It’s another beautiful April day–sunny and lovely. My mother’s running around, trying to get packed for tomorrow’s trip to Florida to see my uncle. My mother, you see, likes to plan her packing and tends to start about two weeks in advance of any trip, just so she’ll have plenty of time to tweak what’s in the suitcase. Two days’ notice just really isn’t enough for her!

I’m sending some baked goods. Every year at Christmas, I make Stollen* for the drooling masses . . . that is, my Dad, my uncle, aunt, and cousins. It’s a family tradition which they all adore, but which (frankly), isn’t cared for by me, my sister or my mother. So each year, I make 6 loaves, give two of them to my uncle-and-family, and my father gets the other 4 all to himself . . . and still complains about getting shorted! (The Stollen is a story in itself–the most obstinate, difficult, recalcitrant bread recipe you ever want to meet, and even with years of bread-baking experience, one which invariably causes me to get frustrated and/or lose my temper. As in, this is the one day of the year I can literally clear the house–my parents scatter to the hills on Stollen Day (yes, it’s capitalized). It’s a sign of how much I love my father that I do this every year.)

Anyway, since my uncle is obviously not going to be around for Christmas this year, I wanted to send him something. Of course, stollen would have been ideal, but there was no way I could squeeze in the time around work and tonight’s lecture. So instead, I baked little fruitcake-muffin kinds of things–remarkably similar to stollen, except leavened by baking powder rather than yeast. (I am so glad I had leftover candied fruit in December, and that I didn’t throw it away when we were cleaning out the cabinets a couple weeks ago!) They’re not little stollens, but they are reminiscent of stollens, and anyway, I know he’ll appreciate them and he’ll know I love him.

The lecture tonight is Bill Clinton, speaking at my alma mater, Drew University. I’ve never heard a President (ex-, current-, or, so far as I know, future-) speak before, and I’m looking forward to it. Without wanting to get sucked into politics, I’ll just say that I’m a registered Independent and have voted Democratic/Republican roughly 50/50 since I started voting in 1984. I think Clinton will be an interesting speaker–he’s charismatic and can be charming, and it should be an entertaining couple of hours.

And, oh yes, to get some actual knitting content in here, I’m bringing a sock to work on during the lecture. It’s Lorna Lace’s Shepherd Sock, in the “Mixed Berry“ colorway. I just started it last night so that I would have something to bring. In otherwords, right now, it’s a toe.

*For those of you lucky enough not to know who don’t know, Stollen is a German Christmas bread, rich with butter and eggs, and laced with a small ton of candied citrus peel, raisins and almonds. (This is not the recipe I use, but at least it’s got a photo!) Some bakers sprinkle theirs with confectioner’s sugar when they’re done–I don’t, it just gets messy–and I’ve even seen recipes that have marzipan baked in somehow. In my family (that is, my Dad says), what’s really important is the fruit. He’s tried to convince me that my Grandmother ( a truly wonderful baker whose pound cake I’ve lusted after for years and who I wish I had asked about it when she was still alive) put in more fruit than I do, but I don’t see how it’s physically possible–either for my (at the time) ageing Grandmother, or for the bread. Yeast can only do so much! In fact, I’m always stunned when my stollen dough rises at all–with all that butter and fruit, you’ve got to love an organism that determined to make the dough rise. I always have a picture of little 98-lb weakling yeast, arms pressed against the dough, knees shaking, saying, “It’s too heavy! I can’t lift it!”

Tags: Baking, Family // 2 Comments »