St. Lucia's Crown

I first made this sweet bread for 4-H when I was like 13.  Pretty daunting task, didn't turn out awesome.  I think I still got a red ribbon though.  Then last year my cousin's decided it was high time us Swedes had a day all our own. 

 I thought it was a great idea, and I dug out my recipe for St. Lucia's Crown.

It turned out slightly better than the first effort.

 

This year I found a new recipe.  It was much yummier!  It called for orange zest and juice instead of almond.  I love Orange Cranberry and I happened to have a bag of Crasins in the pantry so we had and Orange Cranberry St. Lucia's Crown!

 

This is the original recipe

 I changed the process as I use a Bosch mixer, and like many yeast bread recipes, this one is written for hand mixing.

 

This is what I did:

• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar (pretty sure I just did 1/3cup)
• 6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup orange juice (I added more cause I really like orange).
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Pour 1 1/2 cups into a 2 cup glass measuring cup or a pint jar (or larger).
• Drop in 6 Tablespoons of butter
• Microwave until butter melts (took mine about 90 seconds).
• Measure the sugar into the mixing bowl.
• Pour hot milk & butter into the sugar and whisk while it dissolves the sugar and cools the milk a bit.
• Sprinkle yeast over the milk mixture.  Let proof (or get bubbly) about 5 minutes.
• While proofing: whisk 2 eggs in now cooled milk heating container, add orange juice and zest. 
• Start mixing milk mixture, add egg mixture while mixer is running.
• Sift in the flour & salt.
• Knead till gluten develops, add Craisins (if desired about a minute before kneading is done).
• Let rise till doubled.  Warmer rooms speed this process.
• Punch down.  Divide into 3 equal sections.  Roll each section into a rope 30-36" long.
• Braid the 3 sections together.
• Leave the ends unbraided so when you turn it into a circle you can braid and connect them.
• Let Rise another 30-45 minutes, then bake till golden in a 350* oven, about 20 minutes.

 

I obviously didn't do the best job intertwining the ends.

but it still turns out pretty and tasted yummy.

 

Pour this glaze over the top:
1/3 cup butter mixed with 2 cups powdered sugar
(it's super thick and hard to stir, but mix it together over medium heat)
Thin with Orange Juice, about 1/4 cup

Decorate however you desire.
Tradition calls for candles, but since we like the bread fresh from the oven they usually melt a bit, but its easy to pick out.

St. Lucia's Day is usually celebrated on December 13th but we celebrate it as a part of our family's Swede Day (which is held in April, a month with few celebrations as opposed to the packed month of December).  Custom states that the eldest daughter dresses in all white and wears a crown of lights on her head and serves the sweet bread to her family.  #1 thought this was silly, but I think she felt pretty special.

 

As a note of interest we ate Swedish Meatballs for dinner.  This recipe was SO DELICIOUS!

The Tree of Life

Today we had Sunday afternoon art.  I have been looking forward to doing this project with the kids for several weeks now, and we finally got around to doing it.  It was lots of fun.  Baby slept for a good chunk of time so I got to paint as well.

This is the painting we were copying interpreting.  

Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt

I showed it to the kids, there are plenty of examples of this and other interpretations produced by a simple image search. 
We started with dark backgrounds and used metallic paints.  We accented with glossy paints and metallic markers.  We spent a few hours on them.  Mine took about 3 hours of relaxed painting, while the kids took 1 1/2 -2 hours.  I was really impressed with how hard and diligently they worked.  Even toddler got in on the action...That made it a bit more stressful as he thinks flinging paint on sissy's project is a good idea.  In the end this is what we came up with.

DS6 - he wrote everyone's names, so I edited them out.

DS2

mine



DD10 project 1

DD10 project 2

DD8

#whatdoethesethingsdo

Hashtags are popping up everywhere.  They drove me nuts till I realized how they worked. 

On Twitter & Instagram a hashtag signals where to assign that tweet or picture, like file folders in Picasa.

All pictures and tweets of baby would include #tinylove and possibly others depending on what he is doing.  If he rolls for the first time the tweet would also include #milestones.

If my hubby tweeted I would add @hubby so he would also get the picture on his account.

From what I have figured out they don't do anything on Facebook, but I have heard they are thinking of changing that. 
I think people use them on Fb because they are just so much fun and are a concise way of recording events and thoughts.

How to do it?

#correct

#correct #thisishowitsdone

#not correct

#also #not #correct

#Giveitatry  #youmightlikeit  #notusingspellcheckonthispost