Three awesome holiday desserts

Yesterday was the perfect Saturday.  It was snowing, I had a fire going, and I baked all day.  I was making bite-sized desserts for a party, all recipes I have never tried before.  Some how they all turned out great.  I did a nut, a sour fruit, and the most deadly of chocolate.  I cut the bar and brownies into 2 inch squares and arranged everything on a big silver platter.  There was a little something for every palate.

Pecan Tassies
Recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart

Ingredients:

(Dough)

• 1/2 cup pecans
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) cream cheese
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt

(Filling)

• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make the dough: Process pecans in a food processor until finely ground (you should have about 1/3 cup); set aside. Put cream cheese and butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until well blended. Add flour, ground pecans, and salt; mix just until dough comes together.

Roll dough into sixteen 1-inch balls, and press into bottoms and up sides of cups of mini-muffin tins.  You may need to use some flour on your hands to stop it from sticking to you.  Keep tart shells in the fridge while making the filling.

Make the filling: Whisk the egg, sugar, maple syrup, vanilla, butter, and salt in a small bowl. Stir in pecans. Spoon about 1 1/2 teaspoons filling into each muffin cup.

Bake pecan tassies until crust begins to turn golden, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely in tins on wire rack. Unmold. Pecan tassies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers up to 3 days.

Lemon Bars

Recipe courtesy of Recipe Connoisseur

Ingredients:

(Crust)

• ½ pound unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ⅛ tsp. salt

(Filling)

• 6 large eggs
• 3 cups sugar
• 2½ tablespoons grated lemon zest, packed
• 1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and with mixer on low, add to sugar mixture until just combined. Gather dough into a ball and press into a 9 X 13 inch pan, pressing the edges up the sides about a ½ inch. Chill in freezer for 15 minutes.
Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, until edges start to brown. Let cool while making filling.
Whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the filling is set. Cool to room temperature before slicing.

Flourless Dark Chocolate Brownies with Queen Mother Icing

Recipe courtesy of Yammie's Gluten Freedom

Ingredients:  

(Brownies)

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup special dark cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons instant coffee powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

(Queen Mother Ganache)

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tsp instant coffee
• 16 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (2 2/3 cups)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking pan. Combine the sugars and oil and beat until well combined. Add in the eggs and whisk together. Mix the vanilla and instant coffee together until the coffee powder is dissolved and add to the egg/sugar/oil mixture. Beat for about two minutes. Stir together the cocoa and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the batter and blend until smooth. Pour into prepared pan and bake about 20 minutes.

While the brownies are cooling, make the queen mother ganache.  Heat the cream in a sauce pan over medium heat until bubbles form around the edge.  Whisk in instant coffee until dissolved, then add in chocolate and whisk about 30 seconds.  Now remove from the heat and continue to whisk until ganache is completely smooth.  Pour ganache over brownies and put in the freezer for about a half hour.  You want them to be chilled and set enough to cut without the knife catching in the chocolate.  The brownies are really moist and crumbly, and the ganache becomes like fudge so it wants to stick on the knife.  While you are cutting, keep wiping off the knife of excess chocolate to get a clean cut.  

Trail mix cookies

Wow, long time no post right?  Thanksgiving come and gone, these are the cookies I made that were inhaled shortly after arriving at my grandma's house.

Chewy Maple Trail Mix Cookies
Adapted from Hungry Rabbit

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 cups (4-1/2 ounces) old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1-1/3 cups (6-3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup (6 ounces) packed light-brown sugar
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup pure grade B maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
• 1 cup dried cranberries or raisins
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Method:
Preheat oven to 300.  In small bowl mix oats, flour, salt, and sugar, coconut, raisins, and chocolate chips, set aside.  Melt butter in small saucepan and stir in sugar, maple sugar, and vanilla.  In another small bowl mix baking soda and boiling water and then add to sugar/butter mixture immediately.  Pour sugar/butter mixture into dry ingredients and mix til combined.  You might have to add a little more maple syrup at this point (1 or 2 Tbsp) if the dough is a little dry.  Make walnut-sized balls of dough and place on a tin foil-lined baking sheet.  You can crowd these cookies on the tray because they don't really spread.  Flatten the cookies a bit with your hand because they don't melt down like a regular cookie.  Bake for around 20 minutes give or take depending on the cookie size.  I like these quite brown on the edges, otherwise they don't hold together as well.  Let them cool before you remove from the sheet or they will fall apart.  Sometimes I add nuts to these or other seeds or dried fruit.  They are a big-time crowd fave.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I like the look of a nice chunky chocolate chip cookie with a lot of stuff in it. This recipe is from Eat Good For Life. These called for coconut too but I forgot to bring it up to my mom's house. I'm baking away from home today because the kitchen is still disassembled. So I used whole wheat flour in these because I didn't have the barley flour, I subbed slivered almonds for walnuts, and I only used 1 C of chocolate chips instead of a whole 11.5 oz bag- damn girl that's a lot of chocolate!! Like bags of Ghirardelli just grows on trees or something!?!?!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1/2 olive oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup barley flour (you can use all whole wheat flour if you prefer)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups oats
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup walnuts, chopped
11.5 oz bag of dark chocolate chips ( I used Ghirardelli brand 60% cacao)

