christmas

salted maple and molasses walnut brittle

Christmas is officially (almost) upon us, and I frankly couldn’t be more stressed.

I’m going to take a second here to be totally honest with you. I hope you can handle it.

Number one, I work in retail.
The “most wonderful time of the year” also translates to the most hectic and agonizing time of the year to anyone who works in the service industry. Something about buying gifts to spread all that holiday happiness and joy really brings out the worst in people.

Beyond that, I’ve always been a little bit stressed by the holidays. The pressure to buy gifts for dozens of people gives me serious anxiety. Trying to make sure all the gifts fit the recipients in a truly thoughtful way, and that nothing should appear cheap or hasty, is just too much for me. Oddly enough, I also don’t really enjoy receiving gifts. I guess that’s kind of weird, but I don’t really need anything and something about giving people lists feel really disingenuous and unnatural to me. I’m also very particular and picky and often feel like I would rather just buy things for myself.

I’m sure a lot of you are thinking I’m an awful scrooge and just a terrible human being in general, but I promise you that I’m not! It’s not that I hate the holidays, it’s just that there are a few aspects of this season that really rub me the wrong way. If Christmas was more about spending time and less about spending money, I’d like it so much more. As much as I resent the conspicuous consumption, I promise that there are actually are tons of aspects of Christmas that I really love!

Any reason to spend real quality time with friends and family is great in my book, and I honestly really love the whole ritual of getting a tree and decorating the house and hanging stockings and all that. I also love all the food and sweets. Obviously.

This time of year my grandmother would always have trays and trays of cookies and candies and snacks out for grazing, and one thing I could never resist was the peanut brittle. There’s just something about that caramel-y nutty crunchy salty sweet thing that really does it for me. It may not be true for most people, but peanut brittle (or any nut brittle for that matter) will always make me think of Christmas.

I’d never made my own brittle before so I thought it would be fun to try something new this holiday season. Homemade gifts, and food gifts especially, have always felt so much more honest and heartfelt and true to me than any things you can buy in a store. After a test batch for myself, I decided that I liked my brittle so much that I would make a few extra batches to give out as a Christmas treats to our favorite businesses in the area where I work.

The Williamsburg neighborhood (where Whisk is based) is growing into a major shopping district, but it’s historically been a small underdog neighborhood and the main shopping area is made up mostly of small independent shops. A lot of the shops and restaurants work really closely together, and this time of year we often exchange little treats and food gifts to help everyone through this hectic season.

The brittle was a huge hit, and it was really nice to get out of the store for a bit and see the smiles on everyone’s faces when I dropped off their cute little paper boxes wrapped up with bakers twine.

This recipe is a really interesting twist on traditional peanut brittle. The toasted walnuts have a special kind of earthy bitterness that complements the sweetness of the candy really beautifully. Real maple syrup is a natural pairing with walnuts, and the addition of just a touch of molasses gives just a bit more depth and adds a rich caramel-iness. Adding a sprinkle of crunchy minerally fleur de sel or maldon sea salt elevates the whole experience with an adult elegance. This stuff is perfect.

It’s actually not difficult to make either, though you will need a candy thermometer since the addition of molasses makes it difficult to tell by color which stage the cooked sugar has reached. You’ll also want to use a much bigger pot than you think, because the sugar boils and bubbles up a lot!

Happy Holidays y’all!

Salted Maple and Molasses Walnut Brittle

Servings: about 2 pounds of brittle
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adapted from Food & Wine

2 cups sugar
1/3 cup (real) maple syrup
3 tablespoons unsulphered molasses
1/2 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
12 ounces chopped walnuts
2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon of Fleur de sel or crushed Maldon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350F. Spread walnuts out in an even layer and toast for about 10 minutes or until they smell like heaven. Don’t leave them in too long or they could burn and become very bitter.

Combine sugar, water, butter, maple syrup, molasses, and corn syrup in a large stainless steel saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the caramel is thick with tight bubbles and registers 300° on a candy thermometer, about 10 or 15 minutes. Since the syrup and molasses give the mixture a dark color, it’s hard to tell if it’s reached the hard crack stage from color. I’d highly recommend the use of a candy thermometer.

