Chocolate Covered Love

It's a tradition in my family to have Swedish Kringle for breakfast on Christmas morning. My grandma is Swedish, so my mom got the tradition/recipe from her and this is the first Christmas I've made the same recipe. Not being able to be with family on Christmas is hard, but continuing family traditions definitely  makes it easier. 

I am not a vegan or a vegetarian, although sometimes I eat like one. Especially when it's just me and my daughter, my husband usually demands some sort of protein for every main meal. I'm less picky. My midday meals tend to be a bit odd. Kale/Swiss Chard salads, Roasted sweet potatoes, easy pasta dishes, almonds, soups, etc. :) Of course a lot of midday meals are catered to Aria, so it's whatever's easiest and nutritious for her. I made this recipe as a combination of two that I found online. 

I had been seeing different recipes for Blueberry-Buttermilk ice cream circling on Pinterest and that made me want to make some sort of blueberry ice cream - but buttermilk ice cream just doesn't sound appetizing, however delicious it may be. My cupboard is always full of coconut milk, so I decided that the rich and creamy flavor of coconut would be much better. And it was AMAZING! Definitely making again. Although with slightly less sugar, it was slightly too sweet and the coconut flavor was definitely more prominent because of that.

Puree blueberries and sugar in a blender until smooth.

Pour through a fine sieve over a bowl and discard solids. You will still have tiny flecks of blueberry throughout the ice cream, as you can see in my pictures.

Whisk in the coconut milk, lemon zest and juice. Taste and add more lemon juice or sugar if needed.

Pour mixture into your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions. While your mixture is churning, place a loaf pan in the freezer to chill it. When the ice cream is finished, transfer to the chilled pan and freeze until hardened; at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

With a mixer on medium speed, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture and mix until well combined.  Beat in the vegetable oil (makes it easier to shape the cookies, without it the dough is too sticky). 

Using a tablespoon scoop, scoop out heaping tablespoons of the cookie dough and flatten it in your hands. Take one of the caramel candies (unwrapped) and place it in the center of the dough. Top it with a pinch of the sea salt. Pinch the dough around the caramel and roll it in your hands slightly to form a uniform ball. Place it on the parchment paper lined baking sheet as you go. Do this until all the dough has been formed into cookies. 

Bake for 5 minutes at 350 and then raise the heat to 375 for 10 additional minutes. 

The cookies are done when they are puffed and the tops are cracked slightly.

Let them cool slightly on the baking sheet. If you move them to a wire rack the caramel will leak out onto your counter.

The cookies will deflate and flatten slightly as they cool, this is normal. They still taste delicious.

Enjoy warm with a glass of milk!

Eclairs (or Cream Puffs) with Nutella Icing

makes 18

Italian Custard Cream

- 2 1/2 cups whole milk

- 1 TB vanilla extract

- 1 cup sugar

- 3 TB cornstarch

- 5 extra-large egg yolks

- 1 TB salted butter

Choux Pastry Dough

- 1 cup water

- 6 TB (3/4 stick) unsalted butter

- 1/8 tsp salt

- 1 cup flour

- 4 extra-large eggs

Nutella Icing

- 1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar

- 2 TB water

- 2 heaping TB Nutella

Italian Custard Cream

Pour the milk and vanilla in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

In a bowl, whisk together the sugar, cornstarch, and egg yolks. Slowly ladle a cup of the milk-vanilla mixture into the bowl and whisk in to temper the eggs.

Add the yolk mixture to the saucepan and whisk over medium heat until thick and creamy. Lower the heat slightly and keep whisking until the custard becomes very thick. 

Remove from heat and add the butter. Continue whisking for several minutes.

Transfer to a bowl. Let cool, then cover with plastic wrap (with the plastic touching the custard surface to prevent a skin from forming), and refrigerate for a least 6 hours.

Choux Pastry Dough
Put the water, butter, and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat.
Add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the ingredients come together into a smooth, uniform dough.
Transfer the mixture to the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Start paddling on low speed, then add eggs, one at a time, until thoroughly absorbed, mixing for one minute between eggs. Finish with the final egg and mix for an additional 2 minutes. The dough will be very thick and sticky.
Use the dough immediately. It does not refrigerate well.

Assembly
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Transfer choux dough into a pastry bag fitted with a #6 plain tip (I used a #  star tip instead; you could also use a large ziploc bag with the tip snipped off). The dough should be piped (1 inch wide and 3 inches long*) two inches apart onto parchment paper lined baking sheets.
Bake the eclairs in the oven, in batches if necessary, until they are golden brown and have set enough that you can pick them up easily off the baking sheet; 15 - 20 minutes.
Remove the tray from the oven and let the eclairs cool on the baking sheet for about 20 minutes, you don't need to transfer them to a rack to cool.
Use a serrated knife to slice through the eclairs.
Fill a pastry bag with the custard and pipe the filling into the eclairs (you can use the same bag you used for piping the dough, just rinse it out and dry it first).
Ice the eclairs following the recipe below.

