I have no picture. I was too tired last night to wait until it came out the pan, so the cake stuck to the pan this morning. Although I used a Bundt pan, I had to serve the cake upside down because the top was unpresentable. The presentation wasn’t beautiful, but it was so moist and delicious — the kind of cake everyone wants the recipe. Even my husband and young son were liking the cake pan clean, hoping I would bring back leftovers.

The reviews of this cake mention the topping sank to the bottom of the cake. Since I used a Bundt, I was actually hoping for that result, but my topping didn’t sink. I think I mixed the cake very well (I have a Kitchenaid) and it was too fluffy to sink. Also, I had finely chopped my pecans; they were not chopped coarsely. So the next time, I will sprinkle some of the topping into the bottom of the pan and the remaining topping sprinkle into the cake batter when only half of it is in the pan.

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Topping:
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
4-5 Tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a Bundt pan.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt, set aside.

In mixing bowl, cream butter until fluffy. Add sour cream gradually, mixing in between, then beat in sugar. Mix until all smooth and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, and then mix in vanilla. By hand, fold in the flour mixture gradually, mixing only until blended.

Pecan Topping: Mix together brown sugar (remove all lumps), cinnamon, and pecans. Add melted butter and stir together until crumbly mixture.

Into Bundt pan, sprinkle 1/2-3/4 of mixture into the bottom of the pan. Add half the cake batter into the pan, sprinkle the remaining topping, then add the rest of the cake batter.

Bake in 325 degree F. oven for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven to cool for 10 minutes, then remove cake from pan and let cool on cake rack.

The cake is sweet and moist, but if desired, drizzle a confectioner’s icing for presentation purposes.

Appetizers:
Veggies and dip
Chips and salsa
Shrimp with Cocktail sauce
Spinach Bread Dip

Dinner:
Ham with Spirit Glaze
Mashed Potatoes (made with safe margarine and chicken stock)
Filling Balls
Rolls
Corn
Spinach Salad
Cranberry Orange Relish
Cranberry Relish Mold
Red wine

Dessert:
Coffee
Assorted cookies, including Bourbon Balls and Russian Tea Cakes
Sugar Plum Cake
Panettone
Birthday Cake for Baby Jesus (allergy safe)

Cranberry Orange Relish

2 medium oranges
4 cups fresh cranberries (1 lb.)
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts (or pecans)

Remove the orange portion of the peel of one orange; set aside. Completely peel and section both oranges. Grind reserved orange peel, orange sections, and cranberries. Stir in sugar and nuts. Chill for several hours.

Cranberry Relish Mold

1 9 oz. can crushed pineapple (8 oz. is fine)
1 3 oz. package cherry gelatin
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup ground fresh cranberries
1 small unpeeled orange — seeds removed, ground (food processor)
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Drain pineapple — reserve syrup, add water to make 1/2 cup. Dissolve gelatin in 1 cup hot water. Add sugar, syrup, lemon juice. Chill until partially set. Add fruits, celery, nuts. Chill in a 5-cup ring overnight — Serves 8 to 10.

Sugar Plum Cake

2 cups sugar
3 whole eggs
1 cup cooking oil
1 tsp. soda
2 cups flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup cooked unpitted prunes*
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. each ground nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and salt

*Cooked prunes: Dried plums or prunes, add water and cook in saucepan until plumped up. Measure AFTER cooking. MIL cuts them in half.

Combine sugar, eggs, oil, and buttermilk. Add dry ingredients gradually and mix well. Fold in nuts and prunes. Pour into tube pan. Bake at 325 degrees F. for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool in wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, or add glaze.

Glaze (optional)

1/4 cup cold milk
1/2 powdered sugar

Mix and pour on cooled cake.

Although I had these recipes, they are on my old computer, in an old program that isn’t compatible with Vista. So my MIL kindly wrote out the recipes and mailed them this week.

