Candy Cane Macarons

This is my 4^th attempt at making macarons, but the 1^st of what I would call “successful”. I’ve tried different cookbook recipes, different flavours, but this is the first one I am more than thrilled to share with you. I won’t bother writing the recipe down as I’m pretty sure that’s what we call “plagiarism.” I’m only sharing my pictures and sending you on your way to the only recipe I trust! Annie’s Eats is, hands down, my favourite food blog. I read it almost daily and want to try pretty much every recipe she posts, not to mention her food photography is to die for!

Please make these for yourself, and definitely consider trying the various flavours she’s posted on. Enjoy!

Candy Cane Macarons can be found on this webpage of Annie’s Eats.

My only advice for these finicky cookies would be that you not make them on a rainy day. Your environment needs to be dry, and you need to be patient and not overwork ANYTHING. Good Luck!

Bon Appetit!

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Santa Mittens

I’m finally getting back on track with posting recipes after a busy holiday season. I probably should have posted these ones WAY before Christmas but I completely lost track of time. As always, I make up reasons to bake my days away and made these specifically for my brother’s grade 4 class as a treat to bring in for their Christmas party. The recipe is very simple, as is the design. The hardest part about any of these sugar cookies is really the amount of patience you have to let them dry properly between steps. It’s really come to my attention recently that patience is probably the only skill in life you need to get anywhere, or create absolutely anything. This is good practice. Enjoy!

Chocolate Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:

¾ cup of all-purpose flour

1/3 cup of cocoa powder

6 Tbsp of butter, unsalted and at room temperature

¾ cup of confectioners’ sugar

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, cocoa powder. In a larger bowl, or the stand mixer (my one true love!) beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy (a few minutes). Stir in the egg and vanilla on low speed until combined. Slowly add in the flour mixture until dough forms. Wrap it in plastic in the disk shapes, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Once the dough has chilled, roll it out on a floured surface OR between two layers of plastic wrap (this method is ingenious and practically mess proof!) Cut into desired shapes only once the dough has been rolled out to ¼” in thickness. Bake in a 325-degree oven for 10 minutes. Let cool on the rack for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.

Source: Martha Stewart

For the Icing:

4 cups of confectioners’ sugar
2 tbsp. meringue powder (this stuff is expensive, and I use it way too often!)
6 tbsp. water
Gel food coloring

1. Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer (or mix by hand) on medium speed, until the icing has a smooth and matte consistency, about 10 minutes.
2. Separate Icing into separate bowls for dying. Use gel food coloring to not alter the texture.
3. Once all the colors are created, divide the colors into two batches, one thick batch for the contour lines, and one thinner watered down batch for the filling. Place the contour icings into bags and pipe the outline onto cookies. Fill the cookies with the runnier icing until smooth. Let them dry 1-2 hours, or overnight.
4. Pipe detail onto cookies and let set 1-2 hours.
5. They are ready to eat or wrap into cute little cellophane gift bags!

Bon Appetit!

Chocolate Covered Caramel Pretzels

If I make a deal with myself not to spend anytime on my computer while at home, you can pretty much guarantee I will be bored out of my mind, and whipping up several baked dishes at once and starting way too many projects in the kitchen. I don’t think I spent more than 10 minutes making these and I’m very pleased with the end results! If I were trying to create holiday treat baskets, I would definitely add these ones in it.

Ingredients:

30 Pretzels (or more until you run out of caramel and chocolate to coat them in)

A bag of Kraft Caramels, (around 35 if buying bulk)

6 Oz of Milk Chocolate chunks

Place the unwrapped caramels in a glass bowl. Microwave on high heat in 30-45 second increments until the caramels are completely melted. Place parchment paper on the counter. Stir the pretzels directly into the melted caramel. Quickly coat them all and poor the mixture onto the parchment paper. Using a fork, separate the pretzels so you don’t end up with a ball of hard caramel once it cools. Melt the chocolate chunks in a heatproof bowl over simmering water while the pretzels are cooling. One at a time, dunk the cooled pretzels into the chocolate and set to dry on a clean parchment paper sheet. Decorate with sprinkles and let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Bon Appétit!

Sugar Cookies - Christmas Advent Calendar Edition

I've been keeping busy this past week... I got this crazy Idea a few weeks ago to make advent calendars out of sugar cookies. We have numbered cookie cutters so I thought it would be very simple and easy. Boy, was I wrong! After calculating that I would have to make 5 different colours of icing (probably more, I've lost track) as well as dirty all the cookie cutters. I deciding only making myself an advent calendar wasn't worth it so I attempted to make 12!

For those of you who can't do the math... That's 41 cookies. Per calendar. times 12. FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO COOKIES.

So I started... ( I used this sugar cookie and icing recipe)

and eventually, with a little help from my sister just when I was about to lose it completely... we managed to finish

A few met untimely deaths when a pack of chocolates fell on them... and in the end.. I was left with 10 whole advent calendars, and two almost whole calendars that my brother will surely devour.

My favorites were by far the little snowmen "8"!

Here is the first completed calendar, also our first christmas decoration of the year!