White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Welcome to early March - an unpredictable time of year, where days can feel an awful lot like Spring. In case this beautiful weather isn't enough reason to be excited about March right now, lots of significant dates are coming up quickly, including Pi Day (also known as a good excuse to eat or bake a pie day) on March 14, the Ides of March on the 15th and... St Patrick's Day! As someone who grew up skiing for March breaks, it seems a little bit strange to me that I was able to be outside for most of Sunday with no jacket, no boots, no snow to worry about, etc. The topic of March break brings us to the subject of this post, since my cousin Britt, (who just so happens to be Jo's sister), was home last week for her March Break from Med School. We got together to... you guessed it, bake cookies! 

We made White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies - which turned out to be a chewy soft cookie that wasn't overly sweet (sometimes I don't enjoy white chocolate macadamia nut cookies because they can be so sweet). I'd never bought Macadamia Nuts before, and Britt and I had to search a few different areas of Loblaws before we found this organic brand, Central Roast, on the baking aisle. (Remember the days when local grocery stores had bulk sections? I miss that...) Some facts about Macadamia Nuts that I bet you didn't know: they are native to Australia, and have been grown as a commercial crop in Hawaii since the 1920s. Also, they aren't very easy to find in a Toronto grocery store... 

THE RECIPE:

1 cup butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts

1 cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and then stir in the vanilla extract. 

3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add flour mixture into creamed mixture until all is incorporated. Stir in macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips.

4. Drop dough by teaspoon full onto cookie sheets. Press the cookie down with the back of a spoon as this will help the cookie spread a bit and bake more evenly.

5. Bake for 10 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. 

Well dear readers, it's time for a confession: Jo is the one who comes up with some of (okay, most of) our creative and amazing food photography ideas. Since Jo wasn't free to join us in the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut adventure, that put a lot of pressure on Britt to take over her sister's creative genius... We made these cookies on a beautiful day - and so Britt had the idea to take these cookies out into the wild... and voila! Why wouldn't cookies belong outside in your favourite Anthropologie mug on a beautiful spring day?

Happy Spring! Happy Eating!

Caroline and Britt

Mac and Cheese

Scanning back through some of the most recent posts we've done, I've noticed a bit of a theme. We've made a lot of baked goods/desserts/sweet temptations... with a focus on chocolate (Chewy Chocolate Chip Brownies, Mini Chocolate Cupcakes, and Red Wine Chocolate Mini Cakes to name a few)... So it's about time for something savoury, right? This brings us to the age old debate of chocolate or cheese: if you had to give up one of the two for the rest of your life, which would it be? 

Not an easy question to answer, that's for sure.

In my fourth year at Queen's, my roommate Kaili and I developed a bit of an addiction to macaroni and cheese. I know what you're thinking - "How stereotypical, university students eating Kraft Dinner." But we weren't eating Kraft Dinner. We were eating President's Choice Extra Cheesy Macaroni and Cheese. This is a frozen mac and cheese that takes about an hour to bake but with no other real prep work necessary, it is still a pretty typical student dinner. It is creamy and cheesy and has a very nice bread crumb topping... but admittedly, isn't the healthiest dinner option.

Now that those days are behind us, however, we only have PC Mac and Cheese on very special occasions. Kaili has discovered a recipe for a homemade baked mac and cheese - which, dare I say it, is even more delicious than the President's Choice frozen one. She was kind enough to share this recipe with me, and we made it the other day and reminisced on all the times we've eaten macaroni together in the past...

THE RECIPE:
1 lb elbow macaroni

For the topping:
1 cup panko
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
1 clove of garlic
2 tbsp butter

For the sauce:
6 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
5 cups milk
3-5 cups shredded cheese (We used 1 cup parmesan and 4 cups old cheddar)
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1. Cook the pasta al dente, as it will continue to cook in the oven.
2. While pasta is cooking, prepare the topping. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, and add the garlic glove, cut into medium sized pieces. (Spoiler alert: this will infuse the garlic flavour into the melted butter... delicious!)
3. Measure the panko into a medium sized bowl. Pour melted butter into the panko, while sifting out the garlic and discard garlic.
4. Mix in the 2 tbsp of parmesan cheese until incorporated. Set topping aside.

