Fruit and Nut Chocolate Bark

It's the season where everyone is looking for the perfect gifts for their loved ones. It's all the more special if its something homemade, something that looks fabulous and at the same time requires so little effort. These bars are so easy to make and there is no baking involved!! It's just the thing to involve your kids in and they'd be so excited! Melt the best chocolate you can find and top it with your favorite fruits and nuts and pack them in cute little bags and you've got the perfect gift! And Chocolate does make one Smile!!

Fruit and Nut Chocolate Bark

Ingredients:
12oz bittersweet/ semisweet/ milk chocolate
1/2 cup mixed dry fruits (raisins, cranberries, apricots)
1/2 cup mixed nuts, roasted and chopped roughly (almonds, pistachios or any other nuts)

Method:

Line a 9" square pan with parchment paper, coming up the sides a little bit.

Take the chocolate in a bowl and place over a bowl of simmering water, making sure that the bottom does not touch the water. Stir occasionally until the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Pour into the prepared pan and swirl the pan to cover the base completely or use a spatula to spread the chocolate into an even layer.

Immediately sprinkle the dry fruits and nuts all over the melted chocolate and press lightly into the chocolate.

Keep aside in a cool and dry place until the chocolate sets.

Once set, cut or break into pieces and store in an airtight container for upto one week.

Sending this to Christmas Food Fair

Chocolate and Vanilla Melting Moments with Chocolate Truffle

Anushka's school closed for holidays last week and as always we had potlucks on the last days of school.  I made these cookies for one of them. They were so buttery and delicious and they literally melt in your mouth.

These snowy pillowy cookies are so apt for this season too.I can't believe that another year is coming to an end so soon, but I do love this time of the year. Love the reds and greens everywhere and the brightly lit trees. Carols playing everywhere and all the yummy treats!

I sandwiched the cookies with some chocolate truffle, but that is just optional. Adding the truffle makes them more of a dessert cookie but I loved them plain too. Recipe is adapted from the Australian Women's Weekly.

Melting Moments

Ingredients:
Vanilla Cookies:
125g  butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup icing sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup vanilla custard powder or cornflour
icing sugar for sprinkling on the cookies

Chocolate Cookies:
125g butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup scant icing sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup cornflour
icing sugar for sprinkling on the cookies

Method:

Sift the flours together and the cocoa for the chocolate cookies.

Cream the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.

Stir in the sifted flour/ flour cocoa mixture in two batches.

Take small portions of dough (I measured 10g of dough for each cookie) and roll into balls using slightly floured hands. Place about 2 inches aparton a cookies sheet lined with parchment paper.

Flatten slightly with a floured fork. Bake at 350F for about 15 mins. Let stand for 5 minutes and then lift onto wire racks to cool completely.

Sandwich the cookies with chocolate truffle, preserves or buttercream.

Makes about 25 sandwich cookies.

Chocolate Truffle

Ingredients:

100g semi-sweet chocolate

75ml heavy cream

1 tbs butter, softened

Method:

Take the chocolate into a bowl. Heat the cream until you see bubbles at the edges of the pan. Pour the cream on the chocolate and add the butter. Let stand for a couple of minutes, then mix and stir well until the mixture is smooth and well combined.

Sending this to Christmas Food Fair

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

Like I said in my last post, I had been on a long vacation to India, for three months. Had an awesome time. Nothing better than having your family close, one of the things I miss like crazy. Except for my parents, everyone was meeting me after about three years, a long time and obviously I've changed. "So you're a mom now, can't believe it", was a remark I heard very often. The same kids who called me ' Didi', now call me 'Aunty'...sigh!!...Another kid who remembered me runs up to me, "Hi Aunty, how are you? You are fatter now!!", and scurries off to play!! You can imagine my reaction.

We had a lot of get togethers with family and friends and so lot of opportunities to bake. I had these cookies bookmarked for a while from Martha Stewart and Patricia. They look too cute to eat, don't they? They were delicious, even without the chocolate and I actually left some plain without the filling. I used the back of a round measuring spoon to make the impressions and not my thumb (the cookies were really hot!!).

Shortbread Cookies

It's getting cooler by the day, the late sunrise and early sunset are just making me so lazy. Most of my days are spent curled with a book and I get up only when I have to. That's the only excuse for my long absences from blogging, plain laziness. Though I love winters, being from Mumbai since I'm not used to very cold weather and it sometimes gets a little unbearable. I'm so grateful for being in California where the weather is not so extreme and I thank God everyday, just thinking of a white winter gives me the creeps:).

I'm not cooking anything special nowadays, but I do miss baking a lot. Last week it was one of my friend's daughter's first birthday and I made these shortbread cookies by Ina Garten, that I had seen in Food Network a while back. The recipe is here.

Just cut them into different shapes...

Fresh out of the oven and of course I've already had a bite...

The cookies were incredibly buttery and delicious, just as she promised. Will surely be making this often.

T&C : Meringue Cookies with Chocolate Swirls

This is the first time I'm participating in Taste & Create, a wonderful event in which participants are paired up and have to create something from their partners blog. For this month, I have been paired with Ivy of Little Ivy Cakes. I was so tempted by so many of her recipes and was unable to make a decision about what to make.

