Jar cakes

Indulge me in my shameless attempt to show off the photogenic furbundle I live with❤️

Like myself he loves Christmas with abandon.

And can you agree Rocky the dog's glamor quotient is as savage in 2-D fondant portions as it is in real life?

Jar cakes are miniature rounds of cake cut out from a large sheet cake placed into six or eight ounce tins or jars.  Generally, a 9 X 13 inch cake, horizontally split, yields 8 jars,  three tiers of two and a half to three inch rounds.  Scraps can also be repurposed and shaped to conform, though it may not present quite neat a show through glass.  A complementing layer of frosts lift to a whopping six mini tiers.

For the cake inside, choose a favorite recipe, or if you don't wish to wander far, select from any of the ones in archives.

Frostings are most commonly buttercream, but fresh cream and ganache are excellent contenders. Standard chocolate and vanilla make pretty safe flavor bets, but you could play daring baker and inlay fruit creams and fascinating syrups. The scale of creativity raises considerably on attempts at fondant accents and sprinkled buttercream rosettes. Consider it the opening scene behind the lid and essential to set a fine stage for all that's seated within.

I'll leave you now to your holiday baking and jollymaking.

In the meantime, cheer on while I consider making Rocky the face of my cakes🐶

Have a merry merry, folks- from Rocky and I 🐶✨

Not a day goes by that I am not extremely grateful for the ability to upkeep this website I started in 2012. I don't say it enough, but thank you for your consistent visits and kind audience.

 I truly appreciate🙏🏼

Portable, giftable, adorable. And it's totally doable.

He clearly needs a Hollywood agent.

*******

 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:14

Star bread

The blur of  December running forward into a January toting promise of long awaited good tidings leaves me dizzy. Stress is high, visions of an immediate mask-less future seem dim, and ahhhh(!) I really do need to make my plum cake.

A pace to get things done and check off everything in a bulging final weeks' tasklist is always a terrific challenge, a result of loving Christmas a tad much. Because, as well thought out and carefully executed as things are, there is still that bit of restlessness and uncertainty in procrastination spun events.

Did the cookies just set off the fire alarm? Is there sufficient large cake for a million inch-high jar cake orders? Is my child recording all the Christmas specials I am missing while I'm in the kitchen?

It's then that my IG feed suggested I make star bread.

Subsequently, I put the Christmas cake on hold, for the theatrics of kneading, twisting and turning a yeasted loaf required my undivided attention. It also made my heart grow three sizes that day.

Cranberry raspberry bread is spectacular in aroma, majestic in visual, plush in texture, and beyond anything you'd expect in flavor. And since I am partially grateful for SEO driven recommendations, particularly when they're not asking me to shop my socks off, I'd like to share this gem with you. Because, don't you think it looks like one? 

So, take my advice and bake the bread. I promise making a starbright from pillowy dough will be a skillset to pride yourself on.

Meanwhile, as I rest my feet, glistening slices of sweet bread tucked onto my plate,  the Grinch's exchange with Cindy Lou is as captivating as it can ever be.

Bread recipe courtesy Red Star Yeast

Sweet dough:

Ingredients:

• 1¾ cups lukewarm water
• 1 tbsp yeast
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 4 large eggs
• ½ cup  honey
• 8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 7 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Star bread:

Ingredients:

(Makes one star bread)

• 2 pounds sweet dough (half of above recipe) 
• 6 tbsp almond paste
• 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• ½ tsp almond extract
• 2 egg yolks
• pinch salt
• ½ cup raspberry preserves
• ¾ cup fresh or frozen cranberries
• egg wash (1 egg white mixed with 1 tbsp water)
• decorator sugar
• confectioners’ sugar, if desired

1. Directions:

• In a 6-quart container, add the water, yeast, salt, eggs, honey, melted butter and flour. Mix ingredients in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
• Cover (not airtight) and allow to rise at room temperature for about 2 hours; then store in refrigerator for at least 4 hours to chill the dough before using.
• When ready to use dough, take out and proceed to make the fillings.
• For almond filling: In a food processor, mix together the almond paste, flour, sugar, almond extract, egg yolks and salt until it is a smooth paste. Set aside in a small bowl and clean the processor.
• For cranberry-raspberry filling: Add the raspberry preserves and cranberries to the clean processor and chop until the cranberries are fine pieces. Set aside.
• Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 2-pound piece. If you don't have a scale, it's half of the dough. Place the remaining dough back in the refrigerator. Divide the piece into four equal pieces, dust with more flour and quickly knead them into balls by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom. Cover and let dough balls rest for 20 minutes to allow dough to relax.
•  Roll out the dough balls into four circles about 10-inch wide. Use a dinner plate of the same size to lay down as a guide. Add flour as needed to prevent sticking. 
•  Place one of the dough rounds on a piece of parchment paper lined baking sheet. Top with ⅓ the almond filling, then ⅓ the raspberry-cranberry mixture. Cover with next round. Repeat with next two layers of dough and fillings. Top with the final layer of dough.
• Place a 2½-inch cookie or biscuit cutter, or anything that size in the center of the dough. Press lightly to make an indent (do not cut the dough) or leave cutter there as a guide.
• Use a pizza cutter or bench scraper to cut 16 equal spokes from the edge of the biscuit cutter to the outer edge of the dough. 
• Twist two of the sections toward each other with two rotations, then pinch the two sections together at the end to form a point. Continue with the rest of the sections until you have 8 points. Pinch seams one more time to ensure they won't come apart during rising. 
• Loosely cover the star and rise for 90 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
• On rise, seal edges together one last time. Brush the star point edges and center of star with egg wash; sprinkle decorating sugar along edges and center.
• Bake on large sheet pan for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and set.
• Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.
• Allow to cool on a rack.

