February 7, 2012
I’ve never made a big deal about Valentine’s Day. It’s nice to get some flowers but I don’t expect anything else. We don’t even bother going out to eat on Valentine’s Day anymore because the restaurants are always so crowded. Besides, my birthday is less than a week later so it’s easier to celebrate both occasions then. But there is one thing I love about Valentine’s day, especially since I started this blog: it’s a great excuse to make chocolate desserts!
I decided to make some cookies because Brandon’s coworkers have been asking for more cookies from me ever since my epic cookie testing project last December. It’s definitely flattering that they liked my cookies so much, so it seemed like a good idea to keep them happy and to find a great recipe to post for Valentine’s Day at the same time! I found these chocolate malt cookies in one of my Martha Stewart cookbooks and thought they would be really nice paired with a cherry-white chocolate filling.
Usually I find chocolate cookies kind of boring (I’d rather have a brownie!) but I really like the subtle malt flavor. These chocolate malt cookies are really easy to make and they come out of the oven a little bit crispy around the edges, but soft and chewy in the middle. They’re good candidates for a sandwich cookie, but they’re just as good on their own.
The creamy filling is white chocolate mixed with cream and cherry juice. I had imagined the filling would turn out more red or pink, but using dark cherries resulted in a more purple color. You could use less juice to get a lighter color or you can substitute raspberries for a redder color. My only nit pick is that the white chocolate really overpowers the cherry juice and the cherry flavor doesn’t really come through. But the recipe I based it on specifically says to use good quality white chocolate which I didn’t have in my pantry. So maybe it will work better with good quality chocolate but even if it doesn’t the filling still tastes really good (and I’m not usually a big fan of white chocolate). Besides, if I’m going to have a colored filling I’d rather use natural ingredients instead of a dye.
If you’re looking for an easy Valentine’s treat or just a quick chocolate pick-me-up these cookies are a great option!
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February 1, 2012
I know oranges are available year round but for some reason the only time I actually want to eat a whole orange is in the early months of year when my two favorite varieties are available: Cara Cara and Blood Oranges. When they show up at my grocery store I start hording them so I’ll be able to eat as many as possible before they disappear again. I haven’t been to the grocery in a few weeks, so when I went on Monday and saw they finally had blood oranges I grabbed a bunch and decided it was a sign that I had to make something delicious out of them. I was so energized by the idea that I found myself in the kitchen at 11pm later that night making these scones. If I had any regrets about staying up too late I forgot them as soon as I took a bite of one the next morning.
As I said last fall, cream scones are the only way to go. All the scones I’ve tried to make without cream were dry and dense and almost inedible. After some searching I think I have finally found the ultimate cream scone recipe. I say ultimate, because they are literally all cream scones. There’s no butter, there’s no eggs, there’s just lots of sweet, sweet whipping cream and these scones are all the better for it. Heck, there’s hardly any sugar in the recipe, if it weren’t for all the cream it could practically be health food. I thought the lack of sugar and butter were going to result in dry scones but these are soft and fluffy and light. I even substituted some whole wheat flour for the white flour but other than the scones being a bit flatter than they were supposed to be the texture wasn’t really affected.
I adapted to recipe to make use of my oranges by mixing in some of the zest and also making some more orange sugar to sprinkle on top. I also mixed in a bag of one of my favorite snacks, dried tart cherries, which compliments the orange flavor perfectly. This recipe is ridiculously easy—the less you handle the dough, the better these are going to be—and has very few ingredients so you could easily adapt it to use your favorite citrus and dried fruit mix-ins. I’m already planning a blueberry-lemon version. You could even replace all the citrus zest with a spice. Apple-cinnamon maybe?
I really wanted to showcase those blood oranges so when I found this blood orange caramel sauce recipe I knew it would be a perfect way to finish these scones. I know it may seem like sugar overload to put a caramel sauce on top of something that is sprinkled with sugar but the scones only have 1/4 cup of sugar in them, so they are just barely sweet by themselves. As long as you drizzle the caramel on lightly it’s not overpowering at all. It’s sweet but the juice from the blood orange adds a wonderful tartness to it. It was hard to drizzle it on the scones and not just eat it by the spoonful! These scones still taste great with only the orange sugar on top so feel free to omit the caramel sauce but it’s a real treat if you want to make the effort for it.
The way I know I finally found the perfect scone recipe is that my boyfriend loves them. This is a big deal because he hates scones. He’ll usually eat anything you put in front of him and doesn’t complain but we’ve actually had discussions about his hatred of scones because of how dry they are. When he grabbed one this afternoon I told him he’d hate it but he ate it quietly and then 10 minutes later went back for another. According to him, these can’t be scones because they’re actually good. I guess that’s the power of whipping cream.
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Recent Posts
January 25, 2012
Ok, it’s confession time. While my eating habits have improved a lot over the past couple of years, I still have a lot of weaknesses for the unhealthy processed food I used to eat all the time. Things like corn dogs and snack cakes and store bought cookies. But the good thing about learning to cook is that you can learn to make all the “bad” stuff you love. Yes, it may still be unhealthy, but at least you know every single ingredient that went into it and you aren’t consuming any weird chemicals or preservatives. I’ve learned to make Oatmeal Cream Pies and Oreos and chewy Granola Bars and while I can’t say I totally gave up the processed versions of those things, more often than not when I really want them I’ll make them at home.
Spaghetti-Os are another one of my weaknesses. I’m calling them Spaghetti-Os …
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January 4, 2012
Hello January, we meet again. I used to try to make resolutions, the usual ones about going on a diet, exercising more, etc. but after years of pretty much not ever following through I’m officially giving up resolutions. I know it’s the New Year and that seems like a great time to “start over” but January just never works for me. The cold weather makes it hard for to get motivated to go walking (the only form of exercise I enjoy) and I crave lots of warm and hearty foods that are rarely low-calorie. And even if I do make some progress in January, February comes along and there’s Valentine’s Day and my birthday and I lose all my motivation.
So I’m not going to bother going on a diet this year or maybe ever again. I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been working on since I started this blog: eat more real food like …
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December 29, 2011
I almost didn’t think I’d make it, but it looks like I’ll be able to squeeze in one final post in 2011. I was in crazy work deadline mode the week before Christmas and barely had time to cook anything much less photograph and post it here. After I got all my work done, I went a little cooking crazy figuring something I make over the weekend would be worth posting but it turns out everything has already been posted! I made Chicken and Dumplings and Honey Cornbread on Christmas Eve. The next day, we had our traditional Christmas dinner of glazed ham and my mom’s famous “Pineapple Stuff.” For dessert I made mini Oreo and Peppermint Bark cheesecakes and we snacked on my favorite Mint-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies all weekend long.
It was definitely a satisfying Christmas, food and gift-wise, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit panicked on Monday morning when I …
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December 12, 2011
If you couldn’t tell from many of the recipes on this blog, I love to bake and I struggle throughout the year trying to balance the sweet treats with savory and/or healthier recipes. But from Thanksgiving to New Years Day all that falls away and I embrace what I like to call “baking season”. I don’t put restrictions on myself, I don’t worry about calories, I just let loose and make whatever I want and I don’t feel the least bit guilty about anything I eat. It’s my yearly Christmas present to myself.
Cookies are my favorite thing to make during the holiday season and I think I’ve been mentally saving up because I haven’t posted any cookie recipes here since May. So when I heard about the Food Blogger Cookie Swap I immediately signed up. I’d be making cookies anyway so why not share some of them with others?
The thing I didn’t factor in was how difficult it would be to find …
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