Merry Christmas Cake Pops

I made four different desserts for Christmas Eve dinner last night and these cake pops were the overwhelming favorite. They were super rich and chocolate-y, perfect for anyone with a major sweet tooth. I made the cake and frosting the night before, froze the pops, and decorated them the next morning with the help of my brother and sister.

In light of the holiday, I'll fill this post with photos instead of words. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Conor and Megan showing off their decorating skills.

Merry Christmas Cake Pops
Makes: 30-40 pops  Prep: 1 hour  Total: 24 hours

Ingredients
Boxed chocolate cake (or favorite chocolate cake recipe)
2 8-ounce cream cheeses
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Red and green candy melts
30-40 lollipop sticks

Directions
Bake cake as directed and let cool. Crumble cake into a large bowl and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese and butter until smooth. Slowly add 1/2 cup of powdered sugar at a time and stir until incorporated. Add vanilla and whip for 2-3 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy.
Combine the cream cheese icing with crumbled cake and stir until the mixture is smooth. Form into 2 inch balls and set onto a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place sticks into the center of the balls so they look like upside-down lollipops. Refrigerate overnight.
Place candy melts in the microwave for 1 minutes. Remove and stir, and microwave again at 30-second increments until fully melted. Dip cake pops into the melted candy and decorate with additional frosting. Store pops in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Raspberry Almond Thumbprints

I've decided that December will be a month of cookie recipes. With only three days left until Christmas, cookies are kind of the only thing on my radar. Today I had my best girlfriends over to bake and decorate cookies. Of course, we had to devour some brie and queso dip before getting started. Seriously, every party we have involves cheese... probably not normal. Anyway, I whipped up a few batches of these thumbprints (based off of my grandma's recipe) and my friends made some classic sugar cookies. Here are the prettiest cookies of the bunch:

It's funny how we spend so much time shopping and getting ready for the holidays, but the best moments are simply sitting around with your best friends and family. I moved to Boston several years ago, but somehow I still find the same charms every time I come home. As I write this I'm listening to "Love is Christmas" by Sara Bareilles, so perhaps that's why I'm feeling so introspective. To wrap this up, when you're running around this holiday season don't forget to slow down and enjoy the people around you. And also have a cookie. :)

Raspberry Almond Thumbprints
Makes: 1 dozen cookies  Prep: 10 minutes  Total: 20 minutes

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg, divided
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup slivered almonds, chopped
1/4 cup raspberry jam

Directions
Mix butter, brown sugar and vanilla in a medium bowl. Crack the egg and separate the white from the yolk, saving the egg white in a small bowl. Add the yolk to the sugar mixture and mix well. Add flour and salt and mix until fully incorporated.
Lightly whisk egg white. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and dip into egg white. Roll into finely chopped almonds and place on a greased baking sheet. Press thumb into the center of each cookie and bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until the dough is set. Remove and let cool. Fill each cookie with raspberry jam and store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Cranberry Rocky Road Cookies: The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!

Happy holidays, everyone! :) I'm back home for winter break and have one online final and a paper before I'm officially done with this semester. I've already moved out of my Boston apartment and will soon be making my journey to The Middle-of-Nowhere, New Jersey for a 6-month internship. I said my bittersweet goodbyes to all my amazing Boston friends this weekend, and I have to say this has been the best semester EVER. I made some wonderful new friends and got even closer to old ones, which makes it terribly hard to leave. Love you all so much, and thanks for an incredible year!

On the bright side, a few positives of leaving Boston are 1) a great new job, 2) [hopefully] great new friends, and 3) more time to blog!!! Which brings me to...

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

 This year two amazing food bloggers, Julie at The Little Kitchen and Lindsay at Love & Olive Oil, arranged an international cookie swap for food bloggers to network, exchange information, and best of all, cookies! I can't think of a better and tastier way to connect with other bloggers out there.

I was scrambling to come up with a recipe for this event, since I usually don't ad lib on baking recipes, but I was really stuck on the idea of chocolate and marshmallow because it was my favorite ice cream as a kid. Somehow this transitioned to rocky road, then dried cranberries were thrown in the mix, and huzzah! Cranberry rocky road cookies were born. These were very quick to whip up and are the perfect holiday cookie for both chocolate lovers and fruity dessert lovers to enjoy.

