Easy Oreo Bark

Okay, I promise that I will soon be all out of recipes for delicious Christmas treats very soon! I made a lot of stuff this year, and most of it was worth sharing on my blog, so that is why you are still seeing so much of it, even after New Year's has been long gone. This recipe is probably the very easiest one that was made the whole season....and I'm not technically the one who made it.

I wanted to make Oreo Cookie Bark for Christmas this year because my husband's family enjoys treats made with Oreo cookies. Last year I had made Oreo Truffles, but they are time-consuming and I needed something that I could make more quickly. When I discovered this recipe for Oreo Bark, I was immediately sold on it. It requires just two ingredients, Oreo cookies and white chocolate. Cinchy!



The bark comes together in just about zero time flat. I had my husband make it for me while I was out getting other things done one day. Just break the Oreos up, melt the white chocolate down, and mix the two together. Press it down flat in a pan, then refrigerate until firm enough to slice into pieces. Could not be simpler! I bought the fun, festive Winter Oreos for this, since I thought it would be way prettier, what with the red creme centers melting and swirling in with all the white chocolate and dark chocolate of the cookies. I was right; it looked very cool! I was afraid it would look a lot like peppermint bark, and that mint-fearing folk wouldn't even try it.

Turns out, I shouldn't have been worried. This bark disappeared in what seemed like seconds. It was by far the most popular candy I tried my hand at this year. I highly recommend it if you're trying to make something in a hurry that will impress people and look fantastic on a tray with other goodies. Just be sure to use good white chocolate for this; with only two ingredients in the whole recipe, they both really stand out. A poor-quality white chocolate would just ruin the whole thing. And that would be a real shame.

Oreo Cookie Bark

adapted from Allrecipes.com

makes about 2 pounds

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray

1 (16 oz.) Winter Oreos (with the red creme filling)
18 oz. good-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions
1. Line a 10x15 jellyroll pan with waxed paper (I recommend spraying the pan before lining it with waxed paper as well). Coat paper with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl, break the cookies into coarse pieces with your fingers or the back of a wooden spoon.

3. Place the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Melt the white chocolate, stirring often, until almost completely smooth. Carefully remove the bowl from the heat and continue to stir until all the lumps have been smoothed. Working quickly, add the cookie pieces and gently fold them into the chocolate.

4. Spread mixture evenly in prepared pan, then refrigerate until solid, about 1 hour. Remove bark from pan, place on a cutting board, and carefully peel off waxed paper. Cut into large pieces with a sharp knife and store in an airtight container. I kept mine in the fridge; that seemed to work best for me.

Adult Hot Chocolate...and My Very First Cheesecake Creation!

I don't think I have ever tasted a beverage quite like this one before now. We tried this Adult Hot Chocolate recipe from my wonderful Baked: New Frontiers in Baking cookbook on Christmas Day, and I have to say it knocked our socks right off. It's craaazy good.

Since it is "adult," you can be sure that this recipe calls for some liquor. The Baked guys used amaretto, but we went with creme de menthe because it just seemed Christmas-y to us (plus, it was what we had!). Then, you chop up 7 oz. of chocolate (some milk, but mostly dark) and add enough boiling water to melt it. Boil some milk, heavy cream, and a touch of maple syrup, then add the melted chocolate and the liquor. Garnish with whipped cream if you like, and you are ready for the ultimate chocolate experience!



At first sip, you might actually think you are drinking pure, liquid chocolate. I mean, it is just that potent. Then, as you sip again, you can taste the creme de menthe, present but not hardly overpowering. This hot chocolate is definitely not for the faint of heart, and only the most serious of chocolate lovers should try it. After about 5 sips, I had about reached my limit, and I can usually overdose on chocolate with the best of them. It's just so rich. That said, it sure made the perfect holiday beverage, because it was just 100% indulgence. Yum.

