42129 Sun Dec 18 00:02:21 -0800 2005 11 1 San Francisco Bay Area 0 204134 I did some tasting and window shopping today for Christmas Eve. While Goggling to see if Masse’s had a website, this great article came up on Berkeley Holiday baked goods. I’ll add any finds from my shopping expedition. Hope others will chime in on their favorites. NABOLOM Haven’t tried Nabolom’s fruitcake yet which sounds fabulous with the fruits and nuts soaked in rum and schnapps. The article also mentions, Nabolom’s Danish butternut cookies and raspberry spitzruben, described as like a Linzer tart, but in the shape of cookie bars. CHEESEBOARD My favorite fruitcake for years has been Cheeseboard’s dark fruit cake with at least three different liquors and fruit like dried apricots which I prefer to the candied stuff. It is also full of the most wonderful selection of nuts. NELDHAM’S I’m a fan of the Pfeffernuesse, a spicy light cookie rolled in powdered sugar in holiday colors. The petite fours come with lovely holiday designs and the butter cookies are always holiday favorites. I’ve never tried Mrs. Neldham’s private reserve fruitcake as it is the version that has lots of candied fruit. I’m more of a dark dried fruitcake fan. The stollen is the most reasonable priced fresh area stollen and comes in the shape of a Christmas tree with green and red cherry ornaments. Not a traditional stollen, but more of a light yeasty bread. See picture in this link. http://www.neldamsbakery.com/list.asp?id=2&category=Mail%20Order%20Items ACME The article mentions Acme’s pannetone and there have been a number of thumbs of on the board. Acme also makes a pumpkin bread with pumpkin pulp and pie spices, raisins and cranberries. CRIXA Oohhh, I just noticed the Crixa website says they sell their Buche de Noel by the slice. I’m so there tomorrow. The newspaper article mentions the two versions of Italian panforte, made with honey, which Crixa baker Kloian recommends to serve sliced thin with a class of dessert wine. There is fig and walnut panforte as well as the classic Sienna style with honey, spices, toasted almonds and candied citrus peel. Kloian is quoted as calling the fig and walnut panforte “softly spiced and has a hauntingly autumnal flavor.” Some of the holiday goodies at Crixa that I’ve sampled: Chestnut kifli - buttery, crisp crescent with nice chestnut plates. Saint Nicholas Gold Drop - round butter cookies with a gold icing. Saint Nicholas gingerbread cookies – Nice soft gingery cookies with different paper pictures of Santa Claus. Here’s a link to the website that has the rest of the specials –torrone, tree of life honey cake, springerle cookies with elaborate stamped designs, ginger Madeira cake, Dundee cake, cranberry walnut pie, and black current Linzer tart. http://www.crixa.net/archives/holiday_specials/index.html MICHAEL MISCHER Stollen – Uber buttery German Christmas bread that was filled with golden raisins, finely shaved nuts with a lovely aroma of orange peel. Instead of powdered sugar on top, there is granulated sugar. Big bucks, but worth it for the artistry. FatApples and Masse’s will be separate posts because I picked up their holiday dessert list which is long. Link: http://berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?archiveDate=12-10-04&storyID=20276 Sun Dec 18 00:02:21 -0800 2005 0 rworange 1 204135 Rehrucken is a flourless chocolate cake, with chocolate icing and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. It looks like a log cut in half and is made in special molds. It looks like a saddle of venison and is actually called Venison cake. At FatApple’s they called it deer back cake because the pistachios sprinkled on the dark cake looked like the spots on the back of a deer. I like Fatapple’s version better. They sell it by the piece also and the taste I had was very nice – like an light, moist, not overly sweet brownie. I might actually get this as my Chrismas Eve cake rather than a Yule log. Here are the other holiday treats: Buche de Noel – lovely with meringue mushrooms and frosting leaves. Linzer tart - lattice topped with ground hazelnut & spice dough baked with imported raspberry jam filling. gingerbread houses – prettily decorated house-made gingerbread houses. Stollen – Traditional German holiday bread, Ties for first place for local stollens with Michael Mischer’s stollen. Mischer’s stollen is more refined, but Fatapplee’s deeply buttery version, dusted with powdered sugar and filled with a nice balance of fruit and nuts, puts it at the top of the local list. : Ingrediants: flour, butter, almonds, candied fruits, Thompson raisins, golden raisins, milk, water, sugar, eggs, orange juice, yeast, salt, spicesdark and gold raisins, almonds, and citron (candied peel of the citron fruit).” Fruitcake – pecans, raisins and candied fruit Big Boys - gingerbread cookies with red and green candy buttons Rocking Horse – gingerbread horse with royal icing mane and a red candy taik Gingerbread star with toasted whole almonds and royal icing Gingerbread tree with cherries, sugar sprinkles and royal icing Linzer star cookies – ground hazelnut spice dough cookies with imported raspberry jam. Very pretty and delicious looking. Meringue snowman with pointy orange nose Christmas sugar cookies red stars and green trees Pumpkin ginger bread – the only item I haven’t liked. Not enough pumpkin flavor, no ginger and a little dry. Sun Dec 18 00:04:56 -0800 2005 204134 0 rworange 2 204138 