Merry Christmas, with Rum!

I have, on my mother's side, eight first cousins. Of those eight, two are genuinely nice to me.  Last year I mentioned on facebook my (then) newfound love of rum balls and one of my genuinely nice cousins posted a quick "Feel free to bring me by a batch. lol"  And so I did. This year I am making him some as well.  The thing is his sister, the second genuinely nice cousin, is a recovering alcoholic so she can't have any. In fact, I don't know if there will be any alcohol at all at my extended family's Christmas festivities this year and I don't want to be responsible for some showing up. (I never attend the festivities because of the 1-4 ratio of genuinely nice to me people there so I have no idea what's there or not.)  So now I have to smuggle rum balls to my cousin.  This has become so much more complicated than I thought it would be. 

Baking, and a recipe!

So far my weight loss plan to not eat any junk food I haven't made myself has led me to rediscover my deep fryer, as well as baking. I crave potato chips SO bad, yet I have none to eat. Tom bought me a mandoline, though, so I will have chips soon. I just hope I can keep them from becoming the burnt-tasting brown chips. Wish me luck, whenever I get around to making them. Today's experiment was chocolate biscotti. Here is the recipe I used, with a little secret baking information I have*:

Chocolate Biscotti

INGREDIENTS:

half cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 cup white sugar (splenda won't work; I tried it)
2 1/2 cups white flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder


DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In mixer (you can use a bowl but I used my mixer with the paddle attachment) blend oil, eggs, and sugar until well blended. Add cocoa powder until it resembles fudge sauce. Add baking powder, wait a few seconds, then add flour. Knead on floured surface until workable (it will be sticky and your hands will look like you strangled a chocolate statue) and then split into halves.
3. Roll each half into a log about 6 inches shorter than your cookie sheet and place in middle of parchment paper. Then fold the paper over the dough (like rolling sushi) and smash down, form each side in turns, to get a 3/4ish inch thick rectangular slab. (If my paper folding instructions don't make sense, don't worry. It's the thickness that counts.)
4. Bake for 15 minutes and then remove and place on racks to cool. When it's cool enough to handle, cut into 1 inch slabs and place slices on their sides back on cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes, flip and bake on other side for 5 minutes. Let cool completely and they should be hard as a rock.
5. Now feel free to dip them in melted chocolate or whatever. I kept mine plain and gave them to the baby as teething cookies, but I plan to dunk them in coffee too. You can add nuts or chocolate chips or just about anything else with a burning point higher than 375 to them, too.




*Secret baking information is that as long as your recipe has a significant amount of sugar in it, you can make just about anything chocolate by replacing a quarter or so of the flour with cocoa powder. Chocolate angel food cake, chocolate sugar cookies, chocolate biscotti. Cocoa is just chocolate flour, if you have sugar to sweeten it. But don't tell anybody or they won't envy your secret recipes. shhhhhh!

Dommy Chakla Cannies

Tommy made brownies.

He stirred he batter.

He broke up most of the lumps.

He refused to stop stirring even after the batter was in the pan.

He cried when it went in the oven. Poor Tommy.

Don't worry. He got full credit for the brownies and got to eat most of them himself. As he said, "Dommy chokla cannies ahsum."