Coconut Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Coconut Cream Cheese Pound Cake - made November 9, 2021 from Call Me PMC 

1 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup shortening

3 cups granulated sugar

1 8-ounce package full-fat cream cheese

7 large eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon coconut extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup sweetened, flaked coconut

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Generously grease and flour Bundt pan.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, shortening and granulated sugar until well combined and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.
3. Add the cream cheese and beat until well combined and fluffy, 1-2 minutes.
4. Alternately add eggs, 2 or 3 at a time, with the flour, 1 cup at a time, beginning and ending with the flour and beating until just combined after each addition.
5. Stir in the extracts. Fold in coconut. Pour into prepared Bundt pan and smooth top into an even layer. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 85-90 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs or clean.
6. Cool for 5-10 minutes before loosening sides and center with a small rubber spatula and inverting onto a serving plate.

I have mixed feelings about this cake but the downside comes from my baking rather than the recipe itself. If you look at the ingredients, you'll see there's no chemical leavening in it so you would expect it would have the dense texture of a pound cake. And it does.

Even though I did beat the butter, shortening and sugar together a fair amount to incorporate air into it, it still came out as as a thick batter and baked into a dense texture. I expected that.

What I didn't expect is how long it would take to bake. The directions say 85-90 minutes. I left this in the oven for over 100 minutes and during parts of the baking, even increased the temperature to 350 as my oven runs cool. 

I finally took it out after 105 minutes as the toothpick test came out "clean" but you can see in the picture above in the bottom left corner of the cake slice that it was still underdone. The top part of the cake was fine and tasted great. Bottom, inner parts, not so much.

Even if/when baked properly, this is a really heavy cake. In hindsight, I would beat the butter and sguar even more than I did and "cheat" with a little baking powder to lighten up the texture a bit.

Stamped Cookies #12 - Red Velvet Springerle Cookies

Red Velvet Springerle Cookies (stamped cookies #12) - made dough November 11, 2021 from Springerle Joy

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 egg

1-2 tablespoons LorAnn Red Velvet emulsion (I used 1 tablespoon)

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/4 cup chocolate chips, melted

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon dry buttermilk

1 teaspoon salt

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces full-fat cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup butter, slightly softened

2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

heavy cream, as needed, to thin filling if desired

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and powdered sugar until no butter lumps remained. Add egg and mix to combine. Mix in red velvet emulsion, vanilla, cocoa powder and melted chocolate.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, dry buttermilk powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix until dough pulls away from paddle and begins to form a ball.
3. Dust the surface of your counter and rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough to a thickness of approximately 3/8" to 1/2". If your dough is too soft, refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.
4. Dust the surface of your dough and your cookie mold with flour. Press the mold into the dough just far down enough to fill the mold cavity. Remove your mold and cut out the cookie. Gently brush off the excess flour on top of your cookie. 
5. Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill for at least 30 minutes in the fridge or freezer.
6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake chilled cookies for 7-9 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring cookies to wire rack. Cool completely before filling.
7. Cream Cheese Filling: In a large mixing bowl fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the cream cheese and butter until combined. Beat in vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar. Mix until just combined. Add a dash of cream if needed or until desired consistency is reached.

It’s December 1! If you haven’t fired up your holiday baking yet, here’s a great recipe to start with. This is another post where I'm going to rhapsodize not only about embossed rolling pins and stamped cookies but also about recipes that keep the impressions after baking. 

Above are the pictures of the cookies before baking. Below is after baking. Pretty good, right?

This recipe does require a couple of ingredients you might not have readily available in your pantry so you may need to plan ahead. I had to buy the LorAnn red velvet emulsion and the buttermilk powder on amazon. Normally my grocery stores at least carry the buttermilk powder but not this time. 

It was worth it to get these pretty cookies that also tasted good. I preferred the designs on my embossed rolling pin with the flowers rather than the stars. I think I'll keep the stars rolling pin for vanilla dough instead. 

This dough was easy to work with. I did chill it but not too long as it was already stiff when I first mixed it and not really sticky. If you're using an embossed rolling pin as opposed to a cookie stamp, you want to roll the dough with a plain rolling pin to a thickness thicker than you want the end cookie to be. The reason is when you roll out with the embossed rolling pin, the dough will flatten further with the embossed rolling.

If you're making these as cookie sandwiches like I did, you don't want to make them too thick or the cookie sandwich will be too unwieldly to eat. I could've made mine a little thinner but they still turned out fine.

When making cookies with an embossed rolling pin, rather than reroll the scraps, I push them into cookie molds instead to get different looking cookies and to avoid overhandling the dough by rolling it again.

I didn't fill the center of these since I was mailing them in care packages but if you're serving these kinds of cookies. I would fill with a cream cheese or Nutella filling. Let the holiday baking begin/continue.

Ground Beef Tortellini

Ground Beef Tortellini - made November 6, 2021, modified from Salt and Lavender

1 pound extra lean ground beef

1/2 medium onion, chopped (I used 1 teaspoon onion powder)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 dash Italian seasoning

1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes, with juice

1/3 cup chicken both

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

10 ounces fresh tortellini

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown ground beef and onion in a skillet over medium-high heat for 7-10 minutes. Drain excess fat if needed. Stir in garlic and Italian seasoning.
2. Add diced tomatoes, chicken broth, cream and tortellini to the pan; stir. Once the sauce starts to bubble, cover the pan and reduce the heat to medium; Cook for 5 minutes.
3. Uncover pan, stir and let cook for another few minutes or until tortellini has cooked through. Stir in parmesan cheese. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

This was supposed to be made with gnocchi but Trader Joe's still didn't have it and I still had the tortellini from the Costco 2-pack I bought some time ago so I went with that. 

