Daring Bakers: Panna Cotta and Florentine Cookies

We completed our first Daring Cooks challenge and now it is time for the first Daring Bakers challenge!  We were excited because we haven't made either item for this challenge either!  We decided that these desserts would be perfect for Valentine's day weekend!

We were challenged with making a Panna Cotta and were allowed to be creative with the flavorings of a gelee to go with it.  At first I was envisioning a peanut butter and jelly theme to our Panna Cotta, but as soon as the thought of lime and coconut entered my head it would not go away!  The idea of something tropical and summery sounded great since we keep getting so much snow!!

The February 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mallory from A Sofa in the Kitchen. She chose to challenge everyone to make Panna Cotta from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe and Nestle Florentine Cookies.


First, we made a lime gelee.

1 tsp unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup fresh lime juice (was about 4 limes)
1 tsp lime zest


 In a small cup, sprinkle the gelatin over 1 tablespoon of cold water and let stand until softened, about 3 minutes. In a small saucepan, combine 1/4 cup of the sugar with 2 tablespoons of water and simmer over moderate heat just until the sugar is dissolved. Remove the sugar syrup from the heat and whisk in the softened gelatin until dissolved. Stir in the lime juice and 1/2 teaspoon of the lime zest.  Pour into glasses.  Refrigerate for about 15-30 minutes until set.

Then we made the Panna Cotta.  Instead of using whole milk we used coconut milk so that our Panna Cotta would be a honey coconut Panna Cotta.  

I also made some in my heart shaped silicone muffin pan; however, we couldn't get them to un-mold properly. The gelee layer stuck to the bottom. FAILURE!!!  It still tasted good though! :)

Here are the cookies we made.  D liked the ones that were slightly softer and I actually liked the really crispy ones (they tasted more like caramel that way).  


Since we didn't have dark corn syrup we used a little molasses in place of some of the corn syrup to give it a darker color.

Here are the cookies out of the oven.

The cookies needed a chocolate drizzle.

Another picture of the final presentation!

If you'd like to try the recipes visit HERE.

Christmas Baking Part 1: Molasses Softies

After a year of healthy cooking and dedicated gym attendance, a baking extravaganza was in order!  This Holiday season began with an over the top Thanksgiving meal and continued with every baking session that took place.. Thinking back I can't even count the pounds of butter that made it through this house!  Let alone the amount of sugar and flour.  It makes me slightly ill thinking about all the baking we did.. but we both enjoyed every second of it!  Expect to see a few posts over the next few days about our Holiday baking, because there was too much for just one post!

We had some leftover Molasses from Thanksgiving (I will post about that later...) so I really wanted to make some sort of Molasses or Gingerbread cookie.  I searched the internet for what felt like hours for the perfect recipe to constantly realize I was missing an ingredient (I had already been in a grocery store 3 times that day and was not going to head out again).  Finally I remembered I had received a collection of Christmas Cookie Exchange recipes at my wedding shower.  This book is amazing it was made by a group of friends (one of which was a student of my moms when she first started teaching) that have a cookie exchange every year.  These are tried and true recipes!  The book had exactly what I was looking for...... Molasses Softies.  These cookies were perfectly tender and soft and chewy!  Yumm...  

Now finally for the recipe!

Molasses Softies  (from Sweet Traditions)

1 cup Butter (room temperature)

1 1/3 cup Sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup Molasses

3 T Light Corn Syrup

2 T Milk

4 C.  All-purpose Flour  

2 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp Ground Ginger

1 1/2 tsp Ground Cloves

Sugar for Coating

Preheat oven to 350.  In large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy.  Beat in molasses, corn syrup, and milk until blended.  Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, beating until well blended.  It will be a very stiff dough.  Shape into 1-inch balls.  Roll balls in sugar to lightly coat.  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, leaving some space between cookies for them to spread as they bake.   Bake 12-14 minutes or until golden.  Do NOT over-bake.  Cool 1-2 minutes on baking sheets and then remove to racks to cool.

NOTES:

• The cookies spread quite a bit, make sure to leave more space then you expect.
• Do NOT flatten the cookies (like you would peanut butter cookies)  they spread out enough. See picture below of my cookies in the oven to see how they started before they spread.