All posts tagged: holiday recipes

cranberry quick bread

Quick Cranberry-Orange-Pecan Bread

Published by Kathy Hunt

In a season when we’re all bustling about, struggling to keep up with work, home, and holiday demands, there is no better bread to bake than a soft, sweet quick bread. The name says it all. Because you don’t have to knead the dough or wait for it to rise, a quick bread takes very little effort or time to make. The ease of this bread has everything to do with leavening. In a quick bread, baking powder or baking soda acts as a leavening agent. When either one comes into contact with moisture, it causes the ingredients with which it’s been combined—flour, salt, sugar, butter, eggs—to rise. Unlike with yeast breads, such as whole wheat or Frisian sugar bread, you don’t have to wait for this process to kick in. It begins immediately. Because I love tart, vivid cranberries and this is the height of cranberry season, I couldn’t resist baking a cranberry-studded quick bread. If you don’t have pecans on hand, you can substitute chopped walnuts in the following recipe. Cranberry-Orange-Pecan Quick Bread …

Swedish spice cookies

Swedish Spice Cookies

Published by Kathy Hunt

In a season filled with rich, heavy foods and cloying sweets I like to take a page from my stack of European cookbooks and bake a few dozen spice cookies. These fragrant cookies date back to the Middle Ages when ingredients such as pepper, cinnamon and cloves were rare and expensive commodities. As a result, they were used sparingly and for special occasions such as Christmas. All sorts of spice cookies Most Europeans countries have some type of spice cookie. In Germany it’s the bite-sized pfeffernüsse while in Russia it’s clove- and black pepper-seasoned pryaniky. The Netherlands has crisp, windmill-shaped, spice-laden speculaas while Spain offers an anise-flavored, cinnamon-dusted, cut-out known as biscochito or “little biscuit.” What I usually bake, though, are ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, clove and nutmeg-laced Swedish pepparkakor. Cutting cookies Featured in Astrid Lindgren’s “Pippi Longstocking” tales, Swedish spice cookies are cut into the shapes of pigs, horned goats, reindeer, bells, stars, hearts and a bearded, gnome-like man known as Tomte; I think of Tomte as the Scandinavian version of Santa Claus. Since my …

chocolate cake

Chocolate Cake for One or a Ton

Published by Kathy Hunt

I know it’s not a terribly seasonal offering but sometimes you just need a little, or a lot of, chocolate cake. Aren’t brimming with holiday joy? Bake yourself a chocolate cake, frost that beauty and then grab a fork and dig in! Feeling jolly but also a bit freaked out by the crowd coming over for Christmas dinner? Make a chocolate cake for your crew. There is no mood that can’t be improved by sweet, velvety, cocoa-laced cake. As someone who lost loved ones during the holiday season, I understand all too well how dreary this period of traditions and family-focused festivities can seem. I also know how much cheerier you can feel once you’ve created a new holiday ritual and indulged in a decadent, smile-inducing, chocolate treat. After all, scientific studies indicate that cocoa and dark chocolate can improve mood and boost your memory, cognition and immune system. That’s great news! Snowflake Chocolate Cake contains both cocoa and dark chocolate. Think of how fabulous you and your guests will feel after noshing on the …

cat and mouse cookies

Let’s Bake Maple Sugar Cookies!

Published by Kathy Hunt

As promised in the previous post, I have the perfect treat in which to feature your homemade maple sugar, maple sugar cookies! Inspired by a recent visit to Montreal, where I spied a wide range of maple-themed sweets and saw that, as rumored, Canadians adore pure maple syrup-infused foods, Canadian Maple Sugar Cookies are a delicious way to bring that sweet, earthy taste to your baking. For this recipe don’t skimp on the maple sugar or syrup. Stay away from those mass-marketed mixtures of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors and ingredients. Don’t get fooled by tiny bottles of “maple extract” or “maple essence,” either. Thinking that I could punch up a traditional poundcake, I tried one of these flavorings once. Consisting of alcohol, water and “natural flavors,” the so-called extract smelled like soy sauce and tasted nothing like maple. It did not end up in my cake. If you own a maple leaf-shaped cutter, you can make your cookies even more “maple-licious” by using that. Since I have a surplus of …

gluten-free cinnamon stars

Tips for Cut-Out Cookies and Austrian Cinnamon Stars

Published by Kathy Hunt

Whenever I make the gluten-free, cut-out cookies Austrian Cinnamon Stars, I think of my late father. Although he was neither an ardent cook nor baker, every holiday season he and I spent at least one night in the kitchen baking and decorating cut-out Christmas cookies. The tricks he employed to ensure beautiful holiday sweets are ones that I use to this day. If making the aforementioned Austrian cinnamon stars and any other cut-out cookies possessing a soft, sticky texture, I refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out. After mixing the ingredients for the cookie dough, I shape it into a ball, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Depending on the size and tackiness of the dough, it may need to stay in the fridge for a little longer or shorter. No matter what, it shouldn’t get cold and stiff. If it reaches that stage, it’ll be difficult to roll and cut. Another trick that my father taught me was that, to stop cookie dough …

