Holiday Baking

It's Christmas Eve! The weather's cold, there's a speckle of snow on the ground outside, and the forecast says more is on its way. It looks like it's going to be a festive, white Christmas this year. As such, I have more holiday recipes to share with you. Wishing you all a lovely happy holidays!

Green Roulade | Cornbread Muffins | Fruitcake Mini-muffins | Gingerbread snaps

Gingerbread Snaps

This is one of my holiday recipes this year. Find the other ones here: 

Green Roulade | Fruitcake Mini-muffins | Cornbread Muffins

Gingerbread Snaps

Honestly, I hadn't planned for these to be snap cookies. I was aiming for more of a chewy soft cookie, but I guess I rolled them too thin, and they came out from the oven snappier than I thought they would. After they cooled, they became tender crisp, almost like a shortbread texture. So I guess I really made some sort of ginger-short-bread. 

The Recipe

Dry ingredients: 

• 1 cup barley flour
• 1/4 cup oat bran
• 1/4 cup teff flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:

• 1/4 cup milk (any fat content is OK, I used skim)
• 1 egg white (or about 2.5 tbsp liquid eggs)
• 3 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 3 tbsp very light margarine (not meant for baking, but I think it contributed to my lucky accident)
• 2 tbsp light cream cheese
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1–2 tsp fresh, ground ginger
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom (optional)

Sift and stir together dry ingredients. Heat butter, margarine, and cream cheese to melt. Stir in sugar, ginger, and cardamom. Whisk in milk. Add egg white and whisk to mix. Pour over flour mixture and stir to form dough. Roll out into a thin layer, between 1/8 and 1/16 inch (or about 2 mm) thick. Cut out into gingerbread man shapes (or whatever shapes you desire), and bake in a 325 °F (~160 °C) oven for 6 - 8 minutes until top surface is matte and colour is slightly paler than dough. Allow to cool on a rack and decorate to make your gingerbread men come alive!

Note: for larger cookies, make sure to dock them with a fork or a docking wheel, before baking to prevent odd air pockets from forming. 

Measured out flour mixture - teff flour on top

Gingerbread men and women cut-outs

Baked cookies. Wish I could convey smells via Blogger. 

A cheerful looking plate, wouldn't you say?

Thought I'd show you some more of my icing fun. I just used a royal icing recipe. For the green icing, I added a bit of matcha green tea powder, and for the pink icing, I replaced the water with blackberry juice. 

Fruitcake Mini-muffins

This is one of my holiday recipes this year. Find the other ones here: 

Cornbread Muffins | Green Roulade | Gingerbread Snaps

Fruitcake Mini-muffins
These aren't exactly like the fruitcake you see in supermarkets, with the green and red cherries. They're more like a clafoutis scooped into mini-muffin tins, or a loaded, muffin-shaped fruit and nut pancake. Anyway, it got my family's thumbs-up, so I thought maybe you would like it too. I don't add a lot of sugar because the dried fruits have tons anyway. 

The Recipe
Dry ingredients:

• 1/2 cup barley flour
• 1/4 cup teff flour
• 1 tbsp coconut flour
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:

• 2 whole eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tbsp melted butter

Fruits and nuts (feel free to make your own substitutes):

• 1 medium apple
• 1 tbsp butter 
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, diced
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries, chopped 
• 1/2 cup toasted almonds, chopped
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts, chopped

Peel and dice apple. Sauté in 1 tbsp butter and cinnamon until apples are cooked and some of the water content has evaporated. Set aside to cool. Sift and stir together dry ingredients. Add fruits and nuts and stir to make sure everything is coated in flour. Mix all wet ingredients together and add to flour and fruit mixture in one go. Stir to combine. Spoon into lined mini-muffin tins and bake at 350 ºF (175 ºC) for 10 to 12 minutes. Toothpick should come out clean. 

Dried fruits and sautéed apple.

Chopped walnuts and almonds.

Before baking.

After baking. I couldn't get a better picture of them – they were devoured before I could get a better shot.

