Life Lately

A few snapshots of the past few weeks:

5^th Ave Tiffany's, all dressed up for Christmas // my new baby cousin, Rose // a night out with two of my favorite people // one of my creations from my 3 day pastry workshop // Belmar, NJ on a cold winter afternoon // hubby’s pile of Christmas presents // Laduree macarons (spoiler: TOTALLY overrated) // with some of my girlfriends at our annual Friendsgiving // hubby and I closing out the Michigan football season

Hanukkah Party

This weekend was our third annual Hanukkah party. When Mr. B and I moved in together, I adopted Hanukkah as the holiday that would be at our house, and I love hosting it. 

Well, usually. This year turned out to be a bit stressful- I had a busy weekend outside of hosting the party, plus there was a medical issue just before dinner that involved a frantic call to 911 and a visit from the paramedics. Luckily all is okay now. 

But the incident served as a reminder that the point of these parties is to enjoy family. I'd been really stressed and worried about the food (my husband's family includes a myriad of intensely picky eaters) and feeling a lot of pressure, and in the end the only thing that mattered was being together. Especially because dinner was freezing cold by the time we were able to eat. 

Our dinner menu was a pretty standard Hanukkah one:

• Brisket
• Roast chicken (full disclosure: I bought this at Costco and butchered it up. So much easier.)
• Quinoa with fresh herbs and olive oil
• Ina's Cape Cod Chopped Salad
• Ina's French String Beans (sauteed with shallots and roasted peppers)
• and of course, latkes:

I always cater my latkes from Wegman's, I can't stand the awful potato and onion smell that hangs in the air. The idea of my guests leaving with that clinging to their clothes gives me nightmares.

Appetizers I kept mostly simple, with a crudite platter, cheese, and these smoked salmon and cucumber canapes, topped with a dollop of creme fraiche and chives:

I set a table of blue and mixed metallics. The tablecloth had silver running through it, as did our bowls, but our chargers and flatware were gold. I ran a string of white Christmas lights down the middle instead of using candles. I thought it was a fun take on the whole "Festival of Lights" thing.

After dinner, we always open presents. We exchange gifts with my husband's family completely on  Hanukkah, and my family on Christmas. There's ten of us, and it's only one holiday, yet I'm always in shock at the sheer quantity of gifts:

This year, I got a brand new, top quality blowdryer, perfume, Deborah Lippmann nail polish, a watch, a new top, an Amazon gift card, and a Lenox challah knife from my mom. Whew! It's not even Christmas yet.

Here's to another Hanukkah. Looking forward to a (calmer) one next year.

Peppermint Mojitos

 

Today I’m sharing a recipe for Peppermint  Mojitos, a refreshing cocktail that’s perfect for Christmas.

The drink is easy to make for a group, although juicing enough limes to get one cup of juice was annoying. Why are limes so juiceless? Whenever I watch Barefoot Contessa I make fun of her electric juicer, but you can bet I was wishing for one when I made these. 

Peppermint Mojitos, adapted from Perfect Recipes for Having People Over by Pam Anderson

2 cups ice cubs
8 large mint sprigs, plus more for garnish
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup fresh lime juice (I needed 8 limes!)
1½ cups white rum
½ cup peppermint schnapps
8 dashes Angostura bitters
1 liter Seltzer, chilled

Add ice, mint, sugar, and lime juice to pitcher. Mash mint against ice and sugar with a wooden spoon. Add rum, schnapps, and bitters. Store in freezer until party time.

To serve, fill 6 8oz old fashioned glasses with ice, and add rum mix to come 2/3 of the way up the glass. Top off with club soda. Garnish with candy cane and extra mint sprigs, and serve.

Serves 6.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

In my apartment, at least.  

Last night, we had some friends over for our second annual tree decorating party.  This is what I love about where we currently live. My friends and I grew up in central NJ, went to separate colleges, got jobs in New York City, and then all moved there. Okay, or Brooklyn, or Hoboken, but basically, the same area.

So now I have a nice little set up where our some of our closest friends live within four blocks of our apartment, and it’s easy to get together whenever we want.  I know that this situation won’t go on forever; people will get married and have kids. Or realize we’re all getting the worst value for our money and wise up and move elsewhere. 

