Another Valentine's Day...

...and another visit from me saying 'hey there!'  I know it's a little late in the game, but if you have an hour or two to spare and aren't planning on surprising your love first thing in the morning,  you can make these shortbread cookies for giving later.  Don't forget to save a couple for yourself.

What I love about shortbread cookies is how easy they are to bake and how you will most likely have everything already on hand.  Now let me tell you what I love about this shortbread recipe--it uses brown sugar instead of granulated white.  In other words, it takes the cookie a notch above the rest, giving it a little less crumble, a tiny bit more chew, and a touch of warmth from the molasses.

Brown Sugar and Orange Shortbread
Adapted from the Brown Sugar Shortbread recipe from Lick the Bowl Good by Monica Holland

1 cup butter, unsalted, room temperature

2/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cornstarch

1/8 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp orange zest (about what you'll get from a medium sized orange)

Sugar sprinkles (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment and set aside.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, and salt.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the zest and mix thoroughly.  Gradually add the flour, etc until incorporated.  Turn the dough out onto the counter until you produce a smooth dough.  Between two sheets of parchment or wax paper, roll the dough out until it's about 1/4 inch thick.  Chill for half an hour.  Cut into desired shape---the original recipe was cut into 2x1 inch rectangles---I used an inch and half round cookie cutter.  Makes hearts, diamonds, squares--whatever you want.  

Prick the dough with a fork.  If you're going to top them with sugar sprinkles, wash tops lightly with milk and sprinkle on sugar. I used King Arthur Flour's Sparkling White Sugar (red sugar sprinkles would be entirely appropriate too).  Place about an inch apart on cookie sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes or until bottoms are a light golden brown.  Let cookies set for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving to a cooling rack.  

If you want to score bonus points, package them up in cute little Valentine's boxes or cello bags.

I know I haven't been around lately.  Do I  have a good reason?  Not really.  Life sometimes gets in the way.  I'm hoping to make this more of a habit again.  Let's do this!

A Little Sweetness

Another Valentine's Day has arrived with all its heralds of the holiday...chocolates, roses, hearts, red and pink for miles.  I'm bringing you something sweet with jammy and buttery goodness.  Keep this in mind for a birthday, a dinner party, weekend brunch, or yes, even Valentine's day.

The lastest issue of the King Arthur Flour catalog was in my mailbox a few weeks ago and in it was their recipe for pound cake.  When was the last time you had pound cake?  I remember an Entenmann's pound cake was frequently in the house when I was growing up.  Rich with butter, it was perfect either topped with strawberries and whipped cream or just on its own, where you could savor the simplicity of it.

I kept thinking about that recipe and after I found a set of little heart cake pans while out shopping one day, I knew that was the impetus needed to finally bake that cake.  Of course, I had to add a little of me to the cake and decided that making a filled cake would be the way to go.  The great thing is that you can easily use a store bought jam, or take the extra few minutes and make your own.

King Arthur Flour Original Pound Cake Recipe

Quick Strawberry Preserves
Makes about a cup

1-2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 cup sugar
Juice of a quarter lemon
1/4 cup water

Put all ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a low boil.  Once the mixture boils, lower the heat and allow to simmer until the fruit begins to break down.  Feel free to help the process by crushing the fruit with a wooden spoon.  When the mixtures has reduced by half, turn off the heat and allow to cool.  It will thicken slightly as it cools.  

For the cake:

You can make a classic loaf cake or a single 9-inch layer (maybe even a heart shaped layer).  Slice the cake in half and spread a fairly thick layer of jam/preserves on the bottom half, gently replacing the top.  Dust with confectioners' sugar or even a layer of whipped cream.  This cake also gets better if you let the preserves seep into the cake, kind of like a jelly donut.  

Fancy Dunkaroos

What happens when you hand your friend a jar of Meyer lemon curd and a bag of candied orange biscotti?  You're asked if you've just given her fancy Dunkaroos.  Admittedly, Wikipedia educated me on what Dunkaroos are.  I don't remember the cookies you dip in a little tub of icing, but if you want to dunk biscotti into lemon curd and call them Dunkaroos, who am I to stop you?

