Christmas Baking

This year's Christmas baking was very successful, if I dare say so myself. Every year I aim to try out a few new recipes - it's my thing. I like trying out new things, and since I don't have that much time during the year, the holiday season seems like a good time to finally do it. Besides, home-made cookies and candy make for great Christmas gifts.

I always enjoy home-made gifts so much. It's both the gift itself and the fact that the person took time out of their daily schedule and routine to make it that makes it twice as precious as a normal gift, in my opinion. I have so little free time that I always appreciate when someone just as busy has made something for me.

But back to this year's baking - the recipes I tried out turned out to be amazing - coffee crinkles and Oreo truffles with black and white chocolate. They were sooo tasty, I almost kept them for myself instead of giving them as gifts to my team at work.

The coffee crinkles were soft and chocolaty and coffee-tasting and completely amazing - they are easily a contestant for the title of my favorite cookies ever. The recipe is from A Baker's House.

The Oreo truffles were also quite nice and creamy, and I used some nice cooking chocolate for dipping, which totally made a difference. My advice is to use good quality chocolate for such things whenever you can. The recipe is from here: Cooking Classy.

All in all - a good holiday baking haul and an excellent selection for this year's Christmas gifts.

Some Holiday Spirit

On the last day of the year, I thought I'd share a bit of holiday spirit by posting some pictures of some of my old and new Christmas tree ornaments. Back in 2008 when I was graduating from Colby, my parents and I spent a weekend in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park, and on one of our strolls in town we ended up going into a Christmas store. I have always loved the Christmas season, by my family also really liked the idea of getting ornaments when we travel, so that our tree is a collection of memories, rather than just a pretty decoration. I am trying to keep that up with my tree; I love browsing through Christmas decor, and I usually buy at least one ornament every year to shake things up. This year I got a very cute wooden owl ornament from a Christmas shop in Boston near Quincy Market, and I also got a small white dove ornament and a cute angel ornament from a Christmas shop in Bruges on my travels. It's really fun to look at my tree and remember what I did and what places I visited.

So here are some of my favorite ornaments (although not all of them). I did try to limit myself and not photograph every single ornament on the tree, after all :)

My owl from Boston kind of reminds me of Harry Potter, even if it is not white, so I jumped at the chance to charm my tree into something more Hogwarts-related. Yes, I am a bit geeky at times. Next to it is the angel I got on my trip to Bruges, which you can read more about here.  

Next in line is this adorable elf that I got this year from a seasonal Christmas shop here in Sofia. It is so cute with the pointy hat, the scarf and the presents. On the right is a reindeer that I got last year from another shop in Sofia.

I actually couldn't limit myself to just one ornament this year, and I ended up getting another dwarf/elf from the same shop that I got the one above. I love how rich in detail these figurines are. Also, I got two balls with silver, gold and bronze flowers, which go really well with the while-silver-gold theme of my tree and are so very beautiful.

 

And, well, check out this gorgeous holiday candy....mmmm! I don't think that this is going to last until next year.