Every December I fall prey to amnesia. My mailbox fills up with Williams-Sonoma and Sur La Table catalogues and somehow I convince myself that I, a mere mortal, am capable of incredible feats of dexterity with gingerbread, cookie cutters, and icing. Reality usually sets in several frustrating hours later when I've managed to rip off the legs of yet another reindeer while transferring my misshapen lumps of dough to a baking sheet. I vow then and there to give up holiday baking—a promise I remember until the siren call of Martha Stewart's holiday snowflakes lures me back to the kitchen 12 months later.

This year is going to be different. I've fallen in love with King Arthur Flour's gingerbread houses and I think they just may be the ticket out of my quandary. Each kit comes with pieces of pre-baked dough cut into architectural shapes and a piping bag of icing to glue it all together. Once you build the structure, the fun of decorating begins. The kits come with a variety of candy embellishments for shutters, windows, and pathways, though I plan to add to my supply with a trip to Economy Candy, the sugar wonderland on Manhattan's Lower East Side. (The company does web orders, too.)

King Arthur makes houses in several sizes. In addition to the deluxe house kit above ($39.95), it sells mini-kits for a cottage and train ($16.95 each). (A couple of the kits are already on back-order until December 2nd, but I've been assured that supplies will be forthcoming for the holiday.) I like King Arthur not only because it carries some of the best quality baking and cake supplies in the country, but also because it is 100% employee-owned, so when you make a purchase, the people who place your order directly benefit. If you're not up for mail order, Wilton makes a variety of pre-assembled houses that are sold in stores around the country as well as on-line.

Here is a little gallery of my gingerbread house finds. (Pictured, from left to right, are houses from Ikea, Stonewall Kitchen, King Arthur Flour, and Wilton.)

Do you bake for the holidays? What are your best tricks and secrets?

(Top photo courtesy of King Arthur Flour.)

I was craving some hot-from-the-oven homemade cookies this weekend so I decided to start baking. The problem? I don't have any counter space for my stand mixer and barely enough to roll out dough, which means I tend to gravitate toward bar and drop cookies. I really wanted to make simple sugar cookies, but don't have a recipe that doesn't entail rolling and freezing the dough (do you? please share!).

Instead, I made a family favorite: Magic Bars. Also known as layer bars, they're the simplest most sinful treat on the planet. You probably have some version in your own recipe repetoire. (The ones pictured seem to have butterscotch chips added to them.) Here's mine:

Magic Bars

makes 1 tray (depends how large/small you cut them)

Ingredients

1 stick of butter

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1 cup coconut

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup walnuts (optional)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Melt the butter. Coat the bottom of a 13x9-inch baking pan (preferably metal) with the melted butter. Sprinkle the graham cracker crumbs evenly on the bottom of the pan to form the base. Layer with the coconut, chocolate chips, and walnuts.

3. Pour the can of condensed milk over all the ingredients. Bake for about 20-25 minutes (until the coconuts starts to brown).

Do you have a favorite layer bar recipe? Share your variations below.

photo: aliciagriffin/flickr.com

For those who have asked about the raved-about blueberry cake my mom made, I finally got the recipe. And it's from The Cake Mix Doctor. If you're not familiar with this cookbook, it's contains dozens of delicious cake recipes, all made from a cake mix base. Purists may cry blasphemy, but try this blueberry cake recipe and you'll be a convert too.

Now, the sour cream that I talked about earlier isn't in this original recipe -- my mom swapped it for the instant pudding, I believe, so I need to update with the exact measurements (she's not home right now). In the meantime, here's the cookbook version.

Blueberry Muffin Cake

Serves 16

Prep Time: 15 Minutes; Baking Time: 45 to 50 Minutes

Ingredients

Solid vegetable shortening for greasing the pan

Flour for dusting the pan

1 package (18.25 ounces) plain yellow or white cake mix

1 package (3.4 ounces) vanilla instant pudding mix

1 cup low-fat vanilla yogurt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 large eggs

1 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and drained

2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar (optional, for dusting)

Steps

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 10-inch tube pan with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.

2. Measure out 2 tablespoons of the cake mix and reserve it. Place the remaining cake mix, pudding mix, yogurt, oil, water, cinnamon, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to a medium and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look thick and well blended.

