Matcha Evergreens

I contribute recipes to the blog of my friends' tea company, Arbor Teas. Here is a recipe that uses one of their teas in a festive holiday cookie.  

Besides flavor, one of the best uses for matcha powder in baking is to take advantage of its deep green hue as a natural food colorant. Green-tinged cookies cutout in the shape of trees make a unique addition to a cookie plate with a woodland or festive holiday theme. Arbor Teas offers an organic cooking grade matcha green tea powder that is specially blended to retain its flavor and aroma when mixed with other ingredients. Its slightly bitter flavor tastes particularly nice when paired with  sweetened pistachio paste. Pistachio paste can be a hard-to-find ingredient that might not be shelved in your local grocery. Luckily you can find it online at any well-stocked baking store, or you can try your hand at making it yourself with either this recipe or that one.

 

Pistachio Sanding Sugar Sprinkles

¼ cup shelled pistachios 

¼ cup coarse sanding sugar

In the bowl of a food processor, coarsely chop pistachios into small pieces. Be careful not to grind into a powder. Stir in sanding sugar and set aside.

Matcha-Pistachio Cutout Cookies

⅔ cup unsalted butter, softened

1 tablespoon pistachio paste

¼ cup confectioners' sugar

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon matcha green tea powder

⅛ teaspoon salt

¼ cup finely chopped pistachios

1 large egg white, lightly beaten

1. Combine butter, pistachio paste, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Beat mixture until light and fluffy, using an electric mixer at medium speed.
2. Sift together flour, matcha powder and salt in a medium bowl, then stir in the chopped pistachios. Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating on low speed until combined.
3. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 350º F.
5. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to a ⅛-inch thickness. Using a tree-shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as possible, placing the cutters as close as possible to avoid waste. Place on prepared baking sheets approximately 1 inch apart. 

6. Brush trees with the egg white to moisten. Sprinkle evenly with pistachio-sanding sugar. Lightly press into dough with finger tips.
7. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges of cookies are lightly golden.
8. Cool on pan for 1 minute, then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

9. Re-roll scraps to make more.

Christmas Wreath Stollen

I told a few people I was making stollen. Their first response: "Have you ever had fill-in-the-blank's stollen?!!" Me: "Um, no. I didn't think I liked stollen, and so-and-so's is kinda pricey. I'm just making it for my baking challenge. I figured I'd send it to my Ome."

I didn't realize so many places in town sold it or that it had a bit of an exuberant following. The adult me was relying on the kid me's experiences of not liking the sorta dry and strangely fruity, rum-scented bread. I wasn't that excited to make it, so I was looking at this as an opportunity to hone my bread making skills, which need some work.

Since I've moved, getting yeasted doughs to rise has been a challenge. I was wanting more recipes to troubleshoot warm, non-drafty proofing zones, to figure out if my stash of instant yeast I've been storing in my fridge for several years was still viable, and to learn the cues of achieving a springy, well-kneaded dough.

To my relief this bread came together perfectly thanks to thorough directions, finding an ideal proofing spot in my oven, and using brand new packet yeast instead of the old instant stuff. I'm still learning the trick of kneading and adding appropriate amounts of flour so things don't stick to my hands. Right now, I still rely on my stand mixer and dough hook to do the messy, hard work. But success with this has given me a little more confidence to try more bread projects.

In my opinion this stollen is best eaten within a day or so that it is made. But I suppose it would still be good toasted several days after. Mine didn't last long enough to find out... After eating two good-sized portions on my own, I sectioned off the rest and packaged them to give as gifts to neighbors, coworkers and family. It was studded with Grand Marnier-soaked cherries and candied blood orange peels and limequats. Yes, limequats! Apparently kumquats are being hybridized with other fruits. My grocer had already sold out of mandarinquats. I'm hoping they'll be restocked soon. I think a medley of kumquat hybrids would make a lovely marmalade!

The 2010 December Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Penny of Sweet Sadie’s Baking. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make Stollen. She adapted a friend’s family recipe and combined it with information from friends, techniques from Peter Reinhart’s book.........and Martha Stewart’s

Stollen Wreath

Makes one large wreath or two traditional shaped Stollen loaves. Serves 10-12 people

¼ cup lukewarm water (110º F)
2 packages active dry yeast
1 cup milk
10 TBS unsalted butter
5½ cups (770 grams) all-purpose flour
½ cup (115 gms) sugar
¾ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rum extract
¾ cup mixed candied citrus peel (here's a link to make your own) I used blood oranges and limequats this time
1 cup firmly packed unsweetened dried cherries
3 TBS Grand Marnier
1 cup flaked almonds
Melted unsalted butter for coating the wreath
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting wreath

Directions:
In a small bowl, soak the cherries in the Grand Marnier and set aside.

