Rugelach

I was pretty sure that I posted this before, when we first learned how to make rugelach, but I can never find it when I go looking. I made these again last night for the....like, 50th time or something, in the two and half years since I learned how! We all love rugelach.

Apricot Rugelach

1 cup butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour cream (optional)
apricot jam (can use another flavor jam, raspberry is good too)
currants or raisins
cinnamon sugar

Cream butter and cream cheese together, preferably in a heavy-duty mixer. Add salt, flour, and sour cream. Mix just until the dough comes together, then divide into four pieces and shape into disks. Refrigerate for an hour or more.

Roll each disk into a neat 8-inch circle, then spread with a thin layer of jam. Sprinkle with a few currants or raisins, then sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. Cut into 8 wedges. Roll each wedge up starting at the wide edge, leaving a pointy end at the top. Place each piece on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 until lightly golden. Enjoy while still warm!

Valentine Sugar Cookies

What Valentine's Day is complete without sugar cookies, and heart shaped ones at that? We hosted a Valentine playdate with about 20 kids under the age of 5 and I knew this was the perfect opportunity to try out a new cookie recipe that would leave very few crumbs at our house. The joys of being able to sample the goods without having to eat them all!

I have to admit that while making these cookies I felt like a real baker. I mean like a real, professional baker. I had cookies in the oven, cookies cooling on racks, cookies in the fridge waiting to be baked, cookie dough being rolled out and cut, cookie dough in the fridge ready for the next roll out. It was amazing the assembly line production that got going once I got into my rhythym.

I also tried my hand at royal icing for the first time. Royal icing is a bit different than the frosting that many people use on cookies at home in that it is supposed to look more formal or professional. It was fun to work with and I'm sure as I use it more I will get better at it and be able to do more detail. I thought going into it that I was going to have all these elaborate designs on the cookies. Yah, right. I ended up getting some hearts that were passable, some that were great for a three year old, and a few in between. Enjoy!

Valentine Sugar Cookies
Source: Brown Eyed Baker


2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
10 tablespoons unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Whisk the flour, salt, and baking powder together. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed for a minute or so, until smooth. Beat in the sugar and continue to beat for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is light and pale. Add the egg and yolk and beat for another minute or two; beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add in the flour mixture, mixing only until it has been incorporated (because this dough is best when worked least, you might want to stop the mixer before all the flour is mixed in and use a spatula to blend the rest).

Turn the dough onto a counter and divide it in half. Shape each half into a disk and wrap it in plastic. Chill for at least 2 hours. (Well ,the dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.)

Getting Ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Work with one packet of dough at a time; roll out the dough between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper to a thickness of � inch, lifting the plastic or paper and turning the dough over often so that it rolls evenly. Lift off the top sheet of plastic or paper and cut out the cookies. Pull away the excess dough, saving the scraps for re-rolling, and carefully lift the cookies onto the baking sheets with a spatula, leaving about 1� inches between the cookies. (This is a soft dough and you might have trouble peeling away the excess or lifting the cutouts; if so, cover the dough, chill it for about 15 minutes and try again.) After you�ve rolled and cut the second packet of dough, you can form the scraps into a disk, then chill, roll, cut and bake.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 9 to 11 minutes, rotating the sheet at the midpoint. The cookies should feel firm, but they should not color much, if at all. Remove the pan from the oven and dust the cookies with sugar or cinnamon sugar, if you�d like. Let them rest for 1 minute before carefully lifting them onto a rack to cool to room temperature.

Repeat with the remaining dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.


Royal Icing
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons meringue powder
6 tablespoons water


Mix all ingredients on low speed for 7-10 minutes or until the icing loses its shine. Add more water by the teaspoon if it appears too stiff. At this stage you want to be able to pipe it easily.

To flood the cookies add water a few drops at a time until it reaches almost a liquid consistency.


For step by step instructions on decorating with royal icing go here.

Cheesecake Pops

Wow, is all I have to say! This was a doozy of a baking experiment. I guess I'm one of those people that like to jump into the deep end without sticking my toes in the pool first.

Don't get me wrong. I've done plenty of baking over my lifetime and I have made many different things, but this was a hugely, time intensive project. Of course, I happened to take it on at the same time, the same day actually, that I was making Valentine sugar cookies and decorating with royal icing for the very first time, but that is another post for another time. Back to the Cheesecake Pops.

These sweet little creations were a huge test to my type a, neat as a pin, borderline OCD personality. Between the sticky cheesecake, crumbly graham cracker, dripping chocolate, and sliding toppings I literally had my hands full. Honestly, the part where I had to just let my normal perfectionist tendencies go was the chocolate dipping, dripping, wiping with a finger, licking said finger, running said finger under hot water because others would be eating these, and then sticking the pop in the stryofoam holder in the fridge while trying not to get chocolate fingerprints and drips all over the counter, floor, fridge handle, and fridge shelves. Can you tell this was a challenge for me?