The topping

5. For the sauce: In a large pot on low, melt the 6 tbsp and then add the flour and whisk for approximately 3 minutes.
6. Add the milk 1 cup at a time, while continuously mixing. Once all the milk is added, turn heat to medium and whisk continuously for 10 minutes (this is the part where you get to really work your arm!) In this time, the sauce will thicken.
7. Bring the sauce to a boil and then immediately reduce to low heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Whisk occasionally.

Can you see the bubbles? The sauce is boiling!

8. Remove saucepan from heat and slowly add in the cheese while stirring until completely melted. Do not keep the pot on the heat for adding the cheese, or the cheese will become stringy.
9. Add salt and pepper, to taste, and 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper.
10. Add the cooked noodles to the sauce, and stir until completely covered.

11. Pour macaroni into baking pan and then completely cover the top with the panko mixture.
12. Bake for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. Then turn oven to a broil for one minute, to crisp the topping. Make sure to keep an eye on the macaroni while the oven is on broil, as if you leave it for too long it may quickly start to burn.

13. Serve and enjoy!











Panko note: When Kaili first told me about this recipe, I had to ask her what panko was, since I'd never cooked with it before. Panko is a flakier bread crumb that is traditionally used in Japanese cuisine. It should be available in most large grocery stores and I recommend using it over regular bread crumbs, as it really makes for a lighter topping. This topping is amazing with the garlic butter and parmesan mixed in.

Cheese note: We used cheddar as our base cheese and parmesan as our accent cheese - but there are definitely lots of other combinations you can use to create a delicious cheese sauce for this macaroni recipe.

Seconds, anyone?

I'm not going to try and answer whether I'd choose chocolate or cheese, if I had to give one up - because my answer changes depending on my mood... although right now, cheese seems to be winning, just a little bit...

Happy Eating!

Caroline

Red Wine Chocolate Mini Cakes

If there is one thing I love in life, it's red wine - after family and friends and all those things you are supposed to say first, that is. The point is it's up there on my list of favorite things... so when my birthday rolled around this past weekend it seemed like the perfect opportunity to test out a cake recipe I found a few months ago that damn near knocked my socks off! Red Wine Chocolate Cake. 

.......

Sorry, I was busy salivating at the title. Gets me every time. 

Anthropologie+Red Wine+Leopard Print Muffin Liners? Hells. Yes.

Now, if you'll recall - as I'm sure you do - for Caroline's birthday in January, we made some pretty fancy Red Velvet Cupcakes. Well readers, consider this cake the REAL Red Velvet of cakes. It's a dense little cake with a lot of flavour - the red wine doesn't all burn off in the oven, and the cinnamon/chocolate combo gives the cake a beautiful kick. Thought I forgot about the topping? NOPE! It's just as awesome. Think "glorified whipped cream"... a.k.a. whipped cream+mascarpone cheese... a.k.a. delicious.  

To give its due praise, this recipe hails from our go-to food blog Smitten Kitchen. The original recipe calls for making a cake. We nixed that in favor of making cupcakes - erm, mini-cakes (because it sounds fancier, plus these little darlings really do turn out more like miniature cakes than your standard cupcake). It also allowed us to use some sweet leopard print muffin liners Caroline so graciously gave me as a birthday gift! Double win. You know what ELSE she got me? An Anthropologie apron of my very own! 

Twin-sies!!

showing of "the goods"

Now I know we've gotten into the habit of saying this a lot - but this cake is actually very quick and easy to make! Who knew baking was such a breeze? But to give you an idea on just how easy we mean when we say easy (and we mean EASY), lets compare this blog recipe to ooohh I don't know - our 3 course Italian feast that took about 10 hours to complete...? Even with our dilly-dallying, wine drinking, and what I'll call other-peoples-blogs-bashing (more on that later), we finished baking, photographing and taste testing this cake in under 3 hours! Believe me that's kind of a miracle. I would stab a guess at saying if you were baking this cake solo, or with a non-blogging/obsessed with taking pictures friend, you could probably get it done in under an hour (baking time included!). That being said, let's get to it:

THE RECIPE:

6 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

3/4 red wine* (plus an extra splash or two)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour

1/3 cup Dutch cocoa powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp table salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Come on, you knew this was coming right?
I just have a thing for playing with raw eggs...
that's not weird right?

