The season of sweets is in full swing

When October blizzards are followed by days more suited for sunbathing, it is hard to know what to make of the season bracketed by Halloween and New Year’s Day. One thing is certain: There will be sweets.

Not just any sweets, but traditional holiday sweets that tie whole populations to a season that tries its best to turn a twinkling eye to gloom.

“We are already getting in our stollen from Germany,´ said Harry Schmidt, owner of Schmidt’s Bakery & Delicatessen in Loveland and Greeley. “We will also start to make our own stollen soon.”

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The traditional German holiday bread made with candied citrus peel, raisins, almonds, cardamom and cinnamon – don’t call it a fruitcake! – can be traced back to the 15th century and the Royal Court of Saxony. It took special permission from Pope Innocent VIII for bakers to use butter in their stollen because Advent was a time of fasting.

Starting around Thanksgiving, special cookies and cakes (“kuchen”) also start coming out of Schmidt’s ovens.

“We have a special kuchen that is a kind of round coffee cake,” Schmidt said. “We have a lebekuchen. It’s not a cookie and not a cake exactly. It’s about three inches in diameter. A lebekuchen. Our apfelstrudel (apple strudel) is always a favorite. And, of course, German pasty shops make all kinds of fancy torts for the season.”

Deanne Schaible, baker at Andrea’s Homestead Café in Lyons for over 20 years, started baking her stollen the first of November.

“They get better when they can sit and rest for two, three, four weeks,” she said.

Owner Andrea Liermann added that, like a good wine, a stollen needs to age.

“I know that may sound strange to an American,” Liermann said. “But you can keep a stollen clear into April or May in a cool, dry cellar or garage that isn’t heated. We also are making our gewürzkucken, a chocolaty spice cake with some fruit in it.”

Both Schmidt and Liermann encourage those who think they might want a stollen or other special confection to order soon. They run out, partly because they mail their holiday breads all over the country.

Other sweets have also found their way into Northern Colorado traditions for long-distance gift giving. Toffee production is ramping up into full holiday mode as the orders have started coming in to Vern’s Toffee House in Fort Collins.

“We are taking orders at about the same pace as we did last year,´ said Ron Hert, who with his wife Mary took over ownership from Vern Hackbarth and his wife Gert in 1992. “Our clients typically send 20 to 30 boxes of candy to different friends or business clients. So I am hoping that our clientele will continue that habit.”

Hert noted that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the anthrax scare that followed, he and Mary wondered if they would lose all their business.

“That was the best year we ever had,” he said. “It was as if people became defiant and said, ‘We are not going to let this ruin our holiday. We are going to celebrate and bring our families and friends together.’ Our toffee makes a nice gift that doesn’t cost that much, and you don’t need to buy a new Playstation to eat it.”

This year the Herts will be testing a new toffee covered with dark chocolate.

“We will test the product this year to see how it goes,” he said. “For that reason it will only be available in our home store (on Link Lane).”

Vern’s traditional milk chocolate toffee will be available, as always, at The Cupboard in Old Town Fort Collins, which – as always – features a holiday array of regionally produced sweets. Among them are Robin Chocolates from Longmont (also available at Palmer Flowers). Handmade from fine cacao and filled with every sweet thing from homemade caramel to peanut butter and strawberry jam, they might just redefine the sweetness of the holiday season.

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Dining dollars take another dive

Nothing sweet happened during the second quarter for restaurant sales in Colorado, unless you count increases of 1.3 percent in Pueblo County and 0.7 percent in El Paso County. Broomfield nosedived with an 8.8 percent loss, matching the state’s overall 8.5 percent drop. Larimer County almost held its own with a 0.7 decrease, while Weld fell 4.4 percent.

Part of the loss of revenue comes from a measurable trend: Diners are eating lower-priced meals rather than cutting out going out. According to a survey conducted by AlixPartners LLP and posted on the National Restaurant Association website in November, the percentage of people dining out at least weekly rose to 63 percent from 52 percent in March – but they are spending less. The survey reported that “U.S. consumers plan to spend an average of $11.49 on (each) restaurant meal in the next 12 months, down almost 20 percent compared with a March poll.” The survey suggested that the finer the restaurant, the harder the hit.

However, in Greeley, the economy has been no respecter of type. At the Town Square at St. Michaels, an innovative development that looked solid enough in 2006 to attract longtime restaurateur Mike Hood and his two partners, chefs D.J. Nagle and Dan Chrzanowski, to open not one but two restaurants, the stoves have gone cold.

The Harvest Modern Country Kitchen featured comfort food, The Hobnobber Tavern, stylish pub grub with root beer for the kids. Almost exactly three years after opening, both are closed. The traffic to the center had dwindled to nothing, and so it made no sense to keep the restaurants open.

However, look for Hood and Nagle to come up with some new idea when the economy decides to shape up. It is hard to keep a restaurateur and a chef out of the kitchen for long.

Jane Albritton is a contributing writer for the Business Report. Her monthly column features restaurant and hospitality industry news. She can be contacted at jane@tigerworks.com.