No words today folks, just more Christmas baking!
Eggnog Shortbread
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp rum extract
3/4-1 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1. Cream butter until fluffy, beat in sugar and rum extract.
2. Mix flour, nutmeg and salt in small bowl.
3. Beat into butter a little at a time.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4″ thickness (flour the rolling pin too, this dough is very sticky!).
5. Cut into whatever shapes you like, place 1″ apart on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and refrigerate for 10 minutes (to avoid spreading).
6. Bake in 325°F oven for about 15 minutes, or until just the bottoms start to turn a golden brown. You don’t want too much colour…well, if you are my husband, you will put them in for 20 minutes or more until they are brown and crispy. Apparently they’re better that way.
7. *Optional* Melt 1 cup of white chocolate dipping wafers in a double boiler. Dip half of completely cooled cookies in chocolate and lay on wax paper to set.
Mocha Candy Cane Cake Balls
1 cup sugar
scant 1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup hot coffee (or 1 Tbsp instant coffee in 1/2 cup hot water)
Chocolate Frosting
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cups icing sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa
2Tbsp heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
Coating
1 cup dark chocolate chips
2 Tbsp butter
3 candy canes, crushed
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9″ round baking pan.
2. Stir dry ingredients together. Add egg, milk, butter and vanilla and mix until completely incorporated.
3. Pour in coffee and mix again.
4. Pour into pan and bake for 30-40 minutes.
5. When done, allow to cool almost completely. How you remove it from the pan doesn’t matter, because we are going to smash it up anyway.
6. Smash it up! Make into fine crumbs in a large bowl.
7. Make chocolate frosting:
- Beat butter until fluffy, add icing sugar and mix completely.
- Add cocoa, cream and vanilla and beat until completely incorporated.
8. Mix frosting and cake crumbs together until it is completely mixed together. Should be like wet, sticky batter.
9. Form balls about 1/2″ in diameter. Place on waxed paper lined cookie sheets.
10. Place in freezer for 10 minutes, to harden.
11. Meanwhile, melt 1 cup of dark chocolate chips in top of double boiler. Add 2 Tbsp butter. Keep warm while dipping balls.
12. Dip balls using two spoons to knock off excess chocolate and return to wax paper.Sprinkle tops with crushed candy canes.
13. When done, place in refrigerator to harden.
Unfortunately, none of my pictures turned out for the cake balls, except this one. Sorry! They were absolutely delicious though!
I packed everything up, added some ice packs, and shipped them off to their destinations. Here’s hoping they got there in one piece!
Well, here it is! I’ve been talking it up, but I finally got it all finished. Loads of time left to ship it all out to locations across the nation. I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed or not, but it took me 9 hours to fluff, fold, mix, spread, refrigerate, roll out, dip and package all these cookies. I’m not sure if Christmas baking really is all that easier than heading out to overcrowded malls during the seasonal crush. Maybe it would have been easier just to max out my credit cards like everyone else. Perhaps, next year, I will just make marshmallows and package up some homemade hot chocolate for gifts. There really was a lot of thought and effort put into these baked goods and I truly hope everyone likes them as much as I do.
Also, I just want all the family to know that I didn’t get to have any left for myself either, except for a few eggnog shortbread cookies. I know, boo hoo. Oh well, next year I will double the recipes!
Today I will feature my Molasses spice or chewy gingerbread cookies. They are a favourite of mine, and I hope they can become one of yours too. It’s taken me a few years to perfect the right amount of chocolate and spices, but I think I nailed it this time. Come back in a day or two for the Eggnog Shortbread and Mocha Candy Cane Cake Balls.
Chewy Gingerbread Cookies
yield: 2-3 dozen
3 cups all purpose flour
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 Tbsp of boiling water
1/3 cup sugar
1. Sift flour, cocoa and spices into large bowl.
2. In bowl of electric mixer (with whisk attachment), add butter and brown sugar. Beat until fluffy.
3. Slowly add in molasses, and continue to beat until incorporated.
4. In batches, beat in flour, alternating with baking soda/water mix.
5. Shape dough into large disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 325°F.
7. Shape dough into small balls (1/2″ to 1″). Place 2 inches apart on baking sheet lined in parchment paper.
8. Refrigerate 10-15 minutes.
9. Roll balls in 1/4 cup sugar, flatten with palms slightly and bake for 12-15 minutes.
10. Let cool for a few minutes on cookie sheet, then transfer to cooling rack. Cool completely before eating.
Look! Your house can look this good too after 9 hours of baking!
