‘Tis the season of sugar, spice, and everything nice. To me, this means plates of cinnamon rolls and tins of cookies, swoops of frosting and trays of candies. It’s the most wonderful time of the year—holiday baking season, that is— and here are a few of my very favorite festive recipes.
You can go directly to each of these recipes by clicking on the corresponding photo.
There’s no better gift than homemade bread. Focaccia is one of the lower-maintance breads, doesn’t need a sourdough starter, and most of its rising is done while you sleep. Mix up a batch for Christmas dinners or take to a holiday party to share with friends.
Christmas morning breakfast is one of the most important meals of the holiday season. If you’re looking for a little something savory to balance out your traditional cinnamon roll sugar rush, make a batch of popovers. The batter is mixed together ahead of time so that all that’s left to do on Christmas morning is pour it into a muffin tin, bake them off, and open gifts.
What is a holiday season without a batch of cinnamon rolls? These are a citrusy dough, filled with tahini and orange cinnamon filled and topped with a browned butter cream cheese frosting you will want to eat straight from the spoon.
My rendition of the classic gingerbread cake. This cake is super moist and dense, filled with spicy fresh ginger and dark, chocolatey carob molasses. The bright yellow frosting has a little spice thanks to the addition of turmeric and everything is topped with candied ginger and toasted pecans.
If you’ve never had coquito before, today is the day. Coquito is a traditional Puerto Rican holiday drink made with thick coconut cream, a little bit of cinnamon, and of course, rum. This dessert is a classic tiramisu with a tropical twist—lady fingers soaked in coquito, a sweetened condensed milk zabaglione, and lots of toasted coconut.
What’s a holiday table without cranberries? These festive little fruits shine in this cranberry orange clafoutis. A traditional, but very simple French custard filled with orange zest is poured over sugared cranberries and baked just until set. Serve your clafoutis hot, cold, or at room temperature with a big dollop of whipped cream.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating chocolate truffles at home along with three different flavor ideas. There are recipes for chocolate pomegranate truffles, chocolate tahini truffles, and chocolate truffles with sage caramel along with a primer on homemade ganache.
This is one of my very favorite desserts—holiday or not. A creamy cheesecake, lightened up with whipped egg whites, and marbled with an espresso and kahlua layer. It’s topped with a tangy whipped sour cream that you won’t want to miss.
Soft, fluffy buttermilk beignets filled with browned butter and cardamom are fried and tossed in sugar. They are served with vino cotto, a reduced, spiced red wine. The only thing better than dipping donuts in coffee is dipping them in wine.
My grandpa and I are BFFs and have been since the day I was born. Immediately after I was born, the doctors cleaned me off and handed me straight to my grandpa, sparking a special connection that’s going on 31 years. As I was growing up, every Monday night, Papa and I would go to the mall just the two of us. We’d split a plate of red beans and rice in the food court, and a handful of pirouette cookies at Gloria Jean Coffee, and saunter through every store in the mall together.
He’s a sweet man, who is always moving. Even well into retirement, that man does more in a day than I could do in a week. He puts everyone else first, goes out of his way to take care of those around him, and tells great stories. A lot of those stories take place during his childhood growing up in the French Quarter, of course, eating beignets (or bye-yays if you want to pronounce it the way a cute little old Cajun man does).
In an effort to smush all of my heritages together, I paired these soft, pillowy beignets with a Sicilian reduced wine called vino cotto. Eating beignets this way is like dunking an old fashioned donut in a cup of coffee, but better, because you’re actually dunking sugared beignets in wine.
Beignets are made with a yeasted, enriched dough in a process very similar to making donuts. Yeast is proofed in liquid and then butter and eggs are added before the dry ingredients. For this recipe, we’re incorporating buttermilk for a little extra tenderness, nutty browned butter and floral cardamom for a spiced holiday vibe.
The dough will undergo a pretty vigorous kneading (a standing mixer is your bff) to create the necessary gluten structure in spite of all of the inhibitors (fat, eggs, and sugar) that will make the finished dough so lush.
