Among many of my favorite things to do for the Holidays is to watch the TV specials. Now granted, I own most of these on DVD, and yet every year I prefer to watch them on TV, with commercials. Strange I know. Last night I watched a new one called Shrek the Halls. Which was actually pretty cute but will never compete with the classics of my childhood.
I’ve already seen on TV, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas, but it never is Christmas to me until I see Rudoph the Red Nose Reindeer. Perhaps it is the fact that I am somewhat of a misfit myself and so I can relate to Rudolph and Hermey the Elf…I mean I had Hermey saying “I want to be a dentist” as my outgoing message for my answering machine throughout undergrad school…and no, I didn’t want to be a dentist.
Is it the timely message to accept others as they are, for everyone has a purpose in the world?
No.
It’s the Bumble. I love the Bumble( aka. The Abominable Snow Monster of the North). He never scared me as a kid. I never shouted at the screen saying “run, Rudolph, run” like my friend D did. He always made me happy. I knew he was never a bad guy, I mean if he wanted to eat Ruldoph’s friends, he would have done it right away, right? And by the end of the movie, when he is toothless and can do no harm, even he the misfit had a purpose…to put the star on the tree. Ahh, let us all hug now.
So in honour of my beloved Bumble I decided to make him a Christmas treat. I was going to have to be something soft, since all of his teeth were removed. I remembered seeing in one of my many cupcake books that there was a Yeti cupcake…in case you don’t know, a yeti it is an abominable snowman. Surely these would do. The recipe called for using coconut in the frosting, which I left out because I want to use my little snowflake sprinkles I found. They were far more festive than coconut. Be sure to grease the top of your pan, even if you are using cupcake liners, as these cupcakes have marshmallow in them and they like to ooze when hot and then stick like crazy to everything when they cool down. These were much fun and super tasty and I have no doubt that after he eats one the Bumble will be loving me.

Marshmallow Snowflake Cupcakes

Cupcake Batter:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¼ cups sugar
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 egg whites(plus a pinch of salt for them)
1 cup mini-marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine flour and baking powder together in a bowl; set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together, beating till light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk, and beat until batter is smooth. (Don’t panic, this will look more like cookie batter than bake batter.)
Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff but not to dry. Gently fold into batter. (This was a bit of a chore, just keep at it).
Fold in marshmallows.
Spoon batter into cupcake papers, filling cups about 2/3 full(even if you are using papers, be sure to grease down the top of the muffin tins as the marshmallow part tends to ooze over a bit). Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool.

Frosting:

2 egg whites
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla

Using a large bowl, preferably the top of a double boiler, mix eggs, sugar, corn syrup ans salt until combined. Place the bowl over simmering water ans whisk until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot, about 3 minutes(be careful to not make it too hot since you are using eggs and don’t want them to scramble). Remove heat and beat 5-7 minutes until frosting is cool and stiff peaks form. Beat in vanilla. Decorate cupcakes to your tastes. To get the “spiked” look simply frost the cupcake as you normally would and then go back and touch the knife to various parts of the frosting and it will pull up. Sprinkle with candy snowflakes(I got mine at Target).

Source: Adapted from Cupcakes Galore by Gail Wagman

I’ve mentioned before how in having this blog, many a family favorite has been shattered. Here I had visions of my mother slaving over homemade baked goods, only to find out that my mother was basically Sandra Lee(ironically, she makes everything from scratch now). Growing up at Christmas time my mom always had Date Nut Bread. I always turned my nose up at it because I was not a fan of dates as a kid. But as I grew up, so did my taste buds and I learned to love the bread…especially for a breakfast treat. So the other day I called my mom to ask her to email me her beloved Date Bread recipe…and then it happened. The silence. The silence I have grown to learn that means, oh shit, I must now admit that I used a box mix to make it silence. It was that silence again. Apparently our family treasured recipe was a box of Pillsbury Date Bread Quick Bread Mix. Ugh. Now granted she did add to it, using fresh dates and chopped nuts, but still. Yet another blow to my ego. So if you would like the Date Bread I grew up eating go grab yourself a box. Since I was not going to put a box cake up on my blog(not that there is anything wrong with box cake…we all know my love of Funfetti cake) I had to figure out what to make since I now had all these dates.

I turned to one of my favorite cookbooks, The Pastry Queen to see what they had done with dates. They had made a Orange Date Bundt Cake. Alright I thought, I will just start my own holiday tradition. This is moist and dense, like most Bundt cakes are. It is not anywhere close to the taste of my family “recipe” but it is certainly good.

