![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_0259.jpg\")
<\/a>My family — two daughters and spouses with five grandchildren — gathered at one daughter’s home on Christmas Eve for our celebratory dinner. We normally have a big dinner on Christmas Day, but this time we decided to simply relax all day and enjoy a slower pace. We did, however, all meet at our house for breakfast and to open some gifts on Christmas morning, and that was — as always — a lot of fun. But, to get back to the topic of Christmas Eve dinner, my job was to provide dessert, and I selected what sounded like a delectable cheesecake. However, “delectable” hardly begins to describe the result! I can say that, since it wasn’t my invention; I found the recipe on the King Arthur Flour site, though I did substitute a different method for making the caramel sauce. What kind of cheesecake was it? How does Caramel Pecan Cheesecake<\/a> sound? Oh, I also made the caramel sauce into salted<\/em> caramel sauce, which made it even better!<\/p>\nBack to the spikes on my New York Beauty blocks! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m still making progress — very slow progress — on my current New York Beauty project, but I really don’t have anything “show-off-able” yet. However, I do have a couple of baked items to share. My family — two daughters and spouses with five grandchildren — gathered at one daughter’s home on Christmas Eve for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kitchen","8":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_0259.jpg?fit=256%2C204&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s5yzuO-baking","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2919,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2016\/12\/23\/cassatas\/","url_meta":{"origin":3329,"position":0},"title":"Cassatas","author":"Sandy","date":"December 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"We're lucky that our immediate family all live nearby. Because of that, one of our daughters usually hosts Christmas Eve dinner, I do Christmas breakfast, and the other daughter hosts Christmas dinner. We all contribute to the two dinners, of course, since it's a lot of work for one person.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Cassatas-300x218.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4907,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2022\/12\/21\/a-tale-of-the-most-expensive-christmas-bread\/","url_meta":{"origin":3329,"position":1},"title":"A tale of the most expensive Christmas bread…","author":"Sandy","date":"December 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year I make a special Christmas bread that my family loves. It's basically a riff on stollen that began years ago when we did a Christmas dinner from a different country every year. Since then, the kids have grown up and added our grandchildren to the mix, but we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the kitchen"","block_context":{"text":"In the kitchen","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/kitchen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Zojirushi bread machine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG_0817-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1369,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2012\/12\/03\/holiday-decorations\/","url_meta":{"origin":3329,"position":2},"title":"Holiday decorations","author":"Sandy","date":"December 3, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night a friend and I went to the Las Vegas Strip to catch a performance of \u00d4, a Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellaggio. The trip there was an adventure, since there had been little or no publicity about a marathon occurring yesterday afternoon and evening \u2014 a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christmas\"","block_context":{"text":"Christmas","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/tag\/christmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Bellaggio-Conservatory-at-Christmas-1.jpg?fit=480%2C640&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1478,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2010\/12\/31\/leftovers-and-choices\/","url_meta":{"origin":3329,"position":3},"title":"Leftovers and choices","author":"Sandy","date":"December 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I didn't cook Christmas dinner at home, as we had our family dinner at our daughter's house. So \"leftovers\" here are baked goods. I tried a new-to-me Martha Stewart recipe this year, along with a few of our usual favorites, and it was a hit wherever I took it. There's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the kitchen"","block_context":{"text":"In the kitchen","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/kitchen\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/chocolate-coconut-cheesecake-squares.jpg?fit=640%2C492&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/chocolate-coconut-cheesecake-squares.jpg?fit=640%2C492&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/chocolate-coconut-cheesecake-squares.jpg?fit=640%2C492&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2787,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2016\/08\/18\/slow-progress-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":3329,"position":4},"title":"Slow progress","author":"Sandy","date":"August 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A couple of months ago I posted some embroidered Christmas tree blocks I was making. I've made a little progress since then, but it's been slow. I'd love to blame that on the vacation we took or the work involved in getting new tile laid in the house, but in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Free motion quilting"","block_context":{"text":"Free motion quilting","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/quilting\/free-motion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_1690","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/IMG_1690-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2515,"url":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/2016\/04\/10\/the-light-at-the-end\/","url_meta":{"origin":3329,"position":5},"title":"The light at the end …","author":"Sandy","date":"April 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"...of the tunnel is in sight! I began this quilt, 'Tis the Season, in August, but I've had delays and dry spells galore. However, yesterday I added the corded piping and binding to the completed top, and now I'm doing the hand stitching on the binding. Of course, there's still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Embroidery"","block_context":{"text":"Embroidery","link":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/category\/embroidery\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"IMG_1170","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_1170-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3335,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3329\/revisions\/3335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sandymike.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_0268-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225\")
<\/a>Tonight two of our grandchildren are coming for dinner, so I’ve baked a little something for our dessert. Have you seen a cookbook by Dorie Greenspan called Dorie’s Cookies<\/em><\/a>? I’ve made several of the recipes, and I’ve yet to be disappointed. This time I decided upon Crumb Topped Apple Bars, which Dorie Greenspan describes as coming as close to pie as a cookie possibly can. From tasting a few of the bits that fell off as I cut the bars, I have to agree, and I think my grandsons will be happy. My husband already is. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n