Eggnog Cookies

Believe it or not, I've only started drinking eggnog the last few Christmases... I was never a fan of eggs and could never get over the 'egg' part of the name to bring myself to try it.  Finally though, this wonderful drink has entered my life.  These cookies have a very strong eggnog taste and are a great alternative to the usual shortbread or sugar cookies of this time of year. 

This is a fairly simple recipe with a lot of impact - great for the holidays when time is short and need to produce impressive baked goods is high!  

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Cream sugar and butter with an electric mixer. Add eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks and beat at medium speed until smooth.

Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg then add to wet ingredients and beat until combined. 

Once your dough is formed roll out on a well floured counter.  I found my dough to be a bit wet following this recipe exactly so I ended up adding about 1/4 cup extra flour to stop it from sticking to the counter and rolling pin. 

Break out your excessively large collection of Christmas cookie cutters (what, you mean not everyone has several overflowing boxes?) and cut out a variety of holiday themed shapes until all the dough is gone.  Bake on parchment paper for 10-12 minutes 

Using the electric mixer again, beat together confectioners sugar, butter and eggnog called for in icing recipe until smooth.   Transfer mixture to piping bag or ziploc with a small corner cut off then drizzle over cookies.  Make sure the mixture is very smooth before transfer or else lumps will get caught in the tip of your piping bag and cause it to clog.  This will make it difficult to drizzle icing evenly.  Garnish each cookie with a sprinkle of nutmeg if desired. 


Eggnog Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup eggnog
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon nutmeg

Icing

2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cups softened butter or margarine
1/3 cups commercial eggnog

Adapted from:  Between He and She

Banana Booze Cake

This was a difficult cake to photograph, but trust me, it's tasty.  Not a recipe of exact proportions and one that is open to additions and interpretation, this variation of it includes pudding, bananas, cookies, and a healthy portion of liquor.  I think that next time I make this I may try a variation with coffee liquor and chocolate pudding.  Be sure to make in advance to allow pudding to saturate the cookies and bananas thoroughly before serving. 

For this you'll need banana liquor, Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream, or as close to these as you can get.  Here there are only 2 boxes of pudding shown but to make a cake of the size shown above (approx 18"x9"x4") you will need 4 boxes.  Look for the boxes that call for 2 cups of milk per box as this will give you the correct ratio of liquid to allow the pudding to come together despite the alcohol. 

Put all 4 boxes of pudding powder into a mixing bowl.  Add one cup of milk for each box (4 cups) as well as 2/3rds a cup of each type of liquor. 

Beat pudding with an electric mixer for however long is indicated on the boxes of pudding mix.  Mine called for two minutes at low speed.  Once this is done toss the pudding in the fridge to firm up. 

While you're waiting for the pudding, slice up some bananas very thin, about 1/8 of an inch thick. 

Pull out the pudding and spread a thin layer on the bottom of the the cake pan you are using. In this case I used a tupperware for ease of transport and storage, just pop on the lid and you're ready to go.  You could easily use a loaf pan, brownie pan, or your usual round pie plate. 

Spread a layer of cookies on top of the pudding, then a layer of bananas on top of them. The type of cookies isn't important. I've considered using chocolate chip, vanilla wafers, oatmeal, anything works as long as the pudding will be able to soak into them, so nothing totally coated in chocolate. 

Top the layer of bananas with more pudding, then repeat the pattern of adding cookies then bananas.  Continuing doing this until all pudding is gone, finishing with a layer of cookies.  Put cake in the fridge to allow pudding to saturate cookies and bananas with flavor, about 3-4 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, garnish with whip cream if desired. 


Banana Booze Cake

6 bananas
2 boxes of vanilla pudding
2 boxes of butterscotch pudding
4 cups milk
2/3 cup banana liquor
2/3 cup Kahlua
2/3 cup Bailey's Irish Cream
60 cookies

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

These cookies are like little miniature pumpkin pies!  Each one contains its own small amount of pie filling and is quite delicious.  The original recipe I found these in calls for them to be shaped like pumpkins and have jack-o-lantern eyes and mouths cut into them, however, since it was after Halloween that I made them I went ahead and added white chocolate and caramel as decoration and they turned out just excellent!

No pictures of the mixing stage of the pastry, unfortunately  I realized too late that this dough needs refrigeration for 'several hours to overnight' so I was forced to make the dough quickly to give it time to rest.  It's fairly easy though. 

Mix the flour, sugar and salt with a fork, then add in butter and cut in with pastry mixer (or fork or potato masher if you're without) until there are no lumps of butter bigger than a pea.  After this, mix in just enough cold water until the dough holds together.  Probably best to just use your hands to mix at this point! Then divide the dough into two and wrap in plastic wrap as seen here, then pop it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. 

Once the dough is ready roll it out to about a half to a quarter centimeter thick.

