Speedy Rosemary Sugar Cookies

I read this recipe by Sally's Baking Addiction for sugar cookies, and decided to make something very similar for my mother, who is a rosemary aficionado.  The cookies are super soft, smell strongly of rosemary, and are just fine without any topping-- though I think they're much prettier with the icing.
My take on the recipe takes less time than Sally's, because I skip the long chilling of the dough.  But do bear in mind that my kitchen is freezing-- if you are in a warmer house, you may want to chill the dough for an hour or so before baking the cookies, to avoid excessive spreading.





Ingredients:

For cookies:

♕1 stick / 115g unsalted butter at room temperature
♕3/4 cup / 220g white sugar
♕1 egg
♕1 tsp / 5mL vanilla extract
♕1 Tbsp / 3g rosemary leaves
♕2 tsp / 3g baking powder
♕1 1/2 cups / 190g white flour

For frosting:

♕3/4 cup / 100g powdered sugar
♕2-5 tsp / 5-20mL milk
♕1 tsp / 5mL vanilla
♕2 tsp / 2g rosemary leaves
♕1/4 tsp / .5g dried lemon zest

Procedure:

♕Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.
♕Beat butter until it is light and fluffy.
♕Cream sugar and butter, then stir in vanilla extract and egg.
♕Add rosemary leaves and stir until smooth.
♕In a separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt, and flour.
♕Mix dry and wet ingredients.
♕Roll dough into little columns, about half the size of your index finger, and about 1 inch/2cm diameter.
♕Place these dough columns far, far apart on the cookie sheets-- you'll end up with about 10 cookies per sheet.  The column shape makes the cookies tall and fluffy, not flat, as they spread out.
♕After rolling all of the dough, place the baking sheets in a cold place.  Fridge, freezer, or cold outdoors (covered, of course!)
♕Set oven to 350˚F / 180˚C.
♕Bake cookies for eight minutes.  They will be white when you take them out.
♕Let cool on sheets for about five minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.


Make the icing:
♕Combine powdered sugar, lemon zest, and rosemary.
♕Stir in vanilla extract, then add milk until everything is just smooth.
♕Immediately drizzle over cooled cookies and let harden for seven minutes.
♕Serve!

Orange and Walnut Shortbread Cookies

Shortbread cookies are rather simple to make.  This recipe has a subtle nutty aroma, and the sort of orange you select for zesting strongly influences the final result's smell.  If you have no turbinado sugar, you can easily substitute white sugar, but I also recommend adding a couple pinches of shaved dark chocolate to the batter.

Ingredients:

♕1/2 cup / 120g butter, unsalted, at room temperature.
♕190g / 1.5 cup white flour
♕1/4 cup / 55g turbinado sugar
♕10 walnut halves, ground
note: you want the largest pieces no larger than 3mm
♕zest of one small, aromatic orange
♕1 t / 3mL vanilla extract
♕Approximately 30 walnut halves
note: or more, depending on how thin and small you cut your cookies

Procedure:

♕Combine butter, zest, and sugar.
♕Mix in chopped walnuts flour, and vanilla and combine until dough is homogeneous.
♕Roll the dough into a tubelike shape and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
♕Preheat oven to 375˚F / 190˚C.
♕Cut the dough into thin cookie slices.
♕Top each cookie with a walnut half.
♕Bake for 20 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway if you have poor convection.
♕Allow to cool, and serve.

Healthy Chocolate Covered Fruit

In Russia, it is rather common to serve tea with small candies.  A popular sort of small candy is chocolate-covered dried fruit, stuffed with a nut.  This recipe recreates these candies, but while it is very tasty, it is also very ugly.  Do not let the appearance discourage you!
This procedure can be used as a guide for lots of different fruit and nut combinations.  My very favorite is prunes with toasted almonds.
The chocolate sauce can of course be substituted with simple melted chocolate.  The charm of the coconut-oil based coating is that it smells very strongly of coconut, and you control the amount and type of sugar as well as cacao powder.  If you do choose to use melted chocolate instead, know that the layer of chocolate on each fruit will be much thicker.
In such a simple recipe, quality must be high.  Use good chocolate, aromatic coconut oil, soft dry fruit, and toasted nuts for candies worth serving with tea.

