Chocolate Palmiers

When I made the daring bakers challenge there was plenty of puffpastry left over. And as everyone said, homemade puffpastry is valuable. It tastes so much better then store bought and even though mine wasn't perfect it was still really tasty! There are so many things you can do with puffpastry, but I had never done any of them. Puffpastry was new for me. And that is one of the main things I like about the daring kitchen, you use ingredients and techniques that might be completely new for you.

So I went looking for an easy recipe that was going to be tasty and sweet. With me having a sweet tooth, I went to google and quickly found several recipe's and movies on how to make chocolate palmiers. These little hart shaped cookies are really delicious and I'll eat these anytime! They are baked until the sugar thats on and in them is caramelized. Which makes them absolutely yummy!

Palmiers
Ingredients
250 gram of puff pastry
130 gram of sugar
3 tablespoons of cocoapowder

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Line a large baking tray with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Mix the sugar and the cocoa powder.
3. Sprinkle about half of the sugar mixture over the work surface and place the pastry on top. Sprinkle the other half of the sugar mixture over the puff pastry. Try to leave some sugar for later. With your rolling pin gently press the sugar into the pastry.
4. Roll out the pastry a bit more so it is in a nice square shape. Turn the pastry over often to make sure most of the sugar goes into the pastry. Fold the top and bottom edges of the pastry about a third of the way toward the center, then fold each edge over again, leaving about 1 cm space in the center. Finally, fold one side over the other making a long narrow pastry rectangle with 6 layers.
5. Cut off the edges of the pastry and discard. Cut the remaining pastry into slices about 1 centimeter thick. If you had any sugar left over dip the cut edges into the mixture. Gently press the bottom of the palmier together and open the top bit a bit. This will make a nicer palmier shape. Place the slices, with the cut side down onto the baking tray and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Make sure there is enough room between the palmiers as they will expand quite a bit.
6. When the pastry is nice and cold again, and the oven is properly preheated put the palmiers into the middle of the oven and bake for 20 minutes or untill the sugar is fully caramelized. Take them out of the oven and place on a cooling rack. They are tasty both hot or cold. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Biscotti

We have a grain mill at the end of the road, and they mill and sell organic flours. And as I always have trouble finding nice flour, and I have a darking bakers recipe to bake which involves a lot of flour, I had to go and test this flour to see if it was good enough. So I went to the mill shop and got us some nice all-purpose flour.

As I have been baking a lot of chocolate recipes lately I felt it was time for something else. And as I have a sweet tooth, it was going to be something sweet.

After a long day walking around in Amsterdam with some friends I came home exhausted. I fell asleep on the couch as soon as we came back home. But the longing feeling of baking was still there, so there I was, standing in the kitchen at 22.000 baking cinnamon biscotti. I found the recipe the other day, now I know they aren't chewy and definitely not chocolaty, but they were delicious! And the next day they were even better.

I've never had biscotti before these, but my boyfriend did and said that these were exactly how biscotti were supposed to taste. I myself would have liked to be a bit more crunchy so next time I will use the Italian way of making biscotti instead of the American way.

For those who don't know the two ways of biscotti. The American version uses butter in the recipe to make the bscotti a bit more chewy, whereas the Italian biscotti are so hard that you might have to dunk them in some hot tea or coffee to make them softer so they wont break your teeth.

Cinnamon Biscotti
Ingredients
310 gram all-purpose flour
150 gram sugar
1 1/2  teaspoons  baking powder
1 1/2  teaspoons  ground cinnamon
1/4  teaspoon  salt
3  large eggs
2  tablespoons butter, melted
2  teaspoons  vanilla extract
2  tablespoons  sugar
1/2  teaspoon  ground cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 160°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Combine eggs, butter and vanilla; stir with a whisk. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface; knead lightly 10 times. Shape dough into a 16-inch-long roll. Place roll on the baking tray; flatten to a 3/4-inch thickness. Combine 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon; sprinkle over dough.
3. Bake at 160 °C for 30 minutes. Remove roll from baking sheet; let cool 10 minutes on a wire rack. Cut roll diagonally into 24 (1/2-inch) slices. Place, cut sides down, on a baking sheet. Bake at 160 °C for 10 minutes. Turn cookies over; bake an additional 10 minutes (cookies will be slightly soft in center but will harden as they cool). Remove from baking sheet; let cool completely on a wire rack and enjoy!