A healthy-looking heart.

Well, in the past it would’ve meant I’d be looking forward to a day (or at least an evening) off, spent snuggling and probably having a nice dinner or something with Z. But now? Now it means I’m gearing up for a long weekend of busy dinner service with a special holiday menu at work. Ah, restaurant life.

So pretty!

Since I’d already been contacted by POM Wonderful and offered a bottle of their new POM concentrate with which to experiment and ultimately create a cupcake for their Valentine’s Day contest, I figured I should tackle that during my pre-holiday “weekend.” And so I did.

Kind of elegant.

It wasn’t easy, you know. Deciding what kind of cupcake to make. Pomegranate is pretty much my favorite fruit. I didn’t want to use chocolate, so cliche…but what else was I to do? The Flavor Bible to the rescue – pomegranate goes awesome with olive oil and lemon! And I totally had a bangin’ recipe for olive oil lemon cake. Once I had the idea for the decoration I considered myself set and gathered my ingredients.

I love these liners!

Pause for a second here…check out those adorable cupcake liners! I had recently placed an order with Fancy Flours for a bunch of supplies (partly to restock on little gift boxes after Christmas’s Bakestravaganza and partly to set myself up with cupcake wrappers for the year…and partly because I can’t refuse cookie cutters in very stupid shapes, like giant armadillos and tiny fruits) and noticed these sweet new harlequin print liners. Not until I actually went to use them did I notice that they are from Sutton Gourmet, whose liners are extra-thick and stay white and more or less opaque even after you bake chocolate cakes in them. Awwwwwesome.

Oh my!

The original idea with these cupcakes was that the pomegranate concentrate (which I used to replace the amaretto in the olive oil cake recipe) would turn the cakes pink and I’d have perfectly Valentine’s colored cupcakes. Dork that I am, I forgot that eggs and extra virgin olive oil are very yellow and that they wouldn’t play nice with the pretty purpley concentrate. Ultimately I added a bunch of red food coloring to at least tint the batter…the end result being kind of a natural-looking pink velvet type of thing. The food coloring is totally unnecessary, IMO, and if you really DO want a pinkish cake you’d have to use a lot of it, or at least a more concentrated form than I did (gel is apparently not enough).

Kind of craving one now.

Despite the coloring mishap (if you can call it that), I’m really happy with the cakes. This recipe bakes up so cute as cupcakes, all perfectly domed and shiny. They’re very sturdy and perfect for filling,* but I chose to keep it simple this time and just topped them each with a round blob of lemon cream cheese frosting (which is the only type of frosting that I believe powdered sugar is acceptable in, and then only in the barest minimum amounts).

*Pomegranate jelly, curd or mousse would all be neat fillings.

Just a nibble...

I’m exceptionally pleased with the heart design on the top. I tried drawing it out on paper beforehand when I was conceptualizing (yes I draw a lot of my cupcakes, and other desserts that are only concepts for now…sometimes just so I can outline and color them when I’m bored) but couldn’t get the placement right until I actually put the arils on. The only drawback is that you can’t appreciate the cupcakes fully from the top and side at the same time.

Happy Valentine's Day!

No recipe here, since it is in the contest you’ll have to go over to POM Wonderful’s site to see it. I actually made half the recipe that’s posted.

…Wait, cookies? Hm, maybe not so hard to think of things after all.

A whole tray of 'em!

Once cookie I just can’t get my head around is the snickerdoodle. I guess it’s because I never had one until a year or so ago, so I have no nostalgic childhood memories of buttery sugar cookies rolled in crunchy cinnamon sugar. (It was all ginger molasses, all the way for me!) Even though the first one I had was good, it just didn’t impress me. I figured there had to be some way to make it more appealing, and eventually I realized what that was.

They so pretty.

Pumpkin + spice = awesome. Plain old cinnamon would sure be fine, what with the spice grinder and whole spices I stocked up on for my Christmas cookie extravaganza, but since I’d already mixed up a batch of my gingerbread spice blend for marshmallows I decided to go with that.

