One month to Christmas, I come bearing chocolate gingerbread cake

It feels a bit early for me to start thinking of Christmas. Drifts of research and reports surround me; calendar reminders twinkle on my screen, and it wasn’t too long ago when a hard thump of an icing sugar duster covered my garden with snow. Maybe it’s not too early for me to start thinking of Christmas.

Two things easily get me into the Christmas spirit—music and food.  While I am prone to belting out “Do They Know It’s Christmas” in June, I’m not quite ready to put my Christmas CDs in the mix just yet. The Christmas Pud has been stirred, steamed and safely out of my mother’s reach (really, it’s not hard as she’s 4’10” (maybe)).  While I’m beginning to plan out my baking, it’s hardly a Bing Crosby existence, rumpapumpumming to David Bowie.

Yet.

I used this week's visit with some favourite people to get me further into the festive spirit.  How better than with a cake? Preferably something aromatic that hints at the weeks to come.

I thought the Chocolate Gingerbread Cake from Nigella Lawson’s Feast would be perfect with our tea, as we chat next to a roaring fire. I paired the smoky-rich chocolate spice cake with the salted brown butter caramel icing from Shuna Fish Lydon’s Caramel Cake.  For a bit of texture, amidst all that soft lusciousness, a generous handful of roasted spiced pecans was scattered on top.

By my standards, it’s a sweet enterprise, but all that means is I'll have a smaller slice.   But it is a dark, damp and rich cake, spiced with flavours familiar to the Yuletide season, with the added bonus of chocolate.  And salted caramel.  And crunchy pecans.

A couple of notes about the cake:

• The full cake recipe is enough for two 20cm x 20cm (8"x8") pans, so if you only need a small cake, halve the recipe.
• Instead of treacle, I used cooking molasses, which is a mixture of regular and blackstrap molasses.  My molasses-loving friends liked it, but next time I’ll use a lighter variety.
• For one 20cm x 20cm cake, use about one-third of the icing specified in the recipe (or more, or less, I'm not going to judge).

Ginger spiced roasted pecans

Ingredients:

50g/125ml/0.5c chopped pecans

one heaping teaspoon icing sugar

0.5 tsp ginger powder

cayenne pepper, to taste

pinch salt

water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line a baking tray with parchment or tin foil.

Mix the nuts with the sugar, spices and salt.  Drizzle in enough water so the nuts are coated with a glaze.  Toss the nuts and spread on the prepared baking tray. 

Bake for 10 minutes.  Let cool before sprinkling on the cake.

Recipe Links: 

Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Gingerbread Cake Recipe

Shuna Fish Lydon’s Caramel Cake Recipe

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

On the 12th day of Christmas...

...my tummy remembered the wonderful foods that made it so happy this season



From top left to bottom right:  Broasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts with bacon and pine nuts, Carrot salad, Cheddar-jalapeno scones, Maple-harissa glazed carrots, Plum pudding, Roast asparagus, Roast Turkey, Mushroom crostini, Hash with poached egg and bacon, garlic shrimp, margarita ice cream

Some recipes to follow...

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas and a Jolly Holiday to all my friends, followers and fans.  I wish you all peace, love and laughter this holiday season.


cheers!
jasmine I'm a quill for hire!

Egg Nog Croissant Pudding

In as much as I love the holidays with all the food and drink that come in tow, at times my fridge, overburdened with leftovers can be a bit of a challenge.

I don't want to waste anything (although, admittedly, some things to end up in the bin), but at the same time I do get tired of reliving meals over and over again.

Every December a carton or two of egg nog finds itself in my shopping trolley. I love good eggnog--rich and cream spiked with sweet woody nutmeg...and maybe some cognac or rye. I usually get a little tired of it...before its all drunk up.

After thinking about it for an extremely short while, I realised that all egg nog is is a custard of sorts. Just add some more egg and maybe a bit more sugar and I've got something pretty close to perfect for a holiday bread pudding.

The nice thing about bread and butter pudding is the relative freedom it allows--plain slices or sandwiches, flavours, textures--a non-recipe recipe. To me, all that really matters is that the bread is creamy soft because it has sopped up as much custard as it can, and that the pudding isn't too eggy-firm.

The "bread" part of the pudding can be anything really--stale bread (of course), challah, brioche, doughnuts, poundcake.

I bought a container of croissants for some lazy breakfasts. Well...the breakfasts were a bit too lazy as the flaky lovelies never did get slathered with butter and marmalade. But they could do well for a pudding.

