The Pastry Queen Christmas: Big-hearted Holiday Entertaining, Texas Style

The annual Fredericksburg Christmas parade marks the beginning of the Hill Country's holiday season, which means the Pastry Queen is kicking into high gear at her Rather Sweet Bakery and Café. As party invitations pile up in the mailbox, Rebecca Rather is up to her elbows in sticky meringue, gooey chocolate, and a sleigh's worth of savory indulgences to meet the Texas-sized entertaining-to-go orders of her neighbors. In The Pastry Queen Christmas, Rebecca shares nearly a hundred traditional recipes reflecting her made-with-love-from-scratch philosophy and the tastes of small-town Texas. Tree-trimming, open houses, cookie decorating, and Santas running down Main Street . . . Christmas time is here. SELECTED RECIPES Texas Spice-Rubbed, Roast Pork, No-Peeking Popovers, Sweet Potato Scones with Maple Cream Drizzle, Caramel Pie, Good Luck Truffles, Chocolate Cookie Crusted, Eggnog Cheesecake

A pastry chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author, native Texan REBECCA RATHER has been proprietor of the Rather Sweet Bakery and CafT since 1999. Open for breakfast and lunch daily, Rather Sweet has a fiercely loyal cadre of regulars who populate the cafT's sunlit tables each day. In 2007, Rebecca opened her eponymous restaurant, serving dinner nightly, just a few blocks from the cafT. Rebecca is the author of The Pastry Queen, and has been featured in Texas Monthly, Gourmet, Ladies' Home Journal, Food & Wine, Southern Living, Chocolatier, Saveur, and O, The Oprah Magazine. When she isn't in the bakery or on horseback, Rebecca enjoys the sweet life in Fredericksburg, where she tends to her beloved backyard garden and menagerie, and eagerly awaits visits from her college-age daughter, Frances.
 
ALISON ORESMAN has worked as a journalist for more than twenty years. She has written and edited for newspapers in Wyoming, Florida, and Washington State. As an entertainment editor for the Miami Herald, she oversaw the paper's restaurant coverage and wrote a weekly column as a restaurant critic. After settling in Washington State, she also covered restaurants in the greater Seattle area as a critic with a weekly column. A dedicated home baker, Alison is often in the kitchen when she isn't writing. The Pastry Queen Christmas is her second book with Rebecca Rather. Alison lives in Bellevue, Washington, with her husband, Warren, and their children, Danny and Callie.