Second Night of Chanukah

In just a little while, I'm going to go grate a ton of potatoes, smush them with some onion, matzoh, egg, salt, and pepper and fry them up. It's latke party time!

I just wanted to get on here and wish you all a very happy Chanukah. Or whatever holiday you celebrate.

Love to you all!

from choralicious.com

Peppermint Bark

So this is part of the baking extravaganza and I swear that at one point during the day not only did I participate, but there was baking. This one was just another to have gotten started early and was also directed by Corey. By directed, of course, I mean she did it all and I helped at the end.

I have always seen peppermint bark around and yet haven’t had much. Why oh why haven’t I been eating this all my life? It’s so delicious! And really simple. It just involves a double boiler, a baking pan, and room in your refrigerator. That’s pretty awesome.

Corey doubled the original recipe (here) so we could have a lot of peppermint bark to go around. Below is what they did as Corey isn’t here and I only watched her do it while working on other things.

Peppermint Bark from joyofbaking.com:

6 oz. semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 tsp. vegetable oil
6 oz. white chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 - ½ c. crushed candy canes (Corey put ours into a resealable baggie and crushed them with a rolling pin. It worked really well. Do that.)

Line the bottom and sides of a 9 inch square baking pan with aluminum foil, smoothing out any wrinkles. We used a larger casserole dish for this, like the one I use for enchiladas and the like, as we had so much more. I’d recommend it if you’re going the double route.

Melt the semi sweet chocolate and 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil in a double boiler. Immediately pour the melted chocolate into the prepared pan and tilt the pan so the chocolate makes an even layer. Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, or until the chocolate has set.

Then, melt the white chocolate and remaining 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil in a double boiler. Immediately pour the melted white chocolate over the dark chocolate and tilt the pan so the chocolate is in an even layer. I know this part was a little more tricky and a bit of it became more of a swirl than a layer, but for the most part, it looked great. Good job Corey! Sprinkle the crushed candy canes evenly over the white chocolate. Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, or until the chocolate has set.



Remove the peppermint bark from the pan by lifting the edges of the aluminum foil. Peel back the foil and break the bark into small irregular pieces (like I could ever make regular shaped pieces anyway).

Super delicious and also super all gone as Aaron really loved this stuff. I must make this myself soon.

Muddy Buddies

Remember when I had the panna cotta at Ciao Vito? That's also when this whole baking extravaganza idea got started. Corey mentioned that she really liked baking and she knew how much I liked baking, so why not have a great big bake day together and give the results to our friends? Why not indeed! So for a few of the upcoming recipes, I’ll be mentioning her a lot as she did a bunch of the work and had a lot of great ideas as well. It was a fun day.

We started out in the morning, went grocery shopping, and came back to my place to bake the day away. And that’s what we did until after 6 in the evening, with only one small hummus break so we wouldn’t die of sugar overload…which I nearly did. Anyway, this was one of the first things to be completed and I only watched it happen. This was all Corey. In fact, I’d never even heard of muddy buddies (original recipe here) before we started this, but I am glad to know what they are now!

Muddy Buddies from chex.com:

Makes 18 ½ cup servings

9 c. Rice Chex
1 c. semisweet chocolate chips
½ c. peanut butter
¼ c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1½ c. powdered sugar

In a large bowl, measure cereal and set aside.

The directions then have you microwave the chocolate, peanut butter, and butter, but I know that’s not what she did. Since we already had the double boiler out for other things, she used that to melt the above ingredients and blend together. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.



Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. She then put them into a bowl and we kind of, maybe, snacked on a bunch of them throughout the day. They are fantastic!

Baking Extravaganza

My friend Corey and I made all of this:



What you see there, and will be seeing here, are muddy buddies, peppermint bark, ginger crinkles, holiday cookies, pumpkin cupcakes with cinnamon frosting, and Mexican wedding cakes. These are going out to friends later today. I can tell you now that they are all delicious.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Tastespotting is such a dangerous website. I saw these cupcakes a bit back, just before Thanksgiving, and said “oh, hey, I should make these” and then I mentioned it to Aaron and then to another cupcake fanatic, so I had to do it. And I wish I should have done it sooner because oh my gosh. I didn’t want to use cake mix because that’s not my style. So I used this recipe that my fabulous friend Renai used for her recent cupcake adventure and added in the cookies.

