Christmas cookies with a snowy crackle

Warning: This recipe can make you have mouth orgasms!

Kind of like a black forest cake in one bite.
These cookies are soft and chewy, chocolatey and cherry with a light dusting of white icing sugar on top. They take about 20 min total if you've done this kind of thing before and a bit more if you are sloppy in the kitchen. Total baking time 12 - 15 min! Makes more than 3 dozen little cookies =;)

Since many of you have tried these and some have asked for the directions..... I'm going to give it here for future reference. I will be making them as I write this to bring them to a solstice pot luck at Motion Gallery tonight!

What you will need to make them:

A large bowl,
a silicone spatula or wooden spoon,
a small wire sifter,
measuring cups (1/2 cup, 1/3 cup, and  1 cup)
and measuring spoons (1/2 tsp ands 1 tsp)
An oven set to 380 degrees (180 C.)
Baking sheets with parchment paper

I make a small drink with some maraschino cherry syrup, some of the rum and some San Pelligrino as I bake ;)

Ingredients:


1/3 cup melted and cooled unsalted butter
1 cup sugar*
2 Eggs
1 tsp Pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup sifted cocoa powder 
1 & 1/2 cup all purpose powder (sifted if needed)
1 tsp. Baking powder (NOT baking soda boys!)
Pinch of salt
2/3 cup or about 150g of coarsely chopped dark bakers chocolate 
1/3 cup of dried cherries** (mine were given to me by Richard Reeves from Creston B.C.)
1/3 cup maraschino cherries** and 1 tsp of their juice
Enough sifted icing sugar to coat (say 1/2 cup)


*You can use your own sweetener mix if you don't want to use pure sugar using maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, agave nectar, stevia etc.

** If you don't have either of these cherries, you can use other dried fruit or use candied cherries from the super market.

Directions:


1) Prep your space: 
     Lay out parchment on a few baking sheets and turn on your oven to 380 F (180 C.)


2) Get out a large bowl and mix 'wet' ingredients:
     Mix together the room temp butter, the eggs, sugar/sweetener and vanilla together.


3) Blend in the dry ingredients:
     Put a sifter over the bowl and blend in the cocoa powder, flour baking powder and salt

3) Mix in the goodies that make the cookies awesome:
     Chop the chocolate chunks and cherries and add to the cookie dough until evenly distributed. 

4) Roll the dough in to balls and coat:
     Roll in your hands small balls just over an inch big or use a small scoop, try to make them all the same so they cook for the same amount of time.


5) Coat in icing sugar:
     Toss the cookie dough balls into the sifted icing sugar to coat.

6) Place and bake:
     Place the balls evenly spaced on the cookie sheets and bake for 12 - 15 min. 


7) Meanwhile while cookies are baking, clean up!

8) When the timer goes off, Take out and cool.


9) Eat, share & enjoy ! ! !

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Thanksgiving dinner

As all of you know, I post to this blog for artistic creation. But the next most important thing in my life is eating well. My addiction to buying an using art supplies and a true love of it is well documented, following that and books (which are less often bought cause they take longer to read than an apple takes to eat) but the next best thing I create and every day is FOOD!  I think eating well is super duper important indeed! One of the great things my mom passed down onto me. Just try to cook as good as she does, just try! One of my closest friends KT also spent the whole long week-end working. So I thought I'd fix us up a delicious dinner tonight for Thanksgiving dinner.

DISCLAIMER:  The photos here may  DO NOT do justice to how good this food tastes!!!!

 This is a picture after cutting into the apple, smoke bacon and Italian sausage stuffed pork chops (far right) To the left is Sweet Potato poutine.

 Since it is Thanksgiving I had to make pumpkin pie, but instead of a pie I did up these little home made muffin tin sized pies so I could share them easily. The filling was light soft custard and all the herbs and spices were hand ground in my mortar and pestle.

 My theme was "P"...... Pork and poutine ;) This is the plate from above with Parsley garnish. I polished mine off but it was so much food, KT needed tupperware for her left overs.

 After searing each stuffed chop on each side I poured the remaining filling and covered to braise in some apple juices. It looks brown and mushy but it tasted heavenly!

 Yam fries being deep fried. I think this oil is spent. I soaked the hand cut yam chips for about an hour in ice cold water before spinning them dry in my salad spinner.

 Here is the start of the stuffing project, in the cast iron pan are onions, bacon, Italian sausage, thyme and my secret ingredient (not so secret anymore........... candied fennel seeds, to bring out the fennel flavor of the Italian sausage an ad to the sweetness of the apples). To the right are the apples to be added later and some shallots that I had to chop up for my special poutine gravy. I made a roux with whole wheat flour and butter and added the shallots and spices to chicken stock I made last week. I reduced it by half and it was packed with flavor. The cheese curds came from the cheese lady att eh Crossroads market. Sweet potato poutine = Yum!