Recipe: Dark Chocolate Egg Nog Scones with coffee glaze

GoGot Eggnog?

Make some Holiday scones with the little bit of eggnog left after the party.

Dark Chocolate Eggnog Scones with Coffee Glaze

I bought some eggnog just in case anyone stopped by and I wanted to serve them a glass of some but I didn't end up drinking it so i thought it would be a great substitute for buttermilk in scones so I thought about what I would like to pair it with and of course my favourite chocolate would do the trick and make a delicious flavour combo.

Here's what I came up with:

Ingredients:

Scones:

2 cups of sifted flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of cold grated butter

1 egg

1 tbsp vanilla

1/2 cup of Eggnog

1/2 cup of chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips

reserve a couple of tablespoons of eggnog for the top and flour for the board to roll out.

Coffee Glaze:

1 tsp instant coffee 

1 tbsp hot water

1/2 cup icing sugar approx.

Directions:

In a medium sized bowl sift the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and mix it up with a fork or a whisk and add the sugar and mix again.

Grate a half a cup of cold butter right into the dry ingredients and mix with a for or pastry cutter until it's combined into little pea shaped bits and then mix the wet ingredients.

In a measuring cup crack 1egg and whisk it up for a few minutes and then add a 1/2 cup of eggnog and a tablespoon of vanilla and mix well.

Chop 1/2 cup of chopped dark chocolate or measure a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips.

Add the wet egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a fork or wooden spoon until combined and before all the flour is mixed in add the chopped dark chocolate and mix until combined.  It should slightly come together but don't mix it too much or it will become tough.

Dump the mixture out onto a floured board and knead it all together until it's all mixed and pat it down into a dinner plate sized flat shape.

You can cut it with round biscuit or cookie cutters or you can just cut it into pie slices by cutting in  half and then quarters and then cutting each quarter in half if you want them smaller.  

I didn't cut mine out that great but it didn't matter but it does matter that they are similar in size so they can bake the same.  

Place on a baking tray and you can line it with parchment if you like.  I didn't bother this time.

Brush the top with the reserved eggnog and place in the oven.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 -20 minutes depending on how hot your oven is.  Remove when they are brown on the bottom and golden brown on top.

To make the glaze in a small bowl mix the hot coffee with the instant coffee and mix well and then add icing sugar until you get a runny icing paste.

Drizzle with a fork on the Scones just out of the oven and they will dry once the scones are cooled.

Serve immediately.

Makes 12 large scones.

Goes great with eggnog or hot coffee and would make a great Christmas or Boxing Day breakfast.

Baking with Canola Oil is easy

My friend Vicky (momwhoruns) asked me to join her for a fun Baking with Canola event at the Luxe Appliance Studio on King St. in downtown Toronto recently.  Although the event happened on a thursday and I had a bit of a nasty fall on the monday and had a hard time lifting my arm, I since found out I have a rotator cuff injury, but anyway I really wanted to go so I just did as much as I could at the event an relied on my baking partner Heather (thetastygardner) to do the heavy lifting part.

The event was sponsored by Canola Oil and hosted by Joey Salmingo and special guest Emily Richards who is a home economist, was there to show us some of her favourite family recipes from her new cookbook Per La Famiglia.  

Upon arrival we sampled some of the tasty appetizers that Emily prepared for us.  I really enjoyed the panzerotti stuffed with charcuterie. 

We listened to Jeannette (@farminginpearls) who is a Canola farmer from Winnipeg speak about the Canola farmers and how little space they have to grow Canola and how challenging it is to grow and the benefits of using Canola Oil.

Ellen Pruden explained how Canola is graded with a little Canola crushing demo.  They allow only 2 uncrushed Canola seeds for their top grade.  The portion that is unused is used as animal feed.

Emily started the demo with a Bomb.  Actually she made some Nutella stuffed Bomboloni which means bomb in Italian.  I didn't actually have time to try one but it looked delicious.

We were split into pairs of 2 and we were given one of Emily's recipes from her cookbook to make.  I was paired with Heather who has a blog called The Tasty Gardener.  Heather had to do any heavy lifting with my arm in bad shape I was a bit limited but I did what I could.  Our recipe was Potato donuts, we made them sweet with a coating of cinnamon sugar and savoury with an anchovy surprise in the middle.  We gathered the ingredients and heather did all the kneading to get the dough together.  We both rolled out the donuts from a batch Emily had prepared in advance.  It's a yeast dough so it needed time to proof.  We actually went back to our batch later once it had proofed.

Both of us were set up to fry the donuts.  it was a bit of a slow process because we could only do about 5 at a time.  We made a lot and I was the last person to finish frying them up.  I used my left arm to flip them in the pot.  I'm learning to be a lefty for now.

Heather topped her sweet ones with Cinnamon Sugar and I decided to use Icing Sugar so there would be more variety.  They were very rustic looking but looked great.