To make the dough:
Pour ¼ cup warm water into a small bowl, sprinkle with yeast and let stand 5 minutes. Stir to dissolve yeast completely.

In a small saucepan, combine 1 cup milk and 10 tablespoons butter over medium - low heat until butter is melted. Let stand until lukewarm, about 5 minutes.

Lightly beat eggs in a small bowl and add the vanilla and rum extracts.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, orange and lemon zests.

Then stir in the yeast/water mixture, eggs and the lukewarm milk/butter mixture. This should take about 2 minutes. It should be a soft, but not sticky ball. When the dough comes together, cover the bowl with either plastic or a tea cloth and let rest for 10 minutes.

Add in the candied citrus peel, soaked cherries and almonds and mix with your hands or on low speed in the stand mixer to incorporate.

Sprinkle flour on the counter, transfer the dough to the counter, and begin kneading (or mixing with the dough hook) to distribute the fruit evenly, adding additional flour if needed. The dough should be soft and satiny, tacky but not sticky. Knead for approximately 8 minutes (6 minutes by machine). The full six minutes of kneading is needed to distribute the dried fruit and other ingredients and to make the dough have a reasonable bread-dough consistency. You can tell when the dough is kneaded enough – a few cherries will start to fall off the dough onto the counter because at the beginning of the kneading process the dough is very sticky and the cherries will be held into the dough but when the dough is done it is tacky which isn't enough to bind the outside cherries onto the dough ball.

Lightly oil a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl, rolling around to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Put it in the fridge overnight. The dough becomes very firm in the fridge (since the butter goes firm) but it does rise slowly. The raw dough can be kept in the refrigerator up to a week and then baked on the day you want.

Shaping the dough and baking the wreath:
Let the dough rest for 2 hours after taking out of the fridge in order to warm slightly. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Punch dough down, roll into a rectangle about 16 x 24 inches and ¼-inch thick. Starting with a long side, roll up tightly, forming a long, thin cylinder.

Transfer the cylinder roll to the sheet pan. Join the ends together, trying to overlap the layers to make the seam stronger and pinch with your fingers to make it stick, forming a large circle. You can form it around a bowl to keep the shape.

Using kitchen scissors, make cuts along outside of circle, in 2-inch intervals, cutting 2/3 of the way through the dough. Twist each segment outward, forming a wreath shape. Mist the dough with spray oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Proof for approximately 2 hours at room temperature, or until about 1½ times its original size.

Preheat oven to 350°F with the oven rack on the middle shelf. Bake the stollen for 20 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees for even baking and continue to bake for 20 to 30 minutes. The bread will bake to a dark mahogany color, should register 190°F in the center of the loaf, and should sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.

Transfer to a cooling rack and brush the top with melted butter while still hot. Immediately tap a layer of powdered sugar over the top through a sieve or sifter. Wait for 1 minute, then repeat with another layer of butter and sifted sugar over the first. Wait a minute and then coat with butter and sugar for a final time. The bread should be coated generously with the powdered sugar.

Let cool at least an hour before serving. When completely cool, store in a plastic bag. Or leave it out uncovered overnight to dry out slightly, German style.

The stollen tastes even better in a couple of days and it toasts superbly.

Storage
The more rum and the more coatings of butter and sugar you use the longer it will store. Stollen freezes beautifully about 4 months, stores well for 2 weeks covered in foil and plastic wrap on the counter at room temperature, or for one month in the refrigerator well covered with foil and plastic wrap.

Holiday Cut Out Cookies, 2010

I've been collecting snowflake cookie cutters for a few years now, planning one day to actually use them to make a collage of edible flurries. Each snowflake is supposed to be unique so of course I needed time to gather a variety of cutters... Well this was the year! In addition to the usual sugar cookie cutouts, I used Sweetopia's recipe for gingerbread cookies. This is a sturdy not-to-sweet cookie dough, suitable for making gingerbread houses, and has a welcome level of fragrant, spicy heat and crunchy texture for eating as cookies.

In addition to snowflakes, I cut out ginger people as well. While I monopolized most of the snowflake decorating, my friends Matt and Shannon took a very non-traditional approach to creating the ginger people. Their creativity pleased me so much, I just had to share these adorable cookies with you all, too.

Gingerbread Cut Out Cookies

makes about 6 dozen

800 g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
250 g unsalted butter
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp ginger
2 tsp cloves
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup molasses

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix butter and brown sugar on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices first, then eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder and add to bowl; mix until just combined.

