Young & Hungry

Holidays: Christmas; Christmas Eve; stockings and bows and garland and tinsel; good tidings and trips home. The holidays are by far, without doubt, my most favorite time of the year, and the food is just the icing on that glorious yuletide cake. Holiday dishes call for, of course, decadence. I hotly anticipate this season all year, and naturally want it to be worth the wait. This is not the time to sub in Splenda or wonder if margarine will do. It will not. Bring on the cheese, the nuts, the fudge, all the richer the better. What follows is an account of one young and hungry girl’s attempt to create memorable Christmas desserts, desserts basking in unbridled dietary depravity. A grand finale worth the mea culpas.

Gloriously decadent figgy pudding

My baking began with the proverbial question of what to make. Sure, I could easily toss together a simple-yet-delicious gingerbread trifle or whip up a batch quick peppermint brownies, but those endeavors seem so….everyday. Nay, my favorite holiday calls for desserts demanding fastidious attention to detail and hours of kitchen toil (there are few things I love better than kitchen toil.) And so here are my two picks for Christmas ’09, one classic and one decidedly untraditional, both equally resplendent in their copious steps: Steamed Toffee Pudding and Cuatro Leches Cake. They are both so mind-blowingly rich and full of carefully nurtured, gorgeous flavors that I may just make them again come Valentine’s Day. Memorable indeed.

For Christmas Eve I chose the quintessential Christmas dessert of yore, Steamed Toffee Pudding, a recipe I took straight from my Craft of Cooking cookbook. One of my most favorite restaurants and home to innumerable memorable meals, Craft, to me, epitomizes the essence of fine dining, and I’d trust any of the recipes in Chef Colicchio’s book. And seriously, how much more Christmas can you get than to hear your family clamoring for more figgy pudding? I half expected Tiny Tim to walk through my door.

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