Coffee-Meringue Acorns, 2013 Christmas (win!) cookie

So after the Christmas wreck that was the Jam Diamonds, completely disheartened, tired, running out of time, I still decided I'd make that last cookie: Coffee-Meringue Acorns. They have everything that would make them awesome:

a) I could make them tiny
b) Coffee flavor - who doesn't like that in New England?
c) plus Chocolate
d) plus pistachios and/or pecans
e) meringues are pretty easy
f) they're Martha's recipe!

Note: If you are allergic to eggs... just wait for another post, because meringues are definitely not for you.

If you haven't ever had a meringue, you should. They are lovely - crispy on the outside, light and soft on the inside. Or let them cook longer and have them crispy all the way through, and when you bite them they just melt. (I think that's the way to go, personally, although not traditional.) If you've never made them, and presuming you like to bake otherwise why would you be here, you should. They really are easy - egg whites and sugar is all it is. You whip to the desired consistency, and voila - meringue. Someday, I will introduce you to the Pavlova or the meringue-topped pie, or maybe some meringue-based icings, but today - the meringue cookie.

What special things you need to make these - a whisk, as a mixer attachment, or attached to a really strong arm, parchment paper, and time.

This recipe makes a lot. Really a lot. Three egg whites and you've got 100 meringues. I don't need 100, so how am I going to divide this? I decide to base my recipe on 1 egg white, and reduce the rest of the ingredients by 2/3rds, and I'll have around 30 or so little bitty bites. I have a large stand mixer, so I crossed my fingers that it would be able to whip up just 1 egg white. Why wouldn't it, you ask? Because the bowl is slightly conical, and the whisk is almost heart-shaped, ending with one loop on the bottom, which is essentially all that will make contact with the bottom of the bowl and the tiny bit of (room temperature - it's important!) white in there, but the worst that can happen? I start over with 2 whites and have twice as much as I was hoping for. I can live with that.

So I read the ingredients and..."1 1/2 teaspoons Trablit coffee extract (available at culinarydistrict.com) or 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract". Great - some fancy extract I'd have to order? So what do I do... I remember seeing coffee extract at the store - yay!- because I'm sure the alternative would be ridiculously priced, and not in my kitchen within the day. In fact... hold on.... it's 3oz for about $14 (I just looked it up). It's about the same as the McCormick actually, however, I don't need to go to Los Angeles to get the McCormick. I think I know which I should get. And yes, I realize that you are saying "but this says you can also use vanilla extract". Yeah but that's not the point considering what drew me to the recipe was the title promising "Coffee-meringue". By the way, I should say that one of the beautiful things about meringues - flavor them however you want. This says coffee or vanilla, but you could use peppermint, spearmint, coconut, lemon, maple.. anything. And if you're feeling fun, some food coloring is great too. I wouldn't use food coloring with this since using the coffee extract turns the meringue a very light tan color, all on its own. Vanilla extract will also take away from the stark whiteness, but if you like, you can buy clear vanilla extract to keep the very white color (and not just for egg whites - can use it for cake batters, icings, etc.; Wilton sells it and you can get it at Michaels).

Now here's a little something about me that you may or may not know - if there is a way to screw up a recipe - I will find it and do it. I consider this to be a service to all potential recipe users, because then when I totally f*** something up (yes, I get that angry that the f-bombs may fly if small children are not around), I can tell you what went wrong and how I fixed it, or alternatively, didn't. I made it through labs in college that way: students there until 2am to get an experiment right? Suckers! I just did it, and when it was wrong, I wrote a report about what went wrong and why. My professors loved it and so did I because I was tired and was not going to stay at that hideous place for a single nanosecond more than was necessary. And now, I employ that same logical thinking and troubleshooting to my cooking, to help you all. You're welcome!

If you haven't guessed, that was a segue to the part where I never noticed it said I was going to cook everything in a double boiler before whipping. What a friggin' pain. It also does not make me happy to add an extra pan to the equation. I map out my pan and utensil use carefully so that I only use the very least number of items possible... but....brainstorm! The eggs whites are already in my stand mixer bowl, it's stainless steel... voila: saucepan with water simmering, mixer bowl is now the top of the double-boiler. AND I will stir while simmering with the mixer's whisk, for no extra utensil. Genius! Not totally screwed up, but close call.

Once your whites are all whipped and fluffy and shiny and pretty, it's pastry bag time. Again, I did all the cake decorating class crap and I have gel dyes, a thousand different tips, couplings, plastic pastry bags, know how to make a pastry bag out of parchment, but you know what I'm using? A ziploc bag. I do not want to get out a single extra item (remember it's Christmas Eve and I've been making cookies for 2 days). Put the stuff in a ziploc bag and cut about 1/2" off a bottom corner of the bag. Ta-da! Pastry bag! The tip Martha was calling for is just a smooth round tip, so the bag will do. And it does - popping out little meringues just like in the picture, like little "kiss" shapes. Into the oven and now... we wait.

