“Children ask better questions than adults. “May I have a cookie?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What does a cow say?” are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than “Where’s your manuscript?” Why haven’t you called?” and “Who’s your lawyer?“” Fran Lebowitz
“Can I have another squaaaaaaare pleeeeeeease?” You know the cookies are good if that’s what you hear literally reverberating through the house; even better if it’s the call from the dieting diva square after square! These were indeed GOOD …Dark Chocolate Caramel Oat & Almond Shortbread cookies!
There’s something about December, and something about cookies that make me want to bake; bake all the time actually even though power cuts continue to play spoilsport. Baking around silly powerless situations means more cookies since there are fewer chances of them ‘deflating‘ {unlike cakes} when the lights go off!
The wookies were fabulous for fast track ‘faux baking‘. This shortbread is too, non traditional as it may be. You can’t go wrong with shortbread, caramel and dark chocolate, can you? A combination inspired from many shortbread posts, especially this Chocolate Caramel Slice from Nash @ Plateful, and a ‘Month of shortbread baking‘ from Julia @ ‘Mélanger :: to mix’.
This is the season of holiday baking, and only good could come out of such delicious inspiration. GOOD DELICIOUS COOKIES! Winter is the only indulgent time of the year here when shortbread feels ‘guilt-less; you need the butter to keep you warm after all. Warm weather the rest of the year makes the crumb not keep together nice and crisp! For the record, this isn’t true shortbread; the traditional version doesn’t venture away from a 8:4:2 classic combination of flour, butter and sugar… and a dash of salt perhaps.
I had on hand hungry kids, butter and a ‘want to bake’ feeling; also a loose bottomed square tin that I had recently bought and was impatient to use. That resulted in … Oats + Almonds + Flour + Butter + Brown Sugar = Crisp shortbread base.
… to which was added some salted butter caramel {adapted from Jamies sweet blog}, the top smothered in deep, luscious, dark melted chocolate; then briefly left to set! Simple as can be. Next with my Ergo chef knife, the slab was cut into squares {you can do bars/rectangles…whatever grabs your fancy}. YUM! ENJOY!
“Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.”
Jim Davis
India is pretty much pumpkin country, the yellow and rather mellow squash that you will find around every nook and corner all year through, a vegetable I looked at rather disdainfully until I made my first Praline Pumpkin Pie 2 years ago. The lad nudges me this time every year to remind me he l♥ves it! This one is for him – a Perfect Pumpkin Pie.Mentally conditioned by food blogs, lovely pumpkin posts painting the net in a orange hue, I eagerly await fall. It makes me look at the pumpkin in wonder, a rather underestimated veggie, yet one that holds a lot of promise. The beautiful flavour of the pumpkin soup I shared with Jamie in London holds a special connect. It was the company, the atmosphere, the euphoria of that first time we all met. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the humble pumpkin got an even more elevated status in my life!I made soup last year, and for some silly reason it never got blogged. This pumpkin pie is the result of inspiration out of the blue. I saw a mail in my inbox saying ‘If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it?‘ … and I thought, hmmm, I wonder!An extra 2 hours for the obsessed baker in me is like an impossible dream. My life seems to run choc-a-bloc morning to night, balancing the fine act of racing through laundry, trying to feed a blog, a brood, a pooch, snatching a few harassed moments to take photographs while the dog is now tall enough to get to table tops {… CUTE as a button too}, grocery {sigh}…and then emails of course!That thought stayed in my mind while I ran the laundry that morning, and teased me while I went to the vegetable vendor, our fabulous sabziwala. Someone was buying pumpkin and the fellow cut a nice bright one for her. That was my cue!Give me 2 extra hours and watch me bake with joy, bake something to fill home with autumnal aromas, pumpkin gently roasting {of course you can buy it canned as well in the rest of the world, but we know no luxuriesof the sort in India!}. Much from scratch with this too, I have never had tomatoes or pumpkin out of a can here. I have read though that fresh roasted pumpkin beats the canned one hands down. Got an extra hour?Roast some!
