And So It Begins

The holiday baking has begun.

I confess, I started off easy with a version of my Buttermilk Coffee Cake. Instead of doing the usual ribbon-layer in the centre, I stirred some allspice and nutmeg into the batter, along with a handful of dried cranberries (there's few enough cranberries in this that the cranberry-impaired can removed them easily). A little extra nutmeg and some cinnamon across the top, and ba-da-bing, one baking item "down." Mind you, this barely counts as Christmas baking, since it's actually relatively healthy. However, it will be a festive addition to work-lunches over the next couple of weeks, and it never hurts to balance out the damage done by shortbread and butter tarts with goodies of a lighter nature.

I'm still dithering a bit on what other items to make, but time is marching along, so I need to get down to business this weekend. I desperately need to go shopping for a few critical ingredients, but I also need to crack open the holiday recipes and remind myself of the amounts to buy. One year, I ended up with so many leftover ground almonds that I was putting them in everything in sight for a few weeks.