I was shopping for the Christmas groceries yesterday. It was really heartwarming to see various mother/daughter teams (of varying ages) pouring over the old recipes, remembering what and how to do them. I spent a while discussing with the young man working the checkout his family customs for Christmas food. He’s going back home to Georgia for his mom’s cooking. (I almost asked for an invitation — homemade rolls? Yummy!)

As I read my MIL’s handwritten recipes, I can see how those family recipes become the way to remember, to keep a person prominent in our memory, to bring them back to our family celebrations even as years pass.

I’ll be posting a few other recipes so I won’t lose them for next year, but the first is my husband’s favorite, required for Thanksgiving and Christmas breakfast.  One year, when recovering from a c-section, I even made a box mix from Trader Joe’s just because that meant Christmas morning to him.

Cranberry-Orange Nut Bread

4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups orange juice
1/2 cup salad oil
2 cups cranberries, halved
1 cup chopped nuts
2 tsp. grated orange peel

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Blend together dry ingredients in mixing bowl. Combine egg, juice, and oil; add to dry ingredients, stirring until just moistened. Stir in cranberries, nuts, and peel. Pour into 2 greased and lightly floured 9″ x 5″ x 3″ loaf pans. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 55 to 60 minutes or until wooden pick inserted comes clean.

Cool on wire rack.

This Halloween/All Saints Day I made costumes that would do double duty. Peter Pan became St. Eustace and Robin Hood became St. Hubert. Both saints and have similar legends of converting after seeing a stag with a cross in its antlers while hunting. They are also patrons of hunters and forest rangers. Then a friend of mine from the Netherlands mentioned St. Hubert’s feast is November 3rd, and there is a special bread attached to this day. I hadn’t heard of this before, so I did a little sleuthing.

St. Hubert of Liege was born in seventh century in Maastricht, Netherlands, grandson of Charibert, King of Toulouse and Eldest son of Bertrand, Duke of Aquitaine. He was a worldly young man, especially loved to hunt. While hunting on Good Friday, he saw the stag with the cross which called him by name to turn to the Lord. He immediately converted to Christianity. After his wife died, he gave up his nobility and became a priest. He was first elected bishop of Maastricht, and later moved to become the first Bishop of Liege, Belgium.

In addition to being the patron of hunters (especially using hounds), he also is invoked against rabies. His feast day marks the formal opening of the hunting season in Europe.

There is a special Mass for St. Hubert, during which in some places the organ music is replaced with hunting horns, and the hounds, horses, and hunters participate, receiving a blessing. In Belgium there is a blessing of a special bread, St. Hubert’s Bread, mastellen. Then it’s off to a hunt; in France and Belgium, it’s usually a stag hunt.

In parts of France and Belgium there has long been a custom of holding stag hunts on Saint Hubert’s Day, and the hunters gather before the chase for Mass and the blessing of men and horses and dogs. After the hunt is over, those taking part gather for a bountiful breakfast consisting of fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert. Naturally the meat is venison of some sort, and the salad may well be one of dandelion greens. (Feast Day Cookbook by Katherine Burton and Helmut Ripperger)

It seems both the Netherlands and Belgium lay claim to this saint, and both countries have a special ring-shaped bread, shaped similarly like a bagel or donut, with the flavor of cinnamon. This is the bread brought to the Mass for a blessing.

There is an old folk rhyme for the blessed bread:

“I came all the way from Saint Hubert’s grave,
Without stick, without staff.
Mad dogs, stand still!
This is Saint Hubert’s will.”

Sadly, I couldn’t find a good recipe that I could translate to American standards. I’ve had bad luck getting reliable conversions, and the translators aren’t ideal. I did find one recipe here, but in Euro measurements. 