Alongside this, I served a white chocolate cranberry cheesecake that I kinda invented myself. I posted about those cloned Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bars a couple weeks back, and I had wanted to tinker with those bars a bit. Since we love those bars so much and we also adore cheesecake, I thought why not make a Cranberry Bliss Cheesecake? I have to say, I kinda love this idea. I made a shortbread cookie recipe, studded with dried cranberries and small chunks of white chocolate, and ground it to crumbs in my food processor. I pressed these crumbs down into my springform pan to form the crust. Then, I made a cheesecake layer that contained fresh lemon zest, ground ginger, melted white chocolate, and dried cranberries. To finish it all off, I garnished the cheesecake with more dried cranberries, and a drizzle of melted white chocolate. It was sooo good, and I am not just saying that because I created it myself! Everyone that tried it agreed that it was a winner. I would love for this cheesecake to become a new Christmas tradition for us!

Since my cheesecake recipe is something that I just had fun playing around with, I am not going to post the full, detailed instructions here. But if you email me, I'd be happy to share what I did, step-by-step! And here is the Adult Hot Chocolate, posted below. You were warned.




Adult Hot Chocolate
adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
makes 2 (very generous) servings

Ingredients
2 oz. good-quality milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
5 oz. good-quality dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), coarsely chopped
1/2 cup boiling water
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp. maple syrup
2 Tbsp. creme de menthe liquor
Whipped cream, optional

Directions
1. Put the chocolates in a small heatproof bowl. Pour the boiling water over the chocolate, and make sure most of the chocolate is submerged. Let the chocolate sit for 1 minute, then whisk until smooth. Set aside.

2. In a small saucepan over low heat, bring the milk, cream, and maple syrup just to a simmer. Pour the chocolate mixture into the milk mixture and whisk until combined.

3. Turn the heat up to medium and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture is just about to boil. Add the creme de menthe, stir one more time, and ladle into mugs. Top with whipped cream if desired, and serve immediately.

Black Forest Cookies

I made a lot of holiday cookies this year. I mean, a lot. I started baking the weekend right after Thanksgiving, and I baked like crazy just about every single day after that until I had reached my limit. I'm just a tad cookied out right now. Give me until about Valentine's Day to start thinking about baking more cookies!

Anyhow, the whole point of me telling you about my holiday bake-a-thon was to try to make you understand that these Black Forest Cookies are a big deal. These cookies were the hands-down most talked about, raved about, and requested recipe out of everything I prepared. I even got a phone call from my husband while he was at the office one day, because he had taken in a tray of cookies and everybody wanted to know what this cookie was!

These little beauties, like so many other things that pop up on this blog, were taken from one of the Baked cookbooks. In an attempt to redefine the traditional, but outdated, Black Forest Cake, the Baked boys created this complex cookie. It's dense and fudgy, like a brownie. It's sweet and tart, thanks to the two kinds of chocolate chips and the generous amount of dried fruit mixed in. The recipe calls for dried cherries only, but since I had a bag of dried mixed berries on hand, that is what I used. If you don't know the dried fruits are there, they're a nice, fun little surprise when you bite into a cookie. These were one of the newest additions to the cookie tray this year, and they will definitely be making another appearance next year. When the public opinion is this overwhelming, I have to listen!

Black Forest Cookies
adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
makes about 4-5 dozen cookies

Ingredients
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
16 oz. dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), coarsely chopped
10 Tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
6 large eggs
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 Tbsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup (6 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup (6 oz.) white chocolate chips
1 cup (6 oz.) dried cherries (or other fruit)

Directions
1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl and set aside. In a large nonreactive metal bowl, combine the dark chocolate and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook, stirring with a rubber spatula, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugars on high speed until the mixture is pale and thick, about 5 minutes. Add the cooled chocolate mixture and the vanilla and beat until just combined. Scrape down the bowl and beat again for 10 seconds.

3. Add the flour mixture and mix on low until just combined, about 10 seconds. Do not overmix. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and dried fruit. The dough will look very loose, but it will harden in the refrigerator. Refrigerate for 6 hours or overnight.

