Tis the season to be baking. Fa La La La La… This past week both my wife and I got off our butts and did some holiday baking and candy making. I really didn’t have much of a choice as I had committed to providing some items for a Holiday Bake Sale benefiting “Cookies for Kid’s Cancer.” Not that I’m complaining. It got me off of my butt and hopefully helped to jump start our holiday baking.

BTW, if you find yourself in the Milwaukee area on Saturday, Dec. 10th (that’s tomorrow as I write this) anytime between 12pm and 4pm, stop by The Best Place at The Historic Pabst Brewery, at 901 W. Juneau Ave. There will be numerous treats from area bloggers, bakers and businesses. Coffee and tea will also be provided along with a Cookie Decorating table, for the kids. Stop by, treat yourself to some yummy snacks and help benefit a very worthy cause. mkefoodies hosted one of these benefits back in May and did quite well. We’re hoping that this one will do even better!!!

One of the items I am providing are these tasty little Pistachio Bonbons. I love these things, but you really have to like pistachios to enjoy these candies. The filling is an intense pistachio “marzipan” that seems to concentrate the pure essence of pistachio making these things little flavor bombs.

This recipe is a little more “advanced” and time consuming than many of my recipes, but then again serious candy making is often a multi step process and can often require attention to detail. The filling itself (the pistachio marzipan) is very simple, but to do the chocolate right can be a little tricky as we will be tempering it. If this is too much for then by all means you can do it the easy way. Once the filling is made just roll it into small balls and dip them into melted chocolate. Shake off any excess as you remove the enrobed marzipan and allow to cool on a tray covered in wax paper. The downside to doing it this way is that you will never get a truly hard, shiny coating like you would using tempered chocolate and it is best to store these in the fridge to keep them from getting soft. Tempering is not difficult, but you do need to pay attention to the details for it to come out right. It is not absolutely necessary though if you are just planning on dipping your candies. But, if you want to mold them then you must temper your chocolate or you will have difficulties in removing the candies from the molds. Give it a try, the worse that can happen is that your candies will develop white streaks as it dries. It doesn’t affect the taste at all and if you’re too embarrassed to give them away then you have a tasty treat, for yourself, for the next few days!!!

I guess I should mention what tempering is, in case there are some people out there unfamiliar with the term. You know when you buy a Hershey’s bar, how it is nice and shiny and has that satisfying snap when you break it, well that is tempered chocolate. Untempered chocolate usually has a dull look to it and always seems somewhat soft when you bite into it. Untempered chocolate can also develop a white “bloom” to it. While the chocolate is still fine to eat it may not look nearly as appetizing. Just so you know, once you melt “bloomed” chocolate that whiteness goes away. This is because chocolate contains a number of different fats that melt and solidify at different temperatures. Tempering gets those fats in line, so to speak, getting them all to to their thing at the same time. That’s a simplified explanation but pretty much sums it up.

Pistachio Bonbons
makes about 50-60 candies

2 cups Pistachios, shelled
1 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
Water
Green Food Coloring (optional)
1 pound Dark Chocolate, cut into small pieces is not using chips or disks

In a medium sized pot bring to a boil 5 cups of water. Add the pistachios and boil for 8 minutes. Drain and lay out on a towel to dry. This step does 2 things it helps to remove some of the salt on the pistachios since in most parts of this country it is hard to find pistachios that are not salted and roasted, and it serves to loosen the skins. Once the pistachios are mostly dry gather up the edges of the towel and give the pistachios a good hard rub. This will loosen the skins even further. Remove the skins from the nuts. Don’t worry, they don’t need to be perfect. You just want to remove the majority of the skins. Place nuts in a food processor and process until finely ground, scraping down the sides of the processor occasionally. Add the powdered sugar and continue to process for a total time of approximately 8-10 minutes. The mixture should look dry at first glance but if you squeeze a bit together it should compact into a nice dense ball. If not add just a bit of water. It shouldn’t take more than a few drops to 1 tsp. max. At this point the mixture will probably be more brown than green. If you like the natural color then the “marzipan” is done, but people often assume that pistachio accented foods should be green so go ahead and add some green food coloring until you get the color you like. I added about 10-12 drops to the recipe myself. Roll into balls about the size of a garbanzo bean (about 2/3′s the size of a marble) and set aside.

