Witch Finger Cookies

As a little side to go with yesterday's Pumpkin Spice Mousse, I made these witch finger cookies.  They are nothing new, I've seen them all over the web and in many variations.  They are, however, tasty and a LOT of fun to both make and eat.  Oh, did I mention easy?  They're that too. 

A tray of Witch Finger Cookies ready for the oven.

Witch Finger Cookies
Makes 30

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 egg, beaten to blend, use half (eyeball it)
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup whole almonds

Combine the butter, sugar, egg, and extracts in the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Beat until light and fluffy.  With mixer running on low speed, gradually add flour, baking powder, and salt.  Mix until combined.  Do not over mix!  Remove to a piece of waxed paper, form into a disc, cover and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease baking sheets, or use parchment or a Silpat. Remove dough from refrigerator and pinch off pieces about the size of a walnut. Use the waxed paper to roll the dough into a thin finger-shaped cookie. Press one almond into one end of each cookie to give the appearance of a long fingernail. Squeeze cookie near the tip and again near the center of each to give the impression of knuckles. Using a toothpick, cut into the dough at the same points to help give a more finger-like appearance. Arrange the shaped cookies on the baking sheets. Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are slightly golden in color, 20 to 25 minutes.

Variations:

Green food coloring can be added for a more "witch-y" finger
Ends can be dipped into red jam to look like blood
Almonds may be affixed with red decorating gel 

This post is linked to:
Sweets for a Saturday
Sweet Indulgences Sunday
Simply Delish Saturday
Seasonal Sundays

Pumpkin Spice Mousse

I invited my mother and Betty, a long-time family friend, to what we like to call "lunch and knitting"  yesterday.  I'm the only one who knits, they just happily chatter away, occasionally making a stitch or two, stopping periodically to sniff the air and wonder what I'm preparing for lunch.  They are a good, appreciative audience, always enjoying how I've set the table, loving the food, and showering me with so many compliments that, if I were any kind of person, I'd be red with embarrassment, rather than sucking them up greedily.

I'll be sharing all of the recipes with you over the next couple of days, but today it's all about the dessert.  Witch finger cookies brought smiles, curiosity, and conversation.  After all, who could not make a comment about these?  The pumpkin mouse, well, Betty said it best when she said, "I love this so much I could smear it all over my body."

This recipe is from an old (November 1998) issue of Gourmet Magazine.  I find it very easy to make, and think it is wonderful when the gingersnaps are replaced with those little Heath bar bits (equally yummy whether you use the chocolate coasted ones, or not...but go for the chocolate, you know what I've told you about the whole pumpkin-chocolate combination).

Pumpkin Spice Mousse

1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (less than 1 envelope)
1 1/2 tablespoons cold water
3 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups canned solid-pack pumpkin (slightly less than a 15-ounce can)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups well-chilled heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla18
Gingersnaps


In a medium metal bowl sprinkle gelatin over cold water to soften 1 minute. Whisk in yolks and sugar and set bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Cook egg mixture, whisking constantly, until an instant-read thermometer inserted 2 inches into mixture registers 160 degrees F. (Tilt bowl to facilitate measuring temperature.) (NOTE:  Be sure to set the mixture over simmering water.  If you try to bring the water to a simmer while whisking the yolks, it will take forever.) Remove bowl from pan and with an electric mixer beat egg mixture until cool and thickened, about 5 minutes (mixture will be very sticky). Beat in pumpkin and spices. Chill pumpkin mixture, covered, until thickened and cool but not set, about 1 hour.

In a bowl with cleaned beaters beat cream with vanilla until it just holds stiff peaks and fold into pumpkin mixture gently but thoroughly. Coarsely crumble 2 gingersnaps into each of 6 Martini glasses (or other 6- to 8-ounce stemmed glasses). Transfer mousse to a large pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip and pipe decoratively over cookies in glasses (or simply spoon mousse into glasses). Chill mousses, uncovered, until firm, about 3 hours, and up to 1 day (loosely cover after 3 hours).