Remove from the heat and carefully stir in the baking soda and cinnamon. Be careful, the mixture will bubble up. Stir in the walnuts, then immediately scrape the brittle onto a large rimmed buttered baking sheet. Using the back of a silicone spatula or spoon (oil it lightly if it sticks), spread the brittle into a thin, even layer. Work fast. Letting the candy cool too much before spreading can affect the texture. Immediately sprinkle with salt. Let cool completely, about 30 minutes. Break the brittle into large shards.

best chocolate bundt cake with peppermint dark chocolate ganache #bundtbakers

It seems that no one single flavor is more universally popular during the holidays than peppermint!

Appropriately enough, the theme for this month’s #bundtbakers event was mint! Fresh mint, mint extract, mint oil, mint candies, mint chocolates, candy canes, you name it. It’s all fair game this month. I want to say a great big thank you to our host this month, Laura Tabacca of The Spiced Life, and encourage you to scroll down past the recipe to check out all the other amazing minty bundts this month!

When I was growing up I was a HUGE mint fan, and always got a pack of Andes mints and peppermint Altoids in my stocking for Christmas. I also loved baking with mint and drove my mother crazy putting peppermint extract in everything.

I remember when I was just learning to bake, my sister and I made a peppermint cake that stuck to the pan when we tried to invert it. Instead of accepting defeat, we just scraped the cake out of the pan into a tupperware container. We then took the tupperware full of minty cake crumbs to my grandmother’s house and proudly presented them as “dessert”. We were young and I keep telling myself that we didn’t know any better.

Now that I’m older my taste for mint has waned a bit. I still like mint candies, and I only chew mint flavored gum (I don’t know why, but I HATE fruit flavored gum), but these days I almost never bake with mint.

Since I bake with mint so rarely, I felt a lot of (self-imposed) pressure when coming up with my bundt this month. I went through a ton of ideas, bouncing some off friends at work and actually laying awake at night thinking about what I might do. Finally I decided to keep it classic and simple, and went for a really solid chocolate bundt cake topped with peppermint dark chocolate ganache.

There’s no mint in the cake itself because I thought it would be the perfect subtle touch if it were just in the ganache. Once the cake is topped with crushed peppermint candies there is plenty of minty goodness happening here, trust me.

I used peppermint oil in the ganache rather than extract. The oil has a much fresher, greener, herbal mint flavor than extract, which has more of a peppermint candy flavor. I did this, again, in the name of subtlety and elegance, and I was really happy with the way it came out. I will warn you though that, if you’re used to working with the extract, the oil is MUCH stronger and more concentrated, and should be used very sparingly. When I first made my ganache I actually used WAAAAY too much (1/2 teaspoon) and it tasted like chocolate toothpaste. I adjusted the recipe and decided just a few drops was plenty to give the ganache all the mint flavor it needed. If you really like mint you may want to use a few more drops, but don’t go crazy or you’ll regret it.

If you can’t find peppermint oil, or don’t want to buy one more thing for the pantry, peppermint extract would be totally delicious too. Since it’s not as strongly concentrated, you’ll probably want to use a bit more, but I suggest you start with about a 1/4 a teaspoon first and see if you need to add more.

After all that planning and brainstorming, I’m so happy that I went with these classic flavors.

I cannot say enough about this chocolate bundt cake recipe. It’s adapted from my favorite chocolate bundt cake ever, and it’s my go-to recipe whenever I want chocolate to be the star of the show. It’s unbelievably moist and tender and richly, deeply, darkly chocolatey. The original recipe calls for brewed coffee, but I didn’t want the coffee flavor to compete with the mint so I just used water this time. It’s highly adaptable, and I’ve even had great success substituting an equal amount of orange juice for the coffee (or water), in my chocolate orange bundt cake.

The peppermint dark chocolate ganache on top takes everything to a whole other level of holiday perfection. It’s the perfect touch of mint to make this cake scream “HAPPY HOLIDAYS!” To break up all the dark brown chocolate and add a pop of festive holiday color, I sprinkled crushed peppermint candies over the ganache before it set. Not only does it look pretty, but it adds even more of that sweet peppermint flavor!

