Best. Christmas. EVER.

This is my universe now. I am the luckiest woman in the history of the world.

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Daddy

Daddy reads for the Christmas Cantata at Christmas Eve service tonight. Nicely done!

Beautiful service, too.

It is nice to go to worship with our new bonus family. We filled 3 whole rows! How joyful.

 

Did you like yesterday's post?

CLICK for the classic tale of holiday angst from the Griswold's insane perspective. It's got it all: too many visiting relatives, too many Christmas lights, an overly expensive Christmas gift, a disastrous Christmas feast with gaseous results, and a miserly Christmas bonus. Much as it sounds like one, it's neither a documentary nor a memoir. And yes, it's delivered by the bunnies featured in yesterday's movie.

AND here's the seasonal memoir: "A Christmas Story", via hyper-bunny vision.

Don't shoot your eye out.

 

Another Funny Christmas Movie. It's Short.

Do you like classic Capra movies? The black & white adds an element of class. Clicky for "It's A Wonderful Life" as performed by bunnies with squeaky voices.

At the end of the (extremely abbreviated) movie, there's some bonus footage if you run your mouse over the bunny silhouettes.

Watch, and enjoy. You'll feel like the richest man/woman in the world.

 

Funny. Festive. Fa La La La La! I Keellll Youuuu!

Jeff Dunham.

Jeff Dunham Christmas Special 2008 FULL


Laugh till your bells fall off or your lights burn out. 'Tis the season.

 

Mash-up of Marvellousness!! Warning: Tim Burton and Billy Idol. May cause extreme giddyness.

>wipes away tears of joy<

A thing of beauty should not be kept to one's self.

That's the only animated Disney movie I love. All the others (Pixar doesn't count as Disney in my justifiably narrow-minded book; and Lion King is nearly acceptable) can die in a warehouse fire. But Tim Burton is sacred. Billy Idol adds preciousness.

Play again, and enjoy over and over and over!!

 

BazBiz Cleveland

This weekend was Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland, a craft fair for the quirky and artistically minded. We went, and it was ourfirst time. Verdict? AWESOME.

First, most of what we saw was top notch craftsmanship. The less high quality stuff would have been the highest quality at a church craft fair, so it wasn't bad at all!!

Another great thing about BazBiz was the sheer quantity of friends we saw. It was a startling number. Some I'd expected to see. Some were delightful surprizes. We also made some new friends. Quite a memorable day!

Oh-did I mention we actually got some Christmas shopping done?

Uh Oh.

She must know she's on Teh Internets. She's got that "I iz Godz gift. Warz mah bow?" look in her eyes.

 

Morgan jealously guards the tree skirt.

Or perhaps she is casing the joint for a midnight topple.

Either way, her presence at the base of our Christmas tree is unsettling.

 

At the Colectivo Holiday Party

My cookies were disappearing! :-)

 

Colectivo Holiday Party!

Celebrating the season with fellow altruists.

 

Ornament of Cheerfulness!

The lab at St. John West Shore made this fetching choir of caroling test tubes. So CUTE!

 

More on this Christmas thing. Just watch.

Strong Bad just makes me laugh, but take his explanations with several grains of salt. He's not always very accurate.

 

Saturday is for lots of things.

In the autumn, it's for College Football. Today, it's the classic rivalry between Army and Navy. Brilliant! So I've got the game on with the volume down and Christmas music on, while I'm decorating the house for the season.

And I'm getting ready for marathon cookie-baking sessions over the next few days.

What could be more festive???

HA!!

I've always got an answer for that!

Try this:



Heh.

These are the folk who originally foisted the Mystery Science Theatre concept of full audience participation with the movie via smart-alecky remarks upon the world. I fondly remember getting my mom ever so gently hooked on this snarky method of watching bad movies.

She's on my mind right now. (She often is, but now especially, with the news about my mother-in-law.)

...and I really need some escapist humor today. This trailer made Rick and me howl with laughter. This is something Mom would have enjoyed, too.

 

So, what's this Christmas thing all about, anyway?

Watch, and learn...



Got it? Good.

 

'Tis the Season...

...enjoy it while it lasts.

Ponder this: you think your Christmas is hectic, what kind of picnic do you think Joseph and Mary had for their first Christmas???

(Heard on today's broadcast of The World on NPR.)

 

With less than a month til Christmas, let the begging begin with this song!

Press the "Play" arrow, and enjoy! The animation is brilliant.

 

Ply Plans

My Christmas yarn. I'm finally ready to ball the hanks and skeins so I can get down to biz with these gorgeous bad boys! I think the green and yellow have to go together. They're my favorites. The blue and solid fuchsia are the next pairings. And I seriously am thinking of the pumpkin with the fuchsia-royal variegated, and then maybe felting it. I don't know about that one yet.

Springerle Recipe

I got a comment from LadybugLove on my January 4 post, where I took pictures of my just-barely-post-Christmas Christmas cookies. I made holly cookies (no picture), the kind with cornflakes and melted marshmallows and little cinnamon candies, and I made Springerles.

Springerles are an old family tradition for my side of the family. They are made with a fairly simple batter. Where it gets fancy is the rolling out: you roll them twice, with 2 different pins. The first is a regular rolling pin, for the regular old reason, to flatten the dough. The second, at least MINE, is a wooden rolling pin, with elaborate designs cut into it at regular intervals. It presses these shapes and patterns into the dough, and then the dough is cut into the rectangular cookies and dried overnight on cookie sheets strewn with anise seeds.

An alternative, if a baker doesn't have a springerle roll, is to use old-fashioned cookie or butter presses. Not a spritz-press! This dough is far too stiff for that type of tool, and these cookies are completely wrong for such a thick cookie shape.

