Married to the Empire

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Marathon bread-baking session

Years ago when we first married, Steven and I decided that at Christmas, we'd pretty much just spend money on family. Friends would get homemade gifts. It just gets too expensive to buy gifts for everyone we love.

So my annual Christmas gift to our friends is homemade bread. I shy away from cookies and the like because people are inundated with sweets at this time of year. I discovered a few years ago that I really enjoy baking bread (and I'm pretty good at it, too, if I do say so myself), so I give out bread for Christmas. It's always very well received.

Friday was a marathon baking session with 3 different types of bread to be made.

I made 18 mini loaves of pumpkin bread and 2 large loaves (not pictured):


Twelve loaves of raspberry-glazed mini lemon-cornmeal loaves:


Four loaves of wheat bread:


I packaged them all up and used kitchen labels from Martha Stewart's craft line at Michael's:


The really nice thing is that if our friends aren't ready to eat it now, it all freezes well.

4 comments:

AnneK said...

It looks really good. Homemade gifts are really great. But when you don't have the ability or the time (like me) and you are sick on top of that, shop gifts have to suffice. But at least I made sure that I asked everyone before what they wanted so I dont get stuff that they will straightaway return. A little less romantic, but way more practical. I don't even want to look at our bills. Spending has been crazy especially since family is also here and we are taking them out and buying them stuff. But then it's not everyday. We will recover.

Anne Marie@Married to the Empire said...

If I weren't a SAHW, I wouldn't have been able (or willing!) to do all this. But then, we'd have a much higher income, and buying more gifts wouldn't be an issue. Pros and cons to both sides...

Ann said...

You are amazing! I would never ever be able to do something like that! A long time ago (about 12 years ago) I tried to make banana bread, and it ended up being rock hard on the outside and doughy on the inside.

Cathy VanPatten said...

That looks yummy!

I love to bake, but I never seem to have time to do much anymore.