First, treat yourself to candied orange slices.  Super easy to make and a sweet treat for your Valentine's Day love (hint hint).  You could make them this afternoon and they'll be ready for gift-giving tomorrow.  You could even go all out and dip them halfway in melted chocolate.

I don't know how many posts I've written on biscotti, but in my eyes, biscotti never gets old.  How could I refrain from mixing the two together?  Know what else you can dunk your biscotti in?  Ice cream.  I wouldn't stop you.

Candied Orange Slices
Makes about 12

2 oranges or tangerines (sliced a thin as you can)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
Caster/superfine sugar for dusting

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add the water and sugar, stirring until the sugar melts.  When sugar has melted, lower heat and add 3 or 4 slices of orange to the syrup.  Let slices simmer for 2-3 minutes then flip and do the same for the other side.  

Remove from syrup and lay on parchment lined cookie sheet to cool and dry.  Let dry for about 6-8 hours and dip in caster sugar.  

[Don't forget to save the syrup.  It will come in handy for cocktails.]


Candied Orange Biscotti
Makes about 30 cookies

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon bergamot extract
3 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup candied orange slices, chopped small
1 tbsp cornstarch

Pre-heat oven to 350° and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  In a small bowl, mix the candied orange with the cornstarch to coat.  Set aside.  In a large bowl, add the eggs and sugar and beat for about 3 minutes.  Add extract and mix well.  Gradually add flour and baking powder incorporating wet and dry ingredients.  Mix in candied orange.

This is a soft, sticky dough, and I highly suggest wetting your hands before handling the dough to prevent sticking.  Form dough into two logs on baking sheet, at least 2-3 inches apart.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until bottoms turn golden.  Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes.  Lower heat to 325°, slice logs into 1/2 inch cookies, laying cookies back on cookie sheet and bake for 12 minutes.  Turn cookies over and bake for an additional 12 minutes.  

Remove and let cool.  

[You can easily swap out orange or vanilla extract for the bergamot.]

A Little Love

...or 'The Valentine's Day Post.'  Normally, I don't think far enough ahead to plan a post to coincide with an event.  I have yet to make Thanksgiving dinner in August, so I can have the post and photos polished and ready by November.  But for some reason, this year, I actually found myself thinking about Valentine's Day last month.  (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the barrage of red, pink, and hearts filling two aisles at Target that had been up since before Christmas.)  I bought these really cute red striped paper straws (also from Target) after Christmas and thought how great they would be for a Valentine's post.  You will notice they do not make an appearance here.  It just wasn't meant to be. 

What was meant to be are marshmallows.  Little fluffy clouds of gelatin and sugar.  Boy...are they messy.  Messy in the 'giggling while powdered sugar winds up all over my shirt and showers down to the floor' kind of way...which is good.  I've wanted to make marshmallows for a while, but they always seemed like kind of a pain in the ass to make, so I let the thought simmer on a back burner of my mind for a year...or three.  But after reading the last post for 2013 on the F for Food blog, I knew the time had come for me to make that attempt.

 F for Food is one of my absolute favourite food blogs.  If you've never read Elliott's blog, please do yourself a favor and check it out.  She has a natural, friendly, and honest voice when she writes, whether it's about food or her life.  The fact that she admits to not reading a recipe all the way through before attempting it warms my heart, as I sheepishly raise my hand to be an admitted member of that club.

Well, she made marshmallows seem easy peasy to make.  I even skimmed the recipe all the way through beforehand!  They are easy.  To make mine more holiday appropriate for Cupid's celebration, I cut them out with heart and flower cookie cutters and sprinkled them with red sugar crystals.  I will not admit to any serious sugar highs or crashes yesterday.  No, sir, I will not.

Since I barely adapted Elliott's recipe, I'm only going to provide a link to it.  This also means you have to visit her blog.  No excuses!

Fluffy Little Marshmallows 

Orange + Chocolate

Two days away from Valentine's Day and I'm here to share my love with you.  My love of the perfect pairing of orange and chocolate, that is.  Last month I made marmalade.   Not once, but twice...the first time with navel oranges and the second go-round with blood oranges.  Both came out well, though a tad on the thick side.  Delicious nonetheless.  I've had many a morning breakfast of toast loaded with marmalade.

