Thursday, December 9, 2010

Leather deco garlands






This is my latest project. Making garlands from leftover leather and ribbon. I bought all the materials from my favourite shopping place Sham Shui Po. I used cookie cutters for the patterns. Just draw the patterns on the leather and cut them out. Then punch small holes into the pieces and use a nice ribbon to complete the garland.

Christmas cookies




The house is smelling deliciously from Christmas cookie baking. We have made cantuccinis again and almond and apricot macaroons and honey dough cookies.

Almond-Apricot-Macaroons:
Ingredients:

* 3 egg whites from medium eggs
* 50 grams granulated sugar
* 50 grams chopped dried apricot
* 50 grams of chopped almonds
Preparation:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 130 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. Beat the egg whites until they are very stiff.
3. Slowly mix in the sugar.
4. Add the chopped almonds and apricots and mix carefully.
5. Scoop 1 heaping tablespoons of mixture on the parchment paper about 2 cm apart.
6. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until the tops are slightly brown. Turn the oven off and let the macaroons sit in the oven for 10 minutes with the door slightly ajar. Remove from oven and let them sit on the baking sheet for cooling. Once cool peel them off.

Notes: The parchment paper is very important here. If you don't use parchment paper, it's going to make the macaroons stick to the pan and it's impossible to take them off.


For the honey dough you can use Martha Stewart's recipe. Instead of the molasse I have just used more honey. If you can't find all the spices just use what you can get. It will still taste fine if you use at least cinnamon and cloves.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Christmas Deco

Last week I started decorating the house. But since we are flying out to Germany for Christmas it's not a full blown christmas deco this year. But I still wanted to have a little Christmas atmosphere nontheless.
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