'Tis the season for cranberry waffles and eggnog crème anglaise

My excuse for every little nibble I have taken during the last month has been that 'tis the season! I have repeated it many times, each and every day this month. There was one evening that I made myself a batch of chewy chocolate chip cookies for dinner, and I thought to myself as I ate them that 'tis the season for a dinner of freshly baked cookies and a glass of milk!

There were more than a few days that I followed a very strict cookie and cake diet because 'tis the season! A few mornings, I ate multiple slices of toasted stollen with loads (and I really do mean loads) of salted butter. I washed it down with a giant mug of hot coffee with eggnog.

'Tis the season!

I have been on a bit of an eggnog kick. As I indulged in a slice of rum-glazed eggnog bundt at breakfast with a few sips of coffee with eggnog, I realized that eggnog at breakfast is brilliant! The bundt, though wonderfully eggnogy, just wasn't what I was craving at breakfast-time. I wanted an even greater way of enjoying eggnog in the morning (rum and all). So, I made cranberry waffles, and I topped them with a homemade eggnog crème anglaise. After all, 'tis the season!

Although the luscious crème anglaise is the most important part of this post, I'll start with the waffles because they were the only thing that stopped me from drinking the custard sauce straight from the bowl. For the waffles, I used Alton Brown's batter recipe. I left the prepared batter for 1 hour, covered at room temperature, so that the baking powder and baking soda could work their magic with the buttermilk. I ended up with a light and airy batter, to which I carefully folded in 1 cup of frozen cranberries. When I cooked the waffles, I had trouble getting the cranberries to evenly distribute in the waffle. Somehow, they always ened up in the center (which is why you can't see cranberries in the bits of naked waffle). Also, they did not pouf as much as I would have liked them to, but they were delicious nonetheless. I have yet to find a waffle recipe that yields thick, but light waffles.

For the crème anglaise (my obsession), I started with a recipe from Fine Cooking, but completely changed the amount of spice and the boozes used. This custard sauce is heavenly (I may not be very objective as I am custard-obsessed) and made a very festive breakfast that is just right for this season. The eggnog crème anglaise, spiked with just a touch of rum (rum at breakfast? 'Tis the season!) was perfect to offset the tartness of the cranberries. I quickly discovered that this custard sauce is quite addictive, so pour it generously, all over your waffles and pancakes. I have been dreaming about the crème anglaise ever since I ran out. Maybe I should make some more. After all... 'Tis the season!

Eggnog crème anglaise

• 2 cups heavy cream  
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
•  4 large egg yolks 
• 1/8 tsp table salt 
• 2 tbsp spiced rum 
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg 
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Set a medium metal bowl in a large bowl of ice water and have a fine sieve at the ready.
2. Combine the cream and sugar in a 3-quart saucepan. Set the pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally to encourage the sugar to dissolve. Heat the mixture through but do not allow it to boil (this is key to avoid making eggnog scrambled eggs!). Remove from the heat.  
3. Put the egg yolks and salt in a small heatproof bowl and gently whisk to break up the yolks. Gradually whisk in 1/2 cup of the warm sweet cream mixture. Pour the yolk mixture into the cream remaining in the saucepan, and whisk to combine.  
4. Cook over medium-low heat (slow and steady), stirring constantly with a clean wooden spoon until the custard thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon and hold a line drawn through it with a finger, about 8 minutes. An instant-read thermometer should register 170°F–175°F. Do not let the sauce overheat or boil because then you will probably curdle the mixture, yielding eggnog scrambled eggs. Immediately strain the sauce through the sieve into the bowl set in the ice-water bath.
5. Gently whisk in the rum, nutmeg (if you can, sift the nutmeg into the custard to avoid lumps of spice), and vanilla extract. Stir the sauce occasionally until cool, 10 minutes. Transfer it to another container, and cover the surface of the sauce with plastic to prevent a skin from forming. Wrap the container tightly with more plastic and refrigerate for about 1 hour, until velvety and slightly thick. 
6. Pour generously over waffles or pancakes, after all 'tis the season!

