HTML chocolate mint cookies

First of all I would like to congratulate myself ("how selfish of her!") for finally getting grip of some of this html crap! I say it's crap 'cause I just could not wrap my head around these random codes and numbers....until now!! Well I'm not exactly a computer programming genius over night, but I did manage to create my own little header (or blog title thing) that fit perfectly into the frame. hooray! It's still not perfect so I'm probably gonna change it lots and lots - you gotta keep it fresh ya know.

before and after baking

And now to the cookies. Well they actually involve a little accident, these were supposed to be Girl Scout thin mints which are really thin crisp chocolate mint cookies covered with chocolate.

I actually haven't tasted the original girl scout ones but they sounded great plus I'm a slave to everything (anything!) flavored with chocolate and mint.

So my mistakes started right at the most crucial part of those cookies, cutting them thin, very thin. I have no explanation for why I insisted on cutting them way too thick AND not noticing it trough out the whole baking process...urhhg.

So instead of coating delicate crispy cookies with a thin chocolate layer I just took two fat cookies, spread some chocolate on them, sandwiched them together and called it a day!

I must say I was a tad disappointed at myself for not following the recipe completely but on the other hand I got some great chocolate mint sandwich cookies- and that is never a bad thing. NEVER!

Also, I was surprised by the use of mint extract in the dough itself, I was sure it would evaporate during baking or go by unnoticed but it really tasted minty and goood.

Homemade Thin Mints:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white sugar
115 gr butter, room temperature
1/3 cup milk (any kind)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp peppermint extract

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. With the mixer on low speed, add in the milk and the extracts. Mixture will look curdled. Gradually, add in the flour mixture until fully incorporated.
Shape dough into two logs, about 1 1/2 inches (or about 4 cm) in diameter, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1-2 hours, until dough is very firm.
Preheat oven to 180°c. Slice dough into rounds not more than ½ cm (or 1/4 inch) thick - if they are too thick, they will not be as crisp - and place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cookies will not spread very much, so you can put them quite close together.

Bake for 13-15 minutes, until cookies are firm at the edges. Cool cookies completely on a wire rack before dipping in chocolate.

Dark Chocolate Coating:

300 gr dark or semisweet chocolate
115 gr butter, room temperature

In a microwave safe bowl, combine chocolate and butter. Melt on high power in the microwave, stirring every 45-60 seconds, until chocolate is smooth. Chocolate should have a consistency somewhere between chocolate syrup and fudge for a thin coating.
Dip each cookie in melted chocolate, turn with a fork to coat, then transfer to a piece of parchment paper or wax paper to set up for at least 30 minutes, or until chocolate is cool and firm.
Reheat chocolate as needed to keep it smooth and easy to dip into.

Makes 3 1/2-4 dozen cookies.

• If you want them like I made mine, cut the cookies much thicker and after baked and cooled sandwich them together with melted chocolate. Don't try adding the mint extract directly to the chocolate except if you have an oil based one. The most common extracts are alcohol based and by adding that to the chocolate it will curdle and be ruined, so read the label of your extract.

Cookies For The Vet

These cookies were made especially for my pets veterinarian, as a thank you for the great care and treatment he provides my dog Toby and cat Tequila. After having really bad experiences with vets it's such a delight to come to his clinic and see him be so passionate about his work.

For anyone who lives in the center of Tel Aviv area and is in need for a vet, Dr. Adir Shifron is highly recommended.

The original recipe of these cookies had additions like cinnamon and cloves which I omitted, for once because these kind of spices are not everyones taste and after all these were meant to be given away as a gift, and second because I don't really like making stuff I would not enjoy eating myself. The special thing about these cookies is the orange zest, it gives a nice subtle orange flavor and aroma.

chocolate and pecans

Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip and Pecan Cookies:

120 gr butter, at room temperature

1 ½ cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup quick-cooking oats
2 cups chopped pecans
2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest
150 gr semisweet chocolate chips, or chopped

Preheat oven to 180°.

Line a large cookie sheet with parchment or a Silpat (nonstick baking mat).

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add sugar, salt, and vanilla, and beat until well mixed, about three minutes.

Stir in eggs, one at a time. Sift together the flour, baking soda, in a separate bowl. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter with the mixer on low speed. Once the flour has been incorporated, add the second half. Stir in the oats, pecans, orange zest, and chocolate chips. Drop the dough, by the tablespoon, onto the cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden. Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on a rack. Store at room temperature in a cookie jar or other airtight container.

Original from: smittens kitchen

Mozart Birthday Cake

The layers, from top to bottom:

Dark chocolate glaze

Dark chocolate mousse

Dacquoise (meringue with nuts)

White chocolate mousse

Dark chocolate cream

Dacquoise

Ooooh Yeaah!!!!!! That's my Birthday Cake! Woot Woot!

