My Christmas Ambition

Our Christmas Tradition is we always have some kind of Roasted beef.

This year my ambition was to make some yorkshire pudding to go with it. When I was growing up, that was our favorite part of the meal. We only had it once a year at Christmas dinner, and my brothers and I couldn't wait!! It rose up like magic, and when it was brought to the table it deflated into a crusty on the outside and soft on the inside delectable treat. We loaded it with butter and gobbled it down.

So went to my handy dandy Joy of Cooking and looked it up. It seemed relatively easy enough.

Preheat the oven to 450. Place a glass 9 x 13 baking dish into the oven and heat for 10 mins.

Measure 1 cup {less 1 tbsp.} flour and a pinch of salt into a bowl.

Mix up 2 eggs and 1 cup milk in a seperate bowl.

Combine flour mixture and whisk together.

Melt 1/4 cup butter and pour into hot pan. Pour batter into pan and bake for 15 mins. That's it. Really, that's all there is. Pull it out and look at what you've got.

Traditionally you're supposed to use the drippings from the roast instead of butter, but I didn't have enough drippings. Actually I like the butter version better. It has that buttery taste already, so you don't have to add any more on it. Not that you couldn't mind you. I wouldn't want to take that away from all you butter lovers out there :)

I hope all your Christmas ambitions and traditions were as wonderful as ours!

Abracadabra

Wondering if it's worth the money? Oh yeah, baby, it's worth it! I can not stand the fact that whenever I make a cake the center rises up and I'm forced to either pretend I'm a professional cake decorator and cut the "top" off horizontally. Or decorate my cake as a dome. I'm pretty much screwed with either option.

So when I saw these in the store, and I have seen them for awhile, I figured why not! I had a couple family birthday's coming up. Besides $8 didn't seem like too much to part with for a magic trick.

Please note the overall flatness of this cake. Oh, and the creamy frosting center...mmmm! Anyway, it worked! Inside the box, are 2 strips of a padded silver fabric. Think oven mitt. You soak them in water, ring out the excess, and pin them (similar to floral pins) around your cake pan. The beauty is you can use them on a 9x13 pan also. Just pin the strips together. Then cook as normal, and watch the magic begin :)

I'm no science whiz, so I don't even pretend to know why they work, just that they do! So feel free to use them. They are not a hoax.

No, I do not moonlight as a cake decorator. This is just a new obsession for me. Need that like a hole in the head:)

xoxo ~L