Wrap dough in a disc shape in plastic wrap. Let it rest by refrigerating until cold, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to about 1/4-inch thick. Cut shapes out with cookie cutters and place them approximately 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Refrigerate until firm; at least 15 minutes to 1 hour.

Bake cookies until firm; 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

Decorate with royal icing and sprinkles.

Holiday Cheer: Part 4 (Candy Cane Gelato)

I happen to enjoy creamy frozen desserts the most in the winter time. I'm guessing most people would prefer huge scoops of ice cream during the hot summer months, but not me. I seem to find it more refreshing when the outside temp matches that of the inside of my freezer. Not wanting to let food go to waste, I started this after-Christmas tradition of making mint-flavored gelato a few years ago as a way to use up extra candy canes. This year, I also happened to have a lot of egg yolks left over from making royal icing for the gingerbread house. Perfect timing!

My favorite things about this recipe are that (1) all of the mint flavor is derived from the candy cane itself, and (2) the red candy cane stripes dissolve into a pretty pink-hued custard. This year I added a couple of spearmint candy canes, which appear as lovely green splotches amid the pink. Adding the crushed candy to the custard while still hot ensures that the candy will melt into the mixture, imparting both flavor and color. If you like a bit of crunch to your gelato, reserve a portion of the crushed candy canes to mix in during the last few churns of the ice cream machine.

Candy Cane Gelato

adapted from The Ultimate Frozen Dessert Book

7 large egg yolks, at room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
2½ cups whole milk
⅔ cup heavy cream
¼ tsp sea salt
1 cup crushed candy canes, divided

1. Beat eggs yolks and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer at medium speed, until thick and lemon colored (about 2 minutes). Set aside.

2. Heat milk and cream in a medium saucepan set over medium heat until small bubbles appear around the edges of the pan. Do not let this boil.

3. Whisk about ⅓ of the heated milk and cream into the egg yolk mixture, then whisk this combined mixture back into the pan with the remaining milk and cream. Reduce heat to low. Cook slowly stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens a bit and appears smooth, like a very wet custard, and can coat the back of a wooden spoon (about 5 minutes). Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a heat-proof, air-tight container. Stir in the salt and about ⅔ cup of the crushed candy canes. Allow to cool completely, then stir in the remaining candy cane pieces. Cover and refrigerate until very cold (~8 hours).

4. Freeze in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Holiday Cheer: Part 3 (gingerbread house)

This year, thanks to the Daring Kitchen, a new tradition may have been born. I was challenged to make a gingerbread house from scratch. Wanting to share the fun (and work load) with others, I invited friends over to help build my dream bakery...out of dough. We created not just a place that sold sugary baked treats. This is a shop where the artisan skills of my talented friends can be showcased in the form of breads and smoked charcuterie. Yep, cookies, candies, cakes, breads and BACON!

A few details, such as the shutters and front door were piped on using royal icing.

Once the icing details were dry, we could determine the lay of the "land". The walls and the roof were sealed together by piping royal icing along the seams.

The front window display has sweet treats ready to be eaten.

Shannon created these using royal icing and sprinkles.

Peering closely into the window display reveals their intricacy. Shannon wanted the treats to appear whimsical rather than realistic.

The Bakery-Smokery is outfitted with a stone-paved fireplace.

Garin did the mason work.

The stones are actually edible chocolate rocks. They taste very similar to M&Ms.

An extreme close-up reveals just how realistic these chocolate rocks appear.

While Garin finished laying the stones for the chimney. Matt and I shingled the roof with Cascadian Farms multi-grain squares. Yes, our roof is organic!

Here's a side view of the attached smoke house.

It's nestled among a small forest of snowy-boughed trees.

The separate entrance for the smoke house is a classic (two-part) dutch door. A sign prominently announces its purpose.

Shannon was responsible for landscaping. The trees were cut in half longitudinally (before baking) and painted (after baking) on both sides using a flooded icing technique.

Once the icing was dry, four tree halves were held together in 3D by piping a stiff royal icing along the inner seams.

The house is living underneath my Christmas tree. A light from the tree is fed in through the back window to illuminate it.

Gingerbread dough rolled flat. Ready to cut out patterns.

Once baked, the pattern pieces were matched up to the gingerbread counterparts again. This helped to ensure a good fit and to indicate placement.

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes. I also consulted Gingerbread for All Seasons by Teresa Layman for patterns and ideas. Here are the recipes that I used.

