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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

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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.

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Recipe: pailin’s ginger lemon cookies

One more day for Menu for Hope! The bidding ends tomorrow and then your are SOL. So be sure to get your raffle tickets for all of the lovely prizes being offered. Don’t forget – it is for a terrific cause!

Remember the batch of candied lemon peels that I bricked the other day? I successfully made a batch yesterday morning. Then I went into town to pick up some gifts for Jeremy’s administrative staff at a local cook/gourmet shop and what did I see? Candied lemon peel… for $3.25. Huh. Had I known they stocked this, I would not have gone to the trouble of making my own. Since I didn’t know, I tossed my head back and walked off feeling superior because I *did* make my own. But really, I was kicking myself on the inside.

made my own damn candied lemon peels

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