Divinity fudge answers prayers for those with a sweet tooth

Divinity fudge? More like a sticky, marshmallowy nightmare. I’m not sure the task of cleaning rock hard egg whites and syrup from the beaters of my mixer was worth the pretty, but cloyingly sweet results of this recipe (which I had to make twice because the first batch was too runny to cut).

Day 4: Cranberry meringue pie

Cranberry propaganda was having a heyday 100 years ago. In 1922, the pages of the Free Press were littered with advertisements for the tart red berries, with promotions ramping up, understandably, around the holiday season.

Homemade holidays: 12 days of vintage sweets

To cap off the Free Press’s anniversary year, we’re plumbing the archives for holiday recipes of yore. Follow along until Dec. 23 for a sampling of the sweet, strange and trendy desserts to grace our pages and your tables over the last 150 years.

Day 3: Cocoanut caramels deliver a sweet and simple tropical treat

With lightly browned sugar, lemon extract and coconut — or rather cocoanut, as per the original recipe — these sweet and simple treats are decidedly tropical.

Tried-and-tested recipe adds to the festive moment

Some people need to find that elusive Christmas spirit before they get into the mood for baking holiday treats.

For Winnipeg home baker Lynne Stefanchuk, the weather has to take a wintry turn for her to turn on her oven. Beyond the white Christmas feelings, she has practical reasons.

“I start baking at the beginning of December, or whenever it gets cold enough to start using my balcony as an extra freezer,” she says. “My family and I decided a few years back to stop buying gifts for each other so my holiday shopping is minimal and I have some free time to bake. Baking is one of my favourite creative outlets.”

Stefanchuk provides Gingerbread Cookies for the final recipe in the Free Press’s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies for 2021. It’s a recipe she found on John Kanell’s website Preppy Kitchen (preppykitchen.com/gingerbread-men).

MLA’s tasty antidote to both holiday and workday stress

No matter what politics you lean toward, there is no debate that Nahanni Fontaine can bake.

The MLA for the Winnipeg riding of St. Johns often turns up the political heat at the Manitoba legislature from her place on the NDP’s Opposition benches.

At home its her oven that gets cranked up, and her baking results have become part of the public record, thanks to the videos and photos of cakes, muffins, scones and cookies she’s posted on her Instagram account.

While Fontaine shares White Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies with Free Press readers for the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies, it’s worth checking out her video of making a six-tiered birthday cake that begins with an empty plate but winds up as a blue-frosted delight.

Monster cookies perfect for Cookie Monsters

When Louise Yurchak had a Christmas problem 25 years ago, she ended up creating a monster.

Monster Cookies that is, and her creations have lived on for years, just like Dr. Frankenstein’s invention, or perhaps more fittingly, Cookie Monster of Sesame Street fame.

Her recipe is today’s entry for the Free Press’s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies, and it’s easy to imagine the blue-haired Muppet gobbling up her combination of peanut butter, chocolate chips, oatmeal and Smarties.

Fussy grandchildren were behind Yurchak’s recipe, which she adapted from a recipe she saw at the old Scoop ‘n’ Weigh bulk-foods store in River Heights, where her family has lived since 1969.

Chocolate Macaroons (Haystacks)

Cellist Arlene Dahl has been able to string a few Christmas baking sessions together in between holiday concerts and a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra member, along with several others in the troupe, including concertmaster Gwen Hoebig, principal bassoon Katie Brooks, and violinists Julie Savard, Elation Pauls and Sonia Lazar spent the early weeks of the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020 honing their cooking and baking techniques. They shared their results during video chats on Zoom, which proved to be more than just an online baking party.

The orchestra is a team, and they needed to maintain their teamwork when they couldn’t perform onstage together.

“It was a way to stay connected when we couldn’t get together,” she says. “Then we’d show the results and analyze why something didn’t work.”

12 days of Christmas cookies: Frosted family favourites feature double dose of eggnog

Eggnog is an unabashedly festive treat. And unlike its pumpkin-spiced cousin, the beverage has, thus far, avoided becoming a seasonal meme.

