Written by longtime cookbook editor and Bay Area Bites contributor Kim Laidlaw, Home Baked Comfort jettisons the informative but anonymous tone typical to many Williams-Sonoma books for a warmer, more personal voice. Many of Laidlaw's recipes are inspired by family traditions or by cooking with friends, interspersed with photos and recipes from well-loved neighborhood bakeries, including our own Tartine.

There are also a few recipes from popular home baker-bloggers, like Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen and Aran Goyoaga of Cannelle et Vanille. The short interviews with the owners of local bakeries are pithy and funny, and the brightly charming photos of each spot made me want to run right out and get a Banana Puddin' cupcake at Sugar Mama's Bakeshop in Austin, Texas or a purple-studded, sugar-topped blueberry muffin at Huckleberry Cafe & Bakery in Santa Monica.

Beautifully photographed by baker Eric Wolfinger (who also photographed the striking Tartine Bread), the book looks both scrumptious and modern, neither cutesy-cozy nor bare-plate stark. Wolfinger, a baker himself, made every recipe he photographed, providing yet another round of useful recipe testing. Recipe pages without photographs are given a parchment-paper wash, a bit of visual interest presumably meant to evoke a family recipe scribbled on a time-yellowed slip of paper.

Nothing's too daunting; nothing requires much more than the usual home-kitchen setup of cake pans, pie pans, and baking sheets. (Do pick up some buttermilk, sour cream, and a microplane citrus zester before you start, however.) And, like the pictures, the recipes are flavorful and engaging; you could serve them at a bake sale or a dinner party and earn the same enraptured, nothing-but-crumbs-on-the-plate reaction. As an dedicated home baker myself, I caught up with Laidlaw at her home in Noe Valley on the eve of her book's release to find out how it all came together.

First of all, how did Laidlaw go from editor to writer? Last year, as part of her job as an editor at Weldon Owen, a San Francisco-based publisher which creates Williams-Sonoma's branded books in addition to other titles, Laidlaw was tasked with finding a writer/recipe developer for a planned home-baking book. (Full disclosure: As a freelance writer and editor, I have worked with Laidlaw and others at Weldon Owen professionally over the years.) The more she thought about the project, the more she realized, "This is what I do!" It wasn't just that she was a lifelong home baker; before becoming a full-time cookbook editor, she'd graduated from CCA's Baking and Pastry program, then worked as a baker at Oakland's La Farine bakery. She knew, having edited dozens of Williams-Sonoma cookbooks, just how important it was to produce the sort of meticulously tested, foolproof recipes that the brand was known for, and felt sure that she had both the baking and writing chops to do it.

But just being an employee didn't give her an automatic in; like any other potential author, she had to present a detailed proposal outlining her recipes, her approach, and why she'd be the best choice for the job. It worked, and with a pressing deadline looming, she got busy whipping up layer cakes and butterscotch puddings in her cramped home kitchen, where there was no Viking stove or Sub-Zero fridge, just the usual generic appliances of any apartment rental.

Writing the book happened to coincide with Laidlaw's pregnancy--which translated into a mostly ravenous appetite. Laidlaw laughed when asked about the rapturous headnotes describing each recipe. "I wrote it while I was pregnant! I would find myself eating half the batch of scones," in one sitting, and everything she made tasted like the best thing ever. Her husband, who had recently started a new job, earned instant popularity around the office as the guy with the recipe-testing wife; "crazy amounts" of tester cookies, brownies, cakes and more went with him to work almost daily.

Now, with the book just out, Laidlaw is still baking, only this time with her young daughter Poppy tucked in a carrier across her chest. "We bake together. She loves it!" Laidlaw said, and it's true: during my visit, Poppy was giggling and smiling, her eyes following her mother's deft movements as Laidlaw whisked together the batter for Pumpkin-Brandy Bread, (see recipe below) a specialty of her own mother's. The finished product, still hot out of the oven, wasn't overly boozy, but it did have a wonderfully grown-up whiff of brandy to it, making it perfect for afternoon tea, especially during the holidays. Her trick for cooking while parenting? "I cook everything in tiny steps, so I can stop anytime."

Some of her favorite recipes in the book are ones that come from her own family traditions, like the Christmas Breakfast Pie, something that she, her mother, and her brother make every Christmas, no matter where they are, and the Beer Rolls, originally made with just Bisquick and beer. "My brother and I thought that was so cool, baking with beer!" she said, which led her to develop a similar, from-scratch recipe that captured the appeal of the original.

She finds her inspiration in things she sees in bakeries, in restaurants, in flavor combinations she imagines. "I'm kind of a lemon freak. There's a crazy amount of citrus zest in the book, it's kind of obnoxious!" As for her favorite thing to bake, "definitely pies and galettes," although she especially admires bread bakers. "It's a real skill that can be kind of hard to do in a home kitchen. But it's so basic and satisfying." Flipping through the recipes, it's clear that Laidlaw has a taste for fruit; there are wonderful, not-too-sweet fruit desserts in every chapter. Pear Custard Tart (see recipe below), inspired by a old Julia Child recipe, comes out delectably elegant, and the vanilla-poached pears are good enough to eat on their own. Laidlaw prefers a hint of salt to too much sweetness, and few recipes seem overly gooey or rich.

It's an easy, appealing book, reflecting Laidlaw's own opinion, based in experience as both a professional and a home baker, that baking isn't that hard, and that its reputation as the stern, inflexible taskmistress of the kitchen is ill-deserved. Once you know the basic chemistry of baking and have a feel for how different baked goods work, you can mess around with your recipes, more than you might think.

"The whole point of the book is to get more people baking, get them to see that it's not so daunting, make it approachable and fun."

That said, are there common pitfalls that new bakers might avoid?
• "People overwork pastry and biscuit dough too much, then they get frustrated," when it doesn't turn out as flaky or fluffy as they hoped.
• In making quick breads, like muffins, that are raised with baking powder and/or baking soda, "some people mix the batter and then just let it sit," rather than getting it into the oven, pronto. Once the batter is mixed, the chemical leavening process starts, and so delaying the baking process can produce a flat result.
• And finally, people frequently overbake, paying more attention to the minutes specified in the recipe than to what their senses tell them about the finished product.

It all comes down to not following recipes too rigidly.

"I want people to relax and enjoy it, be more flexible. Not all ingredients are the same, and things change depending on how cold, hot, or wet the day is. Just relax! I think it's the best thing you can do for somebody, to bake something for them."

Recipe: Pear-Custard Tart
The first recipe from Julia Child that I ever made was her French custard apple tart, which I still love to this day. This delicately flavored tart, filled with vanilla-poached pears and brandy-spiked custard and topped with sugary toasted almonds, is an ode to her and that memorable dessert.

