If you like the sweet and salty bacon combination, you’ll like this. If you don’t, don’t bother trying it!

Fat Tuesday Bacon Pancakes
(recipe for 8 pancakes)

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 1 1/4 cups milk
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted
- 8 slices of bacon, cooked and fat drained

Mini Apple Pie Pockets (…or Lollipies if you use popsicle sticks!)
(recipe makes ~ 12, 2.5″ pockets)
Ingredients:
- 1 extra- large apple; renders ~ 1 1/3 cup after pitted and diced  (I used Cortland Apples)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 3/4 tablespoon white sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 package ready-made pie dough (I used Tenderflake pie shells, flattened)
+ egg wash
+ cookie cutter
+ parchment paper
Directions:

1. Peel, core and dice the apple. You’ll want to dice the apple into fairly small pieces, since they will be the filling of a small dessert:)

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine sugars, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

3. Mix until combined, and set aside.

4. Pre-heat oven to 350′F. On a lightly floured work surface, roll out your pie dough to 1/8″ thick. Using your cookie cutter, cut out 24 pieces (12 for the base, 12 for the top)

5. Transfer dough bases on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.  Drain any liquid from the pie filling and place a spoonful of the pie filling in the center. Brush the edges of the pie pockets with egg wash and gently place another dough cutout on top of the base. Carefully press the dough to cover the filling.

6. If you want to make lollipies, insert a wooden popsicle stick in the middle (tucked under the filling).  Using a pastry roller or a fork, seal the edges of the pie pockets by gently pressing down. Brush the tops of the pockets with egg wash, and poke a small hole in the center using a toothpick. The purpose of this is to create a little vent for the pies  to prevent the pie filling from leaking through the crust by allowing steam to escape from inside the pie.

7. Bake your pie-pockets at 350′F for 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove and allow to cool completely before picking them up. Allowing them to fully cool is especially important if you are making lollipies because if they are warm, they will break.

I Heart You Cupcakes
Classic Vanilla Cupcakes (Vanilla Birthday Cake)
Recipe makes four 9″ cakes or ~ 30 regular cupcakes. This recipe makes ~20 cupcakes with the red heart centers.

Ingredients:

- Non-stick cooking spray
- 8 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
- 2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 4 1/2  cups cake flour (not self-rising)
- 3 cups sugar
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cup (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
+ Red food coloring gel or powder for the hearts
+ Sheet pan
+ Cupcake pan
+ 1 1/2″ heart shaped cookie cutter
+ Cupcake liners
+ Buttercream icing. Martha Stewart’s basic vanilla butter cream is my favorite

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350′F. Coat the inside of a 12″ x 18″ cookie sheet with cooking spray. Dust the botoms and sides of the pan with flour, knocking out any extra flour.  Line your cupcake pan with paper liners and set aside.

2. Combine the eggs, milk and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat lightly. Set aside.

3. Combine the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a extra large mixing bowl. Add the butter. With an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix on low speed until the butter softens. Four in about 2/3 of the egg mixture and mix on low speed until all the ingredients are moistened. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix on medium-high speed for 1 minute. Stir in the remaining egg mixture on low speed until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix on medium speed for 1 minute.

4. Divide the batter into two parts. Add a few drops of  food coloring gel to half the mixture until you achieve your desired color and stir until combined. This batter will be for the center hearts of your cupcakes. Pour the colored batter into the cookie sheet, spread evenly, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (approximately 13-15 minutes). Let the cake cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, and invert onto a flat work surface.

5. Once the cake is cool to the touch, cut out heart shapes from the red cake. Once you have all your shapes cut out, scrape your plain vanilla batter into the cupcake paper liners, filling about 2/3 of the way. Working quickly, insert a cake heart into the center of each cupcake (yes, cooked cake into the center of the raw batter). Bake until cupcakes are light golden brown (approximately 12 – 15 minutes).

6. Check on the cupcakes about 5 minutes after you’ve placed them in the oven– if the hearts start to rise to the top, carefully tap them down using a wooden spoon. I didn’t have an issue with them popping up on my first batch, but when my oven got a little too hot, they started to creep up. I tapped them down half way through baking and it seemed to fix the issue. Remove the cupcakes from the oven, and allow to cool before icing with your favorite buttercream.

