The bakers of Santa Cruz don’t agree on all things, but on the subject of holiday desserts there is some consensus: pecan pie filling should not be too sweet; people don’t eat much fruitcake anymore; and stollen—the rich German yeast bread studded with candied orange peel, raisins and almonds and dusted with powdered sugar—is the Best. Thing. Ever.
“The stollen—I make that myself,” says Kelly Sanchez of Kelly’s French Bakery, who declares the buttery holiday bread her absolute favorite item all year. “I don’t let anyone else except my husband make it.”
From across town at Gayle’s Bakery & Rosticceria comes this testimony from bakery co-owner Luisa Beers: “The first bake of the stollen of the year—you can’t even believe the smell. It smells like the holidays. The real decadent way to have it is to toast it with a little butter. More butter!”
December is here and with it a flurry of parties, drop-bys and celebrations, most involving some kind of butter-and-sugar course. Luckily for us, local bakeries are working overtime to make party hosts’ lives easier and potluck-attending guests more popular with seasonal pies, festive cookies and once-a-year treats like buche de Noel and steamed puddings. Everyone’s got a specialty.
“I love our pumpkin pie; it’s not too sweet,” says The Buttery’s Janet Platin. “I think the spices are just right. I don’t like it to get bitter with the spices. And our pecan pie is a really good version—it’s custardy. I’m very particular about mouthfeel.”
Like other bakeries, The Buttery offers a version of fruitcake that includes chocolate and fruit (dried cranberries, in this case), as well as lots of decorated cookies and the all-too-rare mincemeat pie (non-vegetarian, it actually contains the beef fat known as suet, though the flavor is anything but meaty). For Chanukah there are macaroons and rugeleh, and all month long the bakery has yule logs (another name for buche de Noel) made with flourless chocolate cake rolled and filled with hazelnut whipped cream and then iced in chocolate ganache. “It’s always really popular,” says Platin in what must be a massive understatement.
Sanchez says her lighter version of buche de Noel—velvety chocolate soufflé cake rolled with Gran Marnier whipped cream and dusted with cocoa—was inspired by the realization that the traditional buttercream-filled-and-frosted version left her cold. “What got me is I never wanted to take it home,” she says. The adaptation is spectacular—perfect for people who don’t like too-sweet desserts. (It should be ordered a day or two ahead.) Kelly’s also makes excellent pecan pies minus the gloppy filling (“it’s more like pecans suspended in caramel”) and decorated cookies galore, including dreidels, wreaths, stars of David and, for New Year’s, special pig-shaped cookies harkening back to a girlhood holiday trip to Salzburg, where pigs signify wealth for the new year. Kelly’s also has a limited supply of stollen starting around Dec. 10.
Gayle’s offers a hugely rich, festive buche de Noel with vanilla sponge cake, chocolage ganache filling and semisweet and hazelnut chocolate frosting, perfect for eight to 12 people. In other offerings, a dried apricot, chocolate and walnut loaf replaces fruitcake, peppermint stick pie combines mint chocolate mousse and whipped cream in a chocolate crust, and a seasonal variation on Gayle’s famous Princess Cake results in off-white marzipan decorated with green holly and a red rose. The bakery also makes a honey cake with coffee and spices for Chanukah. Like Sanchez, Beers advises calling a day or two ahead for all involved desserts.
Traditionalists who hanker after real fruitcake shouldn’t despair: they should get down to the farmer’s market for a loaf of Beckmann’s holiday fruitcake or else place an order with the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, which makes a 3-lb brandy-soaked classic packed with candied cherries and nuts.
In downtown Santa Cruz, Mission Hill Creamery tips its hat to the season with flavors like spiced chai, pumpkin, caramelized pear and roasted chestnut, while Zoccoli’s deli has established itself as one of the few places in the county to find panettone, an Italian sweet bread similar to stollen.
Not to be outdone, the Penny Ice Creamery is in on the holiday act with pints of hand-packed gourmet ice cream in intriguing flavor combinations like date, crème fraiche and toffee. Pastry chef Kendra Baker also makes ice cream cakes, bon-bons (ice cream balls dipped in chocolate), a large array of cookies including gingerbread, macaroons and meringue, and sea salt caramels. Not least are more elaborate desserts like steamed gingerbread pudding, bread pudding, chocolate pot de crème and chocolate hazelnut tart, all available with a three-day preorder. Happy feasting.
