toffee-vanilla pinwheels

I love cookies, pastries, cakes, breads, etc... that have a bit of shape and art to them. When I saw the original cookie recipe of these on Alton Brown's Christmas-cookie-something-show I wanted to make them simply because of the twirl. Who cares what they tasted like I wanted that damn twirl! They do taste great though, added bonus. On Alton's show he made them as a peppermint version. Since I am not the person to go by the rules I did them my way. I'm not a big fan of candy peppermint, I love the taste of mint, but just hate the whole crunchy candy cane stuff. Candy canes are kind boring to me...I need something else happening/going on taste or texture wise with the candy cane to eat it. I love watching and learning from Alton Brown, but sometimes he can get a bit cheeky in his "Good Eats" show--too goofy, too silly you know? He is very smart and knowledgeable when it comes to deconstructing recipes and educating you on their backgrounds and simpleness of them--so why be cheeky? Half the time when I'm watching his show I rarely pay attention, my ADD gets the best of me when shiny kitchen utensils are in the forefront and background. I have to see what he has for kitchen tools, how he has his kitchen drawers lined up, what's in all the kitchen drawers, how many gadgets he has, and what's in his friggin' fridge! I also love seeing what kind of knives the chef's have on the show 'The Next Iron Chef', and what else is in their bags and foldups. I'm a firm believer that the perfect tools help make the perfect chef. Duh, right?





Back to these cookies, as I said above they were originally chocolate-peppermint pinwheels from Alton Brown. To make the toffee-vanilla pinwheels all I did was change it up with toffee and take out all peppermint, and change places with the two doughs. You could change it up with just about anything really: peanut butter sounds good; I would love to try a vanilla-strawberry version. So, if you do want to make these my way: just follow that recipe from Alton Brown, take out the peppermint extract, use 1/2 cup toffee bits instead of crushed candy cane, add the toffee bits to the vanilla dough not the chocolate dough, and put the chocolate layer on the inside instead of the outside. That's it! These make awesome Christmas gifts if they ever make it out of your kitchen.

chocolate-caramel tarts

Lately I've been giving you a lot of baked sweet nothings. That term sweet nothings can be taken so many ways can't it? I find it ironic that I am giving you food ideas on what to make to give as gifts for the holidays when I haven't even started. Yes, I haven't even started. Tell me I'm not alone (lie)? The only thing I can say that is halfway done are the Christmas cards-- half people, half. I still haven't a clue on what to make for holiday gifts for my friends and clients. Wouldn't it be awful if I gave them gifts and no food? Oh the horror! I think I would get a lot of sad, almost on the edge of tears, phone calls. Ha ha, I would never do that. I love to make foodie-gifts just simply for the mere pleasure of their facial expressions of pure happiness. That makes all the slaving in the kitchen soooo worth it you know?
Last year I made a version of poor man's toffee that was a huge hit. People are asking for it again, but I hate giving the same thing. I might just give these chocolate-caramel tarts. They are very easy, and I used a shortcut too. I bought the pre-made shell tarts from Whole Foods. I just didn't have the time to make the tarts by hand. I know, bad, but I am so strapped for time these days. If you don't want to buy the tarts you could easily make a cookie-crust that would be perfect--like crushed Oreo's?

So what foodie gifts are you giving this holiday season?

chocolate-caramel tarts

Take some pre-made mini chocolate or vanilla tarts, chill a bit in fridge. Take some melted caramel and fill tarts halfway, add in a roasted macadamia nut or two, chill in fridge until caramel is set. Then pour melted dark or milk chocolate to the top, let set. You could literally add in whatever you like: peanut butter, white chocolate, peanuts, almonds...endless possibilities.

