Betsy Snow White Bibliophile

Tag: Baking

On the Second Day of Blogmas…

I love to bake at Christmas. When I was a little girl my mom worked for a store that would often result in her working on Christmas Day. It was hard for little me to be patient and wait for her to get off work in order to open presents so my Grandma would help me bake cookies. So many cookies. Dozens and dozens of cookies. A Plethora of cookies. You get the point.

We would bake sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, gingerbread cookies, and snickerdoodles. We would also make no bakes, buckeyes, potato candy and divinity fudge.

We filled tin after tin with cookies, candies and other handmade edibles. Then we would deliver them to neighbors and friends. And before I knew it mom would be home and we would be officially celebrating Christmas.

Here are some of the gingerbread cookies my mother, sister and I made several years ago. There is a fez, pasties and a g-string, lederhosen, and more…

We try to get together every year to bake a little bit and to spend the time together. Last year we made these masterpieces…

Do you bake with your family? What are your favorite things to make?

Socks of the day: Santa riding a unicorn.

December 2, 2021
Cinnamon, Spice and Everything Nice

Fall enters on a breeze scented with cinnamon in my world. Cinnamon, clove, ginger and the smell of piles of falling leaves kicked up when you walk in them. The autumn brings with it candles, wax melts, pine cones and so much more in all the spicy wonderful scents that I cannot get enough of.

I am a basic witch who loves all things pumpkin spice, but that is because it is spice. The spices used in typical Pumpkin Spice are cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and sometimes allspice. All the yummy spicy goodness leads to wonderful smells.

There are few smells in this world that make me feel as cozy as the smell of cinnamon. It brings me back to days baking with my grandmother for the fall; making cooked apples or pumpkin pie. Sometimes baking cookies with snickerdoodles rolling them in cinnamon sugar and having cinnamon fingers for the rest of the day.

There is a cookie I love to bake, that I found in the Witches Datebook from Llewellyn several years ago. They are called Beltane Passion Cookies, but they smell and taste of autumn to me.

Beltane Passion Cookies

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup molasses

1 3/4 cups whole grain flour

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp ground cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp ground cloves

5 tsp powdered ginger

1/8 tsp granulated sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Using a hand mixer cream the butter with the sugar then beat in the egg and molasses. Sift all the dry ingredients into a medium bowl, then stir into the wet batter. Add crystallized ginger. Roll batter into 1 inch balls and dip one side into granulated sugar. Place sugar side up on baking sheet, about 3 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

I may have to whip some of these up next week for Samhain. A little passion never hurt at any time of the year.

What smells are fall to you?

October 25, 2019