Sea Salt and Chocolate covered Caramels

This year in all my Christmas baking I made caramels.  Everyone is always impressed with homemade caramels, and I don’t find it too hard to make them.  The only downside is wrapping all the little caramels once they are done. I usually end up doing this over a couple of days, which is how I came to this new small variation.

I had a bunch of caramels wrapped when O informed me that there was a baking competition at work the next day and he should take something.  I handed over my caramels (there were still lots left to be wrapped) and didn’t think anymore of it.  Turns out they were a big hit - they ran out of caramels during the eating/judging of the competition, oops.  What did come out of this though was the suggestion to coat the caramels in chocolate and sea salt.  I had some left and wasn’t excited about wrapping them, so why not play a little?

I am happy to say I did play with them and to my delight they were fantastic.  The bonus is that this doesn’t even take much more time than wrapping them, but really takes them to a whole special place on the dessert table!

I did some slight adaptations to the caramel recipe found on allrecipes.com.  I hope you enjoy these.

Sea Salt and Chocolate covered Caramels
Ingredients:
Caramels:
1 cup butter
1 pound brown sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup light corn syrup (i used golden, as that is pretty much all you can find here)
1 ½ tsp vanilla paste (or 1 ½ vanilla beans - well the insides of the beans - would work)

Coating:
3 cups milk chocolate melting chips
Coarse sea salt

Directions:
1. Prepare a 9x13 pan by lining it with parchment paper (or you could just grease it - I like the parchment paper as you can just lift out the caramels to cut them)
3.In a saucepan (preferably with a heavy bottom) combine the caramel ingredients: butter, sugar, milk, and corn syrup.  
4 Heat the mixture until you reach 234F, then cook for 2 minutes at this temperature, while stirring.
    Note: this will make very soft caramels, if you would like them a little firmer, cook them at 240F (I like the really soft ones, so I left it at 234F).
5. Take the caramels off the heat and add in the vanilla paste/beans.  Pour the caramels into the prepared 9x13 pan, and allow to set.
6. Once the caramels are set, cut them into bite sized squares - I did about ½ inch x 1 inch rectangles.
7. In a double boiler melt some of the melting chocolate pieces.  Once they are melted remove from heat. (if the chocolate starts to harden on you, just put it back on the heat for a couple of min).
8. Dip the caramel squares in the chocolate, set to cool on some parchment paper.  While the chocolate is still soft, sprinkle with some sea salt.

Note:  I found it easiest to work in small batches of the caramels at the time.  It was also easier to have the caramels cool while dipping them, as they held their shape a little better in the warm chocolate, so I kept the other batches of caramels in the fridge while I was working.

Reviews:
These were fantastic.  I had to give most of them away as I found I couldn’t stop eating them!  One person O work with even asked for a bunch of them to give as a Christmas present to someone!  They were a big hit and will have to be something that I make again.

The caramels by themselves are also great, so don’t worry about covering them all in chocolate! 

Christmas Presents

This year I am making a few Christmas presents, some are for my own friends and family and some I am doing for a friend to give away.

Among the things I have put together for my own friends and family is this lovely little tea wallet:




I used the pattern from Is It Naptime Yet?, which was great and really easy to follow, and came together very quickly.


A few people will be getting rice heating pads some packaged with baked goods, bath salts or creams. I created the pattern for this based off a heat pad I had picked up a few years ago from a craft sale.


It works fantastic for the upper back and shoulders. I love how it wraps around and the arms hold it in place.

My friend was lucky to be one of the recipients of the bag/neck rice heating pad earlier in the year and decided she wanted to do something for her friends. I had seen the Wellness bag and rice heating pads on Sew Mama Sew and decided to put together something similar for her.



She ended up with 2 sets of bags, each with their own coordinating drawstring bags to hold them. Each bag has card attached with instructions.



Each set included a neck/back bag, an eye pillow with removable cover, hand warmers and an all purpose bag (a mix between the Amy Buttler eye pillow scaled up and the Green Wife for the inside bag).



Hopefully the recipients get some good use out of these bags!

Christmas Presents make for a Busy New Year!

I guess word has made it around to my entire family that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and it showed this year with my presents. I can't wait to start using them, and they should keep me busy for the next few week at least!