I like the simplicity of this recipe and how easy it is to throw together. The heavy cream guarantees this isn't low-calorie but the diced tomatoes and the chicken broth lighten it up a little and give it enough liquid for the tortellini to cook in.

As you can see from my substitutions, this would work with whatever filled pasta you use as well as with gnocchi; in addition, you can substitute sausage or ground pork for the ground beef. The sauce is pretty versatile and likely the only way I would eat tomatoes as the diced tomatoes didn't bother me (yes, I ate them in this dish). This is a good comfort food dinner on a cold night.

Coconut Almond Bars

Coconut Almond Bars - made November 9, 2021 from Shugary Sweets

Crust
2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract (I used vanilla)
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling
1 bag (14-oz) shredded, sweetened coconut, toasted
1 can (14-oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon almond extract (I used vanilla)

Topping
1 bag (12-oz) milk chocolate morsels
1/4 cup caramel sauce
1/2 cup sliced almonds

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 9 x 13" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with cooking spray.
2. Crust: beat together butter, corn syrup, brown sugar, extract and egg yolk until smooth. Add in flour, baking powder and salt; beat until combined.
3. Pat dough into bottom of prepared pan. Bake for 5-6 minutes.
4. While crust is baking, combine toasted coconut, extract and sweetened condensed milk in a bowl. Drop by tablespoons onto partially baked crust. Return to oven and bake an additional 20-22 minutes, until edges of crust are lightly browned.
5. Remove from oven and sprinkle with milk chocolate chips immediately. Drizzle caramel sauce over the top and add sliced almonds. Cool completely. When cooled, cover and refrigerate at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving.

This is another one of those recipes I've had on my pinterest board for ages that I've been meaning to try. The pics from Shugary Sweets look so mouthwatering and this has my favorite ingredients: caramel, coconut and chocolate.

I did deviate from the original recipe and used semisweet chocolate rather than milk chocolate. I personally prefer milk chocolate but since I was sending all but a small piece of this in military care packages for Soldiers Angels and I thought there were likely few military service members with my level of sweet tooth, I opted for the semisweet version, especially when this already came with caramel.

For once, I didn't underbake. While I didn't overbake, I think I baked this a minute or two longer than would be my normal preference. They weren't dry but they weren't as gooey looking as on Shugary Sweets' blog. Hmmm.

They still setup and cut well and the bars were good. At least the taste test piece I tasted seemed fine. I might try the milk chocolate version later on though, add more caramel and underbake a little, just to get that gooey factor.

Stamped Cookies #11 - and a plug for Kitchen Vixen

Stamped Cookies #11 - made November 5, 2021 from Masala Herb 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon cardamom powder, optional

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup cornstarch

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla bean paste, mixing until just combined.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together salt, baking powder, cardamom and cinnamon if using, flour and cornstarch.
3. Add dry ingredients in two separate additions to butter mixture, mixing after each addition until combined. Divide in half and pat into thick discs. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
4. When chilled, roll out each disc to 1/4" thickness. Stamp and/or cut into desired impressions and shapes. Freeze, covered, for 10-15 minutes.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space chilled cookie shapes. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are light golden brown.

Allow me to go into raptures over two things in this post. I'll start with the cookie mold set from Kitchen Vixen. I bought the Eva's Lace set and a scallop-edged cookie cutter from her Etsy shop. As you can see from the pictures here, they were well packaged and protected so they arrived in pristine shape.

As you can also see here, the cookie mold is just gorgeous. The set comes with the imprint you see above as well as a cutter to cut the whole cookie (complete with scallop/fluted edges that fit the design), a smaller star-shaped cutter if you want to cut out the star pattern in the middle and a small round cutter to cut the very center piece out.

So you can easily make all sorts of different-looking cookies with just this one set. Simply gorgeous. Need I say high quality, small business, made in the USA? As always, these opinions are my own, I'm not affiliated with Kitchen Vixen other than as a customer, I don't make any money if you click on the link to take you to her Etsy shop. I simply provide it so you can check it out for yourself. This was my first purchase from her but it won't be my last. Guaranteed. But that's another post.

The second thing I'm going into raptures about in this post is this recipe from Masala Herb. If you've been following my cookie stamp obsession over the past year, you might understand "obsession" is a mild word. Like saying the sun is "a little warm".

I've tried multiple recipes for stamped cookies and while most of them have handled decently well and the unbaked cookies look great, the true test is how the cookies look after baking. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves how well the impressions held after baking with this recipe. Spoiler: they freaking totally held.

I'm so thrilled. The taste was also good. I know I make that sound almost incidental but I'm still thrilling over how well the impressions held. Don't overbake or they will seem a bit hard when they cool. This has a lot of flour and cornstarch relative to the amount of sugar so it isn't that sweet. The dough may also be a little stiff so be judicious on whether you need that last 1/4 to 1/2 cup flour. I used all the flour but my dough was a bit dry so I added additional vanilla but you can see from some of the dark spots in my dough that I didn’t mix it in too well. I didn’t want to overmix the dough so I couldn’t get the additional vanilla mixed in evenly.

Regardless, I had fun playing with the different cookie cuttings and made sandwich cookies with a couple, sandwiched with cookie butter of course but you can also use Nutella or any other filling you choose. The cookie makes a nice backdrop to showcase a more flavorful filling.

The smaller star shape cut will make for dainty cookies if that's what you're going for, perfect to serve at a tea. If you don't want to use as sandwich cookies and want a bit more sweetness, sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar before baking. I preferred to leave them plain so the design of the cookie mold is apparent.

To circle back to Kitchen Vixen, treat yourself on Black Friday or Small Business Saturday with a purchase from her Etsy shop. If you like cookie stamping, you’ll love her products. I know I do.