national almond day

it was february 17th...

and i missed it.

i love almonds. i seriously love almonds and i missed it.

i'm sorry almonds, i will make it up to you.

world nutella day: nutella cookies

I'm a day late. So sad, but yesterday was World Nutella Day! Of course I had to bake with nutella. So jwoo has two big bottles/jars of nutella and being the nice person I am, I am helping him finish it. :]
This was my first time making Nutella cookies and they turned out well... nice and soft and chewy.
Yum, yum dough. This only made 30 cookies.
They spread out a lot and look pretty perfectly round. Yays.

Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup Nutella or other hazelnut chocolate spread
1 egg
½ tsp. Frangelico (if you have it, if not vanilla will work just fine)
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips (I used white chocolate chips and added almonds)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cream butter with an electric mixer about 1 minute until smooth. Add in both sugars. Beat on high speed about 3 minutes until light & fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

With the mixer on low, add the egg and Frangelico (or vanilla). Then add the Nutella and mix well.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, and mix on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix just until the dough is smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.

Using a small ice cream scoop (or a teaspoon) form the dough into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. To prevent my cookies from spreading too much, I stuck the cookie sheets in the fridge for about 10 minutes before baking, but probably freezer is more effective.

Bake 6-7 minutes (or 7-8 if baking from freezer). Let cookies cool about 5 minutes and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Nutella cookies courtesy of Erin's Food Files

just the clusters, please

Have you guys ever had Trader Joe's Just the Clusters Vanilla Almond Granola? It's a spin off of their popular Vanilla Clusters cereal, but without the flakes. Jeanette introduced me to it, and I'm hooked. It's good by itself, with milk, or with plain yogurt.

TWO of my coworkers tried to steal it from me yesterday. That says something, right?

blueberry + almonds = yummyness

one of my staples for sure.

ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons sugar [i use less than a cup and i like to use brown sugar for half]
• 2 whole large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/4 teaspoon almond extract [i always use more ...mmm vanilla]
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups blueberries (15 ounces)
• 1/2 large egg white [i take some of the egg white from one of the two eggs cause i don't like having an extra yolkness chilling around]
• 1 cup sliced almonds [i use toasted whole almonds and coarsely chop this, i definitely use more than a cup cause i love almonds and its so delicious and gives it texture]

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and butter a 2- to 2 1/2-quart (2 1/4 inches deep) ceramic or glass baking dish.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. [i'm lazy so i don't do it]

3. Beat together butter and 1 1/4 cups sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. [i do this by fork but electric mixer is probably lots faster, but this is my workout :)]

4. Beat in whole eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla.

5. Alternately add flour mixture and milk in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating on low speed after each addition until just incorporated.

6. Fold in berries.

7. Spoon batter into baking dish, spreading evenly. [somehow my mixture is pretty thick and sticky, but it still turns out fine, probably overmix and berries not defrosted all the way]

8. Lightly beat egg white with a fork and add remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and almonds, stirring to coat. [this is a must!! super yummy!]

9. Spoon topping over batter and bake in middle of oven until golden brown and a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour.

10. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes.

this is really easy to make and so good!

blueberry-almond coffeecake recipe courtesy of epicurious

- n

tartness!

yay for harvest thanksgiving! gave me reason to bake :)

i had leftover cranberries... so i decided to make cranberry almond tartlets! i could not find a 9-inch tart pan so i bought 6 4-inch tart pans. they're very cute! having a food processor makes things so much easier. i made this over the course of 3 days since there wasn't enough time. i made the crust first and supposedly it makes 12 4-inch but i only got 6. i must've done something wrong but it turned out alright...

blind baking is scary and the crust slightly shrunk, but it was fine. then i made the filling. caramel is not really my friend. the caramel seized when i added the butter and cream mixture and i heated it, but it was stuck...but most of it was still fine. i mixed it with the frozen cranberries and almonds.

then fill it in the pre-baked shells and bake! as you can see, i overfilled the filling cause there was extra...but its okay...



so overall, i think it turned out right. i liked the tartness of the cranberries against the caramel and the nice crunch from the almonds and the flakiness of the crust. a little complicated and time consuming but good!

cranberry almond tart, recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen

i love tarts. no fear of tarts anymore :)

- n

food is life

i like to bake.

almond pear galette, recipe courtesy of cheri

- n