Tag: cane

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

by Pam on December 4, 2012

My daughter didn’t want a cake or cupcakes for her 10th birthday. Instead she wanted chocolate and peppermint cookies. I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen^[1] that looked perfect. The house smelled amazing while these cookies baked and they put a huge smile on the birthday girl’s face. The peppermint frosting and candy cane crumbles made these chocolate cookies extra special. They turned out rich and decadent which is perfect for my chocolate loving daughter who absolutely LOVED them. Happy birthday to the sweetest girl I know. I am so thankful and proud to be your mom. xoxo

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silpat mat.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl – mix well.

Using a mixer, beat the butter and sugars together until creamy and smooth. Add the egg, vanilla, and peppermint extract and mix well with beater. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until combined. Add the chocolate chips and the pieces of crushed candy cane; mix until combined.

Place teaspoons of dough on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Press the cookies with the back of the spatula to flatten them a bit. Place into the oven and bake 7-8 minutes; remove from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before moving them to a wire rack.

Make the glaze by combining the powdered sugar, peppermint extract, and milk; mix until well combined. Drizzle the frosting over the cookies on the wire rack. Side Note: Place wax paper or a paper towel down under the rack for a quicker clean up. Sprinkled the crushed candy cane over the top of each cookie before the frosting sets. Enjoy!

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Save^[3]

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Yield: 15 large cookies

Prep Time: 10 min.

Cook Time: 10 min.

Total Time: 20 min.

Ingredients:

Cookies:

1 cup + 2 tbsp flour
1/3 + 2 tbsp cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup + 2 tbsp white sugar
1 egg
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp peppermint extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 candy canes, crushed

Peppermint Glaze:

3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp peppermint extract
3 1/2 tsp milk or half-and-half
Candy canes, crushed

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silpat mat.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a small bowl – mix well.

Using a mixer, beat the butter and sugars together until creamy and smooth. Add the egg, vanilla, and peppermint extract and mix well with beater. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until combined. Add the chocolate chips and the pieces of crushed candy cane; mix until combined.

Place teaspoons of dough on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Press the cookies with the back of the spatula to flatten them a bit. Place into the oven and bake 7-8 minutes; remove from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before moving them to a wire rack.

Make the glaze by combining the powdered sugar, peppermint extract, and milk; mix until well combined. Drizzle the frosting over the cookies on the wire rack. Side Note: Place wax paper or a paper towel down under the rack for a quicker clean up. Sprinkled the crushed candy cane over the top of each cookie before the frosting sets. Enjoy!

Adapted recipe and photos by For the Love of Cooking.net
Original recipe by Tasty Kitchen

References

^{^} Tasty Kitchen (tastykitchen.com)
^{^} Print Recipe (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
^{^} Save to ZipList Recipe Box (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)

Peppermint Meringues

Light and airy peppermint swirls. ‘Tis the season for all things peppermint, shopping and big wooly mittens, cookies and hot cocoa, and of course, cookie exchanges.

And what can be more symbolic this time of year than peppermint flavored cookies.

The taste of these meringues is somewhere between a cookie and a candy cane. I found out by accident that dissolving one into my morning coffee with a little whipped cream instantly makes me feel like I’m drinking a Starbucks Peppermint Latte. I bet it would be yummy in hot cocoa too!

Meringues are made with egg whites and sugar, so they are naturally low-fat and gluten-free. They can be flavored with different extracts to get different results, and baking them in different temperatures will yield different textures. Some of my favorites varieties include the Chocolate Chip Clouds^[1], Black and White Clouds^[2], and To Die For Coconut Cookies^[3].

These beautiful candy cane gems are colored with a paint brush and a little gel paste food coloring (available at Michaels) just before piping to give you the peppermint stripe. Completely optional of course, but it really makes the cookie. Always use metal bowls and beaters and be sure they are squeaky clean before making meringues to guarantee good results.

For more skinny cookie recipes^[4] to add to your cookie exchange this holiday season, click here^[5].

Thank you GLAD for bringing us this post. Learn more about Glad’s Mom Made Cookie Exchange program here^[6].

Peppermint Meringues
gordon-ramsay-recipe.com
Servings: 30 • Size: 3 cookies • Old Points: 0 pts • Points+: 1
Calories: 21 • Fat: 0 g • Carb: 5 g • Fiber: 0 g • Protein: 0.5 g • Sugar: 5 g
Sodium: 6 mg

Ingredients:

    • 3 large egg whites
    • 3/4 cup sugar
    • 1 drop peppermint concentrate or 1/2 tsp pure peppermint extract
    • Red gel-paste food coloring

Directions:

Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Fit a pastry bag with a small open-star tip (such as Wilton M1). Set aside.

