Archive for ◊ 2010 ◊

06 Dec 2010 Chocolate-Caramel-Coconut Bars
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Holidays & Events, Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies, Uncategorized  | Tags: , , , , , , , ,  | 3 Comments

So sorry, so sorry. I’m a bit  behind on my Christmas Cookie postings.  Blame it on the drain!  There have been many, many men visiting me this last week.  Unfortunately, they are only interested in messing with my pipes and taking my money. Lots of my money went out the door with one man today, lots more went with another man last week, more will go tomorrow with a third man<sigh> and I still can’t use the sink, the dishwasher, or the washing machine.  What’s this got to do with Christmas cookies and posting recipes?  Not much, I guess.  My computer still works.  My fingers aren’t broken.  My Christmas spirit has suffered a bit, but not posting recipes for GREAT Christmas cookies is not helping.  So let’s get to it!

Coconut Bars are a new addition to my repertoire this year.  Over the past month or so I’ve spent a bit of time trying to cook my way through The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe From Each Year 1941-2009 by Gourmet Magazine.  I’ve liked a lot of the cookies, but I’ve been tempted to fiddle with each one of them.  Why?  I’m not sure.  Maybe I’m crazy.  Maybe I have too much free time.  Maybe I have serious gym avoidance issues (the latter is the closest to the truth)…

I loved the base of Gourmet’s Chocolate Coconut Squares on page 124 (which Gourmet declared the best cookie of 1997) , but simply hated the ganache topping they used.  It took a few tries, four or more, before I got a version I liked.  My version has Gourmet’s base, a caramel layer (from a Saltine Toffee Cookie recipe), and then some melted chocolate to “gild the lily” as my friend Louise is fond of saying.  It’s decadence.  Candy bar decadence. The recipe makes a 9 x 13 inch panful.  Cut the bars small, and you can feed the neighborhood! Bars will keep a week or more when covered and refrigerated.

Several of the taste testers asked for the recipe and that’s  ALWAYS a good sign!  So here it is, my recipe (inspired by Gourmet’s Chocolate Coconut Squares) for Chocolate-Caramel-Coconut Bars.  I’m thinking of calling them “Triple C Bars”… 🙂

Chocolate-Caramel-Coconut Bars

Bottom Layer

  • 20 whole graham crackers (one 4-portioned cracker counts as one whole cracker)
  • ¾ cup melted butter (1 ½ sticks)
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 10 oz. sweetened flaked coconut (about 4 cups)

Middle Layer

  • ½ cup butter
  • ½ cup dark brown sugar

Top Layer

  • 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (or approx 5 oz. chopped good quality chocolate)
  • ¼ cup sweetened flaked coconut (optional)
  1. Preheat oven to 350º. Line a 9 x 13 inch pan with baking parchment or foil.  Spray the paper with Pam or grease with a bit of softened butter.
  2. Place the graham crackers in a food processor, and pulse until the graham crackers are finely ground and no large chunks remain.
  3. Melt butter in the microwave, stir in salt, and then pour mixture over graham cracker crumbs in food processor.  Pulse a few times to blend.
  4. Remove buttered crumbs from food processor and add to flaked coconut.
  5. Press coconut mixture into the bottom of prepared pan.
  6. Bake base layer in preheated 350º oven for 15 minutes.
  7. About 5 minutes before coconut base layer is due to be taken out of oven, melt butter for caramel layer in a small saucepan. Stir in brown sugar. Stir to dissolve and then boil mixture for five minutes.  Remove from heat.
  8. Pour caramel layer over graham coconut base and then bake for an additional 5 minutes.
  9. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips or chopped chocolate over caramel.  Let sit for 5 minutes.
  10. Using an offset spatula, spread the now melted chocolate evenly over the caramel layer.  Sprinkle ¼ cup coconut over smoothed chocolate. Let bars sit to cool completely.  Place in refrigerator to speed up the hardening of the chocolate, if desired.
  11. When bars are completely cool, remove from pan with foil or parchment.  Remove foil or parchment from bars and then cut into desired size. I cut mine into 2-bite bars, about 1 ½ inches by ¾ inch.