Now to melt and temper our chocolate. Place a medium sized pan, filled with no more than 1-2″ of water, over medium heat and bring to a simmer (not a full boil). Wipe out the inside of a metal bowl ensuring that there is no moisture in it whatsoever. Place 2/3′s of the chocolate in the bowl and place the bowl over the simmering water. Stir continually to make sure the chocolate, along the sides doesn’t burn and try not to allow the chocolate to get hotter than 115°F. Once fully melted you need to cool the chocolate down to the low 80′s (between 81°-84°). Do this by adding the remaining chocolate to the melted stuff. As you stir the remaining chocolate will should melt completely. Once you reach this lower temperature you need to bring the chocolate back up to a temperature where it is easy to work with again. Bring it up to 90°F but do not let it get past 91°-92°F or it will go out of temper and you will need to bring back down to the lower 80′s again and back up. Once you have achieved temper, take a clean brush (I use paint brushes that I use only for pastry and/or candy work) and paint a thick layer of chocolate on the inside of your candy molds. Place in the fridge and all to cool for 10 minutes. While this is happening you will want to keep your tempered chocolate warm, at the right temperature. You can do this by placing the bowl on a heating pad set to the lowest temperature and stirring the chocolate often. Just watch that temperature. Keep it between 90°-91°F. Once chilled remove the molds from the fridge. Add the pistachio marzipan, gently pressing it into the molds. There should be a gap of about 1/8″ between the top of the filling and the top of the mold. Cover with a layer of chocolate, making sure it fills all the empty spaces in the mold and scrape it flush with the top of the mold ensuring a level bottom. Return to the fridge for another 10-12 minutes to set. If you have tempered the chocolate correctly at this time you should see some air space between the molds and the chocolate as properly tempered chocolate should shrink slightly, pulling away from the molds. A couple of light taps on the molds, as they are upside down should release the candies. They are ready to serve immediately or to box up as gifts. If molded properly and there are no air holes then the candy should easily last a few weeks, stored at room temperature.

On Sunday the family headed a few miles south to Kelley’s Country Creamery, a new ice cream place in the area. We were originally drawn to it because they sell hard pack ice cream, a novelty in this part of Wisconsin where frozen custard reigns supreme. This was our second trip even though the place hasn’t been open for a month yet, and I see many more trips there before the season is over. While we were drawn by the promise of hard pack ice cream, we have been hooked by the excellent quality, and the farm to table approach they take. You see, the Kelley’s also own the farm that produces the milk they use in their ice cream. It is my understanding that they send their milk to a local dairy producer who pasteurizes it and turns it into an ice cream base that the Kelley’s then flavor and churn. Supposedly, they have 61 flavors that they produce, on a rotating basis. While I haven’t seen, or tasted all of them, I have been impressed with the quality of the ice creams I have tried and inspired by their creativity. Of course they offer up the standards of chocolate, vanilla (which looks and tastes like homemade), and strawberry, but they also offer up more interesting flavors such as Purple Cow (grape), Root Beer, Orange-Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate-Raspberry, and Moo Luau (banana split ice cream-banana with swirls of chocolate, strawberry and pineapple). They are located just south of Fond du Lac, WI on County Rd. B (exit off of Hwy. 41 and drive east a few miles). Their website is here. Check it out, and if you find yourself in the area, definitely stop by for a scoop or two.

In the meantime, you can use this Hot Fudge Sauce to make your own Sundaes. This recipe has a great, old fashion flavor and is the perfect foil to a dish of vanilla ice cream. On try of this simple recipe and you’ll never buy store bought again!

Hot Fudge Sauce

1 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 Tbsp. butter
3oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine cocoa powder, sugar and 3/4 cup of cream in a sauce pot and stir to combine. Add corn syrup, butter and chocolate. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Once at a boil stop stirring and cook until mixture reaches 236°F. Remove from heat, allow to cool for 5 minutes then add remaining cream and vanilla extract. Store, covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 weeks. To serve, gently heat over a double boiler or in a microwave at half power.

Anyone watching the Olympics this year? I don’t know what it is, but for some reason I just can’t get into them much this year, which is strange for me as I am usually glued to the TV for the Winter Olympics. I did catch the opening ceremonies, which I thought were outstanding and I’ve caught a bit of the skiing events but not as much as I normally do. I’ve always been a big fan of the downhill events, especially the Super G and Downhill. I also love all the slalom events. I guess I’m kind of “old school” that way, though I don’t mind the newer “freestyle” events and snowboarding. I’ll watch the hockey events, but I have to admit, I’m bored mindless by all the other skating events. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they shouldn’t be included, I just don’t personally find them all that captivating, though I know many people do. So are you watching them this year? What are your favorite events?

