A Valentine's Day Mini Meme

Happy Valentine's Day!



Have fun with this mini meme!


Do you remember your first kiss?
1. Who gave it to you?
2. How old were you?
3. Where did it happen?

Valentine Painted Cookies

My Valentine's gift to you this year are these adorable painted cookies. Rather than making a design with frosting, this design is baked into the cookies. They were such fun to do! Easier than they look, too. And if you have kids, they could do the painting; it doesn't need to be hearts, could be shamrocks or a birthday candle or even funny faces! As you can see from the photos below, the bottom side of the cookie is the painted side. What's even better, these cookies are not too sweet, which is kind of unexpected with a sugar cookie. What better present for your Valentines?

Painted Cookies
From The Perfect Finish by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark

 

Cookie Ingredients:

12 (1  1/2 sticks) tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup confectioners sugar

1 large egg, room temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1  3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup almond flour

Cookie Paint Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

4 large eggs, room  temperature

2 tablespoons corn syrup

Food coloring

Method for the cookies:

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and confectioners sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined.

In another bowl, combine the flour and almond flour. Add gradually to the butter mixture, scraping down the sides. Place the dough in a piece of plastic wrap and wrap it tightly. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or over night.

For the Cookie Paint:

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, flour and corn syrup. Beat until smooth. Allow the mixture to rest, covered, for 1 hour.

Divide the mixture into several containers and stir in food coloring as preferred. I only used red, but you can see by the accompanying photo below (from the book), you can do any design your heart desires. Little play on words there. :) 

To Paint and Bake:

Preheat oven to 325. Line several baking sheets with silpat or parchment paper. If using parchment paper, spray with a cooking spray and then blot with a paper towel.

Using the cookie paint, paint on the parchment paper with a brush, your fingers or a stencil. (I made a little heart stencil out of heavy paper. Do you remember doing those in school?) Don't forget to make your artwork smaller than the cookie! Use one ever so slightly thick coating (I used a paintbrush). The cooking spray on the parchment paper makes it a tad difficult if you use a thin layer as the cookbook suggested. You'll understand when you try it.

Flour a work surface and roll out the cookie dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters.(I used 2 1/2 inch round) I rolled out the dough between sheets of wax paper so I didn't have to deal with flour on the cookies. If you roll out in flour, be sure to dust the flour off the cookie before you put it down on the paint.

I placed each cookie top side down onto the painted heart on the baking sheet. I found the heart design on the cookies turned out more even that way. Took me one batch to figure that out! Press firmly. Repeat with the remaining dough. Sprinkle plain tops of the cookies with granulated sugar before baking.

Bake for 9-12 minutes (I found it took longer) or until the cookies are firm and the edges are barely golden at the edge. They will be browner on the painted side. Cool the cookie sheets on a wire rack before removing from the parchment paper.

Mini Flautas

Quesadillas are a perennial favorite with everyone, but they can be really messy to eat. And if everyone's either sitting around watching the game, or standing at a cocktail party, spills will happen. Phoebe and Cara at Big Girls, Small Kitchen have a solution: Mini Corn and Leek Flautas.

Flautas, which means "flutes", usually refers to a flour tortilla that is rolled up around a filling and deep fried. As opposed to Taquitos which are a corn tortilla rolled in a similar fashion with a filling of beef, chicken or cheese and fried until crisp. Flautas are sometimes rolled to be narrower on one end, resulting in a long, narrow cone shape, like a flute. But the main difference is that usually Flautas are flour tortillas, and Taquitos are made of corn tortillas.                                                                                               

Phoebe and Cara came up with a mini flautas version, so easy to eat, and a super combo of ingredients. (You could certainly use your own imagination for fillings.) Also, they didn't want to deep fry, so they baked them in a hot oven. I'd say it was a huge success. Mine weren't as picture-pretty as theirs (I tried to cram too much filling in), but they were yummy, crunchy and dipped in a lovely cilantro lime crema, everyone loved them.


Mini Corn and Leek Flautas
From Phoebe and Cara at Big Girls, Small Kitchen

Ingredients:

16 large tortillas

1/2 lb smoked cheddar cheese (or sharp white cheddar), shredded

1/2 lb Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded

1 cup leek confit (recipe follows)

1 15oz can corn, rinsed (If in season, use 5 ears of fresh corn, kernels removed)

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp salt

dash cayenne

Cilantro-Lime Crema for dipping

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Using a 3-inch round, cut each tortilla into 5 smaller rounds.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the cheeses, leek mixture, corn, cumin, salt, and cayenne and toss to combine. On a clean work surface, brush each round with a little bit water. Place 1 tablespoon of filling in the center of each round, and roll together so the edges overlap (they should look like mini tacos, and the water will help the edges bind). Place the flautas seamside-down on a cookie sheet lined with parchment, about 20 per sheet.

Bake the flautas in the oven for 10 minutes, until the tortilla is nicely browned, and the cheese is bubbling. Allow the flautas to rest on the cookie sheets until cool enough to touch. Arrange on a platter and serve immediately with some sour cream or cilantro-lime crema for dipping.

Bench note: you can bake the flautas in advance, and then reheat them in a 400 degree oven until they recrisp. Makes 80 flautas.