1. Preheat oven to 325 and line bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment or spray with non-stick spray, or line muffin tins with muffin liners (in leopard print like ours, if you dare
2. In large bowl, cream the butter until smooth on medium speed. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy.
3. Add the egg and yolk and beat well, then add the red wine and vanilla. Don't worry if the batter is a little uneven, it will all work out in the end!
4. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together, right over your wet ingredients. Mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula.
5. Spread batter into prepared pan. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. The top of the cake will be shiny.
6. Cool in pan for about 10 minutes than remove - if you use a 9" inch cake pan, flip the cake out of the pan and cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack. If you used a muffin tray, they may be a bit easier to get out to move to the cooling rack.




*We used Fuzion - since the wine is going into a cake, it's not really that important to use a really expensive wine... although it doesn't hurt if you enjoy the taste of the wine for when you're sipping on it while you bake. 

Red Wine made several appearance that afternoon. In the recipe, in our mouths, and as a measuring cup... I mean NAME me a better measuring device for wine than a wine glass?

Topping:

1/2 cup mascarpone cheese

1/2 cup chilled heavy or whipping cream

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. Whip mascarpone, cream, sugar and vanilla together until soft peaks form. Dollop generously (emphasis on the generously) onto each slice of cake, or on top of each mini cake. The topping can be covered and refrigerated for up to 4 hours.

Sidenote: We left decorating - or rather "dolloping" until we were ready to serve the minicakes. The topping isn't like a frosting. You don't "ice" these wine-filled treats. The topping is best kept in an airtight container for storing and traveling until just before serving!

Minicakes all packed up and ready to go - who new an Anthropologie gift box could be so multi-purpose?

Happy Baking! Happy Eating! Happy (belated) Birthday to Me!

Jo

Classic Chewy Chocolate Chip Brownies

Disclaimer: if you don't like chocolate, stop reading now.

Okay, so I've still got you reading, right? That's what I thought.

Just about a year ago, I went to San Francisco with two of my best friends, Vianna and Alex. We had an absolutely amazing trip, with highlights including the Redwoods in Muir Woods, wine tasting in Sonoma Valley, visiting our friend Kelcie at Stanford, a tour of Alcatraz, and of course Ghirardelli Chocolate. Unfortunately, my friend Alex does not like chocolate - so she falls into the category of people who were warned to stop reading at the beginning of this post. Despite the fact that Alex may not have been quite as excited as me and Vianna to visit a chocolate store, we went to Ghirardelli Square in Fisherman's Wharf to go to the flagship Ghirardelli store. There, we sampled some of the chocolates, watched chocolate being made, and made just a few purchases to bring home with us...

I was feeling a bit nostalgic for San Francisco when I set out to bake dessert for some of my friends this weekend. When I decided on brownies, I remembered that Ghirardelli has the one exception to my no-baking-with-a-mix rule: their Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix. Dear readers, don't be fooled - this isn't a post about baking from a mix. I reached the conclusion that if Ghirardelli makes such a good brownie mix, they must also have a good brownie recipe. And I was not disappointed. If you don't want to take the time to make these brownies from scratch, by all means, buy the mix as it's delicious. As far as I know, in Canada (or maybe its just Ontario, or Toronto for sure) you can only buy this product at Costco - which means you get enough mixes for 6 batches. That's a lot of brownies, but I can think of much worse things to buy in bulk. If you're like me and you don't have a Costco membership, and you like to bake your own desserts anyways - here's a pretty unbeatable recipe, from Ghirardelli.

THE RECIPE:

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
A pinch of salt

The brown sugar reminded me of a heart

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8" square pan.
2. Chop the 4 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate into small pieces. In a double boiler (or a small pot onto of a bigger pot with boiling water, if you don't have a double boiler like me - or you can use a heatproof bowl in a pot of simmering water) - melt the chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until smooth.
3. Remove the pan from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Stir the brown sugar and vanilla into the chocolate mixture. Add eggs and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly fold the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, until all the flour is incorporated.
5. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour the batter into the prepared pan.
6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting.

Chocolate chips in chocolate - the best.

I love that these brownies have chocolate chips in them. They're chewy and extra chocolatey and just what a brownie should be. You can make them with Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate and chocolate chips, but they'll still be delicious with your regular Bakers chocolate and Chipits chocolate chips.

