Pictured above is this year’s batch of holiday candies. I started with 17 pounds of chocolate, 10 pounds of sugar, 1 1/2 gallons of heavy cream, 5 pounds of butter, 1/2 gallon of corn syrup, 10 pounds of almonds and a few other ingredients to produce about 50 pounds of candies. This year I made 7 different kinds of candy: English Toffee, Coffee English Toffee, Classic Cream Caramels dipped in milk chocolate and another batch just wrapped, Espresso Caramels, Gianduja Truffles, Mocha Truffles, and Pecan Maple Caramels. I will share more detailed photos of each in a later post.

With each holiday season comes a return to The List, which I use to manage recipients of holiday candies. The total number of recipients has been hovering at just over 40 recipients over the years to divide the nearly 50 pounds of candy between. I wish I could make 100 pounds of candy, but I just don’t have the time. It is always a challenge to pick out 40 or so recipients from the ever growing list of friends. Read more about the challenges of maintaining the list.

Near Disaster
I almost thought my chocolate tempering machine broke while dipping caramels. The display started to flicker, the motor sound changed. To be honest, I was almost relieved, since I still had to make and dip truffles. A broken tempering machine this late in the season would mean no more candymaking and a much needed rest for me.

The past few years I have been taking a few days off of work in mid-December to help absorb the more than 40 hours that go into my annual candymaking marathon (read about last year’s). I wasn’t able to take time off this year since I just started a new job, and needed what little vacation time I had for the Holidays. The tempering machine hung in there, and apart from making a few strange noises that night, continued to turn out great tempered chocolate for my caramels and truffles.

When Kieran from Ice Cream Ireland put out the call for ice cream testers earlier this month, I knew I had to jump in and help out. I had already made one of his recipes for Cinnamon Latte Ice Cream (see my post about it here), with great success, so I decided to stick with the coffee theme and select his Coffee Kahlúa Ice Cream for testing. This ice cream has a rich custard base with real espresso and Kahlúa for flavoring. I decided to serve my first batch with hot fudge sauce and almonds (picture above).

To Boil or not to Boil?
The espresso flavor in this recipe, unlike a lot of recipes I’ve seen or used, comes from real, fresh espresso. Since the espresso has such high water content, Kieran recommends boiling the espresso to prevent the finished ice cream from being icy. This is the same process for espresso flavoring that Kieran uses in is Cinnamon Latte Ice Cream, which I have also made. I’m not a coffee snob by any means, but I still pause to consider the flavor ramifications from boiling coffee.

Twenty years ago, the percolator was a very common way for Americans to brew coffee. Today the percolator is typically found only at camping supply stores. Although I was hesitant to boil espresso for so long, the resulting flavor of this ice cream is anything but burnt. The espresso flavor is strong and very easy to differentiate from the Kahlúa flavor. This ice cream disappeared very quickly so I decided to make a second batch—this time using espresso powder. Espresso powder is typically made by freeze-drying espresso, so the espresso is never actually boiled or subject to high temperatures. The resulting ice cream was equally delicious, but the coffee flavoring was definitely different. With espresso powder, the espresso flavor was not as sharp and the broader coffee flavor also blended more with the Kahlúa flavoring; it was more difficult to detect the Kahlúa with espresso powder.

If you really want a pronounced espresso and Kahlúa flavoring, stick with the fresh espresso. The espresso powder will yield a coffee ice cream more similar to what you might buy at the store. Either way, you’ll be out of ice cream in no time.

Whipping your ice cream into submission
In the past, I have asked Kieran about whipping the cream separately and folding it into the chilled custard base before freezing since I had never seen this step in ice cream recipes. Kieran said that most home machines don’t churn the ice cream at a high enough speed to introduce enough air into the mixture. My Musso Lussino ice cream maker spins at a pretty good rate, so I had omitted Kieran’s suggestion in the past. Since I was testing this recipe for his upcoming cookbook, I decided I would whip the cream as instructed.

The finished ice cream was simply amazing and my wife also noted the fantastic texture of the finished ice cream, even after sitting in the freezer for a day. I’m definitely going to be making some modifications to my ice cream recipes to include this step. I just made 2 batches of my own vanilla ice cream recipe for Thanksgiving using this technique and was thrilled with the results. When whipping the cream, I think you want to just aim for soft peaks or else the ice cream may not fully blend in your maker. I’m betting too much air is not a good thing, though I haven’t tried pushing the envelope on this.

The verdict: Outstanding!
This recipe is a keeper! Although I am already partial to coffee flavored ice creams, I have to say that this recipe is one of the best I’ve had. In fact, I’m already working on a variation for a true mocha almond fudge recipe. I’m looking forward to Kieran’s new book and will be sure to post an announcement here when it comes out.

Ingredients for making Kahlúa Espresso Ice Cream.

Boil 1/2 cup espresso (about 4 shots) and 1 tablespoon sugar until reduced to 1/3 original volume.

Mix 5 egg yolks and 1 cup sugar until light yellow and fluffy.

Slowly pour 1 1/8 cups of simmering whole milk into egg yolk and sugar mixture while mixing on medium low speed.

