We have 40+ extended family coming to our annual Boxing Day celebration this year at Struan Farm. I've started baking goodies well in advance to put in the freezer, since the day or so before I'll be focused on cooking turkeys, hams and making salads. At the moment I'm also trialling side dish recipes for my official taste tester, John. I need dishes that are delicious but also relatively easy to make in advance and deliver in quantity. (I've learned this the hard way, as I do with most things.) But as hostess I also like making different, interesting things rather than the same old, same old. This next weekend we'll test out "New Potato Salad with Fresh Herbs" from The 5+ A Day Charitable Trust, and "Spiced Kumara and Hummus Salad" from the December issue of NZ House & Garden Magazine.
I've kicked off the season by making the Barrett family's traditional cream cheese Christmas cookies, which are made using a cookie press. My mother made these every year, and only at Christmas, topped with sprinkles, chocolate chips or glace cherries. We all had our favourite shapes and toppings. The main "pressure point" in making these is that it can't be too hot on baking day or everything gets way too sticky. This is often a challenge in NZ summer weather (yet another thing I have learned the hard way.) The day I picked to bake this first batch was perfect, I knocked it off in record time. Only two more batches to go!
The recipe: 8 oz. butter, 8 oz. cream cheese (both softened at room temperature), 2/3 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp. vanilla. Cream well then add 2 cups of flour. Chill the dough before putting it into the cookie press and pressing out onto ungreased baking trays. Bake about 12 minutes at 180C, until the edges start to brown slightly. In my ovens this is usually longer.
So the lead up to the Christmas holidays has officially begun, along with the Boxing Day baking!
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