Ingredients:
Flaky Pie Dough for single crust (see recipe below)

for the poached pears
3⁄4 cup (6 oz⁄185 g) Sugar
3 ripe but firm pears, preferably Bosc, peeled, quartered, and cored
Peel of 1 orange, removed in strips with a vegetable peeler
1⁄2 vanilla bean
1 large egg
1⁄4 cup (2 oz⁄60 g) sugar plus 1 tbsp
3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1⁄2 cup (4 fl oz⁄125 ml) heavy cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract or 2 tbsp brandy (optional)
Pinch of kosher salt
1⁄4 cup (1 oz⁄30 g) sliced almonds, lightly toasted

makes one 10-inch (25-cm) tart

Instructions:
Prepare the flaky pie dough and chill as directed. (see recipe below)

To poach the pears, cut a circle of parchment paper that will fit in a medium saucepan. Cut a small circle in the middle of the parchment. In the saucepan, bring 3 cups (24 fl oz/750 ml) water and the sugar to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and add the pears and orange peel. Split the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds with the back of a paring knife; add the pod and seeds to the saucepan. Lay the parchment in the saucepan to submerge the pears. Adjust the heat so that the liquid simmers gently and poach the pears until just tender, about 15 minutes. Let cool in the poaching liquid.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400°F (200°C). On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to a circle about 13 inches (33 cm) in diameter. Transfer the dough to a 10-inch (25-cm) tart pan with a removable bottom and ease into the pan. Trim away any excess dough. Line the tart shell with foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake until the crust is dried out and just starting to color a bit, about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and weights. Let cool. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (180°C).

Cut each pear quarter lengthwise into 4 slices, then lay most of the pear slices in the crust in an overlapping circle close to the rim. Use the remaining slices to fill the middle.

In a bowl, beat together the egg and the 1⁄4 cup sugar until thick and pale. Beat in the flour and then the cream, vanilla, if using, and salt. Pour evenly over the pears. Bake until the custard starts to puff up, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle the toasted almonds and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar over the top of the tart. Continue to bake until the custard is set and lightly browned, 15–20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack until warm or room temperature before slicing and serving.

Baker's Note:
To turn this into an apple tart, gently sauté 3 peeled, cored, and sliced apples in 1 tablespoon butter until they just start to become tender. Spread evenly in the partially baked crust, pour over the custard, and proceed with the recipe from there.

Recipe: Flaky Pie Dough for Single Crust

Ingredients:
1 1⁄4 cups (61⁄2 oz⁄200 g) all-purpose flour
1⁄4 tsp kosher salt
1⁄2 tsp sugar (optional; omit if making a savory dish)
7 tbsp (31⁄2 oz⁄105 g) very cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
5 tbsp (3 fl oz⁄80 ml) ice water, plus more if needed

makes enough for one 9-inch (23-cm) pie or tart

Instructions:
In the bowl of a food processor, stir together the flour, salt, and sugar, if using.

Sprinkle the butter over the top and pulse for a few seconds, or just until the butter is slightly broken up into the flour but still in visible pieces.

Evenly sprinkle the water over the flour mixture, then process just until the mixture starts to come together.

Dump the dough into a large lock-top plastic bag, and press into a flat disk. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes or up to 1 day, or freeze for up to 1 month.

Recipe: Pumpkin Brandy Bread
Growing up, I remember my mom baking this bread in metal coffee cans and how I loved the funny round shape. This recipe calls for a lot of brandy, more than you might be comfortable with, but it is honestly the best pumpkin bread I have ever tasted. You can cut the brandy in half if you want.

Ingredients:
4 large eggs
2 cups (1 lb⁄500 g) granulated sugar
1 cup (7 oz⁄220 g) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup (8 fl oz⁄250 ml) canola oil
2⁄3 cup (5 fl oz⁄160 ml) brandy
1 can (15 oz⁄470 g) pumpkin puree
3 1⁄2 cups (171⁄2 oz⁄545 g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1⁄2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp kosher salt
1⁄2 cup (2 oz⁄60 g) chopped pecans or walnuts, lightly toasted (optional)

makes 2 loaves

Instructions:
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F (180°C). Generously butter two 9-by-5-inch (23-by-13-cm) loaf pans.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugars. Add the oil, brandy, and pumpkin and whisk to combine. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Add to the pumpkin mixture along with the nuts, if using, and stir to combine.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake until richly golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Let cool slightly in the pans, then turn the loaves out onto a wire rack to cool.

Baker's Note:
Baked in smaller, individual-sized loaf pans, this decadent bread makes excellent mini gifts during the holidays. Divide the batter between the pans. The baking time might vary depending on the size of the pans. Once the baked loaves have cooled, wrap each one in colorful cellophane, tie a ribbon around it, and bring on the good cheer.

Recipes and Photos appears with permission from Home Baked Comfort. Photographs by Eric Wolfinger Copyright 2011 by Weldon Owen Inc. and Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

I love treasure hunts, especially if cultural adventure and sampling delectable goodies are involved, so I was eager to join Edible Excursions’ new Japantown tour. Although I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to Japanese cuisine, epicurean concierge, Lisa Rogovin introduced me to a novel set of sweet and savory yummies hiding in plain sight.

The former ad exec for Gourmet Magazine, whose company provides tasting tours of the Mission, Ferry Building and Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto, was recently asked by Japantown’s Merchant Association to add a tour of the 4-block area centered on Post and Buchanan. After having done her cultural homework, Lisa ushered a half dozen of us through the warrens of a pair of concrete mall structures that anchor Japantown, as well as some surrounding streets in order to educate and tantalize our taste buds.

Surprisingly, our outing began with a non-Japanese beverage, a warm sweet potato latte at Yakiniq Café, where owner Christy Hwang serves the traditional Korean comfort drink, made with sweet potato, syrup and foamed milk. Lisa informed us that besides Japanese shops and restaurants, Japantown encompasses a few Korean dining spots and even a Danish Bakery.

As we sipped our hot drinks in the funky, art-lined café, Lisa issued a gentle warning, “This will be three and a half hours of eating; so pace yourselves.” That caveat was promptly forgotten as soon as we drained our cups of foamy liquid.

On our walk to our next stop, Lisa gave us a short rundown on the history of Japantown, which began to take shape just after the 1906 earthquake when Japanese San Franciscans needed a place to gather for community support. At its height, it stretched for 36 blocks until WWII internment orders emptied the thriving neighborhood, uprooting its residents and merchants. After the war, many came back to rebuild their lives. In 1968, an urban renewal project bulldozed old Victorians and erected the imposing concrete buildings still at its center, whose fortress-like exterior may seem daunting to uninitiated visitors.

One artifact from the original Japantown that is very much alive is Benkyodo, an unassuming little diner and bakery, that makes traditional fresh mochi confections.

This family business opened in 1906, and is now run by brothers Ricky and Robert Okamura, grandsons of the original owner. Entering their long narrow café, we discovered a split personality: the right side features a low orange Formica counter, matching leatherette bar stools and a Coca Cola menu board with changeable red and black plastic letters that dates from the 50s. Fare and prices also seem to be frozen in time (hot dog $3.15, hamburger $3.10)—just the thing to attract a cadre of regulars. The left side is dominated by the bakery case, which on this late December Friday attracted a crowd of shoppers, standing in line to buy special handmade mochi and manju pastries for the New Year. We sampled chubby, chewy rice flour orbs filled with sweet red beans or blueberries.

