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.  

Lauren's Birthday Cake

This cake is a standard at our house. When you just feel like making something easy and delish this is the cake for you. It's always a big hit and it has so many possibilities. Sometimes we do layers of ganache, this time I did ganache and raspberry jam. You can definitely do lemon curd layers, whipped cream and fruit, a mousse, yadda yadda...

Here's the recipe for the cake and ganache, and here is the lemon curd recipe should you choose to go that route.

Yellow Cake with Queen 'Mo Icing

This is a recipe that my mom has been making forever- she would like me to specify that she made this cake and I just took the pictures. Whatever Marie. Anyway, there's nothing like a simple yellow cake to make queen mo icing (queen mother icing- but we call it mo) have all the glory. Here's how we did it:

Yellow cake (from the Silver Palate cookbook)

Ingredients:

2 C Sugar
4 Eggs
1 C Veg Oil
1 C OJ (original recipe calls for dry white wine)
2 1/2 C AP Flour
1/2 Tsp Salt
2 1/4 Tsp B Powder
1 Tsp Vanilla

Method:

1. Preheat 350, grease 2 9" round cake pans
2. Sift all dry ingredients- flour, salt, b powder, set aside.
3. Combine OJ, oil, and vanilla in bowl and set aside.
3. Beat sugar and eggs until combined with mixer. Then to the mixer add 1/2 dry and beat, 1/2 wet and beat, then last of dry and last of wet, mixing in between.
4. Pour batter into pans and bake for 30 mins or until the center bounces and a toothpick comes out clean.
5. Let cakes cool for 5 mins and then turn them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Queen Mo (from the queen herself, Maida Heatter)- we make this while the cake is in the oven

Ingredients:

1 C Heavy Cream
4 Tsp Instant Coffee
16 Oz Semisweet Chocolate Chips

Method:

1. Heat the cream over medium heat until little bubbles form around the edge of the pot.
2. Add the coffee and whisk until it dissolves.
3. Add the chocolate chips and whisk for 30 secs, then remove from the heat and whisk until smooth.
4. Leave in the pot until the cake is totally cool so that you can gently reheat it if you have to.

So when your cake is done just pour on the queen mo and smooth it gently with an off-set spatula. Leftover icing can be stored forever in a tupperware in the fridge- not that it will last that long. Marie eats it with her ice cream every night.

We did 2x 9" rounds and a 4" wedding cake top to make a tiered cake. Then just poured the icing over each layer and let it fall over the sides for a nice dribbled look.