I always have tins of condensed milk on hand after having indulged in this absolutely addictive Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream from Perfect Scoop. You need less than an hour to make it, need resolve to keep away from the freezer, and finally 10 minutes to polish it off. But if you can grab those two extra hours, then I recommend you head for pie! The verdict was delicious! The terrible teen screwed up her nose and said “Ewwwwwww …. pumpkin!!,” and then predictably went on to ravenously demolish the slice, and ask for another. There was something about it!! The boy lapped it up … it was his on request after all!!This is a pie right for fall. The filling … silky, smooth and spicy! The crust just right, not too crisp, yet offers a handsome bite, gently teasing the palette with beautiful pistachio flavours and a pleasing texture. I wish I could offer you a slice…it was that good, and it went FAST!
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And since I had so much extra time, I shot some pictures of out CUTE Coco … she was ‘all eyes’!! Oh to have those extra two hours more often!
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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
“The Sky is the daily bread of the imagination.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hello there. It’s time for the Daring Bakers to strut their bakes! {Before you panic that I’m posting the challenge early, because of the holidays you can post any time between December 23 through December 27, 2010}. This is the most exciting Daring Bakers month of the year, amonth where I eagerly await a Christmas bake. My first year with the DB’s had a Yule Log hosted by the talented duo – Hilda of Saffron & BlueBerry and Marion of Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. That was quite the mother of all challenges. I still have a picture in my mind of the beautiful logHilda presented that year. Gorgeous! Last year was Gingerbread Houses … and I loved it so. Such a canvas for creativity and so many special houses. This year has been wonderful too …
The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book………and Martha Stewart’s demonstration.
I stole the stollen and made pudding! This time around, we were enticed by the sweet Penny from Sweet Sadie’s Baking to make Christmas Stollen. Stollen is a bread-like fruitcake made with yeast, water and flour, and usually with zest added to the dough. Candied orange peel and candied citrus is often also added. Over the centuries, the cake changed from being a simple, fairly tasteless “bread” to a sweeter cake with richer ingredients.The recipe is a combination of recipes put together by Penny, and includes a bit of a recipe from her German friend who bakes Stollen every year, from a Peter Reinhart recipe, and the wreath concept from Martha Stewart. I was tempted to bake my Christmas Stollen {Dresden Stollen} that I made last year. It had quark as an ingredient, and was certainly the best Christmas bread we’ve had to date. I hope to make it once again this winter, hopefully in January. In a last minute daring change of mind and spirit, I decided to go with Daring Bakers recipe. Am I glad I did! It’s always a challenge and an adventure to try a new recipe, something that holds intrigue and a surprise in the end. That said, once baked, the stollen was H U G E. It was like a football field … don’t know why I said that, but that was precisely the thought racing through my head. Whatever would I do with so much stollen? Should have listened to my head, not my heart, and made half the recipe! Then again, we had a few slices of warm stollen each.Mmmm…wonderful warm straight from the oven.The crumb was soft and well risen, quite delicious. Next morning, I sliced up some more. Toasted it for breakfast. Slathered with slightly salted butter, it was luxury in every bite. For once too much was too good, and the morning seemed very delicious. I still had a lot to mull over though. Still so much stollen left… after all 770gms makes a lot. I had to put it to more creative use. Contemplated freezing some, but then had a better idea. Bread pudding! STOLLEN PUDDING! Yes, that was a good idea. If brioche could make a fab bread pudding, then stollen couldn’t be far behind. I began with adding a scraped vanilla bean to 2 cups of milk, simmered it, and then thought some low fat cream might make it better. So in went cream, simmered again. Left it awhile for the vanilla flavours to mingle…mmm … this was beginning to feel like fun.Pastry creams, custards, pot de cremes … all need eggs to set, and my pud was going to be no different. Milk, cream, sugar, eggs…and of course, vanilla bean! The sugar and the eggs, yolks & are all whisked immediately; if you don’t then the yolk gets stringy and lumpy…beware! The recipe is much like a pastry cream. Warm simmered vanilla milk poured over the yolk mixture, whisked and then strained over the sliced bread, dressed with dried tart cherries {I do love those}, and slivered almonds. Into the oven it went, in a bain marie. The aromas were enticing. I was like an expectant father, pacing the ground outside my oven to see if it would work, and my pud would set!Get set it did! YAY! If you daring kinda folk, like me, made a HUGE stollen, then you MUST try this pudding. WE LOVED IT!! The dried tart cherries, the now roasted slivered almonds, the wonderful vanilla flavours … a sifting of sugar later. It was ever so good, just perfect for a cold winter day. Another great satisfying dessert, another favourite added to my list. I still have a hunk of stollen saved up, and I have an idea for that too. Though I still do prefer the stollen I had made last year with quark as a slice and eat Christmas bread, I do love the versatility of this one. Will make this again, even if it’s just for a bread pudding, well half of it anyway!