Just before serving, garnish mousses with remaining 6 whole gingersnaps (Or those yummy Heath bar bits.  You'll thank me later.).

Come back tomorrow for the recipe for the Witch Finger Cookies --  Spooky!

This post is linked to:

Foodie Friday
Food on Friday
Friday Favorites
Friday Fat Camp
I'm Lovin' It Friday
Simply Delish Saturday
Fantabulous Friday

Nuts to You Hazelnut Sandies

If you've ever found yourself at either Sam's or Costco, chances are you've seen those very large containers of mixed nuts.  My husband buys these with reckless abandon.  Unfortunately he really doesn't like mixed nuts, what he likes are cashews and pecans.  The other nuts in the mix -- almonds, hazelnuts, and Brazil nuts, he carefully extracts and places in their own, labeled, individual containers.  He then places these containers into the corner cabinet and forgets about them.  When they start stacking up like cord wood and begin to fall onto my head whenever I reach for a set of mixing cups, I know it's time to take action.  

I use almonds frequently for green beans amandine.  I use all almonds and Brazil nuts when I make granola -- delicious!  The hazelnuts, however, tend to get overlooked.  So today with all of the excitement of the Cardinals winning the National League Championship, and the newly adopted Rally Squirrel mascot, I felt a cookie was in order, so created these.  I could tell they were a success when a friend of ours came for dinner and gobbled up half of the plate, and this was before I dipped one side in chocolate.  They are easy to make, the dough rolls out very well (particularly with my new marble rolling pin -- thanks, Carol!), and they won't last long, so don't worry about having too many.  

Oh...GO CARDS!!!

Image from Rally Squirrel T-shirt available at Dierbergs markets.

 Nuts to You Hazelnut Sandies

2 cups flour
3/4 cup butter
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
2 Tablespoons whole milk
2 cups hazelnuts

Preheat oven to 400F. Put the hazelnuts into the work bowl of a food processor and pulse until finely ground.  Check periodically and don't overdo it or you'll end up with hazelnut butter.  Pour the ground hazelnuts onto a foil-lined baking sheet and toast them for 5 to 10 minutes, until they start  to brown. Remove and set aside.

Reduce the heat of the oven to 325F. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour and sugar. Add the butter and cut in using a pastry blender or two knives until the pieces are the size of peas.  Turn mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Add the hazelnuts and mix together on medium speed.  Slowly pour the milk into the bowl and mix only until a dough forms.  DO NOT OVER MIX!  If you do, the cookies will be tough. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 3/8" thickness and cut the cookies with a 2 or 3-inch round cutter.  The number of cookies you get from this mixture will vary depending upon the size of the cutter and thickness of the dough. Place them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake for 15-19 minutes until the edges are golden. Dust powdered sugar on the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven, and again while they are still warm.

This post is linked to:
Your Recipe...My Kitchen
Tasty Tuesdays
Tuesdays at the Table
Delicious Dishes
Tasty Tuesday
Tuesday Night Supper Club
Made From Scratch Tuesday
Tempt Your Tummy Tuesday
Real Food Wednesday
Tuesday's Tasty Tidbits
Totally Tasty Tuesdays
Crazy Sweet Tuesdays

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

While opinions vary, my contention has always been that there are four genres of mystery: the Whodunnit, or classic mystery, Hard-boiled, Police Procedural, and the Cozy, the latter being my favorite.  A sub-genre of this genre (are you still with me?) is the culinary cozy, a variety of mystery that has enamored me since I read my first (though written too early - 1986 - to have been labeled as such), The Nantucket Diet Murders by the late Virginia Rich.  Titles and covers grab my attention first when book shopping, opening up this one and finding the end pages covered in recipes was all it took for me to make the purchase and then fall in love with the genre.  Since then I've tried to read every mystery that features recipes; it's not easy!  Michael Bond, Diane Mott Davidson, Joanne Fluke, Ellen Hart and Joanne Pence are among the writers in this ever-growing list, as well as relative newcomers like Krista Davis, Avery Aames, and Livia Washburn.  Rarely do I actually try one of the recipes, that is until now.  I've decided that not only will I read the mysteries, but also make at least one of the recipes from the book.

