popnea, Author at a popnea blog

Christmas Candy

December 2, 2011 by popnea

We had no issues with the power today so I could continue my baking! Started with finishing off the gingerbread cookies.

I continued with making Knäck, which is a hard toffee candy with lots of sugar.

I always fail when I make knäck, it’s either always to soft or to stiff. This time it’s to stiff. Still edible though.

It’s a lot of improvising when I’m baking these days, there’s a bunch of ingredients I have to substitute and some things I cant find. I made Ischoklad (Ice Chocolate) with some coconut oil that smelled a lot more coconut than the coconut fat I’m used to, and peppermint schnapps instead of peppermint oil. Still waiting for these to cool down…

Blackout

December 1, 2011 by popnea

I made gingerbread dough yesterday and was excited to get home today to bake some. As I put the second tray of cookies in the owen the power went out on our entire block due to the strong Santa Ana winds. Luckily though, the owen was still warm enough to bake the second tray as well.

After an hour in the dark with no TV or internet, we got bored and invited the neighbors over for drinks instead.

In Search of Bitter Almond

December 1, 2011 by popnea

I just went to Surfas in Culver City, it’s a pretty awesome but overpriced baking and cooking supplies store. I was looking for a few things for my Christmas baking, but couldnt find anything. One of the things I was looking for was the bitter almonds for my marzipan. I went to the nut section, it wasnt there, I went to the extract section and I couldnt find it there either so I asked a guy who was working there. We went back to the nut section but again no luck. The guy went to ask someone else who was working there and was told they don’t carry it.
So I went to Smart & Final, which is another more reasonable priced, kind of more geared towards catering store. The one I went to in Culver City had turned itself from a regular Smart & Final to a Smart & Final Express, and off course I couldnt find any bitter almonds there either.
Once again I was reminded of how much I hate shopping, so I turned back home.
Made a quick google search and found out on about.com that “the sale of unrefined bitter almonds is prohibited in the United States”. Cool, I guess I can stop looking. I’m thinking I should still be able to find bitter almond extract somewhere though. Or should I just not care about it and put some rum in the marzipan instead?

Homemade Marzipan

November 30, 2011 by popnea

My grandmother always used to make marzipan for Christmas, when she passed away my mother carried on the tradition. When I was at the supermarket today to pick up spices to make gingerbreads I came up with the brilliant idea to make the traditional Christmas marzipan as well! I think I picked up everything I need, except that I forgot the bitter almonds.

Once at home I realized I don’t actually know how to make Great Grandma Lisa’s Awesome Marzipan so I am hoping my mom will send me the very secret recipe.

I did however take my time to peel the almonds.

To Be Continued…

Not a good photo day.

November 28, 2011 by popnea

We picked up W at the airport and thought it’d be a good idea to get to there a little early and take some photos. Turned out, when we got there, that I was totally not in a good photo mood so I didnt get many good shots.

Once we got back home we started to decorate for Christmas.

The Christmas beers waiting to be open!

Beer Calendar

November 17, 2011 by popnea

We had the beer exchange for this years beer calendar tonight. Here’s how the beer calendar works; (works best if you are 6 or more people who are in on it)

Everyone buy 4 six packs or beer each, plus an optional Christmas Day beer for yourself. Holiday Editions, rare beers, beers from a country you’ve never heard of, beers you’ve never seen before, beers you have seen many times but have never had a chance to try, beers you think are the best beer you’ve ever tasted and are pretty certain not a lot of people know about etc are encouraged to buy.

Once everyone bought their 4 six pack of beers (24 beers) plus your optional bonus beer, you wrap them all in tin foil. Try not to mix your beers, keep the six packs separated. Set a date and time that works for everyone when you can exchange the beers.

It’s eight of us doing it this year which means you wont get to try all the beers. We use a deck of cards to determine who got to pick their beer first. Everyone got to pick a card and the lowest card get to pick their beer first. Once everyone have their first beer, we draw a new card from the deck.

When we have collected all 24 beers for our calendar we wait patiently until December 1st when we get to open the first beer, and then one beer a day everyday until Christmas Day! Fun!