Knitting Needles

Wooden barbecue skewers with Fimo dough knobs on top, painted metallic grey and copper, just like the real ones.

Honey Baked Ham

1 bone-in spiral sliced pre-cooked ham
2 cups white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly ground if possible)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground clove
1/2 teaspoon paprika
2 to 4 Tablespoons water

Score outside of ham into diamond shapes and place in crock-pot. Add about 2 cups of water to bottom of pot. Heat on low for about 3 hours until heated through.
Combine the rest of the ingredients in a sauce pan. Add enough water until you get a thick syrup (about 2 to 4 Tablespoons). Bring the syrup to a boil on the stove top. Boil for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.  Remove ham from crock-pot and place in a foil lined baking pan. Baste ham with syrup. Place ham in oven and broil at 500° for 1 to 3 minutes until syrup starts to bubble. Keep an eye on the ham while it is in the oven. Do not leave ham in oven unattended as it will burn quickly! Remove ham from oven and serve.

Canard à l'Orange

¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar
1 ½ cups orange juice
2 tablespoons shallots, minced
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
4 oranges, sections cut from membranes
2 duck breast halves, seasoned with salt and pepper
¼ cup unsalted butter
2 tablespoons orange zest

Boil the sugar and water for several minutes, until the syrup caramelizes and turns a golden brown color. Add the vinegar, juice, shallots, and chicken stock and simmer until the sauce is reduced to a little less than a cup. Add butter and 1 tablespoon of orange zest. Stir in orange sections. In a skillet, sear the duck breasts over high heat. Cook the duck for about 9-11 minutes on each side. Pour the prepared sauce over the duck breasts and garnish with the remaining orange zest.

Sugar Cookies

Unlike many things in the baking world, sugar cookies are meant to be foolproof. They don’t have much butter or leavening, so they’ll keep their shape when you roll out the dough and cut them. They’re sturdy enough to be handled and decorated, but soft and delicious enough to be a Christmastime dessert staple. But there are still ways to totally mess them up.
Lots of people bake their sugar cookies until they’re a nice golden-brown. DON’T DO THAT! They’ll be hard as rocks–and will get harder the longer you keep them around. Because they’ll harden naturally as they age, you want to bake them until they’re just set. Look for a sandy-blonde color with just a hint of gold.
If you roll the dough out even too thin, they’ll become fragile. Not good if you’re having a cookie-decorating party. But if you roll the dough out too thick, then they won’t cook through and become dense and, honestly, pretty gross. The ideal thickness to roll out your sugar cookie dough is about 1/4″–that way, they’ll be tough enough to be handled and decorated, but thin enough to stay a little crunchy.
Dragees are pretty, but they break your teeth! Also, I would add another bit of advice to the list: don't overdecorate (unless you are a pro). Keep it simple. Cookies with too much glop on them appeal to little kids, but usually not to most adults.

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshiped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Tartic Acid / Cream of Tartar

Tartaric acid (KHC₄H₄O₆ in scientific terms, dihydroxy-succinic acid, or potassium bitartrate) is a salt found in plants. It’s actually a byproduct of wine making, because during fermentation a white crust called argol crystallizes along the inside of wine casks, and this can be precipitated to make tartaric acid. After tartaric acid forms, it is mixed with potassium hydroxide to neutralize the acid. This mixture results in cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is a potassium-based salt derived from tartaric acid. It is an acid salt, meaning that when it is dissolved into a liquid it will lower the pH of the liquid.

Cream of tartar is most often used in baking as either a stabilizer or a leavening agent. For example: egg whites have a pH of about 9, which makes them a base. Cream of tartar is about a 3 so just a little bit edges the egg whites towards the acid side of things. The acidity helps the coiled strands of protein (egg whites) relax and unwind. The long strands stay whipped up. Cream of tartar is added to activate alkaline baking soda to create baking powder. One more way cream of tartar gets used in the kitchen is when working with sugar. Where cream of tartar is a stabilizing agent for egg whites, a pinch added to boiling sugar is actually an interfering agent. The cream of tartar gets in the way of sugar's natural tendency to bind together and prevents those dreaded sugar crystals from forming.
Generally, cream of tartar is used to clean and remove stains because of its acidic properties, but other times it is also used for its mildly abrasive qualities. Cream of tartar is one of nature’s best bleaching agents.  Cream of tartar can be mixed with an acidic liquid such as lemon juice or white vinegar to make a paste-like cleaning agent for metals such as brass, aluminum or copper, or with water for other cleaning applications such as removing light stains from porcelain. This mixture is sometimes mistakenly made with vinegar and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), which actually react to neutralize each other.  Cream of tartar, when mixed into a paste with hydrogen peroxide, can be used to clean rust from some hand tools. The paste is applied and allowed to set for a few hours and then washed off with a baking soda/water solution. Another rinse with water, a thorough drying and a thin application of oil will protect tools from further rusting.

Orchid Update

Oh Sugar

Holiday cookie season is right around the corner.  I was just thinking about sugar. Specifically colored sugar and white sanding sugar, and why I have to get it at the grocery store instead of making it myself.  The answer is SIZE.  Sanding Sugar is large, polished grains of sugar. The grains are about four times larger than those in granulated sugar.  It is similar to "Sparkling Sugar", and like it will reflect light, but it is smaller.  To make Sanding Sugar, sugar syrup is dried, screened, and colored.  Sanding sugar has larger crystals than typical granulated sugar you buy in the grocery store. Larger crystals  of sanding sugar reflect light of their facets, and so  when using on cookies sanding sugar makes cookies glisten. Also, sanding sugar will not dissolve immediately when exposed to liquid like granulated sugar, instead it sticks to any moist or warm surface. Sanding sugar can be added to cookies right after they were baked, while still hot.

Mini Chips

I made these miniature chip bags out of the side of a chip bag and some clear packing tape. They are filled with bits of cork so they rattle properly.

Clara

I just finished watching an anime called Princess Jellyfish. I enjoyed it so much I made my own Clara out of Sculpy III. Kawaii!