Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

February’s Daring Baker’s Challenge was Panna Cotta, paired with Florentine cookies. The challenge was hosted by Mallory of A Sofa in the Kitchen, with full recipes and info over at her site! I had never made either of these items, although I am not terribly fond of Florentine cookies.

I was surprised how quick I was able to make the Panna Cotta. For a dessert I thought was complicated, it really wasn’t. The gelatin was added to cold milk to soften. Then I heated the milk mixture, added the cream, honey, sugar and salt. After the mixture heated thoroughly, and the honey and sugar dissolved, I took it off the heat to cool a little.

While I was making the Panna Cotta, I also decided to make a strawberry gelee. I used the fruit gelee recipe from the challenge, which was to heat pureed strawberries with sugar, then whisk in softened gelatin. I am still a little weirded out by gelatin and it’s texture,especially with the gelee.

Once the panna cotta and gelee cooled, I spooned both into dishes and refrigerated overnight.

Later, I made the Florentine cookie dough and baked off the cookies. Another surprisingly simple recipe. The butter is melted, then the dry ingredients, such as flour, sugar and oats, are added to the butter. I spooned the cookie dough onto a cookie sheet.

The cookies baked quickly, in about 6 minutes. I think I could have baked the cookies longer, but they looked like they were about to burn, so I took them out a little early.

Valentine’s Day Treats

Here are some Valentine’s Day treats I’ve been working on.

Vegan heart-shaped Oreos. I am so pleased with how these turned out!

Swirly colored mini cupcakes for Valentine’s Day, with classic buttercream.

And look at this awesome vintage cake carrier! I have a small booth at an antique mall, and found this in another booth. I am so loving it, with the bits of color left, but mostly rusty, I wonder what kind of stories it has.

September means Football & Cookies

The September challenge for Daring Baker's was Decorated Sugar Cookies, and how perfect! The cookies had to be in the theme of September, whatever that meant to you personally.

To me, September is the start of College Football. In our house, the only football that matters is Florida State football.

I started with the sugar cookie recipe, provided by September's host, Mandy of What the Fruitcake? I wasn't initially thrilled with the sugar cookie recipe, the dough seemed dry and had an average flavor. After I made the dough, I chilled it before rolling. I then rolled the dough, a handful at a time, to a thickness slightly less than ¼ inch.

I wanted my cookies to be a very specific spearhead shape, and since that isn't a cookie cutter you can get, I made a stencil. First, I printed the image, carefully cut it out, and then traced it onto a thick cardstock-type of paper. I carefully cut the shape out, and had my own cookie stencil. With a paring knife, I carefully cut around the stencil on the cookie dough. Once I cut as many cookies into the dough, I tore excess cookie dough from the cookies, and then transferred the cookies to a cookie sheet to chill in the freezer until firm.

Once the cookies were firm, I took them out of the freezer, arranged on cookie sheets, and baked. I was very pleased with how the cookies cake out of the oven, in the same shape, this changed my mind on the cookie recipe. My usually sugar cookie recipe wouldn't have kept the shape and sharp edges as well.

Cookies were baked, cooled, taken off the cookie sheets and transferred to baking rack. As the cookies were cooling completely, I made royal icing. Using thicker royal icing for outlining, I outlined the cookies in black. Let the outline dry overnight, then I thinned the icing and filled the cookies, in garnet, gold and white. While the large white and garnet sections were still wet, I dipped a toothpick in the alternating color to make streaks of color on the spearhead.

Once all the icing was done, I let the cookies dry overnight before boxing them.

New Favorite: Homemade Oreo's

Everyone loves Oreos. And what is more fantastic than vegan homemade Oreos?

From Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

If you want to impress friends, these vegan oreo’s are the way to do it. They were first sent to Hubby’s work for a coworker’s going away, and then they appeared at the first football tailgate of the season.

Vegan Oreos, or Ooh La Las

Makes at least 2 dozen sandwich cookies

Cookies:

¾ cup Crisco, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup soymilk

1 ½ cups AP flour

¾ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

2 tsp cornstarch

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

Black food coloring gel

Filling:

¼ cup Crisco, room temperature

¼ cup vegan butter (or substitute a scant ¼ cup vegetable oil)**

2 ½ - 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 - 3 tsp vanilla extract

1. With a handheld mixer*, cream the Crisco and sugar together in a medium bowl. When it is well mixed and fluffy, add vanilla extract and soymilk and mix. The mixture will now look a little curdled, but that’s fine.

2. Add the flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, salt, and baking powder and mix. Add a couple drops of black food coloring gel to enhance the black color.

3. Place dough in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.

4. When thoroughly chilled, grab a handful of the dough and roll dough onto a parchment paper covered surface. Roll to a 1/8 inch thickness. With a round cookie cutter, place cookie cutters as close as possible. Slide parchment paper onto a small cookie sheet that will fit in a freezer. Repeat with remaining dough.

5. While the dough is chilling, preheat oven to 325 F. Take the dough out of the freezer, and pull the excess dough from the round cookie cutter pieces. Place the round cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, about an inch apart from each other.

6. Bake cookies for 12 minutes, one cookie sheet at a time. Take the sheet out of the oven and cool on baking rack for several minutes before transferring the cookies off of the sheet and onto the cooling rack.

7. While the cookies are fully cooling, prepare the cookie filling by creaming Crisco and vegetable oil together in a medium bowl. Add powdered sugar to bowl in 4 additions, mixing thoroughly after each addition. The texture will get very stiff and clumpy, but keep mixing. Once sugar is mixed, add vanilla extract.

