Your Custom Text Here
In general, coconut macaroons are not what would be considered a "cute" cookie.
But that's about to change: introducing the Christmas Tree Coconut Macaroon!
These sweet little somethings are rendered adorable simply by tinting the coconut with green food coloring and then decorating with sprinkles and writing icing post-baking. They're fun and easy to make, sweet to eat, and it's a very child-friendly baking project to boot!
Berlinerkranser!Thanksgiving's over, and you know what that means: it's Holiday Cookie Season. Here's a baker's dozen of some of my favorite cookie recipes to start the season off with a sugary sparkle.
Snowy Snickerdoodles!
Mint Chocolate Chip Whoopie Pies!
Candy Cane Cookies!
Cinnamon Stars from Bredenbeck's Bakery!
Mint Candy Butter Cookies!
Homemade Thin Mints!
Peppernuts!
Eggnog Nanaimo Bars!
Moldy Mice!
Jan Hagel!
Peppermint Nanaimo Bars!
Gingerbread Mad Men!...and of course, if you have leftovers, you could always make some cookie croutons! Happy Cookie Season, everyone!
CakeSpy Note: This is a guest post from Cake Gumshoe Jen, who lives in Annapolis, Md., just down the road from Baltimore, the home of National Bohemian beer -- or Natty Boh. She was inspired by the adorable man with the mustache to bake these Natty Boh cupcakes for her blog, Eat. Swim. Shop.
If you’re not from the mid-Atlantic, you may not be familiar with National Bohemian beer — or Natty Boh.
Natty Boh has a long history in Baltimore, and while it’s not brewed in the Charm City anymore, many people consider it Baltimore’s beer. And the super cute one-eyed mascot, Mr. Boh, still winks at everyone from the top of Brewers Hill. So when I decided to bake some beer cupcakes in honor of Baltimore Beer Week, I had to use Natty Boh.
I am not a beer person, but Natty Boh tastes a little like Corona to me. So I thought lime zest would work well with the beer in the batter.
I didn’t whip the egg yolks long enough because I’m impatient. But the cupcakes will be even spongier if you do. So you should.
Don’t be scared by the beer in the batter. The cupcakes just have a slight hint of Natty Boh flavor (and scent), but it’s really nice. I put a little bit of beer in the frosting, too, but you don’t have to.
FYI, it’s probably a good idea to make sure you have enough powdered sugar to make frosting before you start making the frosting… especially if it’s 11 p.m. and your neighbors are asleep.
Since these are Baltimore cupcakes, I used Duff/Charm City Cakes black fondant to make little Mr. Boh-esque mustaches. I just used a small sharp knife to cut the mustaches out, but you could make a stencil from parchment paper if you’d like. I also tried to do an eye, but it looked weird. Alas.
Of course, don't let the extra beer go to waste...
Here's the recipe.
Beer-lime cupcakes (Recipe adapted from a really old edition of the Joy of Cooking. Makes about 15 cupcakes)
Procedure
Beer-lime buttercream (makes just enough to frost 15-16 cupcakes, double recipe if you want to use a lot of frosting on each cupcake)
Procedure
Beat butter and 1 cup powdered sugar together until fluffy. Add beer, lime juice and lime zest and beat to combine. Add additional powdered sugar until frosting reaches desired consistency (or until you run out, like me).
Pudding pie is far more delicious when you make it with melted ice cream. But it's even TASTIER when you add Baileys to the mix, as I did for their Friendsgiving campaign.
Pairing decadent, creamy Baileys with chocolate ice cream and pudding will yield possibly the most luxuriant chocolate cream pie filling you've ever tasted. The thick, velvety chocolate mixture falls somewhere between pudding pop and mousse in texture, which is so deeply, darkly, completely chocolaty in flavor that you won't want the slice to stop.
Note: As for the pie crust, the style used is up to you. I used a chocolate wafer cookie crust, but you could easily swap it out for a graham cracker or cookie crust if desired.
Baileys Ice Cream Pudding Pie
Procedure
1. In a large bowl, beat pudding mix and Baileys and melted ice cream with a whisk until fully combined (about 2 minutes).
2. Spoon mixture into your prepared pie crust (it will be rather thick). Using an offset spatula, smooth the filling so that it is evenly distributed.
3. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours to let set before eating. If desired, top with a dollop of whipped cream before serving.
