Method

A few responses to my post yesterday anticipated the spirit of my second resolution, to perfect that classic of classics, Roast Chicken. My fellow slashfoodie Kat Kinsman plans to master The Biscuit, while a reader named Michael has set his sights on Bouillabaisse. Both worthy goals.

Roast chicken has always flummoxed me. Various recipes pull me in every direction. Do I butter? Rub with some kind of spice concoction? Do I truss? What about basting? Chicken stock at the bottom of the pan, or poured over the bird, or none at all? What, if anything, ought I stuff into the cavity? At what temperature shall I roast it? Pan sauce? Au jus? Somehow, my Thanksgiving turkey has always turned out quite nicely no matter which way I go, but I've never roasted a chicken--never--that I've been terribly proud of.

Am I cursed? This year, I will find out. I plan to try every variation and, perhaps more importantly, take notes. Periodically throughout the year, I'll share those notes, and accompanying photos, so we can all roast chickens to crispy golden tender moist perfection. Then again, you probably already do that, so please don't hesitate to share your tips. I might try your method first! Oh, and to keep the experiment semi-constant, I plan to use high quality but readily available Bell and Evans chickens every time. I'd also welcome suggestions for creative uses for leftover roast chicken. Or, if chicken's not your thing, what will you perfect this year?

Say hello to flatty and softy. Both come from the same batch of cookies, yet one is flat as all hell, and one is nicely shaped, and doesn't reveal the wonderful sea of butterscotch inside.

I've made many cookies over the years. Some I've loved; some I've hated. Sometimes something goes wrong. But I've never had a batch pull out two different results. I was trying out Accidental Hedonist's Butterscotch Cookies, taking out the nuts (hello, allergies) and adding in some extra chips. The dough looked delicious -- the perfect cold dough for the adult mouth with its sugar sweetness cut by wonderful dark rum flavor.

Then they went in the oven, and bled into hard, flat discs. The flavor was excellent, but the shape was not. So, I tried firming up the batter in the fridge for round two. They turned out exactly the same. I began to consider rejigging the recipe for next time. However, I had four cookies left over, so I put those on a piece of old parchment, waited for the other round to finish, and baked them last. Voila! Perfect cookies.

Can silicone baking mats really wreak havoc on a cookie? That's the only difference between the three batches. Share your thoughts below!

Most candy cane cookie recipes turn tasty sugar into candy cane shapes, but why do that when you can put your piles of real candy canes to good use and make some Christmas Day cookies?

This recipe for Candy Cane Cookies isn't your normal cookie treat, but it's delicious, and easy to prepare. Even better, it'll make use of your pile of candy, and allow the kids to wield a hammer and smash things. Trust me -- they'll love it, and it's perfectly safe with supervision. Just put the candy canes in a zip lock bag and get to work!

Unlike most recipes, these cookies call for powdered sugar, and that helps to give a nice, powdery inside to contrast the hard, slightly melted candy canes coating it. This is also a great way to use jars of peppermint snow. The recipe calls for finely crushed canes, but coarse chunks work just fine.

Happy Baking and Merry Christmas!

If you can't wait an hour for butter and eggs to come to room temperature on their own, here's what you can do.

When I think of this time of the year, I think about delicious sweet and fruity Stollen, a traditional German cake made with chopped candied fruit and dried fruit, nuts and spices. For the past 4 years now, I have been savoring this bread on Christmas.

Ah, the variety of fruit cakes one can eat this time of the year! There is also the classic Italian panettone and panforte. Perhaps, less cake-like and bread-like than Stollen, panforte is made by dissolving suger in honey in a shallow pan with various nuts, fruits, spices, flour, and cocoa.

Below are some festive fruity recipes:

1. Gina DePalma's Panforte
2. Panettone
3. Stollen
4. Panforte di Siena

Sure, many folks go to an Alice B. Toklas place when creative brownie making is mentioned, but for a goody two-shoes like me (with a cop pal as my afternoon's company to boot!), there's much swoony satisfaction in a recipe that highlights some of my favorite legal vices. I'm hardly the first to alight at bacon brownies, but I decided to borrow a step from the bourbon balls I'm often rolling up 'round this time of year for holiday party purposes. A double-soak -- once pre and once mid-toasting of a half cup of pecans in bourbon, and a swap-in of the nut-infused bourbon for the traditional vanilla brings a slightly tipsy edge to a deeply fudgy brownie. A grind of fresh black pepper (inspired by a Chanterelle Staff Meals brownie recipe, which credited the technique to Maida Heatter) strums the palate to life; a subtle note of smoked salt lets the bolder bacon sing.

