12 Days of Christmas Treats Day 7: Russian Tea

     Russia has a very rich tea culture.  According to Wikipedia, nearly 82% of Russians drink tea daily.  They drink tea from fancy teapots, they have intricate brewing methods, they use really cool special tea cups.  But they don't drink Russian Tea.  Just like fortune cookies, garlic bread, and tortilla chips, Russian tea is an American invention.  A delicious one.  A lot of the recipes you'll find online include Tang and lemonade mix.  Uh.  Gross much?  Growing up we made it with black tea and orange juice.  We drank it at Christmastime.  I liked it so much, I made a cookie out of it a couple of years ago.  There are a lot of recipes online that make party size portions, but I often like to make one for myself in the morning, so here is an individual serving portion.

Russian Tea
Serves One

1 C brewed black tea
3 Tbs orange juice
2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Brew a cup of tea, add juice, sugar, cloves and cinnamon.  Stir and enjoy warm or cold.

Review:
My boys aren't big fans.  They prefer their tea to include milk and chocolate and exclude tea, but I love this and I expect other sweet tea fans will, too.

12 Days of Christmas Treats Day 6: Thumbprint Cookies

     Look out!  Ya'll are about to get Rich Rolled.  This time you'll not be getting unexpectedly serenaded by an 80's crooner, you'll be devouring loads of tasty jam-filled cookies.  These are another of the last-minute phone call to Dad cookies.  They also came from the Better Homes New Cookbook by Meredith Press copyright 1965.  I used a jar of mixed fruit jam I made in the Summer, but any pretty jam will do.  In fact, you can swap out the jam for a Hershey's Kiss if that's the kind of tune your taste buds like to dance to.

Rich Rolled Cookie

Yield: 44 cookies

1 C butter

2/3 C sugar

1 egg

2 ½ C sifted flour

½ tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp jam per cookie

Cream butter sugar and egg. In a smaller bowl sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture and combine thoroughly. Add vanilla. Chill dough 3-4 hours before rolling (or about 30 minutes in the freezer). Roll balls, press cookies in the center with a finger or thumb, use 1/4 tsp jam to fill the print.  Bake at 350° 8-10 min or until slightly colored.

Review:

My family loves these!  Yours will, too. 

12 Days of Christmas Treats Day 5: Peanut Butter Cookies

     Can I just say that my Dad is a saint?  Every Christmas that I've been doing the 12 Days for you guys, my Dad gets a phone call at the last minute from his frazzled daughter begging him to look through Mom's old cookbooks and recipe box for weird cookies he doesn't even remember eating half the time.  The recipe box never seems to have anything in it I'm looking for and the cookbooks have terrible tables of contents with mislabeled page numbers.  One even has a recipe title listed in the index that isn't actually in the book at all.  This cookie, though, everybody remembers because it's delicious.  I have modified it a bit from its 1965 beginnings to reflect my preferences (butter instead of shortening, etc), but it's still a delicious cookie your friends and family will love.

Peanut Butter Cookie 

From Better Homes New Cookbook 

by Meredith Press 1965

Yield: almost 6 dozen

1 C butter, softened

1 C sugar

1 C brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 C peanut butter

2 C sifted flour

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Cream butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.  Add peanut butter.  Sift dry ingredients together, stir in.  Drop by rounded spoonfulls, make a criss-cross pattern on the top of each cookie with floured fork.  Bake at 350° for 10 min.

Review:

These are crispy and crunchity and peanut buttery and you will like them.

12 Days of Christmas Treats Day 4: Panettone

     My husband and I, like many people, aren't the biggest fans of fruitcake.  A few years ago, we bought a panettone at Costco one Christmas.  It was the yummiest white bread we ever had with a tiny bit of dried fruit.  The heavenliest, softest, perfectest fruit cake ever invented for infinity.  Cut a piece off, put it in the toaster and slap a little butter on it.  Best breakfast in the entire world.  It never even occurred to me to make my own until I saw panettone papers in a specialty shop.  The angels above opened their heavenly throats and warbled a melodious tune.  Or maybe that was me singing to myself in the baking row.  Only the security cameras can tell for sure.  I found this delicious recipe for panettone on King Arthur Flour.  I modified the fruit amounts somewhat and have adjusted the cooking time to make some mini panettones for sharing!  This recipe uses a biga, which is a quick, overnight starter culture, it helps develop the flavor of a good dough.  Trust me, the extra time is worth it.

