Spiced Cookies

July 27, 2015

While in China, I traveled a lot to Hong Kong. My cousin and I also met up with a classmate from high school. During our last week there, we decided to meet up once more before our return to Europe. I thought I'd make some cookies to give to that friend.

I had wanted to make Spéculoos, but I was missing some ingredients (namely cassonade, or dark brown sugar). I tried to substitute some yellow sugar that was grated from a block, but the result wasn't exactly the same.

Instead of just putting the dash of cinnamon I usually use, I decided to go all out. I know the original Spéculoos uses at least 4-5 spices, namely cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and anis. I never have all these on hand, but I thought I'd give a few more spices a try. In this batch, I put some nutmeg and powdered ginger on top of the usual cinnamon.

The cassonade gives off a very fragrant flavor, as well as the usual dark brown color of the cookies. As I did not have this on hand, I ended up with a different type of cookies, which was rich in nutmeg flavor. It was also my first time grating a nutmeg to use, and it was stronger than I expected.

Recipe for Spéculoos can be found here~

Spéculoos

In addition to the Almond Berry Cookies, I added in some spéculoos into the little bags to give to my friend and professors.

I made a good 75 of them:

I have been having fun using flower-shaped cookie cutters. I guess you could say I got a little bored of making circular cookies all the time.

Recipe can be found here~

Tiramisu #...9?

Here we have yet another round of tiramisu, which I whipped up for a cousin who was visiting and would be leaving the next day. These were also the tiramisus that confirmed that baking works as a therapy for me when I'm super stressed.

I also confirmed this time that I need 3 layers of spéculoos cookies between cream layers. I got some decaffeinated coffee this time, which helps for my friends who are very sensitive to caffeine.

Want to know how to make it? Head over to my tutorial!

Sinterklaas Cupcakes

For some weird reason, we had a super early Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) themed Hallway dinner yesterday. Sinterklaas is usually celebrated on December 5th... Being truly out of ideas, I decided to go with cupcakes, and let the theme be made out of decorations.

The cupcakes are plain, vegan cupcakes in which I added a dash of cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg. I made some spéculoos (speculaas in Dutch) flavored  frosting by making a batch of frosting and mixing in a couple of large scoops of spreadable spéculoos (also known as cookie butter in certain places). I also crushed a spéculoos cookie and sprinkled that on top of the frosting.

The decorations are piped white chocolate (that started melting and not holding shape as I was putting them on the cupcakes. They represent the hat and staff that Sinterklaas usually sports.

Tiramisu in Jars (2)

On October 11th, my cousin requested I make more tiramisus. Just like last time, I fell in love with the idea of mini tiramisus in jars.

This time, however, I made a full batch of ricotta-cream mix -- more than I could contain in the 4 small jars that remained in my cupboard. I had to enlist the help of some short drinking glasses that are roughly the same size as the mini jars.

Some of the hearts are unfortunately off-center due to my haste while decorating them. That did not affect the taste in the least.

Head over to this post for a tutorial on how to make this super easy dessert. It's only down point is that you cannot eat it right after making it!

Mini Tiramisu

For the last hallway dinner of the semester, I volunteered to make dessert. To feed 9 (+ my cousin), I either had to make a large cake, or a bunch of mini-desserts.

Our hallway is funny: we have someone who's slightly lactose intolerant, someone allergic to gluten, and someone who's vegetarian (me). So I decided I would try to make tiramisu, and minimize the amount of lactose in it.

The first thing I did was bake a batch of gluten-free spéculoos. I am not used to working with gluten-free flour, and although I was mentally prepared (by Google) for extra stickiness while making the dough, it wasn't anything I could have prepared for without experience. I ended up having to add a lot more flour to make the dough possible to work with, which may have been the reason why the flavor wasn't as prominent as in all my other versions. I used a cleaned tomato concentrate can to cut out the circles, though the shape didn't need to be regular, since it would all collapse after a good coffee soak.

Then the usual soaking in coffee, layering with cream mix (whipped soy cream, ricotta, sugar, and a dash of coffee). I have 12 silicone cupcake molds, and seeing how there were 9 of us to feed, I figured making enough for 2 per person would work best. I used clear glasses and small jars to make up for the lack of recipients, but filled each about the same amount as I filled the cupcake molds.

Then simply the usage of a cut-out template to dust chocolate hearts on top of the tiramisus. I messed up the few first ones, as my template wasn't very good and I had to fix it, so I just covered those completely with chocolate powder.

Isn't this a nice view?

I took a picture of the one with the neatest heart.

And here's one with the heart after the chocolate dissolved a bit.

Mango Rose Cheesecake

Since my mom brought a cake yesterday for my birthday party, we didn't use the one I baked. So I thought I would provide it for hallway dinner today!

The crust is made of spéculoos cookies with some melted butter. The filling is cream cheese and greek yogurt with a hint of cinnamon and some lemon (no rose flavor, the appellation comes from the shape). Topped with mango, strawberries, and whipped cream.

The whole cheesecake:

And rose details:

Egg-free Tiramisu in 8 Steps

Start by gathering the ingredients (makes 8 servings):
- 250 g of ricotta (healthier and cheaper than the traditional mascarpone)
- 1 pack of speculoos cookies
- whipping cream (I used ALPRO soy-based)
- coffee
- sugar
- chocolate powder

Prepare the receptacles you will put your tiramisu in. Mine were 4 short glasses, but you can use ramekins, large oven dishes, verrines, etc.

Step 1: Brew a bowl or cup of coffee and let it cool.

Step 2: In a large bowl whip the cream until the volume increases, then whisk in ricotta until smooth. Add sugar, and a spoonful of coffee if desired.

