Vanilla Latte Macarons

Gabe and I just returned from celebrating Passover in L.A. Last year was my first time ever hosting a Passover seder, and this year it was really great to learn from the pros. My contribution to the feast was three dozen French macarons. Sure, the Israelites didn’t have time to make finicky little cookies while fleeing Egypt, but perhaps they had more time while wandering in the desert for 40 years…?

Anyway, macarons are flourless and much loved by Gabe’s family, so I carefully packed my precious cargo and carried it on a seven-hour trip. Little did I know that the most dangerous part of the journey would be a waiting period in the Ulman family freezer, where half of the macarons mysteriously disappeared in the days before the Seder. I blame Pharaoh. Or some dessert plague.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

MACARONS

• 110 grams almond meal
• 200 grams powdered sugar
• 100 grams egg whites (about 3)
• 50 grams granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

FROSTING

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 1 tsp. ground coffee
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 Tbs. milk

Using a whisk or pastry blender, combine almond meal and powdered sugar in medium bowl. (Try to remove as many chunks as possible.) Using a stand mixer or hand blender, whip the egg whites on medium-high speed until they are foamy. Gradually add the granulated sugar and whip until a smooth, shiny meringue with stiff peaks forms. Stir in vanilla extract.

Add the almond mixture to the meringue and quickly but gently fold together using a wide rubber spatula until no streaks remain.  The batter should be thick and should form “ribbons” when drizzled from the spatula.

Pipe the batter into round shapes (1- 1 1/2 inches in diameter) on baking sheets lined with silicone mats or parchment paper. Let sit at room temperature for one hour.

Bake at 300° F for 10-16 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to a wire rack and don’t disturb the shells until they’re completely cool.

Meanwhile, make frosting: Beat butter with a mixer on medium-high until light and fluffy. Combine coffee and vanilla extract to form a paste, and then mix the coffee paste into the butter. Slowly add powdered sugar and a pinch of salt and beat until frosting comes together. Add milk and beat until frosting is fluffy.

Assemble macarons by sandwiching two shells around a smidgen of frosting.

Source: Macarons slightly adapted from Annie’s Eats. Frosting slightly adapted from Heaps of Henri.

Super Bowl Recap

A couple weekends ago we had friends over to watch football, cheer on Beyonce, critique advertisements, and eat chicken wings. (The most American of gatherings.) I like to get guests involved by hosting potluck-style parties, but I always make sure to whip up several dishes of my own. Wouldn’t want to be caught without any food at all!

For some whimsical decor, I made a table runner by plunking down a roll of chalkboard Contact paper and drawing 10-yard lines on it with chalk. (Note: The paper needs to be prepped first by lightly coloring the whole thing with chalk and then wiping it off. Gives me the heeby-jeebies just thinking about all those squeaky chalk noises, but there’s nothing I won’t do for my guests.)

Besides hanging out with awesome friends and giggling at that Oreo commercial, these cupcakes were my favorite part of the party. For the toppers, I made a half-batch of chocolate cut-out cookies and decorated them to look like footballs using royal icing. I don’t actually own a football-shaped cookie cutter, so I improvised. Pastry wheel to the rescue!

Then I made chocolate cupcakes and decorated them with buttercream frosting dyed green, piping on the grass with a Wilton 233 tip. This was my first time piping grass, and I couldn’t get over the cuteness. (Picture me perched on a stool at the kitchen island just giggling.) Carefully pushing the football cookies into the center of the cupcakes completed the ensemble, and there were plenty of leftover cookies to boot.

Once the most important part of the menu was finalized, it was just a matter of cooking up some fun snack foods. Gabe made brats and hamburgers shortly after halftime, and even though we were all stuffed, we couldn’t pass them up. It was the Super Bowl!

Thanks to friends for bringing calico beans, peanut butter cookies, chips ‘n’ dip, and other goodies. And beer, of course. Here’s a recap of the recipes I used:

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Super Bowl Party Foods

• Baked southwestern egg rolls
• Soft pretzel bites with cheese sauce
• Crockpot barbecue chicken wings
• Veggies and dip
• Chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting
• Chocolate football cookies with royal icing
• Hamburgers and brats

Soft and Fluffy Sugar Cookies

You know those big, fluffy, soft sugar cookies from the grocery store? Yeah? I hate those cookies. Gabe always threatens to put a dozen in our cart, knowing that the sickly sweetness and weird chemical aftertaste make me scrunch up my face in disgust.