Sadly, our next stop was a piece of Japantown history that was just about to close after 105 years in business, Uoki K. Sakai market. There we tasted an earthy hijiki seaweed salad and crunchy burdock and carrot salad from their deli while Lisa clued us in on preparing sushi rice using rice vinegar powder sold at the store. There are two other markets still left in Japantown.

From the oldest businesses, we transitioned to visit the latest addition to Japantown, the New People complex, a narrow, stylish white edifice which houses the SF Film Society, a café and retail stores such as Sou-Sou for tabi (divided shoes and socks) with bold fabric designs and Baby the Stars Shine Bright for Lolita frilly pink dresses.

We stopped downstairs at Onigilly for an updated version of the ubiquitous Japanese finger food, onigiri, balls or triangles of white rice wrapped in seaweed, which may be stuffed with pickled plum or cooked salmon. In Japan, these portable meals are sold in train stations, convenience stores and are as much a part of bento lunchboxes as our PB&J sandwiches.

Onigilly (a play the American pronunciation of onigiri) is the creation of Koji Kanematsu, the first male to go through La Cocina’s food business incubator program. He updated the traditional snacks using brown rice and fillings such as eggplant, hijiki and spicy scallop, as well as the traditional pickled plum. Onigilly also operates a food cart in Justin Herman Plaza and other locations around town.

After this substantial snack and a quick tour of the trendy shops in New People, we headed across the street to the Japan Center. As we entered the busy mall, Lisa, an engaging and knowledgeable guide who was inspired by her own cultural curiosity, told us, “You’ll notice we won’t be having any sushi, tempura or teriyaki today. I want to introduce you to new things and demystify some Japanese dishes that might be unfamiliar to you.”

Our eating adventure continued at Mifune Don, where we sat down for another mainstay of real Japanese cooking that is not commonly known to foreigners. Okonomiyaki is called a “savory pancake” but the name literally means “what you like” and is a tasty way to use leftovers. These large grilled discs usually contain some combination of eggs, shredded yam, cabbage, meat, or seafood, topped with a special brown sauce and squiggles of Japanese mayonnaise. They are sprinkled with bonita shavings, whose eerie 3-D undulations seemed to be waving at me, inviting me to partake in this hearty, vegetable griddlecake. My first okonomiyaki was a satisfying discovery and definitely will not be my last.

Then our group of locals and out of state visitors shifted into an intense assault on sweetness, starting with a neon-hued, mini Geisha float—green tea ice cream topped with red beans, green tea syrup and red mochi cubes at Carol Murata’s Café Hana.

For our second dessert, we strolled over to May’s Coffee Shop, run by Carol’s mother May Murata since 1973, to sample taiyaki, a fish-shaped sweet with a long history. In Japanese culture, the sea bream is considered a symbol of good luck and these distinctively shaped pastries are made by pouring waffle-like batter into metal molded trays and topping with red beans, chocolate or other fillings. The two halves of the fish are then folded together and cooked until golden brown. They originated in Tokyo in 1909.

Full of lucky fish pastries, we ducked into Nippon-Ya, a stylish shop specializing in omiyage, the artfully wrapped regional specialties that Japanese visitors commonly bring back from their travels for friends and co-workers. Beautifully boxed mochi in fruit flavors, plus cookies, tea and other souvenirs from all over Japan are their most popular selections. We were offered tastes of creamy chocolate mochi.

On our way out of the building Lisa pointed out shops that carry stickers, stationery and fashion and then impossibly announced that it was time for lunch. A 3-course lunch at that, with wakame, a slippery green seaweed salad, a pair of mini gyozas and a big bowl of steaming nabeyaki noodle soup with vegetables, fish cake, chicken, shrimp tempura and udon or soba noodles. The key ingredient of the soup is the dashi flavored broth and Mifune Bistro’s dashi had a strong, clear taste.

As I waddled out after lunch, much wiser and definitely much fuller than before I started the tour, I made mental note of the dozen new tastes I’d sampled, and wondered if this is how sumo wrestlers begin to build their girth.

Edible Excursions' Japantown tour is offered every Friday and the second Saturday of the month, from 11-2:30, for $85. Itinerary may vary.

I’ll admit it: my kitchen obsessions aren’t hip. If they were, I’d have a cleaver slung on my hip, bacon smoking in the backyard, a burr grinder and Hario pour-over kettle on the counter for brewing my home-roasted coffee beans, kimchee fermenting stinkily on the porch next to a carboy of triple-hopped homemade ale. Meat, salt, booze, caffeine, and above all, funky slow rot: such is DIY hipness, 2012 style.

But the thing is, I’m a nice Jewish girl unmoved by bacon’s siren call. Beer is not my drink, madly bitter beer even less so. My nerves are easily unhinged by San Francisco’s high-octane third-wave coffee; what I need in the morning is not a tepid single mug brewed at tai-chi speed but a tall French press of good decaf poured three-to-one with hot milk. While I love fermented products in theory (and on my plate when I’m out of the house), uncontrolled bacterial action in my own kitchen unnerves me. I can taste mold at fifty paces; blue cheese and all its green-streaked brethren revolts me.

Instead, I have this thing for grain. For wheat, in particular, and how uncool is that, in this moment of all things gluten-free? I love windmills and grist mills run by water wheels. I’ll find any excuse to detour to a good bread bakery. Oven spring—when a previously sluggish loaf of dough suddenly leaps up to double its size during baking—strikes joy in my heart. I will never buy a bread machine, not so long as I have a bowl, my hands, and an oven.

It really does make a difference, getting fresh, good flour for your bread baking. Standard, brand-name paper-bagged whole wheat from the supermarket: fine, just fine. But fresh from the mill, especially if it’s from recently, locally grown grain: well, that’s going to make you some amazing bread.

I learned this first hand when I worked as an apprentice at the CASFS educational farm at UC Santa Cruz. We sowed a quarter-acre with three strains of heirloom wheat, chewed the milky kernels as they swelled, dried, and turned golden in the sun, scythed the stalks by hand then fed them into a noisy threshing machine. The result? Buckets of whole wheat berries, ground into flour and baked into the most alive bread I’ve ever made.

This fondness for mills started in childhood, with summertime visits to the Old Mill on Nantucket, whose sweeping sails dominated the low-slung island's horizon from any direction. In Minneapolis, I toured the excellent Mill City Museum, on the site of a formerly dilapidated flour mill, then brought home bags of heirloom wheat berries and freshly ground flour and polenta from the Mill City Farmers' Market. In Arkansas, I made dozens of biscuits from cornmeal ground at the War Eagle Grist Mill, a historic water-wheel mill that still produces dozens of flours (the mystique may have been upped by getting to drive there in a purple Lotus with the mill's current owner, now in her 70s). Through the Lee Brothers’ Boiled Peanuts catalog, I’ve special-ordered Guilford Mills’ remarkable grits, which are stone-ground in a North Carolina grist mill dating back to the 18th century.

