Posts Under ‘Recipes’ Category
Happy Halloween to all of our BakeGreek readers! When I think of Halloween one of the first phrases that comes to my mind is “TRICK OR TREAT!”. Well today you’re in for a special treat because I hope to teach you some new tricks in preparation for making some Halloween treats for your October 31st festivities!
I made these Chocolate covered caramel twist pretzels for the Halloween get together my best friend & I will be hosting at our place on Halloween. I decided to make these because I’ll be out of town this weekend, and these taste great even after a few weeks out. Not to mention they’re super cute, extra chocolately-delicious, and they are easy to make even though they may not look it!
What you’ll need:
- Pretzel Rods
- Melting Chocolate (Any brand will work, I use Merckens melting milk chocolate…it tastes great!)
- Bulk Caramel (I use Peter’s brand caramel which is VERY easy to work with…you can’t go wrong with a 5 lb loaf of caramel!)
- Halloween Decorations (Sprinkles, royal icing decorations, sanding sugar, nuts, etc)
- Cookie trays lined with Parchment Paper (I highly recommend parchment paper over wax paper for this project because the caramel will stick to the wax paper but it will not stick to the parchment paper)
Step 1: Separate a small portion (smaller than the size of a golf ball) of caramel, and roll it in between the 2 palms of your hands to create a string of caramel that will then be twisted around the top half of the pretzel rod. Repeat this step for every pretzel rod and lay them down onto the lined cookie sheet.
Step 2: Melt the melting chocolate in a round, flat bottom microwave safe bowl. There are a few different methods of melting the chocolate, the easiest is microwaving the bowl of chocolate in 30 second intervals and stirring the chocolate each time. Repeat this step until the chocolate is smooth and creamy. If you have a heating plate you can set your bowl of melted chocolate onto it to keep it consistently warm throughout the entire process. Try to resist the temptation of wanting to eat the entire bowl of melted chocolate!
Step 3: Bring each pretzel rod (one at a time) above the bowl of melted chocolate. Using a tablespoon, cover the top half of the caramel covered pretzel completely with the chocolate. Hold the pretzel in one hand and the spoon in the other, and turn the pretzel in a 360 degree turn while you are covering each section in chocolate. Note: Once you’ve covered the top half of the pretzel in chocolate, rock the pretzel up and down above the bowl to remove any excess chocolate from dripping when you transfer the covered pretzel back to the cookie sheet.
Also, although it might seem like a good idea I would not recommend trying to fill a deep bowl with chocolate so that you can just immerse the top half of the pretzel in chocolate. Perhaps if you are making these in bulk it would work, but otherwise if you are only making a small batch it will require a lot more chocolate to do it that way and you would constantly be refilling it.
Step 4: Once the top half of the pretzel is covered completely, lay the pretzel back down onto the lined cookie sheet for decorating. Here are some examples of how you can decorate your chocolate covered caramel twist pretzels but feel free to let your imagination soar. I recommend emphasizing the twists of the caramel by adding sprinkles!
Allow your chocolate covered caramel twists pretzels to dry completely (this will take a few hours). You can then wrap them individually for gift giving, arrange them on a festive serving tray, or just eat & enjoy them straight from the cookie sheet!
A few other Halloween treat ideas: I used the leftover melting chocolate from making the pretzels and also some white melting chocolate to make some Frankenstein & Pumpkin chocolate lollipops using candy molds.
If you want to get fancy with these chocolate pops you can use colored melting chocolate (melting chocolate is available in just about every color), or you can also “paint” the details on the mold using a thin paint brush (ex: the pumpkin’s leaves, Frankenstein’s eyes, tooth, scar, etc.) with the colored melting chocolate, allow the “painted” details to dry, and then fill the rest of the mold with chocolate.
You can’t tell from the front view, but I also added some Halloween sprinkles onto the backs of the lollipops after pouring in the melting chocolate in the mold:
I hope you enjoy making homemade Halloween treats this week and have a safe and exciting Halloween!
Feel free to comment to the post if you have any questions about any of the above Halloween Treat ideas, and feel free to share a Halloween treat idea of your own!
1 Comment »
This recipe has some tricky parts. But I use it every time I need chocolate cut-out cookies, because it tastes so damn good.
The dough is unusually soft, and has a tendency to stick to the cookie cutter. But don’t be deterred! Nothing that a little refrigeration and flour won’t fix.
Brave the challenge and you will be rewarded, because a stack of these can turn any bad day around.
[recipe is all the way at the bottom]
This is all you need. To note: use good cocoa powder. Ghirardelli, Valrhona, Scharffen Berger….those are all great. I’ve used Hershey’s though, and it’s not too bad. But the better the cocoa quality, the better the taste.
Mix butter, add sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Add the cocoa powder. Add the egg & vanilla extract.
Add flour, and mix until well incorporated. The dough will be super soft. Resist the urge to add another bag of flour.
Empty the dough onto plastic wrap (I usually divide the batch into 2) and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
Once refrigerated, roll the dough out between two sheets of wax paper, sprinkled with either flour or cocoa powder. The dough gets soft pretty quickly, which is why I like to work with smaller, more manageable batches of dough.
No matter what sort of cookie cutter you use — plastic, metal, copper — it WILL stick to this dough. Mix a spoonful of flour + spoonful of cocoa powder for coating the cookie cutter.
Before each use, dip the edge of the cookie cutter in the mixture to prevent too much sticking.
Place in the freezer for 10 mins for easy removal, and bake at 350 for 10 mins.
Decorate, store, package, or just eat them all (like I did….)