Today's selection is a seasonal one, The Pumpkin Muffin Murders by Livia J. Washburn.  I wanted to bake the entire time I read this novel.  Seriously, I could almost smell the pumpkin.  So I gave them a whirl this morning and was very pleased with the results.  I used a jumbo muffin pan, so instead of filling each well of batter with just one tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture, I used a 2 tablespoon-size cookie scoop and it worked out well.  I think the next time I may just make the indentation in each muffin a bit deeper and add even more.  I also tend to like raisins in pumpkin muffins (particularly those that have been soaked in 2 tablespoons of rum to loosen, err, plump them up), so will add them when I make these again.  What a wonderful fall breakfast they provided on the patio this morning!  The recipe is below with my comments in parentheses.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

from The Pumpkin Muffin Murders by Livia J. Washburn

Filling:

1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened 

1 egg

3 T. brown sugar

1 t. vanilla extract

Topping:

4-1/2 T. all-purpose flour

3 T. brown sugar

1/2 t. ground cinnamon

1/4 t. ground ginger

3 T. chopped pecans

3 T. butter

Muffin:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups white sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1-1/3 cups canned pumpkin

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 F.  Grease and flour 18 muffin cups, or use paper liners (I sprayed with PAM and they came out of the pan with ease.). Fill any unfilled muffin cups with water (to promote even baking).

Filling:

In a medium bowl, beat softened cream cheese until smooth. Add egg, brown sugar, and vanilla. Beat until mixed, then place bowl in freezer to set while making other ingredients. 

Topping:

In a medium bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and pecans. Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside. 

Muffin batter: 

In a large bowl, blend flour, sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add eggs, pumpkin, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Beat together until well mixed. 

Place pumpkin mixture in muffin cups about 1/2 full. Take the cream cheese mixture out of the freezer and add 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture right in the middle of the batter in the muffin cups. Having the cream cheese mixture will help you keep the cream cheese from touching the edges. Sprinkle on the streusel topping. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes. (If using larger muffin pans, you may need to bake a bit longer.  Test for doneness with a toothpick.  Remove from oven and run a sharp knife around the edge of each muffin. Allow to cool in pan for ten minutes. Gently pry from pan with knife and place on wire rack to cool completely.)

NOTE: Use remaining pumpkin for pumpkin pie cocoa.

I was tickled pink to be able to add this antique medicine bottle to my collection of flower vases.  Just this morning it was unearthed by the guy who came out to grind down the last of the five stumps we had left from the uprooted trees.  I washed it, added zucchini leaves and a zinnia and had a lovely seasonal addition to my place setting.

Comfort Food for all Occasions

There have been any number of times in my life when I have both accepted and offered meals of comfort. Simple, comfort meals to help someone through a loss, sickness, or a difficult or exhausting time due to a change in life situation be it joyous or unfortunate. Whenever I find myself in this situation (as I did last week), wanting to help a neighbor through a rough spot, I head for my "go to" meal that has never failed to satisfy.  It's an easy one to put together, and makes enough to not only share, but provide us with a tasty evening meal.  Roast beef and gravy is always the main course; green beans amandine and mashed potato casserole the two comforting sides.  I package them up in containers that do not need to be returned, and label them with instructions on reheating.  The beef and beans require no recipes, but for the potatoes I head for one of my old favorites among cookbooks (and one you're probably sick of hearing about), St. Louis Days, St. Louis Nights.  I've reproduced the recipe page below so you can have the benefit of my pithy comments.  It's make ahead, reheats beautifully, freezes, can be halved, doubled or tripled, and has found itself gracing the table on any number of holidays.  It's simply one of those recipes where you just can't go wrong.  How right is that?