But for now, we get to enjoy after work hangouts and celebrations whenever we want.  Last night we ordered pizza, drank peppermint mojitos, and decked out my apartment for Christmas:

I had found a pretty red plaid ribbon to use as garland, so we went with a red and gold tree theme this year.  It doesn’t quite match our blue Hanukkah gifts, and I’m really trying to let go of my inner perfectionist and not be bothered by that. Last year we had a nice burlap and kraft paper theme going on, which all coordinated beautifully:

I tend to prefer themed trees over a conglomeration of mismatched ornaments, but already we’re developing a collection of ornaments that pull at my heartstrings a little:

 

There’s the dreidel I bought last year for Mr. B to recognize his Jewish heritage, a collection of milestone ornaments given to us for our engagement and wedding, a piece of cake Mr. B got me to symbolize my holiday baking obsession, and of course, a Michigan ornament.  As an alumni, the hubs is obsessed with all things U of M.

We also decked out the bar, my favorite spot in our apartment, and put a wreath over our fireplace.

I love how festive everything looks! Share links to your decorations!

Sugar Saucers

This is my official favorite sugar cookie. It has no frosting or royal icing; just the simple sweetness of sugar, butter, and vanilla, happily rolled in sprinkles.

 

I first saw the recipe on Lottie and Doof, and felt immediately called to make them. The first batch was inhaled in two hours by my coworkers, so I went home and made a second. I’ve never been compelled to make a second batch of the same cookies just a day later. But that’s how good, and maybe more importantly, how easy these are.

The cookies lend themselves to many sizes, from giant saucers to smaller rounds . Mine were about 2 and a half inches across, and I found that the bigger they were, the more variety there was in consistency. A larger cookie will have a crisp edge with a chewier center (aka perfection).

I made these with regular grocery store brand vanilla and butter, but my next step is to pick up some good European butter and dig out my good vanilla, to see if I can make them even better. I’m also looking forward to all the holiday opportunities these cookies provide- now I can have festive Christmas and Michigan football season cookies without having to mess with royal icing and cookie cutters. Awesome.

Sugar Saucers, from Piece of Cake: Home Baking Made Simple via Lottie and Doof

4 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

¾ tsp kosher salt

1 ½ c unsalted butter, at room temp

½ cup canola oil (I used corn oil, no issues)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

2 large eggs

4 tsp vanilla extract

Lots of rainbow sprinkles for decorating

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter on medium speed for two minutes. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add in the oil, and then add the two sugars, eggs, and vanilla, mixing well after each addition. 

Add the flour mixture slowly, a quarter of it at a time. Mix until just combined. This will be a very soft dough. Scrape it out of the bowl, and flatten it into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour, or up to three days.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheets with parchment, and fill a bowl with rainbow sprinkles.

To form cookies, remove a small piece of dough and roll it into a ball. You can really make the cookies any size you want, I worked with balls of dough about the size of a walnut, but you may want to go bigger or smaller. The original recipe recommends anywhere from 2 oz to 5 oz, and uses an ice cream scoop (a tool I do not own) to measure.

Using your hands, flatten balls of dough into a disk, and press them into the sprinkles.  Arrange on baking sheet, leaving room for spreading, and bake for 10-20 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies.  I found they were done when they had started to puff and crack a little, and were very slightly golden on the edges.

Enjoy!!

These cookies are really best the day they are made. Even kept airtight, they were stale after just three days.  However, you can freeze the dough or make it up to 3 days ahead with no issues.

Almond Cookies

The hubs and I ate dinner at Babbo last Christmas, and while the food was quite good, the only thing that really knocked my socks off was dessert. We shared an apple crostata, topped with creamy gelato and sea salt caramel. It was amazing.  I'm not usually a dessert eater, but that night I housed the whole thing.

Afterward, I decided to pick up Gina DePalma's book, Dolce Italiano. Gina is the pastry chef at Babbo, and her book is full of Italian dessert recipes. They're simple, authentic, and not overly sweet, and reading the book makes you long for a crunchy biscotti and a glass of vin santo.

I love this recipe for almond cookies. They have a delicious almond and lemon flavor, and go perfectly with a hot cup of tea. 