I didn't have a perfectly round cookie cutter handy, so I used this one that was shaped like a Christmas ornament and just sliced off the nub to make round cookies.   You could use a cup if you're without a cutter but it doesn't work quite as well. 

Place the rounds on a parchment-lined baking pan.  Put about a tablespoon of pumpkin pie filling on each one, then top with another and push the edges down with a fork. Be sure to create deep indentations here as the cookies will puff up while baking and if you don't make them deep enough you will lose that super cute "pie" look.  Bake at 350C until bottoms are lightly browned and tops no longer feel soft or wet. 

While those are baking melt white chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth and runny. 

Use a proper icing bag and tip if you have it and fill with white chocolate. If you're like me and don't have those things, put a ziploc over a tall glass as shown, with one corner pointed towards the bottom and fill it up with chocolate.  This makes for a much easier and cleaner fill up and gives you somewhere to rest the bag if you have to put it down for a couple seconds. 

Snip the corner off the bag and drizzle chocolate back and forth across the cookies.  Repeat the same melting and drizzling process for caramels. Beware that caramel will be MUCH stiffer and take longer to melt, however the process is the same. Just make sure there are no lumps left before transferring to the plastic bag and consider wearing an oven mitt as you drizzle, as I found the caramel to be much warmer than the chocolate. 

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

2 ½ cups flour (whole wheat pastry or all-purpose)

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 ½ sticks cold unsalted butter, cubed

~½ cup ice water

1/2 can pumpkin pie filling

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup caramels

recipe adapted from: Building Buttercream

Fruity Chocobowls

As you may have guessed from the name, this is a combination of recipes and my own creation.  A bowl made of solid chocolate, filled with a fruity cream cheese pudding, garnished with bits of Skor and assorted other crushed up chocolate bars.  These would also be good with whip cream, caramel, nuts, sprinkles or pretty much any other topping you can think of. 

First off, this is not a recipe of exact proportions.  These are the ingredients I started with - eventually I ended up adding an extra brick of cream cheese and more icing sugar than was originally called for.  I also added some milk later on, to smooth out the pudding. 

Working on the chocolate bowls first gives them time to cool while you make the pudding. Start by melting all the chocolate chips in a double boiler until smooth.  Once melted, take them off the heat and let them sit until they're no longer warm to the touch.  Don't worry about it re-solidifying - once chocolate has been melted it will stay liquid for a long time.  Also, the thickening that happens in the chocolate makes making the bowls easier.  I waited almost an hour before proceeding. 

Now for the balloons! These are used to create the shape of the bowl.  Each is dipped in chocolate, then later deflated once the chocolate has hardened.  You want to use water balloons or other small balloons.  Now is a good time to enlist your friend, room mate, significant other or anyone else who may at one point have enjoyed your delicious baking to help  you blow up about 20 balloons.  More than likely some will pop and not survive to become bowls, so inflate more than you think you will need. 

Now that the balloons are inflated and the chocolate is cooling, it's a good time to start on the pudding. Take your frozen fruit - as much as you want, really - I used about 1.5 cups, and chop up any particularly large pieces. 

Once fruit is chopped put cream cheese and icing sugar together and beat with a hand mixer until fluffy.  Add milk and vanilla and beat until combined. Again, isn't a recipe of exact proportions, so taste and add until you get something you like. 

Throw in the berries and mix until everything is well blended.  It can be chunky, if you would prefer it that way, or you can beat it until it's smooth.

Back to the bowls! Once your chocolate has totally cooled, take balloons by the end and dip them into the melted chocolate.  You may have to swirl them on their sides a bit to get a good chocolate coating.  Gently place balloons on a parchment lined baking sheet and let sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes, then transfer to fridge.  After totally solidified in the fridge bowls can be transferred to the freezer to further firm up.  This is particularly a good idea if you're going to have to transport them from where they're being made to where they will be served.  


Once the chocolate has set up in the fridge for about 30 minutes, use a pin or scissors to put a small hole in the tip of the balloon.  Use this hole to slowly and gently release the air from the balloon.  The balloon should peel away from the chocolate, leaving just the bowl.  If you have trouble getting the balloon out, refrigerate for a while longer - the balloon should pull away from the chocolate naturally and it will be easier to remove. 


Don't get discouraged if you loose a few balloons during the dipping/cooling/popping process - I lost about 3 total.  Just make sure you make a few extra and experiment with what works best for you.  Once bowls are set, fill with pudding and garnish with toppings of your choice. 

Fruity Chocobowls

yield: about a dozen

Pudding:

2 350g bricks of cream cheese

1.5 cups of mixed frozen berries

3/4 cup icing sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Bowls

500g chocolate chips (any kind)

~20 water balloons

Garnish (Anything works, sprinkles, whip cream, smashed up chocolate bars, nuts, etc)