I know, it’s the new year, and everyone’s got all kinds of resolutions to exercise and eat healthier, and the last thing you need is more pictures of delicious sweet things. So, I promise this is the last of the Christmas sweets. This is a traditional yeast bread/cake often made by Moravians, usually at Christmas time, but sometimes other times of the year as well. My mom grew up in the Moravian Church, but doesn’t remember making sugar cake herself until I was little and she made it for the Candle Tea (a kind of church bazaar at Christmastime) at Raleigh Moravian Church in North Carolina. She got the recipe there from Mae Marshall.

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This is another recipe that we always make at Christmas and that I don’t remember having any other time of year. They are a pecan shortbread cookie rolled in powdered sugar (the ones on the left in the picture). I’ve also seen similar cookies by other names, such as Mexican wedding cookies. We make ours in a skinny finger shape though, so we call them nutty fingers or lady fingers.

The recipe makes a bunch, but they are small and tend to go fast. They are slightly more labor intensive than some cookies, but they are absolutely delicious. The recipe comes from my grandmother, who always made them when my mom was growing up.

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This is my mom’s recipe for pecan toffee, which she thinks came from Better Homes and Gardens several years ago. It’s another one of those things that’s special because we only make it at Christmas. Like the Date Rock Cookies, I’m not putting a picture, but they’re on the platter with the Nutty Fingers on that post.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c chopped pecans, divided
1 c sugar
1 c butter, softened
1/3 c water
5 1.55 ounce milk or dark chocolate bars, chopped into small pieces (I prefer dark. And of course, the better the chocolate you use, the better the toffee)

Special Equipment:

Candy thermometer

Line a 15″x10″ jellyroll pan with heavy duty aluminum foil.l Lightly grease the foil. Sprinkle 1 c of the chopped pecans to within 1″ of the edge.

Bring sugar, butter, and 1/3 c water to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly about 12 minutes, or until a candy thermometer reads 300 degrees. This is the “hard crack stage.” You can also check this by dropping a few threads of the candy into a glass of ice water to cool. The threads should then crack when you bend them rather than stretching.

Pour over pecans. Quickly sprinkle with chocolate pieces (so they melt). Let stand 30 s. sprinkle with remaining 1/2 c of pecans. Chill 30 minutes (or until hard) and then break up the toffee into bite size pieces. Store in an airtight container.

This recipe comes from my grandmother Pat, who I think got it from her mother as well. I’m not putting in a picture, as the only one I have is also in the Nutty Finger post. Mom and I often make them for Christmas, although this year we had some that Pat made instead. They are one of Matt’s favorites, and another that we only have at Christmastime. It makes a bunch of cookies, but you can keep the dough in the fridge if you don’t have time to make them all at once. They are a dense chewy cookie with lots of dates, nuts and raisins — delicious!

Ingredients:

1 c butter
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3 eggs
3 c flour
1 t baking soda in 3 T boiling water
1 t cinnamon
1 lb chopped dates
1 lb chopped pecans
1 lb raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix all ingredients together. This will give you mixer a real workout! Drop by teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for about 9 minutes.

Several years ago, my parents (I think mostly my dad actually) decided to cook a standing rib roast for dinner on Christmas Eve with a rub that my dad found in the Raleigh News and Observer. He also decided to make yorkshire pudding from Joy of Cooking. I think some sort of green vegetable was probably added as an afterthought. At any rate, everything was delicious, and a tradition was born. I think they have made this meal on Christmas Eve every year but one since then, and it’s something we always look forward to. This year, we decided to expand the menu a little for the less carnivorous members of the family. (I don’t know how anyone could want anything more than an inch thick slab of red meat … but hey, more for me!)

Here was our menu for this year. I’ll add links to (most of) the recipes over the next couple days:

• Wood-fired pizza appetizers: Smoked salmon with dill and creme fraiche; Wilted spinach with blue cheese and truffle oil; and Prosciutto, roasted red pepper, and gorgonzola with honey
• Standing rib roast with rosemary garlic rub
• Yorkshire pudding
• Gnocchi with cherry tomato sauce
• Roasted eggplant
• Nutty fingers, pecan toffee, Moravian spice cookies, date rock cookies, and ambrosia for dessert