Merry Christmas from our family to yours!
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The final countdown
My girls are getting quite excited about the fact that there are only a few more days until Christmas. Tonight as they were doing their Advent calendars, Gillian told me that there were only two more days until Christmas. When I pointed out that there were actually three more days, she simply replied, "Yes, but there are only Thursday and Wednesday left until Christmas Eve!" Can't really argue with that. =)
Gillian is at a great age for Christmas this year. It reminds me of the year that Brianna was almost four (at least I think that's right). Any time that someone asked her what Santa was going to bring or what she wanted for Christmas, her answer was the same, "Cinderella chapstick." Gillian has only consistently mentioned one thing on her list--"the last monkey Pillow Pet." Why the last one? We've only seen one in the store, and for some reason G is convinced that it's the only one left and that it has to be hers. Who can really understand the 4yo mind? =) Last week we were in the car after I picked her up from daycare and I was trying to find out some more details about what she wanted for Christmas. Of course she brought up the pillow pet, but I asked her if there was anything else that she wanted Santa to bring her. She sat there for a minute, obviously giving a lot of thought to her answer. Then she replied, very matter-of-factly, "Well....I think I will ask Santa Claus to bring me a big sister who isn't mean to me." For the record, I did manage to contain my laughter enough that I didn't run the car off the road...
We finally got around to sending letters to Santa on Sunday morning. The year that Brianna was obsessing about the Cinderella chapstick was also the first year I asked her if she wanted to write a letter to Santa. Her answer? "No, Mommy. We need to send him an email!" I did some looking online, and found northpole.com. We still go there every year to send letters. The other thing we did on Sunday morning was make the latest Tuesdays with Dorie recipe for breakfast. Jill of Jill's blog picked Cardamom Crumb Cake for us to bake this week. Crumb cake is always a hit around here, and B & G love to help me make stuff.
I made a few changes, but mostly stuck with the recipe. I didn't want to mess with making coffee, so I used some brewed tea instead. I simply left out the espresso powder. I was going to leave out the nuts in the crumb topping as well, but Gillian suggested that I use cashews since she likes those. I used the zest from a satsuma (kind of like a tangerine) since that's what we have on hand for packed lunches. The girls enjoyed helping me make this recipe--Gillian did a fine job rubbing the zest and sugar together. Then she stirred dry ingredients together. Brianna got to get her hands dirty, too, making the crumb mixture, and she got to crack the eggs. They both helped put the crumb mixture on top of the cake batter.
The verdict? This one went over reasonably well with everyone here. I'll probably skip the nuts entirely next time, since even though Gillian suggested the cashews, she said she didn't like them on the cake after all. I think that's more because Brianna didn't like them than anything else. So what else is new... I thought they went well with the flavors in the cake. The orange and cardamom were good together, too. My cake seemed kind of sweet, a result of leaving out the espresso powder, I'm guessing. I might try the cake again, with the coffee. I'd like to try making it with different spices, too.
If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, you can find it on Jill's blog. To see what everyone else thought this week, check out the Links.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
I'm late, I'm late
And so it managed to get all the way to Saturday, and I hadn't baked another one of these Cookies We Love. To be totally honest, I guess I'm just not feeling the love for any of these cookies. It seems like I run into problems no matter which one I think about making. The next one I had my eye on was the Galletas con Chochitos. Several of the other bakers have made these, and there were some reports that they spread a lot and just weren't that exciting. But I finally just decided to forge ahead and see how they would turn out. After all, I got these amazing chocolate sprinkles from King Arthur Flour, and really wanted to use them.
I admit, I can't leave well enough alone, and I made some changes to the recipe. The first thing I did was replace two of the egg yolks with a whole egg. I have more egg whites in my freezer than I can count, and just couldn't face the idea of adding three more. I mixed up the dough, and decided to chill it before forming the cookies, since it was pretty sticky. I also changed the method for forming the cookies. I've run into this debate before when making bagels. I'm firmly in the "form a rope and join the ends together" camp, rather than the "make a ball and poke a hole in the middle" faction. So I went with my preferred shaping for these cookies, too. The ends don't always want to stick together, but that's okay, because they'll fuse when the cookies bake. I also used up the leftover egg white making spiced nuts, so I just brushed the tops of the cookies with some water (I used my finger dipped in a bowl of water) and then dunked them in the sprinkles. That worked just fine. The final change I made was to the baking temperature. I baked one pan at the recipe temperature of 300ºF (for 15 min) and got cookies that were cakey and didn't have much color. So when I made the second pan (the next morning, after letting the remaining dough chill overnight), I changed the temperature to 350ºF and baked the cookies until they were nicely browned on the bottoms and edges, about 12 minutes. (I'm not sure of the exact timing; I turned off the timer without realizing it. Oops.)
