“On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me three French hens.”
Our third Christmas cookie is a French sable. I had never had this cookie before – they were very much like the chocolate version of a Sandie cookie. The dough was a little bit crumbly for my taste, but I really enjoyed eating them!
“On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two turtle doves.”
These turtle bars were so simple to prepare, and even easier to eat. =] I would definitely recommend them for a crowd!
Chocolate Turtle Bars
“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have any pears when making the first Christmas cookie, but substituting a Honeycrisp apple was equally delicious! Since my apple was fresh, I didn’t boil it in the water before mixing it into the dough. The results were a little bit messy, but very tasty!
Apple Ginger Bites
November’s Daring Baker’s challenge was to make cookies based on the twelve days of Christmas. Our host was Peta of Peta Eats, and I have to say that she created an impressive spread of cookies:
See? Deliciousness!
Anyways, November was surprisingly busy for me (between flying out to CA to walk a half marathon with my mom and hosting a delicious Thanksgiving dinner for friends, on top of all of my normal graduate research and school), so there was not that much time for baking. Now that December is here, it’s time to actually tackle some of these cookies. (And no, I don’t suddenly have more time to bake, but it’s Advent, and Christmas cookies were a long-standing tradition with my dad, so it’s happening. Bam!)
Every other day in December (starting tomorrow, and ending on Christmas), I’ll be posting a new delicious Christmas cookie. They will be (roughly) themed with the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song that everyone loves to hate, but makes for an excellent set of themed cookies! I hope you enjoy the ride of the cookies and baked goods, and that some of these make their way into your repertoire this Christmas!
2012 Cookie Roundup:
Day 1: Ginger-Pear Bites
Day 2: Chocolate-Caramel Turtle Bars
Day 3: French Sables
Day 4: Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies
Day 5: Piped Shortbread Rings
Day 6: German Lebkucken
Day 7: Seven Layer Cookies
Day 8: Foaming Milk Cookies
Day 9: Lady Fingers
Day 10: Gingerbread Lords
Day 11: Pipers Brown Butter Shortbread
Day 12: Filled Chocolate Cookies
Since this is a food blog, and presumably you are reading because you want to know about food, and because Thanksgiving is traditionally a time when you eat food, I thought I’d do a recap of what we had:
Startin on the left, in counter-clockwise order: shrimp and scallop ceviche, papas rellenas, fried plantains (chopped and fried in olive oil and brown sugar), and Empanadas (personal-sized instead of pie-sized; cook for about 20 minutes). For dessert, we had delicious spiced chocolate pudding:
Now, I know haters gonna hate, but this actually is a traditional thanksgiving dinner. The papas rellenas had ground turkey, cranberries, and mashed potatoes in them; the fried plantains are basically the same thing as candied yams, and the empanadas had a spinach stuffing, which is just like green bean casserole. So there!
(I did have the brilliant idea of attempting to come up with the craziest, yet still delicious, ways to combine traditional Thanksgiving ingredients into a non-traditional meal. Next year, perhaps?)
(I also have to say that I don’t like turkey all that much, so I’m not interested in making it myself. Also, Mark Bittman agrees with me:
…although the [turkey] in its wild form may be traditional and is indisputably indigenous, whether the one you buy is free-range, wild, natural, organic, pumped up with antibiotics or even injected with “butter,” it’s just about the worst piece of meat you can roast.
)
Anyways, I’m not going to post a big long “making-of” post, because most of this stuff we’ve done before, the plantains are easy, and I didn’t make the pudding so I don’t have the recipe. But I’ll put some pictures of the process below the fold for y’all:
As is traditional for us, we’re doing a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner:
Papas Rellenas, Ceviche, Empanadas, and Pudding. (Hey, we’re using ground turkey in the papas!)
I hope you’re all having a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that it’s a time of relaxation, fellowship, and delicious food!
What’s on your menu?
It’s soup week (as evidenced by D’s colorful guest post)! I wanted to play along on our own blog, so I’m including Tuesday’s soup. It’s a Martha Stewart recipe, and it could have been even more delicious (I didn’t fully cook the beans – whoops), but the flavors are awesome, and I would definitely recommend it!
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Serves: 4-6
All I have to say for myself is that I haven’t been posting any content here because I’ve been busy writing posts for other people instead:
I put on my awesome superhero cape and dashed out the door, shouting to my beautiful wife K, “Hold down the fort and stir all the soup, honey! I’m off to get CHEEEESE!”
Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!
This was a delicious challenge, even if my final product wasn’t quite a traditional mille feuille. I was surprised by how easy it was to make a puff pastry that was delicious and flaky, but I could definitely see making this again!
I’m a couple of days late for this, but Rachel Dana was our October 2012 Daring Cooks’ Challenge hostess! Rachel brought Brazil into our lives by challenging us to make Feijoada and Farofa along with some other yummy side dishes traditionally served with Feijoada, which is a delicious black bean and pork stew.
This was a delicious meal, full of all kinds of tasty parts. Yum!