Masse’s so far has the most beautiful Yule Logs. They are decorated with frosting leaves, fresh fruit like raspberries, tangerine slices, other fruits and shavings of chocolate looking like bark pealing off a log. AND … THEY HAVE MINI YULE LOGS !!! They have everything the bigger logs do, including the beautiful decorations. There are three flavors – classic mocha, lemon meringue, and black forest. Yule log means one thing to me – mocha butter cream. However the taste of the mini lemon Yule log made me a fan for the first time of a different version. The light as a cloud meringue, intense lemon curd and airy sponge cake make for a lighter buche de noel. Heavenly airy, meringue mushrooms go poof in your mouth, disappearing into a sugary memory on contact with your tongue. Not like the usual stale, hard mushrooms that are strictly decoration. The fresh raspberry just upped the deliciousness of that bite. The gingerbread cake under a snowfall of powdered sugar, has poached quince and the apple liquer, calvados, to mellow the spice. I like an intense ginger burn in ginger baked goods, so as lovely as this is, it was too mild for my tsste and I probably would not buy it again. Masse’s has the most charming cookies – gingerbread men, woman and children with boots of dipped chocolate, snowmen, animals and also Hanukah draedle cookies. Here’s their list of special Holiday items: Stollen - weihnachtsgewurz, a special German spice blend, is used to make Masse’s German holiday bread Bishop’s bread - a Viennese-style sponge batter made with ground nuts and egg whites and studded with chopped chocolate, pine nuts, and rum raisins, Mocha Buche De Noel – Almond Sponge cake, chocolate truffle filling, espresso butter cream finish Black Forest Buche De Noel – Chocolate sponge cake filled with chocolate whipped cream and imported kirsch soaked cherries, finished with whipped cream Lemon Buche De Noel – vanilla chiffon cake filled with tangy lemon curd, finished in a browned meringue Mont Blanc – A classic French dessert. Chestnut vermicelli with rum, baked meringue, chocolate ganache and whipped cream in a hazelnut sable tart shell Mint Melissa – A light chocolate sponge cake with chocolate Bavarian and mint mousse, finished with a bright green glaze and green and dark striped chocolate band. Christmas Charlotte – Golden sponge cake, vanilla Bavarian, with chocolate cream wrapped in a dark chocolate band with holiday decorations. Snowball surprize (sic) – Coconut sponge cake, coconut cream, and chocolate Bavarian finished with white chocolate snowballs and a surprise (hmm, maybe this should be the Christmas eve cake … I love good surprises). Eggnog cheesecake Sun Dec 18 00:38:26 -0800 2005 204135 0 rworange 3 204280 I have a Bichoff's Bread recipe; if you'd like it, I'll post it on Home Cooking board. From my Viennese Pastry instructor's file. She also taught the yule log, and the mocha-buttercream frosted jelly roll. Mon Dec 19 12:13:47 -0800 2005 204138 0 toodie jane 3 205123 The stollen is lovely, soft, fresh and buttery, with a light sugar & spice topping. It is thick with almonds, plump raisins and the most decadant, rich marzipan center. There’s a special German spice in it, weihnachtsgewurz. It wouldn’t hit me over the head in terms of being identifiable, but the stollen smells delicious and the spicing is excellent and not overpowering. As far as my stollen tasting this year, Michael Mischer is still the winner, but Masse’s is a close second. Nose to nose was FatApple and La Farine, with FatApple getting the edge due to price – it was $5 less than the La Farine stollen and the most reasonable locally made stollen. As to the imported stollens … never again. The local stollen is fresher, better, less expensive and not loaded with preservatives. Snowball surprize (sic) – Bless Masse’s for having mini versions of their cakes. This was an upscale version of a Hostess snowball and just lovely. On top of a layer of moist coconut sponge cake there was a thick layer of heavenly light chocolate Bavarian cream topped with a thin layer of a light white coconut frosting. The entire cake had a deep coconut taste. On top was a thin round white chocolate ‘snowball' with a dab of something inside. I wasn’t paying attention. Mocha Buche De Noel – Yeah, this is everything that makes me happy about yule logs. Lovely almond Sponge cake, chocolate truffle filling and the perfect espresso butter cream finish. Beautifully decorated with those amazing meringue mushrooms, frosting leaves, bittersweet chocolate pieces looking like pealing bark and a perfect candied cranberry. I highly … highly recommend all three mini yule logs for next year’s holiday party … well … even New Year’s celebrations. Sat Dec 24 16:38:04 -0800 2005 204138 0 rworange 2 204194 Rehrucken is not actually a flourless cake. It's about half flour and half ground nuts. As a result it is very moist. In fact, I use the recipe for my Sacher torte because traditional Sacher torte is so dry. The pistachios are not traditional either. What is traditional is as rw describes it but with slivered blanched almonds sticking into the spine from both sides on each rib to make it appear as if the tenderloin of venison is larded. Very odd. It was one of my grandmother's favorites and my recipe comes from Augsburg in the 1860s. I'll post it on the recipe page. Nonetheless I'm going to try Fatapples version. Sun Dec 18 15:46:18 -0800 2005 204135 0 Curmudgeon 