Holiday Biscotti

Merry Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas to others!! Christmas is upon us. The tree is up, the decorations fill the house with joy, and the food, oh the food...fills the house with that wondrous smell. So, get out those pajamas and those fuzzy slippers, find your cameras and video recorders, get off your diet and splurge a little bit, and get ready to have some fun.

Christmas is always full of fun but food preparation may be stressful but I can help with your desserts. Do you still need a last minute cookie recipe to fill up your cookie tray? Why not make a cookie with the colors of Christmas, red and green? Holiday Biscotti is the cookie that will round out your tray. Simple to make and rather quick to bake. Aren't you impressed with how they look? Well, I hope so! 

Once again, Happy Holidays everyone! Remember, it's not about the presents, it's about spending time with family and friends (and the food of course! :D). 

Tips

-When you form the dough into a log, I find that having it be about 1/2 inch thick created the best thickness after being baked.
-When baking for the second time, I like to flip the biscotti half way through the baking process.
-Don't bake the biscotti for too long. I notice that baking dried fruit for too long can cause it to become hard instead of chewy


Results
Taste: The biscotti has a light lemon flavor with a nuttyness from the pistachios, a tart, sweetness from the cranberries and a vanilla flavor from the white chocolate.


Texture: The biscotti has a "light crunch" and not the "hard crunch" of store bought biscotti which is nice. The pistachios gave a slight "soft crunch", the cranberries gave a chewiness and the white chocolate gave a creaminess to tie the whole cookie together.


Holiday Biscotti (Makes 2 dozen)
Recipe by Giada de Laurentiis

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup pistachios, coarsely chopped
2/3 cup dried cranberries
12 ounces good-quality white chocolate, chopped
Red and green sugar crystals, for garnish

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a heavy large baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk the flour and baking powder in a medium bowl to blend. Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, butter, lemon zest, and salt in a large bowl to blend. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time. Add the flour mixture and beat just until blended. Stir in the pistachios and cranberries.

Form the dough into a 13-inch long, 3-inch wide log on the prepared baking sheet. Bake until light golden, about 40 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes.

Place the log on the cutting board. Using a sharp serrated knife, cut the log on a diagonal into 1/2 to 3/4-inch-thick slices. Arrange the biscotti, cut side down, on the baking sheet. Bake the biscotti until they are pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer the biscotti to a rack and cool completely.

Stir the chocolate in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until the chocolate melts. Dip half of the biscotti into the melted chocolate. Gently shake off the excess chocolate. Place the biscotti on the baking sheet for the chocolate to set. Sprinkle with the sugar crystals. Refrigerate until the chocolate is firm, about 35 minutes.

The biscotti can be made ahead. Store them in an airtight container up to 4 days, or wrap them in foil and freeze in resealable plastic bags up to 3 weeks.

-Aaron John

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Blueberry Crumb Cake

The Project Food Blog Competition has now ended for me

Sad to say, but it just had to be

So, one last rhyme to end it right

Since the road to make it this far was quite a sight

Thanks to everyone who helped me along the way

Without you, I would have nothing to say

You voted and turned my hearts into the color of red

Even when you could've voted for others instead

I'm so grateful for the opportunities the competition gave

It allowed me to improve and the experiences I will save

It's bittersweet to be out so fast

But, the competition was definitely a blast 

To be honest, this competition gave me stress

Trying to finish a post and impress

Barely finishing on time because of school

At the end of the day it was all cool

I discovered new blogs to follow and read

Even new twitter followers, yes indeed!

Now I'm back to my usual blogging days, 

Focusing on school and cooking whenever I may

Once again Thank you so much for all your help because it was a lot of fun

PFB 2010, for me, is officially done.

Yes, you've read right. I've been eliminated out of the Project Food Blog 2010 Competition. Sad. ha. But I think the timing was right for me. My work for classes is increasing by the days and I don't know how much longer I would have been able to keep up with the competition and school work at the same time. I mean, I start everyday by waking up at 5:30 AM and don't sleep until all my work is done which is usually at midnight every night. This cycle repeats over and over. A bit much don't ya' think? In fact, after I make this blog post, it's back to getting all this work done. Oh college...

Anyway, what better way to have UW spirit than making a cake with our school colors, Purple and Gold?! A blueberry crumb cake that is bursting with purple blueberries and surrounded with a golden cake and streusel. YUM!! Even though I'm bombarded with school work, I still have the school spirit!! :D Everything I'm going through now will be worth it in the end.

Results

-Taste: The lemon in the cake added just enough flavor without overpowering the whole cake. The blueberries gave a tartness which cut down on some of the sweetness. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a sweet cake but the added blueberries worked well with the lemon. The cake was just sweet enough. In the streusel, you can definitely taste the nutmeg and it wasn't too sweet either. Great combo of flavors!

