A Pre-Christmas Baking Calm Settles over the Grand Duchy. . .

Here's the finished product just out of the oven. Time to make some fresh coffee and indulge. And the house still smells amazing this morning!

The Grand Duchess and I decided to try our hands at making some Swedish lussekatter (saffron buns) in honor of Santa Lucia Day yesterday evening. The verdict? A resounding success. About two hours of preparation time, including two rounds of letting the dough rise, but it goes pretty quickly with two people working together. Dare I suggest that it's a fun culinary activity for partners and spouses to undertake in the run up to Christmas?

Here is an earlier photograph of the Grand Duchess brushing eggwhite glaze over the dough before it went into the oven for about 15 minutes.

Now rest easy. The piece-de-resistance should be along shortly when the Grand Duchess bakes her authentic Dresdner Stollen in the next few days. And I'm really looking forward to that. Some of you long-time visitors to the GD of S blog might recall that it was during one such Stollen preparation session way back in early December of 2005 that the name for my burgeoning old school wargaming project, in the spirit of Charge! and The War Game, first occurred to me. Anyway, that is so full of butter that you can almost feel your arteries clogging as you enjoy a slice or two, but it's about the best Christmas treat I can think of. . . especially when enjoyed with copious amounts of fresh, strong coffee!

This particular old post card must be British, judging by the salutation and use of the name Father Christmas.

Finally, the next 10 RSM musketeer figures stand ready for two coats of white acrylic basecoat later today followed by the application of green to their bases, fleshtone, and black on the hats, shoes/gaiters, and cartridge pouches this evening. I'll tackle five in one go, so I can have a batter chance of making the January 16th deadline for the painting challenge in which I am participating. Ok, enough idle chit-chat. I've got paint brushes to warm up and Humbrol enamels to stir!

Comments

Old School ACW said…

The 16th!?

BLAST! I'd been planning for the 26th!

Paint faster!

Greg

2:58 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Stokes,

Might I suggest that you provide a link to the Grand Duchess' recipe for Stollen that you posted a few years back?

I'm sure that some of your readers would appreciate it.

-- Jeff

3:53 PM

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…

Greg -- No time to lose then. . . Paint, paint, paint!

Jeff -- Yep, one re-post coming up in the next few days.

Best Regards,

Stokes

5:34 PM

Conrad Kinch said…

Complements of the season to you both.

12:41 AM

The 18th century? What's the Fascination?

Hessian musketeers by All the King's Men Toy Soldiers of Snellville, Georgia, U.S.A. Just a quick post post today, but I thought the above question might be interesting food for thought. Obviously, there is an array of possible periods, theaters, and conflicts that might catch our eyes. But what is it about the era 1700-1799 -- either real, or imagined? Is it the commanders and politics? The fairly straightforward tactics? The myriad of uniforms and flags? The variety and scope of the conflicts? The patchwork of various and sundry petty states, (at least in Central Europe)? I'm very interested to learn your thoughts. Don't be a lurker! Please leave a comment -- or even two or three. Have a nice day everyone!

An Early July Hussar Update. . .

Marginally neater in appearance with green bases, girths, and ivory horse markings added, but I need to neaten up some hooves now before moving onto the rest of the tack. W here in the world did June go? While I still ponder the answer to that question, how about a quick painting update on the first batch of 14 Minden Austrian hussars and Nadasdy? Good. I'm glad we are of a like mind. Still on the sloppy side, but I've managed to move things along, painting the green bases, white (ivory) horse markings, and beginning the miles and miles of tack adorning the various horses. I always like to begin with the girths spanning the horses' ribs which helped hold the saddles in place. Even with the figures mounted individually on temporary painting bases, these can be kind of tricky to access, but there we are. I've also used various Army Painter washes (Mid-Brown and Strong Tone) as well as their Speed Paint (Grim Black) to make the manes and tails of the horses a bit m...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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