Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls

I made these for a Christmas Eve dinner that I'm attending tonight. I found the recipe in the new issue of Martha Stewart Living - perfectly sweet and salty!

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls


1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup, plus 1 tbsp confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon room temperature unsalted butter
1 cup crushed pretzels
5 ounces melted milk chocolate

Stir together peanut butter, confectioners sugar, unsalted butter, the crushed pretzels. Roll into 1" balls. Freeze for 30 minutes.
Melt chocolate over very low heat. Dip balls into melted milk chocolate, refrigerate until set.

*To crush pretzels, place in a resealable bag, and bang with a rolling pin.

Buttermilk Biscuits with Parmesan

Buttermilk Biscuits with Parmesan


2 1/2 cups all - purpose bleached flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup Parmesan
1/8 teaspoon of paprika
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

Set a rack to middle level of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees (500 degrees if you aren't adding cheese)
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl and stir several times.
Rub in butter until completely blended using your fingertips. Add buttermilk and stir in with a fork. Add Parmesan, paprika and lemon zest stir in with fork.
Turn dough out on lightly floured work surface and fold dough over on itself several times to distribute moisture evenly and to make the dough slightly less sticky.
Pat or gently roll dough 1/2 inch thick. Cut with floured cutter. Avoid twisting cutter which distorts the sides of the biscuits. Place biscuits on pan.
Press scraps together and pat to 1/2 inch thickness again and cut remaining biscuits. Discard any scraps left after second rolling.
Bake Biscuits about 10-12 minutes, until well risen and light golden brown.

Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps

They look like little chocolate mountains, and taste like the perfect blend of morning coffee and chocolate. Delicious!

Chocolate-Espresso Snowcaps - Martha Stewart

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4 tsp instant espresso (or coffee)

1 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp unsalted butter

2/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

4 ounces semi sweet chocolate, melted and cooled

1 tbsp milk

confectioners sugar for coating

1/8 tsp salt

In medium bowl, sift flour, cocoa, espresso, baking powder and salt. With an electric mixer, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg until well combined. Mix in cooled chocolate. With a mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture. Beat in milk until just combined. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, freeze 45 minutes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 sheets with parchment. Shape dough into 1" balls. Pour confectioners sugar into a medium bowl, roll balls in sugar 2 times, letting them sit.

Place on prepared baking sheets, 2" apart. Bake until cookies have spread & coating is cracked, 12-14 minutes. Cookies will be soft to touch. Cool cookies on wire rack.

Olive and Blue Cheese Ball

My first non-baked blog. I love cheese.

1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
1/2 cup chopped green olives (I used garlic marinated, from whole foods olive bar)

In a medium bowl, mix together the cream cheese, butter and blue cheese.  Stir in the olives and chives. Spoon onto plastic wrap and gather into a ball. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. To serve, unwrap and place on a serving tray. Surround with your favorite crackers.

Danish Danish

Copenhagen, Denmark
October 3, 2010

October 4, 2010

Almond Tea Cakes

Almond Tea Cakes - adapted from Magnolia's Vanilla Cupcakes


1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon almond extract (or you can use vanilla, if you want a more traditional flavor)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until all ingredients are incorporated - do not over beat. Using a spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Spoon the batter into tea cake tins, mini muffin tins or in lined muffin tins. Fill tins three-quarters of the way full. For mini tins bake 10-15 minutes (though mine took about 20 minutes), for regular muffin tins bake 20-25 minutes, or until cake tester inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in tins for 5 minutes, then flip out and let completely cool on a wire rack before icing.

Icing - from Betty Crocker - Petits Fours Glaze


1 bag (2lb) powdered sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 to 3 teaspoons hot water

In saucepan, stir all ingredients except hot water. Heat over low heat, stirring frequently, until sugar is dissolved; remove from heat. Stir in hot water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until glaze is pourable.

I ended up dipping each cake in the glaze to get an even covering.
I put black food coloring in half the batch - since these were made for Caycee Black's Spring Pre-Sale party of her line. She wanted Black and White desserts.

Danish Butter Cookies

After just returning from a trip to Copenhagen I had the urge to finally try out a recipe from my "Scandinavian Holiday Recipes" book that I bought almost 2 years ago. I figured it was appropriate to try out a Danish one first, since I had just been eating real Danish sweets for the past week.  Though I had to pick up a new ingredient for this one - Cream of Tartar. I had no idea what this was, but after googling it, I have found out it is essentially acidic salt used to keep baked goods from being too heavy. These cookies are definitely not heavy except for the all the butter you will consume eating them, but other than that they are a light and flaky yet chewy cookie. I have not baked in at least 3 months due to the hot heat in the summer, and let's just say I've gotten a little rusty. I made my cookie balls way too big and burnt half of them, so this is the Danish butter cookie fail, but round 2 turned out perfect!

Danish Butter Cookies

1 1/4 cups butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 egg yolks, unbeaten
2 1/4 cups sifted white flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 1/2 teaspoons of almond flavoring

Cream butter and sugar. Beat egg yolks in, one at a time. Add remaining ingredients; mix well. Chill dough. Roll dough into small balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press dough with a press or a glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 325 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove immediately from cookie sheet and cool.
Makes 2 1/2 dozen