Return egg yolk, sugar and hot milk mixture to stove and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it reaches 165 – 170° F. Chill mixture in ice bath until less than 45° F.

Mix in 1/4 cup of Kahlúa into custard base and blend. Whip 1 1/8 cups of heavy cream to soft peak stage and gently fold into chilled custard base.

Pour ice cream base into ice cream maker and freeze according to your maker’s instructions.

Add 2 ounces of chocolate shavings (or very small chunks) once ice cream starts to thicken a little.

Transfer finished ice cream to dedicated container and let ripen in freezer for several hours.

The recipe pictured above, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery can be found on the Kahlúa Espresso Ice Cream recipe page or at Ice Cream Ireland.

This recipe was given to me by a high school classmate with whom I recently got in touch with at our 20 year reunion. After he found out I had a food blog, he mentioned a family recipe for cranberry frappe that he would share if I was interested. He said they usually serve this instead of cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. I’ve never cooked with cranberries before and I had been looking for other interesting sorbet flavors to make, so this cranberry frappe recipe really interested me. At the time it was August, so I knew I would have to wait a few months before fresh cranberries would be readily available at the store. A little over a month ago I was finally able to spot fresh cranberries at my local supermarket.

The texture of this sorbet is incredibly smooth and reminded me a lot of the raspberry sorbet I make. A frappe has more of a slushy texture, so I renamed this recipe as a sorbet since that is how I was going to serve it. If you wanted to make this into a frappe, you could under-freeze it or partially thaw and blend the mixture. I also added limoncello to this recipe to help keep the finished sorbet soft. I did want a little orange flavoring to balance out sharpness of the cranberries, so I added some orange zest to the cooked cranberries. Although the orange zest is only with the cooked cranberries for a few minutes in the blender before being caught in the chinois, the orange flavor is still perceptible. I’ll be making this recipe again for Thanksgiving and plan to substitute Grand Marnier for the limoncello.

Even if you aren’t a huge cranberry fan, this recipe will surprise you—it’s pretty good. After making this recipe I definitely think cranberries are underrated. I’m eager to try pairing them with other fruits for new sorbets.

Ingredients for making Cranberry Sorbet.

Rinse 4 cups fresh cranberries and remove any stems or oddly colored or shaped cranberries.

Boil cranberries in 2 cups of water for 8 minutes. Cranberries can pop when cooked, so cover slightly to reduce splattering.

Add 2 cups of sugar and zest from one orange to the cooked cranberries (do not drain) and purée.

Use a chinois or sieve to separate the skins from the cranberry purée.

Place hot purée in ice bath and begin to chill. Once mixture is no longer hot, add juice from 2 lemons.

Add 1/4 cup of limoncello and continue to chill mixture until it is less than 45° F.

Pour chilled sorbet base into ice cream maker and freeze according to your maker’s instructions.

Transfer finished sorbet to dedicated container and let ripen in freezer for several hours.

The recipe pictured above, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery can be found on the Cranberry Sorbet recipe page.

I can’t really say that I have made a lot of muffins in my life. In fact, this is one of the few recipes I have made that—apart from the oven—does not involve some kind of appliance. When I laid out all the ingredients for this muffin recipe for the first picture below, I realized that there were a lot of ingredients in this muffin. Counting the eggs once, there are seventeen ingredients needed to make these muffins. Fortunately, I already have most of these ingredients thanks to the remarkable similarity of this recipe with molasses softies cookies. Who knew making muffins would be so easy?

When I first made these muffins, we thought they tasted great, but it seemed that they could use just a hint of orange to bring out a fresher flavor from the canned pumpkin. A little orange zest in the second batch and it was just what these muffins needed. Moist and delicious, these muffins have a nice balance of spices that isn’t overpowering or heavy. The smell of these muffins baking really says that fall is here. A little pumpkin pie muffin is the perfect snack for raking leaves in the yard.

Ingredients for making Pumpkin Pie Muffins.

Combine 2 cups flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and cloves each, 1/2 teaspoon salt and ginger each, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg.

Combine 2 eggs, 3/4 cup canned pumpkin, 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/4 cup buttermilk, 1 teaspoon vanilla and orange zest each, and 3 tablespoons molasses in a large bowl.

Mix wet ingredients thoroughly until smooth.

Make a well in center of dry ingredients and gently fold in wet ingredients until just blended.

Once batter is just blended, fold in 3/4 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts.

Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 of the way to top with batter. An ice cream scoop works nicely.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes in 400° F oven or until toothpick come out clean.

Let muffins rest for 2 minutes in muffin pan before transferring to cooling rack.

The recipe pictured above, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery can be found on the Pumpkin Pie Muffin recipe page.

