This stocking – made for me by a favorite aunt when I was a little girl -hangs by our fireplace, filled with happy memories of Christmas mornings.
Here’s wishing you happy holiday memories in the making!
Category Archives: Holidays
Getting Ready for Christmas
With less than a week until Christmas, we are all ready for holiday company. Here are a few pictures from around the B&B today.
A favorite ornament … This one survived the great-crashing-of-the-tree circa 2001. It is hung this year on a potted (living) Norwegian Pine.
Here is some fresh parsley that I have growing in the kitchen. This will go in Baked Pancetta Scallops on Christmas Eve.
Gotta have a few fresh flowers around the house, too. These are from a Christmas Party last week. There were red roses in the arrangement, but the mini-carns out lasted them. We’ll get more roses!
Seasonal decorations … I love the warm feel that they give to the house.
Willow, trying to sleep during a break between happenings.
Looking in through a window, reflecting the outside … This was the view I had earlier today while peering in at my grandparents’ tree. Our front porch (and the library across the street) reflected in the window, making for an interesting and beautiful scene.
Wishing you joy and peace around the holidays and throughout the year!
Thank you for following A Taste of Morning!
Thankful Past Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is over and December is here, so it is time to pack away the pilgrims and the pumpkins for another year and start preparing for Christmas festivities. We had a truly delightful extended family spend their Thanksgiving with us at The Morning Star – a family that we have know through the bed and breakfast for about 15 years. For them, and for the many, many wonderful guests that we have had stay at the B&B over the last 19 years, we are thankful.
Wishing you the best as this holiday season continues …
Happy Easter!
Happy Valentine’s Day
Black Forest Cupcakes
These light-textured chocolate cupcakes, served with whipped cream and cherries, are really fun for guests. An added bonus is that you can make the cupcakes ahead of time and freeze them until you have company. Just thaw, top with whipped cream, garnish and serve! Ready to start thinking about Valentine’s Day?
Black Forest Cake Cupcakes
Makes about 24
Ingredients:
2 c. all-purpose flour
2/3 c. Dutch-process cocoa powder*
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 c. whole milk (or sour cream for a denser cupcake)
3 lg. eggs
2 t. cherry liqueur
1 c. unsalted butter, softened
1 c. granulated white sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. dried cherries, finely chopped
2 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped, plus extra for garnish
Sweetened whipped cream for topping
24 fresh dark sweet cherries
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 12-muffin pans with muffin papers.**
- Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt into medium size bowl. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, lightly beat together milk, eggs and cherry liqueur. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides of bowl.
- On low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture. Scrape sides. On medium speed, beat in 1/2 of wet ingredients. Scrape sides. Repeat, beating in 1/3 of flour mixture, remaining 1/2 of wet ingredients, and then remaining 1/3 of flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl in between.
- Mix together chopped cherries and chocolate and then fold them into the cupcake batter.
- Divide batter equally between muffin cups. Cups should be about 3/4 full.
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until no wet spots appear on muffin tops and muffins are firm to the touch. Do not overbake.
- Place muffin pans on baking racks for 15 minutes, then remove muffins, and place them on racks to finish cooling.
- To serve, top with whipped cream, grated chocolate and a fresh cherry.
Enjoy!
* If you need to, you can substitute natural cocoa, but Dutch-process has better flavor in this recipe.
** I use plain white papers for baking, then slip the muffins into decorative papers or foils for serving.
Happy New Year’s Eve (with a Mocktail & a Cocktail)
Wishing all of my followers a healthy, happy, and inspiring 2015!
Here is a mocktail recipe and a cocktail recipe as we get ready to celebrate, with thanks, all of the good things in the year that has passed – and to toast, with joy and hopefulness, the year to come.
Berry Happy New Year (Mocktail)
Place a scoop of raspberry sorbet in the bottom of a Champagne glass. Add 3 fresh black berries. Top with flavored sparkling water.
Enjoy!
Sgroppino
Place a scoop of lemon sorbet and of limoncello sorbet in the bottom of a Champagne Glass.* Add a splash of vodka and top off with Prosecco. Enjoy!
• Sgroppini are traditionally made with lemon sorbet, vodka and Processco, but since I always make limoncello sorbet around the holidays – when I make homemade limoncello – I like to add a little limoncello sorbet to my Sgroppini. Sgroppini can also be blended for a slushy drink.
Happy New Year’s Eve! Happy New Year to Everyone!