4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons on prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until the tops of the cookies are set and begin to show a few cracks. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before removing from the sheets onto a cooling rack.

Cranberry Bliss Bars

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season, and a special Christmas morning. We were lucky enough to have a very white Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and it is still all white and snowy outside now. The kids got to shovel with Daddy and play in the snow this morning; it was the whitest Christmas I've ever seen, and I'm so glad my boys got to enjoy it a bit.



I wanted to share with you one of our very favorite holiday desserts. This is the fourth year straight I have made these Cranberry Bliss Bars, and they continue to be that quintessential Christmas treat for us. Just the smell of these bars baking in the oven means Christmas for me, and I don't know if I could celebrate the holidays without them now. My husband and I used to work for Starbucks, and this is a dessert they sell in their stores around the holiday season. We became hooked on them years ago, and when we no longer worked there, we set out to learn how to make them at home.

I managed to find a copycat recipe from Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes. The bars, when made at home, trump the storebought version. At least, that is our humble opinion! They're buttery and dense, thanks to the blondie layer that contains generous chunks of white chocolate and dried cranberry. They're creamy and tart, thanks to the cream cheese frosting layer which contains real lemon juice. They're rich and decadent, in part because I like to drizzle some melted white chocolate across the top after sprinkling the surface with more dried cranberry. The recipe calls for a milk/shortening/powdered sugar drizzle on top, but sometimes I like to go for the more sinful white chocolate option, as I did this year. Whichever way you choose, these are sweet and complex and perfect for any holiday gathering. Happy Holidays!





Cranberry Bliss Bars
adapted from Top Secret Recipes
makes 16-30 bars (depending on how you cut them)

Ingredients
For the bars:
Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries, diced
6 oz. white chocolate, coarsely chopped into chunks

For the frosting:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
4 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract (or 1/4 tsp. vanilla and 1/4 tsp. orange extract)

For the topping:
1/4 cup dried cranberries, diced
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tsp. vegetable shortening
1 Tbsp. milk

OR

2 oz. white chocolate, melted and cooled

Directions
Make the base: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9x13 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3 or 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

2. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Mix in the vanilla, salt, and ginger. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and mix just until combined. With a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the dried cranberries and white chocolate. Spread the mixture into the prepared baking pan.

3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until the sides are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool while you make the frosting.

Make the frosting: 1. Beat the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Once all the sugar has been incorporated, mix in the lemon juice, vanilla extract, and orange extract (if using). Mix well.

Assemble the bars: 1. Once the base layer has cooled completely, spread the frosting evenly to cover the surface of the base. Sprinkle with dried cranberries.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining topping ingredients, or melt and slightly cool your white chocolate if you choose to use that instead. Using a small spoon or fork, drizzle the icing down over the top of the frosting layer, creating zigzags of white all across. Allow the layers to set in the refrigerator for several hours before cutting into pieces.

3. To slice into 16 triangles: Slice the cake lengthwise (the long way) through the middle. Slice the cake across the width 3 times, making a total of 8 rectangular slices. Slice each of those rectangles diagonally, creating 16 triangular slices. You can also cut small squares or rectangles; you can get a lot more than 16 pieces this way!

Gingerbread Biscotti

It seems to me that as soon as we get Halloween out of the way every year, I am ready to get into the kitchen and start baking festive treats! Festive holiday treats, that is. And right up there at the top of my list of favorite holiday nibbles is Gingerbread Biscotti. I love anything gingerbread. I can't get enough of it this time of year. In my former life, when I worked for Starbucks, I was particularly obsessed with their take on Gingerbread Biscotti. Dotted with macadamia nuts and dipped in white chocolate, they were interesting and spicy and just so good.

Well, I have finally found a biscotti recipe that just may rival the Starbucks version. I'm always willing to try something traditional that contains unusual ingredients, and these biscotti fit that bill. They contain the spices you normally taste in gingerbread, such as ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. But then you throw in some ground black pepper and ancho chile powder (one of my husband's favorite secret weapons for chili) and these biscotti become over-the-top zesty and delicious.