Stollen Wreath Makes one large wreath or two traditional shaped Stollen loaves. Serves 10-12 people
¼ cup lukewarm water
28gms fresh yeast {or 14 grams active dry yeast}
1 cup milk
140gm unsalted butter
5½ cups {770 grams} all-purpose flour , plus extra for dusting
½ cup{130gm} vanilla sugar {I added an extra 15gm in error}
¾ teaspoon salt {if using salted butter there is no need to alter this salt measurement}
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 2 oranges
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, scraped
1 teaspoon orange extract
1/2 cup currants
1 cup firmly packed raisins
3 tablespoons rum
12 red glacé cherries {roughly chopped} for the color and the taste.
1 cup almonds, chopped
Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath
Powdered sugar for dusting wreath Note:If you don’t want to use alcohol, double the lemon or orange extract or you could use the juice from the zested orange. Method:
In a small bowl, soak the raisins and currants in the rum {or in the orange juice from the zested orange} and set aside.
Whisk together the eggs, vanilla and orange extract, and scraped vanilla bean. Reserve.
Melt the milk and butter gently in a pan. Stand until lukewarm. {I warmed the milk and poured it over the butter, and gently stirred it over low heat to hasten the process}
Pour ¼ cup warm water into a small bowl, add fresh yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange zest.
Then stir in {or mix on low speed with the dough hooks} the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.
Add in the soaked fruit and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed to incorporate. Here is where you can add the cherries if you would like. Be delicate with the cherries or all your dough will turn red!
Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading {or mixing with the dough hook} to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes. The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough – a few raisins will start to fall off the dough onto the counter because at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the raisins will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn’t enough to bind the outside raisins onto the dough ball.
Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.
Put it in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge {since the butter goes firm} but it does rise slowly… the raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.Shaping the Dough
Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly.
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Preheat oven to moderate 180°C with the oven rack on the middle shelf.
Punch dough down, roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches (40 x 61 cms) and ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Forming and Baking the Wreath
Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder.
Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.
Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch (5 cm) intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough.
Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape. Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap.
Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1½ times its original size.
Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 190°F/88°C in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the top with melted butter while still hot.
Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter.
Wait for 1 minute, then tap another layer over the first.
The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar.
Let cool at least an hour before serving. Coat the stollen in butter and icing sugar three times, since this many coatings helps keeps the stollen fresh – especially if you intend on sending it in the mail as Christmas presents! When completely cool, store in a plastic bag. Or leave it out uncovered overnight to dry out slightly, German style.
Stollen Pudding
350gms Stollen, sliced
200ml milk
200ml low fat cream
1 vanilla bean, scraped
2 yolks
1 egg
1/2 cup vanilla sugar {or plain sugar}
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1/4 cup dried tart cherries, snipped
Powdered sugar for sifting Method:
Preheat oven to 180C.
Place sliced bread in 9″ baking dish, slightly overlapping each slice as in pictures.
Put milk, cream and scraped vanilla bean in a saucepan and simmer till bubbles appear around edges. Take off heat and let the flavours seep for 20-30 minutes.
Place egg, yolks and vanilla sugar in a largish bowl, and whisk immediately to mix.
Bring the milk mixture back to a simmering boil, take off heat, and slowly pour over egg mixture whisking all the time to prevent lumps getting formed.
Strain this over the bread slices in baking dish, sprinkle over dried cherries and almonds. Bake in a bain marie for 30-40 minutes/ until the edges of the custard appear to be firm and set If the top browns too soon, loosely place a sheet of foil over it.
Remove from oven, and then from bain marie as soon as it’s warm enough to handle. Sift with powdered sugar. Allow to stand for 20-30 minutes. Serve hot or warm.
♥ Thank you for stopping by ♥
“Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.”
