Diamonds for Dessert

Chewie Wookiee Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Sat, 04 May 2013 22:44:00 +0000

Happy Star Wars Day! I made these Chewie Wookiee Cookies at the end of spring break for my brother (who's a huge Star Wars fan & loves CCCs) since his break was the week after mine and I wouldn't get the chance to see him. My mom suggested leaving him a note, but I thought cookies would be better (i.e. more delicious) :D.

So the story behind these cookies started a few years ago, when I saw Philip Tseng's "Han Solo Cup & Chewbacca the Cookie" (below) online. Seriously, baked goods and Star Wars in an adorable presentation; it does not get better than that. And you know I'm all about the food puns :). Btw, check out the other illustrations on his site for more food illustrations (even a "Cherry Pie-rate"! Remember my Apple Pie-rate Ship?) and pop culture references (Adventure Time, TMNT, Arrested Development, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Back to the Future, Gameboy). If you like them, many are available as t-shirts and prints!

[Han Solo Cup & Chewbacca the Cookie | Image Credit: Philip Tseng]

Okay, flash forward to last year. I was visiting my brother in LA and saw his new Threadless shirt, with that same graphic! After seeing it again, I knew I needed to bake these cookies. Plus I'd been hoping to make something Star Wars related for a while. I took out my staple Thick & Chewy CCC cookie recipe and adapted it to this project.

I knew I'd be decorating the cookies with chocolate, so I left out the chocolate chips (feel free to leave them in if you like things extra chocolatey). And since I had some mini red Solo-ish cups lying around, I busted out my craft skills and decorated one of them, because just like Han needs Chewie, cookies need a cup of milk.

P.S. If you don't use all the cookie dough to make the Chewie Cookies, take the remaining dough, add chocolate chips, cut up some Snickers bars, and make Snickers stuffed CCCs!

Chewie Wookiee Cookies
Thick & Chewy CCC recipe
semisweet chocolate
white chocolate

Make the Thick & Chewy CCC dough without the chocolate chips, and bake as indicated in the recipe. Let cool before decorating.

To decorate, melt the semisweet chocolate. Dip the bottom of each cookie in the chocolate and place the cookies dipped side down on a piece of parchment paper. Let dry.

Remelt the semisweet chocolate and use it to trace the dark brown parts on each cookie (look at the illustration above). Wait for the chocolate to dry and set. Melt the white chocolate and use it to draw on the white parts of each cookie. Let the chocolate dry and enjoy.

Makes 18 cookies.

Snickers Stuffed CCCs
Thick & Chewy CCC recipe
4 Snickers king sized bars

Use a sharp knife to cut 3 of the king sized Snickers bar into 8 pieces each. Chop up the last bar into little bits to sprinkle over the cookies at the end. Set aside for now. Preheat the oven.

Make the cookie dough as indicated in the recipe. Split the dough into 24 parts. Take one piece of dough, flatten it between your palms, wrap up a Snickers piece, then place it on a parchment paper lined baking tray. Repeat with the other pieces of dough. Once finished, sprinkle all the cookies with the small bits of Snickers from the chopped up Snickers bar. Bake cookies according to the recipe.

Makes 24 cookies.

And just for fun...

Cello Wars: Lightsaber Duel | The Piano Guys

Bailey's Bear Truffles

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:23:00 +0000

I'm sure you've noticed the lack of posts these past 2 months, all due to computer woes and the lack of a decent kitchen. But no worries, I was recently home for spring break, and I finally had the time to create some desserts!

Actually, I've made these Bailey's Truffles a few times already, with rave reviews. The great thing about truffles is that they don't require a lot of ingredients and are rather easy to make, yet everyone always thinks they took more work than they did ;). Being without a kitchen has made it hard to get any baking done this year, but with a microwave and a mini fridge, these truffles were definitely doable.

Usually truffles are just rolled into balls and either dusted with cocoa powder or dipped in chocolate, but I wanted to play around with the shape of my truffles just to see if it could be done (without any molds or any fancy equipment)... and somehow I ended up with truffle bears. But then I figured, everyone likes bears, what with teddy bears being so popular, so why not?

To give them a pop of color and to spiffy them up, I gave my bear truffles bow ties (plus I just really like bow ties). The ties also allow for a bit of customization. The first time I made these bears, I gave them green bow ties for St. Patrick's Day, while for this blog entry, I gave them classic red ones. But of course, these truffles don't have to be shaped into bears. Rolled into balls, dipped into chocolate, and topped with whatever you want: sprinkles, a white chocolate design, or even left plain, they're still equally delicious!

Bailey's Truffles
adapted from Pie with Sparkles

8 oz white chocolate chips*
pinch of salt
2 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream
2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the white chocolate chips either on the stove or in the microwave. Remove from heat. Stir in the salt. Mix in the Bailey's (it will start to seize, but just keep stirring). Add in the whipping cream and vanilla. Continue stirring until everything is incorporated and it smooths out. Let cool to room temperature.

Chill for a few hours in the refrigerator until solid enough to roll. Then either proceed to the instructions below to make bear-shaped truffles, or just roll the truffles into balls and dip them in melted semisweet chocolate and decorate as desired.

Makes 18 truffles.

Bear Truffles
8 oz semisweet chocolate
black nonpareils
semisweet chocolate chips**
dark chocolate chips**
1/4 of the sugar cookie icing recipe
black food coloring
red food coloring

Roll out the truffles to form 9 balls. Place them on a baking sheet lined with wax paper and chill them in the refrigerator until firm. Remove them from the refrigerator and use a knife to cut each ball in half to make 18 hemispheres. Place them back on the parchment paper and chill them until firm.

Take a dark chocolate chip and press it into each hemisphere to leave a dent for the snout. Keep the truffles chilling in the refrigerator while you melt the 8 oz semisweet chocolate. Dip a truffle in the melted chocolate, shake off excess chocolate, and place it on a baking sheet lined with a new piece of parchment paper.

Place a dark chocolate chip into the dent made earlier for a snout. Take 2 semisweet chocolate chips and press them to the top sides of the truffle to form ears. Add 2 black nonpareils above the dark chocolate snout for eyes. Repeat with the other truffles. Remelt the semisweet chocolate if it begins to solidify.

Once finished dipping the truffles, let them rest while the chocolate hardens. While waiting, make the sugar cookie icing (not that much is needed, so divide the recipe by 4). Split the icing in half. Color one half black and the other half red (or whatever color you want the bow tie to be). Use a toothpick to draw on two red triangles below the snout for the bow tie. Use the black icing the draw a nose and a mouth on the large chocolate chip. Lastly, add a dot between the two red triangles to finish the bow tie.

*Note: For best results, use Nestle brand white chocolate chips (Nestle White Chocolate Morsels.
**Note: I also used Nestle semisweet and dark chocolate chips, but any brand is fine. Basically what you need are standard sized chocolate chips for the ears and a larger size chocolate chip for the snout (Nestle Dark Chocolate Morsels or Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Baking Chips.

Happy 2013!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 06:54:00 +0000

Another year over and a new one beginning! Happy 2013!

The beginning of a new year is always a time for self-reflection (I'm big on New Years Resolutions). This year, one of my New Years Resolutions is to find balance. As you've probably noticed, these past few months have been lacking in posts. So a part of this "balance" is figuring out how to introduce hobbies back into my life, things like art, baking, learning languages, and of course blogging.

With a semester of medical school behind me, I have a better idea of what I can handle. This semester, I hope to find a way to work my hobbies into my schedule so it's not just study study study all the time. In terms of art, I'm thinking for February, I'm going to challenge myself to do at least one sketch a week (I'll save painting and pastels for summer), and for March, a photograph a day. In terms of baking, I'm going for a more structured approach since the process takes such a large chunk of time, what with planning, buying ingredients, the actual baking, and decorating. And, of course, my goal for blogging for now is to post at least once a month; no more months with no posts >:|.

A little bit on these cookies. For NYE this year, my friends and I decided to stay in for a casual get-together (lots of Mario Party while sipping sangria). To match the mood, I opted for something a bit fancy, but not over-the-top, which resulted in these cookies. They're not too hard to make and are quite pretty. I really like the contrast between the more demure pink icing with white pearls and the wilder black icing with silver balls. These are perfect for both a fancy dressy event and a casual night-in chilling with friends.

P.S. Did any of you make any interesting New Years Resolutions? Share :)!

2013 Cookies
sugar cookie dough recipe
sugar cookie icing recipe
pearl sprinkles
silver sprinkles
gel food coloring

number cookie cutters
toothpicks

Make the cookie dough as indicated in the recipe. Cut out 2, 0, 1, and 3 from the dough. Place the numbers in order on a parchment lined baking sheet so that the numbers are touching. No need to chill the cut-outs. Bake the cookies until the edges are slightly golden. Take them out, let them cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Let the cookies completely cool before decorating them. Make the sugar cookie icing as indicated in the recipe. Tint it with gel food coloring (since it's pretty concentrated, you won't need to add that much. Spread the icing on the cookies. I used a toothpick to spread it, but you can probably pipe it on with a piping bag (it'd probably go much faster). After icing a cookie, place either the pearl or silver sprinkles on the cookie, following the numbers. Repeat with the other cookies. Let the icing dry and serve.

Sucré Giveaway!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 19:22:00 +0000

This post is going to be short but sweet (literally). It's my first giveaway (exciting!!!). The lovely people at Sucré want to give one of you their Holiday Chocolate and Macaron Collection!

"Discover true Holiday bliss with our 15 piece festive Mint Chocolate & Dark Truffle Collection paired with our 15 piece peppermint and chocolate flavored Holiday Macarons."

Sucré is a sweet confection studio located in New Orleans, Louisiana. They have two shops in New Orleans where they sell a variety of amazing desserts: cakes, cupcakes, pastries, gelato sundaes, chocolates, and macarons. But if you're not from New Orleans, don't fret as they offer many of their scrumptious sweets online as well. I've listed their website below, check it out!

To Enter:
1) Leave a comment below telling me your favorite holiday treat (mine: peppermint hot chocolate and chewy gingerbread cookies).
2) You must be a follower of Diamonds for Dessert (click "Join this site" on the right via Google Friend Connect).
3) Fill out the entry form to provide your e-mail address so I may contact you should you win.

Rules:
1) Contest only open to those residing in the continental US.
2) This giveaway ends at ~~11pm PST on 12/26/2012~~.
3) The winner will be announced at ~~12am (midnight) of 12/27/2012~~ here on this post and will also be contacted via e-mail. They will have 24 hours to respond with their shipping info (if they fail to do so, another winner will be chosen).
4) Duplicate entries and those that don't complete all three "to enter" tasks (as listed above) will be disqualified.

This giveaway is sponsored by Sucré.
Website: http://www.shopsucre.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shopsucre
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SucreNewOrleans

P.S. I know I announced last week that I'd have this up on Saturday but 1) I got stuck at the airport for 1 1/2 days (SNOW >:|), 2) my laptop died (so I didn't have computer access until I got home), and 3) I got sick :(. Sorry for the delays!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!
Congrats to the winner: Madonna (I've e-mailed you)

Cinnamon Apple Macarons

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 05:34:00 +0000

Fall is definitely here. The leaves are changing, it's getting chilly, and suddenly I'm craving the warm, cozy scent of cinnamon as well as pumpkin baked goods. I say it's the perfect time to bake some Cinnamon "Apple" Macarons.

I'm going to straightforward; these macarons aren't very apple-ly in flavor. It's more like cinnamon with a hint of apple. My brother calls them Apple Jacks Macarons, you know, like the cereal, which is actually pretty accurate. But I find them pretty cute, so I couldn't resist posting them anyway.

