Month: December 2012

by Rachel Sally

All that Glitters

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2013 will soon be upon us, as out of the ashes of the last dying day of December rises the new  year.
2012 went by in a flash (don’t they all?).  It’s hard for me to believe that the year is almost over.
We got eight-ish inches of snow from the storm, and our entire town is blanketed in thick, fluffy white piles.  
It is such a wintry wonderland: picture perfect and well-suited for the holidays.
 
 
As we ring in the new year, I hope all of you are surrounded by friends, family, and champagne love.  It’s the only way to begin 2013!
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These are vanilla bean Italian macarons, filled with rose French buttercream, swiped with a bit of tempered white chocolate, and dusted with a whisper of gold luster dust and silver stars.  Luxuriously delicious, and perfect for NYE celebrations!
 Well, scratch that.  I just finished the last one.  New Year’s Eve’s Eve’s Eve’s Eve celebrations.  Close enough.
 
I’m feeling supremely lazy, so I’m gonna link some recipes with adaptation instructions rather than rewriting them here.  Sorry Larry.
I used this fabulous recipe, halved, for the macarons.  I prefer to use the sucre cuit style, as it has previously given me better results than the traditional French method.  And I’m lazy and  Anita has absolutely foolproof instructions and pictures, so, by all means, go take a look around her blog.  Gorgeous!  I swiped each shell with some melted, tempered white chocolate, and dusted them with gold luster dust and silver sprinkle stars.
 
For the rose buttercream, I used BraveTart’s recipe, scaled down for the weight of 1.5 ish egg yolks (I used about 2.3 ounces of butter, to give you an idea), then added a teeny tiny touch of red food coloring, about a tablespoon of mascarpone, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, and a few drops of rose water (which gets stronger as it ages! so beware!).  It made the perfect amount for the macarons.
See you next year!  Have a wonderful holiday! xo
by Rachel Sally

Shake It All Up

You put the lime in the coconut and shake it all up!
 
I wish I was going somewhere warm and sunny and sandy for my winter holidays, but I have practice throughout the break, and my family always stays home for Christmas.  
 
Sigh.  A girl can dream of coconut lotion slathered on reddening shoulders and a fresh lime squeezed into a Coke served ice cold on the beach, no?
 
This cake filled my house with the sweet scents of coconut and buttery lard (yes!) as it baked.
Soft, tender, and fluffy, the cake is a perfect foil to tart lime curd sandwiched between each of the layers.  Big, fluffy clouds of meringue frosting top it off perfectly, and sweetened coconut adds toothsome chew.
My candied limes were inedible.  Don’t think I bathed them in sugar syrup for long enough.  Or they were just old and brown…
 
Pretty enough for pictures, but completely unpalatable.  Ah, well.
 
I’m off to dream sweet dreams of beaches gone by.
And tanned pool boys.  Yowza.
 
Lime in the Coconut Cake
for the coconut cake:
45 g cornstarch plus 315 grams all purpose flour (or 360 grams cake flour)
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/8 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
5 ounces lard plus 1 ounce solid coconut oil (or 1.5 sticks of butter)
300 g sugar
big splash vanilla extract, plus coconut extract, if you have it
3 eggs
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup buttermilk
directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and grease 3 6-inch pans.  Cream lard, oil, salt, and sugar together until fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then add in extracts.  Add in milks and mix until combined.  Add in flour, baking soda and powder, and cornstarch, and mix until batter is smooth.  Pour into prepared pans and bake for 25-28 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs.  Cool on a wire rack.
for the lime curd:
adapted from Martha Stewart
ingredients:
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
zest from one whole lime
juice of 2-3 limes (1/3 cup)
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons cornstarch
4 tablespoons butter
directions:
In a saucepan over medium low heat, whisk eggs, sugar, lime juice, and lime zest together, cooking until thickened.  Sift cornstarch over top, then, mixing all the while, cook for at least 1 more minute, until curd is thick and silky.  Remove from heat, and stir in butter.  Can be stored in fridge for up to 2 weeks.
for the Italian meringue:
from Bo Frigberg, via Chasing Delicious
ingredients:
4 egg whites
3 ounces corn syrup
6 ounces sugar
1/4 cup water
pinch salt
tiny splash vanilla
directions:
Place egg whites in bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment.  In a heavy bottomed saucepan, mix the other ingredients except the vanilla.  Heat, covered at first, so the condensation washes the sugar crystals off the sides of the pot, then uncovered so you can take the temperature, until syrup reaches 240 degrees F.  When the syrup has reached 225, start to whip your egg whites.  They should be starting to fluff up when the syrup hits 240, so adjust your timing as needed.  Pour the hot syrup (carefully!) slowly into the bowl while the mixer is running on high.  Aim for the side so that you don’t get splashed with hot syrup.  Add in vanilla.  Continue to whip meringue until stiff, fluffy, and cooled.
to assemble:
Level cakes and stack with about 1/3 cup curd between.  Liberally frost with meringue, then cover with flaked coconut.
 
