Buggy Birthday!

My little bug-lover turned FIVE last month!  It seemed an appropriate age to finally throw him a real party.  A party with kids only.  But, since we live in the tiniest of houses, we only invited FIVE friends.  The party was a hit!  I found lots of cool ideas on Pinterest, of course, like this easy-to-make Very Hungry Caterpillar.

And then my husband jumped on the party wagon and made this very cool Hexbug maze.  It was the best activity by far.

My favorite part, though, was the cake . . . I made cute little cupcakes.

I used a recipe from Martha Stewart but modified it for one of our guests with allergies.  And then I made these cute little marzipan bees courtesy of Martha Stewart again.

Every buggy had a great time at our little party.  Adam is already planning a sequel for next year!

Daring Bakers' Challenge: Sweet Potato Snickerdoodles

Tomatoes.  Spinach.  Radishes.  Broccoli.  Peppers.  Carrots.  Cucumbers.  Zucchini.  Yes, those are all vegetables my nine-year-old likes to eat.  I could probably keep naming vegetables all day.  He would eat them all.  Except one.  Sweet potatoes.  Weird, huh?  How can anyone dislike sweet potatoes?  It's like getting dessert and a vegetable all at once?!?!

And the five-year-old.  Well, we are lucky if he eats ANYTHING!!!!  Vegetables, though, are not really his thing.

So, when Ruth from Makey-Cakey challenged us Daring Bakers to hide veggies in our baked goods I knew what I was going to do.  Sweet potatoes!  I really really really wanted to trick my kids into eating something they totally disdain.

Here's what I came up with . . . Sweet Potato Snickerdoodles.  Just reminiscent of pumpkin pie, these cookies filled the house with cinnamon scent.  As soon as they were cool enough to eat, my boys gobbled them up and asked for more.  I never even told them about the sweet potato.

Heh heh heh heh.

Sweet Potato Snickerdoodles
Adapted from here

Ingredients:
2 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 egg
3/4 cup roasted, pureed sweet potato
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat.
2.  In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
3.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth.  Add the 1 and 1/2 cups of granulated sugar.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Scrape down with a spatula.  Add the egg and beat until combined.  Add the sweet potato and beat until fully incorporated.  Add all the flour mixture at once and mix at low speed until combined.  Scrape down the bowl with a spatula and mix by hand to make sure all of the ingredients are incorporated.
4.  In a small bowl combine the two tablespoons cinnamon and the 1/4 cup sugar.  Roll two tablespoons of cookie dough into a ball.  Toss it around in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place it on the prepared baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining dough, spacing the balls about 2 inches apart.
5.  Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Cool on the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer cookies to a wire rack.  Go at it again until all the dough is baked into yummy cookies.  Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

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Sugar Cookies

You won't find me making the latest cake pops or creating these amazing cupcakes.  I just don't have the patience to do all that.  In fact, I confess that I hate even making cookies because of the tedious task of scooping out the EXACT same amount of dough in little blobs over and over and over again.  I'd much rather make a cake that all gets baked at once, slather on some frosting that got whipped up in a few minutes, throw on some sprinkles and have at it.  Don't get me wrong.  I love baking and I love beautiful desserts.  I'm just not a decorator.

So, that's why you'll be surprised to see that I made some beautiful cookies for Valentine's Day.  And not just any cookie; these cookies are rolled out and cut into heart shapes.  Talk about tedious!  And then I even iced them and went crazy with the sprinkles.  Well, my four-year-old went crazy with the sprinkles.  Didn't he do a great job?

I'm giving you my favorite sugar cookie recipe to date.  It's not too sweet which is great because you don't mind putting a bit of icing on it.  And this dough holds its shape when it's baked so you won't have your hearts melting into blobs.

Sometimes you just have to make something pretty to eat.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Sugar Cookies
Adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Ingredients:
3/4 cup softened unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 and 2/3 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup water, milk, or juice (for your icing)

Directions:
1.  Cream the butter and granulated sugar together until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla.  In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Add the flour mixture to the butter and eggs.  Mix until well combined.  Divide the dough in half.  Wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
2.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  On a well-floured surface roll out the dough until it is 1/4 inch thick.  Cut into shapes and place cookies on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake cookies for approximately 10 minutes.  Thinner and smaller shapes will bake in less time.  Fatter and bigger shapes will take a little longer.  Cool cookies briefly on cookie sheet and then transfer to a wire rack.  Repeat with remaining dough.
3.  Once cookies are cooled make the icing.  Add 1/4 cup of liquid to the powdered sugar.  I like to use milk.  Some people prefer water.  You could use lemon juice to make lemon icing or pomegranate juice to make a slightly pink icing.  Add more liquid until you reach the desired thickness.  I like mine pretty thick.  Feel free to color the icing with food coloring or gel paste or leave it white.  Frost your cookies generously and use sprinkles to decorate.

