Heart Cookies with Marbled Fondant

I went to an event where I got a bunch of fondant samples to bring home. I typically make my own white chocolate and marshmallow fondant, but wanted to try something fun and different with this prepared fondant that I had to use.  I had seen these fun marbled heart cookies on the cover of Family Circle, of all places. They looked impressive and seemed fairly easy so I thought I would give it a try. 

I used their recipe for the vanilla sugar cookies and while the consistency of the dough was very crumbly, they came together and the cookies turned out quite nice. 

All of the fondant that I had was white, so I got out my gel food coloring to make some black and pink as I was really wanting light pink and grey marbled cookies. I wish I had a lighter pink, but this was all I had. 

As I look back on the image from the magazine, I mixed in more color than white, but I still like the marbled look I got for my first try at this. 

I cut out some small and some large hearts. I even did a few with a scalloped cutter (see last photo) that my daughter really wanted to try. I made a simple vanilla buttercream to be the glue for the fondant heart and then used the same cookie cutter to cut out the fondant to top them off.  I'm not that great at piping royal icing on cookies (at least not yet), but I found this to be a great way to get a really polished look for decorated cookies. 

I loved my pretty heart cookies and packaged them for Valentine gifts for teachers and friends. They are especially good with a cup of creamy hot tea. Eat your heart out! :) 

Flourless Chocolate Cookies

I had a business meeting at a fancy hotel recently. They had a tray of assorted desserts and treats displayed and some of them were gluten free. I typically never try the hotel catered desserts and was not especially drawn to those that were gluten free, but I tried these small flourless chocolate cookies they had out as someone else was raving about them.

OH-MY-GOODNESS - they were decadent. I had two of them (yikes) and set out that evening to discover a recipe to try to create them myself. This version tasted pretty darn similar, but they baked flatter than the ones I had tried.

The batter was very silky and filled with chocolate pieces. I used yummy Guittard chocolate discs so the pieces were larger than typically chocolate chips.

I put Maldon sea salt flakes on some of the cookies and they were definitely my favorites. I'd sprinkle more of them with sea salt next time before baking them. 

I made these on Super Bowl Sunday for an easy to grab dessert treat, but they were so yummy and there were so many of them that I couldn't keep them around the house. I packaged them up to gift to a few people and take to my colleagues to enjoy.

A Year of Baking

It's been a hectic year full of fun, travel, work, play and yet still lots of baking in between. I just haven't taken the extra time to catalog much of it here. I have enjoyed trying all kinds of fun recipes - usually to make something sweet for dessert when we have friends over and sometimes just to try something new.

This past year, I tackled making croissant dough again, piping beautiful pillowy meringue on tarts, decorating holiday cookies with royal icing and a few things in between. Nothing was perfect, but all of it was fun. It was a way to exercise some creative energy, focus on doing something that made me happy and feel good about sharing something with others to enjoy. I often have wondered why I spend hours pouring myself into baking projects in my very little down time, but my sister recently shared this Huff Post article with me where psychologists explain the benefits of baking for other people. It's so true and after what I've been through in life and to help focus on something beyond the daily stresses of work life, baking has been it for me.

I made a few banoffee pies, including this one with the buttery Digestive biscuit crust and chocolate flakes sprinkled on top. 

I love baking with berries and made this blackberry clafouti for dessert one evening. 

We always have this homemade pecan, coconut and dried cherry granola in the house - whether it's to snack on or top our yogurt for breakfast. 

I've always loved lava cakes and tried a new recipe a few times for these molten chocolate cakes. 

In the summer when we were not up for a heavy chocolate dessert, we made homemade ice cream topped with lemon curd, blackberries and homemade candied pistachios. 

In the autumn after we picked apples, I made this tarte aux pommes for a dinner party. 

With my mum from England, I like trying different kinds of scones, so I made these two kinds of fruit scones and several batches of cinnamon chip scones (not pictured). 

 I love making cakes of all kinds for people's birthdays (and even my dog's birthday) I made a few more cakes after the unicorn this past year.  

This was a pumpkin cake with cinnamon buttercream frosting. 

Our dog, Tootsie, turned 13 and reaching that age deserved a two tier cake!

I love sticky toffee pudding and cake and made this amazing sticky toffee cake with caramel sauce and sea salt. 

I have made my own croissant dough before, but this time I tried making pain au chocolat.  Not perfect, but all my work and they sure still tasted good. 

We had extra lemon curd so I made some lemon curd tarts with meringue piped on top. I have made meringue before, but experimented with getting it the right consistency and piping it in different patterns on the tarts.

 We had our annual homemade cinnamon rolls at Thanksgiving and Christmas this year - all cozy by the fire. 

 I also did lots of fireside cookie decorating at the holidays including these snowflakes, ginger people and ornaments with royal icing.  

I had some white chocolate to use and tried these white chocolate blondies with raspberries and cream. 

I took an amazing puff pastry class and made this puff pastry pear tart with caramel sauce. We also made cheese straws and I used the puff pastry I brought home to make chicken pot pie topped with puff pastry. 

There's a lot more baking in store for 2019. I look forward to learning lots more and trying new projects.