Has anyone ever done something amazingly nice for you, totally out of the blue, that you weren’t expecting? That’s what happened to me this past Friday night. I was hanging out with some girlfriends at a friend’s house, cooking up a big pan of my amazing lasagna (recipe to come eventually), when my husband called. He said a our friends had come by, dropped off a steaming container of freshly made soup and a small bag of fresh baked Parmesan Sesame Twists. I was blown away. These are the same friends who we occasionally have dinner with, which you can read about here. She had read, right here on Guilty Kitchen, that this pregnancy has got me down, energy wise. First pregnancies are great for complaining to your unknowing spouse about being dreadfully tired, but there’s no one there to complain to when you are home alone all day with one (or in my case two) toddlers running around. Chasing a toddler, creating baked goods for Christmas, decorating, tending a fire, and still finding time to write posts during the day is becoming a somewhat daunting tasks.
It is so easy to fall back on the old standbys for dinner. A salad here, pizza there, a quick soup, but soon there is no material left to write about. Well, in swoops Nancy, an angel in my own circle of friends. Not only did her and her husband, Jay, create a soup and accompanying bread products to go with it, they documented the whole process on CD and sent that along too! I could not believe my eyes when I got home. What an amazingly thoughtful thing to do! I’m sure they had fun doing it, as it is a process that can be quite thrilling sometimes, but I am still in awe of the gesture.
So here it is folks, I hope you enjoy their hard work as much as my family has!
Black Bean Soup with Hot Italian Sausage and Spinach
Adapted from Six O’clock Solutions (The Vancouver Sun)
1 tbsp olive oil
3/4 pound hot Italian sausage, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine
1 540ml can tomatoes with juice, chopped coarse
1.5 cups chicken stock
1 can (398ml) black beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, chopped and drained
1 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 bunch spinach, chopped coarse
Salt & Pepper
1. In a large heavy saucepan, heat oil over medium high heat. Add sausages and sauté for 5 minutes or until cooked. Remove sausages and set aside.
2. In same saucepan, add onion and garlic. Sauté 3 minutes or until tender.
3. Stir in tomatoes, stock, beans, sun-dried tomatoes, oregano, thyme, and sausages; bring to a boil.
4. Add spinach and cook for about 1 minute or until wilted.
5. Season with salt & pepper to taste.
Parmesan Sesame Twists
Adapted from Appetizers (the Best of Fine Cooking)
2/3 cup Parmesan, finely grated
1/4 cup sesame seeds, lightly toasted
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme leaves, crumbled
Kosher salt
2 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, beaten with a few drops water and a pinch of salt
1. Preheat oven to 425°F. In a small bowl, mix Parmesan, sesame seeds, cayenne, chili powder, thyme, and 1/2 tsp of salt.
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll one of the pastry sheets into a 10″ by 14″ rectangle. Brush evenly with the egg wash and cut in half lengthwise to make two 5″ by 14″ inch strips.
3. Sprinkle half of the cheese filling over one strip and lay the second strip on top, egg wash side down. Press the strips together with the rolling pin to fuse the two sheets together.
4. Cut the strip crosswise into 28 strips that are about 1/2 inch wide.
5. Lift a strip, twist it three times, and lay it on an ungreased baking sheet, pressing each end to keep them from unwinding during the baking process. Repeat with the second pastry sheet and the remaining filling.
6. Bake the twists until they’re puffed, light brown, and dry looking throughout, about 12 to 14 minutes.
7. Let the twists cool on a rack and serve as soon as they’re cool enough.
8. Best eaten within a couple of hours if possible or freeze, defrost and reheat in 350°F oven for 3 minutes.
This meal was given in the true nature of this time of year, and I can’t stress enough that things like these will always be better than any present you could give. Well, except maybe diamonds…
Just remember, the next time your in that mall, stressing about making sure you bought the right gift that maybe it’s really a lot simpler than you thought.
Popcorn. Lovely, buttery, crunchy, melt in your mouth, popcorn. I could eat it everyday. Sadly, my thighs might begin to hate me, should I feed “the baby” popcorn everyday. There is much to say and bicker over when it comes to the creation of the perfect popped kernel. Some things to think about:
What kind of kernel? White, yellow, blue, heritage, on the cob?
How should I heat it? In a pot with oil, in an air popper, in the *shudder* microwave?
What toppings are best? Butter, salt, truffle oil, nutritional yeast, grated cheeses, sugar, spices, herbs, oil, pepper, so many choices!
