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We’ve been looking forward to this all year: our annual visit to Macy’s to see Santa Claus. I’ve been bringing my kids to Macy’s since Lauren was 11 months old, making it 6 years running. And although there are plenty of options to see Santa in New York, you can’t beat this production. It’s over the top, from the life-sized toy trains, to the Nutcracker dancing bears. So each year, we brave the crowds and head up to 34th Street to experience a little Christmas miracle of our own.

Sam was pensive before our visit.

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ME: What’s up?

SAM: Are we going to Santa’s office?

ME: Yes.

SAM: Is Santa mad at me?

ME: Why are you asking that?

SAM: Because you were mad at me yesterday.

ME: Why did I get mad at you?

SAM: Because I was sitting on Emma.

ME: Santa probably wouldn’t like that. But I don’t think he’s going to be mad at you. What are you going to ask Santa for?

SAM: Transformers.

ME: What else?

SAM: Um, uh, Flashlight Friends?

ME: Is there anything else? I think you had a list, right? Here it is. You listed Transformers, Optimus Prime, Autobot, a Helmet, Thundercracker, Flashlight Friend, and a penguin.

SAM: And chocolate.

ME: Perfect, what do you think he’s going to say?

SAM: Um, I’m mad at you?

After promising that Santa wouldn’t be mad at him, we had a quick lunch at home. Midway through lunch Sam panicked that he’d forgotten to add Pete The Cat to his list. So he found higher ground and yelled to Santa that he also wanted “Pete the Cat Saves Christmas.”

I reminded him that we were heading up to Santa’s office shortly and that he could pass on the message in person.

So we bundled up and hit the road.

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Royalicing_5ways_feedmedearly

If you’ve been following my blog for some time, you’ll know that I’m not the world’s enthusiastic baker. While I can put together some decent final product, I don’t love the process – the smell of raw flour, butter, eggs and sugar; the precision; things like oven hot spots, candy thermometers, and measuring spoons. Give me a cast iron pot and a hunk of beef any day of the week and I’ll be in a much more pleasant mood.

But when December rolls around, it’s hard not to get caught up in all of the baking frenzy. So every year I put down my guard, pick up my sifter, and jump on the baking bandwagon. Here’s my problem though: after a week or two I’m winded. Too much sugar, too much measuring. I can only do so much.

That being said, my kids are starting to think that I’m a one-woman bakery who opens a pop up shop for the holidays. I set the precedent one year, and once you go big, it’s tough to go home. There were cookies for Santa, birthday cakes and cupcakes, peppermint bark; there might have even been a fruitcake.

So I had to figure out a solution to get through it all. A method to keep the volume high, but my sanity in check. And one year, in a gingerbread-making class, I stumbled on the solution.

Drumroll please…..It’s called Royal icing.

OK, not such a big surprise since you saw it in the title.

Did I disappoint you? I hope not. And if I did, it’s either because you’re frightened to death of using it, or because you’re a Royal icing black belt and were hoping for something a little more innovative. This might be a good time for me to remind you that me baking innovation. If you’re looking for that, I highly suggest you check out Joy the Baker or Naomi at Bakers Royale.

But jaded baker, I do have some fun uses for Royal icing, so you might as well stick around for this one post while you’re here. And for the rest of you who want some ideas on how to use it, read on. We’re getting down and dirty with Royal icing today, so roll up your sleeves. And by the way, it’s all kid-friendly so that you can actually get a hand with this stuff.

Royal icing always seemed a little scary to me. It was in a class of substances, along with fondant, which seemed like too much work, the domain of wedding cake designers and holiday cookie artisans.

But then I started to use it. And I realized that you can be really stuffy about how you apply Royal icing, or you can say to hell with it, and start splashing it around on just about anything. It can be died different colors, spread thick or thin, used to make delicate little lines, or giant wobbly ones.

You can use it to glue all kinds of fun candies and treats to your baked goods – always a hit with the kids: attach tiny colorful sprinkles, jelly beans, Lifesavers, even Hershey’s kisses. Nothing is too big – Royal icing is like cement when it dries. I might even use it to hang wall art.

Is it as edible as buttercream? Not even close, but here is why Royal icing is so much better to have on hand for the holidays:

You can make it in advance. As in waaaay in advance. Weeks. Probably months, although I’ve never gone that long. Just mix up a big batch of the stuff early in December, tie it off into separate piping bags, and you are all set for all kinds of adventures.

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And the great thing about Royal icing is that it’s easy for the kids to use. Buttercream can be a bit finicky and messy. They’ll have so much more control with Royal icing. They can use it straight from the piping bags if you show them how to hold and squeeze. Or you can pipe some of it into a bowl, thin it out with a little water, and use it like a glaze.

And last, but not least, your baked goods will keep at room temp, no fridge needed. They’ll be easy to transport and gift. Given how easy it is to mix a batch of this stuff (just add water), and how well it keeps, you’d be crazy to not keep it on your counter, ready to go throughout the holidays. (Just don’t put it into the fridge where it will harden into something that will cut diamond).