The thing that I thought was really funny is that you have to break Oreos in half with frosting on both sides for the bottom of the cupcakes. I am usually great at not breaking them apart perfectly when I want to, so of course when I needed them to have frosting on both sides, I had all perfect breaks. It was kind of ridiculous. But if ridiculousness leads to deliciousness, I’m okay with it.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes from Kittencal and howtoeatacupcake.net:

Makes 18 delicious cupcakes

30 Oreo cookies

For the cupcakes:
2 c. all-purpose flour
1½ c. sugar
2½ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
½ c. shortening (very soft but not melted. I used Spectrum organic.)
¾ c. milk
1 Tb. vanilla
2 large eggs
1 c. crushed Oreos

For the frosting:
½ c. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1¾ c. powdered sugar, sifted
Pinch of salt
1/3 c. whipping cream
½ tsp. vanilla extract
Remaining crushed Oreos

Heat oven to 350 degrees.



Line 18 cupcake cups with paper liners. Take nine of the Oreos and split them in half, attempting to have frosting on both sides. Place halves frosting side up in liners. Set pans aside.

Take twelve Oreos and crush them. I broke mine up into pieces, put them in a bowl, and crushed them with the back of a measuring cup. Make sure they aren’t totally ground up. There should be some distinguishable cookie pieces remaining. Set crumbs aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour with sugar, baking powder and salt until combined. Add in the shortening, milk, vanilla, and eggs. Add in one cup of the crushed Oreos. Beat on medium speed of an electric mixer scraping the bowl constantly until just blended. The batter will be very thick.



Pour into paper-lined regular size muffin tins filling under just three-quarters full. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until the cupcakes test done (do not overbake as they will be dry). Seriously, don’t overbake. I had an issue with some of the cupcakes not being done at about 22 minutes, so I left them in and kept checking. They started to brown when I finally pulled them. So the outsides were a little crunchy, but the insides still very moist. Just watch it.

Immediately remove cupcakes from pans. Cool completely before frosting.



To make the frosting, mix together butter, powdered sugar, and a pinch of salt until creamy. Increase your mixer speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. Add whipping cream and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Fold in crushed Oreos.





Frost cupcakes. Break remaining nine Oreos in half and use as a garnish. Eat, eat, and eat. This frosting is so ridiculously and amazingly delicious, I had to put water in the bowl so I would stop eating it. These cupcakes are pretty much like eating Oreos. They look so pretty too. I will definitely be making these again.

Brownies with Bailey's Ice Cream

As part of my pie free Thanksgiving, I decided that I would need to make two desserts. This is the second of those two. I love brownies. I think they are fantastic. Usually I just go with the regular Baker’s chocolate, but since this was a holiday, I used up the rest of the Ghirardelli I had left over from Amy’s birthday cake. And again, it was a holiday, so I needed some fancy ice cream to go with the brownies.

My guidelines for the ice cream, as always, come from my pals Ben and Jerry. They don’t have a recipe for Bailey’s ice cream, but do provide some ground rules for making ice cream with alcohol. It was of tremendous help to me.

Brownies and Bailey’s Ice Cream from Baker’s Unsweetened Chocolate box and my brain:

Serves 6 with a ton of leftovers

For the brownies:
4 oz. baking chocolate
¾ c. unsalted butter
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. flour

For the ice cream:
2 eggs
¾ c. sugar
2 c. heavy cream
1 c. milk
2 Tb. Bailey’s Irish Cream

To make the brownies, heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking pan.

Microwave chocolate and butter in a large microwaveable bowl on high for two minutes or until butter is melted. This is the one-bowl method, so you can melt the butter and chocolate together in a double boiler if you don’t want to use/don’t have a microwave. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour and mix well. Spread into prepared pan.



Bake for 30 to 35 minutes (mine are usually closer to 35) or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. Cool in pan and then cut into squares to serve.



The ice cream is very easy and uses the same base I use for all my ice creams. Beat eggs in a bowl until fluffy, about two to three minutes. Whisk in sugar a little at a time and then for one minute more to fully incorporate. Whisk in cream and milk. Transfer to ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s instructions. Mine mixes for 25 minutes total. About two minutes before complete, add in Bailey’s. Transfer to freezer safe container and freeze for at least four hours. Overnight is preferable. Serve over brownies, seen here with the panna cotta.

