Christmas is all things sweet to Italians,even to us third generation twice-removed ones. Years past, our little aunt was the family baker, boxing up pounds of cookies and pies for each family. A representative box was gingerbread cookies, taralla, butter cookies, and cannoli, accompanied by a bag of gingerbread men and ladies for each kid, plus a pie tin of pignolata. She'd begin right after Thanksgiving and declare her house off limits while she baked in her 1950's knotty pine and pink linoleum kitchen. Even in her last years when she moved into a tiny senior citizen apartment, she would manage her baking by pre-measuring ingredients into baby food jars stored in shoe boxes, de facto baking kits to beat anything Martha Stewart can merchandise. We miss our aunt, not just for her baking, but for her industriousness and thrift, and her sharing of our culinary heritage.
Me, not so much the baker. Oh, I've had my years of making all of the above and more, years when my children and sisters and I bonded over a bottle of vanilla and 4 dozen eggs. This kitchen isn't equipped for mass baking of any kind and these days, I'd rather spend my spare time painting cookies instead of baking them. Now that I can't eat sweets anymore, I can't muster the energy to buy all the ingredients, spend an afternoon baking, and then torture myself with not eating any.
Despite that, I am still so allured by reading and writing about the cakes, cookies, and other pastries that Italians made legendary. If I can't feast on them, I can read about them and dream. This morning with Mr. Pom out and The Teen asleep, I painted for a few hours and then I took down my aunt's little box of recipes (one of many distributed among the sisters) to look for the gingerbread recipe. Tomorrow is The Teen's 16th Birthday ~!!!!!~ and she is a gingerbread girl at heart. Didn't find it yet, but just listen to the names of these recipes and tell me you aren't drooling:
- hot milk sponge cake (takes 12 eggs - Sister #5 has perfected the recipe)
- Neapolitan Pie made with orange and lemon rind, ricotta, and chocolate
- Italian "Nuova Amorina" almond Cannolli recipe written by Auntie Gussie from Manana Vento's recipe
- Anita's Pizza Dough (1977)
- Cloud Sponge Cake from Woman's Day mag, 1979
- Tarten Boden made in a fluted pan and filled with peaches and whipped cream
- my mother's Chocolate ice Box Cake made with chocolate, heavy cream, sponge layers, and lady fingers
- Apple Sauce Spice Cake
- Royal Swedish Icing - you can put it on the spice cake
- Hungarian Chocolate Frosting (we are multicultural)
- Chinese Almond Cookies (see)
- Lemon Snaps (and true blue Americans)
- 5 (at least) recipes for cannoli and cheesecakes
- Swedish Rosettes
- Tiny Stuffed Walnut Tarts (from Loretta Rubino 1979)
- Lemon Chiffon Pie (something I would bathe in if possible)
- Italian Pepper Cookies
- French Lace Cookies
Looking through her little wooden box and pulling out the well worn index cards with their embossed strawberry image and "From Anita's Kitchen" at the top is like a slip through time back to her round, pink Formica table in front of the double-doored pink (!) Kelvinator refrigerator, as she took a tray of taralla out of the pink (!) oven. Her recipe cards are annotated with warnings like, "don't add milk all at once of crumb topping will become pasty" and "Tomato Sausage Sauce (Richard's favorite).
Still haven't found the gingerbread recipe but now I think I remember where it is. But I did find $60 in Anita's recipe box! No, it hasn't been there since she passed away almost 4 years ago, I think I hid it in there last Christmas!
And if anyone would like any of these recipes, just leave a comment telling me which ones.
Tell me your family's favorite baked good for Christmas. What is the one recipe that just the thought of makes your mouth water and plunges you back to your childhood? We all have these favorites, even if we don't have the time to make them anymore. I hope you find the time to let the fragrance of vanilla extract fill your mind with thoughts of sugarplums.