And here, we are lucky enough to have the Bale Grist Mill, right next to the lovely, hike-worthy Bothe Napa State Park, tucked among the vineyards, oaks, and manzanitas, right off Highway 29 between Calistoga and St. Helena. The mill was fully restored a few years ago, and is open for milling tours most weekends, three dollars well spent.

If you were the kid (or grownup) who pored over David Macauley’s The New Way Things Work, this is the tour for you. Milling with a water wheel makes basic physics come to rattling life, energy and motion transformed through simple engineering into productivity. It’s also a delight for grammar and etymology geeks: little did I know how many common words and phrases--“nose to the grindstone,” “cockeyed,” “fair to middling”--derive from milling. You put your nose to the grindstone to sniff for ozone, the smell you get in the air after a lightning strike; the scent of it can mean that the two millstones have become unbalanced, knocking into each other and striking sparks from the friction. Fair to middling are the two central grades of flour to emerge from the bolter, bookended by fine and coarse; if you’re feeling “fair to middling,” you’re right in the middle, so-so.

But now is the time to get to this mill for a visit. As well-loved as the grist mill is, its future is uncertain, thanks to stringent cutbacks in California's parks budget. As detailed in a recent Napa Register article about local park closures, both Napa Bothe Park and the Bale Grist Mill could be closed to the public as early as February, unless two local park groups, the Napa County Regional Parks and Open Space District and the Napa Valley State Parks Association, get approval (and funding) to take over the parks from the state this spring. It's ironic, of course, that such a historical resource could shut down just as a groundswell of consumer interest in local grains and grain products is rising.

For the moment, the Bale Grist Mill sells polenta, cornmeal, spelt, buckwheat, rye, and whole-wheat flours, all ground in the mill. Although, for liability reasons, the flours are marked "not for human consumption," the millers are scrupulous about cleanliness and sanitation during the milling and storage process. Any grain or flour touched or spilled during the milling process goes into a big bag marked "sweeps." A local farmer picks all the sweeps once a week, a welcome addition to his pigs' daily mash. Using both raw wheat kernels (wheat berries) and the mill's coarse, bran-rich bread flour, I made a dense, almost scone-like whole grain loaf inspired by the recipe for "Holly's Whole Wheat Bread" in Romney Steele's book My Nepenthe.

Wheat Berry Bread with Fruit and Nuts
Adjust the combination of dried fruit, seeds, and nuts depending on what's in your pantry, and what you like best. Dried persimmons, often available at Bay Area farmers' markets at this time of year, add bright color and a pleasant sweet chewiness to the finished bread.

Yield: 2 loaves
Prep Time: 90 minutes, plus 3 hours' rising time
Cook Time: 45 to 60 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 15 to 30 minutes, plus 3 hours' rising time

Ingredients:
1/2 cup whole raw wheat or spelt berries
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup honey
1 package (2 1/2 tsp) active dry yeast, or 1 oz fresh (cake) yeast
5 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour, plus more for the work surface
2 tbsp ground flax seed (optional)
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup raisins, dried cranberries, or chopped dried apricots or persimmons, soaked in hot water to cover for 10 minutes if very dry or wizened
1/4 cup unsalted sunflower or pumpkin seeds, plus 2 tablespoons for sprinkling, lightly toasted
1/2 cup hazelnuts, pecans, or walnuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped

Preparation:
1. Cover wheat berries with 3 cups water in a medium saucepan. Over medium heat, bring to simmer. Reduce heat, cover, and cook gently for 1 hour, until berries have softened and are tender to the bite but not mushy. They will absorb most of the water; drain any excess in a colander. (Step 1 can be done up to 4 days before you make your bread; store cooked and drained wheat berries in the refrigerator until needed.)

2. In a medium saucepan, heat milk until just beginning to bubble around the edges. Add butter, honey, and salt. Stir to dissolve, then let cool until tepid.

3. In a large bowl, sprinkle or crumble yeast over 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Let stand for a few minutes, then whisk vigorously to dissolve any remaining yeast. Beat in the milk mixture and 5 cups of the flour, mixing to form a soft dough. Stir in wheat berries, raisins or other dried fruit, 1/4 cup of sunflower or pumpkin seeds, and nuts.

4. Sprinkle flour over your counter or work table. Scoop the dough onto the work surface and knead for about 6 minutes, adding more flour (up to an additional 1/2 cup) in increments to keep dough from getting too sticky. Various errant mix-ins will try to push their way to freedom by popping out of the dough as you knead. Don’t let them get away with this; push them back into the dough and continue kneading until dough feels elastic and smooth.

5. Wash and butter your large bowl. Put the dough back into it, turning it over to coat with butter. Cover with a clean damp kitchen towel. Let rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or in a cool place for 3 hours.

6. Deflate the dough by sinking a fist into it. Divide in half and shape into two loaves. Grease two 8"-by-5" loaf pans. Put shaped dough into pans, cover with damp towel, and let rise again for another 45 to 60 minutes, until loaves have doubled in bulk.

7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Brush the top of each loaf with milk and sprinkle with sunflower seeds. Bake loaves for 45 to 50 minutes, until well-browned. Let cool in pans for 15 minutes, then remove from pans and continue cooling on a rack.

Pumpkin for Christmas: who knew? My Midwestern pals, that's who. Putting together two back-to-back holiday parties for my best friend, who cherishes her Minnesotan roots, I was surprised that she put pumpkin cake, made in a Bundt pan, of course, on the top of her list of must-have treats for the table. She was right: big smiles lit up the faces of the guests who hailed from Chicago and Minneapolis when they spied the cinnamon-brown Bundt. "Pumpkin cake for Christmas! I was just thinking about that," said one. "With whipped cream, of course," agreed another.

It makes sense, though: such a cake is dense and spicy, redolent of all the fragrant holiday spices that perfume everything from gingersnaps to mulled cider and hot wine this time of year. It's easy to throw together, since a couple cans of pumpkin are probably already in the cabinet, souvenirs of Thanksgiving's pie-minded supermarket stock-up. (A recent report found that 20% of Americans always have canned pumpkin on hand in their pantries. Having poked around in a lot of home kitchens, though, I would guess that most of that pumpkin was bought in 1993, forgotten, and never moved or dusted since.) If not, there's a plethora of gorgeous fresh winter squash out there, ready to be roasted and mashed.

(The nomenclature of pumpkin bread aside, I've found that butternut squash gives the most consistently full-flavored results, and cranking your freshly roasted squash through a food mill turns any stringy chunks into a velvety puree.)

The pumpkin cake I made for last week's holiday party was a basic buttery-cinnamony recipe originally published in Gourmet. It was light and moist, thanks to the pumpkin and buttermilk. I added powdered ginger, fresh nutmeg, and a pinch of cloves to the mix; having just cinnamon and allspice is like the Brady Brunch without Cindy, Jan, or Alice.

