Mmmm!  Today is the start of Food Networks 12 Days of Cookies

Today we start with Alex’s Gingerbread Cookies!

                                                             pareeerica – Flickr.com

                           ~~~~~~~~~~ CLICK Here for the RECIPE ~~~~~~~~~~

                                                                   yumiang – Flickr.com

คุกกี้ และทาร์ตต่างๆ

ขนมคุกกี้

คุกกี้ของร้านปั้นสิบแม่วิมล มีหลายชนิดให้เลือก  รสชาติกลมกล่อม กรอบ อร่อย ด้วยสูตรพิเศษของร้าน  ใช้วัตถุดิบในการผลิตอย่างดี มีคุณภาพ  ไม่ว่าจะเป็นคุกกี้สิงคโปร์รสดั้งเดิม, คุกกี้สิงคโปร์งาดำ, คุกกี้สิงคโปร์ชาเขียว, คุกกี้สิงคโปร์รสกาแฟ, คุกกี้ฟินแลนด์, คุกกี้หน้ายิ้ม, คุกกี้ช็อคโกแล็ตชิพ , คุกกี้โอวัลติน, คุกกี้สัปปะรด ฯลฯ รสชาติถูกปากลูกค้าทั้งคนไทย และต่างชาติ โดยเฉพาะชาวญี่ปุ่น จะชอบทานคุ้กกี้สิงคโปร์งาดำ และสิงคโปร์ชาเขียว ของที่ร้านมากที่สุด

คุกกี้ไส้สับปะรด

DAY 4: These cookies are for more of a grown up taste palate. They are not my kids’ favorite cookies, but Brian and I sure love them. They are full of dark chocolate, nuts and dried cherries. I think I’ll keep telling the kids that they don’t like this kind of cookie!

Cherry Nut Mudslides
——————-(Adapted from Food & Wine magazine)

3 cups (1.5 lb) bittersweet chocolate (use chips or coarsely chop)
6 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 ¼ tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 ¼ cups sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
½ cup salted pistachios
½ cup chopped dried cherries

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a double boiler, melt 2 cups bittersweet chocolate with unsweetened chocolate. Cool.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. With a mixer, beat butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and then melted chocolate. At low speed, beat in dry ingredients. Fold in nuts, cherries and remaining 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips.

Roll into balls and place on baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes, just until the tops are lightly cracked. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet; remove to wire rack to cool.

Makes 4-5 dozen.

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TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS COOKIES RECAP:
DAY 1: Swedish Peppar KaKar
DAY 2: Mint Oreo Cookies
DAY 3: Christmas Chocolate Chip Cookies

For more wonderful Christmas cookie ideas, visit Food Blogga’s Eat Christmas Cookies Event. For submitting your own cookies to the event, visit Food Blogga.

Ugh. I'd much rather be catching up on Glee than doin' this ish.

Thanksgiving. Sigh.

After being more stuffed than the holiday turkey, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that the holiday season has begun. Whether you celebrate Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or none of the above, it’s a given that you will be inundated with all kinds of holiday-ness over the next 6 weeks.

Whether you love it or hate it, every aspect of the holidays comes with some pros and cons. Yes, even getting lots and lots of presents. Have you ever had to do the fake “OMG I LOVE IT?!” upon opening the most awful gift ever followed by months of excuses when grandma doesn’t see you wearing those giant, sparkly cross earrings she got you? It sucks.

So, this week I’m gonna break down the ten best/worst things about the holidays. Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Season

10. Christmas music
Jingle Bell Rock? Loathe it. “Yule Shoot Your Eye Out” by FOB? Love it.

9. Cookies
And Candy. And Gingerbread houses. And fruit cake (ew!). So many calories – yuck. However, like my mom says, calories don’t count on Xmas! Work it off before Spring Break and you’re in the clear.

8. Shopping
Shopping can be a bitch, especially if you hate mass crowds and fighting for a coveted Burberry coat. Skirt the crowds and the lines and shop online.

7. The Relatives
Embrace your family’s wackiness instead of taking a shot every time your crazy distant relative makes an inappropriate comment or asks you when “you’re going to start settling down.”

6. The High School Holiday Reunion
If you don’t want to deal with the HS frenemies, then don’t. Trade those tedious “Oh my godddd how have you beeeeeen”s for a quiet night in with the fam or a few cocktails with your besties.

5. Traveling
Pack only what you need, and CARRY-ON! Makes life a little less painless at the holidays.

4. Tacky Christmas Movies
Put on some giant sweatpants, make some hot cocoa (with a hint of Bailey’s) and embrace it. Especially “Elf“! I like to drink a little Irish Coffee every time Will Ferrell sings.