Dorie Greenspan's world peace cookies

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to be prepared and work to stay ahead of the holidays, it just doesn't work out that way. I expected that this year, it would be easier for me to enjoy all the holiday baking, and yet with all my jobs, and a packed schedule, somehow, I fell behind. It's not like I had a strict schedule to adhere to, but I did have a long list of baking that I wanted to enjoy pre-Christmas. My list included a gingerbread house, which I was aiming to build well before Chrismas Day. Every year, I make a gingerbread house with my mom, and every year, I somehow end up putting the pieces together on the 23rd or 24th of December, not the ideal time to be constructing a house. This year was going to be different!

Gingerbread house from December 2008

The last house that I put together was in December 2008 because, in 2009, I was too busy with my thesis to make one. In early December of this year, my mom and I settled on a Victorian house pattern. She did all the grunt-work, making the gingerbread dough, then rolling, cutting, and baking all the pieces using the templates. Of course, what we didn't realize was that the templates we printed were made at different scales. So the measures were all off. We ended up with a pile of pieces that didn't quite fit together. We debated on sawing off the extra inches from some of the baked pieces so that we could continue construction, but eventually we gave up on that because who has that kind of time and patience during the holidays? Not us! Plus, we only discovered this on the 23rd of December (never leave construction to the last day possible!).

See how one wall is about half an inch taller than the other!

In search of peace, after the gingerbread-house-2010 debacle, we switched to a recipe that we were sure would work: Dorie Greenspan's famous World Peace Cookies, republished in Bon Appétit's September 2010 issue (I think that she originally published them in her Paris Sweets cookbook). I made a few tweaks, using Dutch-processed cocoa instead of regular Fry's cocoa, adding 1/2 tsp cardamom for a light citrus-spice note. Of course, given the kind of day I was having, I used 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons butter instead of 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons butter. I pretty much used double the butter that was called for. As I prepared the dough, I marveled at how rich these cookies would be, considering that the ratio of butter to flour in the cookie dough I made was pretty much one-to-one.

*sigh*

Needless to say that when it came time to bake the cookies, I quickly discovered that I had screwed up: the slices slowly melted into a chocolaty puddle of butter in the oven.

I knew right away what was wrong: my instincts were right to marvel at the quantity of butter. My mom and I quickly did some math, estimating how much of the cookie dough was left, and how much more flour/cocoa we needed to add to fix the recipe. With the right amounts of butter and flour in these cookies, we ended up with about 50 crisp, deeply chocolaty cookies, with a slight chewiness to their centers. I might up the cardamom amount next time because I felt the cookies could use a bit more of a cardamom-hit. By the way, the recipe published in Bon Appétit suggests to slice the logs of cookie dough into 1/2-inch thick cookies, but we found that 1/4-inch slices were a much better thickness.

*sigh of inner peace*

These cookies may not bring world peace, but they did provide much stress-relief during the holidays. Plus they satisfied my chocolate craving that came about with the gingerbread house disappointment. If you are in need of an intensely chocolaty cookie, these will definitely do the trick.

 

World Peace Cookies 

Yields about 50 cookies

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour 
• 1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 11 tbsp (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 5 ounces chocolate (I used 70% cacao chocolate), chopped (no pieces bigger than 1/3 inch)

1. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, cardamom, and salt into medium bowl. 
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth but not fluffy. 
3. Add both sugars and vanilla. Beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. 
4. Add flour mixture. Beat until combined. The dough may appear a little crumbly, but when you squeeze a clump together in your hand, you will find that it comes together nicely.
5. Add chopped chocolate; mix just to distribute (if dough doesn't come together, knead lightly in bowl to form ball). 
6. Divide dough in half. Place each half on sheet of plastic wrap. Form each into 1 1/2-inch-diameter log. Wrap each in plastic; chill until firm, about 3 hours.
7. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat mats. 
8. Using a sharp knife (preferably not serrated), cut logs crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Space rounds 1/2-inch apart on prepared sheets. Bake 1 sheet at a time until cookies appear dry (cookies will not be firm or golden at edges), 11 to 12 minutes. 
9. Transfer to rack to cool.

