Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 5, 2012

crisp toffee chocolate bars

One foodie trend that I can not get enough of is the combination of chocolate and salt. We’ve definitely posted a lot of recipes that include this combo (see Chewy Chocolate Cookies with Fleur de Sel, Sea Salt Caramel Brownies, and Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars.) When I came across this recipe for crisp toffee chocolate bars in one of my favorite cookbooks, Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn, I knew I had to try it.

crisp toffee chocolate bars

This recipe is very easy to make and it doesn’t require any specialty ingredients. In fact, I had the entire ingredient list on hand and did not need to make a trip to the grocery store (that’s definitely a huge bonus this time of year!) This recipe for crisp toffee chocolate bars can be upgraded by using a higher quality dark, bittersweet, or semisweet chocolate. I ended up using a combination of 70% cacao dark chocolate and semisweet chocolate chips. These bars went so fast in our household that I already need to make another batch!

Ten Crisp Toffee Chocolate Bars

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 20 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 20

Ingredients

cooking spray
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2¼ cups sifted all-purpose flour
⅓ cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup dark chocolate, or semisweet chocolate chips (or a combination of the two)
cooking spray

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Add the sifted flour and stir to combine. Mix in the walnuts and chocolate chips.
Add the dough to glass baking dish and press the dough into the prepared pan. Bake until golden and set, about 20 minutes. Cut into small squares while still warm.

Source: Slightly Adapted from Mad Hungry by Lucinda Scala Quinn

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 3, 2012

Oh it’s my most favorite time of the year…Christmas Cookie Season! It is hard to believe that it is December already because of the blur the last three to four months have been. The weather always being so nice doesn’t help either (not that I am complaining!) My boyfriend and I decorated our apartment this weekend and I started baking so it is starting to feel a little bit more like the holidays. I am trying to cut back on the cookies this year by splitting the twelve with M. However, since we are doing 12 completely new recipes this year, I am still going to make a couple of the classics which will probably equal out the to same as last year. Hope they let me bring cookies on the plane!

The mini pecan pie bites are something I started making a few years ago. One of my first bosses/career mentor gave me the recipe from her Southern Living magazine because she knew I loved baking and she wanted me to make them. I was a little hesitant at first because I had never had pecan pie before, but sure enough they came out delicious. I haven’t had them in my Christmas line-up the last few years because I misplaced the recipe. Luckily, while I was moving I found the recipe in one of my cookbooks. These little pies are deliciously addictive and unlike full size pies, you can eat them in multiples!

Eleven Mini Pecan Pie Bites

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Recipe type: Dessert

Ingredients

3 cups of chopped pecans
¾ cup of sugar
¾ cup dark corn syrup
3 large eggs
2 tbsp. melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. salt
4 packages of frozen mini-phyllo pastry shells

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350
Place chopped pecans on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 8-10 minutes until fragrant
Stir together sugar and corn syrup in a medium sized bowl
Stir toasted pecans, eggs, butter, vanilla and salt into the sugar mixture
On two baking sheets line up the mini phyllo pastry shells
With a small cookie scoop or a teaspoon measuring spoon, fill phyllo shells with the pecan mixture
Bake one sheet at a time for 20-22 minutes until set.
Remove from oven and let cook on wire racks for at least 30 minutes
Store in an airtight container for up to three days or freeze to store for up to three weeks.

Source- Slightly adapted from Southern Living- November 2008

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 2, 2012

Oreo Truffles

It’s here! We are officially ready to kick off another year of the 2S2C Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies! (If you missed the event from 2011, the recap with all 12 cookie recipes can be found here.) K and I have found twelve new recipes for the holiday season and we hope you’ll join us for the celebration! I’m kicking off the party with a recipe that is new to me- Oreo Truffles.

My mom brought these Oreo Truffles to my house for a post-Thanksgiving treat. She said that she had read about this recipe on a lot of food blogs and had to try them out. At first I was skeptical, especially after eating way too many Oreos for T’s Mickey Mouse-themed birthday party. The fact that the original recipe for Oreo Truffles only has three ingredients didn’t help either. However, once I tried one, I understood what all the fuss was about. Who knew that such an easy cookie recipe could be so good!?

I figured this recipe would be a great way to kick things off with a nice and simple, but amazing recipe. Try making some Oreo Truffles to kick off your Christmas cookie season (however, did I mention these are no-bake?) Hopefully that will get you in the mood for more holiday baking. We’ve got so many great cookie recipes planned….I can hardly wait!