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a bowl combine, preferably with an electric mixture ( I use my hands and a whisk), sugar and butter. Add olive oil, eggs, and vanilla and combine all ingredients.

In another bowl combine flours, baking soda, and baking powder and combine. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and fold in. Add rest of ingredients and mix through. Drop batter with a tablespoon onto lined baking sheets spacing them out and flattening them slightly.

Bake for 12-14 minutes (mine took at least 15 mins because I forgot to flatten them, you want to get some color on them babies!!) and transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Never-Fail Banana Muffins

This is another recipe passed from my mother to me that I have been making for years. I don't really use a recipe anymore, I'm sure I change it with every batch. It's really easy and forgiving as hell. You can add all kinds of stuff and take away ingredients if someone has allergies.

Ingredients:

1 C Whole Wheat Flour
1 C AP Flour
1 Tsp B Soda
1 Tsp B Powder
1/2 Tsp Salt
A Few Shakes of Cinnamon, Cloves, Allspice, Ginger, and Nutmeg- depending on what you like

4 Bananas- old and brown (mashed)
1/4 C Oil
1/4 C Sugar/ Brown Sugar/ Honey- more or less depending on how sweet you like it
2 Eggs
2 Tbsp Molasses
Milk/ Soymilk/ OJ/ Applesauce- depends on what's in the fridge (This liquid is added only if
your batter is too dry- it probably will be because of the whole wheat flour) so add some
liquid of your choice in small splashes until the batter comes together and soaks up all the
flour.

Raisins
Nuts
Seeds
Oats
Coconut
Chocolate chips
Whatever you feel like adding that you have lying in the cabinet

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 400- muffins like it hot
2. Spray your muffin or mini-muffin tin with Pam
3. Combine all the dry and all the wet in 2 separate bowls
4. Mix each bowl until all the wet is combined and all the dry combined in their separate bowls
5. Pour the dry into the wet and mix with a wooden spoon just until the flour is incorporated-
do not over mix at this point or the muffins won't have any fluff to them.
6. Now at this point if your batter needs a little more moisture you are going to add one of
the optional liquid choices from the ingredients list. Just a little at a time until it all
comes together with no clumpy flour chunks. Remember not to over-mix it.
7. Lastly add whatever nut, fruit, seed, blah blah you want- totally up to you- walnuts and
raisins are always a good standard.
8. Fill your muffin tins to the top and pop them in the oven
9. Bake regular muffins to start at 20 mins and add 3 mins until they bounce back to the touch
and a toothpick comes out clean- better to under-bake a little than have a dry muffin so err
on the side of under-done. Mini muffins start at 10 to 12 mins and go from there.

If you are doing a loaf- like a banana bread- try 35-40 mins to start at 350-375 and add
time from there- this will take longer because it's more dense.
10. Let muffins cool and then pop them out and enjoy!!

Note:

These guys can be made without eggs- just add some applesauce, without oil- again sub applesauce or some other liquid from the optional liquid list. They can be made with gluten-free flour, with nuts or without, basically they can be tailored to any need.
I often make them with no added sugar- they're not cupcakes people, they're muffins- like for breakfast.

Natalie's Killer Kitchen- Grammy's Yum Yums

Big props to Natalie of Natalie's Killer Kitchen (I love your blog) for these bars. I made the mistake of cutting these while they were still warm so they gooed all over the counter, but eventually they set up nicely. You can sub any other kind of nut you want- I think I used slivered almonds.

yield: 12 bars

1 1/4 cup AP Flour
4 TBS Brown Sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) Butter, melted
2 Eggs
1 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup Pecans

prepare a 10 x 10 baking pan
preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. Mix first three ingredients in a bowl with your hands. Press evenly into prepared pan and reserve 1/2 cup of the dough for topping.
2. Whisk eggs, brown sugar and vanilla in a bowl until smooth and frothy. Should be light in color. Add pecans and stir to mix.
3. Pour mixture over unbaked crust. Sprinkle with remaining crust.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes (30 only if your oven is known to be a slow baker). Cool all the way before cutting into squares.

Photo Credit: Natalie's Killer Kitchen