This December saw me at my busiest in the kitchen. In fact it’s safe to say that the festive month positively came and went in a flurry of flour and icing sugar. Word of Mr. Mom’s seems to have spread from which I am truly grateful to you all.

However, it wasn’t cupcakes that had me in a baking flurry- for some reason there was a run on the traditional Christmas cakes. Needless to say me being me I decided a little experimentation was in order. Not with the overall cake mix- that would be a travesty even I couldn’t bear! So I decided to push the envelope in other areas – increasing size; changing structure; and trying hand-painting to name a few.

Now I know the festive season has come and gone, and we’ve all had our fill of turkey, stuffing and figgy pudding (after all the Easter eggs are already on the shelves don’t you know?) but I couldn’t resist gathering the cakes together for a final look. Now that I don’t reek of brandy and dried fruit!

“The Holly & The Ivy” traditional Christmas cake

Fondant “Holly” detail“

Fondant “Ivy Detail”

“The Night before Christmas traditional Christmas cake

“The North Pole” Christmas cake

Hand-painted fondant detail

“Gingerbread Hatbox” tiered traditional Christmas cake

“Gingerbread Extravaganza” 12″ square Christmas cake

“The Holly & The Ivy” 12″ square traditional Christmas cake

“Winter Starfall” traditional Christmas cake

“Winter Bouquet” traditional Christmas cake

Fondant “frosted rose” detail

Last December also saw me baking my Christmas cookies en masse. Crisp, spiced and with just a hint of orange these are as close to a secret family recipe as I have. I’ve lost track of the original recipe I used for these thanks the number of preferential additions, omissions and tweaks I’ve made along the way.  Having now baked these each Christmas since my husband and I have been together they really are woven into the fabric of our family. A sidebar annotated with dough flour fingerprints along with scribbled and smeared amends stands testament to their enduring popularity in our house. I will, in fact, confess to having moments of misty-eyed sentimentality, standing in wafts of clovey aroma as the cookies bake,  where I think of passing the recipe onto my children (one of which seems to have an affinity for baking whilst the other is wholly interested in the end product alone!) I think in total there was over 250 baked this year, and there’s still 2 batches of dough in the freezer- that is another experiment waiting to happen!

Cut and ready to go

About to go for the bake

Spicey, zesty and warm – Christmas in a bite!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this stroll down Santa Claus Lane? Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you all a (belated!) happy New Year and here’s to 2015!

In the meantime, “Remember Mom’s the word- that’s Mr. Mom’s!”