The floating cookie?

Since the recipe I found for pumpkin snickerdoodles only called for white sugar and you can’t REALLY have anything gingerbread flavored without good old molasses flavor, I decided to add a little light brown sugar. Only a little, and only light brown because these cookies are soft like cake.

Slide them into your gullet!

The texture reminds me of the whoopie pies I made back in the day, nice and round and fluffy, just the way I like my whoopie pies. These would be excellent sandwiched with your favorite whoopie pie filling…cream cheese, chocolate, caramel, dulce de leche???

Freaky neon orange insides.

Oh yeah, they really are that orange inside. That means they must have a lot of beta carotene…which means they’re healthy, right? :D

Spicy pumpkiny goodness.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Spice Snickerdoodles (adapted from For the Love of Cooking):

For the cookies:

1. 1/2 cup butter
2. 1/2 cup sugar
3. 1/4 cup light brown or demerara sugar
4. 1 egg
5. 1/2 tsp vanilla
6. 1/2 cup pumpkin
7. 2 cups AP flour
8. 1 tsp gingerbread spice blend*
9. 3/4 tsp baking soda
10. 1/2 tsp salt

For the Sugar Coating:

1. 1/2 cup sugar
2. 2 tsp gingerbread spice blend*

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla, scraping down the bowl to ensure that it’s fully incorporated. Beat in the pumpkin and scrape down again. Combine the remaining dry ingredients and whisk or sift together (if your baking soda or flour has clumps definitely sift). With the mixer off, add all the dry at once and mix on low speed until almost completely incorporated. Scrape down the beater and bowl (especially the bottom) and briefly mix on low speed until everything is fully combined. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Combine the sugar coating ingredients thoroughly in a small bowl. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and form into balls slightly smaller than golf balls. Thoroughly coat each one in the sugar coating and place at least 1 1/2″ apart on the baking sheets. Flatten each slightly with the heel of your hand. Bake for about 10 minutes, turning the sheets halfway through. Remove from oven when the cookies are firm to the touch on top. Cool for about 1 minute on the sheet then move to a rack to finish cooling.

Makes about 24.

*I make my own blend of gingerbread spices. It’s phenomenal when made with freshly-ground spices (which is why my cookies have bigger specks of some spices and little ginger fibers here and there) but is also really nice with pre-ground spices, too. I usually measure one part as a teaspoon when I make a batch.

1. 2 parts cinnamon
2. 2 parts ginger
3. 1 part nutmeg
4. 1 part cloves
5. 1 part allspice

Snowball?

I had fun though, and was rewarded with reports of happy snarfing from around the country. Among a couple of old favorites I included some new treats, many of which were variations on recipes I use at work.

Cute!

You won’t be seeing posts on the triangle-shaped biscotti, salted bitter brownies or experimental fudge cookies; though they all came out delicious I considered them to be sort of works-in-progress.

But these cookies? They’re pretty much my ideal.

So nibbular!

A crunchy, chocolatey twist on the classic Mexican Wedding/Russian Tea Cake. Shortbread dough, classically mixed with toasted chopped nuts, instead is peppered with cocoa nibs. Texturally fun to eat, with a sophisticated bitter flavor, these are among my very favorite cookies that we’ve done for the cookie plate at work.

Making them at home, I wanted to give them my own personal twist, something cute and clever and tasty that would make these cookies even more interesting and unique. So I thought about cocoa nibs…and what goes with cocoa nibs? Cinnamon and spice. Perfect! I took a little artistic liberty on the name and added a little cinnamon and cayenne to the outer layer of powdered sugar. And then I baked them and packed them and sent them with love.

Smells so good.

