Holiday Babas
Plus a Q&A with Nature's Candy author, Camilla Wynne.
Just a few quick notes before we get into all the fun! If you’re planning to order from my Zoë Bakes Shop, we have passed the time for it to arrive before Christmas! Orders take 2-3 weeks for delivery.
My friend Stephanie Hansen invited me back to her TV show, Taste Buds, and this time we made the most darling gingerbread houses and coconut macaroons.
Twin Cities friends! Please join me, Sarah Kieffer, Rick Nelson and Lee Svitak Dean for an event all about our latest cookbooks. The event includes cocktails and treats! Don’t miss out.
What to Bake This Weekend
This chocolate, ginger, and grapefruit biscotti is a wonderful treat for gifting during the holiday season.
Homemade marshmallows fun and surprisingly easy to make. These are perfect for gifting, and of course in hot chocolate.
Don’t forget about all my holiday favorites, like Gingerbread Cookies, Croquembouche or Bûche de Noël.
Lastly, it’s not too late to join my sugar cookie baking challenge! Make the recipe for 10 entries in the giveaway and rate it for an extra 5. Get all the details here.
If you’ve recently made one of my recipes, please leave a rating/review to let me know how it went! I love hearing how you’ve made my recipes work for you.
This Holiday Baba recipe captured me the moment I flipped the pages of Camilla’s stunning book. It features three of my culinary obsessions: candied fruit, yeasted babas, and coffee.
I took Camilla’s online fruit candying class a while back and my first project was to candy clementines. Think hyped-up marmalade. They are like translucent, edible jewels. I put them in everything from ice cream to cakes. They make my heart happy. Candying fruit is not hard with Camilla’s book, she takes you step by step in the process, but it does take patience. There are projects designed for beginners and then some, like candying the whole fruit, that take more time, but are so worth the effort.
My obsession with babas started when my cousin, Riad Nasr, opened his restaurant, Le Rock, in NYC and his pastry chefs, Michelle Palazzo and Mariah Neston put an ethereal baba on the menu. I was completely mesmerized by the light-as-air yeasted cake/bread that they soaked in Chartreuse right at the table. I don’t fully understand how they achieve the texture of that cake, which feels to be the love child of an Angel Food Cake and Brioche. I’ve brought every pastry chef I know into the restaurant to see if we can figure it out. Ha. Camilla’s baba comes the closest and it’s a delight!
Finally, my love for coffee is profound. I wake up thinking about it and it’s my final thought as I drift happily to sleep. Marrying all of these flavors together is basically my pastry fantasy. These babas with candied clementines and coffee are perfect for a holiday table! If you don’t have time to candy whole clementines, there are faster alternatives that will be super tasty.
GIVEAWAY: We’re giving away a copy of Camilla’s book, Nature’s Candy (affil. link), to one lucky winner in North America! Simply leave a comment below by Monday, 12/16 at 11:59 p.m. CT for a chance to win. Good luck!
Q&A: Camilla Wynne, Cookbook Author
Q: What’s your food origin story? When did you first know you wanted to work in food?
I have always been very interested in food, from my favorite picture books to the dinner parties I’d throw as a teenager. Both my grandmothers were incredible bakers, and my dad is an incredible cook, always experimenting. I didn’t really think it would ever be my until around the turn of the century when I was at university in Montreal. I realized I was spending all of my time in class just dreaming of cakes, so I dropped out and went to pastry school.
Q: How did you get interested in preservation? And what does it entail to become a master food preserver?
Both my grandmothers and nearly all my aunts made amazing jams and pickles, so I grew up eating homemade preserves but never learned to make them. I think it was when I started working in restaurants, where so many of the things we baked only had a one day shelf life, that I started really wanting to learn how to prolong the life of fruits and vegetables.
I left restaurants to tour with my band, but when we broke up in 2009 all of my pastry friends were running their own bakeries or kitchens. I worked for them for a bit but knew I had to start my own thing, so I opened a preserving company called Preservation Society. I had gotten a little obsessed with preserving, there were no creative companies in town at the time, and it afforded me less overhead and more flexible hours than opening a pastry shop!
My friend Natasha Pickowicz asked me to teach a class at her work, and that quickly became a big part of my business. But because I was self-taught and students ask so many good questions, I realized I needed more education. I did the Master Preserver program in New York. It’s offered by university co-op extensions to teach people safe home canning practices. It was fun, but I still wanted to know more, so I took a course at the agricultural school in Quebec that was more scientific and geared to artisans. That’s where I really learned the science I needed to know.
Q: What is a good way for people to get started with this craft? What's a good recipe to start with?
A: It depends if they’re more sweet or salty! For canning I recommend starting with something easy to get the confidence up that doesn’t involve setting points or packing jars. Fruit compotes or salsas are the perfect entry point. Or for candied fruit, start with the quick Almost All-Purpose Method.
Q: Do you have a favorite cookbook?
*denotes affil. link
A: That’s a tough one! I have so many favorites. But for preserving, it would be either of British author Pam Corbin’s incredible books*. For pastry I might have to go with Nancy Silverton’s Desserts*. I think it’s out of print but is so worth seeking out. A true classic.
Q: Favorite kitchen equipment?
*denotes affil. link
A: My dad got a tax refund in 2002 and bought me a KitchenAid Pro*, and it is still going strong over 20 years later. I love that machine.
Q: Favorite bakery, anywhere in the world?
A: Patisserie Rhubarbe in Montreal. I met the owner, Stephanie Labelle, in pastry school. She went on to work at Pierre Herme in Paris, then came back and opened the most incredible shop. I miss it desperately now that I don’t live in Montreal.
Q: Tell us about your band, Sunset Rubdown!
A: I joined the band in 2005, and it ended up becoming my full time job for a few years. We made 3 records, toured the US and Europe a lot, and then broke up in Tokyo in 2009. I truly was the last person who ever thought we would get back together, but the singer had a dream in late 2023, and we ended up reuniting for a tour, incredibly. Then we made a new record this year! I feel vey lucky. I missed it and never thought I’d get to do any of it again.
Exclusive Recipe: 44 Cordial Babas
From Camilla: 44 cordial is a liqueur made by filling slits in an orange with 44 coffee beans and then steeping it for 44 days in rum with 44 teaspoons sugar. This isn’t exactly that—it won’t take 44 days!— but those flavors are the inspiration for these babas, one of my very favorite desserts. Rich yeasted dough is studded with candied clementine and baked until golden (in a popover pan or muffin pan! I don’t have baba molds—do you?!), then doused in a hot candied clementine syrup steeped with 44 coffee beans enhanced with a healthy amount of rum.
Thank you to Camilla for sharing this recipe with my Extras subscribers!