A Christmas Tradition part II

2011-09-12

Last time I told you all about how Little Crates come to life and today I want to expand somewhat on how the Little Crates are filled.  Because without some “innards” my Little Crates would be somewhat boring.

So come the 18^th or 19^th of December the house is filled with the scent of little Christmas stollen ( a German Christmas cake somewhat on the line of fruit cake with or without nuts).  Not only do I bake the little stollen—25 to be exact, but I also bake a Schwarzbrot (Blackbread—also a specialty here in Germany).  The bread isn’t very difficult to make.  You basically just throw the ingredients together, ease the batter into the loaf pan and put it into the oven in the evening.  Here it bakes for almost three hours.  After that I turn off the oven, where it stays overnight to cool off slowly.  Very often when I take it out the next morning the bread is still warm!  Wow!  And because the bread bakes so long you have to make sure that you don’t need the oven for the next 12 hours.  But I am getting off of the subject.  Stollen, Blackbread and cookies have to be made. To add some texture and body to the crates, I wander off into the woods gathering evergreen twigs, pinecones and anything that catches my eye.  Walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts along with small chocolate balls (brightly wrapped with colored foil) and clementines (those small oranges that find their way into the grocery stores every year sometime in October) are also added for eye-appeal! 

The baking takes about 3-4 days, turning my house and especially the kitchen into a commercial-like bakery of sorts.  Everywhere you look, you’ll find some kind of evidence that something out of the ordinary is taking place.  Little buttered bread pans scattered throughout the kitchen along with extra bags of flour patiently waiting to make their entrance.  Slivered almonds, orange and lemon extract, currents, rum (yes but just a tad—I really like Myers’s Jamaican Rum) and of course the spices.  Allspice, Cinnamon, Nutmeg are among the spices I love using.  During this time, my husband finds it very difficult to withstand the tantalizing scents coming from the kitchen.  And besides there are always those “mistakes” that need eliminating, right?  (Maybe this year I will put him to work and let him help—smile) 

Well baking is the first step and when the goodies have cooled they need some tender loving care so that they are still fresh on Christmas Eve.  I individually wrap each little cake first in plastic wrap and then once more with aluminum foil.  I dress up every tiny “package” by adding a small red ribbon and a teeny sprig of evergreen.  Together with the shiny foil it makes for a picture-perfect print.  (Hey that’s great idea for a Christmas card—which by the way, my Christmas cards are also all handmade!)  When the baking is over and done with, the next task at hand is collecting all the goodies, the crates, the decorations and the sweets.  Everything gets lined up on the long dining room table so that the assembly is as easy as possible.  When I hit this stage of the game, not only does the kitchen show signs of wear and tear but the living room turns into a decoration warehouse filled with all sorts of bits of string, red ribbons, evergreen twigs, small ornaments just to name a few.  What is really sometimes unsettling is that, well, this usually takes place on the 23^rd of December and takes me close to ½ a day just putting the crates together.  My husband is usually trying to put up the Christmas Tree, with all the problems that are associated with getting the tree just “perfect”.  So he often needs an extra hand to hold this or straighten that.  (I think I could write a whole page on the “joys” of putting up a real tree…maybe next time).  Not only is the living room topsy-turvy, but it being the day before Christmas Eve means that all has to be cleaned before I go to bed that night.  Whew—just writing about it makes me wonder how I get everything done by 12 noon on Christmas Eve.