Photo: Munchin with MunchkinCakeSpy Note: This is a guest post from Cake Gumshoe Christine, who blogs at Munchin with Munchkin! Let the NOM begin:
It can be difficult to decide on what to bring to Thanksgiving. Typically all the bases are covered, leaving gifts of alcohol or pie as your only options. If you want to share a unique treat with your loved ones try making this cranberry pistachio bark!
This is one of the easiest recipes I have ever posted and it only takes about 10 minutes total. The results are both delicious and pretty! Don’t expect to bring any leftovers home, this stuff disappears fast!
Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Bark
Also needed: wax paper
Procedure
It's a fact: Nanaimo Bars are delicious. They're a decadent no-bake treat named for the Canadian city in which they were invented, comprised of a chocolate-graham-coconut crust, a custard-buttercream middle, and a chocolate topping.
But they also dress up nicely for Thanksgiving, as proven in this chocolate-cranberry variation.
The Canadian classic takes a tart-but-sweet Thanksgiving turn by adding dried cranberries to each of the three layers. The resulting seasonal variation is bound to delight family and friends at Thanksgiving festivities and start the holiday cookie season off sweetly.
Gooey Butter Cake is the pride of St. Louis, MO and proof that sometimes a mistake in baking can lead to a beautiful new invention.
Now, for a long time I held the belief that “Gooey Butter Cake” was the most beautiful cake-name in the world, but now I know that it’s not true–the best one is Gooey Peanut Butter Cake.
This recipe is basically proof that a classic can sometimes get even better: adding White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter to both the crust and the filling adds a beautifully nutty note to this sweet, rich, and utterly indulgent treat.
Find the recipe I developed for Peanut Butter and Company on their website!
This cake may not redefine every thought you've ever had about cranberries, but it will turn them upside down--literally.
Swapping out cranberries for the classic pineapple in this upside-down cake yields a surprisingly pleasant result: the fresh berries, while still assertively tart, are pleasingly matched by a buttery, sweet cake and a brown sugar-butter topping. The sweet-tart taste has a few advantages: first, it makes it seem vaguely healthy and therefore perfect as a breakfast cake; second, the tartness of the cranberries is sublime when paired with the sweet contrast of a big scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
Good morning, everyone!
It being Wednesday morning and all, I thought I'd help you get through the day (and week) with a super sweet and slightly intoxicating idea: The Baileys Frothy!
I came up with this recipe as part of the Friendsgiving campaign I'm participating in courtesy Baileys.
This cocktail is the perfect way to kick off a party--inspired by the NYC classic, the Brooklyn Egg Cream, this frothy, sweet, nostalgic soda-fountain favorite is a wonderful way to kick off a festive evening.
Baileys Frothy
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup (u-bet is the best, if you can find it)
2 oz. Baileys, very cold
2 tablespoons milk, very cold
1/2 cup seltzer water (not club soda)
Pour the milk and Baileys in a tall (Collins) glass. Add the seltzer, and stir very gently. Add in the chocolate mixture very slowly, stirring with a tall spoon very gently, so that you disturb the foam as little as possible. You will end up with a 2-toned frothy drink, chocolaty on the bottom and frothy and light on top.
This recipe contains no more than 0.6 fl. oz. of alcohol per serving. Join Baileys on Facebook for more recipes and inspiration to throw your own.
It's time to combine two marvelous marshmallow-based recipes to form one delicious treat: the Candied Yam Rice Krispies Treat.
What's not to love about this seasonal mashup? Separately, both cereal treats and candied yam casseroles are delicious; both dishes rely on marshmallows for their sweet, signature taste. But the key to this combination is their contrasting crispy textures; when they come together, you're rewarded with a crispy-creamy-moist-and-chewy sort of marshmallow nirvana, sweetly spiced and perfect with hot chocolate or chai tea.
Totally sweet! In addition to my interview(s) with Morgan and Christy of Mini Empire Bakery, wherein we discuss their adorable new book Mini Pies: Adorable and Delicious Recipes for Your Favorite Treats
Sweetheart Cherry Pies
Procedure
Photo: Not Just SweetsCakeSpy Note: This delicious recipe comes from Cake Gumshoe Rachel, who writes the website Not Just Sweets.