Tip: Using a pencil, mark the cupcake liner to indicate where and which direction you placed the red heart in the center of your cupcake. That way, you can know where to cut the cupcake in half.

Chocolate Seduction Martini for Two

Ingredients:

- 2 oz. Iceberg Vodka

- 1 oz. coffee liqueur

- 1 oz. nut liqueur

- 1 oz. chocolate liqueur

Fine grated bittersweet chocolate

Directions:

Combine Iceberg Vodka and liqueurs in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into two cocktail glasses. Top with chocolate.

*drink responsibly!

You’ll find that this crêpe batter is a little bit more fluid than the traditional recipe. The reason being is that the batter needs to be thin enough to flow out of a small tip squeeze bottle. One trick that also helps is to strain your crêpe batter through a fine sieve to remove any clumps that might get stuck when you try to pour your batter onto your pan.

Lace Crêpe Batter (makes ~ 15 x 5″ crepes)

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 tablespoon sugar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon butter (melted)
+ Non-stick frying pan
+ plastic squeeze bottle
+ icing sugar
+ fine sieve

Directions:
1.In a large bowl, mix ingredients together (wet-dry method). Whisk, or blend until the batter is smooth and there are no large clumps.

Pass the batter through a fine sieve and pour into a plastic squeeze bottle fitted with a small tip. 

2. Pre-heat a lightly buttered non-stick pan on medium heat. Tilt and pour your batter onto the pan, creating a freehand “lace” pattern. Here are some heart shaped lace patterns for inspiration. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but after the first 2, I found it quite easy and fun to make random patterns.

3. Cook the crêpes until golden on the bottom, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook the other side until golden. Because of the lace pattern, you can’t exactly fill these crêpes– instead, you can lightly dust them with sugar, or pour your favorite syrup or compote on top. Et Voila!

Making your own marshmallow is very easy and totally uncomplicated; in fact it really is nothing more than a flavored Italian meringue that has been gelatinized. It might be a little frightening to add hot sugar to egg-whites, but I promise you that if you heat the sugar to 245°F and pour slowly, it will turn out– no curdling, I promise!

Homemade Marshmallows – recipe makes 24, 2.5″ marshmallows

Ingredients:
- Egg whites of 2 large eggs
- 1 cup cold water, divided
- 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin (21 grams)
- 2 cups granulated white sugar
- ½ cup light corn (or golden) syrup or trimoline
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (alternatively, you can substitute almond, mint or any other extract)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 6 tablespoons  icing sugars
+ candy thermometer
+ pan
+ parchment paper

Prep:
- Place gelatin in a small bowl, and add ½ cup of cold water. Stir until combined, and let gelatin sit until blooms.
- Line the bottom of a 13” x 9” x 1” pan with parchment paper. Evenly sift ~3 tablespoons of icing sugar onto the bottom of the pan.
-  Place the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer, set up with the whisk attachment.

Directions:
1. In a heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, second 1/2 cup of cold water, and salt over low heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring.

2. When your candy thermometer registers 210°F, turn on your mixer and begin whipping the egg whites on a medium-low speed. Once you have achieved soft peaks. Keep an eye on your sugar mixture: once the mixture reaches 245°F, temperature, immediately remove from the heat. It is imperative you heat to a soft ball stage, or else you’ll have a watery egg-white mixture, and the mess won’t be pretty.

3. Turn the mixer onto high and slowly pour the syrup along the inner edge of the bowl in a steady stream. Add gelatin mixture, and continue mixing until for 10 minutes. Your mixture will be light and fluffy.

4. Scrape marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan and spread with a damp offset spatula or rubber spatula. The mixture is very sticky so just smooth it out as best as you can. Dust the top of the marshmallow with another 3 tablespoons of confectioners’ sugar and let stand, uncovered, at room temperature until set, about 12 hours.

5. Once set, remove the marshmallow from the pan by first running a small sharp knife around the edge of the marshmallow to loosen it from the pan. Invert the pan onto a large cutting board and cut into squares using a pizza roller or a sharp knife. Dip the cut sides of the marshmallows in additional confectioners’ sugar. Shake off excess sugar and store the marshmallows in an airtight container, at room temperature, for up to two weeks.

