Amaretto Biscotti

Hey all!  Let’s talk Christmas.

I’m in the market for some new traditions.

But if they’re “traditions” why are you looking for new ones?

Let me explain.

Christmas has been getting me down these last few years.  I am a working adult who, although I am a professional, works in a retail environment and therefore does not get the glorious Christmas vacation that, as a student, I took for granted.   I do not live in the same town as my family, so my Christmas has essentially been whittled down to Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but if it falls just right, maybe even Christmas Eve too.  After Boxing Day, it’s back to work and Christmas is essentially over.  Festive feeling over.  Christmas tree lights start to seem depressing.

Add to the above, my mom has early onset Alzheimer’s disease so she’s there, but she’s not really there.  I never realized just how essential my mom was to making Christmas Christmas until she was no longer capable of doing it.  For as much as Dad tries, the Christmas morning spread of stockings and presents and candy just isn’t the same.  It’s the subtle things I miss… like how Mom used to wrap all our stocking gifts in the same wrapping paper that wasn’t used for any other presents because it came from Santa’s workshop in the North Pole.  How she would arrange our ginormous stockings with an unwrapped present from Santa around the living room, so that if you were up before everyone else, you at least got to see what everyone got from Santa.  How she bought cashews every year until the year she forgot to get the candy and the cashews.  I was so disappointed and hadn’t accepted she had Alzheimer’s yet, so I was mad at her.  I still feel horrible guilt over that.

Since getting a full week or two off at Christmas and jetting off to Mexico or Hawaii and skipping the whole thing isn’t possible, this year I’m putting more of an effort into finding ways to make it better.

And while I will carry on the tradition of making shortbread, even though every year the dough gives me grief and I find myself having a meltdown in the kitchen Christmas Eve, it’s time for some new ones.

Ideas I’ve been thinking of include making breakfast casserole for Christmas morning, downsizing from doing a full turkey to a couple of turkey breasts (because I just can’t bring myself to reach inside a turkey to pull out the giblets or stuff it), making a cheese ball for Christmas Eve, and some new cookies.  Like these biscotti.

I may have mentioned before, the day my Food Network Magazine arrives in the mail is my favurite day of the month. Especially the Christmas issue.

This year the biscotti recipe caught my eye.

Biscotti has always been on my radar of something I’d like to try baking, but it’s always kind of frightened me too.  After baking a batch, I don’t know why I was afraid.  They’re not hard to make at all.  You just shape the dough in two logs, throw them in the oven for a bit, take them out and slice them up, then bake them some more to dry them out good.  Easy peasy.  No cookie cutters or rolling out dough involved.  And as I mentioned above, dough can sometimes give me grief.

Amaretto Biscotti

From Food Network Magazine

2 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

5 tbsp butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 tbsp amaretto liqueur

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup almonds (I used sliced)

1 cup chocolate covered almonds (you’ll probably want to get some extra because you will snack on them)

2 oz white chocolate, chopped

2 oz semisweet chocoate, chopped

Preheat oven to 350º.  Line baking sheet with parchment.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and cinnamon together in a bowl.  In a separate large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium high speed until light and fluffy which will take about 3-5 minutes.  Then add in the eggs, amaretto, and extracts until combined.  Reduce speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture until just combined, being careful not to over mix.  Turn off mixer and fold in both kinds of nuts with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.

Dust your hands and the dough with flour.  Divide your dough ball in half and shape each into logs that are 3 inches wide and 12 inches wide.  I even got out my measuring tape.  You can do this right on your prepared baking sheet.  Separate the logs from one another by 3 inches.

Bake until puffed and set, which should take about 25 minutes.  Let cool 10 minutes on the baking sheet then transfer to a cutting board.

Reduce oven temperature to 250º.  Slice your logs crosswise into 1 inch slices.  I used a serrated knife and it seemed to work well.  Put the slices on the baking sheet cut side down and bake another 45 minutes flipping halfway.  Cool completely on the sheet.

Melt each of your chocolates in a separate bowl by microwaving in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each until chocolate is melted.  Drizzle chocolate on biscotti.  I tried using both a fork and a spoon.  Both work but I found the fork gave finer chocolate ribbons, while the spoon made a thicker chocolate ribbon.  Let set for 30 minutes.  Store in air tight dish at room temperature.

