White (Day After) Christmas

What’s the definition of holiday?  For me it’s doing absolutely nothing, but doing “nothing” is something I’m not very good at.  Endless stretches of time with no planned activities seem foreign and somehow scary.  It’s as if my existence has been defined by moving from one task to the next, and when the lists have been completely checked off, well, it’s downright strange.  But I’m going to take this moment of downtime to have a cup of coffee and watch the first real snow come down outside the kitchen window.  The cardinals are eating seed and breadcrumbs on the back porch, and the steamed pudding is simmering away on the stovetop; the house starting to smell like Chinese Five Spice powder and nutmeg.  Another Christmas has gone.  We did it!  We made it through another one!

I often wonder how it is things became so hectic during the month of December.  I suppose it’s the growing number of connections we make in our life, and this is the one moment of the year when it’s safe to recognize them in the form of cards and gifts.  My favorite gifts are obviously the baked kind, and I have spent no small amount of time in the kitchen this past week getting all the goodies made, packaged and tied with pretty ribbons.  It would be easier if the baking could be spread out a bit instead of trying to make everything Christmas week, but freshness is key when it comes to many cookies and cakes.  The other key is to make any freezable dough in advance and then tackle one cookie (or other baked treat) every evening.

This year I wanted to make many of the same cookies from years past because of their success and the tradition now being paired with baking them.  I’ve started to get a few requests here and there, and honoring them is very important.  Finding a favorite cookie my friends like and baking them with a little sugar, spice and love is my definition of a fantastic gift. Some people like gingerbread and some Mexican Wedding Cakes (cookies) and others always seem to fall for the sweet and savory combination of the Rosemary Butter Cookies. 

As many of you bakers out there know it can get a little boring making the same old cookies year after year…especially those of you with an experimental side.  It can be a little intimidating to start messing with quantities of recipe ingredients, proportions and flavor changes in an effort to “change things up”, it can also lead to a different kind of cookie altogether (which isn’t necessarily bad), but as I discovered this year the presentation of the same old cookie can really make a difference in taking the repetition out of the holiday bake-a-thon.  Change a few cookie cutters, change out the packaging and you have a recipe for a new and brilliant spin on holiday dessert gifts.

My focus this year was on both cookies and breads.  I started off the week before Christmas by tackling a Panettone recipe.  For some reason this was one of those breads that lived in my head as horribly intimidating.  I’ve seen it made on television multiple times and always remember it being a lengthy process, but I’m here to dispel that myth.  It didn’t take any longer than any other bread recipe.  Maybe I was afraid of the yeast, though I’ve worked hard to walk through that fear and come out on the other side.  Maybe I was afraid of the candied fruit and worried it might be received as just some other old fruitcake…who knows?  What I found out for sure is that people love this bread, and it’s simple enough to make multiples to give out as gifts.  If you’ve spent many a night making, baking and decorating cookies you know that the simplicity of baking a loaf of bread is nothing in comparison to the multiple steps involved in cookie baking.  With a few paper panettone molds, some cellophane and a grosgrain ribbon, people may wonder whether you bought these at a local bakery down the street.

Panettone, I discovered, are essentially large loaves of brioche studded with candied orange peel, bittersweet chocolate, and some crunchy almonds and sanding sugar on top.  You make the batter like any other yeast bread and let it proof.  After an hour or so it has doubled in volume.  The dough goes in the fridge overnight and the next day it’s just a matter of portioning the dough into the panettone molds, letting them come to room temperature, rise and then bake!  Once they are done, you hang them upside down via wooden skewers run through the bottom of the loaves, suspending them between a couple of old paint cans (or coffee cans) to keep them light and airy.  People who don’t like either panettone or fruitcake told me how much they enjoyed this bread.  If that isn’t a Christmas miracle, then I don’t know what is.