-Texture: Streusel gave a crunchy layer that worked well in contrast to the soft, fluffy and moist cake. However, the streusel was dry. It may have been because I had to bake the cake longer or I would simply reduce the flour to 1 cup.

Tips

-I added a bit more lemon zest than what was called for to have more flavor. Usually the zest of one lemon has a little over 1/2 tsp of lemon zest so I went ahead and used the zest of one lemon instead.

-Toss your blueberries in flour before adding to the batter. Supposedly it's supposed to prevent the blueberries from sinking but that didn't help with mine. ha

-Feel free to use frozen blueberries. However, don't over mix because your batter WILL begin to turn blue-ish in color. I would even suggest to not mix the blueberries into the batter. Instead, pour the batter into the pan, spread it out, sprinkle in the blueberries over the top and press the blueberries gently into the batter until they are covered. I think this would also help in "suspending" the blueberries in the batter. In addition, it will cook a little longer. Mine cooked for about an hour instead of the 40-50 min since I used the frozen.

-Some people suggest to use a spring form pan instead of a cake pan for a "nicer" presentation and losing less streusel but I made mine in a cake pan and I had no problem. I only lost about a tablespoon of streusel while inverting the cake so it wasn't a problem. I would say either method would work fine.

-When using a regular cake pan and inverting the cake, first take something flat such as a plate of cardboard cake round, and place it on top. Invert the cake quickly so that now, the streusel is on the bottom. Next take your cooking rack, place that on top, and invert the cake a second time to finish off the cooling. Once cooled, you can easily pick up the cake and place it on your serving platter.

Blueberry Crumb Cake (6-8 Servings)

Recipe by Ina Garten

Ingredients

For the streusel:

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

For the cake:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature (3/4 stick)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

2/3 cup sour cream

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup fresh blueberries

Confectioners' sugar for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch round baking pan.

For the streusel:

Combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter and then the flour. Mix well and set aside.

For the cake:

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on high speed for 4 to 5 minutes, until light. Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla, lemon zest, and sour cream. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the batter until just combined. Fold in the blueberries and stir with a spatula to be sure the batter is completely mixed.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread it out with a knife. With your fingers,

crumble the topping evenly over the batter. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely and serve sprinkled with confectioners' sugar.

-Aaron John

My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure

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Strawberry Sauce

Ok, so this is the Strawberry Sauce I used for my Mini Cheesecakes. I really love strawberry cheesecake and so I thought I would make this sauce to top my cheesecakes, along with my Blueberry Sauce. This recipe is extremely simple. I adapted this recipe from Ina Garten's Raspberry Sauce. It only takes about 10 mins, or so to complete. This Strawberry Sauce is perfect on anything!! Pancakes, ice cream sundaes, maybe even use it to make strawberry milk instead of those artificially colored pink strawberry syrups you find in the ice cream topping section of grocery stores or what I used it for, cheesecake. It has a nice fresh strawberry flavor and it does taste a bit like the strawberry preserves so make sure you buy a strawberry preserve that you enjoy using. It's a very good go-to recipe if you have leftover strawberries as well! Here's the recipe!!

Strawberry Sauce (Makes about 3/4 cup)
Ingredients
1 cup of chopped fresh strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
1/4 cup Strawberry Preserves

Directions
Place the chopped strawberries, sugar and water into a small saucepan. Place it on the stove and cook over medium heat until it begins to boil. Then cook the strawberries for about 5 mins, or until the strawberries are almost completely broken down. Once broken down, pour the mixture into a food processor along with the 1/4 cup of Strawberry Preserves. Process the mixture until it is smooth. Pour the finished mixture into a bowl and let cool in the refrigerator.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Is there even a recipe needed for Chocolate Covered Strawberries? I don't think so. It should simply be, chocolate and strawberries. There are so many different variations on the chocolate for the strawberries that have me saying "Are you serious?". I mean there are all these "recipes" to put cream, half and half, liquors and flavorings in the chocolate that really takes away from the simplicity of a Chocolate Covered Strawberry. What is wrong with just melting chocolate and dipping strawberries into it? Nothing!! The simpler, the better. Plus, I enjoy that "snap" the chocolate has when you do nothing but melt it and dip strawberries into it. Once you dive into adding cream and half and half, it creates a soft chocolate exterior and really takes away from that textural difference between the chocolate and strawberry. These are super simple to make and yet, have a huge "WOW" factor. It's a tart, yet sweet, strawberry covered in chocolate, nothing wrong with that. Now if you really need a recipe, here it is. But do you really?

Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Ingredients
6 ounces milk chocolate chips
3 ounces white chocolate chips
1 pound strawberries, washed and dried very well

Directions
Put the milk chocolate chips and white chocolate chips into 2 separate microwave safe bowls. Microwave each bowl for about 1 min, stirring every 20/30 secs or so. Stir until smooth.

