the top for colour. (I’ve been putting Smarties on just about everything lately. I like their colours better than M&Ms.) I made it according (roughly) to this Rachael Ray recipe for a five-minute fudge wreath. It's very simple. I used a 6-inch round cake pan and a can of mushrooms covered in foil and sprayed with Pam to make the hole in the center. For something that was thrown together at the last minute it was really, really good.

It was so easy and so good, in fact, that a couple nights later I made another fudge wreath for a Christmas party thrown by my coworker.


This one is a dark chocolate rocky road fudge wreath. For decoration I made some holly and berries using red Smarties and green spice drops that were snipped in half with scissors and molded by hand to look like leaves. I wrapped it up and made a nice little gift out of it.



I used the remaining rocky road fudge to make a Christmas tree.


Remember my Christmas Tree Cake from my last post? It was baked in two foil tree-shaped pans that came with plastic lids, so I used one of the lids lined with plastic wrap to make this fudge tree. Originally, I only intended to have plain Smarties on top, but then I put on a dusting of powdered sugar “snow” and multicoloured nonpareil sprinkles. It looks pretty either way.


The fudge tree was cut into squares and half of them were put on a small plate along with some big gumdrops to give to a relative. The remaining fudge was kept for my family's Christmas Eve dinner.

I also made Nigella Lawsons’s recipe for bar nuts to make a savoury snack mix to bring to my coworker's party.


I changed a few things in the recipe: I used brown sugar rather than muscovado; rather than plain unsalted butter I used garlic butter that I had made ahead of time for another purpose (unsalted butter, fresh grated garlic, salt, pepper, and parsley); I put in only 1 tablespoon of chopped rosemary; I added a half teaspoon of garlic powder; and my nut mixture was about three-quarters salted peanuts in addition to some pecans, walnuts and cashews, so I reduced the salt in the mix down to a half teaspoon. Before packaging the nuts to bring to the party, I added a couple handfuls of small pretzel rods.

Marshmallow Snowmen.



I based them on this recipe. I used royal icing to put on the black nonpareils for the eyes, halved some orange and black round sprinkles with a knife to look like carrot noses and coal mouths, and used coloured round sprinkles for buttons. Flattened red spice drops were used for the bases of the hats with a green spice drop smooshed on top. I love the expressions on their faces. They look as if they’re trying to make the best of a bad situation by apprehensively singing a Christmas carol together as they await their inevtiable fate of being eaten by a small, hungry child.


I wrapped them up just like the fudge wreath above and the plate of cookies in my last post so that they could be given as a gift to my 5-year-old cousin.

A tray of gingerbread men who, unlike the snowmen above, look genuinely happy to be here.


I made back in November to decorate my Christmas Eve cake, which you'll get to see in a moment. I just wanted to introduce them here to build the suspense! Heh. The tray is an old Christmas tray that my mother had for years and had put away in storage until I rescued it. It's been beaten up a bit and has scratches on it from years of use, but it reminds me of all of my great Christmas memories from childhood, which is why I continue to use it and cherish it.

At the last minute today I decided to make some mint chocolate truffles roughly based on this Kraft recipe, which I've used several time before.



I made the base truffle mixture as directed in the recipe, but I had to substitute chopped unsweetened chocolate and icing sugar because I was out of semisweet chocolate chips. I also added some peppermint flavouring so they're super minty like a candy cane. I covered some truffles in Christmas-coloured nonpareil sprinkles and the others in a sparkly mixture of regular and purple sanding sugar. And like most everything I've made this year, I packaged some and gave them away as a last-minute gift.



Here's my Christmas Eve Cheese Tray, which is becoming an annual Christmas tradition.