Orange Date Bundt Cake

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large egg
grated zest of 1 medium orange
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 chopped dates

Glaze

1 cup powder sugar
½ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 TBSP grated orange zest

Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease and lightly flour a 10-12 cup Bundt pan.
Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter  on  medium-high speed about 1 minutes, until fluffy. Add the sugar and cream on medium-high speed about 30 seconds. Add the eggs all at once and continue creaming for one minute. Add the orange zest and vanilla; beat until combined. Add about half the flour, the baking soda, and the salt; mix on medium-low speed until just combined. Add the buttermilk and mix on medium-low speed until just combined. Add the rest of the flour and mix until just combined. Gently stir in the dates.
Spoon the batter evenly into the pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Let cake cool in the pan about 10 minutes. Invert it onto a rack and cool at least 20 minutes before glazing. Transfer cake to a serving plate.

To make the glaze: Combine the ingredients together and whisk until it becomes a creamy orange color. Pour glaze over cake.
Serve at room temperature.

Source: Adapted from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather with Alison Oresman, 2004

I have a gift.
A gift for killing food scales.
Not sure why I have this gift, but I am out 5 food scales in the last 3 years alone. Now a days most things are written in cups and tsp, etc and so I held off on buying a food scale this time around. But when I saw that we were making potato bread, and that I need ounces of potato I browsed Amazon.com and found one. This time around UPS helped me out and my food scale came to me mutilated and in pieces. Well crap I thought. I was already to make potato bread and even planned my meal to include it. So I decided I would make it anyway.
What was my solution. Well, I stood on my scale holding an empty bowl. I have one of those scales that tells you not only weight, but body fat(oh the horror!), how much water is in your body and so on. So after I weighed myself I went and added some mashed up potato to the bowl and re-weighed myself…till I “gained” a pound. It worked. So I sent back my food scale and didn’t get another one yet…the holidays are no time to kill things.
This is a good, straightforward recipe that Tanna of My Kitchen in Half Cups found for us, the Daring Bakers that is. I think if you are not a bread baker and even a little fearful of yeast(you know who you are) should give this one a go around.

Tender Potato Bread

Challenge Recipe:

Metric measurements are from the European edition. Thank you Linda (Linda.kovacevic.nl) from Make Life Sweeter

Ingredients:

4 medium to large floury (baking) potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks.
Tanna Note: For the beginner bread baker I suggest no more than 8 ounces of potato; for the more advanced no more than 16 ounces. The variety of potatoes you might want to use would include Idaho, Russet & Yukon gold, there are others.

4 cups(950 ml) water, reserve cooking water
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
6 ½ cups to 8 ½ cups (1 kg to 1350g) unbleached all-purpose
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (130g) whole wheat flour

Making the Dough (Directions will be for making by hand):

Put the potatoes and 4 cups water in a sauce pan and bring to boil. Add 1 teaspoon salt and cook, half covered, until the potatoes are very tender.

Drain the potatoes, SAVE THE POTATO WATER, and mash the potatoes well. Tanna Note: I have a food mill I will run my potatoes through to mash them.

Measure out 3 cups(750ml) of the reserved potato water. Add extra water if needed to make 3 cups. Place the water and mashed potatoes in the bowl you plan to mix the bread dough in. Let cool to lukewarm (70-80°F/21 – 29°C) ¢â¬â€œ stir well before testing the temperature ¢â¬â€œ it should feel barely warm to your hand. You should be able to submerge you hand in the mix and not be uncomfortable.

Add yeast to 2 cups all-purpose flour and whisk. Add yeast and flour to the cooled mashed potatoes & water and mix well. Allow to rest/sit 5 minutes.
Note about Adding Yeast: If using Active Dry Yeast or Fresh yeast, mix & stir yeast into cooled water and mashed potatoes & water and let stand 5 minutes. Then add 2 cups of flour to the yeast mix and allow to rest several minutes. If using Instant Dry Yeast, add yeast to 2 cups all-purpose flour and whisk. Add yeast and flour to the cooled mashed potatoes & water and mix well. Allow to rest/sit 5 minutes.
Sprinkle in the remaining 1 tablespoon salt and the softened butter; mix well. Add the 1 cup whole wheat flour, stir briefly.

Add 2 cups of the unbleached all-purpose flour and stir until all the flour has been incorporated.
Tanna Note: At this point you have used 4 cups of the possible 8 ½ cups suggested by the recipe.
Turn the dough out onto a generously floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, incorporating flour as needed to prevent sticking. The dough will be very sticky to begin with, but as it takes up more flour from the kneading surface, it will become easier to handle; use a dough scraper to keep your surface clean. The kneaded dough will still be very soft. Place the dough in a large clean bowl or your rising container of choice, cover with plastic wrap or lid, and let rise about 2 hours or until doubled in volume.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead gently several minutes. It will be moist and a little sticky.

