keavdog
Ohhhh we have a Baker in the mix! I love bannana bread. Now that was something my mom did well.
I bake, too. It's part of my belief that if there are things I want to eat, I have to learn how to make 'em. And many of the things I make, are to remember.
Christmas is a big baking time, naturally. Here are some examples of my baking list every year...
First, I bake a two batches of Dresdener Stollen, one at St. Nicolas' Day (the 6th) and a second on Christmas Eve. Here is one such batch, fresh out of the oven:
Then it's a batch of kiffels and cups. These were introduced by many of the people who emigrated to the Lehigh Valley from Central Europe. They're made with a rich pastry dough. Kiffels are rolled into crescents (in German, Kipferln), and filled with sweet filling. The cups (aka "tossies", from the German Tasse, a tea or coffee cup) are made in miniature muffin pans, and filled with a filling like that of a pecan pie-sugar, eggs, and ground nuts. This is a lot of work, and years ago, we organized "Kiffle Day" in our family, to get all hands on deck and crank 'em out:
And then I make a couple other German cookies. One type is the Springerle, which are flavored with anis and rolled out with rolling pins with shapes carved into them. When they bake, the dough rises-"springen", to jump, and that's where the name comes from, "little jumpers". The other is Lebkuchen, German gingerbread cookies.
And I make a batch of Toll House, and chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips:
(I didn't make the Slovak Kolach roll on that tray. That, we buy.)
At Easter time, it's rice and ricotta pies. The basic filling is ricotta, eggs, and rice. Then we make some sweet, with candied fruit peel, cinnamon, anise, and chocolate chips; and some savory, with prosciutto, diced ham, grated Parmesan-real, fresh grated, not that stuff in a jar-and Romano cheeses, and black pepper:
As far as other baking goes, I make a banana cake, because I always have bananas and they often get over-ripe before I can eat them all. It's my grandmother's recipe, very simple, and I make it in the Bundform. Simple cake, simple presentation:
Sometimes I make a peanut butter icing for it:
Sometimes I make that in a rectangular baking pan, too. Nana used to make it as a layer cake, but that's trickier. I can never get the layers even.
But like I said, these are things I like, and I make them to remember, they're tradition.