I made my olive cream cheese penguins and a cheeseball Christmas tree again like last year. Instead of making a cheeseball igloo, however, this year I made cheeseball snowmen. Rather than use the Philadelphia Herb and Garlic Cream Cheese as I have in past years, this year I made the basic cheeseball mix for the tree and snowmen myself from scratch with softened cream cheese, garlic, herbs, salt and pepper, and toasted walnuts and pecans. The Christmas tree cheeseball has bacon bits and cheddar cheese added to about two-thirds of the mix and is covered in dill with pieces of carrot and red pepper for ornaments. The snowmen are made from the remaining basic cheeseball mix with parmesan cheese and a bit of finely grated cheddar added. They have small pretzel rods for arms, carrots for noses, olive eyes, and red pepper and olive hats. I used small cookie and fondant cutters and a knife to cut stars, half-moons, hearts, triangles, circles, reindeer, flowers, and leaves from cheddar, mozzarella, and marble cheeses, and processed cheese slices.

And last but not least, here is what will likely be my final baking project of 2011. Behold my Christmas Eve Cake!





This cake is based on Wilton’s Very Merry Go Round Cake. It’s a small 6-inch chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling and icing, with vanilla buttercream accents. The cake is decorated with my homemade regular and mini-sized gingerbread men, candy canes, starlight mints, gumdrops, and other festive candies.

And now with nothing left to make or bake or wrap up or fuss over, I'm going to go and enjoy what's left of Christmas Eve by spending time with my family and trying not to obsess over what I'm going to make for next Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2010

Between trying to finish my last few papers for my Master’s program, a vacation in Florida, working full time, and all the Christmas-related activity this year, it’s no trouble to see why I haven’t posted since September, but I did spend some time trying new recipes and crafting for the holidays this year.

I finally tried my hand at making decorated sugar cookies, and I made some to give away to my coworkers for Christmas:

I just put a few on a snowflake-decorated paper plate and enclosed each one in a holiday Ziploc bag to keep them fresh.

All the sugar cookies are decorated with royal icing with the exception of the stars and the flower. In the photo above, clockwise from left are the following: Vanilla-flavoured snowflake sugar cookies with silver dragees; vanilla people cookies with coloured sprinkles; vanilla stars with chocolate drizzle and crystallized ginger; an orange flower (flavoured with real orange zest) with chocolate drizzle and snowflake sprinkles; orange mittens; and in the center is an orange dove.

A close-up of my snowflake cookies.

I made the following pinecone elves based on a Martha Stewart idea. I didn’t put strings in their hats so that they could be hung as ornaments because I think that would have ruined them. They actually looked much cuter just sitting on the branches of my Christmas tree, which is how I displayed them.

For photos of the individual elves, you can click on the photo above to see them in my Flickr photostream. For some of the elves I free-hand embroidered their little scarves with flowers.

I also made felt Christmas candy-cane mice based on another Martha Stewart idea, and tried my hand at making felt stockings using a template that I’ve had around for years but just never used. Those felt stickers you can get at craft stores like Michaels made cute embellishments for the stockings. I used snowflakes on some stockings and Santa hat stickers on others (they aren't shown in the photos below)—I just peeled off the backing from the stickers, applied a little glue with the glue gun, and pressed them on. I gave some of the mice and stockings filled with little candy canes to coworkers and family members.

Of course, the Christmas Eve festivities at my house wouldn’t have been complete without the Penguin cheese tray (like last year), featuring olive penguin hors d’oeuvres and a cheeseball igloo. This year I made a Christmas tree cheeseball, too.

In case you’re curious about the flavor of the cheeseballs, the igloo is made with one container of Philadelphia Herb and Garlic cream cheese, finely grated fresh garlic (one or two cloves, or to taste), toasted chopped pecans, real bacon bits, grated cheddar cheese, and freshly ground black pepper. The Christmas tree is made with about half a block of plain cream cheese (light, I think), some finely grated fresh garlic (one or two cloves, or to taste), a pinch of Italian seasoning, a few pinches of dried dill, freshly ground black pepper, and parmesan and grated mozzarella cheeses. Once I formed the Christmas tree into a conical tree shape, I rolled it in dried dill, pressing it in to make it stay, and added thin rings from a red pepper for garland, some bits of carrot (left over from cutting the beaks and feet for the penguins--waste not, want not!)  for tree ornaments, and I cut a star out of a carrot slice for the tree topper.

