This week I made two kinds of bread: Stollen for holiday gifting (and enjoying) and Adventure Bread for holiday survival.

Stollen is not quite yet a personal tradition, but is my current attempt to meet my desire to have something homemade to bring as host gifts, etc. in the holiday season. It’s what I plan to bring with me for Christmas travel and what I snuck into the gift package for my sister’s household.* Honestly, I quite like it, but given that it’s a cross between bread and fruitcake held together with massive amounts of butter, of course I like it; also I wouldn’t be surprised if some people I know are a bit more reserved. A more crowd-pleasing recipe may supplant stollen someday as my holiday go-to.**

In the meantime though, stollen! I use the Melissa Clark NYT recipe, but with ~1/2 cup of rye flour substituted for some of the AP and with ~1/4 cup more milk. This year’s version also has more ground ginger than strictly called for due to a “reading the recipe while cooking” error.*** We’ll know how tasty it is when we open the first one on Solstice.

Adventure bread is an entirely different thing. It’s super-easy, gluten free, and vegan. I make it for myself, because it’s a great answer to “What the heck am I gonna eat?” when I find myself surrounded by cookies and busily making intricate plans for meals that are still a week away. Adventure bread makes fantastic toast and is an excellent vehicle for butter, peanut butter, pesto, cheese, or whatever else I happen to have on hand. It’s also delicious. David Lebovitz has a great write-up of how to make it. Recommended.****

*Hi Sis! If you’re up for it, the directions say you should sprinkle even more powdered sugar on top before serving. Crazy, hunh?

**Suggestions welcome!

***It really does pay to read recipes through beforehand, even if I’ve made them before, but…

****particularly as a cookie hangover cure, should you find you need such a thing.