Night Baking

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ladygub

on August 07, 2009

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baking fondant

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pretzel kisses

The lovely Nanette made us some of these as a holiday treat, and I was hooked! They are simple, festive, and delicious - you get crunch from the pretzels, smooth chocolate goodness, salt, and sweet all at once. When I started searching for the ingredients, I realized I'd made a modified version of them before with waffle-shaped pretzels, topped with a Hershey's Kiss, with an M&M stuck jauntily into just the tip of the Kiss, but I really wanted to follow Nanette's lead on the adorable look of these. She used melted chocolate which she piped into a round pretzel and topped with an M&M. I wanted to stick with the Kisses and try some of the different flavors, but the round pretzels were a must. Guess what? Nearly impossible to find. No worries; Nanette supplied me with two huge ziploc bags of round pretzels from the 8 pound box she had to buy online. Thanks, Nanette! There's no recipe here. These are easy-peasy. I've made trays and trays of them this season...

different ways to arrange cookies

Part of the fun of serving baked goods is arranging them prettily on a plate. It's best to work with a variety of cookies with different colors, textures, shapes, and/or sizes. I love using old-school paper doilies, but I confess to hating how it looks once the plate is half-empty and the doilies are left with greasy spots and crumbs (ick). It's perfectly fine just to place the cookies directly on a pretty plate (or even a really plain plate, letting the cookies speak for themselves.) You can make great arrangements in concentric circles, building towers, or stacking cookies in sections by type. When I do circles, I like to intersperse a couple of cookies of one type with one or two of another type to add visual interest. Here are a couple of ideas using chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, magic cookies , and salty-sweet butter pecan cookies .

demerara shortbread

I have been on a shortbread kick recently. I love the sandy, crumbly goodness of shortbread squares. Years ago, I worked a booth at a trade show, and in the next booth, they were baking cookies. Right at the booth. And then dipping the shortbread in dark chocolate. Mmm... excuse the reverie... Although I usually prefer a thick, traditional shortbread, I recently tried a King Arthur Flour recipe for Demerara Shortbread. These are thin, crisp, buttery cookies. The dough is rolled into a log, rolled in demerara sugar or sanding sugar, and then chilled, sliced, and baked. I chose this recipe to provide a pop of color to a tray of baked goods for a party, so I used a primarily-red, multicolored sanding sugar. They were actually delicious. My mother-in-law really liked them. My only objection is that I am not a huge fan of crisp cookies. However, the flavor was delicious and the sanding sugar around the edges added a nice crunch. Here's how they looked: Incidentally, these ...

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