The Hunger Struck - Confessions of a Food Fanatic.

I love to bake and have always longed to be one of those bakers who can produce perfect aesthetically magnificent creations. This is a bit strange because in other ways I’m not exactly what you would call a perfectionist. This desire for baking perfection may stem from the fact that baking is something I was very comfortable with at a young age. I worked in a bakery for a while after high school and prior to that spend many days in the kitchen baking cookies, pies, tarts etc. Baking came to me easily, I only struggled with the aesthetic.

It doesn’t seem to matter how much time I spend calculating circumference or carefully cutting sides of puff pastry, somehow it always comes out looking a bit rough. I know there is appeal in a rustic looking free form tart, but sometimes, maybe even just once, I would like to make something that looks as amazing as it tastes, something refined.

Springerle are a traditional German Christmas cookie, known for there beautiful embossed designs and stark white color. I’ve heard their origin can be traced back as far as the 15th century, maybe earlier (wikipedia says 14th century) and are undoubtedly one of the prettiest cookies I’ve ever come across. My family is German and on my mothers side they are from the south where these cookies originated. I grew up with stories of these cookies as they were a big part of my mothers traditions and I remember them distinctly from those years we spent in Germany over the holidays.

As a kid who grew up with very little in the way of sweet treats, I can still remember one of the first times I tried a springerle cookie. I remember looking wide eyed at this beautiful cookie, white as a marshmallow with its amazingly intricate design and thinking if it was anything like the rest of Christmas in Germany it would surely be the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Even more distinct is biting down into its dense almost cake like surface and realizing that there couldn’t be anything further from the glorious taste of a marshmallow then this. Needless to say, for a kid of my generation who did not grow up in Germany they fell a little short of what I had imagined. I didn’t hate them as I would imagine a kid with a refined sense of what a cookie should taste like would, I wasn’t that discriminating, but I definitely was not as impressed as I thought i would be.

This year more than others I have been struck by the amazing variety of beautiful gifts that can be found online. I’ve spend a considerable amount of time this year browsing sites and not just those amazing kitchen creations! I came across so many great gift ideas that I thought I would share a few of them here, even if it is a bit late for some holiday celebrations. Here are some of my favorite kitchen items this year.

This dish towels are from Anthropology and probably too nice to actually use. I have a collection of pretty dish towels and I have to confess that I generally use them for decorative purposes rather than their intended use.

OK guys and gals it’s officially December so I’m no longer holding back in the holiday baking department. Believe me, it took some effort over the past two weeks to refrain from launching myself head first into cookie baking and I’m thankful I was able to exercise some restraint. It’s not easy having a constant supply of home baked goods at your immediate disposal, especially if you have some weakness where will power is concerned. I don’t know about you, but I’m capable of finishing off a whole bakery full of cookies before they have even been around for a day.

These lemon pistachio cookies come from Martha Stewart and they will make you forget about your usual holiday cookie recipes. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to cookie baking, there are 3 particular recipes I absolutely have to make each year. They are also usually the ones I bake first. This year after a long process of elimination,  I have selected several new recipes that I’m quite excited to try.I won’t be leaving my traditional one this year either, just adding a few new recipes to the mix.

Several weeks ago I bought a huge butternut squash and because I’m somewhat indecisive, it has been sitting on my counter untouched ever since. I found myself staring at it everyday, uninspired by the thought of making soup or roasting it as is, just bored of my usual recipes. Bored, bored,  bored.

What to do?

After a few weeks I decided that it was time to search around a bit and hopefully get inspired by what others have made and maybe find something that is a bit out of the ordinary from me. Something sweet like muffins but better, it definitely had to be better than muffins.

Well I didn’t have to search long before I found the answer tucked away in the 2006 archives of La Tartine Gourmand. The second I read Squash Harvest Loaf I was captivated and knew what had to be done.  Sometimes all it takes is a quick glance through the ingredients of a recipe to feel completely confident about how it will turn out. Pureed roasted butternut squash + buttermilk + Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, Pecans, Walnuts… what could go wrong?