Chocolate Shortbread Valentine Cookies

I love Valentine's Day! So fun! So much prettiness and love and sugar!  I have written about my adoration of this holiday in years past and have shared some of my favorite traditions, recipes and treats 

HERE and HERE and HERE 

So, I will refrain from repeating myself and will make this a short post.  

In my home (and my home growing up) Valentine's was a fun holiday not a romantic, "Hallmark", pressure-filled holiday.  It's a day to say "I LOVE YOU" to people you adore- friends, family, co-workers, neighbors.  

Heart garland- fun to make and have love draping from your ceiling! My
friend Connie made this one for me several birthdays ago and I
bring it out each year!

Valentine BINGO played with conversation hearts

Meringue Cookies- heart shaped! 

I usually make heart cut out cookies because they are so pretty and delicious and lovely.  Hearts are my favorite cookie cutter shape and the easiest to frost, in my opinion. 

 I sometimes make sugar cookies or these linzer shortbread cookies.

If you are more in the chocolate mood, these chocolate shortbread cookies are a treat!  

They are soft and like a thin brownie!  

The dough is just a few ingredients that you mix together.

They are easy and fun to ice.

After a bit of refrigeration, the dough is easy to cut out.

Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

from Everyday Food- Martha Stewart

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  With an electric mixer, beat butter until creamy.  Add flour, sugar and cocoa; mix just until combined.  (Chill dough in refrigerator for 10 minutes or more…if you chill it for longer, set out to soften a bit before rolling as it becomes hard in the refrigerator with all of that butter!)

Pat dough onto a flat surface and roll out (using a dusting of powdered sugar or flour to keep from sticking). Cut with cookie cutter into hearts (or desired shape). Place on cookie sheet (I line mine with parchment for easy clean up and no sticking). Bake 10-12 minutes until firm but not crispy.  

Cool completely and then frost as you wish. (See below for ideas)

1. Ice with a simple glaze-

I scooped 1/2 cup powdered sugar, a heaping Tbsp cocoa powder, a few drops of vanilla extract in a small bowl, stirred and added drops of water until it was smooth and thin, but not too thin. Spread on cookies with a spoon.  Add sprinkles while they are still wet.

Or

2.  Melt melting chocolate wafers (I use the Ghirardelli brand) and dip the cookies (half or entire cookie) adding sprinkles while still wet.  

Or

3.  I had some buttercream frosting left over from making a Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake and decided to make sandwich cookies (inspired by the double-doozie cookies at the cookie store)

I think the key is frosting them in a way that makes them easy to stack and package for giving away! The sprinkles provide a nice barrier to cookies which keep them from sticking to each other. 

Bake some lovely goodies, write a kind note, make something pretty, bring warmth to this wintry month, share your adoration with someone! 

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

We just had our fall Social Work department dinner last weekend. As we were signing up for what we would bring, I pleased to see that Debbie signed up for her Pumpkin Cake.  It wouldn't be the fall supper without it.  It is a tradition.  It is so delicious.  It's the most moist, perfectly pumpkin, slightly cinnamon-y cake with lick-your-fork cream cheese frosting.  I anticipate it every time.  I had never tried to make it myself…until this week. What was I thinking?

When I asked her for the recipe to the cake she recited the ingredients and proportions.  I was impressed.  When I asked her for specific directions for making the cake she replied, "You make it like you make a cake! You know: cream the first few ingredients, add the dry, just make a cake."   Debbie is a no-nonsense woman.  She is practical, intentional, and wise.

She always brings the unfrosted cake, along with a container of cream cheese frosting already prepared and frosts it on location.  How smart is that? No worrying about the frosting getting messed up, or the cake getting smashed in transit. (This cake doesn't require the "melding" time of having the frosting on for a day or so because this cake is so moist.)

After frosting the cake she handed the bowl to my husband for licking clean,  knowing his intense love for cream cheese frosting.  She just knows.  I'm telling you, the woman is wise. (This post was another day she spoke wisdom in my life that I wrote about.)

After eating a slice on Friday night, and wishing for another slice, I decided to make it as soon as I could buy a can of pumpkin at the store this week.  Lucy and I made it together and I told her my plan was to send a slice to each of the kids' teachers.  That way I could bless the teachers and restrict my eating of it to a couple of slices!  I knew I would whittle away with a slice here, and a bite there, and a fork-full here all week if I didn't ship it off.  

