I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas Cake

A cake full of Christmas deliciousness!
I had been concocting this cake in my head for the past few weeks.
It is four layers of super moist chocolate cake, pink peppermint filling between each layer, and vanilla icing.

The peppermint "plate" idea came from Southern Living.

I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe.  The filling is a whoopie pie filling recipe that includes marshmallow cream.  I wish I knew how many drops of red food coloring I used to get this perfect pink color, but the food coloring was a new bottle that squirted rather than dropped, so I got a lot more than I expected with one squeeze!   The vanilla frosting is the new recipe that I had tried a few months ago.

It made for a pretty and yummy Christmas dessert!

A Cinnamon & Sugar Topped Christmas

This is my first Christmas as a Mom and I am loving it!
We have had so much fun this week doing Christmas crafts, baking, making gifts, seeing Christmas movies and The Nutcracker, and all sorts of other family things!

We adopted the Christmas breakfast tradition that I grew up with......French Breakfast Puffs.
The muffins have a bit of nutmeg, and are dipped in butter, then coated with a cinnamon sugar mixture.
Of course we opened presents first, and then I made the French Breakfast Puffs which we agreed are the perfect Christmas Breakfast!

More later, as I am about to put together a cake I have been dreaming up!

French Breakfast Puff and Hot Chocolate

French Breakfast Puffs

Cookies for Santa

Merry Christmas!

The baking mania continues!  In the last week I tried two new sugar cookie recipes, but I think I like the one I have been using much better.  The first had lemon zest and the second had sour cream.  They both had good flavor, but nothing exciting.  I don't like a bland sugar cookie.  They had good structure for decorating.  The only thing is, I was going to make royal icing and decorate both batches at once, but I tried one of the sour cream cookies yesterday and wasn't sure if I even liked it.  So, I am not decorating those.  I will make some more cookies and decorate them with a winter theme rather than Christmas.

I did make a double batch of the lemon zest sugar cookies and Little C (that will be my blog name for our 7 year old daughter) cut out and decorated half of them.  I did not think it was possible to use an entire 6 pack of sprinkles on one batch, but she came very close!  We had a lot of fun and she was very proud of her cookies!

Yesterday I made Oatmeal Cookies - part of the batch was cinnamon raisin for Santa, and the rest of the cookies were chocolate chip.   Santa's plate was clean this morning, so I assume he loved the cookies we made for him!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Santa Would Like These Cookies

Butterscotch Chip Spice Cookies

This was the new cookie that I tried last Christmas and every time it is made, it's a hit!
They are normally dipped in  powdered sugar before they are baked, which makes them prettier.
I did not dip these because they are very sweet that way, and I just wanted them for dessert.

Butterscotch Chip Spice Cookies

Close-up of Butterscotch Chip Spice Cookie

Joy To The Book Club

This week I had my book club Christmas meeting/party at my house.
Every year I make them an assortment of treats which always includes peppermint bark, peppermint brownies, and cayenne shortbread (aka cheese wafers).  This year I added the white chocolate cherry shortbread.

I change the packaging each year and have the container as part of the gift.  One year I did a decorated photo box with each person's initial and favorite colors, and another year was a Christmas tin.  Last year I used black photo boxes and attached wire ribbon (black, white and red Christmas pattern) to look like the box was a wrapped package.

This year I started with a Christmas tin tray.  The shortbreads were both packaged in cellophane and tied with a red wire ribbon.  The peppermint bark candies and peppermint brownies were each in the small boxes below.  I wrapped the entire thing in cellophane and tied it with a red ribbon.

For dinner I made a delicious new soup - Chicken Vegetable Soup with tortellini, fennel, kidney beans, Swiss chard and several other ingredients.  I served the soup with warm rolls.  Dessert was a brownie topped with peppermint ice cream, homemade whipped cream and crushed peppermints.
We had a great Christmas book club!

Packaged Christmas Goodies

Tray with Cayenne Shortbread and White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread

Box of Peppermint Bark Candies added

Second box with Peppermint Brownies added

Final product

We Wish You A Merry Christmas Party - Part B, Desserts

And now for the desserts.........

Homemade Marshmallows
Amazing how sugars can be turned in to a white billowy mass, which can then be cured, cut, coated with sugar and..........marshmallows!  They are very time consuming to cut, but are very fun and I cannot wait to make them in different colors for other holidays and events!

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread
These were even better the second time around!  I did the white chocolate my way and they turned out much better!  I used a little more almond extract this time too.  Such a pretty shortbread cookie!

Peppermint Bark Candies
I started making this peppermint bark in to candies; it takes a little more time, but it is a prettier display and easier to serve/eat.

Peppermint Brownies
My Christmas creation/tradition.  The perfect brownie covered with pink peppermint icing and peppermint candies - need I say anymore!?!?

Eggnog Tea Cookies
I used fresh ground nutmeg which gives a wonderful flavor to the cookies, and added a second splash of rum to the icing.

Dessert Table

Dessert Table - Center

Homemade Marshmallows

Homemade Marshmallows - Green Close-Up

White Chocolate Cherry Shortbread

Peppermint Bark Candies

Peppermint Brownies

Peppermint Brownies Close-Up

Eggnog Tea Cookies

Eggnog Tea Cookies Close-Up

We Wish You A Merry Christmas Party - Part A, Decorations

I had so much fun decorating for this Christmas Party!

My third trip to the craft store last week turned in to trip 3 to store A and trip 1 to store B!  I will try to limit my visits this week to 1 trip to store A. :)

The large arrangement below is my favorite!  I love arrangements with cranberries/fruit in the base.  I wanted the base to be colorful and unique, and the arrangement to be a burst of Christmasy floral beauty!

Cranberries were involved in most of the arrangements and candle displays.  If you want to get attention at the grocery store, load up 30 bags of cranberries into the top of the cart!  I think I used 27 bags!  Not pictured are the tall vases like the large arrangement vase, that I filled a little more than half with cranberries then added a white pillar candle to each.  This made for a very pretty and striking display - they were at opposite ends of a raised kitchen island counter.  I used cranberries for the table centerpiece below with the green, red, and white flowers; with cranberries and white candles on each side.

The bowl of glass ornaments was the centerpiece for the dessert table, which had silver trays and lots of red in the desserts.

The red and white centerpiece was on the main serving table.

I have so many pictures with the decorations and desserts, I will do two posts.
All the decorations were very Christmasy and went well with the desserts I made and the Italian food that was catered for this party.