Turns out I wasn't the only one thinking about pumpkin at this time of year. Talking to my old pal Jennifer Joseph, poet, founder and publisher of the excellent Manic D Press, and Bernal baker par excellence, I got the inside scoop on the pumpkin cake she made last week, which was devoured, down to the crumbs in less than two days by her husband and daughter. Made with whole-wheat pastry flour, fresh cranberries, walnuts, chocolate chips, and pumpkin, it was, she said, "secretly good for you," and we all know chocolate is a health food, right?

It also looks particularly bright and festive, which meant it wasn't too much of a jump to take it from afternoon cake to morning bread. I've cut back the sugar a little, subbing in apple juice (or cider) for the water in Jen's original recipe so as to add a little more natural sweetness and flavor. Served warm, this bread is lovely on its own, or spread with a little whipped cream cheese.

Happy holidays!

Secretly Good for You Pumpkin Breakfast Bread
Fresh cranberries add a nice tanginess to this sweet bread. Stock up on cranberries when you find them in late autumn; they freeze beautifully and don't need to be thawed before using. In a pinch, you can use dried cranberries, but since they're already sweetened, they won't add as much contrast to the finished loaf.

Yield: 1 loaf
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 50-60 minues
Total Time: 1 hour, 10-20 minutes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (see note, below)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil, melted butter, or melted coconut oil
1/4 cup apple juice
2 tbsp molasses
1/2 cup chopped fresh cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dark or white chocolate chips, optional

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a loaf pan or metal or Pyrex ring mold.

2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a medium bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, oil, apple juice, and molasses together.

4. Stir pumpkin mixture into flour mixture, stopping when just mixed. Gently stir in cranberries, walnuts, and chocolate chips, if using. Spoon into prepared pan.

5. Bake 50-60 minutes for a loaf pan, ring mold 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Note: Pumpkin pie spice, sometimes called apple pie spice, is a blend of commonly used baking spices, usually including cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and/or cloves. For this recipe, you can substitute 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp ginger, and 1/4 tsp ground cloves or allspice.

At Christmastime in Hungary, there are two sweets that are traditionally found in every household. Szaloncukor is one: a chocolate candy most often filled with fondant, marzipan, or jelly (my favorite!) wrapped in white fringy tissue and bright shiny foil, strung with thread, and hung on the tree. The other is beigli, a rolled pastry, filled with either poppy seed or walnut filling (usually both varieties are made at once). My mom used to make beigli every Christmas when my brother and I were kids. She'd pull out a tattered cookbook that she bought with my dad when they were still dating from which she got all her recipes. According to her, it is the perfect recipe (my brother and I, and our bellies, agree!). So, she helped me with this veganized version, referencing her old cookbook and helping me think of the best vegan substitutes to incorporate. I created my own recipe melding her notes, and a few recipes I found online that incorporate the most traditional ingredients (from Chanita Harel's Mom's Recipes and More: Israeli Food Blog and from a recipe from a traditional cookbook called the Innes Mester, posted on the King Arthur Flour community forum by "janiebakes.")

Recipe: Beigli

Ingredients:
For the dough
500 gr flour
200 gr vegan butter, softened (I used Earth Balance)
3 portions of prepared Ener-G Egg Replacer equal to 3 eggs
1 packet dry active yeast
1/3 cup lukewarm vegan milk (I used almond)
1 Tablespoon sugar
2/3 cup vegan sour cream
pinch of salt

Walnut Filling
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups vegan milk (I used almond)
2 1/2 cups ground walnuts (I use a rotary cheese grater, which is what's used in Hungary. It grinds the walnuts leaving them light and fluffy, not gritty like a food processor.)
1 3/4 cups of dry bread crumbs
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon rum
1/2 cup of rum-soaked raisins (optional)
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Poppy Seed Filling
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups vegan milk (I used almond)
2 1/2 cups ground poppy seeds (You can use a coffee grinder to grind them.)
1 3/4 cups bread crumbs
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup of rum-soaked raisins (optional)
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Dough:
1. Dissolve yeast in a mixture of the 1/3 cup lukewarm milk and 1 tablespoon sugar and wait a few minutes until frothy.
2. Combine flour and butter until crumbly. I used my KitchenAid mixer’s flat beater and it worked great.
3. Add the yeast mixture wait a few minutes. Add the egg replacer, sour cream, and salt and combine to a soft dough (add 70-100 gr more flour if needed).
4. Divide the dough into 4 and place in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes to rest.

Walnut Filling:
1. Combine, in a large bowl, the ground walnut, bread crumbs, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, rum, and raisins and cinnamon if adding.
2. Add the sugar to the milk, bring to the boil, then add to the other ingredients. Mix very well.

Poppy Seed Filling:
1. Combine, in a large bowl, the ground poppy seeds, bread crumbs, lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla, and raisins and cinnamon if adding.
2. Add the sugar to the milk, bring to the boil, then add to the other ingredients. Mix very well.

Cool both fillings.

Assembling:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Roll out the dough (each part) to a rectangular shape that's not too thin (1/8”-1/4” thick). Spread the cooled filling over it, leaving about an inch all around the edges. Fold the edges over the filling. This will create a nice finished edge after rolling. Another way to do it is to roll the filling out between sheets of plastic wrap first. It's important to get a fairly even ratio of dough to filling. [I went a little overboard on my fillings as you can see -- but the filling is the best part!]

3. Roll up the dough along the longer side, creating a log. Prick with a fork along the top. Traditionally, at this point, an egg wash is brushed on top. I left mine au naturale, but feel free to add a vegan egg wash.
4. Place on a cookie sheet or large baking dish. Let the rolls rest a couple of minutes, then place in the preheated oven and bake until golden brown for 35-40 minutes.
5. Let cool completely and only slice once you are ready to serve.

Boldog Karácsonyt!

It could look something like this: proper wine glasses, real silverware and white napkins. But it could also look like sandwiches and skillet cake. Staff meals, a common ritual and routine at restaurants around the country, vary dramatically. Not all small businesses can afford to serve their staff the same food that diners eat that evening, and yet, they want to feed them well. In this time of giving, how do small food businesses create meaning in an affordable shared meal that’s often prepared in the midst of kitchen chaos?

On one end of the spectrum are staff meals at Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse. Things are different here. Holly Peterson, a café cook at the restaurant, says it didn’t take long for her to figure that out. She’s been at the restaurant for a little over two years, much of which was spent at the garde manger station where she planned, cooked, and enjoyed hundreds of staff meals. At 8 p.m., the cooks from the downstairs restaurant all sit down together and taste each other’s food with a glass of wine that compliments the meal.

