Archive for December, 2011
- Many people debate the merits of a real Christmas tree over an artificial Christmas tree (I’m a real tree person, myself), but I don’t often hear people mention an edible Christmas tree. Teaspoon SF made a wonderfully festive Cupcake Christmas Tree to celebrate the holidays. The tree is adorned with green-frosted cupcakes that give it its color and studded with gold and red-wrapped chocolate candies that stand in for ornaments. A styrofoam cone provides the base for the structure, and when it is all put together, it is one tree that everyone can agree on – and enjoy!
- Homemade eggnog is definitely part of my holiday tradition, both traditional uncooked eggnog and creamy cooked varieties. I’ve never tried a chocolate ‘nog before and LA Fuji Mama’s Chocolate Egg Nog sounds like a delicious variation on this holiday classic. The drink replaces part of the milk in standard egg nog with some strongly flavored hot chocolate. The resulting drink has a hint of cocoa, a more subtle egg flavor and a lot of holiday spirit. It also might appeal to more people who like the idea of eggnog, but aren’t big fans of the more traditional recipes.
- The Peppermint Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake from Beantown Baker is a showstopping dessert. A classic cheesecake is studded with cubes of homemade brownies that give each slice a good dose of chocolate and a stunning mosaic look. As if the brownies didn’t add enough chocolate, this cheesecake also has a chocolate crumb crust and is topped with a shiny layer of chocolate peppermint ganache that hides the cheesecake’s fun design until it is sliced.
- Fruitcake may take the brunt of some holiday jokes, but a good fruitcake can actually be quite tasty. It will be even tastier if there is a little chocolate involved. Spoons n’ Spades shares a recipe for Chocolate Fruitcake that might change your mind about this particular holiday dessert. The moist cake is loaded with dates, raisins and dried cranberries and is seasoned with coffee liqueur, orange zest, cocoa powder, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and honey. Like most fruitcakes, there is a thin batter that holds all of the filling elements together. It’s rich, complex and definitely not your average fruitcake.
Red velvet cupcakes are one of the most festive treats you can make around the holidays. It’s not because red velvet is a holiday flavor, but because the vibrant red cake topped with snowy white icing looks perfect for winter. And a red velvet cupcake can be even more seasonal if you give it a little boost of holiday flavor by turning plain cupcakes into Eggnog Red Velvet Cupcakes.
Traditional red velvet cake is made with buttermilk and has a slight hint of cocoa flavor to it, as well as a fairly generous amount of red food coloring. This Christmas rendition uses prepared eggnog in place of the buttermilk, includes freshly ground nutmeg and extra vanilla. They are soft and very moist, with a light, tender crumb. You can taste the faintest hint of cocoa, but the nutmeg and vanilla that really define eggnog are what stand out here.
Cream cheese frosting is usually used to top red velvet cakes and that is no exception here. This cream cheese frosting is flavored with nutmeg and vanilla, tying it in with the flavors in cupcake. The frosting can be spread on top of the cupcakes or piped on using a piping bag if you want to create some decorative swirls.
I actually don’t recommend spiking these cupcakes with rum or rum extract because it hides some of the red velvet and eggnog nuances of the cake. If you want to incorporate a little rum, add a tablespoon or so into the frosting in place of one tablespoon of the milk, that way you get a kick without compromising the eggnog flavor of the cupcakes.
These are always a big hit when they’re put out – and an even bigger one when people take their first bites. Whether you’re serving kids or adults, these are definitely a treat to put on the “must make” list for your next holiday party.
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There are plenty of ways to decorate cookies. They can be shaped and sliced, rolled and cut with cookie cutters, topped with sprinkles or spread with frosting. Cookies can also be stamped with designs, and the Holiday Cookie Stamps from Williams Sonoma are a fun way to decorate cookies for the holidays. The stamps are made of cast aluminum (produced by Nordic Ware) and feature three different festive designs: a snowflake, a gift tag and a wreath. They stamps have very clear designs with a lot of detail, and there are smooth wooden handles on each stamp to make them easy to hold and use. Essentially, all you need to do is push the stamp down onto a ball of cookie dough and your holiday cookie is ready to bake.
