Warning: dates in the calendar are closer than they appear. Including December 25.

Which means you’re hard up against it if you haven’t made your fruitcake yet.

Wait a minute—you say you have no intention of making fruitcake? You don’t even LIKE fruitcake?

True confessions: Me neither. I find traditional fruitcake cloyingly sweet, uncomfortably heavy and, considering the array of ingredients, rather monotonously flavored. The main impression I get is bitter candied peel. Which, while oxymoronic (bitter candied?), tends towards the bitter—at least for me. (more…)

Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, celebrates the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after the victory of the Maccabees over Syrian-Greek forces. With only enough consecrated olive oil to fuel the flame in the Temple for one day, the oil miraculously lasted for 8 days.

Now, families celebrate Chanukah (which begins at sundown this Sunday, Dec. 21) by lighting candles every night for 8 nights. And feasting on foods fried in oil, preferably olive oil to commemorate the oil used to fuel that long-ago Temple flame. Sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) and latkes (potato pancakes) are classic Chanukah foods.

Meaning the Festival of Lights is definitely not the Festival of Lite. (more…)

Sunday, December 21, 2008, 7:04 a.m.

What’s the significance of that date and time? Beginning of winter, right? Which sounds a bit discouraging if you live up North, where winter means 5 or 6 months of heavy coats, slick roads, and horrendous heating bills.

But Dec. 21 is also the winter solstice: the shortest day of the year. Which means—hallelujah!—on December 22, the days start getting longer. On the very first day of winter, we start the long journey back to summer. (more…)

While visions of sugarplums may dance through YOUR head (and the Sugarplum Fairy waltz through your dreams), my vision of Christmas candy is much different.

And, if you knew what a sugarplum truly is, I’m betting you’d eschew it for something a bit more compelling. (more…)

Sunrise in Vermont. Time to get up and get going with the Saturday chores of laundry, the dump run, returning those overdue library books… you know the drill. Best to start the day with a good breakfast.

I must confess, my husband is the pancake and waffle maker in our house. David is in his element when making big breakfasts with all the trimmings. He’ll whip the egg whites for the lightest waffles, and heat the maple syrup so your pancakes don’t cool too quickly. Not to mention the bacon and sausage. (more…)

Bread pudding. Strata. Breakfast casserole. Do these words speak to you? If not…

How about French toast?

Ah, NOW we’re cooking with gas, right? (more…)

“What’s the secret ingredient?”

We’ve all asked that question, haven’t we, when tasting something that really tickles our fancy. Maybe it’s a bowl of chili with the faint but delightful flavor of… what? Or a coffeecake with an aromatic, kind of vanilla, barely-there citrus, Creamsicle-type taste… what IS that flavor? (more…)

With this post we welcome MaryJane Robbins, a member of our Baker’s Hotline team and a passionate cookie decorator!

Well, if PJ labels herself the “lazy” cookie baker, I guess I fall into the “other” category. I can spend hours decorating cookies at all times of the year, but especially the holidays. I was thrilled this year to be asked to help decorate cookies for the Baker’s Catalogue’s spring photo shoot, and to instruct the holiday cookie decorating class at our Baking Education Center here in Vermont.

Just like a kid in a candy store, I love the tiny sprinkles, colored sugars, decorating tips, and colored icing by the bowlful. Tweezers for sugar pearls, fine paintbrushes for cookie painting, and an iPod loaded with old-time radio mysteries, and I’m a happy girl.

PJ’s recent blog on decorated cookies and an upcoming bake sale at my daughter’s school inspired me to get out my tools and decorate away. One of the perks of working on the King Arthur Flour bakers’ hotline is that we have access to samples of all the products in the catalogue, so we can take them home, test them out and be ready to answer customer questions with first-hand experience. I had been dying to try the large cookie cutters, so I signed them out, and armed with a copy of PJ’s Holiday Butter Cookies, went home to bake. (more…)

Don’t like carrots; never have. Not since the very first school lunch I ever had, back at Academy Elementary School in Glastonbury, Connecticut in 1959. I still remember the basement lunchroom, institutional-green walls, brown linoleum, the folding tables with attached benches, and the overwhelming smell of cooked… something. (more…)

Here at King Arthur Flour, we’re mindful that not everyone celebrates Christmas. Thus we’re careful to refer to “the holidays” at this time of the year, covering all the bases for the three major December celebrations: Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa. So as you’re reading this post, keep in mind we’re equal-opportunity holiday celebrants: this breakfast can be made ahead, frozen, then baked-and-served on whichever special morning you choose. (more…)