Holiday Season Baking

 

Christmas Tree, 2022

Happy Holiday Season and New Year! I am so happy that I found some time during the last 12 Days of Christmas to post. Baking has been in the forefront. With Thanksgiving so early in the month in 2022, the preparation of my traditional fruitcakes started mid-November, November 12^th to be exact! And to be honest, I haven’t even tasted my portion yet but the reviews so far have been good, more citrusy than in previous years. This holiday season’s baking has also included rose scented geranium pound cake, breakfast bakes, three types of cookies (rosemary alfajores cookies, chocolate-dipped matcha shortbread cookies, and vanilla meringue cookies), and pumpkin pies. Some of the time, I followed the recipe perfectly; other times, I didn’t. The breakfast bakes were new and easy recipes that were served for Christmas brunch; one was a crab croissant gruyere, the other sausage bread cheddar. That is all I am going to say about the breakfast bakes and instead, present the sweets here.

First up is the rose scented geranium pound cake. I had access to scented geranium leaves so I tried this recipe. I did a trial run earlier in the year without the lemon curd topping which was successful. The holiday batch was successful too but I forgot that they baked more quickly than the recipe suggests, 1 hour 30 minutes. They weren’t burnt but I would have liked a lighter shade of brown – I need to remember to start checking them earlier, even at the 1 hour mark, especially in the cake pans as opposed to a loaf pan. Scented geranium leaves are really neat, there are not many recipes for them. Too many leaves and there is a danger of a soapy taste or so I have read. I did decrease the amount of sugar from 3 cups to 2 cups, because I thought it was too much and I did omit the lemon extract and rose water for simplicity. For the holidays, I did try the suggested lemon curd topping but mine was more of a glaze because the starting sugar mixture was too warm and the egg cooked like a scrambled egg. I should have added the egg off heat. I fished the cooked egg out and pressed on. Much of this cake is in my freezer and I will relish it this Winter and Spring.

Scented Geranium Cake

Next are the cookies – all new recipes. I love Christmas time and I am very interested in how it is celebrated around the world, the rituals, the music, and most importantly, the food. I found this article through an Imperfect Foods newsletter. It is not specifically for Christmas, but it covers the world which I thought interesting. The first up, rosemary alfajores cookies – alfajores cookies are traditional to all Spanish speaking countries. I never made a sandwich cookie before. My Christmas grocery trip was to Whole Foods and they did not have already prepared dulce de leche so I made my own. It was made by steaming condensed milk in the oven for a couple hours.

Dulce de Leche for Alfajores Cookies

The dough was interesting to me because the recipe called for as much corn starch as flour. I had to go against the recipe and add water so that the dough could come together to be rolled out. The green sprigs are rosemary which gives this cookie a refreshing taste. I really liked this recipe.

Alfajores Cookie Dough about to be Rolled Out

Alfajores, Prebaked

Alfajores, Finished

Next up are chocolate-dipped matcha shortbread cookies from the same article. Matcha is green tea powder and I have worked with it before – very green!

Green Dough, Literally

Not a lot of sugar in this recipe, only a ½ cup of powdered sugar so the chocolate plays a very strong role. I did not use the semi-sweet chocolate chips but instead Lily’s Dark Chocolate Baking Chips, stevia sweetened 55% cocoa. The taste is edgy, I like them – you can make the argument that they are a health cookie with 2 superfoods (green tea and chocolate). The only hiccup I ran into was that the dough was very soft once it was formed – too soft to make a nice shape. 

Weird Dough Log

Following the recipe, you then chill the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes, but afterwards it is too hard to re-form. 

Matcha Shortbread, Prebake

So, there were plenty of odd shapes, but luckily all shapes tasted good. I put in my notes to first chill the dough slightly, then form the log, and then chill again following the recipe. 

Matcha Shortbread, Finished

Because the rosemary alfajores cookies called for 6 egg yolks, I decided to do a meringue with the 6 egg whites. This was my trickiest cookie. And I need to find another egg white recipe. The meringue looked beautifully formed after the first oven stint but in fact they were a sticky goo, not to be touched.

Meringue, Pretty but Untouchable

So, I just put them back in the oven – they turned more brown and ugly but at least they were dry.

Meringue, not as Pretty but Touchable

The homestretch in baking were pumpkin pies. Two were made in November and two were made on the 9^th Day of Christmas, January 2^nd. In November, I used the New York Times recipe Ultimate Pumpkin Pie by Melissa Clark for the filling with my much-trusted Tart Pastry recipe from The Victory Garden Cookbook by Marian Morash (with a slight modification of using ½ whole wheat flour) for the crust. Because combining two recipes was simple, I decided to add a third which became a bit more complicated especially with an early morning start.

Early Morning Recipe Study

To the crust on January 2^nd, I added a pecan, butter, and brown sugar mixture to create a praline on the bottom. This idea was obtained from the recipe Praline Pumpkin-Custard Pie from Pillsbury’s Best 1000 Recipes Best of the Bake-off Collection, circa 1959. 

Pumpkin Pie Crust with Praline Bottom

Another slight modification occurred on January 2^nd in that instead of some of the cream called for, I used a half and half/2% milk combination. I liked this reduction in fat – the taste was not as velvety mousse as in the New York Times recipe but with the praline crust addition, I think it suited the pie.

Pumpkin Pie Extraordinaire

After January 2^nd, it became the end of the holiday baking. Now it is strictly eating. I do enjoy baking with the Christmas tree keeping me company, but I don’t think I could ever do this professionally – so I salute the professional bakers out there. It’s tough work though if you don’t constantly modify recipes like I do, I am sure it is much more efficient. Good Luck everyone with your 2023 creative endeavors. As usual, I hope to post more, but you know how that is.

P.S. No reading updates as while baking, it was really tough to read. 😊