The Reluctant Chef » Holiday

Holiday Baking

Kimberly Payne — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:55:59 +0000

This last weekend Sean and I headed over to Victoria to his mom’s house to celebrate an early Christmas with his family. With all of us going in different directions around Christmas we decided to celebrate early so that everyone could make it. We were all very happy to have Sean’s youngest brother fly over from Nelson to join us.

Other than my mother in laws famous rum ball we weren’t going to be exchanging gifts so I thought I would bake up some holiday treats to bring over with me. But in the interest of keeping them fresh I decided to get up early Saturday morning before we left and bake.

With only 3 1/2 hours available for baking, I could only get up so early, I got started on my mom’s brownies. These brownies are really amazing. They are quick and easy and the perfect base for just about any add ons. For today’s brownies I decided to add mint chocolates since my mother in law like mint chocolate as does my husband.

Once the brownies were in the oven I started working on the pumpkin biscotti, a recipe that I got from older sister. Having only made biscotti once before I wouldn’t say that I was confident about this. I mixed everything together and formed my dough and popped it in the oven.

The recipe said to cook it until it is firm in the middle, which I thought I knew what firm was until I started cutting up my biscotti. I didn’t want to over cook the biscotti so I pulled it out when apparently it wasn’t quite firm in the middle. I had a dilemma on my hands do I put the pieces back together and put it in the oven to cook a little more or do I move on to the next step and just hope that it finishes cooking.

In the interest of time I decided to move onto the next step and keep my fingers crossed that it would not be gooey. My finished biscotti were cooked but really lacked that crunch you would normally see in a biscotti. The taste was good and when dunked in some coffee or tea you wouldn’t know the difference.

Now on to the final recipe, peanut blossoms. These cookies are something that I have been making for as long as I can remember. They are one of my dad’s favourite cookies so I remember making them for him on various occasions over the years.

As was a theme in that morning I hit a snag when I realized I didn’t have any baking soda. Thanks to google I did a bit of research and found that if I added extra baking powder it should still work…

Unfortunately I was led astray by my information and ended up with some very flat cookies. But I have to say I wasn’t too upset because they tasted soooo good. That warm peanut butter cookie with a hershey kiss on top can’t be beat, they really are great cookies even if they were flat.

So after my marathon baking we hit the road with the cookies still on the cookie sheets hoping they would cool while on the ferry so I could package them up. Fast forward 2 hours and you find me in the back seat of my car, down the street from my mother in laws house, packaging everyones fresh baked goods.

No one would be the wiser

You may notice there is a lack of pictures, I was so busy baking I didn’t have time to stop and take any more pictures than the first one.

Mint Chocolate Brownies

Adapted from my Mom’s recipe

3/4 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3 eggs

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Chopped up mint chocolates

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix butter, sugar and vanilla. Add remaining ingredients. Put in an 8×8 pan and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Pumpkin Biscotti

Adapted from Simply Recipes

2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, ginger and cloves

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup of pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350

Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about ½ inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350ºF, until the center is firm to the touch. (Feel free to also form two smaller logs for cute two-bite biscotti; just cut the baking time to 18-24 minutes.)

Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300ºF and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.

Peanut Blossoms

1 3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup shortning

1/2 cup peanut butter

Hershey’s kisses

Preheat oven to 375.

Mix all ingredients in a bowl except the kisses and mix with electric mixer. Make balls of dough and bake 10-12 minutes.. Remove and place 1 hershey kiss in the center. Press down until edges crack. Let cool.

Daring Bakers November Challenge

Kimberly Payne — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:47:08 +0000

Nutmeg Cannoli with Eggnog Mousse

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

As the holiday’s roll around I find that I want to use holiday ‘ingredients’ as much as possible. Athought I know that nutmeg is a year round spice I find that when I use it I think of Thanksgiving and Christmas. The ingredient that is truly a holiday ingredient is eggnog something I knew I had to use for this months Daring Baker’s Challenge. Since this round of Daring Baker’s let us have much more creative control over the recipe I thought I would go for a free form cannoli with some mousse between the layers.

I started making my dough with the flavours just as I wanted them and then I went and added the wine. I wasn’t even thinking when I decided to use Shiraz wine which then turned the dough purple. Even with the coloured dough it still had a great taste and a different look than your average dough would.

Having never done deep frying I was a little hesitant about the whole process. I knew that the oil shouldn’t get too hot and I had to be really careful when putting in the cannoli dough. Other than that I wasn’t really sure what to expect. All I knew is that I didn’t want to have a frying accident and end up burned.

Thankfully my deep frying was a success and I was left with squares of cannoli in varying size. They really did turn out great and had a little added something with the shiraz in the dough. I have come to realize that as long as you are careful with the oil, deep frying is not as scary as it seems.

Now we come to the part of the recipe that seemed like a great idea in my head but turned out to not to work as I thought. Having never made mousse before I though it would be a great filling for my cannoli’s and why not make eggnog mousse.

I figured I could take a basic mousse recipe and just substitute the whipping cream for eggnog, thinking that the fat content would be close enough for it to still whip up. I was unfortunately wrong and was left with a bowl of eggnog, sugar, and an egg white that never made it to soft peaks. It was at this point that I had to improvise and create my own version of eggnog.

After a quick trip to the store for some whipping cream I was ready to make my eggnog, or atleast whipping cream flavoured like eggnog. I added a bit of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla and was left with a very close replica of eggnog.

Mousse is something I can check off the list now, because it really wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be. My whipped egg whites turned out much better this time than they did for my macaroons last month. It is always nice to be improving in my skills.

After assembling the ingredients and sprinkling with a little powdered sugar I was left with a successful version of stacked cannoli.

Cannoli Dough

Courtesy of Daring Baker’s November Challenge

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1/2 cup wine or any variety

1 large egg, seperated

4 cups oil

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer or food processor, combine the flour, sugar, nutmeg and salt. Stir in the oil, vinegar, and enough of the wine to make a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and well blended, about 2 minutes. Shape the dough into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the fridge from 2 hours to overnight.

Cut the dough into two pieces. Keep the remaining dough covered while you work. Lightly flour a large cutting or pastry board and roll the dough until super thin, about 1/16 to 1/8” thick (An area of about 13 inches by 18 inches should give you that).

Heat 2-inches of oil in a saucepan or deep sauté pan, to 350-375°F (176 – 190 °C).

Cut out desired shapes with cutters or a sharp knife. Deep fry until golden brown and blistered on each side, about 1 – 2 minutes. Remove from oil with wire skimmer or large slotted spoon, then place on paper towels or bags until dry and grease free. If they balloon up in the hot oil, dock them lightly prior to frying. Place on cooling rack until ready to stack with filling.

Eggnog Mousse

Adapted from Katy at Sugarlaws.com

1/4 teaspoon cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla

2/3 cup sugar

2 egg whites

1 cup heavy cream

Whip heavy cream with spices and 1/3 cup sugar until soft peaks form (err on the side of slightly overwhipped). Set aside. Next, in a medium mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add 1/3 cup sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

Fold together the whipped cream mixture and the egg mixtures (I folded the eggs into the whipped cream).

Holiday

Kimberly Payne — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:30:37 +0000

My wonderful husband and I are headed off on a 2 week holiday which means there will be no Reluctant Chef Blogs until after Labour Day. Although the blog will be on hold I am planning on taking lots of pictures of the amazing food I am having while in Jamaica. Make sure to check back September 8th for the full post of pictures.

Have a wonderful two weeks and I look forward to blogging up a storm when I get back.

Happy Cooking,

The Reluctant Chef