Special thanks to J & H for doing all the work while I snapped pictures. ♥
Chocolate Cut-Out Cookies
yields between 2-3 dozen 2″ cookies
1.5 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup flour
Preheat oven to: 350 degrees
1. Cream butter until smooth, then add sugar. Mix until light and fluffy.
2. Add the cocoa powder, and mix until incorporated.
3. Add egg and the vanilla extract. Mix until incorporated.
4. Add flour, and mix until fully combined.
5. Wrap and refrigerate the dough in small, manageable batches (usually 2 or 3) for at least 4 hours.
6. Roll the dough out between two wax papers, sprinkled with cocoa powder, to keep from sticking.
7. Dip cookie cutters in a mixture of equal parts flour + cocoa powder before cutting out the shapes.
8. Freeze the sheet of dough for 10 mins, then arrange them on a lined baking sheet.
9. In an oven preheated to 350 degrees, bake for 10 mins, 12-15 for larger ones.
6 Comments »
This post is long. I try my best not to ramble so as to cut the bull crap from this already tedious tutorial, but I wanted to provide a lot of pictures — tutorials with pictures were what really helped me when I was first starting to learn about royal icing and cookies. Without them, I probably would have finger painted a cookie and called it a day.
There are more ways than one to ice a cookie (without outline, using different consistencies for filling, etc) but this is how I like to do it, because it’s the easiest method I’ve come across without compromising neatness.
INGREDIENTS:
1lb powdered sugar
5 TBSP Meringue Powder*
1/2 cup water
*Meringue Powder is an egg whites substitute. I haven’t been able to find it at a regular grocery store, so I usually go to a specialty (baking supply) store. You can get them online from Wilton here, or you can use actual egg whites. I’ve never used real egg whites in my icing, so I’m going to recommend using Martha Stewart’s recipe — while I can’t vouch for it since I’ve never tried, in my eyes she can do no wrong and I trust that it would come out well.
1. Dump powdered sugar and meringue powder plus 1/4 cup of water into the mixer. It may seem clumpy but it’s OK. You want to add the water GRADUALLY, just a little bit at a time. It only takes a little bit of water to thin icing, but it takes a LOT of powder sugar to get it to thicken again.
3. Keep adding water, a TBSP at a time, doing the knife test after each addition to see if you’ve reached the right consistency. Knife Test: Drag a butter knife across the surface of the icing, making a streak like the one above. You want this streak to smooth over between 5-10 seconds. If it takes too long or doesn’t close at all, thin the icing with a little more water. If it disappears almost immediately, add more powder sugar.
4. When I have the right consistency, I like to move the icing to a smaller, more manageable bowl, keeping it covered with plastic wrap. Take the original giant mixer bowl, take it to the sink, fill it with water. NOTHING sucks more than having to get dry icing off the sides of the bowl. Nothing.
5. Add color, little at a time. I learned that sometimes it takes about 3-5 minutes for the color to really deepen to its full potential, so don’t be discouraged if your “black” icing looks dark, dark grey. It will eventually turn black.
6. Mix well until you reach a solid color, without those marble streaks you see in the picture above. You’d think it won’t show up, and then there it is, on your precious cookie, and you’re sitting there trying to convince yourself you did it on purpose, to be artsy. No.
7. Prepare your piping bag. This is what I use — disposable plastic bags, a metal tip, and a “coupler” that keeps the tip in place. I also sometimes use a triangular parchment paper, which is great because there are NO clean up required aside from taking it to the trash can. But I like the metal tips because it helps when doing intricate/small details. If you’re piping an Iota, you won’t have any issues with parchment paper piping. But if you’re doing a Psi, I’d suggest you invest in the coupler + tip. You’d have better control and the lines will come out neater.
8. This is the set up I use to fill piping bags, because otherwise the icing escapes from the tip and you’re outlining your kitchen floor.
9. This is myset up for cookie decorating. When you’re outlining a cookie you want to be able to turn the cookie easily — the napkin helps with this so you don’t have to touch the cookie and mess it up. The toothpicks are for filling the cookie and for plugging the tip when you’re not using the bag.
9. Start at a corner and pipe close to the cookie for about 1/2″, then slowly begin to lift your tip away from the cookie while still piping. Let the icing fall onto the cookie, and when you approach the other corner, lower the tip again — this sounds more difficult than it actually is. It’s OK to pipe close to the cookie all the way around if you’re not comfortable with this, but piping from higher gives you better control and gives you a straighter line.
10. Done. Let it dry for 10 mins. Resist the urge to touch!!!
11. Meanwhile, switch your tip to something wider for filling & flooding. I think this is a #5.
12. When filling the cookie, don’t worry about getting every corner. You can fix this with a toothpick later. Just concentrate on moving as quickly (but steadily) as possible.
13. Use the end of a toothpick to move around the icing to places you couldn’t get to with the icing bag. Step 12 & 13 needs to be done swiftly, before the surface of the icing starts to dry. Once done, tap the cookie a bit to smooth out surfaces & to get rid of any air bubbles.
14. At this point, while the icing is still wet, place any decorations – sprinkles, shaped quins, edible pearls, etc. If you have long nails or fingers fatter than a tweezer…you should use a tweezer. I’ve ruined many a cookie by being too lazy to go get one.
I think it’s safe to say that your cookie will be completely dry in 8-12 hours. I let mine dry overnight, so that’s where the approximation comes from. The cookie may appear to be dry in about 3 hours. Do NOT be fooled by the dry surface. Underneath lies a wet layer of icing and the weight of your fingers WILL crush the thin top layer and you WILL be depressed.
I know I said this in my baking tutorial but I feel the need to reiterate that I’m not a professional at all — just a girl with a hobby. If you have any other helpful tips, I would really love to hear them!
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