Easy to Make Watermelon Cookies; the Essence of Summer

I tried these 3 different times…  and 3 must be the charm.  I liked using a butter cookie recipe as the base.  It just tasted better than a sugar cookie recipe.  Then, I improvised to get some watermelon shapes that looked like a bite had been taken out.  After much searching for the right cookie cutter, I gave up and just used a wavy-edged heart shaped cookie cutter to get that “bite” look.  I think it worked, do you?  Here they are at the varying stages… .

Kids will Love These Watermelon Cookie Treats!

Here I am "in process" with Watermelon Cookies

Gorg hat box from london is perfect to display my little pale pink jewels!!!

I’ll be the first to admit it: macarons are scary!!! I read up as much as I could, then waited for a dry day to try my hand at these. All my fears ended up being for naught, my macarons came out perfectly smooth and bumpless, with a lil foot too! Yay! I’d call it beginner’s luck.

I religiously followed the recipe on “Call Me Cupcake,” the most fabulous blog (sometimes I spend hours on there marveling when I’m supposed to be doing math homework..oops!)  What makes this AMAZING, is that the Macarons are crisp on the outside, and pillowy soft & a wee bit chewy on the inside… so when you bite into one, it just melts in your mouth.  I tried 3 different fillings: raspberry jam, chocolate ganache (the classic!), and butter caramel too!  I was inspired to make them as a hostess gift for our friends who we visited on Cape Cod.  Super impressive and super fun to try!

Pale Pink Macarons--not so perfectly piped but I'm getting there!

My Friend Stewart Enjoying a Macaron

Here’s my recipe for Double Trouble Chocolate Zabaglione. What’s cool about this recipe is that you make one yummy recipe that can be used in 2 different desserts!

My Double Trouble Chocolate Zabaglione

Ingredients

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 bar Supreme Species Dark Chocolate
1/8 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1/2 of the inside of a vanilla bean ( equivalent to about 1/8 of a teaspoon)
5 Egg Yolks
1/2 Cup Wholesome Sweetners Organic Sugar
1/3 cup lowfat milk
1 pinch of salt
Berries of your choice

To Make Hot Milk Mixture

First, take 1/2 cup of heavy cream and simmer on low heat for about 1and 1/2 minutes.  Add 1/8 teaspoon instant coffee granules and stir. Chop up chocolate bar into very small pieces and then add to hot milk mixture.  Stir up until smooth and all the chocolate is melted.  Then set aside to cool.

To Make Egg Mixture

Now, cut 1 vanilla bean in half, and scrape out insides to get all the vanilla beans. Set aside.
Separate 5 eggs so that all the whites are in one bowl and the yolks are in another.
Next, add 1/2 cup of Wholesome Sweetners organic sugar.  Then add 1/3 cup of lowfat milk and a pinch of salt.  Stir into egg mixture until combined.
Now set egg mixture on top of a simmering pot part-way filled with boiling water. Be sure to not let the bottom of the egg mixture pot touch the boiling water in the other pot. Stir the egg mixture until it gets thick… about 2 and 1/2 minutes.

Then gently fold the chocolatey mixture into the egg mixture and serve warm over berries. YUM!!

Homemade Whipped Cream

1 pint heavy whipping cream
1/4 Nielsen – Massey Tahitian Vanilla Extract
2 tablespoons Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Sugar

Chill bowl and beaters in freezer in advance.  Pour whipping cream into bowl.  Add vanilla. Beat for about 2 minutes. Then add sugar and beat for an additional 2 minutes, or until you see little peaks on the beaters.

To Make the Double Trouble Trifle Tower

11/2 pints of strawberries (wash and slice all but the biggest ones.  Biggest ones slice in half and leave on the stem)
2 1/2 tablespoons Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Sugar
Washed blueberries, raspberries and blackberries on hand
Angel Food Cake
Double Trouble Chocolatee Zabaglione (from recipe above, chilled)
Homemade Whipped Cream

Cut up Angel Food Cake horizontally in 5 even slices.  Assemble Trifle by alternating layers of cake, fruit, chocolate zabaglione and whipped cream.  Decorate top with big strawberry halves with stems facing outside the top of the cake.

Let me know if you liked it!

I love to cook, and lately I’ve been baking up a storm — especially since I got a concussion.  I discovered this website called

Chef Chloe Rosen at age 11

http://www.biddingforgood.com where they hold online auctions for non-profit organizations and people donate different things.  So I donated a cooking class for 4 kids to an auction, and someone bid on it. That means that the winner’s money will support kids this coming summer to go to sleep away camp, 4 kids will get a cooking class, and I will both cook and do a good deed.

So I have a confession. I’ve just ate half of a pan of blueberry crumble. I know that I come off strongly as a chocolate fanatic, but I feel like I have cheated my mostly companion. My mouth is watering as I write this, but I have stumbled upon greatness. Add the plumpest summer blueberries, sliced nectarines and peaches, a sprinkle of raspberries just for kicks into the bowl. A dash of cinnamon, a bit of cornstarch, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a handful of sugar, yum yum yum.

Stir stir stir, and mix mix mix, and there you’ve got your bottom. Then the good part. A stick of soft butter in the bowl, ½ cup of sugar and enough flour to make a crumbly topping. A smidge of salt, and sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle it on top of that filling. Into the 350 oven it goes, and you’d best be getting out of town because in fifteen minutes you’ll be found standing guiltily over that pan with a fork, gobbling up that crunch like a bear thirty seconds out of hibernation. I would know, it’s happened to me.

…I wish! Concord, MA on January 29th, 2011 is most definitely  the furthest thing from an island in the sun that there is. I’m really starting to savor our weekly snowstorm/snowday. It’s lovely. So what to do, what to do? Prepare Martha Stewart’s Floating Island Recipe, bien sur! I halved it because who really has 18 eggs sitting around? Glossy, vanilla-y and perfectly white, my island floated around in a water bath for only 16 minutes before it was puffed and golden and generally creme anglaise worthy. Bobbing in a pool of creamy goodness, I take a bite. Now you see it, now you don’t. Disappeared, leaving vanilla scented happiness behind.

Baking Homemade Thin Mints with How2Heroes

So I’ve been doing some cooking for a really cool website called www.How2Heroes.com. They have home cooks (like me!) and then some really famous chefs who show you how easy it is to make just about anything.  Lynne is the owner and she’s really nice. I’ve learned a ton so far and been able to share some of my best recipes with others.

another fun shoot!

Going to the Mariposa restaurant every Christmas vacation used to be one of our favorite traditions. We’d get all dressed up and I’d dust off my patent leather mary-janes for the occasion. I remember the first time that we got a chocolate snowball for dessert. It came in mini-version…dense and chocolatey cake with a hint of coffee peeking out from under big billows of whipped cream. When I was invited back into the kitchen one afternoon to check out how Letty Flatt, the pastry chef, did her magic I quickly rushed out to buy her cookbook and try my hand at her treats at home. I have to tell you that there is absolutely nothing that compares to Letty’s Chocolate Snowball during the long and pastry-free days of Passover. It’s really very easy to make at home, and so fabulously decadent.  My mouth is watering as we speak.