Homemade Snowman "Peeps"

Since I was making marshmallows today and had all the ingredients out, I decided to whip of a batch of homemade 'peeps' as well. I was trying to think of a suitably nerdy peep to create but I was just drawing a blank. (If anyone has any suggestions for nerd peeps, I'd love them) So lacking any nerdy alternatives, I just decided to make something seasonally appropriate. In this case, Snowman Peeps complete with fondant accessories.

Oh, and for you peep haters out there, you might want to give fresh homemade peeps a chance. They're actually edible.



Not so Humble Marshmallow Snowmen:
Makes approximately one dozen

1/4 oz unflavored gelatin
1 cup granulated sugar

royal icing
fondant
granulated sugar

Add 1/3 a cup of cold water to your stand mixer's bowl and sprinkle in the gelatin. Allow to bloom for 5 minutes.

In a small nonstick saucepan over medium heat, add 1/4 cup of water and the sugar. Stir the sugar until it has dissolved and then stop. Bring to a boil, attach your candy thermometer and heat to 235°F. You should wash down the sides of the pan with a damp pastry brush if you see any sugar clinging, as this recipe doesn't contain any corn syrup to help prevent crystallization.

Once it reaches 235°F, remove from heat and add to the softened gelatin. Gently whisk for a couple minutes to allow the mixture to cool down and the gelatin to dissolve. Then whisk on medium-high for 8 minutes until the mixture forms firm peaks and holds its shape without slumping.

Fill a piping bag outfitted with a large round tip with the marshmallow. In a wide shallow dish filled with granulated sugar, pipe mounds of marshmallow in three different sizes. These will make up the segments of the snowman's body. Use a damp finger to smooth down any unsightly peaks. Sprinkle more granulated sugar on top to coat the outsides completely and remove from the dish and set aside so that you can continue pipe more mounds.

Once you have all your pieces complete, give them about 10 minutes to cool and set up and then you can begin assembling the marshmallow snowmen.

Stack the snowman body segments on top of each other securing with a little royal icing, or just use a toothpick to make them extra sturdy.

Tint a small piece of fondant orange for the snowmen's carrot nose. Attach each with a small drop of royal icing. Use more royal icing to attach small pieces of black sanding sugar to make up the coal eyes or simply use black tinted royal icing.

Take roughly 1 ounce of fondant and divide it into two pieces. Tint one red and roll both into logs about the size and shape of your little finger. Cut each of the logs into 10-12 segments and stick them back together, alternating red and white. Roll this log out carefully into a flat sheet to cut out your snowman's scarves. If you feel so inclined, you can cut the ends of each scarf to make fringe.

Wrap the scarf around your snowman's neck and secure with a bit of royal icing.

To make the top hat, take some black tinted or chocolate fondant and roll it out and cut rounds. Place a small cylinder of fondant on each round, securing with a drop of royal icing. Curve up the sides of the top hat slightly and place on top of the snowman's head, securing with even more... thats right, royal icing.

Now they're ready to eat or even decorate one of your holiday desserts.

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Peppermint Marshmallows

Homemade marshmallows, so perfectly light and springy. They just melt in your mouth.

I have yet to find a store bought marshmallow that can beat homemade. Not even the absurdly priced marshmallows from Williams Sonoma ($16!) that Mother Humble left behind can quite equal them. Granted, those Williams Sonoma marshmallows are really good, but these are better.

Continuing my Chocolate-Peppermint theme, I've decided to make some hot cocoa tonight with homemade peppermint marshmallows. In just a minute these light and fluffy pillows turn an ordinary cup of hot cup of cocoa into a creamy, peppermint infused mug of the warm and fuzzies.



Not so Humble Peppermint Marshmallows:
Adapted from Marthastewart.com

2 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 oz unflavored gelatin (four packages)
2-3 drops peppermint oil
2 large egg whites
rice flour

Coat a 9x13 metal pan with nonstick spray. Place a piece of parchment into the bottom of the pan and coat it with nonstick spray as well. Separate your eggs and place the whites into your stand mixer or mixing bowl and set aside.