Cookie from batch #1 on the left, batch #2 on the right
If you'd like to try this recipe, you can find it here. And be sure to check out what the other cookie bakers have made over the past couple weeks:
Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dogs
Renee of Flamingo Musings
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project
Thursday, December 16, 2010
A baker's dozen - the Virtual Cookie Exchange round-up
I think it's safe to say that the Virtual Cookie Exchange was a success! We had participants from all over the country--California, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington. We even had a couple of international bakers, from Germany and the Netherlands! And as I hoped, we now have a whole bunch of cookie recipes that have been tested and approved. So if you have cookie baking on the agenda for this weekend, here are some great ideas...
So there you have it, a baker's dozen (plus a few extras) worth of wonderful cookie recipes. The only question now is, where do I start, and when can I find time to make all of these? =) Thanks so much to everyone who participated, and I look forward to making this an annual event!
Oh, and one more thank you to Nancy's daughter Allison for making our beautiful logo. I hope she'll do another one for me next year!
Monday, December 13, 2010
All's well that ends well
Okay, it's official. I'm about to be late to my own party. As I sit here typing this by the light of my Christmas tree, the official phrase for the day is "All's well that ends well." My day got off to a pretty good start. I did lots of shopping today. It was supposed to be Christmas shopping, but the only one I bought stuff for was me. =) I did end up getting a bit of shopping done for the girls after I left the outlet malls. But I was later than expected getting to pick up Gillian and then Brianna, so we got home later than I'd hoped. My KAF order was waiting for me, though, so that was nice. My original plan for dinner was shot (due to the lateness of the hour), but I managed to feed the girls and finally got them to bed. I wasn't in the best mood at that point, but we've been trying to get the Christmas tree decorated, so I started trying to put the lights on it. That was when things really went downhill...
Fast forward to when J and I were putting the lights on the tree. After we put the first couple strings on, J plugged them in. The string on the very top of the tree was dead. That was supposed to be one of the good ones. We checked the others, and another one that had been fine the night before was also only half lit. Great. But we had three new strings, so we could probably manage. Except that when I took one of them out of the box, only half of it worked. Grrr. I got upset, and stewed about what to do for a bit. Then I thought to look at Target's website. This time of year, they're open until midnight! So yes, off to the store I went. I returned the faulty lights and bought two new strings. Both worked when I checked them after I got home. They're all finally on the tree. Ornaments will have to wait until tomorrow, though.
Okay, so now that I've gotten that out of my system, we can talk about cookies. =) I mentioned in my intro for the Virtual Cookie Exchange that I have lots of recipes that I wanted to make, from a number of sources. When I first looked through the Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies magazine, one of the first cookies to catch my eye was some pretty Ciambelle, or wreath cookies, flavored with lemon. I immediately thought of my friend Kayte, who loves lemon as much as I do. It's nice to have a non-chocolate choice, too. I found some nice-looking Meyer lemons as Central Market last week, and thought it would be interesting to use them for this recipe. The dough is easy to mix up, and the shaping isn't bad either. It reminded me of making bagels. Don't worry if the ends of the dough don't seem to completely stick together when you're forming the rings; they will bake up just fine. And it's fun dipping the finished cookies in the lemon icing and topping them with sprinkles.
I couldn't help sharing a second cookie as well. This one is for those chocoholics out there. This time last year, I made Alice Medrich's Cocoa Wafer Cookies. These cookies are very chocolatey--the cocoa really shines through, in part because there are no eggs in the recipe. When I got her new book, I discovered that she has a cookie that uses that same delicious dough, but packs it full of chocolate chips, dried cherries and pecans. I came up with my own variation that I thought was better for the holidays. I kept the chocolate chips, but replaced the other mix-ins with something new I picked up recently--Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips. They have bits of crushed candy canes in them. This cookie seemed like a great place to try them out. The original recipe calls for making the dough in the food processor, but I hate washing mine, so I made my dough in my stand mixer. You can find the full recipe at the end of this post.
