Boxing

Kavi tells me that “boxing” videos are a thing on TikTok. I’m not deft enough to pack and record myself packing on video at the same time, but the spring Patreon Earth tier boxes are going out today, so here’s a set of photos — sort of like a time-lapse video? 🙂 (There’s some variation in the boxes, depending on what I have on hand, but this is basically what’s going in this tier.)

– tissue paper

– caramel chocolate, coconut rock, dragonfruit chocolate (with white pepper and citrus), ruby chocolate, passionfruit marshmallow

– unicorn hibiscus chocolate (with Celtic sea salt and pounded hibiscus)

– hibiscus & vanilla flower cookie

– coconut-cashew milk toffee crumble (nice on ice cream, yogurt, stirred into granola or cereal, or just eaten straight out of the bag)

– more coconut rock (this one is variable, filing up with extra sweets)

– pandan crinkle cookie (ditto variable)

– snowdrop soap (unscented)

– dried flower & resin bookmark

– photo mini bookmarks

– confetti! 🙂

Pandan Crinkle Cookies

Fun for Easter and spring! I don’t have a recipe for you yet, because I used pandan powder, but it didn’t give much green color (or flavor), so I ended up supplementing with food coloring. I want to try again with pandan extract, see if I get a better result so I can skip the food coloring.

But these are certainly cute nonetheless, and tasty, and Kavi was very impressed — we haven’t made crinkle cookies before, and it’s a dramatic moment when you open the oven door to see the crinkling. 🙂

Taste = Paramount

So, I don’t think I’ll be working with edible paper again anytime soon — it makes a dramatic effect, but it just bugs me that the paper doesn’t taste of anything. Taste = paramount!

Also, to make these look finished, you really should pipe icing around the edge, and I have slightly shaky hands, so my icing skills are never going to be professional level. Hopefully my Patreon peeps won’t mind if these are slightly wonky. 🙂

Edible flower paper circles found on Etsy.

(For the Earth tiers, you’ll be getting either a Holi cookie or a spring flower cookie — they’re both hibiscus & vanilla cookies with royal icing, so same flavors, just very different appearance!)

Throwing Colors

I originally meant these hibiscus & vanilla sugar cookies to be Holi cookies — hence the “throwing colors” decorating approach (nice to do with kids, as a little mess is just fine), so would’ve done a set of spring colors, including yellow and green too…

…but then I had this unicorn theme going for the Patreon boxes, and unicorn colors really are more pink-blue-purple, according to all the unicorn paraphernalia my daughter had, so I decided to stick with those…

…and not entirely coincidentally, pink and blue are also the trans colors, so isn’t it nice that these were finished just in time for trans day of visibility?

Happy day, my trans friends. You are all magical, in my book — not because you’re trans, but because you are living your truth, in a world that is not always accepting of those who differ from convention.

I wish you a long and happy life filled with lots of love, acceptance, and cookies.

*****

(Recipe: Stir in a teaspoon or two of hibiscus powder into your favorite sugar cookie dough — I like Sweetopia’s –– adding a nice little tang and pale purple color . Decorate with royal icing — I use Alton Brown’s recipe — divided and colored. I slathered on base colors with a spatula, then thinned the icing a little with hot water and flicked more color on with the same spatulas.)

Unicorn Chocolates

The Unicorn Garden treat boxes NEEDED unicorn chocolates. These particular unicorns have travelled a long way, from Sri Lanka to Ireland and finally to America. White chocolate colored with tropical hibiscus powder, then pounded hibiscus mixed in for a little extra tang, balanced with Celtic grey sea salt.

Surprising, fun flavor, I think. 🙂 White chocolate is a little dull on its own, but it picks up color so well, and then you can do interesting things with inclusions.

They were a little dull on initial unmolding, but first I gilded the horns, good, and then I dusted on edible gold for the whole top, and that made the detail of their funny faces really visible. Cuteness.

Springy Spring

Took a break from prepping this week’s lit. theory lessons on postmodernism (yes, spring break is over, alas) to assemble some of the sweets for the spring Patreon boxes (Unicorn Garden) . I’m skipping the gilding that I did in December, because naked chocolate just feels a little more appropriate for the season. If only we could all be out doing some naked gardening, hm? 🙂

So far, these confection boxes have: caramel chocolate, Sri Lankan coconut rock, ruby chocolate, dragonfruit-citrus-white pepper chocolate. I think I can squeeze in one more candy; I’m thinking a Sri Lankan sesame sweet, perhaps.

Once those are done, I start figuring out what else I can fit into a small priority mail box, for the lowest tier…several things, I think! More soon, since I’m hoping to get these out this week.