Spicy Gingerbread Dough (from Good Housekeeping)
2½ cups (500g) packed dark brown sugar
1½ cups (360mL) heavy cream
1¼ cups (425g) molasses
9½ cups (1663g) all-purpose flour
2 TBS baking soda
1 TBS ground ginger

Directions

1. In very large bowl of an electric mixer, beat brown sugar, cream, and molasses until sugar lumps dissolve and mixture is smooth. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and ginger. With spoon, stir flour mixture into cream mixture in 3 additions until dough is too stiff to stir, then knead with hands until flour is incorporated and dough is smooth.

2. Divide dough into 4 equal portions; flatten each into a disk to speed chilling. Wrap each disk well with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight, until dough is firm enough to roll.

3. Grease and flour several large cookie sheets

4. Roll out dough, 1 disk at a time on each cookie sheet to about 3/16-inch thickness. (Placing 3/16-inch dowels or rulers on either side of dough to use as a guide will help roll dough to uniform thickness.)

5. Trim excess dough from cookie sheet; wrap and reserve in refrigerator. Chill rolled dough on cookie sheet in refrigerator or freezer at least 10 minutes or until firm enough to cut easily.

6. Preheat oven to 300° F.

7. Use chilled rolled dough, floured poster board patterns, and sharp paring knife to cut all house pieces on cookie sheet, making sure to leave at least 1¼ inches between pieces because dough will expand slightly during baking. Wrap and reserve trimmings in refrigerator. Combine and use trimmings as necessary to complete house and other decorative pieces. Cut and bake large pieces and small pieces separately.

8. Chill for 10 minutes before baking if the dough seems really soft after you cut it. This will discourage too much spreading/warping of the shapes you cut.

9. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until pieces are firm to the touch. Do not overbake; pieces will be too crisp to trim to proper size.

10. Remove cookie sheet from oven. While house pieces are still warm, place poster-board patterns on top and use them as guides to trim shapes to match if necessary. Cool pieces completely before attempting to assemble the house.

Royal Icing
3 large egg whites
1 lb powdered sugar

⅛ tsp cream of tartar

Beat all ingredients with electric mixer until smooth and glossy white (5-7 minutes). Portion icing into smaller bowls and tint with food coloring. I used AmeriColor. For flooding technique on trees and shudders, add water to tinted icing until you achieve a runny yogurt-like consistency. Pipe on pieces and allow to dry before assembling. If you aren't using it all at once you can keep the icing in a small bowl, loosely covered with a damp towel for a few hours until ready to use. You may have to beat it slightly to get it an even consistency if the top sets up a bit. Piped on the house, this will set up hard over time.

Holiday Cheer: Part 1 (iced sugar cookies)

I’ve been in an extra festive mood this holiday season, and I know exactly the reasons why. Reflecting back on my life a year ago, things are quite different today. Most notably, beautiful new friendships have formed, and I’m beginning to find more creative outlets for my talents and passions. Happiness and contentment seem to place me in a satiable Christmas spirit, so I’ve been finding ways to celebrate as much as possible. One Christmas tradition long held in my family is to make and decorate sugar cookies. Each year they get a little prettier as our icing techniques improve. This year, the bar on aesthetics was not only raised, it was literally blown away. I happen to have become friends with a talented local cake artist. Heather let me help her with a fun cake project for the Shadow Art Fair. Now it was her turn to play in my kitchen. Armed with a Kitchen Notebook page that I clipped from the 2006 edition of Gourmet Magazine (RIP), Heather and I played with a fun royal icing, flooding technique. It was new to both of us and really very easy to do. Please believe me on how simple this is to do. All you need is a few piping bags of colored royal icing, a wooden skewer (or equivalent), and bit of imagination.

Iced Sugar Cookies
Makes about 6 dozen cookies

3 cups flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 sticks plus 3 TBS unsalted butter, softened
1 scant cup of sugar
1 egg
1 TBS milk
2 ½ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp lemon zest

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy and well blended. Add egg and mix until combined. Mix in milk, vanilla, and lemon zest. Gradually stir in flour mixture until well blended. Refrigerate dough until cold (at least one hour or up to several days).

Preheat oven to 375° F.
Roll out dough on floured surface to ⅛-in thickness . Cut out desired shapes and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. Chill cut cookies for ~10 minutes in the refrigerator and then transfer baking sheet to the oven. Bake 8 minutes or until edges are golden. Allow cookies to cool completely before icing.

For recipes, tips, and more ideas on using royal icing visit Sweetopia, a truly talented and creative cookie decorator.

Flooding Technique
Trace the border of cookie with icing and then “flood” the entire area with icing, staying within the marked edges. Using a contrasting color, pipe vertical lines, dots, or concentric circles over the flooded surface. Form design by lightly pulling a skewer through the contrasting icing at various intervals. Wipe skewer clean between each pull.

technique image from Gourmet, December 2006