It's Cranberry Season!

For me, Thanksgiving means cranberries! I don't eat them during the rest of the year, but at Thanksgiving the stores of full of bags of fresh cranberries. The only things I've cooked with cranberries are cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and cranberry-orange scones once, maybe twice. This year I got really excited about the cranberries for some reason and planned to make two cranberry recipes this week. First, this buttery and delicious Cranberry-Orange Scone and later this week a Cranberry Upside-Down Muffin.

This recipe is adapted from Ina Garten's recipe. I followed it relatively closely...the major difference is that I took out an entire stick of butter! Reviews for the recipe said that it was still tasty even without the extra stick of butter. With this alteration I thought that the scones were as buttery as they needed to be.

The recipe, with my changes, follows after the pictures...and I'll be sure to post the recipe for the Cranberry Upside-Down Muffins soon after I make them =)

Cranberry-Orange Scones
adapted from Ina Garten

Ingredients:
4 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar, plus additional for sprinkling
2 tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
2-3 tbs grated orange zest
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, diced
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cold heavy cream
1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 egg beaten with 2 tbs milk, for egg wash
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, plus 2 tbs
4 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice

Directions:

1. In an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest until thoroughly combined.
2. Add butter and mix slowly until the butter is in small bits.
3. Combine the eggs and heavy cream then add the mixture to the mixer on low speed. Mix until just blended.
4. Mix the dried cranberries with 1/4 cup of flour.
5. Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface (you don't want it to stick!), add the cranberries to the dough, and knead cranberries into the dough. Form the dough into a ball.
6. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 3/4-inch thick square. Make sure to flour the rolling pin and your hands.
7. Measure out an 8x8 square and cut out with a knife. Cut into 4 squares, cut the squares into triangles and lastly, cut each triangle in half (to make two triangles). You'll have 16 small triangles. (Alternately, use a square or circle cookie cutter to cut out your scones to your desired shape and size.)
   
8. Collect the dough scraps, rollout again and cut more scones of equal size.
9. Place the scones on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick spray.
10. Brush the tops of the scones with the egg wash (egg and milk) and sprinkle lightly with sugar.
11. Bake scones for 18-22 minutes, until the tops are lightly browned and the insides are firm to the touch.
12. Allow the scones to cool for 15 minutes.
13. In the mean time, whisk together the confectioners' sugar and orange juice. Add more sugar, if necessary, to get the right consistency.
14. Drizzle as much as you want over the scones.

Enjoy!

Cheesecake on a Stick!

Cheesecake Pops with Caramel, Chocolate
and Graham Cracker Crumbs

mmm

I've been looking forward to making these Cheesecake Pops for awhile. I knew I wanted to make them for a Halloween potluck because they resemble caramel apples, but are a delicious cheesecake. This recipe is from a book called Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor. It was the first time I've actually made cheesecake and I was nervous that it wouldn't come out right, but the end result was pretty and tasty, too. I think that these pops are pretty forgiving in terms of cooking the cheesecake correctly because there are so many additions to the outside of the pops.

This recipe allows you to decorate them in any way you want to and I chose to cover mine with caramel followed by milk chocolate and then I rolled them in graham cracker crumbs and drizzled them with white chocolate. I halved the recipe and used an overflowing tablespoon to portion the cheesecake pops and made 25 pops. Before the chocolate step I made a caramel and dipped the pops into the caramel and froze them before dipping them in the chocolate. Here is the original recipe!

Cheesecake Pops

Ingredients:
5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
5 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream
Boiling water as needed
Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks
1 lb chocolate, chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white
2 tbs vegetable shortening
Assorted decorations

Directions:

1. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer set at low speed, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.
3. Lightly grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan). Pour the cheesecake batter into the cake pan and place in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.
4. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.
5. When cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.
6. When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.
7. Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.
8. Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate.
9. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.
10. Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.