use real butter

Welcome to 2008 everyone! Gong Xi Fa Tsai! I hope folks were able to start the new year off properly and in good spirits. I was pleased as punch this morning despite the 4F reading in the parking lot (that’s -15.5C for those living metric). I can take the frigid temps though, because everyone knows that women who tele are hot. ;) My arm is nearly normal and it didn’t bother me at all!

a little warm up

What I love about skiing our local hill is that I can be home in 15 minutes. That’s great for days like New Year’s Day when there are certain foods I have to make… Actually, it’s Chinese New Year that gets me all panicked about preparing the right foods to eat for luck, health, fortune, this, that, and the other. My grandma and mom have scared it into me! But I tend to do a watered-down version during the western new year, because they scared *that* into me as well. I suppose they figure if you hit the traditions on both of the new years, then you’ve got all of the bases covered, right?

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: yule log

Does it suddenly feel like you’re walking through the enchanted forest with all of the yule logs popping up on food blogs? Enchanted, indeed. It’s the Daring Bakers challenge for December! This month our most beloved founders: Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice are hosting the challenge and they picked this traditional pastry.

we knead to bake – oh yes! we most certainly do…

I had never made a yule log (aka bûche de noël) before, but I was familiar with all of the components. The three major parts were: meringue mushrooms, buttercream frosting, and the genoise. I began with the mushrooms.

beat the egg whites to stiff peaks

piping tops and stems

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: almond crunch cookies

Whenever I read the word doing I think of it as doing – as in sounds like boing. Anyway, you get another cookie recipe today because I made a veritable boat load of cookies yesterday. I really enjoy holiday baking except when I have surgery and then a head cold right before the holidays. I had to wait until I was fully well enough to 1) bake and 2) not make everything all nasty and sick because that would be a really unkind token of appreciation.

But wait! It is Teh Last Day of the Menu for Hope IV fundraising campaign. If you haven’t skidaddled yourself over there to bid on some prizes, please consider doing so now (and then come back to my post). Pim has neatly organized the prizes according to your statistical chances of winning if you should bid (and you should bid!). Thankfully, my prize is not listed under Great Chances, but under Good Chances. See, you have a good chance of winning this prize from me if you bid on UC01. Repeat – UC01. Just think, you could pay $10 for a raffle ticket to get a print of this image which was featured on the NPR website:

or you could pay considerably more $ for a straight purchase or persevere years of medical training and slice me open like my surgeon to get one. Uh, the raffle ticket is the definite no brainer.

**Jump for more butter**