Caramel Walnut Slices

Caramelized walnut halves are encased in a buttery shortbread crust and topped with cut-out cookies. Extremely delicious and addictive.

Crust	Filling
190 g All purpose flour 120 g Butter, diced 60 g Sugar Pinch of salt 1 Egg	150 g Sugar 220 g Walnut halves, roughly chopped 50 g Honey 70 ml Heavy cream

1. Combine all the ingredients of the crust in a bowl until the dough forms together. Wrap the dough with a plastic film and chill for at least 30 minutes.
   
2. Melt the sugar in a saucepan on medium heat until the sugar caramelizes. Stir in chopped walnuts, honey and heavy cream. Cook until the mixture well combined. Remove from heat and set aside.
   
3. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F. Remove the dough from the fridge and press 3/5 of dough firmly on the bottom and sides of a 25 x 20 cm baking pan lined with a parchment paper. Spread the caramelized walnuts into the crust. Top the walnuts with the remaining
   
4. Roll out the rest of the dough about 2cm thick on a lightly floured work surface. Use cookie cutter to press out the cookies. Arrange the cookies on the top of caramelized walnuts. Bake for 25 minutes until nicely golden brown. Cool and cut into 12 slices.

Chocolate-Covered Salted Peanut Caramel Cups

Recipe Source: David Lebovitz

Decadent gooey salted peanut caramel filling wrapped in a chocolate shell---they are definitely a crowd pleaser. The caramel filling is, for me, sweet enough, so I chose bitter chocolate to make the crust, but milk, half bitter or even white chocolate will work too.

• 100 g Heavy cream
  
• 100 g Granulated sugar
  
• 60 ml Water
  
• 1/2 tbsp Inverted sugar syrup or corn syrup
  
• Pinch of sea salt
  
• 100 g Roasted salted peanuts, roughly chopped
  
• 250 g 70% Dark chocolate
  ©angiesrecipes, chopped (or white chocolate)
  

1. Make the salted peanut caramel by warming the cream in a microwave, and setting it aside. Cook the water, sugar, syrup, and salt to a caramel, gently swirling the pan only if necessary (to ensure it melt and cooks evenly) until it turns a nice golden brown.
   
2. Remove from heat and immediately whisk in the hot cream in a slow, steady stream. Cool until warm and pourable, then add the chopped peanuts.
   
   
3. In a clean, dry bowl set over simmering water melt the chocolate until smooth. Put half teaspoon of the chocolate in the bottom of a small paper baking cup. Use a small spoon to move the chocolate around and coat the bottom and sides with an even layer of chocolate. Chill the cups to firm up the chocolate.
   
4. Once firm, in each cup, put a bit of the salted peanut filling, enough so that it will reach about 2/3rds of the way to the top of the cup. Add enough chocolate to cover the filling. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt if desired.

Chocolate-Covered Salted Peanut Caramel Cups

Tomato Caramels

Caramelization is the removal of water from a sugar, proceeding to isomerization and polymerization of the sugars into various high-weight compounds. Compounds such as difructose-anhydride may be created from the monosaccharides after water loss. Fragmentation reactions result in low-molecular-weight compounds which may be volatile and may contribute to flavor. Polymerization reactions lead to larger molecular weight compounds, which contribute to the dark brown color. by Wikipedia

• 200 g Tomato juice, salted
  
• 400 g Caster sugar
  
• 60 g Kerrygold butter, diced
  

1. Line a loaf pan with tin foil and generously grease the bottom and sides with corn oil. Set aside.
   
2. Place sugar and tomato juice in a saucepan. Cook the mixture over the medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves and mixture just begins to simmer. Stop stirring. Continue to cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches 120C/240F.
   
3. Turn the heat off, then stir in the butter until well incorporated. Turn the heat back on, continue to cook over medium heat until the thermometer reads 125C/250F, the firm ball stage. Remove from heat immediately and set the pot aside to cool for a few minutes.
   
4. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and cool until set. Cut into rectangles and wrap with baking paper. Store the caramels in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Almond Chocolate Caramel Bars

Needless to say, these cookies are a true treat for any chocolate lovers, but they are so darn sweeeeeeeeeet.....that would even satisfy the utmost sweet-tooth craving. Except that, I can't really complain having these caramel bars with a couple of glasses of bone dry sparkling Riesling in the afternoon.

