 Doesn't every family celebrate the holidays with a Western theme night? 🤠🤣Complete with rodeo games, Western movies and authentic cowboy meals - we fully embraced the theme. 
So when we decided to make a giant Swiss Roll to round out our chuck wagon style feast, we renamed our epic dessert creation - A Rodeo Roll!  I have to give credit to my daughter in law for the inspiration for this dessert. It was her idea to make homemade Swiss rolls. I suggested turning it into one giant roll instead of tackling individual rolls and she suggested adding graham crackers and chocolate and to turn it into a s'mores roll. This is what we came up with...  Giant S'mores Swiss Roll 3/4 cup flour 1/4 cup cocoa powder 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 4 large eggs, room temperature 3/4 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder 1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into cubes 1/4 cup ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped For Filling: 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature 2 Tablespoons vegetable shortening, room temperature 8 ounces marshmallow fluff 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted (more as needed) 1/4 cup crushed graham crackers 2 Tablespoons chopped chocolate For Glaze: 4 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped 1/2 cup heavy cream 1 tablespoon salted butter, cut into cubes
 Pour over cake.  Sprinkle cake with extra graham crackers and chocolate.
You can call it a S'mores Swiss Roll, a Rodeo Roll or a Little Amy Roll - but you need to try this. It's amazing. And if you're feeling your creative juices flowing - change up the fillings to make this roll unique. Ciao!
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 If your family is anything like mine - you have your fair share of holiday traditions. My family specializes in food-centered Christmas traditions - I think its our Italian genes. 🇮🇹😅I mean, is it really Christmas if we don't roast chestnuts or make homemade tiramisu or eat 7 fishes on Christmas eve? I also feel like every year we add to our list of special meals, festive drinks and stockpile of sweets that we need to consume in order to properly celebrate the season. 🤣🍝🌰
We always have biscotti on our Christmas menu and my way of shaking up our family traditions is to add a fun new biscotti flavor to our breakfast table. (Life on the wild side.😂) This year, I'm introducing my family to Nutella biscotti. 🤞🏻I feel like it's a safe bet though- who doesn't love a chocolatey hazelnut spread?  Nutella Biscotti 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour 2 tablespoons baking cocoa ½ teaspoon baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda ½ teaspoon sea salt 3 large eggs 1 cup sugar ½ cup nutella ½ cup chocolate chips ½ cup hazelnuts, chopped
 Place flat side down on baking sheet and bake 10 minutes. Flip and bake another 10 minutes.  These biscotti are safely tucked away in the freezer for an official unveiling on Christmas Eve. 🤫Now that the cats out of the bag - I'm kindly asking all family members to NOT look through the freezer in search of a sample the Nutella biscotti. 😂
Ciao!  Have you heard about the super popular stand up desks that are trending now? They're designed to help ease back pain, improve mood, harness joint and muscle movement, boost productivity, increase weight loss, improve mental focus and lower the risk of heart disease. Why wouldn't I want all of those things for myself? I just got the ULTIMATE stand up desk in my kitchen. 😅 When you're in the food business and you work from home - your kitchen island IS your desk.🤷🏻♀️ My custom built desk has 32 drawers and 2 outlets. It's got places for me to store pencils, notebooks, my computer, my camera, all of my cooking utensils and ziploc bags of every shape and size. ✏️ It's a dream. 😁
I was lucky enough to be able to design my own desk. If you could design your perfect desk, what would it look like? Would it have a cutting board drawer and a platform drawer to stand on? 😂 (If you're under 5'2" - I highly would recommend it. 😉) It goes without saying that I do most of my cooking while standing at my desk but I wanted to give myself the option to sit if I needed to. #whimpyankleissues 😬 So I asked the builder to make me a "knee space". It's the perfect little nook for a stool - or a George Castanza style nap, if need be. 🤣 So much work went into the designing and building of this island.  I'm still learning how to make the best use of my new desk and forever trying to remember which drawer I put my peeler in. 🤦🏻♀️ The more I use it, the more I love it though. I've only had it for a couple of weeks but it's already become the nucleus of the kitchen. It's in then literal center of the room and it contains the most essential tools for all of my cooking and baking projects.  These ganache filled cookie cups were the latest creation to be made at my kitchen desk. Little chocolate chip cookie cookie cups with dark, rich chocolate ganache. 🍪🍫 Who wouldn't love these?  Ganache Filled Cookie Cups Cookie Dough 1 cup butter 1 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/3 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla 3 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 cups mini chocolate chips Ganache 1 cup chocolate chips 2 Tablespoons heavy cream
 Amy's tip of the day: Make the cookie cups ahead of time and store them in ziploc bags until ready to serve. Make the ganache and fill the cups just before you're ready to serve them - they'll stay fresher that way. If you run out of time, pipe canned frosting into these tasty little, edible cups for an even quicker treat.
