On average, two to four baked goods are produced in my kitchen on a weekly basis. During the Christmas season, that number rises exponentially. Today for instance, had you dropped by for a visit, I could have offered you fruitcake, homemade s’mores with a marshmallow cap torched á la minute, chocolate cake roll with salted caramel buttercream filling, chocolate meringue batons, and pink peppermint meringue kisses to go along with your coffee or tea.

I’ve even ventured into cookie baking territory as evidenced by this weeks “Dreamy Crack Bars” post. Here is the other type of cookie I like to bake during this holly jolly time of year: nubby, crumbly, buttery, sugar-dusted Mexican wedding cakes, festooned and prettied up with Grinch-green pistachios, sunny orange zest, and exotic, floral cardamom.

I took them to the annual Serious Eats cookie swap just last week and will be making a few more batches for people on my “Nice” list.

ORANGE, CARDAMOM, &  PISTACHIO MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES

Equipment: food processor, electric mixer, 2 baking sheets, parchment paper, cooling rack, mixing bowls

Makes about 32 cookies

1 cup roasted, salted, shelled pistachios
1 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ plus 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pulse pistachios and orange zest in food processor until almonds are coarsely ground. Set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Pause mixer and add ½ cup confectioners’ sugar. Beat on low speed until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with rubber spatula; add vanilla. Mix on medium-high speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds.

Pause mixer. Add flour, ¾ teaspoon cardamom, salt, and nut mixture; mix on medium-low speed until dough comes together, 60 to 90 seconds.

With rubber spatula, scrape sides and bottom of bowl, patting dough down to unify it. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Using a 1 tablespoon measure, scoop dough out onto prepared baking sheets, then quickly roll them between palms into balls and space them ½ inch apart. Lightly press cookies down to ½-inch thickness.

Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom (they will remain pale on top) 15 to 20 minutes.

While cookies bake, whisk together remaining 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, remaining 1/8 teaspoon cardamom, and cinnamon in large bowl; set aside.

Transfer baking sheet to cooling rack and cool cookies on sheet for 5 minutes. Gently toss warm cookies in confectioners’ sugar and transfer to cooling rack to cool completely, 30 to 60 minutes.

Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

There was bad juju in the kitchen today. Three batches of bad caramel (one due to being f¡#*^*! by Martha again). One bowl of buttercream that didn’t set up right, despite multiple attempts to save it via ice bath—I suspect it heard me cursing it under my breath and melted into a soupy mess to spite me. A second bowl of buttercream that would not fully incorporate the salted caramel.

I washed all the pots and decided it best to hang up my apron and call it a day. (I also ran out of eggs).

These meringue buttons and batons were the only saving grace out of the afternoon’s mess. These are pink peppermint, and there’s a batch of chocolate ones cooling in the kitchen, ready to decorate tomorrow’s cake.

Because there will be cake and the buttercream and caramel will behave.

Admittedly, I am not a very enthusiastic cookie baker. I don’t mind pulling cookies out of the oven halfway through baking to carefully apply chocolate chips with tweezers so they look picture perfect, but that’s strictly for work. For fun, I’d much rather do away with the scooping, rolling, cutting,  decorating, and tweezing.

Enter these bar cookies. They’re actually the first recipe I ever developed at Cook’s Country Magazine, and probably one of my favorite. The base is a nut-speckled, buttery shortbread; the center a gooey pecan-pie-like blanket; and the top, a crisp, caramelized, crunchy crust of coconut.

They were originally titled “Dream Bars,” however after six batches and incessant eating, their highly addictive nature demands to be put in the category of illegal drugs, hence the “crack” in the title.

I’m off to bake another batch now. Wrap them up in cellophane and festive ribbons and ship off to friends and family!

DREAMY CRACK BARS
(Originally published in Cook’s Country, Apr/May 2009)

Equipment: 13- by 9-inch baking pan, heavy-duty foil, food processor, cooling rack, mixing bowls, whisk

Notes:
To toast the nuts, arrange pecans in single layer on baking sheet. Bake in center rack in preheated 350°F oven until fragrant and golden, 7 to 10 minutes, shaking pan halfway through baking to redistribute pecans. Transfer baking sheet to cooling rack and cool pecans completely before chopping.

