Pistachio Tea Cakes

Pistachio, what a wonder nut it is!  Over the last few years, this nut has slowly been making its way into my life.  Now that I discovered what a treat it is, I can’t stop searching for new ways to eat it. 

CJ and I like the idea of mini-size or bite-size desserts.  We feel that they are normal size portions that give a person a sense of satisfying a sweet craving without overdoing it.  That led us to purchasing “bite-sized desserts” by Carole Bloom.  So, imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon this recipe for Mini-Pistachio Tea Cakes.  I could not pass it up and neither can you. 

Pistachio paste can be homemade, but it is much easier to purchase a can.  Whole Foods carries Love’n Bake Pistachio Nut Paste.  The nuts are toasted prior to the grinding process, which intensifies the flavor.  Be warned that when you open the can, there is a natural layer of oil on top that must be mixed in prior to using. 

Also, when a recipe calls for all-purpose flour for a cake of any type, I tend to use cake flour.  So, for all cupcakes and cake recipes I use cake flour.  Personally I like the texture of the final product better.

If you make these, you will not be disappointed.  This recipe is so simple and these little bitty pistachio bites pack a big flavor.  You won’t stop at just one tea cake. 

Ingredients:

3 ozs Unsalted Butter, Softened

½ cup Granulated Sugar

1/3 cup Pistachio Paste

½ tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

2 Extra-Large Eggs, Room Temp

½ cup All-Purpose Flour

¼ tsp Kosher Salt

2 tbsp Confectioners’ Sugar

Procedure: 

1. Pre-heat oven to 400°F and place mini-muffin pan on a baking sheet. 
2. Beat the butter until light and fluffy, approximately 2 minutes. 
3. While butter is beating, sift the flour and salt together and set aside. 
4. Add the granulated sugar and beat until smooth. 
5. Prior to adding the sugar and while beating the butter and sugar scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. 
6. Add the pistachio paste and vanilla and mix until thoroughly combined. 
7. Add the eggs one at a time and completely incorporate before adding the next egg. 
8. Add the sifted flour in two stages, blending well after each addition and scraping down the sides before each addition. 
9. Once all ingredients are well combined, pour into mini-muffin pans.  
10. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes. 
11. After the cakes have cooled, dust the tops with the confectioners’ sugar.

Elusive Chocolate Cake

From our point of view chocolate cake should not only taste like chocolate, but should also be moist.  All of the saliva in your mouth should not be soaked up by a piece of cake.  Instead a cake should be tasty and just the right consistency.  Well, these two qualities in a chocolate cake have been eluding us.  We have tried several different recipes and the cake is either too dense or too dry.  The chocolate doesn’t have a chance to showcase itself when the consistency is the dominant factor.    

A recent recipe we tried was from a book called “Chocolate.”  One would think that a book all about chocolate would result in the Best Chocolate Products.  That really was not the case with the chocolate cupcakes that we tried.  So, we are still on the lookout for our go to recipe.   Here is to hoping that we come across just the right chocolate cake recipe before we have to create our own.  If you have ideas, send them our way.

Ingredients:
½ cup Unsalted Butter
½ cup Sugar
3 Eggs
1 cup less 2 tbsp Cake Flour
3½ tbsp Cocoa Powder
1½ tsp Baking Powder

Procedure:
1.  Pre-heat oven to 375°F.
2.  Fill muffin pan with baking cups.
3.  Cream together the butter and sugar until well light and fluffy.
4.  Add in the eggs, one at a time.
5.  Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together.
6.  Add sifted flour mixture to the butter mixture.
7.  Mix just until combined.
8.  Fill the baking cups a little over half way and bake for 15 minutes.
9.  Cool completely before frosting.

CJ’s Thick and Chewy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I have a lot of vegan friends that struggle finding sweets to eat. So, I started researching zines to find recipes that I could modify to come up with yummy vegan desserts. This is the recipe that I came up with for vegan chocolate chip cookies.


I struggle with a constant battle of: heathlier product vs tastier product. I’ve heard so many terrible things about hydrogenated oils and trans fats that I avoid them as much as possible in my life and in my baking. While this is my tried and true go-to recipe for thick and chewy vegan chocolate chip cookies, I do prefer the taste of the cookies when I used ingredients that contain trans fat and hydrogenated oils.

The next time I make these cookies I am going to add a bit of applesauce to see if it will add some moisture back in to the cookies. I still love this recipe and the cookies always turn out great, but using the other products I always had that big eyed question-y look after someone would take the first bite, immediately followed by, “are these really vegan!”


Ingredients:
2 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

¾ cup sugar
¾ cup light brown sugar
½ cup veg shortening (I like Spectrum, because it is trans fat free)
½ cup room temp vegan margarine (I like Earth Balance, because it is also trans fat free)
2 tblsp + 1 ½ tsp of water
1 tsp vanilla extract

12 oz vegan chocolate chips

Procedure:
Sift together and set aside dry ingredients.
Cream together the remaining ingredients. The consistency should almost feel broken. Slowly add the dry ingredients until well incorporated.

Then add the chocolate chips and nuts if you would like them.

Ball the cookies and bake at 325 degrees for 13 minutes or until light and golden brown.

Should yield between 18-24 cookies depending on how big you like them.

PB&J

Peanut butter and jelly is good on bread, right? Then turning a PB&J into a cookie only makes sense. I happened upon a recipe from Desserts Magazine (dessertsmag.com) that looked very appealing. So, I figured I would give it a shot. The recipe is a fairly basic recipe and makes a lot of cookies. These cookies are similar to a thumb print cookie. You know the cookies that are rolled into a ball and you press your thumb in the middle prior to baking.

Since I am kind of a perfectionist, my thought was to use a measuring spoon to make the depression in the center of the cookie. I have this measuring spoon that is a perfect circle and I thought just the right depth that needed for the jelly in the center of the cookie. Imagine my surprise and frustration when I removed the cookies from the oven and the depression in the middle of the cookie was gone. The center of the cookies rose, which only makes sense. The next batch of cookies I figured to heck with perfection and used my thumb. Yet again when I removed the cookies, the center had risen. Luckily the cookies were pretty soft, which allowed me to use my measuring spoon to make the depression in the middle of the cookie while they were still warm. While they were cooling I filled the center with either strawberry preserves or grape jelly.

I liked that after the cookies sat for some time, the jelly added a bit of moisture. I personally felt like there could have been a bit more of a peanut butter taste. Next time I will opt out of using preserves and only use jelly. However, the reviews from my coworkers were pretty good. They were talking about them for days. Since they are potential customers, I take that as a good sign.

Ingredients:

260 g Peanut Butter

112 g Unsalted Butter

180 g Light Brown Sugar

2 eggs

1tsp Vanilla Extract

240 g All-Purpose Flour

1tsp Baking Powder

250 g Jelly

Procedure:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375°F.

2. Line baking pans with parchment paper.

3. Cream together the peanut butter, butter and sugar.

4. Add the eggs, one at a time and add the vanilla.

5. Sift together the flour and baking soda.

6. Add the sifted flour with the peanut butter mixture.

7. Mix until well blended, dough will pull away from the sides and form a ball easily.

8. Form the dough into one inch bass and place them on the baking pans.

9. Make a depression in the center of the ball.

10. Bake for eight minutes. While the cookies are cooling, fill each depression with about 1 teaspoon of jelly.