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Christmas Traditions - Do You Have Any?

12/23/2014

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Just one more day before the Christmas celebrations begin!  Whether Christmas has a religious significance to you or not, the season seems to impact nearly everyone's thoughts and activities.  The celebrations of the season often include tradtional practices, some carried over from generation to generation.

My family has strong ethnic ties, with our parents immigrating here from Europe.  My parents were German and Ukrainian.  Ironically, my family did not seem to be that committed to practicing traditions, other than putting up a Christmas tree and a manger set.  Besides those things, I remember only a couple of traditions.

Advent Calendar - This is typically a calendar that marks of the 24 days before Christmas.  It is usually colorful and has little windows/flaps to open on each day, revealing a Christmas themed picture.  We received a calendar shipped from Germany by family still living there.  We used it year after year.  Now Advent calendars are common in many countries, including the US.  They are religious themed and non religious.  They even come with little chocolates or candy that are revealed when the window flap is opened.  I carried on this tradition and had Advent calendars on my refrigerator for my own children to open.

Christmas Stollen - This is a yeast baked product with dried fruit.  (nothing like a fruitcake by the way).  It is usually dusted with powdered sugar.  I remember having stollen on Christmas.  It was usually shipped in a gift package from relatives in Germany. 

Christmas Cookies - Baking special cookies was an annual activity at my house growing up.  My mom would bake a variety of cookies, usually involving me in the process.  I too carried on the Christmas cookie tradition while my children were younger.  I started baking after Thanksgiving and stored (or tried to!) the cookies for Christmas.  I have since discontinued doing that tradition.  Why?  It was just too tempting to have all those sweets around, and even with sharing the bounty, we still ended up eating most of them ourselves!  Not good for us now with cholesterol and weight considerations. 

My dad came from Ukraine.  He has roots in the Orthodox church, and their Christmas follows the Julian calendar, placing Christmas on Jan 7.  Ironically, my dad never shared memories of Christmas traditions from his childhood.  The only thing we did was leave the tree up till Jan 7, if possible, and if not, we would leave the manger set up.  He did not have a very easy life as a child, and I can only think that Christmas traditions for him were not deeply rooted.

My spouse is Polish with strong connections to Polish traditions.  We practice several Polish Christmas traditions.

Wigilia - Christmas Eve is the most holy and meaningful day for people of Poland. 
Wigilia comes from the Latin word "vigilare" which means to wait.  Wigilia includes a tradition of gathering together on Christmas Eve for a meatless meal.  Traditionally, the meal consists of twelve meatless dishes, and includes many kinds of fish, beet or mushroom soup, various dishes made from cabbage, mushrooms, or potatoes, pierogi, followed by dried fruit compote and pastries for dessert.  Our Wigilia celebrations have been meatless with fish, shrimp, potatoes, cabbage and pierogi.  Another tradition is waiting for sighting of the first star after which the meal can start.  My husband remembers as a child,  having the responsibility to watch the sky and report when the first star is visible.

Oplatek Chjristmas Wafer -
Sharing of the oplatek (pronounced opwatek) is a Polish Christmas tradition with a long history.. Oplatek is a thin wafer made of flour and water.  It has a similar in taste to the hosts that are used for communion during Mass.   This tradition dates back many centuries.  Originally oplatek was called podplomyk and were bread baked over an open flame.  Patterns were cut into the breads.  Today's oplatek continue the tradition, with patterns of Nativity scenes on them.  Oplatek is shared before beginning the Wigilia meal.  Everyone present has a large piece of wafer, and everyone shares a piece with each other.  When snapping off a piece, you give wishes for peace and prosperity to each other.

There are so many traditions connected with the Christmas season.  These are the ones that are significant to our family.  What other traditions are celebrated?  What traditions have you or do you continue to practice?  Have you initiated new traditions too? 

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas!


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"Panera Holiday Bread" - Make Your Own!

12/20/2014

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Hi Everyone!  I know it's been some time since I last posted here.  Rest assured, I haven't gone away.  Things have been coming up that have tied up my time.  Firstly, I have a nagging and annoying knee injury that just won't go away.  It just needs lots of rest and time to heal.  As a result, I'm limited in the amount of time I can be up and about.  As a result, I haven't been doing alot of baking and of course, the holidays have claimed a fair amount of time.

I have a fabulous recipe to share today.  I really like the Holiday Bread that Panera sells.  In my "pre-bread obsession" days, I would often buy them as gifts for people at work and for neighbors.  The past year or two, I've been a bit disappointed in the bread though.  It seems like there's been some changes in the recipe?  Or maybe it's just my increased experience with baking artisan breads that has raised the bar of expectation.  Regardless, for me, the commercial version of this bread is just not as appealing as it used to be.

I wanted to make my own Holiday Bread this year, so I began searching for "copycat" recipes.  I found one that I really like.  Be advised that you need to set aside some time for this recipe because making Holiday Bread is a multi-step process.  It's also a very rich brioche dough, which is mixed by hand.  Absolutely NO machine mixing folks.  Get ready to deal with some sticky dough in the initial stages, but trust me, it will result in a scrumptious loaf.

This recipe makes a huge loaf!  Next time I will halve the recipe or divide the dough and make two smaller loaves.  I prepared the apple filling with Granny Smith apples, and I used bourbon as the recipe lists.  If you do not have bourbon, on line research I did said rum or vanilla (mixed 1 part vanilla with 2 parts water) can be used instead. 

I mixed the dough with a danish dough whisk, which is a great tool for hand mixing wet doughs, but your hands or a wooden spoon will work too.  I've included a picture of a danish dough whisk at the end of this post. If you are seriously into making no knead and high hydration doughs (translated- wetter, stickier doughs with higher moisture content), you will want to own one of these baking tools.

It's ok to have the dough very soft and wet with this recipe.  To punch down and mix in the fruit/chips/nuts mix after the first rise, you will definitely need to grease your hands to keep the dough from sticking to your hands.  Do not wet your hands with water, as it will make the chocolate start to melt or dissolve into the dough.   Be patient and work the dough enough to evenly distribute the mix.  Using a stretch and fold technique is helpful.  Pull a handful of dough out away from the dough and then fold it back onto itself.  Rotate the bowl and do this over and over.  The dough will also begin to change from being shaggy and wet to more smooth, but it will still be "wetter" than typical yeast dough.  Transfer the dough ball to a well floured work surface and briefly knead and shape into a ball.  Then roll out the dough into a rectangle (for one large loaf) or two small loaves.  Be sure the surface is adequately floured to prevent sticking.

I followed the directions in the recipe except for the following changes.  I held back about a 1/3 of the apple filling because I thought it would be too much to use it all.  I didn't want to overwhelm the dough.  Wrong!  This dough will rise nicely on the final rise and will expand quite a bit during the bake.  It will be able to accommodate all of the apple filling.  Distribute the filling from end to end, or else you will have the first few slices be without apples (as happened to me).  I also used chopped pecans instead of walnuts.  I baked this very large loaf on a large baking pan (13x18), and used parchment paper for easy transfer of the loaf and to be sure there was no sticking.  Test for doneness as the recipe advises.  I made a half recipe for the icing, and I had more than enough, as you can see.  But if you are into heavy icing, go ahead and make the icing as written.

I hope you like this recipe as much as I do.  It's even better the next day!

Recipe link: 
http://www.michigandaily.com/arts/03nathan-wood-making-panera-holiday-classic-scratch28

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