I’ve seen wooden molds with delicate designs carved into them many times as I’ve browsed through antique shops and rummaged my way through flea markets. I never really knew what they were supposed to be used for. A neighbor once gave me the light colored rolling pin you can see in the photo above. She’d had it for years and wasn’t exactly sure if she’d ever used it, but she thought it would be a nice addition to the collection of old rolling pins I kept in an old wicker bike basket hanging on the wall in my kitchen. That was years ago. I’ve never used that carved rolling pin. Until last Sunday.
I was invited to join the Oja family in their spacious kitchen for their annual springerle-making day. Snowflakes were falling as another friend and I pulled into the long driveway leading to their house tucked into the countryside outside of Bemidji, Minnesota.
As I stepped into the warm and cozy home, I was immediately hit with the aroma of mulling spices and cardamom. Beth Oja, our hostess, had prepared Finnish Pulla and mulled cider made from apples the family had picked from their trees and pressed themselves. I thought I might be in heaven. And, I knew this was going to be a great day.
I always hated how it got so dark, so early in the winter. One day, a friend told me I just needed to manage until December 21st because that was the shortest day of the year and from
that day on it would get lighter a minute earlier each day. Growing up and working in Pittsburgh, anything that could help us through the cold and gloomy winter days was motivating, so I decided we needed to celebrate the day.
For the holidays I'm serving chocolate mini-candy bars at home and giving them as gifts. They're a lot of fun to make. They taste great and look so cool.
A couple days before Christmas, my sister and I were having our annual bitch-in about all the kitchen time we were putting in that week, when Lindsay mentioned she was making a Clementine Cake. I assumed this was something akin to a 
For me there is no bite of chocolate more satisfying than a truffle. Named after their likeness to the rare underground mushrooms, truffles are simply made of chocolate ganache, chocolate melted into hot cream. The ganache is chilled, becoming malleable, and pieces are formed into balls that truly resemble black truffles. Then the truffles are rolled in cocoa, powdered sugar, coconut flakes, or crushed nuts. They're the perfect little chocolate dessert bites, making them ideal for a party, especially one to celebrate New Year's Eve. Enjoy one with a cocktail or a glass of bubbly, and it's the perfect ending to an evening looking toward a new year filled with hope and prosperity.