For the Crust
Cooking spray
2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
½ cup pecans
¼ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces and chilled

For the Topping
1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 (15-ounce) can cream of coconut
2 large eggs, at room temperature
¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (See Notes)

For the crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°F. Line 13- by 9-inch baking pan with heavy-duty foil lengthwise with one sheet, then crosswise with a second sheet to create a sling; coat with baking spray.

Process flour, brown sugar, pecans, and salt in food processor until pecans are coarsely ground. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press mixture firmly into prepared baking pan. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack 20 minutes.

For the topping: Stir together shredded coconut and cream of coconut in bowl. In separate bowl, whisk eggs, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Stir in pecans, then spread filling over cooled crust. Dollop heaping teaspoons of coconut mixture over filling, then spread into as even a layer as possible with rubber spatula or back of spoon (it will be patchy).

Bake until topping is deep golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then, use excess foil to pull out onto wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours.

Once cooled, remove foil and cut into 24 pieces. (Bars can be refrigerated in airtight container for 5 days.)

Tomorrow I jet off to Playa del Carmen for a wedding. Sunshine! Palm trees! Day drinking! Bliss!

Don’t get too jealous—there is a snag in my cartwheeling and twirling. A couple of days ago I called the bride and sheepishly admitted, “I blanked out and forgot to go to the gym the past three months.”

Instead of going on a crash diet and spraying myself a darker shade of Oompa to cover up my trespasses, what have I done the past few days? Continued to eat as if I were headed to the North Pole for the winter.

Today, for instance, involved testing a recipe several times over and by the afternoon I had acquired a few extra thigh dimples thanks to copious amounts of chocolate mousse, sticky Italian meringue, and cookies that I insisted on tasting for quality control (never mind that I was testing assembly methods and the actual recipe was the same each time).

But you know what? I’m not too worried. I found a lovely ombré coral wrap that will look just fabulous poolside.

“¿Me dá para mi calaverita?”

Mexico and several other Latin American countries honor the dead today by celebrating día de los muertos, Day of the Dead. Children will knock on doors and ask for money or food, families will festively decorate the graves of their loved ones, and this curious pan de muerto will be baked and shared.

Pan de muerto is a sweet, soft bread, coated with sugar and perfumed with orange blossom water. During its preparation, part of the dough is reserved and used to decorate the loaves with shapes echoing those of human bones. Different versions exist, with breads showcasing flora, fauna, and mythical creatures as décor. Even if you won’t be rapping your knuckles on stranger’s doors on behalf of your calaverita, this is a festive and beautiful bread that’s worth trying.

For the recipe, visit Serious Sweets .

I was completely enchanted by these Concord grapes a few weeks ago when I visited the greenmarket by Lincoln Square. They were deep, midnight violet hiding under a gossamer bloom and intensely perfumed. The strong scent of sheer purple was discernible from a distance and provoked flashes of childhood’s gloppy grape jelly, drippy grape popsicles, and intoxicating grape juice.

The grapes’ velvety jackets are easily slipped off to reveal chubby, translucent green flesh with rather large, crunchy seeds. I usually chew right through these, but while testing this week’s Concord Grape Cake for Serious Sweets I found that they created too much of a distraction. In that recipe, they are removed, leaving you nothing but tender cake mottled with small explosions of grape and a thick topcoat of made-from-scratch jam.

I was working on a chocolate-coated cookie recipe recently, and, neat as I try to be, chocolate is not something I’m very good at keeping under control. I’d like to think it’s like refusing to color within the lines: It’s creative! It’s liberating! It’s fun!

This is what the aftermath of all this creative, liberating, and fun chocolate activity left behind. Rather pretty, no?

