SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 17, 2008

The recipe: Zimtsterne

Cinnamon stars are a tricky recipe (the dough is sticky and hard to roll), but worth every effort. Light and spicy and nutty — they are dairy- and gluten-free.

The surprise: Virtual snowman

Even without a white Christmas, you can still build a snowman. And you won't get cold and wet, but can still enjoy some hot cocoa.

SusieJ and the two ovens

The year I got married, I decided I would limit my baking to only the important items: Springerle and Stollen. The weekend before our wedding, I formed the cookies and made the bread dough. When the bread was ready for the oven, the oven wasn't ready for the bread; the oven was stone cold. We didn't smell gas -- the pilot was on -- but nothing could make that oven heat up.

Fine. We had a party that night, and I put the bread in the fridge to slow the rising to nearly nothing, and I would find a way to bake it the next day.

Our neighbors kindly gave us a key to their apartment so that I could bake in their oven while they were out for the afternoon. They forgot to mention is that their oven ran 50 to 75 degrees hot.

I found it ran hot when the bottom pan of Stollen burned. We smelled it before we got to the fire stage (sorry, no fire story today), but the bottom three loaves were black on the bottom; the top three were ok. We ate the blackened three ourselves, cutting off the charred crust.

Now we'd learned we had to keep an eye on the oven, and had turned down the heat (but only about 25 degrees). I popped the Springerle in and set my timer for five minutes less than usual.

The bottom pan still burned.

What surprises have you had?