So, although it was fun to try something new, I don't know if I'll be making these again, or at least not anytime soon. One of the reasons, besides what I just explained in the previous paragraph, is that when I make cheesecake and it comes out of the oven it is almost finished. You let it cool, you decorate it with whatever topping you want, and voila, you get to eat it. But with these treats baking the cheesecake is just the first step in a very long process to get your end result. Yes, you can nibble on cheesecake as you scoop it into balls, but you know there are many steps left before you get to the final product. The second reason is that there is just something inherently wrong about scooping cheesecake out of a pan and rolling it into balls like cookie dough. To me, cheesecake is like the piece de resistance to a perfect evening. It is typically something formal and elegant, not something squished around in your hand and then rolled in crushed graham crackers. And yes, for those of you that noticed the curling ribbon wrapped around the lollipop sticks, that is a bit of the OCD coming through. I couldn't very well have chocolatey fingerprints all over the sticks, now could I?

I used Bakerella's recipe for cheesecake and followed most of her suggestions, but I also made some slight modifications based on the info here. Enjoy!

UPDATED: These also taste great after freezing. I put mine in the freezer (stick and all) after wrapping in plastic wrap. They were in there for about 7 weeks before I took them out again. I set the sticks in a glass on the counter to let them thaw out. I did find that they got a little soft thawing at room temperature and they broke off the stick easily when you bit into it so I decided that I'd just go ahead and pull them off the stick for the presentation. They ended up looking like regular cheesecake balls instead of cheesecake pops but they still tasted yummy.

Cheesecake Pops

Source: Bakerella

9x13 New York Style cheesecake with no crust:

4 - 8oz packages cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons flour

5 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Pops:

crushed graham crackers

lollipop sticks

melted chocolate (semi-sweet, bittersweet, white, dark, milk chocolate)

shortening

jimmies, chopped chocolate, chopped nuts for topping

styrofoam block

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream the cream cheese, sugar, and flour with an electric mixer on medium until light and fluffy. On medium low, add eggs one at a time, mixing well with each addition. On low, add sour cream, vanilla, and lemon juice until just combined. Pour into a 9x13 cake pan (or any other cake pan that is 2 to 3 inches tall). Bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It is fully cooked if the center is still a little wobbly and the edges are firmer. Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature. Run a knife along edges to loosen from pan. Chill in refrigerator overnight.

Scoop out a spoonful of cheesecake and shape into a ball. Roll in crushed graham cracker and set on cookie sheet lined with wax or parchment paper. Stick in lollipop stick. Repeat until all cheesecake is scooped out of pan. Make room in your freezer. Freeze for 1 to 2 hours until firm.

Get your toppings ready. Melt about 8 oz. of chocolate chips in the microwave for about 30 seconds at at time. (I had to do many batches of chocolate, so be prepared to do 2, 3, or 4 batches of this). Stir in shortening (this helps make the chocolate shiny). Take your pops out of the freezer. Dip a pop into the chocolate, swirl around to try to get as much chocolate off as possible so it doesn't drip down. Sprinkle with a topping. Immediately set in a styrofoam block (or some other type of holder) in the fridge. They can be wrapped up and frozen.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake

What better way to start my journey than with something that I have wanted to make for the past few years but kept putting off. I kept telling myself that I couldn't make true molten lava cakes if I didn't have those cute little ramekins, or at least glass custard cups. (You can actually use a muffin tin, but I wanted the authentic experience.) One of my Christmas gifts was a set of 8 custard cups and I knew then that my excuses for not making them were getting pretty flimsy. So yesterday, in honor of the Superbowl and wanting to have a slam-bang dessert to finish off our eating fest I decided to finally bite the bullet and make them.

I started my search for the perfect recipe. I found a few different ones that had amazing pictures and good reviews, but trying to narrow it down was a little difficult because they were all pretty similar. Oddly enough, our determining factor came down to serving size. As yummy as this cake is, and it is yummy, I did not want it hanging around our house for more than a day or two after making it. Too much temptation!

So, without further ado, here are Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes! **I've made it since this post, as evidenced by the photo above, and added caramel the second time around. Put batter in about half of a dish and then one or two caramels and then fill with the rest of the batter. I did one caramel but I think two would help you taste the caramel more.**

I slightly modified mine based on various reviews for this recipe. Next time I might try some type of fruit topping, along with the ice cream of course. Goodness knows I'll be making this more often now that I've seen how easy it is. Enjoy!

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes

Source: allrecipes.com

1 cup unsalted butter

8 oz. Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate baking chips

5 large eggs

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of salt

4 teaspoons flour

Melt butter and chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave for one minute. Slowly stir together with a whisk. (You want the heat of the butter to melt the chocolate but you don't want it too hot for your eggs.)

Beat eggs, sugar, and salt with a hand mixer in a medium bowl until sugar dissolves. Beat egg mixture into chocolate until smooth. Beat in flour until just combined. (Batter can be made up to a day ahead. Just cover, refrigerate, and warm to room temperature an hour or so before baking.)

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Spray 7 oz. ramekins, custard cups, or a muffin tin liberally with cooking spray. Divide batter evenly.

Bake until batter puffs but center is not set, 8 to 10 minutes. Immediately invert each cake onto a plate. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. (In my book this is a must. How can you have chocolate cake, especially ooey, gooey chocolate cake, without vanilla ice cream. Plus it cuts down on the chocolate factor and makes it more enjoyable for tasters like my husband who isn't as big of a chocolate fan as I am.)