Once the chocolates are melted and smooth, line a sheet pan, cutting board, plate or whatever you have, with parchment or waxed paper. Holding the strawberry by the leaves or stem, dip the fruit into the melted milk chocolate, lift and twist slightly. Let any excess chocolate fall back into the bowl. Set strawberries on the parchment paper. Repeat with the rest of the strawberries. Dip a fork in the white chocolate and drizzle the white chocolate over the dipped strawberries.

Place the strawberries into the refrigerator until the chocolate sets, about 30 minutes.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Blueberry Sauce

Boy, it feels good finishing up finals!! In general, it feels good to finish any test. My Sociology Final went pretty well. As usual, there were the tricky questions but I think I did alright. I personally thought that the blueberries worked their magic on my brain. haha. Now time for this post.

Well, the past two posts have been about blueberries. This one is no different! What I forgot to tell you guys before was that the blueberries I got came from Costco. We all know that when you go to Costco, you buy things in BULK. So, the past two recipes/blog posts weren't able to use up all the blueberries. Finally, this recipe for Blueberry Sauce by Ina Garten (Surprise, Surprise. It's Ina again! haha) was able to use them all up and I have a little plan for it later. This recipe was extremely simple. You can do it in your sleep!! It's only sugar, blueberries and water. How easy is that? You just throw everything in a pot and let it cook (I actually used regular sugar and about 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract for this recipe in place of the vanilla sugar). Once cooked, I strained it, and let the sauce cool before refrigerating/freezing. The sauce had a nice tangy sweetness with flavors of blueberries and vanilla. Simple and delicious. After it cooled, I froze this sauce. You'll just have to wait and see where I'm going to use it! Here's the recipe!

Blueberry Sauce (Makes about 1 cup)
Ingredients
1 1/2 pints fresh blueberries, rinsed
1 cup vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions
Combine the blueberries and vanilla sugar in a large heavy saucepan. Add 1 cup water and the lemon juice and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the mixture begins to thicken.

Remove from the heat and strain through a fine sieve. Cool to room temperature, cover and refrigerate.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins

Because of the disastrous Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze recipe yesterday, I decided to make Ina Garten's Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins today. Tomorrow I have my Sociology Final and I was hoping these wouldn't be another flop of a recipe. Since I had a ton blueberries left over from yesterday, I might as well use them, right? This recipe was extremely simple and straight forward. Plus the blueberries didn't get crushed!! And why would they in this recipe? It's an actual batter which makes it less stressful. **Tip: Toss the blueberries in a little bit of flour before folding them into the batter to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin when baking. I also added the zest of one lemon to the batter because it goes well with blueberries. Making the batter was quick. The longest part of the recipe was the baking period but that was about it. These came out with a pale golden brown top and were delicious!! Finally, redemption from yesterday. These were moist, sweet yet tart from the blueberries and the lemon definitely rounded out the flavors. Hopefully these will be a great "brain food" tomorrow! They actually say that blueberries help with memory so let's see if that's true with my Sociology Final. Now I have to get back to studying!! Here's the recipe!

Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins (Makes 16 Muffins)
Ingredients
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 ounces (about 1 cup) sour cream
1/4 cup milk
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 half-pints fresh blueberries, picked through for stems

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place 16 paper liners in muffin pans.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed. Fold in the blueberries with a spatula and be sure the batter is completely mixed.

Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pans, filling each cup just over the top, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins are lightly browned on top and a cake tester comes out clean.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze

Lately, I've been craving Blueberry Scones. I haven't had one in a very long time. The first ever Blueberry Scone I had came from Starbucks and it was beyond good. It had a crunchy layer of sugar on the top, was buttery on the inside and the blueberries were tart and sweet. Just describing them makes me want to go buy one right now. But instead, I have a funny story to tell you that my friend told me about. My friend was at "By George", which is a cafe/food place underneath UW's Odegaard library, waiting in line to order. A girl in front of her ordered a muffin and when the cashier returned with the girl's order, she gave her a scone. Okay, who gets a muffin confused with a scone?! They look totally different! Anyway, since it's finals week here at UW, I thought Blueberry Scones would be a good "brain food" to eat before my FINAL EXAM. That's right, I only have ONE Final Exam and I took FOUR classes this quarter. I'm so happy about that. So, I searched high and low for a Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze recipe and ended up with one by Tyler Florence. His Blueberry Scones got rave reviews so I said "Why not?". Tyler Florence is a really great chef so I trust that he can make great food.