Oreo Truffles

Twelve Oreo Truffles

Author: 2 Sisters 2 Cities

Recipe type: Cookie

Prep time: 1 hour 20 mins

Total time: 1 hour 20 mins

Serves: 48

Ingredients

36 Oreo cookies
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
16 oz. semi-sweet or dark chocolate
3 tablespoons sprinkles (optional)

Instructions

Place Oreo cookies in a food processor and pulse until finely ground. Reserve ¼ cup of the cookie crumbs in a small bowl. Mix the remaining cookie crumbs and cream cheese in a medium size bowl until blended. Shape mixture into 48 balls.
Mix reserved cookie crumbs with the sprinkles. (This step is optional, but I wanted to get a little green, red, and white color on the truffles to make them more Christmas-y.)
Meanwhile, melt chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl (a glass Pyrex measuring cup also works great). Microwave on high for 2-4 minutes depending on your microwave's strength, stirring about every 30 seconds.
Cover a rimmed baking sheet with a piece of wax paper. Once the chocolate is melted, dip each oreo ball into the melted chocolate mixture. Use two forks to roll truffles in the chocolate until evenly coated. Let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl and place dipped truffle onto the baking sheet. Before the chocolate firms up, sprinkle a small amount of the cookie crumb and sprinkle mixture on top.
Refrigerate 1 hour or until firm. Store truffles in an air-tight container in the fridge or freeze in a freezer bag until ready to serve.

Source: Slightly adapted from Kraft Recipes

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on November 23, 2012

12 days of christmas cookies

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I’ve already mentally moved on to full Christmas mode! I normally don’t start putting up holiday decorations until December 1st, but this year I am starting early. I wanted to share K’s 12 days of Christmas cookies from last year if you are looking for some holiday cookie recipe inspiration. K is going to do another 12 Christmas cookie posts this year, but I am going to share the load with her this year (that’s a lot of cookies to make!)

12 Days of Christmas Cookies 2011

We’ll be starting our 12 days of Christmas cookies for 2012 soon! I’m getting hungry just thinking about it. I’m off to enjoy my leftover turkey sandwich now!

What type of cookies do you like to bake in the holiday season? Do you tend to always make the same kind or do you try different cookie recipes each year?

sister m signature

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 24, 2011

Merry Christmas Eve! I hope everyone made it to their Christmas destinations safely. I am so excited for Christmas and can’t wait to spend some quality time with my family. Living away from home sometimes has it’s downside, so I love when I can get together with my family.

We are one day away from Christmas and you know what that means…(besides one partridge in a pear tree)- One type of cookie left to reveal! Today’s cookie is the Christmas classic, the cut-out sugar cookie! Growing up, one of our family tradition was decorating cut-outs on Christmas Eve. They weren’t as technical as the royal icing cookies I made this year, but we always had a good time decorating. Remember when I had that surviving the flood party and made the umbrellas and boat sugar cookies? Well, I have practiced several times since and I have gotten a lot better.

Cut-out Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

2 stick of unsalted butter
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 egg
1½ tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp of salt
2½ cup of flour

Instructions

In a mixer bowl, beat the butter until smooth.
Add powder sugar and continue to mix. In a separate small bowl, beat egg.
Mix in beaten egg, both extracts, salt, and flour until combined.
Make dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, and then flatten dough to a disc (this will help it to chill faster in the fridge.) Place dough in the fridge until hard.
Preheat the 375 degrees.
Once the dough is ready, place on a well floured surface and roll out to ¼ inch thickness.
With cookie cutter, cut into shapes and place them on a greased sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes until set, do not allow to brown.
Place cookies on wire rack to cool.
This makes around 20-24 cookies.

Source- Adapted from Annie’s Eats

K’s tip- To make multiple batches, I just repeat the instruction for the dough and make right after the first (This way it doesn’t mess with the recipe by doubling it and you don’t have to dirty more dishes.

For Royal Frosting- follow this recipe and tutorial on how to use royal icing from Annie’s Eats (aka my favorite blog- I have got sister M hooked on Annie’s blog too.) The tutorial is actually how I learned how to decorate a cookie correctly with royal icing. It does take a while and you will have to practice. The results will make you proud though!

