Celebrating the New Year

Lemon Mousse with Blackberries and Raspberries
(Picture Courtesy of Ryan Mak)

Here is the recipe for the Lemon Mousse I made for New Year's Eve. The recipe was pretty simple. First you make a lemon curd from eggs, sugar and lemon juice. Then you just have to whip up some cream and fold them together. This dessert was very light and lemony. I topped the mousse off with fresh berries, but since the berries aren't really in season I think it was better without them.

The recipe can be found on Pastry Pal's website. I followed the recipe exactly except for the fact that I doubled both the lemon curd and mousse. To serve, I spooned the mousse into fancy, little plastic cups and topped with a few berries.

Caramel Popcorn

To celebrate the New Year I made Caramel Popcorn (and Lemon Mousse - to be posted soon) for a pizza party potluck. It was easy enough to make but I didn't read the recipe carefully before starting and didn't realize it needed to go into the oven for 40-50 minutes. Mine probably baked for maybe 35 minutes, but it didn't seem to make a significant difference in the result. That result? Deliciously sweet caramel popcorn. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup popcorn unpopped
1 cup butter
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 cups brown sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 250F.
2. Pop popcorn and place popped corn in a very large bowl or multiple bowls. You need enough room to be able to mix the popcorn with the caramel later.
3. In a large saucepan, over medium heat, gently melt the butter
4. Stir in the corn syrup, brown sugar and salt.
5. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the sugar mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.
   
6. Once it reaches a boil, boil for 5 minutes without stirring.
   
7. Remove from the heat, stir in the baking soda and vanilla.
8. Pour the caramel sauce over the popcorn and toss to coat thoroughly.
9. Spread the popcorn evenly onto 2 large cookie or baking sheets. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so.
10. Remove popcorn from the oven and allow to cool.
11. Serve immediately or store in airtight container.

Black and White pt. 2

Crinkle Cookies

Cookie number two is Crinkle Cookies apparently also known as Black and Whites (how appropriate!). They are a fudge-y chocolate cookie that is rolled in powdered sugar before they are baked. As they bake and expand it forms all the nooks and crinkles as the chocolate peeks through the sugar coating. These were my favorite of the two cookies because they were moist inside, but the dough wasn't too sweet and the powdered sugar added that extra sweetness.

The recipe comes from Joy of Baking.

The Holidays in Black and White

It's a yearly tradition for my girlfriends and me to do secret santas. We are all on a budget so this is a great way for us to give and receive without breaking the bank. Of course, we have to include a cookie exchange as well. Everyone brings their gift and cookies to dinner/lunch and after we eat we exchange gifts and cookies.

The cookie exchange is simple. Bake and bring enough cookies to give to everyone else. For us, we bring 7 cookies/sets of cookies (or 8 if you want one of your own). Then we all trade cookies and can enjoy a variety of cookies for the next few days.

This year my cookies have a black and white theme. The first of two cookies I made for the exchange were Chocolate and Vanilla Moonstones. First you make the vanilla dough and then take part of it out and add melted chocolate to make chocolate dough. When you form the cookies you mix both colors together and it when bakes they come out half and half. They didn't come out exactly how I expected they would, but they tasted pretty good.

Here is the recipe for the cookies. I don't have a picture of the cookies I baked becaused I was in rush and now I'm too lazy to take the cookies out of the tupperware and take pictures. They do look pretty similar to the ones on the recipe's website though.

Cranberries Part 2

Here are pictures of my second recipe with cranberries. They are Cranberry Upside Down Muffins from Joy of Baking. These two pictures are from the ugly batch. The other ones were prettier, but I didn't have time to take pictures of them before I took them to a potluck.