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:

Courtney of Coco Cooks 
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

Confidence

Something came up at work recently that caused me to assess my writing and presentation skills.  I've come a long way from where I used to be.  Not with the writing part--I've never had much trouble with that.  But there was a time when I was completely petrified at the thought of speaking in front of people. It goes a long way back--I can remember a situation as far back as 3rd grade.  I was very shy as a child, probably in part because we moved around a bunch when I was in grade school and I went to a number of different schools.  I was okay with people once I got to know them, but still hated larger groups.  Even in college, when I had to do more presentations (I even had to take a short class on it as a graduation requirement) I was incredibly anxious more often than not.  

So it's pretty amazing to me to think that I put this blog out there for anyone to read, week after week.  Sure, there's a certain amount of anonymity, since I don't have to see the people who are reading it, but I'm still surprised at how much I enjoy it.  And it's so cool to see how far I've come with the presentation.  It took a while to come up with a consistent style, but eventually I did, and I like it.  It's made me realize that I'm better at this sort of thing than I thought. =)  And really, confidence is the key.  Somewhere between the end of college and now I realized that as long as I feel like I know what I'm talking about, presenting things to others isn't so bad.  Good thing, since I've got a really important presentation coming up!  Too bad I can't just take along some baked goods to help win them over. =P

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is a great one in the presentation department.  Erin of When in Doubt...Leave it at 350 picked the lovely Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake for us to make this week.  This cake is pretty straightforward to mix up.  It uses the creaming method, so you beat together butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs and vanilla.  Then you alternate adding dry ingredients and milk (dry, wet, dry, wet, dry).  To get the chocolate batter for the marbling, you start by dividing your batter in half.  One half is good to go as is, while the other gets some chocolate and coffee added to it.  For the mocha flavor, you're supposed to melt together bittersweet chocolate, a bit of butter, some coffee and some espresso powder, then let it cool and add it to the vanilla batter.  I'm not a coffee drinker, so the only time our coffee pot gets used is when we have visitors.  So I just used water in place of the coffee and added an extra half-teaspoon of espresso powder.  It seemed to work fine.  

Next, I got to put the batter in my new bundt pan!  It's the classic shape from NordicWare.  I found it at Target, of all places.  A couple weeks ago, I was wandering through the housewares section and discovered a bunch of NordicWare stuff.  I don't think they've been carrying it long, since I don't remember seeing any of it before.  Anyway, I was able to acquire a lovely new pan for about $20.  Awesome!  Okay, back to the baking notes...  I generally coat my bundt pans with baking spray (e.g. Pam for Baking) to avoid sticking problems.  Worked quite well, as usual.  I added the vanilla batter to the pan, watching to make sure I didn't leave any big air bubbles around the edge of the pan.  Then I poured the chocolate batter on top and swirled the two just a bit with a butter knife.  The batter didn't fill the pan as much as I thought it would, but one thing I like about this pan is that it seems to result in a nice shape even if you don't fill it as much.  You end up with a shorter but still pretty cake.  I baked my cake for 60 minutes.

The verdict?  This is a very yummy cake.  Everyone here enjoyed it.  I guess the nuts were chopped finely enough, because I didn't get any complaints from my usual nut hater. =)  I really enjoyed the contrast of the two flavors.  The chocolate part in particular was very moist.  And I love, love, love my new pan--the crust came out such a lovely and delicious golden brown.  The cake was great on its own with a cup of tea, but a little chocolate sauce on the side doesn't hurt, either.  I can definitely see myself making this one again--I'd like to try it with pecans.  The one thing that I'd like to do better is the marbling/swirling.  I just ended up with a chocolate blob shape in the center of most of the pieces (the one I photographed was the most interesting I could find).  I'd like to try again for something prettier. =)

If you'd like to give this one a try, head on over to Erin's blog.  And don't forget to see what everyone else did with this recipe this week.  You can find a list of people who participated here.  

12 Days of Cookies - Day 10 - Cranberry-Orange Drop Cookies

Welcome to the latest installment of the 12 Days of Cookies!  This is number 10, and I'm hoping to get some more baked today.  I actually made these last night, and stayed up way too late.  Not just because I was making cookies, it just worked out that way.  I think I was enjoying the peace and quiet too much. =)  There's not that much of that around here.  Though I must say, it's fairly quiet right now, since both my girls are glued to the Dora Christmas special.  *sigh*  Not sure if that's entirely worth it--calm is good, but Dora can be pretty annoying. =)