3 204215 Thanks for the information. When Googling, I could only find picture of the pans used to make rehrucken, or the actual saddle of venison itself ... which looked very much like the cake. The picture linked below came up in the search. Is that what you were talking about? However, the interior of the cake at FatApples is just chocolate cake, no filling like the picture in the link. Hope you'll report back if you try a slice from FatApple. It would be interesting to see how close to the original it is ... obviously it is not going to equal a recipe handed down from the 1860's. That is very nice of you to share it on the home cooking board. I'm thinking of posting a family recipe that has similarily been handed down. Link: http://www.grusskarten4u.de/postkartensmall/essen-rehrucken.jpg Sun Dec 18 18:57:24 -0800 2005 204194 0 rworange 3 204242 Sorry, I checked the recipe and it's breadcrumbs and and ground nuts (almonds or hazelnuts, and yes it often has that porcupine look but the almonds are not supposed to be chocolate coated, rather pure white as in blanched almond slivers. See the recipe on the home cooking page. Mon Dec 19 00:47:08 -0800 2005 204194 0 Curmudgeon 1 204244 Has anyone tried the pannetone at La Farine? It is described as a holiday bread with angelica, candied orange peel, toasted pine nus, fennel seeds, and brandy soaked golden and Thomson raisins. It sounds good, but I didn’t see it yesterday when evaluating desserts for Christmas Eve dinner. They had some very good poppy seed Kaiser rolls that appear to be made from the Challah bread. Like Acme’s Kaiser rolls, these were better that the type I ate in New England. The Buche de Noel $45 was the plainest and least pretty of all that I scoped out. At first it seemed the greenery was plastic … so wrong … but it turns out it is decorated with fresh evergreens. The description sounds great though … chocolate mousse rolled into genoise cake frosted with chocolate buttercream and decorated with marzipan mushrooms. Frangelico liquor soak. Tried the moist, sticky persimmon pudding with chopped walnuts and raisins, the raisins mainly flavoring the cake. At Thanksgiving I preferred the whole Wheat Cranberry bread over the pumpkin sherry loaf. Both are sweet dessert breads similar to the idea of banana bread. The cranberry bread had a nice texture and lots of cranberries, walnut pieces and was flavored with orange juice and zest. I could not detect the cream sherry taste in the pumpkin bread which has walnuts and golden raisins. The Marjolaine is described as a hazelnut / almond torte layered between chocolate ganache and crunchy, praline butter cream. The stollen is described as a raisin and almond yeast cake with marzipan center Other holiday desserts include: Pumpkin cheesecake, Chocolate Chestnut Torte, Ginger cake. Mon Dec 19 01:21:08 -0800 2005 204134 0 rworange 2 204245 So, after all of that, Christmas desserts are going to be Masse’s Lemon yule log and Masse’s stollen. Roberto is not a fan of butter cream and likes the light texture of that yule log ... so did I ... and Masse’s had the most stunning decoration. It was a very close runner up with Masse’s light Black Forest Yule log. Anyone who likes Nelham’s Dream of Cream cake will like this intensely chocolate flavored light sponge cake with whipped cream frosting. However, what really made this a contender was those amazing kirsh soaked cherries. I probably would have spent my time picking those cherries out of the cake to enjoy on their own. Haven’t tried the stollen yet but the weihnachtsgewurz, a special German spice blend intrigues me Never tried that before. I liked the taste of the yule log from Crixa’s today. The vanilla cake was very eggy and a dense chiffon that held up nicely with the delicious mocha buttercream filling. Nice dark chocolate frosting. Too rich for Roberto though. So obviously it was fun getting familiar with the East Bay Holiday desserts. I very much appreciated the places that served slices or small individual versions of their desserts. Holiday desserts are a major chunck of money and who wants to invest heavily to be disappointed at the big dinner. Also, without the taste of the mini yule log, it would have been an unlikly choice based on description. Mon Dec 19 01:27:03 -0800 2005 204244 0 rworange 2 204922 Roberto and friends polished off the last of the Christmas baked goods giving me a chance to buy and sample La Farine's stollen. For me this was the year of the stollen ... the last year. Given the choice between stollen and pannetone, I'll go for the pannetone which is more interesting to me. Someone asked about marzipan stollen and I was curious about it never having heard about it. I've tried two this year. I say, no big deal. Stollen is stollen. The marzipan doesn't give it any special taste. La Farine's stollen comes a close second to Fatapples which comes in third. The qualiy of La Farine's was slightly better. It was covered with granulated rather than powdered sugar. There was a nice distribution of toasted chopped almonds and raisins in every bite. There was a pleasant little bit of orange peel also. I could see the marzipan, but the flavor didn't stand out. However, maybe it accentuated the flavor of the almonds which were delicous. The bread was dense, yeasty and subtly buttery. Fri Dec 23 00:33:21 -0800 2005 204244 0 rworange 1 204559 Thanks! love these lists! Tue Dec 20 20:41:18 -0800 2005 204134 0 jschyun