Last evening the most vivid images of Christmas swept over me.  Amazing that simply hearing an incredible rendition of Silent Night, mom’s favorite carol, could bring me to such a magical place of warmth and color.  That beautiful carol has been recorded by many of music’s finest, but none other than Andy Williams sings my favorite version. The Christmases of my youth had only two soundtracks, the Andy Williams Christmas album, and the vocal harmonies of the Beach Boys. That’s it, no other Christmas music that I can recall, so my unconscious bias toward Andy is defensible.

The sights and sounds of the season, the warm aroma of cookies baking, and bayberry candles flickering as the sun begins it’s descent into eventide, fill me with love and longing, and memories past. My Holiday season begins earlier each year it seems, right after the gluttonous Thanksgiving feast. There are decorations to put up, gifts to buy, and holiday baking to commence. And of course there is the big attraction, the Christmas tree. After many years of falsehood and plastic, we have returned to the real thing, a live tree.  Is there anything quite as enveloping as the scent of pine perfuming your house?  Invariably when we untie the tree from the roof of the SUV, we have to do a little cosmetic work on some of the lower branches to make it fit into the Christmas tree stand.  I intentionally get sticky sap on my hands just to revel in the freshness of pine. Ah glorious.  Once I come out of my pine stupor, trying to wash that stuff off is fairly tricky, but worth it!

As a former Executive Chef, I have always fancied myself as a pretty good cook, adaptable and creative.  Baking however is an exacting science that scares the dickens out of me.  So much can go wrong.  The eggs are too small or too big, the butter was too cold, and you forgot to sift the flour. Was that supposed to be a level teaspoon or a heaping teaspoon? You get the idea. On of the more confusing recipe instructions reads like this: “1 cup butter melted”. Does that mean you melt one cup of cold butter, or does it mean you melt the butter until you end up with one cup of the melted stuff? See what I mean, a lot is left up to interpretation.  I hated science in high school, so you can see why baking scares me, it’s a chemical reaction and when the elements of heat, and rising are added in, it’s a wonder I don’t hijack an Entenmann’s Bakery truck. Why is it that you visit someone’s home and they serve a great desert and when you request the recipe the host says, “oh this old thing, it’s been in my family for years, it’s so easy”. Right there I know I’m in trouble! When you finally wrestle the recipe away from your friend and try it at home, it never comes out the way she made it.  It’s foodie sabotage I tell ya. Did she intentionally leave the secret ingredient out? That has happened to me more times than I can count. It’s producing a lot of bad food karma believe me, I know about these things. Throughout a twenty-three year career in professional kitchens I’ve assemble quite a pastry notebook. The problem is trying to adapt a baked goods recipe designed for 200-400 people, down to cookies for your family and friends.  Even when I was young and popular I didn’t know that many people, so I have a problem. Remember, baking is chemistry, which if you don’t remember I failed, and miserably so.  Oh that pesky elemental chart and those glass beakers. Mrs. Highland taught Chemistry at my high school and her white lab coat made her look like a scientist, and a mad one at that. English and History, now you’re talkin’, but Science, not so much.  My all time favorite cookie recipe was given to me by an old pastry chef, who in the kitchen hierarchy, out ranked me greatly with his tenure, and in an unfortunate twist of kitchen sexism, his gender.  So it surprised me greatly that he honored my request for the recipe when I fawned over his pecan cookies, dusted ever so liberally with confectioner’s sugar. He made these delectables only at Christmas time, and I coveted them greatly. Once I had the recipe firmly in my possession, I determined to make the cookies at home. Looking at the recipe, I knew the wise old sexist pastry chef had played me. What was I to make of a handwritten recipe with measurements missing and just alluded to in general terms? I forged on with a steely resolve to conquer my baking fears. Through much toil and trouble, and ruined cookies, I finally figured out the coded pecan cookie recipe. I made the executive decision to rename the cookie so it has better memories, they are now called “Christmas Pecan Snows”, and they are to die for, so to speak. Because I believe in  “paying it forward” or in this case, “baking it forward”, I willingly include the re-written recipe for these incredible cookies for your baking pleasure, and yes, you can thank me later. When these cookies are in the oven, the aroma wafting through the house is heavenly, and hopefully will bring to remembrance some childhood memories to warm you even on a cold winter’s day.

As dusk turns to dark, and a hush overtakes the world, the tiny lights of Christmas peer warmly through a snow dusted evergreen bough, just outside my window, so soft and quiet.  The only sound a church bell ringing low and stately, and the crunch of snow under my boots.  The chill of night air, the sky and stars too numerous to count, vast and open.  Amid the crush of activity that is the Christmas season the thing that speaks the loudest is the deafening quiet of a winter’s night, a silent night.  Merry Christmas mom.

Christmas Pecan Snows

Preheat oven 350 degrees

Line baking sheets with parchment paper

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. soft butter
• 1 ¼ cup sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 4 cups very finely ground pecans
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Method:

In bowl of electric mixer, cream butter and sugar. Combine flour and salt and add to butter and sugar mixture. With wooden spoon stir in vanilla and ground pecans, (dough will be very stiff and thick).  Roll into small balls and arrange on parchment paper. Bake 20-30 minutes at 350, watching carefully.