With Christmas less than a week away, now is the perfect time to start cooking and baking hearty dishes and toothsome sweets perfectly for the cold winter months.

To help out, culinary artisans share their holiday-friendly recipes.

Cuisson82’s chef de cuisine Kim Young-won unveils the secrets to his tender, rib-sticking boeuf bourguignon, as served at the casual French restaurant.

Chocolatier Go Young-joo of Cacaoboom shows how the key to whipping up the gloriously rich hot chocolate served at both her shops lies in the use of a couple of simple ingredients and a saucepan.

Pain de Papa owner-and-baker Lee Ho-young sends a nod to German tradition with a recipe for the bakery’s sweet, spiced, dense stollen, while also providing an alternative, somewhat simpler recipe for a fruit pound cake.

Pain de Papa’s Stollen

This German fruitcake takes center stage during the annual winter Stollenfest in Dresden, Germany, where a jumbo version of the cake is displayed, and is customarily enjoyed during Christmas.

Makes eight cakes

Ingredients

Pre-dough

● 800g flour

● 5g yeast

● 500g milk

Dough

● 1,200g flour

● 1,460g pre-dough

● 1 dash vanilla extract

● 250g white sugar

● 30g salt

● 300g almond powder

● 20g stollen spices (if unable to find in stores, can omit)

● 160g malt

● 300g eggs

● 100g milk

● 800g butter

● 400g raisins

● 700g dried fruit soaked in rum (for example, cranberries, raisins)

● powdered sugar, to cover stollen

● butter, melted, for coating stollen

Directions

1. Mix pre-dough ingredients at slow speed for five minutes.

2. Cover and let pre-dough rise for four hours.

3. Add 1,460 grams of pre-dough with other dough ingredients, excluding raisins and dried fruit, and mix at low speed. When well mixed, add 800g slightly softened butter and mix at high speed.

4. Let dough rest for 15 minutes.

5. Add dried fruit and raisins and mix at low speed for five minutes.

6. Let rest for 15 minutes.

7. Divide dough into eight 500g slabs.

8. Let dough rise for five minutes.

9. Shape dough into cakes.

10. Let dough rise again for 10 minutes.

11. Bake loaves at 180 to 200 degress Celsius for 45 to 50 minutes.

12. After baking, remove and then take butter that has been heated to near boiling, brush cakes with melted butter twice, then let cool and coat with powdered sugar.

Fruit Pound Cake

Makes one cake

Ingredients

● 500g butter

● 500g white sugar

● 10 eggs

● 550g custard (can use handmade or make from powder)

● 200g fresh cream

● 360g prunes

● 200g dried apricots

● 260g dried blueberries

● 260g dried figs

● 500g cake flour

● 15g baking powder

● 175g almond powder

Directions

1. Melt butter and mix with sugar thoroughly till milky white.

2. Add one egg slowly at a time and beat till ivory in hue.

3. Sift flour and then add and mix.

4. Mix custard and fresh cream in a separate bowl.

5. Chop dried fruit and add to the custard and fresh cream.

6. Add the custard, whipped cream and fruit mixture to the flour mixture and mix.

7. Put dough into buttered and floured cake pan.

8. Bake at 165 to 170 degrees Celsius for 45 to 50 minutes.

Cuisson82’s Boeuf Bourguignon

This hearty beef stew ― which hails from Burgundy, France ― pairs well with red wine.

Serves six to 10

Ingredients

● 1/2 onion

● 2 stalks celery, leaves removed

● 1/2 carrot

● 1 tomato

● 1 large green onion

● 5 stalks parsley

● 3 sprigs thyme

● 1 dried bay leaf

● 1 tbsp tomato paste

● 500g beef sirloin

● 200g red wine

● 1 clove garlic

● chicken stock (enough to cover contents in pot)

● 2 tbsp canola oil

● salt, for seasoning

● black pepper, for seasoning

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 165 degrees Celsius.

2. Prepare bouquet garni (a small, tied parcel of herbs). First clean and use only the white stem of the large green onion. Remove the inside part of the green onion and fill with cleaned stalks of parsley (leaves removed and reserved for later use), sprigs of thyme and a dried bay leaf. Tie the filled green onion with cooking string. Set aside for use.

3. Cut beef sirloin, onion, celery and carrots into cubes. Season beef with salt and black pepper. Cut tomato into four wedges.

4. Put 2 tbsp canola oil in an oven-proof pot, heat oil till it is almost smoking. Add beef and sear till browned. Remove beef.

5. Add onion, carrot, celery to the pot and brown, then add beef again.

6. Add red wine and mix with the browned beef juices in the pot, using a wooden spatula. Then add chicken stock till it covers the beef and vegetables.

7. Add bouquet garni, tomato paste and tomato.

8. Cover pot with foil and then with the lid.

9. Put pot in preheated oven and broil for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

10. Remove from oven, chop parsley leaves and sprinkle and serve. Salt, pepper or additional ingredients can be added to taste.

Note: Cuisson82 chef de cuisine Kim Young-won cooks all ingredients at high heat. Ingredients can be browned at a lower heat, but not too low, otherwise the scent and color of the dish will not come out as desired.

Cacaoboom’s Strong Hot Chocolate

Serves two

Ingredients

● 24g 50 percent dark chocolate couverture

● 24g 70 percent dark chocolate couverture

● 100g milk

● cinnamon, to taste

Directions

1. In a small saucepan heat milk till lukewarm.

2. Add couverture and keep stirring over heat so it melts.

3. Do not let the milk come to a boil. Stir until all the couverture has melted completely.

4. When the temperature reaches about 70 degrees Celsius, take pan off the burner and pour into two warmed espresso cups.

5. If desired, add cinnamon to taste.


Cuisson82
453-16 Dogok 2-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul; (02) 529-3582
Open from noon to 3 p.m., 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily, closed Mondays
Reservations required for Cuisson82’s special holiday six-course prix fixe dinners available Dec. 24, 25 and 31

Cacaoboom’s new Samcheong-dong store
63 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul; (02) 733-4662; www.cacaoboom.com
Open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, closed Mondays
Original hot chocolate costs 5,500 won per glass, filled chocolates cost 1,500 won to 2,500 won each

Pain de Papa
548-5 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul; (02) 543-5232
New store (slated to open this week); 572-2 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul; (02) 512-3535
Open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, closed Sundays
Stollen costs 30,000 won, must be reserved in advance, available till Dec. 23.


By Jean Oh (oh_jean@heraldcorp.com)