Category: Uncategorized

By Angelika Hanna

These Rum Truffles are a delicious adult treat for the holiday season.

Good news about Rum Truffles is their versatility without losing any of their basic fudgey chocolate-rum flavor. Rum Truffles can be adapted in various ways: Nut-free or with your favorite nut-type. You can be creative in finishing your truffles with a variety of coatings: colorful sugar sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, shredded coconut cocoa powder, icing sugar, or anything else you come up with.

No-bake, the alcohol stays in the truffle and should not be consumed by anybody who drives afterwards.

The variant I feature in this post is Rum Truffles with walnutchunks and grinded wafer biscuits and coated in cocoa powder and icing sugar.

Recipe:

Prep Time: 30 min

Total Time: 1 hour ++

Yield: 35 (1 inch) truffle balls

Cuisine: World Cuisine (with apparently roots in Denmark)

Author: Angelika Hanna /…

The credit for these delicious cookies go to my cousin’s wife Manja in Germany. Manja and her two daughters are avid bakers during the holiday season. They baked 21 different sorts of cookies this year. I saw her photos on FB and these truffle cookies caught my attention. I translated the recipe from German into English and am thrilled to share it with my blog community.

Recipe:

Prep Time: 45 min

BakeTime: 8 min

Rest Time: 1-2 hrs

Cuisine: German

Author: Angelika Hanna /Zest4Food

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• 2 cups pastry flour
• A little less than 1 cup icing sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• A little less than 9 tbsp unsalted butter
• 100 g (3.5 oz) marzipan
• 1 package vanilla sugar

For the truffle filling:

• 5.4 oz dark unsweetened chocolate to melt (I used Baker’s)
• A little less than 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp…

By Angelika Hanna

Recipe:

Prep Time: 25 min (+ cooling time)

Bake Time: 20 min.

Yield: Approx. 20 cookies

Cuisine: World Food

Author: Angelika Hanna /Zest4Food

Ingredients:

• 3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Holiday sprinkles
• Dark melted chocolate to dip

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a bowl, mix together butter, sugar, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer.
3. In a second bowl, sift together the flour and salt.
4. Add the flour mix gradually to the butter-sugar mixture.
5. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together.
6. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for 30 min.
7. Roll out the dough and cut shapes with holiday cookie cutters of your choice. ( I used a tree shape)
8. Place the shapes on an…

By Angelika Hanna

This recipe is inspired by one of my favorite Food Network cooks Molly Yeh. I took Molly’s Chocolate Sea Salt Rugelach recipe as a guideline for my Chocolate Roll Ups with a few changes I made to my ccokies. Molly’s rugelach are on the salty side; I made my rolls less salty and a bit sweeter instead.

Recipe:

Prep Time: 40 min plus 1 hrs cooling time

Bake Time: Approx. 24 min

Yield: 40 cookies

Cuisine: Canadian/North American

Author: Angelika Hanna /Zest4Food

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups pastry flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 pinch of kosher salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, cubed and cold
• 8 oz cream cheese (I used Philadelphia cheese), cool, straight from the fridge
• 2 large egg yolks plus 1 large whole egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips or chopped…

By Angelika Hanna

Recipe:

Prep Time: 20 min

Bake Time: 45 – 50 min

Cuisine: North American, Canadian

Author: Angelika Hanna /Zest4Food

Ingredients:

For the Brownies:

• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• A pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
• Ground walnuts for sprinkling

For the Ganache Frosting:

• 6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 6 tbsp whipping cream
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter

Instructions:

For the Brownies:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Line an 8-inch square baking dish with parchment paper. Leave two opposite sides longer than the dish as a handle to lift the baked brownie square out.
3. Prepare 3 separate bowls with ingredients and set aside.
   • Bowl 1 (Large): Combine the sugar and cocoa…