I can't say anything negative about this cake except that you can't get enough of it and wake up in the middle of the night in horror of the thought it has been all eaten!!! The torture!

This is one of the most elaborate cakes I've made and all the layers go so well together, I'm so proud of it, especially proud of myself for not finishing the creams, meringues and mousses before assembling the cake, hooray to that!

Meringues:

Preheat oven to 110°.

Whisk egg white until soft peaks form, continue whisking and gradually add sugar until you result in a thick and shiny meringue. In a large bowl fold the sugar, hazelnuts and almonds gently into the meringue, it will deflate a little bit and that's ok.

Fill a piping bag fitted with a round tip, with the meringue mixture. Starting from the center moving out in circular motion creating a snail shaped base. Repeat this step.

Since this cake is made in a pan, you have to make sure the meringue discs fit the size of the pan, one way of doing that is to take a pencil, place the pan you are using on parchment paper and draw around it, then turn it over and pipe the meringue inside the borders you drew.

So after creating two meringue discs, place them in the oven for about two hour until firm and dry.

Mousses:

In a sauce pan heat heavy cream almost to a boil.

Prepare one bowl with dark chocolate and another one with the white chocolate, pour half of the cream on the dark and the other half on the white chocolate. Stir the chocolates until both form smooth creams. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Chocolate Cream:

Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and melt together, chill until use.

Finishing the mousses and assembling the cake:

In the cake pan place one meringue disc/base and top in with the chocolate cream.

In a mixer whisk the white chocolate mousse until fluffy, spread it on the chocolate cream.

Place the second meringue disc on top of the white mouse, press down gently.

Whisk up the dark chocolate mousse and spread in evenly on top of the second meringue disc.

Freeze for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, making the glaze:

Melt the chocolate and cream together and pour it over the frozen cake, freeze for 10 minutes.

Release the cake from the pan by heating up the sides using a kitchen towel soaked in hot water. After releasing the cake, press the nuts of your choice on to the sides of the cake.

The recipe says to keep the cake in the freezer and move it to the fridge 4 hours before serving, I found that here in the Israeli weather the cake got way too soft after 4 hours in the fridge, and would rather serve it frozen, kinda like ice cream cake. yum....

Mozart Cake:

Meringue:

4 egg whites

½ cup sugar

¾ cup confectioner's sugar

¾ ground hazelnuts

¾ ground almonds

Mousses:

750 ml heavy cream

225 gr bitter sweet chocolate, chopped

225 gr white chocolate, chopped

Chocolate Cream:

100 gr dark chocolate

1/3 cup heavy cream

50 gr butter

Glaze:

½ cup heavy cream

150 gr dark chocolate

1 ½ cups chopped nuts, praline or caramel brittle

(I used the left over ground hazelnut)

Notes:

• I would recommend using the darkest chocolate you can find for this cake, it is sweet enough believe me.

• Take in concern that this cake needs to be made at least one day in advance.

• The cake keeps up to a week in the freezer.

Shoklet Puddin'

I spent the day making my birthday cake, which I will of course post about soon, and had quite an amount of egg yolks left that I felt too bad about throwing away. So I started looking for a simple recipe I could quickly mix up, the options I had were pasta (not simple!), creme anglaise, creme patissier, all stuff I could do nothing with, except pudding! I don't think I've ever made pudding from scratch, only the box mix kind which by the way I share my first name with :)

It's not as scary as I thought making pudding on your own, actually it's damn easy!

The pudding turned out nice and rich, I will definitely try some more pudding and custard recipes in the future.

Chocolate Pudding:

85 gr unsweetened chocolate

2 cups milk, scalded*

1 vanilla pod

½ cup sugar

5 egg yolks, beaten

1 tbsp flour

¼ tsp salt

Open the vanilla pod, scrape down the seeds and stir them into the milk. Place the whole pod into the milk, set aside for 15 min.

Melt chocolate over hot water (or microwave), stirring constantly.

Heat the milk with vanilla pod until just boiled. Dispose the vanilla pod.

Mix sugar, flour and salt, and blend with chocolate, this doesn't mix very well but will come together once the milk is added. Stir in 1 cup of the hot milk and beat until smooth, then cook over direct heat until mixture boils, stirring constantly.

Stir rest of hot milk slowly into beaten egg yolks, add to chocolate mixture and cook 5 minutes longer over boiling water**, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat. Let cool and serve warm or refrigerated.

*scalded meaning it has been once brought nearly to a boil, this is done so the vanilla pod can release it's flavor into the warm milk. This step is not necessary if using vanilla extract.

**I continued cooking it in the pan on a very low heat, just because I felt it was unnecessary to cook it over simmering water. Remember to always stir.

Some New Stuff!