Did you catch that this cookie gets dried before baking? Think of this as the German dunking cookie. It's like their version of the Italian biscotti. It's meant to have a bit of a snap to it. Think also of the types of drinks available 350 years ago. What would they have dunked a cookie in? Probably not hot chocolate. Perhaps a dark beer, very likely hard cider, definitely spiced wine, probably tea. Children would have been given the same options, as drinking the milk of "a different animal" is a fairly modern concept. I wouldn't recommend that now, but it gives you an idea of how things have changed since the advent of food storage! Actually, I think that's a part of the reason for the anise seed, in addition to the very special-ness and exoticness of the flavoring. Anyway, don't be surprised by the very tough nature of this cookie. Please experiment with the beverages you dunk it in. (Milk is not good. Cider, hot chocolate, various teas, coffee, and orange juice are all very good.)

On to the recipe!

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature, between 65 and 78 deg. F.

Prepare the cookie sheets by first greasing them, then spread 1-2 T whole anise seeds across the surface of each cookie sheet.

Combine thoroughly, then set aside:
3 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking powder

Beat until color lightens:
4 large eggs

Add these next ingredients GRADUALLY to the beaten eggs until further lightened in color, and thick, creamy, with a ribbon-like texture:
1 2/3 C granulated sugar
1 t finely grated lemon zest
1 t anise extract

Use a wooden spoon to fold in the flour mixture until completely and smoothly blended. Sprinkle a clean, smooth work surface generously with flour and knead the dough until it is firm and manageable. Do not be surprized if this takes 1/2 C or more!

Once it is of a consistency that feels stiff enough to work with a rolling pin, divide into portions of a size to work with your work space. Store the reserve portions of dough wrapped in plastic or in resealable bags so they don't dry out by the time you are ready to roll them out.

Now you are ready to roll. Keep the flour handy! You will need it regularly, and do use it liberally! Roll the dough to 1/4" thickness. Dust the Springerle carved rolling pin with flour (but make sure there are no large deposits in the recesses of the designs, as it will affect the design of the cookie), and BE FIRM when pressing down this rolling pin! It is important to get a strong impression, and to have even pressure on both sides of the rolling pin.

Cut the designs apart with a very sharp knife, and arrange on your cookie sheets. I like to press very gently as I place them on the cookie sheets, so that there's no doubt the anise seeds will be pressed into the back of the cookie.

If you've ever made cookies that must be rolled out and cut, you will know that it's at this point you have to re-roll the scraps, perhaps add it to some of the as-yet unrolled-out dough. Just keep going until all the dough is rolled, pressed, cut, and placed on the cookie sheets.

Filled all the cookie sheets? Finished all the dough? DON'T BAKE THEM YET! Dry the cookies somewhere cool and dry for at least 8-12 hours. I usually let them go overnight. Do not skip this step.

When it's time to bake them, bring the cookies and cookie sheets up to room temp. Then preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Bake ONE SHEET AT A TIME. Seriously. It's worth it. Even though each sheet takes 18-24 minutes (I usually go for about 20-21 minutes). Peek through the oven window at the cookies as you get close to that near-done stage: what you're watching for is a firm texture, but almost no coloration, perhaps just a very gentle inkling of gold along the very edges. Nothing more than that. Remove from cookie sheets and cool on racks.

I've seen these cookies painted with diluted food coloring (this requires another few hours drying time). There's a suggestion in Joy of Cooking that edible gold leaf would be a great plan, too. Regular frosting would hide the lovely embossed designs and alter the flavor of the cookie. I just leave them as they are. They are a very pretty cookie.

I hope you'll try this! I hope it brings you much enjoyment and becomes a tradition for your family that's as cherished as it is in mine.

 

Springerle Press on Day 2 of Springerle Making

Today's the day the springerle cookies got baked. Springerles are the German response to the Italian biscotti. Both are hard cookies, suitable for dunking in a strong (sometimes hot) beverage.

There are two main differences between springerles and biscotti. The first is that springerles are not twice-baked. Rather, they are dried overnight, then baked in a lower temperature oven for 18-26 minutes. The most striking difference, however, is in the appearance. Springerles are rolled twice: first, with a regular rolling pin to even out the dough. Then a second pass is made with a special rolling pin, usually made of wood, with decorations carved into it. The cookies are then cut apart and placed onto cookie sheets strewn with anise seed and let to dry overnight for 10-12 hours. It's only after that when they are finally baked, and I try to keep it to just 20 minutes.

Mine turned out perfectly this year. The ones baked on a metal cookie sheet were darker and harder (but far from burnt) than the ones baked on unglazed stoneware. I use Pampered Chef stoneware -- it's awesome. It actually makes a huge difference in my cooking, and is worth every penny difference in cost from any metal bakeware or anything ceramic that's got a glaze on it.

The biscotti are baked as a large, flat loaf first, let to cool, then sliced and rebaked. This is how they get their lovely, dry texture, so ideal for dunking in hot chocolate or coffee.

Springerles are a major part of the Christmas holidays in my family. Last year when I made them for my dad, he was very pleased and made the terribly wistful comment that now that Mom is gone, there's no one to bake him cookies. This year he has a rather wonderful girlfriend. I love Ginny a lot, but I have a feeling that (while she provides him with much other that he needs) she's not a cookie person. So I know it's my responsibility to bake the springerles.

When I woke up with my entire chest on fire the day after Christmas I despaired of getting any Christmas baking done for this year. I'm still not recovered completely yet. But I got the holly cookies done (marshmallows, butter, vanilla, cornflakes, green food coloring, and red cinnamon candies) and now the springerles. If I do no other cookies, I'm satisfied.

Obsessive? Hmm. Perhaps. More fearful of ghosts of certain female ancestors coming and giving me what for if I failed in this...