0 Chocolate Shortbread Valentine Cookies

I love Valentine's Day! So fun! So much prettiness and love and sugar!  I have written about my adoration of this holiday in years past and have shared some of my favorite traditions, recipes and treats 

HERE and HERE and HERE 

So, I will refrain from repeating myself and will make this a short post.  

In my home (and my home growing up) Valentine's was a fun holiday not a romantic, "Hallmark", pressure-filled holiday.  It's a day to say "I LOVE YOU" to people you adore- friends, family, co-workers, neighbors.  

Heart garland- fun to make and have love draping from your ceiling! My
friend Connie made this one for me several birthdays ago and I
bring it out each year!

Valentine BINGO played with conversation hearts

Meringue Cookies- heart shaped! 

I usually make heart cut out cookies because they are so pretty and delicious and lovely.  Hearts are my favorite cookie cutter shape and the easiest to frost, in my opinion. 

 I sometimes make sugar cookies or these linzer shortbread cookies.

If you are more in the chocolate mood, these chocolate shortbread cookies are a treat!  

They are soft and like a thin brownie!  

The dough is just a few ingredients that you mix together.

They are easy and fun to ice.

After a bit of refrigeration, the dough is easy to cut out.

Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

from Everyday Food- Martha Stewart

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  With an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy.  Add flour, sugar and cocoa; mix just until combined.  (Chill dough in refrigerator for 10 minutes or more…if you chill it for longer, set out to soften a bit before rolling as it becomes hard in the refrigerator with all of that butter!)

Pat dough onto a flat surface and roll out (using a dusting of powdered sugar or flour to keep from sticking). Cut with cookie cutter into hearts (or desired shape). Place on cookie sheet (I line mine with parchment for easy clean up and no sticking). Bake 10-12 minutes until firm but not crispy.  

Cool completely and then frost as you wish. (See below for ideas)

1. Ice with a simple glaze-

I scooped 1/2 cup powdered sugar, a heaping Tbsp cocoa powder, a few drops of vanilla extract in a small bowl, stirred and added drops of water until it was smooth and thin, but not too thin. Spread on cookies with a spoon.  Add sprinkles while they are still wet.

Or

2.  Melt melting chocolate wafers (I use the Ghirardelli brand) and dip the cookies (half or entire cookie) adding sprinkles while still wet.  

Or

3.  I had some buttercream frosting left over from making a Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake and decided to make sandwich cookies (inspired by the double-doozie cookies at the cookie store)

I think the key is frosting them in a way that makes them easy to stack and package for giving away! The sprinkles provide a nice barrier to cookies which keep them from sticking to each other. 

Bake some lovely goodies, write a kind note, make something pretty, bring warmth to this wintry month, share your adoration with someone! 

Detail: Chocolate Shortbread Valentine Cookies

0 Brownie Bottom Coconut Bars & Honoring MLK

For about 8 years my family has sought to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King on his birthday weekend.
We talk about the life and work of Dr. King, and we think about what we can do in our lives to carry on the work for equality and dignity for all people that he and his colleagues did. I posted HERE about this tradition. As my kids are getting older, I want to think of some even more significant things we can do for this holiday.

I always make a treat that somehow incorporates chocolate and vanilla to represent racial integration and togetherness.  I have made cookies and cakes of various sorts.  Like this one.

I was trying to decide what to make for this year- a new recipe, one we've done in the past, a variation on a standard.  But when I was looking for another recipe in a stack of my old Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazines I found this recipe for Brownie-Bottom Coconut Bars.  I have had the recipe in my torn out magazine pages for years but have never made them.  I knew they would have to be good since they are brownie on the bottom and coconut macaroon on the top!  I decided MLK weekend would be a good time to make them, with their black and white togetherness.  They are simple to make and they are really, really good!

They are pretty and feel special.  All of my coconut-loving people gobbled them up.

