holy guacamole

A little trick of the trade that I've learnt from my mom, to keep your guacamole from turning black & brown before you're ready to serve it, is keeping the avocado pit in the mix! Works wonders!!

Any tricks you'd like to share?

when you wish upon a star

Dr. Oetker is the German equivalent of Betty Crocker. I have a baking book that my grandma Lucie gave me once a long long time ago, and whenever I do any traditional German baking, this is where I turn to!

Now Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without German Christmas cookies, and one of the traditional cookies that I like to make, even though they're not my personal favorites, are Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars).

And so the recipe from my book reads as follows (translated of course!):

Beat 3 egg whites stiff and add 250g of powder sugar by the spoonful.
Reserve 2 Tablespoons of the mixture to coat the cookies with later on.

Mix the following into the rest of the mixture: 1 packet of vanilla sugar, 3 drops of almond extract, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon and about 1/2 of 275-325g of ground almonds or hazelnuts. Add the rest of the ground nuts progressively until the dough hardly sticks any more. On a flat surface covered with ground nuts or powder sugar, roll out the dough to about 1/2 cm thickness.

Traditionally as these are Cinnamon STARS, you should use a star shaped cookie cutter. Now I am quite traditional, but I also like tradition with a little twist, and so I like to use my SHOOTING star cookie cutter - that way you can make a wish with each cookie you eat!

Place the cut out cookies on a cookie sheet covered with baking paper. With the egg white/powder sugar mix that was set aside, coat each cookie. You may have to add a little bit of water into the mixture to allow you to smoothly brush on the mixture.

Bake at 140°C for about 20-30 minutes. The cookies will still be soft when you take them out and are best kept fresh in a cardboard box once they've cooled.

So what is your favorite Christmas cookie?

pumpkin cheesecake à la mélimélo

Come Thanksgiving I always have a hard time deciding which dessert to make, so I've actually resorted to making all 3 of my choices, but in miniature size so you can have a bit (or a bite) of each...

{2010}

I always get a special request for Pecan Pie and I like making Carrot Cake or Spice Cake, but my favorite is Pumpkin Cheesecake! I made this the first time when I was studying in Hartford, CT and we did a trip to a pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins with my roommate.

In France it's not easy to get canned pumpkin (unless you're willing to pay tons at specialty stores), but I also think it's more fun to use fresh pumpkin. What I do is at Halloween, when we carve out all of the pumpkins to make Jack'O'Lanterns, I puree the pumpkin and then freeze it until Thanksgiving - no waste of good pumpkin!!

I couldn't find the recipe I used back then, so a quick online search lead me to The Joy of Baking where I found a perfect recipe.

Now I was thinking about the crust....

In London there's a chain of restaurants that I love called Wagamama's and they have a White Chocolate Ginger Cheesecake on the menu that I always have to save room for. I love the kick that the ginger spice gives to the cheesecake. So, thinking about what I could use to get something similar I had the idea of making and using Gingersnaps for the crust of my Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes.

I used the following recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook:

1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup molasses (I used honey as molasses are hard to find here...)
1 egg
2 1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinammon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
Granulated sugar

Mix brown sugar, shortening, molasses and egg. Stir in flour, baking soda and spices.
Cover & refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Heat oven to 375°F/190°C. Shape rounded teaspoonfuls into balls. Dip tops in granulated sugar.
Place balls sugared sides up, about 3 inches apart & bake until set about 10-12 minutes.
Immediately remove from cookie sheet and let cool.

Now, the dishes I use for my mini Cheesecakes are actually IKEA candle holders, but they were the exact size I was looking for to make my dessert - I made my gingersnaps just the right size so they would fit into them perfectly.

The result was pretty perfect!
The gingersnaps could have had a tad more ginger in them, but the texture was just right for the crust and one cookie was great for the thickness of the crust.

{2011}

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving too...

What's your favorite Thanksgiving dessert?