Cinnamon and Orange Palmiers

Christmas season sees many spiced recipes floating around and that usually includes cinnamon. So here is to keep with the festive season, cinnamon and orange spiced palmiers. These little rolled up snacks are so easy to make with minimal ingredients, even during stressful times of Christmas shopping or decorating your home, this recipe won't give you any fuss at all.

These palmiers are perfect as snacks for when guests arrive or to be had with your choice of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. It is also great as edible gifts. All you need to do is box these up and tie it with ribbons so it looks pretty and presentable. Jars or any lovely containers work well too.

Cinnamon and Orange Palmiers

Makes about 48 palmiers

Ingredients:

• 1 ready rolled puff pastry
• 1 cup golden caster sugar
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• Zest of 1 orange

Method:

1.  Mix the sugar, ground cinnamon and orange zest in a bowl.
2.  Sprinkle the sugar mix on a clean flat surface.
3.  Remove the ready rolled puff pastry from the box, unroll and lay on top of the sugar mix overed surface.
4.  Roll both the ends lengthwise until they both meet in the middle.
5.  Another way of doing this is to fold both ends into the middle then fold again.
6.  Then tug the ends in so it forms a long rolled cylinder.
7.  Let the rolled puff pastry rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour or in the freezer for about 20 minutes.
8.  Remove from refrigerator and cut in about 1cm thick.
9.  Place these cut pieces flat on a baking sheet and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for about 10-15 minutes.
10. When ready, let cool on a cooling rack.
11. Make some tea and enjoy those palmiers at its freshest.

Tips:

There will be leftovers of the cinnamon sugar mix and will be enough to make a second roll. So you can either keep the mix in a container and use it for later or use it up to make 2 rolls.

Happy Baking!!

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Macadamia & Cranberry Dark Chocolate Bark

For those of you who already read yesterday's post about the Freeze-dried Raspberry Dark Chocolate Bark, this is a similar recipe. Only, this one has different toppings just to show you how flexible and easy it is to make. It truly takes only a few of your precious minutes. The best part is minimal washing up after, and they look pretty!

Macadamia & Cranberry Dark Chocolate Bark

Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate
• Macadamia nuts & dried cranberries (about 1 cup)

Method:

1.  Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a bain-marie while stirring.
2.  Alternatively, you can also put the broken pieces of chocolate in a bolt and melt in the microwave.
3.  Pour melted chocolate on a baking tray or flat surface lined with parchment paper.
4.  Sprinkle the macadamia nuts and cranberries on top of the melted chocolate.
5.  Gently push the nuts and fruits down with your palm.
6.  Let the chocolate cool and harden then break them into large pieces.
7.  Wrap them nicely with some tissue paper and place in a box.
8.  Then tie a ribbon around the box and present as a gift.

Tip:

• This recipe can be easily doubled or multiplied to make more.

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Raspberry Dark Chocolate Bark

How does edible gift sound to you? This one is to impress your friends with little to no effort at all. All you need is some chocolate and toppings of your choice. You can go with the classic chocolate and nuts or chocolate with cranberries but you can also do better with some fancier ingredients like freeze dried fruits which I have used here. If you are not sure what that is, it is the same dried fruit used in Kellogg's Special K Cereal. Well, you don't have to pick out the fruits from the cereal box as you can get them online or from Waitrose.

Freeze dried fruits are great as they are dry but still maintain its vibrant colour, and is very crispy with intense flavour of the fruit. So in this recipe, it gives the lively colour and contrast along with some added texture.

Raspberry Dark Chocolate Bark

Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate
• freeze dried raspberries (about 1 cup)

Method:

1.  Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a bain-marie while stirring.
2.  Alternatively, you can also put the broken pieces of chocolate in a bolt and melt in the microwave.
3.  Pour melted chocolate on a baking tray or flat surface lined with parchment paper.
4.  Sprinkle the raspberries on top of the melted chocolate and gently push them down with your palm.
5.  Let the chocolate cool and harden then break them into large pieces.
6.  Wrap them nicely with some tissue paper and place in a box.
7.  Then tie a ribbon around the box and present as a gift.

Tip:

• This recipe can be easily doubled or multiplied to make more.

Have fun making them! Show me some pictures too if you like. 

    

   

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Lemon glazed madeleine & Story of Madeleine de Commercy

My new toy just came through the post and I am happy already. How easily satisfied! It is the De Buyer Moul'Flex Mini-Madeleine Baking Mould. I have been meaning to buy a mini madeleine mould for as long I could remember and this one seem perfect. It was packaged in a cutout box so the madeleine mould makes the feature. The pretty brown box packaging has pink text and the tray was accompanied with a recipe booklet of French cakes.

The last I made madeleine was many years ago when my ex-flatmate had madeleine trays. How convenient! Finally, I have my own and without wasting any time, I made madeleines of course. Everything seems perfect until my madeleines came out of the oven. The shell biscuits popped out of the mould really well, with distinctive form but it lacked the golden colour I was hoping for. It is a good mould for any modern baker as it is dish washer friendly, which is always helpful. But now that I have seen the result, I have to say I prefer the metal tray more as it has better distribution of heat. Golden biscuits are always better than pale yellow.

The story of Madeleine de Commercy

Madeleine is a traditional small scallop-shaped cake from Commercy, a town north of the Lorraine region in France. There are a few stories or legends about the origins of madeleines. The most commonly known story is of Stanisław Leszczyński, a Polish King who was seeking refuge in Commercy, Lorraine during the mid-18^th Century. A young female servant had to prepare some desserts for him but only knew how to make the shell-shaped cookies she made at home during holidays. Stanisław was delighted when presented with these sweet, golden shell-shaped cakes and named it Madeleine de Commercy, after the young maid. He liked them so much that he frequently sends them to his daughter Marie in Versailles, who was married to Louis XV (1710-1774). It became popular amongst the nobility.

It is now a classic of French tea time snack, often dipped into a cup of coffee or tea.

Madeleine of Proust

It was Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922), the French author who immortalised the madeleine in his novel Swann's Way, in a beautiful poetic manner.

LEMON GLAZED MADELEINE RECIPE

adapted from David Lebovitz
makes about 64 mini madeleines

Ingredients:

• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 130g golden caster sugar
• 170g all purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 130g unsalted butter, melted, then cooled to room temperature

Lemon glaze:

• 150g powdered sugar
• 2 tbs of lemon juice
• 1 tbs water

Method:

1. Brush the mould with melted butter and dust with flour then put it in the fridge.
2. Whip the eggs and sugar until it becomes thicker and frothy.
3. Sift the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture and fold.
4. Add the vanilla extract into the cooled melted butter.
5. Slowly dribble the butter into the batter, a spoonful at a time. Fold simultaneously until butter is just incorporated.
6. Cover the bowl with a cling film and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (maximum of 12 hours).
7. Preheat the oven to 220C.
8. Bake for about 8 minutes.
9. Remove madeleines from mould onto cooling rack.
10. Once cool enough to handle, dip each madeleine into glaze and make sure both sides are coated.
11. Scrape off excess and place on cooling rack until set.

Tips:

• Mini madeleines make very good edible gifts.

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