Had there not been half a foot of snow atop my grill cover, I'd have seen what came of an attempt to tobacco-smoke the pecans and chocolate, but for now, these are more than sufficiently wicked.

Recipe for Legal Vice Brownies is after the jump.

Scanned from Cooking and Traveling the Cape Cod Way (1953)

Forefather's Day isn't celebrated until tomorrow, but I'm posting this in anticipation of the East Coast's wintry mix blowing up the collective skirt of many folks' salt pork acquisition schedules. I'm a huge sucker for dishes made expressly in observance of regionally significant holidays and events -- especially so when the tenor of the recipe matches the spirit of the occasion. In New Orleans at Mardi Gras, it's all wild-hued, cream-slathered King Cake. On a chilly Christmas Eve in North Carolina, there is sweet, hot Moravian Love Feast coffee, and light potatoey buns, made to be split and shared.

It seems appropriate that a feast in commemoration of the Pilgrims' arrival in a bitter and bleak new terrain would involve some rather hardscrabble fare -- sustenance and utility, rather than sybaritic excess. Then again, I could be projecting 'cause I've never met a succotash I've really liked. Should I be able to get my frozen paws on some pea beans within the next 24 hours, I'll give this one a go.

If you should decide to do the same, please let us all know how it goes in the comments below. All I ask is that you remember to pay for the corn.

It's funny how the push for new scientific foods is running alongside some truly old-school techniques. Now we just have to wait for the day that the delicate, intricate tiny food is teamed alongside a large and steamy serving of mac and cheese. Now that would be divine.

But I digress. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has posted an article dipping into what they call this season's prized treasure -- time. Now it doesn't start off particularly strong premise (I could never say truffle oil has overstayed its welcome), but there are some interesting bits of information inside.

Basically, the piece isn't so much about slow-cookers, but dry or wet roasting in your own oven. 14-Hour Brisket, 7-Hour Leg of Lamb ... it all looks good!

Do you partake in slow-cooking?

Scanned from Be Milwaukee's Guest, Recipes Collected and Tested by the Junior League of Milwaukee - 1959

I could scarcely be crankier at myself for muffing the opportunity to present this comb-bound recipe gem on a particularly Wisconsin-centric holiday, such as the recently passed St. Nick's Day, but hey -- any day is a great day for pork cake!

I'm a big fan of the melding of meat and sweet (mmm...bacon candy...), and surely have been known to savor a sumptuously larded crust, but I can't swear that I've ever seen a baked good quite so aggressively piggy as this. Pinwheel rolls studded with flecks of seasoned ground beef, yes, but those were generally presented as a savory, hand-wielded Wellington sort of course rather than spiced, as this seems to be, in the manner of a dessert or breakfast sweet. I'm pleading woeful ignorance about the pastries of the Badger State here, so might someone be so kind as to enlighten me -- is this a traditional Wisconsin breakfast or dessert treat, or a relic of the cookbook's era? If the former, I'm booking a trip on Midwest Airlines posthaste. If the latter -- who's up for a bake-along this weekend?

I'll never forget the numerous pastry shop windows I'd walk past while living in Paris that had Bûche de Noël, a traditional Christmas cake served during the holidays in France and several christian-populated francophone countries, such as Canada (Quebec). "Bûche" in English means "log;" hence, the shape of the cake. It's often a sponge cake filled with chocolate buttercream.

After living in Paris, I became fascinated by the different takes not just on the Bûche de Noël, but on the Christmas cake. It seems to me that nearly every family has their own traditional cake that they bake for the holidays.

Below are 8 fabulously festive cakes for this holiday season:

1. Christmas gingerbread cake with maple whipped cream
2. Black forest chocolate torte
3. Orange spice cake with white chocolate poinsettia topper
4. Chocolate fruit cake
5. Chocolate spice-cake poudding
6. Crunchy milk-chocolate peanut butter layer cake
7. Caramel-pecan Bûche de Noël
8. Pecan spice layer cake with cheese cream frosting

What kind of cake will you be eating this season?