Christmas baking
Jean Raber mentioned on another thread the use of lard in baking. One of my sisters is coming down from New Hampshire on Tuesday, eager to start the baking, making ample use of lard. She still laughs at the woman who, seeing her put lard on the moving band at the check-out counter, exclaimed, “Do you know that’s just pig fat?” And my sister replied: “Yes, and nothing is as good for baking.” She makes wonderful date cookies.
At the Monastery of Bose a few years back, at the end of a conference, we had a wondeful meal, the first course of which was bread sticks and lard, with a wonderful local wine.
My brother is in the kitchen at the moment at a huge mixing bowl to make our traditional Slovak Christmas rolled cakes with almond or walnut or prune or poppy seed filling. He just showed me the huge ball of dough that will be put aside to rise during the day, punched down three or four times. The other day he made hundreds of ceregi, known to many as angel-wings; see here. All made, of course, with the feshest of eggs.
Another sister specializes in kolachki, small cakes (some people use that word of the nut rolls).
So the wonderful traditions continue: from my Slovak grandmother to my Irish mother to her children and on to theirs.
So who’s going to be baking? (With or without lard?) And what are the seasonal favorites?
Lard!! OMG…..Totally politically incorrect. Your sister is a brave woman.
I LOVE sweets although I cut out all refined sugar about six months ago and am a bit of a health nut (jut a bit). Still, I indulge. my Finnish background at this time of year and so cinnamon rolls (with real butter), and anything with cinnamon sugar on it rank right up there as my favourites and of course there needs to be a very good cup of dark roast, strong coffee to dunk hard cinnamon toast in.
For Raber’s Germano-talian I have lebkuchen made Thanksgiving weekend aging in a secret place. The Boy and I made spritz cookies last week (also in a secret place), and the biscotti is comes on Monday.
The Irish and Welsh are not famous for their cooking, but I will make a batch of ginger scones with oatmeal flour for Christmas Eve breakfast. Frankly, I think these would benefit from lard instead of Crisco, and I may try that this year … Best eaten slathered with orange marmalade, which nobody likes but me.
Yes, lard is a must
in a decent pie crust.
Mark Bittman mentioned that just the other day in a column about apples with candied bacon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/15/dining/15mini.html?scp=1&sq=lard&st=cse
I’ll be baking cookies starting Monday. Sugar cookies rolled out and cut into shapes — reindeer, elephants, stars, trees, bells. Gingerbread boys and girls. All iced and embellished with silver dragees. Curly hair made by pushing dough through a garlic press. Chocolate cracker kisses, my husband’s fave. Coconut macaroons, my fave.
(Love lebkucken, but have never made them. Hoping my son’s German friends send some.)
Gerelyn, I can send you my recipe if you want. Lebkuchen is really easy (at least the way I make it).
Please do. I’ll try. I think the oblaten is what has scared me off.
Fr. Komonchak, I enjoyed reading your post. I, too, am the son of a Slovak father and an Irish mother (and my mother became an expert when it came to baking the traditional Slovak long nut rolls and kolaci at Christmas and Easter. These days around Christmas — and again in Holy Week — I have very loving memories of my dear mother spending days baking the holiday pastries. Both she and my Dad are now in the fullness of life with the Lord … and I trust they are enjoying the Holidays more than ever!
My mother made candy for Christmas — chocolate fudge, stuffed dates, divinity fudge (where did that name come from), and meringues shaped like large Hershey’s kisses. The latter were simplicity itself — sugar, egg white, a touch of vanilla and a speck of salt whipped up, dropped on a baking pan, and baked slowly at 300 degrees or less. Even old Mrs. Galatoire though they were wonderful. Everyone thought my mother must have had a secret, but she didn’t. Recipes just don’t tell you how to judge. I’ve tried making them, but they’re never the same.
Nobody made cookies, but my great aunts made fruit cake. No, not the door stop kind. No citron. Just the fruit and nuts with a light dough with a touch of chocolate in it. And best brandy, the soaking with which began in November.
I used to make Uncle Bob’s New York STyle cheese cake for Christmas dinner, but my recipe (from a very old Food and Wine magazine) was on my computer, and I’ve lost it!!! If anybody has it, could you please send me a copy. I can’t find it on the net :-(
I made door stop cookies last night from a package, and that’s about it. A musician’s to-do list is a mile long this time of year. Wish me luck. Merry Christmas to all!
My grandmother’s answer when asked how much of this-or-that to add, was always: “Enough!” I thought that was funny until someone asked me how much cream and cheese to add for my fettucine Alfredo and I found myself answering: “Until it tastes right.” My sisters and brother do basically the same thing with the dough for the nutbreads–”Until it feels right”–but one year when it felt particularly good, they wrote the recipe down, and it seems still to work well.
On Christmas eve, we would go for dinner at our Slovak grandparents; the dinner was traditional, but all I remember of it was a mushroom and onion soup which I don’t think I much liked. Then later my grandfather gave us all a pience of unleavened bread (same as used for eucharist9c hosts), and made a cross on our foreheads with honey.
