It’s a busy baking month! What’s in your oven?
Thanks Caitlin! As posted on Holiday Baking: I have been out of commission for the last 2 weeks.. I was on call and busy with that, and then a cold morphed into a sinus infection, so I seem to have spent most of the last week… sleeping? Starting to get back to myself, but already feeling behind on Christmas baking! I started today with the cranberry cream cheese pound cake for our team holiday potluck tomorrow. Some of you may recall my challenges removing this from the tin in previous years: I used homemade cake goop instead of just butter and also made a mini for a friend. Pray for me later tonight!!
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Just our regular batches of sourdough. We make several loaves a week…we always include our neighbor .
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Chose Your Fruit Cake from Dorie’s Anytime Cakes. This is such an easy cake to put together. No mixer. There is ap flour and almond flour in the cake and the crumb is so nice and tender. As the name implies you can use a variety of fruit. I had blueberries. We really liked it.
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I have to try this one. Not only do I love a cake with fresh (or frozen fruit), but I love almond flour in such a cake - it seems to help things from sinking (in addition to enhancing the flavors). I’m on the fence over purchasing the book - great topic, weird photos?
I’ve been perusing a library copy, and it’s got very nice-sounding recipes. Yeah, another book along the lines of Snacking Cakes or Gateau, but Dorie’s books are reliably good and as always, she has her own spin on things.
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That cookbook is on my Christmas list!
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Hope you continue to feel better. But if you don’t, give yourself grace to take a break from your normal Christmas baking routine. My family (and I) still vividly remember ten years ago there were NO cookies baked/mailed by me, due to unfortunate early December timing of a nasty 2-week virus.
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Thank you! I am on the mend, so hope to start baking this weekend…
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Lucky neighbor!
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I love the homemade paste! (Learned from Nancy Birtwhistle sharing the method somewhere.)
Why not surprise them this December? 
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There has been a whole (largely derisive) discussion of this year’s NYT cookie selection over on the holiday baking thread.
Ah. I don’t bake, so I don’t generally follow any of the baking discussions, but these caught my eye bc I like mortadella.
Same here.
It got a bit misshapen as I tried to extract it from my improvised banneton (stuck to the dish towel).
Think this should have proved longer after shaping?
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Made a 3/4 apple and 1/4 (mostly ripe) fufu persimmon filling topped with Willie’s Crisp crust.
I’ve made many crisps with homegrown apples, asian pears, stone fruit, berries. Sometimes use tapioca in place of flour for thickening. This time used friend’s store-bought and very waxed apples (peeled).
Results perplex me. Apples were firm, almost perfect texture in juicy/soupy filling with slimy persimmon bits. After internet research, I suspect apples were more than one season old (apparently old apples cook differently than fresh). Also wonder if persimmon tannin influenced filling. Or maybe filling was undercooked? If I were to do it again, I’d cook the filling on the stovetop to try to narrow the variables. If anyone has experience to share I’d love your input.
That said, everyone raved and it was gone in an hour 
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Trying to clear my freezer of bananas, so made a double batch of Dorie’s banana cappuccino cake:
I don’t think I’ll frost them. The crumbs I tasted were good, and they seem plenty moist. The little ones are going to the teachers.
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We just returned from Germany. My wife fell in love with pfeffernusse. She has made two batches using fresh spices from the spice store on Solano Ave. I am making Sicilian almond cookies for a Berkeley Italian club. Towards the end of the month i will make a traditional panforte
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Here is the panforte recipe. I used to try and do this by hand..be authentic. Well that did not work well. My wife who is an accomplished cook and student of cooking advised me to use the power tools in our kitchen. Hence last year’s batch was much better
Ingredients
• Butter, to grease
• 100 g (3½oz) each ready-to-eat dried apricots, mixed peel,and walnuts
• 150 g (5oz) ready-to-eat dried figs, finely chopped
• 175 g (6oz) runny honey
• 200 g (7oz) light brown soft sugar
• Large pinch each ground cloves and nutmeg
• 1½tsp ground cinnamon
• 2½ tbsp plain flour
• 100 g (3½oz) each whole hazelnuts and blanched almonds
• 175 g (6oz) ground almonds
• Icing sugar, to dust
• Rice paper to line bottom of pan. Do not grease the rice paper
Directions
Preheat oven to 160°C (320 °F). Grease and line a 20.5cm (8 in.) round tin with rice paper.
Pulse apricots, mixed peel, and walnuts in a food processor until finely chopped. Add figs and briefly pulse again (or chop themall by hand!).
In a large saucepan, melt honey and sugar until dissolved. Bring to boil, then stir in cloves, nutmeg, 1tsp of cinnamon and 2 tbsp of flour. Remove from heat and stir in hazelnuts, blanched,ground almonds and chopped fruit (mixture will be stiff).
Press firmly into THE prepared 9” spring form pan.
In a small bowl mix remaining ½tsp cinnamon and remaining ½tbsp flour. Dust over panforte mixture and bake for 30-35 min or longer until slightly risen. Brush off excess flour mixture and cool completely in spring form pan before releasing.
To store, wrap in parchment, then overwrap in aluminum foil. Store at cool room temperature for up to 2 months. To gift-wrap, dust panforte with icing sugar, cut into wedges and layer between parchment in boxes
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