Page 6 | THE LAKER | November, 2020
‘Cue The Grill
Great Holiday Sweets
By Chef Kelly Ross Everybody loves Christmas treats. This article is not so much about decorated cookies for the holidays, but more about some really good quality treats. Depending on whether the kids are in school or remote learning from home, I know the popular thing is just to make sugar cookies and cut the dough into Christmas shapes such as Santa’s head, Christmas trees, angels and such and break out the food coloring and decorate them appropriately with the youngsters. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll eat one or two of those decorated sugar cookies anytime, usually when a niece or nephew wants to share with me, but I’ll still go for cookies made by the grandma’s and Moms out there. Also, when it comes to holiday treats, I’m a big fan of bon’s, balls, or truffles; choose whatever you name them depending on your upbringing, as they are all basically the same thing. Now it’s time to share some fun recipes, so let’s get at it. First off, I have a no-bake treat that goes together pretty easily and doesn’t require many ingredients. The main ingredient is crushed Oreos so how can we go wrong! From there, we throw in some cream cheese, fresh raspberries and white chocolate. This recipe will give you 40-48 pieces. White Chocolate Raspberry Oreo Balls 14.3 oz package of Oreo Cookies, 36 of them, finely crushed 8 oz brick cream cheese, room temp 1 lb almond bark, melted
40-48 fresh raspberries, washed and patted dry ½ tsp raspberry extract or flavoring, divided ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips Let’s start by crushing all the cookies. I suggest you use your food processor or a blender, doing so in two batches as you will get a more consistent cookie crumb. If you have neither, put the cookies in a large Ziploc and pound well with a meat tenderizer. Mix the crumbs with the softened cream cheese until well blended. Add ¼ tsp of the raspberry extract to the mixture while mixing to give it a hint of flavor. Next, you will be forming the mixture into 40-48 balls, doing so by forming with a raspberry inside each one of them. Roll them within your hands to get a perfect circle/ball, but gently so as to not crush the raspberry inside. Freeze for 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the almond bark in a double boiler and add the other ¼ tsp of raspberry extract to that as well. Dip each frozen ball in the melted bark to completely cover, let excess bark drip off and place them on a cookie sheet covered with a piece of waxed paper. Once all the balls are done and the outer coating has hardened, melt the chocolate chips in a microwave and using a toothpick or something similar, drizzle the chocolate over the balls in a decorative thin line manner. If you have plenty of melted bark left, you can choose to add red food coloring to it and drizzle the red over the balls as well, or if preferred, just use the red and don’t
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bother with the chocolate chips. The choice is yours. Once done, put in a plastic container, covered, and keep refrigerated until ready to eat. (It’s because of the raspberries and cream cheese that you should keep them refrigerated.) The freshness of the raspberries will help dictate how long they will last, but 2-3 days is the norm for these to stay really tasty and fresh. Another of my favorite ball-shaped goodies which I like to use at the holiday season, or any occasion, are Toasted Almond Bons. Again, fairly simple, and everyone will love these as they are ice cream based. (Make sure everyone knows not to eat these too quickly, to avoid getting ice cream headaches!) This recipe is for using just a pint of ice cream, so if you want to make a bunch more, use a half gallon as I usually do and multiply the recipe as needed. Toasted Almond Bons The Topping ¾ cup instant nonfat dry milk ¼ cup flour 2 tbsp cornstarch 2 tbsp light brown sugar 1 tsp salt ¼ cup slivered almonds, chopped 1 tsp almond extract 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted ¼ cup white chocolate, melted Almond Bons 1 pint old fashioned style vanilla ice cream 1 tsp vanilla extract Let’s start with the outer crunch topping. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Prep a cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk the dry milk, flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt. Stir in the almonds, butter, and almond extract until the mixture turns into small clumps of sorts. Spread the crumble mixture onto the parchment paper and bake until dry and sandy, about 20 minutes or so. While cooking, melt the white chocolate. Pull the crumbs out of the
oven and dump on top of the melted chocolate. Stir until the mixture forms into large clusters. Let cool for about 15 minutes. Once cooled, put in a food processor and pulse in batches until the crumbs are somewhat small pea sized. Dump into a baking dish and set aside. Again, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Remove the ice cream from the freezer and let sit for a few minutes to soften slightly. With a rubber spatula, move the ice cream from the carton to a bowl and add the almond extract and stir with the rubber spatula until combined. Using a ½ inch sized ice cream scoop, scoop the ice cream into balls and set them on the prepared cookie sheet. Freeze for 3 hours. Once they have set, pull and roll in the crumb mixture so they are completely coated, place back on the sheet and return back to the freezer for another 30 minutes before eating, and for obvious reasons, keep them stored in the freezer. At this point, they are ready to be devoured. FYI: If almond isn’t really your cup of tea, feel free to use vanilla or something else, and for that matter, a different flavor of ice cream. Now it’s time for poppers, similar to bons, except poppers have a filling. This popper treat is a great variation on a classic cookie, the Snickerdoodle. They won’t take you much more than a half hour to prepare. One common theme you will notice in these recipes, besides their shape, is the recurring theme of white chocolate. This recipe will give you about 30 poppers. Snickerdoodle Poppers 1 ¼ cup flour 2 tsp baking powder ¼ tsp salt ¼ cup milk, room temp ¼ cup plain yogurt, room temp ¼ cup granulated sugar 3 tbsp butter, melted Vegetable oil for frying • Holiday Sweets Continued on page 8
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