Cranberry Rocky Road Cookies

Makes: 4 dozen cookies  Prep: 15 minutes  Total: 30 minutes

Ingredients
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cups baking soda
2/3 cups cocoa
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup mini marshmallows
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.
Place softened butter in an electric mixer and beat for 30 seconds until whipped. Add in sugar, eggs and vanilla and beat for 1 minute. In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa and mix well. Add dry ingredients into the mixer in four parts and beat for 2 minutes.
Next, chop whole walnuts before measuring. Add walnuts, chocolate chips and dried cranberries into the cookie dough and beat for 1 minute.
Scoop dough with a tablespoon and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes or until the dough is risen and remove from the oven. Add a few mini marshmallows to each individual cookie. Bake for another 2 or 3 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool.

Duck Pot Pie with Sweet Potato

Sorry this recipe is a bit delayed. I've been cooking so much recently but have hardly had time to post anything! Anyway, my friends in my musical theater group will recognize this pot pie because I spent a day preparing to make it, only to realize I had a 3 hour rehearsal that night and would have to delay the meal. I was quite traumatized by this, but was fortunately free to bake and eat this delicious pot pie the next day.

I had an urge to make meat pot pie after my mom sent me a picture of a yummy-looking chicken pot pie she made earlier this month. (We swap cooking stories a lot.) I knew I wanted to use sweet potato, and after much thought I set my mind on duck as the meat for this unique pie. I walked down to Chinatown with Dylan and my roommate Katie to get dim sum and hunt for duck meat. Fortunately, I was able to buy half a cooked duck in a little shop directly across from the restaurant we found. The most time consuming aspect of this recipe was picking the duck meat off the bone, but once that's over the rest is easy and the final product very delicious!

Duck Pot Pie with Sweet Potato

Serves: 8  Prep: 30 minutes  Total: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 duck (approximately 3 cups duck meat)

1 ready-rolled pastry puff

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 1/2 cups carrots, chopped

1 1/2 cups mushroom, chopped

1 onion, chopped

2 cups frozen peas

1 tbs thyme

6 tbs butter

6 tbs flour

4 cups low-fat milk

1 tsp salt

1 tsp nutmeg

1 egg (optional)

Directions

Remove duck meat from the bone with a small knife or by hand. Be sure to remove small bones and all excess fat from the meat. Set aside.

Combine sweet potato, carrots, mushroom, onion, peas and thyme in a large saucepan. Fill with water up to the top of the vegetables. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the potato is slightly softened. Drain and let cool.

In a medium pot, melt butter on medium-high heat and add flour to begin the béchamel sauce. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until the mixture is golden and thickened. Heat the milk separately and add in 4 different increments, bring to a boil and let simmer. Add the salt and nutmeg and remove from heat.

In a large baking dish, combine vegetables, duck meat and the béchamel sauce. Cover with pastry puff and brush a whisked egg on top for an egg wash if desired. Cover in foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for another 15 minutes. Remove and cool before serving.

Pumpkin and Chocolate Cheesecake Bars

It's been a very beautiful fall in Boston so far (...minus the snowstorm on Halloween weekend, but let's forget about that). Luckily I live in an area with parks and plenty of trees, which means I still get to enjoy the changing of leaves. There are so many leaves left! I'm sure by the time I come back from Thanksgiving break they'll be gone, so I need to enjoy them while they last.

Some of my wonderful friends had a "Fall Festival" party this weekend, so I decided this was a perfect excuse to try a new pumpkin dessert. They had pumpkin pancakes, bagels with pumpkin cream cheese, and apple pie shots (all delicious, by the way). It was a great addition to an awesome weekend following a very stressful week. I find it humorous that people are so grateful when I show up somewhere with food. I don't think my friends realize that if I didn't have them to help me eat the things I bake, I wouldn't end up baking at all. So thanks, guys!

 

Pumpkin Chocolate Cheesecake Bars 
(Adapted from Martha Stewart Recipes*)
Makes: 16 bars  Prep: 30 minutes  Total: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Ingredients
1 9-ounce package chocolate teddy grahams (or graham cracker equivalent)
1 1/4 cup brown sugar (divided)
1/4 cup butter
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese
1 cup organic pumpkin
3 eggs
3 tbs flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
5 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Begin making the graham cracker crust by crushing teddy grahams (or graham crackers) in a bag with a rolling pin into very fine crumbs. Pour into a bowl and mix with 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup softened butter. Press into the bottom of a greased baking dish and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine softened cream cheese, 1 cup brown sugar, and organic pumpkin. Mix until softened. Add eggs and flour and stir until the eggs are fully incorporated. Season with salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger.
Place semisweet chocolate chips in a microwaveable bowl and heat in 30-second increments, stirring in between, until melted.
Pour half the cheesecake mixture over the graham cracker crust and spread evenly. Combine the melted chocolate with the remaining cheesecake mix and stir once or twice. Pour in small dollops into the prepared pan and using a butter knife, very carefully swirl the chocolate and cheesecake in a figure eight pattern to create a nice design.
Bake for 45 minutes at 350. Remove and let cool. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours prior to serving.