In a large heavy bottomed saucepan (the bigger the better) heat 3/4 cup of water, sugar and corn syrup over medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Once the mixture boils attach your candy thermometer and turn up the heat to almost medium high. Bring the mixture to 260°F without stirring, this should take roughly 7-10 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan bring two cups of water to a boil. Using a heat-safe bowl, add 3/4 cup cold water and sprinkle the gelatin on top. Allow the gelatin to bloom for about five minutes then move the bowl to the pot of simmering water. Set the bowl into the simmering water and whisk until gelatin has totally dissolved. Mix in the drops of peppermint oil and set aside. Now would also be the time to beat the egg whites to stiff but not dry peaks.

Once the sugar hits 260°F take it off the heat and slowly, while whisking, add the gelatin to the pot of sugar. It will bubble up. A lot. This is where you'll be happy you chose a pot with high sides. Take this mixture over to your egg whites and while beating slowly add it to your bowl. Beat the mixture on medium high speed for about 7-8 minutes until it has nearly tripled in volume and quickly move the mixture to your greased pan.

Working quickly, spread the marshmallow evenly into the pan and allow to cool for several hours.

Once cool cut around the outside of the pan and turn out onto a greased piece of parchment. It should pop right out. Using a long thin knife (or if you want really nice clean cuts, use a guitar string) and cut into pieces. Toss the pieces in a bowl of rice flour to remove any stickiness.

These are also yummy dipped in chocolate, rolled in crushed candy canes and then tossed into a hot cup of coffee or espresso. Mmmmm... peppermint mocha.

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Fudge Part I: White Chocolate Eggnog Fudge

It has gotten chilly in Seattle! Which of course means it is time for hot cocoa, homemade marshmallows, soups, new tires on my car and lots n' lots of fudge making.

I wasn't sure where I would start my holiday fudge making marathon, but I knew I had to try my hand at eggnog fudge this year. This is my first time making eggnog fudge and I absolutely love the flavor. I am a sucker for nutmeg, what can I say. The texture is very smooth and a just smidgen softer than I am used to with fudge, but perhaps that is just because it just needs to sit a little longer to fully set. I fully admit that once It was set enough to cut, I dug in, so maybe I just need to be a little more patient. Regardless, this stuff is delicious.

To finish my fudge I cut it into squares and individually wrapped each in a small piece of waxed paper. They are cute, tidy little packages now, perfect for giving away... not that I am going to do that. These are all mine.

(Edit: I've since cooled the squares completely in my fridge and the texture is now perfect)



White Chocolate Eggnog Fudge:
Adapted from recipezaar
yields roughly 64 pieces

2 cups granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 cup fresh eggnog
11 ounces chopped white chocolate
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
7 ounce jar marshmallow creme
1 teaspoon rum extract

nutmeg for sprinkling

Line a 9x9 inch pan with buttered foil.

Combine sugar, butter and eggnog into a heavy bottomed sauce pan--I almost always use nonstick for my candy making--and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling, attach a candy thermometer and reduce the heat to a hair above medium low and cook for 10-15 minutes until your thermometer reads 234°F , stirring constantly.

Once your mixture hits the appropriate temperature, remove from heat and add chocolate stirring vigorously until chocolate is melted and smooth. Add the marshmallow creme, nutmeg and rum extract and mix until well blended.

Pour the mixture into your pan and sprinkle with more fresh ground nutmeg. Allow to cool on a wire rack until room temperature. Cut, wrap, and you're good to go.

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Broccoli Soup with Yogurt

Broccoli, like most green vegetables, was almost a curse word for me when I was growing up. I hated it.

Now that I am an adult, one who doesn't want to keel over before she hits 30, I try to eat healthy and that includes some of those green vegetables I abhorred as a child. I've since discovered that there are more palatable ways to prepare vegetables than the limp unadorned veggies that tend to accompany your standard American fare.