Down the road a bit in West Berkeley sits Dafna Kory’s bustling INNA Jam kitchen. Like many small business owners in the beginning, Kory began working solo in the kitchen. There were busy days filled with long hours. But when she started hiring, Kory no longer felt right about subsiding solely on energy bars. “Having real meals didn’t start until I had real people working for me,” she said. “There’s a paradox that I don’t accept of being hungry and working in a kitchen. I wasn’t going to see that happen.” INNA Jam is different in that they make a condiment, so there isn’t extra produce or leftover meats, fish, or pasta in the walk-in. In this way, Kory has to actively plan for each meal. This planning has taken on many iterations in the last year, and it’s constantly evolving based on the seasons, the production schedule, and the extent to which she can find family and loved ones to contribute.

Across the bridge in San Francisco, Anna Derivi-Castellanos of Three Babes Bakeshop can relate to this kind of planning. They too are unique in that they’re producing a single product: pie. And they work long night shifts, so it’s important to have some savory options in the kitchen to keep everyone’s energy and blood sugar up. Derivi-Castellanos laments, “I wish that I had more time to plan our staff meal, but usually I try to keep it simple, and loop it in with part of our production. If we're making something that day that could be considered dinner, (a savory or pot pie, for example) then I'll make more of it.”

But it doesn’t always work out seamlessly. Derivi-Castellanos will often find herself making a special trip to her local co-op to pick up ingredients for the nightly meal. She’ll often end up grabbing some pre-made salads and raw ingredients—making a concerted effort to keep the meal simple but interesting. And affordable. Most of all, “it's important to me to cater to who's on our staff that evening," she says.

The key is really to find “a balance between the time you have and the quality of food that’s important to you and the variation you’re going to need," Kory says. When boyfriend Jesse Clark—who often prepares the meals—needs to focus more on his work, a member of the INNA kitchen will step up to maintain the sandwich station they’ve been doing or chip in with other seasonal ideas. The ultimate goal: “standard home-cooked high quality square meals.”

“Staff meals have taught me how eating well during the work day really makes a huge difference -- for our energy, moral, and good mood all around. Also, feeding the staff is a chance for me to show my respect and appreciation for all their hard work and dedication," Kory says. So while Chez Panisse, Three Babes Bakeshop and INNA Jam all approach their meals differently, they’re all making a conscious important decision. They’re making a statement about the kind of business they want to run and the small things they can do throughout the day not just to feed their staff, but also to nourish. Gracefully.

Inna Jam Skillet Cake. Photo: Dafna Kory

Jesse's INNA Jam Kitchen Skillet Cake
This skillet cake is made year-round in the INNA kitchen, rotating whatever fruit is in season at the time, from stone fruit to figs to plums to apples to berries. Buttermilk isn’t often on hand in the kitchen and yogurt works just as well—use whatever you have. The cake is simple to put together and showcases the best of the harvest. And, it’s nice to snack on throughout the day, too. Not just during staff meal.

Adapted from: Epicurious.com

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour

Serves: 8

Ingredients:
For topping
1/2 stick butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 pound or so of fresh, seasonal fruit- enough to cover the pan.
(Apricots, plums, figs are halved, apples are sliced, berries used whole)
Raw sliced almonds, optional

For cake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk or yogurt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Arrange the racks so that one is in the middle of the oven (for the cake) and another rack is below it. On the lower rack place a baking sheet to catch any drips from the cake.

2. Melt the butter in 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the butter, then turn off the heat (you don't want all your sugar to be melted). Arrange as much fruit as you can fit, cut sides down, close together on top of the brown sugar. Sprinkle sliced almonds, if using.

3. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl (if you're a sifter, you can sift this. Using a fork works just fine).

4. Beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs until mixture is creamy and doubled in volume, 2-3 more minutes. Reduce speed to low and add the flour mixture in 3 batches alternately with the yogurt, beginning and ending with flour mixture, and beat just until combined.

5. Pour the batter over the fruit and spread as evenly as you can. It might not look perfectly distributed right away, but don't worry -- it'll sort itself out in the oven. In any case, it's going to be the bottom of the cake. Bake the cake in the middle of oven until it's top is dark golden brown and a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. It's hard to overcook this cake because of all the fruit juice that will bubble up- it's really the golden color on top that will help you judge when it's ready.

6. Let the cake cool in the pan for a bit to reduce the chance of molten juice/sugar running down the pan when you flip it. Place a large plate if you have one (I use a cutting board) over the skillet, using oven mitts firmly pressed the plate and skillet together, and flip the cake onto plate. Lift the skillet off the cake (knocking on it with a wooden spoon helps to release it). If any fruit stuck to bottom of the skillet just scrape it off and place it back on the cake. Cool to warm or room temperature. It's good right away, but even better the next day.

I have a confession to make. These were really supposed to be amazing chewy pumpkin toffee cookies. Apparently chewy and pumpkin cookies are notorious nemeses. Had I consulted the internet before attempting such a perilous undertaking I could have saved myself much heartache, wasted butter, and trays of puffy pumpkin "cookies" taunting me with their flagrant cakiness.

I felt like a failure. A fraud. What happened? Why did my cookies turn into cakes? It's all the pumpkin's fault. I learned that the high moisture content of pumpkin puree was the cause of my demise. There are two purported solutions: simmer the puree until the moisture is cooked out, or use pumpkin butter instead of puree.

Pumpkin Puree, I shake my fist at you

Well, what's done is done. I'll tackle chewy pumpkin cookies when my ego has had time to heal. In the meantime, what to do with these blasted cookie-cakes? Truth be told, while they made god-awful cookies in terms of texture, the flavor was what I was looking for -- full of pumpkin spice warmth and tasty toffee bits.

Toffee, we're still friends

Come to think of it, these cookie fails were quite successful muffin tops. And that's when it hit me. Whoopie pies! (Or shall I say whoopsie pies.) My first grade art teacher always said, "Make a mistake work for you," so this one goes out to you, Miss Morrow.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

I whipped up some Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting (which rocked if I do say so myself), and sandwiched a generous dollop between two of my pumpkin cookie-cakes. A finishing touch of some toffee bits along the edges and I had myself something to whoop about.

Pumpkin Toffee Whoop(s)ie Pies

Pumpkin Toffee Whoopie Pies
A pumpkin cookie whoopsie turns into a whoopie with some quick thinking and a dose of Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting (which, I am now convinced, can cure all baking woes).

Prep Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

Makes: about 8 whoopie pies

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) pumpkin puree
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
8 ounces toffee bits

Preparation:

Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Set aside.

Cream together the sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, and mix to combine. Add pumpkin and vanilla, and mix together until smooth. (If it your mixture starts to look a bit curdled, it is likely because your eggs or butter were too cold, or because the eggs were added too quickly, causing the fat and water particles in the mixture to separate. If this happens, don't worry. Just continue with adding the dry ingredients…it should all smooth out.)

Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture in thirds, mixing together until everything is incorporated.

Stir in the toffee bits, reserving 1/2 cup for garnishing. Cover the bowl of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Make the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting and stick it in the fridge to chill too.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Scoop the dough out using a trigger ice cream or cookie scoop and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. The cookie-cakes will spread, so keep it to 6 per baking sheet.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges are brown and the center puffs up. Transfer to cooking rack immediately or else the toffee bits tend to stick. Let cool completely.