Ciao!  Emptying a pantry is a humbling experience. First of all, does anyone really need to keep 6 different kinds of rice on hand? 🤣🍚Secondly, I thought was doing a fairly good job of keeping my pantry organized and getting rid of anything that was past its expiration date. 😬 Well, clearly I hadn't looked through my pudding stash or collection of dried figs a while. 😳 Apparently, dried fruit has an expiration date too. 🤷🏻♀️
Believe it or not - this is the "after" picture. This is what my dining room table looks like now that I've got everything reorganized and ready to to load into the new pantry. I realize that it looks like total chaos but I can assure you - it all makes sense to me. But for some reason, my family doesn't enjoy the find the peanut butter game at 6:00 am while trying to pack lunch.🤷🏻♀️🤣  It was certainly eye opening to see the contents of my pantry laid out in front of me. Taking inventory made me aware of how much stuff I really do store. I stock 8 different kinds of chocolate chips, 7 types of flour, 10 different kinds of dried fruits and enough coconut to make macaroons for a small village. With the exception of rice (lol) I don't feel like I stored anything in excess. I almost hate to admit it but I use all 8 types of chocolate chips on a fairly regular basis. 😳 #bakerlife 🍪 My pantry is well stocked partly because of the demands of my catering gig but if I'm being honest - I also love having so many snacks at my fingertips. 😅 I have just about every type of nut that you can imagine. Salted, unsalted, whole, chopped, sliced, and slivered. I have them all. The good thing is that when I want to make something with nuts - I've got almost every variety available in my pantry stash. The inspiration for this Chocolate Cherry Biscotti came from a Milk Street magazine. The original recipe actually called for these crunchy cookies to be dipped in dark chocolate. In my world - The less is more concept doesn't apply to chocolate but even a die hard chocolate lover like myself thought it might be overdoing to to dip these already rich and decadent cookies in more chocolate. But by all means - if you feel like this biscotti needs an extra boost of chocolate - go for it.  Chocolate Cherry Biscotti 3/4 cup whole almonds 1 3/4 cups flour 1 cup white sugar 1/3 cup cocoa powder 1 Tablespoon espresso powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped 3 eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 1/2 teaspoon almond 1/2 cup pistachios 1/2 cup dried cherries
 Bake 45-50 minutes at 300. Let cool 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 275. Slices loaves into 1/2" slices. Arrange on baking sheets.  Bake 20 minutes at 275.   Thanks mom and dad for letting me take over your kitchen for a few days and for letting my put my biscotti in your flower basket to take pictures. 😉
Ciao!  If 2020 taught me anything - it would be how to be an online shopper. Out of necessity, I mastered the art of finding what I needed online, ordering it, paying for it and then waiting for it to show up at my door. #thankyouamazonprime 😂Online shopping is a beautiful thing and up until last week, I'd probably boasted that over the last year, I'd become a fairly proficient online shopper. And then this happened ...
I wanted to order a chocolate mold to make some tools for cupcake toppers. Clearly I missed the fine print on the item description though because the unusually small chocolate mold that arrived, made the tiniest tools that I've ever seen. 👀😅 I'm pretty sure that these miniature chocolate tools would disappear completely into a pillow of buttercream on top of a cupcake. 🛠 When I finished laughing about the absurdity of the size of these chocolate tools, I requested a refund from amazon and within minutes, I had my money refunded and they told me that there was no reason to return the product. #thankyouamazon That was the point when I decided that I had to at least try the mini mold. I can't help but wonder what in the world anyone would possibly do with a chocolate hammer that's the size of a penny but who can resist making tools? 🤷🏻♀️
Clearly I need a little more help in the online shopping department. 😅 I obviously got a little too excited when I saw the mold for tools and scanned through the details a little too quickly. 😂The same thing happened when I saw this recipe for S'more Cookies. You can't blame me really. I mean, who wouldn't get excited about S'more Cookies? 💁🏻♀️ When I got all caught up in the excitement of making these amazing treats, I neglected to read through the whole recipe until it was way too late. I had no idea how many steps were involved in the making of these cookies until the process was already underway. 😬 I don't want to discourage you from making these because they're delicious - I just want to give you all the facts so that you don't jump into the recipe with the same reckless enthusiasm that I did. 🤣 They're just as scrumptious and delicious as they sound but they do require an investment in time.  S'more Cookies Cookies 2 cups all-purpose flour 3/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup butter, room temperature 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla Ganache 4 oz. heavy whipping cream 2 tablespoons butter 3/4 cup dark chocolate morsels Chocolate Buttercream 2 cups confectioners’ sugar 1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa 1/2 cup butter, room temperature 1/4 cup of prepared chocolate ganache 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs Meringue Frosting 3 egg whites 3/4 cup granulated sugar 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 1 teaspoon vanilla
 Transfer mixture to a piping bag fitted with a star tip. Pipe meringue on top of each cookie.  Use a butane torch to toast the meringue on each cookie.  Decorate with a square of hershey's chocolate.  Much like my chocolate mold order, my cookie making process didn't go off without a hitch. The first time I made these cookies, I couldn't get the meringue to stand up on its own. I made it 4 different times and it just wouldn't stiffen up. 😢 I was super frustrated so I decided to give up on my meringue and turn it into buttercream instead and pipe that onto my cookies instead. The buttercream S'more cookies were great but I still had to make the recipe a second time so that I could do it the way that it was intended - with toasted marshmallow meringue. 😋 Second time was a charm - all I can say is the less humidity in the air - the better the chance that your meringue will firm up.
Ciao! |
