Iced lavender cream matcha season at Starbucks may not last all year long, but now that I’ve learned how to make one at home, I can have it any time I want!
Iced Matcha
1/4 cup hot water
2-3 tsp. matcha powder
1 cup milk (Starbucks uses oat milk, but you can use your milk of choice)
1 Tbsp. simple syrup
Whisk matcha powder in hot water (I used an electric whisk). Add milk and simple syrup, and whisk until well blended. Add ice if desired.
Lavender Foam
3 Tbsp. cream
2 Tbsp. milk
2 Tbsp. lavender syrup
Purple food coloring and dried lavender (optional)
Whisk cream, milk, lavender syrup, and food coloring until frothy. Spoon desired amount on top of iced matcha and sprinkle with dried lavender.
Now that I’ve been making Berliner for a few years, I feel pretty comfortable with the process of frying and filling them, so this year, I decided to focus on creating new flavor combinations! First I made a Black Forest variety, filled with the cherry topping from my Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte and topped with a chocolate glaze. Next up was s’mores, filled with marshmallow fluff and topped with the same chocolate glaze plus crushed graham crackers. Finally, I made Lebkuchen-inspired Berliner, filled with a gingerbread mousse and topped with a white chocolate glaze and crushed spice cookies.
I also made some traditional jelly filled donuts with blackberry jam:
I’m looking forward to coming up with more flavors in the future!
It’s been over a year since I took a look back at some of the German recipes I’ve been making, but I’ve continued to try something new (or a new variation on something old) most months, and mostly thanks to the monthly recipe share in my Rare Dirndl Facebook group.
Reformationsbrötchen (Luther’s Rose Reformation Rolls)
Kinderpunsch (Non-Alcoholic Glühwein)
Linsensuppe (German Lentil Soup)
Dampnudeln (Steamed Buns with Warm Vanilla Sauce)
Neujahrsbrezel (Sweet New Year’s Pretzel)
Zitronen-Berliner (Lemon Custard-Filled Donuts)
Pflaumen-Berliner (Plum-Filled Donuts)
Custard-Berliner (Custard-Filled Donuts)
Hungarian Beef Goulash
Buchteln mit Marmeladefüllung (Baked Yeast Dumpling)
Flammkuchen (“Flame Cake”)
Tomatensalat (Tomato Salad)
Kaiserschmarrn with Cherry Compote (Torn Pancakes)
Engelsaugen (Thumbprint Cookies)
Schupfnudeln (Potato Noodles with Sauerkraut and Bacon)
Besides these new recipes, I continue to make old favorites on a regular basis…German cooking has become quite a staple in our household! I can’t wait to find even more German recipes to try!
Now that Epiphany has come and gone, I guess the holiday season is officially over (I’m still not taking my Christmas tree down yet, though!). Let’s take a look back at the festive feasts and holiday baking we enjoyed during the holidays!
As I did last year, I kicked off Thanksgiving week by making pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies:
Speaking of Thanksgiving, we enjoyed our traditional feast:
And TEN pies (the bonus cookie butter pie was still in the freezer)!
We had chicken döner and gingerbread whoopie pies for our postponed St. Nicholas Day dinner:
And for Santa Lucia Day, we had lussekattes, potato pancakes and kielbasa (a day late), and white-chocolate cranberry cupcakes:
We didn’t have a fancy dinner on Christmas Eve, but we did have a carrot cake filled with gingerbread mousse:
For Christmas Day breakfast we had our favorite coffee cake:
And the best meal of the year, the pick-out dinner!
I think our M*A*S*H Day dinner counts as a festive feast, because Tony Packo’s was a Christmas gift.
On New Year’s Eve, we had fondue:
And the hot chocolate bar:
New Year’s Day was a full German feast of schnitzel and spaetzle and red cabbage:
With a Black Forest cake for dessert:
We had one more turkey dinner while we waited for the first snowstorm of the year:
And our traditional snow day dinner of French toast the next day:
Our festive feasts always end with Ryan’s birthday dinner…this year, we had chili and fry bread:
And a Frango Mint cake for dessert!
Of course there was plenty of cookie baking, starting with the French Christmas cookies we made in school:
And all of our favorite Christmas cookies!
It made for a beautiful Bunter Teller!
