Every holiday season presents, family, tradition – and food! Keep the apple and pumpkin pies and gingerbread cookies, but add some worldly alternatives. Plus, the smaller homemade cookies are perfect gifts and stocking stuffers!
Worldly Holiday Treats!
Need a better idea of where all these delicious treats originate? Check it out!
Cake
Buche de Noel (Yule Log) – alternative for chocolate cake from FRENCH COLONIES
With chocolate praline mousse rolled up in chocolate cake and covered in fudge, this spongy dessert is a chocolate lover's dream. You can even make this confection (slightly) healthier by adding dried fruit and nuts to the filling. You can also add Christmas decorations such as red and green sprinkles – along with fake mushrooms and acorns to make your masterpiece look more like a tree log.
Weihnachtsstollen – alternative for fruit cake from GERMANY
Known in the states as just stollen, this cake looks like a log with a long bump in the middle. It's swollen because it is usually filled with marzipan, an almond fondant, along with raisin and dried fruit. Did we mention the butter (lots of it) and the powdered sugar on top? More adventurous bakers can soak the raisins in rum. "Use different types of booze for soaking, and soak different fruits [than just raisins]" said Nancy Sawle Knobloch, 58, founder and blogger for "Peels, Pans and Peppers" and alum of Kendall College's cooking classes.
Croquembouche – alternative for éclairs or Boston cream doughnuts from FRANCE AND ITALY
Bakers build trees from cream puff pastries that they stack into tall – or short – pyramids. They use caramel to glue their creation together and also to drizzled, in "strings," on top of it all. They also decorate their fancy éclairs with chocolate pieces, powdered sugar or anything else that goes well with cream puffs.
Buche de Noel
Stollen
Croquembouche
Bread
Scandinavian Julekake – alternative to Irish Soda Bread from NORWAY
The Julekake, endearingly known as "Christmas bread," will taste good with either butter or jam. It's baked in with walnuts, red and green cherries (for that festive feel), and cardamom seed. After all, why should cinnamon and ginger be the only Christmas spices?
Julekake
Cookies
Pfeffernüsse – alternative for sugar cookies from THE NETHERLANDS
This cookie is common in Germany and the Netherlands, especially for Saint Nicholas Day on December 5 and 6. According to legend, St. Nick put black pepper in them and then tucked them in children's shoes. Today bakers often also add cinnamon, cloves and anise – or even ginger, cardamom and nutmeg. They're covered in powdered sugar – a baker's version of snow.
Rugelach – alternative for cinnamon rolls or croissants from ISRAEL
A bakery favorite, this little doughy cookie gets rolled around a filling, such as apricot preserves, chocolate chips, raisins or walnuts. "Look elsewhere for inspiration," said Sawle Knobloch. "Old cookbooks, Grandma's recipe box, out-of-the-way restaurants." Some recipes call for a sour cream or cream cheese dough, but that is a new American addition only belongs in non-kosher meals or meatless meals.
Zimtsterne - Cinnamon Stars – alternative for gingerbread people from GERMANY
These traditional German cookies are a mixture of ground almonds and cinnamon and glazed with a sweet meringue. To make them more unique, Sawle Knobloch suggests adding flavors to liquid ingredients. For example, try fresh herbs instead of dry herbs and healthier oils made from almonds, coconut or hazelnut. This dough can be a pain to cut into stars because of how sticky it is. But don't give up. Just add more almonds to the mix or refrigerate the dough again.
Soetkoekies – alternative to almond cookies or butter cookies from SOUTH AFRICA
These spicy cookies – traditionally made with cinnamon, nutmeg and almonds –are common in South Africa around Christmas. "Don't be afraid to experiment and add your own ingredients," said Lynn Cline, 54, an author of "The Maverick Cookbook" and writer for SantaFe.com. Soetkoekies are generally made into circles, but just like American sugar cookies, they can be cut into stars, trees or anything your heart desires.
Pfeffernüsse
Rugelach
Zimtsterne
Soetkoekies
Morning Pastries
Sufganiyot – alternative to jelly doughnuts ISRAEL
This pastry sounds fancy. But (shhh!) it's just a richer, better version of a jelly doughnut. Most similar to the Polish pączki, this popular fried sweet is eaten during Hanukkah to commemorate the oil that burned for eight nights instead of just one day.
Sufganiyot
Alani M. Vargas has worked at a European bakery for more than a year. Her favorite international holiday sweet: Buche de Noel.
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