Candied orange peel- thoughts of home

When I was growing up in Escanaba, MI, my all time favorite treat was chocolate covered candied orange peels and I would get them here: http://saykllys.com/ And since I just checked out their website, I am sad to report they are no longer being offered, but hopefully this is just an on line situation and all the people of Upper Michigan can still get them in their local store, and we won't have some sort of candied orange peels riots.

In case you don't live in Michigan next to a Sayklly's store, here is a recipe to make them yourself:

Candied Orange Peel
4-5 oranges, lemons, limes or grapefruits, but don't mix them, do each batch separately please
1 cup water
1 cup sugar plus more for sugaring the peels later

Take a vegetable peeler and carefully peel all the yummy rind off the fruit being careful not to go too deep and start taking off the pith as well.  Once the fruit is peeled, julienne into small strips and place into a small pan of boiling water, simmer for 10 minutes.

Julienned orange rind in first water bath

After 10 minutes in the simmered water, drain the peels and repeat for another 10 minutes in more simmering water.  The purpose of this blanching is to take the bitterness out of the peel.  Some recipes I have read can have you doing this up to 4 times, it's all up to personal taste.

Once you have finished boiling the peels a second time, combine the sugar and water in a small pan and simmer until all the sugar is dissolved, once dissolved, add the blanched peels.

You want to simmer the peels in the sugar syrup until the peel start to look translucent.  Once translucent, turn the heat off and let the peels sit in the sugar syrup for 4-6 hours.  When you are ready to take them out of the pan, simply turn the heat on low until the mixture is syrupy again and not one big clump.  Drain and roll in sugar, let dry on wax paper overnight.  Enjoy!

As for the choclate part of this recipe, dip 'em, don't dip 'em they are amazing either way.

-Jenny

Sweet Sunday!

That's what my family used to exclaim when we landed on the Sweet Sunday spot while playing the board game Pay Day. It was our attempt to make that boring spot more fun. The first person to say it won bragging rights, but not much else. Somehow, it worked.

I tried to turn our crazy weekend weather into a Sweet Sunday of my own.

Hail...in San Diego!

Sweet Sunday:

Orange-flavored macarons

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

- Jenn

It's a rainy day in San Diego

So what's a girl to do?  Well, if said girl also had, say 12 egg yolks sitting in the fridge, she would make lemon curd!  Now why on earth does this girl have so many egg yolks you ask?  Well, she just happened to make about 4 batches of macarons this weekend and couldn't bear to throw all the yolks out.  OK, I am now done talking about myself in the third person. 

One of my favorite things in the world in lemon curd and all curds in general really.  It sounds daunting to make, but it is really the easiest thing in the world.

Lemon Curd - borrowed from Ina Garten

• 3 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 extra-large eggs  -I used 6 egg yolks instead of the 4 whole eggs
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.

Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.

Turning on the heat

Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate

Now eat with a spoon or save for later

-Jenny

Conversation Hearts

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, I baked some cut-out conversation heart cookies this week. I made them for my cousin who just had her first baby, so I used messages suitable for the new little family. I figure these are a less smoky alternative to the traditional "It's a girl!" cigars.

I tried to mimic the Sweethearts' color scheme

I did keep a few samples for me and my husband (for quality control!) , so I mixed up the decor a bit. It's fun to have a few of these around on this pink and red holiday. It totally eliminates the need for chocolates. (Speaking for myself, of course!)

I really need to work on my photo skills.

Happy Valentine's Day!

- Jenn

Macaron Madness

I'm officially making this a disease, and I don't care if no one has ever heard of it.  Here are the symptoms of the madness:

• An inability to sleep at night thinking about powdered sugar and wonder how on earth you could have gone through 6 pounds of it in one week
• Making more than 3 batches of macarons a day
• Somehow think it's the dogs fault when you have over baked your macarons
• Decorating your macarons with candy hearts- just don't do it, it somehow make them look like little cookie hookers - pictures below of me doing it
• Giving your Silpat the stink eye when they (the cookies) stick after baking
• Eating macarons all day, every day and then forcing them down your friends throats

Today, I had this grand idea to make some light pink- baby pink if you will- macarons with a chocolate ganache filling flavored with raspberry extract.  The dog and I were on the hunt for the extract, that being the only thing on earth that I currently don't stock in my pantry, and the raspberry extract gods were not with us today. So I made regular ganache, no biggie.

After I had made a perfect batch of macaron batter I added some pink.  Now I use the gel food colors as to not water down the batter and I put in the perfect amount, it was the pink of baby cheeks, absolutely perfect.  Then they came out of the oven.  Peach.  Does peach scream Valentine's Day to you?  Actually there is only one person I can think of that would still think they are pink, yay color blindness!  Sorry Robert, that was uncalled for.  So what's a girl to do with all these peach cookies?  Why slap some candy hearts on of course. 