To one kilogram of flour, add half a litre of milk, 75 g of yeast, 5 grams of cinnamon, 300 g of butter, 20 g of salt and 50 g of sugar. Add the butter, the sugar and the cinnamon at the end of mixing when the dough is nearly fully developed. Leave the dough 30 minutes to prove and then divide in pieces of 55 g. Shape the pieces into round balls and leave to rest for about 15 minutes. Make a ring out of the dough pieces similar to bagels or donuts (in some villages the baker really makes a ring or a hole in the middle of the dough piece while in other villages he will rather make a kind of dimple in the middle of the product). So all those who thought that a ring shaped product was typical American, can forget about it. That kind of shape exists in Belgium since the Middle Ages. People used to take the mastellen to the church so the priest bless could them and they were supposed to be a good remedy against rabies. After proofing they are brushed with egg and baked for about 10 to 12 minutes in a rather hot oven (200°C).

I’d love to track down a usable recipe, so if any reader can share, I’d appreciate it!

While I’m not a hunter, nor do I have much game on my table, there are quite a few people who regularly hunt and incorporate game meats for their families. The options for recipes honoring St. Hubert are quite vast and varied:

Cooking With the Saints by Ernst Schuegraf has several game recipes for this saint:

• Salpicon Saint-Hubert (Ragout à la St. Hubert). Good for leftover game meat of any kind
• Côtes de Chevreuil Saint-Hubert (Venison Cutlets in the Style of St. Hubert)
• Potage Saint-Hubert (Soup St. Hubert)
• Hasenrücken St. Hubertus (Saddle of Hare St. Hubert)
• Petites Terrines de Lièvre Saint-Hubert (Terrine of Hare St. Hubert)
• Wildschweingulasch Sankt Hubertus (Goulash of Wild Boar St. Hubert)
• Frischlingskeulen St. Hubertus (Legs of Young Boar St. Hubert)
• Rehkeule St. Hubertus Mit Ingwer (Leg of Venison with Ginger a la St. Hubert)
• Lepre Alla Sant’Uberto (Hare Casserole with Red Wine)
• Jägerbraten Hubertus (Hunter’s Roast St. Hubertus)

There is also an Omelette à la Saint-Hubert that includes game meat.

Or you can give up game and meat for this feast and have the St. Hubert Fish Stew from From a Monastery Kitchen by Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette.

Since I don’t have game, I think I will make the roast in the style of game:

Jägerbraten Hubertus
Marinade
1 onion, chopped coarsely
1 carrot, sliced finely
8 juniper berries, crushed (I may skip this ingredient if I can’t find it. How about cranberries?)
4 cups dry red wine
5 peppercorns, crushed
1 bay leaf

Meat
1 1/2 pound beef (topside) or similar game meat
salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons butter
3 strips bacon, lean, well-smoked
1/2 cups sour cream
1 Tablespoon red currant jelly
Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together in a large bowl. Put the meat into it and let it marinate for 24 hours in the refrigerator. Turn meat over a few times while marinating.

Remove meat and dry with a paper towel. Save marinade. Season meat with salt and pepper.

In a heavy casserole with a lid melt the butter and brown the meat thoroughly on all sides. Add 1 cup of the marinade, cover the meat with the bacon and braise in the covered casserole in a hot oven 375 degrees F. for 1 1/2 hours to 1 hour, 40 minutes. During this time turn the meat over a few times and pour extra marinade over it.

When the meat is cooked, put the cooking juices through a sieve or puree them and put in a saucepan over low heat. Season sauce with salt and pepper, add the sour cream and currant jelly.

This is best served with braised red cabbage, steamed apples, and dumplings, spatzle or mashed potatoes.

Think of St. Hubert the next time you have anything to do with hunting!

Liturgical Year reading, writing, and cooking is one of my favorite things to do. I admit my focus has changed somewhat since our sons’ food allergy diagnosis, but I still love reading the traditions and foods connected to the liturgical feasts and seasons, otherwise known to me as “liturgical cooking” (but just to clarify that I’m not cooking or creating “liturgy” but being inspired by the liturgy).