Best Chocolate Bundt Cake with Peppermint Dark Chocolate Ganache

Servings: 12
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adapted from Joy the Baker

For the Cake:
1 1/4 cups water
3/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 whole eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 cup peanut oil or any neutral vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

For the Peppermint Dark Chocolate Ganache:
4 oz best quality dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
a few small drops of peppermint oil
1/4 cup crushed peppermint candies or candy canes, if desired.

Place an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.
Liberally butter and flour a 10 to 12 cup Bundt pan and set aside.

Whisk water and cocoa powder in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking frequently. Remove from heat and let come to room temperature.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, mix together sugar, salt, baking soda, eggs and egg yolk on low for just one minute. Add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract and mix on low again for another minute.
Add the flour and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes more. Add the cooled cocoa mixture and mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. The batter will seem quite loose and liquid. Pour into the prepared cake pan and bake for 55-65, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool completely in the pan and then invert onto a cooling rack.

To make the ganache, heat the heavy cream in a heavy pot, just until it begins to simmer. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate. Let the chocolate melt for a minute or so, then whisk to combine. Add a few small drops of peppermint oil, and taste to see if you’d like to add more. DO NOT add more than 1/4 teaspoon. Peppermint oil is STRONG.
If using peppermint extract, start with 1/4 teaspoon, taste, and adjust if necessary.

Drizzle ganache over the cake while it’s still warm and liquid. Sprinkle crushed peppermint candies over the top if desired. Let the ganache set for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Don’t make this too far in advance of serving, or the candies may begin to melt. If you want to make in advance, I’d just bake the cake ahead, cover tightly with wrap, and wait to top with ganache and candies until you’re almost ready to serve.

All these amazing minty bundts sound so festive and delicious! Check ’em out y’all!

Interested in learning more about us? #BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated after each event on the BundtBaker home page here.

If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com. If you are just a lover of Bundt baking, you can find all of our recipe links by clicking our badge above or on our group Pinterest board.

spicy gingerbread linzer cookies with orange white chocolate ganache

Don’t blink folks, it’s almost Christmas!

Every year it feels like it just sneaks up on me. No sooner have I taken a breath after the Thanksgiving dishes are washed than Christmas is a week away and I still haven’t done any shopping. I am terrible about waiting until the last minute to buy gifts. Always have been.

Luckily cookies make a great gift!

Growing up my family always had trays of cookies around in the days leading up to Christmas, and having a variety of treats around always made things feel that much more festive and celebratory.

One way to get that big variety of cookies for the holidays, without having to spend days in the kitchen, is to throw a cookie swap. A traditional cookie swap is basically a party where everyone makes one big batch of one type of cookie, and then everyone gets together and exchanges them. To make it really fun you can serve snacks and cocktails and have a packing station with cute paper boxes and cookie tins and tags and ribbons and twine. All the cookies are divided evenly and then everyone goes home with a handful of each type.

I’ve always wanted to host a cookie swap but have never felt like enough of my friends would want to participate to make it worth my while.

Thanks to the magic of internet though, I got to get in on the fun after all. This year I participated in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, organized by Love and Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen.

The idea is simple. You register as a participating blogger, make a small donation, and you’re assigned three bloggers to send cookies to. Then three other bloggers are assigned to send cookies to you. It’s like secret santa through the mail, but with dozens of cookies! Last year over 600 bloggers participated and over $14,000 was raised for Cookies for Kid’s Cancer!

I wanted to make a recipe that felt really special to me, and had flavors that I’ve always associated with the holidays. I’ve always had a love of dark molassessy spice cookies at Christmas, and linzer cookies have always felt really fancy, so I decided to combine the two ideas into one perfect holiday cookie.

The gingerbread recipe I used has been my favorite for years, and makes a really delicious cookie all on it’s own. If you want to make gingerbread cut outs, this is a great recipe to try. The cookies are thick and chewy and dark and bursting with plenty of spice. There’s warm spices like cinnamon and cloves, but there’s also a nice hint of actual heat from ground black pepper and ginger.

