Archive for December, 2010
As soon as the oranges on my tree are ripe, I always set out to make a batch of Orange Cranberry Bread. It’s a simple quickbread recipe that includes fresh cranberries and lots of freshly squeezed orange juice. It’s relatively light in texture (and it also happens to be quite low in fat, so suitable for cutting into large slices!), but full of flavor from the bright oranges and juicy, tart cranberries. When baking a batch the other day, I realized that the recipe would also make very tasty muffins, as an alternative to a whole loaf.
The muffin recipe just about the same as the quick bread recipe, though it is divided up into muffin cups to bake. The fresh orange juice is really what makes this recipe so special, and while you can make it with storebought orange juice, I encourage you to pick up whole oranges to juice yourself. At the very least, include at least one orange so you can get some fresh zest from it to pump up the flavor in the muffins. You can use fresh or frozen cranberries, and I like to include some dried cranberries because they are a little bit sweeter than the fresh berries.
These muffins are delicious when they are still slightly warm and fragrant from the oven. The whole cranberries are nicely juicy, and a great contrast to the sweet, orange-y muffins. The muffins bake quite quickly, so be sure to test them with a toothpick for doneness early to ensure a moist muffin; they can dry out if left in the oven too long. They are delicious plain, or with a little bit of butter spread on them.
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Today is the last day to enter the 2010 Holiday Cookie Contest! There are lots of great entries in our Flickr pool, but there is plenty of room for more submissions before the deadline at midnight tonight, so get your entries in!
To enter, simply bake up a batch of gingerbread, decorate them and take a few photos of your favorites. Then, upload those pictures to the Gingerbread Cookie Contest Flickr Pool at http://www.flickr.com/groups/bbholidaycontest2010/ (flickr accounts are free, though you do have to sign up). You can submit multiple entries and any type of holiday-themed cutout cookie is eligible – after all, I don’t want to exclude anyone who would rather make butter cookies or sugar cookies the base for their holiday baking! If you bake your own cookies and the recipe is online (or on your blog), link back to the recipe in the comments of your submission so others can try it out.
There will be three winners: one Grand Prize and one runner-up prize, both great gift packs of baking related stuff that I put together (including The Baking Bites Cookbook and lots of other goodies!)! These winners will be chosen by an anonymous panel of judges, looking for creativity and not just for who has the best camera. The third winner will be chosen at random to give everyone a chance to win something, even if you feel your decorating skills aren’t quite where you’d like them to me. All submissions must be in by December 23rd at midnight, which gives you plenty of time for baking – so get going!
For a little inspiration, try out my recipe for gingerbread men – or any of my other cutout cookie recipes. I’ll fudge the rules if you want to enter sugar cookies, butter cookies or other cutouts!
Adding sprinkles seems like an easy way to decorate a batch of butter cookies or other relatively plain-looking cookies for holiday or some other festive occasion. They’re bright, colorful and, unlike frostings and glazes, need no prep time. But sprinkles can come with their own problems because they don’t always end up where you want them to be; frequently, when you’re applying sprinkles, you end up with more on the baking sheet than you do on the cookies themselves! Sprinkles have a hard time sticking to dough that isn’t tacky enough. For instance, when cookie dough is rolled out on a lightly floured surface, it picks up some flour so that it isn’t sticky and can be handled easily – and that same flour will prevent sprinkles from sticking to the cookies.
There are a couple of simple things that you can do to help those sprinkles stick. The easiest thing to do is to brush the tops of the cookies with a little bit of water or milk, using just enough to dampen the cookie dough and no more. This will help the sprinkles stick and won’t change the finished appearance of the cookie when you’re done baking. You can also brush the cookies with a little bit of egg white, which will provide some adhesive, but will also make the cookies appear a bit darker and shinier. Take a sheet of notebook paper and fold it in half. As for technique, pour the sprinkles down the “channel” to direct them onto the cookies, rather than shaking the container of sprinkles all over the baking sheet to eliminate the mess and waste usually associated with sprinkle-ing cookies.