Taking it one step further…
 

For Domo Marshmallows:

Supplies:

- Homemade marshmallows (cut into 2” x 1.5” rectangles)
- Milk chocolate, tempered  (for body)
- Dark chocolate, tempered (for eyes)
- Red and white fondant or gum paste (for mouth)

Directions:

- Dip the marshmallows into tempered milk chocolate and place on parchment paper to set. Pipe “eyes” using a parchment triangle and tempered dark chocolate.

- Roll out red fondant, and cut out rectangles to represent the mouth.

- Roll out white fondant and cut into small strips; cut triangles out of strips to represent the jagged teeth.

- Using a water-dipped brush, paint a small strip of water on the top and bottom edges of the red rectangles and adhere the white “teeth” triangles.  Once dried, adhere to marshmallows with a dab of chocolate.

Egg Nog Gingerbread Tarts
Ingredients:  

Gingerbread Sable Tarts
for tips and tricks on making tart dough, click here
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar
- 3 teaspoons ground ginger (adjust spices based on your personal preference)
- 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons dark molasses
+ raw rice or beans for weighting the crust
Egg Nog Creme Froid (No-bake custard)
* For regular “no-bake Creme Brulee”; substitute regular cream instead of egg nog
- 1 cup egg nog
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 7 egg yolks
- 180 grams of sugar or 1 1/4 cup
- 1 packet of gelatin, or 2 gelatin leaves
- 1/2 tsp salt

Decorations:
- optional; I dusted with cinnamon sugar and topped it off with chocolate covered crispy crunchies

For the ginger bread tart shells:

1. Using the paddle attachment, lightly cream together butter, sugar, vanilla and molasses in a mixing bowl.

2. Scrape down sides and add egg and mix until combined. Sift flour and spices together, and add to the mixture just until incorporated. Do not over mix or you will end up with a tough dough.

3. Bring dough together on a lightly flour dusted surface. Divide the dough into two, shape into disks, and wrap each half in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for at least half hour before you move on to the next steps. You can freeze the dough for up to two months if you want to use it at a later time.

4. To roll out the dough: sandwhich the dough between two pieces of parchment paper (or plastic wrap), and roll out to 1/8″ thick. Make sure that your is rolled out enough to fit the size of your tart pan. The dough should be used as soon as it has been rolled out.

5. Mold your pastry into your tart pan and refrigerate– refrigerating the dough prior to baking guards against excessive shrinking during baking. Using a fork, gently prick the bottom of the dough. Be careful not to fully puncture the dough or else any fillings might leak through. Refrigerate for 15 minutes, while your oven preheats to 350′F

6. Line tart with parchment paper (or cupcake liners if they fit), and fill with dried beans, rice, or pie weights. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove the shells from the oven, allow to cool for 3-5 minutes and remove the parchment paper and beans.Return to the oven for 8-10 minutes to fully bake the base.

Don’t forget to check out the tutorial for a simple pâte sucrée for more tips and tricks for tart shells

For the Egg Nog No-bake Filling:

1. Place the leaves of gelatin in a bowl of ice water, or bloom your powdered gelatin as per packet directions. Put off to the side for later use.

2. Warm cream and egg nog on low-medium heat. You  want the cream hot, however, do not scald. Remove cream from stove.

3. In a separate bowl: mix together sugar and yolk. DO NOT mix sugar and yolk together until you are ready to use them. Slowly temper in the warm cream, adding the cream about 1/4 cup at a time, stirring consistently. Cook on stove top at low heat until candy thermometer reaches 66 degrees Celsius and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat. Make sure you are constantly stirring to avoid curdling the eggs. You don’t want to whisk too heavily because you’ll incorporate too many bubbles into the custard.

4. Take gelatin leaves out of water and wring the water out of them. Add the gelatin to the custard and mix slowly until they dissolve. Strain. Pour into tart shells. Allow about 2 hours for them to set. Decorate and embellish the tarts before serving.

This recipe is nothing more than chocolate dipped oreos. The work is quite minimal, and your guests (including Santa), will swoon over them.

Transfer sheets are made using colored cocoa butter. The cocoa butter melts and transfers onto chocolate as your tempered chocolate cools. Transfer sheets can be purchased at your local cake-supply store, or online. In order to achieve the snap and shine on chocolate, you must use ‘real’ chocolate couveture that is tempered. You can always use Wilton melts, merkens, or chocolate coatings that use cocoa butter substitutes and don’t require tempering.

