DB: Cannoli Sandwich Cookies

So, this month's Daring Bakers challenge was not supposed to involve baking, but my twist still involved my oven. I took the inspiration from common cannoli flavorings - nuts, cheese, orange, chocolate - on the challenge was a baked cannoli cookie with chocolate-mascarpone filling.

The cookie itself is delicate and crumbly, a little like shortbread. This slice-and-bake cookie fits itself nicely into your schedule. No need to even thaw the dough before baking - just slice directly out of the freezer and pop them into the oven. The flavors complemented each other really nicely. I think I will be adding these to my Christmas baking list (with a few changes to make them more festive). Pistachios and dried cranberries with cream cheese frosting. I'm looking forward to it!

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

Cannoli Cookies
adapted from Good Life Eats

1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp orange zest
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds

Filling
3/4 cup whole milk ricotta
6 oz mascarpone cheese
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/3 cup powdered sugar
3/4 tsp vanilla

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, for drizzling

1. Beat butter at medium speed until creamy. Gradually add sugar and brown sugar, beating well. Add egg and vanilla, beat till combined.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, zest, and cinnamon. Add to butter mixture. Beat at medium speed. Stir in pistachios.
3. Shape dough into two 6" logs. Wrap with wax paper and freeze until firm. Slice frozen dough into 1/8 inch thick rounds. Place rounds on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes, or until lightly browned at edges. Cool 1 minute on pan then transfer to wire rack.
5. Fill completely cooled cookies with cannoli filling. Assemble sandwiches and drizzle with melted chocolate. Cool in refrigerator until chocolate has hardened.
6. Filling: Mix filling ingredients together. Chill until ready to use. To fill sandwiches, pipe filling on the underside of one cookie and sandwich with another.
Drizzle with melted chocolate.

Caramel Glazed Apple Pie Cake

The pressure is on! One of my mom's colleagues wants to pay me to do her Christmas baking as she's having a lot of visitors over this year and hates baking. She has no idea what cookies/cakes or how much she'll need. I'm totally hanging here - HELP!!! I need your input. Should I stick to the classics like shortbread and gingerbread? Do you have any recipe suggestions? How should I determine what to charge? Right now I'm thinking of putting together a list of favorites and letting her pick from there or use it as a jump-off point for her to give me some direction.

Now, on to the cake: This is a lightning fast cake to put together. It is a very moist cake (it uses 4 apples!) that tastes just like pie but I like to think it's a little healthier :)
The cake is great on its own but the caramel topping pushes it right over the top - tartness from the apples playing off the decadence of the caramel.

The sugar in the cake caramelizes during baking and gives the cake topping a little crunch. I used 4 different apples: granny smith, gala, mcintosh and spartan, for an added dimsnaion of taste.

Variation: serve hot with vanilla ice cream and drizzle the caramel sauce on top of the ice cream.

Caramel Glazed Apple Pie Cake
Makes 9" x 13" pan

1 cup vegetabile oil
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
4 medium apples, diced small

1 cup caramel sauce or sundae topping (Don't used melted down caramels here or it will be too hard when cooled)
1 tbsp cornstarch or flour

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13" cake pan.
2. With a mixer beat to combine oil, sugar and eggs.Mix together dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add to wet ingredients. Mix just to combine - it will be thick.
3. Stir in apples and pour into prepared baking pan. Bake for 45-60 minutes or until deep golden brown on top and starts to pull away from sides of the pan.
4. Cool on wire rack in pan. Combine caramel sauce with flour/cornstarch and pour over cake, spreading evenly. It will melt into the cake, filling it with sweet, caramelly goodness.

TWD: Chocolate Peanut Caramel Cupcakes

I couldn't find that chestnut paste Dorie calls for in this recipe, so I substituted peanut butter and loved the results. I cut the tops of the cupcakes at a 45 defree angle and filled them with the filling and some ganache then put the tops back on and froated them. They were quite dense (I put a lot of filling in each) and kinda reminded me of chocolate bars. Pretty rich and compact, so I'm glad I made them small. I imagine this recipe would be well suited to hazelnuts as well.



Thank you to Katya of Second Dinner for choosing this recipe!

Bacon Cheddar Breakfast Buns

Oh My God. These are to die for. It's really simple and deliciously rewarding. What's not to love: bacon, cheese, green onions and bread.
You basically make a recipe for 1 loaf of white bread, knead in some herbs and garlic powder, roll it out and spread with ranch and sprinkle with goodies (bacon, grated cheddar, green onions), roll it up like a cinnamon bun, sprinkle some parmesan on top, cut and place in a plan to rise. Bake. Eat. :)



Bacon Cheddar Breakfast Buns
Makes 12 | Adapted from King Arthur Flour

1 cup warm milk
1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
2 tablespoons bacon pan grease or melted butter
3 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
2 tbsp dried oregano

1/4 cup ranch dressing
12 pc. bacon, cooked and chopped, grease reserved
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
3/4 chopped scallions or chives

Pour the warm milk into a mixing bowl and dissolve sugar in milk. Cool to 110 degrees F then the yeast. When the yeast is foamy, add the bacon grease/butter and 2 1/2 cups of flour and the salt and spices. Mix together and then add remaining 1/2 cup of flour if needed to form a soft, slightly sticky dough.

