Citrus Tarragon Granita

What a beautiful day! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I have the day off work!

In all honesty, it is a bit chilly outside, but I was still in the mood for something summery and refreshing. I feel like every single one of my blog posts starts with "This is the easiest thing ever!", but I really mean it with this one. All you need is a juice of your choice, a little sugar, a freezer, and a fork.

I decided to make mine today with a variety of citrus fruits and tarragon. Tarragon, also known as the King of Herbs by the French, is mainly used in buttery sauces and savory dishes. But it pairs wonderfully with citrus and brings a simple granita to a whole new level!

Another great thing about granita is that you can add as much or as little sugar as you like. And you can sweeten it with anything from sugar to honey to Stevia. It all works in this recipe.

The other day while at the mall, I ran into a tea store simply to grab a sample so I could take an Advil. The salesgirl was SO nice and good at her job that I walked out of there with over $20.00 worth of tea related items. One of which was German rock sugar. Apparently it is sugar in its purest form and digests in the body really easily. Who knows if all that is true, but it looks really cool and tastes really good so I used it to sweeten my granita!

Citrus Tarragon Granita
Serves 10

3 cups orange juice
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup grapefruit juice
1/2 cup lime juice
Sweetener of your choice
2 tablespoons Gran Marnier
1 teaspoon each of lemon, lime and orange zest
3 tablespoons finely chopped tarragon

Combine all ingredients and pour into a shallow 13x9 inch pan. Place in the freezer. In 1 hour, remove from freezer and scrape sides with a fork. The mixture will still be mostly liquid at this point, only just starting to crystallize around the edges. Place back in freezer and continue to scrape every hour for the next 3 hours. You will end up with a light and refreshing icy treat, perfect for a warm night. This would also make a great cocktail, with a little vodka or tequila poured over the top.

Mexican Wedding Cookies with Vanilla Bean and Almonds

Wow! Life has been busy. So much has been going on. Finally have some time off for a little post.

These are a nutty shortbread cookie rolled in powdered sugar, traditionally served at Mexican weddings. This is a perfect party cookie as they are so easy to make and one recipe makes about 30 cookies. I made these with vanilla bean and almond. You can use any nut you like, or leave the nuts out all together. You can also flavor them many different ways. Someone suggested to me that they would be great with lemon!! You can definitely have fun with these.


Mexican Wedding Cookies
Makes 25 to 35

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups butter, room temperature
3/4 cup powdered sugar, plus more for rolling cookies in
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, seeded
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and the powdered sugar till light, about 5 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and vanilla bean seeds. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and the salt. Add flour to the butter and mix just till combined. Fold in the nuts.

Using 1 tablespoon per cookie, roll dough into balls. Place on parchment lined baking sheets 2 inches apart. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, till just lightly golden around the edges. Cool completely.

Toss cooled cookies into powdered sugar to coat. Repeat this until the powdered sugar stays dry on the cookie.

Book Page Heart Mobile

Here is a little something I have been working on for the past few days. I have lately come across Dottie Angel's blog and Flikr. Oh my god she is so amazing!! I plan on trying out so many of her wonderful crafts and this is the first project of her's that I have completed.

I definitely made this in the spirit of Valentine's Day, but I think I am going to keep it up all the time because it looks really cute! But mainly because cutting out all of those dang hearts was SO time consuming. Plus I sustained minor injuries to my finger and the loss of a book. Honestly, ripping out and cutting up pages from a book is so counter intuitive, but strangely satisfying all at the same time!

To do this, I cut out hearts in 3 sizes. Each heart on a strand is 2 hearts glued together, with the string running through the middle. I threw in a few random red hearts for a pop of color.

I am also super excited about my new set of stamps!! It is the alphabet in a fairly small size. It has proved to be very useful so far.

I added some vertical word rectangles dangling at the bottoms, simply so I could use my stamps!!

Although cutting out the hearts did take quite a while, I think it was definitely worth the extra work. It looks really beautiful when the sun is shining through the window.

Valentine Venetian Cookies

Ahh February, love is in the air. Candy hearts, flowers, chocolate boxes, yada yada yada. Don't get me wrong, I love Valentine's Day! And if there is one thing Valentine's Day means to me, it is creating wonderful Valentine themed baked goods and crafts for all the people I care about. I have a few things on the way to share with you in the next week or so. Up first is my sister's FAVORITE cookie of all time. It is an Italian Christmas cookie, traditionally colored like the Italian flag. They are more like cakes than cookies. Kind of like tiny petit four layered almond cakes covered in chocolate ganache. These are perfect for filling heart shaped boxes and giving to that special someone!

*One note I want to make about this recipe has to do with the almond paste. It generally comes in 2 ways. In a can and in a tube. The can is 8 ounces and the tube is 7. Almost every recipe for this cookie calls for 8 ounces. I can only ever find the tube and it costs almost 10 bucks. I hate to buy a whole other tube just for that one ounce. I almost always have almond meal or almonds in my pantry. For that extra ounce, I just use half almond meal or ground almonds and half sugar with a splash of water. Voila, almond paste.
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Valentine Venetians:
Makes 50 to 60, depending on size

For the cake:
8 oz. almond paste*
1 cup granulated sugar
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
4 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Red and pink food coloring
8 oz. seedless raspberry preserves

For the ganache:
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the almond paste and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse will combined. Add butter, egg yolks and extracts. Blend till light and smooth, 3 to 5 minutes. Add flour and salt and mix just to combine.