This post is linked to:

Dr. Laura’s Tasty Tuesdays
Tuesdays at the Table
Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays
Tasty Tuesdays with Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
Tempt My Tummy Tuesday
Tasty Tuesday

Recipe Tea Towels

As anyone who's read this blog knows, I love cooking, love recipes, and love collecting things with recipes on them such as recipe postcards, recipe rubber stamps, and now, recipe tea towels. I stumbled upon these quite accidentally with an Anthropologie purchase of a pair of towels bearing a recipe for Irish Soda Bread.  It was close to St. Patrick's Day at the time, and I thought it would be a wonderful way to wrap rustic loaves of Irish Soda Bread to give as gifts.  It was, the recipients loved it!  Foolishly, I failed to photograph the towels, the bread wrapped up in the towels, or buy an extra one to keep for myself.  Lesson learned there.  Ever since this initial purchase, I now seem to find recipe tea towels everywhere.  I also consider them to be a most practical souvenir to pick up whenever we travel.  I don't know that I'll ever make any of the recipes, but I enjoy reading and displaying them.  Try to come up with ideas for their use on your own, and please share them with me.

Here are a few of my favorites. 

A nice assortment of Manx (Gaelic) recipes on a very colorful towel.

Here's a recipe for strudel...in Italian!

I love this towel with both English and Spanish versions of a recipe for Paella. I'm not going to use it as a towel though, but will fly it as a flag at our next Paella cooking bash. 

I love this cozy kitchen scene and recipe for Yorkshire Pudding.

I love everything about the newest addition to my collection from the recipe to the curtain blowing in the breeze from the open window to the table full of delicious looking scones.

This tea towel features Cornish recipes, some of them sound pretty good. I'll have to start a new series of blog posts of recipes I've tried that appear on tea towels!

This post is linked to:
Mosaic Monday - Little Red House
Metamorphosis Monday-BNOTP
Brag Monday-The Graphics Fairy
Motivate Me Monday-Keeping it Simple
Amaze Me Monday-Dittle Dattle
Thrifty Thursday-Tales from Bloggeritaville
100 Ideas Under $100-Beyond the Picket Fence
Show and Tell Saturday-Be Different Act Normal 
Fall in Love - Decor to Adore
Mouthwatering Monday
Seasonal Sunday

Cake Mix Pancakes - A Birthday Breakfast

Today is my birthday! 

And with Monday being my one-year blog-iversary, I have much to celebrate.  So what better way to start the day than with a breakfast of Cake Mix Pancakes?  I have been stalking this recipe for some time.  I'm quite the pancake aficionado (as I'm sure you've come to know by now), so this recipe intrigued me.  It did not disappoint.  These pancakes browned better than any other I've ever made, evenly, golden, perfectly puffed, and had a deliciously dense cake-like texture.  The sprinkles turned into swirls on the griddle, which made them all the more fun.  

I  hope you'll give them a try.  I'm sure kids will love them.  This kid certainly did.

Cake Batter Pancakes from How Sweet It Is

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup yellow cake mix
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to1-1/2 cups milk 
Sprinkles


In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt together. Combine 1 cup of the milk, the eggs and vanilla extract in a measuring cup. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Depending on the brand of cake mix you use, you may need additional milk to achieve the proper consistency for your batter. I added about an extra tablespoon or two of milk to my batter; it was still fairly thick, but easily pourable. Fold sprinkles into the batter - how many you use is entirely up to you! 

Preheat a skillet set over medium heat. I used a nonstick skillet and sprayed it lightly with nonstick cooking spray. Use a 1/4-cup measuring cup to portion the batter into the pan. Cook the pancakes on the first side until bubbles form on the top, about 3-4 minutes. Use a spatula to flip the pancakes and cook on the second side until golden and cooked through. Repeat with the remaining batter. You can keep the pancakes warm in a 200 F oven until you've cooked all of them, if desired.

Makes about 12 pancakes

This post is linked to:

Sweets for a Saturday
Sweet Indulgences Sunday

Foodie Friday

and
Cast Party Wednesday