3. Toss the blueberries with the reserved cake mix.

4. Pour two-thirds of the batter into the prepared pan. Scatter the blueberries over the batter. spread the remaining batter over the blueberries so that it covers the fruit. Place the pan in the oven.

5. Bake the cake until it is golden brown on top and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto a rack, then onto another rack so that the cake is right side up. Allow it to cool completely, 30 minutes more.

6. Place the cake on a serving platter, dust with confectioners' sugar (if desired).

*Make-Ahead Note: Once the cake is cooled completely, you can store it, covered in plastic wrap, at room temperature for up to 1 week. Or freeze, wrapped in aluminum foil, for up to 6 months. The the cake overnight on the counter before serving.

My mom made the most delicious blueberry cake ever this past weekend and the secret ingredient (besides glorious Jersey blueberries) was sour cream. My entire family was fighting over every last crumb. It inspired my latest recipe quest for the best sour cream cakes. Here's what I found:

Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Cake from Smitten Kitchen (pictured above)

Sour Cream Pound Cake from Southern Living

Orange Blossom Pound Cake from YumSugar

Deep Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake from Food & Wine

Which recipe do you think I should try first? Do you have a favorite sour cream cake recipe?

Chocolate cake.

That’s all my girl Tai wanted for her birthday.  She’d been talking about it for weeks, and I assured her that I’d pony up with the goods.   

I had downed my first cup of coffee on Saturday morning only to realize that if I were to fulfill my promise, there was actually little time for creaming butter and constructing layers.   A beer was all I needed – specifically a stout  -- and I could make my pal’s birthday wish come true.

I have a handful of chocolate cake recipes up my sleeve, but this one, flavored with a beer, is possibly the easiest cake in the world, a one-pan, one stove-pot wonder requiring little more than a whisk and 15 minutes to assemble.  Wait, there’s more.  This is also one of the most alluring, eyebrow-knitting, lip-smacking chocolate cakes that will ever pass your lips.

I know, that’s quite a declaration.  But I’ve made this cake nearly a dozen times, and inevitably, everyone goes wild, begging for more. As my husband describes it, this is “grownup chocolate cake” -- not because of the addition of stout but because it’s not too sweet. The beer works in two mysterious ways, as far as I can tell; first, it imparts spice and allows the cocoa to be its heady self; then, it works as a batter tenderizer, almost to a damp state, which results in one unctuous bite after the other.

When the cake cooled, I pulled together the icing, a cream cheese-centric affair,  but alas, my electric beater died on the spot.  Because the icing is so forgiving, it took kindly to my circumstances and whipped beautifully with a little hand-cranked action of a rubber spatula (and some elbow grease).

As to be expected, the birthday girl was thrilled with her cake, dived in mouth first and declared it “the best.”  After all, the best things in life are simple. 

P.S.: Yes, you can make this cake in the middle of the week while multi-tasking and still make someone very happy. It's that simple.

Chocolate Guinness Cake
From "Feast" by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients
Cake
1 cup (as in 8 ounces) Guinness stout or chocolate stout (P.S. you will have leftover beer)
1 stick unsalted butter (Equal amounts of Earth Balance shortening works just as well), sliced
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups granulated sugar
¾ cup sour cream (equal amounts of plain yogurt work just as well)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
Icing
8 ounces cream cheese
1 cup confectioners' sugar
½ cup heavy cream
Optional: a dash of vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch springform pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

2. Pour Guinness into a large saucepan, add butter over medium heat and stir or whisk until melted.

3. Whisk in cocoa powder and sugar. Reduce heat to low.

4. In a small bowl, beat sour cream with eggs and vanilla and then add to stovetop mixture, whisking until well integrated.

5. Finally, add flour and baking soda, using either a whisk or rubber spatula to incorporate into batter until flour specks are no longer visible.

6. Pour cake batter into greased and lined pan and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (Check at 45 minutes for doneness, poking a skewer in center.).

7. Leave to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack, as it is quite a damp cake.

8. When cake is cold, gently peel off parchment paper and transfer to a platter or cake stand.

Make icing:

9. Place cream cheese and confectioners' sugar in a mixing bowl, and whip with an electric beater, until smooth (You may also do this with a food processor.).

10. Add cream and beat again until you have a spreadable consistency.

11. Ice top of cake, starting at middle and fanning out, so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

Yields about 12 slices.

Photo credit: Kim O'Donnel.