To give it a bit of interest and contrast, I decided tart cranberries and crunchy pecan would play nicely against the mellow lushness of the softened croissants and the wibbly custard.

The end result is was lovely -- buttery croisstants that were at once burnished gold an flaky and soft and yielding in a nutmeggy custard, punctuated with the occasional sharp cranberry or the slight crackle of of a pecan.

Egg Nog Croissant Pudding
Yield: One 20cm x 20cm (8"x8") pan-- approx six servings

Ingredients
500ml (2c) egg nog
2 eggs, beaten
2Tbsp (30ml) sugar
grated nutmeg (roughly 1/8 - 1/4tsp)
4 stale butter croissants, torn into pieces
a couple of handfuls of dried cranberries, plumped in boiling water, roughly chopped
A handful of roughly chopped pecans

Method

Butter the pan.

In a measuring jug mix the egg nog, eggs, sugar and nutmeg.

Arrange the torn croissants in the pan, Pour the eggnog mixture over top and let soak for at least 20m minutes, so the pastries absorb much of the liquid.

At this point you can preheat the oven to 180C/350F while the croissants soak.

Strew the top of the pudding with the fruit and nuts, tucking some into cracks and crevices where you will.

Bake for about 40-50 minutes. When done, the custard should be just set, with a bit of a wobble.

Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes before serving.




cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Feast: Twelfth Night Cake

I know what you're thinking.

Fruitcake.

You managed to avoid your great Auntie Ermintrude's (rest her soul) infamous Christmas fruitcake-cum-doorstop for yet another year (or the first year...ever).

You swerved cellophaned fruitcake in the office free-for-all of the gift basket teardown, and took the last bit of stale candy-coated nutty popcorn, leaving the fruitcake for the guy who was at an offsite meeting during the basket goodie dispersal.

You even donated the thank-you fruitcake you received to the local food bank, justifying it by saying "even the hungry want a traditional Christmas."

Yes, you've had some near misses with the much maligned cake and thought you were doing fairly well.

And here I am offering you...fruitcake.

But it's not just any fruitcake. It's my take on a traditional Twelfth Night Cake.

Twelfth Night?

The Twelfth Day of Christmas. The end of the Christmas season. The day in which you really don't want to see any more Christmas leftovers hanging out in your fridge and start thinking of things like grapefruit, miso soup and watercress.

The name itself elicits English class flashbacks about a romantic comedy that starts with a shipwreck on the Adriatic, and goes on about a girl hiding out as a guy, a love triangle, cross-gartered yellow stockings and the rest. It's a fun work...but then I like the English Renaissance dramatists. I'm special, that way...but you know that...

Traditionally a cake that holds a hidden prize is served The prize--a bean or a pea--crowns the finder as king or queen. They get to wreak magisterial havoc until...people stop putting up with it (midnight, from what I hear). (NB: As someone prone to wearing her tiara "for no reason," I find the idea of having to find a bean to be able to wear a crown rather sweet...but I realise for the world's tiara-less sometimes sparkly needs to be precipitated by a bean.)

Sometimes the cake is a fruitcake; sometimes it's a galette des rois--a puff pastry cake filled with frangipane; sometimes it's a fruited yeast bread. This year, I decided to go with fruitcake.

I looked at various recipes for Twelfth Night cakes and several seemed...very reminiscent of heavy fruitcakes that seem to dominate fears, worries and japes of December. Many seemed to be modified spiced pound cakes. Some reminded me of yuletide hot cross buns...but without the hot crosses and with more fruit. They were round, ring-shaped or baked in special moulds. But really...far too many lived in the realm of "dreaded" fruitcakes.

After more than a month of feasting, I wanted a lighter cake that keeps the original celebratory spirit...without being...dreadful.

Instead of glaceed cherries with loads of sultanas and currants, I opted for a mixture of dried blueberries, cherries and cranberries. If I had remembered I had dried pears and apricots, they would have been used as well. I couldn't leave out the citrus, but didn't want candied citron, so I zested a clementine and brushed the top with Cointreau. Additional flavour came from some leftover eggnog (and an extra few gratings of nutmeg).

The resulting tender cake is lovely and moist, fruity and lightly citrussed. The interior has a warm hue and the crust is burnished. I'm having it for breakfast, but it would accompany a cup of tea quite nicely.

Will this cake prompt the same jeers that greet its December cousin? I hope not. But maybe the promise of the opportunity of wearing a crown* will convince some to try it.

* And no, you won't be getting to wear my tiara.