After the success of the breads it was time to move onto the cookies.  I often do sugar cookies as holiday gifts, but after the cookie competition a few weeks ago I didn’t think I could look at another sugar cookie for a while.  Instead I decided to move Mexican Wedding Cakes into their slot.  My friend Randall loves these cookies.  She requested them both last and this year, so I could hardly say no, and these cookies are very easy to make as well.   I posted this recipe last year in the December section of the blog, but I’ll repost it here since Martha still doesn’t have the recipe online…unless you have her new cookie app for the iPad (which I highly recommend getting…it’s beautiful and very functional):

“Turning once more to Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook, I quickly made up a batch to take to dinner.  I looked on Martha’s website for this exact recipe but was unable to find it.  I will reprint it for you here in case you take a notion to make these airy, nutty cookies:

Mexican Wedding Cakes

1 cup pecan halves

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4-teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1-teaspoon pure almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Combine nuts and 1/4 cup of the confectioner’s sugar in a food processor.  Finely grind.  Combine this mixture with the flour and salt; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer (with paddle attachment) beat together butter and 3/4 cup of confectioner’s sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.  Make sure to scrape down the bowl periodically; then add in both extracts and finally the flour nut mixture (on low so you don’t get flour everywhere).  Mix until the dough just comes together.  You know how I feel about over-mixing.

Roll the dough into 3/4-inch balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets…you can get about 15 cookies per sheet, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.  The tops will still be pale, but the underside will be golden.  After they cool, roll them in the remaining cup of confectioner’s sugar.  It’s that easy.”

These cookies keep for the least amount of time, so I suggest getting them into airtight containers as soon as they are cool.  After a few days they become a little crisp and biscuit-like…not necessarily bad, but not the light and delicate texture they possess when they are fresh.

My plan had been to get the Mexican Wedding Cakes made as well as the dough for both the Rosemary Butter Cookies and the Gingerbread so I could bake them off on weeknight evenings, but AMC was having a old movie marathon of some of my favorites such as the 70’s version of A Christmas Carol affectionately known as Scrooge, starring Albert Finney and Alec Guinness.  It’s a musical version and the one I remember watching over and over as a kid.  Scrooge got me through the first round of baking and dough making then another favorite came on: my beloved Auntie Mame.  Every young man I know always wanted an Auntie Mame, and every time Rosalind Russell comes on screen and transforms her nephew Patrick’s life into a world full of frivolity and colorful scenarios I have to stop and watch (and get a little teary eyed).  I figured while I watched television I might as well start baking the rosemary cookies and have them finished up as well.

The Rosemary Butter Cookies are a perennial favorite because of their sweet and saltiness paired with the wintry and what I dub “Christmas tree-like” flavor.  They are great on a dessert buffet, they are great with a cup of coffee or tea in the afternoon, they are a versatile and lovely cookie and so simple to make.  It’s only a matter of mixing up the dough and rolling it into a couple of “logs” that get wrapped in parchment and placed in the freezer for about an hour until firm.

Once you pull them out and unwrap them, the only thing left to do is brush with an egg wash and roll in sanding sugar.  Slice to a quarter of an inch thick and bake for about 12 minutes at 375 degrees until golden.  Again, it’s good to get these into an airtight container as soon as they are cooled and leave them there until you are ready to package for Christmas.  In contrast to the Mexican Wedding Cakes, these get a little better over time in my opinion and will keep for a good 4 to five days without much trouble.

After Auntie Mame saved Patrick from making a horrible mistake and marrying a conservative snoot of a girl it was time for the Gingerbread cookies.  Every year I make snowflake shaped gingerbread with royal icing.  They are very pretty and a nice shape to do some simple piping work: a graphic look with some lovely dragees, clean and simple.  But I also wanted to try and stretch myself a bit.  On one of my many runs to Sur la table over the season I found a beautiful copper cookie cutter of a chubby gingerbread man.  As I have mentioned in the past, I don’t usually get into the flooding and decorating techniques called for on many cookies because of the time it can take, but I was feeling in a very spirited and creative mood this year so I went for it…and I found some pre-packaged colored frostings in containers with piping caps.