Nutella Icing
 To ice the eclairs, spoon the heaping tablespoons of nutella into a small, microwaveable bowl with the water. Microwave for about a minute to melt the nutella slightly.
Whisk in the sugar until the mixture is uniformly smooth.
Use a spoon or small spatula to use the tops of the eclairs.

Serve the eclairs right away.
They can also be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 days or frozen in the freezer for about a month. Eclairs can be eaten straight from the freezer as well if you wish (makes them kind of taste like they are filled with ice cream).

Enjoy!

This was my first attempt at making doughnuts. I am tentative about frying stuff because I'm always scared of oil flying out of the pan and burning me. Before I fried anything I did some research on the smoking points of different oils, which actually scared me to death because it made me scared of setting the oil on fire. Which of course didn't happen. I used my cast iron dutch oven and my candy thermometer to regulate the temperature of the oil.

I actually made two batches of doughnuts. The first one (the ones with the white sprinkles) I made exactly the way the recipe said to. Except I used lard to fry them, because I had heard lard would make them crispier and less greasy. Unfortunately those did not turn out very well. The lard did not work out at all. It left a thin residue on all the doughnuts which left them tasting very lard-y. 

So for my second batch I used corn oil - which worked much better. I also changed the flavor of the glaze. 

The original recipe is from A Beautiful Mess for Grapefruit Donuts. The grapefruit flavor did not come through very well, in the glaze or the donuts, so for the second batch I made the glaze chai flavored, which tasted much better in my opinion. I also made donut-holes instead of whole donuts, this was just my decision, you can make traditional donuts if you desire.

Chocolate-Strawberry Cupcakes

makes 12 cupcakes

Cupcake batter

- 3/4 cup flour

- 3/4 cup sugar

- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temp

- 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

- 1/2 tsp baking soda

- 1/8 tsp baking powder

- 1/4 cup hot water

- 1 extra-large egg

- 1/4 cup buttermilk

Frosting

- 3 3/4 cup powdered sugar

- 1 1/2 cups margarine

- 1/2 TB vanilla essence (or 3/4 TB vanilla extract)

- 1/8 cup plus 1 TB cold water

Strawberry filling

- 10 medium strawberries, finely diced

- 2 TB sugar

- 1 tsp cornstarch

Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350.

Put the flour, sugar, butter, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the ingredients are blended together, then increase speed to med-low for one minute to mix until smooth.

Add in hot water with mixer running. Add in the egg. With the mixer still running add in the buttermilk. Make sure to scrape the bottom with a spatula to ensure all the ingredients are well combined. Mix for an additional minute on med-low speed. 

Put paper liners in a standard sized cupcake/muffin tin and divide the batter equally into each cup.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of a cupcake.

Let the cupcakes cool to room temp before removing them from the pan and onto a wire cooling rack.

Frosting

Put the margarine, vanilla, and sugar in the bowl of a mixer with a paddle attachment and mix at medium-low speed until the mixture is smooth with no lumps, about 3 minutes.

With the mixer running, add the water in a thin stream and continue to mix until absorbed, about 3 minutes more. At this point you can add whatever coloring you like and mix until well combined.

(Leftover buttercream can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.)

Strawberry Filling

In a small bowl combine diced strawberries and sugar and let it sit until the strawberries release their natural juices. Then add the cornstarch and mix to dissolve.

Assembly

Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, take a paring knife and cut a triangle-hole halfway down the center of the cupcake (you can eat the cut-out scraps). In the hole of each cupcake put a spoonful of the strawberry filling (you may have leftovers), and top with the frosting. 

I used a star tip to frost the cupcakes but you may used whatever you want. I also added some sprinkles to the top of each cupcake as additional decoration.

Enjoy!

Homemade Butter Mints

recipe from here

no-bake, makes about 200 mints

- 1/4 cup butter, softened

- 1/4 teaspoon salt (if you use salted butter skip the addition of the salt)

- 3 1/4 cups powdered sugar, plus more if needed

- 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract (be careful not to add too much)

- food coloring

In a medium/large mixing bowl beat the butter and salt until creamy. Add powdered sugar, sweetened condensed milk, and peppermint extract on medium-low speed until a dough forms. If the dough seems a little wet, add more sugar. The dough will be crumbly, but will come together when pinched and squeezed into a ball.

Taste the batter. If you want a more intense mint flavor, add more extract. But be very careful adding more extract because it cannot be undone and the smallest amount can make a drastic difference in flavor.

Remove dough from the mixer and divide in half. Add one half back into the mixer and squirt a few drops food coloring of your choice onto the dough. Paddle on low speed until the color is mostly mixed in. Remove colored dough and put the uncolored half into the mixer and color with a different color in the same method. (I made pink and green candies, but feel free to do whatever colors you like.)

