Shockingly Tasty Fruitcakes

Fruitcakes have become a holiday horror and a stale yuletide punchline, but they can actually be delicious! Ideally, you would have started yours back in August, but if you make one right now, it will be ready to enjoy for Christmas. And if you make one of the below recipes and follow our tips, you really will enjoy it.

It’s no wonder the stereotypical fruitcake gets no respect: The scary neon green cherries and dense, leaden consistency are pure holiday hilarity. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Determined to create fruitcakes that would actually get eaten—and be thoroughly enjoyed—we tested three varieties. We also perfected the aging methods (these recipes were in development for a year and a half!). These fruitcakes are straightforward and straight-up delicious.

Related Reading: The Best Baking Books to Give (or Keep) | 11 Ingredients to Take Your Baking to the Next Level

What Makes a Fruitcake Bad?

Bad fruitcakes are generally bad because they use poor-quality candied fruit and/or way too much booze.

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To combat that, buy good candied fruit from high-end grocers—stay away from the Day-Glo stuff!—or make your own. And while you don’t need to raid the top shelf, use at least moderately good booze too, in the right proportions (see our recipes for more specifics).

Do You Really Need to Age Fruitcake?

Though all of our fruitcakes were tasty enough to eat freshly baked, their flavors became more balanced and nuanced as time went on. When testing, we stored batches in different ways and for different lengths of time. After enclosing the cakes in resealable plastic bags, resealable plastic containers, and cheesecloth, and even burying them under pounds of powdered sugar both in and out of the refrigerator, we learned that each of the three came out best with a different method and different amount of aging—so see each recipe for specifics.

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Related Reading: Essential Baking Tools | 9 Reasons Your Holiday Baking Has Been a Big Disaster

Is the Alcohol Necessary?

Frankly, yes, and it’s there not just for flavor but for its preservative properties. While we don’t go overboard with the booze, there is enough in each cake to inhibit bacterial growth, so you shouldn’t need to worry about microbes as long as you store the cakes protected from air, heat, and light (and don’t work in a dirty kitchen, of course).

Will These Cakes Make Me Drunk?

They will definitely not get you sauced, but if you have dietary or religious concerns surrounding the consumption of alcohol, you’re going to want to pass on these cakes. Though most of the alcohol used in the batters will dissipate during baking, there will be trace amounts left—and in the case of our dark and white fruitcakes, they’re brushed with additional alcohol after baking, which will obviously remain pretty potent. So maybe don’t feed these to the kids, but don’t worry about getting drunk off of a slice of cake either.

Our Legit Delicious Fruitcake Recipes

All variations on fruitcake contain sweetened dried fruit and alcohol, and can generally be categorized as dark, black, or white. Here are our versions of each type:

Spiced Dark Fruitcake

Age it: Up to 4 months, brushed with 1/4 cup brandy before burying in powdered sugar

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This iconic fruitcake is made with molasses, dried fruit, and warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, plus a kick of citrus. It’s definitely worth making your own candied peel for this. If aging, we liked the flavor best at about 6 weeks, but it’s also delicious eaten right away. Get our Spiced Dark Fruitcake recipe.

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Caribbean Black Fruitcake

Age it: Up to 2 months in an airtight plastic bag at room temperature (do not refrigerate, but place in a cool, dry place)

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Also known as wedding cake and Christmas cake (among other names), this one’s made with burnt sugar and rum, giving it a rich, chocolaty flavor. It’s studded with dried cherries, prunes, raisins, currants, candied orange peel, and almonds. Great freshly baked, or up to 2 months old. Get our Caribbean Black Fruitcake recipe.

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These extra thick, reusable silicone bags will keep your cake protected if you age it.

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White “Groom’s” Fruitcake

Age it: Up to 3.5 months in a loaf-shaped plastic container with airtight lid; brush the cake with 1/4 cup bourbon every 10 days

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Called “groom’s cake” because it was traditionally served to a groomsman before his wedding, this fruitcake is buttery and citrusy, more akin to a candied-fruit-laden pound cake. It’s the perfect vehicle for converting fruitcake-haters and is delicious on the day it’s made, but still tastes great when aged per the method above—although, obviously, it gets much boozier the longer you store it! Get our White “Groom’s Fruitcake recipe.

