Another nice option for green leaves/herbs is to “crystalize” them, as in this Ottolenghi orange olive oil cake with rosemary. Also works with edible flowers (or just rose petals), though that might not speak “holidays” as much as green leaves. Greenery plus sugared cranberries would be beautiful, too, and very holidays-ish.
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Yes, I love doing that with rosemary! Reads very Christmassy 
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This is how you can tell when I’m posting at an hour when I should not still be awake…
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A variation of Dorie Greenpan’s iced and spiced hermits, with ginger instead of raisins…
I went for “rustic” with the glaze, but it’s more “oh crap”. Still tastes good…
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When those hermits are separated on a plate, the glaze will look perfect.
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I see they’ve updated the design; the bakery name and location were printed in plain text on the bottom of the tin back in the day.
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Not sure if you heard about this https://collinstreet.com/blog/the-sandy-jenkins-embezzlement-scandal
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Nope!
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Fascinating read - thanks for posting that.
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Reminds me of the story of Alice Medrich and her business Cocolat (her first cookbook of the same name recreated a lot of the fancy cakes sold there).
From Wikipedia:
Medrich founded the Cocolat chain of chocolate stores in 1976. By 1990, Cocolat had expanded to seven stores in the San Francisco Bay area. However, the company got into financial difficulty after a deliberately lit fire destroyed its Berkeley headquarters in 1991, causing damages estimated at $2 million, and after the embezzlement of $500,000 by an employee. The latter forced Medrich to sell her interest in the company.
After Medrich, there was also a Scientology twist.
The whole business is long gone, but Medrich perseveres as a cookbook author and longtime columnist/recipe author at both Bon Appétit and Food52.
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How awful. Good for her, being so resilient.
A nice little Portuguese restaurant near us went bankrupt shortly after an employee stole thousands of dollars (not sure how much, the story didn’t make it into the paper)
Favorite rugelach recipe, anyone?
I haven’t made it before, but looks like I’ll have time at the end of the week to give it a go. Open to suggestions. TIA!
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I made last year using “Lora Brody’s Rugelach” from Rose’s Christmas Cookies by Rose Levy Beranbaum, (1990), as chocolate- filled rolled-up crescent shapes. My shaping skills weren’t up to the challenge, but the quite plain tasting dough was OK to work with.
I should have used the spiral sliced roll up technique from Once Upon A Chef https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/chocolate-rugelach.html
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I don’t really find much difference between rugelach recipes when it comes to the cream cheese and sour cream dough type. A lot of the popular ones are basically identical with the filling being the only difference. Minor dough differences I don’t find create much of a variance in the final product— they’re all flaky and tender.
There are yeast-raised rugelach out there, but I haven’t played around much with them.
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And to finish up the pistachio paste, because I had the raspberry filling and crumble made, I did this pistachio and raspberry cake. As usual, making layer cakes is like pulling teeth for me, so I just really couldn’t be bothered with this beyond just wanting to get a few things out of my freezer. It’s pistachio sponge cake, white chocolate whipped cream, raspberry sauce, crumble, and then whipped cream with some of the raspberry sauce added to it. I was supposed to add a little coloring to have a gradation, but again, I couldn’t be bothered.
The crumble basically makes it impossible to get a tidy slice because the sponge is so delicate, but it’s also what makes this cake delicious and sweet enough. The whipped cream contains white chocolate more for a bit of body and stabilization. The amount doesn’t provide sweetness nor much in the way of flavor. And the raspberry sauce is pretty tart. The crumble is a welcome sweet and slightly salty bite that also adds texture.
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You’re a good tooth puller (or is it the other way around? 
). That cake looks good!
Thank you! I don’t think I ever gave the expression thought until now. 
I just realized I posted this here rather than the baking thread. D’oh! Sorry about that!
Rugalch were always present at Christmas when i was growing up. I do make them from time to time and always pick a recipe with sour cream in the dough. The filling was always walnuts and apricots. Its a very traditional eastern european Christmas treat.
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Fascinating story. Thank goodness for that new addition to the Accounting Dept. @ the bakery!
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