A taste of Christmas

During my daily watching of the Food Network channel, I wanted to make some spiced butter. There are lots of different kinds, but I decided to try a sweet wintery butter. The straight recipe (which I dubbed the Christmas Spice Roll) ended up not being buttery at all. So I tweaked it and tried again. This got me in the cooking mood, and I created a tea cake to go with the butter. I didn't get my bread cooked through, so I cubed it and made a parfait. Long story short, I spent some fun time in the kitchen creating a taste of Christmas. Enjoy!

Christmas Spice Roll
(DO NOT EAT!)

Ingredients
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cups light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
Pinch ground cloves
Pinch salt

Directions
In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Dump onto a pice of cling wrap and shape into a log. Wrap it up and refrigerate it. This will make two recipes of the Spiced Christmas butter.


Spiced Christmas Butter

Ingredients
1/2 stick of butter, softened
1/2 of the Christmas Spice Roll

Cream ingredients together. Dump onto a piece of cling wrap and shape into a log. Wrap it up and refrigerate it. This can be used in place of any butter. Put on a piece of toast or melt for a drizzle over a tea cake.

Christmas Tea Cake

Ingredients
1/4 cup of Christmas spiced butter, softened
1 egg
3/4-1 cup of self-rising flour
flour for kneading

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, place in the oven to preheat it. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and egg. Add flour, 1/4 cup at a time, mixing in between. Continue to add flour until dough is sticky but not wet. Flour the counter and dump dough onto it. Knead in extra flour until dough is no longer sticky. Form into a flat loaf. Place loaf onto the stone and bake until a toothpick pulls out clean, about 15-20 minutes. The finished loaf with be something between a cookie and bread.

Christmas Spiced Parfait

In the bottom of a cup, place cubed pieces of the Christmas tea cake. Then put in a scoop of your favorite ice cream. We used coffee ice cream. Finish with some sort of dessert sauce that will seep into the tea cake pieces. The sauce I made was warm and melted the ice cream some. Top with whipped cream if you choose. (We did not do this.) This was a delicious Christmas tasting dessert. If you don't want to use my sauce recipe, just google dessert sauce recipe.

Rum Dessert Sauce

1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of Christmas spiced butter
1/8 cup of spiced rum

In a small sauce pot, slowly heat water and butter. When the mixture boils, remove from heat and stir in the rum. Serve warm, or store for later use.