Tag Archives: Valentines Day

Cider Caramel Apple Pie

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In December, I stumbled upon this adorable heart embossed rolling pin on Etsy.

I had big plans for this rolling pin. It was destined to decorate the top of an apple pie, as a Valentine’s Day treat for my husband. While chocolate is the traditional Valentine’s Day treat, apple pie is what makes his heart beat a little faster. I decided to create Erin Jean McDowell‘s Cider Caramel Apple Pie. She literally wrote The Book on Pie.

The pie is sweetened with an apple cider based caramel. You boil down 8 cups of apple cider, for almost 45 minutes, until it is reduced to the consistency of caramel. When mixed with the apples, it creates a sweet-tart filling with a rich creaminess.

Erin suggest that you take your time and arrange the apples carefully in the pie shell, forming concentric circles. That way, you avoid big air gaps, and your top crust won’t cave in after baking.

The pie looked beautiful going into the oven.

Sadly, the embossed design disappeared with baking. I think that the rolling pin would be more successful with cookie dough, as it spends less time in the oven. So, as they said in 2020, I had to pivot. As a food blogger and photographer, I have learned to become a problem solver. My husband is thrilled when I need to resort to Plan B, because it leaves Plan A for him to eat, without having to wait for me to finish shooting. Food blogger problems!😉

Plan B involved pulling out my heart shaped cookie cutters. I have quite an assortment of sizes. I decided to make mini pies, because, well, mini pies are just cuter.

These pies looked just as beautiful coming out of the oven as they did going in. And the taste! The had a bright, intense apple flavour with just a hint of caramel sweetness.

Click here to print recipe for Cider-Caramel-Apple-PieDownload

Valentines Heart Brown Sugar Cookies

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I’m very excited to share these cookies with you. This little cookie box, packed with hearts would be such a lovely gift! While I love the look of decorated sugar cookies, most of them are just too sweet and lacking in flavour. I have solved that problem by flavouring and colouring the icing naturally, with freeze dried fruit powder. These are sugar cookies that people will actually want to eat.

Freeze dried fruit is not the same as dried fruit. Dried fruit is dehydrated and only about 75% of the water is removed. With freeze-drying, the fruit is placed into a vacuum chamber where the temperature is well-below freezing and 99% of the moisture can be removed from the fruit.

There are so many fruits that are freeze dried these days. I chose strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and peach. I buy my freeze dried fruit online. You can grind up the fruit in a food processor or spice grinder. I like to strain the powder after grinding, to eliminate any seeds. I mixed up a big batch of royal icing and divided it into 4 bowls and added the fruit powder until I got the colour and flavour I wanted. I also mixed in a little fresh lemon juice to brighten the flavours.

For the cookies, I used my favourite sugar cookie recipe from Bon Appetit. It uses brown sugar instead of regular granulated sugar, They are a little bit chewy in the centre and very delicious. I used a variety of heart cookie cutters sizes. I bought these ones on Etsy this year.

Click here to print recipe for Brown-Sugar-Heart-Cookies-Download

Citrus and Brown Butter Shortbread Sandwich Cookies

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After almost 35 years of marriage, what passes as a romantic gesture changes with the progression of time. Many years ago, his expression of love was was a gorgeous bouquet of tulips, since he learned that I hate roses. Mine was bringing him coffee in bed. These days we convey our affection a bit differently. I surprise him with a “morning, noon and night” pill tray, and he arranges to have the divots I have made in our new wood floors fixed, all with a smile on his face. (I dropped my marble and my wooden photography backdrops a few too many times.)

Valentines Day is not a big celebration in our house, but I can’t pass up an opportunity to bake something photographic and pink! These citrus and brown butter shortbread cookies are from Mindy Segal’s book, “Cookie Love.” I decided to sandwich these cookies with some strawberry jam and make them fancy with a pink top.

Start by browning some butter in a pot on the stove. Whe your kitchen begins to smell like heaven (or toasted nuts), it’s time to pull the butter off the stove and chill it. The dough uses lots of citrus zest. I incorporated lemon, lime and orange.

I decided to make round and square sandwich cookies with a heart cutout on the top cookie.