This soup is a good example of taking a once dreaded vegetable and making it into a dish I now crave. It is comforting and delicious as well as nutritious and low in calories (well, minus the yummy croutons). Something that I need right now, since I ate three pieces of fudge today...



Not so Humble's Broccoli Soup with Yogurt:
Serves 8-10

1 large onion chopped
2 cloves garlic minced
4 cups broccoli florets
5 1/2 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth)
1 large russet potato peeled and cut into small cubes
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
salt
pepper

plain yogurt
garlic croutons (optional)

Toast cumin and coriander seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, until the cumin has darkened slightly. Grind the spices into powder and set aside. You could also use store bought ground cumin and coriander, however the flavor of whole toasted cumin and coriander is far better (if you do use pre-ground spices, use roughly half as much).

In a large pot heat the olive oil over medium high heat and add the chopped onion and garlic and saute for about 5 minutes. Add the potatoes and saute for another 2-3 minutes. Add the broccoli and chicken broth to the pot and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to a medium low and cook for 10-15 minutes until potatoes and broccoli are tender.

Working in thirds, add the mixture to your blender and purée until smooth. Add half of the ground cumin and coriander mixture to the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve sprinkled with the remaining toasted cumin and coriander, a dollop of yogurt and fresh garlic croutons.

Not so Humble Garlic Croutons:
3-4 thick slices of pugliese bread cubed (or other similarly textured bread)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine oil, salt, pepper, and garlic in a small bowl. Drizzle over the bread cubes and toss. Spread on a shallow pan and bake for 15-20 minutes, checking often to give on occasional stir and make sure they don't over brown.

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Science Cookies: Atom

More science cookie fun! Atom cookies!

Ok, before the physics/chemistry folks remind me that atoms don't actually look like that, let me remind everyone that modeling the three dimensional probability cloud of an electron with frosting just isn't going to happen in my kitchen. Sorry! Ms. Humble is taking some artistic license here.

Obviously I didn't even including a nucleus with these. Well, I did for some but the cookies just looked far more interesting uncluttered by a nucleus.

Besides, I wanted to use silver dragees for electrons, so I had to define an absolute location for them. I just tossed out all that electron 'wave' nonsense. That's right, I can do that. No probability distribution for me, I know where those electrons are. They're right there on my cookies.

So we're using Martha Stewart's Chocolate Cut Out Cookie recipe for this (link), even though I admit I am not a huge fan of this cookie's somewhat boring flavor. Maybe I just expect too much from a chocolate cookie. Perhaps a kind, fellow baker will point me in the direction of a really tasty chocolate cookie cutout recipe sometime...maybe? I would really appreciate it.

So for these cookies I used a simple flower cookie cutter to cut the shape, one that would allow for several electron orbitals on it. This one fits three, what does that make it... lithium? Anyway, then I just piped overlapping ellipses on the cookie with royal icing and placed a silver dragee on each orbit.

Very simple science themed cookies.

This one is kind of scary, it has 2 bonded electrons on the same orbital... is that dangerous?

---

Last but not least, a cookie with a nucleus for the purists:



I even used gold and rose colored dragees to differentiate between the protons and neutrons. I hope that pleases everyone.

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Playing with Peppermint Bark

Peppermint bark is one of those seasonal items that should really be year round. Egg nog, now that stuff I can happily kiss goodbye as soon as January rolls around. Mostly because a glass of the stuff requires a minimum two hours of pilates to burn it off (check the label, I think a glass of puréed bacon has fewer calories!). Of course, I would never actually do two solid hours of pilates so that stuff needs to be off my grocer's shelf ASAP, lest temptation strike. Yikes, I'm rambling on about egg nog in my peppermint post... Back on topic.

Peppermint bark never really loses its appeal and I thought I could work the flavors into some of my other run-of-the-mill baked chocolate treats in an attempt to make them a little more 'festive'... and yummy. So, I decided to whip up some peppermint bark brownies and peppermint white chocolate topped devils food cupcakes.

