 Who says that all gingerbread needs to be in a masculine form? I mean - nothing against gingerbread men but as a woman - I feel discriminated against. 😅 Believe it or not, I actually have a gingerbread WOMAN cookie cutter but in the 12 years that I've been baking professionally, nobody has ever requested a gingerbread cookie in a feminine form. 🤷🏻♀️ 🤣
Our family has an annual gingerbread house decorating contest every December. I'm the baker, the architect and construction crew and everyone else jumps in for the decorating. 😉I typically gather up the leftover scraps from the houses and cut out gingerbread men to snack on while we build. The cookies are delicious but the dough that I use for the houses is stiff and crispy - you know - so the houses don't collapse. So I decided to come up with a gingerbread dough that was more suited to a snacking cookie, this year. Something soft and chewy but with all the yumminess and flavor of traditional gingerbread.  Chewy Gingerbread Man Cookies 10 Tablespoons butter, softened 3/4 cup brown sugar 2/3 cup molasses 1 large egg, at room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla 3 and 1/2 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 Tablespoon ground ginger 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
 Decorate with royal icing.
Gingerbread cookies are one of my favorite Christmas cookies. They make the house smell AMAZING while they're baking because they're loaded with all the best flavors of the season - cinnamon, cloves, ginger, allspice. And... they're delicious. 😋 Ciao!
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This year, to help get me into the spirit of Christmas cookie decorating, I invited a few helpers come and spend and afternoon baking cookies with me. The enthusiasm of these young bakers was contagious. 👩🏻🍳 They were rolling, cutting, frosting and sprinkling with reckless abandon. 🤣
I haven't actually added up the exact number of cookies that I need to bake and decorate this month, because honestly, I don't think I want to know the total number. 😬I've learned that the best way for me to get all of my cookies made, is to break up the sugar cookie orders with other holiday baking. Biscotti is one of my favorite Christmas treats to make in between batches of sugar cookies.  I have 42 different biscotti recipes on my website and without question, the most requested biscotti flavor by friends, family and clients, is White Chocolate Coconut. I find this so curious because coconut is a very unpopular flavor in any other dessert. And among the chocolate family - white chocolate is the flavor that is requested the least. So it doesn't make any sense to me that White Chocolate Coconut leads the category for most requested biscotti flavor. I have no explanation for why White Chocolate Coconut Biscotti is at the top of the list of biscotti favorites. I can assure you though, that I can't seem to make enough of it these days. That alone should be enough to inspire you to try some White Chocolate Coconut Biscotti for yourself.
White Chocolate Coconut Biscotti 2 cups all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon baking powder ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ cup unsweetened dried coconut finely shredded ½ cup butter, softened ¾ cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs room temperature 2 tablespoons water ¾ teaspoon coconut extract ½ cup mini white chocolate chips Decorating 1 cup white melting chocolate ½ cup shredded dried coconut sweetened or unsweetened
 Spread over cooled biscotti and sprinkle with coconut.
Allow to set. Tip of the day: If you need some gifts for teachers, neighbors, postal workers, etc - white chocolate coconut biscotti wrapped up with a pretty bow makes a great Christmas gift. 🎁 😉
Ciao! I'm fairly certain that it's common knowledge that melting cheese between two slices of bread makes a grilled cheese. 🧀🍞 What's not common knowledge is that you can melt cheese between the bread AND toast even more cheese on the outside of the sandwich to make and EPIC grilled cheese! Quite honestly, this Cheddar Crusted Grilled Cheese threw my family for a loop. My youngest asked if I accidentally made an inside out sandwich.🤣 The fact that she thought I could "accidentally" put the cheese on the outside of the bread instead of the inside makes me question her faith in my culinary skills. 😅 I mean, I can't say that it would NEVER happen but I haven't made that mistake - yet.  When it comes to kitchens and food - I really do enjoy the challenge of getting creative and pushing the limits of conventional food preparation. Why make ordinary food when you can make tortilla stacks in mini springform pans, bake pasta in a stainless steel mixing bowl, serve shrimp and grits as a mini tartlet or make jar-cuterie with homemade cheese straws and cantaloupe leaves? Out of the box cooking is way more fun than making a box of macaroni and cheese.  Cheddar Crusted Grilled Cheese 2 teaspoons mayonnaise 4 slices hearty sandwich bread 2 slices deli American cheese 4 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded 2 Tablespoons butter, melted
 Slide spatula under cheddar crust and transfer sandwiches to rack. Let sit 5 minutes to allow cheese to set.  Slice in half and serve.
Grilled cheese lovers - I know you're out there, and I want to hear from you. Is this double cheese sandwich something that you would sink your teeth into or is it too over the top? I have to admit that I was a little surprised that the "grilled cheese purists" that live in my house, embraced these out of the box sandwiches. I'm anxious to hear your opinions about these sandwiches too. Ciao!  Leave it to me to take a perfectly good recipe - and mess it up. 🤦🏻♀️ If you've ever picked up a copy of Cook's Illustrated or Cooks Country - you know that before they publish a recipe - they make it at least 50 times. They do all the research. They make it - they make it again, make adjustments, and then make 20 more times until it's absolutely perfect. I put a lot of trust in the recipes that they produce because I know they're tested extensively. What they don't factor into their recipe creation however, is my incompetency. 🤪 In my defense, the day that I made these Cardamom Buns - was the day before Thanksgiving and I was simultaneously making dinner rolls, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, asparagus, standing rib roast, roasted sweet potatoes and these delicious looking buns. 🥐
These breakfast sweet rolls had my attention from the moment that I saw the mouth watering photos on the pages of my favorite cooking magazine. The use of unique spices and the uncharacteristic twisting and braiding, caught my eye. I mean - I would start to question my sanity if I DIDN'T look twice that these cardamom buns. 🤣 So here's my version of the Cardamom Buns that were featured in last months edition of Cook's Country. For the record - I'm blaming my ineptitude on distraction. 😬 Honestly, I'm not sure that I could have reproduced the Cardamom Buns that were pictured even if I had been focusing all of my attention on them - but I'm sticking to my distraction theory. I am going to go ahead and write the recipe - as it should be. As you read through my directions - it will be fairly obvious where I got off track. 😬 Basically, I mixed up all of the filling and forgot to add it to the dough. Soooo, in classic Amy style, instead of wasting the filling or starting over, I slathered the filling on top of the rolls before I baked them. Turns out - they were delicious this way. Do you think Cook's Country would send ME their recipes before they get published, so that I can run them through the Amy test?  Cardamom Buns Dough 3 cups flour 3/4 cup bread flour 6 Tablespoons sugar 1 Tablespoon yeast 1 teaspoon cardamom seeds, ground 3/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cups whole milk, warm 8 Tablespoons butter, melted 1 egg Filling 12 Tablespoons butter 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon cardamom 2 Tablespoons white sugar
 Bake at 400 for 15-18 minutes.  I've made these rolls exactly one time and they were unintentionally "different" from the original recipe. I can't speak for what the publisher intended them to look or taste like, but I can assure you that my version of Cardamom Buns was pretty darn tasty. I may (or may not) have indulged in a few too many of these sweet treats on Thanksgiving morning. Nothing like stuffing my belly before 9 am on Thanksgiving Day. 😂
Ciao! |
