Christmas and Lessons in Baking: Nutella Christmas Tree and Sugar Cookies

We had a really fun Christmas this year because we knew Sophie wouldn't "get" it yet, and she didn't, so we were very happy with our decision to not go hard on presents for her and instead wrapped some of her favorite things, like vegetable pouches from Costco and Goldfish crackers. And she was delighted! It was fun to have her be a little more interactive on Christmas morning though.

We had family over on Christmas Day to decorate sugar cookies and boy did we decorate sugar cookies. I still can't look at the small stash that I still have3 because I ate way too many of them on the day.

Christmas morning Sophie

New Cocomelon blanket!

One of my crown jewels

My other crown jewel

I had also decided to try this Nutella pull-about Christmas tree. It wasn't until after I made the dough (challah) that I realize - wtf was I doing? I should have made a pastry sheet. I was in a bit of a bad mood after that because I knew that it wouldn't turn out the way it was supposed to. I expected it to be a total disaster but instead it was just a minor one. I'm probably lucky because the taste of Nutella covers a multitude of errors!

I'll try again someday with the right kind of dough and try to critique it then.

This week has been a bit of a struggle since AJ is working, I'm off and Sophie's daycare is closed, so a lot of trying to find things to do during the day, which is challenging in the winter when not only is it colder, but it's been raining?? What?? We don't know how to operate in the rain out here! We did have a day at the zoo, which was great cause we hadn't been there in awhile and she really seemed more attentive to it and what was going on, and then my mom and Jim got us in to Knott's with them and that was fun (especially after AJ showed up and could help with Sophie, especially in the lines ughhhh) but she had a great time!

The ultimate hit was the carousel - she was wary of it until she saw the giraffe and then that was all she could talk about. She had to have the giraffe, and she had to keep riding it. She went on it 3 times I think, once with AJ, once with me and once with my mom, and she also got the hang of waving as she passed by us which was the most darling part ever!

 

 

 

It's New Year's Eve today which is a bit secondary for us, because we have the somewhat misfortune of having a very close friend (and one of Sophie's 2 godmothers) having a birthday on December 30, which means that we tend to go hard on December 30 and then we feel like December 31 is actually New Year's Day because we're so dead. It's not so bad today, but we'll probably have (yet another) lowkey New Year's Eve.

Happy New Year's!

Lessons in Baking: Chocolate Cinnamon Banana Bread

I'm a banana fiend over here, I like them in everything from themselves, to ice cream, to pie to smoothies, to even the banana runts. I often have way too many so I got to freezing them but I had too many stored up. I felt like baking on Friday, and couldn't find a recipe to suit, especially because the sweet breads I wanted to bake needed whole milk, and since Sophie turned 2 we went to stocking 2% instead, so I figured I'd just use up the frozen bananas and make banana bread.

When I got out the baking powder I saw my cocoa powder and I figured that'd be a good combination so why not? So I threw in like 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder just cause.

Butter was room temp but still hard
to break up so it was pretty lumpy

As I got to the end I was thinking about how well banana, chocolate and cinnamon all go together, so I thought I'd throw in some of the new cinnamon Aunt Judee gave me at Christmas. I was just trying to shake some in from the bag but whoops, a whole mountain fell out. I really thought, well this is ruined, but mixed it in anyway (it's all a learning process isn't it?)

That's the mountain LOL

Oh well. I thought maybe I put in too much of everything, but it all fit in the bread dish well enough...

Although banana bread usually calls for
walnuts, I like to put in raw pecans - both
because they're cheaper and I have them,
but also they're better for high blood pressure

And the finished product.

Good news is that is actually wasn't ruined! Definitely still edible and it's good, but not great. Shockingly I taste way more of the cocoa powder than the cinnamon. And there are moist parts, which perhaps are undercooked, perhaps are from butter lumps, but they're my favorite part because I'm the kind of person who can OD on cake batter, for better or worse.

Christmas Number ? Out of ?

It's been impossible this year to get schedules together, so instead there are a bunch of different gatherings with different amalgamations of people. Last night it was Heather & her family at my mom's along with us. Only 3 kids and yet it was a whirlwind of activity and quite overwhelming.

We had Mexican food for dinner, delightful holiday drinks and desserts (capped off with pineapple dole whip à la Disneyland) and peppermint schnapps coffee. The kids colored and looked at Christmas toys and Sophie conquered her fear of all of my mom's inflatable Christmas animatronics, and we opened gifts.

Naturally Sophie is obsessed with Cocomelon anything, and she also got a cute blue leopard-print dress, a pastry tea-time set and a mint green macaroon ornament.

Despite waking her up early from her nap to get out to Gangy's, and despite all the flurry of activity, and despite the warm dark car and Cocomelon lullabies on being way past her bedtime on the drive home, she didn't fall asleep until about 5 minutes before we got home, which meant we were subjugated to Cocomelon for the whole hour and a half drive. At what age is it appropriate to give your kids ZzzQuil? (LOL jk).

This morning she was in such a good mood and was even reading her current favorite story (Good Morning Toucan) to her new Cocomelon figurines.

 Happy Sunday y'all. One week til Christmas!