Gingerbread Snowflakes

A few days after Thanksgiving I woke up to see the first snowflakes of the season.  I am obsessed with snow and all things Christmas so this was extremely exciting for me.  Further what is better than sitting in front of a fire watching the snow outside while enjoying a cup of hot tea and a gingerbread cookie?  Well to answer my own question, nothing!!! I had seen a really pretty gingerbread cookie on marthastewart.com that I had been eager to try so I promptly found it and set to work. 

Ingredients

Makes 16 cookies

• 6 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon finely ground pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup unsulfured molasses
• Fine sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

1. Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Divide dough into thirds; wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to a 1/4-inch thick. Cut into snowflakes with a 7- inch snowflake-shape cookie cutter. Space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, and refrigerate until firm, about 15 minutes.
4. Bake cookies until crisp but not dark, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.
5. Put icing in a pastry bag fitted with a small plain round tip. Pipe designs on snowflakes; immediately sprinkle with sanding sugar. Let stand 5 minutes; tap off excess sugar. Let icing set completely at room temperature, about 1 hour. Store cookies between layers of parchment in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.

Royal Icing

Ingredients

Makes about 2 1/2 cups

• 2 large egg whites, or more to thin icing
• 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar, or more to thicken icing
• 1 lemon, juiced

Directions

1. Beat the whites until stiff but not dry. Add sugar and lemon juice; beat for 1 minute more. If icing is too thick, add more egg whites; if it is too thin, add more sugar. The icing may be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

I could not locate a 7 inch cookie cutter so I settled for the largest one I could find which I believe was about 4 inches in diameter.  It was actually the perfect size because I do not think that most people would want to eat a cookie much larger than that in one sitting.  With the smaller cutter I got approximately 40 cookies out of the dough.  I also found that putting the dough in the refrigerator made it too cold and difficult the roll out right after removing it.  If you refrigerate the dough and then let it sit on the counter for a few minutes before rolling it out the dough will be less apt to crack.  Be sure to adequately flour your workspace and utensils (rolling pin, cookie cutter, spatula, and hands).  I baked for exactly 12 minutes and then let them sit for 3 minutes on the pan.  Once the cookies were completely cool to the touch I began to decorate them.  If you make your royal icing and find that it does not have the usual sweet and delicious flavor of frosting fret not, it doesn’t taste like anything on the cookie!!  Make your icing and put it into the decorating bag, I recommend using a disposable one because it makes cleaning up much easier.  When piping onto the cookie the frosting is slightly difficult to squeeze out of the bag and takes some force.  Once you have your desired pattern it is time to coat in the decorating sugars.  I found that it was difficult to make the sugar stick to the icing by simply dumping them onto the cookie so I poured a substantial amount onto a plate and then placed the cookie face down into the sugar.  Voila you have a yummy snow day snack!!!

Cranberry Orange Scones

Happy Almost Thanksgiving Sprinklers!!!  In order to get warmed up for the largest day of cooking of the year I decided to make a Thanksgiving morning breakfast snack this evening in preparation for the festivities.  In my house it is common to eat an extremely small breakfast, essentially nothing throughout the day, and then stuff yourself when dinner rolls around at about 4 in the afternoon.  For the really small breakfast I made what turned out to be (unintentionally) really small scones.  My mom suggested using the unnecessarily large bag of Craisins she had purchased (I guess that’s what happens at Costco).  So with the object of using Craisins and making a breakfast treat I set out to find a good recipe.  I settled on one I found on the foodnetwork.com. 

Cranberry Orange Scones

Ingredients

• 4 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar, plus additional for sprinkling
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon grated orange zest
• 3/4 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
• 4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup cold heavy cream
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk, for egg wash
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
• 4 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add the cold butter and mix at the lowest speed until the butter is the size of peas. Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy! Combine the dried cranberries and 1/4 cup of flour, add to the dough, and mix on low speed until blended.

Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and a rolling pin and roll the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough. Keep moving the dough on the floured board so it doesn't stick. Flour a 3-inch round plain or fluted cutter and cut circles of dough. Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Collect the scraps neatly, roll them out, and cut more circles.

Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked. The scones will be firm to the touch. Allow the scones to cool for 15 minutes and then whisk together the confectioners' sugar and orange juice, and drizzle over the scones.

I found that the scones did not rise at all and therefore I needed to start with a thicker piece of dough to cut the circle from.  The flavor was great but the texture was a bit dry.  Nothing that a great cup of coffee can’t fix!!  I’ll be back many times this week to report on the outrageous on goings of Thanksgiving!!  Since Ariel went to the most magical place on earth for the weekend I will be doing all the Thanksgiving updates from my family’s kitchen in Pittsburgh!!

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes

This past weekend it was the nineteenth birthday of my dear friend and sorority sister, Emily!  Seeing as she is an avid reader of I Tinkle Sprinkles I thought it absolutely necessary to bake for her!  She is an enormous fan of chocolate, as most of us are, and so my friend Sarah suggested a recipe she has made many times for her housemates!  (Ariel was unable to participate this weekend, I missed her dearly!!!)  Sarah found this recipe in the Martha Stewart’s Cupcake cookbook.

Chocolate Malted Cupcakes:

Makes roughly 28

2 1/4C All purpose flour
3/4 C Dutch process cocoa powdered
1/2 C Granulated sugar
3/4 C light brown sugar (packed)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C milk
1 1/4 C Malted milk powder ( such as Carnations)
1 C vegetable oil
3 large eggs at room temp
1 C sour cream at room temp
1 tsp Vanilla extract

Method:
With oven preheated @ 350 Degrees F.