They are technically still Cinnamon Apple Macarons in that they look like apples and taste like cinnamon :). I think if I were to make them again, I'd devise some sort of apple jelly center to up the apple flavor. But despite the lack of apple flavor, they still taste wonderful. Happy Autumn Everyone!

Cinnamon Apple Macarons
adapted from A la cuisine

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 cup finely ground almonds
3 egg whites, aged 48 hours
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp finely ground freeze dried apples
red gel food coloring

Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper. Tape two sheets of printer paper together to form a large sheet about the size of your parchment. Trace 1-1.5" diameter hearts (I traced a heart cookie cutter) onto the now large sheet of paper and alter the heart outlines as shown above to form the basic apple shape. Set aside for now.

Mix the powdered sugar, ground almonds, and ground freeze dried apples together. In a clean bowl, add your aged egg whites and salt. With an electric mixer, beat on low until frothy. Turn up the mixer to high and slowly add in the granulated sugar as you continue to mix till the whites are stiff peaks (when you lift up the mixer, there should literally be stiff, shiny peaks). Add in the red food coloring and mix a few more seconds.

With a spatula, gently fold in the powdered sugar/nut/apple mixture until incorporated. Place a plain piping tip in a piping bag and fill the bag with your macaron batter. Now take that large stenciled paper and place it under a piece of parchment, using it to guide you as you pipe out your macarons. When done, slide out that paper and place it under your other parchment and repeat.

Let your macarons dry for a few hours, until the tops are completely dry. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Bake your trays one at a time for 8-10 minutes or until the macarons are set on top. Let them cool on the parchment on a cooling rack. When relatively cool, carefully peel the shells off the parchment.

Decorating the Macarons
semisweet chocolate chips
green candy melts

Pair all the macarons up by matching size. Place 1/2 of each pair of macaron shells on a sheet of parchment paper, remembering which shell goes with which. Melt the chocolate chips. Use a toothpick to place a blob at the top of each of the shells on the parchment paper to form the stem of each apple, making sure that the chocolate touches the shell (so it sticks when it dries). Let dry.

Melt the green candy melts. Use a toothpick to draw a leaf on the top right edge of each of the macaron shells on the parchment paper. When the candy coating is almost dry, take a toothpick and run it through the center of each leaf to form a vein. Let dry. Carefully pull the decorated shells off the parchment. If necessary, add some chocolate to the bottom of the shell, touching the stem to help it adhere better, and let dry. Once dry, re-pair all the macaron shells.

Fill a piping bag with the cinnamon apple filling (recipe below), pipe the filling onto one half of a pair, and sandwich the filling with the matching macaron shell. Once done, refrigerate the macarons overnight to let the flavors meld.

Cinnamon Apple Filling
3 tbsp salted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp apple juice

Cream with butter with 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Add in the cinnamon. Alternate between adding the remaining 1 cup of powdered sugar and the apple juice. If the filling is too stiff, add more apple juice, and if it is too watery, add more powdered sugar.

Cake Batter Ice Cream Fairy Wands

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 02:59:00 +0000

Been getting settled in at school; I just finished my 1st week of M1 :). It's been hot here in Illinois... like ice cream weather hot, which makes it the perfect time for me to post this recipe for Cake Batter Ice Cream, which I formed into both fairy wand pops and bonbons.

I had this idea to make pastel pink and blue fairy wand ice cream pops: star-shaped with a cute striped stick. I was inspired by Deborah Lipmann's "Glitter In The Air" nail polish, Little Twin Stars (Sanrio), and the Fairy Godmother from Cinderella. To make them even more fanciful, I made my own cake batter ice cream, chock full of rainbow sprinkles and cubes of cake, to go inside the pops. They're the perfect sweet treats to add a little bit of magic to a hot summer day.

Cake Batter Ice Cream
adapted from allrecipes.com

1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups heavy whipping cream
3/4 cup white cake mix
3 tbsp rainbow jimmies
1 cup frozen cake cubes*

Mix the milk, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla extract, and cake mix in a medium saucepan. Cook the mixture over med-low heat, until it reaches 160°F, whisking it frequently. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Chill in the refrigerator overnight.

Follow the instructions of your ice cream maker to churn the ice cream. The churned ice cream should reach a soft serve consistency. Fold in the sprinkles and cake cubes if you choose to use them. Scrape the ice cream into a 2-quart plastic container, cover, and freeze overnight.

Or, if you plan to use the ice cream to make the Fairy Wand Pops, scrape the ice cream mixture into a 9" x 9" square baking pan sprayed with nonstick spray and lined with parchment paper. Freeze the ice cream overnight.

*For the frozen cake cubes, I baked the remainder of the cake mix cake, let it cool, cut it up into 1/2" cubes, placed the cubes on a baking sheet, and froze the sheet for a few hours.

Fairy Wand Pops
ice cream of your choice
white chocolate
pink oil-based candy coloring
blue oil-based candy coloring

star-shaped cookie cutter
long lollipop sticks
striped gray paper straws
parchment paper
baking pan
baking sheet

For the ice cream, I used the Cake Batter Ice Cream recipe posted above. But feel free to use whatever ice cream recipe you'd prefer or even use store bought ice cream. Spray a baking pan with nonstick spray and then line the pan with parchment paper (the nonstick spray helps the parchment adhere to the pan).

Make sure the ice cream is at a soft serve consistency (so either use ice cream freshly made in an ice cream maker or let your store bought ice cream sit out a few minutes until softened a bit). Scrape your ice cream into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Ultimately, the ice cream pops should be 1/2-3/4 inch thick, so choose the baking pan that will allow your ice cream to be in a layer that thick. Freeze the tray overnight.

Carefully remove the ice cream from the pan by pulling at the parchment paper lining and place the ice cream (still on the parchment paper) on a flat surface. Cut out ice cream stars with your cookie cutter and place the stars on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Stick a lollipop stick in each ice cream star and place in the freezer for a few hours until hardened.

Melt half of the white chocolate. Tint it with a few drops of pink candy coloring. Dip half of the ice cream stars in the pink chocolate. Gently shake off the excess chocolate. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and keep frozen until ready to serve. Melt the other half of the white chocolate, tint it blue, and dip the other half of the pops in the blue chocolate. When ready to serve, slip a striped paper straw over the lollipop stick of each pop.

Fairy Star Bonbons
ice cream of your choice
white chocolate
pink oil-based candy coloring
blue oil-based candy coloring

mini star-shaped cookie cutter
parchment paper
baking pan
baking sheet

Instructions very similar to the ones for the Fairy Wand Pops above. Instead though, the soft serve consistency ice cream should be spread in a thinner layer, about 1/4-1/2 inch thick. And use a mini star cookie cutter to cut out tiny ice cream stars. Freeze them. Use a fork to dip them into the pink and blue chocolates. Shake off excess chocolate while still on the fork. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and keep frozen until ready to eat.

Inspiration:

[Photo Credit: Top image from Sanrio Co. Japan / Bottom image from Disney's Cinderella]

Olympic Macarons + News

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 01:25:00 +0000

I know that I said that I'd blog about the Southern Dinner Party in my Mini Moon Pie post, but since the Olympics ends today, I decided to do an Olympics themed post instead. But don't worry; the Southern party photos and details will definitely come another day.

But before I talk about the Olympics, I first want to let you all know that I'll be starting medical school at the end of this month! I'm super excited :D. And I intend to keep this blog running even after school starts. That's partially the reason I've been MIA here this past month. I'll be living in the dorms for my first year, which means not having my own kitchen, so I've been baking like crazy, taking advantage of the kitchen at home, preparing back-up posts in case I really won't have access to a kitchen in the coming months. So hakuna matata :).

Back to the Olympics. Did you all watch them? My favorite events are always gymnastics and swimming but this year I've discovered that I also like pole vaulting and synchronized diving. I set out to bake something simple but Olympics themed and somehow ended up making Olympic ring macarons :P. Technically these are more meringues since they didn't form feet, but since I used a macaron recipe, I'm going to stick to calling them macarons. I also made individual rings with the leftover batter and they ended up with feet, so go figure. Keep these in mind for Sochi '14 and Rio '16!

Olympic Macarons
your favorite macaron recipe
red, blue, yellow, green, black gel food coloring
your macaron filling of choice

Copy and paste the image above into a word processor like MS Word (you should get at least six copies of the image to fit on one page if you stretch the page margins). Print it out and set it aside for now.

Prepare the dry ingredients (powdered sugar and ground almonds) for your favorite macaron recipe. Divide the mixture evenly into five bowls. Whip the egg whites and sugar according to your recipe. Divide the mixture into five, placing a portion into each of the five bowls of dry ingredients. Add a few drops of the gel food coloring into the five bowls, one color per bowl.

Fold the wet and dry ingredients according to your recipe and you should end up with five different colored macaron batters. Place each into a plastic piping bag. Tear a piece of parchment paper the size of your baking sheet and place it on a flat surface, placing the olympic ring print-out underneath as a stencil.

Cut a small hole at the tip of each piping bag and follow the print-out to pipe the different colored rings. Tear out more parchment paper when you run out of space. Once you've used half of the batter, flip over the print-out and continue piping out olympic ring macarons with the ring colors going in the opposite direction for the bottom of the macarons.

(As an alternative, you could pipe out individual ring macarons. Instead of the print-out, place a sheet covered with 1-inch diameter circles underneath your parchment paper and pipe out rings, basically circles with a round empty space in the middle.)

Let the macarons dry for a few hours, until a skin forms on each and they're smooth to the touch. Then bake according to your recipe. Definitely watch the macarons carefully because the rings are thinner than the traditional round macaron so the oven time will need to be cut shorter, possibly by half the time. And also it's also likely that the macaron feet won't form.

Cool the macarons on a wire rack. Make the macaron filling of your choice (I used an almond buttercream). Place in a piping bag, pipe onto your cooled macaron shells, and top with another shell.

Mini Moon Pies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 08:44:00 +0000

Last Friday, my friend Monica and I hosted a Southern Dinner Party. We set up a backyard buffet of Southern dishes, with an abundance of different desserts, including the Mini Moon Pies I'm posting about today. I'll share my party photos with all of you in my next post :).

For now, let's talk Moon Pies. If you've never had one, a Moon Pie is made up of two graham cookies sandwiched around a marshmallow filling, dipped in chocolate. Sort of like a s'more, but not. I remember eating Moon Pies a few times as a child, but only once in a blue moon because they were so hard to find.

Moon Pies also come dipped in other coatings like orange and banana, so rather than just the original chocolate, I thought I'd also include a different flavor. If you've been following my blog, you probably know that I adore the combination of mint and chocolate (ex. Mint Chocolate Chip Truffles & Grasshopper Tart), so what better other flavor to include than mint? Plus, the mint color is lovely.

This is a great recipe to experiment with. Try using different extracts/liquids for the marshmallow filling and flavor/color the coating differently (maybe orange or lemon?). Definitely try this out. Not only are these Mini Moon Pies cute to look at, they're pretty darn tasty; they were the first dessert to go from our buffet.

P.S. If you choose to make mint and chocolate coated mini moon pies, don't throw away the extra coating! Use it to make homemade Andes chocolates (recipe at the very bottom of this post).

Mini Moon Pies
adapted from Confections of a Foodie Bride

Graham Cookie
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat or graham flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the dry ingredients: flour, whole wheat (or graham) flour, salt, and baking powder, and set aside for now.

Cream the butter with the powdered sugar. Add the vanilla extract.

