Christmas 2012 Baking - December 2012

Okay, let's do this. Time to get the Christmas baking from 2012 off of my "to blog" list. These first two you should recognize from last year. Peppermint bark and Cardamom Crescents. They are delicious and fairly easy to make. Perfect for the busy Christmas season (and it was BUSY this year!).

Next up is this lovely Orange Cardamom Bundt Cake.  We received the most beautiful box of citrus from Greg and JJ this year.  When it arrived at our doorstep, I nearly cried I was so excited.  Our box had a lovely organic assortment, including stem and leaf clementines, satsuma mandarins, rio star grapefruit, and fukumoto navel oranges.  I can't think of a more luxurious gift to get in the middle of a cold and snowy Minnesota December than a box of warm and sunny California citrus.  Along with the fruit, a newsletter with the recipe for this cake was included.  I replaced the canola oil with coconut oil, but otherwise kept everything the same.  We brought this with us to Madison (unglazed) to share with Greg and JJ on our December visit.  It was amazing.

This delectable Scandinavian recipe is from the December 2012 Bon Appetit magazine and I had the perfect opportunity to make it for Anna and Tom's New Year's Eve visit.  Fyrstekake is a Norwegian Cardamom-Almond tart and I can tell you that it is crazy good.  After a brief and chilly cross country ski outing to Theodore Wirth Park, the four of us returned to our house for cassoulet, and fyrstekake by the fire, complete with a New Glarus beer tasting flight.  A perfect way to ring in the New Year, if you ask me.

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And finally, these are the Butterfinger truffles that I never got around to making last year.  I am happy that I made these up this year.  Truffles are great because they offer a decadent and elegant chocolate option on your cookie plate, but they are no-bake, and thus require very little effort.  In other words, they are a good bang for your buck.

Whew, I feel better now that this is blogged.  Thank you for indulging me in this tardiness.  Even though this is way past due, I like to have it chronicled here so I can check back and see what I did "last year" for the holidays.