print recipe

chocolate dipped pretzel shortbread

I am asked, often, about how I come up with my crazy-kicked up ideas. Well, I admit I watch a lot of food tv shows, either on the Food Network or on PBS. (btw, Emeril Green on Planet Green is pretty good too). When I watch these shows I see what they are doing and always, always, always want to do it differently than what they did. The only time this does not happen is this seasons' Top Chef: Las Vegas; I'm blown away by the huge amount of talent. Almost every single dish they've made I am sitting there saying 'holy moly how very clever'! You know? Season one was sooo good too.
I keep a notepad with me almost at all times: there is one in the car, one on my nightstand, and one at my desk. The others times I carry one with me because I do get a lot of ideas when I'm at the gym or walking about. I'd say I get most of my ideas at night just before bed, and in the middle of the night to as I'm trying to fall asleep my mind just races with ideas. My list of 'to-make' is long, oh so very long; I finally resorted to typing them into my computer years ago or else I would be like those old college professors with papers, stack of papers, and stick-it's all over the place. I'm sort of a neat freak so that wouldn't fly. I am up to over 30 typed pages of ideas, not to mention the stack of recipes I printed from other food bloggers. I am very guilty of making more sweets than meals. My first love is french cooking, and I haven't been good about keeping that end up lately it seems.

Just like every chef and cook alike I have a fairly large cookbook collection. A lot of inspiration comes from cookbooks. One of my favorite things to do is look through a newer cookbook, ear-mark something, then go research almost the same thing in an old cookbooks and try to fuse the two together. Collecting old cookbooks is an addictive behaviour of mine that I don't get to practice as much as I'd like. Here on cape cod there are a lot of old, rotting bookstores with ginormous piles of neglected books; it takes hours to find the cookbooks because nothing is labeled and most of the people who go there prefer literary novels and the like, so the cookbooks are like those rug warehouses where the best carpets are at the very bottom! Don't get me started on the old, mile-long bookstores in NYC. That is heaven!! What I love about the older cookbooks: those food stains/mug stains on the pages, the withering ear-marked pages, and of course the old book smell--Love that old book smell!

There are so many food-creations I make that never make it to the food blog or are sitting in the photo archives. But I shall change that as most of you said you have no problem seeing my recipe-fails. This pretzel shortbread inspiration came from an old food & wine magazine--orignally it was a pretzel crust with chocolate filling type pie. I wanted to see if I could make shortbread with it. Came out ok, but for whatever reason they go stale fast--lasting only a couple days after being baked & dipped. Will I make this again? Not so sure, this is one of my recipe-fail ones, but I might if I add in more sugar and a hint of vanilla to it next time around.



pretzel shortbread
inspired from food & wine
print recipe

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups coarsely crushed thin pretzels (I used 1 & ½ cups)
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
A small pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg

Chocolate dip:
About ½ cup of melted milk or dark chocolate (milk is way better)

In a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter with 3/4 cup of the pretzels and the confectioners’ sugar at low speed until creamy.
Beat in the flour, egg, and salt.
Add the remaining 1/2 cup of pretzels, being sure to leave some pretzel pieces intact.
Flatten the dough between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes. I only flattened them to ½ - ¾ inch thick—you don’t want them too thin.
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Roll out the dough between the sheets of plastic wrap. Cut them into circles of strips, whatever shape you desire. Place onto parchment lined cookie sheet.
Bake for about 10 minutes or until tops are almost light golden brown. These bake FAST! Once they turn a medium brown they are no good.
Let them cool a bit before dipping in melted chocolate. When you are ready to dip them make sure to let them set on parchment paper.
Note: these do not keep more than 2 days. They get stale fairly fast for whatever reason.

toffee-bacon scones

Yes you read right. There is toffee AND bacon in this scone. A scone with toffee and bacon, I mean hello? And you know what else? I put caramel chunks in there too. This is not your average boring stuffy, dry scone, this is kicked up to notches unknown. I've always wanted to do a scone or a cookie with toffee and bacon. I know those two are meant to be together--a match made in flavor-heaven. People these were so darn good. You could make them as holidays treats to give away to your special friends & family--this is something they would devour instantly. I mean seriously, are you feeling the love people?



toffee-bacon scones
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2 cups all-purpose flour
1 TB baking powder
1/2 ts baking soda
¾ ts salt
¾ ts ground cinnamon
6 ½ TB cold butter, grated with cheese grater (store in freezer till ready to use)
7 TB light brown sugar, packed
7-8 pieces of thick cut bacon, chopped into 1 inch-pieces and fully cooked/crispy
3 TB buttermilk
1 large egg
¼ cup chopped caramels (chopped as small as you can get them; I’ve seen caramels pellets in the store which I bet would be perfect too)
½ cup mini milk chocolate chips
½ cup toffee, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces (if using milk chocolate-covered toffee then omit above choco chips

