It's that lovely time of the season and can't believe how fast time has flew by. Christmas is around the corner again. Preparation of all my dried fruits are chopped and soaked for the holidays baking last week for Crust and Crumb Academy - future bake-alongs. It was a lot of chopping, but oh, so worth it. The smell was absolutely amazing with all the liquor. I know a lot of people frown when it comes to the Christmas cakes. The stores are dry like cardboard and if lucky to have a little liquor in it or not at all. It just does not do justice to it at all. We are marinating our fruits with the liquor and will be adding more after they are baked each week. This ensures more moisture and flavor added to that wonderful fruit cake. I am baking all 3 and planning to give them away as Christmas presents. 🎄 🎁 A lot of my Jamaican friends have already put an order for it. I will cut and share pieces with them all. I will be sharing freely and gift it to them all. Looking forward to all these wonderful bakes. 🎄 🎂 Feel free to comment, if you are a lover of fruit cake or not?🎄🥮

Wishing you all the very best for your surgery, Mary. We hope everything goes smoothly and that your recovery is gentle, comfortable and speedy. You’ve created such a supportive community for everyone else, so today it’s our turn to send some of that support back to you. 😊 Lots of love, positive vibes and healing thoughts coming your way. We’ll all be cheering you on. 💐💛

Hi Everyone, I wanted to let you know I’m going to be unavailable this week. When leaving my daughters after a lovely day, I add a little accident. I’m currently in a hospital waiting for a verdict from the ortho surgeon. Turns out I broke not one but two ankles. Sigh. I’ll find out later today when surgery will happen. My ask, can you each post a fresh post for the next few days. Could be a holiday tradition, a favorite game, or something you discovered in the classroom. Prayers, positive vibes, or a good joke gratefully welcomed.

You know that moment when you open the oven and there's somehow flour on the ceiling? Yeah, I'm talking about those moments. Cooking alongside kids is rarely Pinterest-worthy, and honestly, that's exactly what makes it beautiful. There's something irreplaceable about the controlled chaos of a kitchen where small hands are involved, the ingredient measurements that become creative interpretations, the "helpful" taste-testing that happens three minutes in, the discovery that chocolate chips are apparently edible at every stage of the process. The burnt edges, the flour explosions, the time someone thought "extra vanilla" meant the whole bottle, these aren't kitchen fails. They're the real stuff of family cooking. They're the moments that stick with people. Kids learn confidence, mess-making becomes memory-making, and you end up with stories that'll make everyone laugh for years. So here's what I'd like to know: What's your favorite beautiful disaster from the kitchen? The recipe that went sideways but tasted great anyway? The baking adventure that created more memories than edible results? Share your imperfect moment, I'd love to hear it, and I promise yours won't be the messiest one here. I'm still looking for the flour war photo between my kids - if I find it, I will share.

Mary, could you give us "one prompt that everyone must use exactly as written, without changing anything," to generate an AI image? I’d love to see how different AI tools interpret the very same prompt. To join in: 1. Post the image you generated. 2. Tell us which AI tool you used. Same prompt. Different tools. Different results. I think this could be really interesting. 😁