The stamps performed very, very well and my cookies came out looking just like the cookies on the box. You could see every detail clearly, including the text that was printed on the cookies! The dough for must cutout cookies needs to be chilled before you roll it out. The dough for these does not need to be as cold (it’s easier to press the cookies the closer the dough is to room temperature). I do recommend chilling whatever dough you’re working with at least slightly, however, as dough that was too-warm did occasionally stick to the stamp. These will stay in my holiday toolbox and I might even keep an eye out for other holiday designs throughout the year.
The stamps are fun to use and the results are great. Choose a shortbread or butter cookie recipe that won’t spread much, such as my Classic Cutout Christmas Cookies, to get the cleanest results from the stamp. Also, be sure to clean the stamps extremely well with soap and water before you use them, as the cast aluminum can leave a little bit of residue/discoloring on the dough if they haven’t been thoroughly washed before use.
There are many kinds of cut-out cookie doughs that you can choose from when you’re setting out to make some festively decorated cookies for Christmas or another holiday occasion. Chocolate doughs, vanilla doughs, gingerbread doughs – you really can’t go wrong with any of them. Some doughs are much easier to work with than others, however, and that is what makes these Classic Christmas Cutout Cookies one of my go-to recipes when I want to bake and decorate cut-out cookies for the holidays!
The cookie dough is firm and very easy to work with. In fact, you don’t need much more than a sprinkling of flour on your work surface when rolling out the chilled cookie dough because it is not very sticky. Since you don’t need much flour to roll out the dough, this also means that you can reroll your scraps once or twice more than most other doughs, as it will not toughen up very much. The finished cookies are buttery and crisp, without being hard, and have a strong note of vanilla to them. They only brown slightly in the oven, leaving you with a very even surface for decorating and a dough that can handle cookie cutters that have a lot of detail to them.
There are many options for decorating these cookies. The dough is not too sweet, so you can load up the cookies with sprinkles if you want to make them easy and colorful. You can also top it with a smear of cream cheese or buttercream icing (not my preference, but a favorite of many kids). I typically make a simple, but thick, confectioners’ sugar glaze and pipe it onto the cookies in a very fine piping bag, making both simple and complex designs. It is easy to make, dries hard and adds just a hint of extra sweetness.
This dough can be made a couple of days ahead of time and stored in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. The baking time will vary slightly depending on how thick you roll out your dough: roll to 1/8-inch for crisper cookies and 1/4-inch for slightly softer ones.
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Photographs are always a great thing to include in cookbooks. Not only are food photos fun to look at when you’re flipping through the pages, but they’re helpful when putting together recipes so you know how each of the components of a dessert should look. Most cookbooks don’t show you the steps in between the dry ingredients and the finished product, but Illustrated Step-by-Step Baking does and that will make this book appealing both to new bakers who want some guidance when working through a recipe and experienced bakers who like to see a lot of visuals when they work.
Every single recipe in this book is illustrated with step-by-step photos that show every piece of the process in mixing that dough or constructing that layer cake. The photos are, of course, accompanied by the written instructions for the recipes, but they capture a lot of detail and are really going to help anyone who prefers visual learning as opposed to just reading a recipe. In fact, the photos can actually be inspiring because they are very straightforward in how they present the food and that makes the process look easy and accessible, even for a recipe with multiple steps. The recipes include all kinds of cakes, cookies, mousses, pies, tarts and breads.
This book gives the weights for all of the recipes and you will get the best results if you weigh your ingredients. It’s a good excuse to buy and start using a kitchen scale, if you don’t already have one, because recipes become almost foolproof when you weigh them out, as the guesswork of “did I pack enough sugar in there” is eliminated. The photos of the finished dishes in the book are enticing and this book is large enough that you won’t run out of recipes you want to make for a very long time.