3. Presents
Learn to love what you get, even if it’s an ill-fitting sweater. Think of the DIY possibilities! Sweater turned handbag?

2. Tree Decorating
Detangling lights = not fun. Going through all the ornaments you’ve made through the years? Kinda fun. Making new ornaments with party pics of you and your besties? A total blast.

1. Eggnog
Sorry, I have no answers here. This sh** sucks. Unless it’s in the form of a milkshake from McDonalds. OMG, yum.

These cookies are usually impressive when I bring them to a party. Sure, it’s time consuming, but all in all, very easy and cheap to do yourself!

Your cookies might not come out as perfect as you would like the first time, but give it 3-4 times, and you will see your skills improve and your creative juices start flowing with new cookie ideas. (Just in time for the holidays!)

Supplies you need to decorate:

• Wilton icing tip(s) 2 and/or 3- Ultimately, it depends on how small or detailed the cookie shape is. Tip 2 is smaller, but tip 3 doesn’t show shaky hands as easily. So either of these two work.
• Couplers- These are great to use, because let’s say you are doing tiny details, as well as  broad outlining with white icing, you can easily change out tips when you use these, rather than having to make a whole new bag of icing.
• Decorating Bags- Pick your poison, basically. If you are feeling green, feel free to buy a couple of reusable bags. Royal icing is VERY easy to clean, since there is no grease in the icing, so this is a good option. There are also disposable plastic or parchment triangles to use as well. I use plastic disposables, because I can deal with many colors at a time without worrying about running out of reusables.
• Squeeze Bottles- These bottles just make working with flood icing a lot easier, in my opinion.
• Toothpicks – These will quickly become your cookie decorating miracles, and you will see why in this post.

First, of course, you roll and cut your sugar cookies. This is my favorite recipe.

Rolled Sugar Cookies
Source: Cookie Craft

Ingredients:

• 3 cups AP flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. almond extract
• 1 tsp. lemon zest

Directions:

1. Whisk the flour and salt together in a bowl.
2. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar together for about 2 minutes, until it is light and fluffy. Add the egg and extract/zest and mix until blended.
3. Gradually add the flour/salt mixture to the wet mixture until the two are thoroughly combined.
4. Divide the dough into 2-3 portions and form them into a disk shape. Then, wrap each portion in wax paper and chill in the fridge for a couple of hours.
5. Once chilled, roll dough out into desired shapes and place on a Silpat or parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-16 minutes, until cookies start to turn golden along the edges.
6. Cool cookies on a cooling rack.

Then, whip up some royal icing (This is the recipe I use, and I sub 2 tsp. of almond extract for 2 tsp. of the water called for in the recipe.). Really mix it well until it gets fluffy and stops looking shiny. It takes a while, especially with a hand mixer (I’ve been there…), so if you are using a hand mixer, be prepared to mix for a good 10 minutes.

Of course, color your icing the colors you want. Flood icing is simply royal icing with a little bit more water added until it’s fairly liquidy. The best way to find out if your icing is the right consistency is to mix it well and let it drip from a spatula or whisk, into the bowl. If the icing holds its shape in the liquid for about 5 seconds, it’s good to go! Then, just pour it into your squeeze bottles.

Now that all of your icings are prepared, fill your icing bag about a quarter of the way full. This allows you to maintain good control of your icing, and overfilled bags can really be strenuous on your hands to squeeze. Depending on the complexity of the cookie, choose tip 2 or 3. Tip 2 is good for more detailed cookies, but I used tip 3 for the below cookie since the shape is fairly simple.

Then, pipe your outlines. If you happen to mess up, use a toothpick to guide the icing to the right spot. Make sure there are no gaps in your icing, because if you leave gaps, flood icing will spill right out of your cookie.

After all of your cookies are outlined, start squeezing your flood icing in.

After you squeeze a fair amount in, use a toothpick to spread icing into the corners of the cookies.

Now, your cookies should look something like this. If you have detailing to add, like I did, allow the flood icing to set for a couple of hours so that it just doesn’t sink into the flood icing.

I can’t stress this enough: Allow your cookies to dry for 24 hours. I tried 12 hours once, but one good squish crunched the flood icing in, revealing some flood icing that was still very wet underneath.

I hope this helps those of you who were curious about royal icing decorating. It’s not that bad at all, and the results are really awesome!

Morning! I am back, bright and early this morning. I slept awful last night. I have a huge paper due tomorrow that is weighing on my mind big time! I have to get it 100% done tonight after working at my part-time job, so I am just a little stressed about it! Wish me luck!!!

