Every year at Christmas, I try to make a fancy dessert, and while a meringue pie isn’t all that fancy, it is a little more effort than an ol’ apple pie. So for this year, I made a Cranberry Meringue Pie, seasonally appropriate, I suppose, with candied cranberries. Very pleased with the outcome. Tart and sweet — and the sugared cranberries add a nice pop — and the meringue is very silky. It does take a bit of time to let things cool in between steps, but I think it’s worth it.
OK, here’s something a little different and I should have posted this a few weeks ago, on December 5-6 (St. Nicholas Day), but I was traveling at the time, so I’ll just post it now. In theory, these are just gingerbread cupcakes, but I made monsters out of them. Krampus monsters, that is. Now, thanks to the film that came out in 2015, most people know what Krampus is (think of them as Santa’s evil elves!) but it is a long-held tradition in Bavaria, Austria, the “Alpine regions” and part of Eastern Europe to have Krampus monsters kidnapping poorly behaved children during Christmas. All in good fun! Believe it or not, in Austria, they even have Krampus chocolates (like Chocolate Santa Claus).
In Spain, there is a good luck tradition, that at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, you eat twelve grapes, one each as the church bells chime. This is actually no small feat, and I’ve managed to nearly choke on a grape or two. This year, I decided to riff slightly on the Doce Uvas de la Suerte tradition, by making this Twelve Grapes Cake so instead of wolfing down the grapes, you can enjoy a piece of cake instead. Happy New Year!
So it’s that time of year again that I remind you that there is an entire page dedicated to my “Christmas Cookie Madness” here. If you want to know “the Story” or are looking for a recipe, you’ll likely find it there. And in the meantime, this happened recently….