Here are the little street walkers now

After all this, I thought why not make a batch of chocolate macarons?  I had never tried adding cocoa powder to the batter, so why not try it now?  My friend has an office bake-off on Monday so I am trying to help him come up with something to bring in.  I also thought I might add some raspberry jam in the middle of the ganache filling since I couldn't find the extract and I LOVE that flavor combination.

I also started playing with painting on colors and adding gold dust after baking

Now that I have finished baking and decorating, I still feel like I have another batch in me.  Screw the laundry. 

-Jenny

Cherry Almond Scone Follow-up

I baked up the cherry almond scones this morning. This is what they looked like before going in to the oven.

Check out the festive green Food TV silicon mat!

And this is what they looked like before going in to my mouth.

Where's the coffee?

 - Jenn

It’s Like Buttah

Some friends graciously invited us over for brunch at their house tomorrow morning. I offered to contribute some scones and I knew just the type I wanted to make: cherry almond. I’m a pretty big fan of all kinds of scones, but cherry almond seems to have that extra special something. I think it might be the pairing of the sweet almond with the slight tart of the cherry.

Since my best scone recipe relies on eggnog, I turned to the all-knowing Internet to find a recipe. I came across this great-looking one by Anne Burrell, and that’s where things got a little wild. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/dried-cherry-almond-scones-recipe/index.html

As you can see, her recipe comes with an added bonus recipe for “honey butter.” As in “butter made from whipping cream and flavored with honey.” Well, I couldn’t think of a better way to burn up the afternoon, so I got the ingredients and gave it a whirl. Or rather, I gave it many, many whirls in the stand mixer. I followed Anne’s instructions carefully and beat that cream, honey, and orange rind until it curdled and gave off the buttermilk liquid. However, you will note that the recipe tells you that the solids will separate from the liquids and to continue beating until the butter comes together in one large clump. What she doesn’t tell you is to drain off the buttermilk and that’s pretty much a key point. If you don’t get rid of the liquid, it just keeps sloshing around and mixing the liquid through your butter solids and continues to look disgusting. After I realized this omission and drained the buttermilk off, I also added more honey to taste and beat it all until I liked the texture and form. Here’s the finished product.

We will see how it goes over tomorrow. I think it will be wonderful on the cherry almond scones.

Here are my two butter Pro Tips for anyone else who wants to attempt this perfect Saturday afternoon project.

1.)  Use a kitchen towel to cover the mixer so that you don’t get heavy cream and the inevitable buttermilk all over you, your mixer, and your kitchen.

2.)  For the love of Pete, drain off that buttermilk!

- Jenn

The Holly Hobbie Birthday Cake of Every Grown Man's Dreams

For a while I’ve been thinking that I need a go-to birthday cake recipe. The kind of recipe that you can count on to yield a perfect two-layer cake that you can fill and frost. You know the kind of cake I am talking about.

Note: roses do not occur in this color in nature.

With my husband’s birthday right around the corner, I figured it was time to begin my quest. I asked him what kind of birthday cake he wanted and he surprised me by replying, “I want the Holly Hobbie cake.” 

I should probably give a little Holly Hobbie cake background. This is the same cake that my mom made for my sixth (or fifth?) birthday party. It was a lot of work to decorate and so my mom has a bit of a love/hate memory of the experience. She is proud and remembers that it turned out really cute, but she also recalls that was over three hours of her life she can’t get back.

Naturally, I was up for the Holly Hobbie cake challenge. When I told Jenny about the plan, her immediate response was, “I’m in!” I bought a used 1975 Wilton Holly Hobbie pan and found the decorating instruction sheet online, and then started thinking about which cake recipe to bake. The Wilton instructions were useless in this department, as their helpful hint is to follow the instructions on the box. WTF, Wilton! Box cake? Maybe they recommend box cakes because they are guaranteed to bake up perfectly, and they know the home baker will be challenged to bake a proper cake in their shite character-shaped pans that are so thin you can nearly see through them. In the end, I chose this lemon cake recipe without the lemon filling: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/lemon-layer-cake-recipe/index.html.

The crumb and taste of the cake was excellent although the center of the cake didn’t rise up evenly. I’d like to blame the thin pan and my weird oven. Maybe I will. Luckily, it doesn’t matter because you have to turn the cake over to frost the bejesus out of it. We used a basic butter cream flavored with lemon.

The better-looking side

Finished! Now I need an arm massage.

Jenny and I followed the decorating instructions and piped our hearts out.  When I finally got the finishing touches completed, the end result was pretty good. (If I do say so myself!) Most importantly, my husband loved it and it tasted great. Also, I guess I have to give props to my mom for making this cake while she had two kids running around the house.

Looks like my next birthday cake will have to be one of those two-layer jobbies. 

- Jenn