Susan here – presenting, in honor of the holiday season, Ask-A-Wench: What are we baking? You may want to pour a steaming cup of tea or coffee as you sit down to enjoy the scrumptious assortment of baked goodies that the Wenches are about to offer . . .
Anne here.
I don't usually bake a lot for Christmas these days, but I do like to make sweet treats to give as a little gift to friends. It varies from year to year but I thought I'd talk about a little sweet that apart from being very easy to make, is also historical. It's called a mendiant, and it's a traditional French sweet made of a disk of chocolate, topped with nuts and dried fruit. Traditionally there were four kinds of topping, each representing a monastic order -- raisins (for Augustinian monks), dried fig (Franciscans), Hazelnuts (Carmelites) and almond (Dominicans).
Not being attached to any order (unless you call the Word Wenches an order <g>) I please myself with what I use as topping, and usually put two or three pieces of dried fruit and some nuts on top of the chocolate. The process is very easy. First prepare your toppings -- I like a range of toppings so I cut up dried fruit (dried figs, crystallized ginger, dried mango) to fit on something the size of a large coin. The nuts I like are almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios and macadamias — but it doesn't matter if you don't use nuts at all. Carefully melt some good chocolate, drop spoonfuls of it onto foil or parchment paper, then before it sets, arrange your fruit and nut combination on top. Let it set. That's it. Pretty, easy, and delicious — and with a little bit of history. Here are some I made earlier -- not a great photo, but they're blobs of dark chocolate, topped with home made cocoa-spiced almonds, a pistachio, preserved ginger, dried fig and a macadamia nut (macadamias are indigenous to Australia.) Package them up nicely and you have a yummy, quite elegant home-made gift.
Pat here:
I have no historical background for my baking. I like chocolate. I would not have done well in the periods of whiskey-soaked fruit cakes or in an even earlier era when they didn’t have chocolate. (the horror!)
Over the years, while my family was young, I’ve baked tons of cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, every kind of cookie imaginable, and any kind of pie requested for the holidays. That was all back when we had kids who inhaled everything that crossed the table—and before I bought a house with a gas oven.
Now that the kids are grown, and I’m dealing with an oven that can barely bake canned biscuits without leaving them dough, I keep my baking simple. That’s my excuse anyway. Besides, everyone loves brownies, right? And all they take is top-of-the-line chocolate and removing the pan from the oven before they’re fully baked. Any oven accomplishes that without even trying. Sprinkle some Ghiradelli chips on top before baking, and wow, what else can you ask? If anyone wants pumpkin pie, Costco has a huge one for six bucks, and a giant apple for twelve. Remind me again why I did all that work?
Nicola here:
Dare I admit that I haven’t done any baking, Christmas or otherwise, for years? The problem with being married to a man who enjoys cooking and is a great chef is that he is both much better and more keen on baking than I am and why would I object to that? <g!> He has a particularly lovely mince pie recipe which he makes each year; the pastry is light and has just a hint of sweetness about it. I eat the mince pies with cheese, which is a Northern tradition, although if you have them as a pudding rather than a snack they go very nicely with cream or ice cream!
One thing I have helped to make for Christmas is handmade chocolate truffles. They were a lot of fun to make but what my mother-in-law would call a skiddle (Scots word for splashing water about but in her family also meaning a fiddly job.) We had a production line of different bowls for the truffle mixture - with flavours like orange and vanilla added to the chocolate, and then more bowls at the end to roll the chocolate balls in crushed pistachio nuts and cocoa powder. We got covered in chocolate, it was loads of fun, and we tried not to eat them too quickly once they had chilled! They make gorgeous little presents too and you can add just about any flavouring you like!
Andrea:
For me, the holiday season always brings back wonderful memories of my mother—who didn’t enjoy cooking at all—baking traditional cookies/pastries from her native Switzerland. They were all delicious, but my brothers and I loved the very simple Hasselnuss Stengeli, which is akin to a shortbread, but with eggs adding even more richness. And so, no matter what else I decide to make as holiday treats, I like to whip up a batch. (In the spirit of sharing sweet indulgences, here’s the recipe)
2 C sugar
4 eggs
½ lb. butter
2 C ground hazelnuts (or walnuts if you prefer)
4 C flour
1 T lemon extract
1. Cream butter. Add sugar and beat until mixture is very light.
2. Add eggs and beat well. Add nuts and beat well. Add extract and beat well.
3. Gradually add flour, beating after each addition.
4. Chill dough for an hour in refrigerator.
5. Roll out “fingers” of the dough (around 1 inch in diameter) and cut into thumb-sized bars.
6. Place bars on buttered and floured baking sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.
Mary Jo:
Baking for the holidays is a wonderful old tradition for a variety of reasons: to create treats to honor the holiday and to brighten long winter nights. To work with others in the kitchen because it's fun. And to make the house smell wonderful!
I did a lot of baking as a kid, when I had more time and didn't think about calories. I always loved pies (still do!) and made a lot of them. For Christmas, my sister and I made big batches of thin, crispy sugar cookies (I don't like thick, blodgy cookies), using cookies cutters to cut them into bells and angels and other holiday images. Then we iced them with anise flavored icing. Delicious!
Another variety I made and loved (and still love) are Russian tea cakes. Basically it's a simple shortbread recipe with flour, butter, sugar, water, and finely chopped nuts. (We always used walnuts.) They're rolled into small balls, baked, then rolled in powdered sugar when hot to create a kind of simple icing. When cooled, roll them in powdered sugar again. Delicious!
I looked them up on Wikipedia (photo from wikipedia by E. McCarthy) and find that they have many names, including Mexican wedding cakes. Take a look at this link for more history. Apparently they are related to lots of similar cakes, including a general type called jumbles, which came to the US on the Mayflower. (Really!)
This may be too busy a time of day to look up the history, but if you find some Russian tea cakes--eat! Enjoy! Or make your own! Here's a classic recipe from Betty Crocker.
Susan here:
One of my favorites was a lemon pound cake made from scratch. After it came out of the
oven, we would poke holes in it and drizzle a mixture of lemon juice and sugar over it. This would soak into the hot cake and crystallize around the edges in crunchy, lemony sweetness. It was divine. Another favorite was my Canadian grandmother's special recipe for sour cream cookies, dropped on the baking sheet, baked to golden brown, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. And their apple pies, fat
with fruit and heavy on the cinnamon under a buttery woven crust were beyond wonderful.