How I Spent My Winter Vacation

It's been awhile, and I hope no one's been worried about me. I've been MIA most of this month because I've been on vacation for the last week and a half! Don't get too excited, I barely left town, but I did have a full week of no-work, responsibility-free fun. I tried to stay away from the internet as much as possible, and just enjoyed spending time with my workaholic boyfriend, who was also on vacation. I'm here to give a recap for all you Nosey Nancies out there. (Don't worry, sometimes I lurk too...)

My vacation started by baking a bunch of cupcakes and cookies and heading up to Scranton to visit family and friends and drop off an order. Banana Split cupcakes, bowling, laundry, haircuts, and vegan chili cheese fries filled up my agenda.

AND I got a belated Christmas gift from one of my closest friends, Justin. I've been drooling over this necklace for awhile, and even though I never told him about it, somehow, he knew. I guess after 15 years of friendship, it comes with the territory. But seriously, how cute is this??

I headed back to Philly, and Ken and I did some nice weekend stuff. Gospel Brunch with friends at Johnny Brenda's...

...and a visit to meet Ken's new nephew! I've been working on a blanket for him over the last month and it was awesome to finally have a sweet little baby to wrap up all warm.

We spent our Valentine's Day enjoying the beautiful weather in Philly (over 50 degrees!). We headed to Chinatown, ate some Bahn Mi and honeycomb waffles, and roamed the streets and stores finding all kinds of gems.

That night we headed to a dinner party. I made some cake: vegan chocolate cake with a raspberry Chamboard filling, a raspberry Chamboard frosting and a dark chocolate ganache topping. It needs a little tweaking before I can give you the recipe, but it was a pretty big hit among the party guests.

Tuesday, Ken took me to New York. He had planned a really sweet, romantic getaway, but God laughed at all our plans, and after losing a debit card and forgetting to take enough cash out (combined with our lack of smart phones) we had to improvise. Not to be deterred, we still had a great day full of free art at the Met, tasty snacks, and a self-guided walking tour of Ken's alma mater, NYU.  Best of all, I finally made it to Lula's Apothecary and got some vegan pistachio ice cream in my belly. I'm pretty sure I'd walk 20 miles in a mud storm with someone whipping me the whole way to get another scoop of that good stuff, so it definitely made the trip worth it. After a long day of riding trains and walking the big city, we got home late and slept like fat babies.

The rest of our vacation was pretty uneventful. I did a lot of cleaning around the house, more laundry and organizing, mixed with ample amounts of reading, loafing and snacking. I made sure to meet up with my lady friends for early-afternoon Lucille Bluth-style lunching and enjoyed the sunshine and ridiculously unseasonable temps that blessed Philadelphia last week as much as I possibly could. And of course, I got in lots of quality time with my sweet little love, Gracie LaRoux.

I didn't get to leave the Mid-Atlantic region, let alone see a sunny beach, but I did ease deeply into that stress-free vacation mind-set. Now it's back to work, back to baking, back to cold temps, and back to the grind...

Chocolate-orange Filled Hearts

I don't want to fool you with all these heart shaped items, but February and Valentines day are my LEAST favorite time of year. I've always been the kind of girl that went straight from Christmas/New Year's to thoughts of shamrocks, leprechauns and Irish Whiskey. Okay, okay, it's true, every year up until this one has found me sans-sweetie and occasionally bitter about love. But besides that, I just can't see what's so exciting about forced declarations of love and cheesy pre-packaged gifts to "prove" said love. I'm all for giving and receiving gifts but prefer it to be sweet and spontaneous as opposed to dictated by a date on the calendar. And then last year I met the love of my life. (Simultaneous "awww"s and puking sounds inserted here). And then a few weeks ago I found a set of nesting heart-shaped cookie cutters on sale and some recipes for yummy V-day themed cookies and decided to quit being bitter and just make some god-dammed cookies.

This particular recipe drew me in with the pretty picture, and honestly, who doesn't get excited about anything FILLED WITH CHOCOLATE? The reviews were another story, and proclaimed this cookie to be "tasteless rocks." Because I love a challenge and am cocky enough to think I can fix any recipe, I decided to give these a Voltron kitchen makeover. (Voltron kitchen being the name of the kitchen in my apartment. Just go with it, I'll explain later.) Ken wasn't too excited about them, as orange marmalade is number 3 on the list of foods that he'd nuke out of existence if given a chance (followed behind Pop Tarts at Number 1 and fruit roll-ups at Number 2), but he liked them enough that this cookie is now added to the list of "Baked goods that have not made it out the door before being entirely consumed."

Are these my favorite cookie? Not by any means. Were they as terrible as the reviews said? Judging by the quickness with which they were consumed, obviously not. Could they be made better? Absolutely, and I've got a few ideas about that. Will I continue to ask questions and then answer them myself? I promise this is the last one, for this post at least.