Lucy and I made the cake.  It is really fast to put together.  Yesterday I sliced pieces and put a "Happy Fall! We are thankful for you! love, The Hunts" post it notes on the containers.  My kids took them to their teachers.  Hopefully they felt the love and gratitude we tried to channel into the cake!

This recipe is so simple, it's hard to believe.  It is so good.  

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

from Debbie Simpler

1 cup canola oil

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 can pureed pumpkin

2 cups flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350˚.

Place oil, eggs, and sugar in mixing bowl.  Blend well.  Add pumpkin.  Blend well.  Add dry ingredients.  Mix thoroughly. 

Grease and flour Bundt pan (or use my favorite- Baker’s Joy)

Pour batter into pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes depending on your oven.

Test for doneness with toothpick.  It should come out clean.

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes.

Using a table knife shimmy around the edges.

Turn cake out onto cooling rack. 

Cool well.

In the meantime make the frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz. block cream cheese, softened

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

4 cups of powdered sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix together the cream cheese and butter until thoroughly blended. 

Add powdered sugar.  Mix until smooth.  Add vanilla. 

When cake is cooled frost cake.

 

 If you are excited about Pumpkin season, check out these Pumpkin Muffins, or this Pumpkin Syrup for Coffee, or these Pumpkin Whoopie Pies that I wrote about in years past.  And if you have a Trader Joe's in your city, just walk in the door and you will be inspired- pumpkin butter, and breakfast  bars, pumpkin bread mix, herbal tea, and pumpkin cranberry scone mix. Of course I couldn't resist buying several of these items.  

I hope you can find a reason to make a Pumpkin Cake (or two) this season! 

 

Easter Treats

I love Easter treats.   Easter candy is my favorite holiday candy! It’s pretty and pastel and chocolatey too.   Jelly beans, sweet tarts, chocolate bunnies, peeps, chicks and bunnies, Cadbury cream eggs, robin eggs (Whoppers but candy coated and speckled), chocolate dipped coconut and peanut butter eggs, just to name a few.  The list goes on and on.  Cadbury mini eggs are at the top of my list.  (In case you don't know these: they are really yummy chocolate "eggs" coated with a candy shell.  The shell is matte, which for some reason is a lovely feature. ) 

I have been thinking about coconut nests and wishing that I could make some coconut macaroons in nest-shape, holding these Cadbury eggs for Easter.  I tried a few recipes and, after 3 batches and lots of coconut-eating, I think I got what I was hoping for and am ready to share the recipe with you.  

The nest: I tried a couple of different nest recipes, because the first ones I made felt a little goopy and they oozed some condensed milk when cooking - which made them stick to the parchment, ugggh.

see the ooze?

So, I tried more coconut, which worked somewhat but then I found a recipe that was similar but called for an egg white.  I liked it better and the egg white seemed to bind it together.  It's such a simple recipe and so lovely.

The chocolate: I tried a variety of methods of adding chocolate and here’s what I discovered: 

IDEA 1: I tried some with the bottom dipped in melted semi-sweet chocolate 

RESULT: they were delicious but the mini chocolate eggs fell out at times and the chocolate melted in your hands (as the chocolate was a little tacky to the touch) 

IDEA 2: I tried some with a tiny smear of melted chocolate in the nest to secure the eggs

RESULT: without the bottom dipped, they didn’t feel chocolately enough. However, they solved the problem with the eggs falling out.

IDEA 3: I tried some with a big blob of melted chocolate in the nest to secure the eggs

RESULT: they didn’t mess up your hands, the eggs stayed in, but the one complaint I got from my testers was that candy eggs were “stuck” in the chocolate and you couldn’t lift them out to eat (they had to be eaten with the nest).

IDEA 4: So, I thought maybe ganache instead of melted chocolate would solve that issue, as it doesn't harden.  I added some cream to the chocolate and made a small batch of ganache and filled the nest with that before placing the eggs

RESULT: the eggs were removable, the chocolate was yummy and no chocolate got on your hands. I think it's the winner.

(If you want to go without chocolate, I tried some plain and filled with jelly beans. These are cute and fun for non-chocolate people, but the jelly beans easily fall out in transportation. So be prepared.