First is the pasta roller and cutter set for my kitchen aid:




I have already tried this one out (who could wait) and the pasta turned out fantastic. It was so much easier than trying to hand roll and cut the pasta. However the pasta was a little thin for my taste, and I will be trying the thicker noodles soon, then on to making ravioli!

I also recieved a BeaterBlade for my Kitchen Aid, which I have heard great things about.



A cookbook that is going to result in lots of new cookies for the bulldogs.



Pie Weights! I now need to think of an excuse for needing cooked pie shells.


There were also some cake pans and cookie scoops in the pile:



This one looks exciting, and I doubt I will be able to hold out until Valentines to give it a try.



I hope to have some posts coming up on them soon. I will be making some lemon cookies for the bulldogs this weekend from the new cookbook.

Fattigman

My Grandparents have made these cookies every Christmas for as long as I can remember. They are nice addition to all the sweets, as they aren't a really sweet cookie, and I love the Cardamom flavor!

One key to getting a fantastic cookie is using whole fresh Cardamom, ground just before using. Cardamom is a spice that tastes best when fresh, you can tell the differences in the cookies from those that are made with the ground stuff in the store and the fresh stuff. (the ground is good as well, the fresh just takes it over the top!)

Below is the recipe my grandparents gave me, I have added a few pictures just to make a few steps a little more clear.

Fattigman
12 egg yolks OR eight yolks +2 eggs
1 cup whipping cream
*1/2 tsp. salt
*2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar (3/4s is better)
*approximately 4 cups flour
(* sift together)
2 tsps ground cardamom

METHOD:
Beat eggs till thick.
Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with the cream.
Roll out fairly thin (like sugar cookies)
Cut dough in long strips, then in diamond shapes. (a pizza cutter works well)
Put a little cut in the centre of each cookie. To shape cookie (if you want) pull one corner through the cut in the centre.


Deep fry until golden colour.

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (before the holidays are over!).

I have been keeping myself busy the past week picking up last minute things, baking and getting ready to go to my parent's place for the holidays. I was put in charge of Christmas morning breakfast this year, and I have a feeling I went a little overboard. I swear there is enough food packed up to feed everyone for 2 days! I couldn't help taking a couple of special baking items. Hopefully I will get pictures and recipes up soon.

This year's holiday list:
Peppermint Candy Cane cookies (my new creation, will post soon!)
Gingerbread men
Fattigman (My Dad's favorite cookie)
Millionaire's Shortbread
Marshmallows
Flourless chocolate cake (for the celiacs)
Marshmallows
( I added some vanilla bean to these, soo yummy)
Breakfast
Extra gooey cinnamon buns (the extra gooey part is extra butter and sugar), served with cinnamon cream cheese icing.
Cheddar bacon scones (I subbed bacon for the sausage)
Cheddar bacon frittata (I am sure I will alter the recipe a bit, and will post a final version when I am done.)
Banana muffins
Bread and assorted Jams (the jams are the ones I made this summer, and whatever bread my Dad has at the house)
Turkey sausage patties (M&M)
Cloudy apple juice (We bought this, we didn't want to give up everything we had left from making juice this fall)

Christmas Bags 2

I needed a couple more bags this year, as apparently we went a tiny bit crazy with the presents this year (oops). I still didn't want to go out and get any fabric, so I checked through my fabric and found some blue scraps big enough for the bags, and some white fabric to decorate. I had Iron on adhesive left over from making my halloween costume.

How to:

1. Iron on the adhesive (cut into the shape desired) to the back of the "decoration" fabric (the white in this case).
2. Cut out the fabric around the iron on patch. Place this shape on the right side of the fabric for the bag. Iron it to secure (make sure you like were it is, as you can't redo it after it is attached).
3. Turn bag fabric inside out and sew into a bag, fold the top over to make a loop for the drawstring and sew.

Note:
For the snow man, I hand sewed the eyes, mouth, buttons and scarf.

Gingerbread Take Two – Bulldogs

I am still on the hunt for a go to gingerbread recipe, so when I saw this recipe come up on My Kitchen Café, I decided it would be the next one to try. The bulldogs had a game coming up and I wanted to do something fun for them for the last game before Christmas, so I decided to dress up the cookies with the team colours.

I followed the directions for the recipe exactly, and encountered a couple of problems. It is a little difficult to tell when the cookies are actually done, and I ended up overcooking the first batch.