Put together your Whoopie Pies: Spread a big dollop of the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting onto the bottom of one of the cookie-cakes using a butter knife or piping bag. Sandwich together by placing the bottom of a second cookie on top of the frosting. Roll the exposed frosting side of the whoopee pie over a plate of the reserved toffee bits so they stick. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 0 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 - 2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice

Preparation:

With an electric mixer, mix together the cream cheese and pumpkin puree until smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

Add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar until it's as sweet as you want. Refrigerate for an hour before using.

People have firm holiday cookie traditions. If you're my mom, for example, you can't have Christmas without Pfeffernüsse. Growing up, my sisters and I all scowled and made fun of the cookies, calling them "Heffernutters," all the while reaching for the jam thumbprints we loved. My college roommate couldn't have Christmas without her mom's Almond Horns, my best friend growing up loved her grandmother's recipe for Mexican Wedding Cookies, and in skyping with my boyfriend's mother last week I learned all about her infamous Nutmeg Logs. Everyone has one cookie that just does it for them.

For me, it never feels quite like Christmas without simple, frosted sugar cookies. Because it's often so busy leading up to the week of Christmas, I usually don't get around to them until the day before when my dad and two sisters gather for the annual "Cookie Day." When my parents divorced twelve years ago, it became important for both to claim what traditions they'd keep and to forge new ones. My mom got Christmas Eve with us, so my dad started "Cookie Day" so we could all do something together during the day. On Cookie Day, my sisters and I all choose one cookie recipe we want to try, give my dad a shopping list of ingredients, and gather after lunch on Christmas Eve Day with loads of take-home tins and enthusiasm. We spend the day baking, making hot chocolate and tea, and taking goofy photos.

Last year we made a new cookie that was part of my recipe testing for Marge at the time. I did housemade "oreo's" as part of my regular line-up but knew I wanted to tweak them for the holidays. They were a big hit (with the business and with my sisters) and so we're doing them again this year for Cookie Day. I believe this is the first reoccurring cookie to ever grace the Gordon Family cookie table. And it's worthy I assure you, and I'm excited to share the recipe with you today.

The nice thing about this recipe is that you can do it in stages and the cookies, even when put together, have quite an impressive shelf-life if kept in the fridge (I've kept them for a week and they've been just fine). The dough is a little finicky, and you must allow it to chill for the appropriate amount of time without letting it chill so long that it becomes hard as a rock and you really need to work relatively quickly when rolling them out. But they're no more difficult than any slice-and-bake log cookie when it comes right down to it, and they'll make your house smell like an early Christmas gift.

Quickly, when you read the recipe, if you're anything like my own friends and family you're going to want to try and make these without Crisco. Don't. Trust me. I've tried. You need a little Crisco in the filling to help stabilize it. I know some people really hate using it and I get that, but the filling on these cookies will be a relative mess without it. Also, you'll get a feel for this dough the more you make these cookies. But in order to roll it, you need it to be quite firm but not rock hard. If you chill your dough for too long and it does become rock-hard simply put it in the microwave for 20 seconds and knead gently until it's more malleable. Happy holiday baking to all!

Homemade Peppermint Sandwich Cookies
For the bittersweet chocolate in this recipe, I use a 60-72% Callebaut in the bakery and a Scharffen Berger semi-sweet chocolate. I splurge and use Valrhona cocoa powder as well. These are the kind of cookies where chocolate is a main ingredient and you really will be able to taste the difference between using a ho-hum chocolate and a really wonderful chocolate. And for the filling: some folks prefer a much sturdier filling than others, so add the confectioner's sugar slowly and know that you'll need to add more or less than the recipe calls for depending on your desired consistency.

Makes: 18-20 cookies

Prep Time (includes chilling and rolling the dough): 2 hours
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

Ingredients:
For Cookies:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup bittersweet (60-70%) chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
1 egg, room temperature
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

For Filling:
5 ounces vegetable shortening
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and at room temperature
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
3-4 crushed candy canes, to top

Preparation:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar until well combined. Add the chocolate and vanilla and whisk together. Then add the egg and whisk until incorporated.

2. In a separate medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, stirring slowly with a wooden spoon or your hands (using my hands is easier for me at this point).

3. Let the dough firm up at room temperature for 30 minutes.

4. Dump dough out onto the counter or another flat surface and gather into one flat disk (just like you would with pie dough). Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

5. Preheat oven to 350 F. Lay one sheet of plastic wrap down on the counter and place to ball of dough on top. Knead it for a moment or two to soften it to the point where it will allow you to roll it out. Place another sheet of plastic wrap on top of the dough (it should be sandwiched at this point) and roll to about 1/8-inch thickness or 1/4 inch thickness for a thicker cookie. Don't stress too much about these measurements -- this will be a little trial and error and you'll learn to eye the thickness for the kind of cookie you want. If the dough becomes too sticky or difficult to work with, put back in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.

6. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and, using a 2-3-inch round cutter, cut out the cookie circles and place them on the sheet. They don’t spread much, so they can be pretty close together.

7. Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are very slightly darkened—this is tough to tell given their already dark color, but you'll want your cookie to be set but still soft in the center. They firm up when cooled. Cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

8. To make the filling: using a hand blender, beat the butter, vegetable shortening, salt and peppermint extract until smooth. Then add the confectioners sugar slowly in 1/2 cup increments until creamy and until the filling reaches the consistency you like, about one minute. Using a piping bag (or just a good old fashioned spoon), pipe a generous portion of filling onto one completely cooled chocolate cookie, dust with crushed candy canes and cover with another chocolate cookie to make a sandwich.

Happy Arizmendi bakers: Erin Singer, Suet Cheng, Aeri Swendson

While it seems like many of our families avoid fruitcake, it's been around for quite some time. In fact, the name can actually be traced back as far as the Middle Ages with the oldest reference going back to Roman times where they often included pomegranate seeds, pine nuts, and raisins. Since the bread is preserved with high levels of booze, crusaders and hunters were rumored to have carried this type of cake to sustain themselves over long periods of time away from home. All of the neon-colored fruits that folks fear today came much later down the line.

At Arizmendi, you won’t see any of those dried fruits either. Instead, you’ll find small warmly-scented loaves packed with dried fruits and nuts from Rainbow Grocery across town. They use currants, lemon zest, orange zest, raisins, papaya, pineapple, apricots, almonds and cherries along with a smattering of spices like cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. If you haven’t yet tried it, this is your year. The 9th Avenue location is doing 400 small loaves and they sell out quickly, so make sure to get down there beginning the first week of December to snag yours. They’ll hold until whenever you’re ready to serve it (the brandy functions as a preserver) -- some of the staff actually hang onto their loaves year after year and come in to re-dip them during the annual fruitcake-dipping process.

