hosting a retro-inspired holiday party

candle-ing the food, baking everything in bundt pans, and topping it all with candied fruits

i was trying to think of a theme for my holiday party this year and, as always, i went to pinterest to get inspiration from vintage holiday spreads. one thing stood out in my saved photos: sweets on everything. there were hams covered in a myriad of candies, puddings of all shapes decorated in jewel-toned sugared fruits, and ads for corn syrup featuring unidentifiable towers of sticky sweet things in perfectly bright hues. and while all of these sweet-coated dishes would have been oh-so-fun to play around with, i couldn’t quite swallow the idea of serving a ham covered in candy to my guests (and i’m not sure their stomachs could handle it either).

left image is from weirdoldfood, the rest from pinterest

but, the jewel tones of the candied fruits did successfully catch my attention and i desperately wanted to incorporate them into my holiday spread. i planned demi-candied clementines with a clementine and mustard lacquered ham, cakes decorated with candied cherries, and candied orange slices perfuming a compound butter. however, this was not a complete theme for the evening, and i love going all-in on a theme.

i looked at my saved photos for more clues. lots of dishes were made in bundt pans, so it was decided everything that *could* be baked in a bundt pan, would be. and every image featured candles: candles on the table, in candlestick holders, on wreaths and holly, and even in cakes. each dish would also have a candle coming out of it.

now that the vintage theme had been reduced to a few key aspects: candied fruits, candles, and bundt pans - i had to tackle the question of what we would eat.

i did not want to do anything that would take up *too much* time and i wanted to serve the classics: butter, cheese, bread, crudités, some puff pastry finger foods, a ham, and–of course–gingerbread cake (with eggnog creme anglaise and the brown butter bourbon toffee sauce from my pumpkin cake recipe).

for the cakes, the shape, candles and candied fruit placement was clear. the cakes were to be baked in a bundt and decorated with piping along the indentations, a feature from my inspo that i loved. i decided i would use whipped cream stabilized with mascarpone and add candied cherries where they would visually make sense. the images also showed big candles plopped into the center of the bundt cakes, so i decided i would copy that as well placing a beeswax candle in the center of the bundt.

the photo on the left is from pinterest and the photo on the right is of the gingerbread cakes from my holiday party.

for the bread loaves, i decided those too would need to be baked in a bundt pan. i made my standard sourdough loaf, buttered up the pan, and did the final cold proof in the bundt before baking it. it worked like a charm, but it felt a little plain. for the second test, i added rosemary sprigs. not only did this add a nice aroma, but it felt festive. i decided i would plate the bread over candied orange slices, and serve it like the cakes, with a big candle inside.

as for the puff pastry finger food, i had to make a sausage roll – i adore sausage rolls. i also made a mushroom-stuffed pastry to go with it. i decided to bake the puff pastries in small metal jello tins to mimic the bundts while being individually sized. the candied clementines i had were about the same size, so i decided to plate the finger food alongside candles placed in candied clementines. these were so cute.

i was not even going to try to mold the ham. i’m sure someone far cooler than me has done this, but i do not have the skills or drive to try. i decided to sous vide the ham and then glaze it with a clementine and mustard and black pepper sauce. i served it with tiny roasted fennels and placed the ham atop fennel fronds (which look shockingly similar to fir branches). atop the finished ham were some demi-glazed clementines held in place by candles, inspired by the cherries coming out of last year's brooklyn blackout cake.

on to the butter… how could i do anything but make a bundt-ed butter candle? i watched some tutorials from last year's butter candle craze to achieve this. while it would have been helpful to cut a hole through the bundt pan to fish out the wick, i was not going to ruin my pan. instead, i bunched up the wick at the base of the bundt pan before pouring near-liquid compound butter into the molds. after removing the butter-bundt from the molds, i fished the wick out with tweezers. as for the compound butter itself, i blanched and shocked a whole bunch of herbs (to keep the color bright), wrung them out, blended them up, and mixed the green liquid into very softened extra-salted cultured butter.

carrots, and celery sticks, from the market in the center. oddly, my butter candle did not burn for long. i have no clue what i did wrong.

finally, it was onto the last dish, the cheese, which i also turned into a candle. i will be sending out a tutorial on how to make your own cheese candle later this week. it was delicious melty goodness. i had issues keeping the candles lit during the party, but have since resolved the issue, so stay tuned for my tutorial and make sure you are subscribed!

to set the table, i looked at my inspo pics again. richly hued tablecloths and holly were everywhere. so a dark blue velvet runner it was, and i picked up some golden fir branches and red berries at the farmers market. for all of my creativity with the food, setting up the rest of the display was not my skill set. i just scattered the branches around the platters and snipped the berry bunches to fill the space.

then it was time to light the candles and spend a cozy evening with wine, hot toddies, cheese, butter, ham, sausage rolls, and friends.