Here's hoping that next year, I will finally get back to making gingerbread houses, and actually complete one from start to finish....

Daring Bakers celebrate Christmas with a traditional stollen bread

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.

As I served up toasted slices of my freshly baked stollen bread at work, Betty walked by (that's not her real name, but that's what I'm going to call her here, for the sake of anonymity).
Betty: "What's that smell? Is that cinnamon raisin bread? It smells incredible!"
Jan: "It's stollen. It's a bread."
Betty: "You stole bread for us? I don't understand!"
Jan: "Of course not! The bread is called stollen. It's German. I'm sure it means something, but I forget what."
Betty: "Where do you even buy that? Is it imported or something?"
Jan: "No, I made it yesterday."
Betty: "You made this? Like with your hands? Oh my God!"
Jan: "Yup. I'm a baker!"

It's true. I am a baker. I am a baker who truly loves stollen! I serve it just like I would cinnamon raisin bread: toasted with loads of salted butter. Trust me, it's the only way (and the best way, if I may say so myself) to enjoy it. Don't get me wrong: a well-made stollen is delicious as is. But when you load up a toasty hot slice with soft, salty butter.... Wow! It's sweet, spiced, salty, and buttery. What more could you ask for?

I've made a few stollen breads from different recipes (like Nick Malgieri's recipe from A Baker's Tour). I don't think that any of them compared to this one. This stollen recipe is so good that I actually got up every morning 10 minutes ahead of my usual gym schedule, just so that I'd have enough time to toast, butter, and devour a slice before running out the door. I have to be out of my place before 6:30 AM in order to make it on time to my gym or yoga classes. Clearly, this stollen was really yummy if I was willing to sacrifice 10 precious minutes of sleep for a little piece of it. I guess that in my little world, food trumps sleep many a morning and night.

What I love about this recipe is that the dough rises overnight in the fridge. No babysitting a dough in a warm, but not too warm, place as it rises. You can tweak the recipe by adding your favorite candied or dried fruits. I used some plump, dried figs in my stollen in place of the suggested glacéed cherries. The baked stollen loaves weighed a ton (reminiscent of a heafty fruitcake), but yet when you cut into them, you discovered that the weight of them was deceiving as hidden inside is a tender, soft, delicate interior with just the right amount of dried fruit and nuts nestled inside. Some prefer to brush the freshly-baked stollen with melted butter, and then sprinkle with generous amounts of powdered sugar to create a powdered sugar crust on the exterior of the bread. With this recipe, I don't think that is necessary.

This recipe actually makes 2 loaves. I split the prepared dough in half, and I initially baked only one portion of it. I stored the second half in the fridge, in a lightly greased bowl, tightly covered with clingwrap. I baked that half a week after I made the dough. It was just as delightful.

 
Stollen
Yields 2 loaves

• 1 cup sultana raisins
• 3 tbsp rum
• 1/4 cup lukewarm water (~110°F)
• 4 1/2 tsp instant yeast
• 1 cup milk
• 140 grams (10 tbsp) butter
• 770 grams all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp rum
• 1 cup flaked almonds 
• 3/4 cup mixed peel
• 5 dried calymirna figs, sliced

To prepare the fruit:

1. Mix the raisins with 3 tbsp rum. Set aside to soak at room temperature.
   

To make the dough:

1. Pour the warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast. Stir and let stand 5 minutes. The yeast will get foamy (that's how you know it's good!).
2. In a small saucepan, combine the milk and butter over medium–low heat until butter is melted. Let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.
3. Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add vanilla extract and 1 tsp rum.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
5. Then add the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.
6. Add in the soaked fruit, almonds, mixed peel, and the chopped figs. Mix on low speed to incorporate. 
7. Switch from the paddle to the dough hook, and knead the dough for approximately 6 minutes. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough – a few raisins will start to fall off the surface of the ball of dough (at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the raisins will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn't enough to bind the outside raisins onto the dough ball).
8. Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Put it in the fridge overnight (or longer). The dough becomes very firm in the fridge (since the butter goes firm) but it does rise slowly… the raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.