To take things to a whole other level of fancy, I sandwiched the cookies with an orange white chocolate ganache filling. It’s just the right amount of creamy sweetness and bright citrus zest to perfectly compliment the chewy spiciness of the gingerbread. When choosing white chocolate it’s really important to read the ingredients and make sure it actually contains cocoa butter. Most white baking chocolate and white chocolate chips actually don’t, but are instead white chocolate flavored sweetened palm. My advice is to look for plain white chocolate bars in the candy aisle instead.

My cookies went to Club Narwhal, Love and Joy, and Pale Yellow. I hope they enjoyed them as much as I did, and as much as I enjoyed making them. There’s something about making cookies this time of year that is so much more fun than usual!

I received chocolate brown butter cookies from The Sassy Life, almond lace sandwich cookies from Love and Olive Oil, and peppermint sugar cookies from Greens & Chocolate. Everything was amazing, and Russell and I have been munching away merrily every since! What’s left of the cookies even made a guest appearance in my Mexican hot dark chocolate post!

Thank you so much to everyone who sent me cookies, and to everyone who participated this year! This was so much fun, and now I have a bunch of new favorite cookies for the holidays!

Spicy Gingerbread Linzer Cookies with Orange White Chocolate Ganache

Servings: makes about 2 1/2 dozen 2.5 inch cookies
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Spicy Gingerbread Cookies:
Barely adapted from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen

3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 tsp finely ground black pepper
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
3/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons milk

white chocolate ganache filling (recipe below)
powdered sugar for dusting

Combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, pepper, salt, and baking soda in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade attachment. Pulse until well combined, about 10 seconds. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture and pulse repeatedly until mixture is sandy and resembles fine meal, about 30 seconds. With food processor running, add molasses and milk and process until dough is evenly moistened and forms soft mass, about 10 seconds.
If you want to double the recipe, you’ll need to make it in multiple batches.
Divide dough in half and roll into ¼ inch thickness between two large sheets of parchment paper. Place in refrigerator at least two hours (or overnight) or place on a flat surface in the freezer for 20 to 30 minutes, until firm. The colder the dough is the easier it is to work with, so I recommend freezing.
Preheat the oven to 350F and adjust the oven racks to the upper- and lower-middle positions. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Once cold and firm, peel the top sheet of parchment from the dough, flip the dough over onto the parchment, and peel off the other piece. You can cut into any shape you like, but if you want to make linzer cookies make sure you have one cutter that is 1/2 the size of the other (or smaller) to make your “window” in the top cookie. Cut out half the cookies in a solid “base” shape, and cut the remaining half of the cookies so that the smaller cutter forms a “window” hole in the center of the top cookie.
Place on prepared baking sheets spacing cookies 1 inch apart. Bake until centers are just set and dough barely retains imprint when touched very gently with fingertip, anywhere from 8 to 11 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. To bake evenly, rotate the baking sheets halfway through. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets about 5 to 10 minutes or until cool and firm enough to remove from the parchment without breaking. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Gather scraps into a ball and repeat rolling, cooling, cutting, and baking with remaining dough until all is used.

Orange White Chocolate Ganache Filling:

7 oz good quality white chocolate (from bars, not chips)
1/4 cup heavy cream
finely grated zest of one large orange
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

In the the bowl of a double boiler over a very gentle simmer, break up the white chocolate into small pieces and combine with the heavy cream, orange zest, and salt. Stir with a silicone spatula until the chocolate is completely melted with no solid chunks remaining. Take your time, and be sure that the water in the lower pan never goes above a gentle simmer.
Once the chocolate is melted, remove from heat, add the butter and gently stir until completely melted and combined.
Set aside to cool until firm but spreadable. This will take about an hour or two. I’d recommend that you don’t try to refrigerate it because if it gets too cold it’ll be too firm and you’ll need to melt it again to soften it.

With a small offset icing spatula, or a butter knife, spread a small amount (probably about 2 teaspoons) of the ganache filling on to each base cookie. Top each of the filling-covered base cookies with a top cookie and line the filled cookie sandwiches up in a single layer on a clean surface. Dust all the cookies with a light coating of powdered sugar.

If packing for transport or shipping, I’d recommend refrigerating for at least an hour to fully set the ganache.