Scotch Kisses
Throughout my life, See’s Candy has always shown up at special occasions. Birthdays, Christmas, Easter… certain holidays just wouldn’t be complete without something from the little white and black colored store. There were many favorites – polar bear claws, scotchmallows, bordeaux, raspberry truffles (my mom’s all-time favorite) – but for us three kids, there was one candy that stood above all the rest. Scotch Kisses.
Something about the See’s caramel just makes me melt. I’ve never found the same sort of soft, buttery, perfect caramels anywhere else. And then the marshmallow, well, how can you go wrong with that? To me, it’s a perfect combination.
So when I made this caramel recipe and discovered that it tasted almost exactly like the See’s caramels, well. I was ecstatic. And I knew exactly how I was going to use it. I already had some marshmallow made (left over from these), so it was easy as can be to make some quick scotch kisses! With the leftover caramel, I just wrapped pieces in wax paper in a similar way… delicious. Irresistible.
Plain Caramel
Ingredients
Cooking Directions
- Cut wax paper into 4×4″ squares.
- Using a pair of clean scissors, cut the marshmallows into 1/2″-1″ squares.
- Using a spoon, scoop about a tablespoon of caramel. Place in the top-center of the wax paper.
- Spread the caramel on the wax paper, so it is flattened and reaches from almost the top of the wax paper to between a third and half of the way down. There should be at least an inch of uncovered paper on each side of the caramel.
- Place a piece of marshmallow in the center of the caramel.
- Tightly roll the paper toward you, so the caramel surrounds the marshmallow.
- When the paper is completely rolled up, twist each end tightly right next to the caramel (but not too tightly, or the paper will tear).
- Repeat until you have used up the caramel.
- Enjoy!
Artichokes
This month’s Daring Cook’s challenge was Rice with Mushrooms, Cuttlefish, and Artichokes, picked by Olga of Olga’s Recipes. It sounded delicious – exactly the kind of dish that Son would love. I intended to make it just as written, except… cuttlefish isn’t exactly sustainable. Thus, a no-no for me. Besides, Whole Foods didn’t have cuttlefish… OR squid. And I was in a bit of a hurry, since I’ve been traveling most of the month. So then I figure, hey, I’ve got shrimp in the freezer! I’ll use that! Except… I didn’t. So instead, I went with sausage that I had at home, being in a hurry and all.
But otherwise, the recipe went exactly as planned. Making the allioli was quite a workout (okay, so I’ve got wimpy arms)… oh man, was I feeling it. And holy cow, is that stuff garlicky! Even Son, king of all things garlic, couldn’t eat more than a small dollop mixed into a serving of the dish.
As for that picture of the artichokes up there… well, I just couldn’t let all those beautiful artichoke leaves go to waste! So I microwaved them just like mom always used to, and ate them with melted butter like we did as kids. And THEN cleaned them for the dish. Yum.
The dish itself? Delicious. Son and I both had seconds (and maybe even thirds!) Then we ended up giving the leftovers to my dad, but ONLY because we were leaving the next day and didn’t want it going to waste, sitting in our fridge for a week. But man, was it good. And the sausage? (Pineapple and bacon sausage, from Costco, if you were wondering.) Oh man. Did it complement the dish wonderfully. A successful accident, if I do say so myself!
Rice with Mushrooms, Sausage, and Artichokes
Ingredients
- 4 artichokes (you can use jarred or freezed if fresh are not available)
- 12 button or Portobello mushrooms
- 1 or 2 bay leaves (optional)
- 1/3 cup white wine
- 6 sausages
- 2-3 tbsp sofregit (recipe follows)
- 2 cups short grain rice
- 6 cups water or fish stock (I used vegetable stock)
- 1 pinch saffron threads
- allioli (recipe follows)
Cooking Directions
- Cut the sausage into thin slices (about 1 cm thick).
- Add 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and put the sausage in the pan.
- If you use fresh artichokes, clean them as shown in this video. Cut artichokes in eights.
- Clean the mushrooms and cut them in fourths.
- Add a bay leaf to the sausage. Add the artichokes and the mushrooms.
- Sauté the artichokes until you get .
- Add the white wine so all the solids in the bottom of the get mixed, getting a more flavorful dish.
- Add 2-3 tablespoons of sofregit and mix to make sure everything gets impregnated with the sofregit.
- Add all the liquid and bring it to boil.
- Add all the rice. Let boil for about 5 minutes in heavy heat.
- Add some saffron thread to enrich the dish with its flavor and color. Stir a little bit so the rice and the other ingredients get the entire flavor. If you’re using turmeric or yellow coloring instead, use only 1/4 teaspoon.