Want to see what we’ve been up to for the past month with our stash of Royal icing? Here are 5 fun things to do with your kids:

1. The traditional gingerbread house…

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I’m shocked that bean sprouts went over so well this week. I bought them on impulse when a trip to Whole Foods yielded nothing out of the ordinary for our 52-week challenge. Hard to believe, but we’re 40 weeks into our challenge. Meaning 40 new fruits and vegetables under our belts, making it slim pickings when I head to the grocery store. But bean sprouts were new, and as much as their bland color and flavor doesn’t appeal to me, the kids shared a different opinion. They were hands down the most well-received vegetable in our challenge to date.

ME: What are these?

LAUREN: Onions?

EMMA: A kind of turkey.

ME: Yeah it kind of does look like the turkey gobbler.

ME: What does it smell like?

LAUREN: Emma ate all of hers.

EMMA: More.

LAUREN: More for me too.

ME: Slow down guys, you’re not supposed to eat it yet.

ME: It kind of smells like water to me. What about you Lauren?

LAUREN: I didn’t smell it yet. Wait, what are these mommy? I want more.

ME: Wow, you guys are fighting over them. You can each have your own bowls, I have a huge bag of them.

ME: These are called bean sprouts.

LAUREN: Oooh, I love bean sprouts!

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bridge

Is it ever the holidays without a fun holiday party? I think not, which is why I was so excited this weekend to head up to the lake for our neighbor’s annual party.

And nothing says “road trip” like crossing the GW bridge. Look at us, happy, energized.

Our car rides are predictable. Sam always passes out immediately.

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And Jackson keeps us on our toes, threatening to vomit. Look at that inverted tail, it was brewing. We’re lucky that Lauren keeps us informed with detailed status updates.

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Up at the lake, Lauren and Rodney decided that fishing in sub-zero weather is a perfectly reasonable winter activity.

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Minutes later, they were back inside, eager to warm up. I grabbed emergency supplies: a wool blanket for Lauren, and this for Rodney:

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Thanksgiving is over. Time to stop talking about it, it’s done, let’s all regroup on this topic next year. (That was primarily a note to myself, goodbyes are hard.)

But seriously, it’s time to shelve all of the Thanksgiving talk because truly, we’re deep into the holidays at this point. We need to shift gears. We need to talk about things like snowflake cookies and Yule logs.

Unfortunately, right now I have limited pictures of our holiday food to share with you. Why? Because last year at this time I didn’t have the faintest clue that I’d one day write a blog. But here I am, fessing up, and facing a bit of an emergency: I have to tell you about our Christmas Ham and have no pictures of the end product.

I hope you can forgive me. I’m only a team of one. I’m not Bon Appetit magazine with a staff of recipe testers who start buying, cooking, and photographing holiday hams in June. If I bought a Ham right now for picture purposes, we’d be eating ham leftovers for weeks. Come Christmas I’d be so over ham. And what a horrible tragedy that would be.

But thank heavens for ham steaks, which are available at Whole Foods. Perfect when you’re in a ham pinch but you don’t want to buy the full beast. And it’s just enough meat to showcase the best part of our ham dinner, the king of condiments: mustard.

We haven’t always been Christmas ham devotees. In fact I cooked my first just a few short years ago. In the past we used to serve turkey, a family tradition.

But that was in Canada, where Thanksgiving and Christmas are separated by months, not weeks. In the US, I’m just getting through my freezer stash of turkey leftovers when it’s time for another bird. Too much, too soon. I apologize turkey lovers, apparently I’m showing my true stripes and it’s not impressive. But really, I can only do so much turkey.

So I put my foot down one year. I shook things up. I cooked a capon.

Which is about as different from a turkey as a strip steak is from a T-bone.

But the capon was a foot in the right direction. Old traditions die hard, and this was a tough one to move past.

The following year, emboldened, I thought I’d take an even bigger step. Go for something a little more Dickensian. A goose? Perhaps. But after floating the idea around the family, there was some resistance. Goose didn’t seem appealing to the majority of those polled.

We needed something mainstream, and so we picked ham. Hallelujah, a new tradition was born.

It just so happens that we were having a bunch of friends and family to the lake to celebrate Christmas dinner that year and I wanted an easy dinner. I was wiped out after three straight weeks of ordering, unboxing, sorting, wrapping, labeling, hiding the mountain of gifts that would end up under our tree. While not a spoiler during the other 11 months of the year, I fall hard for the holidays.

So I planned ahead for dinner: I bought a big smoked ham from my butcher Mike, got a bunch of rolls and different kinds of bread from Amy’s in Chelsea Market. (And hey! I was able to dig up some photographic evidence):

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And best of all, I stocked up on all kinds of mustards – spicy, sweet, and whole grain. When you’re taking the easy road with dinner, you have to impress with something, and pretentious mustard fits the bill. (By the way, here’s what I’m serving with our dinner this year):

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