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Daring Bakers' Challenge: Gevulde Speculaas

Six months.  Six months in my new home and I still miss my old one.  For many reasons.  Too many to list here.  One reason, though, is that every time I made a new Daring Baker recipe I could just skip on down to the playground with my creation.  In minutes it would be gone and I'd have feedback galore.

Here, though, I live in a normal American suburban house.  No one else is home when I make my Daring Baker desserts.  There are no mothers sitting on a bench watching their children on the swings.  No dads walking home from work.  No ravenous preteens looking for the next snack.  Here, there is just me.  And my family.

So, it's no surprise, really, that we ate this whole thing.  This whole Gevulde Speculaas.  The surprising thing is how quickly we ate it.  Really, I think my boys each ate three pieces for dessert after dinner.  My husband ate three.  I ate two.  Leaving us with the feeling that we might as well just finish it up.  Which we did.

It was really good.  Really really good.

The spice mix smelled heavenly and tasted divine.  The almond paste gave an almost creamy texture to the middle of the cake-like cookie.  Perfect with coffee or tea.  Perfect for sharing with friends and neighbors.  If they were home.  If not, perfect to eat the whole pan.  Just you and your family.

Thanks to Francijn, from Koken in de Brouwerij, for introducing us to this traditional Dutch pastry.  She taught us how to make the spice mix, almond paste, and dough.  Delicious!  To make it yourself follow this link over to the Daring Kitchen to find the recipes and detailed instructions.

Vegetable Pakoras

 When Jamie and I first got married, reality hit us smack in the face.  Dating and being engaged was fun and romantic and adventurous.  Being married was hard.  We actually had fights about what kind of toilet paper to buy and, "What?  Are you trying to CHANGE me?!?!?!?"  We clearly disagreed about food.  Jamie's idea of a good recipe was a can of minestrone soup dressed up with a bit more pasta and some creole seasoning.  I was hoping to hone my culinary skills by pan-frying filet mignon.

Twelve years later . . . we've grown up a lot!  We no longer fight about toilet paper.  And we often like the same kinds of food.  Like these vegetable pakoras.

Ever since Jamie returned home from Bahrain he's been hankering for lots of Indian food.  Biryani mostly.  His houseboy Prim taught him how to make it and, when we finally perfect it, we'll share it here.  In the meantime I thought I'd share one of our other recipes.  Pan-fried, vegetable pakoras.  Full of flavor.  Full of varying textures, from creamy sweet potato to nubbly cauliflower to crunchy onion.  These little fritters are great to serve as a side dish to anything.  The batter can be mixed up and then they can be fried up right before serving.  So yummy.

I can't wait to find out what Jamie and I will be eating together in another twelve years.  And what kind of toilet paper we'll buy!

Vegetable Pakoras
Adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients:
2/3 cup flour (3 ounces)
2 teaspoons Madras curry powder
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
1 egg
3/4 cup (1/4-inc) diced peeled sweet potato
1 cup finely chopped cauliflower
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons freshly chopped cilantro or parsley
1 garlic clove minced
peanut or canola oil
mango chutney (optional)

Directions:
1.  Combine flour, curry powder, cumin seeds, and salt in a bowl.  Add water and egg to flour mixture. Whisk until smooth.  Cover and let stand while you work on the vegetables.

2.  Place sweet potato in a small saucepan.  Cover with water.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce and simmer for five minutes or until just tender.  Drain and cool to room temperature.  Once cooled add sweet potato, cauliflower, onion, parsley, and garlic to flour mixture.  Stir until well combined.  Cover and set aside until ready to cook.

