Gingerbread goes hand in hand with the holidays. Its spicy warmth is irresistible on those cold winter nights in front of the fireplace or admiring the Christmas tree. We often associate gingerbread with cookies or even houses these days, but it actually takes many different forms – often depending on its European origin. This cake form is now considered particularly old fashioned. The recipe is adapted from “The James Beard Cookbook” and when it was published in 1959, James Beard was already describing it as truly old fashioned – which means it’s pretty darn old. However, classics such as these are timeless and good food never gets old especially if the ingredients and preparation remain simple.

I couldn’t resist adding a twist to the whipped cream, a must-have on top of each steaming hot piece. The cinnamon and cloves get along famously with citrus so a touch of fresh zest along with the juice of an orange, balances the spicy sweet flavors of this understated holiday specialty. My grandmother used whipped cream in many of her desserts. She actually has a page in her baking book devoted to how to make, flavor, and stabilize it. I like to think of this combination of gingerbread and flavored whipped cream as a joint recipe among two accomplished friends (James Beard and my grandmother, Paula Peck).

Ingredients:

Gingerbread
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup unsalted butter
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour
pinch salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup sour cream

Orange Scented Whipped Cream
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fresh orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest

For the Gingerbread:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8×8 cake pan.

Put molasses and butter in a saucepan and heat until they boil. Sift the flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and ground cloves. When the butter and molasses are slightly cooled, add sour cream and then stir in spices and flour. Pour into prepared baking pan and bake 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm with a large dollop of orange scented whipped cream.

For the Whipped Cream:

Whip heavy cream in an electric mixer. When cream begins to thicken, gradually add sugar, vanilla, and orange juice. Fold in orange zest.

Gingerbread recipe adapted from “The James Beard Cookbook,” by James Beard.

It started out as an apple pie – classic and simple. Then I added cranberries, followed by orange zest and spices. Before I could stop myself, a festive deep dish apple cranberry pie had been created. It turns out it’s a great way to use up those extra cranberries from Thanksgiving while creating a dessert fit for the next holiday party. Like a few other recipes I’m working on for the holiday season, this is not from the Paula Peck archives. The cream cheese pie crust recipe is from the cookbook, “John Clancy’s Favorite Recipes” by John Clancy, a chef and friend of my grandmother from the same 1970’s + era. With just his name scribbled across a few of my grandmother’s unpublished recipes, I know little about John Clancy. I’ve heard that his strength was baking more so than cooking, and I assume he met my grandmother through James Beard, with whom he taught cooking classes. In addition to a handful of cookbooks and his work as a teacher, he was also a restaurateur- owning a successful restaurant in Greenwich Village.

Since the original cream cheese pastry recipe is for one 9-inch shell, I doubled it to fit this double crusted pie. For those of you concerned about the additional dairy and fat from the cream cheese, my grandmother’s rich tart pastry would also work well (not that it’s anymore diet friendly though). The pastry crust creates a fragile shell around the filling which is jam packed with tender apples and juicy cranberries that are liberally sweetened to balance the tartness of the fruit. Spiced with cinnamon and just a pinch cloves and nutmeg, this pie will fill your home with the sweet aroma of the holidays.

Ingredients:

Cream Cheese Pastry (double crust)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter
6 ounces of cream cheese

Filling
3 lbs apples (honey crisp or granny smith work well)
1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon orange zest
1/2 a lemon
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch cloves and nutmeg
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cubed
milk (for brushing)

For the pie crust:

Combine the flour, salt, and sugar with an electric mixer. Add butter and cream cheese and mix on medium speed until the ingredients are well blended. Form dough into a disk and chill 30 minutes.

Cut disk in half and roll out half the dough into a round about 1/8 inch thick (chill remaining half until ready to use). Transfer dough to a 9-inch pie plate. Press the dough against the sides and bottom and trim edges, leaving a 1/2 inch overhang. Chill the pie shell for 30 minutes.

While the pie shell chills, prepare the filling:

Peel and slice apples 1/4 inch thick. Rub apples with half of a lemon to stop them from browning while you slice them. In a large bowl, combine the apples with the cranberries, sugar, orange zest, spices, and flour.

Roll out remaining pastry into a large round about 1/8 inch thick. Transfer filling into chilled pie shell and dot with butter. Roll the pastry onto a rolling pin and unroll over filling. Trim edges and pinch together top pastry with the overhang from the pastry shell. Chill pie for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush the pie with a little milk and sprinkle with sugar. Cut 4-5 steam vents (about 2 inches long). Bake 40 min – 1 hour or until apples are tender when a toothpick or cake tester is inserted into the pie.

