The secret for this simple cake is the cream cheese IN the batter that makes it stay super moist, even when I had to bake the cake on the longer side, about 85 min. I used my Emile Henry loaf pan which could barely contain the batter and it was on the verge of over-flowing. Thankfully, no baking fail.
Isn’t she a beauty? When I was in Charleston I ate my fair share of biscuits, oysters and fried chicken but the trip wasn’t complete without cake, more specifically The Ultimate Coconut Cake from Peninsula Grill.
Dumpling making is the perfect weekend activity. Grab a friend, set up an assembly line and put on your favorite music. I enlisted my mom to help. She made Chinese food while I was growing up, so naturally, she had some thoughts about what should go in the filling. She helped with the seasoning and I added all the stuff (Lots of green onions! Mushrooms!). The resulting recipe is a hybrid of our experimentation.
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It isn’t the holidays without a spice cookie. Gingerbread is probably the most common one, but I reserve that for constructing houses. I like the more cinnamon-y flavor profile of speculoos cookies. Every year, I turn to my baking bible, the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook, for the recipe. I added a little ginger and cloves for a bit more punch. For the cut-outs, I was inspired by adorable round reindeer faces found on Pinterest, but I decided to go with a rectangle to resemble their slender frame.
My favorite part about making these cookies is decorating! I was snacking on chocolate from my friends at Kellermanni Chocolate (dark milk is my favorite) and broke off a few chunks from to use for the reindeer’s facial features. To finish, I used red candies for the signature Rudolph nose.
I love making snowball cookies during the holidays! They’re also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies or Russian Tea Cakes but snowballs feels more Christmas-y. Typically raw walnuts or pecans are used, but I was given the loveliest basket of assorted candied nuts from Santé Nuts and chose my favorite, candied pecans.
The toasted nuts add warmth to the cookies, and to account for the sugar coating, I adjusted the amount of powdered sugar in the dough so it wouldn’t overpower the nutty flavor. With the sweet, there’s also a little spice, in the form of cardamom. A dash of it makes these cookies very festive. Happy holidays!
This post is sponsored by Santé Nuts. All opinions are my own.