In my last post I made chicken breasts wrapped in puff pastry. Since I had bought the pastry and used only 1 sheet of the dough I had another one left (they come 2 to a package) and thought I would create this simple dessert. The filling for this galette is frangipane, an almond filling made with ground almonds, sugar, eggs and a few other ingredients. I didn’t have almonds but had a block of marzipan around so based this frangipane off of that.

It’s hard to beat this combination of flavors. Chocolate complements both the almond and the banana flavors well and helps bring the galette together. Serve slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or cold the following morning as an excellent breakfast pastry.

Banana Almond Galette with Chocolate

5 oz. marzipan
2 Tbsp. heavy cream
1 egg
2 Tbsp. sugar + more for sprinkling on top
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 bananas, peeled and sliced 1/4″ thick
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

Pre heat oven to 400F. Break up the marzipan and mix with the cream and egg until smooth. Lay out puff pastry sheet on a lightly greased baking tray. Spread marzipan mixture over pastry leaving a 1 1/2″ border.

Sprinkle with the chocolate chips.

Finally arrange the banana slices over top, in a decorative fashion. I just created overlapping rows.

Sprinkle granulated sugar over top of the bananas and bake for 17-20 minutes or until the puff pastry is golden brown and the almond filling has puffed slightly. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.

For added texture you could skip the step of sprinkling the sugar over the bananas before baking. Instead wait until the pastry has come out of the oven and cooled slightly. Sprinkle with sugar and use a blow torch to caramelize the sugar over top.

Okay, it finally happened. I succumbed to the holiday cookie mania sweeping blogs and the web this time of year. I feel guilty… and kind of dirty, like when you fall prey to one of those forbidden pleasures, but these cookies are so good I have to share them with everyone. Rich, chewy, decadently fudgy, with a crisp exterior and a soft, moist crumb, what’s not to love? Just writing about them makes me feel a little sinful.

Seriously, these are great, little cookies, eaten as is or sandwiched together with a little raspberry jam, these little morsels are usually on of the first things to disappear off of any cookie platter. The key to them is to not over bake them. Pull the cookies from the oven when they still look slightly underdone. This way you will end up with that crisp exterior, and fudgy, brownie like interior.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

2 cups sugar, granulated
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 squares (1 oz each) unsweetened chocolate,melted and cooled slightly
4 each eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 pinches salt
1 cup confectionery sugar

Combine the sugar, oil and vanilla in a stand mixer. Add the chocolate and mix to fully incorporate. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add flour, salt, and baking powder and just mix to combine. Don’t worry, the mixture will be more like a thick brownie batter than a cookie dough.

Chill batter for, at least, 3 hours or overnight. When ready to bake preheat the oven to 350. Scoop approximately 1-1 1/2 tablespoons of batter into a ball. Roll in the confectionery sugar and place on a cookie tray.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until almost no indent remains when touched. Allow to cool on pans for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. Serve as is or sandwich the cookies with raspberry jam for an extra special treat.

Today was the first big snow storm of the season. 12+ inches of wet, heavy snow, accompanied by high winds, shut down schools and businesses across Wisconsin and, according to news reports, across a good portion of the nation.

Living 45 minutes away from where I work, there was little chance that I would be making it in. A call to the jail administrator, where I work, confirmed that driving would not be in my best interests as long as I made sure there was enough staff on hand to feed the inmates. Luckily most of my staff lives much closer and they were able to make it to work. While I would still be doing some work from home, that meant a full day of hanging with the wife and daughter, the former also not able to go to work and the latter, kept home from day care.

First priority though would be shoveling out the driveway, a task I was not looking forward to considering the amount of snow we received and the heaviness of said snow, but it had to be done. My wife and I have a very set division of labor when it comes to shoveling snow; I shovel and she makes the Hot Chocolate for when I am done. Somebody is getting the better deal out of this and I don’t think it is me, though a cup of homemade cocoa is a nice reward for an early morning workout. I’m not talking that crappy, instant Hot Chocolate, but the real deal, made from scratch.

I don’t know why instant Hot Cocoa is so popular. First off, it tastes like crap. I don’t care how much of the stuff you use, it always tastes watery and insipid. Secondly, homemade cocoa is not that hard to make and it doesn’t take that much longer than the instant. Even the simple recipe on the side of cocoa powder containers is 100 times better than the instant stuff so why do yourself the disservice?