But a lot of people love those cookies. Like really love them. Enough that I thought I’d try this recipe for them, those inexplicable grocery-store-sugar-cookie-lovers. But something strange happened along the way. I whipped the sugar and butter, and mixed in the dry ingredients, and then I tasted the dough. And guess what?

I liked them. I really liked them.

But it didn’t stop there. I frosted them with buttercream and embellished them with both edible fairy dust and hand-painted sprinkles (seriously) from Magnolia Bakery. And it was a glorious bomb of butter and sugar that I need a week to recover from. So these babies will be given away to unsuspecting enemies friends. But let the record show: this gal, a devout hater of grocery store sugar cookies, loves these. Like really.

Witches’ Fingers

Well, spooky winds are blowing, but not just for Halloween. Here on the East Coast, we’re hunkering down for Hurricane Sandy. We have flashlights, candles, water, and food. And by food, I mean mostly sugar-based leftovers from our Halloween Party. Like these fantastically creepy cookies.

The original recipe called for dyeing the almond fingernails red, but that seemed a little bit labor intensive even for me. So I left them cream-colored and figured the almond skin on the edges looked like dirt. Speaking of dirt, I loved the idea of using crushed up sandwich cookies as soil. And I loved the idea of making cookies ‘n’ cream ice cream with the leftovers even more.

I’ll be back in a couple days– provided we don’t blow away– with one more Halloween-ish recipe: homemade peanut butter cups. Although if you’re like me, there’s no way they could ever be confined to just one holiday.

Honey Bee Cookies

Flipping through the pages of the Alpha-Bakery cookbook makes me smile. It’s the first cookbook I ever owned, given to me by my grandparents at the tender age of four. With uncanny prescience, my grandmother wrote, “We hope you have a lot of fun with this book as you grow up to become as good a cook as your mom!”

Over the next few months, through my mother’s careful teaching, I learned how to make turtle bread and zebra cookies, pocket pizza and kart-wheels. My favorite part of this cookbook is the handwritten date on each page, noting when Mom and I first attempted a recipe. Reimagining days I can’t remember, I wonder how it felt to bite into my first successful ice cream sandwich or slice of mud pie.

A few years ago I rediscovered this cookbook, as a college student seeking memories from home. I whipped up a batch of honey bee cookies, fifteen years after my first attempt. Sweet and buttery, flecked with cinnamon, they tasted exactly how I remembered. Like innocence. And warmth. And home.

Today, my geographic transience (four moves in two years!) makes me hold tightly to symbols of home, both old and new: my college graduation lantern, quilts made by family, a framed photo of a prayer left at the Western Wall. As Gabe and I set up yet another home– and wonder where we will end up next– I know this cookbook will stay with us, signifying the warmth of the past and our hopes for the future. With honey, butter, and love.

Bailey’s Irish Cream Macarons

Next up on the St. Patrick’s Day baking list: green macarons! I’ve been wanting to make these for a while, but I ran out of parchment paper and didn’t feel like going to the grocery store. Gabe and I took the opportunity to enjoy the sunshine and walked down the street to Party Favors in Brookline.

They didn’t have any parchment for sale, but one of the sales clerks ventured into the bakery in the basement and grabbed a dozen sheets of parchment paper from their supply shelves. And then gave them to me for free. It was a lovely little small-town moment in Boston.

So, parchment paper in hand (along with an Elmo-shaped sugar cookie for my 24-year-old boyfriend), we returned home and I whipped up a batch of bright and springy macarons. I love the festive green color. And the slightly boozy frosting isn’t bad either…

Nutella Biscotti

Happy March 1st! Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits! Personally, I’m looking forward to a very balmy March 31st, because this month came in like a lion. Nothing is more motivating than waking up to a disgusting mix of rain, snow, and slush falling from the sky. Ugh.

Fortunately I bought some beautiful tulips yesterday, and they are doing a lovely job of  combating the dreary weather. Also, I made biscotti. With Nutella in it. Yup, that’ll bring a smile to anyone’s face.

Aaaaaand, bringing even more smiles is my lovely college friend Erin who’s flying in from Minnesota tomorrow! She’s a mah-veh-lous cook, so I’m sure we’ll be getting into a whole bunch of shenanigans. Stay tuned.