Ok, back to the weekend. I last left off at breakfast on Thursday. Around 1pm, I went to my parent’s house and had my first Thanksgiving dinner of the day

Yummm! The stars of the show were the stuffing

and the mashed sweet potatoes with toasted pecan butter, that I brought. You can see the recipe for those here.

Around 5pm, when Adam got home from work, we headed to his sister’s house. I had a yummy glass of eggnog with rum while chatting about running with Adam’s brother in law Grant.

Around 6pm, I had my second Thanksgiving meal…. mostly veggies.

I only ate about half. My eyes were bigger than my tummy. I just got a little too excited when I saw all the veggies.

The dessert spread was just as impressive as the meal. Oh my Gosh!

My healthier version of dark chocolate pumpkin pie. You can get the recipe for that here.

Peanut Butter pie…my favorite!!!!!!

Brownies and Apple Pie.

Pumpkin Pie…obvi!!

Pastries that Adam brought from a bakery near his station.

Cookies!

I had a cookie:

and a small piece of peanut butter pie!!

Adam’s sister CJ made this pie, but you can get the recipe from this post. If you like peanut butter, you will LLOOOOOOVVVEEEE this, trust!

Grant tired my cheesecake and gave it two thumbs up!!! YAY!

Throughout the evening, I also snacked on some celery and olive cream cheese. Adam’s mom makes this for Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, and I just love it!

On Friday morning, I got up at 5:30, got dressed and headed out for my Annual Black Friday Shopping Trip with my dad. Every year, my dad and I go out there and battle the crowds to get some good deals. We do a lot of shopping for my mom done usually. This year I actually got a lot of shopping done for our nieces and nephews. We have 11, I got 7 of them their gifts! I felt good to get that done and get such good deals. Dad and I were out shopping for 9 hours!!!!! Around 7:30 we went to Sound Bites to have breakfast.

I started off with a pumpkin spice coffee.

For my breakfast, I ordered a Greek egg white omelet (spinach and feta). It came with Sound Bites delicious “No Place Like Homefries”. SO GOOD! They are like mashed potato homefries.

I ate the whole thing. Dad and I also spit a side of whole wheat pancakes.

I had one with a little butter and syrup.

Around 3:30, when we were done shopping, Dad and I stopped and grabbed a late lunch. We split a small cheese pizza.

When I got home from our shopping trip, I had a small slice of peanut butter pie (I took the leftovers home with me… uh-oh!) and then took a nap, I was pooped!

When I woke up, I headed to my bestie May’s house to hang out. I tried the new bud light wheat. I like it a lot!!!!!

it reminded me a lot of a Blue Moon, but was a lot lighter! We spent most of the night playing Rock Band!

Me on base, May on vocals, Colin on drums, Abby on guitar!

Ali and May on vocals= not so great, but really fun!

We got kind of into it

There was also a few bud lights consumed:

and some gold fish.

After Rock Band, a few of us headed to the Black Rose to meet May’s roomate Gabe’s cousin who was here visiting from VT. I ordered a Sam Winter.

Here is a picture of May’s college roommate Brit and I!!! Love her!

I also had a Blue Moon before heading home.

Saturday morning I got up and headed back to May’s before brunch. I brought Oscar with me, he was excited to play with her boyfriend’s dog Stolki. Although Stolki is huge and Oscar is tiny, they always play so well together!

Rick (May’s BF) made us all eggs and bacon. Turkey bacon and whites for me please

(ugh my Mac is refusing to rotate this picture!!!!- sorry, to make you strain your neck)

There was also a cup of coffee, but, I forgot to take a picture…sorry. I hung out for a few hours before heading home and working on some laundry. Around 5pm, we headed to Adam’s mother’s house. Every year, on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we all get together and put up their Christmas tree. It is really fun seeing all the old decorations that Adam and his siblings made as kids and all the newer ones made by their kids.

Dinner was Adam’s mom’s homemade spaghetti sauce, with some pasta.

I also had two small meatballs, I totally paid for eating that red meat! I haven’t eaten red meat in almost a year, so my tummy felt a little yucky around bedtime!

I grabbed a piece of garlic bread too, I only ate half it was a little greasy. Adam graciously took the other half off my hands

For dessert, there were tons pies, cookies and brownies left over from Thanksgiving. But, I opted for the mini ice cream sundae Adam’s mom was making for the kids I know, I am a 26 year old child!

I requested mine with maple walnut!!! YUMMMM!!!

After dessert, we made gingerbread Christmas trees!!! and by WE I mean all of the children under 10 and myself. Yes, I am a child!!!

Look at little Ben with his shirt tucked into his diaper!!!! Isn’t he adorable!