If you’d like to try candied limes, use a recipe- I just winged it and it did not work out for me!
 
by Rachel Sally

De Rigueur

A good brownie recipe is like a good pair of heels or a slick black dress.  
 
 
Completely necessary and indispensable to have in your closet recipe box while seducing that hot boy…
 
…Well that analogy fell through.  Brownies are an essential in my closet.  This is a no-judgment zone, okay?  So wipe that smirk off your face.
 
What I mean to say is that they’re classic.  And classic for a reason they are.  
 
And so easy!  They are one-pot wonders, I tell ya.
 
 
And so easily customized!  
 
You like cakey?  Bake them for 5 more minutes.  
 
You like fudgy?  Underbake them by 3 minutes.  
 
You want mix-ins?  Add whatever your little heart desires. 
 
This recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated.  It is foolproof.  I should know, because I’m a fool I’ve baked 4 batches of brownies (that’s 256 of these lil guys) in the last week for a school statistics project.
 
To answer your question, yes, I am always the annoying person who does projects only concerning things I already like.  So… baking projects.  Yeah.
Keep these in your arsenal; I guarantee they’ll come in handy some day.  
 
Nobody doesn’t love chocolate.
 
Classic Brownies
Adapted from Cook’s Illustrated
Makes an 8×8 pan
ingredients:
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2 tablespoons shortening 
8 tablespoons butter
9 tablespoons cocoa powder
8.75 ounces sugar (1 1/4 cups)
3 eggs
5 ounces flour (1 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
dash chocolate extract, should you be into that sort of thing
up to 3/4 cup mix-ins (chocolate chips?  toasted nuts?  dried fruit?  crushed candy?)
directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line an 8×8 pan with two sheets of aluminum foil, creating a sling.  Spray with cooking oil.  In a heavy bottomed saucepan, combine butter, shortening, chocolate, and cocoa powder.  Stir with a wooden spoon until melted and smooth.  Stir in sugar, then increasing your speed, beat in the eggs.  (If you’re a wimp, you can do this part in a stand mixer, but you honestly don’t need to stir for very long, and that dirties another bowl.) Stir in the extracts, then the flour.  Mix only until homogeneous.  Stir in desired mix-ins.  Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 14-20 minutes, depending on how cakey/fudgy you like them.  Check often; a toothpick will come out of fudgy brownies with faint streaks of chocolate and a few crumbs; in-the-middle brownies will produce only moistened crumbs, no streaks; and cakey brownies will come out with very few crumbs.  For cakey brownies, watch carefully because there is a difference between cakey and light and overbaked and burnt.
by Rachel Sally

To Share, To Care

First steps, words, teeth.
First loves and first heartbreaks.
First losses and griefs.
First snows, melts, blooms.
The sweetest first peaches and the crispest apples.
The first leaves and snowflakes to fall.
Everywhere you look, life is replete with novel experiences…
 
This was my first year participating in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!
 
 
I made decorated sugar cookies (for the first time), and they were funky fresh ugly not the most beautiful, but they were delicious- rich and reminiscent of the holidays.
 
The cookie swap benefits Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, which helps fund pediatric cancer research.  It has inspired me to run two bake sales for the charity; it’s a great (and enjoyable) way to help others.
 
If you feel so inclined, you can send cookies to young cancer patients, or you can donate money or run bake sales and other events.
 
 
It is an incredibly satisfying and rewarding way to spend a little time; I highly recommend it.
I was sent wonderfully delicious cookies from three other talented blogger-bakers:
Ginger spice pumpkin thumbprint cookies from Marly of Ginger Foodie,
Chai-spiced gingerbread men from Rachael of Passing Daisies
And Earl Grey almond chocolate chip cookies from Leila and Nina of Cenabimus
 
They were all crazy yummy! Thank you so much! Be sure to click through to their sweet blogs.
 