Baking the bread:

1. Cut the dough in half and remove half (or all if you want to bake 2 loaves right away) the dough from the fridge.
2. Let the dough rest for 2 hours in order to warm slightly.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
4. Punch down the dough, then shape it into a loaf, and fit it in a greased 9x5-inch loaf pan (or in 2 pans if you are working with both halves of the dough).
5. Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1½ times its original size.
6. Bake the stollen for 55 minutes. The bread will bake to a fairly dark color, and you will know it is done when the internal temperature measures 190°F/88°C in the center of the loaf. It should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom (a tell-tale sign that a bread is baked through).
7. Remove the stollen from the oven and let it cool completely out of the pan, on a wire rack.
8. Slice thick, toast, and slather with salty butter. It's heaven any time of day, but especially with a hot cup of tea. 

For more information on the Daring Cooks and Daring Bakers (and to check out what everybody's been up to), visit The Daring Kitchen.

A festive eggnog bundt with a sparkly rum glaze

Spiked or not, I think eggnog is wonderful. It's something about that creamy spiciness that has me hooked. Obviously, homemade eggnog is better, but sometimes that's just not an option. Even if I usually only have time to buy Québon-brand eggnog, it seems so luxurious when I'm sipping on a glass of eggnog on the rocks.

When it's eggnog season, I drizzle it on everything. Eggnog appears on my menu on a daily basis. I find that the easiest way to incorporate eggnog into my daily routine, is by adding it to my usual daily beverages, like tea, coffee, or hot chocolate (my current beverage of choice). Recently though, I've wanted to take my "nogging" a little further. So, I jumped from beverages to cake. An eggnog poundcake studded with rum-soaked raisins, and coated with a thick layer of rum-sugar glaze, to be exact. Oh yeah!

The recipe for this eggnog pound cake (originally made with currants) is taken from Flo Braker's beautiful Baking for All Occasions. I have wanted to buy this book for years, but never had the chance. I'm glad I finally did. This is her cover recipe, and I can safely say that I will be making it again and again. In fact, I already made it twice this week-end, for two different groups of friends. When I served up the first bundt, one person I served it to went back for thirds (that's my girl!), while her husband (who never eats cake) happily gobbled a slice. When I served up the second bundt, a stampede of people lunged for the cake. So many, in fact, that I did not even get to sample a piece myself. Those that missed out on slices of this cake fought over the crumbs (no joke!). It's a real heartwarming feeling when people are fighting over a bundt you made (not that I condone violence of any kind). Those that got to sample a few crumbs even emailed me to thank me for those crumbs. Wow!

I won't republish Flo Braker's recipe here because it's not mine to give. The recipe is in her book (although with some crafty googling, you may stumble upon it...). However, if you don't mind, Flo Braker, I would like to mention the glaze. I am eager to try this type of crystalline glaze on gingerbread and lemon cakes. Flo Braker's recipe called for a glaze containing lots of sugar, and a mix of water and rum. In my books, cakes can always use a little more booze, so I opted for lots of sugar and more rum (no water). Even with double the rum, the rum flavor was still far from overwhelming. I think it was just right. Several tasters commented that the rum flavor was just great, without making the cake seem too boozy.

The crazy thing about this glaze is that it is saturated with sugar granules. So much so (150 grams), that you cannot dissolve all that granulated sugar in the little amount of liquid called for (4 tablespoons). You end up with a magical slurry of sugar crystals in rum.

