Almond Ricotta Cookies with Dried Cherries

Ricotta Cherry Cookies
½ cup Butter
1 ¼ cup sugar
1 egg
8 oz ricotta cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ cup dried cherries

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and extracts and mix well. Stir in the ricotta. In a separate small bowl, mix the flour and baking soda and powders. Add the dry ingredients to the ricotta/butter/sugar mixture and mix in. Drop by spoonfuls onto a parchment paper covered cookie sheet and bake about 10 minutes, until edges just begin to brown.

Raspberry Almond Cheesecake with Marzipan Cookie Crust

Almond Raspberry Cheesecake
Crust
1/3 cup almond meal
1 tblsp + 1 tsp marzipan, crumbled
3 tblsp sugar
~1/2 cup crushed sugar or shortbread cookies
3 tblsp butter, melted

Using a food processor or a mallet (I went with the mallet), crush the cookies and combine with the remainder of the dry ingredients. Add enough melted butter (should be approximately 3 tblsp) an mix by hand until it resembles wet sand. Press this mixture into the bottom of a springform pan and bake at 325 F for approximately 15 minutes.

Filling (I never said this was good for you! ☺)
2 pounds (4 packages) cream cheese – you can use light and it won’t change the flavor too much
1 ¼ cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond extract
½ cup heavy cream
raspberry jam, 1/3 to ½ cup, for swirling.

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Wipe down beaters mid way through and scrape sides of bowl a few times too, because any lumps will change the texture of the finished cheesecake. Add the sugar gradually and beat until smooth and dissolved, also scraping sides of bowl at least once. Add the eggs one and a time, beat until each egg is incorporated and scrape down the sides of the bowl after each egg addition. The first time I made cheesecake I didn’t do a great job with this and surprisingly it really does make a difference. Add ~ 1/3 cheesecake mixture to the baked crust pan. Drizzle with raspberry jam or sauceand swirl with a toothpick or knife. Add 1/3 more of the cheese mixture, and repeat. Add the last 1/3 of the cheese and do the same to the top of the cake. Bake approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes at 325 in a water bath. Then, after the baking time is up (it will still be a little jiggly), open the over door a few inches and turn the oven off, and let it sit in the oven for one hour more. Take the cheesecake out of the oven and let sit at room temperature until cooled. Place in the fridge for at least four hours, until chilled.

Blackberry Bottom Cake

Happy belated birthday to me! This year for my birthday two of my friends gave me cooking and baking books... hehe I guess they know me very well! :) This recipe was the first I have tried from my William's Sonoma Savoring Desserts baking book, and it was a great way to start off, especially with beautifully ripe summer fruit like blackberries now available!

Blackberry Bottom Cake
1/3 cup butter, unsalted, melted, and cooled
2 cups sugar
1 pint blackberries
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Melt the butter, and add 1 cup sugar, stirring to combine. Spread this butter/sugar mixture on the bottom of a 9 or 10 inch round baking pan (a springform pan works well) and add the blackberries in a single layer on the butter/sugar mixture. Separate the eggs, putting the whites in a large bowl and the yolks in a smaller one. Whisk 1 tblsp melted butter into the yolks and set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites just until the form peaks, being careful not to overbeat. Fold the remaining one cup of sugar into the egg whites, about 1/4 at a time. Then fold in the egg yolk mixture about 1/4 at a time. Final fold in the flour mixture 1/4 cup at a time. Pour the batter over the berries and spread to cover evenly. Bake at 350 F until a toothpick comes out of the center cleanly, approximately 30 minutes. Let stand for at least 10 minutes, at which time slide a knife along the inside edge and then invert over a plate and flip the cake out. Best served warm. Enjoy!

Apple Pie

Savory Herb and Goat Cheese Turnovers

Although this blog has so far featured delicious desserts, baking can be so much more. Even beyond lasagna or other main course, single dish bakes, as far as I'm concerned the oven has earned a rightful spot in the preparation of some of the most stunning and mouth watering appetizers. This past weekend I went to my favorite Spanish tapas restaurant and ordered a small plate of goat cheese empanadas with a drizzle of a tomato based sauce. It is now Thursday and I've been salivating over those empanadas since then! And, in the spirit of expanding my baking repertoire, below you will find a simple and classy savory appetizer, with the total prep time taking about 15 minutes and another 15-20 baking.