Also, I saw a recipe with Nutella filling the nest.  I know Nutella is all the rage, but I really prefer to stick to the semi-sweet chocolate.  But if it's your crave, then I think it would work well). 

The ganache

So…here it is.

   It is really so simple and yet so lovely and festive! 

Coconut Macaroon Nests

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

1 large egg white

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/8 tsp. salt

4 cups sweetened coconut

1 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup heavy cream

egg shaped candy

Preheat oven to 325 ˚. Line a baking sheet with parchment. 

In a large bowl, stir together sweetened condensed milk, egg white, vanilla extract, and salt.  Stir until combined.  Add in the coconut and mix well.

Scoop batter in 2 Tbsp portions on prepared pan.  Form the cookies into the shape of the bird nest.  Make sure your well is deep and the edges are high.  Press down the center with your thumb.

Bake cookies for 12 minutes or until they become slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and press the center of the nests again.  Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes until set.  Remove with spatula. 

Meanwhile, make the ganache by mixing the chocolate chips and cream in a microwave safe bowl.  Stir together and cook in microwave at 30 second increments, stirring in between until fully melted and well mixed.  (If it seems too thick, add a tad more cream, if too thin, then add more chocolate chips). 

Place a spoonful of the ganache in the nests and place a few candy eggs on top.  

Let set.  (If you want to speed this along, you may refrigerate them). 

These can be made and stored in an airtight container for 3 days or so.  

Makes about 12 nests. 

simply stir together the few ingredients

and make piles with DEEP nests 

hands are necessary

You want them to be well built nests, so that they are deep enough, have high enough walls, and yet messy enough that they look like nests.  [Think of the way people are styling their hair with "messy buns".  It's that natural, organic, and intentionally free form.] Like-a-bird-built-it style / not a mass-produced-with-a-cookie-cutter style.  

bake til dry and toasty. 

I put a couple in little bags to take to Lucy's teachers today for a Spring Break "happy".

IF YOU DON'T LIKE COCONUT AND ARE DISINTERESTED in Coconut Nests...what about this??

 I know some people abhor Peeps.  I like them. I admit it. I especially like when the package has been opened and they get a little stale.  

Yes, I know they are just fluffed up sugar, dipped in sugar.  But they are PEEPs! And they are an Easter tradition.  

At Target today, Asher and I saw this crazy gimmick: a lollypop-o-peeps! 4 peeps stacked together on a stick.  A little insane.

Last year my kids and I dipped some peeps in chocolate.  Even better than peeps, we decided, were chocolate-dipped peeps!

We just melted some chocolate chips and dipped the peeps in and let them dry until hardened. 

some family members got a little out of hand with the dipping

IF YOU ARE NOT INTO COCONUT AND REPULSED AT PEEPS...how about Growing Spring Grass for a centerpiece??

We also did a really fun and SUPRISINGLY successful planting of a patch of Spring grass last week.  My mom told me about doing this and asked if we wanted to try.  She gave us some wheat grass seed that she bought at a health food store.  We soaked them in a bowl of water overnight and then the next day we planted it.  We filled a tray with potting soil.

We generously spread seed over the entire surface, in a concentrated manner. 

We covered it with a thin layer of soil and watered it.

and in 7 days, look what we got!

In one week we got a crop of very fun, very green grass! We are going to put some eggs in it once we dye eggs this week for a springy decoration.  (We might have to mow it with some clippers soon).








 

I am starting to plan my Easter Lunch for our hodge podge of people, as is our tradition.  

If you have ideas of what you are cooking for an Easter feast, share your ideas! I'd love to hear!

A Legacy of Heritage Gifts, Ham Balls and So Much More

Ruth Williams was my paternal grandmother. She was a classy lady.  She did things with style.  My mom credits her (her mother-in-law) for teaching her to celebrate the holidays with intentionality and creativity. My grandmother had some great traditions. One of them was what she called "heritage gifts".  As they were down-sizing in their later years, my grandparents started handing things down to us.  The lovely approach they took was to select things of theirs that they no longer wanted, needed,  or they no longer had room for, in their smaller condo. They would then decide who was the best recipient of these items and then she would type (on her typewriter) a fun note to go along with the gift, explaining the origin of the gift, the story behind it, and why it was being given to that particular person. I loved that it was a creative, intentional way to clean out the attic, and endow people with their "treasures". (Granted, some were more treasured than others).

