Happy festive season!
The close of 2017 was perhaps one of my favourites holidays so far, with great food, amazing company - and a very white Christmas
The Christmas Day chores are usually divided among my family - and this year I got the dessert.
Desserts.
Honestly I probably made too many desserts, but this is the only time of the year I can get away with that..
Cheesecake hasn't always been my forte and creating a recipe with no dairy products was... challenging, to say the least.
Lactose-free cream cheese, soy milk, coconut cream... every time I added a dairy-free product, it seemed I was also adding a new flavour. The only remedy was to keep adding more Christmas spices - nutmeg, cinnamon, ground ginger - and eventually I had something resembling a Gingerbread Cheesecake.
...then there was the Yule Log Cake.
Although the process of making this roll made me want to smash it to pieces at times, and more than once I wanted to hurl it against the wall, I was pretty pleased with the final result.
And of course, next came the mince pies...
Open cases topped with sliced hazelnuts and crumble, perfect with some brandy by the fire.
Open cases topped with sliced hazelnuts and crumble, perfect with some brandy by the fire.
Biting into these, I forgot how arduous the entire process had been. Relaxing with my family with good food (and the annual Lord of the Rings marathon- don't judge our traditions) made all of the kitchen stress worth it.
But before all of that, came the dinner...
Yes. That is my cutlery.
In. A. Santa Suit.
Problem?
As usual, we made too much food, ate too much food, then kept eating more.
My sisters did an excellent job of the dinner-time feast, preparing so many dishes it was hard to see the table beneath them all! We had excellent food, good music... and the best dang Christmas tree in Glasgow:
Glorious.
In the days that followed, it became all too clear we needed to walk off those food babies.
The fresh snow made for a beautiful walk around The Lodge, an iconic building and forest walk situated in the center of the Trossachs.
The fresh snow made for a beautiful walk around The Lodge, an iconic building and forest walk situated in the center of the Trossachs.
The Sun hit the trees just right, and the forest turned into a golden paradise.
A great way to relax in the middle of Winter, just after the chaos of Christmas and before the havoc that is New Year begins.
And what better way to enjoy the New Year than to MAKE. MORE. DESSERTS.
... I think I have a problem.
Chocolate ganache cake, banana loaf, jam tarts and frangipane cakes...
Even now, as I feel the waistband of my jeans just a little too tightly on my hips, as I now have to fasten my belt a little looser than before to feel comfortable and as I try harder than ever to avoid looking too hard at myself in the mirror...
...even now, I don't regret eating those desserts with the intensity of the starved tigers tearing apart gladiators in the Roman Colosseum.
I mean, just look at that crust.
Regardless of how you spent your holiday season, whether you stuffed your face with family like me or enjoyed your own traditions, I wish you a very happy new year.
Here's to 2018!