Twelfth Night Cake
Yield One 21cm x 11cm (8.5"x4.5") Loaf

Ingredients
100g (approx 250ml/1c) mixed dried fruit of your choosing, rehydrated in boiling water, drained
1 egg
185ml (0.75c) egg nog
225g (435ml/1.75c) cake flour
1tsp (5ml) baking powder
0.5tsp (2.5ml) bicarbonate of soda
pinch of salt
grated nutmeg (approx 1/8th tsp)
75g (85ml/0.33c) soft butter
150g (125ml/0.5c) brown sugar
1tsp finely grated orange zest

1 dried bean or baking bean (optional)
1dspn (10ml/2tsp) cointreau or brandy


Method
Preheat oven to 170C/325F. Paper a 21cm x 11cm (8.5" x4.5") loaf tin

Beat together egg and eggnog and set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

Cream butter until light. Add sugar and zest and continue beating until fluffy. Add in the dry and liquid ingredients in the usual fashion (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), scraping down the bowl between dry additions. Fold in the rehydrated fruit and the bean (if you're doing that). Pour into prepared loaf pan.

Bake at 170C/325F for 30 minutes. Turn the heat up to 180C/350F for 20 minutes. The cake should be warmly golden in colour and an inserted skewer comes out with a few crumbs clinging to the wood. Remove from oven and brush with the cointreau or brandy.

Ice, if you wish with

• a heavy mixture of icing sugar mixed with water, milk or orange juice
• a blanket of fondant, complete with fussy Shakespearean, Epiphany or Royalty-themed decorations
• a different blanket, this time of marzipan

Or you can do what I do and leave it plain...perhaps slathering your slices with double Devon cream or brandy butter.

Note:

If you don't have eggnog,

• 110g (125ml/0.5c) butter (instead of 75g butter)
• 2 eggs (instead of 1 egg)
• 125ml (0.5c) milk or orange juice
• 1-2Tbsp extra sugar (to taste)

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Christmas!: Caramel Cup Cookies

Happy Christmas and happy holidays to all my friends and followers. I hope you spend these days, surrounded by those

whom you hold dear, with tables ladened with delicious foods and drinks.

I know I've been remiss in posting my kitchen adventures these past few weeks. Lots of things have kept me busy...and out of the kitchen. I hope to get back into the swing of things in the new year...but until then, I have but a plate of caramel cup cookies to offer you and Santa.

These cookies are baked in two-bite or mini muffin tins and the end result is a cookie-encased caramel cup, kissed with whisky (What? Given all the busy-ness of the season, a little extra, hidden Christmas cheer is never a bad thing).

Caramel Cup Cookies

Yield: 24

Ingredients

125g (225ml/ 1c less 1Tbsp and 2tsp) all purpose flour

0.25tsp (1.25ml) salt

0.5tsp (2.5ml) bicarbonate of soda

110g (125ml/0.5c) softened butter

100g (125ml/0.5c) brown sugar

1 egg

0.5tsp (2.5ml) vanilla extract

Splash of whisky (optional)

24 mini caramel cups, denuded of papers and set in the freezer for at least 15 minutes

Method

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.

Sift together flour and bicarb. Set aside

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Incorporate vanilla, salt and egg. Add flour mixture and mix well.

Divide the batter into 24 equal portions--approximately the size of a chestnut. Roll into balls and plop one into each of the 24 mini bun pans.

Bake for about 10 minutes. The edges will be golden, but the centres will be this side of anemic.

Immediately after you take the tray out of the oven, spritz or dribble the whisky into each cookie before shoving a frozen caramel cup into the centre of each hot cookie.

Let cool in the pan before popping out.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Twas the week before Christmas

And all through these weeks,
I've been up to my eyeballs,
In cookies and treats.

Okay...that's all I can muster.

Needless to say December has been a whirl of lunches and dinners (some less edible than others), gatherings, treats and nights in the kitchen fighting with Beelzebub to procure 500 cookies. The next few weeks will bring much the same (except no more cookies--if you've not received any...well...umm...be nicer to me and we'll see if you get on next year's list).

I've had a couple of requests for recommendations for books for foodies. I receive a number of food related books to review each year--not everything gets a post, but I did select a couple which I've not yet reviewed but deserve to be mentioned. Both were given to me courtesy of their publishers:

The Widow Cliquot

by Tilar Mazzeo

Harper Collins

254pp/C$33.99

Mazzeo tells the story of a young widow, assumes the helm of what would become one of the world's most famous champagnes. Tracing Mme Cliquot's story from revolutionary to Napoleonic France, the author deftly combines socio-political events with the personal struggles of a young widow, mother and business woman.

