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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
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