Mini Panettone
Yield: 8

Biga (Overnight Starter)
3/4 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/16 teaspoon yeast (just a pinch)
1/3 cup water

Dough
all of the biga 

2 1/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/4 cup warm water
2 large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp orange extract

1/8 tsp lemon extract
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast OR 1 tablespoon instant yeast
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup dried currants
1/4 cup chopped dried pineapple
1 tablespoon orange zest

1 tablespoon lemon zest

The Biga: Combine the biga ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl, cover, and allow them to rest overnight (8 to 12 hours).

Dough: Combine all of the dough ingredients except the fruit, and mix and knead them together—by hand, mixer or bread machine—till you've made a soft, smooth dough. Allow the dough to rise, covered, for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until it's puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk). Gently deflate the dough, and knead in the fruits and zest.

Divide dough into 8 mini panettone cups.  Place cups on a baking sheet and cover with a sheet of plastic wrap.  Let the dough rise till it's just crested over the rims of the cups.  (It took mine three hours, but it could take much less time if your house is warmer than mine...)

Bake the bread in a preheated 400°F oven for 5 minutes; reduce the oven heat to 375°F and bake an additional 5 minutes; then reduce the heat to 350°F and bake for 10-15 minutes, tenting with aluminum foil if the crust appears to be browning too quickly. Remove the panettone from the oven and cool completely.  You'll know they're done when you thump the bottom and it sounds hollow.

Review:
This is great with mulled orange juice or a cup of coffee.  My kids aren't big fans, so this might be a more adult recipe.  I don't know about you, but I'm OK with that.

12 Days of Christmas Treats Day 3: Mulled Orange Juice

     When my brother and I were growing up, we didn't have much in the way of family nearby.  Our Grandparents lived 300 miles away.   Our closest Uncle was nearly 600.  We had a few third cousins around but they were usually busy with their own Uncles and Grandparents during the holidays.  This meant my Mom was free to set up any darn traditions she wanted.  And she was good at it.  To add humidity to the air and make the house smell lovely in the weeks preceding Christmas, Mom would simmer oranges, cinnamon, and cloves on the stove. We also made pomanders on occasion.  Yesterday, I mentioned our yearly Christmas Eve ritual. 

      I have also told the story of sitting with my Mom on Christmas Day waiting for the rest of the family to wake up, savoring the last predawn moments watching the tree, listening to Christmas music, and drinking a warm drink. Mom used to heat up a bunch of different juices. We had warm cranberry juice, warm grape juice, hot apple juice (of course), but her favorite to make around Christmas time was mulled orange juice.

     Mulled Orange Juice uses the same spices as her simmer fragrance and smells just like Christmas to me. Mom made hers with ground spices in the microwave using “a little of this, a little of that” but the ground spices always ended up sinking leaving a spice sludge at the bottom. This way, you get the flavor without the ick.

Christmas Mulled Orange Juice

Serves 4 (scales easily, can be made individually in the microwave also)

5 C orange juice

1 tsp whole cloves

2 sticks cinnamon

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Boil orange juice, cloves, and cinnamon for about 5 minutes until it takes on the flavor of the spices. Fish the cloves and cinnamon out with a slotted spoon or pour though a strainer. Portion into serving mugs and top with a smidge of nutmeg.

Note:
I have discovered that using high pulp orange juice clogs the strainer; a low or no pulp juice is really the way to go with this.

Shapow!! Bonus Craft!

Pomanders

1. Tie ribbon around orange like wrapping a package
2. Use a toothpick to make a pilot hole
3. Poke a clove into it
4. Repeat 3 and 4 until you have the pattern you like
5. Allow to air dry, checking for mold

These will keep for a long time if properly dried. Buy cloves in bulk if you can find them, they can get pricy paying baking isle prices!  This is a great craft for little guys.  Mine had fun making patterns and faces and since we used tangerines, we got some coverage before their attention span wore out.

12 Days of Christmas Treats Day 2: Cheese Ball

     On Christmas Eve every year, we continue a tradition my Mom started when I was a kid. We sit in the dark, listen to Christmas music, sing carols, read the Bible, and eat like it's going out of style. When I was a kid, a never ending parade of homemade cookies marched into our bellies followed by multiple eggnog chasers. When my husband and I were first married, I wanted to continue the tradition, but I knew that Christmas Eve was going to be when my hubby wrapped all my gifts. So I made him a tray. It had a cheese ball, crackers, and sausages as well as a few cookies because I had arranged to be out for a few hours with a friend to give him some privacy and since it was dinnertime, he'd need some nourishment.  Over the years, the cookie tray has reverted to a more cookie-centric theme, but the cheese ball has stayed. My husband absolutely loves cheese balls. That first year, I bought one from a store, never having actually eaten one before. Once I got a mouthful though, I realized that in the future, homemade was the way to go.   I've made several recipes through the years, but this is the one I've come to like best.