Brownie-Bottom Coconut Bars 
from martha stewart's Every Day Food magazine

Chocolate Brownie Base:
1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp coarse salt
1 large egg
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all purpose flour

Coconut Topping:
2 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 package (7 oz.) sweetened shredded coconut (1/2 cup reserved for sprinkling)

For the brownie:
Preheat oven to 375˚
Line a 9 inch square baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving a slight overhang; butter bottom and sides of foil (not overhang)
Place butter in a large microwave-safe bowl; melt in microwave.
Add sugar and salt; whisk to combine.
Whisk in egg, then cocoa and flour until smooth.
Spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake just until sides begin to pull away from edges of pan, 10 to 15 minutes (do not over bake). Let cool slightly while preparing coconut topping.  Keep oven on for topping.

For the coconut topping:
In a medium bowl, whisk eggs with sugar and vanilla.  Gently mix in flour and coconut (except 1/2 cup reserved for sprinkling).
Drop mounds of mixture over chocolate base; spread and pat in gently and evenly with moistened fingers.  Sprinkle with reserved 1/2 cup coconut.

Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes.  Cool completely in pan.  Lift cake from pan,  peel off foil, and cut into 24 bars.

It makes 24 small bars- but they are rich- so being small is good.

In our city Regal Cinemas and Metro Public Schools teamed up to offer free admission to students to see SELMA in the theaters.  We went on Saturday and it was very impactful.  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend that you do.

It was hard  to watch.  It was emotional  and painful  and honest  and hard.  Lainey and I held hands most of the time and cried a lot during the film.  It was really important though.

It is a very well done film and a raw look at the difficulty of a tumultuous and unjust time in our country and the bravery of some amazing people. I think we need to know and remember and in doing so deepen our compassion for the not-so-long-ago events that continue to have ripple effects today.

Thanking God for the courage, clarity and spiritual strength of Dr. King and his comrades this weekend and praying that we might be people of conviction and action like them.

Detail: Brownie Bottom Coconut Bars & Honoring MLK

0 Last Call for Cranberries: Cranberry Orange Bread

Cranberries are so lovely.  They add such zip, color and flavor to recipes!  November and December are the main cranberry months, but if you look quick you can get some in January!  I always stock up for the following 10 months!

I am always looking for a great quick bread recipe that can be thrown together easily for breakfast or to take somewhere. This recipe is a favorite- chock full of cranberries, orange juice and zest and chopped walnuts!  (As for Cranberry muffins these, from King Arthur Flour, are my all-time favorites - though they require a little more time to prepare with more chopping and measuring than this Cranberry bread).  

My friend Emily shared this bread recipe with me a few years ago.  I can't even remember when or in what context, but I printed it out, tucked it in a notebook, and have reached for it many times through the years.

Emily continually inspires me.  She has an lovely blog Celebrate Today, where she shares about her daily life and beckons the reader to celebrate each day- in grand and small ways.   You can check it out HERE.

This week she wrote about her morning run - seeing the sun rise (inspiring, I told you) and she noted seeing the crocus flowers starting to peek through the ground, signaling that spring is coming soon.  I needed to hear that.  I needed the reminder that these gray days will end and there will be green grass, blooming blossoms, and sunny days again. This gives me hope. 

In the meantime as I wait for those spring days, I am going to use my cranberries, and try to embrace these days.

Cranberry Orange Walnut Bread

2 cups all purpose flour (or combination of whole wheat/ all-purpose or whole grain pastry flour)

1 cup sugar (or a little less)

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 egg

½ cup orange juice

grated peel (the zest) of 1 orange

2 Tbsp. melted butter

2 Tbsp. hot water

1 cup fresh cranberries (or frozen)

½ to 1 cup chopped walnuts (depending on how nutty you like it)

In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients.  In another bowl, beat egg. Add orange juice, peel, butter and hot water.  Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moistened. Gently fold in cranberries and walnuts.  Spoon into greased loaf pan (or mini loaf pans).

Bake at 325 degrees for 60 minutes (if using large loaf pan- reduced if using small pans) or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. 

Cool for 10 minutes before removing and placing on a wire rack.