The verdicts? I didn't like the lemon cookies quite as much as I hoped to. I wonder if that was due to the Meyer lemon, though. I would like to try the recipe again with regular lemons. They were still tasty, though. (I love cookies with icing). The chocolate ones? They are fabulous! I love them with the peppermint chips, but I actually tried them a couple other ways as well. The first was chocolate chips and dried cranberries, and the second was a combination of chocolate and peanut butter chips. And I'm sure I'll think of more yummy ideas. While both of these cookies have a holiday feel to them, if you don't get to them until after the holidays, they'll still be good.
Peppermint Chocolate Chunk Cookies
(adapted from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies)
190g (1 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
70g (3/4 cup) natural cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
225g (1 cup + 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp fine salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
200g (14 tablespoons) unsalted butter, slightly softened
42g (3 tablespoons) milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
170g (1 cup) chocolate chips (I used Guittard Extra Dark 63%)
170g (1 cup) mint chips (I used Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
Measure the flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and baking soda into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix with the paddle attachment until the dry ingredients are well combined. Cut the butter into about 12 pieces and add them to the mixer. (It's a good idea to put a towel over the mixer or use a pouring shield if you have one before you start the mixer again.) Mix on low speed until the butter is broken into smaller pieces. Mix the milk and vanilla together. With the mixer running, gradually add the liquid and mix until the dough starts to come together in clumps.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and add the chocolate and peppermint chips. Quickly knead the dough until the chips are incorporated and the dough comes together. Scoop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheets (I use my #40 disher). Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until they look dry but are still soft to the touch (not too squishy, though). Let the cookies cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then move to a rack and cool completely. I bake the cookies one sheet at a time on a rack in the middle of the oven. My yield is about 42 cookies.
Virtual Cookie Exchange
This time of year is so wonderful for bakers. All of the cooking magazines feature baked goods--unlike July and August when there's way too much about grilling, with a few fruit desserts thrown in. =) Heck, there are even whole special (newsstand) issues devoted to things like holiday cookies. I know, because I've purchased most of them. I've lost track of how many recipes I've bookmarked to try, but it's a lot. And on top of it, I even got a new cookie book from one of my favorite authors, Alice Medrich.
So there's lots of new stuff to try. A lot of the recipes are from pretty reliable sources, but sometimes things don't turn out. So how to know which ones are worth making? And of course there are all the recipes in my recipe box from when I was a kid. Nostalgic favorites, but even those often benefit from some tweaking. (For instance, lots of them use margarine, and don't always turn out quite the same when you substitute real butter.) It can get overwhelming. Not to mention the fact that we don't really need to eat all the cookies that I'd have to bake to really find the good ones.
Enter the idea of a cookie exchange. People bake recipes, then get together to sample everything and swap cookies. We all get tried-and-true recipes that may be new to us. There are problems even with that idea, though. This is a busy time of year for a lot of people, so good luck actually getting enough people to actually show up. Plus I don't know that many people who are as crazy about baking as I am. Or do I?
I know a whole bunch of people who love to bake. They just happen to live all over the country--even in a few different countries, for that matter. While I'd really love to have an in-person physical cookie exchange, it occurred to me that the people I really wanted to do this with are my online blogging/twittering friends. I bounced the idea off a few of them and got a very positive response. It's a good excuse to bake cookies, but no need to make a ton of them or send them anywhere. The idea was pretty simple: Bake some cookies. Write about them--why you picked that recipe, or the history of that cookie, or whatever. Take some pictures so we can see what they're supposed to look like. Include the recipe (or a link to it). Have fun!
So today you may see a number of posts out there for the Virtual Cookie Exchange. (My actual cookie post will be up later today.) You can identify them by the lovely badge pictured at the top of this post. (Many, many thanks to my friend Nancy's daughter, who created it.) Don't worry about tracking them all down; I'll have a round-up in a few days. Imagine, a whole list of wonderful cookies to bake. You know, because your list isn't already long enough.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Oh, nuts
It's been one of those weeks. Not completely crazy at work (that was last week), but just kind of all over the place. Up and down, up and down. I knew it was off to a great start on Monday, when I got a call from one of Gillian's daycare teachers. We've had a lot of trouble with Gillian defying authority lately, which I know is not unusual for 4-year-olds, but it's been starting to get out of control. In Gillian's own words, she got in trouble "because I ran out into the hallway when I wasn't supposed to, and I spit at Miss S--, and I called Miss S-- a butt-face." *sigh* We'd even had a talk before she left the house on Monday about listening to teachers and other adults (since there had been lots of not-listening going on the previous Friday). I can't wait for the teenage years... (And yes, if you're wondering, J & I could barely keep straight faces when I asked G to tell her father why she'd gotten in trouble at school on Monday.)