Forming the Bread:
Tanna Note: It is at this point you are requested to Unleash the Daring Baker within. The following is as the recipe is written. You are now free to follow as written or push it to a new level.

Divide the dough into 2 unequal pieces in a proportion of one-third and two-thirds (one will be twice as large as the other). Place the smaller piece to one side and cover loosely.
To shape the large loaf:
Butter a 9 x 5 x 2.5 inch loaf/bread pan. Flatten the larger piece of dough on the floured surface to an approximate 12 x 8 inch oval, then roll it up from a narrow end to form a loaf. Pinch the seam closed and gently place seam side down in the buttered pan. The dough should come about three-quarters of the way up the sides of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 35 to 45 minutes, until puffy and almost doubled in volume.

To make a small loaf with the remainder:
Butter an 8×4X2 inch bread pan. Shape and proof the loaf the same way as the large loaf.

To make rolls:
Butter a 13 x 9 inch sheet cake pan or a shallow cake pan. Cut the dough into 12 equal pieces. Shape each into a ball under the palm of your floured hand and place on the baking sheet, leaving 1/2 inch between the balls. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about 35 minutes, until puffy and almost doubled.

To make focaccia:
Flatten out the dough to a rectangle about 10 x 15 inches with your palms and fingertips. Tear off a piece of parchment paper or wax paper a little longer than the dough and dust it generously with flour. Transfer the focaccia to the paper. Brush the top of the dough generously with olive oil, sprinkle on a little coarse sea salt, as well as some rosemary leaves, if you wish and then finally dimple all over with your fingertips. Cover with plastic and let rise for 20 minutes.

Baking the bread(s):

Note about baking order: bake the flat-bread before you bake the loaf; bake the rolls at the same time as the loaf.

Note about Baking Temps: I believe that 450°F(230°C) is going to prove to be too hot for the either the large or small loaf of bread for the entire 40/50 minutes. I am going to put the loaves in at 450°(230°C) for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 375°F (190 °C) for the remaining time.

Note about cooling times: Let all the breads cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Rolls can be served warm or at room temperature.

For loaves and rolls:
Dust risen loaves and rolls with a little all-purpose flour or lightly brush the tops with a little melted butter or olive oil (the butter will give a golden/browned crust). Slash loaves crosswise two or three times with a razor blade or very sharp knife and immediately place on the stone, tiles or baking sheet in the oven. Place the rolls next to the loaf in the oven.

Bake rolls until golden, about 30 minutes. Bake the small loaf for about 40 minutes. Bake the large loaf for about 50 minutes.

Transfer the rolls to a rack when done to cool. When the loaf or loaves have baked for the specified time, remove from the pans and place back on the stone, tiles or baking sheet for another 5 to 10 minutes. The corners should be firm when pinched and the bread should sound hollow when tapped on the bottom.

For foccaia:
Place a baking stone or unglazed quarry tiles, if you have them, if not use a no edged baking/sheet (you want to be able to slide the shaped dough on the parchment paper onto the stone or baking sheet and an edge complicates things). Place the stone or cookie sheet on a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450°F/230°C.

If making foccacia, just before baking, dimple the bread all over again with your fingertips. Leaving it on the paper, transfer to the hot baking stone, tiles or baking sheet. Bake until golden, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a rack (remove paper) and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

To see what all the other Daring Bakers did…and there are a lot of them… head on over to the Daring Bakers Blog Roll.

I wont say it is the most wonderful time of the year(we all know that is when hockey season starts) but it comes darn close. I am SUCH a sucker when it comes to Christmas…throw a little red and green glitter on something or paint a little gingerbread man or tree on it and suddenly I want it. I scream consumer Christmas.
Not to worry, I do know the true meaning of Christmas…I did grow up watching the Grinch and Charlie Brown Christmas after all.
Christmas was also the time of year to mess with my mother. I used to annoy her by refusing to buy Christmas wrapping paper, instead buying regular birthday paper and then writing in the word Jesus after each time it said Happy Birthday. My mom was not a fan. She was also not fan of most of my wrapping styles. See my mom gets a little Martha Stewart about her tree. She didn’t used to when we were little kids, but as we got older she took control of the tree. She likes the balls, ribbon, tree skirt, wrapping paper, etc…all to match. To ensure this she would GIVE us the wrapping paper. I of course, being the giant pain in the ass I was, would flip the paper over to the white side and draw little pictures on it and use that side for wrapping. What did I draw you ask? Festive stuff like elves stabbing snowmen, reindeer pooping, Santa throwing up. I changed it up every year, you know, for variety. Needless to say my mother finally caved and allowed me to going back to picking my paper. I am nice now and usually have a more classic taste these days or even better I pay to have Amazon.com to do it.
Another thing that usually suckers me into consumer Christmas is Christmas Cookbooks…surprise, surprise. So when my biggest inspiration came out with another cookbook, and it was a Christmas one, I was all over it. I’m Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas by Marcel Desaulniers had many a thing that I wanted to try but the vibrant color of the cranberry cake stuck out…plus cranberries are on sale.
Let my start off by saying that this cake was a pain in the butt to make to put it mildly, but it was OH so GOOD. I actually made this twice. I made the full size first but got super pissed because the cake layers shrink because there is very little flour, no problem, except that I got 3 different sizes. So out came the cookie cutter to make mini ones. I decided I would try them again, this time in my 4 1/2-inch diameter pans…that worked much better. Still they shrank but I liked the texture of them better too. The batter is just a much as a pain too. It is like tar, white tar. And you have to fold egg whites into the white tar…so not a fun task…but again, it tastes really good. My frosting is a much more vivid red than in the cookbook, I think mostly because I threw in more cranberries than what it called for and I could not for the life of me get my butter to go soft. It was freezing that day and would just not cooperate. If you are looking for a tasty challenge, then this just might be the cake for you.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cake