For Byanka Holder, there can never be too much eggnog — especially with three young kids at home.

“They’ve discovered that they like it too,” she says. “So they just help themselves.”

As soon as ‘nog hits the grocery store shelves, Holder makes a point of stocking up. It’s perhaps no surprise that eggnog cookies have become a family favourite. The recipe was an internet find that’s worked its way into annual rotation.

12 Days of Christmas cookies: Part cookie, part brownie, all decadent deliciousness

Chocolate is Austin Granados’ bread and butter. Until recently, the pastry chef and co-owner of Cake-ology was living abroad learning everything he could about the dessert industry and cacao-based treats.

“I love chocolate,” he says. “I’ve actually competed in chocolate competitions and we’d make sculptures that were, like, a metre high. I want to incorporate chocolate into more things moving forward… and eventually blending my own kind down the road.”

Born and raised in Winnipeg, Granados moved to Vancouver for culinary school and spent time baking in New York (under the creator of the cronut) and Hong Kong before travelling to Denmark for a stint at Noma — a three-Michelin-star Nordic eatery that was recently named the world’s best restaurant for 2021.

After so much time away, he’s happy to be home.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies: Hazel Nut Lemon Shortbread Bars

Today’s recipe for the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies comes directly from the kitchen of a member of the Order of Manitoba.

Doris Mae Oulton was inducted into the order on May 12 after years of advocating for women’s rights and building community organizations.

She helped found and remains the chairwoman of the Nellie McClung Foundation and has the same post with the Canadian Federation of University Women Charitable Trust.

She is also former assistant deputy minister of the Manitoba Women’s Directorate.

12 Days of Christmas Cookies: Keto shortbread a sugar-free, low-carb Christmas treat

At first glance, the low-carbohydrate regimen of a ketogenic diet should be at odds with the sweet and doughy treats of the holiday season.

Not so, says baker Anna May Van Dyke, who has followed a keto lifestyle for 20 years and has run a keto-focused shop, Anna May’s Keto Treats Bakery, for the past three. After two years in the Polo Park area, she moved the bakery in 2020 to 15 Dodds Rd., in Headingley, just off Portage Avenue.

The keto diet reduces carbs by focusing on meat, fish, eggs, dairy and vegetables. Sugary, starchy foods are off-limits, meaning most holiday baking requires a fair bit of modification.

Van Dyke came across her recipe for the Free Press’s 12 Days of Christmas Cookies, Keto Shortbread Cookies, two years ago. It follows the traditional shortbread-making process but replaces sugar with a sweetener that mixes stevia and erythritol, and uses almond flour instead of wheat flour.

A vegan version of chocolate Christmas crinkle cookies

For many people, cooking has become a newfound pandemic pastime. For Jessalyn Willems and Leah Brickwood, cooking together has been a highlight of the last two years.

During lockdowns, the future sisters-in-law would swap recipes via text or FaceTime and would get together for home cooked dinners when restrictions allowed.

“It was a great way to stay connected with something that we like to do,” Brickwood says. “And the ideas just kept pouring in and we thought we’d put it out there for everybody else to see.”

Earlier this year, the pair launched a food blog, Hint of Garlic, to share some of their experiments in the kitchen. Brickwood follows a plant-based diet and Willems is plant-curious, as such, the majority of their recipes are vegan or vegetarian, as well as being nut-free.

Attention is key ingredient for superior shortbread

Tanner Davies’ shortbread recipe comes with a dash of controversy.

“I add an egg yolk, which is controversial in the shortbread world,” he says with a laugh. “I just did it one day and I was looking it up after and there’s like forums of people online complaining about this, saying, ‘It’s a great cookie, but you can’t call it a shortbread.’”

Davies, a competitor on Season 4 of The Great Canadian Baking Show, politely disagrees. His understanding of shortbread is defined by a specific two-to-one ratio of flour to butter; besides, the yolk certainly doesn’t hurt.

“I always try to cram as much fat into my baking as possible in different ways and egg yolk is usually a good way to do that,” he says. “I think it gives it a nicer, more full flavour and a nice crumbly texture.”