Royal icing is basically water and confectioner’s sugar and some cream of tartar.  I figured buying the pre-made version of these wouldn’t be such a bad thing because it’s hard to “mess up” so few ingredients…and I was right.  I found the icings also at Sur la table made buy the same company, Wilton, making the small holiday cutters I used on the sugar cookies a couple of weeks ago.  All you have to do is heat the icing in the microwave for a few seconds and begin piping.

The gingerbread men were very cute and slightly deranged when complete.  I don’t know about you, but when you add eyes to a humanoid shaped cookie, it starts to take on a strange and otherworldly characteristic (or maybe I’ve watched too many movies about inanimate objects coming to life).  These little guys became either cute or creepy based on the placement of the eyes as well as the painted shape of the mouths.  I used gold luster dust to create the mottling on the bodies as well as their expressive lips frozen in joyous, stern or crazed expressions.  I loved them!!  I was inspired to do a little Tim Burton lighting effect with an old strand of holiday lights shot on a black background.  I ended up having a lot of fun with these guys and I think you will too.

Pardon me for a moment…it's time to check on the steamed pudding once more.  I'm updating the cooking  method used in my cousin’s great-grandmother's recipe, I’m steaming it in a large soup pot on the stove instead of in an old kettle placed on a stone in the middle of a roaring fire…the recipe is quite old.  It’s important to maintain a certain amount of liquid in the pot; it should come halfway up the side of the mold during the 3 hours of steaming time.  I find it handy to keep a teakettle on another burner and periodically bring water to a boil and pour it into the pot to maintain the water level.

The snow is really coming down outside.  I think they were forecasting our first “blizzard” of the season and I don’t mind since it’s only a day after Christmas.  It helps keep the festive mood alive.  Now where were we, oh yes, deranged gingerbread.  Again, I can never seem to find the exact recipe online for the Gingerbread Men.  This is another Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook recipes and I’ll reprint it here because I really like it…it’s hard to find just the right gingerbread recipe and I think this one is it because of the fresh grated ginger:

Gingerbread Men

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4-teaspoon salt

1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger

1 1/4 teaspoons ground allspice

1/4-teaspoon ground cloves

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon grated, peeled fresh ginger

1 large egg

1/4 cup unsulphured molasses

Royal Icing

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, and cloves; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, both sugars, and fresh ginger on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Beat in egg and molasses to combine.  With mixer on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture, beating until just incorporated.  Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface.  Divide in half, and shape into flattened disks; wrap each in plastic.  Refrigerate at least 1 hour or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, with racks in the upper and lower thirds.  Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.  Remove dough from the refrigerator, and let stand until slightly softened.  (This will help keep the dough from cracking when rolled.)  On a large piece of parchment paper lightly dusted with flour, roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thick.  To prevent sticking while rolling, occasionally run a large offset spatula under dough, and add more flour.  Place parchment paper and dough on another baking sheet; freeze until very firm, about 15 minutes.

Remove dough from freezer; working quickly, cut out with large cookie cutters.  (If the dough begins to soften too much, return to the freezer for a few minutes.)  Using a wide metal spatula, transfer cutouts to prepared baking sheets; chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are crisp but not darkened, 12 to 15 minutes.  Transfer parchment and cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.  Decorate as desired with Royal Icing, if using.

I found decorating with a combination of the royal icing and sanding sugar made for a pretty flocked effect.  The key to getting the look you are after is to decorate in steps.  I first did they white icing and let it dry before using the colored icing.  With the colored icing still wet, the sanding sugar sticks to it, but doesn’t stick to the dried white icing.  It’s a lovely and simple technique and I was very pleased with my gingerbread psychopaths in the end.  

Having done all the cookies on the same day, similar to the way that all 3 spirits visited Scrooge in one night, I was done with my cookies and ready for presentation and gifting!  I love the packaging aspect of the holidays.  I really get into present wrapping and ribbons, and this applies to making the cookie packages as well.  This year I used simple cookie packages I found at the store with decorated cardboard bases and plastic bags.  With the colorful cookies inside, a homemade ornament and a brightly colored ribbon to complete the look I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be happy to get one of these presents.  The best thing is that the only money spent is on ingredients, and the gift only requires time spent doing something I already love…primarily baking.

