Christmas Baking! 2015

Well, it's that time of year, and I'm feeling a whole lot better about it now that I've done some Christmas baking! It's been a very busy December this year, for various reasons, and so (as often is the case), it took me a while to get around to doing some Christmas baking. It was also partly because we have a very small freezer, which is already full of other food, so I was worried about baking too early, and having it spoil on me. Anyway, finally this weekend I had a slightly more peaceful Saturday, and so I took some time and made a few treats, probably all the Christmas baking I will do this year. 

I made three of my favourite cookie recipes yesterday, and I, luckily, don't think I've posted any one of them here yet, so I will post recipes for all of them in the next week or two. One is the recipe I try to make every Christmas, because it is one of my favourite of my Grandma's christmas cookie recipes: her iced sugar cookies. The second is another one of my grandma's, but a beautiful year-round recipe--lebkuchen. Lebkuchen is a wonderful German spice cookie that I had a lot of when I was in Munich, and while the lebkuchen I had over there was a lot different from home, this recipe is the one my grandma has always made, so it is my favourite. Her recipe makes a slice rather than a cookie, so they are the squares in the picture below. Finally, I made speculaas. Speculaas or Speculoos is a Belgian (or Dutch) cookie that I fell in love with in Belgium, and usually make instead of gingerbread during the holidays. They are dry, crispy cookies, and irresistible dunked in coffee. I usually a chewy cookie person, but these just have to be deep brown and crisp. Anyway, there they all are, pictured below. The recipes will follow in the next while.

Merry (almost) Christmas!