Why do I do enjoy liturgical cooking? Because I can incorporate symbolism, culture, history, and catechesis in all different varieties through the foods I serve at the table. Meals are natural conversation starters. They are the perfect place to start discussing the liturgical season, saint or feast of the day, the connections with the food and the liturgy of the Church.

Of course, this is not an original thought; liturgical cooking has been done throughout the centuries. I like being in touch with Catholics who lived centuries before me, who used foods in celebrating for the feasts of the liturgical year. Cooking for the liturgical year follows the definition of Catholic — it is universal, and spans the globe and time.

When I first started doing this, most of these ideas were only by word of mouth or in cookbooks. With the internet, liturgical cooking is common, and the ideas are everywhere.

But I’m a bit old-fashioned and love to refer to actual books for inspiration. Some of my favorite liturgical cookbooks are listed below. I’ve marked the out-of-print ones with OOP, and put them in order by publication date. These are the standbys; this list is not even complete, just highlights:

1) OOP Cooking for Christ: Your Liturgical Cookbook by Florence Berger, my first and favorite. This is the first liturgical cookbook in the USA, first printed in 1949. A radically revised version is available from NCRLC; I recommend sticking to the original. Why is it my favorite cookbook? It’s not that I use all the recipes in the book, although I have my favorites, but I LOVE her writing. She gives a picture of her kitchen and her family over the year; it’s written in a style of a friend sharing her stories at the kitchen table over a cuppa.

2) Feast Day Cookbook by Katherine Burton and Helmut Ripperger, copyright 1951. It has been recently reprinted. You can view the .pdf file or .txt file. This cookbook gives wonderful historical and cultural perspectives of different saints and feasts related to the kitchen; it is well-researched and very interesting.

3) OOP Catholic Cook Book: Traditional Feast and Fast Day Recipes , copyright 1965, edited by William Kaufman. Recipes kitchen-tested by Sister Mary Ursula, O.P.; Catholic advisors: Francis X. Weiser, S.J., and Brother Herman E. Zaccarelli, C.S.C.; Preface by Robert I. Gannon, S.J. This is a wonderful collection recipes from so many different cultures for most feast days of the liturgical year; including days of fasting and abstinence. Not every recipe gives background, but there is some interesting information. This is more of a traditional cookbook than the other preceding books.

4) OOP The Cook’s Blessings by Demetria Taylor, copyright 1965. This cookbook is one of the first liturgical cookbooks that mixes historical/cultural stories and recipes but also incorporates modern food ideas for feasts. Some of the recipes are dated (like 50-60s cooking), such as aspic, gelatin molds, and MSG. But even with all that, it’s very enjoyable and realistic. Included are ideas for Sacramental celebrations (baptisms, first communions, weddings), fasting and abstaining ideas, and other family and party ideas.

5) OOP My Nameday — Come for Dessert, by Helen McLoughlin, Liturgical Press, 1962. This is a great reference book for patron saints, symbols, and prayers and wonderful symbolic desserts to use for saints throughout the year, so as to celebrate a nameday for your family members. She also wrote 3 pamphlets, which are also out of print, but my some of my favorite references, including recipes for liturgical cooking:

a) OOP Family Advent Customs (.pdf file), Liturgical Press, 1954, 1979.

b) OOP Christmas to Candlemas in a Catholic Home (.pdf file), Liturgical Press, 1954.

c) OOP Family Customs: Easter to Pentecost, Liturgical Press, 1956, 1979. Her Easter pamphlet is not online in entirety. An internet search for the title and author will show that CatholicCulture.org has excerpts of this book.

6) A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family and Faith Throughout the Christian Year by Evelyn Vitz, copyright 1991. This is the best in-print liturgical cookbook. The author has wonderful descriptions of the traditions connected with the saints and feast days. The book covers the temporal and sanctoral cycle, that is, both the seasons and the saints. And the recipes are not only for desserts, but practical meals and traditional dishes for feast days and family days.