The mixture can be generously brushed onto the hot, freshly-baked bundt. You will want to use all of the glaze for this task. Trust me, you will thank me later. When the bundt has cooled, and the glaze has crystallized, you end up with a thick, sparkly layer of rum glaze, with random trickles that streaked down the sides of the bundt. Those trickles truly bring this bundt to the next level of rum-spiked "nogging" heaven.

I dedicate this post to the Food Librarian who sent me a lovely justjenn button (which tried to escape out of the envelope!), simply for making a bundt during her I like big bundts 2010 marathon. A million thanks to you both! I too am a big-bunt-lover, and I cannot wait to read about the 2011 bundt marathon!

Happy bundting to all, and to all a good night.

Chewy German gingerbread cookies

We can all sing around here that "the weather outside is frightful" and I'm pretty sure (in my fantasy world), crowds of people would join my caroling in agreement. I think the carolers would beg along with me to just let it snow since we've had spurts of unseasonal, warm temperatures, and loads of rainy/freezing rainy precipitation. Yesterday, our outdoor thermometers registered +6°C, today they registered –11°C. The inconsistent weather has put quite the damper on our holiday spirits.

A cross-country skier, skiing along the canal the day before temperatures rose in the city and the rain came.

My solution has been to play holiday music pretty much constantly. That, and I baked gingerbread cookies. I love a good gingerbread cookie. The aroma of the spiced cookies baking in the oven is exactly right for this season. But sometimes, I find them just a tad too crisp (I'd rather not add a broken tooth on top of the stress of the holidays). Then a colleague sent me this link to a German gingerbread cookie recipe that yields firm, but chewy cookies. She offered to translate, but I turned down her offer even though I am far from fluent in German. My ability to decipher German did not come from the time that I lived in Germany for several months as everybody spoke to me in English. I did not really acquire German when I took a German course at the University level, only to forgot it all a few months later. I think my ability to decipher German recipes has come from my PhD where I was I was faced with a number of lab protocols that I needed to follow, but that were written in German. Okay, maybe some of my knowledge came from living in Schwenningen and German class at Concordia, but I'm going to attribute it to my PhD because that degree has got to have served a purpose for something good!

Anyways, back to my German recipe. I think the slight chewiness of these cookies comes from a few key ingredients, namely honey, brown sugar, and butter, which are melted together first, before combining with the rest of the ingredients.

Chewy German gingerbread cookies
Makes about 50 cutout cookies

• 100 grams honey
• 30 grams butter
• 50 grams brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 large egg
• 250 grams all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1/8 tsp cloves
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

1. In a medium saucepan on medium heat, melt the honey, butter, brown sugar, and salt, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. When the mixture is completely melted and homogeneous, remove from the heat to cool until it is lukewarm.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cooled honey-butter mixture with the egg until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and sift them into the mixer bowl. Beat until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl to incorporate every last bit of flour.
4. Transfer the dough to a very lightly-floured worksurface, and knead it for a minute to make sure that all the ingredients are well combined.
5. Divide the dough in two, forming each half into a disk. Wrap each disk with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour until the dough has firmed up.
6. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
7. Take one disk of dough from the fridge, and roll it out on a floured surface to 1/4-inch. Using lightly floured cookie cutters, cut out festive shapes  and transfer them to a Silpat-lined baking sheet.
8. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes.
9. Cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack.
10. Continue with the rest of the dough. The dough scraps can be rerolled a few times to make more cookies.
11. Store the baked cookies in a airtight plastic container to keep them chewy. 