My biggest concern with this recipe was, would they be too spicy? The answer is no, they're just perfect. I loved the addition of the pepper and the chile powder; both added a deeper warmth without burning your mouth. The biscotti dough was easy to work with; even though the recipe calls for you to cut the dough into two equal logs for baking, I just shaped mine into one big mass, and it worked out fine. I like to do it this way because then the very center of your mass remains kinda soft, and even after the final bake of your biscotti slices, they still retain just a hint of chewiness.

This recipe utilizes almonds in place of the macadamia nuts, which I thought was a great substitution. In the future I will try these with the macadamias, because i'm just partial to them. When you don't have them on hand, though, almonds are definitely the way to go. These biscotti also contain some candied ginger, which I had never worked with before until now. My verdict is: score! I loved it. The ginger zings you with added spicy flavor, concentrated in a little sugar-coated nugget. It's a flavor surprise when you bite into one.

Finally, I dipped the bottoms of my cooled biscotti in some white chocolate, then sprinkled my gingerbread men sprinkles over the chocolate. They turned out so cute, and they were unbelievably scrumptious. The added bonus here is that my two year-old enjoys gnawing on the end pieces. You know, the log ends that you never know what to do with? Turns out they make a great teeting biscuit! Who knew?


Gingerbread Biscotti
adapted from My Own Sweet Thyme
makes about 24 biscotti

Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground ancho chile powder
2 Tbsp. minced candied ginger
1 cup whole almonds, chopped
1/4 cup white chocolate, for dipping
Holiday sprinkles, optional

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. One at a time, add the eggs. Blend in the molasses and mix to combine.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, and ancho powder until combined. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until just incorporated. Fold in the candied ginger and nuts.

3. Divide the dough in half (oops, I didn't do that!) and turn onto a lightly greased baking sheet. With greased hands, shape each half into a log approximately 3 or 4 inches wide and 1 inch high. Make sure the logs are 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until set in the middle, then remove from oven.

4. Reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees. Cool biscotti on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then remove to a cutting board. Carefully cut each log into 1/2-inch slices. Place slices back on the baking sheet, cut side down.

5. Place slices back into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Flip the biscotti over and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove from oven and set biscotti on a cooling rack.

6. When cookies are cool, melt 1/4 cup white chocolate until smooth. Using a spoon or small spatula, spread white chocolate over the bottom edge of each biscotti. Allow each to dry white chocolate-side up. If desired, sprinkle with holiday decorations. Keep in an airtight container.

Macarons: Victory is Mine!

Okay, confession time. Up until a few months ago, I had never heard of the French macaron. I had never even lain eyes on these fancy little confections. But being the avid reader of food blogs that I am, they couldn't escape my notice forever. Finally, I began to see the macaron popping up all over the place. It started slowly at first. Then, all of a sudden, they were everywhere! They were even in the advertisements that would appear on the sides of my computer screen. Suddenly, I wanted to know more about these cookies. What was their story?

A little bit of research told me a few things. First, I learned that macarons were sandwich cookies. The fillings could be just about anything you could think of. Each side, or shell, of the sandwich were delicate little cookies made by whipping egg whites to stiff peaks, folding some ground almonds and powdered sugar into them, and piping this mixture from a pastry bag out onto a cookie sheet in small circles. Then they are set out to rest for a while to dry out, and finally baked in an oven on a low-ish heat.

Next, I learned that although the above instructions sound easy enough to carry out, these macarons were actually temperamental little devils. I discovered horror story after horror story from people on the Interwebs who had failed, flopped, or otherwise been extremely disappointed with the final result of all their labor in the kitchen.

