Macaron fail...

I've contemplated for quite some time now on when I will attempt to make the masterful macaron. I've googled several recipes, looked at A Canadian Foodie's attempt and mentioned the word 'macaron' so many times, even my boyfriend is tired of hearing it from me. So yesterday evening, I alloted time to make "the macaron".

I had visions in my head of how great it will turn out; or how horrible. Boy, was I correct on the latter one. How did Chuck Hughes from Food Network Canada make it look so darn easy? That's where I got the recipe from (I even watched the video). I know the most difficult part was the "macaronnage", so the professionals call it. It's the process of blending the meringue mixture with the ground almond flour (I was already running into problems grounding the flour because I didn't know how to use my new food processor properly..haha). You must be extremely careful though. Folding the meringue into the almond mixture can just cause it to just kaput. And so there was my problem. I was whipping the egg whites, but for some reason I didn't get nice, stiff peaks that I usually do. But I just went with it, because they eventually had more consistency. I then incorporated the hot syrup 1/4 cup at a time, and that's probably where I messed up;it turned all watery. After incorporating it with the ground almond mixture, I began to build some hope that these little things will turn out. Well, I was wrong. By the time I piped them on parchment and put them in the oven, they were spreading out like regular-sized cookies.

Surprisingly, they tasted very good. Even my boyfriend agreed that they were delicious, despite the fact that they were supposed to look like macarons. Instead, they tasted like those Italian amaretto cookies.

My attempt next time, which I'm not sure when this will be, I will have to make sure that the egg whites whip properly and that my almond mixture is more finely ground. My motto: you never until you try! And that's what I did.

Making cheese on my own?!

My homemade Paneer!

Thanks to A Canadian Foodie (and Bal Arneson of The Spice Goddess on The Food Network), I made paneer cheese on my day off this past Monday and she was right. It was so easy! My cheese, however low fat, was a little too low in fat. I used 1% milk, but next time I make it I'll use homo milk or perhaps even cream instead, though I imagine it'll burn faster than milk given the much higher milk fat content. I boiled my 2 litres of milk at medium-low, and even though keeping a firm eye on it, still managed to slightly burn the bottom of the pot (I got a good workout from scrubbing the pan). If you are interested in making your own paneer,  Chef Michael Smith also has a recipe for paneer (from the Wilted Spinach with Indian Paneer cheese recipe):


Wilted Spinach with Indian Paneer Cheese
Yield: 4


Ingredients


Wilted Spinach with Indian Paneer Cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 tablespoon cumin seed
1 onion peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds baby spinach, washed
Salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 disc paneer cheese


Indian Paneer Cheese

8 cups milk, full fat
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed


Directions


Wilted Spinach with Indian Paneer Cheese


1.Melt butter and add the cumin seed. Toast for a minute or two then add the onion and garlic and sauté until soft and fragrant. Add the spinach, season with salt and stir until wilted.
2.Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat and add paneer. Fry on one side until golden, about 2-3 minutes and then flip and brown the other side. Toss with the wilted spinach until the paneer breaks into bite-sized pieces.


Indian Paneer Cheese


1.Bring the milk and salt to a gentle simmer, just as it boils turn off the heat and stir in the lemon. Rest for 15 minutes or so. Fashion a cloth bag with multiple layers of cheesecloth, line a strainer with it and pour the mixture into the cloth. Tie it off and suspend it over a bowl to drain for several hours.
2.Untie the bag but keep the cheese loosely covered. Place it on a plate and cover with another plate. Place in your refrigerator and weigh down with a jar or two of something relatively heavy. Press for several hours or overnight.
3.Remove from the press and the bag and enjoy your own homemade cheese!

(courtesy of www.foodnetwork.ca)

Mini gingerbread cupcakes are delicious and the perfect size for holiday parties

I know the fad of cupcakes have come and gone, but for (holiday) parties I must admit they are still very fun to make and people still do enjoy them. I found a wonderful recipe for mini gingerbread cupcakes on the Style at Home website. The recipe is very easy and straight forward except I altered a few things. I lessened the bake time to about 12 minutes because my cupcakes were mini; also, the recipe for the icing is way too runny. I made these cupcakes for my girlfriend's Ugly Sweater Party and let's just say that I spent more time cleaning up after the piping bag than anything (I used a mini spatula to spread the icing on in the end). Needless to say, the icing was delicious because it's a mixture of cream cheese and butter. I made these cupcakes for Christmas dinner at my cousin's for dessert, but this time added about 1 cup of butter and a few tablespoons of cream cheese (I eyeballed the consistency). This time around it came out of the piping bag a lot easier!

Here's the recipe:

• 2½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• ¼ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup unsulfured dark (robust) molasses
• 1 cup boiling water

Rum-raisin frosting

• ½ cup dark raisins
• ¼ cup dark rum
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature, cut into small pieces
• 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 4 Piece
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

1 Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line 24 mini muffin cups with cupcake liners.
2 In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ginger. Set aside
3 In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar until creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs and then the molasses until well combined. Immediately stir in the boiling water. On low speed, add the flour mixture and mix until smooth.
4 Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them about two-thirds full. Bake in the center of the oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean and dry, about 20 minutes. Let cool completely in the pan(s) on a wire rack.
5 While the cupcakes are baking and cooling, prepare the frosting. In a small bowl, mix together the raisins and rum and let stand for 15 minutes. Strain, reserving liquid.
6 In a food processor, combine the cream cheese and butter and process until smooth. Add the confectioners' sugar and pulse until a smooth, spreadable frosting forms. Transfer to a bowl. Stir the raisin liquid into the frosting until evenly combined.
7 When the cupcakes are cool, tip them out of the pan and frost them with the frosting. Top with raisins.