Combine the butter mixture with the dry ingredients until a dough forms. Gather the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Once chilled, roll out the dough to 1/8" thick. Cut out circles with a small round cookie cutter. Place cut-outs on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake cookies 10-12 minutes, until golden. Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Marshmallow Filling
1 tbsp unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup cold water
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup cold water

Pour 1/3 cup cold water into the bowl of a standing mixer. Sprinkle with the unflavored gelatin and set aside for now. In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 1/3 cup cold water. Heat over med heat, stirring constantly until the temperature reaches 234°F (it should now be a clear syrup).

Turn on the standing mixer to low and slowly pour in the hot syrup in a thin stream. Once all the syrup is poured in, turn the mixer to high and let it run 15-20 minutes, until the filling is white, thickened, and cooled to room temperature. Scrape the filling into a large ziplock bag. Cut off a corner of the bag and use it to pipe the filling onto half of the cookies.

Place the cookies in the refrigerator for 10 minutes for the filling to set. Top with the other cookies. Keep cookies chilled until ready to coat, or serve them at this point as "Naked Moon Pies".

Chocolate Coating
8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp shortening

Melt the chocolate and shortening in the microwave at 50% power for 1 minute. Stir. Continue melting at 30 second intervals at 50% power until all melted. Dip the top and sides of each moon pie in the melted chocolate. Shake off excess chocolate and place on a wire rack (with a baking sheet underneath to catch any drips).

To get the tops of each moon pie smooth, after the cookie's placed on the wire rack, place a small piece of wax or parchment paper over the top of the moon pie, smooth out the paper. After a few minutes, pull off the wax paper and the top should be smooth. Once all the moon pies are dipped, place the rack in the refrigerator for 10 minutes, or until chocolate is set.

NOTE: If it's hot out, like during the summer, keep cookies in refrigerator until ready to serve to prevent the chocolate from melting. Serve at room temperature.

Or...
Mint Coating
8 oz white chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp shortening
1 tsp mint extract, or to taste
green oil-based candy coloring

Melt the white chocolate and shortening in the microwave at 50% power for 1 minute. Stir. Continue melting at 30 second intervals at 50% power until all melted. Add the mint extract, use more or less to taste. Mix in a bit of green candy coloring until the white chocolate is mint colored. Dip the top and sides of each moon pie in the melted chocolate. Shake off excess chocolate and place on a wire rack (with a baking sheet underneath to catch any drips).

To get the tops of each moon pie smooth, after the cookie's placed on the wire rack, place a small piece of wax or parchment paper over the top of the moon pie, smooth out the paper. After a few minutes, pull off the wax paper and the top should be smooth. Once all the moon pies are dipped, place the rack in the refrigerator for 10 minutes, or until chocolate is set.

NOTE: If it's hot out, like during the summer, keep cookies in refrigerator until ready to serve to prevent the chocolate from melting. Serve at room temperature.

Makes ~30 mini moon pies.

Homemade Andes Candy
leftover chocolate coating
leftover mint coating
mint extract

Add a bit of mint extract to the leftover chocolate coating, to taste. Spread the coating over a sheet of parchment paper in a thin layer, about 1/8" thick. Place in the refrigerator for 10 minutes until set.

Cover the chocolate layer with a thin layer of the leftover mint coating. Keep at room temperature and once the mint coating is partially set, use a knife to cut up the candy into little squares. Place the candy in the refrigerator to set completely.

NOTE: If it's hot out, like during the summer, keep candy in refrigerator to prevent the chocolate from melting.

Red, White & Blue Jewel Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 06:56:00 +0000

Happy 4th of July everyone! Hope all of you in the US did something fun today: attended a party, had a BBQ, watched a parade, baked an apple pie, played with fireworks, etc.

Today I have a pretty cake to share with all of you. It's an adaptation of Sprinkle Bakes's "Crown Jewel Cake", which is based on a vintage Jello recipe. I remember seeing this cake on Sprinkle Bakes and being wowed by how wonderfully gorgeous and colorful it is. I loved that Heather replaced the dream whip with actual whipped cream and added a tasty jaconde to make the "cake" an actual cake.

I took this cake and gave it an Independence Day twist, inspired by the American flag (red/white/blue + stars & stripes) and patriotism (hence the hearts). The jaconde does use a lot food coloring, but there are alternatives for those of you wary of food coloring. First, you could make a chocolate jaconde instead, brown instead of blue with three lines of frosting: red, white, and blue. Or second, you could skip the jaconde and make a graham cracker crust for the bottom instead, like in the vintage recipe (and as I did with the extra filling).

Another great thing about this cake is that it can easily be adapted to any other holiday/theme just by changing the colors of the jello, jaconde, and frosting. Imagine, a red jaconde with red and pink jello for Valentine's Day. Or a purple jaconde with purple, yellow, and green jello for Mardi Gras. Or change the colors to coordinate with the colors of your favorite sports team. The possibilities are endless so try this cake out!

P.S. To add to the fun, I used the extra jello from the filling to make some Broken Glass Jello, an additional dessert for my 4th of July menu (recipe also posted after the jump).

Red, White & Blue Jewel Cake
adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

Jaconde
1 cup almond flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup flour
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1/2 tbsp blue gel food coloring
3 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Spray a jelly roll pan (11 x 17") with nonstick spray and line it with parchment paper; set aside for now. Grease your cake pan, either a 6" or 7" round spring-form pan or cake ring*. If using a cake ring, set it on top of a plate and cut out a round of parchment paper that will go under the ring.

Mix the almond flour, powdered sugar, and flour in a bowl. Add in the 3 eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add the egg yolk and blue gel food coloring and mix.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until foamy. Gradually add the 1/4 cup sugar and continue mixing until stiff peaks form.

Carefully fold the egg whites into the blue mixture from before. Add the melted butter and fold it in gently.

Pour the cake batter into your prepared jelly roll pan and smooth it out. Place it in the oven for 5-8 minutes; watch the cake carefully as it burns easily.

Once finished baking, remove the cake from the oven and flip it onto another baking sheet covered with a sheet of parchment paper. Peel off the parchment used to line the bottom of the jelly roll pan**.

From the cake, cut out a round of cake the same diameter as your spring-form pan/cake ring***. Then, cut out a long strip (the same height as your pan) to line the side of your pan/ring. Chances are it won't be long enough, so cut out a rectangle of cake to fill in the gap.

Now line the sides of your pan/ring with the long cake strip + rectangle. Then press the cake round into the bottom of the pan.

*I used a 6" cake ring, but since mine is too short, I added a 1" tall ring of cardboard on top of it to augment the height making it 3" tall in total.

**Removing the parchment might also peel off the "skin/crust" on your cake. That's totally fine. I just peeled it all off with the aid of a knife, which revealed the blueness of the cake and used the side without the skin on the outside of my cake. Btw, all this should be done right after the cake is taken out of the oven; don't wait for the cake to cool because it'll be less flexible and harder to shape.

***The easiest way to get this round piece of cake is to press your pan/ring into the cake to leave and imprint that you can trace with your knife to cut out.

Filling
1 tbsp powdered gelatin
1 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup cold water
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 tbsp powdered sugar (if the pineapple juice is sweetened, skip)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-1 1/2 cups prepared red and blue jello cubes

Sprinkle the gelatin over the pineapple juice in a small saucepan and mix. Heat the mixture over low heat until the gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat and mix in the cold water. Pour into a small bowl and let cool a bit. Then cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 5 minutes, so that it is no longer warm but is still liquid.

While the gelatin is chilling, put the whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract in a large bowl and mix with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Once the gelatin mixture is cool, whisk it into the cream.

Randomly drop the jello cubes into the mixture, shaking the bowl so the jello sinks to the bottom to make more room for more jello (don't mix it or else you might crush the jello).

Pour the mixture into your cake lined pan and chill for at least 6 hours, or overnight.

Decorating the Cake
1 recipe Decorator's Frosting (below)
red gel food coloring
red heart sprinkles

Tint 1/3 of the frosting with red gel food coloring. Place the red frosting and 1/2 of the remaining white frosting into separate plastic piping bags (keep the rest of the white frosting covered with plastic wrap). Remove your cake from the spring-form pan or cake ring.

Cut a little bit off the tip of the piping bag with the red frosting. From the top edge of the cake, pipe semicircles around the whole cake. Repeat with the white frosting, piping semicircles that also start at the top edge of the cake but go below the red semicircles.

Place the rest of the white frosting in a piping bag with a small star tip. Use the white frosting to pipe a shell border along the top edge of the cake. Then pipe frosting stars to cover up where the red and white frosting semicircles meet along the top edge of the cake. To finish, from above, stick a red sprinkle into each frosting star.

Decorator's Frosting
adapted from Betty Crocker's Cake Decorating

1/3 cup shortening
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp almond extract

Cream the shortening with 1 cup of powdered sugar. Add the milk and almond extract. Continue adding the rest of the powdered sugar until you get a frosting consistency that is stiff enough to hold designs but fluid enough that it can be squeezed through a piping bag.

Broken Glass Jello (for leftover Jello)
adapted from Food Librarian

extra jello cubes
1/4 cup cold water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3/4 cup boiling water
1/2 of a 14oz can sweetened condensed milk

Place the extra jello cubes in a greased container; set aside for now.

Sprinkle the envelope of unflavored gelatin over the 1/4 cup of cold water and mix.

Pour the boiling water over the mixture to dissolve the gelatin.

Mix in the 1/2 can of condensed milk. Let the mixture cool to room temperature. Once cool, pour the condensed milk mix into the container with the jello cubes. Cover the container with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator overnight.

To serve, cut the jello into cubes.

Better than Sex Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 05:36:00 +0000

I'm back from Italy (and am currently hanging out in LA for the week). Thanks to all of you who left recommendations on my last post! I saw many beautiful sights and ate lots of terrific food. Didn't really eat many baked goods, had mostly gelato for desserts, which was wonderful. No Italy posts today, maybe sometime in the future.

Instead, today I'm posting about a very American cake. Two weekends ago, my friends and I had a BBQ/picnic, and I, of course, offered to bring dessert. I wanted to try something new: a cake that involved poking holes and pouring liquids on top, a poke-and-pour cake if you will, like "Tres Leches" or "Jello Poke" Cake (both of which I still need to make). For my first poke-and-pour cake, I finally settled on "Better than Sex" Cake (with a name like that, how could I resist ;) haha). Turns out though, there are actually two versions of the cake, one chocolate and one tropical. Naturally, I made both.

My conclusion is that these are great potluck cakes. They may not be the prettiest cakes, but they're widely appealing and provide just enough servings. The chocolate version appeals to chocolate and caramel lovers. It's for those days where you need a bit of sinful decadence in you life. Covered in condensed milk and caramel, it's a sweet, rich chocolate cake, made even better topped off with homemade whipped cream and chopped toffee candy bars.

The tropical version is perfect for those who prefer vanilla and fruit flavors. It's a yellow cake topped with a crushed pineapple syrup, vanilla pudding, sliced bananas, whipped cream, chopped pecans, and roasted coconut. To make it even better, I added a splash of rum to the syrup. It's the perfect cake for a hot summer day, refreshingly cool with tropical flavors that transport you to a beachy paradise. Which cake is better? You'll just have to make both to find out ;).

Better than Sex Cake (Chocolate)
adapted from food.com

chocolate cake recipe (use measurements for the small cake)
1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk
1 (8 oz) jar of caramel topping
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Heath bars (or 12 mini Heath bars), chopped

Bake your chocolate cake in a 9" x 13" cake pan. When it comes out of the oven, poke it all over (I used both a chopstick and a fork).

First pour the whole can of condensed milk over the cake.

