Pastries

The Christmas tradition from the Temple Family that sticks with me (Ephraim) the most is making a load of pastries on Christmas morning. I'm sure the memory is exaggerated, but I've got this picture of our dining table loaded with a mount of bear claws, donuts, various shapes of Christmas bread, sugar cookies, walnut twists, and that Christmas bread with marascino cherries on top. I got the itch to recreate this a few years ago but didn't get past the bear claws. I figured I should start with the best first and because Pa always raved about bear claws the most, they are the best to me as well. They turned out divine and I shared them with neighbors. However, they took me three days to make and the motivation to make them didn't return until this year. I made my own almond paste and the various glazes, made a special trip at 9pm to the last open store that had plain almonds, and folded butter to make my own pastry crust. I took it a step further and made a walnut twist. I wanted to go further as I looked at Ma's recipes for potato donuts and breadfruit something or other yummy, but I didn't have enough energy for that. So on Christmas day I rolled and shaped and baked, with Ella's help, while Melinda and her parents skyped with Fillmore family members. It felt a lot more like Christmas to me with this service to others.

 Making pastry dough. Butter melts too fast in our tropical air, so it takes a while to get a bunch of fold and rolls done.

 Bear claws rising

The final haul. It's not a table full, but it did the trick.