A couple of days back I just wanted to bake something simple that I could serve when Manoj got back from work, when these cookies caught my eye. They were so simple and I knew we would love them as we are real fans of meringue. The cookies were awesome, just as Ivy promised, crisp and crunchy outside and a chewy, marshmallowy texture inside. I halved the recipe, so they were gone in minutes. 

Chocolate Meringue Cookies

Ingredients:

4 egg whites, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup bitter-sweet chocolate (use semi-sweet if you like it to be really sweet)

Method:

Melt the chocolate until smooth and keep aside.

Preheat the oven to 275˚F.

Heat the egg whites and sugar together stirring continuously until quite hot.

Remove from heat and beat the egg mixture till its glossy and forms stiff peaks.

Drizzle the chocolate over the meringue and fold gently to form ribbons of chocolate. Do not stir too much, we don't want to mix in the chocolate.

Drop large spoonfuls on a lined cookie sheet and bake for 35 mins.

Cool completely on a wire rack and store in air tight jars (ie. of you have leftovers).

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Sending these cookies also to 'Event for Eggs' hosted by Sudeshna who is celebrating her blog's first B'day.

Chocolate Chews

Here is another one from Suganya's Tasty Palettes. One look at these cookies and I knew that would try and taste them. 

These Chocolate chews were like a dream come true for a chocolate crazy person like me. They are so incredible chocolaty, a little firm on the outside and gooey and fudgy inside. What more could you ask for. They are almost brownies shaped like cookies. I got 10 out of the recipe. This is definitely something I'm gonna make often. It uses only 1 1/2tbs of butter and is ready in no time. What more could you ask for?

The only change I made was adding some coffee powder for a little mocha flavor. Thanks toSuganya for this awesome recipe. Find it here.

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Sending these cookies to the following events

1. Tried and Tasted hosted by Sweatha. The event was started by Zlamushka.

2. For the Love of Chocolate hosted by me.

3. MBP-Snacks and Savouries hosted by Ashwini, event started by Spice Cafe.

4. EFM : Cookies event hosted by Srilekha.

Almond & Oat Cookies

Cookies are one of my favourite snacks and I always buy the huge box of mixed cookies that we get at Costco. This weekend they were out of stock and if you knew me you would know that such things really irritate me and I'd be grumbling about it for the whole day. 

After lunch as usual I started leafing through one of my baking books when I saw these cookies. They looked so tempting and after the morning incident, there was no need to think twice and off I marched into the kitchen.

The cookies were awesome. They were chewy, the nuts and oats added great flavor and texture. Just my kind of cookies. No more store bought cookies for sure.

Almond & Oat Cookies

Recipe from Cakes and Bakes 500

Ingredients :

(Makes about 18 cookies)

3/4cup butter at room temperature

3/4cup caster (superfine) sugar

1 egg yolk

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1tsp baking soda

1/tsp salt

2/3 cup almonds (chopped)

2/3cups rolled oats

Method : 

Cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.

Mix in the egg yolk.

Sift the flour, baking soda and salt over the butter mixture and stir lightly.

Add the oats and almonds and stir till blended. Do not over-mix.

Chill covered for 15-2omins till firm.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F/ 190˚C. Grease 2 large baking sheets.

Roll the mixture into balls and place on the prepared baking sheet.

Flatten slightly using the base of a floured glass.

Bake until golden, about 10-12mins.

Transfer to a wire-rack to cool completely.

Store in air-tight containers.

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Sending these cookies to the following events:

1. Recipes for the rest of us event hosted by Trupti which was started by Ramki.

2. Sunday Snacks - Grab and Go event hosted by Pallavi.

3. Lets Go Nuts with Almonds event hosted by JZ.

4. EFM : Cookies event hosted by Srilekha.

5. SWC-Meals on Wheels event hosted by Lakshmi.

Chocolate Walnut Bars

I had an irresistible craving to have something chocolate today and half a bar of  Twix from the fridge didn't help at all :). I was all prepared to make some brownies when I saw this recipe in my book 'Cakes and Bakes'. These double-decker bars looked so good I just had to make them and they did satisfy my craving....

Ingredients:

For the base:

1/3cup (50gms) walnuts

1/4 heaping cup (55gms) sugar

1cup all-purpose flour, sifted

6tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

For the topping:

2tbs unsalted butter

6tbs water

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

1/4tsp salt

2 eggs, lightly beaten with a fork

icing sugar, for dusting

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180˚C/ 350˚F. Grease the base and sides of an 8" square pan.

Grind the walnuts with 2tbs sugar to a coarse powder.

Combine the powdered walnuts, remaining sugar and flour in a bowl.

Add the cold butter and rub it in using your finger tips or pulse in a food processor till the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

Pat the mixture evenly into the base of the pan. Bake for 25mins.

In the meantime, for the topping, melt the butter with the water. Add the sugar and cocoa and mix well using a balloon whisk. 

Remove from heat and stir in the salt and vanilla extract and cool for 10mins.

Whisk in the eggs until blended.

Pour the mixture over the baked crust. Return to the oven and bake until set, about 20mins.

Place the pan on a wire rack to cool. Once cold cut into bars and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

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Sending this to 'Let's go Nuts -Walnuts' hosted by Aquadaze.