melting your mouth

I know, it’s the new year, and everyone’s got all kinds of resolutions to exercise and eat healthier, and the last thing you need is more pictures of delicious sweet things. So, I promise this is the last of the Christmas sweets. This is a traditional yeast bread/cake often made by Moravians, usually at Christmas time, but sometimes other times of the year as well. My mom grew up in the Moravian Church, but doesn’t remember making sugar cake herself until I was little and she made it for the Candle Tea (a kind of church bazaar at Christmastime) at Raleigh Moravian Church in North Carolina. She got the recipe there from Mae Marshall.

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This is another recipe that we always make at Christmas and that I don’t remember having any other time of year. They are a pecan shortbread cookie rolled in powdered sugar (the ones on the left in the picture). I’ve also seen similar cookies by other names, such as Mexican wedding cookies. We make ours in a skinny finger shape though, so we call them nutty fingers or lady fingers.

The recipe makes a bunch, but they are small and tend to go fast. They are slightly more labor intensive than some cookies, but they are absolutely delicious. The recipe comes from my grandmother, who always made them when my mom was growing up.

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This is my mom’s recipe for pecan toffee, which she thinks came from Better Homes and Gardens several years ago. It’s another one of those things that’s special because we only make it at Christmas. Like the Date Rock Cookies, I’m not putting a picture, but they’re on the platter with the Nutty Fingers on that post.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c chopped pecans, divided
1 c sugar
1 c butter, softened
1/3 c water
5 1.55 ounce milk or dark chocolate bars, chopped into small pieces (I prefer dark. And of course, the better the chocolate you use, the better the toffee)

Special Equipment:

Candy thermometer

Line a 15″x10″ jellyroll pan with heavy duty aluminum foil.l Lightly grease the foil. Sprinkle 1 c of the chopped pecans to within 1″ of the edge.

Bring sugar, butter, and 1/3 c water to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly about 12 minutes, or until a candy thermometer reads 300 degrees. This is the “hard crack stage.” You can also check this by dropping a few threads of the candy into a glass of ice water to cool. The threads should then crack when you bend them rather than stretching.

Pour over pecans. Quickly sprinkle with chocolate pieces (so they melt). Let stand 30 s. sprinkle with remaining 1/2 c of pecans. Chill 30 minutes (or until hard) and then break up the toffee into bite size pieces. Store in an airtight container.

This recipe comes from my grandmother Pat, who I think got it from her mother as well. I’m not putting in a picture, as the only one I have is also in the Nutty Finger post. Mom and I often make them for Christmas, although this year we had some that Pat made instead. They are one of Matt’s favorites, and another that we only have at Christmastime. It makes a bunch of cookies, but you can keep the dough in the fridge if you don’t have time to make them all at once. They are a dense chewy cookie with lots of dates, nuts and raisins — delicious!

Ingredients:

1 c butter
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3 eggs
3 c flour
1 t baking soda in 3 T boiling water
1 t cinnamon
1 lb chopped dates
1 lb chopped pecans
1 lb raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix all ingredients together. This will give you mixer a real workout! Drop by teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for about 9 minutes.

Growing up I often asked for a Red Velvet cake for my birthday. One year I remember mom making a version with pepperming icing, with a recipe I think came from Southern Living. I decided to try something like that on my birthday this year, but in miniature form. I made these cupcakes for the “Biochemistry Bake-Off” at work. I didn’t win anything, but I still had fun making them and they turned out pretty well — or at least half of them did. I baked half of them in new silicone muffin tins, and those collapsed to about half the size and pulled away from the edges as soon as I took them out of the oven. So I’m not using silicone muffin tins again! The other ones turned out pretty nicely though. I made a peppermint cream cheese frosting and garnished some of them with grated chocolate and crushed candy canes, and the others with a little bit of chopped peppermint bark I still had left from earlier in the week.

Red Velvet Cake:

1 c butter (softened)
2 c sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 T cocoa
1 T vinegar
2 1/2 c cake flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 c buttermilk
1 t vanilla
1 oz red food coloring

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs and beat until fluffy.
3. Add cocoa to vinegar, and add to creamed mixture.
4. Sift remaining dry ingredients and gradually add to batter.
5. Add buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring.
6. Bake in cupcake wrappers (makes a little more than 2 dozen) or bake in three greased and floured 9″ round cake pans, either way at 350 F for 25 minutes.
7. Let cool completely before icing.

Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 package of cream cheese (4 oz) (softened)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 1-lb. box of powdered sugar
1 t peppermint extract

1. Beat cream cheese and butter.
2. Gradually add sugar, beating until smooth.
3. Add extract and beat until blended.

Ice cupcakes with the peppermint cream cheese frosting. Garnish with grated chocolate and crushed peppermint candy canes, if desired.