My grandpa, whose family was from the Abruzzi region of Italy, believed in starting the day with his favorite breakfast: pizzelle cookies dunked in his morning coffee. He always kept an empty coffee tin filled with pizzelles by the front door so when friends or family walked in they could help themselves to a cookie. At least once a week we would make pizzelles using his recipe:
Pizzelles
Procedure
*If you prefer a more mild anise flavor, use 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon of anise extract. These cookies are easy to make and will stay fresh for 3 days in an airtight container. You can serve plain or sprinkle with powdered sugar or shape into ice cream cones and cups. Pizzelle irons are available online or at your local Williams-Sonoma store.
Photo courtesy of Ulysses Press; recipe reprinted with permission from Ice Cream Happy Hour (Ulysses Press).
Everyone knows that the happiest hour is one that involves ice cream...but what about when the weather gets cold and you want to keep toasty?
The natural solution is Eggnog. And now that it's after Halloween, I say "it's time." As the book says,
One of the joys of egg nog is that it seems so innocent, with its egg yolks and spiced cream, and yet it has an almost devilish side of dark rum and brandy. This ice cream is as rich as it is flavorful, and it has enough rum and brandy to keep you happy through the holidays. And like any good egg nog, freshly grated nutmeg adds a special touch.
Eggnog with Brandy and Rum
Ingredients
Makes about 1 quart
1. Scald the milk and cream with the salt; don’t add the sugar yet. Mix the milk, cream, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium low heat until the salt is dissolved. Continue heating until the mixture is steamy and makes a slight sizzling noise when you move the pan. This is called scalding.
2. Whisk the egg yolks and temper. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar and temper with ⅓ cup of the scalding milk mixture. Gently stream about one-third of the hot milk mixture into the eggs while whisking continuously. This is called tempering. It’s important to whisk while streaming the hot milk. If you just pour in the hot milk and then whisk, you may get scrambled eggs.
3. Thicken the custard over low heat. Pour the egg and milk mixture into the rest of the milk mixture in the saucepan and stir continuously on low heat with a heatproof spatula. Make sure you scrape the bottom evenly while you continuously stir. The custard is thick enough when you can draw a line on the back of the spoon with your finger and the line retains its shape.
4. Whisk in the vanilla extract and nutmeg.
5. Strain, cover, and chill the custard for at least 8 hours. Strain the custard through a fine-mesh strainer into a heatproof container. Cover with plastic wrap so that it’s directly touching the entire surface of the custard and none of it is exposed to air. This prevents a skin from developing. Transfer the container to an ice bath and let it cool for about 30 minutes to stop the cooking process. Transfer the container to the refrigerator. Chill until the custard is completely cold, at least 8 hours. Once the custard is completely cold…
6. Dissolve the gelatin in the cold water. When the custard is cold and you’re ready to churn the ice cream, dissolve the gelatin. Pour the water into a small saucepan or microwave-safe container and evenly sprinkle the gelatin on top. Allow to sit until the gelatin appears to have absorbed as much water as it can, about 2 minutes. This is called blooming. Gently warm over low heat and stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved into the liquid, about 3 minutes. If using a microwave, heat on medium power and check every 30 seconds until the gelatin is completely dissolved. The total time will depend on the microwave’s voltage.
Note: It’s important that the gelatin gets completely dissolved at this stage. Once the alcohol is mixed in, the gelatin denatures and will never fully dissolve. However, once the alcohol is added, clumps may form. This is fine since in most cases you strain the gelatin mixture before adding it to the custard. Do not try to reheat the gelatin mixture once you’ve added the alcohol; this will only denature the gelatin further, making it unable to solidify the ice cream, and it will also cook off the alcohol.
7. Spike the custard with the cold brandy, dark rum, and gelatin mixture. Refrigerate the alcohol until completely cold. Do not speed up the process by putting it in the freezer, which may make the gelatin set up too much before it is added to the custard. Pour the gelatin into a medium bowl and whisk in the cold alcohol until combined. Do not attempt to skip this step by pouring the alcohol directly into the saucepan or microwave-safe container with the gelatin. There might be enough residual heat to heat up the custard and prevent it from thickening in the ice cream maker (we learned this the hard way). Pour the cold custard into a large bowl. Stream the alcohol and gelatin mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into the custard and whisk until thoroughly blended.
8. Churn the ice cream for at least 20 minutes. Pour the cold custard immediately into the ice cream maker and churn for at least 20 minutes, or as directed. Due to the alcohol content, you may wish to churn it longer to get the desired thickness. If you don’t want to serve the ice cream immediately, or you want a firmer texture, transfer it to a freezer-proof container and freeze for several hours before serving.
