RECIPE:
Great-Aunt Susie’s Old Fashioned Prune Pie
Place one 12-oz. package of pitted prunes and 1/4 cup each brandy and water in a pan and simmer until prunes plump. Remove prunes from liquid and let cool. Reserve liquid.
Line a 9-inch pie pan with a regular pie crust. Cut up the cooled prunes and turn into crust. Pour 2 T. of the reserved liquid over top of pie. Bake at 325 degrees F. for 20 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Serve topped with lots of whipped cream.
’Tis the season for spicy cookies and frosted cakes, candied fruit and chocolaty fudge. With the arrival of long nights and year-end festivities, cooks break out the butter, cream, and exotic liqueurs, and salute the holidays with all manner of special treats.
Ginger, cinnamon, and allspice permeate the air as bakers create aromatic sweets for holiday feasts. Among the most beloved, gingerbread men date to the 16th century, when Queen Elizabeth I first presented them to her guests, and continue to delight with their edible limbs and gumdrop buttons.
Made famous by the brothers Grimm and their scary fairytales, gingerbread houses were crafted from “shingles” of the pungent stuff, and became a tradition in Germany in the early 1800s.
“Gingerbread houses are still popular in northern Europe,” explained Bent Olsen, a native Dane and owner of Olsen’s Danish Village Bakery in Solvang. “I started making them about 15 years ago. It’s a wonderful tradition, and I can let my imagination run wild when I’m decorating them.
“You can’t eat the house,” the fourth generation baker added with a smile, “so we sell wafer-thin ginger cookies that taste the same.”
Olsen’s eye-catching gingerbread house measures 5 feet square and features twinkle lights along the roof, elaborate white frosting tracery, and dangling sugar-and-egg-white icicles. It elicits smiles from customers who enter his bakery and then happily relate their own memories of making gingerbread at Christmastime.
Essentially thin, handheld cakes, cookies have been part of Christmas tradition at least since the 16th century, when Europeans baked them to use as decorations. German gingerbread, called Lebkuchen, was probably the first cookie associated with the mid-winter holiday, as cooks cut fanciful shapes from slabs of dough, then baked and hung them from the branches of their fragrant tannenbaums.
Sugarplums figure in seasonal carols, but with nary a fresh plum in sight, they pose a bit of a culinary mystery. A labor intensive confection, sugarplums consisted of a seed or nut covered with layers of sugar that plumped it up to the size and shape of a plum. These ornamental edibles were often fitted with a wire for hanging from the Christmas tree.
Making use of dried fruit during the Yuletide season, my great aunt always brought a prune pie to Christmas dinner, doggedly determined to win over a group of pumpkin pie fans. We’d all have a small, incredibly dense slice, piled high with whipped cream, and wonder at the strangeness of it.
Looking back, I see how her rich pies served as a sweet link to the family’s Minnesotan farmer forebears, who had only dried or preserved fruit at their disposal in the dead of winter. I remember that prune pie and still get a kick out of dishing it up to unsuspecting guests.
Fudge has been associated with Christmas since the 1880s, when students at New England women’s colleges practiced candymaking as a kind of late night lark. Probably trying to recreate the semi-soft confections served at home during the holidays, they melted chocolate and added whatever they had on hand, including milk, nuts, and dried fruit.
Divinity fudge, made from egg whites, corn syrup, and assorted additions—such as pecans and candied cherries—was likely named for its heavenly flavor. An early 20th century American invention, divinity is still a popular delicacy during the holidays.
“Making sweets is 50-50 art and science,” said Dawn E. Peters, owner of Decadence Wedding Cakes, and a gifted pastry chef and candymaker. “There are lots of media to work with, lots of things you can do with sugar, fondant, and chocolate.”
Peters’ Christmas specialties include succulent English fruitcake that patrons are proud to both eat and give, creamy pumpkin cheesecake, and apricot spice cake. She bakes colorful holiday cookies and a gooey Black Forest cake that puts a luscious modern twist on the original recipes coming out of 16th century Germany.
Peters also makes Bûche de Noël, a log-shaped sponge cake frosted with chocolate buttercream that’s textured to resemble bark. This edible approximation of the Yule log reportedly emerged when Napoleon I of France forbade the opening of chimneys during the winter in order to keep out cold air, which was deemed to cause disease. Bakers figured the cake-based log would provide a symbolic hearth around which folks could gather to tell stories and celebrate.
Every Christian culture extols its Christmas favorites, from gingerbread to fudge. A look at traditional sweets reveals a depth of folklore and tradition, as precious ingredients are combined to create the sweet treats that mark this special time of year. m
K. Reka Badger lives in a fancy gingerbread manor. Contact her at rekabadger@hotmail.com.
This article appears in Dec 25, 2008 – Jan 1, 2009.