I sent my cookies to three other bloggers:
Hannah (and Kate!) of Fleur DeLicious
 Lauren of SizzleEats
and Sara of Modern Alice
Go check their pages out too: deliciously creative things abound!
 
I am ever grateful to have had the chance to help fight pediatric cancer.  Cookies for Kids is a charity which I will be keeping up with, whether it be through another food blogger cookie swap or more bake sales.
 
Some random photovomit photographs:
 
Oh and also? I’m super thankful for the delicious cookies.  This was a truly fattening fun experience.



Classic Iced Butter Cookies
Yield: about 44 small sized cookies
From Cook’s Illustrated
Ingredients:
12.5 ounces flour
5.5 ounces superfine sugar (whiz regular granulated sugar in a food processor for 30-45 seconds)
1/4 teaspoon salt (I would have increased this by a touch)
8 ounces (2 sticks) butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons cream cheese
Directions:
Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.  Add in the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the mixture starts to resemble sand.  Add in the cream cheese and vanilla and mix until the dough begins to come together.  Remove from mixer and lightly knead a few times to bring dough together.  Pat into two disks and refrigerate at least 30 minutes, and up to 3 days.
Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Roll dough out to 1/8 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes. Freeze dough for at least 20 minutes, or until very firm. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until cookies are barely turning golden.  Cool on a wire rack.
The decorator icing is from Bridget of Bake at 350, who makes just about the most perfect decorated cookies.
I increased the recipe by 1.5 and had plenty… In fact, I had way too much.  For this number of cookies, I think 1 batch of the recipe would do.  I tinted using Wilson gel colorings, which I prefer over regular food coloring for their potency.

by Rachel Sally

La Neige et Le Gingembre

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”” 

― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
Big, fat snowflakes fall onto rosy cheeks, as collars are turned up against the creeping cold and whispering, wintry winds.
 
Winter is coming; there is no denying it.
Granted, she may be a season of malaise, but winter has an undeniably ghostly beauty.
 


Driving through the countryside, the dark allure of this season is illuminated; weak beams of sunlight stream through lavender clouds, lighting upon endless fields of dead crops, standing proud and tall against the frost; upon lustrous evergreens and silvery deciduous trees, between which the ground is laid bare, the soft carpet of needles giving way to hard cold ground only at the edges of the forests.  

 
Pillowy white snowflakes litter the ground, remaining there for only an instant, before melting into the earth.
 
Cet hiver serai beau- de ça je suis sûr; je peux le voir maintenant, même au début.  Même si vous n’aimiez pas la neige, vous pouvez apprécier la beauté de ce saison froid.
These cookies are perfect for cozy winter snacking.  Not that I would know anything about that… 

Actually, I’ve been up to my ears in ginger cookies for the last week.  I’ve been in hot pursuit of ones that were chewy and soft; anti-gingersnaps, as it were.  I ended up with many, many, many gingersnaps.  Delicious? Absolutely.  Soft? No.  Rock hard Crispy.

All the trials boiled down to these cookies.  They are perfection.

They are filled with warm spices, and just enough heat, which has the edge taken off by sweet, mellow molasses.  Their crinkly, sparkly and sugar spangled outsides remind me of ice crystallization.  Soft on the inside, with a slightly crispy, chewy outside, these are a wonderful addition to any winter cookie recipe repertoire.

I may or may not have also added them to my winter breakfasts.  But you didn’t hear that from me.

 

Giant Sparkling Ginger Molasses Cookies
adapted from Chow
ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 tablespoons ginger
pinch cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup tightly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
1/3 cup granulated sugar
directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  
Cream butter and brown sugar and salt together until fluffy and no butter chunks remain.  Add in molasses and spices and beat until incorporated.  Beat in egg.  With the mixer off, dump in all of the flour and baking soda.  Pulse the mixer on and off a few times so that flour doesn’t go all over everything, then mix until the dough comes together and everything is homogeneous.  Divide the dough into 14 portions (I use a 3 or 4 tablespoon ice cream scoop), and roll into balls.  Spread 1/3 cup sugar out on a sheet of parchment or wax paper.  Roll the balls in the sugar until coated.  Space them out- 6 per bakers’ 1/2 sheet (standard cookie sheet size) and squish slightly with the heel of your hand.  Bake for 20 minutes, until fragrant and tanned.  Check often once they get close to being done- you want their bellies to remain soft!