Happy Covid Christmas! Again.

 

I love the holiday season. Watching the twinkling lights. Bringing out all the handmade ornaments. Finding fun things for the people I love. 

There’s a lot to love. Except maybe covid. I spent all last year in fight or flight zone: masking up, hand sanitizing, vaccinating and boosting. Just when I thought it was safe to come out of my covid cave, here comes omicron. 

Family members are testing and, thank goodness, coming up negative. Ok, this is one time when a negative is a very positive thing, right? But I’m still worried and masking and distancing and wondering what can I do to feel better?

Baking a better holiday. 

I love baking. Sadly, my mother was not a baker. She tried but she just didn’t get it, maybe she didn’t want to, and really, that’s ok. I was lucky to have two very good grandmother bakers who passed down not just their recipes but their love of baking and their techniques. I learned even more in my college foods labs where the science of food was revealed to me. 

I loved foods lab, like chemistry, it involved knowing your elements and understanding procedures. Mix that with a grandmother who visited especially to teach me her celtic recipes and a New York Gram who loved to make authentic cheesecakes and Chocolate Kringles.

Shortbread from my Scottish Grandmother. 

It wouldn’t be a holiday in our house without Grandmother Gallacher’s shortbread. I’d share the recipe, but she made me swear I would NEVER allow anyone except blood family to have her recipe. Ok, she was a little scary and I still obey her to this day. I have passed down the recipe ONLY to my daughter. 

But…(you knew there would be a but, right?)…I have changed her recipe using my foods lab knowledge. Sorry Grandmother but, you really can double the recipe and not affect the quality. I do, as she stipulated, always use REAL, high quality butter. I always cream the butter and sugar to her specifications. Sorry Grandmother, I do use a mixer. Adding the flour is the real test of a good batch and that secret is safe with me. 

Cherry cake. 

Another bow to Grandmother Gallacher, this is an amazing cake. It’s really a traditional tea cake that would have been a staple at tea time, which Grandmother observed with serious attention. I was taught the proper way to warm the pot and steep the tea. And I do love tea. 

I also love this cake. Done right, it is moist, light, dense and rich. 

Yes, I have a few secrets here that I have developed myself over the years. Let’s just say, it’s worth the effort. She used candied cherries. I hate candied cherries. So I have developed, based on my foods lab training, a way to use real dried cherries that I modify, to give this cake a lovely natural cherry flavor and texture while preserving the traditional, luscious buttery tea cake. 

So set the kettle to boil. 

Warm the pot and get out your favorite tea.  

Then sit down. Sip tea. Take a bite of cherry cake. Enjoy the holiday anyway!

Holiday Treats.

One thing I really love about the holidays is baking.  As a young girl, my Scottish grandmother made a special trip to teach me how to make the family shortbread and scone recipes.  I loved having my hands in the dough, rolling and shaping and watching them puff up in the oven.  And of course, a buttery shortbread or warm scone with jam is truly delicious.

Every holiday, I get to bake up all of my favorites.  Shortbread.  Cherry Cake.  Chocolate  Kringles.  All the recipes for these treats come from my Grandmother Gallacher and my Gram Smith.

Both of these women were exceptional bakers.  I was honored to learn from them and go on to learn more in college nutrition and foods classes.  Cooking and baking is another way to be creative and I think both my grandmothers felt the same way.  My Gram was especially wonderful not just in the kitchen where her sauces were legend but in my life where she brought light and warmth and love.  When I get out the recipes that I copied from their files, or when I find one in Gram's own handwriting, I'm transported back to that time when I could look up and see her there smiling at me.

When I make her cheese sauce from scratch for pasta or a lamb chop with broccoli, baked potatoe and sour cream, I feel safe and comforted and loved. Everytime.  Baking her chocolate kringles with their snowy dusting of powdered sugar, I still remember her telling me not to over bake them or they'll get dry.  

She was right.  About so many things...she knew my boyfriend was going to be my husband before I did.  She told me he was a very kind man and she'd only just met him.  She loved seeing me wear bright colors and encouraged me to be bold.  She used to have me drive her around in her big Buick and had me use her apartment for a whole month so I'd see I could move out on my own and be ok.

Every holiday, it isn't just the baking I look forward to, it's the recipes and loving memories.

And that's a very special treat for the holidays.