I ended up making about 14 dozen cookies this year.  Many went to packaged gifts, quite a few to work and the others were kept for a Christmas Eve party we had at our house this year.  It was a small gathering of Ossining families and our friend Kassi came up from the “big” city.  It was such a different experience because there were babies here!  Both Finn and Mia were here with their parents, excitedly looking around at the Christmas tree and colored packages hanging out underneath.  It got me that much more excited for our daughter to get here. 

It’s been pretty crazy because Siena could come at any time.  Her due date is January 11th, but she could decide to come at any moment now.  My goal was to get through the holidays (and all it entails) before she came and so far so good (as if I have any control over that).  I really hope she doesn’t come until January because of the proximity to Christmas.  I know there are many folks out there who have birthdays close to the holiday and feel like it takes away from their other special day. 

It’s strange to have Christmas Day over and done with.  So much planning and activity go into making the day special…so much decorating, wrapping, buying and baking that seems like it will never end…and suddenly it’s done and we’re left with a beautiful memory and a sense of loss mingled with exhaustion. 

Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year, purely because anticipation is at it’s highest.  On Christmas Eve everything is still possible.  Santa may still bring you that special present, the dinner and desserts are still in a beautiful creative place in your mind and all the gifts you are giving are still the best ideas ever.  I’m a big fan of anticipation because before the special moment or day arrives anything is possible and in that possibility is every hope imaginable.

We’ve been living through a lot of anticipation lately waiting for the baby to arrive.  Lots of people asking if we are excited, which seems appropriate, but the honest answer is we are just ready to be done with the waiting.  Whether it’s excitement or nervousness at this point I’m ready to stop speculating on what it’s like to be a parent and see what it feels like.  I’m ready to be out of my thinking brain and into feeling and doing.  It’s sort of like being at a cookie buffet that’ isn’t quite set-up.  I’m ready for it to be done so I can eat already!!!  Maybe a bad analogy because I don’t want to eat my young, but if you’ve had kids I think you know what I’m saying.

So now I will sit and let the steamed pudding come to fruition.  It has one more hour of cooking in the pot before I dare to release the lid of the mold…always a scary thing.  Steamed puddings are difficult only with regard to getting them out of the mold in one piece.  You absolutely must, must, must thoroughly butter the inside of the mold and then spray it with vegetable spray to boot.  This really ups your chances of getting it out with all the details intact.  So I will leave you with one last recipe for the Christmas holiday, one that came from (as I mentioned earlier), my cousin’s great-grandmother, Mrs. Henson.  The only special equipment you’ll need is a steamed pudding mold and a large stockpot, unless you have a stone hearth with which to get a good roaring fire going and a giant lidded cauldron.  The recipe is as follows: 

Steamed Christmas Pudding

1 stick butter (at room temperature)

1 1/2 cups brown sugar tightly packed

2 eggs

1-teaspoon vanilla

1 cup peeled grated carrots

1 cup peeled grated apples

1/2-cup raisins

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

1 cup sifted flour

1-teaspoon baking soda

1/2-teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder (my addition)

1/4-teaspoon allspice (my addition)

1/4-teaspoon ground cardamom (my addition)

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (my addition)

1 cup dry fine white bread crumbs

Sift together the dry ingredients:  flour, baking soda, salt and spices in a medium sized bowl. 

