Author Archives: sallybr

CREMINO ALLA NOCIOLLA

Posted in Cookies, Desserts, Desserts, Sweets by

Or, if you prefer, Creamy Hazelnut… paired with a sugar cookie, also flavored with hazelnut and a touch of orange. I adapted this recipe from Gabriella’s blog Siula Golosa (click here for her original version). I’ve been meaning to make these elegant cookies ever since I read her post, but for some reason it only happened now. Better late than never, I say.


HAZELNUT CREAM OVER SUGAR COOKIE
(adapted from Siula Golosa)

for the cookie base:
1 cup (226g) butter
1 cup (200g) sugar
zest of one orange
2 eggs
1 tsp hazelnut bakery emulsion
1/4 tsp orange extract
420g flour
60g cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

for the hazelnut cream:
54g white chocolate
27g dark chocolate
19g Nutella or Nocciolata paste (I used this one)
11g cocoa butter

melted chocolate
gold luster powder
sprinkle to decorate


Make the cookie base: Mix flour, cornstarch, salt and baking powder. Reserve. Rub orange zest on the sugar with your fingers until fragrant. Cream butter with sugar. Whisk eggs with hazelnut and orange extracts, add to the butter/sugar with mixer on low speed, a little bit at a time. Once incorporated, add the dry components and mix on low-speed until a dough forms. Divide in two and refrigerate for 10 minutes before rolling out and cutting small circles. Freeze for 10 minutes, then bake at 350F until edges start to get some color, about 12 minutes. Recipe makes a lot more than you will need.

Make the hazelnut topping: Add all ingredients to a microwave save bowl, and heat at 50% power, in 30 second increments, removing from the microwave and whisking gently. Once melted, pour over a countertop or over acetate sheet and bring the temperature down to 78F by moving it around with a spatula. It is a small volume, so it will get there quickly. Pour into an icing bag, and fill the mold to the top. Allow it to set at room temperature for 1 hour, transfer to the fridge for 20 minutes, and un-mold.

Use a little melted chocolate to glue the hazelnut cream to the top of the cookie. If desired, you can paint the cookie with luster gold and vodka. Decorate the center with a golden bead.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here


Comments: For the topping you will need this mold from Silikomart. I was very worried about it, because there is so much detail on the surface. But, as always, Silikomart products are excellent and the flexibility of this one was perfect to release the hazelnut component. The mold has 11 cavities, the recipe made exactly 10. Not a single one had any issues, they were all perfect.

Next time I will use the base from Gabriella’s blog, because I think it will be pretty nice, and will also roll it a bit thinner. This was in fact an impulse bake, I had a little bit of cookie dough leftover, and thought that the taste of hazelnut would go well with the creamy top. All things considered, this is a very easy concoction to put together, but it looks like you slaved over it for hours. Perfect to impress your favorite guests!


ONE YEAR AGO: Roasted Broccoli and Apple Salad with Tahini Dressing

TWO YEARS AGO: A Different Kind of Cookie Swap

THREE YEARS AGO: Scary Good Recipes for your next Halloween

FOUR YEARS AGO: Pumpkin Sourdough

FIVE YEARS AGO: First Monday Favorite

SIX YEARS AGO: Secret Recipe Club: Paalak Paneer, a Farewell Post

SEVEN YEARS AGO: In My Kitchen, November 2015

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Helen Fletcher’s Oatmeal Cookies

NINE YEARS AGO: Thai-Style Pesto with Brown Rice Pasta

TEN YEARS AGO: Shrimp with Spicy Orange Sauce

ELEVEN YEARS AGO:  A Simple Appetizer (Baked Ricotta)

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Sour Cream Sandwich Bread

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Pasta with Zucchini Strands and Shrimp

LACE-DECORATED SOURDOUGH: A WORK IN PROGRESS

Posted in Breads by

Friends, this has been a bit of an ordeal to get to work. The basic idea is to use lace and rub charcoal-activated powder on top of it to create a design. A few posts and reels on Instagram guided me, but it quickly became obvious that every single detail matters and can make or break the outcome. The variables are many: what kind of fabric, how open the design is, and most important, how to make the lace glue to the bread but not too much. I have not hit Nirvana yet, but with this third loaf, I feel good enough to share it with you. Stay tuned for future experiments in which I hope to get all the details optimized.

You can use any sourdough recipe you are fond of. For this particular loaf I used my basic formula described in this post, adding 1 tsp Garam Masala to the dough.

From what I saw in Instagram, the favorite method is to add the lace to the bottom of the banneton, leave it there overnight in the fridge for final fermentation, then rub charcoal, pull the lace and score the top, in a way that the design won’t be too compromised. When I did that, I had two different outcomes, none of them very nice. In the first, I rubbed too much flour over the surface of the dough, and that prevented the charcoal from staying well enough. The second time, I skipped the rubbing of white flour before inverting the dough on the lace, and that was a catastrophic move: the lace glued to the bread, and when I pulled it, it ripped the surface, ruined the design, it was a complete and utter mess.

This time I allowed the bread to sit in the fridge overnight in the banneton, inverted it over parchment paper, placed the lace on top and pressed it as best as I could. Next I added charcoal and rubbed it in. My mistake was to mist the surface with water, a bit too much water went on top, and made the charcoal sip underneath the lace. So the top did not reveal the design, and got way too dark. I think it is easy to fix next time, so I am sharing with you this version and maybe you can play with it and hit the jackpot on you first attempt! Go ahead, make me proud!