For decorating the cookies, I decided to do two versions. The first was to make pink powdered sugar to sift over the top cookie. I bought freeze dried strawberries and using my spice grinder, I ground them up in with some icing sugar. Most health food stores carry freeze dried fruits. They are also a fantastic way to naturally flavour and colour buttercream.

The second variation is to make a glaze. Grind up the freeze dried strawberries with powder sugar and mix in some citrus juice. I used a combo of lemon, lime and orange, since I had already zested them for the dough. It makes a lip puckering glaze that is perfect with the sweet cookies.

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Citrus and Brown Butter Shortbread Sandwich Cookies

With a big glass of milk, these cookies are the perfect way to express your love!

Hazelnut Praline Truffles

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Happy Valentines Day to all of you who celebrate this Hallmark holiday. Guess I just revealed my bias. My husband and I are not even going to be in the same city together tomorrow. And if I were to make him treats, it would not be chocolate. Anything apple is the way to his heart.

Truthfully, I  just made these truffles to have something beautiful to shoot and put on my Instagram feed and blog. I have been delving deep into learning food photography and editing on Lightroom with Rachel Korinek. I have learned so much from her and feel very grateful she has decided to devote time to teaching. She is a natural educator and her passion is evident.

I am not what you would call a romantic person. But I do love beautiful things and these chocolates are stunning. I was inspired by Carla Hall on The Chew when I saw her make these truffles.

I decided to flavour mine with hazelnut praline. Toast some hazelnuts and set them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cook some sugar with a few tablespoons of water to a deep amber colour (360°F) and pour it over the hazelnuts. Let harden and then blitz it it to a powder.
Use good quality chocolate, for the best results. I bought a big bar of Trader Joe’s Belgian 72% Chocolate. 
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. While it is melting, get your candy molds ready. I used square and round silicone mini ice cube trays. I decided to make my truffles extra fancy by using a bit of edible gold leaf on top. I had a jar left over from another project. You need just a tiny bit to really make a statement. You will need to use tweezers to put the gold into the bottom of the molds, as the gold will just stick to your fingers.
Once the chocolate is melted, add some coconut oil, to make the truffle mixture extra creamy, the hazelnut praline and some salt. To make your life easy, transfer the truffle mixture into a disposable piping bag. Trying to pour or spoon it into the tiny molds will only end in a mess and cursing.
Chill for about an hour and then pop them out of the molds. Because the chocolate was not tempered, they need to be stored in the fridge. They will keep for several weeks.

Click here to print recipe for Hazelnut Praline Truffles

 

Blood Orange Poppy Seed Bundt Cake

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If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then I qualfy as insane. You might also say that I am a slow learner, and don’t always see the obvious clues that others spot so readily.

Last March I bought this beautiful heart shaped Bundt pan. I patiently waited 11 months to use it in a Valentines Day post. I decided to make a blood orange poppy seed cake. I used Ina’s recipe for Glazed Lemon Poppy Seed Cake as my base and adapted it so that I could celebrate blood orange season.

My pan was heavily buttered and greased and I followed the directions very carefully. I baked it for 45 minutes, cooled it in the pan for exactly 10 minutes. Holding my breath, I gingerly inverted the cake to release it from the pan. Half of it stuck to the pan. I cursed, chopped the broken pieces up and froze them for future snacking and hustled off to the store for more blood oranges and cake flour. Before starting again, I did a quick google search to see what went wrong. The King Arthur website advised me that buttering and flouring was not the way to go. I followed their tips and tricks and baked the cake again, and again and again. My freezer is now full of lots and lots of broken cake for snacking. Come on over!

I finally realized that this heart shaped pan was the problem. I’m not quite sure why. Nordicware baking pans are usually so reliable. But, slow as I am, I was not about to try this pan for a 5th time. I pulled out my trusty round fluted Bundt pan.Fifth time’s the charm! After a brief 10 minute cooling period, the cake slid out like a boss! Cue the fireworks.