Place egg whites and sugar in the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water, and stir gently until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch, 2 to 3 minutes.

Transfer bowl to an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Mix in peppermint concentrate.

Using a new small paintbrush, paint 2 or 3 stripes of red food coloring inside the pastry bag. Fill bag with 1 to 2 cups meringue. Pipe small (3/4-inch-high) star shapes onto prepared baking sheets. Refill bag as necessary, adding food coloring each time.

Bake cookies until crisp but not brown, about 1 hour 40 minutes. Shut the oven off and leave in the oven for 30 minutes. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks then place in a sealed container.

Makes 90 – 100 small cookies.

Adapted from Martha Stewart^[7]

References

^{^} Chocolate Chip Clouds (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
^{^} Black and White Clouds (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
^{^} To Die For Coconut Cookies (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
^{^} skinny cookie recipes (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
^{^} click here (www.gordon-ramsay-recipe.com)
^{^} Glad’s Mom Made Cookie Exchange program here (r1.fmpub.net)
^{^} Martha Stewart (www.marthastewart.com)

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Date bread

If this looks familiar, it’s because it is almost identical in every way to a Banana Bread For Dory (q.v.) but it uses dates instead of bananas.

I wanted to try this out because my friend Becky B brought over a sticky date cake the other day and it reminded me of the packet of dates in the larder I had been meaning to use to make a sticky toffee pudding, but have never quite found the excuse for.

It’s also because I do LOVE that banana bread recipe but quite often don’t find I have quite the right number of overripe bananas to justify it. So I wondered if it was possible with dates. And it is! It is still a sort of date bread, rather than a cake, because it’s not especially sweet, which I think is a good thing. You could definitely spread this with butter, for example. Like all cakey/breads that are not a sponge, this keeps very well in tupperware for a few days.

Becky B did a terribly clever thing with HER date cake, which was to soak it, in the manner of a lemon drizzle cake, with a caramel sauce that she bought from Waitrose – it was Bonne Maman, she said: “Confiture de Caramel”. She thinned it with some hot water, pricked the cake all over with a skewer and then went MAD with the sauce. It was really, really fab. My mother always says that things that other people have made for you are always more delicious than something you have made yourself, but still – Becky B is a terrific cook.

You can also make your own caramel sauce if you are that sort of person – there is a recipe somewhere on here, have a rummage.

So here we go

Date bread

150 veg oil
200g dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
250g dates
75g natural yoghurt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
225g wholemeal spelt flour (get it from Waitrose)
2 tbs caster sugar or cane sugar

1 Pre-heat your oven to 170C and butter a 2lb loaf tin and line it (YES you must do this, don’t be lazy) and line a baking sheet, too.

1 In a bowl whisk together the oil, sugar, vanilla and eggs

2 Chop up the dates roughly then put them in a bowl and pour over boiling water to just cover them. Leave them to soak for 20 mins then drain them and sort of gently mash them through the sieve to get out most of the water.

3 Add the youghurt to the dates and mix together. Sprinkle over the bicarb of soda, baking powder, and salt and stir again.

4 Mix the date mixture and the sugar/egg mixture together. Then sprinkle over the flour and stir until things are only just combined. Over-mixing is disastrous here so stop as soon as you can’t see any more flour. Spoon the batter into your smugly-lined tin.

5 Sprinkle some sugar – caster, cane or granulated -down the spine of the loaf and then put in the oven.

7 Bake for 45-50 mins.

HOW is Kitty, people say to me. How is she, how is she? I don’t talk about her that much any more because she is just off my hands. She turns two in February but she has been off since she turned 18 months old and could walk, talk, ask for things, watch tv, sit and draw or look at her books, play imaginary games with her stuffed animals, scoot around the kitchen on her little trike and so on. She is an actual person these days and it’s such a relief, I can’t tell you.

When I look back on some of the darker things I wrote when she was small I feel awful, so guilty. But it must have been bad for me to write those things, it must have been like that. She’s now this little chattering pixie, everyone wants a piece of her, everyone wants a smile and to hear her squeak “I’m knackered!” – her first party trick.

I used to dread her waking up in the night – the thought of it made me feel actually sick with anxiety. Now sometimes I wake in the night and hope that she might wake, too and need me. But she never does.

Here is a picture of Kitty with her bunny, her hair a bit wild from her nap. Note how she is gripping the bunny quite hard round the neck – I think she is trying to get him to tell her where the chocolate is. I can get pictures printed on t-shirts, mugs, bags and mousemats for a small fee if anyone is interested?

Though I can see the benefits of babies, I suppose. They are not constantly after your iPad and whatever it is that you are eating. And they don’t have a massive fucking tantrum when you try to stop them from doing incredibly dangerous things.