Knead the dough for 3 to 4 minutes, until it begins to behave as if it belonged together. Let it rest while you clean and grease the bowl. Continue kneading a further 3 to 4 minutes, until the dough feels smooth and springy. Let the dough rise until doubled (1 to 2 hours). Deflate it and knead out any stray bubbles, roll it out into a large rectangle and spread with ranch dressing and sprinkle with bacon, cheddar and scallions. Roll up tightly, pinch seam to seal and cut into 12 equal pieces. Arrange in a greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Cover and let rise until almost doubled (45 minutes to 1 hour at room temp or overnight in fridge). *If you are doing the overnight rise, take them out in the morning to bring to room temperature 15 minutes before you preheat the oven.

Just before baking, sprinke the buns with parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 to 40 minutes, or until nicely browned.

Halloween Candy Brownies

Shh.... I used a cake mix! EEK!!! I know, I know, I'm a bad girl, but here's my excuse: I needed to use up some Halloween candy, or rather, get it out of the house so i don't eat it all! ... so out came the Betty Crocker box of brownie mix buried at the back of my pantry. I chopped up a bunch of candy bars (and threw them into the batter. I used about 6 mini bars for a 9" square pan. A mixture of snickers, crispy crunch, caramilk and skor. They all kinda blended in and you can't even see them in the brownie in the picture!

I'm not including a recipe seeing as I used a mix, but below is an amazing brownie frosting recipe you have got to try. It comes from Anne Byrn of The Cake Mix Doctor, published in the mid to late 90's. It's a good book, especially for all-American frostings. I find myself returning time and time again to that book when I'm looking for an easy frosting (ie. no eggs involved).

This frosting sets up nicely and allows you to stack brownies one on top of the other - good for transportation or bake sales. It is rich and reminds me of fudge.

Chocolate Fudge Frosting
Makes enough for 9" pan

1/4 cup butter
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp milk
2-3 cups powdered sugar

Place the butter in a medium saucepan and melt over low heat, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the cocoa powder and milk. Let the mixture come just to a boil, stirring, and then remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the powdered sugar until the frosting is thickened and smooth. Pour the warm frosting over the top of a cooled cake, spreading it with a spatula so that it reaches all sides of the cake. Work quickly because this frosting goes on best while still warm. *You can use a metal spatula dipped in hot water to smooth out cracks/lumps in frosting during finishing touches.

Tia's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

It seems to me that all bakers have this mission to find the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. There's something about this chewy classic that is alluring and which we strive for. I bet it's the first recipe most little girls tackle as they venture into the kitchen world (age 10, 11?).

The recipe for these is asapted from one I stumbled upon on a baking blog about a year ago - before I knew how huge the food blogging community was and before I started my own. It has been no-fail, soft & chewy every time. Lots of options for variety: m&m's, chocolate chips, cut up cansy bars, toffee bits, or nuts. They aren't cakey or crispy. Rather, soft and bakeshop-like.

**TIP***: One of the keys is to cream the butter and sugar by hand. The old fashioned way yields better results - chewier/bendier cookies - because you aren't beating in too much air like you do with a mixer.



Tia's Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 20

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups M&M's or chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Using A wooden spoon (by hand!) cream together butter & sugars, add in egg & vanilla, then flour/soda/salt mixture, then chocolate chips.

Drop by heaping tablespoons on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten slightly with the sugar-dusted bottom of a glass or your bare palm. Bake for 10-13 minutes, edges slightly golden. Don't over bake! Allow to cool almost completely on rack.

TWD: Cran Apple Tart

The recipe for "Cran Apple Crisps" (baked out of order as all my Nov. TWD recipes are) was chosen by The Repressed Pastry Chef. Check out her blog for the original recipe. I happened to put my own twist on the crisp, making it into a tart instead of a spoon dessert. I'll take any excuse to use my 9" fluted tart pan. I love that thing. A simple all-purpose pie crust filled with Dorie's apple cranberry filling and topped with her crisp topping. Because the tart pan is so shallow I used only about 2/3 of the recipe (2.5 apples instead of 4, the rest scaled accordingly). I froze the (delicious) extra streusel in a ZipLock container for easy to throw together fruit crisps or muffin toppings in a flash.



When I first put this into the oven the filling was piled so high it looked like an anthill, but thankfully the apples cooked down and in the end it was just the perfect height. Note: this bubbles a lot! I should've known better and put foil under my pan to save myself a lot of sticky puddles in my oven. Served at room temperature the next day it was even better than hot out of the oven. It was a beautiful medley of sweet and tart with contrasting textures from fresh and dried cranberries and bits of coconut in the topping. Nobody could guess there was coconut but when I told them their reaction was: "ahhh.... so THAT'S what it is". They knew something in there tasted different (in a good way!) but couldn't put their finger on it.