Microwave 8 oz of caramel topping for 30 seconds, or until it is easily pourable, and then pour it over the cake. Let the cake cool to room temperature. Cover it in plastic wrap and let it chill for at least 24 hours, even longer is better as it gives the cake more time to absorb the condensed milk and caramel.

When ready to serve, prepare the whipped cream. Pour the cold whipped cream in a bowl and use an electric mixer on medium speed to whip the cream until it is slightly thickened. Then add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Increase the mixer to high speed and continue whipping until you get soft peaks. Spread the whipped cream over the top of the cake and top with the chopped Heath bars.

Better than Sex Cake (Tropical)
adapted from My Mom's Recipe

yellow cake recipe (below)
1 (20 oz can) crushed pineapple
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp rum (optional)
2 (3.5 oz) packages instant vanilla pudding
3 cups milk
2 bananas (optional)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup flaked coconut, toasted
1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Bake your yellow cake in a 9" x 13" cake pan. While the cake is baking, prepare the pineapple syrup. Place the crushed pineapple with the juice in a medium saucepan and add the 3/4 cup sugar. Heat over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until the sugar is dissolved, then remove from the heat.

When the cake comes out of the oven, poke it all over (I used both a chopstick and a fork). Add the rum to the pineapple syrup.

Then pour the syrup over the whole cake. Let cool to room temp.

Mix the instant pudding with the milk.

Spread it over the cake.

Thinly slice the bananas then layer over the pudding. Cover the cake with plastic wrap then chill for at least 24 hours, even longer is better as it lets the cake absorb the syrup which moistens the cake.

When ready to serve, prepare the whipped cream. Pour the cold whipped cream in a bowl and use an electric mixer to whip on medium speed until the creams is slightly thickened. Then add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Then mix on high speed until you get soft peaks. Spread the whipped cream over the top of the cake and top with the toasted coconut and chopped pecans.

Yellow Cake
adapted from Chickens in the Road

2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup boiling water

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9x13" cake pan with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper. Set aside for now.

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, and baking powder.

Add the milk and vegetable oil. Mix in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla extract.

Mix in the boiling water. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

A Italia!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Sat, 19 May 2012 23:26:00 +0000

No new recipe today. Just wanted to let you all know, I'm off to the land of tiramisù, pizza, gelato, and Nutella for the next two weeks, in case you wonder why there aren't any new posts during that time.

I'll be visiting Rome, Florence, and Venice, and I was wondering if any of you had any advice in regards to these three cities? Restaurant recommendations, must see places, things to buy, tips for taking the train, etc? All suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

I hope to bring back some Italy-inspired recipes to post. Ci vediamo!

Parks and Recreation Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:10:00 +0000

I'm a huge fan of Parks and Recreation. It's definitely my favorite show on TV right now (I love TV comedies... a lot).

Characters (L->R): Donna, Leslie, Ann, April, Andy, Tom, Ben, Ron, Jerry, Chris

If you've never watched it before, Parks and Rec is about a group of people working for the Department of Parks and Recreation in the fictional city of Pawnee, Indiana. What makes the show great are the quirky characters, the awesome pop culture references, all those slow head shakes and deadpan stares (Ben and April especially), and the plethora of continued gags & jokes (Zorp and the Reasonabilists, the creepy City Hall 4th Floor, the absurdly offensive murals, snooty rival city Eagleton, the library, the love for Li'l Sebastian, etc.).

I decided to make cookies based on characters in the show, much like I did for my Glee Cookies. It just seems fitting since I adore the show's characters so much. Tom and Ron have the best lines, so it was difficult to pick just one to use on the images above and below this blurb. Though Leslie and Ben are cute together, my favorite couple on the show has to be April and Andy! By the way, the Ron cookie is wearing his "got lucky" Tiger Woods-ish red polo, haha. Enjoy!

P.S. If you've decided to start watching, it's better to start from the 2nd season rather than the 1st. (It doesn't become the awesome show it is now until the 2nd season; they made a huge comeback after mixed reviews in regards to the 1st season.)

P.P.S. I'm sort of wishing I made a Jean-Ralphio cookie... Orin and Tammy II as well :).

P.P.P.S. If you're a Parks and Rec fan and haven't checked out Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America, it's great. Oh and Tom Haverfoods!

Parks & Rec Cookies
sugar cookie dough
sugar cookie icing
food coloring
1-inch circle cookie
knife
pearl milk tea straw
rainbow nonpareils
chopstick
toothpicks

For all the cookies, I started with a circle* for the face, and then added little bits of dough for the hair and ears. Then, I cut out rectangles with a knife for the neck/body. The ears were made as usual, by cutting out circles with a pearl milk tea straw, pushing the circles out with a chopstick, and then cutting the dough circle in half.

Below, on the left side of the pictures, I've illustrated how I generally made each of the character cookie dough shapes. The numbered steps above the pictures list the order that I iced and decorated each character after the cookies were baked and cooled. The right side of the character image shows how the cookies look after all the icing is done. Mix food coloring with the sugar cookie icing and use toothpicks to spread the icing onto the cookies. Let the icing dry between steps.

*In the illustrations below, assume that the main shape is a circle even though the circles might not look that round in the images

Ron Swanson
1) Red polo collar
2) Brown hair
3) Rest of red polo
4) Peach skin
5) Green sprinkle eyes
6) Brown moustache

April Ludgate
1) Brown hair
2) Gray shirt
3) Blue jacket
4) Peach skin
5) Purple sprinkle eyes
6) Red mouth

Chris Traeger
1) White shirt collar
2) Brown hair
3) Black tie
4) Rest of white shirt
5) Peach skin
6) Blue sprinkle eyes
7) Black mouth

Ann Perkins
1) Brown hair
2) Gray cardigan
3) White shirt
4) Tan skin
5) Purple sprinkle eyes
6) Light blue shirt stripes
7) Red mouth

Garry "Jerry" Gergich
1) White shirt collar
2) Gray hair
3) Blue sweater vest
4) Rest of white shirt
5) Peach skin
6) Purple sprinkle eyes
7) Black mouth

Donna Meagle
1) Black hair
2) Magenta cardigan
3) Pink shirt
4) Yellow sprinkle necklace
5) Brown skin
6) Black (or purple) sprinkle eyes
7) Rest of yellow sprinkle necklace
8) Red mouth

Ben Wyatt
1) White shirt collar
2) Brown hair
3) Blue tie
4) Brown blazer
5) Rest of white shirt
6) Peach skin
7) Purple sprinkle eyes
8) Black smile

Leslie Knope
1) Light blue shirt collar
2) Yellow hair
3) Navy blazer lapels
4) Rest of light blue shirt
5) Rest of navy blazer
6) Peach skin
7) Blue sprinkle eyes
8) Red mouth

Andy Dwyer
1) Brown hair, beard, sideburns
2) White shirt
3) Black shirt design
4) Peach skin
5) Green sprinkle eyes
6) Red "Mouse R" words
7) Brown moustache
8) Black smile

Tom Haverford
1) White shirt collar
2) Black hair, beard, sideburns
3) Red tie
4) Gray blazer
5) Rest of white shirt
6) Brown skin
7) Purple sprinkle eyes
8) Black moustache/goatee
9) Black smile

Here's the clip of the Parks and Rec episode quoted in the Tom image:

Fresh Strawberry Coffee Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:56:00 +0000

Lately, I've been seeing beautiful strawberries everywhere while grocery shopping, so naturally, I picked some up to bake with.

With so many strawberry desserts out there, I finally decided to make a fresh strawberry coffee cake, as I need to post more go-to, everyday type recipes here. This is one of those cakes that's perfect for anytime of the day, a great companion to your morning coffee at breakfast or a lovely mid-afternoon snack. It can be served warm or cold, and though the recipe makes a whole tray of cake, it goes quick!

There's cream cheese in the batter, which keeps the cake moist and gives it a richer flavor. The combination of fresh strawberries and strawberry preserves gives the cake that wonderful berry flavor, and the stripe created by the layer of strawberries and preserves gives the slices of cake a nice bit of color. The original recipe tops the cake off with chopped nuts, but I decided to use a crumb topping instead as I love crumb coffee cakes. Also, another plus about this cake recipe is that it's not too sweet, another reason why it's a great anytime cake.

Fresh Strawberry Coffee Cake
adapted from Marg on food.com and Perfect Light Desserts

Cake Batter
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (8 tbsp) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups sliced strawberries
1/4 cup strawberry preserves

Crumb Topping
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) butter, melted
1/3 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350°F. First make the crumb topping. In a small bowl, mix the flour (3/4 cup) and baking powder (1/2 tsp). In another bowl, melt 1/4 cup butter. Add the brown sugar to the butter. Mix in the flour/baking powder until no more white streaks remain; a crumbly dough should form. Set aside for later.

Combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside for the moment.

In a separate bowl, mix the butter with the cream cheese. Add the sugar and mix. Stir in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the milk and vanilla extract.

Add the dry ingredients to the cream cheese mixture and mix until a smooth, thick batter forms.

Spray a 9x13 inch rectangular baking pan with nonstick spray; then line the pan with parchment paper. Split the cake batter in half and use half of it to cover the bottom of the lined pan.

Spread the strawberry preserves over the cake batter.

Cover the preserves with a layer of strawberry slices.

Spread the remaining half of cake batter over the strawberries. This step is a bit tricky since the strawberries are wet and the batter is pretty thick. To do this, I dabbed blobs of the batter over the strawberries and then used the spatula/my fingers to spread it out.

Finally, crumble the crumb topping dough from earlier over the entire surface of the cake.

Bake the cake for 40 minutes, the crumb topping will be golden brown. Let cool in the pan.

To serve, cut the cake into 24 slices, and if desired, garnish the slices with extra slices of fresh strawberry for an extra pop of color.

Makes 24 servings.

Easter Chick Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 06:47:00 +0000

Spring is here! Today really felt like spring. I noticed pretty flowers blooming all over, the sun shined brightly, and birds were chirping.

Hope you all had a good Easter! I celebrated by making some chick cookies. I already made chick sugar cookies two years ago for Easter, but this year I thought instead of flat decorated cookies, I'd come up with some actual 3D chick cookies. After some trial and error, these turned out pretty well. They're the perfect springtime cookie.

Since Easter usually involves lots of candy like chocolate rabbits and jellybeans, I decided to make a cookie that was less cavity-inducing than the typical Easter dessert. I found this recipe that makes a nice, lightly sweetened cookie. I love the combination of lemon and honey. Because the recipe only uses a little bit of butter the resulting texture of the cookie is soft and cakey, in a good way. Finally, the coconut adds a hint of flavor and some cheery color. Enjoy!

Easter Chick Cookies
adapted from Anja's Food 4 Thought

1/8 cup (2 tbsp) butter, room temperature
1/4 cup honey
1 egg, room temperature
the zest of 1 lemon
1 cup + 2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon extract (optional)

1/2 cup desiccated coconut*
yellow gel food coloring
orange candy melts
black nonpareils

Add a drop of the food coloring to a bit of water to dilute the color. Mix some of colored water to the desiccated coconut to color it, mixing until all the coconut is yellow. It's better to add the colored water a little bit at a time because you don't want the coconut to be wet, just colored. Once it's all yellow, set it aside for now.

Melt some orange candy melts. Use a toothpick to draw lots of chick feet (one long line surrounded by two short lines) onto parchment paper with the melted candy melts. Let dry to use later.

Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl; set aside for now. In another bowl, mix the butter and honey. Add the egg, lemon zest, and if using, lemon extract. Now mix in the flour mixture with the wet ingredients until a dough forms. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it overnight, or at least for a few hours.

