Happy Christmas

Yes, I had one :D

Hectic. Insane. Too many people in my relatively small house. But you know what? It was fantastic all the same.

Hope you all had a great one too. Here are some pictures from the day:

It's not giving up...it's self preservation

Well my fellow DBers, I must ashamedly admit that this month's challenge managed to thoroughly kick my ass.

Surprisingly, it was not the much belothed buttercream that did me in. No, in fact, I made a beautiful, shiny, fluffy buttercream on the first try. I caught it as it tried to curdle 4 table spoons before the butter was full incorporated. It came back together beautifully after giving it a little steam bath over the double boiler. So, no buttercream horror stories here.

No...it was the genoise. I don't know what I did wrong, honestly. Well, I know what happened the first time I made it. After reading that some people were having issue with the genoise drying out after cooking for 12 minutes, I opted for the lower end of the spectrum and baked for 10. Bad idea. It didn't get done all the way through. So, attempt #2, I thought it had done fine. Apparently not. There were spots that were still not fully cooked, the damn thing clung to the buttered parchment for dear life, ripping off half of the actual cake in the process.

I managed to still decorate it (minus the mushrooms) but I highly doubt it's edible as, at this point, it's basically a lot of buttercream, some raspberry real fruit jam, and maybe, somewhere in there, a tiny bit of genoise.

I must admit to being completely embarrassed. You know, if the buttercream had defeated me, fine...but a cake?!?! I can make a CAKE. Ugh. Chalk this one up to a bad experience.

(Oh, for anyone who's wondering. I didn't bother to waste the resources making the mushrooms since the cake it pretty much a lost cause. Seemed a little wasteful considering I don't like eating meringue.)

Really? Seriously?

Yes. More baking. More baking cookies even.

In all honesty, I'm blogging so I don't fall asleep with the last batch in the oven and burn the house down.

So.Tired.

Logan wanted to take some cookies to work. Unfortunately, my greatest success on the cookie front (the pecan sandies) were eagerly devoured by us, and happily finished off by the dogs (no, that wasn't SUPPOSED to happen.) So, here I sit. Baking. Again.

One batch of cranberry white chocolate target knock off cookies (especially appropriate since he works at target) and one batch of pecan sandies. This to round out the cranberry orange pinwheels, the peanut clusters, the fudge, and the peanut butter balls (donated by bex). Yup, those boys are gonna be on a biggest sugar high ever.

Ahh, salvation! Timer is going off! To sleep with me!

Tomorrow:
1 - Another batch of pecan sandies (because bex and the boy are whining about not having any)
2 - James' christmas carrot cake
3 - Jesse's christmas cheesecake cupcakes.
4 - knit the other edge of eileen's shawl so I can get it blocked.
5 - oh yeah, I should work somewhere in there too!

Finally

I was beginning to think it wasn't possible.

I haven't touched Eileen's shawl in over a month. Why? Because after numerous attempts, I could NOT get my head around how to knit on the edging.

With a little over a week until Christmas, I resolved that I H-A-D to get this done. So yesterday I picked it up again. And spent the day completely frustrated and in tears.

Seriously, I can follow a chart! I can knit! UGH.

UGH
UGH
UGH

OMG are you serious?

Well, you wanna know what it was? THE CHART IS BACKWARDS! You know who had to point this out to me?? Logan. The boy. The boy who doesn't knit. He says to me "Well, if the knitting is backwards when you knit it, then why don't you turn the chart around?" What? Read the chart...BACKWARDS?!?! Blasphemy.

But I'll be damned...it worked. And so, after a day of tears and much knit throwing...I have successfully knit the edging onto one side of Eileen's shawl. Tomorrow, I will tackle side two.

Wish me luck!

Cookie Overload

Well hello. I'm back in computerland. Didja miss me? Likely not. Ah well, such is life.

I spent my weekend in the kitchen.

Finally count:

4 batches of sugar cookies.
4 batches of pecan sandies.
1 batch of raspberry white chocolate filled cookies.
1 batch of super fudge.
1 batch of not so super caramel.
1 bag of chocolate covered pretzels.
Not one but TWO Caramel Pecan Cheesecakes

Oh, you want to know what I still have left to bake?

1 pan of lemon bars
1 batch of cranberry orange pinwheels
1 batch of pumpkin pecan cookies
1 batch of chocolate peanut blowouts
1 or 2 batches of filled peanut butter cookies
1 batch of chocolate cherry surprise cookies
1 batch of pastry pillows for Logan

Why, you ask? WHY? Because, it's Christmas and it's what I like to do. I have several packages to send out to friends and family, near and far, and baking is what I know best. Well, and knitting takes too long.

So, I spent my weekend working my ass off. And loved every minute of it.

Best Christmas Ever

Yup, you heard me right. I'm already declaring this the best Christmas ever. (Pretty funny considering I just posted a rant about it.)

I gave my mom her main Christmas gift last night. No, no, don't look at me like that, I took her to the Mannheim Steamroller concert in Spokane. I can't even tell you how much fun we had. And the concert was just fantastic. They had so much fun up there.

Our seats ended up being perfect. Were were in the second row of the balcony, which, though we could have had closer floor seats, allowed us to actually see (as mom and I are so incredibly short). It was seriously a blast, and it's something that mom would never do for herself.

So, Merry Christmas everyone, even if I am a little early.

My next mission(s) should I choose to accept:

1 - The Daring Baker December Challenge, it's a doosey
2 - Get my boy to buy me a Christmas Tree
3 - Conquer the fish hat or find a suitable replacement
4 - Give away the fudge I just made so that I don't eat it! :P

Where to start?

Ugh. Just ugh. Maybe I'm not built for colorwork. Maybe the chart isn't good for stranding (which I originally suspected.)

Regardless - I'm screwed.

I had the fish hat planned for 3 of my christmas recipients. I've now made the hat twice, with very little success. I'm WAY not happy with it.

I don't know what to do. 20 days to christmas. Better find a solution soon.