Holiday Baking: My Winter Fruit-and-Nut Cake
The Microwave: Real and Easy Butterscotch Sauce
Butterscotch sauce is something you make when you want to impress guests. Authentic (not artificially flavored) butterscotch sauce isn’t like the thick stuff you buy in the jar; it is silky and pourable, not cloyingly sweet. And positively addicting as far as a sweet attack goes. Part of the nostalgic soda fountain ice cream sundaes, the retro sauce is now the rage. Since it is one of my favorite flavors, I couldn’t be more pleased.
The Microwave: Christmas Spoon Food: Raspberry Trifle with Cream Sherry
Trifle is the quintessential winter holiday dessert and positively addicting. It might as well be the official state dessert in Great Britain. Every home, school lunchroom, tea parlor, and restaurant have a version it is so beloved.
My mom is known for her trifle, which is a cold dessert with layers of dense-textured plain cake soaked with cream sherry and a vanilla English custard, which she has made every Christmas for decades ever since she got her first microwave in the early 1980s.
Vampire Dessert Buffet-Recipes and How To
Buffet Preparation, Storage,and Service Timeline
* Prepare two chocolate tortes, the chocolate sauce, the crêpes, almonds, biscotti, chocolate chip cookie dough, and compote 2 to 3 days ahead.
Moroccan-Spiced Tomato Chicken with Almonds
The Venerable Stollen
The Stollen that is prevalent in the USA is a style known as Dresden Stollen, named for the capital city of Saxony, near the Czech border, where it was created in the 14th century. As the royal residence, Dresden was a center for art and culture. Whenever you had royalty, you have the top bakers nearby aiming to impress, which morphed into the Bakery Guild of Dresden, the keepers of the tradition of the Stollen.
The special occasion bread is loaded with butter, sugar, raisins, and citron, but it wasn’t always so rich and yummy. Known originally as striezel, it contained no butter or milk.
My Quick Almond Stollen
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
- 1/3 cup finely chopped dried pineapple or candied orange peel
- 1/3 cup dried cherries
- 1/2 cup golden raisins or mixture raisins and currants
- 1/3 cup boiling water
- 3/4 cup blanched slivered almonds
- 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, exact measure
- 2/3…
Lou’s Raspberry Amaretto Bombe
The art of frozen desserts has fascinated bakers for a multitude of centuries. Reliable refrigeration made this type of dessert, first created for royalty, a delight of the masses. The bombe, a sophisticated-looking classic French dessert, is composed of two layers: a sorbet, then an ice cream mixture, in a pretty mold. What is great is that a simple bowl, which will be turned upside down, looks incredible, so no special mold is needed. There are so many excellent commercial ice creams and sorbets on the market today that the connoisseur doesn’t have to rely on the laborious task of making it at home anymore. Not only do they look fantastic all smooth and round, but what a lovely surprise everybody gets when you cut it open to reveal layer upon layer of different ice cream. This version is a favorite, a creation of my friend Lou Pappas in her book, Sorbets and Ice Cream (Chronicle Books, 2005). A bombe can conveniently wait up to a week in the freezer before serving. Serve in wedges Nobel style, with Champagne.
Peggy’s Cranberry Chutney
Every holiday season I make lots of this bright cranberry chutney to serve with turkey and as a spread for sandwiches. I got it from extraordinaire food writer and recipe developer Peggy Fallon, a cranberry lover, who serves it as an accompaniment to a savory cheesecake for winter entertaining. This is one of my all time favorite cooked sauces, one I prepare every year and often give as gifts. Serve it as a condiment, or dabbed on unsalted crackers with soft cheese.