from Kris B.
I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it is now December! I so enjoyed November, the month of intentional gratitude and thankfulness, but haven't yet made the transition to being in the Christmas spirit. At this point my energy is being consumed by trying to finish up the fall semester at school. Two more weeks! Then maybe I can get some Christmas decorations up and actually enjoy the process rather than feeling stressed because there are so many more pressing things that I really should be doing.
During November, as I was making my gratitude list, one of the things that kept coming to mind is how thankful and grateful I am for my friends- those that I see regularly and those that I keep up with primarily via Facebook. There is no greater gift in life than a caring and loving circle of friends. One reason that I am particularly grateful for friends right now is because some of them have infused a little bit of Christmas into my otherwise Scrooge-like present life.
Some of our closest friends have an annual Christmas party on the Saturday evening after Thanksgiving. Because my husband smoked our Thanksgiving turkey and my oldest daughter did all of the side dishes for our Thanksgiving meal, I had virtually no cooking responsibilities for that day so, I volunteered to help cook and prepare food for my friends' party. I really enjoyed making twelve dozen cookies and hummus and chocolate mousse for forty. The green and red sprinkles made an appearance as decoration for the sugar cookies. That was the first touch of Christmas at my house. (Don't worry; cookies, hummus, and mousse are not all that we had to eat. They did have some of the food catered as well. Lol!). The party itself was a festive celebration with lots of food, fellowship, a home decorated from top to bottom and a Christmas carol sing-a-long.
Also, a colleague asked me if I would bake something for her to give as gifts. Enter this week's recipe. Last night I baked fifteen loaves of this Apple Cranberry Streusel Quick Bread. Because she wanted them packaged as Christmas gifts, I was forced to unearth some red and white curling ribbon. So there you have it...Christmas colored sprinkles and red and white curling ribbon are the total extent of Christmas at my house at this point.
I will get there. We will get the tree up and the stockings will be hung by the chimney with care. Wrapped packages will appear under the tree and brunch will be prepared for Christmas morning. Right now, the process seems a little overwhelming, but it always does for me at this time of year. I always feel better when a take a few minutes a slow down. Today that happened with a cup of coffee (or three) and a piece of this delicious bread. I needed fifteen loaves for my colleague and it just so happened that the math worked out that I made sixteen. One for us, too!
Apple-Cranberry Streusel Quick Bread
INGREDIENTS
For the Streusel
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped pecans
For the bread
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cups chopped apples, any variety
1 cup dried cranberries
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Butter 2 9x5–inch loaf pans or use 4 unbuttered 3x7 waxed disposable baking pans.
In a medium bowl, prepare the streusel topping first. Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour. Add the butter with a pastry cutter. Mix in the chopped pecans. Set this mixture aside.
In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda. and salt
In a large stand mixer bowl, cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour mixture by alternating it with the buttermilk until you have a smooth batter. Stir in the cranberries and apples by hand.
Equally divide the batter into your prepared pans. Top each loaf with the streusel mixture.
Bake 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center of bread comes out clean.
This recipe can also be halved.
by Tracey G.
I'm
with Kris, I can't believe it's December already! It's just flown by, I barely
remember November, lol. Seems like it was just the other day I was sitting on
the beach! This year has me so behind and I'm not quite sure why - well, now
that I think about it, I'm really not that behind in everything - I just have
that horrible feeling that I am. Usually I have all the Christmas shopping done
by November, I have none done. It doesn't help that Harry has given me nor
Santa any ideas other than a few things that are still debatable. So, I know I
need to buckle down and get that done this week - I hate last minute shopping,
it makes me crazy! But on the flip side, I'm ahead of the game as far as the
tree goes - we don't usually get it until about 2 weeks before Christmas, but
today I sent Jeremy and Harry out with the task to get the tree - I had to
trust them that they'd get what I want, lol. I'm an artificial tree kind of
girl, but when we had Harry I started giving real trees a chance, and now
that's all Harry wants, so I'm out of luck as far as ever having my perfect
artificial tree anymore, lol. They did really well, came home with one I can
live with - I wanted a bit taller and fluffier, but they did a good job and I
really can't complain. :-)
I'll
admit it - I love McDonald's Cranberry
Orange Muffins, lol. They're my favorite and I get one every chance I get. I
finally decided since I love that combination so much, I really needed to start
making them at home, lol. So, I searched around and found a recipe I really
liked and tweaked it a bit, of course, lol. Now, there were complaints from the Peanut Gallery that they're not
sweet enough, so I think next time I make them I will adjust the sugar up a
bit, OR get some coarse sugar to use as a sprinkle on top of them before I bake
them. I liked them a lot, the only thing I thought it could use was more
cranberries! So, again, that might be something I'll adjust next time I make
them. I also omitted the nuts, Harry doesn't like nuts in things like this, so
I skipped them. I will though be making a batch of them one of these days WITH
nuts though for myself!
Cranberry Orange Muffins
Makes
12 muffins
2 c
flour
3/4
c packed brown sugar
2
tsp baking powder
2
large eggs
1-2
tsp grated orange peel
2/3
c orange juice
1/3
c vegetable oil
1 c
cranberries, coarsely chopped
1 c
chopped pecans
In a
large bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, orange peel and baking powder. In
another bowl, beat eggs. Add orange juice and oil; stir into the dry
ingredients just until moistened (batter will be lumpy). Fold in cranberries
and pecans. Spoon into 12 greased or paper-lined muffin cups (cups will be
almost full). Bake at 375° F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from
pan to cool on wire rack.
No comments:
Post a Comment