Here is our niece Emily decorating her tree!

Here is my tree, Can you tell I watch Ace of Cakes?

Our nephew David took one look at mine and exclaimed, “Uncle Ali’s is the best!!!!” I think he is a little confused when it comes to the difference between “uncle” and “aunt”. He is so adorable!!!!

While I was decorating my tree Adam, his brother-in-laws and oldest nephew Justin went up to look at our new house (can you believe our oldest nephew is 19?! Justin was a little tiny guy when I first met him!!!!) Grant took this awesome picture.

My grandparents wrote that in the cement on one of the walls the year they bought the house. Hunna and Zonk were their nicknames for each other. It’s that adorable! They all agreed it is a cool house, but will be a lot of work!!!

At around 9pm, we headed home and went to bed…we had a busy weekend, so bed early on Saturday night was surely called for.

Yesterday morning, I got up and worked on more laundry, I still have laundry from my NYC trip that had to be done…I know, I know slacker!!! Around noon, I met Wicked Bride and her mom for Brunch at Max and Dylans.

I started with coffee and water.

I ordered and egg white omelet for my meal.

It was filled with spinach, tomato, asparagus and feta.

I ate the whole thing and even had room for a piece of carrot cake!!!

After brunch, we took a ride to the new house so they could see it. I actually ended up locking my keys in the house and had to call my dad to come and let me back in! Daddy to the rescue, story of my life!!! After I retrieved my keys, we I drove around town to show them the church we are getting married it and my reception site. Showing them where our wedding will be got me so excited about it I hope it is a beautiful as I imagine!!! I am sure it will be!!!! I know I have posted this before, but here is our wedding website if you want to check out the details.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting our apt. and my life back in order (including more laundry) and blogging. Dinner was some homemade pizza. My side had spinach, artichoke hearts and olives.

Well, this weekend has been full of rich foods and a little too much alcohol. I think I will be working this week to get in a few more workouts, and get back to my normal eating. Do I feel guilty at all? No way, I always splurge a little bit during the Holidays. I don’t normally eat heavy and rich foods so when I do every once in a while, I enjoy it- guilt-free and get right back on track.

Oh, look at this comic strip Adam ripped out of the paper yesterday!!!! Cute right?! I hung it up on the wall above my desk at home!!!

HAHAH! Love the little blogging comic! Well, I will be back a little later with a breakfast post. I just haven’t made it or eaten it yet. See you guys a little but later!!!

The delicate, exquisitely turned out Florentine is one of the stars of the cookie world. I first tasted these fruit-filled, chocolate-glazed confections in a café in Boston and they soon became a favorite treat. Enjoy them with a steaming cup of Darjeeling or Earl Grey.

The following recipe is from The London Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea, a miniature book with helpful instructions and entertaining commentary by its author, Helen Simpson.

Florentines

7 tablespoons butter
½ cup sugar
2/3 cup chopped slivered almonds
1/3 cup golden raisins
6 candied cherries, chopped
2 tablespoons candied mixed peel
1 tablespoon heavy cream
6 squares semi-sweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Line three baking sheets with non-stick or parchment paper. In a large pan melt the butter, stir in the sugar, and boil them together for one minute. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the rest of the ingredients, except for the chocolate, until all of them are coated in hot syrupy stickiness. Drop small rounded heaps of the mixture onto the baking sheets. Keep them well apart, one to each corner of every baking sheet, to allow room for spreading. Bake for ten minutes until toast-colored.

Nudge the edges of each Florentine into a roughly circular shape with the blade of a palette knife or spatula. Leave on the baking sheets for five minutes until they start to harden. Transfer them to a wire rack; take care here, as this is the most difficult step of the procedure. Leave to cool. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water. Give the flat side of each Florentine a generous brown coat of melted chocolate. Make even wavy patterns in the chocolate with the prongs of a fork. Leave to set hard.

Makes about 12 cookies.

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Hello there! If you ever visited this blog..hahaha.

This is my first post. Whoo.What am I gonna say…LOL

This is my blog, and I welcome you! To be honest, I’m somewhat lazy to update blogs, but from now on I’ll try my very best to update it! I want something to treasure online.Hehehe. My blog’s still under construction, and I have to be very patient for a while and you too if you want to read this blog..xp

This blog is all about the things that happens with me everyday.But not actually, there are situations that I might not get online. Things that I like,I’m annoyed with..heheh, and other stuff to know me more.

