COOKIES AND RUBBER STAMPS

Posted in Cookies by sallybr

I try hard to avoid repeating myself, but sometimes I cannot help it: I am soooo excited about this! Rubber stamping is one cool method to decorate cookies for the artistically-challenged like myself. Truth is, if someone asks me to draw something or else face the guillotine I will simply tell them to make sure it is well-sharpened. Make it quick. Now, rubber stamping? Anyone can do it! All you need is to flood your cookies in any color you like, but I normally go for white. Let it sit overnight. Do not rush. I repeat: do not rush! The surface needs to be fully set and hard so that you can press the stamp on top and make sure the maneuver is not going to hurt the icing. If you go to a store such as Michael’s or Jo-Ann, visit the section on scrapbooking and pick your weapons. Some stamps work better than others, so it is a bit of a trial and error thing. But… so much fun!

For this set, I used a type of stamp that I had never heard of, but apparently is very popular with the crowd that does serious scrapbooking. They are made of plastic and come glued to a type of acetate sheet. You can find them on amazon or etsy, I have not seen them for sale in stores where I live. For the one I used in these cookies, click here. Usually one sheet comes with several different designs. I find it easier to cut the acetate and isolate the image I want to work with. Then, I spread with a brush a small amount of food gel dye on kitchen paper, either black or another dark color like gun metal from Americolor, a bit more subtle. Press the stamp on it, and practice on a sheet of paper to check that the whole extension of the design was properly covered with dye. It does take a bit of playing with it. If you look at the set of four cookies above, you’ll notice that the design transferred better in some than others. If the design does not transfer completely, you can fill the missing lines with a very fine food pen like Tweets Cookie Connection 03. The cookies look nice in black and white, but I also made a couple painted either with luster powder (top left) or food pens (bottom right). Food pen is a lot easier and faster but I think I prefer the subtle look of luster powder.

Regular rubber stamps also work very nicely and tend to have simpler designs that are more user-friendly.

For this design I started with a flooded white icing and painted a background of striped in warm colors, using food gel dye and alcohol, just like described in a recent blog post.

The amount of dye to add to the paper is something you’ll need to adjust as you go. I don’t like the idea of buying a pad as used in scrapbooking because you need a lot of dye to soak it, and I am not sure how well it keeps for future uses, so I believe you waste too much dye.

This is another stamp, also the traditional type, rubber with a wooden base. I colored the icing as before, but using a tie-dye instead of stripes. And in this design I went with colors: leaves painted with a food pen, and the little vase with gold luster powder. After painting, you might have to go back to the outline and touch it up with a fine tip black pen. Make sure the paint is fully dry, which happens quite quickly anyway.

Another way to deal with the stamp is using a food pen with a thicker point (I like this kind), paint the stamp, then quickly press it on the iced cookie. You need to work a bit faster because the amount of dye is going to be less than by soaking the paper, therefore it might dry quickly as you paint the stamp. The advantage of this method is reducing the probability of smearing, and saving quite a bit of dye. Below you see what it looks like.

Very sharp lines, no smearing at all. Again, you can leave it black and white or go wild with the design….

Some drawings like the butterfly are a bit too “busy” and not easy to transfer. I still think they are worth playing with, because the end result is quite striking. You need a very steady hand and be very assertive when laying the stamp on the cookie. Any hesitation and you’ll have a smudged design. If that happens, just eat the evidence when no one is looking.

In the set above, the butterfly was a plastic-acetate stamp, the other two were the traditional rubber kind. The top left, a composite using two very small stamps.

My most recent “experiment” with stamping was with a design that proved a bit tricky. It involved a silhouette type stamp, and it was almost impossible to get it uniform and without blurry edges. This was the best I could do. I think silhouettes might be better left for a projector.

I close this post with something I got in the mail just as I finished writing this article.. Available here.