Oaxacan Wedding Cakes:

1. 12 oz. butter (not cold but not soft or melty either)
2. 3/4 cup powdered sugar
3. 1 tsp vanilla
4. 2 cups AP flour
5. 1 cup cornstarch
6. 1/2 tsp salt
7. 1 cup cocoa nibs
8. More powdered sugar, for rolling
9. Cinnamon to taste
10. Cayenne pepper to taste

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla. You will probably have to scrape your bowl and beater(s) a few time. Make sure there are no stray lumps of butter in the mixture. Add the flour, cornstarch and salt all at once and beat on low until the mixture comes together, scraping down as needed to create an even mixture without overmixing the dough. Gently mix in the cocoa nibs and pack into an airtight container (makes about one quart of dough). Seal the container and refrigerate the dough overnight.

Preheat the oven to 325F. Use a spoon to scoop chunks of dough and roll them quickly into roughly 1″ balls in your hands. Place at least 1″ apart on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 5 minutes, then rotate the sheets and bake for another 5 minutes or so, until the cookies are very lightly browned on the bottom and slightly cracked on the top. Allow to cool completely on the sheets before removing. Combine powdered sugar with cinnamon and cayenne pepper to taste (you want a cinnamony smell and a slight bite from the pepper, neither should be overwhelming). Once the cookies are cool, roll thoroughly in powdered sugar mixture, more than once if necessary to get an even opaque white coating.

Makes about 6 dozen cookies.

Of course you remember the Caramel Banana Mochi Cakes I made back in September when I had a lovely bag of macadamia nuts from Oh! Nuts. These were incredibly good. Would-make-again good.

And before that, I used up some extra ingredients, including walnuts, when I made Honeyed Walnut Cardameringues.

It sure would have been nice to have had more sweet pecans on top of my Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins.

And Rosewater Pistachio Frozen Yogurt just isn’t as good without the lovely green pistachios.

It’s always nice to have some almond flour on hand in case you get the urge to make a batch of Hibiscus Macarons…or any other flavor you can dream up!

Of course Oh! Nuts isn’t about just nuts. They’ve also got the dried cranberries and blueberries you’d need to make Oatmeal Choconilla Bluecrazies.

They gots stuffs in thems!

Recently my mom sent me a couple boxes of some vegetarian gelatin substitute. I’ve been in a very use-up-all-the-little-odds-and-ends mood, so in the spirit of Valentine’s Day I created some  jiggly, romantic little hearts.

Pomegranate yay!

I still had a couple of 16 oz. bottles of Pom Wonderful juice sitting in the fridge, and considering each box of fake gelatin called for 16 oz. of liquid, how could I NOT make pomegranate Jell-O?

Big or little, both were delicious.

I also had a couple of pomegranates sadly getting older in the fridge so I added them for crunchy awesomeness reasons. And for a little romantic mysteriousness, I included a splash of rose water.

Kinda sorta heart-shaped?

The fakey gelatin stuff (which is from Natural Desserts and is vegan, gluten-free and Kosher…here are the ingredients: Vegetable Gum, Adipic Acid, Tapioca Dextrin, Calcium Phosphate, Potassium Citrate) works great and it’s not brittle like agar agar or gummy like pectin. The only real difference is that it had to be added in powdered form while the juice was boiling hot, whisked in and poured into molds immediately. It sets up CRAZY fast and it was actually kind of hard to get the pomegranate arils into some of the small hearts – I had to kind of throw them in to get them to not just sit on the surface.

The recipe below is how you’d make this with real gelatin.

Squooshy & juicy.

Jiggly Pomegranate Hearts

1. 1/4 oz. Knox gelatin
2. 16 oz. (2 cups) Pom Wonderful 100% pomegranate juice, chilled
3. 1/8 tsp rose water
4. 1/4 cup fresh pomegranate arils

Bloom the gelatin in 4 oz. (1/2 cup) of juice. In the meantime, bring the rest of the juice to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in the rose water, then whisk in the gelatin mixture until completely dissolved. Pour into heart-shaped molds and/or ramekins and add arils. Chill until set, about 3 hours.

Because there is no added sugar in this recipe, it’s actually quite healthy, and the rose water adds a slight floral sweetness that counteracts the tart pomegranate juice. The arils are beautifully suspended like jewels and the whole thing really is pretty romantic.