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Divide the dough into 24 pieces. Take one of the pieces, pull off 1/3 of it, and roll it into a small ball (head). Roll the other 2/3 of the piece into a large ball (body). Place the large ball onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Use your finger to make a small indentation in the center of the large ball. Place the small ball over the indentation and make sure the head is firmly attached to the body**. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Push two black nonpareils into the head of each dough chick for eyes. Then roll each chick in the yellow coconut, making sure each dough chick is fully covered. Place all of the coconut covered chicks back on the lined baking sheets. Bake the cookies for about 16 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned. Let cool on the baking sheets.

Once the cookies are cooled, it's time to finish decorating them. Take a toothpick a carefully brush away the coconut covering the chick cookie eyes. Also, brush off coconut a little bit below the eyes to make a smooth space to put the beaks. Melt some orange candy melts. To make the beaks, use a toothpick to spread a little dab of melted candy in the smooth spots you just cleared off and pull away from the cookies so the candy forms a point.

Take two candy feet. Place them about 1cm apart on a piece of parchment. Dab each foot with some melted candy and then press a chick cookie on top of both feet, with a little bit sticking out. Repeat with the other cookies and let them dry. If necessary, hold the cookie upside down and add some more melted candy to better hold the feet in place. Then replace on the parchment paper to dry.

Makes 24 cookies

*The desiccated coconut I used was very fine and unsweetened. If you can't find finely shredded coconut, take unsweetened dried coconut and grind it up in a blender or a food processor.

**Btw, if the heads are either not centered or firmly attached to the body, above, this is what happens :'(

Note: If you want to make these lemon honey cookies but not shape them as chicks, just roll them into balls and dip them into coconut dyed whatever color you want (and feel free to use unsweetened coconut that isn't as finely ground, like above)

Hunger Games Cupcakes

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:19:00 +0000

I watched The Hunger Games movie the weekend right after it came out. Overall, it was pretty good (I'd watch it again), but like most movie adaptations, not as good as the book, which I absolutely adore.

There were many things I enjoyed about the movie. The casting was great, especially the actors cast for Cinna, Effie, Caesar Flickerman, and Rue (hoping for an equally good cast for Catching Fire: Finnick!!!). Non-spoiler things I enjoyed in the movie: Seneca Crane's beard, the fire dress (exactly how I imagined it), and awkward Gale scenes. Anyway, if you haven't read the books, I highly recommend that you read them! In particular, read Catching Fire, my favorite :).

I've been meaning to bake something Hunger Games themed for a while. Finally, I decided to make cupcakes based on different Hunger Games characters. Since Katniss is the protagonist, I had to make a cupcake based on her. These were inspired by the costume she wore to represent District 12 (the black one that lit on fire) and her archery.

Peeta is my second favorite character, after Finnick, so he got cupcake as well (sorry Gale, Peeta's the nice, artistic boy who paints and bakes). In the arena, he uses his awesome cake icing skills to imitate nature in order to camouflage himself, so I topped off his cakes with pretty, "natural" frosting leaves. And because he is the "boy with the bread", I finished each cupcake with a chocolate bread slice.

I loved Effie's "look" in the movie, so I thought to take an element from her appearance and adapt it to a cupcake. I ended up representing her hair with curly pink swirls of frosting and adorned the frosting hair with big purple flowers.

Of course the villain of the story needs to be represented as well, so President Snow got a cupcake as well. His signature items are the genetically modified white roses always pinned to his lapel, which he uses to mask his bloody breath. Thus, my cupcakes based on him are iced in black and topped with white blood-stained roses.

Hunger Games Cupcakes
my go-to chocolate cake recipe
lemon frosting recipe (below)

Use the ingredient measurements for the "small" chocolate cake in the link above and follow the instructions to make the cake batter (just a warning, it's more cake soup than batter; don't worry, it's supposed to be very watery). Fill two muffin pans with cupcake liners so 20-22 cups are lined. Pour cake batter into each cupcake liner so that the muffin cups are between 1/2 to 2/3 the way full.

Bake the cupcakes for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling before decorating. Make the lemon frosting and decorate using the four different cupcake instructions below.

Makes 20-22 cupcakes.

Lemon Frosting
adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon extract
3-5 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Mix the butter and salt. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar and mix. Add in the lemon juice and lemon extract. Continue adding 2-4 more cups of powdered sugar until it reaches your desired stiffness.

Note: Because this frosting is all butter-based, it will melt if it's too hot (I learned this first hand in a warm car). So if you're planning on serving these cupcakes in hot weather, either keep them refrigerated and let them warm to room temperature before serving or look for a shortening-based frosting to substitute for this one.

Decorating the Cupcakes
Effie Cupcake
pink food coloring
purple food coloring
yellow confetti sprinkles
star frosting tip

Tint about 4/5 of the frosting light pink. Cover all the cupcakes with a thin layer of pink frosting, as a crumb coat. Put the rest of the pink frosting in a piping bag with a star tip. To make a frosting spiral, start your tip at the center and move out either clockwise or counterclockwise (whichever direction you choose, cw or ccw, stick with it for the rest of the spirals).

Squeeze a ring of pink frosting spirals around each cupcake, making sure that the frosting spirals touch the edge of the cupcake wrapper, covering up all the chocolate cake underneath. Continue adding frosting spirals until the whole cupcake is covered.

Tint the remaining frosting purple. Place the frosting in a piping bag with a petal tip. Make a petal on the cupcake by positioning the thick part of the petal tip facing where the center of the flower will be and the thin part of the petal tip facing out and make a little arc while squeezing the piping bag (if unsure, first practice on a piece of parchment paper). Repeat until you have six joined purple petals.

To finish, squeeze a little purple frosting in the center of the flower and press five round yellow sprinkles into the the dab of frosting, with the sprinkles overlapping one another in a circle.

Katniss Cupcake
orange food coloring
brown food coloring
bamboo skewers, each cut into 3 pieces
red, orange, yellow paper (I used origami paper)

Arrow Toppers

Take a long strip of yellow paper, about 3/4 inch wide. Over the yellow paper, glue a long strip of orange paper, 2/3 the width of the yellow paper, lining it up with the bottom edge of the yellow paper strip. Over the orange paper, glue a long strip of red paper, 1/2 the width of the orange paper = 1/3 the width of the yellow paper, lining it up with the bottom edge of both the orange and yellow paper strips. Let the now tri-colored paper strip dry before continuing. (Sorry, steps 1 & 2 in the illustration above don't exactly match my written instructions since the paper in the picture aren't long strips).

Now cut the paper strips into little pieces (illustrated in step 3). For step 4, cut a triangle out from the yellow side of a paper piece to form the tail of the arrow end and cut the red side of the paper piece so that it forms a point to make the tip of the arrow end. Repeat with the rest of the paper pieces.

Take two trimmed paper pieces and glue them around the end of one of your bamboo skewer thirds with the tri-colored sides facing outwards. It helps the paper stick together if you pinch the paper together around the skewer. Repeat with the rest of the trimmed papers and the bamboo skewer thirds. Let the arrow toppers dry completely before using them.

Frosting Katniss Cupcakes

Tint half of the lemon frosting brown in one bowl and tint the other half of the frosting orange in another bowl. Cover all the cupcakes with a thin layer of brown frosting as a crumb coat. Place the cupcakes in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes for the crumb coat to harden. Add little dollops of orange frosting in the shape of a spiral on the top of the frosting. Use a knife or your fingers to smooth it out into a neat spiral.

Add dollops of brown frosting in a spiral in the negative space not covered by orange frosting and smooth out the brown frosting. Finish up by sticking one of the arrow toppers into each cupcake.

President Snow Cupcake
black food coloring
red food coloring
corn syrup
petal frosting tip
leaf frosting tip

Frosting Snow Cupcakes

Tint a third of the frosting black. Frost all the cupcakes with a layer of black frosting. Place the cupcakes in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes for the black frosting to harden.

Tint 1/6 of the remaining frosting light green. Place it in a piping bag with a leaf tip. With one of the pointy metal parts of the tip touching the cupcake and the other point pointing upwards (the points are what make the line in the middle of the leaf), pipe 5 green leaves on each of the cupcakes, squeezing the piping bag, releasing the pressure as you pull away from the cupcake. Chill the cupcakes for 5 minutes for the leaves to harden.

Keep the remaining frosting white and place it in a piping bag with a petal tip. Position the piping bag at the center of the cupcake with the thick part of the petal tip touching the cupcake and the thin part of the tip pointing up. Follow the illustration above to make the frosting roses. First, squeeze out a cone of frosting; the ends of the cone should overlap and the bottom of it should stick to the cupcake.

Next, squeeze out two petals around the cone; the two petals should overlap, and together, should totally wrap around the cone. Add another layer of petals, 3-4 petals. Continue adding layers of overlapping petals (each new layer should have more petals than the previous) until they cover about 1/3-1/2 of the surfaces of the frosting leaves.

Fake Blood

Mix a drop of red food coloring with some corn syrup. Add more food coloring if the color isn't dark enough. Take a toothpick and dot the "blood" onto random petals of the frosting roses. Use it sparingly; in this case, less is more.

Note: It is best to dot the fake blood right before serving the cupcakes. If dotted on too early, like the day before, the food coloring might bleed (hehe) into the frosting.

Peeta Cupcake
green food coloring
yellow food coloring
brown food coloring
white chocolate
semisweet (or milk) chocolate
leaf frosting tip

Bread Slice Toppers

Melt white chocolate to form the crumb of the bread. Drop a bit of white chocolate on a piece of parchment paper and use a toothpick to shape it into a small circle. Add another circle right next to it, overlapping the edge of the first one. Then add a small rectangle under the two circles, overlapping the bottom edges of the two circles.

Smooth out the overlapping edges between the two circles and the rectangle and then let the white chocolate bread slice-shaped pieces dry (they should be about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch). Once dry, remove the pieces from the parchment paper and flip them over so the smooth side is facing upwards.

To form the bread crust, melt semisweet chocolate and mix bit of the leftover white chocolate so that the brown of the chocolate isn't so dark. Follow the above instructions for making the bread slice-shaped pieces with the semisweet chocolate, just make the shapes a bit bigger than the white chocolate pieces.

Before the semisweet chocolate bread shapes are dry, press one of the dry white chocolate pieces (smooth side facing up/textured side facing down) into the center of each semisweet chocolate shape. Let the semisweet chocolate dry. Once dry, remove the bread slice toppers from the parchment paper.

Frosting Peeta Cupcakes:

Tint all of the frosting light green. Frost all of the cupcakes with a layer of light green frosting. Put 1/3 of the green frosting in a piping bag with a leaf tip. Pipe light green leaves randomly over the surfaces of all the cupcakes. To pipe leaves, have one of the pointy metal parts of the tip facing up while the other point touches the cupcake and squeeze, adding less pressure as you pull away from the cupcake.

Next, add more green food coloring to another third of the frosting so the frosting ends up a darker green. Place the dark green frosting in the piping bag and randomly pipe leaves over all the cupcakes; start to fill in the empty spots without leaves.

Take the remainder of the frosting and add a bit of yellow, brown, and green food coloring (only a little) so you get an olive green colored frosting. Place it into the piping bag and pipe leaves, filling in all the spots on the cupcakes without leaves. To finish off, lightly press one of the bread slice toppers into the center of each cupcake.

And to finish off the post, here's the Katniss-themed cupcakes with all three Hunger Games novels.

The Lorax Cake

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:43:00 +0000

The Lorax movie looks pretty adorable, judging from the previews. Don't know if I'm going to see it in theaters (I tend to shy away from going to kid-packed movies), but I look forward to borrowing the DVD!

