Pecan Powder Puffs

These are one of my dad's favorite cookies, and we'd always have them at Christmas. The recipe is very similar, except the nuts are much finer in Dorie's version. I was a little rushed, so they only chilled about a half hour, and they still held together and baked well. These were really nice and tender, they're great little cookies!

Thanks to Tianne of Buttercream Barbie for this week's pick!

TWD Citrus Sunshine Muffins

These were really nice muffins! I had to make some substitutions. Somehow I only had 1/2c of ap flour in house, so I decided to make a half batch and subbed white whole wheat for the other 1/2 c. Then I had purchased currants, but I think they got used for someone's oatmeal, so I subbed craisins in. These were really nice muffins, though. Even with the whole wheat, they had a great texture, very fine, and we always like craisins. I love Dorie's muffins, I think it's the butter :-)

Thanks to Lauryn for this week's pick!

Maple Syrup Snow Candy

I just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods with the kids, so when we got snow last week, we tried making maple syrup candy. Our approach kind of ended up being like Ma's earlier Christmas candy with the molasses, only using the maple syrup like Grandma during the sugar snow.

The Joy of Cooking said to bring maple syrup to 230-233 to turn it to sugar, which took about thirty minutes. While I was getting the syrup going, the kids went out and packed the cake pans with snow. When it got to 233, I took it off the heat and whisked it until it thickened some. Then, even though Laura and Mary get to pour the syrup on their snow, I decided I'd do the pouring.
















I was afraid if I poured too much in one spot, it would melt through the snow, so I ended up with lots of little strings. The syrup doesn't end up melting it, though, so next time I'd try making more little quarter-sized pours to make for easier eating. It turned out very soft and sticky. The little bits of syrup that were left in the pan did turn into maple sugar. If we do it again, it'd be fun to get little saucers for sugar like from the book - it'd be a little neater kid-eating, too!















The best picture I got of the actual candy - pretty unappealing, hm? It did taste much better than it looks :-)

TWD Chocolate Pots de Creme

I was very last-minute with this week's TWD, and being distracted I missed skimming the foam. And then the plastic wrap melted in the oven (why did I follow the recipe there?!). And yes, this photo is the best I could do.
Due to the melted plastic, we're not eating all of these, but I scraped the top off of one, and it was pretty incredible. For all the cream, it still felt light. Very chocolaty. These were very nice, and I'll have to try them again sans plastic wrap :-)

Thanks to Christine of Black Cat Cooking for this week's pick!