Occupy My Kitchen
December 22, 2011
Been a good, messy week of baking. Wrapped most of it up tonight, prolly.
Brought back two favorites: Silver Palate’s Butter Balls (or Russian Tea Cookies), which is my all-time favorite cookie (just so you know) and a simple rocky road recipe. (I’d tried a couple different rocky roads this year and went back to a tried and true.) I do these recipes a lot.. they are both so good.
Tried a new almond brittle recipe this week that was very simple, easier than my past Williams-Sonoma peanut brittle recipe (though that was exceptional), but it came out kind of putty colored. It tastes great though, so I think I’m going to try covering (or just dipping) it in melted chocolate tomorrow to distract from the color. We’ll see.
Also tried a new flourless chocolate cookie. Kind of insane. Bittersweet chocolate and ground almonds, mostly. Densest dough ever that you chill overnight then form into balls which you roll in granulated sugar before baking. After baking, you dust with powdered sugar. They come out light and chewy and rich. And are very, very chocolaty.
I was starting to feel badly about adding to people’s holiday stress by baking a bunch of sweets nobody needs. But Jim said nobody would want a tin of carrot sticks. So I shall press on.
Here are a couple pics:
Butter Balls:
Chocolate Cookies (this is the first test batch.. the subsequent batches look better b/c I sifted the sugar over the cookies and baked them on silpat which made their shapes just perfect) :
I’ll show you the candies tomorrow.
Life of Wry 
December 23, 2011 at 12:08 pm
HI KARI! DO YOU SHARE YOUR RECIPES? I DON’T HAVE TRIED AND TRUE ROCKY ROAD CANDY RECIPE!
December 23, 2011 at 1:21 pm
…and your kitchen smelled DELICIOUS yesterday!
December 26, 2011 at 9:04 am
Dianna, thank you. Fun to see you.
Teri, of course, any and all. Here’s the rocky road that’s incredibly simple:
Simple Rocky Road
Time: 5 minutes to prepare; 30 minutes to chill
Makes about 18 pieces
Ingreds:
1 bag of the highest quality chocolate chips you can find. Depending on your taste, either milk chocolate or semi-sweet. One year I tried and even mixed up all kinds of flavors (butterscotch, peanut butter, white chocolate, mint chocolate).
1 full-to-brimming cup of small marshmallows. I’ve used homemade and/or fancy ones, but the easy jet puffed kind work fine, esp if you’re going for easy.
1 cup broken up walnuts. I’ve used all kinds of nuts. Again, choose according to taste.
~~~
1. Melt the chocolate in a large glass container. I use a quart sized measuring cup. This takes about 2-4 minutes, depending on how cold your chips are. I usually do this in 45 second intervals, stirring between.
2. Add the marshmallows and nuts and stir to coat, using a rubber spatula. Should just be a big glob, with the marshmallows and nuts fully coated and not too much chocolate left over.
3. Spread on a sheet of tin foil to about an inch thickness. Helps if the tin foil is on a tray or cookie sheet, then you can easily transfer it to the refrigerator to chill. I’ve also scooped tablespoon-sized pieces and placed them on the foil to avoid the breaking process later, but I’ve found I like the look of broken pieces better.
4. Chill it.
5. After about 30 minutes, it’s set and can be broken into chunks.