- Turn to low heat and boil for another 8 minutes (or until rice is a little softer than “al dente”).
- Put the pan away from heat and let the rice stand a couple of minutes.
Sofregit – Ingredients
- 2 tbsp of olive oil
- 5 big red ripe tomatoes, chopped
- 2 small onions, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
- 4 or 5 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1 cup of button or Portobello mushrooms, chopped (optional)
- 1 bay leaf
- salt
- a touch of ground cumin
- a touch of dried oregano
Sofregit – Cooking Directions
- Put all the ingredients together in a frying pan and sauté slowly until all vegetables are soft.
- Taste and salt if necessary.
Allioli – Ingredients
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled
- a pinch of salt
- a few drops of fresh lemon juice
- extra-virgin olive oil
Allioli – Cooking Directions
- Place the garlic in a mortar along with the salt.
- Using a pestle, smash the garlic cloves to a smooth paste. (The salt stops the garlic from slipping at the bottom of the mortar as you pound it down.)
- Add the lemon juice to the garlic.
- Drop by drop; pour the olive oil into the mortar slowly as you continue to crush the paste with your pestle.
- Keep turning your pestle in a slow, continuous circular motion in the mortar. The drip of olive oil needs to be slow and steady. Make sure the paste soaks up the olive oil as you go.
- Keep adding the oil, drop by drop, until you have the consistency of a very thick mayonnaise. If your allioli gets too dense, add water to thin it out. This takes time—around 20 minutes of slow motion around the mortar—to create a dense, rich sauce.
Milan Cookies
The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.
The cookies are terribly addictive
Milan(o) cookies have always been a staple at my house. Growing up, we always had one of those bags, with the five cookies in each paper cup, sitting in our pantry. Since I associate them with my family, it’s no wonder that the moment I saw this Daring Baker’s challenge I knew I had to make them for them. And since the 4th of July was coming up… well, that was a perfectly fine excuse for me.
These cookies… they’re addictive. Consider yourself forewarned. I must have eaten 20 of the cookies just by themselves, snitching one from the baking sheet every time I walked past – before I even made the filling. Oh man. They’re good. Thin, crispy, with a citrusy sweetness that won’t let you eat just one. These were definitely a success in my book.
And who doesn’t like a filling of chocolate?
Ingredients
- 12 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
- 2 1/2 c powdered sugar
- 6 egg whites
- 2 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp lemon extract
- 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
- 1/2 c heavy cream
- 8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
- the zest of 1 orange
Cooking Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Cream the butter and the sugar.
- Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
- Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
- With a small (1/4-inch) plain pastry tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread. (And they WILL spread.)
- Bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
- While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald the cream.
- Pour the hot cream over the chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
- Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
- Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
- Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.
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Mallow cookies
The July Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.
So maybe my marshmallows ended up a little lumpy…
There is no other cookie I associate with my mother more than mallow cookies. For Christmas, Mother’s Day, her birthday… she would always get at least one box of chocolates (usually See’s), and a package of Marshmallow Pinwheels (like these mallow cookies). So it was no wonder when I saw that these were one half of this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge, I instantly thought, “I have to make these for mom.”
Making these was… a bit of an adventure. Not in a bad way… or at least, not too much. Instead of the predicted 2 dozen cookies, I got… 200. Heh. And then my marshmallows refused to firm up, even when I used a different recipe… so I put them in the refrigerator and they firmed up a little too much. Oops. So instead of pretty little marshmallow cookies, my marshmallows ended up a bit lumpier than I would have preferred. And I had a whole extra batch of marshmallows to eat (woe is me!). To top it all off, the chocolate coating refused to set. So I had to keep them in the refrigerator, lest the coating melt and get all over everything.
Cookies 3, Allison 0.
So I brought the refrigerated, lumpy mallows to my family’s 4th of July celebration (along with the milan cookies that I’ll post later today). Within a minute of trying the first one, my mom had eaten… five. Yep, you heard me right. And then she stuck them back in the fridge so she wouldn’t finish the whole container of them in one sitting. I would certainly consider that a success, wouldn’t you agree?
My mom made us take some of the cookies back home, so she wouldn’t eat them all. Because somehow, I don’t think she would have had any problem finishing all two hundred cookies, if we had left them there. So we took about a third of them back home… and I made Son take them to his coworkers. Who very much enjoyed them.
I win.
… but they were still really, very good.
Ingredients
- 3 c all-purpose flour
- 1/2 c sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking powder
- 3/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 12 tbsp unsalted butter
- 3 eggs, whisked together
- 1/4 c water
- 1/4 c light corn syrup
- 3/4 c sugar
- 1 tbsp powdered gelatin
- 2 tbsp cold water
- 2 egg whites, room temperature
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 12 oz semisweet chocolate
- 2 oz cocoa butter or vegetable oil
Cooking Directions
- In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the flour, 1/2 c sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
- On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.