Ingredients:

♕18 dried apricots, whole
♕18 walnut halves
♕3T / 50g extra virgin coconut oil
♕3T / 25g cacao powder
♕2T / 25g sugar

Procedure:

♕Melt the oil and sugar.  Stir in the cacao powder, making sure to avoid clumps.
♕In each apricot, make a long slice, so that the apricot becomes a pocket.
♕Place one nut in each apricot.
♕Dip apricots in to the chocolate mixture, and place on a piece of parchment paper.
♕Move to a cold place.
♕At this point, the chocolate coating will be rather thin on the fruit.  If you wish to make it thicker, allow coating to dry and quickly redip the candies.
♕Allow the coating to harden completely, and serve.

Quick Fragrant Salad

Despite most of the recipes posted on my blog being desserts, I do actually consume not sweet things too, sometimes.  I am a bit embarrassed to post something so simple.
This is a very quick salad that can be made with any crunchy leafy green.  The amount made is very adjustable, so in addition to posting a recipe with volumes of ingredients, I will also post the ingredient ratios.

Ingredients:

For the dressing

♕ 2t / 7mL sesame oil
♕ .5t / 2mL soy sauce
note: I used reduced sodium soy sauce
♕ 1T / 12mL mirin (a sweet Japanese cooking rice wine)
♕2t / 1g fresh dill, chopped
♕2t / 1g fresh parsley, chopped

The dressing marinates.

Which translates to
sesame oil:soy sauce:mirin:dill:parsley
4:1:6:4:4
note: it is very viable to mix a bottleworth of the dressing and keep it in the fridge, if you believe you will eat lots of this salad.  In fact, doing so will preserve your fresh herbs and give the dressing a very strong dill/parsley aroma.

For the salad

♕1.5 cup / 50g torn salad leaves, like boston, romaine, or iceberg
♕2t / 5g black sesame seeds

Procedure:

♕Mix the ingredients for the dressing as far in advance as you can.
♕Combine salad and dressing, garnish with sesame seeds.

♕Serve.

Healthier 15 Minute Sundaes

 

I realize that most sundaes take approximately three minutes to assemble, so this recipe's main selling point is that it will clog ones' arteries slightly less than a sundae made with all store-bought components: The fats are healthy saturated type, the sugar can be modified (white granulated, honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, or even stevia can all be easily accepted by the recipe).   Most importantly, the flavors compliment each other very well.  I was very happy after eating this.

Ingredients:

♕1.5 cup / 355mL whipping cream
♕3T / 45mL brewed coffee no sugar
♕1.5T / 25mL vanilla
♕5T / 70g coconut oil, solid
♕5.5T / 30g cacao powder
♕1/3 cup+ 3T / 90g+40g sugar (separated)
♕2-5 bananas
♕Optional: pineapple, berries, raisins, nuts, or even more bananas for topping

Procedure:

♕Put a large metal bowl and the beaters to an electric mixer into your freezer.
♕Brew some coffee, make it strong.

♕Microwave coconut oil to melt it.
♕Mix in cacao powder and 1/3 cup / 90g sugar, and stir until homogeneous.  Set aside, it should be more or less fluid.
♕Once the coffee and chocolate sauce is done, remove the metal bowl and beaters from the freezer.
♕Allow 3T/ 45mL coffee to cool while you pour the cream into the bowl.
♕Whip the cream, starting at a low speed and ending fast.  Near the end of the whipping process, add vanilla, coffee, and sugar.
♕Slice your bananas.
♕Into three or four large serving glasses, layer banana, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.  Top with other things, if you so wish.  The chocolate should become solid soon after being poured.


♕Serve immediately or after refrigerating, with coffee or strong tea.