OK, the Christmas spirit is creeping back!  We have the  makings of a nice cookie tray… Gingerbread Folk, Jam Pinwheels, Caramel Bars, Egg Nog Spritz and Chocolate-Caramel-Coconut Bars. Next up?  Tangerine Sugar Cookies! Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. You cheered me up immensely!

05 Dec 2010 Eggnog Spritz Cookies
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Sweets, Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies  | Tags: , , , , ,  | 3 Comments

I feel asleep. In my chair. In front of the TV. I think it had something to do with watching my 2 year old grandson from 9 AM to midnight.  Nevertheless, I missed posting cookie number four of my “Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies” special, oooops! That just means that I’ll have to play catch up and post two Christmas Cookie recipes today!

The recipe I meant to post yesterday was this Eggnog Spritz recipe.  I’ve been making these spritz cookies for so long, two cookie presses ago,  that I have no memory of where I got the original recipe.  My friend Anne had received some of these cookies in her Christmas Cookie box in 1999, and last year she tried to make them for herself  (when I give people cookies, I always include the recipe)…  Unfortunately, she wasn’t happy with them.  She said they weren’t as strongly flavored as she remembered them.  Well, that wasn’t good.  So this year, I upped the nutmeg and the rum flavoring.   We don’t want the memory of an eggnog flavor in these cookies, we want eggnog flavor! Anne came over for a little taste test last night, and was quite happy with this version.  Me, too!  There’s no cookie in the world that won’t benefit from a bit more nutmeg!

Eggnog Spritz Cookies

  • 3 ½ cups all purpose flour (I always use unbleached all purpose flour)
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (make sure it is fresh, a bottle from a few years ago won’t have much flavor)
  • 1 ½ cups butter (3 sticks), at room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 egg yolks
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 ½ teaspoons rum extract
  • Nutmeg Sugar (mix 1 tablespoons sugar with 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg)
  • Freshly grated nutmeg, if desired
  1. Preheat oven to 400º.
  2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and nutmeg. Stir to combine.
  3. In the bowl of electric mixer cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Stir in egg yolks, vanilla, and rum extracts.  Beat until well combined.
  4. With mixer running, gradually add flour mixture to butter-sugar mixture.  Dough should be very soft.
  5. Force dough through a cookie press and onto ungreased or parchment lined cookie sheets.  I usually make the small star shaped spritz cookie, but the manual cookie press I borrowed (my second cookie press-one battery operated, one electric-just burned out) didn’t have a star disk, I just made long logs, baked them, and then broke into pieces.  This works, but it’s not as attractive as individual star shaped cookies 🙂
  6. Sprinkle cookies with nutmeg sugar. If desired, add an extra grating of freshly grated whole nutmeg over the cookies.
  7. Bake in preheated 400º oven for 6-7 minutes.
  8. Cool cookies on tray for a minute, and them remove to a rack to cool completely.  Makes approximately 5 dozen small spritz cookies.

Sorry I was sleeping when you stopped by my kitchen yesterday, but I’m you came back today though!  I’ll post another recipe just as soon as I return from a little Christmas shopping!  I have to find a Bundt cake pan for my daughter.  Next year she and I are tempted to join in the month of  “I Like Big Bundts” bake-a-thon! It sounds like so much fun!!

03 Dec 2010 Caramel Bars (Millionaire Bars)
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Holidays & Events, Sweets, Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies  | Tags: , , , , , , ,  | 4 Comments

When I was a kid growing up in the north of England, Caramel Bars were my very favorite tea time treat.  My Dad taught me to lick the top of the bar–and announce it loudly–so no one else would select the Caramel Bar before the plate got passed to me! It worked like a charm. Don’t laugh! You’ll be licking your own Caramel Bars shortly.  Look at that picture I posted! Shortbread on the bottom, soft caramel in the middle, creamy milk chocolate on top; how can you resist?