I’ll apologize in advance. First to apologize for: I’m not a native speaker of the English language so please bear with me, I’m a Filipino. I know how to speak it well but not perfectly. ^_^ If there are any misspelled words even they’re with red underlines (I may not notice it), or any grammatical errors…you can correct me.I’ll be very happy to fix it. I think they’re the results of typing.Sometimes I type fast and I type quickly because of time. Hahaha. 2nd thing to apologize for: I may not update this blog everyday. So please be considerate if you are following an update of my blog. I’m still a student and as one, I am very busy with studies. xP

Hmm.I guess I’ll end this post for now. Byebye!

^_^

cookies!

Rei

Reirei

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend! I have a lot of stuff to post from Detroit, so let’s get it started, shall we? I had a great time back in my hometown with my friends and family, and as you can see from the above photo, we had some really yummy treats!

On Friday night we had a dessert party at my mom’s house. I had brought goodies from New York: cupcakes from Butter Lane and a cheesecake from Junior’s. The best part was I didn’t even tell anyone what I was bringing so when I got off the plane with my Junior’s bag, my mom was like, “Ye-ah!” It’s her fave.

My best friend Michelle made this awesome cookie cake (above) from this recipe I had seen online and passed along to her saying, “Please, please, please!” I was thrilled that she actually made it and it was my favorite thing I tried. She made the whipped cream from scratch and it was delicious! My cousin M brought in a giant mocha cake, truffles, and Candy Cane Joe Joe’s (oreos) from Trader Joe’s.

Here’s some of the spread and here is Michelli trying to sneak some frosting from the mocha cake:

Cupcakes:

Look at the concentration here:

And here’s little B and her big cake:

After everyone had enough sugar to last us the entire week, we gathered around the kitchen table for story time with R:

Good times, good times. And geesh, after looking at all these pictures, who wants to go take a run in Prospect Park? Or, you know, just take a nap.

Have a break and have a healthy and delicious cookies!

Ingredients
muesli – 110g
flour – 170g
butter – 170g
egg yolk – 1
bicarbonate soda – 1 tsp
sugar – 170g
salt – 1/2 tsp
raisins – 30g

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until it soft, add in the egg yolk and continue beating.
3. Add in the flour, salt, and bicarbonate soda into the mixture, then pour the muesli and raisins into it and mix well.
4. Roll the mixture into a shape of a small balls.
5. Place them on a baking sheet and flatten with the bottom of a floured glass.
6. Bake in the oven until golden for 10-12 minutes.  Serves.

I know I’ve been saving the photo posts for the Daily Photo blog, but I’ve been taking too many photos.  (I also need a new, bigger hard drive.  A few extra terabytes should cover six months’ worth, I reckon…)

We headed down to my parents’ place this weekend, and drove back in the pouring rain today.  I’ve been experimenting with long- and shorter-exposure pictures on the motorway.  These are the pick of the bunch.

As much as I’d love to, I won’t promise that any other posts are coming this week, as I’m still up to my eyeballs.  There will be posts on the Daily Photo, and I’ll try to write something here.  In the meantime, you could make some herb damper, or some cherry-cinnamon cookies, and then you could read about recovery from depression.  See you when the madness has ended!

My grandmother would make biscotti for days before Christmas and hide them in an armoire in her front hall under lock and key. If she allowed any of us to get close to them, they would have disappeared long before Christmas. But if we asked her nicely, she never said no. She took the key out of her apron pocket and unlocked that treasure chest filled with sweet, spiced biscotti and handed you some of your favorites.

She had a small white sideboard with a roll-down top. Here she made all her biscotti and that sideboard was our first stop when we entered her kitchen. We could never understand how so many wonderful desserts could be prepared on such a small surface. When I was young I remember her cooking on a black iron stove and blocks of ice being delivered for her wooden icebox. She was in her element even through she wore herself out during holidays. Her family showed their appreciation by filling her home with all their kids in a flurry of noise feasting on all her specialties made with a strong dash of pride. The variety of cookies, cakes, stuffed artichokes, pasta and breads, that came from that kitchen was like being in Grandma’s Christmas Wonderland. We all loved and looked forward to these holiday reunions.

The tradition continues with members of our family preparing their favorite biscotti for events such as wedding, showers and holidays. Every child in our family begins to take part in this tradition at an early age. You don’t have to encourage them, as they can’t wait to get their little hands in all of that dough. It is a way to bond with the kids and make them part of a family tradition. We know that future generations will enjoy these recipes and get to know a little about Grandma and our heritage.

An Italian family can have many versions of the same biscotti and every person takes great pride in their recipe. We use the original recipes in Turo’s Dolci. Pizzetts are used on almost every tray we make. Pizzette are a double chocolate biscotti, scented with spices, roasted almonds, orange zest, coffee and chocolate chips. They are one of the biscotti attractions on our cookie trays for Christmas and every special event. You can make these cookies in advance and freeze them for up to 2 months unfrosted.

