almost there!

well september 1 is just right around the corner, and then we are just three weeks away from the autumn season (officially).

i have some craft supplies ready for one set of craft gifts, and i really need to get baking again. right now, my baked goods baskets will only contain gluten free cranberry orange scones and gluten free chocolate cupcakes. i would like to add an iced sugar cookie if it is possible, and definitely some sort of chocolate truffle. of course we shall see what it comes down to at the end of the season.

pumpkins! (yes, in a christmas blog)

i cannot help but get super excited when i start seeing pumpkins around. the "ber" months are on the horizon.

i took a weekend getaway with my husband this past weekend only to see a few signs advertising the impending harvest. while in the grocery store, i cannot help but stare at the pumpkin and apple items. i cannot wait to dig in.

september 1st cannot get here quick enough, but once we get there... i'd like everything to slow down.

this part of the countdown is the time to savor.

it's never too early for christmas crafts

this year, with the economy in a serious recession, and a genuine desire to return to the simple things in life, i have really focused my efforts on experiences and homemade things for christmas.

in my baking challenges, i am happy to report that i have a few successful gluten free items that i can share with friends and family this year:
gluten free cranberry orange scones
gluten free chocolate cupcakes
& gluten free pies (apple, pumpkin, strawberry, cherry)

i am hoping to finalize my recipe for gluten free sugar cookies this month.

last year was an embarrassment and a disaster. this year will be better, and i will be able to fill up my gift boxes with delicious things.

as for gifts, i am reviewing my martha stewart crafts encyclopedia, the internet, and magazines to decide which crafts i would like to do as gifts this year.

i'd like to make totes for people, and since i learned to make pillows at my sewing class... perhaps a pillow as well. maybe a set of notecards, personalized for each person.

it's never to early to start planning & working on holiday crafts.

countdown milestone: 100 days until the christmas season!

hip hip hooray! 100 days until the christmas season officially begins!

it's about this time of year when i start to look for christmas magazines to hit the stands.

back with cookies!

welcome august! and with it, a few christmas milestones including

• 100 days until the Christmas Season (Aug 5)
• 3/4 of the way to the Christmas Season (Aug 14)
• 2/3 of the way to Christmas (Aug 25)

Christmas cooking and craft magazines should start hitting the stands later this month, and craft planning in my house has definitely begun.



first let's begin our august celebrations with history of the Christmas cookie

Cakes of all shapes and sizes (including smaller items such as cookies) have been part of festive holiday rituals long before Christmas. Ancient cooks prepared sweet baked goods to mark significant occasions. Many of these recipes and ingredients (cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds, dried fruits etc.) were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages. They were highly prized and quickly incorporated into European baked goods. Christmas cookies, as we know them today, trace their roots to these Medieval European recipes. Dutch and German settlers introduced cookie cutters, decorative molds, and festive holiday decorations to America. German lebkuchen was probably the first cake/cookie traditionally associated with Christmas. Sugar cookie type recipes descended from English traditions. Did you know Animal crackers began as edible ornaments?

"By the 1500s, Christmas cookies had caught on all over Europe. German families baked up pans of Lebkuchen and buttery Spritz cookies. Papparkakor (spicy ginger and black-pepper delights) were favorites in Sweden; the Norwegians made krumkake (thin lemon and cardamom-scented wafers). The earliest Christmas cookies in America came ashore with the Dutch in the early 1600s."
---"America's Best Holiday Cookies," McCall's [magazine], December 1994 (p. 85)

The flood of cheap imported wares form Germany between 1871 and 1906 when the import laws were changed, inundated our Christmas markets with cooking utensils like...cookie cutters...Unlike homemade counterparts, or local tinsmith's wares, these tools depicted highly stylized images, often frawn from secular themes or...with subjects designed specifically to hang on the Christmas tree. Likewise, recipes appeared in popular cookbooks to better match the demands of such utensils...In a sense, with the advent of inexpensive tin cutters, new emphasis was placed on shape, where in the past, many homemade cookies simply had been square or round. Bells, Christmas trees, camels, crimped wares (cutters with zigzag edges), lilies, Sant Clauses, turkeys, all of these elaborate shapes tended to deemphasize texture and flavor."
---The Christmas Cook: Three Centuries of American Yuletide Sweets, William Woys Weaver [Harper Perennial:New York] 1990 (p. 106)

Merry Christmas Cookies
1/3 cup shortening
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
2/3 cup hone
1 tsp. lemon flavoring
2 3/4 cups Gold Medal Flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
Mix shortening, sugar, egg, honey, and flavoring thoroughly. Measure flour by dipping method or by sifting. Stir together flour, soda, salt; blen in. Chill dough. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. (quick mod.). Roll dough out 1/4" thick. Cut into desired shapes (right). Place 1" apart on lightly greased baking sheet. bake 8 to 10 min., or until no imprint remains when touched lightly. When cool, ice and decorate if desired. makes about 5 doz. 2 1/2" cookies.

---Betty Crodker's Cooky Book, General Mills, facsimile 1963 edition [Hungry Minds:New York] 2002 (p. 30)

[source: http://www.foodtimeline.org/christmasfood.html]