Combine the butter and sugar in a stand mixer; beat on medium high for 3 to 4 minutes.  Add in eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla.  Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Add carrots, apples, raisins, pecans and breadcrumbs.  Mix on low until everything is incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared mold (severely buttered like I mentioned earlier) and put the lid on top.  In a large stockpot, place a steamer insert in the bottom and top with a dishtowel.  This will make a cushiony place for the pudding mold to sit while it’s steaming.  The goal is to have the simmering water come halfway up the side of the mold, so depending on the size of your pot, the amount of water you need will vary.  The goal is to bring the water to a boil, place your mold down in the pot on the dishcloth (water halfway up the side) then place a plate or some other dish on top of the mold to weigh it down.  Put the lid on the stockpot and let it simmer for 3 hours.  About every hour or so check the water level, and if you need more boil some in a tea kettle so you are adding hot water and not reducing the temperature of the water inside the pot.  Once three hours are up, cross your fingers that you used enough butter in the mold and you will be rewarded with a beautiful pudding for your Christmas, Boxing Day or New Years Party.

I realize there are a lot of recipes in this blog installment, but I’m hopeful one or more of them will spark your interest not only for Christmas (aside from the gingerbread) but for other times of the year as well.  All of them make wonderful winter treats your friends will love to eat and share, and that’s really what this time of year is all about.  All of these things we do in the name of Christmas or other winter holidays is in service to seeing and celebrating with friends and family.  It’s the ultimate reason I create Fabulous Pastries and hope that everyone enjoys them. 

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to give birth to another posting.  It could be next week or a couple of months from now depending on when Siena decides to make her appearance.  Until then I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, a happy New Year and a kitchen full of sugar laced memories.  It’s just who I am.

Happy Holidays.?!

Can it be that Christmas is less than two weeks away?  The season is moving swiftly and I can’t seem to get a hold of it.   Everyday I look at the calendar (and the to do list staring me in the face) and wonder if it’s always like this?  The answer is yes, but when you add in getting ready for a baby, "quick" trips to Florida, birthdays, holiday parties, ornament creation, tree trimming, present purchasing, work projects and all the holiday baking that needs to be done it starts to feel more like a race against the clock than a time to be merry and gay. 

All the things we think we need to make a season bright are really not so.  The “run, run, run, buy, buy, buy” model of the holidays is beginning to drive me mad.  What I really want to do is spend time in my kitchen with a cookie or two and some close friends and family, nothing more nothing less.  I work myself into a state every year trying to create the best and most wonderful holiday, and though this comes from a place of love mingled with lost childhood I find it’s the unexpected moments I end up relishing:  catching the Grinch or Charlie Brown on TV, quietly curling up by the tree rereading A Christmas Carol for the billionth time, the lit up architecture of a city street lined in white lights and above all the perfect golden color of baked delights coming out of the oven.  (Or the really deep dark holiday pleasures like binge eating ice cream and downing eggnog while watching Dolly Parton and Lee Majors in A Smokey Mountain Christmas or A Diva’s Christmas Carol starring Vanessa Williams.  Trashy?  Yes.  Genius?  Quite possibly.

As soon as Thanksgiving weekend was over the calendar began to take on an ominous glow of red and green tasks, the first being to put up the tree.  Since we aren’t sure when the baby is coming (hopefully in January, but technically we are at 38 weeks December 29th, a mere 2 weeks away) my thoughts were to get the tree up early for maximum enjoyment and then take it down as soon as Christmas has gone so there isn’t a dead tree left standing in the living room as a giant cat play-toy while we are in Pennsylvania for up to two weeks.

I love going to the nursery and picking out the tree.  It’s not far from our house and they always have a great selection of Fraser firs (which are my favorite).  The fragrance that’s ushered into the house with the still dripping sap is the most wonderful smell I know of (with the exception of fresh baked cookies).  The annual ritual of heading up into the attic to find the ornaments, searching for the stockings and deciding what sort of tree scheme to go with makes me happy.  This year I wanted to stick to something traditional and leaned largely toward handmade ornaments.

For the past several years I’ve been making ornaments out of paper clay to adorn the tree along with the many snowflakes and crafted pieces my grandmother made when I was growing up.  I think the snowflakes are my favorite, but the clay ornaments are my contribution to continuing the craft/ornament-making tradition.  I order my springerle mold in the summer so I can be certain of getting the one I want…this year is a sweet, little winter pinecone…and long about the end of November head to the craft store to purchase a couple pounds of clay.   I cast the ornaments on Thanksgiving weekend so that they will have at least a week to air dry before I can paint them and add colorful ribbon from which to hang on the tree.

