Cookie Jewelery

Do you remember when you were a kid and they had ring pops, candy necklaces and bracelets? So fun to play with and munch on at the same time. Well here are cookies made into beads and pendants for your wearing and munching pleasure!

This is my first attempt at making my own candy gems as well with melted colored sugar poured into some molds.

I kind of got on a cookie obsession when I found the wonderful detailed cookie art of Julie Usher on you tube.

I ended up purchasing her book and this is one of the projects she makes in the book. Everything is edible except for the ribbon I could not find shoestring licorice 😦 The band for the ring is made out of fondant 🙂

These were so much fun to make!!

“Frozen Movie” Cookies

I used to do a lot of cake and cookie decorating with my best friend Jennifer from Pittsburgh. I recently started taking a mini course on cookie decorating and learned all sorts of cool and crazy things.

One of the things I thought was so nifty was that you can stamp a cookie with a regular stamp and food coloring as a decoration.  Coolio, how come I didn’t think of that!! So it got me thinking about winter theme cookies and snowflakes which lead me to think about trying out this stamping-cookie-thing so voila……

 

I also tried my hand at brush embroidery, these are a bit quirky, but it is my first attempt 🙂

Alright so how to make these stamped cookies…..

You will need….

• baked cookies in any shape you’d like I made sugar cookies with a bit of lemon zest thrown in to make them extra yummy.
• regular stamps (brand new never used, you will be using food safe dye for your “ink”
• uninked ink pad if you can find it! (I couldn’t find any so I bought a small hand-held one that was never inked)
• Wilton or other brand food coloring
• brand new palette for your food coloring
• royal icing if you so desire a border to make it extra fancy
• I used shimmery type edible flakes to add some glimmer to the snowflake
• flood icing

Directions:

Take your baked cookie and apply the flood icing. This needs to dry solid (overnight) or when you go to stamp your cookie the icing will crack and depress where it is not yet dry. Trust me I was impatient and tried it. Wait 24 hours to be safe.

Next you will add your food coloring to your palette and add a bit of clear vanilla extract or vodka. Mix well with toothpick. Dab your paintbrush or sponge into “ink” (AKA food coloring) blot your stamp with the color, I suggest you try it on some plain paper first to make sure you have the consistency of the color just right 😉

Once this dries you can add a border as I did, more piping for 3 -D affect and sprinkle on some of the glittery shavings

Ta-Da:

 

Homemade Donuts

Homemade Donuts

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 2 hrs
• Difficulty: moderate
• Print

Ingredients:

• 5 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of salt
• 4 tsp of instant rapid rise yeast
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg(optional) do not use regular ground nutmeg if you must then just use 1/4 tsp
• 2 cups of scalded milk
• 5 tbsp of vegetable shortening

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients together. Whisk to incorporate.

In a small saucepan combine your milk and vegetable shortening and bring to a simmer (scald). Once your vegetable shortening has melted, turn off the heat. Let the milk cool down to lukewarm. Make sure your milk mixture is not to hot or you will kill the yeast and the dough will not rise. (around 100 degrees F)

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a dough hook for 10 minutes or so. This is a very wet dough but the dough should clear the sides of your mixer. If the dough does not clear the sides of the bowl and is still very wet then keep adding more flour 1/4 cup at a time, until you get the right consistency. If you do not have a mixer and are kneading by hand this high hydration dough needs to be mixed by the stretch and fold method. You can watch Peter Reinhardt explain this technique. Use pam instead of olive oil as Peter does since we are making a dessert dough olive oil will be …well just weird 🙂 That all said and done this dough is not an 80 %  hydration dough and it is not quite regular bread dough (60%). Without doing the baker’s math right now I am going to guess-timate it to be around 68%  It should feel slightly tacky when you are done with the kneading.

Alright leave the dough rise for an hour in a greased bowl and cover the dough. I put plastic wrap right over my dough loosely then a tea towel on top of the bowl. The reason I do this is to prevent any of the dough from loosing moisture and developing a skin on top. After an hour take your dough and roll it out into a big rectangle approx 1/2 inch thick. Use two different size cookie cutters and start cutting out your donuts and holes 🙂

I also fried the donut holes and sprinkled them with powdered sugar when they come out. Yum. As you can see I also left some whole and piped in some jelly and lemon curd then dusted those with icing sugar as well.

Ok once all your donuts are cut out let them rise again till double in size.

In the meantime take out your fryer if you have one or else put vegetable oil in a heavy large pot, (dutch ovens work great). When you are ready to start cooking heat your oil to 375 degrees F.

Place 4 donuts (or however many will fit without overcrowding) If you overcrowd the donuts in the hot oil this will bring the temperature down drastically and your dough will absorb the oil and become greasy and heavy YUCK. So just a few at a time. The donuts will cook 1 min per side. Then let them cool on a wire rack.

The next step is the best step. Dip your donuts in whatever concoction suits your fancy or sprinkle with sugar, coconut etc. AND EAT!! YUM

I just used a little milk, icing sugar and few drops of vanilla extract to make my glaze. The chocolate glaze started off like the clear + chocolate chips and a pat of butter whisked over a double broiler until silky and shiny.