So we tried something new for the rest of the week. When Gillian left for school on Tuesday, I told her that if she could behave and have a much better day, I would have a surprise for her at the end of the day. I was off that day, and while I was out running errands, I picked up some cute sparkly snowman stickers. If she has a good day, she gets one (just counting weekdays for now). If she gets at least four for the week (I know better than to expect a 4yo to be good every single day), she'll get a special treat. Brianna wanted in on it, too, so for her, the goal is to have a good morning before she leaves the house--getting ready for school without a fight. So far it's going well--Gillian was much, much better the past three days (confirmed by her teachers), and Brianna has been much more pleasant to be around in the morning. Now I just need to stock up on inexpensive prizes. =)
After everything that's been going on, I think the daycare teachers need a treat, too. So I'm going to make them a batch of the spiced nuts from Around My French Table. They're one of the December recipes for French Fridays with Dorie. As with the November recipes, we get to pick which recipe we make when, and I was happy to find an easy one to make this week, since my motivation has been lacking a bit.
It doesn't get much easier than this. Mix together some sugar, salt and spices. Toss a couple cups of nuts with a slightly beaten egg white, then toss with the sugar & spice mixture. Spread everything on a sheet pan and bake for half an hour at 350F. Enjoy! To be a bit more specific, I stuck with the recipe for the first attempt at this one. So the spice mixture was sugar, salt, chili powder (I like Spice Islands), cinnamon, and a bit of cayenne. My nuts were a cup each of cashews and pecans, both favorites around here. I lined my sheet pan with non-stick foil to make things easier. That's pretty much it.
The verdict? Well, these certainly don't last long! I took some to work, and they were a big hit. My original thought was that I should get them out of my house, but having them at work just meant I could keep eating them. Oops. =) Even B & G liked them, at least the cashews (not fans of pecans). These are definitely going in my holiday goodie bags this year. I tried out another version this morning--chai spiced. Half a teaspoon each of Vietnamese cinnamon, ground ginger and ground cardamom, along with a quarter teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, a pinch of cloves and a few grinds of black pepper. The house smelled fantastic by the time they finished baking. I can't wait to try some more variations.
For this one and lots of other wonderful recipes, I highly recommend that you check out a copy of Around My French Table. And if you aren't a member already, we'd love to have you join in the fun at French Fridays with Dorie.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Fruitcake, Italian style?
I'm slowly but surely working my way through the BBA Challenge. It's taken me longer than I expected, but I'm still enjoying baking through all the recipes in The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I have jumped around a little bit lately. One of the recipes I initially skipped over was Panettone--I got to that point in the "P" section back in July. I wasn't in the mood for a holiday bread then, so I decided to save it for closer to Christmas. This past weekend was the perfect time, since it was the weekend of our annual potluck with the Italian genealogy group. It was a crazy weekend due to work stuff, but I'm glad I had time to make this recipe--it gave me a chance to get geeky about bread dough.
The panettone recipe starts with a wild yeast preferment--it's the first dough in the book to use a sourdough starter (which can catch you by surprise since it's not in the sourdough section). Rather than make the sourdough starter from BBA, I used the one that I developed using the method in Reinhart's most recent book, Artisan Breads Every Day. It's a firm starter with about 67% hydration. Since the BBA one is 100% hydration, I got to do some math! I know, I'm crazy like that--math is fun. =)
First, I converted everything to grams, since I find that much easier to work with. For the sponge, you need 200g of 100% hydration starter, 225g milk, and 125g all-purpose flour. So the starter is contributing 100g each of water and flour. There isn't any other water in the sponge, so I needed 100g of water from my starter. With my starter being 67% (meaning 2 parts water for 3 parts flour) I would have to use 250g to get 100g of water. The total flour for the sponge is supposed to be 225g--100g from the starter, and the additional 125g. My 250g of starter has 150g of flour, so I only needed to add 75g of additional flour. The 225g of milk did not change. Did I totally lose you yet? It wasn't really that scary, was it?