(Daffodils from the cutting garden. Spring spring springy spring!)

Birthday Danish Aebleskiver

It’s Jed’s birthday today, and he said he didn’t particularly need a cake, but I had to cook SOMETHING, so I made him birthday Danish aebleskiver. He had his with dark chocolate and raspberry jam. Happy birthday, sweetie!

The kids were very appreciative of the surprise pancake ball treat. They had theirs with butter and syrup, per usual.

Next time, Dutch poffertjes — I can use the same pan, right? And then I get to try making Sri Lankan kundu thosai, which is the real reason I bought this pan…

Anyone know whether the Danish or Dutch version came first?

Keerai (Spinach) Pittu

(30 minutes, serves 2-4)

This variation on pittu adds lovely green streaks of healthy spinach and sweet shallots for a savory base that could be eaten on its own — but will taste better with a nice sothi or curry (or both), and a little sambol. Cook in a pittu steamer if you have one handy (the shape mimics the bamboo it was originally cooked in), but any regular steamer should work fine.

2 c. plain flour
1/2 t. salt
boiling water, as needed (I used about 1/2 c.)
3/4 c. fresh spinach, chopped finely (thawed frozen chopped is also fine)
1/4 cup grated coconut (if using desiccated, rehydrate with a T of heated coconut milk)
1 green chili, chopped finely

1 shallot, chopped finely

1. Combine flours and salt in a bowl and microwave for one minute. Check if clumping, if not, microwave another minute or two, until it starts to clump. This process makes it easier to mix the flour with water in the next step without forming lumps. (Alternately, steam for a few minutes between two layers of cheesecloth, or roast the flour in a pan, or use pre-steamed or pre-roasted flour.)

2. Add boiling water to bowl, a little at a time, and stir with a wooden spoon — you’re aiming for a texture similar to crumble or rough cornmeal, sometimes called pittu pebbles.

3. Stir in spinach, coconut, chili and onion, mixing well.

4. Fill steamer with mixture.

5. Steam in a large pot over simmering water for 10-15 minutes, until dough is thoroughly cooked. Push out onto a plate with a long wooden spoon and serve hot with curry and/or sambol.

Vegan Milk Toffee Failed

Okay, so this attempt to make vegan milk toffee failed, and I’m not sure why. It’s actually my second failure — in the first, the pot turned into a caramelized black solid mass, and I am very grateful to Jed and Kevin for scrubbing it clean over the next few nights, because I was so frustrated I was ready to throw it away in despair. Considering it’s a not-cheap All-Clad pot, that would’ve been bad. They fixed it though.

So, lesson one — condensed coconut milk heats up much faster than condensed milk, and you’d better stand right next to the stove and watch it, and also lower all the temps on your recipe (from medium-high to medium, from medium to medium-low, etc.).

Second time through, I watched it like a hawk, and while it still went faster than regular milk toffee, it seemed to be mostly behaving. It got to the standard stages (first thread, then soft-ball), as confirmed by my candy thermometer.

I then made made another mistake — the last step is normally to add a stick of butter, and I did that without thinking because I have made milk toffee SO many times, and that made it not vegan, sigh, so I suppose I should try it again either with vegan butter or skipping that step entirely — a lot of recipes don’t call for adding butter, but my Aunty Marina who taught me how to make this recipe uses it, and I think it gives a nicer texture.

But before I re-do it (again), I’d like to know what went wrong here. Because the end result of normal milk toffee is a firm texture — ‘toffee’ is a misnomer here, but it’s what it’s called in Sri Lanka. It’s much closer to fudge, and a sort of airy fudge. The closest texture I know is maple candy (or if you’re familiar with New Orleans pecan pralines, they’re basically exactly the same as our cashew milk toffee, except they’re dropped with a spoon on parchment paper, rather than poured into a tray and cut into squares).

The end result of my second attempt, however, was not something you can cut. It’s actually more of a toffee or a caramel. I’m really not a candy-making expert — I know how to do a few things well, so I’d appreciate any food science people here who can help out. I’m guessing that the condensed coconut milk has more oil, perhaps, than the condensed milk, and that’s changed the consistency? I guess I have two questions:

a) what happened?

b) is there something I can do to adjust the recipe, so I can actually get milk toffee texture with vegan condensed coconut milk?

Help.

(Side note: It’s still delicious, you just have to eat it with a spoon. I’m thinking I spoon it into little sheets of cellophane and mold it into a caramel-like twist, and it’ll be fine for eating. Coconut-cashew caramels. But it’s not what I was going for.)