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I must begin with an apology as I do realize I’ve been a bad little blogger and am very behind with posting. No excuses really either as I had plenty of time over the xmas holiday to get into things. Speaking of the holiday season this is where our stories begin.
Part of the magic of Christmas growing up in a cold climate is the plethora of baked goods piled on festive platters and brought over by relatives – another not so magical part of the season we’re all aware of is the pounds these little goodies pack on. Here in the land of Oz however there is decidedly less sweet things to sink teeth into over the season. Don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely chocolate and a myriad of desserts to be consumed but I blame the heat for the lack of baking spirit missing from at least our Aussie Christmas. Who wants to heat their house up more with an oven when you already feel like the baked good inside? (As an aside, perhaps this is why everyone kept giving me vanilla flavoured bath stuff).
I however couldn’t stand not to do some baking so I whipped out my mother’s recipe for Ginger Crinkles! Golden glorious bits of heaven with crunch and the essence of christmas in every bite. I melted and mixed, stirred and substituted (as any good cook does – note I had my substitution approved by Madre herself first) and I popped them in the oven to open it to 24 gorgeous, perfectly crinkled crinkles! Totally excited and full of cheer I made a plate up for my better half and I and we dug in… banana…. soda…… yuck… somehow – and I truly have no idea how, the ginger crinkles tasted nothing like ginger and were almost effervescent in texture once they hit your tongue. Lovely. How do I do this? Perhaps it was that my flour was poorly labelled and quite possibly could have already been self-raising rather than plain and yet I added more soda… or maybe it was the olive oil substitution instead of vegetable oil. Who knows, but rest assured, next time I want to make Ginger Crinkles, I’m going to look up a recipe for Banana Soda Cookies.
The other holiday baking mishap occurred a few days before xmas. Having previously had success making meringues I thought it would be fun to flavour and colour some for xmas treats! They turned out even better than previously and much more plentiful. Squeezing them out of my ziplock ( which I now have a fancy fandangled pastry bag which I love to use in the future), I made candy canes and little things almost resembling trees!
With the first tray out of the oven I put the second batch in on a timer and went off to do some shopping only to return home hoping to pop one of my fresh and lovely little meringues into my mouth… reaching for one I thought, “Gee these look kinda different from when I left… more foamy” and I tilted the tray and the BAKED AND FINISHED meringues promptly all slid into one another slipping to the bottom edge of the pan!! They had melted! It was insane, they actually turned back into liquid after having baked in the oven for over an hour!!! How do I manage to do this, I even googled it wondering if it was a normal thing and found nothing! The other batch in the oven looked fine but sure enough, 15 minutes out in the air and they were sticky and turning back into foam. Un-believable.
Maybe nows when I should mention that it had been and did continue to rain for 3 weeks… note to self, don’t try to make when it’s raining.
Hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and Happy New Year! Will post more about our xmas festivities soon.