with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Happiness is going to bed knowing your passionfruit + dragonfruit marshmallow experiment came out deliciously, that you can almost certainly talk your teen into cutting them for you tomorrow (she seems to even like doing the cutting), and that you can get on with the next experiment, candied blood orange shortbread…
Recipes tomorrow, probably…
I spent a little time this morning putting together possibilities for individual treat boxes for sale. I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to offer these — I’m going to wait until the end of November, to be sure I have enough time to fulfill all the Patreon orders, and also to closer to the end of the semester. 
But if you think you might want to order a treat box for yourself or a gift, I think these will be $25 within the U.S. (Sorry, international folks! Someday I hope to scale up to be able to offer this sort of thing internationally. I have to figure out food regulations, plus international shipping is brutal.)
Locals doing porch pick-up, they’ll be $17.
Check back Dec 1 if interested. Quantities will be very limited, esp. if you want Christmas delivery!
*****
– a few homemade marshmallows (flavors to be finalized in the next few days)
– a few homemade marshmallows (flavors to be finalized in the next few days)
Finished cutting the milk toffee. Pretty pretty.
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sri Lankan cashew milk toffee (which is really closer to a fudge than a toffee, despite the name) with silver leaf applied to it, but I wanted to try for Diwali today, and I think it looks great!
Not at all easy to do neatly, even with the two sets of wooden tweezers that came with the silver leaf — it blows around wildly in the slightest breath of air. But if you give up on neatness, it works just fine.
These will be going in the December Patreon treat boxes — well, the ones Anand doesn’t eat will be going in the treat boxes. He adores milk toffee.
This grown-up gingerbread has tremendous depth of flavor, with molasses, jaggery, plenty of ground ginger and a bit of cayenne taking it to the next level. It’s based on a recipe by Matt Lewis, but with a few tweaks heading it in a more Sri Lankan direction. The result is a sturdy, chewy cookie with a little heat — perfect for shaping into dragon eggs. A pattered cookie cutter makes that easy, and a little gilding gives these cookies a festive holiday glow.
NOTE: They’d also work well as sandwich cookies with creme, or ice cream sandwich cookies.
a little vodka and gold luster dust for decoration, optional
1. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in a microwave at half power; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour with cocoa powder and spices; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with the jaggery / brown sugar on high until fluffy, about two minutes. Add egg, molasses, and melted chocolate, stirring to combine.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, beating on low until it forms a dough.
5. Divide the dough into two firm balls, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate until chilled.
6. Preheat oven to 350F, and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out dough to about 1/4 inch thick, and cut out cookies. If the dough is a little cracked, you don’t need to get it completely smooth — the cracks will add to the dragon egg-like appearance. Chill again for 15 minutes before baking, to reduce the chance of spreading.
NOTE: I found that with this particular cutter, if I pressed down far enough to cut the cookie out completely, the dough tended to stick and be hard to remove from the cutter. It was easier to press it most of the way, then remove and use a sharp knife as needed to free the egg from the dough. A little fiddly, but worth it!
7. Bake cookies for about 7 minutes; let cookies cool on the pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
8. Once cooled, add a little luster dust to a bit of vodka (or extract, but extract can add more flavor / scent than you want), and use a food-dedicated little paintbrush to gild the eggs, giving them a proper dragon-ish glow.
Enjoy!
More photos and a recipe tomorrow, but I will leave you tonight with these adorable chocolate-cayenne gingerbread dragon eggs that just came out of the oven. So cute, and as I hoped, the crackling of the dough really adds to the dragon scale effect. You get these ideas in your head, and you’re never quite sure if they’ll work out. Will try gilding them in the morning, after they’ve cooled….
A nice decorating alternative to dipping in chocolate is painting with luster dust (keep a tiny brush dedicated for cooking) mixed with a bit of vodka. The vodka won’t add any flavor, but will help the dust adhere. This is quick and fun and festive!
When I’m in production baking mode, I often enlist Kevin to help out, but I have to be a little careful with instructions. He’s a great cook, but the last time I had him make cookie dough for me, he used vanilla extract instead of beans.
And quality vanilla extract is great, I use it a lot for baking, but there’s something about using the actual beans that just produces a better cookie, I think. I’m not enough of a food expert to tell you why, though!
I scolded him; he won’t do that again.
(I get both my extract and beans from Penzey’s. Pricey, but SO good.)
Dark chocolate-dipped cardamom, rose & vanilla shortbread (see previous post for recipe). I think I love the gold leaf + dried rose petal decorations the best; they feel very desi to me.
But the gold polka dots are also cute on a sweater, and the white hearts, and the tiny pink dots make me think of cute little kids, so okay, I like them all. Luckily, I don’t have to pick.