Finally, if you’re using big, round sprinkles, you’re going to need to press in the sprinkles when you apply them. Large nonpareils, for instance, need to be “anchored” into the cookie dough, or they simply won’t stay put on the trip from the countertop to the oven.
Cutout cookies are always fun to make for the holidays. Not only do they look great when they’re finished, but they’re something that everybody can participate in making – kids and adults alike. I’ve even been to a Christmas cookie party, where the host baked up dozens of cookies, mixed up lots of icing and we all decorated our own (before eating them, of course!).
These cutout cookies have a little bit more of a holiday twist than your average recipe because there is eggnog in the cookie dough. The eggnog lends a slightly eggy/custardy flavor to the cookies, which have a good vanilla flavor to begin with. While I would usually include nutmeg in anything eggnog flavored – or eggnog itself, for that matter – I omitted it from these cookies because the coarse pieces of freshly ground nutmeg don’t look particularly attractive in the finished cookies (it looks almost like you put pepper in the cookies by mistake!). The overall eggnog flavor in the cookies is relatively subtle, but I played it up a bit substituting the milk I would ordinarily use in the frosting recipe for eggnog.
The finished cookies are sweet and soft. They hold their shape well, so they’re suitable for use with all kinds of cookie cutters, and they’re sturdy enough to decorate easily without breaking. They will keep well for a couple of days when stored in an airtight container, although if you do make them in advance be sure to let the frosting set before you store them. Alternatively, you could bake up and store the undecorated cookies the day before your family and friends come over, then have a cookie decorating party of your own – maybe with glasses of eggnog served alongside the cookies.
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- What better way to combine two of the tastiest flavors of the holiday season than to put them in a batch of muffins? Photo a Day baked some Eggnog Cranberry Muffins. The muffins are made with eggnog and fresh cranberries, and they’re topped off with a simple cinnamon streusel topping. The recipe comes together easily and this is the kind of thing that makes a perfect addition to a Christmas morning cup of coffee or a family holiday brunch.
- Mexican wedding cookies are defined by their tender texture and buttery, nutty flavor. They are great cookies when they’re served plain, but they’re very easy to introduce new flavors to for a little variety in your cookies, too. Mehan’s Kitchen made some Chai Mexican Wedding Cookies by spicing up a classic, almond and pecan-laden version of the basic cookie with a mixture of ginger, cloves and cardamom. The result is a cookie that hints at the flavors of chai tea – and might very well be the perfect match for a cuppa when you’re in need of a midafternoon snack.
- Luna Cafe really wants you to make Gingerbread Fudge for the holidays. It’s sweet, creamy, spicy and is not only perfect for snacking, but perfect for giving away as a homemade gift. There are two recipes associated with this post that make it easy for anyone to make this fudge. The first is a traditional fudge, made by cooking sugar on the stovetop. The second is a much simpler, but no less tasty, marshmallow cream-based fudge that comes together in just a few minutes. Try one or make both. You can’t go wrong here!
- Another gingerbread creation is Love and Olive Oil‘s Gingerbread Stout Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream. These cupcakes are flavored with stout beer, molasses, brown sugar and all kinds of spices, so they really pack a flavor punch. They are rich tasting and tender, and surprisingly, don’t contain any dairy or eggs, which makes them a good choice for many people who avoid them. The cupcakes are topped with an airy, buttery white chocolate buttercream that is a great contrast to the cupcakes both in color and as a way to add sweetness to a dark and spicy cake.
- For a spicy cookie that doesn’t make it all the way to a gingerbread level of spiciness, try the Cinnamon Bark Cookies from Sprinkled With Flour. These gently spiced cookies have a good flavor of chocolate and cinnamon. They have a very elegant look because the thin, buttery cookies are tinted with brown food coloring and rolled into thin cylinders, giving them a look that is very similar to that of whole stick cinnamon bark – hence the name of the cookies. The rolling technique takes a bit of practice, but the finished cookies taste just as good as they look.
