Feasts and Treats
This Yule, we’re going into the forest to see what the fairy-like wood-wives and Dames Blanches might be preparing for their feast. The Germanic wood-wife is content with simple fare, but the vengeful French Dame Blanche, who haunts thorny ditches, is gathering ingredients for something a little more haute cuisine.
Cheese Fondue
We begin our Yuletide journey high above the tree line in a stone shepherd’s hut that’s abandoned for the winter. The only way to keep warm is to sing songs and put on a pot of bubbling cheese and wine. You don’t have to have a fondue set: you can cook the fondue in a heavy pot and keep it hot over a tea warmer with 3 tea lights inside. Ordinary forks work just as well as fondue forks for dipping in.
I’ve made this fondue for 6, and we all seem to fill up before we can empty the pot.
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 10–15 minutes
Servings: 6–8
For the fondue:
½ garlic clove (for anointing the pot)
1½ cups dry white wine
Juice of ½ lemon
2 cups grated Gruyère cheese
2 cups grated Fontina cheese
3 tablespoons white flour
¼ teaspoon white pepper
⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
Accompaniments:
1 crusty loaf French bread, cut or torn into chunks
1 small jar pickled pearl onions
1 small jar cornichons
(If you anticipate one of your guests demanding a salad, you can throw some arugula leaves around.)
Rub the cut side of the garlic clove all over the inside of your pot. Pour in wine and heat on low until very hot but not boiling. Squeeze in lemon juice.
In a bowl, toss cheeses and flour together with hands. Add handfuls of cheese to the hot wine while stirring. When cheese is all melted, stir in pepper and nutmeg.
Bring hot pot and heat source to table and invite everyone to dip bread in. The fondue will slide off the onions and cornichons, but they taste wonderful when crammed in the mouth with the hot cheesy bread.
A French friend once told me the crust left at the bottom of the fondue pot is a delicacy, but I have not found it so.
Nürnberger Mocha
Once you’ve polished off the leftover wine from the fondue, you’ll need something to keep your eyes open while you watch for the creamy white petals of the black hellebore, or Christmas rose, to open at midnight, as Germanic legend says it must. The black hellebore is native to the Berchtesgadener Alps—the only mountains, as far as I know that contain the name of a witch: the old winter witch Berchta. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a little farther north, the city of Nürnberg, which is famous for its Lebkuchen, a spiced Christmas cookie.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 7 minutes
Servings: 4
1 quart 2% milk
⅓ cup sugar
⅓ cup pure cocoa powder
Pinch black pepper
4 teaspoons instant coffee
Cheesecloth or tea ball
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
3 cardamom pods
1 tablespoon grated nutmeg
In a large pot with flame off, stir a little of the milk into the sugar, cocoa, and pepper. Cocoa powder is very stubborn, so you will have to stir vigorously. When the cocoa is thoroughly mixed into the milk, turn heat to low. Add rest of milk, instant coffee, and spices (except for nutmeg). If you have a tea ball, you can put the spices in there, snapping the cinnamon stick into smaller pieces to fit. You can also knot your spices into a piece of cheesecloth.
Stirring gently the entire time, heat mixture until hot and starting to froth. Remove spices or pour through strainer before serving. Sprinkle grated nutmeg over each mug.
Flaming Yule Log
It’s a shame about that old cherry tree. It just never recovered from last summer’s lightning strike, and by Christmas Eve, it was clear that it had to come down. We honored it by cutting a section of the trunk for our Yule log. And here it is, in all its flaming glory!
Yes, the usual Bûche de Noël or Yule log is made from a rolled cake, but the idea of rolling up a cake terrifies me, as it does most One Dish Witches. Technically, this is a Yule stump rather than a Yule log, but it tastes just as good, and has actual flames coming out of it—or could they be will-o’-the-wisps? It’s the sort of thing a Parisian pâtissière might come up with after getting lost in Germany’s Black Forest.
Why three tea lights? They are in token of the 3 crosses that German woodcutters used to leave on fresh-cut tree stumps. When the Wild Hunt came charging through the forest, the wood-wives could take shelter in the space inside the three crosses. If the woodcutters were lucky, the wood-wives would leave gifts of gold behind when they departed.
And yes, busy Witches: you may substitute a chocolate cake mix for the from-scratch instructions. I recommend using store brand mix since these tend to be just a little bit drier and denser than brand name mixes and therefore easier to frost.
Prep time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 30 minutes
Decorating time: 20 minutes
Servings: 8 big pieces
2 8-inch or 9-inch cake pans
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 hefty tablespoons Nutella
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
⅔ cup pure cocoa
2 cups white flour
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
For the frosting:
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1-pound box powdered sugar
⅓ cup whole milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ teaspoons pure cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1 teaspoon pure cocoa powder
1 ounce (square) unsweetened baker’s chocolate, melted (add last!)
1 Comb
Other:
¾ cup tart cherry preserves
1 empty aluminum tea light holder
3 red tea lights
Gold-wrapped chocolate coins
Grease and flour cake pans. Set aside. In large bowl, cream together butter, sugar, Nutella, and vanilla. With electric mixer, beat in eggs until well blended. Stir in cocoa by hand. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Using the electric mixer again, mix flour, baking soda, and baking powder into your wet mixture, adding the dry ingredients a little at a time. Batter will be fairly stiff. Spoon batter into cake pans, spreading evenly.
Bake for 25–30 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for about 10 minutes before turning cakes out of pans to cool completely.
Now for the frosting. In another large bowl, cream together butter and a little of the powdered sugar. Continue adding powdered sugar a little at a time, alternating with the milk until you have achieved the consistency of a thick but easily spreadable frosting. (You may not need all the milk.) Use an electric mixer to blend in the vanilla and ¼ teaspoon cocoa and smooth any lumps out of the frosting. Don’t lick the beaters yet; you’re going to use them again.
Spread the flat top of one cake layer with a layer of frosting. Stir cherry preserves in a small bowl to loosen them up, then spread preserves over frosting. Put second cake layer on top and spread a little more frosting smooth over it. Run a comb lightly around it to make “tree rings.” A long-handled hair pick works nicely.
Back to the frosting bowl! Beat the melted square of baker’s chocolate into remaining frosting.
Once you have frosted the sides of the cake, put it in the refrigerator a few minutes to chill.
Use the empty tea light holder like a cookie cutter to cut three holes in a triangle formation on top of the cake. (A cheaper tea light tends to pop more easily out of its holder.) Insert your red tea lights in the holes. Pile some small gold coins in the center of the triangle and scatter more around the edges of the cake plate. When ready to serve, light the candles.