7) Cooking With the Saints editor Ernst Schuegraf, copyright 2001. This is a beautiful hardcover cookbook with lavish pictures of each recipe and artwork for each saint.

Any cookbook has the potential to be a liturgical cookbook, as you can get inspiration from any recipe. The following cookbooks aren’t Catholic in origin, but have recipes and ideas from different cultures for different feast days:

1) Festa: Recipes and Recollections of Italian Holidays by Helen Barolini, copyright 2000. Each month she shares descriptions of celebrations of Italian feast . And the recipes are delicious.

2) Celebration Breads: Recipes, Tales, and Traditions by Betsy Oppenneer. This book contains bread recipes from all over the world for different feasts. It has a great variety of recipes from many different cultures, with wonderfully detailed instructions and illustrations.

3) OOP Feasting for Festivals by Jan Wilson, copyright 1990. I think this is Anglican, but there are wonderful recipes and crafts from a British viewpoint.

4) Festive Food of Ireland by Darina Allen is back in print. I bought a copy when I was in Ireland over 12 years ago. It’s a beautiful little book, decorated with Celtic illustrations and great photos and the recipes all have accompanying descriptions of Irish customs and recipes.

The followingbooks related to living the liturgical year in the home have recipes, but are not dedicated cookbooks:

• OOP Around the Year with the Trapp Family: Keeping the Feasts and Seasons of the Liturgical Year by Maria Von Trapp, a classic for the family liturgical living. I have uploaded the text and some graphics in this Around the Year with the Trapp Family blog and this is the text version.
• OOP Catholic Parent Book of Feasts by Michaelann Martin
• The Year & Our Children: Catholic Family Celebrations for Every Season by Mary Reed Newland (only a few recipes).
• Book of Feasts and Seasons by Joanna Bogle (she also blogs).
• Women for Faith and Family has some Sourcebooks with recipes
• Celebrating the Faith in the Home Series by Teresa Zepeda and Laurie Navar Gill from Emmanuel Books.

I have many others, but this post is already overwhelming. I enjoy all of Brother Victor-Antoine d’Avila-Latourrette’s cookbooks; maybe that should be another post. Ethel Marbach (Pochocki) had a few pamphlets and Holy Housewifery Cookbook that are extremely enjoyable to read. And there are two cookbooks, The Lenten Kitchen and The Advent Kitchen by Barbara Benjamin and Alexandria Damascus Vali that contain some healthy and tasty recipes for the penitential seasons.

If you put on the “Liturgical Year Mindset” almost any cookbook can become your helper for Liturgical cooking. I love thumbing through different ethnic cookbooks to find recipes named after saints, or made especially for the feast days. So many countries the saints and feasts were tightly woven into daily, secular life, and the cookbooks reflect this pattern.

What’s on your shelf? Any ones that you can recommend?

Catholic Cuisine has loads of ideas for Pentecost. We usually choose simple ones for our meals: red tablecloth, fruit salad (without dressing), and cupcakes with tongues of fire. The chocolate cupcakes are from a boxed mix, allergen free (no eggs, dairy, or wheat) and just simple canned icing from Duncan Hines.

The main meal is Sunday-worthy, usually chicken, to remind us of the symbol of the Holy Spirit as a dove descending. One year I made wings from this recipe for the feast of St. James. They are very good. But all of a sudden I’m getting a craving for some hot wings, which would be a great combination of the fire and the wings of the dove. But the boys aren’t crazy about “spicy”.

Last year we ate on the screened porch; lovely weather, lovely feast.

Our tongues of fire cupcakes:

Our 12 Fruit Salad. We aren’t fond of melons except watermelon and citrus fruits, so our combo last  year included: kiwi, watermelon, strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, grape, apple, nectarine, peach, plum, cherry. Serve over pound cake for the adults and a dollop of whipped cream.