I made it a couple of weeks ago and doubled the recipe.  I baked 1/2 in my mini-loaf pans to slice and take to church and the other 1/2 in a large loaf pan, which I wrapped up, froze and took to the Joneses when we went to visit during the holidays. 

It freezes well, thaws easily, travels well, and is good for breakfast, lunch, or for snacking!

We got to enjoy it for breakfast at their home with omelets, yogurt and homemade granola.  Delicious! 

While the cranberry bread was baking, I couldn't resist making a jar of cranberry sauce with the rest of the cranberries in the bag.  I wrote about making cranberry sauce HERE. So easy, pretty, and delicious on sandwiches, with dinner, or in my yogurt for breakfast!

Seize the cranberries while they last, and hold out hope that spring is coming soon!

Detail: Last Call for Cranberries: Cranberry Orange Bread

0 A Must Try Apple Pie

I love apples! I eat an apple every day. (After all, an apple a day keeps the doctor away.) 

I love the crunch and juiciness, the heartiness and ease of apple-eating! This season is apple's prime time and there are so many great varieties on the market.  I don’t know if you have had a Honey Crisp Apple but they are all the rage!  We have been marveling at our house at all the new varieties that are popping up lately. 

There are a couple of interesting NPR segments about the Apple industry.  Click HERE  or HERE if you want to listen/read the recent segments about the Apple industry. 

These next few weeks, pies will be made by many people – as Thanksgiving is such pie-holiday! So, I thought this recipe would be a good one to share.  My mom has been making this apple pie for events lately and I’ve been the lucky recipient of a leftover slice here and there!  This one is a winner.  I asked her to teach me how to make it and in the translating of the recipe I realized that she has combined a couple of different recipes - Southern Living and Trisha Yearwood.  The result is this incredible deep dish, made in a skillet, two-crust pie with a gooey caramel bottom. 

  

Mom has tried it with apple pie filling instead of fresh apples, and a combination of the two.  Using canned is far simpler, as the peeling of the apples is the biggest chore of the pie, but we like the fresh apples better.  It’s less mushy.  We didn’t make our own crust, but rather used purchased pie crust dough.  (I really like the flavor of the Trader Joe’s or if you don’t have that, you can use the Pillsbury crusts found in the refrigerated section in the red box).

Deep Dish Skillet Apple Pie

2 refrigerated pie crusts- ready to be used

1 stick butter

1 cup brown sugar

4 pounds tart apples (peeled and sliced)

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp flour

1 egg white

2 Tbsp. granulated sugar

Peel and slice apples.

In a mixing bowl place apples, cinnamon, sugar and flour and toss well to coat.

Preheat oven to 350˚.

Place butter and brown sugar in skillet on top of stove on medium heat, let melt, swirling with wooden spoon until fully melted.  Remove from heat. 

Carefully drape one of the pie crusts into the skillet filled with brown sugar/butter sauce. (I know this seems counterintuitive to place this over the goo, but it is correct).

Immediately spoon all of the apples on top of the crust.  Cover with the 2nd pie crust and crimp the edges with your fingers to seal along the edge. 

Whisk egg white in a small bowl until foamy.  Brush egg white over the entire top of the pie.  

Sprinkle with 2 Tbsp. sugar.  Cut a few small slits into the top of the crust dough.  

Bake for 1 hour. 

Let sit for a few minutes to set.

Serve slices with vanilla ice cream.  

I wanted to snap some photos in the daylight but this was the last
slice of pie remaining when I got a chance to photograph it.
You can see the goo in the pan from the brown sugar butter sauce.

I made this for Bible study this week in honor of my friend Kristin's birthday because I knew
she likes apple pie.  I offered her the various candles from my bin and she chose
the 1 and 7, representing 17.  She thought this would be a good year to do again. :)
(We had to hold up the candles since they wouldn't stand alone in the pie.)


Happy apple eating and pie baking! 

P.S.  WARNING: I'm not sure that the adage "an apple a day" applies to apples doused with butter and sugar and hidden between 2 pie crusts.  You'll have to eat a raw apple for that promise to be valid. 