This is a plastic-acetate stamp sheet. It measures 4 1/2 x 6 in. Each kitten is a little different, so you can either stamp a series together or cut them individually and add to your cookie as a central image, which is what I intend to do. I suspect those images will work very well, as they are overall simple. My last attempt with a complicated image was a beautiful hummingbird (you can see it here), but I could not make it work on the surface of the cookie. Too bad, it is a stunning image. Maybe I’ll conquer it at some point.

I hope you’ll consider rubber stamping as a nice alternative for cookie decorating. It does take some experimenting and playing with it, but the possibilities are endless, and once you get the hang of it, you’ll be hooked.

ONE YEAR AGO: Macarons for all Seasons and Reasons

TWO YEARS AGO: Lentils and Radicchio? Yes, please!

THREE YEAR AGO: Tres Leches Cake

FOUR YEARS AGO: The Joys of Grating Squash

FIVE YEARS AGO: Auberge-Pecan Walnut Bread

SIX YEARS AGO: Gluten-free and Vegan Raspberry Bars

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Lasserre, a French Classic

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Sourdough Bread with Walnuts and Dates

NINE YEARS AGO: Braised Brisket with Bourbon-Apricot Glaze

TEN YEARS AGO: The Real Vodka Sauce

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Pork Tenderloin and Blue Cheese

17Mar2021

FARARI BATETA

Posted in Side dishes, Vegetarian-friendly, Veggies by sallybr

If that title did not call your attention, nothing will. Brazilians might suspect the dish involves potatoes, since the word for them in Portuguese is “batata.” And they would be right. This recipe, aka Ferrari Potatoes, is enjoyed by Hindus on days they must fast. I would not mind fasting with a nice bowl of these in front of me…

FERRARI POTATOES
(adapted from this blog post)

12 oz small new potatoes, yellow and red cut in quarters
1/3 cup peanuts unsalted, raw
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 small Jalapeno pepper, very finely minced
1 piece of ginger, peeled and grated (about 1/2 inch in size)
3/4 teaspoon salt
fresh cilantro, chopped
juice of half a lemon

Coarsely grind the peanuts using a mini-food processor and set aside.

Heat the oil into a wide-bottomed frying pan on a medium heat. When it’s hot, add the cumin seeds and as soon as they start to pop and release a nice smell add the potatoes and ground black pepper. The idea is to cover the whole surface of the pan with the potatoes, so adjust the amount of potatoes accordingly.

Stir-fry the potatoes for around 12 minutes, until they start to brown. When they are getting tender, add the jalapenos, ginger, and salt. Continue to cook until the potatoes are golden brown. Transfer to a bowl, add the ground peanuts on top, the cilantro leaves, and finally sprinkle with the lemon juice, mixing it all gently.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: I never thought of adding peanuts (particularly ground!) to a potato dish, but it turned out pretty awesome. This is a recipe full of flavor, perfect to go along a roast chicken, although that would compromise the fasting aspect even further. I will not hold it against you, in fact… that’s exactly how we enjoyed it, with a very juicy clay-pot roast chicken, which will be on the blog soon.

As I mentioned in the recipe, you’ll need to have the potatoes in a single layer so that they all brown nicely in the end. Depending on the size of your skillet, you can add a few more potatoes than I did. No need to adjust the other components, though. It is all going to have a very happy ending.

The peanuts end up looking like sesame seeds, and I bet those would work very well also, so in case you have peanut allergies, go for toasted sesame seeds when you serve it.

ONE YEAR AGO: Covid-19, Keeping yourself safe

TWO YEARS AGO: Carrot Cake Macarons

THREE YEARS AGO: Soup Saturday: Say Goodbye to Winter

FOUR YEARS AGO: Manchego and Poblano Soup

FIVE YEARS AGO: A Smashing Pair

SIX YEARS AGO: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Crispy Chickpea and Caper Spaghetti

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Spring has Sprung!

