Amanda and I did a lot of baking in the past week or so, including a delicious apple cake with caramel frosting for my graduation dinner that I’ll tell you about later.
First, you have to see these precious chocolate mice.
These adorable little treats are perfect for the holidays. They’re both easy to make (although we recommend having all your supplies ready to assemble and a second person on hand to help!) and also are– hello!– too cute not to fall in love with. I wish I had a better picture, but we made these late in the evening, so the lighting was poor and I wasn’t too interested in getting a great shot (much to my chagrin now).
We also used an all-purpose butter cookie recipe from Gourmet via Gourmet Unbound to make chocolate-drizzled cookies and thumbprint cookie. The dough was simple to make, tasted light and sweet, and perfectly adapted to both variations. A short chill in the freezer and they sliced cleanly without crumbling– a problem we’ve encountered before with other recipes.
Finally, there’s this coffee cake that Amanda and I baked at the last minute on Christmas day. And I am so, so glad we did. I think I could eat this every morning for breakfast. And probably for second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, supper, afternoon tea, and any other meal I could use as an excuse to eat this cake. It was so good, that Amanda and I made another one the day after– and made it better. The addition of a little cinnamon and chopped walnuts to the streusel took this from glorious to sublime. If you’re feeling especially festive, add a 1/2 teaspoon of brandy to each the cranberry filling and batter.
The recipes:
Chocolate cherry mice
Butter cookies
Cranberry coffee cake