While the cake cools, make a blood orange simple syrup. Pour this all over the warm cake to really intensify that blood orange flavour and keep your cake super moist.Once the cake is totally cool, it gets a final drizzle of the most gorgeous pink glaze. I adored this cake. Dense, but in the best possible way, buttery and bright, slightly tangy and not too sweet. A perfect ray of sunshine on a cold February day. Celebrate Valentines Day with this luscious love letter to blood oranges.

Click here to print recipe for Blood Orange and Poppy Seed Bundt Cake.

 

Painted Brown Sugar Cookie Hearts

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be mine 5I first learned about cookie painting when I saw the cover of the Bon Appetit December 2013 issue. When I looked inside and saw what was possible, my brain exploded with the possibilities. Who knew you could paint right onto the cookie, with an actual paintbrush? Kind of rocked my world.
BonAppetit_December2013_cover-530x398Bon Appetit Painted Cookies 3
I have never been exactly skilled with a paintbrush, but I figured even I could manage stripes. I began with the most delicious sugar cookie recipe I know, which uses brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar. Bake cookies and let cool completely.cutting heartsMix up a bach of royal icing. Pipe an outline onto the baked hearts. Mine was a bit too thick. I’m sure you can do better than me.piping outlineThin some of the royal icing with a few drops of water to make a thinner consistency and fill in the hearts. Let them dry completely, preferably overnight. Consider this your blank canvas.Hearts filled inTo paint the cookies, you will need some clean paintbrushes in assorted sizes, gel food colouring (I like the Americolour brand) and some vodka. (Not for drinking, just to wet your brush with and mix with the gel food colouring to thin it out). Any clear extract (lemon or a clear vanilla) would also work. The reason for using alcohol is that it evaporates very quickly, meaning that the paint will dry quicker.

The Bon Appetit cookies were painted with luster dust, mixed with a bit of alcohol or extract. It comes in tons of colours. If you want to use luster dust to achieve that shimmery effect, here is a great tutorial on how to do it. I decided to do mine with just regular gel food colouring instead of the luster dust.  ready to paintSqueeze a blob of each colour you want to use onto an artist’s paint palette or a dinner plate. (I used a ceramic egg holder) Have a small glass of vodka ready for dipping your brush into. Dip the brush into the vodka or extract and then into the food colour gel. Have some paper towels ready to test the colour and adjust the amount of paint you have on your brush. Make sure you wash and dry the brush really well, before you change colours.painted stripes1I decided to up the adorable factor and write a message on my cookies. I used a thin tip paintbrush. Be Mine CircleSuch a sweet way to declare your love this year. be mine 2

Click here to print recipe for Sugar Cookies with Brown Sugar

Click here to print recipe for Royal Icing Recipe.

be mine 1

Sweet Talk Shortbread Hearts

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assorted hearts 1I have been wanting to make the cookie equivalent of those candy conversation heats for some time now. You know the ones I mean, they have the taste and texture of chalk, but are kind of cute.necco conversation heartsWhen I went to buy some for the photo shoot, I discovered that SweeTarts also make a version of conversation hearts, and if you’re a fan of that mouthwatering fusion of sweet and tart, you’ll love them. SweeTart HeartsI was thinking of doing an iced cookie, and piping the messages on them, but my fine motor skills aren’t precise enough for detailed piping and besides, my #1 valentine doesn’t like iced cookies. So, onto plan B. I remembered seeing these cookie letter stamps online.

Even though these are a novelty cookie, I still wanted them to be as delicious as possible. I thought I would try making them with a shortbread cookie dough. I used Mindy Segal’s recipe from her exciting and edgy new book, Cookie Love. After making the dough, I rolled it out using my new precision sticks. These have changed my life. I have always had difficulty rolling dough evenly, and then I was reading an article by cookie maven Dorris Greenspan. She was talking about these dough rolling sticks. They come in 1/4 inch, 1/8 inch and 1/16 inch thicknesses. They are genius in their simplicity.Measuring dough strips rolling pin guidesAfter rolling out dough between 2 sheets of parchment, I froze the sheet of dough before cutting out the hearts. cutting out heartsI stamped the cookies with their messages before baking, but as soon as they were done I realized that would not work. The cookies puffed up a bit during baking and the letters were not crisp and clear anymore. I decided to try stamping the cookies immediately after baking, before cooling, while they were still soft. To make it manageable, from a timing perspective, I only baked 6 cookies at a time, so that the cookies would not harden before stamping. cookie stampsThese cookies are both adorable and delicious. I was thrilled with the results.hugs xoxo