We also enjoyed Christmas Tree Cake treats all season long, including both standard and big cakes, donuts, and ice cream:
And a few festive drinks along the way…wassail and eggnog:
This has been a great season of feasting…now it’s time to give the kitchen a break! (Who am I kidding…I’m already planning the next cake I’m going to bake!)
This has kind of been “The Year of the Cheesecake” around here. I didn’t set out to make 12 cheesecakes (averaging one a month), but I reached a point in the late summer where I realized that I had already made so many, I might as well go for a year’s worth. I didn’t make exactly 12 of them…there was a repeat because Turkey liked one so much he asked me to make it again for his birthday. And there was one failure (a cranberry cheesecake with a gingersnap crust) that we won’t talk about. I also didn’t literally make one a month…some months I made more (and once I made two in one week!), and I didn’t make a single cheesecake the entire summer. But in the end, I had 12 unique successes, starting with a delightful eggnog variety early in the year:
The Black Forest was one of the most popular…this is the flavor I made again for Turkey’s birthday.
S’mores is a natural cheesecake flavor because so many already have a graham cracker crust, and chocolate cheesecakes are also very popular…just add marshmallows and you’re done!
I won’t even tell you how many Oreos went into this cookies ‘n’ cream cheesecake!
I made a traditional Chicago style cheesecake, which was plain except for a simple topping of fresh raspberries…I think it had the best texture of all the cheesecakes I made!
I was in my matcha-lavender era during the spring:
My first autumn cheesecake was inspired by cinnamon rolls:
The Biscoff cookie butter cheesecake was one of my all-time favorites!
I’ve made a pumpkin cheesecake in the past, but never pumpkin chocolate chip (until this fall):
Butterscotch is another great flavor for fall!
I’m currently in my Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cake era, and luckily for me, they had a recipe utilizing my favorite holiday snack cakes on their website!
And finally, another favorite that I made once last year…a gingerbread cheesecake with a gingersnap crust and topped with a gingerbread mousse that’s so delicious, it could stand on its own as a dessert!
I know 12 cheesecakes stretched out over the course of a year doesn’t sound like much, but they are a big commitment of both time and money, and I’ve never put so much effort into baking them regularly before! It was a fun little baking project for 2024!
Our family was very excited about the release of the new Sonic X Shadow Generations video game last week, so of course we had to have a meal featuring recipes from Sonic the Hedgehog: The Official Cookbook! Turkey is the Sonic expert in our house, so he planned the menu, as well as how the food was styled. He decided on two Sonic recipes and two Shadow recipes, displayed on either side of the central dish:
The main course was the “Big Ring Party Platter”…with a twist. Instead of shaping it like the rings Sonic is famous for, I turned into an “X” like the game logo.
For the Sonic side of the menu, we had two blue dishes. One we had tried previously…the “Pure Hydrocity” drink. New was “My Sweet Passion,” a cake roll made with blue spirulina powder, a new and fun ingredient for me…I couldn’t believe how vibrant the color was!
If you’ve been following my homeschool weekly summaries, you may have noticed that we’ve been having a lot of fun with The Wizard of Oz: The Official Cookbook. We’ve made quite a few recipes so far, so I thought I’d take a look back at everything we’ve tried.
Ruby-Red Punch
Dinner on the Farm Rolls
Marvelous Campfire Spread
Twister Shakes
Savory Pinwheel Lollipops
Auntie Em’s Crullers
Wicked Cruel-lers
Old-Fashioned Lemonade
Good Witch Pink Lemonade
Wicked Lemonade
Peach Iced Tea
I’m Losing My Hay
Grilled Sausages with Marvelous Campfire Spread
Follow the Spiral Omelet
Cornstalk Cheese Straws
Glinda Strawberry Jasmine Bubble Tea
What a World Spheres
Wicked Black Bread
Badwitches
I really like how many drink recipes there are in this cookbook, especially because they’re all non-alcoholic. That can be a struggle when looking for fun and different beverages for a family with underage children (or teetotalers for that matter). I have also really enjoyed learning some new cooking techniques while using this book…I do a lot of cooking, so anytime something I haven’t tried before comes my way, I think it’s pretty exciting! There are still plenty of recipes left, too, so we still have lots to look forward to!
