Snow Ball Cookies

One of the things I love about writing a blog is the opportunity it gives me to connect with lots of wonderful people. Today I am participating in a Holiday Treat Party that is being hosted by Molly Allen from CAKEfyi. I met Molly through my connection with Best Friends For Frosting. Molly is one of the editors there. She has her own blog full of dessert recipes and inspiration. When she asked me to participate in this fun little party, I was happy to contribute. The recipe I am sharing is for Snow Ball Cookies. My sister Linda and I bake them every year at Christmas time. They are a fun cookie to add to a white themed dessert bar or holiday table. Check out the recipe and then head over to CAKEfyi to keep the party going. There will be lots of great dessert recipes and a giveaway, just in time for the holidays!

Enjoy!

Leslie xo

Snow Ball Cookies

Author: Leslie Reese and Linda Collins
Ingredients
  • 1 cup of unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons of honey
  • 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon orange juice
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped pecans
  • Confectioner's sugar for rolling the snow balls
Instructions
  1. Cream butter, sugar and honey until fluffy.
  2. Mix in confectioner's sugar, flour, salt and orange juice.
  3. Add pecans.
  4. Wrap dough and refrigerate for several hours.
  5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
  6. Roll the dough, 1 teaspoon at a time, into balls.
  7. Place balls on baking sheet and bake 12 to 13 minutes. Cool on racks.
  8. Roll cooled cookies in confectioner's sugar*
Notes

* place a few balls at a time in a Ziploc bag of confectioner's sugar and toss gently to coat evenly

Homemade Marshmallows

There is something fun about marshmallows. They add a little "happy" to campfires, hot chocolate and rocky road ice cream.  I have been wondering for some time, if it was easy to make homemade marshmallows. If it was, wouldn't those s'mores and cups of cocoa taste so much better? I see recipes and photos of pretty, fluffy white marshmallows and imagine the mess it must take to create one perfect batch. So I decided to try it myself. I found a recipe over at Smitten Kitchen and it looked like a good one, so I went for it, and it really was easy. There are a few steps involved but they are not difficult and the result was well worth the time it took. The best part was the taste. They were delicious!

You start by heating the sugar, corn syrup, water and salt.

You will need a candy thermometer to make marshmallows. You have to boil the mixture until the thermometer reaches 240 degrees.

The hot mixture gets added to a bowl of dissolved gelatin and is whipped with an electric mixer until it triples in size and is very thick and white.

You will beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. *TIP* I had my hot mixture whipping in the electric standing mixer while I beat the egg whites with a hand-mixer in a separate bowl. You could also do one at a time but I wanted to move a little faster.

You will beat the egg whites, sugar mixture and vanilla until combined.

When the marshmallow is mixed, it gets poured into a 13 x 9 pan that has been greased and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

The marshmallow has to be chilled for a few hours or overnight before it can be cut.

Once the marshmallow is chilled, it can be inverted onto a cutting board that has been dusted with confectioner's sugar.

If you are going to use cookie cutters to make marshmallow shapes, you will want to dip them in confectioner's sugar before each cut to avoid sticking.

Cut your marshmallow into desired shapes.

Once the shapes were cut, I dusted the marshmallows with confectioner's sugar to keep them from sticking (and because it looked pretty).

I decided to make marshmallow snowflakes. Most of them came out great. You can see how light and fluffy they are. Use your favorite cookie cutters or use a sharp, thin knife to cut squares. There were a lot of pieces left over once I cut out the shapes. I cut them into small pieces with kitchen scissors that were dipped in confectioner's sugar.

I am so glad I decided to try this recipe. It was a lot of fun and really easy to do. I will not hesitate to make my own batch whenever I need some marshmallows in a recipe or on a dessert bar. They really are that easy!

Have fun!

Leslie xo

Homemade Marshmallows

Author: Leslie Reese
Serves: Makes 1 13x9 pan
Adapted from [url href="http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/06/springy-fluffy-marshmallows/" target="_blank"]Smitten Kitchen[/url]
Ingredients
  • 1 cup confectioner's sugar
  • 3 1/2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons)
  • 1 cup cold water divided
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 light corn syrup
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 egg whites
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
Instructions
  1. Grease bottom and sides of a metal 13 x 9 pan and dust with confectioner's sugar.
  2. In bowl of a standing electric mixer or in a large bowl sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water and let stand to soften.
  3. In a 3 quart heavy saucepan, cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, 2nd 1/2 cup of water and salt on low heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved.
  4. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring, until a candy or digital thermometer registers 240 degrees Fahrenheit, about 12 minutes. Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved.
  5. With standing or hand-held electric mixer, beat mixture on high speed until white, thick and nearly tripled in volume, about 6 minutes if using standing mixer or about 10 minutes if using hand-held mixer.
  6. In separate medium bowl with clean beaters, beat egg whites until they hold stiff peaks.
  7. Beat egg whites and vanilla into sugar mixture until just combined.
  8. Pour mixture into baking pan.
  9. Sprinkle 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar evenly over top.
  10. Chill marshmallow, uncovered, until firm, at least 3 hours, and up to one day.
  11. Run a thin knife around edges of pan and invert pan onto a large cutting board. Lifting up one corner of inverted pan, with fingers loosen marshmallow and ease onto cutting board.
  12. With a large knife trim edges of marshmallow and cut into squares or cut with cookie cutters dipped in confectioner's sugar.
  13. Toss marshmallows in remaining confectioner's sugar and put in storage bags or containers.

