While I do love baking and decorating Christmas cookies, every year I find myself wanting to serve a dramatic dessert for the holidays. Southern Living magazine and Food and Wine magazine both feature showstopper cakes on their December issue covers. This year, I stumbled onto a Nordic Ware Christmas Tree cake pan at an estate sale and took it as a sign it was time to attempt a Bundt cake in a holiday shape. I found many recipes online created for this specific cake pan, but

Dorie Greenspan's Recipes Never Disappoint Me My copy of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours is splattered and bent and has notes written all over it—all the highest compliments I can give to a cookbook. When a friend gave me a bag of dark Valhrona chocolate baking pieces, I knew this was the tarte to make. It's basically a cookie crust with chocolate silky butter filling. Nothing interferes with the chocolate, so you want to use the best you can get your hands on