Lemon and almond cookies The Novice Housewife #recipe #cookies #eggless #christmas

Lemon and almond cookies-3

While holidays are fun, they do bring with them the perfect conditions to increase your waistline. Everybody has the holiday cheer on, so there is drinking and more drinking accompanied by eating and a lot more eating, followed by dessert and some more dessert. The weighing scale is my worst enemy these days.

I think its very clever that new years falls after christmas- first falter by over eating and then make amends by making resolutions to lose the weight you gained during the holiday season. Of course, if you are like me, those kind of resolutions come with an expiry date of a week.

Adding to your calorie intake are these lemon-y eggless cookies that I am sharing with you today. Since a lot of people ask me for eggless cake, cookie recipes I thought I would share this one out while the holiday season still gives you the excuse to bake some in your kitchen. Christmas brings out the cookie monster in all of us and even though I might be a little late in sharing this recipe with you this year, I am a year ahead in sharing the recipe for next year’s christmas round up. So pin it, share it, save it for your next year Christmas baking to-dos.

Of course, you could make them anytime of the year. Or when it is time to break your new year resolution of weight loss, you could bring these bad boys out. Just saying. Don’t blame me if you do though.

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Christmas Red Velvet cupcakes The Novice Housewife #christmas #redvelvet #cupcakes

Its been close to a month since I last posted and am hoping that my absence from the blogosphere has only made you want me more.

And if not, then hopefully these red velvet christmas themed cupcakes kind of make up for my absence. 🙂

Its just that ever since I have been back from India I have been at my lazy best and am “busy” enjoying the break from doing nothing. Of course, the occasional cooking/baking happens (somebody has to feed the husband and well…make cupcakes). I have been instagramming about the above mentioned cooking adventures but haven’t been able to get myself to write a whole blog post about anything.

Until now.

Christmas Red Velvet cupcakes The Novice Housewife #christmas #redvelvet #cupcakes

Christmas Red Velvet cupcakes The Novice Housewife #christmas #redvelvet #cupcakes

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Merry Christmas!

When I was young, every Christmas, one of my mom’s friends, would gift us a loaf of fruitcake. It was the most delicious cake I have ever had. Growing up, I experimented tasting other fruitcakes, but nothing ever came close to that cake and well, the other fruitcakes just put me off fruitcakes altogether. This Christmas I wanted to recreate the same recipe. I tried asking my mom to get the recipe from her friend, but, unfortunately she did not have her number. One thing my mom did know about the recipe, though, was that she would make it at least a month before Christmas, soaking the cake with booze every few days.

So, the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend, I started prep for my version of fruitcake. One thing I was sure that I did not want to use in the cake, was candied fruit. I was so sure about that, that even before searching for an apt recipe, I had already bought dried fruits. So I looked into my cookbooks, but none carried the recipe that made the cut. Then , I turned to my next best friend, google, for the recipe. And I found Alton Brown’s. Now, I loooooove his series Good Eats and the recipe is from one of the episodes of the series that aired this recipe. Besides not including any candied fruits, the recipe also got rave reviews. I did tweak it a bit by including the dried fruits I bought. My list included black figs, calmyrna figs, dried currants, medjool dates, dried cranberries, crystallized ginger, monukka raisins, pitted prunes, sultanas. I used brandy instead of rum as thats what I had on hand. Since, I planned to gift the cakes to a few of my friends, I tripled the recipe.

The dried fruits chopped up and covered in sugar

I have never baked so many cakes together at one time before. And, there was this nagging feeling telling me- this is not a good idea. I did not have a bowl big enough to mix the whole batter. Then the oven wasn’t so big to accommodate all the cakes and having enough space for air circulation. Anyways, I thought to myself, if they are an utter failure- well, I’ll keep them for myself and make a pudding!

Three weeks later, they are all wrapped and ready to be gifted to friends, save for one- the one for us. Now, of course, I don’t remember the taste of the fruitcake I had eons back, but this version has been the best I have eaten since then!

All wrapped up!

Alton Brown likes to have his slice toasted with some mascarpone cheese! Like Alton Brown says, this is Good Eats!

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