This Pan de Jamón, a Venezuelan Christmas bread, is a wonderful combination of sweet and savory flavors.
Pan de Jamón is often served on Christmas Eve in Venezuela on a single plate with a chicken salad called ensalada de gallina, roast pork, and hallacas (South American tamales with cracked corn) (source: Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla, 2012).
These Christmas wreath no-bake treats are both fun to make and fun to eat.
You can use these wreaths both as a holiday dessert and/or a holiday decoration! You can even hang them from your tree, as long as you don't have any sneaky pets or children.
These peppermint stick cookies are fun to make, fun to eat, and so Christmasy.
These peppermint stick cookies begin with a vanilla butter cookie. It's drizzled with melted chocolate and then sprinkled with crushed peppermint candies.
This Czech Christmas bread, or Vánočka, is a celebration bread made with a lightly sweetened dough filled with raisins and topped with almonds.
I did not grow up with a celebration bread tradition. I had no idea there was a whole world out there of wonderful celebration breads, including Christmas.
Finnish Pulla is a lovely bread, lightly sweetened and enriched with butter, milk, and eggs, similar to challah.
What makes it Pulla is crushed cardamom, which is mixed into the dough to add a heavenly flavor.
This spinach gratin recipe is comprised of an already tasty creamed spinach topped with Gruyere and Parmesan, and then baked. The top is crispy and cheesy, and the inside is creamy and seriously flavorful.
I have made this spinach many times, especially on holidays to accompany roast beef. It kind of reminds me of the side dishes, e.g. creamed corn and Yorkshire pudding, that would be served in the old traditional prime rib restaurants.
Spiced Chocolate Molasses Cookies - a chocolate cookie spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and allspice, and filled with a dark chocolate and molasses ganache.
I took about three dozen of these to the office, and they quickly disappeared, pretty much faster than anything else I've ever taken to work before.
Stollen is the German Christmas bread. According to Peter Reinhart, in the book, Bread Baker's Apprentice, the shape of the stollen symbolizes the blanket of the baby Jesus, and the colored fruits represent the gifts of the Magi. Dresden is considered the home of stollen and even hosts an annual stollen festival where they unveil a giant (huge!) loaf.