Following the success of “Sandwich Week,” I decided to go with another themed series of meals, this time one of our family’s favorites, breakfast-for-dinner! We started with a pair of recipes from The Wizard of Oz: The Official Cookbook…”Follow the Spiral Omelets” with “Cornstalk Cheese Straws.”
We were originally going to have waffles the second night, but I found out my German recipe for the month was Kaiserschmarren (the Kaiser’s torn pancakes), so I made that instead, with a homemade cherry compote on top:
Of course we had breakfast sandwiches, this time on croissants with a side of tater tots:
I made one of our old Disney dinners of “Chef Mickey’s Breakfast Pizza” with tropical fruit on the side:
And we had breakfast burritos with blueberry-peach smoothies:
It’s been quite some time since I made breakfast casserole, so we had that with homemade blueberry muffins:
And for the finale I made French toast and bacon.
I’m trying to decide what theme I might do next…Tex-Mex is looking popular!
Last week, when I was trying to plan the week’s menu and write my grocery list, I threatened that if I didn’t find some inspiration quickly, I was going to serve sandwiches all week. That in itself was all the inspiration I needed, and “Sandwich Week” was born. Now, I was actually threatening to serve cold sandwiches, but no one can run with a theme like I can, so I came up with seven sandwich-based dinners, and seven sandwich-themed desserts, as well!
We started with fish fillet sandwiches for dinner and classic ice cream sandwiches for dessert on Monday:
Night two was the classic American sandwich, the cheeseburger, plus fancy French macarons (a sandwich cookie), made by Ladybug for dessert:
We did have cold sandwiches one night, but I went with a whole sandwich bar theme, with lots of lunchmeat and cheeses, plus breads and spreads, and everyone built their own. I had turkey and gouda on potato bread with hot pepper jelly. And for dessert…well, have you ever noticed how many desserts claim to be pies but are actually sandwiches, like these oatmeal creme pies? Total soft sandwich cookie!
I love breakfast-for dinner, so of course we had breakfast sandwiches. Instead of making scrambled eggs, (which are notorious for escaping the sandwich), like I usually do, I made two six-egg omelettes, and cut each in thirds, making sandwich squares which worked out perfectly…I’ll definitely be using that trick in the future! Chickadee and I also made brownie ice cream sandwiches from The My Little Pony Baking Book for dessert:
You can’t have “Sandwich Week” without BLTs! I added more of my favorite hot pepper jelly to mine…it’s such a good addition to so many things! For dessert, we had the classic sandwich cookie, the Oreo, with a Halloween twist:
On Saturday, I decided that we also needed a special sandwich for lunch, so I made egg salad. We also had some leftover bacon in the fridge, and what goes better with eggs than bacon?
For our penultimate “Sandwich Week” dinner, we had our favorite chicken patties, and for dessert, I made another sandwich masquerading as a pie, pumpkin whoppie pies:
The last day of “Sandwich Week” featured what might be our family’s favorite sandwich, which we have come to call “Stitch’s Sandwiches”…pork tenderloin with Hawaiian BBQ sauce served on Hawaiian buns with bacon, sliced pepper jack, pineapple rings, and a spicy slaw. For dessert, I made my favorite German sandwich cookies, Spitzbuben, filled with strawberry jam:
This was a really fun theme that helped me plan out a week’s worth of dinners, but I’m not going to lie, in the end, it was quite a bit of work! I’ll have to remember that the next time I start making threats when I’m meal planning!
This is a story about not giving up, at least not permanently. Taking a break for over a decade is a different matter, however!
I am no stranger to making cream puffs. As a matter of fact, we’ve made them in school with a recipe from The Little Women Cookbook, and I’ve made a special version for May the Fourth, too. A Pâte à Choux dough is just not that intimidating to me.
But there is one presentation of cream puffs that has eluded me since 2013…the Croquembouche. Back then, I wanted to make the fancy tower of cream puffs for Christmas dessert. But I couldn’t get it to hold together, so we had plain old cream puffs instead.
I’ve thought about this dessert off and on over the years, and I’ve thought about making it again many times, but the thought of failing at it again always put me off. I knew though, when Paris 2024 came around, I would have to give it a try, and this time, I was successful!
It took me a long time, but the point is, I didn’t give up, and we were rewarded with a delicious and fancy dessert!