Chocolate Covered Oreos
Ingredients:

- 150 g each of White, Milk and Dark Chocolate (couveture is preferred; 150g of chocolate will cover ~10 cookies)
- 1 pack of Oros (dark or white)
- Cocoa Butter Transfer Sheets (optional)
- Parchment paper or Silpat

Directions:

1. Temper your couverture, or melt your coating chocolate.

2. Using a fork, or a candy dipping spoon, coat your Oreos with the melted chocolate.

3. Once your cookie is covered in chocolate, carefully tap out the cookies to remove excess chocolate and to create an even surface. Gentry place on a Silpat or parchment paper, and carefully place your transfer pattern on top, pressing gently to remove air bubbles. Allow chocolate to set at ambient temperature; once your chocolate is set, peel off the transfer sheet.

For now, I’ll leave you with a recipe and idea to decorate macarons for the holidays.

Snowflake Macarons

Ingredients:
Macarons:
90 gr egg whites
25 gr granulated sugar
200 gr powdered sugar
110 gr almonds (finely ground)
1 tablespoon powdered food coloring (any color, optional)

White Chocolate Ganache Filling:

225 gr white chocolate , chopped(you can substitute semi-sweet chocolate for a dark chocolate ganache)
190 gr heavy whipping cream
25 gr unsalted butter, room temperature

+ royal icing and  parchment triangles to make piping easier

Directions:

Macarons

1. (almond flour mixture) In a food processor, pulse confectioners’ sugar and almond flour until combined. Sift and set aside

2. (egg whites) Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites on medium-low speed. When the egg whites start to turn foamy (think cappuccino froth), add the granulated sugar. Continue to whisk eggs on medium-low speed until the egg whites have a consistency of shaving cream. Be patient, don’t use the high setting– you’ll risk over beating the eggs, and then its game over before we even get started. If you are going to add food colouring, you’ll want to add it to your egg whites at this point.In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam, (think bubble bath foam) gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue (think shaving cream). Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry.

4. Fold the almond flour mixture into the egg whites. At this point, you want to have a homogenous mixture with a ‘lava like’ consistency. What does this look like? Best thing I can think of is shampoo– it’s free flowing, but still  viscous to hold shape.  You can test a daub on a plate, and if a small beak remains, turn the batter a couple times more. If the batter forms a round cap but doesn’t run, it is just right. The perfect batter will slightly ooze right out of your piping bag before you are ready. When piped, the macarons hold a peak for about a second or two, and then they gradually find their round shape and flatten off.

5. Transfer your batter to a piping bag, fitted with a plain round tip. On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, pipe 1″- 2″ round circles. Let your cookies rest for 30-45 minutes until dry to touch.

6. Preheat oven to 300′F. Let the cookies bake for about 10-15 minutes. Each oven is different, so you might need to adjust the oven temperature and duration accordingly. If your did everything right to this point, and your  macaron caps brown, crack, or bake without feet, this is an indication that your oven is too hot. You can reduce your oven temperature, or prop open slightly your oven door using a wooden spoon.  The tops of the macaron shouldn’t brown, but they should have developed feet and a defined shell on top. Remove cookies from the oven, allow to cool on sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a cookie sheet.

You have the option to skip the chocolate layers and just sprinkle nuts on to the warm brittle, but if you have the time and patience, it makes that much more special.

Pistachio Brittle
* Make sure you have all your ingredients scaled out and ready to go– you won’t have time to measure things in between. It requires you to react quickly.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 cup hulled pistachios, chopped
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate, tempered and melted (optional)
+ candy thermometer

Directions:

1. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silpat. In a heavy, large (!you need a large sauce pan because the sugar will foam and almost double in size when you add the baking soda) saucepan, over medium heat, bring to a boil sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved.  Set candy thermometer in place, and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). You’ll want to brush the sides of the pot occasionally with cool water to prevent any crystalization. This will take about 7 to 9 minutes, and it will turn an amber color.

2. Remove from heat and stir in stir in butter, vanilla and baking soda – it will immediately get foamy. Working quickly, spread nut brittle onto prepared baking sheet.  Allow to set completely.

3. Once the brittle is completely set (approximately 30 minutes), spread a thin layer of chocolate on one side. Let it fully set, carefully flip the brittle over, and repeat. Sprinkle pistachios on the chocolate and allow to set.

4. Once the chocolate is set, you get to break the brittle into pieces. You can use a blunt object to get the process started, but it should be fairly easy.