I love the film's soft and colorful animation. The truffula trees look nice and fluffy, like cotton candy, which is what inspired me to make this cake. I thought a multicolored layer cake decorated with cotton candy truffula trees would be cute, with the color of the cake layers matching the colors of the cotton candy. It's a basic white cake tinted pink, blue, and yellow (inspired by Whisk Kid's Rainbow Cake). To finish, I altered one of the posters for The Lorax movie to feature not only the Lorax, but also some Swomee-Swans, Bar-ba-loots, and Humming-fish to make a colorful decoration for the side of the cake.

The Lorax Cake
Classic White Cake
adapted from Baking Bites

1 cup milk, room temperature
6 egg whites
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 1/4 cups flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
pink, blue, yellow gel food coloring

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray three 8-inch diameter round cake pans with nonstick spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside for the moment. Mix the milk, egg whites, almond extract, and vanilla extract in a small bowl.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Rub/cut in the butter until the mixture looks like wet sand. Add 1/2 the milk mixture and stir. Then add the second half of the milk mixture and stir.

Divide the cake batter into 3 bowls (about 1 1/2 cups batter per bowl). Add 2 drops pink food coloring to one bowl, add 2 drops yellow food coloring to another bowl, and add 2 drops blue food coloring to the last bowl.

Pour the three cake batters into the three previously prepared cake pans. Place the pans in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cakes cool in the pans about 10 minutes, then flip the cakes onto cooling racks and let totally cool to room temperature.

Easy Vanilla Frosting
adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) butter, room temperature
3-4 cups powdered sugar
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
green food coloring

Cream the butter. Mix in 3 cups of powdered sugar. Add the milk, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Then if necessary, mix in more powdered sugar, adding it 1/4 cup at a time until you reach desired consistency. Now frost your cake as indicated in instructions below.

After the cake layers are stacked and the crumb coat is done, tint the remaining frosting with green food coloring and use that for the final layer of frosting.

Frosting the Cake
pink, blue, yellow cake layers
white and green vanilla frosting
cake board

Slice each cake layer in half lengthwise so you end up with two thin pink layers, two thin blue layers, and two thin yellow layers.

Place a blue layer down on a cake board (or like me, use a cardboard circle, cut out from a cereal box, and cover it in foil).

Add a dollop of vanilla frosting.

Smooth out the frosting.

Cover with a yellow cake layer.

Frost.

Add pink layer and frost.

Repeat until last pink layer is stacked.

Cover the whole cake with a thin layer of frosting for the crumb coat. Refrigerate cake 15 minutes for the crumb coat to harden. Then frost the outside of the cake with the green frosting.

Decorate the cake with cotton candy truffula trees and The Lorax decoration (instructions for both below). Bagged cotton candy can harden once exposed to air, so wait until you're ready to serve the cake to make them, or keep each tree top (the cotton candy portion) covered in plastic wrap after making it.

The Lorax Decoration (optional)
white, yellow, orange candy melts
semisweet chocolate
black food coloring pen

Copy and paste "The Lorax" outline image into a word processor and print it out (it should measure 8.5 x 3.5 inches). Place parchment paper on top of "The Lorax" printout. Melt white candy melts (or white chocolate) and use a toothpick to spread out the melted candy in the shape of the letters. Let them dry before adding the animals.

"L"

Melt orange candy melts and use a toothpick to draw out an oval on top of the "L" for the fish bodies. Before the body dries, add the top fin and tail fins. After the orange candy is dry, add a bit of melted yellow candy melt for the face. Once the yellow is dry, add the two remaining fins. Make two dots with melted white candy melts for the eyeballs. Lastly, once the white is dry, use the black food coloring marker to draw on the pupils and mouth.

"O"

Melt orange candy melts and use it to draw a kidney shape on the "O". Add arms and the left leg. Once that is dry, add the right leg which over laps the left. Melt yellow candy melts and add the moustache. When it is almost dry, rub it with a toothpick to add some texture. Add the eyebrows and add texture to them as well. Use melted white candy melts to dot on eyeballs. Once the white is dry, use the black food coloring marker to draw on pupils, a nose, and a mouth.

"R"

Melt semisweet chocolate and draw a part of the barbaloot head in the hold of the "R". Add an arm and a leg which overlap the "R". Melt white candy melts and dot on an eyeball. To finish, once, the white is dry, use the food coloring marker to draw a pupil on the eyeball.

"A"

Melt semisweet chocolate and use it to draw on the head. Add two hands and feet. Melt white candy melts and use it to dot on two eyeballs. Once the white is dry, use the food coloring marker to draw pupils on the eyes and add a nose between the eyes.

"X"

Melt orange candy melts and draw an almond shape for the bird head. Before the head dries, connect it to the "X" with a neck and the upper body. Also before the head dries, add on the head feathers. Then add the tail. Once the head is dry, melt yellow candy melts and add the beak on top of the head. Add the bottom half of the body on either side of the "X". Then use the yellow to create two ruffles on top of the orange half of the body.

Use melted white candy melts to dot on two eyeballs. Melt semisweet chocolate and use it to draw on two legs (don't make them too thin or they will break when you try to remove the "X" later). Finally, use the food coloring marker and draw: pupils, eyelids, eyelashes, nostril, and mouth.

Cotton Candy Truffula Trees
pink, blue, yellow cotton candy
2 sheets white printer paper
brown marker
scotch tape

Take a sheet of printer paper and fold it in half lengthwise. Fold in half again. Open the sheet of paper up and it should be divided into fourths. Keep one half of the paper divided in fourths but divide the other half of the paper again so your get eights. Cut the paper so you get two thicker strips that are 1/4 of the paper and four thinner strips that are 1/8 of the paper. Repeat this with the other sheet of paper so you get 4 thick strips and 8 thin strips.

Take one paper strip and curl it up to form a tight spiral. Pull the paper edge that's in the center of spiral upwards. Keep pulling so you form a tube. Once the tube is tight, stop pulling and tape down the paper edge at the bottom of the tube to keep it from unraveling. Use the brown marker to draw random rings around the tube. Repeat with all the paper strips to form all the tree trunks. Now take a bit of cotton candy and wrap it around the top of a paper tube. Wrap more cotton candy around until satisfied with the size.

Note: I bought my cotton candy at Party City, but I've seen cotton candy being sold at stores like CVS and Walmart as well.

Constellation Cheesecake Tarts

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:43:00 +0000

Happy President's Day! This post has absolutely nothing to do with President's Day, but nonetheless, I hope all of you in the US had a wonderful 3-day weekend. Now on with the post...

Way before college, back in elementary school, I was already a budding science nerd. But my fascination with science was on a larger scale (as opposed to my college focus on molecular and cell biology), leaning more towards things that could be seen by the naked eye, like animals, plants, the rainforest, and fossils. One topic that really captured my attention was outer space. I was obsessed with anything and everything related to it: the stars, the moon, planets, black holes, comets, etc.

Today's post is inspired by that childhood interest in outer space. Beyond science, stars in particular were interesting to me as they formed bright connect-the-dot images in the night sky, appealing to my visual nature. Moreover, tying in Greek and Roman mythology, each constellation has its own story, which made them all the more fascinating. Thus, I really wanted to base a baking project on constellations. Since blueberries go so well with cheesecake, I thought I could play around with a recipe and make something constellation related with a blueberry glaze acting as the night sky.

What I ended up with was this recipe. They're basically simple mini cheesecakes, but instead of baking them in muffin liners, I made them in mini tart pans, forming cheesecake tarts (which also increases the crust to filling ratio, and as I've mentioned before, I'm a crust person). I strained my preserves and added a bit of gelatin to the jam glaze so that it would set smoothly, giving me a flat surface to decorate. And finally, I made many little white chocolate stars to place on top of each cheesecake in the form of a variety of constellations, completing my constellation cheesecake tarts.

Constellation Cheesecake Tarts

Graham Cracker Crust
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1 stick butter, melted

Mix the graham cracker crumbs with the sugar. Add the melted butter and mix. The crust mixture should have the texture of wet sand. Take the mixture and press into tart pans sprayed with nonstick spray. Preheat oven to 375°F.

For small tarts, I used 3-inch diameter tart pans (9th item down on left in link), like the ones used for egg tarts. If you choose to skip the crust on the rim, and use 2 1/2 tbsp crust mixture in each cup. If you want the rim crust, use 3 tbsp crumb mixture in each cup. (It's up to you whether you want that rim crust or not. It can be a bit difficult to press the mixture into a crust on such a small cup, so if you want the easier way, skip the rim crust.)

For large tarts, I used aluminum pot pie pans. For these large tarts, used 4 1/2-5 tbsp of crumb mixture per pan. Bake the small crusts for 5 minutes and the large crusts for 7 minutes. Let the crusts cool before adding filling.

Cheesecake Filling
2 packages (16 oz) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix cream cheese with sugar. Add in eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Mix in the vanilla extract. Bake tarts for 20-30 minutes. They're ready once the filling is set.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. (Don't worry if the filling puffs up in the oven. It'll fall back down once cooled. And cracks will be covered up by the glaze.)

Decorating the Tarts
Blueberry Glaze
1 cup strained blueberry preserves
2 tbsp hot water
1/2 tbsp gelatin
a few drops blue food coloring

Put the strained preserves in a small saucepan. Add 1 tbsp water to the preserves. Mix in the food coloring so the preserves are more blurple than reddish purple. In a separate bowl, mix the gelatin and 1 tbsp water together so that all the gelatin grains are wet.

Place the saucepan over low heat. Add the wet gelatin. Heat the mixture until all the gelatin is dissolved. Then remove from heat. Let cool a few minutes to slightly thicken. Pour the glaze over each cheesecake tart and use a spoon to spread the glaze so that all the cream cheese is covered and only the crust is visible.

Cool the glazed cheesecakes in the refrigerator a few hours for the glaze to set.

White Chocolate Stars
white chocolate (or white candy melts)
toothpick

Melt your white chocolate. Place a dot of white chocolate on a piece of parchment paper. Quickly, use the toothpick to push the dot of chocolate in five directions to form the five arms of the star as shown in the illustration above. Allow to dry. Lightly press on the back of the parchment paper to release the stars for use.

Finishing Up
glazed cheesecake tarts
white chocolate stars
white chocolate

Place stars on the glazed cheesecakes like in the illustration above. If you don't position it exactly as you want it, take a toothpick and lightly push on the side of a star to move it around. (For large tarts, use the first photo in this post with the little and big dipper or use multiple constellations of your own choice).

Once the stars are positioned, melt the white chocolate and use a toothpick to draw the lines between the stars with the melted chocolate. Finally, take the leftover stars and place them randomly on each cheesecake to fill the empty space.

Makes 14-16 small cheesecake tarts or 8-9 large cheesecake tarts

Multilingual Conversation Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:20:00 +0000

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!!! Thanks to all of you who replied to my facebook post. Your replies were quite helpful for today's post.

Every year, Conversation Hearts always feature some new messages to keep up with the times. But why stop with just English? I love learning languages, so I decided to combine that fascination for foreign languages with my Valentine's project for this year. I'm fluent in French and Chinese and I've learned basic Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Hungarian, so a combination of my own knowledge, the awesome input from some of you, and Google helped me come up with the messages for these Multilingual Conversation Hearts.

I first came up with the idea when I noticed the leftover letters from my parents' Do-It-Yourself Stamp Kit sitting in a cabinet, waiting to be used. I saw that in addition to the normal letters and numbers, there were some special character stamps, like Ä, Þ, and Ɖ, and thought it'd be cool to incorporate the stamps into something on this blog. I guess I also had Valentine's Day candy on my mind as well because not long after that, I ended up with this idea.

