I tested some recipes that I wanted to share. The first of which were sugar cookies. The first time I made these the cookies were more like hard-tac than a Christmas treat. The recipe is as follows:
.625 (1/2 C and 2 T) C unsalted butter
1 C granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
Soften butter and cream 1/2 C with the sugar. Add in egg and vanilla and mix well. Stir in flour, salt, baking powder and the remaining 2 T of butter.
Refrigerate dough for a minimum of 2 hours (who knew this helped the cookies keep their shape when they bake?!)
Roll out dough to desired thickness (I like about 1/8 of an inch thick for softer cookies). Preheat oven to 350 and bake for 10-13 minutes or when you start seeing brown around the edges.
The second recipe I tried was homemade hot chocolate in the slow cooker. I will confess that I have yet to actually try the hot chocolate yet but before I left the house for work it smelled delicious!
1 12 oz (or 14 oz if you don't want to measure out 12 ounces) can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
7 1/2 cups water
Pour contents of condensed milk into slow cooker and mix in water and vanilla. Stir in baking cocoa (trying to throughly mix in the cocoa took around 10 minutes to do and the white shirt I was wearing was sacrificed to the cause; guess I learned my lesson about not wearing an apron when I am working with liquids). Then just set the slow cooker to low for 4 hours (or in my case 8 because I work all day) or 2 hours on high.
The hot chocolate will have a variety of available add-ins; crushed peppermints, original Bailey's Irish Cream, homemade salted caramel sauce and homemade whipped cream (recipes below).
Salted caramel sauce:
1 C granulated sugar
1/4 C water
1/4 C salted butter
2/3 C heavy cream
In a pot (I used a 2 quart size) heated on high dissolve sugar in water and whisk continuously; and I mean continuously, you cannot stop whisking until the mixture is at a rolling boil. Once the mixture is boiling, DO NOT WHISK, however I swirled the pot every couple minutes. You have to watch it until it reaches an amber color (took about 10 minutes for me). As soon as it's the right color remove it from the heat and immediately whisk in the butter and the cream (be careful because the mixture will bubble vigorously). Once the mixture looks like caramel sauce allow it to cook before storing it in a glass jar.
I accidentally waited too long to add in the cream and the caramel seized up; if this happens just keep whisking and put the pot over low heat to get it back together. If the sauce is too thin for your liking put it in the fridge to thicken.
Whipped Cream
1 C heavy whipping cream
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Put your glass mixing bowl in the freezer (I like about 2 hours) this step helps speed up the whipping process. Then mix everything together with a hand or stand mixer with whisk attachment until peaks form. This typically takes me between 5-10 minutes. Once peaks are formed store in fridge. It keeps for about 3-4 days.
I have also made the whipped cream with a shot of Bailey's added in (super tasty).
No comments:
Post a Comment