Seriously so good. I may have to make a Bailey’s milkshake or the like sometime soon.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Pumpkin Cherry Compote and Pumpkin-Caramel Sauce

This is probably one of the most involved desserts I have ever made. It’s not often I make something I’ve never made before plus a compote I’ve never made before PLUS a caramel sauce I’ve never made before. But it was all worth it just because it was that amazing.

I love panna cotta, but gelatin freaks me out. I think it’s just a creepy product in general. I had some at Ciao Vito the other day for happy hour and it was so tasty I thought that maybe I should do that for Thanksgiving instead of pie. For whatever reason, I decided to go pie free this year. I think it worked out. Anyway, on my search for a panna cotta recipe, I was getting a little frustrated with all the gelatin in it when I found this one, which uses agar flakes instead. Agar agar is derived from seaweed and is completely vegetarian and not creepy. It’s also better than gelatin as far as being able to reset it by reboiling the liquid. Yeah, rad. So while that recipe did use agar flakes, I didn’t want to use whole milk and buy vanilla beans, so I searched some more and found this recipe. Combining the new one, with tips from the first one, and advice from this website, I got a solid panna cotta recipe. Good deal.

But you can’t just have panna cotta! You need some sort of fruit thing and a sauce. So I searched from pumpkin recipes on epicurious.com, as there would be no pumpkin pie, and found this compote and this sauce and as a result, made a dessert. I made all three the day before Thanksgiving and I think it worked out really well. It’s also really easy to veganize. Just replace the heavy cream with soy cream for the panna cotta and the sauce and oil based margarine for the butter in the compote and sauce.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Pumpkin Cherry Compote and Pumpkin-Caramel Sauce from my brain and David Lebovitz as well as Gourmet and Bon Appétit via epicurious.com:

Serves 6 and makes a ton of extra compote and sauce

For the panna cotta:
4 c. heavy cream
½ c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4½ Tb. agar flakes
6 Tb. cold water

For the compote:
½ c. dried tart cherries
2 Tb. unsalted butter
½ c. packed brown sugar
¼ c. granulated sugar
2 Tb. lemon juice
¼ tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
2 c. fresh pumpkin (preferably sugar or cheese pumpkin), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/4-inch dice

For the sauce:
¼ c. unsalted butter
½ c. sugar
1 c. heavy whipping cream
½ c. canned pure pumpkin



Heat the heavy cream and sugar in a saucepan. Once the sugar is dissolved, stir in the vanilla extract. Bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, lightly oil six cups with a neutral-tasting oil. Sprinkle the agar over the cold water in a medium-sized bowl and let stand 10 minutes.



Whisk in agar and simmer, whisking, until completely dissolved, about 15 minutes. Cool panna cotta slightly. Pour into glasses and chill until set, at least 2 hours.

To make the compote, deal with your pain of a pumpkin first. Seriously, peeling, seeding, and dicing a pumpkin is ridiculously involved. It took me forever and probably would have taken longer if I hadn’t remembered my mini-prep food processor part way in. After that is all set, soak cherries in hot water to cover until softened, about 15 minutes, then drain.





Melt butter in a large skillet over moderate heat. Add sugars, lemon juice, cinnamon, and salt, then cook, stirring until smooth. Add pumpkin and drained cherries and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until pumpkin is tender, 8 to 12 minutes.





The sauce is really easy, but kind of weird. I’ve never made caramels or caramel sauce, so this was all new to me. Melt butter in heavy small saucepan over medium heat. Add sugar and cook until mixture is deep amber, stirring constantly, about 8 minutes. The mixture will be grainy. Reduce heat to medium-low. Add cream. It was at this point that my caramel mixture became solid and freaked me out. It says in the original recipe that the mixture will bubble, but that took a little while. Stir until caramel bits dissolve, about 2 minutes. Add pumpkin and stir until heated. Refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.



To assemble, run a sharp knife around the edge of each panna cotta and unmold each onto a serving plate. Drizzle with sauce (I took mine out a little before serving) and scoop on compote.

I thought that this was ridiculously delicious. The panna cotta was a little more solid that I would have liked, but for my first time making it and messing with a couple of different recipes, I thought it came out rather well. The compote was sweet, but not too sweet and the sauce was just dang delicious. I may never make the compote again just because of how difficult it was to deal with that pumpkin, but I might modify it with apple or something like that. This is such a pretty dessert and I’d love to show it off again.