I've started with basic, totally ordinary chocolate cupcakes and brownies--I'm going to write up recipes for basics, they're not hard to find--and tarted them up with the following:

White Chocolate Peppermint Butter Cream:

5 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup butter, softened
4-6 drops peppermint oil
3 oz white chocolate melted and cooled for a few minutes
heavy cream

2 tablespoons piping gel
red food coloring

Mix a generous amount of red food coloring (5-6 drops) with the piping gel and set aside.

Cream the butter in your mixer and add the chocolate and peppermint. Add the powdered sugar a cup at a time and mix on medium speed until moistened. Add the heavy cream a tablespoon at a time, whipping after each addition, until you reach the consistency desired to frost the cupcakes.

Outfit your piping bag with a large open star tip and line the bag with stripes of the red piping gel.

A small paintbrush works just fine for this, or a small squeeze bottle equipped with a piping tip

Then add your butter cream carefully to the bag, trying not to disturb the stripes more than necessary and pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes.

I topped my cupcakes with a sprinkle of red luster dust and either peppermint candies or little white/dark chocolate whirly-bark things with crushed peppermint bits (yes, that is my technical term for them).

Moving on to the brownies!



Peppermint Barked Brownies:

6 oz white chocolate
5-6 peppermint candies
4 drops peppermint oil
8 oz dark chocolate
red food coloring

Crush the peppermint candies and set aside. Melt the white chocolate and flavor with the peppermint oil. Divide the chocolate into two containers and tint one with red food coloring.

Turn your completely cool brownies out onto a cutting board and remove the parchment. Sprinkle the brownies with the crushed peppermint candies and then dollop on the red and white chocolate. Smooth the chocolate over the brownies swirling the colors together gently. Move the brownies to the freezer to quickly set the white chocolate. After about 10-15 minutes the chocolate should be set enough to pour on the dark chocolate.

Melt the dark chocolate and pour over the brownies. Give the brownies about 10 minutes on the counter for the chocolate to set up slightly and then cut with a warm knife into pieces. Allow the chocolate a few hours to set completely and they are ready to eat.

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French Lentil Soup

There are some strange recipes out there on the net. Recipes that tout how 'easy' they are. Recipes that use dubious shortcuts, like putting pudding mix in a baked cheesecake! The horror.

Why, I came across a bean chili recipe that contained no more than four ingredients and the only means of seasoning was steak sauce. Yes, thats right, steak sauce. Now, maybe steak sauce chili tastes good, I don't know but I consider using steak sauce as the sole means of seasoning chili sorta cheating. I also consider this lentil soup a bit of a cheater too. I hate to admit it, there is a short cut involved, in the form of store bought marinara sauce.

Now now, before anyone yanks my food blogger-card away, it does make the soup taste really good. I'll further defend myself by noting that this soup recipe was taught to me by a professional who used this shortcut in her own kitchen and if she can do it, so can I.

Besides, I have to post my cheater recipe. It is hands down, my favorite lentil soup.

Not so Humble's French Lentil Soup:

3 tablespoons extra–virgin olive oil
3 cups diced onion
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrots
3 garlic cloves, minced
8 cups chicken broth (or vegetable stock)
1 cup good quality chunky marinara (I used Mom's Garlic & Basil)
16 oz lentils washed, picked over and drained
15 ounce can diced tomatoes (not drained)
1/4-1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

In a large pot over medium high, heat the olive oil and add the onion, celery, carrots and garlic. Cook stirring occasionally till the vegetables have slightly browned (about 10 minutes). Add the chicken stock, lentils, tomatoes with their liquid and marinara and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer covered for roughly 45 minutes until the lentils are tender. Remove 2 cups of lentils from the soup, purée in a blender and return to the soup mixture to thicken. Add additional water if necessary to reach the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper and add the vinegar to taste.

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