Once the tree is up then it’s time to decorate outside.  The neighbors and I were out on a somewhat warm and sunny afternoon stringing up garland, bows and lights.  I love that the people on my street are as into holiday décor as I.  It makes coming home at night a joy to look down the lane and see so many houses all lit up and welcoming.  So what if the electric bill practically doubles, right?  It’s all in service to peace on earth and good will to men, and the chance to blow your neighbors out of the water with a bigger, badder and brighter display than they every dreamed of creating…but I digress.

Now that the house is ready and all the lights are on its time to start shopping for the perfect gift.  Email after email of sales come flooding into my inbox vying for my attention.  Each sale promises more discounts and more reductions and more stuff that we can’t possibly ever live without, and we fall for it.  We are aimless people pleasers in the end, and find extreme guilt residing in our hearts if we don’t spend a certain dollar amount in the name of love.  But I’m also here to help with that problem.  The answer is baking.

Cookies are the gift I’m becoming most known for along with the ornaments.  It’s a gift made from my own hands and something no retailer is selling (right now anyway).  I generally have a plan for the cookie, cake and steamed pudding schedules worked out before December ever arrives (maybe I’m a little too organized?) but this year, in addition to my normal routine, I was thrown a curveball…a cookie competition at work!

I’ve never worked anywhere that cared enough or had the desire to have a cookie competition...or food competition of any kind for that matter.  Apparently last year they had a chili cook-off, but in keeping with the holiday season decided cookies were the things to do.   It was a decorating contest primarily, one in which you could purchase cookies to decorate beautifully, or make your own as I did.   I was determined as ever to win so I began practicing the week before.

I love a sugar cookie.  Every year I make them and they are always the biggest dessert hit among my friends.  Now I admit I’m more of a fan of rustic looking desserts or something with very clean/sparse decorating, and I don’t often go for the colored royal icings and flooding techniques because to be honest it can be quite time consuming.  If it’s a dessert that’s going to require more than a few hours of my time…especially on a school night, it’s probably not going to happen.  But what I did do was take my plain Jane sugar cookies to the next level.

I was looking for a new and interesting idea for the simple cookies.  I did my usual scouring of magazines and happened to run across the desired look in Country Living magazine.  I don’t normally get this magazine because it doesn’t really contain a lot of content I’m particularly interested in.  No judgment here, it’s just not my style or particularly geared toward me as a demographic.  The reason I picked up a copy was because of the Fabulous Beekman Boys.  If you recall from last summer Brian, Kassi and I took a trip to Sharon Springs, NY to their store Beekman 1802 and also drove back by their farm and mansion on our way home.  Well, I’m still a huge fan of those guys, so when I found out their home had a holiday spread in the December 2010 Country Living I just had to get it.

The feature on the house is beautiful, and toward the back of the magazine are several photos and recipes for cookies, one being a Linzer cookie in the shape of a Christmas tree.  That was it!!!  I loved the clean simple lines of the tree with the “cut-out” center revealing the glorious ruby colored jam.  Traditionally the tops of Linzer cookies or cakes are covered with confectioners sugar before being placed on the jam covered base, but traveling with powdered sugar covered cookies seemed like a bad idea.  I decided to modify them in a couple of different ways.

First, I made my batch of basic sugar cookie dough (this links to a very similar recipe).  I divided the dough in half, making two separate rectangles, wrapping them in plastic wrap and putting them in the fridge to chill.  The longer the dough rests the better, but it should stay in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before rolling it out.  I used the first half of dough on a Saturday to try the cookies out, and I left the other half wrapped in the fridge until I needed it on Wednesday night.  If I was going to wait more than a few days before using the dough I would recommend freezing it and then thawing it out the night before you want to use it.