 

Since I haven't practiced cookie decorating since the September Daring Bakers Challenge, I figured I might as well try (*shudder*). I whisked together a little over 200 grams of powdered icing sugar, with 1 egg white, and a couple teaspoons of lemon juice, and then used this white royal icing to decorate. It was rough. I decided to focus on learning to outline so I made sure that the royal icing was fluid enough to pipe, but not so fluid that it would run off the cookies before drying. I'm pretty sure that I was using too large a tip to outline my cookies (or at least that is my excuse). I clearly need to practice more. I honestly felt like I was a 4 year old learning to wield a pencil to sign my name for the first time, with slightly awkward techniques and maneuvers.... I'm sure my mommy will love them just the way they are. The cookies are festive and delicious, just what this dreary weather called for, especially when served with a warm cup of tea.

Chocolate cranberry bread to kick off Christmas baking

Baking is one of the best ways to fill a home with Christmas cheer. However, there are so many other little moments that tell me it is Christmas-time. Some years, it begins to feel like Christmas with the first snow fall. Other times, I can smell Christmas when I get that first whiff of the cold, crisp air of the winter season to come. The Christmas spirit may enter my home when I find the time to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas or How the Grinch Stole Christmas. And, if all else fails, when Première Moisson begins to sell their holiday "pain du mois," I know that Christmas-time is here again. I look forward to this "pain choco-canneberge" every year. The bread is actually a round loaf of sweet yeasted bread buns (possibly brioche), with morsels of dark chocolate and tart cranberries nestled throughout. The buns are topped with a very thin, sweet glaze, and chunky sugar crystals. It's pretty to look at, and it tastes wonderful.
This year, I decided to welcome Christmas into my home by baking the choco-canneberge bread. I figured that the secret formula would have been leaked on the internet somewhere, and with some diligent googling in French, I would be able to find the recipe. After several attempts at googling the recipe, in English and in French, I came up with nothing. This bread recipe seems to be quite the secret, not that this would ever stop me.

I started with this recipe for maple sticky buns (by the way, this is a great recipe for sticky buns that is a real crowd-pleaser and truly yummy!): the dough recipe is easy, and rises overnight in the fridge. Although not as rich as a brioche, the bread that you get from this dough is nice and fluffy on the inside, which is just what I was going for. I made a couple changes, swapping out the active yeast and using instant instead (via this handy conversion table), and opting for butter in the dough instead of shortening (because my life never has enough butter in it).
After letting the dough rise in the fridge overnight, it had almost tripled. I punched it down and worked on kneading in the frozen cranberries and chocolate chips. This is no easy task as cranberries and chocolate chips tend to roll all over the place. I tried to incorporate about a cup of each, but of course, I lost a few to the floor (slippery little buggers!). When I was done abusing kneading the dough to incorporate the fruit and chocolate, I placed the dough back in the bowl and let it rest and rise for another couple of hours in the oven, heat off, light on. I figured that the dough needed to rest after all that work. It doubled in size.
I divided the dough and shaped half into a small loaf, which I placed in a lightly greased 9x5-in loaf pan. I divided the other half of dough into six, forming each piece into a round bun that I placed in a greased 10-inch deep dish pie plate. I glazed the tops of the loaf and buns with an egg wash, and sprinkled them with granulated sugar.
I baked the two for about 45 minutes until they were golden brown.... et voilà!
I gobbled half the loaf with a friend as soon as it was cool enough that the bread wouldn't be ruined by cutting into it. The bread was soft and airy inside, with the chocolate chips and cranberries scattered through in a pretty random pattern. The outer crust was crisp and slightly sweet from the sprinkling of sugar.

The buns were huge! I probably should have divided the second half of dough into 10 or 12 smaller buns as opposed to 6 large buns. Maybe I should have even split the second half of dough between two pans. But the finished bread buns were gorgeous! I love how the cranberries and chocolate chips peak through the dough in places.

Although not quite like Première Moisson's original choco-canneberge since I didn't top the breads with a sweet glaze, this bread is really a perfect way to kick off the Christmas season and the twenty-some days of baking to come. This recipe makes a festive addition to a breakfast or brunch menu.