And wait.

And wait. Meringues take time. Crisp meringues sit in the oven at a low temp, for quite a while. It's just how it is. And Martha says this should take about an hour, to crisp on the outside and pulls off the parchment easily. Only she lied. My meringues stayed in the oven for a little over 2 hours before being able to lift off the parchment and have the nice crisp on the outside. My cookie sheets are insulated so things don't crisp on the bottom how I would like (I will never buy another one of those sheets and I have 3...ugh). I would even like them to be kind of dry and crisp all the way through, but that can take a very very very long time. Typically, they are a little moist on the inside.

They cool really quickly and the next part is beyond easy - melt some chocolate, chop some nuts (and toast them if you like), and dip away. I used pecans and did toast them, which takes all of 10 minutes. I put my dipped meringues on some waxed paper to set, and prayed desperately that I had the willpower not to eat them all before they even made it to the storage container.

About storing - Martha says that "Meringues can be made 5 days ahead and stored in a cool, dry place at room temperature." I baked these on Christmas Eve, dipped them Christmas morning, put them in an airtight container for travel, and they were fine Christmas afternoon. After that, they were, to borrow a chemistry term (because I can't help that) rather hygroscopic; they pick up moisture from the air and get sticky and start imploding a bit. It doesn't matter really - the flavor is so nice... very subtle coffee with the chocolate and nuts - very yum.

There's tons of meringue recipes and really, try one. If it seems intimidating to try whipping egg white and getting that right, it's not! Just try it. Don't have some kind of way to decoratively extrude on a cookie sheet - so what, use a spoon. You can make them big, they'll just need to cook longer. As I mentioned at the beginning, someday we'll discuss a Pavlova which is a giant, divine meringue pillow. And EASY!

So I can add Martha's picture of these little delights, because mine really looked very much like this. I fully recommend trying it.



Coming soon - what happens when professional chefs go commercial.

Cream-cheese Jam Ice Diamonds... 2013 Christmas cookie (fiasco) #1

Let me start by saying that for as long as I can remember, I have unabashedly worshiped Martha. Yes, Martha Stewart, the Queen of All Things. I have subscribed to her magazine, watched her show, purchased her products, absorbed Martha in every way. I want to be Martha. There, I've said it, and I don't care who knows it!!

The most glorious magazines every year are the Thanksgiving and Christmas issues. There are also separate cookie issues (sometimes), and those are keepers. As always, this year, they did not disappoint, and given the chance to do some Christmas desserts, naturally this is where I went.

I wanted to make some tiny little cookies - just little bites, so people can belly up to the bar and try a bunch of different things without feeling like you're about to explode. I was already getting a platter of 3 dozen cookies from one of the local moms who has a home business making adorable cookies and cakes, so there were about 5 different selections of cookies and truffles there. I decided to add on 3 more - my go-to every year chocolate espresso snow caps [OH! I just had this idea about a different post with favorite recipes, so I'll tell you all about these later!], then these Cream-Cheese Jam Ice Diamonds,and then another meringue cookie that I'll do a separate post about. I chose the jam diamonds because I could make them small, and I've made Linzer cookies before, which I love, so I figured this should be pretty easy.

The original recipe yields 80 cookies. Yeah, I'm not making 80 cookies; I'll halve the recipe. And in the interest of time, I make the dough, and put it in the fridge to make the cookies the next day (Christmas Eve). Yay for me! Time management that I normally never use when preparing for any holiday or other event, and I'm doing it!

Fast forward to Christmas Eve, and I'm looking at this and thinking "sandwich cookie - make cookies, sandwich jam in-between". But no - this is Martha. Martha does nothing easily; it's part of the fun of doing Martha-things - a challenge! So I realize that this recipe goes through a series of dough rolling and chilling and freezing and filling and cutting and ... you get the idea. Ugh. Ok, whatever, I can do it.