Another gift she passed along was Ham Balls. Never in my life have I ever been served a ham ball outside of my grandmother's or my mother's home. Yet they are a favorite special savory treat.  When my parents got married, my dad brought a few recipes into the marriage hoping my mom would adopt into their new home and this was one of them.  They are meatballs, but made of a pork/ham combination baked in a sweet and tart glaze.  My grandmother made them many times when we would travel to see them.  We would arrive at dinner time and en route we would "guess" whether or not we would have ham balls for dinner. And most all of the time we did!

Ham Balls
1 1/4 lb. ground ham
1 1/4 lb. ground pork
2 cups plain bread crumbs
2 eggs, well-beaten
1/2 cup milk, or more if needed

Glaze:
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water

Mix meat together with spoon. Add bread crumbs eggs and milk. Mix thoroughly. Roll into balls. In a bowl mix together sauce ingredients until sugar is dissolved.  Place ham balls in shallow pan, pour sauce over. Bake at 325˚ for 30 minutes, or until fully baked and have a nice firm edge.

Raw ham balls may be frozen and used a few at a time.
Yields about 50 balls.


*I only had 1 cup of plain bread crumbs when I made the recipe, so I made the second cup by toasting some whole wheat bread and crumbing it in the food processor.

I made them this week, so that I could make sure I had the recipe clear before posting them, and to get some photos. My family was so excited.  I told Dave I felt like I was channeling my grandmother, and should be wearing pumps, a silk dress and my apron as I made this dinner instead of the yoga pants and hoodie I had on. It was a very "Ruth" meal. If only I had made a congealed salad to go with it (served on a lettuce leaf on a salad plate)!

My family LOVES ham balls. They have really great flavor and it's fun to have something different! It makes 50 or more, so you can freeze some of them to bake at a later time.

Woohoo! The Publix butcher took care of me.

My mom had warned me that the trick of this recipe is that you have to have a butcher at the grocery grind the ham, as ground ham is not usually readily available. Some butchers won't do this because of the risk of contamination with their grinders.  I went to Publix, as my first stop, and they were super helpful and had the meat ground, packaged, and ready for me in just a few minutes. He said they have a separate grinder for speciality meats and since ham is fully cooked and bought in the store, it is not a contamination risk. The ground pork is already ground and prepackaged in our grocery.

I think Ham Balls are best served with mashed potatoes. My grandmother's baked mashed potatoes with cream cheese are my favorite mashed potatoes. (Of course, how could they not be: potatoes with butter and cream cheese).


Baked Mashed Potatoes (or Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes)
10 medium potatoes, peeled and boiled
1 stick butter
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 Tbsp. grated onion (or I used 1 tsp. dried, minced onion)
1 cup milk, heated
8 oz. cream cheese (at room temperature)

Whip potatoes in butter.  Add remaining ingredients and best until fluffy. (Add more milk if needed). Place in buttered casserole.  Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Stir once while baking. (May be prepared a day in advance and baked before serving.)

This photo does not do these potatoes justice.
 Trust me on this , they are incredible.

Another gift my grandmother passed along was the idea of tins of goodies filled with baked goods- candies and cookies for the holidays: divinity, peanut brittle, popcorn crunch, fudge. My mom joined this tradition and added chocolate dipped coconut squares, buckeyes, pralines, and one of my very favorites: sand tarts.  My mom got this recipe from the Helen Corbitt cookbook of Neiman Marcus. Some people call them Mexican Wedding Cookies, some Pecan Sandies. They are basically butter, pecans, and powdered sugar -  shortbread-like. They keep really well for more days than many cookies, which is a bonus during the holidays.  They are simple to make and yummy! If you like butter, pecans and powdered sugar, that is.

Sand Tarts
2 sticks butter (softened)
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
2 cups sifted cake flour
1 cup chopped pecans
1 tsp. vanilla
Cream butter, add sugar, stir well and add flour, nuts, and vanilla.  Shape into balls or crescents and bake on ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper at 325˚ for 20 minutes or until a light brown.  Roll in powdered sugar while warm.

(They keep in a closed container for a couple of weeks.)

This week approaching Christmas, I savor my heritage, all of my dear grandparents, the things I learned from them, including: great recipes, thoughtful traditions and loving me so generously.