I did exactly what the recipe said. I cut the butter into the flour mixture and added the heavy cream. I noticed that the dough was very strange. It was extremely dry and thick so I had to add even more heavy cream. Then, I added the fresh blueberries (which I froze to try and reduce crushing them) and things got even worse. It was almost impossible to mix in the blueberries into the dough. Every which way, the blueberries were getting crushed even though they were frozen! The skins of the blueberries were peeling off and created a huge mess. I wasn't able to fully mix in the blueberries and to top it all off, now I had to pat it down so I can cut scones. I think you get the picture now, right? Patting them down led to more smashing. At this point, I was completely over and annoyed by this recipe and so I just cut out these scones, brushed them with heavy cream and sprinkled them with sugar. When they came out of the oven, they looked like deformed rectangles. Some weren't even cooked so I had to take out the ones that were cooked and put the rest back into the oven. At this point, I was so done with the recipe that I didn't want to waste more ingredients on these scones by making the glaze. Nothing could save them now. When I ate one, it wasn't that great. It was so doughy and dense. It wasn't fluffy and flakey like I hoped. Maybe I'll try it again but I don't want to put myself through this misery. Here's the recipe if you actually want to try out these scones. Because of this horrible recipe, I will make Blueberry Coffee Cake Muffins tomorrow so look out for that.

Blueberry Scones with Lemon Glaze (Makes 8 scones)
Ingredients
Blueberry Scones:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut in chunks
1 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing the scones
1 cup fresh blueberries
Lemon Glaze:
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 lemon, zest finely grated
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Sift together the dry ingredients; the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Using 2 forks or a pastry blender, cut in the butter to coat the pieces with the flour. The mixture should look like coarse crumbs. Make a well in the center and pour in the heavy cream. Fold everything together just to incorporate; do not overwork the dough. Fold the blueberries into the batter. Take care not to mash or bruise the blueberries because their strong color will bleed into the dough.

Press the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a rectangle about 12 by 3 by 1 1/4 inches. Cut the rectangle in 1/2 then cut the pieces in 1/2 again, giving you 4 (3-inch) squares. Cut the squares in 1/2 on a diagonal to give you the classic triangle shape. Place the scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and brush the tops with a little heavy cream. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until beautiful and brown. Let the scones cool a bit before you apply the glaze.

Technically you should make this simple lemon glaze in a double boiler (i.e. over a pot of simmering water with a heatproof bowl set on top) but it's even simpler to zap it in the microwave. Mix the lemon juice and confectioners' sugar together in a microwave-safe bowl. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the lemon zest and butter. Nuke it for 30 seconds on high. Whisk the glaze to smooth out any lumps, then drizzle the glaze over the top of the scones. Let it set a minute before serving.



-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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"Strawberry Shortcake" Cookies

I have a love for many things strawberry. From the simple chocolate dipped strawberry, strawberry jams, strawberry ice cream and so forth. Then, there's my love for the Strawberry Kellogg's Special K Bars. These are my favorite to eat, especially during my two hour breaks in between classes at UW. They are a great snack to have and have a great sweetness. They taste similar to "Cap'n Crunch Berries". If you haven't tried them, you should!! Well, one day during my two hour break, I got an inspiration. I wanted to make a strawberry cookie that had the same intense strawberry sweetness that the Special K Bar had. Shouldn't be too hard right? I mean, I said to myself "I can probably just add strawberry extract to my chocolate chip cookie recipe and it would be done".

Well, I started to read the ingredients in the Special K Bar to see what the strawberry looking pieces were because if I was going to make a cookie like these bars, it should have some strawberry pieces right? However, these "strawberry pieces" in the Bars were actually CRANBERRIES! o__O What a revelation. A strawberry bar that doesn't have strawberries?! Say Whaaaaa?! It made my life a little easier though because I made "White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies" before. So, I would just have to add strawberry extract to this cookie. I did exactly that. In this case, I used imitation strawberry extract. I don't usually do or recommend this. If anything, get the pure stuff. However, after going to four different stores, they either had the imitation extract or none at all. Anywho, I used about 2 tsp. of the imitation strawberry extract and mixed it into the "White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies". Then I scooped and baked them. After coming out of the oven and cooled, I drizzled them with a simple icing made out of powdered sugar and milk. These cookies were delicious!! The cookies had the strawberry sweetness, the cranberries gave a tartness and the chocolate gave a vanilla creaminess. I gave them the name "'Strawberry Shortcake' Cookies" because the white chocolate chips really gave the creamy, vanilla factor that whip cream gives strawberry shortcakes. This has become one of my favorites!! :D Here was my simple icing recipe.

Vanilla Icing (Good for a batch of 8 cookies)
Ingredients
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon milk
A Splash of vanilla

Directions
Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix until smooth. Once finished, check to see if the icing is able to be drizzled easily. If not, add more milk. If too thin, add more powdered sugar. Once at desired thickness, drizzle lightly over the cookies.

-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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