Last minute advent calendar

Adventlastminute3Surprise, surprise! Sunday’s the first of December and the first day for the traditional German Advent calendar. If until now you didn’t manage to make one yourself but don’t want to buy any either. Well, then here you’ll get the instruction for a very last minute calendar which only needs a personal computer, a printer and an old picture frame. Take off the picture from your frame and fix four ribbons on the back of it. I did it with thumbtacks as you can see on picture below. On each line there’re hanging 6 little star decorated papers numbered in the front. To download these star papers click here and for the numbers take my post 2in1 because there you can choose between two colours. It should be no difficulty to find some clothespins even on saturday. It looks very nice if you take some smaller ones. I had some white ones with angel wings left and chose them for each sunday. On the backside of the star spangled paper you may write down some vouchers, more or less philosophical or funny sayings. You should write them down by hand to make it more personal. If you don’t have a printer you can simply draw little hearts or stars, cut them out, number them from 1 to 24 and also write down something on their backside.
For the sundays you can also suspend some wrapped chocolate on the back of the paper. I tried it with some chocolate hearts which I fixed with double-sided sticky tape. For the 6th of December I even attached a little box with pralines and the 1.5oz weight was no problem for the ribbon.
The hanging up is no problem either because you can simply take off one of the drawings or fotos in your flat and place the calendar instead. After Christmas the original drawing may return.
Now the slogan is: up to the attic, look for a frame and there’s no further obstacle for a nice gift. The addressee will surely be very happy with this nice surprise.  

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  • Last minute Adventskalender – Last minute advent calendar

(Deutsch) Adventskranz

Adventskranz1No German household without an advent wreath. The traditional one is made of fir branches but nowadays there are many different sorts of wreaths. I bought the white willow wreath already last year but they’re still available in deocration shops. Like the one for my rustic candle holder the decoration idea derives from the book of Christophorus Verlag. You can buy readymade wooden stars or saw balsa wood stars yourself. I colored the borders in a dark brown making them look more vivid. Both, stars and cones are attached with the help of a hot-melt gun. Before glueing them in my wreath I twisted a manila ribbon with litlle stars around. The wreath is lying on a flat round wooden plate having a diameter a bit larger than the inner circle of wreath. The four candles are placed with wax candle fitting pads on this wooden plate. In between I put some fir, pine and yew trees. When these get dry they simply need to be replaced by fresh ones. Thus you’ll have the fresh odor of conifers until Christmas.

 

 

Berliner Brot

Berliner Brot – a cookie with cinnamon and pimentos reminding the wonderful Christmas time of our childhood. A friend of mine got this recipe from her mother who had to learn it at housekeeping school more than 60 years ago. While posting the recipe the Berliner Brot is baking in the oven and I’ll give my judgment afterwards.

Berliner Brot
Christmas cookies with hazelnuts, almonds, cinnamon and pimentos.
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Prep Time
20 min
Cook Time
35 min
Total Time
55 min
Prep Time
20 min
Cook Time
35 min
Total Time
55 min
Dough
  1. 3 oz butter
  2. 3 eggs size M
  3. 10.5 oz sugar
  4. 6 oz hazelnuts or almonds (mixing both is also very tasty)
  5. 1 scarce tbsp cinnamon
  6. 1/2 tsp pimentos
  7. 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa
  8. 12.4 oz wheat flour
  9. 2 tsp baking powder
For decoration
  1. 3-4 tbsp powdered sugar
Preparation
  1. Preheat oven at: 350°F
  2. Line baking tray with parchment paper.
Dough
  1. Beat butter with sugar and stir in eggs successively until sugar has dissolved. Add nuts and/or almonds together with spices. Mix flour with baking powder and blend well. Knead dough on lightly floured working surface and cut into 4-5 parts. Form rolls and place on baking sheet. Bake 30-40 minutes until firm to touch. Just before the end of baking time dissolve powdered sugar in some water, remove baking tray from oven, apply sugar on rolls while they're still hot and directly cut into 1-inch pieces.
Notes
  1. Only place 3 rolls on your baking sheet to give room for rising. Stacked in airtight containers you may savour them until Christmas and on cool winter days they're a real delicacy to be served with a cup of tea or cocoa.
Bastelesel http://www.bastelesel.de/
 
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  • Berliner Brot

There are things outlasting through the ages and I admit this recipe is one of them. Try it.

Rustic Light

BirkenkerzeA Christmas light, quite natural and yet very impressive. The original one is proposed in a book entitled Weihnachts-Deko Natur. I chose the birch tree star instead of a square-cut wooden board. The birch branches and twigs were given to me by a lovely friend but you may also take other branches for decoration. The center of my candle holder is a birch branch of 12 -14 inches wiht a diameter of 2.5 inches. It has to be fixed on the star or wooden board with a dowel. Therefor you need to drill a hole of the dowel’s diameter in your branch and also in your board. Then place dowel with glue in your board and put birch branch on top. The smaller branches which are fastened round the birch branch have a length of 11 – 15 inches. It’s not necessary to mesure them exactly because the different length and bending causes a more natural impression. Their fixing is a bit difficult so that I fastened them with an elastic strap before winding a manila ribbon with little wooden pearls and angels around them. On top of the birch branch I placed a little jar for a tea light which is also decorated with a colored ribbon and a wooden star. Another wooden star is pending from one of the smaller twigs. Some cones placed a the bottom of the branches make it perfect.

Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint cookies – besides Grandma’s traditional spritz cookies the best Christmas cookies ever. That’s what our children say and that’s why they’re almost the first cookies we do for Christmas. The recipe is quite easy and they’re even better if the currant jelly derives from Grandma’s storage rack.

Thumprint Cookies
Serves 40
Mellow cookies with tartish currant jelly
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Prep Time
20 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
1 hr
Prep Time
20 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
1 hr
Dough
  1. 85dr soft butter
  2. 85dr powdered sugar
  3. 1 bag vanilla sugar
  4. zest of one lemon
  5. dash of salt
  6. 2 egg yolks
  7. 8.5oz wheat flour
Filling
  1. currant jelly (or any other red jelly or jam)
Preparation
  1. Heat currant jelly and smooth
  2. Preheat oven at 350°F
  3. Line baking sheets with parchment paper
Dough
  1. Belnd soft butter with powdered sugar, lemon zest and salt. Stir in egg yolk one after another and add flour while keading. Then cover dough and let rest at a cool place for appr. 15-20 minutes. Form two rolls of 1-inch diameter and cut into 20 pieces each. Form little balls, place them on the baking sheet and press down center of them with a thumb or the stick of a wooden spoon. Fill indentations with jelly or jam.
  2. Bake for 20-25 minutes until they're golden brown, remove from oven and place on grid with the parchment paper.
Notes
  1. For serving you may sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Stacked in airtight containers you may start baking them now.
Bastelesel http://www.bastelesel.de/
The ingredients are lightly changed because fortunately I relocated the recipe I worked with during the last years. (12.23.2013)

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  • Engelsaugen – Thumbprint Cookies