Detail: A Must Try Apple Pie

0 Irish Soda Bread: Top O' the Morning to You!

March is a full month- it holds Lent (the liturgical season leading up to Easter);  it’s National Reading Month (which I love); it’s National Social Work Month (of which I am a part); and St. Patrick’s Day.

I have been thinking “Irish”, in anticipation of St. Patrick’s day.  Our family tradition is eating Lucky Charms and wearing green.  Last year we ate Lucky Charms for dinner- and that was a hit, so we plan to repeat that tradition this year.  I’ve been learning about Irish Soda Bread and have attempted a few loaves of different varieties, made with different recipes, and have found one that I think is delicious and a great go-to loaf of quick bread! 

If you don’t know about Irish Soda Bread, here’s the story. It is called "soda bread" because it is made with buttermilk and baking soda- causing the reaction which allows it to rise (rather than yeast which requires rising and resting time).   It's sometimes made with currants or raisins and other times a more nuttier brown bread version. The Irish oftentimes make this as a dinner loaf of bread.

The first loaf I made was from the Back in The Day Bakery cookbook which contained currants.  It was so tasty with butter and jam and great for breakfast.  It was just a touch of sweet because of the currants but perhaps a little deceiving, as it is not a sweet bread, as one might think by the looks of things.

When I brought it to my office to share, my colleague Jenny mentioned having recently seen the America’s Test Kitchen episode where they made beef stew and Irish Soda Bread, and it made her want to make it especially since they had melted butter brushed on the baked loaf!

So I came home and looked up the episode and watched it and it looked so good (as did the Beef Stew, which I wouldn’t typically crave, but looked exceptional).   America’s Test Kitchen is the source of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and the BEST RECIPE cookbooks, which I have mentioned HERE.  I had never watched the Cook’s Country Show, and I’m so glad Jenny mentioned it, because I loved it!

Since watching the episode, I have made the bread 3 times- each time learning more about it.  It is more of a nutty “brown bread” recipe.    I think for a meal bread, it’s more universal to make this version without the currants, though I like the sweetness and texture of the currants.  Instead of the whole wheat/ white flour combination for which the recipe calls, a couple of times, I simply used white-wheat flour.  It worked well. 

With the first loaf of this version,  I sliced it and served it with butter and jam at church.  A couple of days later, I made a loaf to go with the Chicken and Wild Rice Soup we had for dinner.  It was a treat to have a fresh loaf of bread with dinner.  It is that quick and easy. You really should try making it!

This recipe produces a dense and wheaty loaf with a buttery, and craggy crust.  

Irish Soda Bread

From America’s Test Kitchen

2 
cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour

1/2 cup toasted wheat germ

3 Tbsp. sugar

1 1/2 
tsp. salt

1 
tsp. baking powder

1 
tsp. baking soda

1 3/4 
cups buttermilk

3 Tbsp. butter, melted (divided)

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees.

Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Whisk all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, wheat germ, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in large bowl. Combine buttermilk and 2 tablespoons melted butter in 2-cup liquid measuring cup.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with rubber spatula until dough just comes together.

Turn out dough onto lightly floured counter and knead until cohesive mass forms, about 8 turns. Pat dough into 7-inch round and transfer to prepared sheet. Using sharp serrated knife, make ¼-inch-deep cross about 5 inches long on top of loaf.

Bake until skewer inserted in center comes out clean and loaf registers 195 degrees, 40 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. (I had never used a thermometer to determine the doneness of bread, but it was such a help).

 

Remove bread from oven. Brush with remaining 1 Tbsp. melted butter. Transfer loaf to wire rack and let cool for at least 1 hour. Serve.

It's important to keep in mind that you have to eat it (or freeze it) in about 24 hours, as it hardens more quickly than some bread.  It is good toasted on day #2.

Happy March, and all that it holds, and happy bread-baking!

Detail: Irish Soda Bread: Top O' the Morning to You!