The Best Way to Start

I have been perusing so many delicious recipes that I can't help but feel an overwhelming urge to bake and bake and bake, and when I'm done to bake some more! My love affair with food lies mainly in the baking realms of cakes, cookies, bars, and desserts, but I will venture out and experiment with breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and appetizers as well. Come along in my culinary adventures and hopefully you will be enticed to try the recipe yourself.

Chile Relleno Stew

MMMMM. Well, I haven't posted here for a long time, but this one inspired me to post, even if just so I have a record of the recipe for myself. Tonight, all alone, with a refrigerator full of farm-fresh produce, I wanted something to kind of simulate chile relleno but without all the work and spattering grease. So I decided to experiment.

I had extra produce because I am housesitting, and I forgot about the CSA share I was to pick up for the houseowners, and went to the farmer's market yesterday. Which, this time of year, always pulls me into buying more veggies than I can eat anyway! So much yummy produce--anything imaginable in the way of fruits and vegetables are at the farmer's market in August and September.

(I was cooking for just myself, so I'd say multiply this recipe for the number of people you want it to serve. That'll serve second large helpings or you'll have leftovers.)

So, I headed to the kitchen, and roasted two Anaheim chiles. You could use poblanos, but I like Anaheims for my chile relleno, not as spicy as poblanos. I would recommend you roast them in the oven or using a culinary torch. I....ahem....did not use one of these methods and ended up with a flaming pan later, when I took out the chiles and put in butter. (Alison and Chris, if you're reading this, don't worry! Your house didn't burn down. At least not all the way. Kidding!) You don't have to peel the chilies unless you want to or if they have thick skins. Stem and seed them after roasting, and chop coarsely.

Chop one nice yummy tomato coarsely. Cut the kernels off one ear of corn. Then melt a tablespoon of butter in a medium pan and add the tomato and corn and cook while you're chopping the rest. Chop a handful of cilantro coarsely, and slice about 1/3 cup of jack cheese.

Add the cilantro and the chilies to the pan along with salt and pepper to taste. After it's all cooked for a few minutes, lay the cheese over the top. Let it cook for a couple minutes more and then serve. I ate mine on a plate, but this almost begged a bowl.

Really fast, really easy, really yummy! Perfect for a summer evening.

Huevos Rancheros

I really have been cooking in the last six months....just not a whole lot of time or inspiration to post here. But I've been thinking in the last week about several mainstays of our family meals that I could certainly post here--food that is delicious and time-tested as I've made them over and over again.

Here's one that I love to make as a very hearty breakfast or even dinner. I especially love it after coming home from church, when we've fasted for communion, and it's noon or 1 pm and we haven't eaten anything besides communion and high-sugar coffee hour treats. But I really only make it when I have good home-cooked black beans. I used to only make it from home-cooked refried beans, but last time I just made pot beans and this turned out very well, and not refrying deletes a whole extra recipe. I think I like it just fine this way! Anyway, either follow your own favorite pot beans recipe or refried beans recipe or follow my simple recipe. And I really don't make it anymore with canned refried beans, as I just don't think it's worth it. I like to wait until I have the real thing--it's worth the wait.

Pot Beans
Rinse one pound of black beans (or substitute your favorite beans--we like black beans over pinto beans) and put in a large pot with about enough water to 2 1/2 times as much as the level of the beans. I suppose this is probably about 10 cups of water. Add one large onion, peeled and cut into quarters, 2 or more cloves of garlic, peeled, a cinnamon stick or two, a teaspoon of dried oregano, and a dried chili pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the beans are very soft, 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours. Add at least one teaspoon salt and pepper to taste. Use as is, or make refried beans.

Refried Beans
In a large saute pan, saute onion and garlic in oil. When the onion is softened, begin adding beans (and bean liquid) by the ladle-ful. Add two or three ladles-full and then mash with a wooden spoon while stirring, then keep adding beans and cooking and stirring. If you have an immersion blender this is a good time to use it! But it's fine to leave it somewhat chunky. Continue cooking until the liquid is cooked off to make a nice bean paste. Season with more salt and pepper, if desired.

Now, how I do this is to make refried beans with homemade flour tortillas, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and radishes or other veggies for dinner one night. We call it Mexican night, and now that I'm thinking about it, I did blog about it a couple of years ago. And then I have nice pot or refried beans leftover for the Huevos Rancheros.

Huevos Rancheros
For each serving:
Heat up your beans, about two or three spoonsful for each serving.
Fry one corn tortilla in oil on a skillet over medium heat. Be patient while frying and let it get nice and crispy, as this will affect how easy it is to cut it with your fork later, making for easier eating. Fry on both sides until nice and browned all over, pressing down with a spatula for even frying. Place the tortillas on individual plates.
On the same skillet, fry an egg for each serving. I fry them over-easy style, but you can fry them however you like them best. Season with salt and pepper.
Spread the beans on the tortillas, then place an egg on each one. Add jack cheese, salsa, and sour cream or creme fraiche.

Delicious!