Happy Thanksgiving & Merry Christmas

So sorry about the long wait! You know the holidays. Rush, rush, rush. So i supposed I'd better start out with the items i bakes for Thanksgiving. To begin, i only made two items. Rugelach cookies and lemon meringue pie. Rugelach is a type of cookie originating somewhere in the Middle East. I have had people from Iraq tell me they are Iraqi cookies and people from Israel say they are Israeli and books tell me they are Jewish, but it is always somewhere in the Middle East so that is all i can tell you about their background. The recipe I use may not be quiet as authentic as you might find in the Middle East, but some personal friends of mine from Iraq say the recipe is very authenic.

It is a small cookie in the shape of a cresant with a chocolate filling most commonly but it can have other fillings as well. To make it you simly mix up the dough, refidgerate it for awhile, roll it out, spinkle the filling, cut into wedges and roll. If you are feeling lazy or are in a hurry, you can skip the wedges, roll, and then cut, making the cookies more of a pinwheel than a cresant. Be careful of adding too much filling or the cookie will be messy. It is absolutely delicious. The dough is sweet and soft, and so creamy (probably a result of the cream cheese) and the filling is chocolately with a hint of cinnomin making the chocolate filling irrisistable.
Also for Thanksgiving I made a Lemon Merinque Pie, which was fairly simple. I used a premade piecrust and a box mix Cook & Serve Lemon Pudding for the filling. The recipe for the pie can be found on the box.

A few weeks later and its Christmas time! Jesus gets a lot of baking on his birthday! I personally made three types of cookies; gingerbread, candy cane cookies, and peanut kisses. Only the candy cane cookie recipe will be published on this website because they are family recipes, but I will give tips. When making any cookie dough where you have to shape it, such as candy canes and gingerbread, make sure it reaches the right consistency. If it is too soft or gooey it will be hard to work with but if you add too much flour it will be dry and crumbly. If you should happen to have dough too gooey and soft, just add some more flour but be careful not to add to much. You can also try wrapping it in plastic and sticking it in the fridge to harden up. If you add too much flour try adding more water, but again be careful not to add to much. If you happen to rip or tear your dough you can wet your fingers and stick the dough back together.

As for the peanut butter kisses, all I can say is make sure the cookie dough is fully or close to fully cooked before adding the kisses to it. If you add the chocolate too early you will have to bake it longer and will burn the chocolate. The lovely thing about chocolate is that in most cases it will hold its shape no matter how long it's cooked but it can still burn and nobody likes burnt chocolate. If you should happen to add the chocolate too early you can always put a piece of foil over top of the cookies. This will trap the heat so as to cook the cookies but not keep it in too long so that the chocolate burns.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday Jesus, and a Happy New Year!

La Dia de Muertos

Happy Halloween and Day of the Dead everyone! Surprisingly i have alot of stuff to tell you guys about in this 2 day time span! For Halloween i went to a Halloween "party" and the hostess is pregnant so i combined a Halloween cake and a baby cake in one! It took alot of icing but it was pretty easy. The recipes are already on here and i don't have much to tell you about the cake so I'll just post pictures and get on with the Day of the Dead.

So basically I put a spider web on it and then a mom pumpkin a dad pumpkin and a baby pumpkin. Pretty simple right? Here are some pictures of the cake as I was making it.

Anyway, enough with that cake! It's time to talk about La Dia de Muertos, The Day of the Dead! Now for a little bit of background and fun facts, the day of the dead that I will be talking about is the Mexican one. The day of the dead was a way for Catholic, in some European countries, to help allow cultures keep their traditions of dressing up and warding off spirits but in a more Christian way of honoring the dead. In Mexico, families will decorate their dead loved one's graves with flowers and other decorations. Families also set up shrines dedicated to the dead and decorated with more flowers and some special decorative paper that i forget the name of. Food and water are set out to strengthen the wandering souls. Incense is set out so that the scents will guide the wandering souls. Pictures of the Virgin Mary, or the Virgin Guadalupe are also set out. Fun Fact:  Grave sites in Mexico are rented, not bought. If the rent is not paid the body will be removed and the site re-rented.

Food commonly eaten during the Day of the Dead is, The Bread of the Dead a.k.a. El Pan de Muertos, Gravel Salad, Antejitos, Tacos, churros, Tres Leches (three milks),and Meatball Soup. I ate all of these on the Day of the Dead, which actually lasts two days by the way, at a party and they were quite delicious although the Tres Leches was too sweet.

I apologize for any incorrect information, all of this i learned in an informational video at the party.