 

Almond Cookies, from Dolce Italiano

2 cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup almond flour (I used Trader Joe’s Almond Meal)

¼ tsp baking powder

½ tsp kosher salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, separated

Zest of one lemon

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups sliced almonds

Powdered sugar

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt, and put aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Beat in the egg yolk, then the lemon zest and vanilla extract. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Beat in the dry ingredients (I did this in two stages) on low speed. Remove dough from bowl, flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for an hour or more.

Preheat oven to 325. Line two baking sheets with parchment or a Silpat.

Place almonds in a dish, and lightly beat the egg white.

Divide your dough into three equal pieces. Put two pieces back into the fridge, and roll the third one into a log about ½ inch in diameter. Slice the log into 1/4 inch slices. Roll each slice in beaten egg white, and press the top into the almonds. Line up on prepared cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining portions of dough

Bake for 14-16 minutes, until golden at edges, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time. Let cool on baking sheet for two minutes, then remove to a wire rack. Dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Cookies keep well for up to four days. They taste better at room temperature, rather than fresh out the oven.

Enjoy!

Cookie Baking Tips

It’s Christmas cookie season! Every year, I bake large batches to share with family, friends, and coworkers, and I’ll be sharing a bunch of my favorite recipes over the next few weeks.

But first, I thought I’d start with my best baking tips. Cookies are a food I’m very particular about. I like for them to be perfect, to the point of tossing a batch if it isn’t. The following tips have helped me to really improve my baking:

• Use a good recipe. This seems so obvious, but it’s important to know where your recipe comes from. I really trust recipes from Ina Garten, Carole Walter, and Dorie Greenspan, but I don’t necessarily trust miscellaneous entries I find in a Google search.
• Use fresh ingredients. Last year, one of my family members actually baked cookies using flour that expired in 2001. No one died from eating them, but they tasted like the inside of a coffin. Replace your flours, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, etc yearly.
• Additionally, to preserve freshness, store ingredients airtight. You can find lots of storage options in places like Bed Bath and Beyond, Walmart, or Crate and Barrel.  

Source

• Measure the way the recipe creator does. When I watch Ina Garten, I notice she fluffs her flour, and scoops it out with a measuring cup. Carole Walter spoons the flour into cups, then levels it off. The way you fill a measuring cup can compact the flour and sometimes add as much as a quarter cup extra to your recipe, so take care with this step. Measure as the recipe writer did, and you will be more likely to have similar results.
• Better ingredients = better cookies. I typically use store brand butter, but for a cookie such as a shortbread, where the butter flavor really stands out, I like to spring for a high quality European style butter. High quality vanilla extract always matters too.
• You eat with your eyes first, so be neat with presentation. Take care when shaping cookies, using cookie cutters, or decorating.  Make them the same size, and space them out on the tray so they don’t run into each other and form one large cookie blob.
• Refrigerate shaped cookies on the baking sheet for ten minutes before baking. I find this helps retain the shape and keeps them from spreading too much, especially baking rolled cookies with cookie cutters. (Note: this is in addition to any dough refrigeration your recipe may suggest).
• Make sure your ingredients are at the right temperatures. If a recipe calls for creaming room temperature butter, don’t start with a stick straight from the back of the fridge. And if you try to soften it and overdo it, don’t try to work with butter that’s half melted. Get a fresh stick and start over.  Don’t be wasteful, but know when you need to start fresh.
• Use aluminum baking sheets. I learned the hard way that dark metals retain too much heat, resulting in scorched bottoms and underbaked insides. It actually blows my mind that so many baking companies keep producing dark metal pans. You can purchase two aluminum half sheet pans for around $10 in Costco or Sam’s club.
• Keep ingredients on hand so you can bake when the mood strikes. I like to keep a cabinet full of sprinkles and decorating equipment, and I always have pounds of butter in my freezer.
• Most cookies freeze well. Store airtight between layers of wax paper, and freeze for 1-3 months. I like to defrost at room temperature, and "refresh" the cookies by arranging on a baking sheet and baking at 350 for 5 minutes. They won't cook further, but they'll rewarm adn taste freshly baked.

What are your best cookie tips or recipes?