My daughter isn’t a big fan of the spice cookies or molasses softies that I make regularly, and my wife told me that my daughter wanted me to make sugar cookies. It’s been a long time since I have made sugar cookies, but I knew the recipe I wanted to make. Cookies that go by the name, sugar cookies, actually vary quite a bit, with many folks considering the cookies that are decorated with frosting as sugar cookies. To me, a sugar cookie is soft and delicate—much more delicate than the tough cookies one usually finds underneath a layer of frosting during the holidays. And, of course, the cookie must be sprinkled with sugar—why else would it be called a sugar cookie? Plus, unlike those other sugar cookies, these cookies are decorated before baking. Maybe that’s why these are called old fashioned? They certainly elicit memories from childhood.

An unexpected ingredient
This recipe is pretty simple, but one ingredient you might not anticipate is orange extract. The orange extract does a lot to add brightness and freshness, and tasters couldn’t quite put their finger on what the flavor was, though some tasters suggested hints of citrus when asked about flavor. When I told tasters that there was orange extract in the cookie beforehand, they could pick it out without too much difficulty. I think if you used real orange zest or splurged on the extract, the orange flavor might be too strong. A little goes a long way.

This is one of the few cookies I bake on silpat mats. I’ve had less than stellar results with most recipes, especially since most cookies I make call for ungreased cookie sheets. This recipe, however, is ideal for silpat since it calls for greased cookie sheets and the cookies are rather delicate.

How to tell when these cookies are done
Some of the darker cookies I make—molasses softies and spice cookies, for example—are difficult to tell doneness for because they don’t really brown. These cookies have the opposite problem because, although they are very light in color, you actually don’t want to brown them. Baking time can vary depending on how thick you make these cookies, but you want to remove them from the oven when you just think that the edges are maybe—just maybe—starting to look a little brown. My wife prefers her sugar cookies crispy and crunchy, so I made one sheet with more evident browning and they tasted a little odd: not burnt at all, but they weren’t as good.

I don’t make a lot of cutout cookies and thought rolling out the dough was going to be a pain, but with sufficient flour on the surface and rolling pin, it was pretty fun. The kids also enjoy decorating the cookies almost as much as eating them.

Ingredients for making Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies.

Add 3 eggs to 1 cup of room temperature butter and mix.

Add 1 teaspoon orange extract and 1 teaspoon vanilla to 1 1/2 cups sugar and mix until light and fluffy.

Mix together 2 teaspoons baking powder, 3/4 teaspoon baking soda, pinch of salt and 3 3/4 cups of unbleached flour.

Slowly add the dry ingredients a little at a time while mixing on low.

Place fist-sized ball of dough onto generously floured surface and roll to 1/4 inch thickness.

Use cookie cutter to cut out desired shapes.

Place cookies on silpat mat or greased cookie sheet and sprinkle with colored sugar.

Bake cookies for 6-10 minutes (per thickness or size) in 350° F oven until just barely browned (less brown is better).

The recipe pictured above, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery can be found on the Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie recipe page.

The chocolate chip cookie is truly an American classic and a staple in just about any food or baking blog. For most recipes I usually look for similar recipes on other blogs, but for this recipe, what’s the point?

One of my favorite geology professors, Gerry Weber, liked to say, “All food is good, some is better”. He was also once overheard saying, “Don’t ever give cookies to stoners. They don’t appreciate them, they just eat ’em.” Are all cookies good?

To the contrary: when you think of all the home made chocolate chip cookies you have had in your life, you realize that some people can really screw them up. In the last 30 years of making cookies I have probably made this recipe more than any other cookie, but I actually believe that the chocolate chip cookie is one of the more challenging cookies I have on my site.

For years I made this with a Sunbeam Mixmaster with no issues. Then, 12 years ago, my wife bought me my dream machine: a limited edition 5 quart KitchenAid mixer. I eagerly cranked out a batch of chocolate chip cookies, toll house recipe, and they turned out horrible. Very thin, crispy things full of holes that I could barely coax off the cookie sheets. I made them again and the same thing happened. Was it the mixer, me, or the new house I had just moved into with a different oven?

Few cookies are as sensitive to the quality of ingredients, mixing method, cookie sheet, oven and chef. Discouraged with a couple batches in the trash, I tried some of my other cookie recipes and fortunately they turned out great. After a little experimenting I found that if I increased the amount of flour that the cookies were better. The moral of the story: just because it is baking doesn’t mean you can’t adjust things a little to suit your needs, tastes or environments. Seems obvious now, but remember that there were no food blogs in 1994.

For this chocolate chip cookie recipe there isn’t much I have done to the original toll house recipe except: double the vanilla, increase the flour by 1/4 cup, substitute dark brown sugar for light brown, and use dark chocolate chips. I’m currently favoring Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chips because they taste great and are a little wider than regular chips.

Ingredients for making Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Add 2 eggs to 1 cup of salted butter and mix.

After adding 3/4 cups of granulated and 3/4 cups of dark brown sugars, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla.

Mix together 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 2 1/2 cups of unbleached flour together.

Slowly add the dry ingredients a little at a time while mixing on low.

Mix in dark chocolate chips by hand to prevent breaking them in mixer.

Roll dough into 1 1/4 inch balls.

Space rolled dough evenly on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake cookies for 11-13 minutes in 375° F oven.

The recipe pictured above, with detailed instructions and complete photo gallery can be found on the Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe page.