The Dessert Table: Cranberry Torte

Published by Kathy Hunt

Growing up outside of Pittsburgh, I assumed that all wedding receptions featured those decadent displays known as cookie tables. Weighted down by platters of cream-filled lady locks, lemon bars, nut horns, Mexican wedding cookies, spritz cookies and anise-laced pizzelles, these linen-covered tables attracted guests in droves. Introduced as a low-cost alternative to an expensive wedding cake, the cookie table eventually became a companion to cake. Custom dictated that family members make the cookies but, if you didn’t have gifted bakers at home, you could do as my mother did and enlist the help of a local bakery and family friends. At parties it was the dessert table around which people clustered. Here the cookies were less ostentatious — think chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter blossoms, pecan sandies and butterscotch — but just as plentiful. So too were the brownies, fruit and custard pies, marshmallow-studded ambrosia and heavenly angel food cakes. What didn’t make it to the dessert table? For obvious reasons I never saw ice cream, make-your-own-sundae bars or chocolate fondue pots. Generally, anything …

Danish raspberry slice

Danish Raspberry Slice or Hindbærsnitte

Published by Kathy Hunt

Hindbærsnitte is the latest addition to my ever-growing list of international dessert crushes. Some people liken it to homemade Pop Tarts. Others equate it to thumbprint cookies. Neither comparison comes close to the sweet splendor of this lovely Danish cookie. Inspired by Viennese confections, hindbærsnitte was born in Copenhagen in the late 1800s. The legend goes that in 1850 Danish bakers went on a long-term strike over unfair wages. To keep the country in breads and sweets, bakers from Austria were hired to fill the vacancies. Their time in Denmark and the culinary traditions that they shared would influence the creation of many Danish baked goods, including hindbærsnitte. With its flour- and almond-based dough and thick, fruity filling this cookie does remind me of such Austrian specialties as Linzer tortes and augens. The literal translation of hindbærsnitte is raspberry slice. Its name more or less explains the treat — baked cookie dough blanketed by raspberry preserves, topped with another sheet of baked dough and then sliced and iced or iced and sliced. The order of …

ginger-scallion shrimp

Sautéed Ginger-Scallion Shrimp at Shockingly Delicious!

Published by Kathy Hunt

I’m thrilled to be branching out this week and sharing Sautéed Ginger-Scallion Shrimp with the readers of Shockingly Delicious. If you’ve yet to check out this fabulous food blog, it offers “unbelievably drool-worthy, scrumptious, ‘scary good’ recipes for people who love food!” Such a nice venue for this quick and delicious shrimp recipe! Please head over to fellow journalist, food blogger and seafood fan Dorothy Reinhold’s site for more about Sautéed Ginger-Scallion Shrimp. You’re sure to get hooked. It’s Shockingly Delicious!

white chocolate almond cake

Flourless & Fabulous White Chocolate Almond Torte

Published by Kathy Hunt

When baking, I often think of my late mother from whom I inherited a raging sweet tooth. I suspect that she received hers from her own mother with whom she spent countless Friday nights making candy, cakes and other confections. They had baked for fun from recipes passed down through my French grandmother’s family and plied all whom they knew with these goodies. Yeah, I inherited that latter trait, too. Among the wonderful treats that they made were tortes. Although it may sound quite sophisticated, a torte is simply a single layer cake made with flour and/or ground nuts. German in origin, it’s occasionally filled jam or buttercream. In my kitchen it’s adorned with fresh, seasonal fruit and confectioner’s sugar. One of the many great things about White Chocolate Almond Torte is how few ingredients are used. As the name indicates, you’ll need white chocolate and ground almonds as well as eggs, butter, sugar and almond extract. That’s it. I have made the following flourless White Chocolate Almond Torte so many times that I could …

smoked trout pate

Hooray! Smoked Trout Paté!

Published by Kathy Hunt

Paté. It sounds like such a posh dish. In reality it’s just a spreadable mixture of cooked meat, fat and seasonings. So much for the elegant, French name, huh? Originally, paté meant a baked, meat-filled pastry served hot or cold. It later referred to the chunky filling for this pie. Ultimately, it became known as the aforementioned spread. What do you put in a paté? Among the most popular ingredients are goose liver, pork, veal and beef. Because I stopped eating meat long ago, I make less traditional patés featuring smoked fish, vegetables or mushrooms. I served the following spread on Christmas Eve. Quick to make and equally fast to assemble, smoked trout paté is an easy hors d’oeuvre for the harried host. SMOKED TROUT PATÉ Whenever I forget to grab chives at the market, I substitute 1/4 teaspoon granulated onion for the chopped chives. Without that dash of green the paté will look a bit bland but it will still taste great. Makes 1 1/4 cups 5 ounces cream cheese, softened 2 tablespoons good …