written by Anna Glassman-Kaufman

Fall is all about apples, pumpkins, warm spices, and baking. These flavors are screaming for a little bit of liquor, to balance the sweetness and add some depth.

Before joining the world of France 44, I worked as a baker, and when I think about wines, beers, and spirits, I often think about the ways those flavors can be infused into bakes. Pairing doesn’t have to be as straightforward as drinking a glass of wine alongside a tasty treat; we can pair flavors and textures through cooking and baking. Whether mixing rum or red wine into a cake batter, soaking dried fruit with whiskey, infusing fresh fruit with bubbly wine, or mixing brandy with apples to balance their sweetness.

Much like all of you, I have a shelf in my dining room stocked with half-empty bottles, initially acquired for various purposes – a specific cocktail, a cooking experiment, or just because they looked interesting. The collection on that shelf seems to keep expanding the longer I spend at France 44, which prompted me to write this blog.

Cocktails are great, but they’re not the only creative way to use some of the bottles on your shelves. Below are some of my favorite recipes to infuse wine and spirits into your baking. Hopefully they’ll even inspire you to pick up a bottle or two of something new. And in the depths of this blog, we have cocktail recipes for pretty much every spirit you can imagine!

Here are some ways you can incorporate wines & spirits into your bakes this fall. And of course, recipes and bottle recommendations to go along. 

In school we learned the perfect formula for butter cookies, or Paté Sablee. The formula in weight is 1:1:2 for sugar:butter:flour. Then 10% of the total weight in egg. It’s perfect every time. I’ve translated this into cups for you, but encourage anyone who bakes regularly to buy a kitchen scale and weigh their ingredients.

When working at a bakery one winter, we had way too much whisky soaked dried fruit at the end of a long season of making Stollen. I mixed the remaining whisky soaked fruit into this cookie dough and made a simple whisky glaze for the finished cookies. Perfection. Might not be the most beautiful cookies, but I guarantee you they’re packed full of boozy holiday flavor.

Cookies

• ½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt

Fruit

• ¼ cup dried cranberries
• ¼ cup raisins
• ¼ cup dried cherries
• ¾ cup Whisky (we recommend Very Old Barton)

Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 3 tbsp Whisky
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

To prepare the fruit: simply cover the dried fruit in the whisky in an airtight container and allow it to soak at least 12 hours. I typically make the fruit the night before I plan to make my cookies.

To make the cookie dough: using a stand mixer, hand mixer, or wooden spoon, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Slowly begin to add the beaten egg, mixing well between each addition. Then add all the flour and salt at once, and mix until just incorporated. Lastly, drain the remaining whiskey from your dried fruit and add fruit into your dough. Mix ot incorporate into the dough. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate until completely chilled (2-3 hours, or overnight).

Once chilled, break off half the dough flatted it a bit into a round disk shape. Begin to roll your dough, using flour as sparingly as possible, but enough that the dough doesn’t stick to the counter or your pin. The dough may be a little crumbly, but try not to overwork it as that will make your cookies tough. Roll to about ¼ inch thick, and cut into any shape you like. I like to just cut into squares to avoid any wasted dough.

Transfer to parchment lined baking sheet, with about 1 inch of space between cookies. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool completely.

Once cookies are fully cooled, make the glaze by sifting powdered sugar into a small bowl and mixing well with the whiskey and vanilla until smooth. Use a spoon or piping bag to drizzle the glaze over your cookies, and enjoy!

written by Ty Robinson

There’s no denying it, Minnesotans love fall. The leaves have started to change, there’s a crispness in the air in the early morning hours, the kids have all gone back to school, and the Vikings are on TV. Fall is generally when people unconsciously switch their wine brains into red wine mode. As our dinner plans change from salads and barbeques to braises and roasts, we don’t have to give up our beloved white wines. Strolling through the store there are choices left and right. I’ve got three white wines that are awesome for fall and one bonus item that just landed…so let’s take off and taste some great wines. 

To round out our three pack of fall whites let’s hop a plane to Northern Italy, specifically Alto Adige and sip on some of the Alois Lageder “Gaun” Chardonnay. This wine comes from one of the finest and most thoughtful producers in the region. This chardonnay sees about 9 months in a combination of stainless-steel tanks and oak barrels to produce a complex wine that everyone will enjoy. Classic Chardonnay on the nose with apple, stone fruit, flowers and a touch of a beeswax quality. The first sip, is light and crisp, like the first bite of that handpicked Honeycrisp apple. A medium body balances both the fruit and the buttery pastry that is hiding underneath. This would be an excellent pairing for a pork loin roast with apples and cognac sauce, or your Iron Range porchetta.