I couldn’t just show you just one cookie after all my hard work…

Merry Christmas Everyone!

-K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 23, 2011

Well Hello Readers… I hope you are ready for Christmas because we are only 2 days away! As my sisters use to say when we were little, Merry Christmas Eve Eve (our favorite day!)

Two Turtle Doves, or two Coconut-Lime Bars. Easy choice right? I sort of don’t like that the cookies amounts are so low now , you are sort of feeling jipped because you were getting 4-12 of all the other cookies. Don’t worry you can have more than two of these bars if you make them, I won’t tell anyone!

I am so ready for Christmas break, I need a little bit of a break after this season. I think I am going to take a little break in baking J. Don’t worry though, of course not before I reveal the last type of cookie tomorrow. Tomorrow’s cookie is the Christmas classic- which is fitting because my mom, my sisters and I made this type of cookie every year on Christmas Eve. Ahh the memories- have I mentioned that I love Christmas.

The coconut-lime bars are my replacement for the usual coconut macaroon; since I love my mom’s macaroons more than my own (I don’t have the patience for egg whites). These bars are yummy plus the addition of lime zest is a nice twist.

Coconut-Lime Bars

Ingredients
1 stick of unsalted butter melted
½ cup light-brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped macadamia nuts
Zest from 1 lime
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 package (7 ounces) sweetened shredded coconut

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Butter a 9 inch square baking pan, then line with parchment paper, letting 2 inches hang over on 2 sides. Then butter parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together melted butter, brown sugar, and 1/3 cup of white sugar. Next add in 1 egg, continue to whisk until combined and smooth. Stir in 1 cup of flour, salt, nuts, and lime zest. Spread out evenly on parchment paper in baking pan. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until dough is set and lightly golden.

In another bowl, whisk together 2/3 cups of white sugar, 2 eggs, and vanilla. Reserve ½ cup of coconut for topping, and stir in remaining coconut to the mixture along with the remaining 1 cup of flour. Once the base layer is out of the oven, spread the egg/coconut mixture on top and spread out. Top with remaining ½ cup of coconut. Place in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until golden (a toothpick inserted in the center should come out with moist crumbs attached.) Once out of the oven, place on a wire rack and allow to cool. Once cooled, pull the two sides of parchment paper and lift cake out of the pan and onto a cutting board. Cut into bars (about 24 to 30 bars).

Source- Adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food- December 2011 edition

Enjoy!

-K

Posted by 2 Sisters 2 Cities on December 20, 2011

So we are now four days away from Christmas. I hope you have most of your shopping done. Thankfully all I have left to do is wrap presents and pack for my parents’ home.

I am confused as to what today’s song verse is- is it four colly birds or four calling birds? Wikipedia seems to believe its four colly birds, but what the heck is a colly bird? And what are you going to do with four of them? Instead you should go with four pieces of salted peppermint bark.

Salt seems to be all the rave this season, rightfully so though because it is pretty amazing on sweets. I took this recipe from a few different websites and sort of mixed it together. Also, I had Nestlé toll house white chocolate chips on hand so I used those. I would recommend upgrading to a better brand of white because I had a hard time melting the white chips so I could spread them.

Salted peppermint bark
Ingredients
12 oz of good semi sweet chocolate chips
12 oz of good white chocolate

12 candy canes crushed
Kosher salt

Directions
In a double boiler melt the semi sweet chocolate chips. Stir until completely melted and smooth. On a cookie sheet covered in aluminum foil, spread chocolate. Sprinkle the chocolate with kosher salt and stick pan in freezer. Next do the same thing with the white chocolate.

To crush the candy canes, I stuck them in my mini food processor and the sifted out the small pieces. Once the white chocolate is melted and smooth (this is the part that wasn’t working for me- I had to add a little canola oil to the white chocolate to get it smoother). Pour small pieces that you sifted out into the white chocolate and stir in. Take out the chocolate from the freezer and pour white chocolate on top spreading so that it is even. Sprinkle with the larger crushed pieces and push them in so they stick into the white chocolate. Place tray back into the freezer to harden. Once the bark is cooled, break into pieces. If it is too difficult to break in some points use a meat tenderizer corner to break it in certain spots.

*K’s tip- If you don’t own a double boiler use a sauce pan with about 1-2 inches of water with a metal or glass bowl balanced on top.

Source- adapted from Simply Scratch