Professor Butter Beard and “The Nutcracker”
“Marie supposedly is still queen of a land where you can see sparking Christmas Forests everywhere as well as translucent Marzipan Castles – in short, the most splendid and most wondrous things, if you only have the right eyes to see them with.” – E.T.A. Hoffman, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”
Since Thanksgiving, Christine and I have been donning our Santa and Mrs. Santa drag, rouging our cheeks, and encouraging the sparkle in each other’s eyes before walking into the land of children’s dreams. We have read “The Night Before Christmas” magically making glorious illustrations appear, sung “Rudolph” and “Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town” amazed every time that every child (and adult) knows every word, heard both outrageous and soulful requests for presents (Nerf guns are back!), re-checked both the naughty and nice lists, and have been wrapped in hundreds of the most delicious hugs from children with hope, joy and magic in their eyes and hearts.
I think back to those days of yore, when I would sit and examine every item within the Sears and Penney’s 900-page winter catalogues, mentally preparing my list of longings to recite when visiting Santa at Higbee’s in Cleveland on a snowy December Saturday. Christmas morning, I would wake at 4am (and still do!) and sit at the top of the steps with my little brother making just enough noise to ensure that our parents could sleep no more. And after the hurricane around the tree, I would grab my teddy bear and park in front of the television ready to join Marie (now Klara) as she once again danced her way into the realm of the “Nutcracker and the Mouse King.”
“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” began as a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by fantastical dolls. The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Mährchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas’1844 adaptation of the story into the ballet “The Nutcracker.”
But there is so much more to the story.
Hoffmann was actually named Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann, but he changed the Wilhelm to Amadeus out of admiration for Mozart. And he didn't just write about music, he also composed it. He drew, he painted and wrote stories, spooky tales that trespassed the border between fantasy and reality. They were such famous stories that other composers read them and set them to music throughout the 19th century - for example, Jacques Offenbach's opera, “The Tales of Hoffmann.”
One of the episodes in “The Tales of Hoffmann” is based on a story called "The Sandman," in which evil inventors create a robotic girl. It was also (loosely) the basis for Leo Delibes' comic ballet “Coppelia,” about the misadventures of a young man who falls in love with a life-size dancing doll.
The retired University of Minnesota German Professor Jack Zipes writes that Hoffmann was rebelling against the dominant movement of the time, the Enlightenment, and its emphasis on rational philosophy. “He believed strongly, as most of the German Romantics at that time, that the imagination was being attacked by the rise of rationalism ... throughout Europe. The only way that an artist could survive would be to totally become dedicated to another way of looking at the world, and to reclaiming nature, reclaiming innocence, reclaiming an authentic way of living.”
Another of Hoffmann's stories, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” was adapted by the French writer Alexandre Dumas. It was the tale of a little girl, Marie, and her magical visit to the land of Christmas toys. In this original version, Marie worries about a beautiful nutcracker that's been broken by attempting to crack a nut larger than he could chew. Christmas night, she goes to check up on it and, to her surprise, it has come alive, and a story-within-the-story begins: armies of mice and toy soldiers battle in what is either the child's delirious nightmare, or perhaps another reality into which she wanders.
Professor Zipes continues, “Marie, Hoffmann's original protagonist, is imprisoned within the regulations of the family, the family follows rituals in a prescribed way, and she feels somewhat constrained by this.” Then, Marie's strange and provocative godfather, Drosselmeier, appears. “It's very difficult to translate the word ‘Drosselmeier,’ but it's somebody who stirs things up. And Drosselmeier certainly shakes things up. He brings these amazing toys that he's made and ignites the imagination of the young people in the celebration of Christmas.”
Alexandre Dumas altered that original version, making it lighter and less scary. But something happened to Hoffmann's story in this progression from dark to light: Marie became Klara. Her flights of imagination became sweeter and tamer. And then, in 1892, a team of Russians turned Dumas' version into a ballet. “The Nutcracker” reportedly did not enjoy great success at first, but the music by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky eventually did and staging it has become a Christmas season ritual, sugar plums and all.
This morning, while my coffee was brewing and the Christmas Eve sky was beginning to lighten, I transformed my overnight memories and dreams into a new recipe for my own version of “Christmas Nutcrackers” to bake and gift to the neighborhood children. I folded tart cranberries, toasted coconut and white chocolate into a batter spiced with orange zest and allspice and baked the cakes in special Nutcracker pans that magically re-appear every holiday season. Before stepping in for Santa four more times tonight, I am thrilled to step into the shoes of the Drosselmeier, Marie's strange and provocative godfather, inviting the children to visit “a land where you can see sparking Christmas Forests everywhere as well as translucent Marzipan Castles.”
Merry Christmas to us all!
Nutcracker Christmas Cakes
8 Individual Nutcracker Cakes
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¾ cup granulated sugar (plus more for the glaze)
Grated zest of 2 large navel oranges (save the oranges for the glaze)
1 tsp vanilla paste
6 large eggs, room temperature
2 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
5 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground allspice
½ tsp fine sea salt
1/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature
2 cups fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut, toasted and cooled
10 ounces white chocolate chips
Glaze:
Juice of the 2 oranges
6 Tbsp granulated sugar
A dash of fine sea salt
1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2) Coarsely chop the cranberries and lightly toast the flaked coconut. Let the coconut cool completely before folding into the cake batter.
3) Spray two “Nordic Ware Nutcracker Pans” with cooking spray with flour and set aside.
4) In a standing mixer, beat the sugar together with the orange zest until the oils are fully distributed and the sugar looks a bit wet.
5) Add in the butter and vanilla paste and mix until very light and fluffy.
6) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, allspice and sea salt. Since there is a good amount of baking powder, you will want it evenly distributed. Set aside.
7) Add the eggs, one at a time, to the creamed butter/sugar mixture and beat well after each addition. Add the dry mix and beat until no dry streaks remain. Then fold in the buttermilk by hand.
8) Lightly fold in the coarsely chopped cranberries, toasted coconut and white chocolate chips.
9) Spoon the batter into the prepared pans and bake on a center rack for 30-35 minutes, checking for doneness with a wooden skewer (if it comes out clean, the cakes is done).
10) While the cakes bakes, make your glaze: In a small saucepan, whisk together the orange juice, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from the heat and pour into a glass measuring cup to have at the ready.
11) Once your cakes have come out of the oven, let them cool in the pans for 10-12 minutes. Invert the cakes onto a wire rack and spoon the glaze over the cakes, letting it fully seep into the cakes. When fully cool, dust the cakes lightly with confectioner’s sugar.