Click here to print recipe for Sweet Talk Shortbread Hearts.

assorted hearts 2

 

KK’s Coconut Cake with Coconut Caramel Filling

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valentines day party 1If you have a coconut lover in your life, this cake is the perfect way to declare your love for them. The very first time I had this cake was several years ago. My niece, KK, made it for my mom’s 76th birthday. She was only 10 years old at the time. She has been baking ever since she could grasp a spatula. At her house, half birthdays are celebrated with as much hoopla and joy as full birthdays, so with a five person family, that works out to 10 cakes a year and almost 150 cakes in her short lifetime. She has some mad baking skills!3 slicesa sliceThis is my twist on her cake. I have added a coconut caramel filling to spread between the layers. This filling, known as kaya is created by cooking coconut milk, eggs, granulated and coconut palm sugar and pandan leaves over a double boiler until the sugar becomes caramelized and everything thickens into a beautiful jam-like consistency. I learned how to make kaya from pastry chef Anna Olsen on The Food Network. Kaya is traditionally spread on toast and then dipped in soft boiled eggs for breakfast in Singapore and Malaysia. Clearly I grew up on the wrong continent. All I got for breakfast, when growing up was a bowl of Cheerios!

Pandan leaves are long narrow bright green leaves that grow on a tropical plant known as the Screwpine.  Commonly found throughout Southeast Asia, they have been called, “The vanilla  of the east.” They can be found fresh or frozen in at Asian grocery stores or online. Vanilla extract is a good substitute if you can’t find pandan leaves. 

Making the coconut caramel (Kaya) filling takes time and patience. If you are short of either, just double the amount of buttercream frosting and use it to fill the layers as well as frost the top and sides of this cake. It will still be delicious, but I will say that Kaya pushes this cake further along on the bliss meter.

When you first start cooking the kaya, the pandan leaves will give off a grassy aroma. As they begin to steep in the coconut milk, eggs and sugar, the fragrance becomes more subdued, reminiscent of almonds and sweet cream.double boileringredients for cake 1Although my sister would never do this, I weigh the cake batter to make sure I get an equal amount in each pan. That way, the layers all cook at the same rate. weigh cake batterTo frost the cake, I made an American buttercream. The recipe I used comes from Nila, over at thetoughcookie.com. She is a buttercream wizard. Check out her Battle of the Buttercream posts. She taught me that the addition of a few drops of lemon juice really brighten all the other flavours of the buttercream without making it taste like lemon. Really cool trick!

I piped a border of buttercream around each layer and then filled the center with the coconut caramel filling. The border keeps the coconut filling from oozing out,pipe a boarder of buttercreamcoconut caramel fillingserving a slice

Click here to print recipe for KK’s coconut cake with coconut caramel filling.

cake with candy

Dark Salty Caramels – A Labour of Love

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cut caramel 625 sq 2 with labelI can not imagine anything more lovely than being presented with a box of these dark salty caramels from your valentine. They are unbelievably deep, dark and delicious, hovering ever so closely to the edge of bitter but narrowly escaping, thanks to the judicious addition of salt.  These are adult caramels, for grown ups with a mature palate that no longer desires cloying sweets.

We have Alton Brown (and my sister Bonnie) to thank for this genius recipe. Reading through the ingredient list I did a double take when I came to the 6th ingredient…soy sauce!  Soy sauce brings the funk to these caramels. It adds to the deep dark colour and provides a salty element as well as contributing umami, that savoury flavour that makes your mouth water.

If you are a fly by the seat of your pants baker, the kind who likes to bake free form, without any recipes or directions, and you know who you are, then this recipe is not for you.

If you are faint of heart and don’t like danger or risk taking, then this recipe is not for you either.