*Note: This recipe starts with Alton Brown's sugar cookie recipe and alters it. If you're not familiar with AB's recipe, you can find it here. It's a good standard recipe to build off of. It's not meant to be sweet, as the cookies are meant to be coated with icing, sugar, etc. I recommend generously covering them with sanding sugar before baking if you need your cookies sweet. 

Chocolate-Orange Filled Hearts

adapted from Food Network website

3 c. flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup earth balance vegan butter, softened

1 cup + 1 tbsp sugar

1 egg,  beaten

1 tbsp soymilk

1 tsp vanilla

Scant 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

2 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (I used Ghiardelli 84% cacoa bar)

2 heaping tbsp orange marmalade

1 egg white beaten with 1 tsp water

Sanding sugar

Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until well blended, then add the egg and milk and beat until well incorporated. With the mixer on low, gradually add flour until mix pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in plastic, and chill for 2 hours. 

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Stir together the chocolate and the marmalade. Using confectioner's sugar to cover the surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness (mine were probably larger) and cut out hearts. Place about 1 inch apart on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, and place 1 tsp chocolate mix in center, spreading out leaving about 1/4 inch from the edge (I definitely used more than 1 tsp, as I only had enough filling for half of the dough). Using the egg wash and a pastry brush, brush around the edges of the cookies, place another cookie on top, and press together. Brush tops lightly with egg wash and sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake for 10 minutes, or until done. Let cool on the pan and transfer to a rack. 

*I only used 1/2 of the dough, and came up with about 20 cookies. I used the rest of the dough the next day to make sandwich cookies filled with jam, which I'll be sure to tell you about soon. 

Filled February Continues...

I like themes. Always have. Some can be great, like theme parties (Luau's are a favorite). Sometimes they can be terrible, like theme restaurants (Planet Hollywood needs to go away. Forever.) And of course, who didn't love discussing the themes of a novel in English class (man's struggles against nature are universal). So I've decided to give my baking for the month a theme. And in honor of February being the month for lovers, I've decided to dub this month FILLED FEBRUARY, wherein all the things I make will have a filling or be filled with some kind of deliciousness. 

I've already made some lemon bars that I shared here. Recently I picked up some heart-shaped cookie cutters and decided to make some V-day inspired treats. Over at the smitten kitchen (which has quickly become my favorite foodie blog), I found a recipe for toasted coconut shortbread hearts that sounded lovely. But because I can't leave anything alone, I played with the recipe, cut out little windows, spread some jam on them,  and made some linzer-style treats that made Ken do his little cookie dance of joy. 

The dough is very simple, and was easily made vegan. Like all shortbread I've come across it's a little difficult to work with, and required lots of powdered sugar to roll out as well as several trips to the freezer to keep it chilled. Since Philadelphia was PARALYZED with white stuff, I had all the time in the world to play around and get covered in the other white stuff. (I'm talking about powdered sugar, people. Don't give me that look.) 

With a little love and a lot of patience the results were quite tasty. So tasty that only 6 of them made it out of the house. (Ken, I'm looking at you.) We're talking: Crunchy, slightly chewy, mildly sweet, a little salty and with that dreamy hint of toasted coconut hiding in the background. 

These cookies are great for blizzards, SNOWMAGEDDON, and any other time you're stuck in the house for a few days. And oh so nice to share with someone you love! And when you're snowed in with someone you love and Valentine's day is oh so close, well, who knows what can happen? (October babies?) Here's hoping this Valentine's day finds you filled... with love. ;-)

Coconut Linzer Cookies

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1/2 cup toasted coconut (I used sweetened, if you use unsweetened, increase the sugar a bit and cut back on the salt)

3/4 cup earth balance buttery sticks

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour

about 1 cup jam of choice

powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 325°F. Spread coconut on rimmed baking sheet. Bake until coconut is light golden, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Cool completely, then grind in a coffee grinder, food processor or blender until coarsely ground.

Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in large bowl until well blended. Mix in salt and vanilla. Beat in flour in 2 additions. Stir in toasted coconut. Gather dough together, flatten into a disc and wrap in plastic. Chill at least 1 hour. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out dough disk on lightly floured work surface to scant 1/4-inch thickness (I used confectioner's sugar). Using 2-inch-diameter cookie cutters, cut dough into hearts. Using a smaller heart cutter, cut out "window" in half of cookies. 

Bake cookies until light golden, about 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheets 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool completely. (Can be made ahead. Store airtight at room temperature up to 1 week.) Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired. 

Place jam in small saucepan on medium heat and stir occasionally. Once jam is warmed and thinned, spoon a tsp onto cooled cookie without window, bottom up, spreading jam out. Place cookie with window on top, bottom down, pressing down slightly so filling spreads. Let stand until jam cools and sets. Give your hearts to someone you love! (Insert groan for cheezy joke here.)