Chocolate cranberry bread
Yield 1 loaf and 1 10-inch bun-cake

• 4 tsp instant dry yeast
• 2 cups warm water (110°F to 115°F)
• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 6 to 6-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 cup frozen cranberries
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• Egg was (1 egg lightly beaten with a tablespoon of water)
• Granulated sugar for sprinkling on the bread

1. In a medium bowl,  whisk together 5 cups of flour with the salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the butter, sugar, egg, the flour mixture. Beat until smooth. Add enough remaining flour to form a soft dough (I need only three-quarters of a cup). Transfer to a large greased bowl, grease the top of the dough, cover the bowl, and refrigerate for 24 hours. 
3. Punch down the dough and knead in the frozen cranberries and chocolate chips. Transfer the dough back to the greased bowl and let it rest and rise for another hour or two, until it has doubled in size.
4. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
5. Cut the dough in half. 
6. Shape half the dough into a loaf, and transfer it to a greased loaf pan.
7. Divide the other half of the dough into 6 to 10 buns (depending how big you want them) and arrange them neatly in a greased 10-inch cake pan or deep-dish pie plate.
8. Brush the tops of the buns and loaf with the egg wash, and sprinkle generously with granulated sugar.
9. Bake at 375°F for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for an additional 25 minutes, or until the breads are a deep golden brown. I tested to make sure they were done by "thumping them" and also I pierced with a cake tester.
10. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and let cool completely before cutting into them (if you can wait!).

A farewell to fall baking: Pumpkin cranberry loaf

In the Northern Hemisphere, winter officially begins on December 21st, on the day of the winter solstice. Although it is not technically winter now (the first week of December), it feels like winter in my kitchen (perhaps the feeling stems from the hot buttered rum pudding). With the passing of Canadian Thanksgiving in early October, and then American Thanksgiving, which was November 25th this year, it seems appropriate to end the fall baking period, and begin Christmas baking. By early December, if not end of November, I find myself craving spiced, boozy fruitcakes, plum pudding, and loads of beautiful, homemade cookies. I can smell the aromas of holiday baking. I can see my belly/figure filling out with all the glorious treats. The Christmas season is not a time for dieting in my home. It's a time for well-deserved indulgence and pure enjoyment. Fruit cake is brimming with sweet, candied and dried fruits and fruit peels, topped with brandy, marzipan, and a thick layer of brandied buttercream. Plum pudding is flambéed with brandy and served with a hard sauce made of confectioner's sugar, butter, and more brandy. There will be gingerbread houses, and gingerbread men (I'm sorry, but this old-school girl refuses to call them gingerbread "people," so please just get over it!). There will be cut-outs of all sorts, perhaps even decorated since I learned how this year. My mom and I will definitely be making Egyptian shortbread with my Aunt Fawzia's recipe. Her recipe is always a challenge to put together as it calls for "a saucer of this" and a "spoonful of that," and enough flour until the cookie dough "feels right." The baking list goes on an on.

Some years, I was very productive, my oven pumping out loads of cookies and cakes after a long day of school. Other years, I spent the baking season stuck in front of a computer, desperately trying to speed through a proposal that refused to be hurried. Gingerbread house walls were left aside because I had no time to construct the house. My mom would bear the brunt of the baking, trying to keep my spirits up through hard times. This is the first year in twenty-some years that I will not be in school during this season, cramming for exams, writing proposals, or speed-typing a 300-age thesis. I do have a day job, but my work hours do not come anywhere close to the 60- (often 80-) hour work-weeks of the past 6 years. My excitement is so great that I could cry!