No recipe today! Just a little something I want to share... Two days ago I got an email from SOHO Design Center congratulating me on my upcoming birthday plus a 50 shekels worth voucher for their store! Isn't that nice? I should mention that the store is really nice and one of my favorites to go to for any reason. They discribe themselves like this:

"A diverse collection of products, which all share a design-based approach. The idea is to allow anybody to enjoy an esthetic experience and to be inspired by a range of exciting, innovating and yet affordable products."

Well affordable is relative... I spent quite some money there, but all of it was totally worth it.

Anyway, I bought a green springform pan (pic below) which of course exceeded my voucher budget but at least I got a decent color (I chose green) and not that awful orange they offered me, yuck! Why are things even made in orange?? After that my mom took me to a cooking supply store and bought me a measuring spoon set and an off set spatula! Yauza! What did I do to deserve that?? Well I just hope it's no stingy act of hers to avoid buying me presents this year! After all I'm turning towards the big 2-0 (god I'm old!).

Anyway have a great rest of the day! ciao!

Can't get tart enough!

Lemon Squares! Yipee! Aren't they great?! This is a nice and very simple recipe for lemon squares. I must say that they were not as tart and sour as I expected LEMON squares to be and they even were a bit too sweet for my taste. Don't get me wrong I could eat the whole batch at once (If Atkins, Weight Watchers or myself would just let me!!!!!!!), It's simply not completely what I expected it to be.

So here starts my search of a super tart and super sour recipe!

Lemon Squares:

Crust:

225 gr butter

1 3/4 cup flour

2/3 cup confectioner's sugar (plus more for dusting)

Topping:

1 1/2 cup plain sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup lemon juice

Preheat oven to 175°, Use a 23×33 baking pan (20×30 works too)

To make crust:

• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and confectioner's sugar
• Cut in butter until combined and crumbly.
• Press mixture into bottom of pan.
• Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

To make topping:

• While crust is baking, prepare topping.
• In a larger bowl, add sugar, flour, and baking powder.
• Then add slightly beaten eggs and lemon juice.
• Mix well and pour on top of warm baked crust.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes.
• When cool, dust with confectioner's sugar and refrigerate.
• Cut into bars and enjoy them cold!

Original from: Bakerella

Good Old Oatmeal

These cookies are great for anyone who loves the healthy kind of cookies and the comforting flavor of oatmeal. You can of course upgrade them anyway you like by adding chocolate chips or any kind of dried fruit, have fun with it.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies:

225 gr butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ regular sugar

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 cups dried cranberries (I used 1 cup)

1 ¼ cups Oatmeal

1 cup pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 180°.

In a bowl beat butter until light and fluffy, add both sugars and continue beating, add egg and beat until combined.

In another bowl mix flour, salt, baking powder and soda.

Gradually, while beating, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture after the batter looks smooth, mix in the oatmeal and cranberries.

Make any size cookie you like, place on parchment paper and bake for about 10 minutes.

After taking out of the oven let them rest for a minute because they are very delicate when warm.

Lavandula

About a week ago I was at the market and bought some dried Lavender. I've seen quite a bunch of Lavender recipes lately and was intrigued to try one myself, the first recipe I saw the use of lavender in it was this one- Lavender Sablè, Sablè is a classic French cookie originated in Normandie. The name Sablè, comes from the French word for sand, because of their crumbly texture. Soft and delicate they are very easy to make.

I wasn't sure about the flavor of Lavender in a cookie but I was pleasantly surprised, the cookie itself is very delicate in texture and flavor. A big plus for anyone who loves Lavender must be the smell that fills up home while baking these.

My moms verdict was "they taste like Indian cookies" and five minutes later (while writing this post!) I hear "finished!" so I guess there not too bad.

Slicing the log of dough. It doesn't need to be super even- the baking process will smooth out the shape.

Lavender Sablè Cookies:

1 ½ cups and 1 tbsp flour

3 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp dried lavender
200 gr unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
3/4 cup confectioner sugar
pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
zest from 1 lemon

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter on medium speed until smooth, add the confectioners' sugar and beat until well blended. Beat in the egg yolk, followed by salt, dried lavender and lemon zest.

On low speed, add the flour and cornstarch and mix just until flour is incorporated.

Turn dough out onto a counter, gather dough into a ball, divide in half, and wrap each piece in plastic wrap. Chill dough for 30 minutes in refrigerator.

Form each piece of dough into a log that is about 3-4 cm in diameter. Wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill dough for 2 hours in refrigerator. (Dough logs can be wrapped airtight and kept refrigerated for up to 3 days or stored in freezer for up to 1 month.)

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180°C.

Once the oven is ready, slice the log into 1 cm thick (not bigger) and place on a lined baking sheet. Leave a few centimeters between the cookies, they don't really spread but still try to keep them apart.