• Notes: 
• To make the sixteen point cutting easy, imagine a clock and start cutting dough at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 marks. From there, cut each piece in half and again halve those pieces, resulting in 16.
• Dough can be refrigerated  in a non-airtight lidded container or up to five days or frozen, in one-pound portions, up to four weeks.  

• The entire sweet dough makes two 2 pound star breads. The star bread ingredient listing yields 1 loaf. 

The instructions are detailed enough that you can, rest assured, anticipate it to perform on point every time.

So much talk of the Grinch, and no recipe?

No way!

Grinch cake

Other Christmas recipes~

2019:

spice cake

2017:

surprise snowball cookies

2015: 

cranberry orange loaf

2014:

stocking cake pops

2013:

green rice

2012:

homemade lollipops

 

******

"When the wise men saw the star, they were filled with joy."  Matthew 2:10-12

Sugar cookies

The mess and multitudinal stages involved in cookie manufacturing bring a unifying sense of order and stability to a season so busy, specifically in a year like no other where extra doses of merry and bright are of dire need. The more elaborate the baking process, the greater provision of yuletide and gaiety, which, even those therapy sessions might seem insufficient to fulfill. 

Friends, today's subject was meant for such a time as this. Are you ready to take notes?

There is something quite over-the-top about an en masse of embellished sugar cookies. It stirs up an old world nostalgia as deep as the devotion to listen to uninterrupted Christmas music. Could've happened, you know, episodes of forced intervention from your grown up children to indubitably lock your Spotify account.

But tell me you get as excited as I do, stamping out snowmen of tender-rich crunch and sandy soft angels that flock in dozens. A few of of these, appropriately outfitted, alongside iconic red trucks and tied in shiny ribbon...and, hello, aren't you the Boss gift giver!?!

Perfectly executed, the simpleton of doughs can be one of the most impressive things ever. A truth life and the world of Disney princess movies never cease to remind me; the simpler/less complicated/straightforward could essentially be the better.

That being said, never underestimate the power of what butter, sugar and flour can do. Not that a few cups of base ingredients create a recipe of capacity to be passed down to people who will one day call you Grandma. Why, you simply couldn't herd all things involving such ingredients and commemorate them as heirloom, could you?

Accordingly, when Google renders exhaustive sugar cookie lists, complete with thousands of ideals comprising "bests', "perfects", "yummiest evers", you challenge yourself to try, in the least, the first ten searches among the five star tier.

However, it's a fall back blueprint I'm going to share. Not only is it ample enough for personal high teas throughout December, a batch of dough supplies generously for the half dozen friends and two immediate neighbors as well.

I don't know if it's the addition of milk in Alton Brown's version that makes the platform so versatile. Scraps reroll in ease, making beautiful clean cuts whether frozen-sliced, glass punched or cookie cutter pressed. 

It could very well be remedy for dark seasons, in particular, furnishing a spot of cheer to our pandemic weighted year.

And somewhere along the line, you'll wonder why you'd consider any other cookie anyway.

A batch is fairly easy to mix up. It freezes well and will yield a lot more than you can imagine. 

It's a truth! Visions of sugar skills come on display.

                                       Cookie platters = visual mood elevators

The trucks were something I urgently wanted to do. I made templates from cardstock and trace-cut with an X-acto.

 In adjustment of scraps/rerolling: the best way to make the most of your time and labor is have your cutters out and work as quickly as possible. The fast succession will not require as many refrigeration trips to rechill.

( Recipe adapted from Alton Brown's sugar cookie)

Sugar cookie

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ¾ cup salted butter, slight chilled
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp milk

Directions:

• Combine flour, baking powder in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to sift ingredients. Cut the butter in by tablespoons. Add sugar, egg and vanilla. Scrape dough down from the sides of the bowl, and pulse until a smooth cookie dough forms. 
• Divide dough in half. Knead into two rectangular slabs, approximately half inch thick. Stick each slab between two large sheets of parchment and fold paper to cover sides of dough. Place in Ziploc if freezing overnight. If not, freeze in parchment for one hour.
• Take the dough out, preheat oven to 350° F. Unfold parchment sheets and roll dough either onto the bottom parchment ( no fuss nonstick surface) or onto a floured counter  to a 1/8-1/4 inch thickness. 
• Cut into desired shapes. Arrange cookies on parchment or silicone lined baking sheets, two inches apart.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes rotating at the half interval.
• Take out of oven when done. Leave the cookies on the tray for 1-2 minutes. Invert onto baking rack to cool completely.
• Serve as is or decorate with royal icing/ sprinkles.

Royal icing:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
• 3 tbsp meringue powder
• ¼ cup- ¾ cup room temperature water, more needed to lighter consistencies
• ½ tsp vanilla or lemon extract
• gel food coloring

Directions:

• In the bowl of a stand mixer, on medium speed, combine sugar, meringue powder and 1/4 cup water until smooth and shiny.
• Adjust speed to high and beat until stiff shiny peaks form, approximately 5 minutes,
• Divide in bowls and add desired amount of water to thin icing.
• Pipe and decorate cookies.
• Allow to harden before serving.

                  

Bestie and I. We make good pictures🐶❤️✨

2019: Spice cake    

2017: Snoball cookies  

2016: Grinch cake

2015: Cranberry orange loaf

2014: Baklava

2013: Green rice pulao

2012: Perfect egg salad

                                                     

****** 

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" Psalm 8:3-4