Cornbread Muffins

This is one of my holiday recipes this year. Find the other ones here: 

Green Roulade | Fruitcake Mini-muffins | Gingerbread Snaps

Cornbread Muffins

The Recipe (makes 1 dozen)

Dry ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup coarse grind cornmeal (#120 grind)
• 1/2 cup wheat bran
• 1/2 cup barley flour
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp tumeric powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Wet ingredients:

• 2 eggs, separated
• 1 tbsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk

Fillings (feel free to use substitutes of your choice):

• 3/4 cup diced mozzarella cheese
• 3/4 cup small diced orange bell pepper
• 1/2 cup canned cream corn
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 thin turkey pepperettes, diced
• 1 jalapeño pepper, minced

Sift and stir dry ingredients together. Add fillings and stir so that everything is coated in flour. Add milk and stir to get even mixture. Beat egg whites, sugar, and salt until medium peaks form. Fold whites into flour & fillings mixture, scoop into lined muffin tins and bake at 350 ºF (175 ºC) for 15 to 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Now sit back and enjoy!

Egg whites

Cornbread batter

Freshly baked cornbread

Still good the following day

I melted some mozzarella in a small bowl and dipped my muffin into it. Mozzarella "frosted" cornbread muffin. 

Green Roulade

This is one of my holiday recipes this year. Find the other ones here: 

Cornbread Muffins | Fruitcake Mini-muffins | Gingerbread Snaps

Green Roulade (pictures below)
The idea for this recipe came from a recipe for a ham and spinach roulade in one of my favourite cookbooks: The Viennese Kitchen. 

The Recipe: 
Ingredients for cake: 

• 1 1/2 cup chopped kale
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/2 cup cold milk (any fat content is OK)
• 1/3 cup barley flour
• 2 tbsp butter (don't need to pre-melt)
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

Wash kale and drop into boiling water to cook for about 3 minutes. Drain and put into food processor or blender. Quickly add cold milk and butter to kale, and process or blend. Add chopped parsley and black pepper, and process or blend again. Transfer to another bowl and stir in flour. Set aside. 

In a large clean bowl, beat egg whites with the sugar and salt until you get medium peaks. Whisk about 1/3 of the egg whites into the green mixture first. Then gently fold in the rest of the egg whites. Spread in an even layer into a lined 9 by 13 inch jelly roll tin and bake for 325 °F (165 °C) for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let cool for 1 minute (and admire the beautiful pale light green surface and dark green speckles :-) Roll into a log shape along the short side with the parchment paper to let the shape set in. Parchment paper should face the outside. I followed this rolling technique. Allow to cool completely and make the filling in the meantime. 

Ingredients for filling:

• 1 large avocado (dark skin ones)
• 2 tbsp softened cream cheese
• 1 tbsp Miracle Whip or mayo
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 small can (57 mL) tomato paste

Heat tomato paste thoroughly on stovetop and allow to cool. This step is purely precautionary because food processors may not expect canned tomato paste to be eaten without cooking. Peel and chop avocado. Mix with sour cream, Miracle Whip, and lemon juice, making sure avocado is completely coated in dressing. 

Gently unroll cooled roulade and remove the parchment paper. Spread tomato paste in one layer over top surface, leaving just over 1 inch (or about 3 cm) of border on all sides. Add avocados in one layer over the tomato paste. Gently roll up cake again, but without the parchment paper this time. Allow cake to set in the fridge for a few hours before slicing. 

Beautiful, vibrant, magical-looking pureed greens.

Rolled up and cooling.

Probably should have let it set for a while longer, but this is tasty nonetheless. 

Checkerboard Tea Wafers

If you've been doing any shopping lately, you must have seen how packed all the malls, department stores, and superstores are. I don't just mean packed with people in the line-ups. I mean, the parking lots are full; drivers are hastily dropping off passengers to get a head start in the store; and the aisles and shelves are stacked to the ceiling with products. Not to mention those huge, brightly coloured "sale" signs everywhere. Although I consider holiday shopping more fun than stressful, I look forward to a hot cup of tea after. What better to go with the tea than these tea cookies? They are thin and crispy like a wafer, and flavoured with two of my favourite kinds of tea: earl grey and green tea. I didn't want to mix the flavours, so I decided to do a checkerboard design. 