NINE YEARS AGO: Chickpea and Fire Roasted Tomato Soup

TEN YEARS AGO: Double Asparagus Delight

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Sun-dried Tomato and Feta Cheese Torte

13Mar2021

THE LUCK OF THE IRISH

Posted in Cookies, macarons by sallybr

Hard to believe that in almost 12 years of blogging I’ve never made anything that celebrates St Patrick’s Day. But today I am correcting this huge mistake. Gingerbread, sugar cookies and macarons to bring you good luck and hopefully restore my reputation as a food blogger, particularly with the wonderful people from Ireland.

LUCK OF THE IRISH GINGERBREAD COOKIES

to print the recipe, from last year’s post, click here

I received the shamrock cookie cutter as a gift from a dear friend, and designed this set of cookies with her in mind. The jar cookie was inspired by a video tutorial from SweetAmbs that you can find here. I adapted for my skill level, because I still struggle a lot with fine lines. It is absolutely mandatory to include one four-leaf clover to ensure the best of luck.

GOLD BUTTON SUGAR COOKIE

Same cookie recipe, decoration also found in the video link I included above. Really a lot of fun to make it, although you do have to prepare the golden buttons the day before, they need to dry completely before you can paint them and glue to the iced cookie. If you watch Amber’s video you will see that she uses the base of any icing tip to draw circles on parchment paper, then pipe the button shape with white Royal icing, a little border after it has a chance to slightly crust, and that’s about it. Let it dry overnight, paint with gold luster + alcohol. It took me two attempts to get it right, or at least right enough to be able to use in my cookies…

It is a good idea to make more than you think you’ll need. You can always save it for later, these Royal icing decorations last forever and not every single one of them will be nicely round, at least not when I do them.

Moving on, a really easy but quite effective way to decorate a sugar cookie. For this one, I used my recent default recipe that gives super sharp edges and you can find here.

GOLD SHAMROCK SUGAR COOKIES

Really super easy! You start by drawing a shamrock shape in the center of a baked cookie. You can do a round cookie, square, or hexagon, anything will work. Then, paint a nice and bright gold layer right on the cookie’s surface. For this I like to use Egyptian Gold from Oh Sweet Art. It is the most aggressive (but still food-safe) gold paint out there, and in this case you need it to be bright. Then, simply flood with green Royal Icing and you are done.

This simple method has so much potential! You can paint all sorts of basic shapes using different colors, and flood it to suit the occasion.

Another nice way to decorate is using the marbling technique, in which you swirl colors over a reasonably loose powdered sugar icing, and dip the surface of the cookie over it. The method is carefully detailed on my friend Helen’s blog that you can find here.

Finally, I close the post with my beloved macarons. For this recipe, I used a template found over at Pies and Tacos, but used my default recipe for macarons, but dyed green. A little splash with gold luster, and the filling was a Mint Buttercream from my friend Caroline’s recent post.

SHAMROCK MACARONS BUTTERCREAM FILLING
(from Caro’s Easy Online Baking Lessons)

128g butter, melted
3/4 tsp vanilla
sprinkle of salt
187g powdered sugar, sifted
Peppermint Extract (1/8tsp at a time, to taste)

Melt the butter in a small cooking pot on the stove top on medium to high. Turn the heat down to low-medium heat, letting it simmer and remember to stir. The butter will hiss & pop. If browning reduce the heat again. Continue until silent and then strain through a sieve into a mixing bowl. There will be foamy fat residue sticking to the sides of the bowl and in the bottom of the sieve. Add in the salt. The mixture will sizzle again so be careful.

Add in the powdered sugar and mix by hand until all sugar is incorporated and a smooth paste is formed. This will only take a minute, so no need to get the mixer out again. Leave till it cools down. Now add in the peppermint extract. Place in a piping bag, no need for icing tip. Fill the macarons. Leave them in the fridge overnight for best texture.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

I hope you enjoyed this small collection of goodies, and that we are all moving to better times, as vaccination picks up all over the world. I am ready for some luck coming our way, what about you?

