Ginger Crinkles Dipped in White Chocolate

It is snowing here today, and we are beginning to feel that "cozy, holiday feeling". Steve and I are still hard at work with the kitchen remodel. We are thinking by tomorrow we will be able to wrap it all up... at least for the most part and hoping to have everything ready in time for Thanksgiving. Today I am up at our cozy little cottage making and baking a few things for Thanksgiving, while Steve is at our house working on hanging trim and cabinet doors. Thought I would share a favorite Holiday Cookie Recipe with you, since I am in the process of making a batch.

Years ago, a friend gave me a variation of this recipe in her Christmas card. It has been a favorite of ours ever since. I loved how she included it in her Christmas card, and I have thought of her every time I make this cookie. I thought it would be nice to make it this year for part of the Thanksgiving table. I added the white chocolate as a little extra pizazz. It tastes wonderful that way.

As usual, I have given the recipe a bit of a makeover, using whole wheat flour, and unrefined sugars. It tastes every bit as good and moist this way. Enjoy.

 

Ingredients

1. 2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2. 1 teaspoon cinnamon
3. 1/4 teaspoon cloves
4.  1 1/2 teaspoon ginger
5. 2 teaspoons baking soda
6. 1/2 teaspoon real salt or Himalayan salt
7. 1 cup Sucanat (whole unrefined sugar), Evaporated cane juice, or Coconut Sugar
8. 3/4 cup butter, melted
9. 1/4 cup  molasses
10. 1 egg
11. Organic granulated sugar for rolling cookie dough balls (about 1/4 cup)
12. 1 cup white chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Mix together flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix melted butter, sugar, molasses and egg until combined.
4. Add the dry mixture to the molasses mixture and mix until just combined. .
5. Roll into balls.
6. Roll each ball in organic sugar. 
7. Place on cookie sheet.
8. Bake 10-12 minutes until just set, but not hard
9. Cool Completely
10. While cookies are cooling, melt white chocolate in a double boiler.
11. Dip  each cookie  in the melted white chocolate until it covers a little over half way.
12. Lay  each on parchment paper and allow to rest until white chocolate is hardened again.

Enjoy!

Homemade White Chocolate

During Marie's visit in August, I got it into my head to try my hand at making white chocolate.

We were about to get some white chocolate chips for a recipe she was making for Zane's birthday and after reading the ingredient list decided to forget that (made mostly of hydrogenated oils... and where was the cocoa butter... which is really  the substance of white chocolate ) ; we opted to get white chocolate at the health food store instead. They didn't have white chocolate chips there, but they had white chocolate bars, so we snagged one for the recipe as a replacement to the chips.  The Chocolate bars  were wonderful, but not cheap, so we thought lets try making it.  It really is one of the easiest experiments I have ever done.  Here are the ingredients in a nut shell: Cocoa Butter, Organic Powdered Sugar, Powdered Milk and Vanilla or Vanilla Bean.  It takes 5 minutes to make, and tastes just like you know White Chocolate should.  Another nice thing is you can increase or decrease the sugar to your own liking.

Russell, Olga and Eddie are the big white chocolate eaters in our family; the rest of us prefer your basic milk or dark chocolate, but I do really enjoy adding white chocolate chips to various baked goods.  After trying my hand at this I decided I'd like to make our own Christmas chocolates this year; both white and dark chocolates, as well as chocolate chips. If I order on-line, in bulk, I found that it was a good deal cheaper than from the healthfood store;  It will also be nice to provide a healthier version of our Christmas candy.

"Cocoa Butter, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"

 The Cocoa Butter wafers look good enough to eat.

But at this point, they have no sugar in them, so they are not so yummy yet.

All they need is to be melted together with some sugar, powdered milk and vanilla....

Poured into molds..... and then they are good enough to eat.  I found my molds at Hobby Lobby.  This mold works as a chocolate chip mold for me

 Pretty little white chocolate chips.....awe.

I also lightly, roasted some nuts, and added them to some of the white chocolate.