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Classic Stuffed Mushrooms

These classic stuffed mushrooms are loaded with shallots, garlic, walnuts, breadcrumbs, and chopped mushroom stems. Sprinkle with Parmesan and pop them in the oven and you've got a great appetizer for the holidays.

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Bone Broth Primer: What Exactly Is It & How Do You Make It?

Bone broth has been having a moment…well, for a while now; we first wrote about it in 2015 when all the cool kids were sipping it from paper cups, and it’s only become more popular as keto and paleo diets have continued to gain momentum. You may already know it’s touted for its major health benefits as a digestive, bone, skin, hair, and anti-aging wonder, but if you’re still not sure what exactly it is, here’s what you need to know, and how to make it at home.

Related Reading: The Best Bone Broth You Can Buy

Is Bone Broth Broth or Is It Stock?

Technically it is stock, but bone broth is the buzzy term of choice—it just sounds catchier and comfier than bone stock. Most people use the phrases interchangeably because the fundamentals are the same (simmering meat, bones, vegetables, and seasonings), but if you’re cooking at home, there are subtle differences that make them distinct.

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Related Reading: What Is the Difference Between Broth and Stock?

The short version: A stock is reduced and concentrated from hours of simmering and used as a base for soups, stews, sauces, you name it. Stocks are only lightly seasoned because accents like salt and other spices intensify as a stock reduces and can overwhelm the flavor or compete with seasonings in the dish the stock is used in.

A key difference: A good stock is viscous from the breakdown of collagen in the bones and cartilage and should gel when chilled. The health benefits are attributed to this gelatin richness. Broth is a soup in itself: a lighter, less gelatinous, and more highly seasoned liquid.

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What Equipment Do You Need to Make Bone Broth?

We’ll assume you have a cutting board, a sharp knife, and a wooden spoon. The other tools you need are a heavy-bottomed stockpot (preferably enameled steel or cast iron), a fine-mesh strainer or chinois lined with cheesecloth (you can also use cone-shaped coffee filters in a pinch), and freezer-safe storage containers like glass Mason jars or BPA-free plastic. Naturally, you can also make Instant Pot bone broth if you’d rather not do it the old-fashioned way.

Le Creuset 8-Quart Enameled Stockpot, $75.96 at Sur la Table

This enameled steel stockpot should get plenty of use this winter.

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Hoard Your Scraps

Save everything. Onion tops and skins. The tough end of celery stalks. Carrot and tomato tops. Garlic ends. Bell pepper caps. Stems from plucked herbs. The produce you promised yourself you’d eat more of, but is now going limp in your crisper.

Related Reading: How to Fight Food Waste

Most vegetable scraps are fair game in a stock, with a few exceptions. Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower (think: cruciferous neighborhood) or hot chile peppers can overwhelm the flavor of stock or turn bitter. Starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn will make the stock cloudy. Beets will turn your stock beet-red, and watery vegetables like cucumber or lettuces will disintegrate without adding much flavor.

Collect all of your other scraps in a one- or two-gallon zip-top freezer bag and freeze them until your stash is plentiful enough to use in a stock. Shoot for about 4 cups of miscellaneous veggies per 4 quarts of water.

Reusable Gallon Freezer Bags, 4 for $15.99 on Amazon

These extra thick, leak-proof silicone bags are perfect for storing scraps until you need them.

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Pile On the Bones (and Meat)

For the most robust, flavorful stock, use a hodgepodge of bones and meat: beef, chicken, turkey, veal, pork. Poultry skin and gnarly bits like gizzards, hearts, necks, feet, split hooves, and oxtails are also packed with flavor and/or cartilage that will yield more gelatin. Liver can turn a stock cloudy or bitter, so save that for another use. Otherwise, aim for about 4 pounds of chicken parts and bones or 7 pounds of beef or pork bones per 4 quarts of water. Chop the bones and meat into 2-inch chunks to maximize the flavor.