White Chocolate Mousse Cake

4 TBSP unsalted butter, cut into 1 TBSP pieces, plus 1 TBSP melted
12 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped
10 large egg yolks
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup all-purpose flour
6 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 325F

Lightly coat three 9 x 1 ½- inch round cake pans with some of the 1 TBSP melted butter.(I personally made mini ones using 41/2 inch diameter cake rounds. Line the bottoms with parchment paper, then lightly coat the paper with more melted butter.
Melt the chocolate and butter on top of a double boiler.
Place egg yolks, ½ cup sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of a standard mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat on high until lemon-colored and slightly thickened, about 4 minutes. Add the melted white chocolate and beat on medium-high until thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Use a rubber spatula to fold the flour. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and set aside.
Place the egg whites in the clean bowl of a stand electric mixer fitted with a balloon whip. Whisk on high for 45 seconds until soft peaks form, then add the remaining ¼ cup sugar and continue to whisk on high until stiff peaks form, about 45 seconds. Remove the bowl from the mixer. Add about a third of the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture and fold to incorporate, using a rubber spatula. Add the remaining egg whites and fold until the mixture is uniform in color. Immediately divide the batter into prepared pans, spreading it evenly with a rubber spatula.
Bake on the top and center racks of the oven until a toothpick comes out clean , about 21-22 minutes(about 25 for the minis because they are thicker). Halfway through rotate the pans 180 degrees and switch racks. Remove cake from oven and let cool for 30 minutes. Invert the cake layers onto cake plates. Carefully peel away the parchment paper. Refrigerate the cake layers uncovered.

Cranberry Icing

1 ½ cups fresh whole cranberries
1 ½ lbs(6 sticks…yes 6) unsalted butter, cut into 1-TBSP pieces, softened
3 TBSP Grand Marnier(optional)
2 ½ cups powder sugar, sifted

Place cranberries on a baking sheet and bake in a 325F oven for 8 minutes, until they start to burst. Then put them in a bowl and place in fridge.
Place butter in the bowl of a stand electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on low for 1 minutes, then increase speed to medium and beat for 1 minute. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides. Add the cranberries and mix on low speed for 15 seconds, increase to medium speed and mix for 1 minute. Scrape down the bowl. Add the orange liqueur, then gradually add the powder sugar while mixing on the lowest speed until combined, about 1 ½ minutes. Scrape down again. Beat on medium-high for 1 minute until very soft and fluffy. Remove bowl from mixer, and use a rubber spatula to finish mixing the icing until thoroughly combined.

To assemble the cake:

Remove the cake layers from fridge. Fit a pastry bag with a large star tip. Transfer 1 cup of the icing to the pastry bag and set aside at room temperature. Use an icing spatula to evenly spread 1 cup of the remaining icing over the top of one of the cake layers, to the edge. Use a wide utility turner to remove the second layer from the cake plate and place it on the icing. Spread another cup of icing over that layer to the edge. Top with the last layer. Gently press the layers into place. Using a sharp knife to trim away any rough edges around the cake. Spread the remaining icing evenly over the top and sides of the cake.
Using the pastry bag, pipe a ring of 8 to 10 evenly spaced cranberry icing stars along the outside edge of the top of the cake. Refrigerate cake for at least 1 hour before cutting and serving.
Heat blade of a knife under hot water and wipe dry before cutting each slice. Slice the cake while still cold, then keep slices at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.
*Since I made mini ones, I only did 2 layers. I also only made ½ batch of icing.

Source: Adapted from I’m Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas by Marcel Desaulniers