Tis the Season to be Baking

Welcome everyone to a delicious entry at The Magical Mystery Blog.

Around this time of the year I do my holiday baking. While I usually make sugar cookies, this year I’ve decided to do something a little different. As mentioned before, I’ll be creating strawberry angel cookies for the Doctor Who special, The Time of the Doctor set to air on BBC on Christmas Day. But for the holidays, I like to bake some other tasty treats. However, as the days to Christmas begin to wind down I find that I don’t have enough time to bake. So I figured I would share my recipes I was going to attempt this year, with you my fellow readers.

Midnight Christmas Cookies

• Follow this simple sugar cookie recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-sugar-cookies/

• When the cookies are finished baking, allow them to cool. While the cookies are cooling down, take baker’s chocolate (any brand will do like Hershey’s, Ghiradelli, or even Nestle), and put it in a microwave safe bowl. Keep the microwave at medium power and stir at thirty second intervals. It takes  about ninety seconds for one ounce of chocolate to melt. It takes approximately three and a half minutes for six ounces of chocolate to melt.

• Once the chocolate is fully melted, dunk half the sugar cookie in chocolate.

• For the final touch, sprinkle ground up candy cane on the chocolate half of the cookie. In the summer time you can use this recipe again but instead of covering the chocolate half in candy cane, you can use orange or lemon zest.

• Allow the chocolate to cool and serve whenever your stomach is hungry for something sweet.

Strawberry Fields Forever Cake

• This recipe works best with a white cake because the color will show better. You can pick up any box of white cake mix at the store and it will have the recipe on it.

• However, instead of using water use strawberry puree.  To make a strawberry puree simply purchase fresh or frozen strawberries and remove the stems. Afterwards, place them in a blender or a food processor and grind them until they are pureed. As a puree, it will act as a liquid which is why you do not need water for this recipe.

• When you’ve mixed all the ingredients together, proceed to bake the cake for thirty to forty minutes. To see if the cake is fully baked, use a toothpick to poke through the surface. If there’s cake on the pick, it’s not done. If there’s no cake on the pick, it’s ready to be taken out.

• When you remove your cake from the oven you will see that it is indeed, not white. Instead, it’s a strawberry red, giving it that iconic Christmas color we've all come to know.

• If you want to put icing on your cake, give it about five to ten minutes to cool down. Icing the cake is always the fun part and since it’s Christmas, you can decorate it with all sorts of holiday cheer. You can put a marshmallow snowman on the top or pipe snowflakes and stars. Have fun with your baking!

What are your favorite holiday recipes? Feel free to post them in the comments below and as always, feedback and followers are welcomed.