Better late than never right? This Christmas break has been far busier than expected. My brother and sister-in-law traveled from sunny California to join my family in snowy Iowa. Was great to have the whole family under one roof.
My dad's work-of-art. It has about 1,000 strings of lights wrapped around it.
The huge snow storm blew across the midwest Christmas Eve prevented us from traveling to see family in Kansas. Instead we stayed home, went sledding, made snow angels and played an unhealthy amount of board games. Puzzles were also invoked.
Ice was everywhere.
Snow angel!
Charlie Brown Christmas puzzle
Of course Christmas isn't Christmas without loads of food, so my Mom and I went into a baking frenzy to supply sweets for the holiday week. We made a raspberry cherry pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate peanut butter cake, cinnamon rolls.
FUDGE. The good stuff.
Hot chocolate. Mmm frothy.
Pie of the pumpkin.
This chocolate PB cake was massive and intense. Also, the dessert proved to be quite the challenge. The first attempt at the cake was botched while I was trying to assemble it to frost. I pretty much destroyed the middle layer. In addition, I had baked the layers in 9" cake pans rather than the 8" pans the recipe called for, making the layers thinner than recommended. Second attempt was made using a cake mix (yes, I was ashamed) because we didn't have enough of the required ingredients to attempt the batter from scratch again. I also proceeded to anilate one of the layers while attempting to assemble it for frosting. My mother mixed and baked the final cake layers from a recipe of her own. This cake survived the frosting process. While the cake is a sight to behold, we all agreed the layers were a bit dry and could be moister. I am not too fond of cake these days.
Devil cake.
Raspberry cherry pie goodness.
On the day after Christmas we prepared a hearty brunch. Egg casserole, chocolate chip muffins and fresh fruit with plenty of coffee. My older brother spotted the breakfast casserole recipe came from the Omaha World Herold newspaper. The casserole included eggs, whole wheat bread, sausage, bacon and cheese. It was supposed to have a layer of onions, but some people in my family don't like onions...
Coffee- French Press style.
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!
yum. if only some mountain man would realize your glorious talents and whisk you away to montana. you can borrow some of my alpacas for the journey and bake to your heart's content! i'll see you in february and we'll iron out the details.
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