The fruitcake-making process at Arizmendi

So what’s the secret? The best fruitcakes are started months in advance and dipped in liquor numerous times to allow the flavors to really mature and develop. Arizmendi began making the fruitcakes well over two months ago and they go through a three-dip cycle in brandy. First, the staff spends time cutting up all of the dried fruits, making the dough, and folding it all together. Suet Cheng says, “It’s mostly fruit and just enough batter to hold it altogether." Baker Erin Singer confirms that it’s almost like a scone dough, packed with so many fruits and nuts that it's really barely held together. After all of the dry ingredients are combined, it’s baked and they allow it to cool for 10-20 minutes. While it’s warm they do the first soak in brandy.

Sneaking a taste of Arizmendi's fruitcake

The first soak is the longest, meaning they allow each loaf to hang out for 4-5 minutes in the tub of brandy. Erin says, “they soak it up like crazy the first time around.” The subsequent soakings are for a shorter amount of time, usually 1-2 minutes. After soaking, the bakers wrap the loaves in cheesecloth and plastic wrap and store them for a month. When it’s time to re-dip, they take off the plastic and re-dip with the cheesecloth still on.

I had the chance to try the fruitcake after its last dipping and it was boozier than it will be when you buy it because it was straight out of the brandy. Chatting with the head baker over a cup of coffee and a small slice, I told her how it was the best fruitcake I'd ever had. In fact, I didn't realize fruitcake could be this good. If you could compare the flavor to a color, it’d be the deepest amber imaginable: intensely warm yet simultaneously dark and boozy and packed with chunks of fruit and nuts. And they’re heavy! With each soaking they take on more and more of the liquid making them incredibly moist and dense but in a wonderful-with-coffee way, not a like-a-rock way.

Sure, people do it differently. And it’s been done for hundreds of years which is why, I think, I’m so drawn to fruitcake. The thought that grandmothers and farm hands were dipping fruitcakes in much the same way that I experienced on this sunny San Francisco morning seems important to me. It’s a continuation of a holiday tradition that holds a lot of meaning for some, and little for others. If it’s not part of your cultural or family tradition, I encourage you to make some changes this year. I sure am.

Get Your Fruitcake:
Fruitcakes will go on sale the first week of December and you can call and order one/reserve or just walk in and pick one up. The earlier, the better; they do sell out. Each fruitcake is $14.

Arizmendi Bakery
1331 9th Avenue (between Irving and Judah)
San Francisco, CA 94122
(415)566-3117

Hours:
Tuesday-Friday: 7am-7pm
Saturday-Sunday: 7:30am-6pm
Monday: CLOSED

What we do differently is not just swap out the meat with a squash or a store-bought substitute. We also make sure to think about the hundreds of millions of birds who are slaughtered each year during this time and give thanks to the individuals at sanctuaries around the country who take in the more fortunate. We thank the restaurants who cater to our lifestyle of compassion. And we thank the animals who make our lives richer, funnier, eye-opening, and loving.

Below is a list of events happening in the area to celebrate Thanksgiving AND the turkeys, plus options on places to order a vegan meal and desserts:

1. November 12: Join Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary for Toast for the Turkeys in honor of the rescued turkeys at the sanctuary.

   
   Two of the residents at Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary, Bill and Sierra. Bill was found wandering the streets of Berkeley before being pickup by Animal Control. He is a gentle giant with the manners of a perfect gentleman. He spends his days gracing the green pasture with his buddy, Sierra. Photo Credit: Christine Morrissey

   The event, sponsored by such Bay Area establishments as Cinnaholic, Vegansaurus, D.O.V.E. Distributors, and Rainbow Grocery will also feature a “Humane Harvest” vegetarian food drive, to benefit the Emergency Food Bank of Stockton/San Joaquin.

Check out this video from last year's Toast to the Turkeys:

2. November 19: Take part in Farm Sanctuary’s annual Celebration FOR the Turkeys which features a vegan feast, musical performance, guest presentations, and the most adored of all – the Feeding of the Turkeys celebration, where the turkeys are the center of attention and dine on squash, pumpkin pie, and cranberries (on silver platters of course!).

   
   Me bonding with a turkey at the 2009 Feeding of the Turkeys. They are incredibly friendly animals and love to socialize and be petted!

   This year’s guests will include vegan writer and chef Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter and the new Biz & Livia Stone Foundation, who became vegan after visiting Farm Sanctuary. You will also be able to tour the farm and visit with all the other animals. I was taken to the Celebration FOR the Turkeys for my 30th birthday, and it was the best birthday I ever had (good job, husband!).

   
   Two turkeys enjoying their feast of pumpkin and veggies. At factory farms, turkeys' beaks and toes are clipped (without anesthesia), so these guys have a little trouble eating without getting messy. But they definitely still enjoy the feast that so many turkeys don't get to experience.

   Farm Sanctuary (who recently took in 25 baby turkeys from a factory farm that were dumped on their doorstep) truly changes your perspective on farm animals as you spend time with them, experience their different personalities, and watch them thrive in a free and loving environment. [If you can’t make it, consider sponsoring a turkey!]

3. November 24: Join Café Gratitude (who recently opened a location in LA!) for their annual vegan Free Thanksgiving Meal, where this super compassionate establishment gives back with a feast served by volunteers from the community.

   
   Cafe Gratitude's Annual Free Thanksgiving Meal. Photo Credit: Cary Mosier
   
   If you prefer to stay in, you can still experience some Gratitude on your table by ordering a pie to go. Their desserts are seriously delicious (and probably the most healthy you’ll ever eat). It's sure to please vegans and omnis alike.

4. Order your vegan holiday meal from Souley Vegan, everyone’s favorite vegan soul food restaurant! This year the offerings include Southern fried tofu, roasted garlic mashed potato with gravy, and cornbread dressing, among other delicious options. You can also order pies and cheesecakes.

   
   Photo Credit: Souley Vegan

   Check out their homepage for a link to the menu and ordering instructions (order must be received by November 21).

5. Cinnaholic is promising some exciting holiday flavors this year, including pumpkin spice and egg nog frostings, and toppings like gingersnaps, candy cane pieces, and peppermint “Oreos.”

   
   Photo Credit: Michael Lang/Cinnaholic

   They’ve also teamed up with the aforementioned Harvest Home Sanctuary to celebrate the Toast to the Turkeys by donating, for the entire month of November, 50% of all Baby Bun sales to help out with feeding, housing, and general care for the animals.

And if you are simply looking for a way to complete your holiday table with something sweet, here are a few other places to check out for ordering Thanksgiving desserts:

Wholesome Bakery: Try their Sweet Potato Pecan Baby Pies
Rainbow Grocery: They always have an assortment of vegan treats from various local bakeries.
Mission Pie: They're offering a Vegan Apple-Cranberry crumb-top pie this year for Thanksgiving.
Fat Bottom Bakery: You can special order some Pumpkin Cupcakes with vegan cream cheese frosting.
Idle Hands Baking Company: Try their Spice Cake (gluten-free option available) or Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!