I made this Lemon Cake with Fresh Raspberry Buttercream for my “Let Them Eat…” cake column on Serious Eats: Sweets. I normally don’t cross-pollinate between my blog and Serious Eats, but I couldn’t resist shooting it different ways, it was so pretty. The full cake accompanies the recipe but here is a slice to whet your appetite.

I make biscuits at least twice a month and have been doing so for years. After much trial and error, I have a recipe I love and I think they’re the best biscuits ever.

Enter the Cuisinart and apparently the demise of my “Best Biscuits Ever.”

It was new. And shiny. I wanted to break it in. Lots of people use the Cuisinart to pulse butter and flour in it. So I proceeded with the recipe.

They looked fine, but some people who will remain unnamed said, “Umm. Are these the best biscuits ever?” Sting.

Artisanal it is, then! So here they are, in all their fluffy, hand-crafted glory.

FLUFFIEST BISCUITS

Makes 12 biscuits

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted chilled butter, cut into 1” pieces
1 ½ cups buttermilk or plain low-fat yogurt, chilled

- Adjust the oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 425°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

- Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda twice.

- Add the chilled butter and, using two knives, cut it into the dry ingredients until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

- Add the buttermilk and stir it in with fork just till combined. If it looks very dry, add more buttermilk, 1 teaspoon at a time until the dough is cohesive.

- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead it until it comes together, about six times. Pat the dough into a rectangle, about 16 inches by 11 inches. Use a floured round biscuit cutter to stamp out the biscuits and arrange them about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. If you don’t have a biscuit cutter, cut the dough into quarters lengthwise, then into thirds crosswise.

- Bake 12 – 15 minutes until golden.

- Serve warm with good butter.

I baked, frosted, and bedazzled 100 cookies to decorate a Christmas tree for Woman’s Day TV segment. I continue to find sprinkles embedded in my living room carpet.

Do you know, it takes an awfully long time to settle back in after being away for Christmas? No? Then you must be much more organized than I, although, I truly did putter about like new wind-up doll stocked with fresh batteries writing correspondence and making phone calls, taking on a Mount Everest-esque heap of laundry, sorting bills, picking sprinkles out from the carpet (see photo above), mailing out belated holiday gifts…Don’t look at me like that—I know I was delinquent in my elf duties. The worst of it is, I wrote a whole blog entry about how 2010 was the year when I would send out cards and presents in a timely fashion. Lump of coal in my stocking.

What did you do for the holidays? Lots of presents, clinking bubble-filled crystal, and manageable family brawls, I hope. For me, it was southern California, which was a complete washout. The sun refused to shine in its usual carefree way, the house windows looked like they were weeping. No matter—I got to spend some quality time with my mom in the kitchen*.  We cooked and baked every day, and, while this may seem like a non-vacation, we look forward to our time in the kitchen, and odd ducks that we are, actually enjoy doing the dishes.

And now, the pièce de résistance! Nicas, gather round and take notes, because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a very special Christmas gift from me to you. My grandmother’s top-secret family recipe for relleno! My mamamá would surely murder me in my sleep for sharing, but she doesn’t use the internet…Does she?

For those non-compatriots, a brief explanation of Nicaraguan relleno:

Relleno means stuffing, but erase your mental pictures of American bread-cube stuffing and dressing because this version is of an entirely different genus and species. I’ve found no original recipe, no documentation on who made this recipe first, but relleno is a contentious subject to Nicas;  recipes are usually closely guarded and unique to each household.

Relleno is made by combining finely chopped pork (I’ve heard of people using chicken, but in my book, that’s sacrilege), panade, and many condiments and stirring everything in a pot for many hours. Mamamá’s recipe is famous and, when she was younger, used to be available for purchase. I remember her standing over a cauldron-like pot in the cement patio in her kitchen in Granada, arduously pushing against a broomstick of a spoon to prevent the bubbling mixture from sticking, beads of sweat wrung out by the deepening furrows in her brow. Granted, she was making at least sixty pounds’ worth, but relleno is labor intensive even in small batches.

Everything but the kitchen sink.