Making these caramels requires precision and nerves of steel. You need to stand over that pot and watch the candy thermometer. When it looks like the caramel is very dark and you are convinced it is going to burn any second now, do not remove it from the heat until the temperature registers 350°F. Have faith that Alton Brown knows what he is talking about. He is wise. If you remove the caramel too soon, you will end up with your grandma’s insipid blah caramels. If you are patient, you will be rewarded with caramels that have a depth and complexity of flavour that you have never experienced before.

That being said, please do not bypass the first step of the recipe where I instruct you to test your candy thermometer. Candy thermometers are not infallible.boiling sugaradding creamThis molten caramel is VERY hot so wear oven mitts and resist the urge to lick the pot. It will take a good 3-4 hours to cool to room temperature so again, patience is required. After 3 hours I refrigerated them so they would firm up even more, making it much easier to get nice clean square cuts with a very sharp knife. carefully pouring caramel into lined panI found this pretty little box at Target last week. It is part of the Nate Berkus Collection and is intended to be used as a jewellery box. I tarted it up with some pretty ribbon and turned it into a bon bon box.beautiful gift boxopened box 625 F sqFor storing the caramels, it is best to wrap each one individually in parchment paper.wrapping 1wrapping 2wrapping 3

Click here to print recipe for Dark Salty Caramels.

Valentines Day Marbled Heart Brown Sugar Cookies

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assortment of hearts 625 sqI would not describe myself as an overly affectionate person. (OK, all those who know me can stop choking with laughter now) Neither my husband or I are big on PDA’s . We don’t really celebrate Valentines Day, certainly not in a traditional cards, flowers or a box of drugstore chocolates (shudder) kind of way. My husband knows better than to show up with a bouquet of roses for me. I hate roses, especially red ones. Their aroma conjures up images of death and decay in my mind.  However, if a big bunch of tulips were to come my way, I would never refuse them!

That being said, there is something about heart shaped cookies for Valentines Day that is just so sweet and endearing, especially if they are home made. I could not resist making these this year. I love to decorate sugar cookies with royal icing. I am not a huge lover of the overly sweet taste of royal icing, but I am a frustrated artist and the canvas of a cookie fills my soul with such joy when I hold a piping bag and begin creating.Red and White heardsI had a few extra hands on deck last week to help me make these. My mom, who is very creative, was visiting. As well, my old babysitter, Sarah, who is a whiz with a piping bag, was also visiting. She was so excited when I told her what we would be making. She runs a dance school and bakes beautiful decorated cookies for all her students for any and every occasion. When I had tendonitis in my elbow, from a repetitive strain injuty (piping too many gingerbread snowflake cookies), she filled in as my designated piper.

Marbling royal icing is probably one of the easiest ways to create some spectacular looking cookies. There is no right or wrong way. You just have to let your creative freak flag fly here. The marbling technique basically boils down to using contrasting colours of wet royal icing. You pipe lines or dots or whatever you fancy, and just use a toothpick to swirl the lines or connect the dots. It couldn’t be simpler.Heart ZigzagsYou can use any sturdy cookie recipe, like gingerbread or a sugar cookie. I used my favourite sugar cookie recipe, which calls for brown sugar, instead of the usual white sugar. It adds a real depth of flavour. Adter making the dough, I divide the soft dough into 4 pieces and roll out each piece of dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. Then I chill the sheets of rolled out dough before cutting. It is much easier to do this rather than chill the dough first and then roll it out.

dough mixeddivide dough

rolling between parchmentcutting out hearts  I found the cutest set of cookie cutters at Michael’s.Wilton CuttersYou will need some disposable piping bags, piping tips (#2 and #3 size) and couplers,  some paste or gel food colouring and toothpicks. If you are planning to buy red food colouring, make sure it is the “no taste” red. In order to get a vivid red, you need to use a lot of the food colouring, and the regular red departs a very bitter taste.

It is best to make the cookies and royal icing the day before (or even several days) you plan to decorate them. Set aside a few quiet hours to allow your creative decorating juices to flow. 

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Click here to print recipe for Sugar Cookies with Brown Sugar.

Click here to print recipe for Royal Icing.

Red and White hearts on felt heart placemats

Hearts lines

For further inspiration check out these very talented bloggers:

Julia Usher

Colleen of Royal Icing Diaries

Sweetopia