Chocolate Bark

As I mentioned, I made chocolates for Christmas. One of my favorite yuletide chocolates is the mendiant--a chocolate disk it the dried fruit and nuts. But these are time consuming. And chocolate bark is basically the same thing, but easier to make. So tempered some high quality dark chocolate and white chocolate and got to work.

Oatmeal, White Chocolate, Cranberry Bars

These are adapted from a blondie recipe in Nigella Kitchen. I disagree with terming these (even before my adaptations) blondies. They really don't resemble a blondie in ingredients or final product. But that's okay because they are excellent anyway! I think, if you did them with raisins they'd be the perfect oatmeal cookie bar. But who wants raisins when you can have dried cranberries and white chocolate? They were delicious and the texture was excellent---chewy, think oatmeal raisin cookie chewy, but still a bit caky. Yum.

By the way, I chose cranberries and white chocolate because they seem like good holiday flavors and I was bringing these bars into class just before winter break. They weren't as big of a hit as the peppermint brownies (but what could be?), but they were certainly very well received!

Pumpkin and Cranberry Cookies

Pumpkin cranberry cookies from Milk and Cookies--isn't that a great name for a bakery (and their cookbook)? Anyway, these cookies were the perfect fall treat. They were simple to make and incredibly delicious. The cranberries added a little tartness and a great texture to the cakey cookie. If you sandwiched these together with cream I think they'd make an excellent whoopie pie; they just have that cakey, soft-yet-dense texture of whoopie pie cookies. In any case, they make a lovely afternoon snack cookie as they are not overly sweet and they are an excellent dunking texture.

Chocolate Marquise with Cranberry Swirl Ice Cream, and Cranberry Compote

This was really nice. The chocolate marquise disks were incredibly good...sort of a frozen chocolate mousse (but much more complicated to make). The mint creme anglaise and chocolate sauce complimented it perfectly. I'm not sure I liked the cranberry swirl ice cream and cranberry compote with it though. I think that might be a reflection on the cranberries we used, which were a bit bitter, rather than the idea of cranberry with it. Regardless of the taste, it looked really nice with the cranberry compote and the cranberry swirl ice cream.

White Chocolate, Cranberry, Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies, from Nigella Christmas, are really good.  I made them two years ago to give as gifts on Christmas cookie plates and they are a prefect Christmas cookie.  After all, white chocolate and cranberry seems very holiday-y.  However, when my professor said she loves cranberry and white chocolate cookies, I figured I had to make these for my class.  They were quite a hit.

I barely did anything differently from the last time I made them, so I won't ramble on about them too long since you can read about them here.  All I did was leave out the nuts.  The recipe calls for pecans but I have a friend who is in that class with me who is allergic to nuts.  So I just left them out.  They were really good that way!

P.S. Sorry, I forgot to photograph these.  Just look at that old post to see them, they looked the same (even without the nuts.)

Cranberry Pecan Rye Bread, con't, con't

I'm back!  I survived the end of the semester craze and I'm ready to blog.  I actually have been baking, just not writing about it, so I have some catching up to do.

In any case, I'm finally going to tell you about the bread I made.

It was amazing!  I've never made bread and, as it turns out, it isn't scary, it's so much fun.  I admit it has it's dull moments...I'm not terribly patient and you have to wait so long for it to rise, but that's OK, it's worth it!

The recipe, from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, was very easy to follow and relatively simple.  The only problem was, the instant yeast didn't wake up properly when I followed her directions to activate it, so I wasted 2 packets of yeast and some time.  Then I had to follow the yeast's instructions on how to activate it, which worked perfectly, but meant I had to modify the bread recipe (because I had to dissolve the yeast in less water than she called for and some sugar.)  Ah well, it all worked out.

The bread was great.  It was the perfect rye bread, soft on the inside, chewy on the outside.  The cranberries and pecans were incredible in it.  And I really liked the maldon sea salt on top, though I think there was a little too much.

Cranberry Pecan Rye Bread, con't

    

Ok, the first chapter of my thesis is officially finished and handed in.  But I'm really exhausted, so you're not going to hear about the bread, but you do get a picture!

Don't worry though, it's Thanksgiving break.  I'll be baking a lot and I'll have at least a little time to post.

