So forgiving, you can calibrate this roast around your needs instead of the usual other way around. It will hold happily in a low oven (180°F. or so) for an hour.
In old New York at Christmastime, bakeries sold stacks of paper-wrapped and beribboned stollen, the beloved German holiday bread. When I serve samples of fresh-baked stollen at the bakery, the customers' faces light up with discovery. Once I served it and a customer asked what he was eating. "It's stollen," I said. With a straight face, he replied, "Well, you should give it back!" This recipe, inspired by pastry chef Dieter Schorner, is extraordinarily light and flavored with rum-scented raisins and other fruits and nuts.
The technique Chef Richard uses in his version of the traditional Yule log is inspired for eliminating the pesky problem of the cake cracking as you roll it. Another bonus is that his isn't as time-consuming and difficult as some. While the recipe appears long, there are few ingredients, and the directions are clear and easy. And the cake is so very good!
If I had to choose one dish alone to represent my childhood, it would be this.
Moist, dark, spicy, but not too sweet, this is classic gingerbread. The addition of black pepper has a historical hook: it was a common ingredient in gingerbreads of the past. We think it brings alive the other spices.
In the early 1500s, Montezuma in his Mexico City palace drank chocolate daily, usually with red chile in it. Apparently the king knew that chile, in small amounts, amplifies and enriches the taste of chocolate. So does Jane Butel, the noted cookbook author and specialist in Mexican cookery, who generously provided the recipe from which this cake was adapted. At The Fort, it's a centerpiece of a birthday and anniversary ritual from which good-natured celebrants emerge with a photo of themselves in a horned buffalo or coyote hat.
Barley is a great substitute for risotto, especially when you don't have a lot of time to spend stirring the pot.
Ingredients
Dear Friends,
Notes from Ruth Alegria: Mexican chocolate is composed of bitter chocolate, sugar, cinnamon (soft bark) and almonds. Well-known brands available in the United States are Ibarra and Abuelita.