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Browsing Tag: holiday
Last year I baked a Simple Stollen for Christmas. This year, I just had to try my hand at baking a traditional Italian Christmas bread – panettone. This delicious fruit studded sweet bread is perfect for Christmas morning with coffee or tea (or whatever you prefer). Researching this bread was a bit of work as there are so many different recipes with so many differing steps, but I finally settled on using the King Arthur Flour Overnight Panettone recipe. Of course, I made a few minor changes. First, I used different dried fruits – golden raisins, zante currants, cranberries, and pineapple. Second, I did soak the dried fruits overnight but did not include the soaking liquid in the dough per their suggestion. Third, I used candied peel instead…
Today’s cookie just screams Christmas to me. These delightful powdered sugar coated or glazed spicy gems are fun to bake and perfect for sharing with family and friends. Pfeffernüsse are a Dutch/German/Danish treat typically associated with the St. Nicholas celebration of bringing gifts to children on December 5th/6th. As you can imagine, St. Nicholas or Sinterklaas is partially the basis for Santa Claus and the association of this cookie with Christmas. With a plethora of spices, including black and white pepper, it is believed this cookie also demonstrated the wealth of the household that could bake celebratory desserts with such luxuries. Thankfully, we have easy access to these spices and they are generally quite affordable. That means we can all enjoy this…
I enjoyed Christmas dinner with my brother Roger, a wizard in the kitchen himself. We decided on rib eye steak, duchess potatoes, and asparagus with Gruyere wrapped in prosciutto as our menu. I opted to cook the steaks and potatoes sous vide style, a method he had not used before. To say he was converted would be an understatement. The steaks were cooked at 122.5 degrees for 90 minutes then seared in a screaming hot cast iron skillet and finished with a pat of butter. The potatoes were cooked sous vide at 195 degrees for 90 minutes, hand mashed and mixed with sour cream and shredded Gruyere cheese, then baked in buttered ramekins. The asparagus was easy with a quick blanch in the 195 degree water bath…
For many years on Christmas morning I have enjoyed eggs benedict for breakfast. Of course, I enjoy drinking a mimosa or two with said breakfast. There is something so satisfying to this dish – crunchy toasted English muffins, salty slightly sweet Canadian bacon, and silky poached eggs draped in a velvety lemony hollandaise sauce spiked with a light dusting of paprika. This time I tried a new technique for poaching the eggs (i.e. I used my Anova immersion circulator to cook the eggs sous-vide) and to be honest, I need a bit more practice with this technique to cook the eggs exactly the way I like them. But I will share with you the pictures of the results. I think you will find them appetizing and…
Today’s cocktail recipe is perfect for an old fashioned Christmas party… like a party attended by the Founding Fathers! I received this recipe from Cook’s Science and of course I tweaked the recipe by substituting hard to find ingredients to easier sourced ones while twisting the flavor profile slightly. I am sure the title has you intensely curious (as well as slightly grossed out at the thought of a ‘milk punch’ cocktail), but trust me please. The use of milk in this ‘punch’ is to clarify the cocktail to an incredibly clear light pink hue. The flavor of this cocktail is sublime – just sweet enough, slightly spiced with a hint of citrus from the tea, ‘punch’…
Another Friday night, another cocktail – albeit a little later than I had hoped. Tonight let us get into the holiday spirit and what better way than to relax with a nice glass of egg nog. But wait, isn’t this a cocktail post? Why yes, yes it is… so I am boosting the basic egg nog with brandy, creme de cacao, and cranberry bitters. To keep the cocktail smooth like egg nog and not watered down, I will add a little bit of heavy cream (ok, who’s counting calories during the holidays… not me!). Time to mix and start making merry, Christmas is only a week away! Save Print Nog Alexander Prep time: 5 mins Total time: 5 mins Serves…
We all have told, seen or heard jokes targeting the much maligned fruitcake. Which is really a shame, because the brick/lead weight/anvil connotation is probably not fairly earned if we base it on the plethora of European ‘fruit cakes’. These fruit cakes include Italy’s panettone and Germany’s stollen which are light and flavorful with sweetness from fruits and citrus. I consider both wonderful treats during the holidays and today I want to share with you a quick and easy (read ‘non-yeast’) recipe for stollen. This recipe is based on one I found on the King Arthur Flour website – which of course, as usual, I modified. So, preheat the oven to 325 degrees because this dough comes…
Here is my latest experiment – a poppy seed roll! This post is just a picture post… please enjoy the results visually while I enjoy them by sampling! Save Save…
Today’s experiment was with cookies. No, not the annoying web cookies stored in your browser, but that holiday treat everyone enjoys – at least everyone I know. I based this recipe on a Lebkuchen recipe, making some slight adjustments. The cookie it produces is a flavor bomb – honey, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, almonds, ginger, vanilla and rum. That’s right, I wrote ‘rum’. I made a simple rum glaze for these warm spiced treats and these cookies could be called chewable Hot Buttered Rum! So preheat that oven, we have family and friends needing these delights! Save Print Spice Cookies Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 25 mins Serves: 60 Ingredients 1½ cups…
How about another cookie recipe to help you bring holiday cheer to your friends and family? As a child, I remember my mom making a honey cookie that required a month of rest, but the recipe was lost long ago. So I spent some time searching and found a recipe close to what I remembered my mom making (but doesn’t require the month long slumber!) so today I am giving it a try (with my usual adjustments!) and sharing the results with you. Save Print German Honey Cookies Prep time: 1 hour Cook time: 15 mins Total time: 1 hour 15 mins Serves: 36 Ingredients ¾ cups honey ¼ cup white sugar ½ cup (1 stick) butter 1 egg 2 cups…