Christmas Baking: Chocolate Brownies

These brownies come from Jamie Oliver's How to Cook. They are intense. Little more than dark chocolate held together with a few fillers.

1 cup unsalted butter
7 oz. dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken up
optional: 75g dried sour cherries
optional: 50g chopped nuts
3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 cup flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs

Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Line a 25cm square baking tin with greaseproof paper.
In a large bowl over some simmering water, melt the butter and the chocolate and mix until smooth.
Add the cherries and nuts, if you’re using them, and stir together.
In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and sugar, then add this to the chocolate, cherry and nut mixture. Stir together well.
Beat the eggs and mix in until you have a silky consistency.

Pour your brownie mix into the baking tray, and place in the oven for around 25 minutes. You don’t want to overcook them so, unlike cakes, you don’t want a skewer to come out all clean. The brownies should be slightly springy on the outside but still gooey in the middle. Allow to cool in the tray, then carefully transfer to a large chopping board and cut into squares*.

* I cut the brownies into one inch squares and put them in paper cups for a small, easily packed, addition to my Christmas Cookie tins.

Christmas Cookie: Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies a la Alton Brown*.

3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add egg and milk and beat to combine.
Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl.
Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

* I "heart" Alton Brown.

Christmas Cookie: Chocolate Chip

This recipe is from Anna Olson's book Sugar.

3/4 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons corn starch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 oz. chocolate chips or dark chocolate chopped into chunks

Preaheat your oevn to 350'f.
Sift together the dry ingredients and set aside.
Cream together butter and sugars.
Add the egg and vanilla and stir to combine.
Stir in dry ingredients until dough forms.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop tablespoonfuls of dough onto lined baking sheet and bake 8 - 10 minutes until the edges of the cookie have darkened to a golden brown colour.

Including the cornstarch in this recipe will give you cookies that remain chewy eve after they have cooled. Leave out the cornstarch for crunchy cookies.

Christmas Cookie: Viennese Crescents

This is another recipe from The Joy of Cooking.

1/2 pound butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup ground almonds (or walnuts)
2 cups flour

Position oven rack in upper third of oven.
Preheat oven to 350' f.
Cream butter.
Beat in powdered sugar until well combined.
Stir in Vanilla and ground nuts.
Sift in Flour while stirring.
Knead dough until well blended.
Pull off 1 tablespoon sized pieces, roll into short ropes and shape into crescents (refrigerate dough if it is too soft to work with).
Place crescents 1 1/2" apart on lined baking sheet and bake 13 - 16 minutes until lightly browned.
Sift Powdered sugar over cooled cookies.

Christmas Cookie: Spice Cookies

These are from The Joy of Cooking (the most indispensable cook book ever). It is one of the variations of the "Fourteen In One" They're not as dense or rich as gingerbread, but they definitely have enough spice to taste Christmasy.

Spice Cookies

Makes about 5 dozen.

1/2 pound butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg yolk
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. all spice
1/8 tsp. ground cloves

Have all ingredients at room temperature.
Beat butter, sugar and salt until fluffy.
Beat in egg yolk until well blended.
Beat in vanilla and remaining egg until well combined.
Add the spices to the flour.
Slowly add the flour to wet ingredients, while mixing on a low speed.
Continue to mix ingredients until well combined.
Divide the dough in half and wrap in plastic.
Refrigerate dough for at least one hour.

To form cookies, either:

Scoop the cookie dough into 1 tablespoon balls and roll between hand until soft. Place the dough balls onto parchment lined cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. Flatten each ball to about 1/8 inch thick using the bottom of a well floured glass.

Or:

Lightly flour your work surface. Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut the dough into desired shapes. Place the dough shapes on parchment lined cookie sheets, spacing about 1/2 apart. Get as many dough shapes out of each sheet, since though dough should only be rolled out twice. Discard the remaining dough, or form the remaining dough into balls and flatten as above.

Bake sheets 2 at a time, in a 375 degree oven for 6-8 minutes, turning the sheets half way through baking for even browning. Immediately transfer the baked cookies to racks* to cool to room temperature. Decorate, if desired, and store in an airtight container.

* I don't own any cooling racks. A tip that I found online is to use a folded sheet of aluminum foil instead.

Christmas Ornaments

A while back I lamented a little about being bored. I needed something to do in my spare time. I needed a project.
Well here it is, my solution to my need to be crafty, I made Christmas ornaments to go along with all of the baking I'm giving away.

They are all hand sewed felt ornaments made from my own designs, with buttons and ribbons for added detail. Next year I think I may start sewing these earlier and make a bunch to sell on etsy.com.

Christmas Cookie: Shortbread

This year I'm doing a TON of Christmas baking to give away as gifts. The first round of which is several batches of shortbread. This is my absolute favourite recipe for making shortbread. It's ridiculously easy to make and comes out perfect every time. So where did I get this recipe? Is it an old family recipe passed down from generation to generation?
Nope. It's from the back of the "Canada" brand corn starch box.

Shortbread

Makes about 24 cookies

1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 cup flour
3/4 cup butter (unsalted, room temperature)

Sift together the corn starch, icing sugar and flour.
With a wooden spoon, blend in butter until a soft smooth dough forms.
Chill dough 30 - 60 minutes.
Shape dough into 1" balls and place 1 1/2" apart on a cookie sheet.
Bake in 300 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, just until the edges start to change colour.
Transfer to a rack and cool.

Just shaping the dough into balls and then baking will give you a half sphere shaped cookie (I think they look like snowballs). You can also flatten the balls, or roll out the dough and cut it into shapes (or use cookie cutters). I have even shaped the dough into large squares and rounds about six" across and 1" thick, and marked them with a knife so that they can be cut into wedges and rectangles after baking (more like the traditional Scottish style).

Plant Wars!

*The ruthless peppermint plant.

I started a patio garden during the summer. A small, yet respectable, collection of herbs as well as a couple Thai Chili plants. The plants flourished throughout the summer and I was able to enjoy their freshness (and insane spiciness from the peppers) in my cooking. Then fall started to approach and I was left with a dilemma.

I knew that my plants would not be able to survive life outdoors in the harsh winter that was fast approaching. But I also knew that the amount of light in my apartment wouldn't be enough to sustain them either. So I did some researching and a little hunting and came up with a solution. I brought the light indoors with the help of some cheap Ikea shelving and small flourescent fixtures scavenged from work (previously scavenged from a, now cancelled, game show set).

Now I have a new problem. My plants have been going through a sudden growth spurt and their leaves are now fighting for space among the shelves. My peppermint plant is particularly ruthless. It grows in any direction it can, greedily pushing though the other plants. When I go to harvest some herby goodness I frequently have to untangle plants from each other just to make sure I don't mistakenly put mint in my pasta when I meant to use oregano. The only real solution to the problem is to just keep on hacking away at the plants until spring, when I will be able to repot them into larger containers and let them run wild!