So give a batch a try!  And if you have any ideas for new Christmas traditions, please share.

Cherry Almond Cupcakes

It was a rough week last week.  And that calls for cupcakes.

I had to go to the car dealership because my car was involved in a recall, and I HATE going to the car dealership.  It is one of my least favorite tasks.  I always feel like they’re trying to rip me off by telling me I need some service or something checked.  How do I know if I really need what they’re telling me I do?  I don’t know a whole lot about car maintenance.  I worry they try to take advantage of me because I’m a girl.

My bathroom sink was running very slowly, so I thought I’d try the old baking soda and vinegar trick on it and ended up clogging it completely.  Smooth move.  I borrowed a plunger from my super because I only had the toilet bowl type of plunger, but couldn’t fix it.  So I called my super, and he was able to work some plunger magic and unclog my drain.  Hooray!  I don’t have to wash my hands in the tub anymore!

The gym where I go to yoga on Wednesdays shut down suddenly, unbeknownst to me and I showed up for yoga to find the place deserted.  That was weird.  Went on Facebook to message the instructor only to realize that she had tried to contact me about it a couple of weeks ago, but Facebook failed to notify me of the message until after I had sent me “What’s going on?” message.  Ugh.

And the government has lost my identity.  I’ve been affected by the Student Loan missing hard drive incident.  They don’t know what happened to the hard drive and it’s either lost or stolen.  So there might be another fake me out there somewhere, ruining my credit score and stealing all my money.  Hopefully not.  Maybe it’ll be like that episode of Friends where someone steals Monica’s credit card and Monica decides she’d rather live like the fake Monica.  Perhaps I could make a new best friend.

So anyway, these cupcakes.

They’re really, really, REALLY good.  I halved the original recipe and only ended up with 11 cupcakes, and I wish I had made like a million because I wanted to keep eating them forever!  And the frosting!  Oh the frosting!  I ate that stuff straight from the pastry bag (after I was finished frosting the cupcakes of course).  Yum-mee.

They kind of remind me of the Betty Crocker Cherry Bit cake my mom used to make me for my birthday.  As I got older, it became my favorite kind of cake, and I always requested it!

My frosting consistency wasn’t as firm as i had hoped, and it didn’t hold its shape very well.  I was kind of pressed for time, so I went with what I had.  Please don’t hold that against them.

I actually made them for my mom’s birthday back in December, but I wish I’d had one to eat this weekend.  I had to settle for a couple of glasses of wine, a leftover sweet potato burger, and Bridget Jones’s Diary to cheer me up.

Cherry-Almond Cupcakes

Makes 11-12 cupcakes

(quantities adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications Cupcakes 2011)

1/4 cup butter

2 egg whites

1 cup flour

1/8 tsp baking soda

6 tbsp buttermilk

2 tbsp + 2 tsp maraschino cherry juice (from the jar of the cherries)

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp almond extract

6 maraschino cherries + 11 maraschino cherries with stems for garnish

Bring butter and egg whites to room temperature for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, prepare cupcake pan with liners.

Mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda together in a medium bowl.  Mix the buttermilk and juice together in a small bowl, set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed for about 30 seconds.  Add in the sugar, vanilla, and almond extract and continue to beat until combined.  Add the egg whites, one at a time, beating in between.  Add half the flour mixture, alternating with half the buttermilk mixture to the mixer, and beat on low speed until just combined in between each addition.  Continue until all ingredients added.

Scoop into prepared cupcake pan.  Press a cherry into each cupcake.

Bake for 15-18 minutes until a toothpick inserted in comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes and then remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

Once cooled, frost with cherry almond buttercream and garnish with a stemmed cherry.

Cherry Almond Buttercream

(also slightly adapted from BHG)

1/4 cup butter, room temperature

1/4 cup shortening

4 cups icing sugar

3 tbsp maraschino cherry juice

1/2 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla

Beat the butter and shortening in the bowl of a stand mixer for about two minutes until fluffy.  Add cherry juice and extracts and mix to combine.  Add in the icing sugar, one cup at a time, mixing well, until you reach desired consistency.  May need to add additional icing sugar or cherry juice if frosting is too runny or to thick.

Happy Monday!  Here’s to a better week!

**P.S. Shout out to my sister for contributing this fab cupcake cutting board she found at Frenchy’s.  Thanks!**