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Roast It All

If you’re starting with raw ingredients (versus cooked scraps), thoroughly rinse the bones under cold running water, then roast the bones, meat, and vegetables in a 450°F oven or cook in the stockpot over medium-high heat until they are deeply browned, from 30 minutes to 1 hour. Roasting will always give your stock a richer, deeper flavor. Some pros also recommend slathering beef bones in tomato paste before roasting to amp up the flavor of a brown stock.

Always Add Vinegar

Use 1/4 cup or less of any vinegar—apple cider, white wine, malt—per 4 to 8 quarts of water. Adding a small amount to bone stock won’t affect the flavor, but vinegar “helps extract minerals from the bone and vegetables, even when diluted with water,” writes Sally Fallon Morell in “Nourishing Broth: An Old-Fashioned Remedy for the Modern World.”

Lose the Salt

Simmering a stock for hours concentrates the flavors in a big way, and adding salt on the front end of the cook could result in a too-salty liquid. Instead, season the final dish you use the stock in, such as a soup, sauce, risotto, or gravy.

Start With Cold Water

Combine the roasted ingredients and cold water in the stockpot and let them sit for up to 1 hour before slowly bringing the mixture to a simmer over medium heat. Starting from cold produces a clearer stock because the soluble proteins that escape from the meat and bones coagulate into bigger, easier-to-skim bits, according to food scientist Harold McGee in “On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.”

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Simmer, Don’t Boil

Maintain a gentle, burbling simmer over medium heat for 12 to 24 hours, until the liquid has reduced and the bones are softened. A hard, rolling boil will obliterate the ingredients and produce a cloudy stock. Skim the surface of the stock often in the first 3 to 4 hours.

Make a Raft

Straining the stock through a fine-mesh sieve or chinois lined with cheesecloth will filter out most of the loose particles. If you’re making a clear soup (think: consommé) or the stock is too cloudy after straining, add 2 beaten egg whites and bring the stock to a low boil for 20 to 30 minutes. The set egg whites are a magnet for the fine particles floating in a stock. Cool the stock, gently remove the “raft” of egg whites at the top of the liquid with a slotted spoon or spatula, and strain again to remove any remaining egg white.

Related Reading: Hoard Your Beef Bones for Bun Bo Hue

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A Chocolate Snacking Cake with a Secret Ingredient

If you dig simple, moist chocolate cakes with only a handful of ingredients and an unadulterated, deeply chocolate-y flavor, have I got a treat for you. My recipe for chocolate snacking cake not only checks all the above-mentioned boxes, but it also comes with a secret ingredient: mayonnaise. But before you freak out, let me explain. 

First, and most importantly, the cake does not taste like mayo; in fact, it has no flavor when baked into a chocolate cake. Mayo, which is primarily made up of oil and egg yolks, takes the place of the butter or oil that you would normally add to your cake batter, and it produces a cake with lovely soft crumbs and stays moist for several days.

Related Reading: You’ll Want to Cozy Up with This Teatime Raspberry Cake All Winter

Including mayonnaise as a cake ingredient is actually a vintage move: this practice likely started during the Great Depression, when butter and eggs were too expensive for most folks. My grandmother had a chocolate mayo cake recipe that she discovered via a Hellman’s Mayonnaise recipe booklet, and though I never knew her cake contained this controversial ingredient, I do remember how sweet, soft, and moist her cake was.

Jessie Sheehan

My recipe here is perhaps one of my favorites to date, as it combines my love of simple, snacking cakes with the most festive of flavor combos I know: chocolate and peppermint. For the holidays, this cake is a perfect vessel that’s primed to be generously swirled with pink peppermint American buttercream and sprinkled with crushed candy canes.

