Rachel's Chai Cupcakes, Peppermint Bark and Biscochitos... oh my!

Today was a glorious day... it was Farah's birthday, it snowed 5 inches in Portland, and finals got cancelled for tomorrow! So I got to baking...
First, I decided to make Rach's yummy looking chai cupcakes for Farah. 

I made them extremely miniature, which took forever, but they are way cute. I also made a cinnamon vanilla frosting, which turned out a bit too sweet- but good anyway.

Here are some photos... I also included a photo of Ariel enjoying Rachel's batch that the recipe comes from. 

I want to go into the cupcake making industry. Rachel- are you down?

Also, we made incredible Peppermint Bark last night, and I decided to be artsy and take some pictures... so they are here too.

The recipe is easy- and makes for a nice gift!

-2 bags white chocolate chips

-2 bags chocolate chips

-about 30 peppermint candies-crushed

*Pre-heat the oven to 350

*Place aluminum foil on a pan, and sprinkle the chocolate chips over it. Melt them in the oven until they are soft enough to smooth down into a base layer. Let the chocolate harden.

*Place white chocolate in a metal bowl, situated over a pot of boiling water. When the white chocolate melts, quickly pour it over the hardened chocolate. 

*Sprinkle peppermint crumbles on top of white chocolate before it hardens.

*Place in the refrigerator until fully hardened- then cut into triangles!

ENJOY!

Lastly, I made the New Mexico state cookie- BISCOCHITOS!!!!! mmm! The smell of these make me feel like it really is December!!

-6 cups cake flour

-3 tsp baking powder

-2 cups crisco

- 1 1/2 cups sugar

-2 tsp anise seed

-2 eggs

-1/4 cup brandy (or red wine)

-cinnamon

-more sugar

-melting chocolate

*Preheat oven to 350

*Combine flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl

*Cream crisco, sugar and anise together in another bowl- beat in the eggs one at a time

*Mix in flour

*Roll dough out, and cut into shapes (or use a cup for circles)

*Sprinkle a mixture of cinnamon and sugar on each uncooked cookie

*Bake about 10 minutes, until they begin to lightly brown

*Melt chocolate, and once cookies have cooled, dip 1/2 in 

 

A word about this blog...

The banner on top is a photo I pulled off of a stock photography website - royalty free downloads type thing.  And there are a lot of pictures out there people just run around and steal, while there are also a lot of picutres under creative commons public domain licensing. Just wanted you guys to know I got the photo off of http://sxc.hu all legal and stuff, and I also wrote to the artist to let him know we are using the photo in a publicly accessible work, and that I modified the photo for use (cropped it). He read our blog and thinks is really cool and likes the photo where it is. 

His name is Felipe Peternella, and he is from Salvadaor, Bahia, Brazil. Mmm.. Yummy. (His profile)

Thanksgiving Potatoes

First of all, Molly I love that you made an entire thanksgiving dinner from scratch by yourself... sounds like fun! I made lots of stuff this thanksgiving as well, but not quite the whole meal. I promised Becca I would post my recipe for mashed sweet potatoes. This are THE BEST mashed potatoes ever, you gotta try them.

2 lbs sweet potatoes

4 tbs butter

2 tbs heavy cream

1  tbs brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

pinch of pepper

Slice the sweet potatoes so they are the same width. In a pan melt butter and heavy cream together. Add sugar, salt, pepper and potatoes. Cook on low heat stirring occasionally  until the potatoes start to fall apart. Transfer contents to a bowl and mash. 

+You can also make a delicious Indian variation by adding 1 tbs of Garam Masala with sugar and salt. After mashing add golden raisons.    

Thankgiving

Okay, so it was selfish of me to want to do Thanksgiving all by myself. But everyone else gets SO stressed out about it... And I thought it would be fun, plus, I would get to have all the recipes just the way I like it - wi th the free range, organic, antibiotic free turkey, and the organic greens, etc..... So I did it. All from scratch. You know what? I'll do it again tomorrow if you ask me. That was SO MUCH FUN! :) Who is going to give me money to start my own catering business.......?

Impulsively bought some Jubelale while I was picking up the turkey last night... Mmmm.

Mom's Onion Tart with Squash

My mom sent me a recipe for an Onion Tart she has whipped up a few weeks ago, so I decided to give it a try this past weekend. However, the acorn squash lingering in my kitchen was begging to be used, and suddenly my tart was destined to be a Squash and Onion Tart, and the results were fabulous.


Onion Filling:
3 cups slices onions
1 c. cubes of roasted squash, cooled (I think I'll use Butternut next time)
1 T. butter
1 T. olive oil
½ tsp salt
¼ cup cream
1 egg
1 T. dried sage

Pastry Crust:
1 cup flour
7 T. butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
about 1 T. milk or cream - I used soy milk

Brown the onions in butter and oil. Salt them. Put in a bowl to cool. Mix the cream, salt, sage and egg together, fold in the squash and set aside. Make the crust while the onions are cooling.

Mix together flour, butter and salt like a standard pie crust. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Add enough milk to make a dough that barely sticks together. Kneed a couple times and roll out into a circle and place on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

Mix the cream and egg mixture into the onions and then spread on the circle of dough leaving the outside 1 to 1 ½ inches uncovered. Fold the outside edge over the filling, crimping the edge as you go.

Bake for 30 minutes @ 375°, or until the crust is lightly browned.

Ariel and I enjoyed it with roasted Autumn veggies and a big green salad. I can attest to the fact that the absolutely perfect dessert to this meal is posted right below...

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Last night I experimented with brownies and peanut butter chips...and I was pleased with the result. I used my favorite no fail brownie recipe and gave it some spice:

Brownies:

2 sticks butter

4oz bittersweet chocolate

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup flour

½ tsp SALT

1 bag reeses peanut butter chips

1 tablespoon milk

Melt butter and chocolate. Combine with sugar. Add eggs one at a time while mixing. Mix in remaining dry ingredients. Put in pan.

I then melted the peanut butter chips with the milk and swirled it in using a knife.  Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.

Marble Cutter's Soup

Yummy soup. Followed recipe straight from the Splendid Table, except I added oregano.