After the dough has been colored, either roll out immediately or keep covered so it doesn't dry out.

Roll out golf ball-sized balls one at a time into centimeter wide lengths (about the width of your pinkie finger). Cut the lengths with a knife or pizza cutter, about 1 centimeter long. Repeat with all the dough. Let the dough sit out and dry for a couple hours. (Can be eaten straight away but they have a more melt-in-your-mouth quality if allowed to dry out a bit.) Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy! 

I love all things lemon. Especially lemon desserts. I love that perfect blend of sour and sweet.

So when I found this recipe on The Kitchn, I knew I had to make it.

They turned out delicious even though I made a mistake. I made the filling too liquid-y, so a lot of it just ended up in the bottom of the pan instead of inside the rolls. The recipe explained the addition of the lemon juice and zest in a kind of convoluted way and I kept forgetting to add it in, and it also depends on how juicy your lemons are. I added more sugar but it still didn't turn out how it was supposed to, instead I had caramelized lemon/sugar all over the bottom. So I changed the recipe to explain it a better way.

Lemon Sticky Rolls

recipe from here

makes 12 large rolls

Dough

- 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

- 3/4 cup warm milk

- 1/2 cup (1 stick) very soft butter, plus 3 TB for roll assembly

- 1/4 cup white sugar

- 2 tsp vanilla extract

- 4 1/2 cups flour

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp nutmeg

- 2 large eggs

- zest from 1 lemon

for sticky lemon filling

- 1 cup sugar

- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

- 1/2 tsp ground ginger

- zest from 1 lemon

- lemon juice (from zested lemons)

Glaze

- 4 oz. cream cheese, softened

- 1 cup powdered sugar

- lemon juice (from zested lemons)

- zest from 1 lemon (for topping the glazed rolls)

So you're using 3 lemons total, using both the zest and juice from all three. The amount of juice may vary depending on how much juice your lemons have.

Make the dough

(I used my bread machine to make the dough, I just used the dough setting and it did all the work for me, but for those of you who do not have a bread machine, these are the instructions.)

In the bowl of a stand or hand mixer sprinkle the yeast over the warmed milk and let it sit for a few minutes or until foamy. With the mixer paddle, stir the softened butter, sugar, vanilla, and one cup of the flour into this milk and yeast mixture. Stir in the salt, nutmeg, and the lemon zest. Stir in the eggs and enough of the remaining flour to make a soft yet sticky dough.

Switch to the dough hook and knead for about 5 minutes, or until the dough is elastic and pliable.

(If you do not have a stand mixer, stir together the ingredients by hand, then turn the soft dough out onto a lightly floured countertop. Knead the dough by hand for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, pliable, and stretchy.)

Lightly grease the top of the dough with vegetable oil, and turn the dough over so it is coated in oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and a towel and let the dough rise until nearly doubled — about one hour.

Make the filling
In a small bowl, mix 1 cup sugar with the nutmeg and ginger, then work in the lemon zest with the tips of your fingers until the sugar resembles soft sand. Slowly add the lemon juice  one tablespoon at a time, stirring. Stop when the sugar and lemon juice form a thick, clumpy mixture like wet sand. (This is where I messed up and added too much juice, so be careful not to add too much, it makes rolling the rolls much more difficult.)

Assemble the rolls

Lightly grease a 13x9-inch baking dish with baking spray or butter. On a floured surface pat the dough out into a large yet still thick rectangle — about 10x15 inches.

Spread the dough evenly with 3 tablespoons of very soft unsalted butter, then spread the lemon-sugar mixture over top. Roll the dough up tightly, starting from the top long end. Stretch and pull the dough taut as you roll, to keep the lemon sugar firm inside. Cut the long dough roll into 12 even rolls. Pinch the bottom of each roll closed to help keep the lemon sugar inside, and place each one, open and cut side up, in the prepared baking dish.

Cover the rolls with a towel and let them rise for an hour or until puffy and nearly doubled. (You can also refrigerate the rolls at this point. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap or a towel, and place it in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. When you are ready to bake the rolls, remove the pan from the fridge, and let them rise for an hour before proceeding with baking.)

Heat the oven to 350°F. Place the risen rolls in the oven and bake for 35 minutes or until they are golden brown on top.

Toast the arborio rice in a pan along with the butter and a pinch of salt.

While the rice is toasting, bring the milk to a simmer in a pot along with the cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and sugar.

Once the rice has been toasted and the spiced milk has come to a simmer, start adding in the milk to the rice in half-cup increments. Only adding more when the previous cup has been completely absorbed.

When there is about one cup left of milk, add in the cocoa powder and stir to completely mix it in. Continue adding the milk until it is all gone and absorbed by the rice. It should be al dente; not too soft and not too crunchy or chewy.
Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.
Serve topped with whipped cream and any garnish you prefer.
Enjoy.