I went with dried fruit rather than candied. I ended up using 170g of golden raisins, 85g of dried cranberries, and 85g of dried apricots (snipped into small bits with my kitchen shears). I used light rum for the alcohol. For other flavoring, I used maybe half a teaspoon of Fiori di Sicilia (the 1 tablespoon called for in the recipe seems outrageous--that is very strong stuff) along with about half a teaspoon of vanilla and a few drops each of lemon and orange oil. I didn't have my fruit in time to do an overnight soak, so I used heat to speed up the process. I put the fruit in a medium saucepan with about 1/4 cup of water. I brought it to a boil and them simmered it until most of the water was absorbed. Then I removed it from the heat and added the rum and flavorings. I let it macerate for a couple hours, until most of the liquid was absorbed.
Other than that, I mostly stuck to the recipe. I left out the almonds. I did use SAF Gold yeast, and had no problem with my dough rising. I let the dough rise until it was about one and a half times its original volume, then stuck it in the fridge for the night. For the first hour it was in the fridge it was still rising quite a bit, so I deflated the dough a couple times. When I pulled it out the next morning, the dough had mostly filled my 4-quart container. I shaped the dough while it was cold. I had decided to make lots of mini panettones--I formed 25 at 70g each. 2 dozen went into cute little wrappers (that you can find at Sur la Table) and one went into a greased 4 oz ramekin. The dough took about 90 minutes to proof, then I baked the minis for about 30 minutes (at which point they were 190ºF and golden brown on top).
The verdict? These were a big hit with the Italian crowd. I was a bit worried that they weren't sweet enough (I don't eat much panettone, so I had no frame of reference). A couple people assured me that they were just right. I sent some home with the people who enjoyed them the most, and had a few left over. They made a great breakfast for a couple of days. (It's got fruit, so it's perfect for breakfast, right?) I can definitely see myself making these again during the holidays. I even have a dedicated panettone spatula now--boy, that Fiori di Sicilia is strong stuff. I think the spatula will smell like it forever. =)
If you'd like to try this recipe for yourself, do yourself a favor and get your hands on a copy of The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It has many wonderful recipes. Check out the BBA blogroll to see how others did with this recipe (though most made it quite a while back). For other yummy yeasted creations, check out Yeastspotting (including this great post on holiday breads).
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Life got in the way
I've barely adjusted to the idea that it's December, and now it's the 5th already! I really intended to have this post done for the 1st, but work was (unexpectedly) way too crazy this week. Hard to post about a cookie that you haven't had time to bake yet. =) (In fact, as I'm starting this post, the cookies in question are still in the oven.) But I'm glad that I'm finally squeezing in some Christmas cookie baking. It's just about the only sign around here of the impending holiday. None of our decorations are out, much less the tree. I did manage to pull out the Christmas books this evening, though. Over the past several years, Brianna and Gillian have amassed quite a collection. They get put away with the tree and other stuff, and don't come out again until after Thanksgiving. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's, we read a book or two before bed at least a few nights a week.
Another tradition that they look forward to is helping me with the cookie baking, especially when it involved sprinkles. I'll be posting some of that soon, but for tonight I have a cookie that they won't eat anyway, since it has nuts. This particular recipe continues a tradition for me instead, if you can call two years of something a tradition. Last year, I was invited to participate in 12 Days of Cookies with some other great bloggers. That ended up taking me 20 days instead of 12, and I know a lot of the other participants had trouble keeping up as well. This year, we're going with one cookie per week for four weeks. This year's recipes come from Saveur, and include cookies from around the world.
My first cookie selection is Vanillekipferl. They were on my list as soon as I read through the list, but get to be first in the line-up because they're quite easy to make. I just did half the recipe, which gave me 2 dozen cookies. The ingredient list is simple--butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, ground walnuts and flour. I also added 1/4 teaspoon of salt (for the half recipe). The mixing is easy as well--cream butter and sugar, mix in vanilla (and salt), stir in nuts and flour. No chilling necessary, you just form bits of dough into crescents. The cookies don't spread very much, so you can fit the two dozen on a single baking sheet (which I lined with parchment). The recipe says to bake the cookies until golden, 12-15 minutes. Mine were in the oven for almost 20 minutes, and barely started to color. Once they're out of the oven, you shower them with more powdered sugar.
The verdict? I liked these. I usually make cookies like these with pecans, so the walnuts were a nice change of pace. Jamie said he liked them as well, and he doesn't usually go for this sort of cookie. They are definitely quick to make, even with the shaping. I might adjust the baking temp a bit (up to 350ºF) next time so they get a bit more color without overbaking them.
There will be more cookies to come, though I'm still deciding which ones. If you'd like to try this recipe, you can find it here. And be sure to check out what the other cookie bakers have made this past week:
Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dogs
Renee of Flamingo Musings
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project
