Christmas

Braided Blonde Panettone

December 14, 2012 By Jo-Anna 4 Comments

Hi!

Every once in a while I’m sent something for my blog that knocks my socks off. And recently it was a bread machine cookbook, called 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes. See I love bread. If I could have it my way, and my hips didn’t mind, I would eat bread all the time. No kidding. Especially warm with loads of butter…mmmmm

So I thought that perhaps I might like this book, and was I ever right. I have made 5 recipes already from it (some of them more than once) and every single loaf of bread was amazing. Delicious.

This book is so good that I wanted to get this post up right away because honestly, I think this book would make a great Christmas gift.

So in keeping with the Christmas theme on my blog this December, I wanted to share with you a festive bread recipe…Panettone. Panettone, traditionally, is a bread originating from Italy, that is enjoyed at both Christmas and Easter. This recipe is not a traditional panettone, but a tweaked version of it.

And panettone breads aren’t usually braided, but I braided this one because I don’t like the shape of the loaves that come out of the bread machine. I like to use the bread machine to make the dough, then I shape the loaves and bake them myself.

This recipe is delicious! And makes a fantastic french toast!

Braided Blonde Panettone

Serves: Serves: Makes 1 – 1.5 lb loaf.

Ingredients

½ cup milk (at room temperature)
2 eggs (at room temperature)
½ – 1 tsp salt (I always use less salt, so I added ½ tsp)
3 tbsp liquid honey
¼ cup butter cut into 1 inch cubes
2½ cups all purpose or bread flour
1 tbsp grated orange zest
1 tbsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp anise seeds (I left these out)
1 tbsp bread machine or instant yeast
½ cup golden raisins
½ cup mixed candied peel (see notes)
⅓ cup candied citron (see notes)
¼ cup silvered almonds

Instructions

Add all of the ingredients EXCEPT for the raisins, peel, citron and almonds, to the bread machine, in the order listed above.
If you are baking the bread in the bread machine, select Sweet Cycle.
Add the raisins, peel, citron and almonds at the “add ingredient” signal. OR

I did not bake my bread in the bread machine, so I selected the “Dough” cycle. Here’s How To:

When the dough cycle is up, remove the dough, and knead in the raisins, cherries and almonds.
Then let the dough sit on a floured surface for 15 minutes, covered with a bowl.
After this time, split the dough into 3 pieces, and roll it out into long ropes, about 1 inch thick.
On a parchment lined baking sheet, braid the ropes, pinching the ends together.
Let it rise, in a warm place covered with a tea towel, for 30-45 minutes, or until doubled in size.
In the meantime preheat your oven to 350.
When the dough has doubled in size, you can add an egg wash to make the crust shiny. Just mix together 1 tbsp water with 1 egg yolk, and brush the surface of the bread.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes – until the bread sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

Notes

Instead of the candied peel and candied citron, I added a generous ½ cup of chopped glace cherries.

Here are some of the other loaves that I baked from this book, and we loved!

So yum! And such a good book! I’m thankful to have been sent it…and anyone who loves their bread machine would love to have this book!

Have a delicious day!

Yummy Linking: Five Days 5 Ways, I should be mopping the floor, Craft-O-Maniac, Under the Table and Dreaming, Chef-in-Training, It’s Overflowing

Excerpted from 300 Best Bread Machine Recipes by Donna Washburn & Heather Butt © 2012 Robert Rose Inc. www.robertrose.ca All rights reserved: May not be reprinted without publisher permission.

Filed Under: Christmas, In Season, In The Kitchen, Uncategorized Tagged With: 300 Best Canadian Bread Machine Recipes, braided bread, bread machine, bread machine panettone, Christmas recipe, french toast, panettone, recipe

My Holiday Home

December 13, 2012 By Jo-Anna 20 Comments

Hello! Welcome to my holiday home! Come on in…

You may have already seen our outdoor trimming! So please, come inside…

There’s no theme in here. And not much changes from year to year…but that’s just the way we like it. Christmas is all about tradition and recreating memories. I think even if I wanted to completely change the look of it all, the kids just would not go for it. There’d be a mutiny.

And besides, what would I do with all of our amazing ornaments?! None of them match, yet they all seem to compliment each other. We have so many that our tree is front heavy. Two years in a row our tree has fallen over from the weight of all of them! No kidding. The first time we blamed it on our newly purchased tree stand. This year we used our old stand that never failed us…except that the tree fell about 20 minutes after we finished decorating it…hmmmm…maybe not the stand? Maybe our hundreds of ornaments and how disproportionately they were distributed?!

Here’s this years tragedy…and being the blogger that I am it went immediately onto Instagram, lol!

Ouch. Let me tell you this sounds really really loud. And there were a lot of tears. And broken ornaments…but we got it back up and the damage was a lot less worse than it first appeared. So here’s how it looks now…

Pretty. And tied up. A few ornaments with glued on legs and skates. But we’ll always remember when and why they broke. ;)

Isn’t it so festive?! We love it.

I love this little corner of our home at Christmas. You can see and smell the tree from pretty much anywhere on our main floor. It’s the main attraction. And it compliments my simple Christmas mantel really nicely.

I also fill our coffee table with ornaments to tie it all together…love love this Ikea table.

So here’s how things look at night. It’s much more pretty in real life…

And because I can’t resist the opportunity to put in a Bokeh picture of our tree…

The last thing I wanted to show you is our garland wrapped staircase. It’s the same garland as what’s on the mantel, so everything ties together so nice. I love these…even when I am picking up the 100th shatterproof ornament that has bounced across the floor that day. It’s become kind of joke really…our 3 year old picks them up too and puts them all in the same spot. On the same branch. ;)

This is how they look at night. Love.

So that’s it. We’re ready for Christmas!
Thank you so much for stopping by, and have a very Merry day!

Merry Linking: Thrifty Decor Chick, My Romantic Home, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Inspired Room, Under the Table and Dreaming, Between Naps on the Porch, Nesting Place

Filed Under: Christmas, In Season Tagged With: Christmas, Christmas decorating, Christmas home tour, Christmas tree, garland, ornament garland

A Pretty Lemon Christmas Centrepiece

December 12, 2012 By Jo-Anna 9 Comments

You know how sometimes you throw some things into a bowl because you don’t know where else to put them, then you look over one day and realize that everything in said bowl actually looks really pretty?

That’s how this centrepiece came about. It’s true.

I had one bowl overflowing with lemons, so I had a few strays that I ended up putting in this long wooden bowl that I keep on my dinner table. And I had some pine cones and pieces of Christmas tree left over from another project I was working on, so I threw them in there too only because I didn’t know what else to do with them at the moment…let’s just be honest…I was too lazy to throw them out…

Then one moment I looked over and…well would you look at that?! How pretty!

So I just lined up everything to make it a little neater, then added a few more greens and some cranberries. Done. It looks so fabulous on my table…a little festive bowl of sunshine. Love.