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Here’s to hoping you give this one a whirl this holiday season (and continue to do so all winter long), and if you feel the need to keep the cake’s—shall we say unusual—ingredient a secret when serving it to your mayo-adverse loved-ones, that can simply be a secret between you and me. 

Chocolate Mayonnaise Snacking Cake with Peppermint Buttercream Recipe

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of snacking cakes, and this chocolate mayonnaise version, generously frosted with pink peppermint buttercream, might be my all-time favorite. It’ll be ready within an hour, and you’ll want to crown the finished product with pink frosting. Crushed candy canes give the cake a little sparkle—perfect for the holidays. 

Chocolate Mayonnaise Snacking Cake with Peppermint Buttercream

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp espresso powder
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• A scant 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise, full-fat, preferably Hellman’s
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large yolk
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted if lumpy
• 1/3 to 2/3 cup of heavy cream, room temperature
• 3/4 tsp pure-vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp peppermint extract, or to taste
• 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• A few drops of red food coloring
• Crushed candy canes for decorating

Instructions

1. To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8x2-inch pan with cooking spray or softened butter and line with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt.
3. In a small bowl, combine the cocoa powder, espresso powder and boiling water and whisk until smooth.
4. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the mayonnaise and two sugars until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add the egg and the yolk, whisking after each. Add the vanilla and whisk again until just combined.
5. Add the dry ingredients in three additions, whisking after each and alternating with the chocolate mixture.
6. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway mark. The cake is ready when a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out with a moist crumb or two.
7. Let cool to room temperature before frosting.
8. To make the frosting, place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on low to medium-low until smooth, about 2 minutes. Begin slowly adding the sugar, about a cup at a time, alternating with the heavy cream, and keeping the mixer at the same low-ish speed.
9. Continue slowly mixing in this fashion (adding sugar and cream, scraping with a spatula periodically, and taking time to let the mixer run between additions), until most of the sugar and cream has been incorporated. Add the extracts, vinegar and salt and mix again.
10. Add the remaining sugar and cream and continue mixing on medium-low (at the highest) for at least 5 to 10 minutes, if not longer, adding the food coloring halfway through the mixing time. The frosting will be quite light, creamy, and fluffy when it is done.
11. Generously frost the cake, either right in the pan, or remove it before doing so. Sprinkle with crushed candy canes before serving.

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Keep These Great Bone Broths On Hand for Easy, Warm Nutrition this Winter

Bone broth has always been a thing, but more recently it’s ascended from pantry item and soup starter to full-blown meal trend, with folks sipping tasty warm broth like an afternoon latte.

Advocates of adding more bone broth to your diet point to its many health benefits including a high concentration of protein, collagen, and nutrients, as well as low levels of sugar/carbs and a healthy way to inject your body with food-fuel—especially during the cold winter months—without adding much around the waistline. For some of these same reasons, bone broth and bone broth cleanses appeal to folks adhering to a keto or paleo diet, too. 

Quick QuestionWhat Is the Difference Between Stock and Broth?With the bone broth fad has come a flood of broth purveyors, from the high-end organic bunch to more affordable brands, and even bone broths engineered for a keto diet springing up in the market. Most will ship their full arsenal of uniquely-flavored broths to your door, and you can even start a bone broth subscription to keep healthy and nutritious chicken, beef, and other broth, flowing to your home regularly. 

Check out our Bone Broth Primer and make your own bone broth at home

If you’re wondering exactly what broth is and how it differs from stock, well, things are about to get a little confusing. All the bone broths on the market are actually also stocks since they are made from animal bones, along with vegetables, aromatics, spices, and oftentimes a splash of vinegar. Bones are where broth or stock gets most of their healthy collagen—one of the biggest selling points of bone broth—but since “broth” is a larger umbrella category, it isn’t wrong to call them that either. 

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Make your own broth in this enameled steel stockpot.

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No matter what you call it, healthy bone broth makes a warming, protein- and nutrient-packed lunch or mid-meal snack, and something you should have on hand to start a Sunday stew or healthy soup to last you all week. Here are a few of the best healthy bone broths to have delivered to your home and keep on hand this winter.