ONE YEAR AGO: When life gives you Eye-of-the-Round

TWO YEARS AGO: Carrot Cake Macarons

THREE YEARS AGO: Soup Saturday: Say Goodbye to Winter

FOUR YEARS AGO: Manchego and Poblano Soup

FIVE YEARS AGO: A Smashing Pair

SIX YEARS AGO: Spinach and Mushroom Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Crispy Chickpea and Caper Spaghetti

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Spring has Sprung!

NINE YEARS AGO: Chickpea and Fire Roasted Tomato Soup

TEN YEARS AGO: Double Asparagus Delight

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Sun-dried Tomato and Feta Cheese Torte

10Mar2021

MAHI-MAHI IN THAI-CURRY SAUCE

Posted in Seafood by sallybr

This is another example of a “lightened-up” version of a classic that worked so well I could not wait to share! Two ingredients are absolutely mandatory: red curry paste and fish sauce. I realize that opening that bottle of fish sauce requires a little psychological preparation, but it is worth it. Just hold your breath as you measure the amount. Actually, I do have a very sharp sense of smell, so it could be less of a problem for you.

MAHI-MAHI IN THAI-CURRY SAUCE
(from the Bewitching Kitchen)

2 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
1/2 cup unsweetened light coconut milk
1/2 cup full-fat yogurt
1 Tablespoon fish sauce
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
3 mahi-mahi filets, cut in chunks
smidgen of olive oil + squirt lime juice + salt + pepper to season fish
fresh cilantro leaves
lime zest for serving

In a medium pot over medium heat, whisk together the curry paste, coconut milk, and yogurt. Bring to a simmer and cook, whisking until the mixture is smooth, but don’t let it boil too hard. Add the fish sauce, sugar, and water; stir until the sugar has dissolved. Simmer for a couple of minutes, cover and remove from heat. Reserve.

Season the pieces of fish with a tiny bit of olive oil, lime juice, salt and pepper. I just squirt a very small amount of oil to lightly coat the pieces, no need to measure. Use a light hand. Same goes for lime juice, salt and pepper. Reserve.

Heat a 12-inch skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Once it is hot, add the oil and heat until it is shimmering. Add the bell pepper, and mushrooms, and cook until the vegetables are starting to soften, about 3 minutes. Then add the fish and sauté for a few minutes. Pour the curry sauce into the skillet and heat it through. Serve the curry over rice, garnished with fresh cilantro and a little bit of lime zest, added right on the plate.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: This was such a delicious meal! It had that feel of “eating out” which… come to think of it we cannot do that often, as our little town does not have a Thai restaurant. It is probably my favorite type of food, but I can only enjoy it when we travel. You know travel, right? That act of leaving your home with luggage, stepping on a plane and landing in a totally different spot? Yeah. It’s been a while.

We enjoyed it over white rice. I added a bit of lime zest on my serving, and to my taste it was perfect. You can use a squirt of lime juice or omit it altogether, but if you have the same passion I do for all things citric, go for the zest. It packs a nice little punch of flavor. The only thing you need to be careful about is not boiling the sauce too hard. Because it has less fat than a regular recipe, it tends to separate a bit.

ONE YEAR AGO: Twelve Years of Sourdough Baking

TWO YEARS AGO: Rainbow Carrots with Rose Harissa

THREE YEARS AGO: Deviled Eggs go Green

FOUR YEARS AGO: Tiramisu

FIVE YEARS AGO: Pulled Pork, Slow-Cooker version

SIX YEARS AGO: The Pie of the Century

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Bon Bon Chicken

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Leaving on a Jet Plane

NINE YEARS AGO: A Pearfect Drink

TEN YEARS AGO: Ming Tsai Under Pressure

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Paris, je t’aime!

7Mar2021

JOY COOKIE CLUB: WOODLAND CREATURES

Posted in Cookies, Joy Cookie Club by sallybr

This is my second blog post in the Joy Cookie Club series. For the basic recipes, I used either Neat Edges Sugar Cookies or Gingerbread. For Royal Icing, my favorite recipe is Tanya’s. You can it in her blog here. In this post, all cookies celebrate the woodlands and their beautiful creatures, starting with a majestic bird, one of my favorites. We do have families of owls living in the woods around our home, and often one will fly silently, sit on a branch high on a tree and stare at us for a while. It is magical.