Keys to Good Cooking: a guide to making the best of foods and recipes

by Harold McGee

Doubleday Canada/Random House Canada

576pp/C$42

McGee's latest tome easily takes the home cook by the hand and guides them through the basics of cooking and more important why recipes work (or more importantly, don't work). He guides the the reader though tools, concepts and ingredients in simple, straightforward language. I think it would be good for those who are rather new to the kitchen and it's frustrating ways.

So, that's it for me until the New Year. Until then, I'm leaving you with a plate of linzer sandwich cookies: nutty, sweet and flavoured with cinnamon and cloves.

The recipe is from Canadian Living's cookie edition. The only real change I made was to use preground filberts--I don't have a food processer, so I bought a packet of ground nuts and went to work. The recipe comes together nicely and is so easy to work with...and, unlike other cookie doughs, you can easily re-roll the scraps withouth the finished cookie toughening.

Linzer Cookies
Adapted from Canadian Living's recipe
Yield three dozen

Ingredients
215g (1.5c) ground filberts (hazelnuts)
240g (2c) ap flour
1tsp baking powder
1.5tsp cinnamon
0.25tsp ground cloves
0.25tsp salt
grated zest of one lemon
280g (1.25c) butter
150g (0.75c) sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1tsp vanilla
250ml (1c) jam (raspberry, apricot, strawberry, blueberry, whatever you have on hand)

Method
Toast the ground nuts either by spreading it in an even layer on a tin foil-lined cookies sheet and popping it into a 180C/350F for about five minutes or until golden and fragrant OR toast the flour in batches on the stovetop, over a medium heat, in a large cast iron pan until golden and fragrant.

Mix toasted ground nuts with flour, baking powder, spices, salt and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Then beat in the vanilla, the whole egg and yolk one at a time. Stir in the nut flour mixture in two or three additions, until the dough comes together, without over mixing. Divide the dough in half and flatten into discs. Wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line cookie sheets with parchment.

Roll out each disc onto a lightly floured surface to 0.5cm/0.25" thickness. Using a 6cm (2.5") round cutter. If desired, use a smaller cutter to cut a shaped hole from half the cookies (for the tops).

Bake 2.5cm (1") apart for 8-12 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly golden. Let cool on pans for a few minutes before transferring to racks. Let cool thoroughly before sandwiching.

Option: dust with icing sugar before serving.

To assemble:
Spoon a teaspoon of jam onto the bottom of a "bottom" biscuit and sandwich with a top.

Notes:
- I've not tried it but you can probably substitute other nuts for filberts, such as walnuts or almonds.

- For crispier cookies, sandwich the day your are serving them, otherwise the the jam will soften the cookies, the longer they've been assembled. Nothing wrong with that...

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

...and Hagia on her blanket and I with a nightcap...

...collapsed on the chesterfield,
for a long winter's nap...

No, sorry. No Daring Baker contribution from me this month...eight fruitcakes and 20 dozen cookies have pretty much rendered me exhausted for any more Christmassy baking.

Still recovering from three hours of gluttony on Christmas Day and the almost annual Boxing Day turkey pot pie making extravaganza.

Will be back in the New Year. Until then, please keep safe and have a lovely, festive, soused, tea-totalling, quiet and joyous New Year.

cheers!
jasmine

Happy Christmas!

Photographed are the lovely, lovely biscuits as part of the Cookie Exchange I organised this year. I'm never disappointed with the sweet, buttery, creative and delicious things my colleagues produce. Even Beelzebub mostly behaved--the true Christmas miracle, I think.

So, what did we get? Top: Cherry-Nut Christmas Cookies, Brown Buttercrunch cookies, Middle: Button Cookies, Chocomint Crinkles, Bottom: Whipped shortbreads







Personally, I think Christmas screams shortbread as far as biscuits go. For such a simple treat -- butter, sugar and flour--it's amazing the variations out there. Here's the recipe, for those of you looking for something that's virtually foolproof:

Whipped Shortbreads
1/2 cup of butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup icing sugar

Preheat oven to 170C/350F

Combine ingredients and beat for 10 minutes.

Drop from teaspoon on to ungreased cookie sheet.

Decorate if desired (sprinkles, cherry, etc.)
Bake for 8 to 12 minutes (or until lightly brown on bottom) and cool completely on cookie sheet before removing.

Makes approx. 36 small shortbread.

All the best to you and yours...

cheers!
jasmine