My Christmas greeting to all my readers and let me know if pizzetts are on your Christmas dessert table.

Pizzette
Recipe Summary
Prep Time: 35 minutes
Cook Time: 8-10 minutes @ 375ºF
Yield: 4 Dozen

Dough
Dry Ingredients
4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup roasted almonds, cut in half
4 oz. Semi-sweet chocolate. chopped
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground clove
2 teaspoons baking powder

Wet Ingredients
Zest of one orange
2 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup warm water, orange juice or coffee
1/2 cup vegetable oil

FROSTING
12 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tablespoon light corn sryup
2-3 tablespoons Brandy or Cointreau, Grand Marnier or tablespoon Kahlua

DOUGH
Mix the cocoa powder into the water or juice. Place all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, add orange zest, almonds and chocolate chips. Make a well in the center and add the eggs and the water cocoa mixture. Slightly beat the liquid while in the center well and begin to bring in the dry ingredients. Gradually add vegetable oil to form the dough. You may need to wet your hands with oil. The Dough will be thick and will have an oily glaze. Place the dough in the refrigerator for 1 hour.

ASSEMBLY
Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Cut small portions and roll out the dough in the form of a cylinder. Pat down the top and cut into 1” slices on a diagonal to form a diamond shape. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

BAKE
Bake 375º F for 8-10 minutes. Do not over-bake the cookies as they will be become dry and hard.

FROSTING
Melt the chocolate with the butter over a double boiler or in a microwave oven. Add the liquor a little at a time. Taste and add more if needed. The original recipe did not include liquor and is fantastic just with the chocolate, butter and a little syrup.

Frost the cookies when they are completely cool.

NOTE: Pizzette can be frozen for up to 2 months unfrosted.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I made several cookie sheets full of these simple Chocolate Pretzel Rings. Some for treats, some to share around with friends, some for a fun activity with Kathy’s grandchildren and some for anyone who showed up for a visit! I also filled several small holidays tins, lined with colored plastic wrap. Very cute and makes a quick gifty treat.

You’ll love the combo of salty and sweet, but most of all how easy and cute they are to make. Would you call them a cookie, a candy or just a super fun snack?

CHOCOLATE PRETZEL RINGS

Ingredients
Bite-Size Pretzels
Hershey’s Kisses
M & M’s

Buy any amount of the ingredients.
I bought the giant size bag of each item as I knew I would be
making oodles and oodles of them over the holidays.

Instructions
1. Place the pretzels on baking sheets
(I lined my cookie sheets with Reynolds Non-Stick Foil, but silpats or parchment would work just fine.)
2. Place a chocolate kiss in the center of each ring.

Bake at 275 degrees F for 2-3 minutes or until chocolate is softened.
Remove from the oven and work quickly.
Place an M&M on each, pressing down slightly so chocolate fills the ring.

Refrigerate for 5-10 minutes or until chocolate is firm.
NOTE: Do not leave them in the cold refrigerator too long as the sheen
of the chocolate and the M&M’s disappears. Store at room temperature.

You can see from the various pictures I have posted here that the sky is the limit when it comes to which kinds of bite-sized pretzels to use (rings, twisted, braids, square waffle style, etc.).

It is super hard to find the Pretzel Rings here locally, however all the other shapes work just as well and certainly end up in the same place. But if you really can’t live without the novelty of the rings, or can’t find them in your area, then you can buy them here at Intercourse Pretzel Factory in Pennsylvania, but they are super pricey.

They would be fun to make any time of year because you can color-coordinate the M&M’s to each holiday. Think of the possibilities!

It is also evident that you can use any kind of Hershey’s Kisses (plain, hugs, striped, peanut butter, mint or other flavors, colored, or a combo, etc. Melting times might vary, so watch them carefully in the oven.). One person made them with Peanut M & M’s, another with Mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and another with chocolate chips in each little hole of the pretzel.

Oh my gosh, how about Rolo’s with pecan pieces and make them into Turtles! Or instead of M & M’s, use baby marshmallows, nuts or crushed candy canes. The mind boggles with ideas. Use your imagination!

BETCHA CAN’T EAT JUST ONE!

Nguyên liệu :

- Bơ : 150gr
- Đường xay : 200gr
- Trứng : 2 quả
- Bột : 220gr
- Gừng sợi : 50 – 100 gr
- Vừng : 200 gr (rang vàng)
- Bột nở : 10gr
- Vani : 3 ống

Cách làm :

- Bơ đường xay đánh trắng. Cho trứng vào đánh đều. Trộn tiếp bột, bột nở, gừng, vừng rang và vani.
- Để tủ lạnh cho hỗn hợp cứng lại.
- Nặn từng viên tròn nhỏ, xếp vào khay và nướng.