For this latest cookie, I went with something easy, that I could work on in between my other baking.  (I was also working on focaccia for the BBA Challenge last night--not hard, but lots of waiting time.)  There's a little bit of waiting for the cookies, as well.  The first thing you do is mix a lot of dried cranberries with some orange juice, and let them sit for about half an hour to plump up a bit.  While I was waiting on that, I mixed the dry ingredients--flour, baking powder and soda, salt, cinnamon and dried ginger.  I increased the dried ginger to 1 1/2 teaspoons, since I didn't have any fresh ginger (the recipe calls for both).  I also grated the orange zest (clementine this time).  I made a change on the nuts--the recipe calls for walnuts and pistachios, but I had my fill of shelling pistachios yesterday morning.  So I used walnuts and pecans. I used the small bowl of my food processor to chop them, and threw the fresh (frozen) cranberries in with them so everything got chopped at once.  After that, the mixing went quickly--cream butter with brown sugar, add the zest, egg and vanilla, mix in the dry ingredients, and stir in the fruit and nuts.  I used my #40 disher and ended up with 3 1/2 dozen cookies.  I baked them at 325 degrees F for 17 minutes.

While I made the cookies last night, I waited until this morning to take pictures.  I've been having a lot of fun coming up with ideas for festive holiday food photos.  And I really enjoy reading everyone else's 12 Days of Cookies posts and getting new ideas for pictures from them.  For today's post, I had some help from my resident food stylist:

She also also asked if she could take a picture or two.  This one is hers, which shows our high-tech photography studio:

The verdict?  I'm a bit surprised by how much I like these.  I don't usually like nuts in cookies all that much, but as Brianna put it, the nuts go quite well with the cranberries.  Both girls seem to like the small sample they had.  As if they would say anything else--if they did, I might not let them sample cookies for breakfast anymore! =P   Most of these are destined for the potluck we're going to at lunch time; hopefully everyone there will enjoy them too.

If you'd like to give these a try, you can find the recipe here.  And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up recently!  =)

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project

12 Days of Cookies - Day 4 - Cinnamon, Brown Sugar and Walnut Shortbread Diamonds

Okay, now that I've found a recipe with an even longer name than yesterday's... =)  Well, the first three days of this weren't bad.  I had several cookies baked before the 1st, so it was just a matter of taking pictures and writing posts.  Now things get interesting, as I try to bake more recipes and do everything else as well.  I had the best of intentions on Thursday.  I had the day off, so I thought I would be able to get at least three more recipes knocked out.  But I ended up with less time to bake than I planned.  All for a good reason, though.  My boss, who is currently on maternity leave, called me early in the morning.  I ended up having lunch with her and her adorable 6-week-old son.  Then I did a bit of shopping (Target, nothing exciting) and decided to pick the girls up on the early side since I was already out.  Sounded better to me than going home for a bit and then going back out.

Brianna and Gillian were actually pretty good--not driving me as crazy as usual.  So I figured I'd still be able to get some cookie baking accomplished.  And I had planned ahead a bit--I mixed up the dough for the shortbread before heading out to lunch.  So it had plenty of time to chill and was good to go.  I did run into a small problem.  The recipe actually says to cut the dough into crescent shapes.  I tried three different places and could not find a crescent cookie cutter anywhere.  So I decided to go with diamonds instead.  That plan had the added benefit of not having to deal with a lot of dough scraps.

Like most shortbread, the recipe only has a handful of ingredients.  To start, you whisk the flour with cinnamon and salt.  I used my strong cinnamon in these (higher oil content), since I figured the cinnamon should be prominent.  I added a bit more salt as well--the recipe calls for a generous 1/4 teaspoon, and I went with 1/2 a teaspoon.  You cream together butter and brown sugar, then mix in the dry ingredients and finish up by mixing in finely chopped toasted walnuts.  I usually toast my nuts in the oven while it's preheating, then chop them in the small bowl in my food processor.

The dough gets wrapped in plastic and chilled for at least a couple hours.  Without that fridge time, the dough would be too soft to roll out well and would spread too much in the oven.  In fact, after cutting the shapes and putting them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, the pan goes back into the fridge so the dough will be nice and cold when it hits the oven.  I baked my cookies for 25 minutes at 300 degrees F.

The verdict? The aroma from the baking cookies was amazingly good.  The whole house smelled fantastic, and Brianna asked me if I was baking another apple pie.  =)  They tasted pretty good, but like a lot of shortbread, I think these cookies need a little bit of time to age.  Not long out of the oven, my thought was that the cookies didn't taste as good as the dough had.  I do like them better the second day (which means yes, I sampled one for breakfast with my tea...).  And I think I'll skip the chocolate drizzle in the future--I really just don't like cinnamon and chocolate together.  Both girls had one for dessert last night and seemed fine with the chocolate, though. =)  I still have half the dough in the fridge, so I can experiment with other toppings, too.

If you'd like to try these, you can find the recipe here.

And be sure to check out the other bakers participating in the 12 Days of Cookies to see what they've baked up for today!

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes

(honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings

Sandy of At the Baker's Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project