After kneading, there’s one bulk proof, shaping, and one more quick rest before frying. Like most doughs, this beignet dough can be cold-proofed to develop flavor and help fit into your schedule a bit better. If you choose to cold proof the dough, simply punch it down after it’s bulk proof and transfer it to the fridge for an overnight rest. In the morning, pull the dough out and let it rest on the counter for about 30 minutes before rolling and shaping and then give the cut beignets another 30-45 minutes rest, until they are puffy, before frying.
Whether you embrace a cold proof or make the beignets all in one go, don’t forget to toss them in sugar right after frying…that’s the very best part. I used a mix of powdered sugar and granulated sugar because I wanted a little bit of crunch from the sugar crystals. As soon as you finish your sugar tossing, eat the beignets warm, dunked in vino cotto for a little Cafe Du Monde-with-a-twist vibe.
Present in many traditional Italian desserts, vino cotto is a syrup made by cooking down grape must. Before sugar cane was widely accessible, this reduced grape must was used in many Sicilian desserts and recipes as a sweetener similar to the way maple syrup or honey is used in baking. Now, you can buy vino cotto or wine that has been cooked down very slowly over a long period of time, but I decided to make a version that would complement these beignets perfectly.
My rendition of vino cotto falls somewhere between a mulled wine and a wine reduction. To make it, simply bring a bottle of red wine to a simmer along with a handful of mulling spices (cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and whole cloves). Cook the wine over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, for an hour to an hour and a half until the wine has reduced by 3/4 and has slightly thickened. It should taste sweeter than a bottle of wine, but not quite syrupy. Dunk the beignets in the vino cotto and store any leftovers in a sealed jar for a later day.
This beignet recipe was lightly adapted from the beignet queen Joy Wilson of Joy the Baker.
You can store any leftover vino cotto in a jar in a cool dark pantry or in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
A spin on the classic Italian dessert, this simple, fall affogato is perfect for the holiday season. It comes together quickly, and features caramel gelato drowned in mulled apple cider and topped with whipped crème fraîche and a crunchy hazelnut streusel.
Happy Thanksgiving week to all!
I am very hot and cold when it comes to Thanksgiving celebrations. I love that Thanksgiving is essentially a holiday with celebrations that revolve completely around food. But, I tend to get fairly frustrated at the traditional fare (not surprising at all) and often feel like I’m straddling a line of trying to please everyone with all of Turkey Day classic dishes that, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t really like. On top of that, with a career in food media, I’ve already made at least three Thanksgiving feasts by the time the fourth Thursday in November actually arrives.
In case you haven’t figured it out through a glance of my recipe index, I like to buck tradition when it comes to food. This year, it’s our first Thanksgiving in Minneapolis and will just be me and the boys (Martin and Tahini) since all of our family is thousands of miles away in the regions of the country where there is still a touch of warmth. We’ll be staying in and watching movies with a big batch of bolognese simmering in the background. There will be caesar salad, garlic bread, tiramisu, and sparkling negronis and I cannot wait.
I wrote this recipe for those of you interested in spicing up your Thanksgiving table a bit. If you’re looking for a dessert closer to the classics, check out my pumpkin ricotta tart. This apple cider affogato recipe is for wow-ing your guest with a table-side dessert that takes almost no effort at all. Be a little bit fancy this year.
Affogato is an Italian dessert traditionally made by pouring hot espresso over gelato—the word affogato means “drowned” in Italian.
For this recipe, we’ll use whatever store-bought caramel gelato you like best. I really love Talenti and Dolcezza brands, but pick your favorite! Then we’ll mull some apple cider with a handful of spices just until its hot and spiced and your house smells like a holiday dream. A little whipped crème fraîche and hazelnut streusel round everything out with a little tang and a bit of crunch.
The only thing you’re baking here is the hazelnut streusel and you can make this in advance. It takes about 5 minutes to mix together the cookie dough and then you’re just going to clump it in a granola-like layer on a baking sheet and bake it until it’s golden. After the streusel has cooled, break it into chunks and transfer it a container. It will keep at room temperature for 4-5 days and you can just pop any leftovers in the freezer and keep it for sprinkling on ice cream or pies anytime.
I’m Anna Ramiz. I’m a pastry chef, recipe developer, and culinary educator. Welcome to my table!