If you entertain for New Year’s Eve, please make sure that no one who drinks will be driving.
Old Fashioned Christmas (Cocktail)
Inspired by classic bourbon cocktails such as the Old Fashioned, this cocktail has been spruced up for Christmas but still retains a pleasing balance between bitter, sweet, fruity and bourbon flavors. Cheers!
Old Fashioned Christmas
Ingredients
2 oz. Woodford Reserve or other good bourbon whiskey
1 oz. Pallini Raspicello Liqueur
1 oz. Travis Hasse’s Apple Pie Liqueur
4 dashes Angostura Bitters
ice, for shaking
lemon peel, for garnish
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add bourbon, liqueurs and bitters. Cover and shake well – to mix ingredients, to chill the drink and to allow a little of the ice to melt. Strain into a decorative martini glass. Garnish with lemon peel and serve.
Happy Holidays!
Candy Cane Hot Chocolate
When shopping recently, I found these Snowman Marshmallows and could’t wait to make a special hot chocolate to go with them. For this recipe I used Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate, Hershey’s Chocolate Mint Candy Canes and Peeps Marshmallows. “Hmmm, yum!” My company and I enjoyed our hot chocolate and cookies.
Candy Cane Hot Chocolate
Makes 3 servings
4.5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces
1/4 c. candy cane pieces (about 3 candy canes broken into pieces)
12 oz. boiling water
4 oz. half and half
whipped cream for garnish
shaved chocolate for garnish
whole candy canes for garnish
marshmallows for garnish, optional
Place chocolate and candy cane pieces in a small non-stick pan. Pour boiling water over chocolate and candy canes. Stir. Turn low heat on under pan. Whisk chocolate mixture until smooth. Whisk in half-and-half and continue to heat mixture until hot, but not boiling. Meanwhile, assemble ingredients for garnishing. Carefully ladle into serving cups and garnish. Serve immediately. Enjoy!
Related Recipes:
Spiced Mexican Wedding Cookies
Have a great day!
North Pole Cupcakes
These festive, chocolatey-peppermint, cheesecake cupcakes are easy to make with a food processor and can be made ahead of time and frozen so that you have them on hand for holiday company or surprise visitors – that is, unless a certain someone in your house likes to sneak into the freezer and eat them as is. You might need to make extras! Enjoy!
North Pole Cupcakes
An easy to make, festive treat for the winter holiday season!
makes 12
Ingredients
• 12 Mint Oreo cookies (or gluten-free sandwich-style cookies)
• 2/3 c. granulated white sugar
• 16 miniature peppermint candy canes, divided
• 1/4 c. dark chocolate chips
• 16 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 c. sour cream
• 2 lg. eggs
• 1 T. chocolate liqueur
• 1/2 t. mint extract
• whipped cream for topping (canned is ok)
• shaved chocolate, chocolate sprinkles, sugar pearls, or sugar sprinkles for garnish
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with muffin papers. Place one cookie in the center of each muffin paper. (The cookies will be a little smaller than the bottom of the muffin cups, but the cookies puff out during baking.)
2. Unwrap 4 of the candy canes and break candy into small pieces (should be about 1 T.). Using a large food processor, process sugar and broken candy canes until they are crushed to a fine consistency. Add chocolate chips and process until the chips are finely crushed. Add cream cheese and process until smooth. Scrape down bowl. Add sour cream and process until smooth. Scrape down bowl. Add eggs, chocolate liqueur, and mint extract. Process or beat until well blended and perfectly smooth. Scrape down bowl.
3. Divide cheesecake batter between muffin cups, filling to the top, but not over the top. Bake for about 20 minutes or until cheesecake batter is puffy and set in the middle. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. (The cupcakes will sink in the middle as they cool and don’t look very pretty until garnished.)
4. Once completely cool, cover pan with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving. (Once cooled, muffins can be removed from the baking pan, placed in a plastic container, covered tightly, and frozen until shortly before serving. If no one sneaks into the freezer to eat them, cupcakes should keep for about 1 month.)
5. Serve cold. (If frozen, remove cupcakes from freezer shortly before serving – about 15 minutes. When ready to serve, remove muffin papers. Garnish each cupcake with whipped cream, shaved chocolate or other decorations, and an unwrapped candy cane. Enjoy! Happy Holidays!
Variation: Instead of whipped cream, top with chocolate ganache or chocolate buttercream flavored with peppermint.
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