The first round of cookies I made was rather large in size, bordering on unwieldy.  I had purchased a fairly big Christmas tree cookie cutter to use in tandem with a box of smaller holiday cookie cutters I found at Sur la table.  Using a large cookie cutter, the half batch of dough only made a dozen Linzer sandwich cookies.  They were large and lovely, and definitely rich.  The trick to making cookies like these is freezing the dough on parchment-lined sheets once you have cut out all the cookies (for about 25-30 minutes).  It can take quite a little bit of time to carefully cut, trim and decorate the cookies with sanding sugar and dragees, and all the while the dough is getting warmer and warmer.  If you were to put them directly in the oven they wouldn’t hold their shape and all you would have left would be sad masses of misshapen trees, a real disappointment after spending so much time meticulously creating the perfect forest.

The only filling I saw in the magazine was red currant jam, but I wanted to go a bit further and also make a green filling for my trees.  A couple of years ago I made a batch of shortbread for my friend Lisa’s birthday party.  Lisa is a huge Superman fan and I thought it would be fun to cover the shortbread in some sort of kryptonite glaze.  I achieved this by making lime curd (links to a similar recipe, just replace half the lemon juice and zest with that of limes) and tinting it with food coloring.  Using that as a springboard, I made a batch of curd to spread on the Linzer cookie bases, this time infusing it with not only lime but rosemary as well.

I borrowed my rosemary sugar technique from last month’s cranberry sauce and ground up 2 tablespoons of the fragrant herb in the food processor with the sugar.  Once the curd is cooked, it gets poured through a mesh sieve, so all of the rosemary, lime zest and possible bits of cooked egg don’t make it into the curd.  After it’s strained, add a lot of green, a touch of blue and a touch of black food coloring until you get the forest green color befitting a tree shaped cookie.

You are left with a smooth and spreadable glaze perfect for this sort of decorating.  The rosemary flavor wasn’t terribly strong, and I think I could have added another whole tablespoon to bring out its pungent flavor, but the lime and lemon juice used in the curd really pack a flavorful punch all on their own.  Paired with the buttery sugar cookie it was a heavenly and zesty sweet sandwich anyone would love to get as a present.

With the trial run over, the remaining dough chilling for a couple of days and a fresh made batch of curd in the fridge, I was prepared to make my weeknight cookies for competition.  I decided over the course of the week that the sandwich cookies were just too darn big, so I switched from the large Christmas tree cutter to a medium sized one, one that would still accommodate my small tree cutter and give a more refined look to my tree cookies.   I rolled, I cut, I sanded and placed dragees and ended up with what I think is a very stylish update on the regular old sugar cookie (or Linzer cookie for that matter).  The replacement of confectioner’s sugar with a basic white sanding sugar is the way to go if you are going to be transporting these cookies.  No muss, no fuss and honestly I prefer the flavor of sanding sugar to its powdered cousin.

The big day rolled around and I couldn’t believe how many people decided to participate.  There were 17 entries!!!  You never really think of finding a lot of bakers or pastry decorators in the animation business.  Most of the folks I used to work with were twenty something guys who rarely even cooked for themselves, but many of the people I’m currently working with are a little older, more my age, more established in life with houses, spouses and kids and seem to love food nearly as much as me.  The cookie turnout was amazing and undoubtedly some serious competition.

We were all asked to try each cookie before judging it on decoration and taste.  Getting through seventeen cookies is quite a feat and one I don’t wish to repeat very often.  If I may be so bold, I think everyone was seriously ill after six or seven, but we kept going as if Santa himself was holding a gun to our head, forcing us to down more and more sugary morsels until there were none left to be had. 

In the end did I win?  Sadly I must report I did not.  One of our directors, Aaron Stewart easily bested everyone by creating “story-board” cookies.  For anyone not in the CG business reading this, they were essentially cookies covered in fondant that visually told a story.  There were only a dozen frames (cookies) describing how a chopped down Christmas tree got its revenge, but they were effective.  The cookies were clean and colorful and almost everyone was afraid to eat them…possibly they didn’t want to ruin the story?  Anyway, my friend Sara came in second with what I would call her psychedelic gingerbread cookies, and I tied for third with another director, Michelle, for her cookies portraying staff members from Hornet Inc. where we work.

