Dark Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

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American macaroons, chocolate, coconut, dark chocolate, decadent, dessert, dessert recipe, dessert table, egg whites, gourmet, macaroon, postaday2011, recipe, snack, sweets, sweets table

MIA: My internet has been horrible this past week, unable to access it for more than 10 minutes a session. Arrrg!!!

Coconut and dark chocolate have long been two ingredients I love together. So of course on Mother’s Day, I made a batch of tasty coconut macaroons (as well as some jumbo chocolate covered strawberries).

Dark Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons

Ingredients:
3-4 large egg whites, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 Tbs. almond extract, 1 pk. shredded coconut, dark chocolate

Directions:
Preheat oven 300°F. Grease baking sheet and set aside. In food processor, briefly chop 1/2 of the coconut so it breaks into smaller pieces. Whip together egg whites, sugar and extract. Mix in coconut and stir. I sprinkled in some flour and rolled mixture out like dough, using a cookie cutter to shape. You can simply dollop on baking tray or use an icing bag to decoratively shape macaroons. Bake for about 15 minutes, tops should become golden brown. If they’re not browning and you’re afraid of over drying macaroons, remove from oven and use a baker’s torch to brown tops. Remove macaroons from tray and place on cooling rack. Dip into dark chocolate and cool to harden.

For Cinco de Mayo, I made these with lime zest and rum extract. Mmm… 

What was your Mother’s Day treat???

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Almond Butter Blossoms

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almond, almond butter, cookies, desserts, food, foodie, nut butter, peanut-butter, postaday2011, recipe, snack, sweets

Baking is always therapeutic, it’s just the dirty dishes that I don’t want to deal with afterwards. But despite the dishes, today required some baking begin feeling like myself again… Oh, and the Aleve helped too…

Hubster loves peanut-butter, I have a strong aversion to it (well, except for the occasional Reese’s Pieces). He always begs me to make peanut-butter cookies, peanut-butter no bakes, peanut butter brownies… you get the picture. At the supermarket a few months ago, I had an epiphany. Maybe I can appease his appetite as well as mine.

Almond Butter Blossoms

Ingredients:
bag of Hershey’s Kisses, 3/4 c. almond butter, 1/3 c. light brown sugar, 1/8 c. milk, 1 1/2 c. flour, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 c. butter, 1/3 c. sugar, 1 egg, 1 Tbsp. almond extract, 1 tsp. baking soda, extra sugar for coating

Directions:
Unwrap Kisses and set aside. Preheat oven to 375ºF. Grease baking sheets. Mix together flour, salt and baking soda. Cream together, almond butter, butter, sugar, almond extract, milk and egg. Slowly combine flour mixture in to sugar mixture. Roll dough into 1″ balls, coat in sugar and place on cookie sheets. Bake for 8 minutes, remove from oven and quickly press one kiss into the center of each cookie. Place cookies on cooling rack.

Serve with a tall glass of milk and enjoy!

What activity do you find therapeutic?

Shamrock Brownies

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bake sale, brownie, brownie recipe, dessert, food, foodie, postaday2011, sweets

It’s March! Time to revel in the idea of the forthcoming Spring. What better way to do that than celebrating St. Patrick’s Day for a few weeks! I’ll soon be making cabbage, neeps & tatties, ham & bean soup, and Irish soda bread. So I decided to make shamrock brownies now…

Shamrock Brownies

Directions:
I used my usual brownie recipe and added crème de menthe instead of the vanilla extract. On top I sprinkled it with crushed Andes mints and baked as usual. I allow it to cool and then used a shamrock cookie cutter to create my brownies. Next time I will bake my brownies in a larger rectangular pan, since my 8″x8″ pan makes brownies that are taller than my cookie cutter.

I wanted to split the brownie in two piece and layer green mint frosting between the top and bottom layer, but Hubster quickly vetoed that idea in favor of eating them immediately…

*If serving at a party, try hiding a gold coin in one of the brownies after baking! Whoever find the gold, will have a good fortune.