*I found the original recipe on Martha Stewart, but made some changes to the cheesecake mix and used my own graham cracker crust. View the link above for the original recipe.

Pumpkin Baked Ziti

For those of you who don't know me personally, I'm somewhat holiday-obsessed. Every Halloween, I carve pumpkins. Every Easter, I dye Easter eggs. And every time Christmas rolls around, you bet I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment cutting out paper snowflakes instead of studying for finals. Many of my friends say they hate holidays, and that after childhood the excitement wears away and the fun is gone. Maybe I'm just 9-years old at heart, but I think I will always perform these rituals because I grew up with them, they connect me to home, and make me feel closer to the people around me. Call me lame, but while the holiday naysayers are complaining, I'm skipping around having the time of my life!

I concocted this dish about two weeks in advance before my Halloween party, and it came out just as I'd hoped. I've never been a big marinara fan, so I created my own pasta sauce using organic pumpkin, vegetable broth, onion, cream, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. I made 2 pounds of pasta to serve a big group of people, but scaled down the recipe for 1 pound which can easily feed a family, small group of friends, or a single person who loves leftovers! I guess cannibalistic pumpkins can eat it, too?

Pumpkin Baked Ziti
Serves: 4-6 people  Prep: 40 minutes  Total: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Ingredients
1 lb whole wheat rotini pasta
1 yellow onion
1/2 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tbs nutmeg
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 15-ounce can organic pumpkin
1 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tbs fresh thyme
10-ounces gruyere cheese (shredded)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

Directions
Cook rotini in a large pot as directed until al dente. Strain and set aside.
Dice onion and saute in olive oil on medium heat until tender, about 3 minutes. Add brown sugar, nutmeg and cayenne pepper and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in pumpkin and vegetable broth, bring sauce to a boil and simmer uncovered on low heat for 15 minutes. Pour in heavy cream and stir well. Add thyme and simmer for another 20 minutes. When the sauce is done, remove from heat and let sit.
Begin assembling the zita by layering a greased baking dish with half of the rotini pasta, half of the sauce, and half of gruyere. Again, layer half the pasta, sauce and gruyere. Top with parmesan and bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the cheese is fully melted and the top is slightly browned.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Happy November, everyone! I can't believe how fast this semester is flying. In a little over 2 months I'll be moving out of Boston and working full time for Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey until July. So crazy how fast this is sneaking up on me! I had an amazing dinner party for Halloween with some girlfriends last night, and it made me even sadder to leave this city. I'm planning to squeeze in all the dinner parties I can before I move, so get excited for a lot more posts to come.

This was the main dish I served for the Halloween party my roommates and I threw yesterday evening. I woke up at 7 to put the pork in the slow cooker before my 8 am class, then took it out at 7 pm right before the party started to shred the meat and add the sauce. I swear by Dinosaur Bar-B-Que sauce, and since the original restaurant is in my hometown I'm a devoted fan.

Also, I definitely recommend cooking the pork for the full 12 hours because the meat literally melts in your mouth. Considering we fed about 12 girls (and 2 lucky boyfriends) I'd say this is the easiest and most delicious go-to party meal I can think of!

Here are some quick shots of the party:

Some of the girls

Snapshot of the dinner

Feeling a little full...

Dylan and me

Hope everyone else had a great Halloween weekend. Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Makes: 12 sandwiches  Prep: 20 minutes  Total: 12 hours, 20 minutes

Ingredients
5-6 lbs pork shoulder
1 large onion
4 tbs red pepper flakes
4 tbs paprika
3 tbs salt
3 tbs pepper
2 19-ounce bottles of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que sauce
Sandwich buns

Directions
Slice the onion through the center to create large rings of onion. Lay in the bottom of the slow cooker.
Prepare BBQ rub by combining red pepper flakes, paprika, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Pat the rub all over the pork shoulder, covering evenly. Place the pork on top of onion and fill the slow cooker two-thirds of the way with water.
Turn the slow cooker to low and leave on for 10-12 hours.
When the pork is done, remove from the slow cooker and shred with two forks. Place pulled pork in a large bowl and add 1 bottle of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que sauce. Mix well.
Dump most of the water and juice out of the cooker, leaving 1/4 cup and onions for flavor. Add the pulled pork back into the slow cooker and keep on low until ready to serve.