And the pièce de résistance was my chocolate Bûche de Noël, or yule log cake, that I served on Christmas Eve. Made with a chocolate genoise cake and filled with a layer of Nutella and chocolate mousse, and frosted with my chocolate-hazelnut (Nutella) buttercream frosting, it was absolutely delicious, even though I only used half of the recipe for the genoise resulting in a tinier log. But it was the addition of my handmade marzipan elves that really put this creation over the top:

In addition to the elves, I made a marzipan snowman, marzipan mushrooms, and marzipan acorns. The "snow" around the cake is coconut, and those are chocolate rocks outlining the perimeter of the tray. The "bells" on the elf hats of the baby elf and the snowman are silver dragees. It's the first time that I've ever made a Bûche de Noël. It was challenging but worth it.

And finally, a picture of my pretty Christmas tree at night:

It’s become abundantly clear that I need to invest in a new digital camera. The one I used for my photos above was just an inexpensive little Olympus one that I bought in 2004. Hopefully, my next post won't take me over three months to get around to writing like this one, but perhaps by next time I'll have better photos to share.

Christmas 2009

Merry, Merry Christmas, Internet! As much as I love Christmas, there`s a part of me that`s glad it`s over. All the truffles and fudge that I made (which I have taken to calling "fuffles and trudge")...

(Note: This is only a small fraction of the chocolates that I made, and there`s also some of my chocolate marble pretzel bark in there, too)

... not to mention the Top Secret Cheese Tray featuring olive penguin hors d`oeuvres and a cheeseball igloo (both of which I originally saw in a Kraft Canada magazine) that I painstakingly fashioned with my own two hands and served during Christmas Eve dinner...

....all this frantic treat-making and joyfully gluttonous face-stuffing and gift unwrapping has made me tired, bloated and cranky. But that's Christmas.

Santa did bring me a lot of nice gifts, and two in particular (aside from my shiny white BlackBerry Bold 9000) are worthy of note:

1. A book called The Lost Art of Towel Origami, with instructions and photographs on how to arrange towels into various shapes like a monkey or a basket. Now I'll be able to impress potential houseguests with my fancy towel-folding skills;

2. A can of Wonderland Tea with a picture of Alice and the Mad Hatter on the front called "The Official Unbirthday Tea", and in smaller lettering underneath, "Also authorized for real birthdays." I collect interesting tea tins, by the way, but this one takes the cake and will make a nice addition to my collection. My favourite part is the instructions for making tea from the Mad Hatter on the back: "Start at the beginning (and when you come to the end…stop). Pour hot water over one tea bag in your cup and steep for 2 to 3 minutes (we recommend your clock be two days slow). Move down the table to get a clean cup."

For your enjoyment, here is a blurry picture of my Christmas tree:

You can`t see them, but there are character ornaments from two holiday stop-motion animation classics on there: The Nightmare Before Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. You can probably just barely make out the little leopard-print stockings that I made a few years ago hanging there on the front.

And if you`re thinking, “Gee, that sure looks like a snowman playing a piano there in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture,” then you are correct.

He used to bob up and down and actually look like he was playing that piano at the flip of a switch, but he doesn`t bob anymore. He just sits there, singing and smiling, motionless while the music plays and the little Christmas lights blink on the side of the piano. Oh well. I still love him to pieces.

God bless us, every one!

P.S. In case you`re curious about the types of fuffles and trudge, they are as follows, clockwise from top left: Chocolate Raspberry Pecan truffles (flavoured with Chambord liqueur), White Chocolate Coconut truffles, Cookies and Cream fudge (with Oreos), Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough truffles, and the Chocolate Pretzel Bark.

P.P.S. In case you`re curious about the types of cheese on my cheese tray, they are as follows, clockwise from top left: St. Paulin, Spiced Gouda, Smoked Gouda, Port Salut, Old Cheddar, Vegetable Havarti, and the Cheeseball Igloo.