What St. Patrick’s Day traditions do you have?

Versatile Choux – Cream Puffs, Profiteroles or Mini Eclairs

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brunch, choux, cream puffs, dessert, desserts, eclairs, French baking, French cooking, French pastry, gourmet, gourmet brunch, mini food, postaday2011, profiteroles, sweets, sweets table, treats

Nanny’s Cream Puffs
Hubster loves sweets, I enjoy them too. We don’t always agree on the same treats though, except for this one. I decided to whip up a batch and everyone could choose their own filling. This recipe comes from a yellowed recipe card in my grandmother’s rusty recipe box, but I’m not sure of the original origins. I’ve made a few minor modifications, but not enough to call it my own.

Cream Puffs

Choux Ingredients:
6 Tbsp. butter softened, 1 c. warm water, 3/4 c. flour, 1/4 c. 10x sugar, 3 eggs, 1/2 tsp. almond extract, pinch of fresh ground sea salt (omit if using salted butter), 5 oz. finely grated dark chocolate

Choux Directions:
Preheat oven 400°F. Grease and flour two baking sheets. Sift flour and set aside. Beat eggs and set aside. In a small saucepan bring butter and water to a boil. Add flour, extract, sugar and salt to saucepan and beat until mixture pulled away from the sides. Remove from heat allow to cool a bit (you don’t want scrambled eggs in your choux)  and beat in half the eggs, slowly add in remaining eggs until dough becomes smooth (you might not need all the eggs). Drop by the tablespoonful on trays (next time I might roll them into balls). Bake for 30 minutes or until the are golden and puffed. Use a bamboo skewer to prick each puff and place bake in the oven for about 10 more minutes. Cool puffs on wire rack. Use an icing press to fill with pudding or whipped cream, cut a slit  and use a melon-baller to fill with ice cream. Melt chocolate in double boiler and dip the tops of puff. Keep refrigerated or frozen.

For Profiteroles: Fill with ice-cream

For Eclair Puffs: Fill with vanilla pudding

For Cream Puffs: Fill with fresh whipped cream (try adding a pinch of nutmeg to cram before filling

Mine taste great, but the don’t look perfect, but I don’t think they turned out badly for a first attempt.

Do you prefer profiteroles, eclairs or cream puffs?

Classic Shortbread

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almond shortbread, bake sale, baked goods, chocolate, classic, cookies, dark chocolate, dessert, food, foodie, postaday2011, recipe, shortbread, snack, sweets

Unfortunately my sister didn’t have a copy of her shortbread recipe with her when she was on this side of the pond. Of course she used a real Scottish recipe. I played with a mixture of ingredients until I had a dough that I liked, similar to my sugar cookie, but much less sugar. No egg in the dough, so it’s safe to sample uncooked bits. This is what I came up with…

Shortbread & Tea

Shortbread Ingredients:
2 c. flour, 1 c. butter softened, 3/4 c. sugar, 1 tsp. almond extract, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1/2 tsp. fresh ground sea salt, finely chopped dark chocolate (optional for chocolate dipped)

Shortbread Directions:
Preheat oven to 300°F. Cream together butter, sugar and extract. In separate bowl combine flour and salt. Stir flour into butter mixture 1/4 cup at a time. Chill dough for about an hour (it’ll help the flavors richer and make the dough more manageable). Press dough into pie dish or roll out on floured surface and use cookie cutters. Use prongs on fork to make designs on shortbread. Depending on thickness, bake for about 30 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack. If you used a pie tin, cut shortbread into fantails before cooling. Serve at room temperature with hot tea.

For Chocolate Dipped Shortbread:
On the top of a double boiled, melt chocolate. Dip edges or bottoms of shortbread in chocolate and place on wax paper. Chill in fridge to harden chocolate. Remove shortbread from fridge and store in an airtight container.

*If you use salted butter, you can omit or cut back the sea salt.