Peach Berry Crisp

 

Fall is around the corner, kids are back in school and vacations are over for most of us. We all seem to be ready for a change at this time of year, especially with our menus, but there is plenty of summer left to enjoy! Not only is the weather still warm but summer fruit is still in season so why not make the most of it while we can. Soon enough it will be time for soup, apple pie and hot chocolate but for now while peaches and some berries are in full swing, I want to make what I can before they're gone. I have a recipe for fruit crisp that is quick and easy, not to mention delicious, so  I wanted to share it with you. It's a perfect dessert for your favorite back to school dinner and a time saver if you have a busy schedule!

What's fun about this recipe is that you can customize it by simply changing the fruit or adding nuts or other ingredients to the crumb topping. I make this recipe with apples in the fall and it's wonderful. Today I am using peaches and some fresh picked blackberries. Use whatever fruit you like.

The secret to this recipe is in the crumb mixture. It contains a boxed cake mix. While I rarely use boxed mixes, I recently learned that they are perfect for making a fruit crisp. Last summer when I was visiting relatives in Texas, my cousin served a beautiful Berry Crisp for dessert. The topping was amazing. When I asked her what it was, she told me she used a boxed cake mix in her crumb mixture. She didn't have a recipe. So naturally I came home and tried it myself. I haven't gone back to a regular crumb recipe since.

This simple mixture of butter, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and cake mix is the perfect combination for a great crumb topping. The texture is light and the flavor is delicious.

One box of cake mix will make enough crumb for a 13 X 9 pan but you can easily alter the amount according to your needs.

I would love to hear from you if you try this recipe. There are so many great possibilities! If you come up with something that's a hit with your family, let me know and share it here!

Enjoy!

Leslie xo

Peach Berry Crisp
Recipe Type: Dessert
Author: Leslie
Ingredients
  • 6-8 fresh peaches, sliced or cut into pieces without skin
  • 3 to 4 cups of fresh blackberries
  • fresh squeeze of lemon juice
  • Crumb Topping
  • 1 box white or yellow cake mix
  • 1/2 cup butter softened
  • 1/3 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup oats
  • sprinkle of cinnamon
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl combine cake mix, brown sugar, butter, oats and cinnamon until crumbly. Set aside.
  3. Lightly toss peaches and blackberries with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice in a separate bowl.
  4. Place fruit in an oven proof dish or baking pan that has been lightly sprayed with non stick spray.
  5. Cover fruit with crumb mixture.
  6. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until fruit is heated through and crumbs are light brown and baked through.
  7. Let sit 15-20 minutes before serving.
Notes

*Best served warm and topped with vanilla ice cream *Can be made ahead of time and reheated before serving

 

 

Roasted Peppers & Olives with Fresh Basil

Every summer I grow herbs on my patio. I plant them in separate pots and place them right outside of my kitchen door next to the other flower pots. They blend in nicely with all of the other plants and the fact that they are near the kitchen makes it easy to use fresh herbs when I’m cooking.

I look forward to having my own supply of basil, mint, rosemary and parsley all summer long. It’s a great way to add fresh flavor to my recipes.

I thought it would be fun to give you some ideas for using fresh herbs by sharing some simple recipes with you. The recipe I am giving you today uses fresh basil. Basil is my favorite herb. I love the smell, the color and the taste of it and if I could grow it inside like a house plant, I would. I think basil adds fantastic flavor to so many things; certain pasta dishes, salads and sandwiches all taste great with basil added to them.

This Roasted Peppers, Olives and Basil recipe is something that we started making after a visit to Angelo’s Italian restaurant in New York City. We ordered a similar dish there and fell in love with the flavor combination. And because we couldn’t just go to Angelo’s every time we wanted it, we decided to try to make it ourselves. It's almost as good as Angelo's!

You can serve this dish hot or cold. We love it hot on top of a good crusty Italian bread but it’s also great cold on top of sandwiches.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 large (32oz) jar of roasted red peppers

1 cup of pitted Kalamata olives

8-10 large cloves garlic

¼ cup of capers

Approximately ½ cup of fresh basil

Olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

Method

Peel garlic cloves and set aside. Slice each pepper into 6-8 strips and set aside. Drizzle enough olive oil to almost coat but not cover the bottom of a large frying pan. Add garlic cloves and sauté on low heat until soft, being careful not to burn the garlic. Sprinkle with a small amount of salt and pepper. Add olives and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add peppers and sauté  5-10 more minutes or until peppers are soft and heated through. Add capers and stir into peppers and olives. Tear about half of the basil leaves into small pieces. Add torn basil to pan and stir into pepper mixture. Add more salt and pepper to taste and stir. Remove from heat and pour into a heat proof serving dish. Top with the remaining basil leaves. Serve warm with Italian bread.

Enjoy!