Sweet Season
As the holidays approach, we cherish spending time at home with friends and family, making sweet treats and sharing or swapping them. But even while we're focusing on our kitchens and our communities, we enjoy imagining how the rest of the world is celebrating this special season. Luckily, we've found a way to combine both inclinations: with recipes that bring the world into our homes.
To help us gather recipes for bite-size treats from all over the globe, we turned to expert bakers Emily Luchetti and Anita Chu. Emily's a cookbook author and the pastry chef at two renowned San Francisco restaurants, Waterbar and Farallon. Anita's a popular blogger at Dessert First and the author of two dessert "field guides." Although their recipes are international, they require no exotic ingredients—well, very few!—and instructions are adapted for American cooks. Best of all, with just a little embellishment these candies and cookies are perfect for sharing and gift giving. Let's start the world tour!
Candy Lands
 Every journey needs a good guidebook, and we found an excellent one in the brand-new Field Guide to Candy by Anita Chu. (Anita's also the author of Field Guide to Cookies; see below. And she's the subject of our Baker's Profile this season.) Compact and generously illustrated with color photos of all the recipes, the Field Guide lives up to its subtitle: "How to Identify and Make Virtually Every Candy Imaginable." Beyond the recipes, there's a helpful section on candy-making tools and tips for working with chocolate and sugar. ("When you're making candy," says Anita, "watch for crystallization that can ruin sugar syrup.")
 Start your journey with delectable Fleur de Sel Caramels, long a regional favorite in the French region of Brittany, where fleur de sel ("flower of salt") is hand-harvested from the sea. The salt crystals add a burst of flavor to sweet caramels; for chocolate lovers, Anita suggests dipping each cut candy into tempered dark chocolate and top with a few grains of fleur de sel. Wrap each candy in wax paper for gift-giving.
Emily Luchetti's Honey Cinnamon Almond Caramels add the flavors of Spain—and a bit of crunch—to this chewy treat. For the smoothest consistency, use C&H Superfine or Baker's Sugar, which dissolves completely.
California-born Anita, whose mother came from Hong Kong, loved the mild, milk-flavored Chinese candies of her childhood. When she couldn't find a recipe for them, she created her own. Chinese Milk Candy "is a cross between taffy and Tootsie Rolls," she writes; it's very close to the commercial White Rabbit Creamy Candy she remembered. Wrap each candy in colorful foil or edible rice paper for a pretty presentation.
 Turkish Delight —rahat lokum in Turkish—has been sold in Istanbul's Spice Bazaar since the 1400s; British travelers brought it back to England in the early 1800s. (It's mentioned in C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.) According to Anita, authentic Turkish Delight differs from most jelly-like candies in that it's made without gelatin or pectin: the only binder is cornstarch. For that reason, it doesn't last long—but it's so delicious, that won't be a problem! For authentic flavor, seek out rosewater or lemon-flower water.
If your holiday fantasy looks more like Victorian England than the Orient, you'll want to add Sugar Plums to your repertoire. The sugar plums in "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" (better known as "The Night Before Christmas") were bits of sugar-coated coriander; later, the recipe included dried fruits and nuts, like our version. To give the candies a snow-dusted look, roll them in additional C&H Pure Cane Powdered Sugar after forming them into balls; refrigerate them for a few days to enhance the flavor.
 Cookie World
The American word "cookie" comes to us from Dutch koekje, or "little cake"; in the United Kingdom, you'd call it a "biscuit." As for the rest of the world, a cookie may go by any of dozens of names!
In Argentina, for example, the most popular cookies in any pastry shop are the caramel-filled shortbread sandwiches known as Alfajores (ahl-fa-HOR-ace), whose name comes from an Arabic word meaning "stuffed." In her Field Guide to Cookies, Anita Chu gives simplified instructions for making the dulce de leche filling (the secret: a can of sweetened condensed milk). For an even easier version, substitute Nutella or jam for the filling. Or try Emily Luchetti's version, which she calls Vanilla Sandwich Cookie with Dulce de Leche Filling. Emily's recipe involves a secret shortcut, too: use hardboiled egg yolks instead of raw ones in the shortbread dough.
