Ready for Sweets???
Like any good Minnesotan Scandanavian/German small town, the emphasis of holiday eating was definitely on the sweets! Part of my inspiration for the sweets to offer up at the tea was the fact that I haven’t been home to partake in the consumption of our traditional holiday treats since 1999 and while we try to make time to make at least one item from my line up of traditional treats it just isn’t the same without ALL of them, LOL! I actually didn’t get to make all of them as my body had other plans for me and limited my baking adventures. But no one will leave hungry. If you do, it’s your own fault, LOL!
I spoke very nicely to DH last week and got him to make his famous cream scones and lemon curd in the morning while he was also baking cardamon coffee cake for his own party that evening. That is not one of my family traditions, but rather an activity that DH and I like to partake in together and it’s traditional for afternoon tea! I cheated a bit on this front and bought some double devon cream and pumpkin butter for putting on the scones. So, go ahead and help yourself while they are still slightly warm!
Oh, and in case you are thinking I’m a huge overachiever (okay, so I kind of am) I DID NOT PAINT THE CHINA! Though, a unanimous vote amongst the atendees said I could have… *sigh*
Here, we have a traditional Swedish cookie called Pepparkakor or Pepper Cookies. It is similar to a ginger snap, but much thinner and with many additional spices - cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, mace, orange zest etc. I *love* these, though I must find a way to make them without all the work of rolling the dough as that proved to be a bit too much for my ailments. I think these are Amanda’s favorite and she likes them with some pumpkin butter spread on them. Like yesterday, the recipe will follow for those interested.
These are pecan crescents. I called my grandmother for her recipe only to find out that it comes from the tried and true Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. It’s the Sandies recipe, just with the dough rolled into logs and curled slightly, LOL! Go figure :-)
Come Thanksgiving, my aunt Karen is not allowed in the homes of any family or church member without a tin of these chocolate covered carmels in hand. If she doesn’t have them in hand she is sent home to get some, LOL! They are that good. Well, her’s are that good. I’m afraid I need a bit more practice making them at this altitude, but they were good anyway. (You can see the lemon curd there in the upper left corner).
We ended it with some Ost Kaka fresh from the oven. Everyone liked it! :-) I didn’t get a picture of it though, I forgot. Though you can see the cheese curd I made for it as it is straining here. I’ll share a cheater recipe for you that doesn’t involved making your own curd if any of you would like to try it.
I had hoped to also have my great grandmother’s sugar cookies and homemade lefse, but it just wasn’t to be. Though Ashely and I are hoping to make some lefse before Christmas sometime, but for sure this winter at some point. But, Snow helped out and brought some maxi-fours (rather larger than normal petit fours) from the famous area Bavarian bakery and Amanda brought Ferrero Rochers (which we actually didn’t open so I brought them to SnB on Monday night).
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