Nutty Butter Balls

I made these twice over the holidays, once for Phillip to bring to work and give to his colleagues, and once to share with Maia and Roshi (hi!), and apparently everyone loved them :-)

The recipe is from Williams-Sonoma's Cookies (love that book!)

Ingredients:

- 2 cups (8 oz/250g) pecans
- 1 cup (8oz/250g) unsalted butter at room temp
- 3/4 cup (6oz/185g) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg, separated
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 cup multicolored coarse sugar cristals

In a food processor, finely grind the pecans. Measure out 3/4 cup (3oz/90g) for the batter. Reserve the remaining ground nuts for coating the cookies. Set aside.
I do not own a food processor so I used a knife (it took forever!), but the next time I made them I realized that I could use my blender!

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on high speed, cream the butter until fluffy and pale yellow.

Add the brown sugar and continue beating until the mixture is no longer gritty .

Add the egg yolk and vanilla and beat on low speed or stir until well blended.

Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together onto a sheet of wax paper.

Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing on low speed or stirring with a wooden spoon until blended.

Mix or stir in the 3/4 cup (3oz/90g) ground pecans just until blended.
This is what your mix will lok like:

Preheat the oven at 350 degrees F (180C). Have ready 2 baking sheets. Lightly grease the pans or line with parchment paper, or have ready about 4 dozens miniature paper muffin liners. Spread the remaining ground pecans in a shallow bowl. Lightly beat the egg white in a small bowl.

With floured hands, shape the dough into 3/4 inch (2cm) balls. Bruh the balls lightly with egg white and roll in the pecans to coat lightly.

Place each ball in a paper liner, if using. Place the cookies about 1 inch (2.5cm) apart on the prepared pans.

Bake until the bottoms are lightly browned, 25-18 minutes. Let cool slightly on the pans on wire racks. Using a wide, flexible spatula, remove the warm cookies and roll them in the sugar crystals, or sprinkle the sugar on top if in paper liners. Let cool completely on wire racks.

PRINT THIS RECICPE!

My Christmas present!

I am so happy :-)

Bolognese sauce.

I have been wanting to make Bolognese sauce for a while now so when I came accross this recipe I knew it would be the one I'd have to try. It's a great recipe, we all loved it! I really like Joy the baker. Her blog is very pretty, her recipes all sound great (this is the first one I've made) and I like her writing and photos.

If you'd like to make this recipe, Joy the Baker has a "Print this recipe" option on her blog, just follow this link!

Gingerbread Men.

Last week I decided to start baking holiday cookies and I did Gingerbread Men, which I had never made before. I really loved the texture and rich taste of those cookies!

This recipe is from Cookies, by Williams-Sonoma.

Ingredients:

- 1cup (8 oz/ 250 grams) unsalted butter, at room temp.
- 1/2 cup (3 1/2 ox/ 105g) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (4 oz/125g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (11oz/345g) light molasses
- 1 large egg
- 5 cups (25oz/780g) all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 Tbsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on high speed, cream the butter until fluffy and pale yellow.

Add the brown and granulated sugars and beat until the mixture no longer feels gritty.

Gradually beat in the molasses on low speed.

Add the egg and beat on low speed until the mixture is well blended.

Sift the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt together onto a sheet of waxed paper. (I had to do that in several batches because there was way too much flour to be able to do it all at once!)

Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing on low speed or stirring with a wooden spoon until well blended. For me, I have to say that this was really hard. As the consistency of the mixture became drier, I ended up having to use my hands to be able to blend the flour into the mixture because the wooden spoon just wasn't cutting it! I also had given up on using my hand-held mixer because it was not strong enough to be able to do the job. Maybe using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment would be the way to go?

Turn out onto a floured work surface and, with floured hands, form into a large, smooth mound.

Divide the dough into 4 equal portions, shape into disks and wrap each disk into plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

Preheat oven at 400 degree F (200 C). Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper. Working with one disk at a time, roll out the dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper to a thickness of about 1/4 inch (6 mm).

Using gingerbread cookie cutters, cut out figures.

Use an offset spatula to transfer t the prepared pan. Repeat with the remaining dough portions, then gather up the scraps, reroll them, and cut out additional cookies. If the scraps of dough have become sticky, refrigerate for 10 min before rerolling.

Bake the gingerbread figures until lightly browned on the bottom, about 6 minutes. Let sit on th sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Enjoy dressing up the cooled gingerbread cookies with icing, sugars, and other decorations!

Print this recipe!

Sucre à la Crème

Sucre à la Crème is a traditional "fudge" from Quebec, Canada. I had never heard about it until a few days ago when my friend Josee (who is from Quebec) told me about it. It sounded so delicious that that same day I looked up a recipe for it and set to make some the next day.


Ingredients:

- 2 cups whipping cream
- 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp maple syrup
- 2 Tbsp sugar

Put all of the ingredients in a large saucepan. If you are using a candy thermometer, set it on the pan now too.

Bring to a boil.

Be careful, it might boil over! This phase lasts about 2 minutes. I actually had to lift the pan up, otherwise it would have been a huge mess. After the 2 minutes or so, it will continue boiling but it will come down.

You shouldn't need to stir it at all but I wasn't sure so I stired it a few times.

Take the pan off the heat exactly when the temperature reaches 240 degrees F. (soft ball stage). It took me about 18-20 minutes to get there.

If you do not have a candy thermometer, you will need to do the following to find out when it has reached the soft ball stage: in a bowl of very cold water, drop some of the mixture. If it forms a soft, moldable ball (take it out with your fingers), then it is ready! Watch this video for a better understanding of the process.


Let the mixture cool for 10 minutes. Then, with an electric mixer on high speed, mix for 5 minutes, until it has thickened.

Pour into a lined 8x8 in pan.

Cover and let cool down for a few hours.

Once it is completely cooled down, take it off the pan and cut into bite-size squares.

What happened in the lower left corner you may ask? Oh, that was just me being impatient... I just had to taste :-)

And here are my little sucre au lait in candy boxes for my friends :-)

Not to sound too corny or anything, but the best part about making all these yummy things is sharing it with my friends!

I used this recipe :-)