- Add the eggs and mix until combined.
- Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 3 days.
- When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inche cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.
- Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
- In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and 3/4 c sugar, and bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage or 235°F on a candy thermometer.
- Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.
- Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.
- Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.
- Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
- Transfer to a pastry bag.
- Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.
- Melt the chocolate and cocoa butter together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water.
- Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.
- One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.
- Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.
- Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.
Note: if you don’t want to make your own marshmallows, you can cut a large marshmallow in half and place on the cookie base. Heat in a preheated 350°F oven to slump the marshmallow slightly, it will expand and brown a little. Let cool, then proceed with the chocolate dipping.
Pecan Pie Macarons
Every now and then, I come across a food that simply intrigues me. One that I’ve never had before, but that people often talk about and I think I would like to try it, even if people don’t always like said food. One such food was brussels sprouts (which I tried for the first time earlier this year and discovered I quite enjoy them.) Another was macarons. Not that you can blame me. After seeing them so often on Helene’s blog and on other food blogs around the internet, I just had to know what this new, fascinating dessert that I had never seen before tasted like.
So they’re not the prettiest macarons…
So, on a whim, I baked up a batch. Well, not quite on a whim. I didn’t actually get around to baking them until a week after I decided I wanted to… at first I had no almonds, then I had no time, and then… well. Here they are.
Now, you know how people always proclaim this chocolate chip cookie, or that chocolate cake, or whatever it is that they’re writing about is “better than sex”? I always thought that was silly. I mean, chocolate cake is great, but I’ve never had a slice that’s quite that amazing. But these macarons… oh man. The first bite… heaven. The second… euphoria. The third… well, we needn’t go there. Better than sex? Well, I wouldn’t say that. Erm, not that I would… uh… know anything about that. *blush* But… er… in the case that I did know anything about that sort of thing… I’d say these are pretty darn close. By far the best cookies (or cookie-type baked goods) that I’ve ever had.
…but with that oooey gooey caramel…
Here’s the recipe, which I slightly adapted from Tartelette’s Pecan Pie Macarons.
Mine didn’t turn out nearly as pretty as hers did. I have a feeling I might have piped the macarons too thickly on the parchment paper, so when baking they may have risen too much and then fallen over so they ended up lopsided. I also opted to leave out the pecan brittle. But they still tasted great, and I would make them again without hesitation.
…they’re the best cookies I’ve ever had.
Ingredients
- 3 egg whites (about 90 g)
- 40 g granulated sugar
- 200 g powdered sugar
- 55 g almonds
- 55 g pecans
- 240 g sugar
- 80 ml water
- 115 g salted butter
- 150 ml heavy whipping cream
Cooking Directions
- The day before (24hrs), separate your eggs and store the whites at room temperature in a covered container. If you want to use 48hrs (or more) egg whites, you can store them in the fridge.
- In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam. Gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue. Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry.
- Combine the almonds, pecans and powdered sugar in a food processor and give them a good pulse until the nuts are finely ground.
- Add them to the meringue, give it a quick fold to break some of the air and then fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that flows like magma or a thick ribbon. Give quick strokes at first to break the mass and slow down.The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Test a small amount on a plate: if the tops flattens on its own you are good to go. If there is a small beak, give the batter a couple of turns.
- Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (Ateco #807 or #809) or a ziplock bag with one tip cut off with the batter and pipe small rounds (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper lined baking sheets.
- Preheat the oven to 300°F.
- Let the macarons sit out for 30 minutes to an hour to harden their shells a bit and bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool.
- If you have trouble removing the shells, pour a couple of drops of water under the parchment paper while the sheet is still a bit warm and the macarons will lift up more easily do to the moisture. Don’t let them sit there in it too long or they will become soggy. Once baked and if you are not using them right away, store them in an airtight container out of the fridge for a couple of days or in the freezer.
- In a heavy saucepan set over low heat, combine the sugar and water and heat just until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add the butter. Let it come to a boil and cook until it reaches a golden caramel color.
- Remove from the heat and add the cream (it will splatter, but that’s okay). Whisk to combine and put back on the stove. Let it come to a boil again over low heat and cook 10-15 minutes until you reach a nice creamy consistency.
- Refrigerate for a little while before spreading the caramel onto the shells, so it doesn’t ooze out when you press the shells together. (If it’s too hard when you take it out from the refrigerator, just let it sit at room temperature for a little while until it’s at the right consistency.)
- Place about a tablespoon of sauce on one shell, then top with a similarly-shaped shell. Repeat with all remaining shells. Makes about 20.
