Making Whoopie
It’s that time of year again… birthday season! My husband Stephan and I have a very unusual coincidence when it comes to our birthdays. His is today (Christmas Eve) and mine is tomorrow (Christmas Day.) What are the odds? It is honestly not fun to have your birthday on or close to Christmas. You get combo presents… you get birthday presents wrapped in paper with Santas on it. Lastly, your birthday is overshadowed by someone else’s birthday. :P However, I do like that we get to celebrate together. This year I bought Stephan a really big expensive present and made it a……. combo. Yes, it is a faux pas, but Bose makes really expensive man toys! Sorry honey! Actually, we both received the best present ever this year, a wedding we photographed this summer was just published in InStyle Weddings!!!
Instead of making a traditional cake, I made Red Velvet Whoopie Pies with Peppermint Filling. Our photography studio has been very busy this month with last minute photo shoots and holiday cards and there just wasn’t the time to make a real birthday cake. It’s OK, though. Stephan really doesn’t like traditional birthday cake. I only made them in the past because it seemed like the right thing to do. So this year, I not only combined his birthday and Christmas present, but I combined his birthday cake and a Christmas cookie. Yeah, I know… not cool. I’m definitely not winning the wife of the year award! Thankfully, the whoopie pies are really yummy and made up for the lack of birthday-ness!
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Maybe this time… doh!
Has everyone seen The Bee Movie, the animated one with the voice of Jerry Seinfeld? There’s this part when the bee is trying to get inside and he runs into the glass of the window. He keeps saying “maybe this time” each time he bounces off of the closed window… over and over and over. That is how I feel when I make truffles.
I hate making truffles. Really, truly hate making the little morsels of chocolate that I so love to eat. I always have issues when making them. Usually they are too soft, or too firm, or it is too hot in my kitchen and they melt while I try to enrobe them with chocolate. I am an apparent glutton for punishment, because I decided this year to make homemade treats for several of my friends and co-workers. I also decided to make them just a few days before I wanted to dole out the treats. Smart, eh?
In the end, the truffles turned out very good, and I was happy, but as usual, I cursed like a sailor with Tourettes Syndrome the entire time and swore never to make them again. We’ll see how I feel next year around the holidays. Will I be the Bee again??? :P I made two different flavors, Rum scented dark chocolate and white chocolate passion fruit rolled in chopped almonds. The latter was surprisingly my favorite of the two… the tartness of the passion fruit puree really cut down the cloying sweetness of the white chocolate.
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Easiest Homemade Gift
So is everyone ready for Christmas? I haven’t been feeling particularly festive since its been so warm here. It is during times like these when I wish I lived in a cold environment. I’d love to go for a nice walk outside in the brisk weather all bundled up and then rush back in and drink a big mug of hot cocoa. Then I see what the hell is going on in Milwaukee (where my sister lives) and the rest of the mid-west and realize I’m perfectly happy stringing lights on my palm trees in 80 degree weather! :P
In an attempt to dive into the holiday spirit, I made caramels. These caramel candies are seriously one of the easiest homemade gifts you can possibly make. It has been a few years since I made them, but I’ve officially made the decision to make them every year. It only takes about 20 minutes to cook them… after they cool, cut and wrap them individually. Easy peasy… and they look so chic, especially if you put them in a nice festive container. I made them with a very light sprinkle of sea salt on top. It gives the caramels a nice balance of flavor and adds a bit of panache too.
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Procrastination
Can you believe it is 6 days til Christmas? Yeah, me either. I thank goodness we have the internet as I am a tried and true procrastinator. I always wait until the last minute to do my shopping and then I vow to never do that again. Rrrright. Never going to happen. I started early this year… on the 18th. That was only because the retail industry got together and came up with “Free Shipping Day.” I just can’t pass up free shipping. So I got free shipping AND even started early… well, for me, at least.
One thing I did do early was bake Snowflake Sugar Cookies. I saw this recipe in the December Food and Wine magazine and had to try it. It uses a different method, as you do not cream the butter like in this recipe. Unfortunately, my kitchen was crazy hot, as I was baking other cookies while I was trying to roll these out. Note to self: always roll the sugar cookies BEFORE the oven gets turned on… especially if you live in South Florida where it is 80 degrees in December. So I had to roll the dough and put in the fridge. Cut a few cookies and put in the fridge. I could only cut 3-4 cookies before the dough got too soft and wouldn’t retain the shape. What a pain in the ass! But I did get the irony that I was attempting to make snowflake cookies in a 85 degree kitchen… Not funny at the time. However, the cookies are yummy and I liked the method as it was easy and quick. If your kitchen is a normal temperature, you’ll have no problems with this cookie!