Bonafide Provisions

Bonafide Provisions

This organic bone broth company separates itself from the pack by offering heartier, more fully-formed soups made from a bone broth base. In addition to standard beef, chicken, or turkey bone broth, you can get tomato basil, broccoli cheddar, or creamy mushroom that is still nutrient-packed, and low in calories. Bonafide also offers a line of keto bone broths that contain MCT oil, which is said to aid in ketone production.

Very particular about how and with what they make their all-organic soups, Bonafide includes a massive list of no-no ingredients on their website. You can order these broths individually for about $7.50 per 12-ounce broth or soup (ships frozen), or start a subscription and save 10 percent on each ($6.75).Buy Now

Brodo

Brodo

Brodo is one of the brands that helped usher in the bone broth revolution several years ago. With five locations in NYC, there was a moment when cups of bone broth seemed to de-throne double lattes during the colder months. Though the fad may have simmered down just a bit, healthy bone broth is still alive and well in New York, and Brodo now makes it’s signature organic broths available nationwide, either through a one time order or a broth subscription. The tasty Brodo broths available for order include chicken; beef; vegan mushroom seaweed; and a hearty blend of chicken, beef, and turkey. A single 30-ounce order costs $19.99 and gets cheaper the more you order.Buy Now

Brodo: A Bone Broth Cookbook, $15 on Amazon

Bone broth recipes to keep you going through spring.

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Kettle & Fire

Kettle & Fire

Kettle & Fire is another quality bone broth and soup purveyor based in San Francisco. In addition to bone broths in traditional beef and chicken, Kettle & Fire offers a few more jazzed-up flavors like coconut curry, lemongrass ginger pho, and chipotle beef. A 17-ounce box runs about $8 but they become cheaper the more you order, including through a subscription option.Buy Now

Bare Bones

Amazon

Bare Bones has convenience at the forefront of its business model, offering powdered bone broth mix or “instant bone broth beverage” along with pouches of liquid bone broth for delivery nationwide. A 16-pack of instant bone broth packets runs $25 for a one time order and comes only in beef, while their liquid broths sold in pouches come in a variety of flavors like beef, chicken, and turkey at about $10 per 16-ounce pouch.Buy Now

Osso Good

Osso Good

This company based in Los Angeles believes food really is medicine and their line of collagen-rich broths, paleo soups, and pre-built cleanses are designed to be just that. Osso Good’s broths come in traditional beef, chicken, and turkey, but also spicy pork bone broth, and organic duck along with others specifically made to enhance energy or boost your immune system. They run about $10 for a 16-ounce pouch when you order online.Buy Now

Bru Bone Broth Beverage

Bru

This brand launched a line of bone broth-based juices (stay with me) to try and capture broth-lovers in those on-the-go moments. Despite the juice aspect of it all, these bone broths are actually meant to be sipped warm. With combinations like chicken bone and beet slush, spicy greens, and even a beef broth drink with coffee and cocoa, these boldly-flavored broth drinks are probably more for the adventurous. The broth-juice hybrids start at $69 for a 6-pack of 16-ounce bottles.Buy Now

Paleo Pro Bone Broth Collagen

Paleo Pro

If you’re looking to score some of the many health benefits of bone broth but don’t have the space to store all those mason jars, bone broth collagen powder might be a good option. Beloved by paleo and keto dieters for its high-protein, high-fat, low-carb makeup, most people drop it into hot water for a sort of reconstituted bone broth, but it can be added to sauces or mixed with nut milk. A 12-ounce jar of bone collagen powder runs about $40 and is available in cocoa, vanilla, and plain flavor.Buy Now

Epic Provisions Bone Broth

Epic Provisions

This broth company makes a variety of bone broths in flavors that all sound pretty great, like turkey cranberry sage broth, and beef jalapeno & sea salt broth. They are also some of the most affordable of bone broths on this list, with a 6-pack clocking in at around $40. Epic’s bone broths are shelf-stable and only require refrigeration after opening.Buy Now