These aren't an exact match to the actual candy, but they're pretty close (they're softer in texture). I can't really judge the taste because I used flavors different from the actual candy flavors (I basically found all the extracts I have and used one for each color). But these candies are totally fun because they're customizable in color, flavoring, shape, and message. Plus, the recipe isn't too difficult. This would definitely make a great project for next Valentine's Day :).

"I Love You" from top L->R:
Russian, Malay, Norse, Japanese, Greenlandic, Portuguese, French, Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian, Chinese, Greek, Irish, ASL, Tagalog, Italian, German, Finnish, Vietnamese, Korean, Spanish

Conversation Hearts
adapted from about.com

1 tsp unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup water
1 tsp light corn syrup
1 lb powdered sugar, plus extra for dusting
assorted flavoring extracts
assorted food colorings
heart-shaped cookie cutter (ex. Linzer cookie or fondant cutters)

Combine the gelatin, water, and corn syrup in a small bowl and mix. Microwave 15-20 seconds, or until the gelatin dissolves and mix again. Pour this mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. (Or if using a hand mixer, pour into a large bowl). Add 1 cup of the powdered sugar to the bowl and mix on low until the sugar is combined.

Add the remaining powdered sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing until incorporated, and repeat until the 1 pound of powdered sugar is used up (you should end up with a stiff dough). Dust a flat work surface with the extra powdered sugar and scrape the candy dough out onto the surface. Knead the dough on the surface until no longer sticky.

Split the dough into six pieces. To each add the color and flavoring extract of your choice, kneading it on a powdered sugar dusted surface until the color is well mixed and the dough is no longer sticky. When you aren't using a piece of dough, make sure to keep it covered in plastic wrap so it doesn't dry out.

(For the extracts, I added from 1/4 tsp to 1 tsp extract, depending on taste for each dough. If I used more extract, I ended up mixing more powdered sugar into the dough to make it less sticky. I stuck with the original colors: pink, yellow, orange, green, purple, and white. The corresponding flavors were: Pink=Strawberry, Yellow=Lemon, Orange=Orange, Green = Mint, Purple = Vanilla, White = Almond.)

Once done coloring and flavoring, place a piece of dough between two sheets of plastic wrap. Roll it out to between 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch thick. Use your heart cookie cutter to cut out hearts, placing the cut-outs on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Roll up the scraps and cut out more candies. Then repeat with the rest of the dough. (If the cutter gets too sticky, wash and dry it.)

Let the candies dry for at least 24 hours. It is crucial that the candies are totally dry or else the food coloring later used to write on words will run. To test, bite into a candy. If it's still wet in the center, let dry for longer. At this point, to dry faster, turn up your oven to the lowest temperature (for me it's 170°F). Let it preheat. Once preheated, turn the oven off. Take your sheets of candy and place them in the oven with the door closed for 10-15 minutes. Remove and let totally cool.

Decorating Conversation Hearts
red liquid food coloring
toothpicks
Do-It-Yourself Stamp Kit

Method #1 (simple): Dip a toothpick in red food coloring and use it to write on the candies. I used this method for characters that weren't in my stamp kit, like for Chinese/Korean/Japanese/Russian/Greek/ASL, but you can always use it if you'd rather not use a stamp kit.

Method #2 (harder): Pick all of the stamps off one of the plastic boards that holds all the individual letter stamps (you can keep the stamper for your own use). Use tweezers to place stamps back on the holder to form your message (remember it goes on backwards to show correctly on your candy). Dip a toothpick in red food coloring and use it to color the letters. Place your candy on top of the letters, press down on the candy to make sure the letters stamp on, and remove. (If some letters don't show up too well, use a toothpick to draw it in).

Makes about 180 heart candies

Tangerine Cake Balls

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:40:00 +0000

The beginning of the Lunar New Year was Monday, so Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快樂! The great thing about Chinese New Year is of course the New Year's Eve feast. I love the fact that each dish has a double meaning meant to bring luck or fortune in the new year.

Tangerines are a must around the beginning of the new year because in Chinese the word for tangerine is a homophone for "luck": same sound, different spelling. Apparently it's even better if the tangerines still have their leaves as that adds the benefit of longevity as well. I personally associate tangerines with Chinese New Year because when I see that the tangerines on the trees in my backyard are ripe and ready to eat, I know that CNY is right around the corner.

This year, I thought that it would be fun to make a tangerine based dessert for CNY. The fact that tangerines are usually served whole didn't give me much flexibility, but I realized that this was the perfect time to work on my DforD Resolution #4. I used the zest and juice of my backyard tangerines to flavor a cake and some frosting and turned them into tangerine cake balls (cake pops without sticks), with leaves and all. A lucky dessert to start off the new lunar year!

Tangerine Cake Balls
tangerine cake (recipe below)
tangerine cream cheese frosting (recipe below)
orange candy melts
green candy melts
toothpicks
plastic piping bag
leaf frosting decorating tip

Crumble the cooled cake into the frosting and mix. Roll the resulting cake "dough" into 1 inch diameter balls and flatten slightly. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze in the freezer for a few hours until firm.

In the meantime, melt the green candy melts, fill a piping bag, cut a small hole in the bag, and pipe short 1/2 inch lines on parchment paper to use as stems later. Place a leaf tip (like Wilton #352) in a piping bag and pipe out small leaves on another piece of parchment paper (the pointy part of the tip should be gouging into the center of the leaf that you squeeze out to create the central vein of the leaf). Set the stems and leaves aside to dry.

Melt the orange candy melts in the microwave 1 minute at 50% power, stir, then continue heating 30 seconds at a time at 50% power, stirring in between until totally melted. (A useful trick to prevent the candy melts from hardening while decorating is to boil some water, pour it in a bowl, and keep the bowl with the melted candy melts on top of the bowl of boiling water throughout the decorating process, adding more hot water to the bottom bowl when necessary).

Stick a toothpick into the top of a cake ball. Use the toothpick to dip the cake ball in the orange coating, shake off the excess, and place the coated cake ball on a piece of parchment paper to dry. Gently twist the toothpick upwards to remove it, and in its place, stick in a green stem. (Optional step: Once the orange coating in no longer wet looking, take a toothpick and gently poke at the cake ball, all over its surface, to give it some texture).

Melt some green candy melts. Use a toothpick to make a seal around the green stem, making sure there are no gaps between the orange coating and the green stem (if you don't seal it, cake will start oozing out around the stem). Repeat with the rest of the cake balls. Finally, use a bit of melted green coating to glue a leaf onto each cake ball.

Makes 30 cake balls

Tangerine Cake
adapted from The Little Red House

1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup tangerine juice*
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp orange extract
1/2 tbsp tangerine zest*
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour
1 1/8 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together and set aside for now. Rub the tangerine zest into the sugar. Add the vegetable oil, tangerine juice, and milk and mix. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Mix in the orange and vanilla extracts. Now add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until a batter forms.

Pour the batter into a greased 9-inch round cake pan lined with parchment paper at the bottom. Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes in the pan. Then transfer the cake to a wire rack and let cool.

* If you don't have tangerines, oranges work just as well!

Tangerine Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from Dulce Dough

4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 tsp tangerine juice*
1/2 tsp tangerine zest*
1/8 tsp orange extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Mix the cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth. Add the tangerine juice, tangerine zest, and orange extract.

* If you don't have tangerines, oranges work just as well!

Strawberry & Champagne Truffles

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 08:34:00 +0000

It's my first post of 2012! I really love the beginning of the new year since it's a good time to reflect on the past year while looking forward to the new one. Considering how much I love making lists and brainstorming plans, New Year's resolutions are always a must for me. This year, in addition to my personal goals, I decided that I'd come up with some blog specific resolutions as well.

2012 Diamonds for Dessert Resolutions
1) Blog Improvements (convert to metric, figure out yields, edit comments coding, add blog extras, etc..)
2) Add an About Me page w/FAQ!
3) Work on food styling & photography
4) Conquer Candy & Cake Pops (weaknesses of mine)
5) Work on answering e-mails more promptly

What's Coming Up on DforD in 2012?
1) Baking 101
2) The Hunger Games series (totally in love with the books, especially Catching Fire. So so excited for the movie!)
3) Literary Inspiration (ex. fairy tales, fantasy stories, nursery rhymes, my favorite novels & classics)
4) Fashion & Art
5) TV Shows I love (ex. Parks & Rec, Adventure Time, Pushing Daisies, childhood cartoons)
6) Superheroes (this year seems to be the year of superhero movies)
7) MORE CAKES & BREAD!

Now about today's recipe. These truffles were originally for NYE, but due to recipe complications I couldn't get this up until now (yeah... New Years resolution #4). But I figure with Valentine's Day coming up next month, now is still a good time to post this. What better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than with chocolate, strawberries, and champagne? Below, I provide two different options for these truffles. They can be kept separate as strawberry truffles and champagne truffles, or you can combine them with one flavor in the center and the other on the outside. The second option takes some more time, but it's fun biting into one of them and having a surprise in the center.

Strawberry Truffles
8 oz. white chocolate, chopped
2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
4 tbsp butter
4 tbsp of strained strawberry puree
red food coloring, optional
powdered sugar

Melt butter and white chocolate together in a microwave and mix. Heat cream in a small saucepan over low heat until simmering. Pour the cream into the white chocolate/butter mixture and combine. Mix in the strawberry puree. Add a bit of red food coloring if the mixture isn't pink (it depends on how red your strawberries were). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for a few hours.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a spoon to scoop out ping pong ball sized portions of the strawberry truffle mixture onto the parchment paper. Place the sheet in the freezer for 1-2 hours, until the mixture is firm.

Take the tray out and roll each portion into a ball. Roll each ball in powdered sugar and serve immediately. If not served immediately, place in an airtight container and keep in freezer until ready to serve (they might need to be re-rolled in powdered sugar when served).

Champagne Truffles
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
3 tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup champagne
dutch processed cocoa powder

Place the chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set aside for now. Heat the cream in a saucepan over low heat until simmering. Pour the cream over the chocolate and mix until all the chocolate is melted. Add the butter and gently mix until all the butter is incorporated. Mix in the champagne. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for a few hours.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a spoon to scoop out ping pong ball sized portions of the strawberry truffle mixture onto the parchment paper. Place the sheet in the freezer for 1-2 hours, until the mixture is firm.

Take the tray out and roll each portion into a ball. Roll each ball in cocoa powder and serve immediately. If not served immediately, place in an airtight container and keep in freezer until ready to serve (they might need to be re-rolled in cocoa powder when served).

Strawberry & Champagne Truffles
strawberry truffle recipe, above
champagne truffle recipe, above

After chilling both of the truffle mixtures, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a spoon to scoop out gumball sized portions of both the truffle mixtures (basically 1/2 a ping pong ball sized portions from above) onto the baking sheet. Place the sheet in the freezer for 1-2 hours, until the mixture is firm.

Take the tray out and roll half of the portions into balls. Use the other half of the portions to wrap around the balls so you have one truffle flavor on the inside and another on the outside. Freeze the tray of wrapped truffles back in the freezer for 1-2n hours, until the truffles are firm.

Remove from freezer, roll each truffle in a ball and if the outside layer is strawberry, roll in powdered sugar. If the outside layer is chocolate champagne, roll in cocoa powder. Serve immediately. If not served immediately, place in an airtight container and keep in freezer until ready to serve (they might need to be re-rolled in cocoa powder or powdered sugar when served).

Candy Cane Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:02:00 +0000

My last official holiday cookie post. Actually, it's also my last post of the year! I can't believe 2011 is almost over. Happy New Year's Eve!