What's so "fun" about Fun-Size candy bars, anyway? Those paltry portions taste like deprivation to me—unless we're talking about eating five or six, all at once. But I digress.
For a sweet treat that embraces the excessive sweetness of the Halloween spirit but also takes advantage of surplus candy (or the cheap prices of Halloween candy the day after), try your hand at this Fun-Size Candy Studded Cheesecake. A rich and creamy cheesecake gets a chocolatey upgrade from coarsely chopped candy in a variety of your choosing. Lucky enough to have extra Snickers bars? Go for it, or make it a mix; mine included a melange of Nestle favorites, including about 15 assorted mini Nestle Crunch, Baby Ruth, and Butterfinger bars. One thing's for sure: the size of this cake makes for mega-fun.
It's been proven time and time again that stuff is better when it's baked inside of a cake. For example: cupcake-stuffed cupcakes, truffle-stuffed cupcakes, the entire website Bake it in a Cake.
But what happens when you do the reverse, and bake a cake inside something unexpected? Like a pumpkin?
The original idea here was to make mini cakes in cored-out small pumpkins, but the baking was irregular; baking a batch of cake in one large pumpkin yielded a far more delicious (and good-looking) result.
The moisture of the pumpkin yields a cake that had a texture something like a baked pudding—very dense and flavorful. To keep things from getting too pumpkin-heavy I tried this recipe with carrot cake; the flavors and spices worked beautifully with the pumpkin scent and flavor. It's even better when generously frosted and served with ice cream.
If you ask me, a baked good had better be great to get away with an exceedingly unappetizing name like Smearcase.
And happily, it is—this little-known Baltimore specialty, introduced to me by Rachel Rappaport of Coconut & Lime, is sort of like a thinner-crusted cousin to the pride of St. Louis known as Gooey Butter Cake. A dense, cakey crust encases a big ol' smear of gooey cream cheese-based custard filling; when sliced into squares, it's sort of like cheesecake condensed into a bar cookie form.
Note: While not strictly traditional, I added a handful of lightly roasted walnuts to the top of my Smearcase, with delicious results.
Zombies don't eat cake—they eat people's brains. But this Halloween, here's a way to turn the tables: Zombie Graveyard Cake.
This is just about the tastiest graveyard you'll ever come across. Starting with a generous amount of grass green-tinted frosting, the cake is then lined with cookie crumbles to resemble the residual grave-escape dirt, dotted with cookie "graves", and decorated with zombie cutout cake picks (printable illustrations to cut out can be found here) to form a delightful dessert that is creepy and cute all at once.
Photo: Kim and Jake's CakesThere is a song called "Daylight" by a band called Matt & Kim. I like this song. And I liked it even more when I learned that the Matt and Kim in question went to the same college as me, Pratt Institute.
But then I learned that they were several years younger than me and were kind of big deals in the music world, and then I kind of stopped liking them so much. In fact, my eyes kind of narrowed every time that song came on the radio. Stupid-younger-than-me-overachievers.
So now I turn to another duo, Kim and Jake, who run Kim & Jake's Cakes. Ahh, that's better. And they've offered up a recipe to share, for this delectable Chocolate Paprika Cake! An unexpected but delicious fall treat. Lucky us. Here's the recipe.
Image: Kim and Jake's CakesChocolate Paprika Cake
Ingredients For the Cake:
Baking Instructions:
Ingredients For the Icing:
To make the icing: Whip butter on high for 5 minutes. Scrape sides and repeat. Add powdered sugar a cup at a time with mixer on speed 1. Add milk, vanilla, and spices. Whip on speed 3 to incorporate everything fully. To assemble Cake: Level the tops of the layers, Apply a thin layer of icing to the top of one layer and set the remaining layer on top of it. With a spatula use the rest of the icing to evenly cover the cake. Serves 12.
What do you get when you combine spooky skulls and sweet meringues?
Boo-meringues, of course!
If you need a moment to groan at that joke, I completely understand. But what's no joke is that these ghoulish meringues are simple to make, but even more fun to serve: personalize your skulls with funny faces to add some sweet charm to your Halloween fete.
File under "things you now know how to do": Making a Fondant Trophy. This tutorial, which will help your cake or cupcakes be the winner no matter if there's a contest or not, is reprinted with permission from the book Fondant Modeling for Cake Decorators: 100 Fondant Features to Top Off a Special Cake
Edible supplies
Tools
Procedure