Bake for 12- 14 minutes, or until the sablès are set but not brown. Transfer and cool the sablès on the rack.

Original from: Fresh from the oven

Greek Whole Wheat Bread

I think this is the first 'serious' bread I made, by serious I mean the amount of kneading and also the final look of the bread, hey- it kinda looks like professional bakery bread! I have made bread before but non looked like this one. I'm a proud momma of a fat loaf of bread!

The process itself is not too difficult, the only thing that is probably a must for making this bread is a stand mixer, this recipe requires several minutes of kneading and there is no way to do this by hand. The recipe also calls for bread flour, It is higher on gluten and probably yields a denser bread, I used regular flour and have no complaints.

As for the flavor: YUM-O-RAMA!

This bread is so good...It has a dark chewy crust with a soft and airy bread inside...and it's a tad sweet too (it has honey in it). If I could, I would hollow it out and live in it and feed from the walls and earn my living by selling crumbs to mice! Did I go to far on that one?......

Before and after dough has risen

Greek Restaurant Whole Wheat Bread:

2 cups warm water

2 tbsp yeast (I used dry yeast)

1 cup white bread flour (I used all purpose/regular flour)

2 ½ tsp salt

3 tbsp honey

5 tbsp olive oil

4 to 5 cups stoneground whole wheat flour, all-purpose or bread flour, or mixed, preferably organic (I used 3 cups of whole wheat and 1 cup of regular flour)

Stack two baking sheets together and line top sheet with parchment paper; set aside. (this is so the bottom of the bread bakes evenly and doesn't burn, I did not use this method and got a pretty dark bottom but it was far from burnt).

In a mixer bowl, hand-whisk water and yeast together and let stand 2 to 3 minutes to dissolve yeast. Stir in white bread flour (or regular). Then mix in salt, honey, oil, and half of the whole wheat flour. Attach dough hook and begin kneading on lowest speed of mixer 8 to 10 minutes, adding additional whole wheat flour, as necessary, to form a soft but firm, somewhat tacky dough.

Shape dough into a rounded mass in mixing bowl. Spray inside of bowl and dough lightly with nonstick cooking spray (I brushed with olive oil). Cover entire mixer and bowl with a large clear plastic bag (I just covered the bowl with plastic wrap). Let rise about 45 to 90 minutes until almost doubled. (To speed this up, heat up your oven to lowest heat- around 50°c for about 30 minutes, or until doubled.) Turn out dough onto a lightly floured work surface and gently deflate. Shape dough into an oval and place on prepared baking sheets. Spray dough lightly with nonstick cooking spray (again, I brushed with olive oil) and dust with whole wheat flour.

Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise 45 to 70 minutes until dough is quite puffy (This only took about 30 minutes for me. At this point I slashed the top of my dough. The recipe doesn’t say to do it, but it makes it prettier to look at!).

Preheat oven to 190°c. Bake bread 15 minutes; then reduce oven temperature to 170°c and bake until it is well browned, another 20 to 30 minutes. Cool on baking sheets (I cooled mine on a wire rack)

Original from: How to eat a cupcake

Chapatti, Poli, Paratha or Roti for all!

As I have said before Indian inspired food is nothing new at my house, my mom asked me about making her some Chapatti, which is a kind of Indian flat bread.- And what sort of daughter would I be not to fulfill my mothers wishes? A pretty lousy one! (not that it ever disturbed me to leave my room messy although she has been asking me over and over again to clean it, oh well you get my point).

The recipe calls for whole wheat flour; not the regular kind you get at the grocery store, but a special Indian one called Atta flour which is much lighter in color, using the regular whole wheat flour is just fine, I simply wanted them to look as similar as possible to the original, So what I did was use 1 cup of regular all purpose flour and ½ cup whole wheat flour.

 

The Chapattis came out really tasty, we ate them for dinner with avocado spread and a salad, two big ones each was enough to get us full.

I recommend watching this video, the technique and ingredients are explained wonderfully- and makes making them on your own much easier (It helped me for sure).

Chapatti (Paratha):

1 cup all purpose flour

½ cup whole wheat flour

¼ tsp salt

3 tsp oil

½ cup warm water

In a bowl mix flour, salt and oil. Then gradually add the water little at a time, knead until dough form into a ball. Lightly coat with oil, cover and set aside for 15-20 minutes.

Divide the dough into 4-8 pieces depending on the size you want (I made 4 big ones). 

Heat up a large pan on medium heat and let it get really hot while rolling out the dough. 

Roll out each dough piece fairly thin and place it in on the dry hot pan, when small bubbles start to appear turn the Chapatti over and brush with a tiny amount of oil and lightly press it down with a spatula to force the air bubbles to blow up the whole piece of Chapatti, turn it over a few times until air bubbles brown and dough looks completely cooked. Yum!