Savory Herb and Goat Cheese Tunovers
1 package of Peppridge Farm pastry sheets (2 sheets), room temperature. (Cover with a damp paper towel once unwrapped)
2 4oz packages of fresh goat cheese (President is a good brand)
1 tsp garlic, minced
3/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
dash salt
dash red pepper flakes
flour, for rolling dough
1 tblsp milk
3 tblsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350. Line a baking sheet with either foil or parchment paper. In a medium sized bowl, crumble goat cheese and add garlic, mixing with a fork or your hands. Add basil, pepper, red pepper flakes, and salt to taste (above is a guideline for what I used), and mix well. From one sheet of pastry, cut into thirds along the pre-cut perforations. Taking one of the strips, lay horizontally on a surface lightly dusted with flour. Roll dough very thinly (1/8 inch thick), cut into squares or rectangles with a sharp knife and place the goat cheese mixture in the center of the dough - I used approximately 2 slightly heaping tsp/square. Moisten the edges of the pastry dough with milk, and then fold dough in half to cover the filling and seal edges by pressing together with a finger. If triangle turnovers are made, fold the dough over along the diagonal. Melt butter, and using a pastry brush, brush butter over the tops of the turnovers. Place on the foil or parchment paper covered baking sheet and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.

Enjoy!

Marzipan Cherry Scones

I’m actually writing this recipe before I’ve even tasted it – they are still in the oven. I just have this feeling… they will be THAT good! (*UPDATE* they ARE that good!) Today at work, a friend of mine was describing these marzipan scones she enjoys at a local coffee shop that she frequents. I had already been thinking about baking something for our weekly Friday meeting. At this point all I heard was “… marzipan… scones… delicious… my favorite,” and I was sold. I’ve never made scones before, so it was a perfect challenge! Design a delicious scone recipe that incorporates only my most favorite and beloved flavor in baking… marzipan.

The perfect scone recipe for me would have more than just the sweet scent of almond with flecks of flavorful marzipan, but the tang of cherries. To give the recipe an extra zing, I soaked the dried cherries in amaretto first, allowing the cherries to soak up the delicious, sweet almond flavor of the amaretto.

Marzipan Cherry Scones
1/2 cup dried cherries, soaked in amaretto (I used a mixture of bing and montmerency cherries)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp salt
6 tblsp butter, cubed and cold
1/3 cup heavy cream (or half and half)
1 large egg
½ tsp almond extract
1/3 cup marzipan, sweetened to desired sweetness by kneading in confectioner’s sugar
turbinado sugar, for decoration

Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Using a pastry cutter, cut in the cubed butter and about half of the marzipan until they resembles small peas. Add the cherries and the remaining marzipan in small chunks. In a small bowl, combine almond extract, heavy cream, and egg and lightly beat together. Pour wet ingredients, reserving about 1 tablespoon, over the dry ingredients and mix together until the mixture holds together (do not over-mix). Turn dough out onto a floured surface and form a circular disc. Cut into 8 pieces from the center, as one would cut a pie. Place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and brush with remaining cream and egg mixture. Top with turbinado sugar for decoration. Bake in a preheated oven at 375 for 15-20 minutes, or until light golden brown around the edges.

Almond Spritz Butter Cookies

You know how sometimes baking leaves you with random misfit ingredients that just don’t make the cut? Making that delicious custard ice cream leaves you with 7 egg whites that you just don’t know what to do with, or how making the cakes described above, including the cherry and/or spice cake leaves you with a fridge full of egg yolks? This post uses up some extra egg yolks, resulting in a most delicious and simple dinner party approved cookie – the spritz cookie. When I finished making all of the spice and cherry cakes for the baby shower, I had a whopping total of 16 egg yolks left over, so I had some serious make-up baking to do! Spritz cookies immediately (well ok, after the many thoughts of ice cream) came to mind. As a child my mom would make spritz butter cookies in the shape of trees every Christmas, complete with green sprinkles. And, these almond flavored butter cookies made with her old cookie press never even lasted long enough to make it to the plate destined for Santa and his reindeer. But, given the current excess egg yolk situation, I decided to break from the mold and make these cookies in, yes, April, and choose another cookie press shape.

Almond Spritz Butter Cookies
1 cup of butter (do not substitute more than ½ cup with margarine as it changes the texture of the cookie and the aesthetic of the pressed shape)
2/3 cup sugar
3 egg yolks
1 tsp almond extract
2 ½ cup flour

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Using an electric mixer, mix butter, almond extract and sugar until thoroughly light and fluffy. Mix in the flour in several stages – in the end you want a thick dough that hold together well – not excessively sticky. If you have to use a little more flour than the recipe recommends, do so one tablespoon at a time.

Take pieces of the dough and roll it into tube and fit it into the cookie press. Press out the cookies onto a foil lined cookie sheet and bake for 7-10 minutes until light golden brown on the edges.

*If you do not have a cookie press, roll out the cookie dough between two pieces of parchment paper (NOT FLOUR) and cut out using cookie cutters. Alternatively, bed bath and beyond sells cookie presses for $20. Enjoy!