Hey ,
I've been here long enough to know that people in Germany have special things that they do every Christmas time. It's not just the activities on the day(s) of Christmas, but in the weeks before.
Organising food is important and for some people, Christmas baking takes place a few weeks before Christmas.
It did in our house in Australia, too.
Early in November, Mum would make the Christmas cakes and puddings. Like many Australian things, these recipes (1) came from Britain.
Traditional Christmas cakes and puddings are full of dried fruit (2) and nuts and contain (3) cinnamon and other spices. You bake the cake in the oven, but you wrap the pudding in a piece of material, put it in a pot (4) of water on the stove and boil it - for hours.
That might be great in parts of the world where it's cold at Christmas. But in the warm temperatures of that time of year in Australia, it often made the kitchen unpleasantly hot and humid (5).
Another recipe that we usually only made at Christmas was fruit mince pies. The word 'mince' is usually used to talk about meat that has been cut up so that the pieces are very small, like you use for spaghetti bolognese.
Don't freak out! We don't use meat in these sweet treats (6)! You make fruit mince from raisins and sultanas (you can soak them in rum first, if you want 😉) and other dried fruit mixed with spices. Or you can buy it ready-made from the supermarket.
We baked biscuits (7), too. The classic English shortbread biscuit are very similar to German butter biscuits that are popular at Christmas time.
I'm looking forward to baking Christmas goodies myself this year 😀. It'll be a lot of fun. I've already baked some biscuits, as practice.
I brought my favourite shortbread recipe to Germany with me. However, I also want to try baking some German classics as well. And it looks like it'll be hard deciding which to bake - there are so many 😲.
I'm curious, - what are your favourite Christmas biscuits? Or, which ones should I try and bake (all recipes welcome 😀). Use the 'Reply' button above if you have any ideas!
Enjoy your week,
Andrea
(1) recipe - 'instructions' for cooking or baking something (you say it re-si-pe)
(2) dried fruit - for example, raisins, sultanas and currants
(3) contain - have something in it
(4) pot - a metal 'container' you put on the stove and cook food in
(5) humid - when there is 'water' (moisture) in the air
(6) treat - something special to do (or eat!) because it's a special time
(7) biscuit - British word for 'cookie' (you say it bis-kit)
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