1. Whisk together flour, cocoa, sugars, baking soda & salt. in another bowl, whisk together milk and malted milk powder until dissolve.
2. With mixer on Med- High, beat flour mixture, milk mixture and oil until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating until well incorporated. Add sour cream and vanilla. Beat until just combined.
3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filled half way. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cake tester comes out clean or baked about 20 minutes.

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting

Makes about 4 cups

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Method

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.
   
2. Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.

With the frosting completed, we decided that while the white was crisp and clean cut, Emily was more exciting than that and needed some color.  We used 2 drops of blue food coloring and 3 drops of pink food coloring to make a lovely shade of purple.  After having our desired color we attached a medium sized star-shape to a pastry bag and carefully piped the frosting onto the cupcakes.

The cupcakes were delicious and the malt powder made them extremely aerated.  They were fluffy and light, and made it possible to enjoy these rich and sweet flavors without feeling overwhelmed. 

I would recommend, and I think Emily would agree, that these are the perfect birthday cupcakes!!

Pumpkin of Cupcakes

Pumpkin of Cupcakes

Trick or Treat Sprinkles Fans!!!  Out of respect for the best holiday ever Ariel found an exciting task for us.  A pumpkin of cupcakes, yes you heard right, we actually made a giant pumpkin out of cupcakes.  This recipe was from Cup Cake Central which is sponsored by Reynolds Baking Cups. 

What you need:

For Cake:
48-52 cupcakes baked in Reynolds Orange Foil Baking Cups
2 packages (18.25 oz. each) yellow cake mix
2 cups canned pumpkin
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
Water, oil and eggs (follow package directions)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract for cake

For Frosting:
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
6 tablespoons maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract for frosting
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 to 2 packages (16 oz.each ) powdered sugar
Neon orange food coloring
Green food coloring
Optional:  orange sugar crystals

For Creating Centerpiece:
1 large platter or tray (at least 12 inches wide)
1 8” Styrofoam ball (purchase at your local craft store)
1 4×4x2″ Styrofoam block  (purchase at your local craft)
4 6″ wooden skewers
1 glue gun and glue sticks
48-52 wooden craft sticks
1 small paring knife

Instructions:

PREHEAT oven to 350°F.
PLACE Reynolds Baking Cups in muffin pans; set aside.
BEAT cake mixes, pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice, water, oil, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer on lw speed until moistened, about 30 seconds.  Then beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.  Spoon batter into baking cups.  If desired, each cake mix can be beaten separately just use half of pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla in each.
BAKE 20 to 23 minutes.  Cool.
MIX cream cheese, maple syrup, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and cinnamon in a large bowl.  Add powdered sugar gradually until well blended.
DIVIDE frosting, use food coloring to dye 1/2 cup green and the remaining frosting orange.
SET aside two cupcakes for stem.  PIPE or frost remaining cupcakes with orange frosting.  Sprinkle with orange sugar crystals,  if desired.  Very Important: Let frosting stand and harden at least 1 hour.

PREPARE CENTERPIECE:

1. Place Styrofoam block on a platter.  Use hot glue to glue block to platter.  Insert 4 wooden skewers in a square center of block.
2. Place Styrofoam ball on top of block, sliding ball onto skewers.  Use hot glue to secure in place, if necessary.
3. Starting at the bottom of the styrofoam ball, insert one wooden craft stick angled 45 degrees up.  Push stick deep into ball so that about 1/2 of it remains sticking out to hold cupcake.
4. Use a paring knife to make a thin slit into the bottom of the decorated cupcake.
5. Slide decorated cupcake onto wooden craft stick.
6. Repeat these steps, one row at a time.  Work your way all the way around the bottom of the ball to the top, placing the cupcakes as close together as you can get them.
7. Leave a 3-inch circle of open space at the top for the stem.  Remove baking cups from the 2 cupcakes that were set aside for stem.  Cut a thin slice from the top of each cupcake to create flat surfaces. 
8. Frost cut side of one cupcake with green frosting and press bottom of second cupcake on top of it.  Prepare stem by spreading a thin coating of green frosting over all sides of both cupcakes.
9. Spread a dollop of green frosting in open space at top of ball to serve as “glue” for the stem.  Place frosted green cupcakes upside down on frosting so flat bottom of one of the cupcakes makes the top of the stem.  Spread frosting over stem until completely covered.  Use a fork to make circular lines in the top of the stem and vertical lines on the sides, if desired.
10. Optional:  place additional cupcakes on platter around bottom of Pumpkin.

We took the easy route on this one (because it was going to be difficult to assemble the giant pumpkin) and used boxed cake mix.  We made two boxes of mix, one yellow and one chocolate.  We did not include pumpkin in our recipe because there were no cans of pumpkin to be found in Ann Arbor.  Apparently everyone had a similar idea to us.  We did make the frosting as it was stated in the recipe but we did not have food coloring so we used a food dye spray.  It was shimmery and perfect for our pumpkin. 

When assembling the pumpkin we found it difficult to attach the cupcakes without having them fall off.  Because we used paper cupcake liners instead of the tin ones recommended we noticed that the weight of thee hanging cupcake pulled away from the liner.  Luckily once they were packed onto the Styrofoam ball they held each other together.  Our finished product was not as tidy as the one on the Cup Cake Central website but it was still really cute and festive!!