Are you ready for the holidays? I’m getting there and to kick off this Friendly Friday Holiday Party, I invite you to have some of my favorite Christmas Treats.
Christmas in my home starts with birthday celebrations. No, not for baby Jesus but rather for my own baby boy who arrived as an early Christmas gift on December 5th. After his birthday, I officially bring out the wreaths and ribbons to decorate our Christmas piano. I gave up on Christmas trees years ago, when I stuffed a fully flocked tree into my car. It shed half it’s needles in the trunk and the rest on the living room floor. It seemed like I was sweeping up pine needles for months afterwards. Ever since I’ve preferred the festive, non-shedding properties of my old stand-up piano.
Christmas for me is all about the food. Christmas cakes, puddings and cookies. Christmas breads, fruity panettone, fragrant ciabatta, herby focaccia, heavenly houska. Christmas hams, turkey and homemade stuffing.
Christmas sweets are a must. I try to keep them homemade. A yearly tradition is my mother’s recipe for Christmas pudding, her version of Jamaican Black Cake. It’s a denser, richer and boozier version of English plum pudding.
I’ve seen pictures of English plum pudding dressed up in marzipan, drizzled with sauce and lit up with flames. That’s all very pretty. In my home, I’ve only ever seen pudding wrapped up in paper sodden with rum and plum juices.
At Christmas dinner it is undressed and simply served plain. I once went to a Christmas party where the hostess shockingly put hard butter rum sauce on the side. Everyone discretely scraped it away and tutted at her eccentricities.
A couple Christmas seasons ago, I took a course in making Charcuterie. Never before or since, have I made so many fancy meat and fish dishes. Pates. Terrines. Confit. Gravlax. Deboned, stuffed and rolled galantines and ballotines (the former is served cold, the latter hot.) I made the dishes in school and then went home to make them again – once, twice, maybe five times to practise.
That Christmas I made forty-eight ramekins of pate for dinner parties and gifts. Luckily for my arteries and health, Covid intervened and I’ve not made pate since.
A safer, more heart friendly tradition is making bread. I make bread regularly but for the season, I’ll get fancy and make specialty breads as gifts.
One of my favorites is houska, a Czech bread similar to a challah or brioche. I worked on the recipe with a friend to help recover her mother’s long-lost recipe. I’m not sure if we recreated it exactly, but it was delicious.
Stollen is another bread that I’ve tried to make live up to its reputation. Frankly, I’m still trying. While the version I made at home was better than any I’ve purchased in the market, I think I’m missing something. Do you have a sure-fire recipe? Let me know and I’ll try it.
This year, I intend to make a favorite I discovered in Singapore. It’s a rich, sweet bread flecked with candied citron and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Yummy. A bite and a loaf go down very quickly.
These are some of my favorite Christmas treats. If you could come by, I’d invite you in and serve up a slice, a piece or a dish to sample. Instead, I hope you can imagine it. It’s almost as good and not nearly as fattening!
Now, I’m ready to see what other folks bring to the party! Come with me and go here, to have a look at the pingbacks.
Cheers!
The Sandy Chronicles 
beautiful festive piano! and loads of yummy treats! happy holidays!
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I’m trying to bake Stollen for the first time this week. I’m having trouble finding the marzipan though. Hey ho. I’m deep in Christmas baking at the moment – with a few different kinds of shortbread and rumballs and brigadieros. https://andanyways.com/2021/12/10/festive-bon-bons-2/
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Did you know that you make marzipan ? It’s really easy. So easy that my hubby makes it for himself when I pretend I cannot.
https://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipe/homemade-marzipan/16562/
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Well, I’ll have to give it a go then!
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… and what’s a brigadieros? It sounds complicated.
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Well, I’m glad you asked. And I just so happened to have posted the recipe today o my foodie site. https://brookfordkitchendiaries.wordpress.com/2021/12/11/brigadieros/
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Hi, Sandy – Thank you for inviting us all to this party. Your Christmas dishes and baking have made my mouth water. I totally feel for you about the shedding Christmas tree. A few years back we solbed that problem (and created a new Connolly-Wageman tradition) by setting up our Christmas tree outside of our large living room window. We still get a wonderful tree, which we get to decorate and admire to our hearts content – and no shedding (or consumed space) in the house. Win-win.
Wishing you a very happy holiday!
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I like that idea. We also have spruce trees in our front & back yards. However, they are humongous – taller than our 2 storey house. I’d have to bribe the fire trucks to decorate it. Mind you my neighbors do that (decorate the tree not bribe the firemen) so I just enjoy theirs!
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It must be a sumptuous Christmas treat. For me it was a plum or what we referred to as Christmas cake when young. Now I know better and enjoy the visual treat.
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Those British traditions were adopted all over the world 🙂
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😊
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Can you add me to your gift giving list?
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Ha Ha. I’m sure we would have wonderful exchanges!
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Ahh, most excellent. Too bad that I don’t live in the neighbourhood. Such skills! Your piano is lovely. And happy birthday, Daniel!
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I think I have a more sedate approach to Christmas. Before they passed away, my husband’s family from France, celebrated a more lavish European style Christmas with massive amounts of food, all very rich and laden with cream, cheese, liquers etc. More similar to your celebration, I think.
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Ohh, but what I can see in this post doesn’t seem too sedate…
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Just check I posted the correct ping here Sandy… Maybe I am celebrating a bit too early! Lol
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Here is a Scandi- Australian take on Christmas treats and traditions https://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2021/12/10/meaning-of-jul-jol-norwegian-an-danish-traditions/
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Stollen? Yum and that candied and chocolate loaf from Singapore sounds perfect. I have just baked some shortbread, but the bulk of the cooking is yet to come.
You’ve started the party already. I was waiting for 8 pm but will post asap now…
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