Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in My Kitchen in December

Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I usually share everything I have made over the previous month. Given that I was away for a couple of weeks of the month,I actually managed to make a few things, which I guess isn't surprising given the time of the year!

Before I start though....

Happy New Year to you all!!

My first attempted bake for the month was Brooki's Chocolate Chip Cookies. Note the word attempted! I followed the recipe that was provided on a Facebook reel, but it turns out the recipe is different than that provided in the Brooki Bakes book. I followed the instruction, which includes putting the cookie dough balls into the fridge for at least two hours, which helps to prevent the cookies spreading too much when you bake them. That's a pretty normal technique. That definitely worked because my cookies didn't spread at all, and so at the end of the cooking time I still had very, very solid cookie balls. They tasted good still, but I will be remaking these to see how they work out next time!

I then decided to make two recipes from Advent: Festive German Bakes to Celebrate the Coming of Christmas by Anja Dunk. I made both Schokokusschen (Chocolate kisses) and Kokosmakronen - Coconut macaroons. I have to say that I loved making the macaroons. Both recipes were pretty simple, but the macaroons were surprisingly simple and tasty! Especially seeing as I don't normally love coconut as a flavour. I reviewed the book here, and shared the recipe for the Chocolate Kisses.

We also made Peppermint Crisp Tart, which is a South African dessert, which was one of the two desserts at our first Christmas celebration. I have shared this recipe before. The other dessert was a Christmas Tree Cake. The picture for both of these is at the top of this post.

I posted a couple of weeks ago about my experience of doing a cake decorating class where we produced the Christmas Tree cake. The class was run at a decorating supplier over the other side. Whilst I was intending to not buy much, I did end up buying a new rolling pin, a large offset spatula and some spray glitter! 

We also got a new air fryer. To be honest, this came a bit out of the blue as we already had an air fryer which we never really used. The new one has two drawers which I think will make it a bit more usable, and we have now got it out on the bench rather than hidden away on a shelf in the pantry. We also got an over microwave shelf which has helped us with reorganising things to make it possible to put it in a more visible place.

One of the things I realised before Christmas is that I really struggle with nice pictures, so I headed off to the shops and ended up buying a few decorative plates. Whilst that still might not help with the photos, at least I can occasionally have a more interesting background than just a plain white plate. Then I went in the garage and realised that my husband has quite a few decorative blue and white plates that he has owned for years. Not sure if I will use them as he used to have them on the wall, but never say never.

I was very spoilt at Christmas and got some great presents. At our first Christmas, I was given a new tool for the Kitchenaid that I have been eyeing off for a while, I got some magnetic measuring spoons, and a personally signed copy of Bakes with Brooki by Brooke Bellamy, yes, the same one I mentioned for my cookie fail above.I am looking forward to trying some of her recipes. Brooke owns a bakery in Brisbane called Brooki Bakehouse that has really taken off and now has branches in various locations including places like Abu Dhabi. and also a cookbook all about New York and food called New York Cult Recipes by Marc Grossman!

I am a bit excited about the measuring spoons. They are dual ended. One end has a round measuring spoon, and the other end has an oval spoon, so in theory it should fit inside spice jars. There is also a leveller. I also hope that the fact that they are magnetic should bake it easier to be able to find the right spoon easily.

At our second Christmas, I also received a personally signed copy of Emelia Jackson's new cookbook, Some of my Best Friends are Cookies.

Speaking of Emelia Jackson we actually went to an event just prior to Christmas where Emelia was appearing along with three other chefs, Alice Zaslavsky, Tony Tan and Ben Shewry, who each have new books out at the moment! It was a really fun night, where they talked about their books, about obsession and so much more.

After spending time in Adelaide for Christmas (more about that in this post!), Robert and I went on a roadtrip to the Eyre Peninsula. I have shared a couple of pictures in this post! 

This is prime seafood territory, and is part of the Seafood Frontier trail which starts in the far west of South Australia on the Great Australian Bight and ends in Whyalla. I will be back next week with my post about our trip, I couldn't help but mention the Seafood Experience that we had at 1802 Oyster Bay in Coffin Bay. We aren't really oyster people, but the experience was all about fresh tuna, prawns, mussels, squid and kingfish. It was a delicious, and memorable, meal!  The picture above is the curried Kingfish Collar. I don't think that I have ever had the collar of a fish before, but it was delicious! More about the trip next week!

The other surprising meal I had was our New Year's Eve dinner at a Thai restaurant. I ordered a chicken pineapple Thai fried rice! I didn't expect it to come out in a pineapple!

We also picked up a salt pot in Port Lincoln for sea salt. It can now sit proudly beside the giant mug that we got in San Francisco last year which we use as the receptacle for cooking salt!

In not very exciting news, we spent Friday cleaning out and then reorganising the pantry. A big reason for doing this is so that we actually know what we have in there, which should then men a reduction in food waste as we will only buy something as it is running out rather than having multiples of everything!

Finally, I am going to be setting myself (or should I say us given that my husband does most of the cooking!) a challenge for this year, taking inspiration from Joanne from Brookford Kitchen Diaries. She has challenged herself to cook a recipe from 52 cookbooks during 2025. I do have more than 50 cookbooks, but I have decided to adapt the challenge a little bit. My challenge then is for us to try 52 new recipes in 2025. I will try to do this from as many cookbooks as possible, but maybe not 52! That equates to one new recipe a week on average! I will keep you updated as we go along each month.

New Recipes

Baked Tuscan Chicken - This recipe from Adam Liaw is definitely going to be part of our regular rotation or recipes now!

Weekend Cooking posts from the last month

A Tale of Two Christmases

A Christmas Tree Cake

Advent by Anja Dunk

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page