This year, my mom and I started with an insignificant two pounds of pork and it still required the use of two large pots and three hours of stirring. Relleno’s consistency is thick, but spreadable in the manner that rillette or refried beans are. Its color is deep, burnt sienna studded with the green and deep purple of olives, capers, and raisins. The flavor is a balanced blend of sweet, salty, and sour. In some areas of Nicaragua, on Christmas Eve the main event at dinner is a roast hen stuffed with relleno, but my family normally serves it alongside a more gringo roast turkey.

It makes up in flavor what it lacks in looks.

Without further ado, the recipe. ¡Les queda la receta para el año que viene!

RELLENO NAVIDENO CHAMORRO BARILLAS

You will need the largest mixing bowls in your kitchen, and your largest pots. I used a Dutch oven and a 12-inch skillet with straight sides. While the depth of the pots is important, it’s not as important as the surface area. Relleno will start as a pale, soupy mixture, but as it cooks, it will reduce and thicken. The larger the surface area of your pot, the more quickly it the relleno will achieve desired consistency.

This recipe is at its core, my grandmother’s, but in every household, seasonings and garnishes vary. In the ingredients list I call for a base amount, but you are free to add more or less salt, Worcestershire, olives, capers, etc., to taste. If this is your first time with the recipe, I recommend following it closely and, on your second and third tries, making additions and subtractions.

And please, don’t contact me if you choose to defile the recipe with outrageous additions like cumin or choose to start with raw ground pork. No. No. No.

For the base: Cooking the Pork
2 pounds pork loin, cut into 1½-inch chunks
Salt and pepper
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut into quarters
1 medium green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into quarters
6 garlic cloves, peeled
2 bay leaves

- Generously season the pork with salt and pepper. Place the pork in a Dutch oven or large pot along with onion, bell pepper, garlic, and bay leaves. Fill the pot with enough water to cover (2 to 3 quarts) and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until the pork is cooked through, about 20 minutes, skimming the surface with a large spoon from time to time.

- With a slotted spoon, transfer pork to a large bowl. Strain the broth into a second large bowl and discard the cooked vegetables.

For the relleno
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium green bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium yellow bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and cut into 1-inch pieces
8 garlic cloves, peeled
1 (28-ounce) can plum tomatoes
2 loaves white sandwich bread, such as Wonder®, about 2 pounds total, torn into pieces
6 large eggs, well beaten
¼ cup Worcestershire, plus additional for seasoning to taste
½ cup sweet gherkins,  finely chopped
6 tablespoons granulated sugar, plus additional for seasoning to taste
1 pound unsalted butter
Salt
8 ounces raisins
1½ cups pimento stuffed green olives, liquid reserved
1 cup cocktail onions, drained
½ cup capers, drained

- Place the half of the cooked pork, onion pieces, green and yellow bell pepper pieces, garlic cloves, plum tomatoes and their liquid, and ½ cup of reserved broth in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Transfer to a large bowl and repeat with the remaining half of the pork, vegetables, and an additional ½ cup of reserved broth. Transfer to the large bowl with first batch.

- In a separate large bowl, combine the bread with 8 cups of reserved broth. Mash the mixture with a fork until the bread is completely dissolved. Thoroughly stir in the beaten eggs, Worcestershire sauce, gherkins, and sugar. Add the ground pork mixture and thoroughly combine.

- Divide the butter between two large, deep pots. Melt the butter over medium-high heat. Divide the relleno mixture between the two pots and begin stirring. After about 45 minutes of cooking, the relleno should begin to thicken and acquire a bronze tint. Stir in the raisins, olives, cocktail onions, and capers and continue to stir. Taste and season with salt, Worcestershire, and/or sugar (I like to add some of the reserved olive brine in lieu of salt). Two to three hours of stirring later, your mission is completed.

- Serve relleno as a side at the Christmas table. Leftovers are great on toast or crackers,  or may be frozen in a zipper-lock bag for up to two months.

*I say “quality.” Mom might have other qualifiers to describe the experience. Pobrecita.