Category: Snacks

Experimented a little with edible rice paper decorations for cookies (found on Etsy). It definitely has a tendency to curl, so will need to work on it some more to learn how to do it right. And apparently you can’t refrigerate or freeze them, as the moisture will affect the color, so that means I can’t make a batch of cookies weeks in advance the way I normally might for sale.

We’ll be doing a Valentine’s Day sale (watch this space), but I really don’t know yet if I’ll be able to include these vanilla-rose sugar cookies. But still, fun experimenting, and the kids didn’t seem to mind the curling on their first-day-of-the-semester cookies.

You should be proud of me that I did not buy myself an edible rice paper printer. I don’t actually run a bakery; I really don’t need such a device!

I made meringue kisses yesterday. I’ve been meaning to try making them for a while (I’ve mad a big meringue for a pavlova, but never little kisses), but somehow never got around to it. I finally motivated yesterday; I’m planning to stop by L!ve Cafe and drop some off for Reesheda and her staff.

Little kisses, not the prettiest; I have little patience for piping, so these are just spoon-dropped onto the parchment. But tasty. I did two kinds — straight vanilla, and vanilla chai. The chai ones, I included a little pepper, which is often used in chai, but not so typical for meringues. I like it, though — makes them not quite as simply sweet as normal. Definitely a matter of preference, though, so feel free to skip the pepper!

(15 minutes + baking time, makes dozens)

1/4 t. white pepper (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 220 F.

2. Beat egg whites on high. Add in remaining ingredients, and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form.

3. Drop by spoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets.

4. Bake for one hour, then turn off oven and allow meringues to sit for another hour, or overnight. Store in an airtight container.

I was going to put a little blood orange extract in the icing, for a bit of extra dragon excitement, but I forgot, oh well. But they’re still nummy, with a light lemon flavor, and so ridiculously pretty.

Dark chocolate-dipped passionfruit marshmallows, sprinkled with silver stars and pink hearts. I do a lot of experimenting with food, and a lot of the joy for me is coming up with new combinations, but sometimes, something just works so well, you know you’re not going to mess with it anymore.

These are becoming a staple, along with the dragonfruit chocolate (Kavi’s favorite chocolate!), Sri Lankan cashew milk toffee, and love cake. One thing we’re planning to explore in 2021 is whether we can expand the Serendib Kitchen sweet-making a little bit. I don’t have the time to cook any more than I already do (and honestly, I should probably be cooking a little less, and writing more).

So that would mean me teaching someone else how to make these, taste-testing to make sure they have it down, and then having them produce them. If we can figure it all out, then maybe we’ll even be able to supply some for local stores (which will require getting a different license, etc. and so on).

Of course, that’ll require researching aspects such as which items are shelf stable (the dragonfruit chocolate and the milk toffee, I think), which need to stay refrigerated (the marshmallows are okay sitting out for a day or two, but if they don’t sell quickly, better to refrigerate them for freshness, and love cake should be frozen or at least refrigerated if you’re going to keep it for any length of time), etc. We’ll see!

It’d be lovely to offer, alongside the cookbooks, going forward.

(21) box of 5 confections (2 Dragonfruit Nebulae chocolates, 2 blood orange taffy, 1 chocolate-cayenne)

But I will bake this batch of dragon cookies (are they not the cutest?) for the Interstellar Patreon treat boxes, and then switch to grading & writing, because deadlines, alas.

(t-shirt reads: “I just want to bake stuff and watch Christmas movies.”)

Dragon S’more Marshmallows

1/4 c. graham cracker crumbs, crumbled

(NOTE: If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can make marshmallows in a large bowl with a hand mixer — you just have to be willing to hold and beat it for 12 minutes. Prep the pan and spatula for the marshmallows ahead of time.)

2. In a small saucepan (a bigger one will be heavy and hard to hold steadily at a later stage) combine 1/2 c. water, granulated sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Cover and cook over medium high heat for 4 minutes. Uncover and cook until the mixture reaches soft ball stage (240 degrees if you have a candy thermometer), approximately 8 minutes. Once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from heat; if it continues, it will swiftly turn into hard candy.

3. Turn mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. (Be very careful with the sugar syrup, as it is scaldingly hot and will burn you badly if it gets on your skin.) Once you’ve added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high.

4. Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 minutes.

5. While it’s whipping, butter a large 9 x 12 pan and dust with powdered sugar. In the last minutes, add vanilla and smoke extracts. Prepare an oiled spatula.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly (and swiftly) with an oiled spatula. Sprinkle with salt.

7. Dust the top with enough of the remaining powdered sugar to lightly cover. Reserve the rest for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

8. Turn onto a board, cut into squares and dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining powdered sugar, using additional if necessary.

9. Melt chocolate in double boiler or at half power in the microwave, then dip marshmallows in them, letting dry on a piece of parchment paper. (If you want chocolate to stay glossy, you’ll need to temper the chocolate, rather than simply melting it.)

10. Sprinkle with graham cracker crumbs. May be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks, or frozen.

Finishing up the knitting-themed treat boxes, shipping out shortly, with some stockinette stitch dark chocolate, impressed with dried cranberries. Yummy. I knitted it all myself too.

Yesterday, I shipped out all the Earth tier Patreon boxes ($10 / month), so that was a bit of a relief. I have oddly mixed feelings about these boxes — I love composing them, and for the most part, enjoy making them, but the little race up to get everything out the door in time for shipping deadlines can be a bit stressful.

Stephanie Bailey and I have been talking about whether she can take over some pieces of this; she can make soaps, for example, so if I can actually be precise about my recipe in terms of amount of mica and scent, then she should be able to do some of the production for me. She was a little concerned that people wouldn’t like them as much if she made them — I don’t think people care, do they? If it’s my hands making the milk toffee, or someone else’s, to my recipe, do you care?

I’m now collecting what I need for the next tiers up — there are 3 subscribers for Sol System, 2 for Milky Way, and 2 for Interstellar. In between grading and e-mail (which is the bulk of my life right now), I’m popping up occasionally to pour a yarn ball candle — four completed, one in progress, two more to go.

After that, I get to work on a spiced hot chocolate recipe, which will be fun. Dutch-process cocoa powder, but what spicing? One of my recipients can’t do cayenne, so while I can leave that out of hers, it means not doing a straight cayenne and cocoa recipe (which I do love). Cayenne, cocoa, and cinnamon? Maybe try chai spicing, so adding in nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon, maybe a bit of black pepper and ground ginger? Hm. Tasty experiments in my immediate future.

Reminder that if you want to get in on this for next year (only in U.S., sorry, food restrictions on shipping), you can now subscribe annually for a 10% discount. So for the Earth level, it’d be $110 for the year, which gets you 4 quarterly boxes — the spring box should go out in March, with the theme: Unicorns in the Garden. Link here.