Years after emigrating from England, I found Caramel Bars in the US packaged as “Twix Bars”.  Twix Bars aren’t nearly as good as the homemade real thing, but they’ll do in a pinch. When I returned to England last spring, caramel bars seemed to be enjoying a resurgence.  They were everywhere, but they had a new name, “Millionaire Bars”.   I don’t know where that name came from. Nevertheless, these are still my favorite bar cookie.  I’ve been making them since 1981 based on a recipe I got from a Marks and Spencer’s cookbook on a visit to England on my honeymoon.  The cookbook is long gone, the marriage is long over, but the recipe remains.

My friends have been getting these in their Christmas cookie tins for years!

Caramel Bars (aka Millionaire Bars)

For the Shortbread Base

¾ cup butter, softened
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
2 cups flour

With an electric mixer, beat the butter for about 30 seconds.  Add the sugar and beat together until creamy, about 3 minutes,  scraping the sides often.  Stir in the vanilla, salt and flour. Mixture will be very crumbly.  Do not panic! Press crumbs into the bottom of a prepared 13×9 inch pan (and I do mean PRESS).  Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until shortbread is a nice golden color.  Remove from oven and let cool in pan.

For the Caramel Filling

½ cup butter
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons honey or Lyle’s Golden Syrup
1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk

Place all ingredients in a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat gently until sugar is dissolved.  Increase heat and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Color will darken slightly, and you may get a few darker bits which should dissolve into mixture with some vigorous stirring.  Remove from heat, stir well, and let cool for 1 minute.  Pour caramel over cooled shortbread base.  Let cool.

For the Topping

1 large (5 oz.) Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate Bar (or other favorite chocolate bar)

Melt chocolate in the microwave on 50% for 2 or 3 minutes.  Pour melted chocolate over cooled caramel layer, smoothing  top with an offset spatula. Let cool.  Cut into squares of desired size.  Think fudge!  I cut my Caramel Bars into 1 inch squares.  Mmmmmmm 🙂

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. You’re leaving with a great recipe!  Come back again tomorrow!

02 Dec 2010 Jam Pinwheels
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Holidays & Events, Sweets, Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | One Comment

I firmly believe every cookie tray needs an old fashioned jam cookie.  Those coconut, chocolate, peanut butter, peppermint, gingerbread, sugared pecan concoctions have their place but, in the midst of such chaos, a straightforward old fashioned cookie is just the thing.   So, for day two of my 2010 “Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies” special, I offer you, a delicious Jam Pinwheel.

I won’t lie to you. This recipe is a bit of a bother to make–but the end result is a delicious jam cookie.  First, make the dough and then refrigerate it for an hour or so.  Then, roll out the dough (always a mess), spread it with jam (not too thick, not too thin, not too close to the edges), and roll back up (messy) and then refrigerate for another many hours.  THEN, unroll, slice and bake.  THEN, take the cookies off the cookie sheet after they firm up but before they begin to stick.  It’s one of those cookie recipes you have to make in bits and pieces (with plenty time for washing the dishes and addressing Christmas cards in between steps)!

This recipe is from the 2010 Better Homes and Gardens “Christmas Cookies” Special Interest Publication (page 59).

Jam Pinwheels

1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
grated zest of 1 lemon
3 ¼ cups all purpose flour
2/3 cups seedless raspberry preserves

  1. With an electric mixer beat the butter for about 30 seconds.  Add sugar, making powder, and salt and beat until well combined.
  2. Beat in eggs, one at a time and then lemon peel.
  3. Beat in flour.
  4. Divide dough in half, cover and refrigerate for an hour or so or until dough is firm enough to roll out.
  5. Roll each half of dough into a square approximately 10 x 10 inches.
  6. Spread each rolled dough square with 1/3 of a cup of raspberry preserves.
  7. Roll up dough.  Refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours, or until firm enough to slice.
  8. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  9. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
  10. Cut rolls into 1/4 inch thick slices (discard end slices), place on parchment lined cookie sheet,  and bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges are firm and bottoms are lightly browned.
  11. Cool cookies on tray for a minute or so then transfer to a rack to cool. (Don’t dilly-dally on this step)
  12. Makes about 60 cookies.
  13. Store in refrigerator for 2 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. It’s always nice to talk to you!

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