OWLS

For this technique, you’ll need three colors of icing, brown, white and orange. Flood with brown, allow it to crust for 30 minutes. Pipe the white and add black pearls to the eyes. Adding them slightly off center is a good idea, it changes a bit the expression, making them look more natural. Let that crust for 10 minutes and add the orange detail. Feathers were painted with a food pen and gold pearl dust one day later, when the icing is fully set.

CARDINALS

Another beautiful creature we have around, particularly nice to see when it is all snowy outside…

For this design, you’ll need red, orange and black royal icing. I followed the steps of Marlyn, from Montreal Confections. She uploaded to her Instagram page a short video, but as is the case for Instagram, it goes pretty fast. I paused the video and took screenshots to help me figure it all out. But the basic steps are shown in the composite picture below.

I consider this a work in progress. The wings should have been piped with a slightly thicker consistency, so that they would puff up nicely. I ended up trying to gild the lily too much to compensate for the flattish look of the wings, and I don’t like the result very much. I will be re-visiting these cookies soon.

DEERS

I used two different cookie cutters for the deers, but with the same basic decoration approach. Some were dark brown, some were made with a lighter body. Piping was all at the same time, wet-on-wet, except for the nose that was added after 10 minutes, so it would get a little lift. After one day drying, a fine food pen joined the party for the eyes and mouth.

It is easier to make the design if you draw with a pen the basic separation of the two colors. Then, slowly pipe them so they join together nicely. It is really a lot easier than it seems, as long as the consistency of the icing is not too loose.

LLAMAS

Two different styles of llamas, with the same cookie cutter. The main difference is that in one case I made the nose after the rest of the body was crusted, so it got that puffy structure. I liked them both, but the first one is obviously easier. The nose, the ears, the details around the saddle and the collar were all added 30 minutes after crusting. The blush on the cheeks is luster powder (Ruby Red from Oh Sweet Art), applied with a very light touch using a soft brush.

Royal icing roses for additional flair on that lady… Her name is Mercedes, by the way.

ELEPHANTS

I debated whether to make a separate Joy Cookie Club post just for elephants because I love them so much, and they go well with many different designs for decoration. But I did not want them to feel neglected, so here they are.

First technique is like a tie-dye. A lot of fun to do, although I messed up on my first attempt (sorry, no pictures!). What you do is gather all the colors you want to use, place them in individual spots, add vodka or everclear to dilute them well. They will form a gunk in the center, just continue swirling with a brush and then remove the gunk, all you need is a very diluted liquid. After that, working quickly, use a brush to add alcohol to the spot you want to color, and immediately touch it with another brush containing the diluted dye. Move it around quickly, do another spot some place else. When you are done with color #1, move to color #2, until you cover the whole surface. Add details with royal icing.

A different cookie cutter, with a modern “feel” is also fun to decorate. Many of these cookies were made the weeks before Valentine’s Day, so I had hearts in my mind…

For this design, the body is flooded, allowed to crust for 30 minutes, then the piped dots are added. Eyes and mouth need to wait 24 hours to be made.

It is also nice to use a marbling technique. Very similar to tie-dye, instead of adding spots of diluted dye, just go with a fine brush and paint lines over the white flooded body. Immediately pass a sponge on the surface, to soften the lines. A make-up small sponge is perfect for that. Once the dye dries, you can add designs on top with royal icing. Later I brushed luster gold, but that is optional.

DINOSAURS

Yes, that is pushing the envelope as far as woodland creatures go. But I find them so adorable and like elephants, you can really go crazy with the colors. Extinct animals cannot get mad at you… Poor things.

Another very easy design. Flood the body, use a second color to add details right away. Add the black pearls for the eyes, and after 24 hours draw the eyes and mouth. DONE.