So here is my take. Popcorn is very personal. Some people are content to pop a bag of store bought microwave popcorn with hellish “flavourings” into the microwave and wait 3.5 minutes for heaven. I’m too scared of the dreaded “popcorn lung”. It may take a few hundred bags, but the sheer fact that it can happen has scared me away from ever buying it again. When camping, Jiffy Pop is a great alternative to the oil drenched popcorn in a pot trick. Quick and entertaining, the bag expands right before your eyes! You can flavour it however you like.
I used to make popcorn in a pot with lots of oil (a la Alton Brown), but I always had a distatse for the way the popcorn remains somewhat chewy. Maybe I wasn’t heating it hot enough, fast enough, but then my husband came along.
His method of air popping and his patented buttering technique have me smitten. This time of year, when the snow is falling (or not) and there is a chill outside, it’s nice to come home to your sweetheart (and or children) and snuggle up on the couch, throw on a DVD and make a big bowl of popcorn for everyone to share. One of my favourite things to do has to be curling up on the couch and watching my little boy’s eyes light up when the bowl makes it over to the living room. Eyes wide, hands plunging into the bowl, he is in toddler heaven! It’s a rare moment of quiet and I treasure every second of it. So let me share my husband’s perfected popcorn popping method. (Sorry all you pot poppers, but this is an air popping technique!)
Perfect Every Time Popcorn
You will need:
Air popper
1/4 cup Popcorn kernels
1/4 cup Butter
Salt
A large bowl
Napkins
1. Heat your air popper without anything in it, for about 2 minutes. This ensures the metal inside is warm and ready to go when you add the popcorn.
2. Heat 1/4 cup of butter until melted. In bottom of receptacle bowl, pour in a Tbsp or so and add a sprinkle of salt. This ensures that even the popcorn on the bottom gets a little flavour too.
3. Add kernels to heated air popper and allow kernels to pop completely. Do not unplug machine until all kernels have finished popping.
4. Using a teaspoon, sprinkle butter over popcorn as it pops. Add salt if desired and continue to do so until all kernels are popped. Toss bowl, add remaining butter and salt.
5. Enjoy with your favourite people!
Well, I finally had to do it. I had to add watermarks to my pictures. Why? Rampant theft and violations of clearly stated copyrights. It’s sad isn’t it? I’ve found people taking credit for my recipes from Tokyo to Russia and everywhere in between. The worst is finding my recipe AND the accompanying pictures being displayed under someone else’s name. Now, at first I shrugged it off as part of being an online presence, but then it started to really bother me. I mean, I work hard at creating these recipes and I work even harder on taking good pictures and then spending valuable time editing them. It’s only fair that my name is glued to them permanently. So now I am going to literally plaster my name all over them..although I’m still working on how it looks. What do you think? Personally, I’m not really a big fan of watermarks. Although sometimes they add an air of professionalism, mostly they can take away from an otherwsie beautiful food shot. I hope you won’t mind too much! As for the recipes, I will just have to continue scouring the internet for people stealing recipes without accreditation.
As for this recipe, I hope you love it! I am a huge seafood fan, as you may have noticed. I especially love when I can dip it. Prawn cocktails, popcorn shrimp, fish and chips, sushi, tuna steaks, etc. are all dippable! Sadly, the crab in this recipe is canned, but if you have access to fresh, I would take that any day. Although Dungeness crab (the main staple here) is available all year round, the peak is from May to October, and it’s not usually so budget friendly. In summer, when we can walk the harbour piers ourselves and buy the crab fresh off the back of a boat, then I will make these again. Always use what’s seasonal as it usually tastes a lot better than when it’s been harvested out of season. Canned is not comparable to fresh, but in a pinch (and in a recipe like this) it’s hard to tell the difference.
My husband complained that these weren’t “firm” enough for him. If that is an issue for you, reduce the mayo and increase the bread crumbs until you achieve a consistency more to your liking.
Crab & Shrimp Cakes with Lemon Aioli
120g Crab meat (preferably leg meat)
150g shrimp
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp thyme (dried or 1 tsp fresh)
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 egg
1/3 cup light mayonnaise
3/4 cup bread crumbs (panko works great)
1. Mix all ingredients in small bowl.
2. To prepare: Heat sauté pan to med/high and add a small amount of butter (1/2 Tbsp). Form cakes and set in hot pan. Fry for 4-5 minutes fer side or until golden brown and cooked through.
3. Serve with Lemon Aioli (Recipe follows).
Lemon Aioli
1/2- 1/3 cup light mayonnaise
zest from half a lemon
juice from half a lemon
salt and pepper to taste
1. Mix all ingredients in small bowl and allow to sit in refrigerator for 30 minutes prior to serving.
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