Happy Eating!

Caroline

Moroccan Almond Cookies

Also known as Chopped Almonds Ghribas...

Three-day weekends are the best – especially when the holiday falls on a Monday. When you have a Monday off, you get your normal weekend, and then you get an extra day to do all the things you didn’t fit in and don’t have time to do every weekend! I’m very happy we have Family Day in Ontario now – although this year, I realized that due some sort of federal and national exceptions, some of my friends did not have Monday off, which isn’t really fair...  

I spent my Family Day with both my family and some friends. I saw my friend Hilary, who I baked these Moroccan Cookies, or Ghribas, with. Hilary was in Morocco over Christmas, where she sampled a variety of pastries and came back with a Moroccan Pastries cookbook. As soon as she told me about her cookbook, I was eager to try out one of the recipes with her – and as you will see, we had to make a few modifications on the original recipe, but our cookies turned out quite well regardless! Ghribas are a Moroccan, macaroon like cookie that have a ground nut in it. We chose to make an almond ghriba.

Here is the original recipe as taken from the cookbook, Moroccan Pastries:

Chopped Almonds Ghribas (the original recipe):

500 g poached and peeled almonds

1 pinch gum Arabic powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon butter

3 eggs

250 g icing sugar

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

Decoration:

egg white

200 g chopped almonds

Method:

Mix almonds and combine with gum Arabic powder, baking powder, butter, 2 egg yolks (preserve whites), 1 egg, icing sugar and grated lemon zest.

Shape little balls with almond paste; dip them into egg white then into a bowl of chopped almonds. Place them onto greased tray and bake in preheated and moderate oven. Bake for 20 minutes at 180 C.

And here's how they look in the cookbook...

Our version of the recipe:

(In addition to the modifications we made, we also tried our best to one-third the recipe – unfortunately, fractions were never my strongest math unit, so we may have also done a bit of rounding…)

165 g of almonds, blanched and peeled

1/3 tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp butter

2 eggs 

80 g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Decoration: 

egg white

chopped almonds

Our Method:

1. Hilary looked at a deli and Noah's for the gum Arabic powder, but neither carried it. So we made the executive decision to go ahead and bake the cookies without any gum Arabic powder. Gum Arabic powder is a binding agent or emulsifier - but luckily for us, our cookies managed to stick together without it! 

2. The original recipe calls for "poached almonds" - we weren't sure what this meant and a quick google search did not help us either, but then after some careful thought we decided this probably meant to blanch the almonds. To blanch almonds, boil water and drop the almonds in for one minute. Drain the almonds, and pinch the ends to easily remove the peel. 

3. Through reading the rest of "Moroccan Pastries" we came to realize that "mix almonds" in fact means puree/grind the almonds. We used a food processor to make an almond flour substance. Allow almonds to cool before blending in a food processor. Reserve some almonds for decoration, which should be chopped instead of blended.

Note: It's easiest to use a scale for this recipe - but if you don't have one, it's a 2:1 ratio for the almonds to the icing sugar

4. Combine the ground almonds, baking powder, butter, 1 egg and the yolk of the second egg, the icing sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl. Mix until combined. Reserve the egg white in a separate, small bowl.

Note: the dough was very sticky and a lot more wet than your average cookie dough - more like a cake batter. 

We used vanilla extract instead of lemon zest, because we didn't have a lemon to zest - but the vanilla compliments the almond flavour very nicely. 

5. To decorate, form dough into 1-inch balls, then dip in egg white and roll in reserved, chopped almonds.

6. Bake in 180 degrees Celsius, which to save you looking up the conversion, equals about 355 degrees Farenheit for about 12 minutes, or until edges of cookies are golden brown. 

These ghribas are surprisingly light and fluffy, while still remaining chewy. They reminded us of a macaroon – although a bit different in texture and taste. The almond flavour is very strong, but not in your typical almond extract kind of way - a delicious almond taste, as long as you like almonds. The cookies aren't too sweet either.

Almond Ghribas paired with Moroccan tea glasses

I hope everyone has enjoyed their four day work week!


Happy Eating!
- Caroline

Valentine's Day Cookies...

... Or, "Another excuse to make shortbread cookies and experiment with cookie decorating".