Cream Cheese Pastry recipe adapted from “John Clancy’s Favorite Recipes,” by John Clancy.

The holidays are good excuse to eat cake. Personally, I will eat cake anytime anywhere, but for those of us that are a bit more health conscious, an actual reason or occasion maybe required to eat cake. Although fancy holiday flavors like ginger, pumpkin, and apple maybe the more obvious choice – sometimes you just want something rich and chocolaty to finish of that holiday meal. This mocha torte fits the bill. With a layer of apricot preserves, it resembles the famous Viennese Sacher Torte that my grandmother worked so hard to perfect later in her career. However, these cake layers are composed of Paula Peck’s famous genoise and then smothered with a velvety mocha buttercream that is so good it’s hard not to eat by spoonful. And unlike the Sacher Torte, which is finished with a chocolate glaze, this torte is garnished with semi-sweet chocolate discs that melt in your mouth.

You may be thinking that this cake sounds like a lot of work. Afterall, making a cake can be somewhat of daunting task. There are, of course, ways to simplify the process. You can always skip the chocolate rounds and you can even skip the apricot preserves (the chocolate/fruit preserves combination tends to lack in popularity with younger generations these days). No need to worry about pastry bags or making a mess with a piping bag, the cake can simply be frosted with a spatula. The mocha buttercream with its hint of coffee that brings out the chocolate flavor in the moist cake, will speak for itself.

Ingredients:

1 recipe (two 9-inch layers) Chocolate Genoise
1/4 cup cognac (optional)
2/3 cup apricot jam or preserves
1 1/2 cups Speedy Mocha Buttercream
16 thin 2-inch chocolate rounds (recipe follows)

Sprinkle cake layers with cognac, if using. Sandwich them together with apricot jam or preserves. Spread sides and top smoothly with buttercream, reserving some for decoration.

Arrange chocolate rounds next to each other flat against side of torte. Save 3 chocolate rounds to cut into quarters (optional). Set quarters flat in the butter cream around the top of the cake. Decorate the torte with remaining buttercream pressed through a medium star tube.

Chocolate Rounds

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening

Melt chocolate over hot water. Stir in shortening. Spread chocolate thinly on cooky sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper. Chill in refrigerator or freezer for a few minutes or until chocolate just begins to set.

Cut out rounds using a cookie cutter or the top of a water glass. Place back in refrigerator until chocolate is completely firm. Peel chocolate off paper.

Adapted from “The Art of Find Baking,” by Paula Peck

A simple chocolate cookie can be the perfect crave-worthy treat. Using ingredients you probably already have on hand, this recipe is quick, easy, and best of all chocolaty. I still get excited about making recipes by my grandmother that contain chocolate. With the number of recipes in “The Art of Fine Baking,” the chocolate ones are surprisingly few and far between. Much of her baking from the early 1960’s was European inspired. Classics like Genoise, French-style Fruit Tarts, Strudel, and Danish Pastry allowed little room for chocolate. Also, chocolate with varying degrees of cocoa butter content were not nearly as accessible at the time as they are now. I like to think that as the popularity of chocolate and its availability grew, my grandmother would have eventually come up with a book full of chocolate recipes to die for. Her Brownie recipe has always been a favorite and in my opinion these crackled chocolate cookies aren’t far behind.

The majority of this recipe is just chocolate and ground almonds. The original recipe called for grated almonds, which most of us don’t have time for. If you prefer a lighter, fluffier cookie and your purse strings are a bit looser, you can use Almond flour. The high egg yolk content then keeps the center of the cookie moist and chocolaty. As the smell of melted chocolate and almonds permeates your kitchen, these crackled drop cookies will barely make it out of the oven before they’re half gone.

Ingredients:

8 oz semisweet chocolate
8 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup ground almonds or almond flour
7/8 cup sifted flour pinch of salt

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Grease and flour a baking sheet (or line with parchment paper).

Melt chocolate over over a double boiler. While chocolate is melting, beat egg yolks and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Stir in melted chocolate, grated almonds, and flour mixed with salt.

Drop or pipe small rounds of batter on prepared cookie sheet, leaving 1 inch between cookies. Bake about 25 minutes, or until cookies are crackled and dry.

Yield: about 30

Adapted from “The Art of Fine Baking,” by Paula Peck.

I always look forward to apple season. It gives me a chance to continue testing the many apple recipes in “The Art of Fine Baking.” The sweet smell of crisp juicy apples baked in any kind of buttery vessel is hard to resist. With previous posts on unconventional apple desserts like Apple Cheese Cake Puff, Bavarian Apple Pancake, Sauteed Apple Cake, and Apple Roll, I figured it was time to introduce a classic.