Crème Brûlée

e

And yet another addition to my kitchen………

I got this from Amazon.com the reviews were great for this model and this butane in bulk was a great deal.

To make the best crème brûlée I also bought some vanilla beans.

• Servings: six
• Time: five hours (including chill time)
• Difficulty: moderate
• Print

Ingredients:

• 4 cups of heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean  (split and scrape the seeds out)
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 12 egg yolks
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Heat 2 cups of  cream in heavy saucepan with vanilla seeds, sugar and salt till lightly boiling. Take off heat and let steep while you whisk the rest of the ingredients.

Whisk the egg yolks with the remaining cream till uniform.  Temper your egg mixture into the hot cream till you fully combine the two mixtures. The custard should be very smooth. If not strain through a fine mesh strainer before dividing mixture evenly amongst 8 ramekins.

The ramekins will sit inside a baking dish water bath. Prep your baking dish by putting tea towel on the bottom of the dish (prevents your ramekins from slipping around when you go to place in/out of the oven.) Or this is a great set for crème brûlée

Once your ramekins are in the baking dish pour hot water in dish till it reaches 2/3 up the sides of the ramekins. Careful not to get water into the custard.

Place in 300 degree oven for 35-40 min till your custard has set up (should be just a bit jiggly in the middle) it will continue to cook a bit as it cools.  Cool completely at room temperature then place in the fridge to get chilled for 4 hours.

When ready to serve sprinkle 2 tsp of sugar over top the crème brûlée and use a kitchen torch to caramalize the sugar. Let sugar harden for 1 min then serve.

Meringue Treats

My daughters favorite cookie is a meringue cookie so when I have a ton of egg whites left over from making custards or ice-cream I save the whites for her favorite treat.

These sweetened egg white fluffy clouds are easy to make and can be further flavored with extracts, zests, chocolate bits etc.

There are 3 different kinds of meringues:

French

• the most widely used by us home chefs. Egg whites are beaten with sugar till stiff peaks form. The french meringues are the least stable of the three and need to be piped or shaped and placed in the oven right away or they will start to fall. A pinch of salt or cream of tartar helps to stabilize the mixture.
• the resulting mixture produces light, crisp exterior, soft interior cookies that are delicious 🙂

Italian

• a hot sugar syrup is beaten into the egg whites till stiff peaks form. This is a more stable meringue and can be used in various desserts without collapsing. This is a more dense meringue that is well suited for frostings, pies etc.

Swiss

• the egg whites and sugar are whisked over boiling water (double broiler type of method) till the sugar dissolves, then taken off the heat and beat till stiff peaks form. This is also more stable then the french method but produces a denser cookie.

 

My Secret Base Recipe for French Meringue’s

Basically it is all about ratio’s for the meringue. Two large egg whites is equal to a  1/4 cup. You need to add a 1/2 cup of sugar to this or to simplify things you need to add 1/4 cup of sugar to every large egg white used. To this recipe add a pinch of salt or pinch of cream of tartar to help stabilize the mixture and any flavoring you would like.

I had:

• 6 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cup of sugar
• pinch of cream of tartar
• pinch of salt (yes I used both because this will make a large batch of cookies)
• 1/2 vanilla bean scraped

Directions:

Place egg whites and vanilla bean in clean bowl with whisk attachment and blend till soft peaks form.

Add your salt, cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds. Now start mixing in your sugar a couple of tablespoons at a time till it turns glossy, increases in volume and stiff peaks form.

You can check to see if all sugar is dissolved by rubbing a bit of the batter between your fingers, if it feels gritty then back to the whisking for another minute or so.

You MUST MUST use parchment paper!! Not wax paper but parchment paper. Place a dab of your mixture on each corner of the sheet pan to hold down your paper.

Pipe cookies onto parchment paper and bake in 200 degree farenheit oven for 1 1/2 hours. Turn stove off and crack open the oven and let rest in the oven for another 30 minutes. The cookies should come off parchment paper easily, if they are sticking they are not dehydrated enough and you need to cook them a bit more.

To add some fun I painted 3 lines in my piping bag of some food coloring and then added my fluffy goodness to the bag.

Pretty huh?

 

Now here is an important tip. Once your cookies are completely cooled store immediately in an airtight container or they will become tacky.

Happy Baking!!

 

Hmm pink and blue……great to make for a baby shower!!

 

Meringue Cookies

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 2hrs
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

 

Ingredients:

 

• 6 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cup of sugar
• pinch of cream of tartar
• pinch of salt (yes I used both because this will make a large batch of cookies)
• 1/2 vanilla bean scraped

Directions:

Place egg whites and vanilla bean in clean bowl with whisk attachment and blend till soft peaks form.

Add your salt, cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds. Now start mixing in your sugar a couple of tablespoons at a time till it turns glossy, increases in volume and stiff peaks form.

Pipe cookies onto parchment paper and bake in 200 degree farenheit oven for 1 1/2 hours. Turn stove off and crack open the oven and let rest in the oven for another 30 minutes. The cookies should come off parchment paper easily, if they are sticking they are not dehydrated enough and you need to cook them a bit more.