- Nhiệt độ 180 độ C, thời gian 15 phút.

Well this weekend was just horrible football wise, and I thought I’d perk myself up by making cookies. What I succeeded in doing was burning the index finger on my right hand and swearing bloody vengeance on my oven. Granted I was attempting two new things at once, one was to adapt a non-vegan sugar cookie recipe into a Christmasy Miracle of a cookie full of disgustingly bad for you goodness. My biggest mistake was not knowing what egg replacement would work best for cookies (for brownies I think everyone at my work can attest I’ve got it down pat). Also, this was my first time using my new oven. No little window and uneven heat. Joy.

Still, not a complete loss because I managed to figure it out and come up with a recipe for Key Lime cookies after surfing around VegWeb.com to see where I went wrong the first time. Yup. I started with chocolate and ended up with lime. Go figure.

KEY LIME COOKIES -

3 tablespoons extra firm silken tofu, mashed with a fork or pureed with
blender/processor
1/2 cup vegan butter
1 teaspoon lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 and 1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Cream margarine and sugar for about 5 minutes until fluffy.

Add mashed tofu and vanilla. Mix well.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture.

Roll out and cut into fun and funky shapes or make little balls and flatten them down onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for around 10 minutes in 350 degree oven.

VANILLA GLAZE -

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon plain soy milk
1 teaspoon canola oil
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Over low heat, warm soymilk, oil and vanilla.  Remove from heat and add powdered sugar.  If you need it thicker, add a bit more powdered sugar.  Pour glaze over cake or other dessert immediately.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

salam..

few designs of fancy cookies in individual packaging..

So it is coming up to Christmas and Liz and I to get in the spirit decided to make some gingerbread cookies!

We had recently bought some cool cookie cutter shapes and wanted to try  them out. There was mixed success. The shapes looked good, but we made the classic mistake of using salted butter. The cookies were disgusting, like drinking a ginger version of the ocean!

Anyway, I thought I would share the shapes. Enjoy

The animals before they hit the oven

The finished product

can anyone name all the animals?

This week-end, Val & I got into the Holiday spirit and made some gingerbread cookies. We had a little fun with random shapes, did the random generic Pac Man & ghost shaped cookies and also came up with this one which we were quite proud of.

This was my second attempt at gingerbread cookies and they weren’t that awesome; I’m a bit disappointed. It was a bit much work for how they turned out. We had a lot of fun making them anyways. I’ll spare you the pictures of Val stuffing himself with the leftover icing ’cause it ‘aint pretty! 

Well, another Thanksgiving has passed, and you know what that means: it’s time to start panicking because the Christmas season is upon us. Now I know what you’re thinking, and it’s not true: I LOVE Christmas. It’s my favorite day of the year. It’s just that the thirty days preceding it sometimes fill me with a rage and hatred usually reserved for Joe Lieberman and the idiots who cut me off on I83 because they’re yakking on their cell phones when they should be frickin’ driving – yeah, I’m talking about you, lady in the tan Ford Explorer with the “I Brake for Unicorns!” bumper sticker. Hang up and drive, damn you, or we’ll see just who’s mythological around here.

We’re pretty enthusiastic about Christmas at my house. We love it – the decorations, the food, the inflatable lawn statues of lovable Disney characters – all of it. As long as it glows in the dark and is wearing a Santa suit, we’re for it. We’re like a Norman Rockwell family with low standards.

Thanksgiving weekend is the start of my Christmas preparations. That’s when I do my baking and when I put up the exterior Christmas decorations. The success or failure of that weekend can determine whether the holiday season is going to be a relatively calm and happy period of peace on earth and good well to men or an increasingly desperate attempt to get caught up as the shopping days dwindle to a precious few.

This weekend hasn’t been bad so far. I spent Friday baking Stollen, which is German Christmas bread. My recipe is based upon one that my Grandmother used for years. It’s scrawled on a browning 3 x 5 index card and I suspect that she deliberately omitted certain important steps from that card to ensure that nobody could ever make it as good as she did. In my youth I spent many a nervous weekend in November in her kitchen being yelled at while kneading vatloads of Stollen dough to her exacting specifications, but mine just isn’t the same. She probably added some secret ingredient like kugel or the blood of a Protestant or something when I wasn’t looking.  