*If you like your shortbread sweeter, add 1/8-1/4 c. more of sugar.
*As a gift or favor you can wrap a bunch of shortbread in a mug, with a box of tea bags.

Unfortunately my embosser in still packed in some unknown box, or I would have used it embellish my shortbread before baking. I used individual tart tins to make a smaller shortbread, which I cut in wedges to create fantails.

As the aroma of fresh-baked shortbread lingers through my home, I sit down for a moment to nibble a few shortbread fantails and sip on my earl grey tea. I just hope my sister approves my recipe.

What do you like to munch on with your tea?

Boston Cream Cupcakes

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Boston Cream, chocolate ganache, cupcakes, dessert, dessert table, ganache, recipe, sweets, vanilla pudding, yellow cake, yellow cupcakes

Hubster started his fall semester, which includes a 180 hour internship for one class and a 1, 185 page book for another class. In addition to juggling full-time grad school, he also still has his full time teaching job and coaching responsibilities. On top of that our school is being renovated and his gym is where they’re storing the equipment! Needless to say, my Hubster is stressed!!!

The best way to help beat stress is to be surrounded by the things you love… right?? Okay, so Pumpkin and I don’t exactly help de-stress him. But Hubster does love Boston cream donuts (and chocolate eclairs)… so why not surround him with them?.. sort of...

I didn’t want to give him lot’s of fried donuts, so I varied from the original idea and made Boston Cream Cupcakes. I didn’t make the cake base completely from scratch, but if I use cake mix, I always “doctor” it up a bit.

Boston Cream Cupcake

Yellow Cupcake Ingredients:
1 pkg. yellow cake mix, 1 pkg. instant vanilla pudding, 1 c. water, 1/3 c. vegetable oil, 3 eggs, 2 Tbs. butter flavoring, 1 tsp. nutmeg, 1 tsp. ground cardamom

Yellow Cupcake Direction:
Preheat oven 350°F. Mix all ingredients together with a mixer a medium speed, about 2 minutes or until well mixed. Fill 20 lined muffin cups, fill a little more than 2/3 full. Bake about 20 minutes (until an inserted toothpick comes out clean). Allow cupcakes to cool completely before assembling.

Boston Cream Cupcake Ingredients:
Yellow cupcakes, french vanilla pudding, chocolate ganache

Boston Cream Cupcake Directions:
Using an icing press or pastry bag with a long tube tip, squirt vanilla pudding into center of cupcake. Pour ganache over cupcakes while still warm. Place cupcakes in refrigerator for 30 minutes to help set them. Serve with a tall cold glass of milk.

Yes, I use food to make my Hubster feel better… don’t judge me, it worked (until the next homework assignment).

What type of food is your spouse’s/partner’s comfort food?

Dark Chocolate Cookies

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chocolate, cocoa, cookie recipe, cookies, dark chocolate, dark cocoa, dessert, dessert recipe, newly wed, recipe, sweets

Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! The entire world loves chocolate (except for my Pumpkin)… I love dark chocolate. Chocolate cake, chocolate pie, chocolate pudding, I’ve even been known to eat a square of baking chocolate. I’ve used and modified many chocolate cookie recipes and this is my favorite.

Dark Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients: 3/4 c. melted butter, 1/2 c. dark cocoa powder, 1 c. dark brown sugar, 2 eggs, 1 Tbsp. vanilla, 2 c. flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 c. sugar

Directions:
Mix together butter, cocoa, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Slowly stir flour mixture into chocolate batter half a cup at a time. Cover bowl and refrigerate for a few hours. Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll dough into 1″ balls and roll in sugar. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Remove cookies from tray and place on a cooling rack.

*Usually I bake chocolate with almond extract instead of vanilla, but this recipe I actually used vanilla extract.

Hubster was standing over the oven with a jar of peanut butter in hand, waiting to spread it on the warm cookies.

What flavor do you like the best paired with chocolate?