Makes 24 mini cupcakes
(courtesy of styleathome.com)


HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Verdict: scrumptious!

Baking for the holidays: these cookies could beat the Girl Guides kind

For the month of December at work, a few of us at work (we call ourselves "The Decorating Committee")  have decided to bring treats every other day until Christmas. It works out perfectly because there are exactly 11 people in our branch, and every other day would work out just perfectly right before Christmas.

I found a recipe on Food Network Canada. It's Anna Olson's Chocolate Mint Cookies from her days on Sugar. I have to be honest that I wasn't a big fan of her show, but I've tried a few of her recipes and they've all turned out so well. Especially after mastering this recipe for the first time, I am looking forward to try more recipes from her! I spent a total of 2.5 hours toiling in the kitchen (although I did escape to take a shower while the dough was chilling in the fridge), it was worth it. I think they could beat out the Chocolate Mint Girl Guide cookies-they don't have preservatives and all flavouring is natural. What could possibly be better? I'll definitely be making more of these during the holiday baking season.

Here's the recipe if you would like to give it try. The only thing I recommend is to keep the filling inside the mixing bowl while beating--the recipe says to knead it on a flat surface then add the peppermint extract. I found it too sticky so I just left it in the bowl to mix. Turned out great!

Ingredients

Cookies

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 6 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• dash salt
• dash baking powder
• icing sugar, for garnish

Filling

• 1 egg white
• 1 3/4 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 2 drops to 3 drops peppermint extract

Directions

To Assemble

1.Beat butter until smooth and fluffy. Sift together icing sugar and cocoa powder over butter and beat in. Stir in vanilla, egg yolk and milk. Add flour, salt and baking powder to cocoa mixture and blend until incorporated. Shape dough into disc, wrap and chill for 20 minutes.

2.Preheat oven to 325° F. On a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick. Cut into 1 ½-inch circles and transfer carefully to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until cookies can be lifted easily away from the parchment. Allow to cool on baking sheet.

3.For filling, put egg white in a bowl and beat in icing sugar, a few tablespoonfuls at a time, until a soft dough forms. Turn dough onto a surface dusted with icing sugar. Knead in remaining icing sugar and peppermint extract, until dough is no longer sticky.

4.To fill cookies, roll a teaspoon of dough into a ball and flatten a little. Sandwich between 2 cookies and press together to push icing to edges. Continue until all cookies have been filled.

5.Cookies can be glazed with chocolate to finish or dusted with icing sugar.

6.Yield: Approximately 2 dozen cookies

(Courtesy of Anna Olson from foodnetwork.ca)

My attempt at making sweet potato cheesecake

September is birthday month in my family. First, it's my mom's birthday, then it's me and my sister's birthday (same day) and then it's my grandma's birthday. It's almost too much cake in one week! That being said, I found it necessary to try my cake baking skills for my mom's cake. What kind of cake did I decide on? Why not make use of the yam that's been sitting in the pantry for a while...voila, sweet potato cheesecake!

From what I've read, sweet potato cheesecake is quite common in the southern States, like Georgia. The sweet potato makes the cheesecake and other cakes very moist, and not to mention healthy too!
The recipe I got was from http://www.allrecipes.com and consisted of the following:

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 pounds sweet potatoes
• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 7/8 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C ). Mix together graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup melted butter or margarine. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 1/2 inch springform pan. Bake 10 minutes. Cool. Don't turn the oven off.
2. Place potatoes in a baking dish. Bake until a knife inserted in center goes through easily, about 1 hour. Don't turn oven off. Cool sweet potatoes enough to handle, peel, and puree.
3. Transfer 1 1/2 cups of sweet potato puree to a large bowl. Add cream cheese, 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar, sour cream and 1/4 cup cream; beat until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, blending well after each. Pour filling into crust.
4. Bake until tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour. Turn off the oven. Let cake stand 1 hour in oven with door ajar.
5. Combine brown sugar and 1/4 cup butter or margarine in a heavy small saucepan. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat, and bring to a boil. Mix in 1/4 cup cream, then nuts. Pour hot topping over cheesecake. Refrigerate.

Please ignore the melted purple icing flowers...

The recipe was very easy to following, and the outcome was great! I put a pan of water underneath the cake so it would not crack in the centre while baking. In addition to the recipe above, I swapped the graham cracker crust with a shortbread crust (I'm not a big fan of graham cracker crusts), added cinnamon to the filing (you can add nutmeg as well) and topped the cake off with toasted pecans I popped in the oven for about 15 minutes (I tossed the pecans in a little bit of oil and brown sugar). This added a lot more flavour to the cake and brought the sweet potato even more, I think.

All in all, the cake was a success! My whole family enjoyed it, as well as my boyfriend. The cake wasn't too sweet and everything was natural and free of preservatives. You can store the cake for about a week, perhaps even longer, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Verdict: scrumptious!

Visit http://www.allrecipes.com for more great recipes.