Cranberry Cookie Bars
As usual, after Thanksgiving, I have tons of homemade cranberry sauce leftover. I usually eat it with foods I’d never eat cranberry with until it is all gone… like pancakes ala cranberry, or french toast with cranberry sauce the side. Tasty, but not what I’d usually eat. This year, there was more cranberry sauce left over than I knew what to do with.
I decided to make simple bars to use up the bulk of the sauce. The result is a sweet cookie like bar with the tart flavor of the berries. One note, your sauce must be chunky and thick. If it is more on the jelly or runny side, it probably won’t work as well. The recipe I use for cranberry sauce is here. 
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A Snowball’s Chance
Can you believe it is December? It seems like we just took our tree down and it is time to put it up again. I’m trying to get into the Christmas spirit by starting my holiday baking early this year. This cookie is one of my favorites and always makes me think of the holidays. There are many names for this cookie, Russian Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding cookies, Snowballs, etc… These cookies are very simple and easy to make, which makes it a great cookie to start your baking this year.
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Bacon Butter
I’m finally clawing my way out of the turkey coma and blogging about my Thanksgiving. We’ve been unusually busy the past few weeks with weddings. Last weekend, we photographed a wedding in Miami Saturday night and then hopped on a plane four hours later at 6:00 the next morning to shoot another one in Cape May, New Jersey. Returned home late Monday night, and started Thanksgiving cooking on Tuesday. Needless to say… I’m still catching up on my sleep!
As I was flipping through my plethora of cooking magazines, I came across a recipe that piqued my interest. It was for a turkey flavored with Bacon Butter. Yes, you heard me right. That’s bacon and butter, thrown in the food processor and pureed. Seriously… its so wrong, it’s right. The original recipe called for mustard, but I omitted it and added fresh herbs instead. I did my usual brine, but instead of boring old butter under the skin, I made the bacon butter and schmeared it between the skin and meat. My arm still hurts from repeatedly patting myself on the back. This was the best tasting turkey I’ve ever made. The flavors of the bacon and herbs infused the meat and also made it oh so juicy.
You can find most recipes here, from last year’s post. I tend to make the same recipes every year, with one or two new ones. The bacon butter is a new addition that I’m pretty sure I”ll be making again! Check out some pics of our Thanksgiving spread. As usual I have to thank Stephan for documenting the whole cooking process.
Egg-celent cookies
I just wasn’t feeling Eastery this year. We didn’t even have an Easter dinner… just a little homemade guacamole and Coronas while watching a movie. I know, I’m a bad wife, but we’ve been so busy with Stephan’s business, it just slipped my mind. Its definitely Wedding season in South Florida! Anyway, instead of making Easter Dinner, I woke up on Sunday morning and decided to make my favorite sugar cookies. I used the same recipe from my Halloween cookies, but ommitted the baking soda. I spent some time decorating them with pink, blue and yellow Royal Icing.
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Feel the Passion!
Who gets Gourmet Magazine? I love it for the beautiful pictures, the fabulous recipes, and the great info about restaurants. This month’s issue had an amazing array of recipes for Christmas cookies and treats. If I had the time, I would have made everything. Hmmm… guess its good I didn’t make everything, or I’d be pulling out the “fat pants”… before Christmas even gets here. :)
I made the Passion-Fruit Gelees, as I’m a huge fan of Passion Fruit. I’ll admit… it wasn’t as Passion-y as I would have liked. It definitely could have used a little more passion puree. But all in all, it was tasty. Something I’ll make again, with minor tweaking.
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My Checkered Past (Part II)
Honestly, I don’t have a checkered past, I swear! It just sounded like a good title! These checkerboard cookies look so complicated and hard to make, but in reality are somewhat simple. OK… they really are not simple, but not as complicated as you would think. Yeah, they are also quite a bit time consuming. For these reasons, I only make these once a year, and that’s for Christmas. It really is a fantastic cookie. They look so cool, with the perfect checkerboard pattern, and each bite you take is slightly crumbly, buttery, chocolaty and vanilla-y. Good stuff.
Please excuse my lazyness before… recipe is now included!
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