Baking for Christmas

Ok, I had been feeling lazy to write about what I have done, but it doesn't mean that the lazy spell has gotten into me for a long time!

In fact, the weeks before Christmas, I was busy like a dog. I took part in a charity bake for mentally handicapped children, which a fellow visitor to my blog has informed me about. It took me quite a while to think of what to bake, considering my (limited) resources in terms of oven size and time, not forgetting that the stuff must be able to keep for some time since I have to bake a few days in advance. But it was the first time I was doing something meaningful with my skill and it gave me immense satisfaction.

Finally, I decided to make my Christmas cookies again, yes, the same ones I made last year for Christmas. How boring....and when I decided on it, I can't help but realise that it was 12 months ago that I last made them!!

My little oven can only handle 6 big-sized cookies in each tray. For consecutive nights, after I return from work each day, ate dinner and showered, I would be baking, decorating, washing and packing them individually. In fact, I was so hyper I could not sleep, and I woke up early next morning to continue. I made 60 cookies and passed them to the lady who is so supportive of my blog. It feels funny at first for me, to meet up with a person whom I had only knew online, but the meetup was very pleasant.

At the same time, I had to finish making some more peanut cookies and pineapple tarts, for a colleague who was leaving the company.

Not forgetting that I had great plans for Christmas. I had planned to make eclairs, log cakes and baked chicken for christmas lunch when my friends come over. In the end, eclairs were left out of the menu, but I made 3 log cakes - one for my parents, one for dear's mum, and one for our christmas lunch. I like the log cakes. I think most local bakeries have swiss rolls covered with cream and decorated into a log cake. Mine was not from a sponge cake recipe, it is more dense and chocolatey. I had tried the recipe on its own a few weeks back just to make sure that I find a nice recipe for the log. I am sure there are many great ones out there, but I used this one and I hope you like it too! I have added it to my collection of recipes in my recipe blog.

We also had chicken wrapped in bacon for lunch and everyone was polite enough to finish everything on their plate whether it was nice or not. Frankly, it was the first time I cooked for 6 persons, and I was really excited about it. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.