It turns out that the folding of the ingredients is a very tricky and exacting step in the process. Just one fold too many, and you can ruin your entire batch of macarons. Too few folds, and your under-mixed concoction can yield disaster, as well. Also crucial, gross as it may seem, is to age your egg whites before using them. A good thing to do is to separate your eggs, yolks from whites, and leave your egg whites sitting out of the refrigerator for a minimum of 24 hours, or as long as 48 hours. Bizarre, but I figured if it was going to increase my chances of producing a good macaron, I was willing to try it!

So obviously by now, you have probably figured out that I decided to try my own hand at making macarons. It sounded so complicated, so potentially doomed to fail, that I just knew I had to do it. I loved this idea of a challenge, to maybe accomplish something in the kitchen that not everybody can. I was pretty much banking on a failure my first time, but I knew I'd have fun trying!

I did my research, and then I set out to do everything meticulously, carefully, so that I wouldn't miss anything or do anything to mess myself up. The egg whites were nice and old. My almonds had been ground with my powdered sugar, sifted to remove any larger pieces of nut, and then weighed and measured right up to the gram. I set up a pastry bag with a small round tip, took a deep breath, and began to whip my whites.

I knew that, at the very least, my macarons wouldn't look absolutely perfect. I was unable to find blanched almonds, which have the skin removed from them and have a nice, uniform color. Mine had skin and that would lend a speckled effect to my shells. But it wouldn't affect the taste any and I thought maybe it would add character to mine.

As I rolled along in my preparations, I became increasingly confident. Everything seemed to be going exactly as I would have hoped. When I folded my mixture (nervously, I might add), I stopped right when it appeared to be flowing in nature, but would smooth out if you were to drizzle some from your spatula back into the bowl. I actually had to roast some veggies right after I was finished piping my macaron circles, so the macarons had the opportunity to rest at room temperature for about 90 minutes before I could get them into the oven. I worried a bit that it was too long of a resting period, but I figured it would be okay since I had read somewhere that they could rest from 1 to 2 hours.

I set my oven timer for 10 minutes, slid my first batch in, and held my breath. The moment of truth, I've heard, comes at about 5 minutes in the oven. At that point, your macarons should just start developing their "feet," that little shelf they stand on once they're baked. They rise just so, and their feet form underneath them, and they begin to look just as they should. And when I checked mine, lo and behold, the feet were there! I was very ecstatic at that point, but I knew they weren't finished baking and I didn't want to count my chickens (my macarons) before they were hatched (...or baked?).

As you can see, they did turn out great! They came out all cute and "foot"-ed, and they came off the parchment paper I had baked them on incredibly easily. The bottoms even looked perfect; they weren't hollow or cracking or anything. I do acknowledge that I need lots of practice with piping these though. The tops aren't perfectly smooth, as they should be. That could either be a result of my batter being slightly underbeaten (thus not allowing the tops to smooth out or settle on their own) or my own shoddy piping work. Either way, this was my very first attempt at macarons and my results far exceeded my expectations! They turned out delicious, with a nice delicate crunch on the outside and a soft, pillowy inside. And they're cute, too!

After some debate, Andy and I decided that for a filling, a lavender-infused white chocolate ganache would be divine. I have to say, the white chocolate may not have been the best choice. I would have liked something maybe less sweet, to complement the light sweetness of the macaron shells. A bittersweet chocolate would have worked beautifully. Overall, though, I am very proud of my maiden voyage into the world of macarons, and I hope to be able to duplicate these results much more in the future!

I couldn't have done it without reading this. It's an article detailing how to make macarons, complete with pictures and step by step instructions. It was written by a seeming macaron expert by the name of Helen for a magazine a few years back. The fabulous blog Tartelette, written by Helen, is a great resource as well. The lady knows her macarons!

I used her basic macaron recipe, which is in her article, with the exception of adding a scant 1/8 tsp. of cream of tartar to my egg whites. My white chocolate ganache recipe came from her article, as well. I just added 1/2 tsp. dried lavender to my cream, heated the cream just to boiling, and then strained out the lavender right before pouring it over the chocolate. It couldn't have been simpler. I can't wait to try out some more flavor combinations!