[Mike Nolan]

Today's cherry pie:

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[Mike Nolan]

We do have Michaels stores in Lincoln, there's even one near us, and we also have a Hobby Lobby, though it is further away and I don't get there very often. JoAnne's Fabrics also has a good kitchen section.

I seem to recall on one of the baking contest shows they were doing gingerbread construction and what they did was to make full sheet pans of gingerbread and bake them about half way, then use a paper template to cut them into shapes and finish baking them so that they were solid enough for construction.

Several years ago SFBI sent out a link at Christmas to a video showing their staff constructing an eight-foot tall Christmas tree out of bread, which they then had on display in the lobby. There may still be a link to the video on their website. It was impressive!

[Mike Nolan]

My mother's chocolate chip cookie recipe (https://mynebraskakitchen.com/wordpress/forums/topic/oatmeal-crisps-chocolate-chip-cookies/) uses both baking powder and baking soda. They tend to rise and have a lot of internal air spaces, which makes them great for dipping in milk, but they're crisp, not chewy.

I think the sugar/fat ratio has more to do with crispness/chewiness than the leavening.

[Mike Nolan]

We're going to do the traditional Christmas Eve oyster stew and chili, but Christmas dinner will be steaks, mushrooms, hash brown casserole, Brussels sprouts, DGBC and trifle for dessert.

[Mike Nolan]

Diane made dough for mushroom cookies today, and has a couple more planned over the next two days.

I plan to make a cherry pie for Christmas Eve, and she'll make a trifle for Christmas day.

[Mike Nolan]

We only got an inch and a half of snow when they were forecasting up to 6, but we did get the promised double-digit sub-zero temperatures, and the high today was around -5.

Supposed to be a little warmer heading into Christmas, but possibly an ice storm Sunday evening.

[Mike Nolan]

There are several gingerbread house cutter sets out there, a search on Amazon finds multiples of several of them. (That's all too common these days, sellers create multiple vendors for the same products, with identical pictures, often at various price points.)

The largest of them that I saw makes a house that is about 9 inches tall at the peak.

[Mike Nolan]

We wound up doing a combination of lavash pizza and takeout from Valentinos Pizza.

[Mike Nolan]

15 => 40 is an unusually large difference in baking time.

[Mike Nolan]

Recipes for gingerbread cookies and recipes for gingerbread houses are different, the former are designed to be edible, the latter are designed to be sturdy, for construction.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making semolina bread this evening, because we used the last of it at supper. With two more people in the house, we are going through bread a lot faster.

[Mike Nolan]

We wound up making spaghetti for dinner tonight.

[Mike Nolan]

I tried making a batch of sponge candy and it didn't come out quite right, it sort of collapsed as it cooled and that means it isn't very spongy, not sure exactly what I did wrong, but I'm going to try another batch later this afternoon. I've got a new candy thermometer, the probe on my old one died, and I'm not fond of the pot clip that comes with this one, it sort of wiggles on the side of the pot, so I'm going to play around with finding a way to hold it in place more firmly. I think the old pot clip may work with this probe, I think they're the same diameter.

I've got milk chocolate melting and will temper it when the sponge candy is ready to be enrobed.

[Mike Nolan]

What kind of molasses did you use?

I find the decorating the part I'm worst at.

When Necco wafers were discontinued (thankfully only temporarily), I think it was the fans of gingerbread houses who raised the biggest fuss and helped get them back into production.

[Mike Nolan]

We had some leftovers with salad and our granddaughter had an egg-on-toast.

And we finished off the chocolate cream pie.

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