Christmas greetings...

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wishing you Peace, Love and Joy from my kitchen to yours!

Snowflake Cookies

It seems like I've been working on these all week.  It's actually not far from the truth....

In early November I made sunflowers.  It took me awhile to get them all decorated.  Then, when I finally decided to take them to work with me, it snowed.  Suddenly, even though it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet, they no longer seemed appropriate.  But our guests didn't care and ate them up in a snap...but I started to think - snowflakes...

So here they are - 32 Snowflakes all decorated and ready to go to work with me tomorrow for our guests to enjoy.

The Long Overdue Post Thanksgiving...Post

Sadly, many of our photos did not turn out and one photo, taken by my niece was not successfully uploaded before it, sadly, got deleted, but here are a few I can share. 

The cornbread stuffing...

The Garlic Mashed Potatoes - a recipe my husband and I came up with together when we were just starting out as a couple...

The Sage Rolls I found in my bread machine cookbook in a hurry when I realized I had forgotten to include rolls in our menu - Yikes!


I also made some wonderful Olive Oil crackers using this recipe I found at 101 Cookbooks and fresh cranberry sauce that came out a bit too tart but still tasty and very pretty.  Here are some final photos:

Pumpkin Oat Muffins

I really love the foods of fall - apples, cranberries, nuts and pumpkin.  As you may have noticed, I roasted and pureed quite a few pumpkins early this fall.  It seems like fall whips by so quickly every year and that just as I'm getting into the swing of baking and cooking with all that glorious fall bounty, suddenly Christmas is upon us and a whole different list of recipes take center stage.  So forgive me if I'm not quite ready, just yet, to give up on the flavors of fall and jump into Christmas and winter cooking.  I have just a couple more recipes I hope to share before the shift to winter becomes absolutely imperative.  At least I'm secure in the fact that I have tucked away in my freezer several more cups of that wonderful pumpkin and that I'll be able to re-visit fall any time I wish this winter! 

When I put up all that pumpkin, it was with these muffins in mind.  I wanted an oat-based muffin flavored with pumpkin, maple and spices...and here it is.  It turns out that pumpkin does pose something of a challenge in creating a muffin that will rise and produce that classic muffin top, so this recipe may yet need a bit of tweaking, but I'm very happy with the flavor and texture and they've gotten rave reviews from all who have tested them for me.  So here they are, I hope you enjoy them.

Pumpkin Oat Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1 cup pumpkin puree (canned pumpkin is perfectly acceptable)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs,
1 tsp. baking soda*
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder*
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/14 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups oats
1/2 cup flour
1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Whisk together pumpkin, oil, maple syrup, sugar and eggs until well blended.  Add baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt.  Stir in oats.  In a small bowl toss nuts with flour, then stir into pumpkin mixture until just combined.  Fill lined muffin tins 3/4 full and bake 15-20 minutes. 

* These muffins did not quite rise as much as I'd like, and I may try adding another 1/2 tsp. each baking soda and baking powder to my next batch to see how that goes.  I'll update this post with the results and let you know.

Chocolate-Caramel Thumbprints

Last week, just before Thanksgiving, Amanda & I made those wonderful Salted Caramel Thumbprints that Pillsbury posted (and which I heard about thanks to Callye at www.sweetsugarbelle.com).  They were really delicious, but I wasn't entirely happy with how much they spread out in the oven.  As I was eating them, I came up with the idea to make a dark chocolate version.  This morning, I set out to make them.  As a base recipe, I used Joanne Fluke's Cocoa Snap recipe from her Hannah Swensen mystery series.  I cut the recipe in half and omitted the baking soda (which completely took care of the spreading problem) as well as the granulated sugar for coating.  Her Cocoa Snaps have a wonderful, dark chocolate flavor that I thought would go well with the salted caramel.

One of the things I love about Joanne's cookie recipes is that most of them start with melting the butter.  In this one, you then add the cocoa powder - I used Hershey's Special Dark - and mix it well before adding the sugar.  Starting with melted butter is especially nice for our house since we generally use just wood heat in the cold months so I don't have to wait for hours for my butter to soften.  The melting of the butter does not seem to adversely affect the resulting cookies either, in fact, I tend to prefer chewy cookies and I've found they turn out beautifully using Joanne's method.

We happen to have some family members who really dislike nuts in their cookies so I baked half without nuts and half with.  I used pecans since they are the nut I most associate with thumbprints but also because they are a classic combination with caramel and chocolate (think Turtles). 

The cookies came out with a very nice texture.  Slightly crispy on the outside, dense and fudgy in the middle.  My only dissappointment is that the dark chocolate almost overpowers the caramel.  I think I may also try to come up with a milk-chocolate version and see if I like that better.  However, this base would be ideal with raspberry jelly or maybe some type of cherry topping (like a chocolate-covered cherry). 

Unfortunately, Joanne Fluke does not post her recipes online, but if you hop over to her website http://www.murdershebaked.com/ you will find a list that tells you which book the recipe appears in.  Here is the adapted version I used today:

Chocolate-Caramel Thumbprints:

1 1/2 sticks melted butter
1 Cup cocoa powder
1 Cup brown sugar
2 eggs (one will be separated)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 Cups flour
approx. 1 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)
13.4 oz. can Dulce de Leche

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Melt butter in microwave safe bowl and mix in cocoa until well blended.  Add brown sugar and blend well.  Mix in 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, salt & vanilla.  Stir to combine.  Add flour and mix thoroughly.  Set aside.

In a shallow bowl, beat remaining egg white until slightly foamy.  Set aside.   

Place finely chopped pecans in another shallow bowl.

Using a 1 tsp. cookie scoop, scoop dough and roll into small balls.  Roll in egg white, then nuts and place on a prepared cookie sheet 12 to a sheet.  Using your thumb, gently make a depression in the center of each dough ball. 

Bake for 6 minutes at 350 degrees.  Spoon 1/2 tsp. Dulce de Leche into the depression of each cookie.  Bake 4 minutes more.  Sprinkle with coarse salt and transfer to wire racks to cool.  Makes 4 dozen cookies.