Crust	Chocolate Caramel
150 g Unsalted butter, room temperature 50 g Light brown sugar 160 g German #405 flour 1/4 tsp Salt	300 g 50% Sarotti half bitter chocolate 300 g Granulated sugar 60 ml Water 90 g Unsalted butter 1 cup Heavy cream 1/2 tsp Salt 100 g Almond, roasted and roughly chopped(optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Spread the almond on the baking tray and bake for 10 minutes until they are fragrant. Remove, cool and roughly chop the baked almond.
   
2. Line a 28cm square baking pan with baking paper and grease the paper with butter. Beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add flour and salt, and beat until just combined. Press dough evenly into pan, and bake until lightly browned, about 30 minutes. Remove and set aside.
   
3. Cut the chocolate into the smaller chunks and place in a medium bowl. Heat granulated sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat until amber, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from heat. Add butter, cream, and salt. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until smooth. Cool briefly.
   
4. Pour over chocolate. Let stand for 2 minutes. Stir to combine, and let stand until cool, about 10 minutes. Pour mixture over crust. Sprinkle the chopped almonds on top. Chill at least 4 hours, or overnight. Cut into 24 bars.

Poppy Macarons

I am sending this post to participate the event Think Spice Think Poppy hosted by both Radhika Vasanth@Food for 7 Stages of Life and Sunita@Sunitabhuyan.

Poppy seed is used as an ingredient in many foods and to make poppyseed oil. The tiny kidney-shaped seeds are harvested from seed pods of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), and have been cultivated by various civilizations for thousands of years. They are used whole or ground, often as a topping or filling in various baked goods. Wikipedia

• 35 g Finely ground poppy
  
• 70 g Finly ground almond
  
• 200 g Powdered sugar
  
• 80 g Egg whites
  
• A pinch of salt
  
• 30 g Caster sugar
  
• 120 g Poppy fix

1. In a mixing bowl whisk together the finely ground almond, poppy and powdered sugar until completely blended. Line 3 baking sheet with parchment paper.
   
   
2. In your stand mixer fitted with the whisk, beat the egg whites and pinch of salt until foamy, gradually add the sugar and continue beating until soft peaks appear.
   
3. Fold in the poppy mixture in two additions until your get a slow moving batter. Fill a pastry bag with the batter and pipe small amounts of batter 3 cm in diameter, 2 cm apart. Leave to rest for 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 170C/340F and bake for 15 minutes. Remove and cool completelyt on rack. Spread the poppy fix on one shell and sandwich with another one.

Chilled Ping Pei Mooncakes / 花色冰皮月饼

Those are the non-baked modern mooncakes. They resemble the traditional one with modifications. Traditional mooncakes are made with oil (usually lard), and plenty of sugar. "Ping Pei" means "chilled crust", which is comparatively easier to make than the baked ones.

140 g Glutinous rice powderangiesrecipes 50 g Short grain rice powderangiesrecipes 110 g Wheat starchangiesrecipes 80 g Caster sugar 80 g Sweetened condensed milkangiesrecipes 400 ml 10% Unsweetened condensed milkangiesrecipes

60 g Shorteningangiesrecipes 3 g Unsweetened cacao powderangiesrecipes 3 g Matcha green tea powderangiesrecipes 500-600 g Bean paste 2 tbsp Glutinous rice powder

1. Stir together rice flours, wheat starch, sugar, sweetened and unsweetened condensed milk in a bowl. Steam the mixture for 30 minutes on high heat. Remove and cool briefly aside. Rub in the shortening and mix until the dough is smooth and soft.
   
   
2. Divide the dough into two portions and divide one of them again into half. Mix cacao powder with one and matcha with the other until combined. Divide each flavour of dough into 28 portions. Prepare the filling too into 28 portions. Microwave two tablespoons of glutinous rice powder with strong heat for about 1 minute until cooked.
   
   
3. Dust the mooncake mould and tap to remove excess rice flour. Take one portion from each 3 colours of dough and combine them into a round. Flatten out the dough and center the filling. Seal and shape into a ball. Lightly coat the surface with prepared cooked glutinous rice flour. Press each into mooncake mould and then push lightly out on a serving plate. Cover tightly with plastic film and chill for 1-2 hours.