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

(a day late... but better late than never right?)

Just another "fun-things-to-do-with-a-single-cookie-recipe" from your friends at scrambledeggsetc :)

Happy Eating!

Jo 

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

I baked cupcakes for my friend Katie’s birthday, which was yesterday. As I carried the giant Tupperware full of cupcakes up the elevator to my friends’ apartment, the other person in the elevator asked me if the cupcakes were good. I laughed and said, “I hope so!” He then asked me if they were for a child’s birthday party – which I had to laugh at again. Why did the stranger in the elevator think these cupcakes were for a child? Maybe because of the bright coloured icing – combined with the fact that these are mini cupcakes, I’m sure.

Here are just some of the many advantages of mini cupcakes:

1. They look absolutely adorable.

2. You can eat them in a bite or two (remember when I went over why this is a good thing for a party when I made Mini Caprese Salad?) 

3. You’ll double the amount of cupcakes the recipe says it’s going to make – so great for sharing at a party where there will be lots of people.

4. Did I mention how cute they are? 

To make these Mini Chocolate Cupcakes, I used Martha Stewart’s recipe for Devil’s food cake and basic vanilla buttercream icing (I guess I’m going through a bit of a Martha Stewart phase right now – but she has great cupcake recipes!) I got to use my William Sonoma food paste set again that I bought for our Red Velvet Cupcakes for the icing – and I can’t get over how beautiful the colours turned out! 

The Recipes:

Devil’s Food Cupcakes

3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

3/4 cup hot water

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream, room temperature

Combing the hot water with the cocoa

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners - or if you're using mini muffin trays and don't have mini muffin paper liners, grease well. Let me emphasize the well part. 

2. Boil water and allow to cool a little, and then whisk into cocoa until smooth.

3. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

4. Melt butter with sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring to combine. Remove from heat, and pour into a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat until mixture is cooled, 4 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

5. Add vanilla, then cocoa mixture, and beat until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the sour cream, and beating until just combined after each.

6. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 12 minutes for mini cupcakes, or 20 minutes for standard sized cupcakes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 15 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

7. To finish, use a small offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Makes about 32 regular sized cupcakes, or 64 mini cupcakes.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

                   

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3 to 4 cups icing sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter until smooth and creamy, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. With mixer on low speed, add 3 cups sugar, milk, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. If necessary, gradually add remaining 2 cups sugar to reach desired consistency.

3. If you want to create various shades of icing, divide into small bowls and leave some of the icing in the mixing bowl. This way you can always add more white icing to a colour you create if it turns out to be too dark. If you are using gel food paste, you will only need a tiny drop to create a vibrant colour – and then you can easily add more if you want your colour to be even darker or brighter.

Some notes about the cupcakes:

1. I was really excited to make mini cupcakes – but unfortunately, I didn’t have mini muffin cup paper liners. I greased the muffin trays, but they were still difficult to pop out of the trays once they were baked and I ruined a few in the process. I found that the ones that were smaller actually came out the easiest, so if you do decide to make mini cupcakes with no paper liners, I recommend really sticking to only filling the cups three-quarters full.

2. Martha calls for “coarse salt.” I suppose my sea salt is too coarse – because I thought maybe the salt would dissolve into the batter, but this was not the case. I wouldn’t say the salt ruined the cupcakes – but there definitely were a few bites where you would taste a salt crystal, which isn’t exactly what I was going for. So in future, I would not use the same coarse sea salt.

3. These cupcakes would be delicious with a chocolate frosting – something not too sweet. I went for buttercream because I wanted to dye the icing to look pretty, but if I was going purely for taste… chocolate frosting may have won out.

4. The other thing that can be a bit frustrating about mini cupcakes is that if you don’t have more than 2 mini muffin trays, you will have to do quite a few batches and wait while for the cupcakes to cool enough to remove from the trays before you can make your next batch and reuse the trays. I had 3 mini trays (thanks to my grandmother who lent me 2 of hers) – but it still required quite a bit of time to get them all through the oven! But it was so worth it for the cuteness factor! 

Mini cupcakes aren’t just for kids – they’re perfect for a birthday at any age! 

Birthday Girl with Mini Cupcakes!

Happy Birthday Katie! And Happy Eating to all! 

Caroline