I have no food-associations at all with the 3/4 Irish, 1/4 English side of the family. Probably because my grandparents on that side died when I was very young. But I never recall my mother talking with any gusto about foods on that side.
“So who’s going to be baking?”
I chose the better part, and it will not be taken from me. My roll is eating; I play it well, and often. Else what’s a baking for? But a heartfelt (stomachfelt?) thanks to all the preparers among us: bakers, hymnwriters, celebrants…
No baking, only eating.
All lard infused products cheerfully accepted and will be consumed with gusto.
Here’s a website on the return of lard…
http://www.grit.com/The-Open-Book/Cooking-with-Lard-for-Old-fashioned-Taste.aspx
My grandmother was Slovakian. She too made those poppyseed, nut and, in her case, apricot rolls — we dreamed about those things all year long, but i have never made them. Somehow it sticks in my mind as an ideal of my childhood that I am too afraid to destroy by trying to recreate. I have managed in the past to make a Yule log, but am lucky to get through three different kinds of Christmas cookies this year.
As for pie crusts, you can also use duck fat instead of lard (it’s more expensive). Before roasting a duck, you render the fat by steaming. There is nothing better for frying potatoes.
About lard — our cook used it for frying fried chicken and fried fish, and other fried things like corn fritters (Oh, joy!!!) I believe this was usual here before people became fat and cholesterol conscious. Nothing like it :-)
And here’s another bit about lard; less saturated fat than butter, no trans fat.
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/lard-the-new-health-food
My parents were Irish and trust me, there is no such thing as Irish cuisine. Everything is thrown into the pot and boiled. I was a skinny kid and gagged quite a bit at the table. However, my mother made great Irish bread – a recipe I use to this day- and an unbelievably dense Plum Pudding which she made every Christmas for us and for others. It took lots of dried fruit and crumpled day old bread as well as a 1/2 pint of brandy (possibly more). She shaped it into a large ball, about the size of a soccer ball. and wrapped it up in a cloth, usually from an old sheet, tied around the top with string and steamed it on top of the stove. After several hours, she would remove it, untie the string and carefully undress the plum pudding ball, all the while saying a hail mary. That was key. If you took the cloth off too rapidly or carelessly, the pudding would “fall.” So biblical. It was so heavy and rich, I could not eat more than a half inch piece of it. But I loved the ritual and the drama of the unfolding.
“It took lots of dried fruit and crumpled day old bread as well as a 1/2 pint of brandy (possibly more).”
What a hoot! My Irish great-grandmother had never heard of hanging up stockings for Christmas, but my grandfather told her that other kids did it and they found a gift in them the next day. So she him and his siblings–there were eight or nine of them at that time–nail stockings to the wall, and next morning they all found a potato in the toe.
The Welsh don’t have much cuisine to recommend themselves, either, but I have always loved pasties and Welsh rabbit. Make a roux in a double boiler, add a bottle of dark beer, a dash of Worcester sauce, and a cup or two of good sharp cheddar. Mix until everything is thick and smooth, pour over a pan of stale bread cubes (nobody in my family ever threw bread away) and bake until golden brown. Serve with mushy peas!
“So who’s going to be baking? (With or without lard?) And what are the seasonal favorites?”
Where I am from we would collect the lard from any pigs we ate throughout the year and would make a very nice savory bread in the winter with that lard and cracked black pepper. Very tasty. Also, in my town a Christmas time cookie made with cooked grape must is very traditional for the last several centuries. We call them little birds because of their shape.
My wife is Slovak, and she also makes kolacky, although the Slovak-American cookbook calls what she makes Cream Cheese Crescents. (The same book also has a couple of dozen kolacky recipes). My wife’s cookie has only four ingredients (butter, cream cheese, flour and a fruit jam filling) and they are absolutely the yummiest things anyone has ever tasted – when people try them for the first time, they can’t leave them alone. Barbara, I’m wondering if they’re the same things you’ve described.
Fr. Komonchak, Barbara and Ken, here is what that same cookbook lists as the traditional Christmas Eve supper:
Oplatky (Christmas wafers) and honey
Wine
Mushroom soup (possibly what you remember) and pagach
Bobalky
Fish, beans, peas, sauerkraut
Mixed dried fruits or stewed prunes
Assorted fresh fruits, mixed nuts
Nut and poppyseed rolls, rozky
Coffee
Bobalky, from what I can tell, is a sweet bread. Pagach seems to be a filled bread- the recipe offers options for sauerkraut, potato, cabbage or cheese filling. Rozky is another filled cookie made of refrigerated dough, I believe.
The next page lists the traditional Easter breakfast:
Sausage, baked ham
Hard cooked eggs, beet horseradish
Sweet butter, paska
Sirok (egg roll)
Home baked twist, nut and poppyseed rolls
Coffee
Paska seems to be a sort of bread made with a basic bread dough and a cheese dough.