Grate your butter with the large holes of a cheese grater. Then back into the freezer until you’re ready to use them. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. (I have a confection so I did 400 degrees). Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Cook bacon in a skillet till crispy. Do not remove from pan, just turn off the heat. We will need some of the bacons’ grease for flavor, so do not drain.
In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
In a separate bowl add in the caramels, chocolate and toffee, and mix.
In a medium bowl combine the buttermilk and egg. Beat well until nice and combined.
Get out your butter from the freezer, and add that to the flour mixture. Mix with fork or pastry cutter until you have bread-like crumbs.
Grab a slotted spoon and remove bacon bits from the skillet into the flour mixture—it’s ok to get a bit of that nice yummy bacon fat in there—this is good people! Just make sure your bacon is cooled down a bit before adding to flour mixture so it won’t melt butter.
Add in your mixture containing the chips, toffee & caramel, mix with spoon or spatula.
Then fold the wet ingredients, in 2 batches into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Make sure to not overbeat and get all the dry crumbly bits at the bottom of the bowl.
Dust your work space with generous amounts of flour and place dough down. You might want to dust your hands with flour as you will need to shape this dough into a large circle. Dough is very sticky. Once you have a ball, gently press down and out, forming the dough into a flattened circle. About 8-10 inches round. Dough will crack when you press down, you will need to pinch & repair torn areas as you go along.
Dust a large, sharp knife with flour and cut the dough into six large triangles or eight smaller ones—whichever you prefer. Slide the knife under each triangle to help you lift and transfer it to the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 14 – 16 minutes, or until the scones begin to turn light brown in color. Mine were done at the 12 minute mark so check them at 10 or 12 minutes.
When scones are done and cooled a bit you can decorate them with some warmed chocolate Ganache.

sweet potato muffins stuffed w/ cinnamon-mascarpone

My latest kitchen experiment. I had posted a picture of this creation on twitter and everyone wanted to know where, when, who....NOW! So, I rushed to type up the recipe and get it out to you. Yes, these were seriously good muffins. I mean really good. A great muffin base that melded perfectly with the mascarpone stuffing. I hate boring muffins, I know I've said this before, but what is the point of eating a boring muffin? All those calories wasted for nothing. If I'm going to have fat and sugar it better be good. Normally I do not eat what I bake, I only taste-test and then away they go to a good home, where they are pampered, loved and sincerely appreciated. If I ate everything I baked I'd be 500 pounds. (I'd be a hot looking 500 pound babe, just so you know) BUT with these muffins my friends I had two muffins. I could not help myself. These are also very pretty to look at; might be a good breakfast treat for your Thanksgiving morning if you have company over. Easy peasy to make too.





sweet potato muffins stuffed with cinnamon-mascarpone
muffins slightly adapted from Noble Pig
print recipe

Muffins:
2 & ½ cups AP flour
1 & ¾ ts baking powder
½ ts table salt
¼ ts baking soda
¼ ts ground nutmeg
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup heavy or light cream
¾ cup plain sweet potato puree
1 & ½ ts good quality vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs

Stuffing:
8 oz. mascarpone cheese, room temp.
Big pinch of salt
½ cup of sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 ts ground cinnamon
½ stick unsalted butter, room temp.

¼ cup or less of crushed walnuts or pecans (for garnish)
Cinnamon-sugar mixture to sprinkle on tops of muffins before baking.

In a medium bowl, combine all purpose flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and ground nutmeg. Set aside. In a large bowl combine cream, buttermilk, sweet potato puree and vanilla extract. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and dark brown sugar with an electric mixer, until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Alternately mix in dry and wet ingredients into the butter, starting and ending with the dry; mix only until each addition is incorporated -- Please do not overmix.
Coat a muffin pan with nonstick spray and fill muffin cups 1/2 full. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with a generous amount of cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean. (mine were done at the 20 minute mark).

For the stuffing: combine all ingredients and beat with an electric mixer or with stand mixer. Beat until well incorporated. To fill the muffins, all I did was cut out a large hole in the tops of the muffins and filled them with the stuffing. Use a pastry bag and pipe in the stuffing. If you don’t have a pastry bag you can use a plastic ziplock bag and snip a small hole at one of the edges. Decorate the tops of the muffins with crushed walnuts or pecans.