Cranberry Pecan Rye Bread

This Sunday I made bread for the first time ever!  On Monday my thesis advisor told me I had to have a draft of the first 25 pages written by this coming Monday.  In other words, I suddenly had no time to write about my bread.  I still don't, but I felt bad that I completely stopped posting without explaining why.  Now that I've told you why, I hope you'll be patient with me.  I should have some time soon to post a least a photo of the bread and I will definitely tell you all about it after I hand in the first draft of the first chapter of my thesis.

Cranberry Thumbprint Cookies

   

I had to make them a little smaller to make them fit in the muffin papers.  As you can see, this resulted in a boatload of cookies.

I haven't posted in ages, sorry!  I mention that because this post is technically about cookies I made for Valentines Day.  The cookie itself is a buttery vanilla cookie.  I rolled the dough into a ball and put it into a mini muffin paper.  Rather than using my thumb to make the indentation (because they were too small) I used the end of a wooden spoon.  Then I put about 1/8 of a teaspoon of cranberry jelly (real jelly, like for toast, not the cranberry jelly from a can that you eat with turkey at Thanksgiving) into the indentation.  The recipe I used called for berry jelly (strawberry, I think) but I thought the cranberry would be nice and winter-y, plus I really like cranberry.

Usually thumbprint cookies are made like regular cookies, flat on a baking sheet, but I decided to make them in mini muffin cups.  I did this because I was bringing them into my political science class and it seemed more sanitary this way.  I think they look cute this way!

White Chocolate, Cranberry, Pecan, Oatmeal Cookies a.k.a. Christmas Cookies, con't

These are the white chocolate, cranberry, pecan, oatmeal cookies I made for Christmas.  It may seem like an odd combination, but it is darn tasty!  The tartness of the dried cranberries balances the sweetness of the white chocolate chips.  The pecans are very nice with both flavors.  The recipe called for walnuts or pecans, I personally like pecans more and I think the flavor is a little nicer with the cranberries, but walnuts work too, I'm sure.  As for the oatmeal, it is quick oats so it has a texture similar to a normal (not oatmeal based) cookie, but it still has an oat-y taste.

Christmas Cookies

Last week I baked a ton of Christmas cookies to give as gifts (and to eat).  I will write more about each type of cookie and post photos of each later, but I have to go bake for my New Year's party, so I don't have time right now.

I baked 5 different types of cookies:

Cakey chocolate chip cookies--Yummy chocolate chip cookies that are cakey rather than gooey.  I've made these once before, but this time I made them miniature.

Chocolate brownies--I know these aren't technically cookies, but I cut them into small pieces, so that counts, right?

Cream cheese mints--This is my own recipe, I don't think I've posted it yet, I'll add it later.

Orange butter cookies--These are made with the same basic dough that I used for the almond cookies that I made for my cousin's bridal shower, except I used orange extract instead of almond extract, dyed them green instead of purple and shaped them like Christmas trees instead of flowers.

White chocolate, cranberry, pecan, oatmeal cookies--These were really excellent, the cranberries added a little tartness to the otherwise sweet cookies.

Stay tuned for photos and more details!

Pumpkin Ice Cream with Chocolate Sauce

I made this in lieu of pumpkin pie this Thanksgiving.  It tasted almost exactly like pumpkin pie filling but creamier.  Actually it really was like pumpkin pie filling but creamier...after all it was ice cream.  The chocolate sauce added a really nice touch.  The chocolate sauce accented the seasoned pumpkin ice cream...but then again I'm someone like me who thinks everything should have chocolate on it!

By the way, I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to post this, I know Thanksgiving was almost three weeks ago.  I have been writing papers and studying for exams.  I still have two exams left, but I will bake something this week and post it, I promise!

Halloween Desserts

Devil's Food Pumpkins:  These are what I mentioned last night.  I was going to ice them, but unfortunately I ran out of time.  They still tasted amazing and looked good, and no one seemed to mind that they were plain.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake:  This tastes like the filling of a pumpkin pie...probably because it is made with pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.  Also, there is some flour, a couple of eggs and a bit of sunflower oil, but that really isn't what gives it its flavor.  It was also much better than pumpkin pie because it was not pie, it's cake.  (I like pie, but it isn't my favorite.)  When I say it's cake, that doesn't do it justice - it is moist and soft and absolutely delicious.  By the way, this recipe is from a cookbook of mine, Dessert University by Roland Mesnier with Lauren Chattman, that I bought this summer and have barely used, so I'm very excited that I got to make this.  One last thing, I forgot to take a photo of this before I cut it up...the slices look good but it did look a little nicer as a whole cake.