Whisk egg whites till stiff peaks form. Gently fold into almond mixture. Divide batter into 3 bowls. Add desired amounts of food coloring.

This next part can be done a couple of different ways. The batter can be spread into the bottom of three 13 x 9 inch pans, but I always found this way to be very annoying.

The easiest way to do this is by rolling the batter between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Start by rolling it out on the counter. Transfer the whole thing to the baking sheet. Place another same sized baking sheet on top and press down to flatten. The batter should be about 1/8 of an inch thick.

Place in oven with both sheets of parchment paper and bake for 15 minutes. Let cool completely.

Heat the raspberry preserves in small saucepan. Brush a layer of preserves over one of the cake layers. Top with another cake layer. Brush another layer of preserves on top. Place last cake layer on top. Wrap in plastic wrap. Place in refrigerator and weight down with a cookie sheet and various refrigerator items. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, preferable overnight.

For the ganache, heat chocolate, heavy cream and butter over a double boiler till smooth. Cover the entire almond cake in the ganache.

Once the chocolate is set, cut the cake into 1 inch squares. These are so yummy, they are almost addicting!!

Banana Cupcakes with Orange Cardamom Butter Cream

These were great! The banana cupcake was a bit like soft banana bread and the orange and cardamom butter cream paired nicely.

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Banana Cupcakes with Orange Cardamom Butter Cream
Makes 12


For the batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 large ripe bananas
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake tin with liners.

In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In a food processor, blend sour cream, vanilla and bananas till smooth.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar till light, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, combining well after each addition. Add banana mixture alternately with the flour mixture till combined. Careful not to over mix. Bake 20 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

For the butter cream:

1 cup granulated sugar
4 large egg whites
3 sticks of butter, room temperature
1 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons orange zest
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
2 tablespoons ground cardamom

Put sugar and egg whites in a double boiler over simmering water. Whisk constantly until the mixture is hot to the touch and looks white, creamy, opaque and slightly thickened, about 5 to 7 minutes. Place into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk for 5 minutes. You will get a thick shiny meringue. After 5 minutes, switch over to the paddle attachment. Set speed to medium high and add soft butter, one tablespoon at a time, incorporating fully before adding more. Once all the butter is incorporated add the vanilla extract, orange extract, zest, and cardamom. Let the mixer run for another 3 to 5 minutes.

Rose and Pistachio Macarons

A while back, while in a cute little gift shop, I bought some rose sugar. I always looked at it sitting there in the pantry knowing one day I would find a use for it. Finally the sugar has found its place! I used this Violet Macaron recipe from Tartlett. I just replaced everything violet with everything rose. I also added finely chopped pistachios to the butter cream.


Macarons are tricky little things. Once you understand how they work, they start to come naturally. But you just have to mess up a few times to learn what NOT to do before you can become a master at what you ARE supposed to do.

It is a fairly simple process. You start by whisking the egg whites till they are just frothy.




Slowly add sugar till you reach stiff peaks. Careful not to over mix or the egg whites will be too dry! You can also add food coloring at this point.




Fold the beaten egg whites into powdered sugar and almond meal. This is the part that determines how nicely shaped your macarons will be. If you don't mix enough, the macarons will be too fat. If you over mix, the batter becomes too unmanageably runny that you can't even pipe the circles. Finding the perfect balance is the key. Tartlett says it should not take more than 50 strokes. As soon as the batter falls back into itself, it should be good.




Pipe 1-1/2 inch circles onto parchment lined baking sheets. Top with a little garnish. Let sit on counter for 45 minutes. This dries out the surface of the macaron and creates the macaron's signature "foot" when it is baked. The shell stays in tact and the soft batter underneath puffs up.



Bake at 280 degrees for about 15 minutes. Let cool slightly before trying to remove from the parchment. If you have trouble removing them, a little water underneath the parchment helps to loosen them. Finish them off with a tablespoon of the pistachio butter cream.

The rose in this was so nice! Not too overpowering. And the pistachio added a nice crunch. I am happy to have finally used the wonderful rose sugar!


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Gnome Card

My good friend Nicole turned 21 on the 18th. She loves gnomes and woodland themes so I made her this little gnome card. I kind of envisioned that Nicole was having this awesome forest birthday party and a little gnome came along and started eying the cake!

I just printed a couple of key elements from the computer, like the frame and the gnome. Then I sat down with a big pile of colored paper, scissors, and glue. I didn't know exactly how I was going to set it up. It just sort of evolved, but there was definitely some unnecessary over construction due to the fact that I had no plan. Lots and lots of layers and gluing!

These flames were little nightmares!! Tiny tiny tiny. I used a toothpick to glue them.




Sneaky little gnome!





Little mushrooms!





I really liked how this turned out and it was such a fun project for a very amazing person!! Happy Birthday Nicole!!!