Robert Fulghum
Just another manic day like many others! One of ‘those days’ when you have enough on your plate. Then by some cruel twist of fate, you land up at Tastespotting … and immediately wish you hadn’t. That was me that day. I couldn’t take my eyes off those beautiful cookies. There was something about them, and then the name “Pecan Linzer Cookies with Cherry Filling“. They held me captivated! I was soon breaking into The Parsley Thief’s beautiful blog to get my virtual fill of them!The cookies had to be made! I had them on my mind all morning despite a PILE of work. I made sweet butter, did the laundry, chopped a kilo fruit & nuts for fruit cake –BIG achievement. Non-traditional mincemeat sans suet made, matured briefly & baked into fruit cake. To be posted soon!}. That morning, I also tried my hand at savoury macarons for MacTweets and failed {Attempted a second time recently, with success! That post is coming too}. My feet were begging for freedom, but the heart wasn’t willing and soon I had the walnuts toasting. Time to take it slow,I decided to toast the walnuts that day, make the dough the next day & roll the cookies out whenever … but one thing led to another!
…and the holiday baking spirit isn’t that easy to shrug off. Once the walnuts cooled, I was tempted to grind them, intrigued by the procedure. Now just a step away from dough, so I proceeded to make that too. Dough to be rested in the fridge OVERNIGHT said the head, but soon the heart was rolling out cookies. Such was the temptation, and so good was the dough. It rolled well though could have been better if I had let it rest for 2 hours, but I couldn’t wait. Baked the cookies with a song in my heart! Yes, they were that attractive at The Parsley Thief’s place!
December is whirring by, now unstoppable. It’s halfway past the month, and it’s fun to see the baking frenzy that has hit the world. Twitter is abuzzatweet with who’s baking what, food blogs are bursting with fabulous holiday baking ideas. Did you see these cute Swiss Roll Christmas Cottages at Not Quite Nigella? Missed a heartbeat when I saw them! I wish I had most of December left as there are so many delicious ideas, but I’m GLAD I made these cookies at least!They were l♥ved by the kids, prized apart, jam duly licked off, sugar too, and then the cookies enjoyed … gobbled up in seconds. I saved some to give to friends as they were disappearing too soon. I think the basic cookie is a great one too sans the jam filling, quite like a nutty crisp shortbread on its own. My not-so-sweet tooth preferred it that way. A dusting of sugar seemed good enough. The box now lies empty as the daughter had her sweet-toothed friend over for the day yesterday, and they finished them off, down to the last crumb! Make them, enjoy them … and gift them! They are actually my first ever sandwich cookies; pretty darned good ones. Toasted Walnut Linzer Cookies – we ♥ you! Of course there’s a platter tucked away for Santa, and that’s where these are going!
Toasted Walnut Linzer Cookies with Strawberry Filling Adapted fromThe Parsley Thief Adapted fromMartha Stewart Living, February 2007 Makes about 20 sandwich cookies
2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cups walnut halves
2 tablespoons powdered sugar {plus, more for decorating}
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup unsalted butter {slightly softened}
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup homemade strawberry vanilla bean conserve , melted with 1/2 tsp water {or any preserve of choice}
Method:
Begin by toasting the walnut halves, either in a dry skillet over medium heat, or in a 180C. Toast for about 5 minutes. Be careful, nuts burn quickly! Set aside to cool completely before proceeding with the recipe.
In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour & baking powder, until combined. Set aside.
Add the toasted walnuts, powdered sugar, salt & cinnamon to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until the nuts are finely ground. Transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Cut the butter into small pieces & add to the bowl, along with the sugar. Blend until light & fluffy. Add the vanilla extract & egg, blend until incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl, as necessary. Turn the mixer to low & slowly add the flour mixture, beating until just incorporated.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface & shape into a ball. Cut the dough in half & shape each half into a disc. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap & refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 190C. Roll out the dough, one disc at a time, to an 1/8″ thickness. Cut the cookies out using a 2″ scalloped edge cookie cutter & arrange them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Using mini cookie cutters, cut shapes out of the centers of half the cookies. These will be the tops. Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the cooking time. Let the cookies cool slightly before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
When cool, add some powdered sugar to a small sieve & tap a dusting of sugar over all the cookie tops. Spread a layer of strawberry preserves over the cookie bottoms & place the tops on.
The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
