Happy Birthday Dad! We all celebrate birthdays in different ways but if I know anything about my dad, it's that he's munching on some biscotti this morning along with his coffee. Since we can't be with my dad today, we decided to celebrate his birthday with our own little biscotti party. We made 7 different kinds of biscotti and one of Courtney's favorites was the cinnamon sugar biscotti. This recipe came from chocolatechocolateandmore.com. It reminds me of a super crunchy snickerdoodle cookie. Cinnamon Sugar Biscotti Ingredients 6 tablespoons butter, softened 1 cup sugar 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk 1 teaspoon butter extract (can use vanilla or almond also) 2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons cinnamon for topping 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 egg, beaten
Remove from oven and while still warm, slice diagonally into 3/4 to 1 inch slices. Place slices back on baking tray. Place back in oven for 15 minutes, until just golden. Let cool completely then store in air tight container. For best results, enjoy with a steaming cup of coffee. Here's to you dad - Happy Birthday - I love you.
Ciao!
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Tomorrow is my dad's birthday so in honor of my wonderful dad - I am declaring this BISCOTTI WEEK on the blog. (I can just sense your excitement.) In case you're wondering how those two things are related, biscotti is one of my dad's favorite treats so it only seems right that we celebrate his birthday with biscotti. I am always in search of new biscotti recipes but in order to fill a week of blog posts with new biscotti recipes I had to dig even deeper for new, delicious, birthday-worthy biscotti recipes. I found an especially decadent looking double chocolate biscotti recipe on www.chocolatechocolateandmore.com. I decided to modify the original version by eliminating the chocolate chips and turning it into a simple dark chocolate biscotti treat. Dark Chocolate Biscotti Ingredients 6 tablespoons butter, softened 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup dark cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark) 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt
In separate bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in thirds, making sure all dry ingredients are incorporated before adding more.
Place back on baking sheet, cut side down. Bake again for 8 minutes then turn cookies over and bake for an additional 5 minutes. Completely cool cookies on a rack then store in an airtight container. If you've read any of my other biscotti recipes you know that I normally like to load my biscotti up with nuts and dried fruits but I have to say, these were a nice change. The dark chocolate was really good and it was even better when dunked in a steaming cup of coffee.
Ciao! Fresh fruit tarts - beautiful, right? Too hard to make? - not really. Homemade fruit tarts look extravagant but they really aren't all that complicated. It's three easy steps really - make the crust, make the pastry cream and then pile on the fruit. No problem - right? What's even better is that the crust and the cream can be made in advance and then assembled just before serving. There seems to be a wide range of recipes for crusts and fillings. Everything from phyllo dough and refrigerated pie crust to whipped cream and lemon curd fulling. I ended up pulling my recipe together from 2 different sources. The crust came from sfgate.com and the filling recipe came from recipe.com. As for the fruit - well, that came from Kroger. Mini Fresh Fruit Tarts 6 tablespoons unsalted butter 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 3 tablespoons water pinch of salt 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 4 tablespoons sugar
Pastry Cream 1/2 cup sugar 4 teaspoons cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 cups half and half 1 teaspoon vanilla 4 egg yolks
Stir half of mixture into egg yolks. Pour mixture through a strainer into a bowl. Set bowl in an ice bath to chill for 5 minutes. Place plastic wrap on surface of cream and refrigerate at least 4 hours. Cut up some fresh fruit to adorn your tarts. Now you're ready to assemble. Fill each tart crust with pastry cream and then pile on the fruit. Yes, I know, I overdid it on the pictures. I just couldn't stop myself. These were too pretty. (I am so ready for summer fruit - I can taste it.)
Ciao! A chocolate cookie and a peanut butter cookie swirled together - why have I never thought of this before? It makes total sense. Reese's peanut butter cups, chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels, chocolate peanut butter cupcakes - all desserts that capitalize on the delicious chocolate-peanut butter combination. Sallysbakingaddiction.com posted her take on a chocolate-peanut butter cookie on pinterest and it caught my eye immediately. I loved the idea of making two separate doughs and swirling them together just before baking. (I wonder what other cookie doughs I could swirl together to make new cookie combinations.) You do have to plan ahead though because the dough needs to chill for at least 2 hours before baking so make sure you start early. Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Cookies Chocolate Cookie Dough 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup light brown sugar 1 large egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 Tablespoons milk 1 cup chocolate chips Peanut Butter Dough 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 1/2 cup light brown sugar 1/4 cup sugar 1 large egg 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup chocolate chips For chocolate dough: Cream the butter and sugars together with a hand or stand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Slowly mix it into the wet ingredients. The dough will be very thick.
Chill both doughs for at least 1-2 hours. 2 hours is preferred. Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line cookie sheet with silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Measure 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter cookie dough. Roll into a ball. Take 2 Tablespoons of chocolate cookie dough. Roll into a ball. Smoosh the two balls together and roll them into 1 large ball. Repeat for each cookie. Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes, not exceeding 13 minutes. The cookies will look very soft, puffy, and almost undone. Allow the cookies to cool on the cookie sheet and they will continue to "bake" and set up. As the cookies cool, they will firm up. Pour yourself a tall glass of milk and dive in. Ciao!
Sometimes life takes precedence over dinner and even my best plans get thrown out the window. Ryan had a serious eye injury a few weeks ago while he was riding his bike and he we had to make an emergency visit to the eye doctor. Fortunately, it was not something too serious. --- In my world - a ripped cornea sounds serious but apparently in the optometry world - it's minor. I can tell you that in Ryan's world - it's extremely painful! But, thanks to a fabulous eye doctor, he was on the mend in no time. He healed so quickly in fact that he playing in a double header baseball game the following day. He also competed in a dualathon on the second day. (Seriously don't think you would ever get me on a bike again if I rip my cornea on a bike.) He was not going to let this setback stop him so we headed over to Blanket's Creek to cheer him on in his 5 mile run and 11 mile bike race. So back to my point that I made at the beginning, sometimes life gets in the way of my dinner plans. I had put together a pan of stacked chicken enchiladas from Cooking Light on the day that I rushed Ryan to the eye doctor - just before closing time. I LOVE our optometrist but unfortunately, the office is 40 minutes away which meant that dinner plans had to be put on hold. Fortunately, Ben came to the rescue and when he got home, he popped the pan into the oven and by the time we got home from the doctor and the pharmacy, dinner was nearly ready. (Better late then never.) I love make ahead recipes and even though I had to modify this recipe quite a bit, I still think it's a keeper. That was probably way more information than you ever wanted to know so without further ado, here is the recipe. Stacked Chicken Enchilada Casserole 2 cups shredded cooked chicken 1 teaspoon cumin 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 cups chopped onion 3 cloves garlic 15 ounce can diced tomatoes 1/4 cup chopped cilantro 3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice 7 ounce can salsa verde 12 corn tortillas 3 ounces colby jack cheese
And the baked version looks something like this... Ben and I both liked this yummy meal - the kids were not as thrilled about it. Ryan was understandably, not very hungry as he had just been through a traumatic eye exam and Courtney somehow managed to pick all of the chicken out of her piece and leave everything else on her plate. (I'm not even sure how she managed to deconstruct her enchilada but somehow she did.) I'm still going to make this again.
Ciao! |
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