Then I got to thinking about crêpés   A little more specifically...crêpés filled with orange marmalade and drizzled with chocolate.  I thought about those crêpés for days.  Last Monday night, I mixed the batter and set it in the fridge to chill overnight.  The next morning, there I was, melting butter, chocolate, and half and half over a simmering pot of water for ganache.  That was one decadent breakfast, maybe a little over the top for a Tuesday morning, but absolutely worth it.

What to do with the leftover ganache?  After an attempt at truffles that turned out too soft, I let the ganache chill while I considered other options.  I decided on a sandwich cookie.  The cookies alone are crispy around the edges, a little chewy in the center and full of zest.  Once you sandwich them with the chocolate and let them sit for a bit, those cookies become just the right amount of chewy.  The recipe is a derivation on vanilla wafers.  Nickel-sized amounts of dough are piped through a pastry bag and ready in no time, baking to the size of a silver dollar.  

Make these in time for Valentine's Day, give them to a special someone in your life,  and they'll know how much you love them.

Chocolate Ganache
Makes scant 3/4 cup

4 oz. chocolate chips
1/4 cup half and half
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
1 tablespoon butter

Put all ingredients in a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water.  Stir frequently until chocolate has melted and ingredients are well-mixed.  Remove from heat and allow to cool.  

Orange Wafer Cookies
Adapted from Amanda Clarke's Homemade Nilla Wafers recipe
Makes about 6 dozen 

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 large egg white
1 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
1 1/2 tablespoon orange zest
1 tablespoon milk
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment.  In a large bowl, cream butter with the salt and sugar.  Add egg white and mix well.  Stir in extract, orange zest, and milk.  Whisk together flour and baking powder and add gradually to creamed mixture, scraping down sides as necessary to incorporate all ingredients.  Fill a piping bag, that's fitted with a plain pastry tip (I used a 5pt tip), with the batter, and pipe nickel-sized amounts of dough 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until edges just begin to golden.  Remove from baking sheet and allow to cool on a wire rack.  

To make sandwich cookies:  Fill another piping bag with the ganache.  Using a plain pastry tip, I used a Wilton No. 12, pipe enough ganache so that it will move to the edges when you sandwich the wafers.  

The ganache may not be enough to sandwich all the wafers...and that's okay.  They are wonderful on their own.

Sweets for the Sweet...

...in a post-Valentine's Day chocolate haze, I find myself obsessed with something entirely different...well, maybe not entirely, as it is sweet...certainly satiating a sweet tooth...full of crystal sugar goodness...

...let me introduce you to...Candied Orange Peel...a touch better...Blood Orange Candied Orange Peel...and after this morning, please meet her sister, Clementine Candied Orange Peel...

Blood Orange Candied Peel

Clementine Candied Peel

I love when blood oranges are in season....I can't get enough of that deep red flesh...the rosy blush of its skin...its juicy sweetness...

I used a couple of them to make a pomegranate-blood orange reduction for dinner and didn't want to waste a bit if I could help it...so I thought about what to do, google'd a recipe for candied peel and went for it.  I love how easy it is...so little work for a treat that is just short of amazing.  Yesterday while roaming a few food blogs I discovered Orangette's site and in reading her 'About Me' section, learned that the French call candied orange peel dipped in chocolate 'orangette'...no...I have not dipped them in chocolate...yet...at the rate I'm going, I will on the next go 'round...here's Giada's recipe (which does dip them in chocolate)...

Blood Orange Simple Syrup

...oh, I almost forgot to mention another by-product of making it...the orange-infused simple syrup that's produced...I dubbed it 'liquid gold' because it just is...still thinking about what I'm going to use it for...the bottle of bourbon is looking like a possibility...orange-almond cake (with thinly sliced peel atop) might make the cut...we'll see...with a weekend's worth of time on my hands in a couple of days, you never know what will come out of the kitchen...

...and check out the Orangette blog if you get a moment...it's charming and beautifully done....it also has me considering Aperol (but that's another story)...