Old fashioned Strudel is fairly well-known but somewhat out of style and awaiting a comeback. Frequently confused with Streusal  – the crumbly topping – Strudel is often said to have originated in Austria. It can be savory or sweet and is differentiated from other pocket style pastries by the characteristic paper-like pastry layers rolled around its filling. Apple is one of the most common strudel fillings and this version pulls out all the stops with cinnamon sugar, raisins, and ground walnuts.

Much like Puff Pastry and Danish Pastry (which I have yet to tackle), Strudel has always been a bit daunting for me. The idea of attempting to stretch the dough without destroying it seemed frustrating. I’m happy to report that it is much easier than I anticipated. Based on the introduction provided in her book and the number of strudel filling recipes, it appears my grandmother spent a fair amount of time perfecting it (along with James Beard). Her thoughts and instructions are some of the best I’ve found, including on the internet, so I’ve provided them in the basic Strudel dough recipe.

Ingredients:

Stretched basic Strudel dough
½ – 1 cup butter, melted
2 cups fresh bread crumbs sauteed lightly in butter
½ cup ground walnuts
4 cups peeled, sliced apples
1 cup raisins
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2/3 cup cinnamon sugar
powder sugar for dusting

Brush strudel dough generously with melted butter. Sprinkle all over with sauteed bread crumbs and ground walnuts. Place a 2-inch strip of sliced apples along one end of dough.

Brush apples with butter and sprinkle with raisins, lemon zest, and cinnamon sugar. Fold in flaps of dough at sides of filling. Brush them with butter. Lift up end of cloth nearest filling and make the dough fold over apples. By raising cloth, continue to roll up apple filling until it is completely enclosed in the sheet of dough. Roll loosely.

Transfer strudel to lightly greased baking sheet, making a horse shoe shape if it is too long for the pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour, basting occasionally with melted butter until strudel is golden brown. Dust with powdered sugar. Serve slightly warm

Brush remaining dough all over with melted butter.

This classy almond cake hides many secrets. For starters, the original recipe from “The Art of Fine Baking” is ambiguously titled just “Hunter Cake.” What is “Hunter Cake” and where does it come from? Your guess is as good as mine. Although I tried researching this mysterious cake title, I found little that resembled this recipe (think camouflage frosted cake with various fondant animals and rifles).

Other secrets of this cake lie within the ingredients. At first glance, a cake without flour may sound like a recipe for a rock. However, as my grandmother showcased in her gluten-free chocolate cake ring recipe, moist light cakes are not only possible without white flour, but delicious. Grated almonds act as a replacement for white flour but provide more flavor and protein. Although I’ve previously used ground almonds as a substitute for grated, they seem to weigh the cake down a bit and make it slightly heavier. But who really has time to grate over 3 cups of almonds? Enter almond flour. This nutty flour is essentially grated almonds and makes recipes like these a whole lot easier. You will pay for it though – almond flour runs $10-$15 per lb.

With all this talk about a moist light cake, you may be wondering how much butter or oil is needed. The answer is none. No butter, oil, or shortening of any kind is used. The secret of this fluffy cake lies within the egg yolks and stiffly beaten egg whites. Both the cake itself and the topping contain egg whites and although the topping is much like a meringue, it takes on a totally different texture with addition of the grated almonds. The finished moist cake layered with tart jam and almond meringue topping reminiscent of frangipane, will not only surprise you but keep you guessing.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups unblanched almonds or 2 cups almond flour
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 egg yolks
3 egg whites
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup raspberry jam (or other tart jam of your choice)

Topping
3 egg whites
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups unblanched almonds or 1 1/3 cups almond flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan. Finely grate unblanched almonds (if using instead of almond flour).

Add lemon zest and vanilla to egg yolks. Stir lightly with a fork to break them up.

Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add sugar, a little at a time, beating well after each addition, until whites are very stiff, about 5 minutes in all.

Pour egg yolks over whites. Sprinkle almond flour or grated almonds over them. Fold gently together. Pour into prepared pan and bake 30-40 minutes until cake is lightly browned and springy when gently touched.

Begin preparing topping when cake has backed about 20 minutes: Grate unblanched almonds, if using. Combine egg whites, lemon juice and vanilla. Beat until egg whites hold soft peaks. Add sugar, a tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition, until whites are very stiff, about 5 minutes in all. Fold in grated almonds or almond flour.

Remove cake from oven and quickly spread top with a thin layer of raspberry jam. Spread half the topping over jam and press remaining topping through a pastry bag fitted with a large star tube.

Replace cake in oven on a high rack. Bake 30-40 minutes longer or until top is golden brown and set. Cool cake in pan.

Adapted from “The Art of Fine Baking” by Paula Peck.