Valentine’s Day Treats

It’s never too late to make something special for Valentine’s Day! The recipe I made is one of my staples. I found it on the Joy of Baking site ages ago and have been making different variations of the recipe ever since.

For Valentine’s Day, I used heart-shaped cutters to make cheesecake brownie hearts! The recipe was so simple and I just picked up a package of CakeMate Cookie Icing for the red decorations on top.

I doubled the recipe so in total I made 45 small brownies and 1 big one, which my sister stole to give to her bf. In the end, I was left with 28 brownies to decorate and share! I will be giving these to my parents, sisters, grandparents, friends from chef school, and of course, my valentine!

You can find the recipe at http://www.joyofbaking.com/barsandsquares/CreamCheeseBrownies.html

A couple things to keep in mind:

  • I recommend greasing the pan with butter instead of using tin foil. The tin foil often sticks to the brownies.
  • I didn’t swirl my brownies, as you can see. I just put the cream cheese layer directly over top the brownie layer.

I encourage you to try this recipe and provide me with your feedback  on these goodies! Good luck.

Yours edibly,

Elana

Biscotti

Don’t these just look fabulous?

I recently joined the Women’s Culinary Network (WCN) and we had our first event of the year – The Network & Nibble Event – last week. I brought biscotti to the event and it was a huge hit!

I always thought biscotti was an extremely difficult thing to make, but after learning how to make it at school I realized that it’s not so tough at all. There are just a lot of steps.

I can’t share the recipe with you, but I will offer you some tips on how to make a perfect biscotti:

  1. Almonds are great in biscotti – a combination of coarse (about 1/3) and fine (2/3) will taste best.
  2. If the dough is too crumbly and you are having a tough time rolling it, which happened to me, add a little bit of warm water to the dough until you reach the right consistency.
  3. My biscotti took slightly longer to bake than the recipe suggested. Keep a careful eye on the biscotti’s progress at all times. Although my first batch turned out excellent, my second batch was slightly over baked.
  4. Cut the biscotti on a bias to achieve the greatest length.
  5. Decorate! It’s really easy to do, all you need is some chocolate, a plastic bag, and a little bit of patience.

If you have any tips for biscotti or questions, please leave a comment.

Yours edibly,

Elana