After seeing Jessica’s compilation of Epiphany recipes, I was distressed to realize there was no New Orleans style King Cake included on this site for Epiphany. Having roots from southern Louisiana, King Cake is a necessity not an option for Epiphany.

“King Cake” is the Louisiana term for the sweet bread served on Epiphany. This is the day that opens up Carnival or Mardi Gras. Most people think that Mardi Gras is only around the beginning of Lent, but it actually begins on 12th Night and ENDS on Tuesday at midnight before Ash Wednesday. Here’s an interesting explanation of the King Cake origins.

This excerpt from The Original Picayune Creole Cook Book, fifth edition from 1922:

This is a Creole cake whose history is the history of the famous New Orleans Carnivals celebrated in song and stories. The “King’s Cake,” or “Gateau de Roi,” is inseparably connected with the origin of our now world-famed Carnival balls. In fact, they owe their origin to the old Creole custom of choosing a king and queen on King’s Day, or Twelfth Night. In old Creole New Orleans, after the inauguration of the Spanish domination and the amalgamation of the French settlers and the Spanish into that peculiarly chivalrous and romantic race, the Louisiana Creole, the French prettily adopted many of the customs of their Spanish relatives, and vice versa. Among these was the traditional Spanish celebration of King’s Day, “Le Jour des Rois,” as the Creoles always term the day. King’s Day falls on January 6, or the twelfth day after Christmas, and commemorates the visit of the three Wise Men of the East to the lowly Bethlehem manger. This day Is still even in our time still the Spanish Christmas, when gifts are presented in commemoration of the Kings’ gifts. With the Creoles it became “Le Petit Noël,” or Little Christmas, and adopting the Spanish custom, there were always grand balls on Twelfth Night; a king and a queen were chosen, and there were constant rounds of festivities, night after night, till the dawn of Ash Wednesday. From January 6, or King’s Day, and Mardi Gras Day became the accepted Carnival season. Each week a new king and queen were chosen and no royal rulers ever reigned more happily than did these kings and queens of a week.

Hispanic Countries: Rosca de los Reyes (Cake of the Kings). This is a fruit and nut filled ring or crown topped with icing and decorations, and bean or tiny doll inserted.

Spain: Roscón de Reyes is a roll that is ring shaped and sometimes filled with chocolate or jelly.

Germany and Switzerland: In both countries the Three Kings Cake is called Dreikönigskuchen and usually a gold crown is placed on top of the cake.

France: Galette (or Gateau) des Roi (or Rois) (Cake of the Kings). Usually this is a round and flat cake, honey-spice or sponge inside. It is decorated with pastry, fruits, or sugared frills. Each cake has a bean, small token or miniature doll inside. A nice tradition: there should be one more piece than the number of guests. The extra portion, la part a Dieu–God’s share–is for the first poor person who knocks at the door. The day of the Kings means sharing as well as receiving. Nobody who asks for food or alms will leave empty-handed that day.

England: Twelfth Cake is eaten with Lamb’s Wool (mulled ale with roasted apple pulp). Inside the cake are a bean and a pea. The man to find the bean was the King of the part, and the woman with the pea is the Queen.

The Festive Bread Book by Kathy Cutler contains 7 different types of bread or cakes for Epiphany, including ones from Spain, Brazil, Holland and a Twelfth Night Bread of Lady Carcas. This book is OOP. Another book I highly recommend, Celebrations of Bread by Betsy Oppenneer, only has one recipe for Epiphany, Rosca de Reyes.

We usually serve this King Cake as part of our Epiphany family celebration. This recipe is from from La Cucina Egeriana. by Eleanor Bernstein, Ferraro, CSJ and Maria Bettina, from Notre Dame Centre for Pastoral Liturgy, a cookbook that is out-of-print. There is another similar recipe in Bad Catholics Guide to Good Living by John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak. I know Denise is a chef from New Orleans, so this recipe is definitely authentic. Compared to this one, the main difference is that there is no nut filling in her version.