Saturday is cookie day. I made a bunch of German butter cookies, or “Buttergebackenes,” again from a partial recipe from Grandma. These are fairly simple cookies, consisting of several pounds of butter, flour, sugar, some lemon rind, and an old-fashioned leavening agent called cream of aluminum or carbonated ammonia or something. The Internets tells me that I can substitute baking soda (or is it baby powder?) for it and it’s true. My cookies came out pretty tasty. With luck we won’t eat ‘em all in the next couple of weeks.

You’ll note all of the “pounds” in the recipe. That’s because at the holidays German Grandmas think big. The recipe makes maybe a hundred-and-fifty cookies. But my grandmother had an old-fashioned manly oven, big enough to shove Handsel and Gretel in, while ours is small and finicky. I’ve found that the only way to successfully make cookies is to do ‘em one tray at a time, with about 10 cookies per tray. Each batch takes fifteen minutes, which means about 40 an hour, or four hours for the entire batch of buttergebackenes. This is followed by some Mexican Wedding cookies and some peanut butter cookies, and wham! – Saturday’s gone.

It shocks me just how exhausting making cookies can be. I have to rotate each tray half-way through the  baking process (every seven minutes), and even a couple of minutes too long in the oven can ruin a batch, so you really can’t do much except hang around the kitchen all day and try not to eat all of the previous tray’s output while waiting for the timer to “ding.” It’s enforced idleness, but by around hour six I’m a wreck, lurching around like Fred G. Sanford waiting for “the Big One.”

Sunday involves dragging exterior lights and decorations out of the hayloft. Then I plug in stuff and curse at it when it doesn’t work. This year the snowman is good (although it increasingly looks like a zombie snowman), as is the homemade light-up Christmas tree I carved out of plywood. Unfortunately, over the summer something rural chewed big holes in the inflatable Grinch and it’s beyond repair. Soon there will be a fun journey to Sears to pick up another one. And maybe a couple more reindeer for the herd. But they won’t go up until after Monday, which is the first day of hunting season. Even light-up robot reindeer aren’t safe around here on the first day of hunting season.

With the exterior done, the next big job is the Christmas Village. Don’t even get me started on that – at least until the next blog. In the meantime, ho, ho, ho and stuff. Have a cookie; we have plenty. (The peanut butter cookies taste GREAT with Scotch, in case you’re wondering.)

A few days ago, I made penuche bar cookies. They were very simple to make and have no fat other than the nuts although they taste very rich- the ingredients are eggs, brown sugar, pecans or walnuts, flour, and baking powder. In The Christmas Cookie Book, Pasley says that the cookies should not be judged by the flavor of the dough or by the taste of the cookie while it is still warm; wait to eat them until they are one day old. When I made the cookies, I accidentally used too deep of a pan and they came out thicker and more gooey than they should have been. Other than that, the flavor was pretty good and tasted like butterscotch to me. They will keep for up to a week. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

4 eggs

1 lb. brown suagar ( 2 1/4 cups)

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

Stir together eggs and sugar in the top of a double boiler and cook for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and str in the nuts. In a meduim-sized bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder, then add to the sugar/egg mixture. Spread in a well-greased shallow pan and bake for about 15 minutes at 375 degrees. When it is cool, cut into squares and dust with powdered sugar.

And soooo….how was everyones Thanksgiving? Mine was great….and I ended up making everything that I said I would! I didn’t bring my camera with me to dinner, but I did get a chance to photograph my pumpkin pie…

It was so delicious! Everyone loved it, it was so flavourful, satisfying, and no one knew it was vegan. Just so awesome. I’m making it for our christmas dinner too. I also had my roasted root veggies, roasted butternut, steamed asparagus, raw cauliflower and broccoli (decided against steaming…)…good stuff.

I’ve been lazy and haven’t made much from FFV. Even a lot of the stuff that I made I didn’t photograph (oops!). But I did photograph:

My mum and I wanted something nice and crunchy to go with our coffees, so I decided to make the Gingerbread Biscotti…they sounded so good…and they were! So yummy! For some reason, my biscotti didn’t flatten out….they kinda shrunk and puffed up instead of spreading a little. Oh well. They tasted great. And I only got 22 biscotti instead of 24 just because of the shirnkage :p

And tonight I wanted something chocolate-y…so I made her peppermint pudding (minus the peppermint…since we have no peppermint candy canes. Only nasty cherry flavoured ones. Yarg…) I had half of it warm and I’m saving the other half to have cold tomorrow. It was so yummy! I do lurves puddin’ 

I also made that salad with portobellos which was good…of course…aaaand I never got to the mac and cheese  I wish I would have. I’ll make it next week anyways…I really need to check out Bittersweet to see if I can find anything that I want to make…