I made these little nutty buddies in the background; didn't have any other chocolate molds for them, so I tried them in the mini muffin pan.  They weren't so easy to get out of that pan, so I wouldn't recommend it, but it does works in a pinch.

I added shredded organic coconut to one batch, and left another plain.
  They were all delicious.  I do love the white chocolate with nuts or coconut.
Click here if you are interested in Green Chocolate

Recipe

Homemade White Chocolate
Ingredients:
8 oz Raw Organic Cocoa Butter (Food Grade) or 1 cup
1 Cup Organic Powdered Sugar
1/4 Cup Powdered Milk (look for powdered milk in a very fine powder... or grind it until it is very fine, in a blender or coffee grinder.
2 Vanilla Beans; (scrape out that vanilla caviar and add it), and 1 teaspoons vanilla extract (alcohol based) or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (alcohol based) if you don't use any vanilla bean.

Instructions
Place  the Cocoa  Butter in a double boiler, or  a bowl placed over a pan of water on a burner turned to medium heat.  Add the powdered sugar and powdered milk, stirring as it begins to melt.  Next, add the vanilla.  Stir well to make sure sugar and powdered milk are dissolved.  Pour into chocolate molds (I coated them with cooking spray....which probably isn't necessary if you use the silicone molds, but the hard plastic molds seemed to need the help releasing)  Allow the chocolate to harden several hours; you can refrigerate for 10-20 minutes to finish the hardening or leave at room temperature for longer.    Turn out on parchment paper.

About Powdered Milk:
Many of the recipes I looked at added a smidgeon of powdered milk, and when I tried those recipes, my white chocolate tasted very waxy, and not very creamy.  I can't see the purpose of adding a tiny smidgeon of powdered milk.  I mean  white chocolate seems to cry out to be called a "Milk Chocolate" don't you think?   It needed more powdered milk, so I added  more and it was just the thing needed. I used non-fat powdered milk.  I believe that I could safely experiment with  a little more powdered milk... so it is on my list for next time.

About Tempering Chocolate:
Also, some of the recipes talked about their white chocolate being "grainy", and gave formulas to avoid this.   It is called tempering the chocolate.  It makes the chocolate perfectly smooth and shiny.  I did actually learn a bit about that, and may post about it on another post, but I didn't get a "grainy" texture.  I don't think it was quite as smooth as commercial white chocolate, but still very satisfactory.  I did use powdered sugar, which  I believe is a key, and also chose a very fine powdered milk, which helped.  I could taste the grainy-ness of the powdered milk as I taste-tested all the way through, but once  cooled and hardened, I didn't detect any grainy-ness. 

Finding Cocoa Butter:
When I first hunted for Cocoa Butter, there wasn't any in the baking, cooking or food section of the health food store.  It came to  my head that they might have it in the body lotion section, and they did. Even though I found it there, it was still listed as food grade, and so I bought it and used it for my first batch of white chocolate.  I have since checked at Whole Foods and on line,  and ended up ordering it online.  I think I might choose Here are some good links for you: Mountain Rose Herbs , Bulk Apothecary and Jedwards International.

Kitchen Makeover: Part 2

Well, we are half way through our kitchen/dining room project....and we are doing well.  We  are feeling excited that after a week and a half of mess, we are seeing our dining room come together, and the kitchen is on its way.  Here are a few pictures of the process.  I will post the the "after" pictures when we're all done.

We pulled everything out of the dining room and  kitchen and it is now in the family room.

 Do you want to come over for a cup of tea?  I think I can find the teapot in here somewhere.

 Steve took out the the cabinet and hood over the stove.

He got that old blue tile off of the wall.  You can see the tiles on the left of the pass-through window are off and  first 3 tiles on the right are off.

Next; Steve closed in the pass-through window....

 and began smoothing out the sheet rock that was a bit of a mess where the tile had been.  He then re-textured the kitchen and the one dining room wall.

 Kitchen side.....

 

 Dining room side with first tape and texture... Steve applied several applications of the texture, first to feather and smooth the hole to look like the rest of the wall; then he added texture to match the rest of the walls.

