Holiday Baking 2011

A quick rehash of this season's holiday cooking: because I've been a negligent blogger.

My last Thanksgiving treat - leftover cranberry sauce bread. I view such recipes as a reason to make extra cranberry sauce, not get rid of it!

I also made the standards: cinnamon rolls, pecan pie...

apple pie...
and pumpkin pie, not pictured this time around.

My main Christmas baking this December was gingerbread men. Lots of gingerbread men:

But for the holiday dinner, I made up a three layer cake from this recipe - a caramelized apple spice cake with brown sugar swiss meringue buttercream:

The finished dessert (and yes, that is a pie in the background as well)!

Happy Valentine's Day!

It may be a little cheesy, but hearts and valentine's day do go together, so I made up this recipe to celebrate:
Tempted as I was to use a blueberry jam filling, I stuck with the raspberry jam so that I wouldn't be presenting friends with black hearts.

These cookies are not very interesting until they get shaped, but here is the butter, sugar, peanut butter and eggs, all creamed together:

The dough, rolled into balls and flattened:

And with preliminary heart indentations:

And the finished cookies, after baking, filling and baking again.

Raisin Challah

I enjoy holidays associated with food, and well, when a holiday is associated with a bread, I am certain to make some:
Last week was Rosh Hashanah, and a common item on the table is a raisin challah, made in a round loaf.


I used this recipe from King Arthur Flour, with a little honey and a lot of delicious golden raisins. Here is the dough, freshly mixed and a bit shaggy:

I kneaded the dough a bit although the recipe did not call for it. My dough seemed to need it:

After a rise and a bit of deflation, I started kneading in the raisins:

And eventually managed to col the dough into a spiral in my pan:

And here it is, risen, just before heading into the oven:

Stollen

One last holiday recipe - Stollen, from a recipe published in the New York Times in December. I had never made this traditional bread and wanted to bring an extra treat to my family gathering.

I started with a lot of spice:

fruit soaked in rum:

And a started that had been rising since the night before:

The finished dough:

rising and loaf shaped, finally, before baking:

and after, coated in ginger-sugar after a soaking with melted butter:

Days later, powdered sugar-coated and ready to give:

Superbowl: The Savories

It's the day after the Superbowl and my food coma hasn't gone away:
Our fantastic host made an array of delicious dips, recipes here. Pictured: beet, chickpea and almond dip, caramelized shallot and blue cheese dip, and in the back, white bean dip. Don't forget the homemade guacamole, or the spinach and avocado dip heating in the oven.

Superbowl Sweets

It's Superbowl Sunday. Time for some treats:
Pecan Bars

Chocolate Sugar Cookies (note: I made these normal cookie sized, rather than huge as directed in the recipe)

And cupcakes!

(made with greenish frosting, yes, but I failed at making proper grass)

The Cookie Project: December 2009

I made a LOT of Christmas Cookies this year:
The table above has about a thousand cookies, of a dozen varieties.

I started a week before I was planning on baking, by mixing up cookies and wrapping the dough in plastic to be stored in the fridge:
For cookies I hadn't made before, I wrapped them with the recipe.

For simpler cookies, I made a note of the cookie type, and how they needed to be baked:

Here's a video of the process when it was finally underway:


It took two days of baking, but cookies were shipped far and wide, and brought to many friends locally.

When Christmas got bit closer, I pulled the remaining cookies out of my fridge and added a few varieties that my family always makes, including Rugelach!

And a classic sugar cookies - Sand Tarts, from my grandmother's recipe:

On Christmas morning, I also made cinnamon rolls. Here they are, ready to be flipped out of the pan:

To really celebrate December, I also made time to make latkes. It was my first attempt, but fried potato tends to be well received...especially when you add a little sour cream and applesauce!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I don't take any responsibility for the bird...
But I do make a few things for the Thanksgiving table every year. A quick roundup of the holiday weekend!

For the turkey, a bacon and bourbon flavored onion jam, from this treasure trove of recipes, and a cranberry and dried cherry sauce:

Cinnamon rolls from my grandmother's recipe (instead of dinner rolls. just think of them as pre-buttered!):

And an Alsatian apple tart, a pecan-coffee tart and pumpkin pie from the best recipe I've found online:

I'll be eating plenty of leftovers this week.

Bread I Like: Spudnuts Doughnuts in Los Angeles

Happy National Doughnut Day!

If you're in the Los Angeles area, I will encourage you to visit my favorite doughnut shop - Spudnuts!
Spudnuts in conveniently (maybe too conveniently) located near where I stay in Los Angeles, and I stopped in one day a few months back to try their famous doughnuts, made with potato. 

Now I stop in to buy a box full whenever I can find an excuse to bring doughnuts anywhere:
And the fine lady above seems to always slip in a few extras!

The doughnuts to the left of the chocolate frosted are the signature potato doughnuts, but as you can see, there is immense variety and tastiness available:
Where will you get your doughnut(s) today?