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1tbsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp salt
¾ cup butter (cut into 12 pieces)
¾ cup molasses
2 tbsp milk

How To:
1.Combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt and sugar in a bowl of a mixer. Add the pieces of butter and mix until the mixture becomes “sandy” in texture.
2.Add in the molasses and milk and mix until well combined.
3.Place ½ the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and rollout to be 1/4” inch thick. Place in the freezer until firm (15 min).
4.Cut out the cookies.
5.Bake at 350F for 8-9 minutes ( no longer than 10 minutes, even if you don’t think they are done) until they are set in the center and barely retains an imprint when touched.
6.Let cool and decorate.


I used a royal icing recipe (1 egg white, 1/8tsp corn starch, 1 ½ cup powdered sugar) to decorate these cookies and wrote on the hard icing with Wilton Food Writers.


The cookie man is wearing a replica of the Bulldog's jersey. I am sorry I couldn't find a picture of anyone wearing their yellow jersey, but it is the same as these black ones, only yellow.



Reviews: These cookies were enjoyed (the ones that were soft and not overcooked) by everyone who tried them, although I am not sure if it was due to the cookie flavour or the more likely culprit of the decorating.

Bulldogs:
The boys loved the jerseys on the cookies ( I have seen a couple pics pop up on facebook already)!

They won their game this morning 5-4! Hopefully they can finish the year with a winning streak. The next game is Dec. 27th at 7 am, which may be a little rough after the indulging of Christmas!

Gingerbread 09 - Take 1

I love gingerbread men during the holidays, but have yet to find a “go to” gingerbread recipe. I have tried a couple in the past and have started my holiday baking with a couple new recipes. This one is a modified version from the King Arthur Flour recipe bank. I haven’t tried a recipe from them I didn’t like yet, so I thought I would give it a go. (I did change amounts to make the batch a little smaller and it is really dry were I live).

Gingerbread Cookies (makes about 3-4 doz, depending on cookie size)

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup molasses
1 1/3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/3 teaspoons ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice or cloves
1 large egg
1 tbsp milk
2/3 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

Directions

1. In a saucepan set over low heat, or in the microwave, melt butter, then stir in the brown sugar, molasses, salt, and spices.

2. Transfer the mixture to a medium-sized mixing bowl, let it cool to lukewarm, and mix in the egg.

3. Add the dry ingredients into the molasses mixture.

4. Wrap the dough and refrigerate for 1 hour or longer.

5. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) several baking sheets.

6. Remove the dough from fridge and place on a lightly floured surface. Press flat and roll out – I did them between ¼ and ½ inch thick and liked it, the thicker cookies will be soft and thin cookies will be a little crispy.

7. Cut out shapes with a cookie cutter, cutting them as close to one another as possible to minimize waste.

8. Transfer the cookies to ungreased cookie sheets (or, if you've rolled right onto the parchment, remove the dough scraps between the cookies). Bake the cookies 8 to 12 minutes, or until they feel firm. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for several minutes, or until they're set. Transfer them to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough.

To decorate I used a package of Old Fashion Candy Buttons I found at the candy store down the street, they worked really well.

Reviews:
I love these cookies, they are soft, chewy and flavorful. Delicious. However these weren’t O’s favorite gingerbread, he said there was a little too much molasses flavor in them. So if you like molasses this is the gingerbread for you, if you want more ginger flavor, I will be posting a new recipe in the coming days as I try more.

Its begining to look like Christmas

So it snowed today, and it has continued to snow all day. It is still snowing. Three hours after out sidewalk was shoveled you would never have known anyone had touched it with a shovel. The snow was at my ankle this afternoon and I can't imagine how high it is now.

Well I went for a walk this afternoon, all the way to the Butterdome craft sale. I am pretty sure this is the largest craft sale in the city.


Anyways, I go every year, it is a great way to celebrate the end of classes and treat yourself to something nice. Oh and get some of that christmas shopping out of the way. I picked up a couple of beer bread mixes (Ultimate Gourmet) and Saskatoon Cider (Homestyle beverages) like I do every year. This year I treated myself to a package of delicious Hot Chocolate, picked up some whole cardamom for baking christmas cookies, and an almond butter crunch bar for O's gift exchange. I will be going back with a friend on mine and I will be lucky to resist the peppermint patties a second time! I also need to find a way to justify another apron, as these are ones are just to cute!

If you have some time this weekend in Edmonton and some Christmas shopping to get done, I highly suggest checking it out.