Sweet December

3 seasonal baking books, one cosy read for the soul, and my personal Christmas cookie recipe to finish with sweetness.

Baking, for me, only truly begins when the days contract and December lights appear.

I’m not a baker by nature- at least not the kind who keeps sourdough starters alive or knows instinctively when a sponge is ready But every year something shifts as Advent arrives. The cold settles in, the afternoons turn blue earlier, and suddenly the kitchen becomes a place of possibility. Flour, spice, citrus, butter: they call me back.

This is the one moment of the year when I bake ( mostly christmas cookies). So I reach for my stack of baking cookbooks every December, the ones filled with warmth, folklore, and recipes that smell like childhood-even if they come from places far from my own. Some of them wait patiently for many months to get their December glory.

This year, three very recent cookbooks will be my companions, each offering a different doorway into Christmas baking:

Advent (2021)- Anja Dunk

Anja Dunk’s Advent is a book i love and you will love, trust me. It feels like opening a snow-dusted window into kitchens across Germany - a world of Gemutlichkeit ( this wonderful german world for cosiness), wooden tables, and the quiet hum of preparations that begin long before Christmas Eve. Her recipes carry the heartbeat of a German winter: cinnamon, cardamom, roasted nuts, almonds, orange peel, sugars melting slowly into butter.

What makes this book magical is its gentleness. It’s not just about baking; it’s about entering a season shaped by memories and family rituals, there are the salt dought decorations, the Saint Nikolaus venue. Dunk writes with an intimate knowledge of these traditions: the scents, the textures, and brings us along with anticipation that grows with each Advent Sunday.

And at the centre of it all is the Bunter Teller, that colourful Christmas plate filled with little homemade treats: Lebkuchen, Heidesand (p.205), Vanillekipferl, Zimtstarne (P. 114) Suiss Brunsli, Orangenplatzchen (p.206) all arranged with care and offered to anyone who walks through the door.

It’s a symbol of generosity and abundance, of sharing something made with time and intention. Dunk’s book brings this tradition alive, inviting you to bake not just one recipe but a whole constellation of small delights that together create the spirit of a German Christmas.

Best moment with this book: A quiet Sunday afternoon with gentle light, arranging a Bunter Teller of cookies, surrounded by the scent of cinnamon and orange.

Music, a touch of classic: The beautiful Stille Nacht .

Tava - by Irina Georgescu

I finally bought Irina Georgescu’s beautiful Tava this year (winner of the 2023 James Beard Book Award for Baking & Desserts), and it is exactly what I hoped for: a celebration of Romanian and broader Eastern-European baking in which citrus, nuts, poppy seed and honey weave through memory and meaning. Irina’s writing is tender and evocative, and her recipes carry the texture of winter - slow doughs and fragrant syrups that perfume the whole house.

The book is thoroughly researched and deliberately panoramic: it runs to about 272 pages and it contains about 87 recipes ( there is no classic list of recipes so i had to try to count manually ), and Irina Georgescu says she has portrayed six cultural communities whose baking traditions overlap in Romania. Examples she highlights include Armenian pakhlava, Saxon plum pies, Swabian poppy-seed crescents, Jewish fritters and Hungarian langoși, all presented with historical context and personal storytelling that give a richer picture of regional culinary history.

As you might have guessed, I’ve already started with the cookies: vanilla and cocoa ones (page 46) which turned out very nicely following the recipe, and the ones I had been anticipating the most: Armenian kurabia with Mahleb ( p.50). Kurabieh were the cookies my beloved old aunt ( in Plovdiv, 40 years ago) used to make every Christmas, rich, buttery, and melting in the mouth. Sadly, I never got her recipe, and she has long been gone. Yet I chase that memory on my tongue relentlessly. I’ve come close before, with Spanish polvorones or heidesand ( see above) , but these kurabia are equally, brilliantly delicious, dusted in sugar. The recipe asks to add mahleb-which I bought in Greece last May. My aunt never used it, but the cookies are so incredibly fragrant with it; it feels like a new, unexpected layer of Christmas magic.

Best moment with this book: A crisp winter evening, the house fragrant with honey, nuts, and citrus, as doughs rest and syrups simmer.

Music, a touch of classic: The soft sounds of Bela Bartok’s Romanian Christmas Carols ( 1915)

New Scottish Baking (2024)- Sue Laurence

A breautiful cookbook, New scottisch baking by Sue Laurence i had the chance to receive this year from a dear friend, awaited its hour.

With around 150 recipes organized across breads, enriched breads, scones, cakes, brownies, biscuits, pies, tarts and more, the book is a treasure trove for anyone who loves baked goods. What I appreciate most is the dual ambition of the book: to honour traditional Scottish specialities like Selkirk bannock, Cloutie dumpling or Ecclefechan tart and at the same time to reinterpret baking in a contemporary, playful way (Haggis tartlets, rhubarb-orange-ginger blondies, lemon-curd polenta cake… ).

Sue Lawrence, winner of MasterChef in 1991 and, by now, a seasoned food writer, manages to make every recipe accessible from the simplest biscuits to more elaborate loaves and even includes a chapter “cooking with kids,” which adds a lovely family activity dimension to the book.

Lawrence combines tradition with a contemporary touch, giving you recipes that feel familiar even if you’ve never baked them before. I started here with an orange and haselnutcake - very soft and perfumed, with a touch of bitterness.

Best moment with this book: A chilly morning, simply drinking a coffee with cookies, enjoying the smell of shortbread.

Music, a touch of classic: Caledonia Mac Lean a beautiful and powerful nostalgic song that makes me see the nature of Scotland,

Those cookbooks will be the perfect choice for a seasonal baker: nothing intimidating, just honest, flavourful bakes that make the whole house smell like December.

But my Christmas would be incomplete witout the Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater, the book that would make your December take a touch of cosyness.

And one of my favourite recipes for your Advent days,

Wallnut Christmas cookies

They always transport me back to the amazing Strasbourg Christmas market (France), which I discovered in the 90s when I started my law studies there. Alsatian Christmas #bredele are really delicious

For around 30 pieces):
200g of ground walnuts
30 walnut kernels
100g of flour
100g softened butter
1 egg
100g of sugar (could be brown)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1. Beat the egg with the sugar until the mixture turns white. Add the flour, baking powder, ground nuts and butter. Mix well until a firm and smooth dough is obtained. Form a ball. Preheat the oven to 180 ° C.
2. Form small balls (the cookies will swell and spread out). Arrange them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Flatten the balls by adding the walnut kernels.
3. Bake for about 15 minutes at 180 ° C.