455 christmas baking recipes

Yule log cake (buche de Noel) is the classic French rolled sponge cake for Christmas, made from a delicate whole-egg genoise baked thin, filled, rolled, and decorated to look like a wintry wooden log.

Tourtiere, the French-Canadian meat pie served every Christmas in Quebec: spiced ground veal and pork simmered with potato, onion and thyme, tucked into a double crust and baked golden. A cozy, savory holiday tradition.

Cinnamon, clove and nutmeg ornaments are fragrant homemade holiday decorations, not edible: a no-bake dough of warm spices and applesauce, cut into shapes, air-dried, and hung to scent your home with Christmas spice.

Peanut butter cup cookies: soft peanut butter cookie dough baked in mini muffin tins, with a whole mini peanut butter cup pressed into each one straight out of the oven. A melt-in-the-middle Christmas favorite.

Mandel-Halbmonde are German almond crescents: buttery shortbread cookies shaped like half-moons, baked pale, then rolled twice in powdered sugar. The kind of melt-in-your-mouth Christmas cookie every German bakery puts on the holiday plate.

Cornish game hens stewed in fruit and sugar -- I originally got this recipe from the Sunday magazine of the local paper. I served it last year for Christmas dinner, and it's very good. What's more, this recipe is easy: you just put everything in a bowl, marinate overnight, then bake until done!

Panforte is the dense, chewy Sienese Christmas cake packed with toasted hazelnuts and almonds, dates, cherries, cocoa, and warm spices, bound by hot honey caramel. A traditional Italian holiday confection.