We cooked an Apple Carmel Tart and Sacher Torte for Christmas.

I used Smitten Kitchen’s Apple Mosaic Tart with Salted Caramel. It’s a simple recipe. The pastry puff balloons really big. The homemade caramel is real. When the pastry puffs up really big, the caramel flows and the apples slid right off. I had to deflate the puff and re-position all the apples. I borrowed the mandolin cutter from a friend Nancy, who asked for a slice of the finished tart.

I used epicurious’s recipe for the Sacher Torte. Sacher Torte is a chocolate layered cake with apricot glaze and chocolate glaze.

My son helped me bake this chocolate cake from scratch. This had a lot of prep, but with a glass of wine and good music, that’s the best part of the holidays. The cake is suppose to be light and airy from the beaten egg whites. The best tip I ever got for soft shiny peaks in your egg whites was to (1) make sure the metal bowl and whip are chilled in the freezer and (2) completely dry.