I have been using Canola oil for frying for a while now and my mom's Chiffon cake calls for oil in it.  But it was great to see all of Emily's recipes.  Some reminded me of my childhood because one was a peach cookie that my neighbour used to make during the holidays.  She also has a recipe for Struffoli that my other neighbour used to have only at Christmas time.  Most of my neighbours were Italian growing up and I developed my love of Italian food from them.  There was also Crostoli which I think a few of my friends had because I guess it was readily available at our local Italian Bakery.

Emily's cookbook has some fantastic recipes that are Classic Italian generational recipes that you should try and make if you haven't had the experience of having an Italian Nonna around.

If you haven't baked or fried with Canola I would suggest you try it and see how your recipes turn out.  You can even substitute for lard or butter I am told for some recipes.  Canola has Omega 3's so it's a really great product and also Canadian so it's great to support our local Canadian farmers.

Website: Www.CanolaEatWell.Com

Twitter/Instagram: @CanolaEatWell   #BakingwithCanola

Emily Richards http://www.emilyrichardscooks.ca/

Twitter/Instagram @ERiscooking

Holiday Homemade Food Gifts

This year I am probably going to do more baking and cooking than I have done in a long time.  I  decided to make only Food Gifts for anyone I have to give a gift to this year for the HOLIDAYS.

I am trying to get creative with a few different things.

I don't have family gifts to deal with so it's only for friends.  My friends are very busy people so I have been just giving them little food gifts as I see them and whatever is left will be for my Annual Post Christmas Party.

So far this year I have made these things and so far they have all gone over well with friends.

My favourite Brownie Recipe with a bit of marshmallow fluff mixed in for extra moist brownies.  I just used the Fry's Cocoa recipe.  It's easy and it always works.

I then made some Popcorn and made so much that I decided to make little popcorn packages and I wanted it to be a little more interesting so I crushed up some roasted seaweed sheets and tossed in some black sesame seeds and sea salt.  I just used a little bit so it had a nice subtle flavour.   This was so easy and quick that I will probably do this again next year.

I tried a new thing this year after seeing a trend on food network shows of making roasted and spiced mixed nuts.  My version was a bit of a mix of different recipes that I saw.   The nuts I used were Cashews, Hazelnuts, Walnuts and Brazil nuts.  I added Cinnamon, Cayenne, Brown Sugar and Salt and Pepper and a bit of All Spice.   I went pretty easy on the spices for the first time to see how it would work out.   I added a beaten egg white to coat the nuts before I mixed it into the spice mix so it would stick better.

The next thing I made was Gingerbread Men.  I don't think I ever made Gingerbread Men before that I can remember.  I attempted to make a Gingerbread House many years ago though and decided that I don't have the patience to do that well.   I just searched online for a Gingerbread recipe for this one and mixed up the dough and it was supposed to rest for a bit but I decided to make it a few days later so it would be freshly baked just before I had to give it out.   But I got lazy and didn't bother making the royal icing to frost it.   I still have some and maybe I will decorate them.

The dough was fairly dry and I think I may have left it in the fridge a bit too long because when it was rolled out it cracked and didn't roll smoothly.   I will try another recipe or make adjustments next time.  It did taste great though.



A really easy thing to make is jars of Gourmet Hot Cocoa ready to add to some hot milk.   I added some Camino Cocoa to icing sugar and a little bit of cinnamon, a tiny bit of cornstarch to thicken and a pinch of salt to bring out the chocolate flavour.  I also added some Shaved Green & Black's Dark Chocolate.  I topped up the jar with some mini marshmallows.   My friend loves Hot Chocolate so all she needs to do is dump the contents into a pot of heated milk, mix and pour into a nice big Mug.

And finally the last thing I made was something I prepped and put in the freezer and just baked off today.   I made a couple of batches of Sugar Cookies and in one recipe I added Cocoa and Espresso powder and the other recipe I added chopped Peppermint Bark that I had.   You can freeze the dough for up to a month so I still have the Cocoa batch in the freezer to bake off another day.  It's a great thing to make ahead of the holidays and then you can just slice up a round of cookie dough and bake it quickly in case you have any drop in guests or you have a last minute gift you didn't have time to get.

I still want to make a few things like meringues and biscotti because they keep a little longer and nice to have around the house for any drop in guests.   Because I live in a building attached to a mall, I never know when someone is going to say they are in the area and want to drop in.   It's nice to have some treats and some nice teas on hand just in case.

I don't know if I actually saved any money this year making all the food gifts but they have been really appreciated so far.  I think it goes back to the thought and the effort that counts.  I would much rather stay home and bake than spend an hour looking for a parking spot at a mall and wander around for hours trying to find the perfect gift.   Gifts of Food can never go wrong if you know what your friends and family like.   If they are on a diet or have dietary restrictions you can always accommodate that with things like popcorn or meringues or even the mixed nuts.   I made a variety of things to cover all the options.    Maybe this will be my new tradition.   It is a lot more work but at the same time it's a lot less stressful than shopping in a crowded mall.

I didn't include recipes because most of these are recipes online with my little tweaks added.  Get Creative and start cooking.

 Give some FOOD LOVE this year for your Holiday Gifts.