Baking homemade holiday treats is one of my favorite traditions. Cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg are as much holiday scents to me as pine, balsam, and paperwhite narcissus. For many years my ambitious baking led me to making yeasty cinnamon rolls, letting them rise once, then delivering them to each friend’s house on Christmas Eve. They were ready to bake on Christmas morning, and I had happy visions of my friends all over town waking up to the smell of fresh, homemade cinnamon buns.
One year, while I was working as the pastry chef at the Laundry restaurant, my boss asked me to make fruitcakes as gifts for the staff. Fruitcake? Who the heck likes fruitcake? Certainly not me, at least not the ones with icky green and red chunks of cherries and citron in them. After some research I found a recipe for a West Indian fruitcake filled with rum and brandy and dates, figs, raisins, and pecans. It was to be baked a month in advance, then wrapped in cheesecloth and doused with more rum and brandy weekly.
Now those were good fruitcakes. As for the other kind, I believe the rumor to be true that there is only one fruitcake in the world and it has been circulating for centuries. The ultimate regiftable item.
For the last couple of years I have been making a buttermilk pecan coffeecake, again to be delivered Christmas Eve. Spiced nuts, cardamom cookies, peppermint bark, and granola are also some of my favorite homemade gifts for the holidays. These are all easy and inexpensive to make, I promise!
The baking of cakes, cookies, and other sweets was originally reserved only for special occasions due to the high cost of sugar. As a matter of fact, sugar was at first believed to be medicinal and was used for coughs, colds, and to quiet children.
Many recipes and ingredients such as cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds, and dried fruits were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages. Dutch and German settlers introduced cookie cutters and decorative molds. The German lebkuchen (gingerbread) was probably the first cookie associated with Christmas.
Sugar cookies were traditional in England and animal crackers got their start as edible ornaments. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with popularizing gingerbread men because she would have her special guests’ likenesses molded and decorated as gifts.
German bakers started making gingerbread houses after the Brothers Grimm fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel. By the 1500s Christmas cookies had caught on all over Europe. Besides the aforementioned lebkuchen, Germans were baking up buttery spritz cookies, the Swedish created papparkakor, a spicy ginger and black pepper cookie, and Norwegians made krumkake, thin lemon-and-cardamom-flavored wafers.
Between 1871 and 1906 cookware and tinsmith’s cutters from Germany were more affordable thanks to relaxed importation laws. Whereas before, cookies made in America were thick, crudely formed circles and squares, now every household could fashion cookies into bells, trees, camels, lilies, and other elaborate shapes.
Whether you tackle something as ambitious as a gingerbread house or buche de Noel, or simply bake a batch of cookies, let your children get in on the act. My mother let me loose in the kitchen at a young age and never admonished me for spilling flour or dropping eggs. Put a little apron on them, let them choose their favorite cookie cutter, and roll out the dough. I assure you you’ll be making Christmas memories, not just a mess!
You can find nice tins, boxes, and jars at the Golden Eagle, Kmart, and various hardware stores for packing up your homemade gifts. I use wide-mouth Mason jars for the spiced nuts and granola, and transparent plastic boxes lined with tissue for cookies. For the coffeecake, just buy the disposable tins from the grocery store.
Buttermilk Pecan Coffee Cake
Makes 12 servings.
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup corn or canola oil
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
Mix together in a large bowl the flour, one teaspoon of the cinnamon, the ginger, both sugars, and the oil. Remove three-quarters of this mixture and to it add the nuts and the remaining teaspoon of cinnamon. Mix well and set aside to use as the topping. To the remaining batter add the baking soda, baking powder, egg, and buttermilk. Mix to combine all ingredients. Small lumps in the batter are okay. Pour the batter into a well-greased nine-inch pan and sprinkle the topping mixture over the surface. Bake at 350 for approximately 45 minutes. This coffeecake freezes well, too!
Spiced Nuts
1 egg white, whisked to a froth with 1 Tbsp. water
1 lb. pecans or whatever type of nut you like
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
Toss the nuts with the egg-white mixture, coating them well. Sprinkle with the spice mixture and toss again. Spread the nuts onto a cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes. Stir the nuts, reduce the heat to 275, and continue baking for 40 more minutes, tossing occasionally to prevent sticking. Keep an eye on the nuts toward the end of cooking, as they could brown too quickly because of the sugar.
Almond Cardamom Cookies
Makes about two dozen.
1 cup flour
3/4 cup lightly toasted slivered almonds
1/2 cup (one stick) chilled butter, cut into small dice
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 tsp. ground cardamom
3/4 tsp grated orange peel
1/4 tsp. salt
Powdered sugar for coating cookies after baking
Preheat oven to 325. Combine all ingredients except powdered sugar in a food processor. Process until mixture resembles fine meal, using on and off turns. Then process until dough begins to gather together. Form dough into one-inch balls. Space them one inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until just firm to touch, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool, then toss with powdered sugar.
The Best Granola
Makes a lot!
4 cups oatmeal
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp. vanilla
Pinch each of salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3 cup coconut
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/3 cup almonds, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup flax seeds
1/4 cup raisins and or other dried fruit
Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients except raisins. Bake on cookie sheet, stirring every 10 minutes, for approximately 30 minutes. Watch carefully toward the end; it browns quickly. Continue to stir occasionally after removing from oven to prevent it from sticking and clumping together. Stir in raisins, store in airtight container, and share with your friends!