8. When you are ready to assemble the cookies, pair cookies by similar sizes. With a gloved hand (or not), pinch off a small amount of filling spread onto cookie. Place other cookie on top, pressing firmly and smooshing around a bit.

Voila! Oreos!

*A Note: I initially made the cookie dough and filling with a stand mixer, but later found that a hand mixer really works best with this recipe. First time I have used a hand mixer in years!

**An Updated Note: After making these oreo's several times, I have found making the filling with vegan butter, not the substituted vegetable oil. The vegan butter makes the consistency of the filling much smoother than the vegetable oil. It's worth the extra purchase!

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal cookies with a touch of cranberry pizazz!

I just got the Sur La Table Art & Soul of Baking cookbook, and I am enjoying it. It is nice and big, with great pictures and explanations on the variety of recipes. Last week I tried Rustic Olive and Rosemary bread, and this week I was looking for a sweeter treat.

The recipe indicated it made 50 cookies, which I didn't really want 50 cookies hanging around, so I cut the recipe in half, with some tweaks. I did have to use half an egg, but it works for me. The following is the half recipe I used, adapted from Sur La Table.

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
Makes 12

1/2 stick butter, unsalted
1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 1/2 Tbsp sugar, granulated
1 egg, lightly beaten and divided in half
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, unbleached
pinch of baking soda
pinch of baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup rolled oats, old-fashioned
1/2 cup dried cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line one baking sheet with parchment paper.
2.In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine butter and sugars and beat until smooth. Scrape down, then add vanilla and half of egg, blend until smooth.
3.In medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Add to mixer, beat until combined.
4. Scrape bowl, then add oats and cranberries. Mix until combined.
5. With a small scoop, place scooped cooking dough on baking sheet. Bake cookies for 14 minutes, rotating from back-to-front and top-to-bottom halfway through cooking time.

These cookies were delightful, I felt it was a perfect balance of oatmeal-ness. Those who tried the cookies agree, I almost missed out in a final picture, they were going so fast!

Mmm, Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Everyone else is super excited about pumpkin. It wouldn’t be my first choice of flavors, but it definitely is growing on me. Especially in these whoopie pies. The creamy filling accents the pumpkin so well, yummy! And the cookies were a lot easier to make than I anticipated.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies from Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients

Cookies

1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt

Filling

8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), softened but still cool
4 ounces cream cheese (1/2 package), at room temperature
3/4 cup Marshmallow Fluff (3 1/2 ounces)
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar , sifted

Instructions

1. For the cookies: Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18 by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Stir pumpkin, eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in large bowl until well blended. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in medium bowl. Stir dry ingredients into pumpkin mixture until well incorporated.

3. Using small ice cream scoop (#30 is the perfect size) or tablespoon measure, drop 2 tablespoons of dough on prepared baking sheet. (You should fit nine scoops of dough on each sheet.) Spread dough into 2-inch rounds about 1/2 inch thick and spaced 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies are just set and bottoms are lightly browned, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheets from front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking. Slide cookies, still on parchment, to cooling racks. Cool baking sheets, line with fresh parchment paper, and repeat with remaining dough.

4. For the filling: With electric mixer, beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until no lumps remain, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula. Add Marshmallow Fluff and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 60 seconds. Beat in salt and vanilla until well blended, about 30 seconds. Scrape down bowl. Reduce speed to low and gradually add confectioners’ sugar, beating until smooth, about 1 minute.

5. Spread 2 tablespoons filling on center of flat side of one cookie. Place flat side of second cookie on filling and press cookies together to bring filling to edges. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. (Cookies can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 4 days)

Note: I used a scoop smaller than a #30, which still provided a good size cookie. If you use a smaller scoop, consider cutting the cookie portion of the recipe in half.

Happy Halloween!

Neighborly Mini Chip Cookies

Apparently, older adults, say the age of grandparents, are coming out of the woodwork lately, wanting to be friendly with me. I will be at the grocery store looking at produce, and I get chatted up about those pre-wrapped baking potatoes. More than once, I have been mowing the yard, minding my business on a weekday morning, and I get stopped by one neighbor or another, and we start talking about how I enjoy the new neighborhood, how I actually am employed regardless of the ability to mow the yard on a weekday morning, and about any neighborhood gossip my new friends might have.

I don't think twice about these small encounters, until a neighbor
calls me at the bakery, asking me over for dinner. At this time, I
had only met the neighbor once, and hubby hadn't. As we were thinking about this dinner invitation, we had no idea what to expect. When you go into a new situation, what better than bring a sweet, to help the evening go smoothly? And this gives us Neighborly Mini Chip Cookies!

Neighborly Mini Chip Cookies adapted from epicurious
Yields about 85 cookies

10 Tbsp Butter, unsalted, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour, all-purpose unbleached
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

I used Enjoy Life semi-sweet vegan chips, which are awesome, but use whatever you have.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions.

Beat butter, sugar, salt and baking soda together in standing mixer until fluffy. Scrape sides, then add egg and vanilla. Scrape sides, then add flour gradually. Mix until incorporated.

Fold in mini chocolate chips.

Using a teaspoon measure, drop dough onto prepped baking sheets. (I fit about 25 cookies per sheet)

Bake 6-7 minutes, rotating sheets from top to bottom, front to back, halfway through cooking time. Place on cooling rack in pan for 5 minutes, then removing cookies from sheet to continue cooling.

If you are feeling neighborly, take a handful over to a neighbor, I am sure they will welcome the treat! The hubby thinks these are the best cookies I have made in a long time. I take that as a huge compliment coming from a guy who is totally not a sweets fan.