As you can probably tell, I am sort of a closet Hot Chocolate snob. It’s true. I can admit it, and I have numerous recipes to prove it. many of my recipes are rich, decadent adult versions of Hot Chocolate but I also have quite a few less sinful recipes, for every day consumption, that will please all tastes.

Since the whole family is home the recipe I offer up is a great all around cocoa recipe. It is rich enough and has just a hint of a bitter edge to please adults, but is still sweet enough and not so overly rich, that kids enjoy it also.

Every Day Hot Chocolate

3 cups Whole Milk
1 cup Half and Half
1 cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
1/4 cup Cocoa Powder
1/4 cup Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 pinch Salt

Combine milk, half and half, chocolate, chips, cocoa powder, and sugar in a pot and heat over medium high heat, stirring regularly so that the chocolate doesn’t stick to the bottom and burn. Once the chocolate has melted simmer for 5 minutes, then remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla and salt. Serve immediately with your favorite garnish.

I can’t say that Whoopie Pies were commonplace in our household when I was growing up, but I do remember my mom making them on occasion. What I remember most is that she made them in the summer and froze them. They would then become a nice, cool treat for me and my brother. They’d last a long time as they were rock solid, when frozen, and we’d have to kind of scrape away at them with our molars until they thawed enough to really bite into.

For those of you unfamiliar with whoopie pies, they are a snack consisting of 2 very large, cake-like, chocolate “cookies” with a sweet, white filling sandwiched in between. They were, originally, a treat of the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch but in the early part of the 20th century they found their way to New England where they have also become very popular, especially in Maine. While chocolate is the traditional flavor for the “cookies,” bakeries are now producing whoopie pies in all manner of flavors, of which pumpkin is probably the most favored seasonal rendition, after chocolate.

Whoopie Pies are not your “dainty” little snack, nor are they for the weak of heart, considering the hefty amount of vegetable shortening in the filling. It is said that a whoopie pie should be approximately the size of a hamburger, bun and all. Enough to feed 3 women or 1 growing boy.

I was thrilled the other day, when my wife said she wanted to make whoopie pies. Visions of my childhood flooded back and I couldn’t wait for them to get done. Neither could our daughter, who quickly swiped the paddle from the stand mixer and claimed it for herself.

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With summer coming slowly coming to an end (many would argue that it wasn’t much of a summer here in Wisconsin) and fall just around the corner, I am starting to look forward to the resumption of late evening fires in our neighbor’s fire pit. The thought of that inevitably leads to s’mores as my wife loves the things and almost always suggests them at our late night gatherings. Unfortunately, beer and s’mores don’t really mix so I usually decline. I have never been a big s’more fan anyway. Sure I love chocolate and toasted marshmallows and I even like graham crackers but I am one of those people that would rather eat them all separately then mash them all together. It was with these thoughts in mind that I was trying to come up with a dessert to surprise my wife with when I remembered that I had saved a recipe for a S’more pie from Gourmet, November 2006. Looking over the recipe I felt that ,while the chocolate filling would work well, the marshmallow topping seemed a little dense so I modified it somewhat to more closely resemble the recipe we use for making homemade marshmallows.

Chocolate S’more Pie
makes 1 8inch pie

1 each Graham Cracker Crust
FOR CHOCOLATE FILLING
7 ounces Bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup Heavy cream
1 each Egg, room temp.

FOR MARSHMALLOW TOPPING
1 package Unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup Water, cold
3/4 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
Vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350. Put chocolate in a large bowl. Bring cream to a boil then pour over chocolate, stirring until smooth. Lightly beat egg and add to chocolate mixture along with salt then pour everything into pie shell. Cover edge of crusts then bake until filling is just set, about 25 minutes. Cool completely. Meanwhile make the topping. Bloom gelatin in 1/4 of the water in a large heatproof bowl. In a saucepan stir together remaining water, sugar, corn syrup and a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Boil until mixture registers 238. Start beating gelatin mixture and slowly add hot syrup, in a slow stream. When all syrup has been added turn mixer to high and beat until triple in volume. Add vanilla extract then immediately pour over cooled pie. Chill, uncovered for 1 hour, then cover with oiled plastic wrap and chill 3 hours more. Before service brown top with either a blow torch or under broiler. If doing under a broiler protect the pie crusts.

If at all possible brown the top with the blow torch. Not only is a much more fun way to do it, I think it provides better flavor and gives it a more rustic look as some parts remain lighter while other parts get darker.