3.  Heat a skillet over medium-high heat.  Add a bit of oil to the pan.  Drop 2 tablespoons of batter into pan and flatten slightly.  Repeat to make six pakoras.  Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 4 minutes on each side or until browned.  Remove from pan; drain on paper towels.  Repeat with remaining batter, remembering to add more oil to the pan if necessary.  Serve immediately with mango chutney if you desire.

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Daring Bakers' Challenge: Panettone

I have a confession.  I hate raisins.  I abhor dried fruit of almost every kind.  It doesn't make sense really.  I love fresh fruit.  I love grapes.  Oranges.  Plums.  Shrivel them up, though, and I won't touch them!

So, when this month's Daring Bakers' host, Marcella, challenged us to make panettone, a traditional Italian holiday bread, I was less than thrilled.  It's sweet bread that is usually filled with raisins and dried citrus peels.  Ugh!  So, in true Daring Baker fashion I customized my panettone just for me.

First I whittled them down.  I made panettoni.  Mostly because I was too lazy to craft together a panettone paper mold out of parchment and staples.  I found these cute straight-sided muffin papers and knew they were just right for my panettoni.

The recipe itself stayed pretty much the same.  I used all the eggs and butter and yeast and flour and sugar.  I let it rest and rise and rise again.  But when it came time to layer in the filling I tossed the raisins and citron and candied zest.  In their place I added chopped dark chocolate, chopped white chocolate, and walnuts with the zest of an orange.  These butter and chocolate laden blobs of dough rose one more time before baking in my oven.  The aroma was fabulous.

This rich bread was stunning.  Gorgeous to look at and yummy to eat.  Even better to give away and impress your friends.

Christmas isn't over yet.  There are SEVEN more days.  So, it's not too late to get yourself into the kitchen and make this classic holiday bread.  It's so much better than buying a box shipped over from Italy.  And, you can flavor it just the way you like it.  Raisins?  No raisins?  You decide.

Daring Bakers Challenge: Twelve Days of Cookies a.k.a. Chocolate Coconut Swirls

Peta, from Peta Eats, hosted November's Daring Bakers Challenge.  It seems she was in the mood for Christmas because she offered TWELVE cookie recipes for us to try.  Each cookie corresponded with a line from the famous song from Pear and Ginger Bites all the way down to these Chocolate Coconut cookies meant to resemble little drums.  

Procrastinating as usual led me to pick the final one because I had the ingredients and they didn't look like they required too much work.  The filling is made from coconut and cream cheese.  The chocolate part is a basic chocolate butter cookie.  I dutifully wrapped some chocolate dough around the filling and baked them.  They didn't really remain drum-like and the great gob of coconut in the middle just seemed weird.  So, I only made one batch and refrigerated the rest of the dough and filling.  

I almost threw the mixtures away the next day until I thought about swirling them together.  I had a hunch that the coconut would taste better with more chocolate mixed in.  In fact, I was pretty sure I'd seen a similar cookie in my trusty Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.  When I flipped to the cookie section, I was right!  And it was the almost the exact same recipe!  So, I rolled out my chocolate dough, smeared on the coconut, rolled it up and sliced.  Once baked, these cookies are fabulous.  They remind me of those Girl Scout cookies, Caramel DeLites.  If you love chocolate and coconut, give these cookies a swirl.

Chocolate Coconut Swirls
Adapted from Baking Glory

Ingredients:

Chocolate Cookie Dough:
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Coconut Filling:
6 ounces cream cheese
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2 1/4 cups sweetened flaked coconut

Directions:
1.  First, make the chocolate cookie dough.  In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until slightly softened and smooth.  Add the sugar.  Beat until fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla.  Beat to combine.  Add the flour mixture all at once, and beat on low until the dough is combined and begins to form a ball.  Remove from mixing bowl, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm enough to roll out, about one hour.
2.  Make the coconut filling.  Wash and dry the bowl and beater of the stand mixer.  Put in the cream cheese.  Beat until smooth.  Add the sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and salt.  Beat until smooth.  Add the coconut and mix until well incorporated.
3.  Roll half of the cookie dough into a 10 x 8 inch rectangle.  Spread half of the coconut filling onto the rectangle.  Roll up from one of the long sides.  Pinch the edges together to seal and wrap in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for an hour or more before baking for easy slicing.  Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
4.  Preheat oven to 375*.  Cut dough into 1/4 inch slices.  Place an inch apart on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet.  Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until the coconut just begins to turn golden in places.  Cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.

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