 It looks better already, just getting rid of the light blue.

 

 There was a skinny cabinet here that came down lower than the cabinet that remains.  Steve took it down and is going to cut it down to match the cabinet bottom of this cabinet.

  

Some of you wished me "chocolate to ease the strain" in your last comments.... Thank you for those "sweet" sentiments.....those were my thoughts exactly.  I made a batch of these and mmmmm they were good.  They are pretty healthy as far as sweets go.  Do you want the recipe?  You can make them in about 5 minutes.   I got it off of Pinterest. Click here.

Stay tuned for the last installment of  the "Kitchen Makeover" Series.

How to Clean Silver

I love Silver.  I love it polished or tarnished; to me it is always pretty, but polished is best. I have some lovely silver that I have been blessed with from my Mom, my hubby and my Grandmother.  I treasure it, and love to use it for company or the holidays... and sometimes I even use it on an ordinary day,   because I think you should enjoy your blessings, and not keep them shut away only to be used on rare occasions.

My Mom gave me this silver several years ago, and I have loved having it and using it.

She got it when she  married  my Dad, and now I consider it a family heirloom.

This is some silver that I got from my Granny.

 I think it is very pretty.

I usually polish my silver around the holidays.....

cuz,  that's when I use it the most.

I have been looking for the little pitcher in this picture for quite some time.  I found it recently in a storage box. It goes with a tea set that Steve gave me years ago.  

It was very tarnished when I pulled it out of that box.

 I usually use  "Wrights Silver Cream" to clean and polish my silver.  It is a great product;

but I decided to try a silver cleaning recipe that I had been reading about.  It worked amazingly!

Here is all you have to do:

1. Put some aluminum foil in a container large enough to hold water and silver; such as a  pot or a large ceramic or glass bowl.  I had a large piece of aluminum foil that I saved from something, and I just used that and lined a pot with it.

2.  Add 1 Tablespoon Baking Soda, 

 3.  Add 1 Tablespoon Salt.

4.  Place your silver in the pot.

5.  Pour boiling water over the top.

Keep pouring until it is submerged.  It will begin to smell like ammonia.

6.  Swish the silver so that all is covered.  Allow to sit in the solution until the tarnish is gone (about 1- 20 minutes... my own experience had an immediate response to everything silver I put in it).  Just a little reminder, the silver will be very hot at this point; use a wash cloth or some tongs to remove it from the hot water.

The tarnish on this pitcher came off in the first 60 seconds.  I was amazed.  

Look at the difference.

This one went back in for another dunk to get the circle of tarnish off, then I rinsed it with cool water and wiped it  clean and dry with a soft cloth.

 

Clean and polish the silver until not only  the tarnish is gone, but also any yellow; it will look almost white.

Isn't it pretty?

If you have silver that you do not want the black patina taken out of the crevices, don't use this method of cleaning, because it will take every last bit of black out.  The above two pieces are examples of two different designs.  The one in the foreground is meant to have the black, so I only polished the spatula end of this one.

This little spoon belonged to my Grandmother; see how the tarnish is set into the crevices?  Look how this solution got the dark tarnish out of the crevices; it is the one on the bottom of the picture below.

I  like the "Wrights Silver Cream", it really is one of the best I've tried, and puts a beautiful polish on silver;  but it would have taken a lot of elbow grease with the "Wrights" to get all of that tarnish out. This is a wonderful silver cleaning solution, and easier and less expensive than anything you could buy. It is also great to use with silver jewelry; but I haven''t tried that yet.... that is my next experiment.  If you are cleaning something with silver plate, it will clean up well, unless the silver is worn or rubbed off. 

Silver Cleaning Solution

1 pot or container to put your cleaning solution and silver in.
Aluminum foil
1 Tablespoon Baking Soda
1 Tablespoon Salt
Boiling Hot water to fill


Place Aluminum foil into the pot (it doesn't have to completely cover the pot).  Add the Baking Soda
and Salt.  Put the silver in.  Put your hot water in so that it covers the silver.  Let sit from 1 to 20 minutes until tarnish has come off.