The bead had great oven spring, so if I had managed to get the design imprinted all over, it would have been pretty awesome… But, this is much better than my previous two attempts. My advice to you is, try this method if you like it, but don’t expect it to work on your first time, you might have to tweak things depending on the fabric you have, and the design itself. But no matter what, the bread underneath will always taste great, no major harm done if you don’t get it right. This is really a super fun technique and with a ton of possibilities…. Stay tuned for more soon!

ONE YEAR AGO: Incredibly Simple Carrots

TWO YEARS AGO: Sarah Bernhardt’s Cookies

THREE YEARS AGO: A Really Big Announcement

FOUR YEARS AGO: Stir-Fried Chicken in Sesame-Orange Sauce

FIVE YEARS AGO: Monday Blues

SIX YEARS AGO: A New Way to Roast Veggies

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Two Takes on Raspberries

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Spice Cake with Blackberry Puree

NINE YEARS AGO: Own Your Kitchen with Cappuccino Panna Cotta

TEN YEARS AGO: Chicken Parmigiana, the Thriller

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Wild Mushroom Risotto

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Tartine Bread:  Basic Country Loaf 

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO:  Pugliese Bread

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MY COOKIE BLOG TO YOU!

Posted in Cookies by

To see the details behind this series of Halloween-inspired cookies, visit my cookie blog with a click here.

WOULD YOU LIKE A COOKIE OR A BROWNIE?

Posted in Cake by

HAVE BOTH!

I cannot take credit for the idea, it was something Marlyn posted on her youtube channel, and I thought it was brilliant! She took the concept of colored cookie dough one step further, and used it to top brownies, baking them together. Works like a charm, and the possibilities are endless…

for Marlyn’s version, click here

You can use any brownie recipe you like, mine included walnuts. For the cookies, I made flowers with dough of different colors, and with marbled pieces too.

You then need to place them (FROZEN) over the raw brownie batter. Marlyn placed shapes all over in random spots, and that works too, you just cut through the design once serving the brownie. I decided to space the flowers so that each would end up centered on every piece.

After that, bake as you normally would. The cookies and the brownies have similar baking times, and the brownie batter protects the cookie if you need to bake longer. But for me it was a total of 25 minutes. Let the brownie completely cool, and then slice it in pieces.

This was a huge success when I took to the department to share with our colleagues on a Monday morning. Nothing like starting the week correctly!


I am dreaming of baking a set of blondies with chocolate cookie shapes on top. Once baked, you can even add details with a little Royal icing, like I showed yesterday on my cookie blog (see last picture of this post).

ONE YEAR AGO: Sourdough Fun, Three Ways

TWO YEARS AGO: Spooky Bakes, a Farewell

THREE YEARS AGO: Fall-Inspired Baking

FOUR YEARS AGO: On a Halloween Roll

FIVE YEARS AGO: Pumpkin Macarons

SIX YEARS AGO: Zucchini, Lemon & Walnut Cake

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Paleo Energy Bars

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Pecan-Crusted Chicken with Honey Mustard Dressing

NINE YEARS AGO: Mozzarella Stuffed Turkey Burgers

TEN YEARS AGO:  Cashew Chicken Lettuce Wraps

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Clay-pot Pork Roast

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Panmarino

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: A Classic Roast Chicken

SPICY CITRUS PEANUT SALAD

Posted in Salads, Vegetarian-friendly, Veggies by

I’ve made variations of this recipe three times in the past month. I am a bit obsessed with the dressing, that has the right amount of heat and very mild hint of sweetness. The original recipe was published in the blog Naturally Nidhi, and you can find it here.

SPICY CITRUS PEANUT SALAD
(slightly modified from Naturally Nidhi)

makes 2 servings

for the salad:
2 oranges , peeled and segmented
greens of your choice (I used green leaf lettuce), amount enough for two
1/4 cup peanuts, roasted and salted

for the dressing:
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp poppy seeds
salt to taste

In a serving bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients. Add the greens, toss to coat uniformly with the dressing. Add the orange segments, peanuts and toss gently. Adjust seasoning if needed with a little salt.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments: In her blog post, Nidhi used arugula. If you like to pump the sharpness-spicy level up, go for it. We like to use lettuce, I made it once with red leaf lettuce, another with butter lettuce, they all go quite well with all other ingredients. The dressing, so simple, packs a ton of flavor, I bet it would be great brushed oven a nice piece of salmon before grilling it. I simplified it a bit, so make sure to check her blog post for a more complex version.

We enjoyed it with rotisserie-style chicken from our grocery store, and no, I am not ashamed to confess it. Sometimes it is good to make life easier and concentrate on making just a salad and a side dish.

ONE YEAR AGO: Shrimp Stir-Fry, Kung Pao-Inspired

TWO YEARS AGO: Cauliflower Steaks with Olive and Caper Salsa

THREE YEARS AGO: Twice-Cooked Eggplant

FOUR YEARS AGO:  Turkey Burger, Japanese-Style

FIVE YEARS AGO: Pumpkin Macarons

SIX YEARS AGO: Slow-Cooked Whole Chicken

SEVEN YEARS AGO: Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Chocolate Frosting

EIGHT YEARS AGO: Pecan-Crusted Chicken with Honey-Mustard Dressing

NINE YEARS AGO: Bewitching Kitchen on Fire!

TEN YEARS AGO: Cashew Chicken Lettuce Wraps

ELEVEN YEARS AGO: Chiarello’s Chicken Cacciatore

TWELVE YEARS AGO: Donna Hay’s Thai-Inspired Dinner

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO: Panettone