First, make dough,divide in half, wrap and chill up to two days. Check. Second, roll out each half into rectangles and freeze 30 min. Check. Third, preheat oven, and take out your frozen rectangles, slather your jam on one, slap the other on top. Ok. Let it warm up enough to be firm, but able to cut. Yeah, here's where we have a problem. Now when I go to cut it, the dough slabs are sliding all over the place thanks to the jam slick between the two pieces, but I persist and come out with about 10 perfect diamonds, 20 vaguely symmetrical shapes, and some weird stuff that I like to call the "cook's pieces" because I do not want anyone respectable to see these, but I'm also not going to waste any food so I'll cook them. Oh but wait! I have to freeze them again until firm for 10 minutes. Check. Transfer them to a parchment-lined baking sheet and space 1" apart. Check. Freeze until firm 10 more minutes - wait, what? Seriously? Screw it - if they've gone from firm to not firm by simply removing them from the freezer and putting them on a baking sheet, then screw it. I'm putting them in the damn oven which has been on and ready to cook these stupid cookies for like half an hour now.

Baking goes fine, cookies are done and yummy, they just look horrifying, but nothing that displaying them in a pile, putting the prettiest ones on top, and sprinkling generously (read: coating until unrecognizable) with confectioner's sugar can't help.

Here's what they're supposed to look like:

Yeah, but they didn't. Oh well. Next time I would just use a Linzer cookie recipe. I have one from Rosie's Bakery, but here's one from Ina Garten who happens to be an FoM (long-time Friend of Martha). For the kind of cookie they are they are just way too time-consuming for me.

Next up: 2013 Christmas cookie (winner!) #2

Italian Lemon Cream Cheese Cake (a.k.a. Olive Garden copy-cat)

Italian Lemon Cream Cheese Cake recipe


I have been to Olive Garden approximately... once. I did not have dessert, so that was not my motive in making this cake. My actual motive(s):


1. I originally saw a recipe for an Italian Lemon Cream Cheese Cake and I thought it was pretty.
2. I love Lemon desserts
3. I love cheesecake
4. I was providing a dessert for Christmas dinner at my sister's house (the hostess with the most-est)

I quickly came to find that this was indeed NOT a creamy cheesecake, but a cream-cheese[space bar] cake. Eh, who cares? It's a lemon dessert so that's good enough for me. I started searching for similar recipes to see how this compared to different ones, and I found the Olive Garden version, and I just chose it because it seemed simpler and I needed to be efficient with my cooking time.

This was easy enough - starting with a box mix. I don't mind making my own cake, but this wasn't the only thing I was making, and I always underestimate how long things are going to take, so I decided this was the way to go.

Then I made the lemon cream cheese filling - easy beans. Put it in the fridge to save for later.

The recipe also calls for a crumb topping. Okay. But wait... it's made with flour and butter and...raw? I thought about it for a while, and all I could imagine in my mind was the taste of raw flour. I decide to nix that. It looks tasty, but I read a bunch of reviews, and no one seemed to think that was very good, so I'm going to trust my instincts and skip it.

I put the cake in the fridge after cooling, and decided I'd take care of this all the next day (Christmas Eve), since this was two days before I needed it.

Now let me say that even though I've done the multiple "levels" of the Wilton cake decorating course, and have done all kinds of piping and flower making, BUT I am the WORST at simply frosting a cake. I mean truly horrible, like a 3 year old iced the cake. But this one came out awesome! It was the best I ever did. Now, that's not to say it was beautiful, but compared to my standard product? I actually heard a choir of angels, I swear. And it looked like the picture - whooo! Finished and back in fridge, done!

The moment of truth - taste time! Everyone thought the cake itself was wonderful (yeah, thanks it was from a box). The rest of it was good, but definitely not lemony enough. Just really creamy with the faintest hint of lemon. If I were to make it again, I would add some lemon zest, or more lemon flavor into the cake itself as well - maybe some juice or just a little extract. If I'm going to have a dessert that's billed as lemon, I want lemon dammit! This just wasn't enough for me.

Was it good? Yes - creamy, not heavy, and Betty Crocker makes a fine white cake. Will I make this again? Nah. It's just not a recipe worthy of saving; I'm sure there's better out there. For all the work, it's just average. If this is what the cake at Olive Garden tastes like, don't waste your cash.

Onto the next!

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack

Disclaimer - I have no clue what this is going to look like. I haven't been here in quite a while, and Blogger has changed so this could really be weird display-wise. Advance apologies. So, I thought I'd come back to my 5 followers, and start some posting again. Mostly because I have this constant running script in my head and talk to myself and figured "what a waste! All my fantastic ramblings are not going on paper!" Yes, I am a prolific and wealthy author in my own mind. Anyway, I like to cook, and bake, and spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and lately on Facebook there are a lot of recipes that are getting posted from all over the place. I've been trying them and commenting, and I feel it is my duty to let people know if it was any good or not. I did start this blog with some posts about cooking and such, so it's kind of going back to my original idea. Maybe I'll come up with a rating system, and I promise that I'll post a link of the recipe itself. And I'll do each as a separate post. So let's go back to where I left off....