Christmas is one of my favorite time of the year beside spring. I still get excited about the tree, about the gifts, about the meals and this year was no different! Let me show you my Christmas in 2015 and two delicious recipes.
So let’s start at the beginning, we’ve spent the last two days before Christmas Eve with wrapping and decorating.
To tell the truth, we didn’t give a huge and expensive gift, but we have some small gifts I know they’ve longed for a while…
Oh, we found these cute little Christmas buckets at a shop and we just couldn’t leave them there. So we used these as “wrapping” for some gifts. I think they’re lovely, aren’t they?
Once the wrapping was done (by Laci mostly, since he doesn’t let me ruin the perfect wrappings…honestly, I’m terrible at wrapping 😀 ) decorating the tree was our next mission!
I guess it turned out better than we thought it would…decorating with my fiancé, my brother and my mother giving us advice is difficult since we all have different taste in decoration….
Sparkly meringues were my favorite pieces on the tree (and luckily inedible after the golden glitter spray).
Beside the meringues, we have starts and gift boxes, all sparkly, of course.
Yeah, well, we have a sparkly, golden tree this year! I don’t know how did it happen…maybe, just maybe, I had a stronger opinion on choosing the decoration?
It’s so cozy and warm to me! We “hid” the gifts under the tree and went to the kitchen to start baking!
We made Hungarian Poppy Seed and Walnut Rolls, which are traditional at Christmas, but I haven’t made them in years…Now, they turned out perfect!
Hungarian Poppy Seed and Walnut Rolls
Ingredients
- 1000 gr Flour
- 250 gr Margarine
- 0.5 cup Warm Milk
- 40 gr Yeast
- 2 Egg yolkes
- 100 gr Sugar
- 2 tbsp Coconut oil
- 0.75 cup Sour cream
- 1 Egg for the egg wash
- 300 gr Ground Poppy seed
- 300 gr Ground Walnut
- 2 x 250 gr Sugar
- 2 x 1.25 cup Water
- 2 x 0.5 cup Raisin + 1 cup Hot Water
- 1 Lemon zest
- 2 x 2 tbsp Peach jam
Instructions
- First, start with the dough.
- Add the warm milk to a big mixing bowl. Add the sugar and the yeast. Let the yeast rise for 30 minutes.
- After the yeast is ready to add all the remaining ingredients of the dough and start working them together. It probably will look and feels like it's dry, but don't give any more liquid. After a few minutes of mixing and kneading it'll become a ball of dough.
- Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes, but 1 hour is better, in a warm place. Make sure you cover it!
- Now the filling. Both filling are fairly simple, all you have to make a simple syrup in two pans with the sugar and the water.
- Boil the syrup, then pour it onto the poppy seed and the walnut.
- Re-hydrate the raisins with a cup of hot water.
- Mix the raisins with the poppy seed and the walnut filling.
- Cut the dough into 8 pieces. Roll them out to a rectangle shape.
- Brush them with the jam.
- Fill 4 with the poppy seed and 4 with the walnut and roll them up.
- Brush them with the egg wash.
- Pierce the rolls with a fork, so they won't tear open while baking.
- Bake them on medium heat for 20-30 minutes.
I’ll use this recipe next year for sure! The Poppy Seed Rolls are my favorite, the raisins are so good with the poppy seed, I can’t even tell! It takes some time, I know, but the result is so delicious, it worth to try!
One of them is slightly opened up, but it was still delicious!
The other dessert I made for Christmas Eve was my No Bake Cheesecake with candied orange peels and chocolate cover.
Contrary to the previous ones, it’s a simple and quick dessert, and so tasty!
No Bake Cheesecake with candied orange peels and chocolate cover
Ingredients
- 500 gr Mascarpone
- 500 gr Whipping Cream
- 3 tbsp Honey
- 2 pack Gelatine it depends on the brand you use
- 1 pack Gelatin fix
- 1.5 cup Orange juice use different juice for different taste
- 1 Lemon zest
- 1 Orange zest
- 300 gr Chocolate
- 1 tbsp Coconut oil
- 1 Orange peel
- 1 cup Water
- 1 cup Sugar
Instructions
- Mix the Mascarpone with the honey and the zest.
- Whip the whipping cream.
- Mix the gelatine, the gelatin fix with the juice and boil it.
- Pour the gelatin mixture into the mascarpone and mix them well.
- Let it get cooler and add the half of the whipped cream to it, mix them, when it smooth, add the other half or the cream.
- Pour the mixture into a pan or tin. Put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.
- Melt the chocolate with the coconut oil. I used my microwave, I put it in for 20 sec, get it out, mix, then repeat. Be careful not burn the chocolate, so when it's only a few little chocolate pieces remained solid, don't put it back to the microwave, the already melted chocolate will melt them too, just stir it!
- Get the cake out of the fridge, pour the chocolate on and put it back in the fridge 'til the orange peels are ready.
- For the candied orange peels, you need a sharp knife and an orange's peel. First, you have to carefully cut the white part out of the peel, then slice them. The thinner the slices, the faster it get candied.
- Mix the water and the sugar and add the orange peels. Boil it for about 10 minutes.
- Drain it, then place the slice on the chocolate covered cheesecake.
I made it on the second day of Christmas when the family came for a Christmas dinner. The only chance was I candied a few slices orange to decorate the side of the cake, I think it turned out beautiful.
Since it’s so easy to make, everyone loved it and mom asked for it, I’ll make this for her birthday too!
Before we had our˙Christmas Eve dinner, we had a little afternoon siesta.
Our cats decided to join us 🙂 They’re sleeping within minutes.
We set the table, used candles and napkins. The result was quite nice.
We made my Ravioli Soup, just added a few carrots and some peas as starter.
For the main course dad fried fish and french fries, mom made french salad. The fish and the salad are so yummy together, I can’t believe how rarely we eat them!
We lit all four candles on the advent wreath, toasted with strawberry wine, we lit sparklers and then I handed out the gifts.
Yay! I managed to capture the moment!
They were so pretty, I couldn’t help myself and took some picture of them.
I dressed to the tree…all sparkly 😀
Well, aren’t we a cute couple? Oh, and on 27th our engagement was 5 years ago, it’s really time to us to get married, isn’t it?
On the first day of Christmas we went to my grandmother for lunch.
She made chicken soup with quail egg noodle and vegetables as a starter.
My grandfather made beef stew with galuska. It was heavenly, I loved it!
My cousin took care of the dessert, she made these lovely cupcakes. I adore the decoration, and the taste of them was even better!
After we ate, we once again lit some sparklers, then opened our gifts.
I enjoyed this Christmas so much, but it was tiring, so now I could spend all the day with sleeping!
I’ll be back with my Best of 2015 on New Years Eve, but until then, tell me about your Christmas! 🙂
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