I present to you, without comment, a link to the blog of pop singer and impish egomaniac John Mayer, who, apparently, is also a cake lover. In this edition, he presents the results of his personal Winter '08 holiday baking contest.
Note the numerous instances of Mayer-themed cakes: The red-and-white "JM" logo cake, the JM "Tree-O" cake with Mayer and bandmates presented as fir trees, the "JM" logo Christmas ornament, the cake depicting a sugarpaste Mayer singing on stage at the Nokia Theater, and, of course, the portrait (pictured).
Christmas is over for another year. The presents have been opened, traditional breakfasts have been eaten (in our house, it's fried eggs, turkey bacon and sliced of toasted Panettone) and dinner feasts have been consumed. Once I again this year, I found myself confronted by one of the injustices of holiday eating, which is that a meal that takes all day to prepare gets demolished in less than half an hour. It never seems quite right to me.
Each year for Christmas, my family remakes the traditional Thanksgiving meal (we just like it so much) - turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gingery squash, brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce. We finished the meal with pumpkin custard (pie without the crust) and an apple crisp. It was lovely, although hours and hours later I still feel the need to waddle instead of walk.
I want to hear about the holiday feasts the rest of you partook in. Did you have turkey, ham or roast beef? A cookie platter or an assortment of pies? Tell us about your successes and failures and feel free to point us all in the direction of a truly excellent recipe.
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.
According to a recent Decanter story, worldwide Champagne shipments have plummeted more than 20 percent worldwide. Apparently people are realizing that $180 for a bottle of wine just might be a bit...much...in these economic times.
Still, we have to buy our bubbly for the holidays. I'll probably drink some over Christmas, too, but New Year's is kind of a no-brainer for sparkling wine. Here's my advice: skip the Champagne, but skip the Cook's on the bottom shelf, too. Here are eight of my favorite holiday sparklers that taste delicious but won't break the bank. Best of all? Most of these bottles are easily attainable at any store, so you could walk in with this list and score most of them.
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.
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:
Pascale La Draulec gushes about the ease and allure of a retro cookie swap shindig -- one that could overload even the Cookie Monster with dozens upon dozens of cookies.
But if you want something a little friendlier on your midsection, you might want to try kiss-theming your holiday celebrations. Pucker up!
The picture above is from my mom's recipe book, a half-size three-ring binder that she's been filling with delicious favorites since 1970. Her granola recipe originally came from her dear friend Melinda and makes some of the best granola I've ever tasted. It is endlessly customizable and makes a wonderful holiday gift, especially because it's easy to make it in fairly large quantities.
To dress up this granola for holiday giving, I would stir in mini-chocolate chips and some dried cranberries. Seasoning the whole mix with cinnamon prior to baking is also a wonderful, seasonal way to go. I would package it canning jars or lined paper bags. Decorate with ribbon or handmade labels.
Are you one of those people who lives for the holiday season? Have you planned and re-planned your Thanksgiving menu? Do you set the table a week in advance, just to make sure all your china is perfect and smudge-free? Do you spend ever free moment during the month of December making cookies, candies and sweet breads for family and friends?
For Christmas, I received a super-cool vegan cookbook (thanks, Mom!) that's become my new favorite. I find that some veggie/vegan cookbooks, while gorgeous and filled with fantastic recipes, have an air of pretension about them that irks me as I struggle to, say, wrap my increasingly-crumbly tempeh in endive.
But Angeline Linardis, author of V Cuisine: The Art of New Vegan Cooking, isn't like that at all. Her voice throughout the book is light and non-threatening, and the recipes aren't nearly as intimidating as some I've come across. (For instance, my favorite chapter name is "Terrifying Tofu.")
So far I've tried a few of the recipes, including the corn chowder (Linardis recommended that you blend half of it with an immersion blender, but I left it chunky, and I'm glad I did - I retained the individual flavors of the veggies and it felt more hearty, like a chowder should) and the tofu "fries," which weren't nearly as crispy as I'd hoped, but plenty tasty and filling.
And while the teaspoon of turmeric the soup called for turned my favorite spatula a permanent shade of shocking yellow, it's a small price to pay for such a fun collection of recipes.
We've fallen a little behind on our cookie of the day posting, mostly because we thought that you might all be a little overwhelmed by the avalanche of sweets and treats that have a way of filling our homes around the holiday season. It's taking all my willpower right now not to go and cut a slice off the chocolate and caramel covered apple that is currently hanging out in the fridge.
If you aren't totally tired of cookies, I came across a recipe a couple of days ago and spoke to me. I haven't tried it out myself yet, but it's from Julie at Noshtalgia and her recipes tend to be pretty darn reliable. It's for Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies, a style of cookie that is good any time of year, not just around the holidays.
I spent Christmas hanging out with my family, doing some cooking and generally vegging out. It seems that my friend Eric spent the day with his family, stymied by a Wilton Pre-Baked Gingerbread House Kit. He and his three year old nephew started the kit as a way to do something fun together and by the end were ready to toss it in the ground in frustration. Did anyone else try this kit this year? Was it fun for you or did you have as many problems as Eric and his nephew did?
Yesterday I mentioned that my mom and I worked in tandem to create an apple crisp for dessert on Christmas. We both compromised a little on our traditional method and I think our team work was a success, as I do believe that this was one of the best apple crisps every (although my dad pointed out that the best one is typically the one right in front of you, so I could be a little biased).
You see, I like to use mostly oats in my topping and she likes to use mostly flour. We came together and used about half oat flour and half pure rolled oats. The combination gave it a sense of pastry with the crunch and seeming-virtuousness of granola. I cut the pieces of apple a little smaller than my norm under her tutelege and I convinced her to season both the apples and the crumble topping. We both agreed to use toasted pecans in top instead of walnuts. What turned out was a dish that was tender and sweet without being overwhelming. It felt like it could be a really decadent breakfast item (and would be great with plain yogurt instead of the vanilla ice cream we ate it with). Check out our recipe after the jump.
We hope you had a great Christmas yesterday and are in the middle of very happy holiday week. You probably have some leftovers from the last few days, and that probably includes candy canes. I always have almost a box left on my kitchen counter every December.
I've looked around and found some recipes that include candy canes or are shaped like candy canes, including these Candy Cane Cookies from Better Homes & Gardens and these Candy Cane Cookies from Betty Crocker. Here's a recipe for Candy Cane Cheesecake, which sounds interesting.
Yesterday my mom and I made a big apple crisp and roasted off five huge sweet potatoes (which are destined for this dish). She is letting me have my way with the sweet potatoes, but the apple crisp was more of a tricky compromise. I've made a lot of crisps in my day and have developed a technique that I really like. However, that method relies on a food processor, which is a piece of equipment that my mother doesn't have. So we went back and forth, melding my mental recipe with the one she often follows from an old, favorite cookbook.
Later today I'll be chopping vegetables with my dad, making stuffing and getting the bird into the oven. I look forward to doing this kitchen dance with him every year, and happily, we've gotten to the point where we can anticipate each other in the kitchen without words. It's a joyful thing.
I hope that all you Slashfood readers out there are having equally nice days as I am, full of cooking, eating, drinking and laughing.
Pascale La Draulec gushes about the ease and allure of a 
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For Christmas, I received a super-cool vegan cookbook (thanks, Mom!) that's become my new favorite. I find that some veggie/vegan cookbooks, while gorgeous and filled with fantastic recipes, have an air of pretension about them that irks me as I struggle to, say, wrap my increasingly-crumbly tempeh in endive. 
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