Easy Cheese Ball

Yield: 1 Ball

8 oz cream cheese, softened (I like Beecher's Blank Slate*, but regular cream cheese will do)

1 1/2 C shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 heaping Tbs green onions, greens and whites (about 1 green onion)

1/8 tbs finely chopped rosemary

1/4 C Sliced almonds

Combine cream cheese, cheddar cheese, onion, and rosemary, mixing well until thoroughly combined.  (Hands work best for this.)  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, up to two days.  Form cheese mixture into a ball and roll to coat in almonds.

*Beecher's is a local cheese maker, though they do now have some shops in New York.  If you are using Beecher's, use a medium cheddar, since it is a little stronger than most cream cheese.

This same recipe makes about a dozen mini cheese balls which are delicious rolled in finely chopped pecans and served with a pretzel stick.  Do not insert pretzels until just before serving as they can get soggy in the fridge.

Review:

This is a nice ball, not too overpowering but still very flavorful.  Tweak it by adding some thyme or a little honey.  I've even had a cheese ball with pineapple in it which is pretty good, too!  Oh, and this just happens to go perfectly with the homemade Ritz crackers from yesterday!

12 Days of Christmas Treats Returns!! Day 1: Crackers?!

Hi Guys!!!

     Welcome back to the 12 Days of Christmas! This year, I'm branching out of just cookies, and giving you some more savory treats for your cookie tray. There will still be cookies, so don't worry, but today I thought I'd start with a cracker. About time a blog called “Crackers on the Couch” included a cracker recipe, wouldn't you say? I'll be using these crackers a few times during this series, so make a bunch and keep them in an airtight container. (If they get a little soggy, you can crisp them in the oven at 400° for about 4 minutes.) This recipe came from Crackers and Dips: More than 50 Homemade Snacks by Ivy Manning. Bear with me, this looks like a crazy complicated recipe, but it's actually really simple.

Recipe:

Yield: 50 crackers

4 Tbs chilled unsalted butter

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp fine sea salt

2 tsp barley malt syrup* or dark corn syrup

1 Tbs vegetable oil

½ C water

1 egg beaten with 1 Tbs water

1 tsp kosher salt

*You can find barley malt syrup (a.k.a. barley malt extract) at beer making supply shops. You may have to buy a bunch of it, but it really does help add to the authentic flavor of these.  You can also find it on Amazon from several sellers.

Cut the butter into ¼ inch chunks and place in the freezer while combining the dry ingredients. In a food processor or large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and sea salt and pulse or whisk to combine. Add the butter and pulse or cut the butter into the flour using a pastry cutter or your fingers until the butter is in tiny pieces and the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal, about 15 one-second pulses.

In a small bowl, whisk together the barley malt syrup, vegetable oil, and ½ C of the water, stirring to dissolve the malt extract. Gradually add the water mixture to the food processor or bowl, pulsing or mixing with a wooden spoon to combine. Gather up the dough into a ball, flatten into a disk, cover in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days.

Preheat the oven to 400° F. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is 1/16 inches thick, picking up the dough occasionally and rotating it to make sure it's not sticking to the work surface. Using a round scalloped cookie cutter, cut the dough into 2 ½ inch rounds; reserve the scraps.

Fill one baking sheet with crackers, spacing them about ½ inch apart. Brush the crackers lightly with the beaten egg and then prick the crackers several times with a fork (a spoke pattern adds visual appeal). Sprinkle the crackers sparingly with some of the kosher salt and bake for 4 minutes; rotate the pan from back to front. Reduce the oven temperature to 375° F and continue to bake until the crackers are light golden brown and firm to the touch, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Return the oven temp to 400° F and repeat the process with the remaining dough and scraps, baking the crackers one baking sheet at a time.

Review:

These are a nice cracker! They taste very much like Ritz crackers, but without all the extra garbage associated with a store-bought snack.  Hope you guys are as excited as I am for this years 12 Days of Christmas Treats!