Remaining in Spanish-speaking America, we'll be sure to bake a few batches of perennially popular Mexican Wedding Cookies. These light, tender cookies are filled with chopped nuts and rolled in C&H Pure Cane Powdered Sugar. They're a true international favorite: you may know them as Russian Teacakes.
 Finely ground almonds give Amaretti their distinctive flavor and crispness. These small round cookies are the modern version of the original macaroons, invented centuries ago in Italy. Besides being delicious on their own, says Anita, amaretti go well with tortes or gelato, and can be crushed and layered with ice cream and fruit to make a simple, elegant dessert. For a different way to showcase almonds, try Chinese Almond Cookies, each one adorned with a single whole blanched almond.
Sweet and spicy Lebkuchen are traditional German Christmas cookies; they're related to gingerbread and ginger snaps but are filled with toasted nuts and grated citrus zest. The custom of building gingerbread houses, Anita tells us, actually began with lebkuchen in the 1800s in the German city of Nuremberg, after Grimms' Fairy Tales were published.
 Finish your world cookie tour with a trio of tributes to the U.S. of A. Emily Luchetti's Chocolate Walnut Crinkle Cookies bring deep brownie flavor (enhanced by a little dark coffee) to a classic drop cookie. Emily's Peanut Chocolate Fudge Cookies also have brownie-like richness, with the added twist of crunchy whole peanutes. And speaking of peanuts, what could be more American than PB&J? These Peanut Butter and Jelly Grahams are variations on classic thumbprint cookies; they're rich with molasses and graham-cracker crumbs and topped with a dollop of jelly.
Bon voyage—and happy holidays!
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A candy thermometer is a must for foolproof candymaking, says Anita Chu. Be sure to test the temperature in several spots. "And I recommend a themometer that clips to the side of the pan," she adds. "I've lost thermometers in hot sugar—you can't reach in to retrieve them, and by the time you've found your tongs, the thermometer's covered in molten sugar!"
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Anita Chu
Many people who buy Anita Chu's cookbooks—Field Guide to Cookies and Field Guide to Candy—are surprised to learn about her day job: she's a consulting structural engineer for a firm in San Francisco. "At first I saw baking as a way to exercise my right brain after a day in the 'number space,'" Anita says. "But then I realized that engineering and baking are similar. Both involve precision. And some desserts, like wedding cakes, are architectural!"
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A Great Year for the Great American Bake Sale!
What's the next best thing to baking for loved ones? Baking to support a worthy cause. And we can't think of a worthier cause than feeding hungry children in your community and beyond.
This year, for the second year in a row, C&H® Sugar sponsored Share Our Strength's Great American Bake Sale, a national effort that encourages Americans to host bake sales in their communities to help end childhood hunger. Since its inception in 2003, the Great American Bake Sale has raised more than $6 million. In 2009, approximately 480,000 individuals participated in bake sales across the country and raised $1.22 million.
Tannaz Sassooni of Los Angeles, who has hosted a bake sale at a local ice cream shop for the last three years, sees this event as an opportunity to be a bigger part of her neighborhood. "We've built a sense of community over baked goods, and raised thousands of dollars to support Share Our Strength," said Sassooni. "The goodwill this event generates is astounding."
Many teams took their bake sales to the streets, holding them outside grocery stores, retail stores and parking lots. Melissa Johnson, team captain for a group in Sioux Falls, SD, held three bake sales in celebration of her third year. "One of our bake sales grabbed the local TV station's attention," Johnson said. "We were excited to spread the word to our community and to raise more than $3,500 for this wonderful cause."
Although the 2009 Great American Bake Sale has ended, there is still great need to raise money for Share Our Strength to combat childhood hunger in America. It isn't too early to start talking to your friends and neighbors about next year's event—and thinking about which of your favorite recipes you'll bake!
For more information on the Great American Bake Sale and to make a donation, volunteer, or involve your organization, please visit the Share Our Strength website.
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