Smith Family Weblog

I had been thinking about doing a “Christmas by the numbers” post—you know, something like this:

6 – Number of family gatherings this holiday

706 – Miles to travel roundtrip

But, as I thought about it a bit more, I knew I’d have to add:

12,450 – Calories likely consumed between Christmas and New Year’s

And, for honesty’s sake, I couldn’t really leave out:

1 – Number of meltdowns at 1:30 am as I finished….

75 – Cups of caramel corn to place into…

24 – Tins for coworkers, friends and neighbors.

And really, the last two lines are all I needed to share. So, I scrapped that idea and just decided to post this great recipe for butter-crunch popcorn. I made a couple of edits—one inadvertent (I forgot to add the baking soda…twice) and one calculated—I substituted peanuts for macadamia nuts, so  I didn’t have to note:

87 – number of dollars paid for 16 cups of macadamia nuts.

Last Friday, I wrapped up a very high-maintenance relationship with my Amish Friendship Bread. Over the course of the 10 days prior, Bryan monitored the process like he might tend an experiment, noting on day six that the mix was fermenting. Oddly, this made him a bit more comfortable with the whole process, but I thought it was strange to have to “burp” the bag.

On the last day, I added sugar, flour and milk, and then divided the mixture into four additional bags to share. Then, to my own batter, I added eggs, flour, sugar, chocolate pudding and mini chocolate chips. I think there’s only about 1/4 cup of the original batter in the entire recipe.

Instead of baking the bread in two loaf pans, I took a cue from Nicky, who noted on my earlier posts that the bread was really more like cake. This lead me to  select a Bundt pan for baking (and generally view the project much more favorably).

I took the bread to work for my coworkers, and I actually had requests for the the new batches batter. I sent one to Dawn, too–maybe she’ll report back as well!

The day before Thanksgiving, Ava helped me make this Malted Milk Chocolate Cheesecake.

Well, not this one, per se, but the first one of two.

The first one–fresh out of the oven–slid off it’s perch in the back of the Pilot as we drove out of the driveway that afternoon. It was sandwiched sideways between the luggage and the lift gate.

I tried to catch it with one hand as I opened the lift gate with the other, but only managed to burn my hands as it sloshed out of the pan and down the bumper of the car, landing in the driveway in a big chocolate puddle.

Bryan, who hates packing, traveling and especially traveling with things that are poorly packed, sighed heavily and headed back to the house to gather the things we’d need to clean up this giant mess.

He returned with a trash can, paper towels and a spoon.

With the positive results of Bryan’s taste test, I picked up the ingredients on the way out of town, and I made it again once we arrived.

This time, it stayed intact until it was served. It was only then I realized I added just half the sugar the recipe required.

Third time’s a charm, right?