Don't be fooled. These aren't all vanilla. December means baking—sugar cookies and shortbread cut into trees and stars, decorated with icing; fruitcake and Bûche de Noël for the French side of ...

I bake a lot, which means I go through a lot of vanilla beans. For some preparations, I use only the seeds – I split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the tiny seeds with the ...

Serve 2 pancakes per person with some Nutella or other chocolate spread. Dust with icing sugar then add a large rosette of vanilla bean cream followed by a decent spoonful of fresh berry compote.