Step 3: Quickly soak some speculoos cookies in the cooled coffee.

Step 4: Layer it at the bottom of your glass (or other receptacle). Repeat desired number of times (I made 3 layers of cookies each time).

Step 5: Spoon in some of the ricotta mixture. This will form the 2nd layer.

Step 6: Repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times as desired. End with a ricotta layer.

Step 7: Refrigerate overnight, or at least 4 hours until set.
Step 8: Sift on some chocolate powder. You can either cover the whole top with chocolate, or use a template to make a shape.

You can see the layers very well in this half-eaten one:

Hallway Dinner

In my college dorm, we often organize hallway dinners where everyone living in the same hallway gathers together for a dinner. The way it is done varies from hallway to hallway, but in mine, we usually have one person cooking for the whole hallway. This Monday, it was my turn.

First, I cooked up a large pot of curry, accompanied by a choice of white or brown rice.

This curry consists of potatoes, carrots, lentils, a bit of tomato, eggplant, and cashews. The thickening agent in the sauce is simply the potato starch (and an extra potato I mashed up), since I couldn't use wheat flour, since one of my hallway mates is allergic to gluten. Some extra stuff added, besides the spices, curry powder, and cilantro are soy cream (heavy cream made out of soy) and lactose-free yogurt, for another of my hallway mates is lactose intolerant. Besides these, the recipe's pretty much the same as this one. With me as a vegetarian and others who are omnivores, we've got people of all kinds here!

I also made a bowl of raita (yogurt-cucumber salad) simply seasoned with salt and pepper. I made it with lactose-free yogurt as well. I didn't manage to take a picture of it, though.

For dessert, I made individual portions of blackcurrant topped lemon cheesecake in silicone cupcake cups. These were accompanied by small bars of spéculoos cookies, and all in all were just smaller versions of these ones.

Lemon-Blackcurrant Cheesecake and Spéculoos

Ever since I moved into my college dorm, I haven't been able to do much baking or anything due to a lack of an oven... And even though I do cook regularly to feed myself, it's never special enough to take pictures of and post (unless you want a bunch of pictures of steamed broccoli, soy sauce, and white rice).

Well, I did make some minestrone and some spaghetti, so it's not 100% bland boring stuff.

But today, some of my friends and I gathered together for a dinner together, and I decided I would provide dessert. I made a no-bake cheesecake and some small spéculoos in a friend's toaster oven.

The cheesecake is made of yogurt, cream cheese, sugar, half a lemon's juice, and a whole lemon's zest. It's topped with blackcurrant jam, and served with a cookie.

Recipe (makes 4 of the size in the picture)
Ingredients:
- 1 tub (185 g) Philadelphia cream cheese
- 8 tbs plain whole yogurt (don't take the "light" versions, it won't set well)
- sugar, to taste
- zest of a lemon
- juice of half a lemon

1. Whisk cream cheese and yogurt together in a bowl.
2. Add lemon juice and zest. Add sugar to taste.
3. Pour into glasses or other recipients. Top with blackcurrant jam (you can dilute it a little with warm water if it's too thick).
4. Refrigerate at least 4 to 5 hours, though the longer the better.
Note: may not set very well, but still tasty nevertheless.

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RECIPE (makes 4 servings)

  Ingredients

• 1 tub (185 g) Philadelphia cream cheese
• 8 tbs plain whole yogurt
• sugar, to taste
• zest of a lemon
• juice of half a lemon

  Procedure

1. Whisk cream cheese and yogurt together in a bowl.
2. Add lemon juice and zest. Add sugar to taste.
3. Pour into glasses or other recipients. Top with blackcurrant jam (you can dilute it a little with warm water if it's too thick).
4. Refrigerate at least 4 to 5 hours, preferably overnight.

  Notes

• The cheesecake may not set that well, but still taste great.

Christmas baking!

This year, I also went for baked goods for Christmas presents. I made a rough list of the number of people I was baking for (47!), then got to work! I procrastinated a bit, and started baking on December 23rd.

First up, I made 2 batches of Spéculoos cookies. Some are flower-shaped, but most are star-shaped, because I felt they fit the purpose better.

I followed up with a Cheesecake Crumble to bring to the family party:

I also had some leftover lemon-flavored mini cheesecakes, so I topped them with some forest fruit jam, and sent them along for the other side of the family's party.

The next day (24th), I rushed to try to make chocolate bark. I wanted to make peppermint bark, but the general stores around here don't carry peppermint candy canes, and the one store that I found that had some had sold out... So I had this vague plan of trying to melt down some other peppermint candy and using that instead, but that plan went literally down the drain as it failed beyond saving.

I settled for crushed pistachios (they're colorful... and go well with chocolate). Being my first time making this kind of stuff, I made the chocolate layers way too thick. Oh wells.

Quick snapshots of the cookies and chocolate in a pretty arrangement.

I cut each of the pieces in the picture into 2-3 pieces to make them more enjoyable to eat, and settled to package them with the spéculoos cookies.

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SPECULOOS RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 250 g (2 cups) flour
• 100 g (7 tbs) butter or margarine (margarine makes it vegan but softer)
• 150 g (12-13 tbs) brown sugar
• 2 g (1/2 tsp) baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of salt
• 4-5 tbs cold water

  Procedure

1. Take butter out ahead of time to let it soften.
2. Preheat oven at 180°C (350°F).
3. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl
4. Cut in softened butter and rub into the flour into a sandy mix.
5. Add water progressively until it comes together into a smooth dough.
6. Roll out and cut into desired shapes.
7. Bake for 15 mins.