Every year I always want to put something minty in my cookie boxes. Peppermint just seems to be a must during the holiday season what with seeing candy canes all over the place. I was tempted to remake last year's mint chocolate chip truffles, but decided at the last minute to try something new this year. I searched for candy cane cookie recipe and found these cute cookies. They're super festive and just minty enough, a wonderful addition to a set of holiday cookies.

Candy Cane Cookies
adapted from A Good Appetite

2/3 cups butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp peppermint extract
pinch of salt
red food coloring

Mix the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside for now. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg. Then mix in the milk and peppermint extract. Add the dry ingredients and mix until a dough comes together. Split the dough in half. Wrap one half on plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Add red food coloring to the other half of the dough and mix until the coloring is evenly distributed. Then wrap the red dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate. The dough should be chilled for about 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. To shape the cookies, first divide the two doughs into 50 pieces each. Take one red piece of dough and one white piece of dough. Roll both dough pieces into 5 inch snakes. Twist the two snakes together. Pinch the two ends of the twist.

Roll the whole twist a bit against the table so the two dough snakes stick better together. Then place the twist on a parchment lined baking sheet. Hook down the top of the twist to form a candy cane shape. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until the bottoms begin browning. Leave on the baking sheet a few minutes, then move to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Makes 50 cookies.

Gingerbread Gentlemen

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:00:00 +0000

My second holiday post for this year: Gingerbread Gentlemen.

Every year at Christmas, ever since I started baking 4 years ago, I've been making my go-to Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookie recipe to share with friends and family. To keep things interesting, last year I started playing around with the appearance of my gingerbread men and made Gingy-bread Men (a la Shrek). This year, to mix things up, I stuck to royal icing and made Gingerbread Gentlemen.

They're one part Victorian men's fashion, one part Mr. Moneybags, and one part Mr. Peanut, which combines so many things I like: the 19th century*, board games, pop culture cartoons, fancy schmancy accessories (bow ties, top hats, monocles, and walking sticks**), and of course, mustached cookies. Win? You bet :P. They seemed to be many of my friends' favorite cookie out of all my holiday cookies.

*more specifically: art, literature, and history
**too bad there wasn't room for pocket squares and braces/suspenders

Gingerbread Gentlemen
thick and chewy gingerbread recipe
royal icing recipe

Pre-Baking: Make the gingerbread cookie recipe as indicated in the linked post, using a person-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the dough and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Take a knife and cut a little bit off top of each dough man's head. From the dough scraps, use the knife to cut out thin rectangles slightly wider than the heads and narrower, tall rectangles to form the top hats. Place them above each dough man and then bake as indicated in the recipe.

Post-Baking: Immediately when you take the cookies out of the oven, use a toothpick to make a vertical indent on the hand and foot of one side of each cookie (like in the photo above). After leaving the cookies on the baking sheet for a few minutes, move them to a cooling rack to finish cooling before decorating.

Decorating Cookies: Make the royal icing from the linked post above or use a recipe of your own. On a piece of parchment paper, pipe lines of icing about the same length as the distance between the top edge of the cookie's hand and the bottom edge of the foot. Set aside to dry.

To ice the cookie, follow the illustration above: 1) hat band, 2) bow tie, 3) collar, 4) shirt, 5) jacket lapels, 6) cuffs, 7) monocle lens, 8) eye, 9) moustache, 10) monocle chain, 11) outline everything else.

Carefully pull the icing walking sticks off the parchment paper. Squeeze icing into the hand/foot indents left by the toothpick to act as glue. Place the walking sticks into the dents. Lastly, take the icing and pipe a round blob onto the top of each walking stick.

Santa Sugar Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:31:00 +0000

Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday break! Last week was nonstop cookie baking. To one-up last year, I had two rounds of cookies this year: one featuring oldies, but goodies (most of which are already on this blog) and another which centered around newer recipes.

Before I started baking this year's holiday cookies, I looked back at all of my past holiday cookie recipes and was surprised to see that there was nothing centered around Santa Claus. Thus, I decided that some sort of Santa cookie was a must this year. I didn't want something too complicated, so I stuck with a circular cookie cutter and my go-to sugar cookie recipe. When I think of Santa, I see his signature hat, rosy cheeks and a red nose (because it'd be freezing riding around in a sleigh all night), a big beard, and an all-around jolly face. So today I have a how-to guide for making Santa sugar cookies.

Santa Sugar Cookies
sugar cookie recipe
sugar cookie icing recipe
red food coloring
black food coloring

Make the cookie dough as directed in the recipe in the link above. Cut out circles from the dough with round cookie cutters (4.8 cm/1 7/8 in diameter) and baked as indicated in the recipe. Let cool before decorating.

Follow the recipe for the sugar cookie icing. Take the white icing and draw on a long horizontal squiggle 1/3 of the way down from the top of the cookie for the brim of Santa's hat. Then, to the right of that, a little bit lower, make a circular squiggle as the hat's pom pom. Use more white icing to make a beard, covering about half of the cookie.

Scoop some of the icing into another bowl and add red food coloring to the portion (keep the rest of the icing covered with plastic wrap when not using it). Take the red icing and fill in the top portion of the cookie above the squiggles to complete Santa's hat. Draw an oval with the red icing in the center of the top edge of the beard for the nose.

Take a little bit of the white icing and mix it with black food coloring. Use a toothpick to dot on eyes in the unfrosted region between the beard and the hat brim. Then draw on a mouth on the beard below the nose. Finally, mix a bit of red icing with white icing to make pink icing and make a circle next to each eye for cheeks.

P.S. If you were interested...
Holiday Cookies Round 1:

Clockwise from Top Left: My Mom's Cream Cheese Fruitcake, Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti, NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies, Snowflake Sugar Cookies, French Macarons (Chocolate, Lavender, Pistachio, Lemon), Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Men

Holiday Cookies Round 2:

Happy 2nd Birthday!

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:12:00 +0000

Well this post is way overdue! I've pretty much been out of town since the beginning of November. But now I'm back and ready to start blogging and baking again, especially with the holidays coming up.

About a month ago was Diamonds for Dessert's second birthday! Like last year, I decided to celebrate my blog's (belated) birthday with a cake. Because what better way is there to celebrate a birthday than with cake? Anyway, I've been pretty addicted to pinterest lately and after seeing a bunch of gorgeous ruffle cakes, I knew I needed to try making one. Turns out they're really easy and fast to decorate. No need to worry about perfecting your icing technique or smoothly frosting the cake since it all gets covered up by the ruffles!

The highlight here is the frosting. This is the first time I've tried making a swiss meringue buttercream and I must ask, "Why haven't I tried this before???" It has a wonderfully light texture and it's not too sweet, which I love. The thing I dislike most about simple buttercream is that it needs so much powdered sugar to stiffen up, which makes the frosting too sweet most of the time. But that's not the case with swiss meringue buttercream. The strawberry puree makes this frosting even better, acting as a natural food coloring while flavoring the buttercream to taste like fresh strawberry ice cream! This amazing strawberry buttercream + my go-to chocolate cake recipe + ruffles = the perfect cake for a celebration.

Strawberry Chocolate Mini Ruffle Cake
my go-to chocolate cake recipe
strawberry buttercream recipe (below)

Follow the instructions for the small chocolate cake, baking the cake in the rectangular sheet pan as indicated in the recipe. Let it cool on a cooling rack. Once cool, take a 3 7/8 inch (98 mm) diameter round cookie cutter and cut out six rounds of cake. Use a knife to level the cakes so the six rounds are the same height. Make the strawberry swiss meringue buttercream recipe.

Assembly:

1. Cut out a round piece of parchment paper wider than the cake round. Place a cake round on top of the parchment.

2. Dollop some frosting on the cake and smooth it out.

3. Repeat with another cake round and more frosting.

4. Place the third cake round on top. Press down on the three layers to make sure they stick together.

5. Apply a thin layer of frosting all over the cake as the crumb coat. Don't worry if it's ugly; it'll be covered up by the ruffles later. Refrigerate the cake for 30 minutes, until firm.

6. Place a petal tip (it looks like an elongated dew drop) in a piping bag. Add the buttercream to the piping bag.

7. Hold the piping bag vertically with the fat part of the dewdrop towards the cake and the thin part towards you. Squeeze the bag and pipe back and forth along the cake side until you reach the top, making sure the frosting is touching the cake.

8. Repeat.

9. Repeat until the whole cake is covered.

10. To finish, frost with a zigzagging motion from the sides of the cake towards to center to form slightly overlapping wedges of frosting until the top of the cake is covered.

Makes two mini ruffle cakes.

Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream
adapted from Martha Stewart

4 egg whites, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, pureed

Simmer a pot of water on the stove. Mix the egg whites and sugar in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over the simmering water and whisk the mixture until it reaches 160°F on a thermometer. Remove the bowl from the heat and pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixture (with the whisk attachment). Mix on medium high speed until stiff peaks form and the mixer bowl has cooled down to room temperature, about 10 minutes.

While waiting, cut up the sticks of butter into small pieces. After stiff peaks have formed, reduce the mixer to medium speed and add the butter a few pieces at a time, waiting till the butter pieces are incorporated before adding more. If it isn't coming together, increase the speed back to medium high for a few minutes until it does. Then add the strawberry puree a little at a time to let it slowly incorporate. Same thing, if it isn't coming together, increase the speed back to medium high and let it mix for a a few minutes.

[If you aren't using the frosting immediately, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate. To use later, let the frosting return to room temperature. Then mix it for a few minute on low speed (to reblend the puree that has separated) until it starts clumping/coming together. It should then be ready to use again.]

Jack-o'-Lantern Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Susan S) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:06:00 +0000

Halloween is tomorrow! Which of course, means some Halloween baking. Since I always make something with pumpkin around this time of year, I decided to make some pumpkin cookies this year.

Every year, I always think about carving a Jack-o'-Lantern, but I never do. It's always either realizing I have nowhere to put it or being too lazy to clean up the mess that comes along with it. Well, this year, I came up with a solution to this desire to carve something: Jack-o'-Lantern cookies, carving cookies not pumpkins. It's entertaining and not too difficult to do. Plus pumpkin and chocolate just seem to go very well together. Overall, a fun and delicious fall activity.

Jack-o-Lantern Cookies
adapted from verybestbaking.com

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 stick butter, soft at room temp
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
semisweet chocolate (for decorating)

Mix dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Set aside for now. In another bowl, cream sugar and butter together. Mix in the egg, followed by the vanilla extract. Add in the pumpkin and mix. Add in the dry ingredients and mix until a dough forms.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place dollops (of about 2 tbsp) of the sticky dough onto parchment lined baking sheets, there should be about 30 of them all together. Wet your fingers and smooth out the dollops of dough to form flat ovals (they will puff up while baking). Place the sheets in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until firm. Let cool on the sheets for 2 minutes, then move to a cooling rack.

Shaping Jack-o'-Lanterns
Use a knife to cut out faces on your cooled pumpkin cookies. Poke out the cutout portions and brush off any crumbs. At the top of each cookie, cut a small triangular wedge for the stem.

Melt some semisweet chocolate. Spread ovals of chocolate about the size of the cookies on a piece of parchment paper. Place a cookie on each chocolate oval. Use a spoon and place a dollop of chocolate at the top of each cookie where the wedge was cut out to form the stem. If the stem isn't tall enough at first, wait for the first layer of chocolate to dry and then add another layer on top. Let all the chocolate dry. Then carefully peel the cookies off the parchment paper.

Finally, take a spatula, or another utensil with a thicker edge, like the blunt edge of a butter knife, and use it to press out/score vertical lines on the cookies to make them more pumpkin-like.

Makes 28-32 cookies.