Of course I wanted to win, but I was so blown away and happy to be working somewhere that would have a cookie competition that it took away some of the sting.  I don’t think I will be making any more cookies for the next couple of weeks, until closer to Christmas as gifts, and that’s just fine because I think my insulin levels need to normalize once more before I can even look at another cookie.

Now we are staring at Christmas down the barrel of a gun.  Hanukkah has come and gone, and though I wanted to create something fried in oil to honor this holiday I just didn’t have time to squeeze it in.  Instead I wanted to make something for Brian for his birthday…but no ordinary cake.  Brian tends to like soft foods, you know like mashed potatoes and gravy, custards, soups, puddings etc…and I thought to change things up a bit this year I would try my hand at a bread pudding.  

I always like to order it when I’m out, but I can’t recall ever making it on my own.  I would love to tell you I baked my own bread to use in this recipe, but the truth is I didn’t.  The theme of baking within time constraints continues to pop up and was the same case in this situation.  However, I don’t know that bread is what makes a bread pudding so good as much as all the cream that goes into it.  I bought a perfectly lovely loaf of French bread, cut it into cubes and dried it out in a 250 degree oven for 10 minutes so it was nice and dry and ready to soak up all the high calorie liquid which makes up this pudding.

It’s really quite simple because it’s mainly eggs and cream with some flavoring brought in with vanilla, nutmeg, orange, lemon, raisins and a little sugar to boot…it’s Martha’s Bread Pudding 101 recipe.  You put it all together in a shallow baking dish and an hour later you have something completely decadent and delicious that I can’t imagine anyone turning up their noses at a birthday party or any other celebration.  It’s one of those desserts I found so shockingly good I couldn’t believe I’d never made one before.  Brian seemed happy and therefore I was happy too.

The winter holidays can be quite daunting if you let them.  Making it through is all about time management and squeezing in some festive downtime whenever possible.  I had my camera with me on the day of the cookie competition and decided to get a few shots of the holiday city at night while on my way home from work.  There are few things better (to me) than walking through a dolled up Christmas-y New York City on a brisk winter evening, taking in all the lights and tourists and getting lost in the magic with everyone else.   People revert to their childhood selves once again and seem to want nothing more than to have a good time with their fellow man, be that drinking beers in Santa outfits or ice-skating in the middle of a park.

Sometimes I get cranky with the city, cranky with tasks, and cranky with the rigorous Christmas schedule I put myself through, and I don’t think Santa would approve.  With that kind of attitude I might end up on the naughty children list.  It’s important to stop, take a step back and remember why I’m doing it…so people will feel guilty and buy me presents.  No, wait, that’s not it.  Presents be darned, I want the fantasy!

I want all singing, all dancing, elf driven spectaculars with frosted windowpanes and a world falling in love.  I want Charles Dickens and Washington Irving to have a 19th century love child, and I will be that love child.  I want burning Yule logs on the hearth and English countrysides covered in snow.  I want German villages full of glowing trees, cobblestone walkways, Dresden vintage ornaments and small children in search of the gherkin hiding on the tree, excitedly hoping to find it and receive a gift.  I want lit up menorahs and fried latkes and chrusciki.  I want spirits of the past, present and future haunting my Victorian boudoir and showing me all the things I can do to make the world a better place.  And above all else I want a memory laden holiday with friends and family, a time where everyone feels joy at being together and happily snacks on cookies and panettone and steamed puddings and maybe a nice glass of wine or two and a nibble of cheese.  I want an old fashioned Christmas set in 2010 with Santa representing reason and joy as much as magical sleigh rides and the man who corrals red nosed reindeer.  I want the fantasy and I will do everything I can to help it along.  It’s just who I am.