Linzer Cookies

Linzer cookies have been on my "to bake" list for ages.  Literally months ago I bought half of the ingredients to make them but never did.  This past December though a co-worker started talking about them and I eagerly accepted a photocopied recipe out of her Parade magazine.  I mean they claimed to win best "rolled out cookie" for 2012.  Worth a try, no?

So when scheduling a baking date with my dear Rachelle (cuz you know, that's what we do) I knew that we had to make these.  She obliged and I think I now have to rename this blog "My Feelings Taste Like Cookies" because I seem to have forgotten how to make anything else this holiday season!

We used the food processor for this recipe, but not the stand mixer.  

Linzer Tart Cookies

Taken from Parade Magazine, December 2012.  
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until sides are golden at 350* 

3/4 c. unsalted almonds
1 1/2 c. sifted flour
1/2 c. butter, at room temp
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tsp lemon zest
1 egg, at room temp
Fruit preserves - any flavor
Confectioners sugar for dusting

Directions:
1. In a food processor, chop nuts and 1/4 c of the flour until fine.
2. In a bowl, combine nut/flour mixture, remaining 1 1/4 c. flour, butter, sugar, zest and egg.  Stir by hand until it turns doughy.
3.  Divide dough into two equal pieces and cover in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
4.  Roll out dough on a floured surface.  Use Linzer cookie cutters to cut out bottom and tops of your sandwich cookies.  You will need an even amount.
5. Bake on parchment paper until sides are golden brown and let cool.
6. Spread fruit preserves on the bottom cookies.  On the tops (the ones with the cut outs), dust with  confectioners sugar.  Sandwich top cookie to bottom cookie.

I sucked at using the cookie cutter by they way.  Rachelle did most of the stamping because I was making messes.  Aren't the baby cut outs cute though?  We used stars and flowers. But like the recipe mentions, they have winter linzer cookie cutters too with things like mittens on them!

For the fruit preserves I  bought apricot-pineapple and boysenberry.  You can use any preserve, but I chose a few little lesson common ones to make things interesting.  I really liked the boysenberry one, personally.

My tip to you is that you can't use enough preserves.  Add more before you sandwich them together.

We rolled out the cookies twice, the last time we couldn't reuse the middle cutouts so Rach decided to bake the few we had -- tiny equals cute people.  

And then we sandwiched them together too -  into teeny tiny bite sized cookies. Literally bite-sized!

Baking dates with Rach are the best.  If we fail, we fail together!  But two sharp minds with pretty solid baking instincts don't fail.  :)

We actually made these back in December but I had't had time to post about them. They came out too pretty not to though!  You can see the specks of lemon zest, the pieces of almonds and of course the preserves peaking out.  And truth be told, I have a thing for scalloped edges.

The stars were the boysenberry.

The flowers were the apricot-pineapple.

Now that the holidays are over I need to stop baking cookies and maybe learn to bake some vegetables.  So next week look for carrots.  Ha, totally kidding.  (Unless it's carrot cake.)

xoxo,
Anna

Aloha! Pineapple Coconut Cupcakes

Last week I posted those Dinosaur  Key Lime Pie cupcakes and promised that there was more coming.  This is what was coming!  These might aesthetically be one of  my favorite cupcakes yet.

I am super proud of these cupcakes, and right off the bat must give credit to my friend Brandon for giving me the idea of an upside down cupcake liner as a hula skirt.  Who knows what I would have come up with if he hadn't suggested this ingenious little idea. 

Taste pretty darn good too!  They are coconut pineapple cupcakes with a light pineapple cream cheese frosting, topped off with toasted coconut and one tiny little flower sprinkle. And the skirts. And the umbrellas.

Coconut Pineapple Cupcakes
Makes 18.  350* for 14 minutes.
Recipe adapted from here.

2 c. flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick  unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 Tbsp. dark rum
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup coconut milk + 3/4 cup sugar mixed in
3/4 cup chopped pineapple from a can, strained, no juice (save juice though)

For brushing:
2 tablespoons rum
2 tablespoons pineapple juice 

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar together in stand mixer.  Add in rum and eggs.
3. In additions, add the flour mixture and the coconut milk mixture into the butter/sugar mixture in the stand mixture.  Begin and end with flour.
4. Fold in chopped pineapple into batter.

(*The recipe I found says to chop it up finely. I love pineapple, so I definitely did not do that. A good thing too, since the cupcakes did not taste like coconut very much, but the pineapple chunks more than made up for it. )
5. Scoop batter into liners and bake, then remove from oven.
6. Before cupcakes are completely cool, use the pineapple juice/rum mixture and brush over the tops of the cupcakes.  If they are still warm, the cupcakes will absorb the flavor and the moisture in almost immediately. 

I had found a recipe that called for the use of pineapple preserves.  I was really excited to try it and spent 2.5 weeks looking for it, going to 5 grocery stores... and nothing.  So i had to use pineapple juice instead.  Then literally 3 days after baking it i went to the Mexican grocery store and found it chilling on the shelf next to the Mexican caramel. *Sighs.  Maybe next time.

Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting
1.5 sticks unsalted butter
1.5 bricks of  cream cheese
2 table spoons pineapple juice
3.5 c powdered sugar
Optional: Food coloring 

Directions:
1. Cream butter and cream cheese together.
2. Add in powdered sugar, 1/2 a cup at a time, and beat in mixer. Half way through, add your pineapple juice
3. Beat until fluffy. 
4. Add in pink food coloring if desired. 
5.  Pipe frosting on top of cupcakes.  I used a 1M Wilton tip on these.

Decorations/Garnish

Toasted coconut flakes
Cake Mate flower sprinkles
Green Wilton cupcake liners
Hawaiin themed colorful cocktail umbrellas

Directions:

1. Toast coconut flakes in oven for 4-5 minutes, until lightly golden brown. Once cool, sprinkle on top of cupcakes.
2. Take your green liners and cut out the middle part -- where the cupcake is supposed to conventionally sit.  Cut up the sides of the liners, but not all the way through.  Tape onto the bottom part of each of your baked cupcakes.

3. Put one flower sprinkle on each cupcake.
4. Place one umbrella on each.

All done!

The toasted coconut was just perfect for these, and complimented the pineapple quite well.

And come on, aren't the skirts and umbrellas adorable together?

If this isn't tropical and Hawaiin I don't know what is.  

I also got to use my cupcake stands!  I put both these and the key lime cupcakes on a little table that had its own hula skirt and dinosaur confetti.  Also, a Tiki guy candle for the birthday girl.  

Miami Vice Dinosaurs in Hawaii Cupcakes?  A success!!!

xoxo,

Anna