The Recipe: 
Sift and stir dry ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup wheat bran
• 1/3 cup chapati flour 
• 1/4 cup defatted soy flour
• 3 tbsp white sugar (if you prefer sweeter, you can add more, or dust with icing sugar after baking, or add a glaze)
• 1 tsp instant dry yeast 
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp crushed earl grey tea leaves (or 1 tsp matcha green tea powder)

Wet ingredients: 

• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 whole egg
• 2 tbsp butter

Melt butter and add to milk. Crack in the egg and whisk to get a fairly even mixture. Stir into flour mixture until a dough ball forms. Dough should be soft, almost like a bread dough. Wrap or cover and place in a warm place to let rise. In another bowl, repeat the recipe, but add 1 tsp matcha green tea powder. Allow both doughs to rest and rise for about 30 minutes. Roll out both pieces of dough in one layer to 1/8" (just less than 0.5 cm) thickness. Dough will be soft (this helps with rise and wafer texture) so dust with flour as needed. Cut out into a grid of squares. Go for any size you like here. Arrange squares in a checkerboard pattern on a lined baking sheet with edges just touching each other. Cut out large rounds with a cookie cutter. At this point, you can remove the scraps to just get the perfect circles, but I couldn't bring myself to waste the effort of lining them up, so I just left them there. They snap off easily after baking anyway. 

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 – 20 minutes. Allow to cool on a rack and enjoy!

Note: You can cut into strips or make the two cookies separately (and have a bite of each at a time) if you wish. Green tea powder can also be found in Chinese supermarkets or tea shops. 

Dry ingredients for green tea cookies

Checker arrangement. I didn't figure to do this on the baking tray and had to flip this over. 

Fresh baked checkerboard tea cookies. 

Checkerboard tea cookies

Coconut Angel Cake

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Are you just about to begin the annual marathon of rich, decadent holiday feasts? Or perhaps you've already begun, like I have? Here, I have a recipe for a light interlude to keep our spirits (and perhaps body) light: a coconut angel food cake. Let's not wait for the summer to enjoy coconut and angel food cake. A dash of cinnamon gives this cake a welcoming warmth.

The Recipe:
Sift together dry ingredients:

• 1/3 cup coconut flour
• 2 tbsp defatted soy flour
• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp ground flaxseed (optional, stir after sifting others if adding)

Wet ingredients:

• 6 egg whites (separated from fresh raw eggs, best if left at room temperature)
• 4 tbsp white sugar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar (for flavour and moisture)
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (stabilizes egg white structure)

Measure out white sugar and stir in cream of tartar so that it is evenly distributed. In a large, clean bowl, beat egg whites until it comes to a soft peak. Add white sugar, a tablespoon at a time, while beating. Continue to add brown sugar, again, a tablespoon at a time. Continue beating until you get a medium peak. Carefully fold in sifted dry ingredients with a large spatula, stopping when you don't see clumps of flour anymore. You can fold it all in at once or separate into two batches. Scoop into an un-greased, 8 by 4 inch (or 20 cm by 10 cm) loaf tin, even out the top, and bake at a 325 °F (~165 °C) oven for 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Flip loaf tin upside down to cool for 15-20 minutes before removing from pan and slicing. If your tin does not have "feet", you can let it rest in a round bowl that's slightly wider than 8 inch diameter so that the cake surface is not touching anything but air can circulate. Slice and enjoy when cooled. 

Measured out dry ingredients before sifting

Egg whites beat to medium peak with sugars and cream of tartar

Cooled loaf cake

Here's how the structure and texture looks inside 

It's not exactly fat free because there is some fat in the coconut flour and soy flour (and in the flaxseed if you are using it), but it's much lower than that in pound cakes but no less flavourful. You can add a sugar glaze or sprinkle with icing sugar if you like. Happy holidays!