Before I begin this most festive time of year in my kitchen, I have a recipe that took me three attempts to fix. Yes, three. Many of us would have given up at this point, but I just couldn't let it go. I can be a little stubborn. The recipe I began with (attempt #1) is courtesy of Food Network Canada, by Anna Olson. She tends to be my baking inspiration at times, even if her recipes are not quite flawless. I admire her, but I have to admit that I think that her recipe for pumpkin cranberry loaf contains way too much liquid: a full cup of pumpkin purée as well as a full cup of orange juice (which I replaced with buttermilk in my first attempt to maintain the acidity of the recipe, without having the overpowering flavor of OJ) in one loaf with only two cups of flour. The bread takes over 1.5 hours to bake (instead of 60–75 minutes) at 350°F (not the temperature of 325°F that is recommended), and even with all that baking, the bread still has a line of moistness at the bottom. I served this bread to coworkers who adored it and couldn't get enough. I guess to the untrained eye this pumpkin loaf is wonderfully moist. To me, this quick-bread recipe is a little off.

Attempt #1 with 1 cup of buttermilk, baking soda, baking powder, and the zest of 1 lemon

When I worked on my second attempt, I decided to halve the amount of liquid. I also used vanilla almond milk instead of buttermilk because almond milk is what I had at the time. I figured that this would be a nice substitution. I assumed the almond milk would not be as acidic as the OJ in the original recipe, so I omitted the baking soda, for pH reasons. I also admitted the citrus zest because I found the zest of 1 lemon or 1 small orange was still overpowering even though the OJ was long gone from my recipe. End result: Yuck! This is honestly the worst loaf I have ever made in my life. The taste was flat, and it was even moister than the original, even though it baked for 1.5 hours! This attempt was really shocking to me as clearly, I had fixed nothing. I had made the recipe worse. I began to doubt myself, and my tastes: maybe the original is supposed to be that way.

Attempt #2 with 1/2 cup of almond milk, baking powder, and no zest

I waited a week before my third attempt. I was concerned. What if I put together another terrible quick-bread. This could be a blow to my ego that I am really not in the mood for. I was scared. I am used to that scared feeling when you don't know what the outcome of an event/test will be. Will it be good? Will it be bad? Will I be forced to throw out another loaf, wasting all those precious ingredients? I hate waste. My final recipe contained 1/4 cup of buttermilk and the zest of half a lemon. All other ingredients were the same. I bumped up the cinnamon because I felt even my most successful attempt #1 needed a boost that was non-citrusy. This third loaf baked for 1.5 hours at 350°F. The amount of time made me very nervous. I was preparing myself for another quick-bread that was too moist. To my surprise, this bread was just right! That layer of moistness at the bottom was gone!

Attempt #3 (SUCCESS!) made with 1/4 cup of buttermilk, baking powder, baking soda, and the zest of half a lemon

The flavor was not flat, although the lemon zest is not quite identifiable, I know that it is there. The spicy notes shine through alongside the pumpkin. And the only extra moistness comes from the burst cranberries, which is totally acceptable to my palate. Success! I can now rest easy and close the fall baking season with pride. I now have a good pumpkin cranberry loaf recipe that I can be proud of.

Pumpkin cranberry loafYield: 1 loaf

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup pumpkin purée
• 1/4 cup buttermilk (made from 1%-fat milk and a drizzling of white vinegar)
• zest of half a lemon
• 1 cup frozen cranberries, directly from the freezer

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. Prepare a loaf pan by greasing it and then placing a piece of parchment (cut to size) at the bottom.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients, and set them aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar for about 1 minute.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, until just incorporated. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
6. Add the vanilla.
7. Add one-third of the flour. Mix until just combined.
8. Add half the buttermilk. Mix until just combined.
9. Add the second third of the flour. Mix until just combined. Scrape down the edges of the bowl as needed.
10. Add the last half of buttermilk, the purée, and the lemon zest. Mix until just combined.
11. Add the last bit of flour. Mix until just combined.
12. Add the frozen cranberries, and mix until just combined.
13. Plop the batter into the prepared pan (the batter is thick, so I don't recommend pouring).
14. Bake for 1.5 hours

Now that I have tweaked this recipe, I am ready to embrace the coming season and all the delicious Christmas baking to come! Sweet!