Pacific Organic Bone Broth

Pacific Foods

This is one of the more mass-produced of the bone broths out there but still a good pick, especially if you’re on a budget. Pacific bone broths come in simple flavors like chicken, beef, and mushroom, but don’t seem as engineered to be consumed straight out of the box as some of the others. These broths have a more bland taste but still pack nine grams of protein per serving and run about $5 per carton.Buy Now

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Follow These Foolproof Cookie Decorating Tips for Bakery-Worthy Treats

Baking cookies is one thing, but decorating is a whole other story. Sure, you can whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies without any fail, but when it comes to replicating the kind of buttercream cookie decorations that are ubiquitous in bakeries and even talented neighbors’ kitchens, it’s not always such an easy project. 

Related Reading: What Is the Difference Between Baking Soda and Baking Powder?

Luckily, there’s a cookbook for that. “Cookie Class,” by Jenny Keller of Jenny Cookies Bake Shop in Lake Stevens, Wash., is filled with over 100 decorating ideas, starting with sugar cookie dough as a vehicle. Easily decorate cookies with piped palm trees, diamond rings, and rainbows with Jenny’s step-by-step guides and photos, where she makes sure that there’s no guessing games on the decorating part. Throughout the book, Jenny provides an assortment of decorating tips—from investing in disposable pastry bags to opting for less is more.   

Cookie Class, $17.18 on Amazon

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Keep reading for all of Jenny’s cookie decorating tips, then get into the winter wonderland zone with her recipe for jolly snowmen cookies. Her version opts for perfectly round sugar cookies, swiped with a circle of white icing (infused with a bit of peppermint extract, if you like), a smattering of black dots to represent eyes and a mouth, and a quick loop of orange frosting for that cute carrot nose. The finished product will look impressive—as if a handful of snow gracefully fluttered into your kitchen—and when your friends ask, “Where’d you buy those cookies?” you’ll be quick to inform them that they, too, can craft bakery-worthy cookies with just a few tools.

Recipe and text excerpted with permission from “Cookie Class” by Jenny Keller, published by HarperCollins Publishers.

Decorating Cookies

Here comes the fun part! But first, some advice before beginning. 

When decorating cookies, always use disposable pastry bags. They are faster and easier to use than a knife and much simpler to use with children, and they make cleanup a breeze. I prefer to use 12-inch (30.5-cm) bags. They hold less icing but allow me to keep a steadier hand while decorating.

Photography by Kelly Clare Photography

Before attaching a decorating tip to your bag, consider using a coupler. Couplers make it easy to switch decorating tips without having to use a separate bag. Once your bag is ready to fill with icing, be sure to fill no more than half full to ensure a good grip and better control when piping. Overfilling your bag may result in a giant mess, with icing oozing out the top of the bag and giving your hand a cramp! The more icing you put inside the bag, the more icing your hand has to squeeze to pipe.

My number one decorating rule is to keep decorating simple. The more you add, the messier it can get. I typically keep faces and extra details to a minimum. Simplify decorating by using only two or three colors of icing. You’ll save on cleanup time and still get gorgeous designs. You can also use one color and make three shades of it to give your cookies a gradient look.

When covering a cookie in icing, I always outline the cookie before filling it in. I prefer not to decorate all the way to the edges, leaving some of the cookie to show so that when it is transferred to a display piece or packaging, the cookie icing doesn’t smear.

Photography by Kelly Clare Photography

You only need a few decorating tips to create hundreds of designs. Each decorating tip is numbered, but different brands have different numbering systems. I love to use Wilton decorating tips. A standard round decorating tip will likely be your new best friend. Wilton’s #1 and #2 tips are great for writing and fine detail, while #3 and #4 tips are used more often for outlining and filling in shapes. Star tips (#16 and #18) are great for creating texture in cookies. I use them to make animal fur, snowflakes, types of food, and flowers. Flower designs in particular might require a bit more advanced decorating skills, but you don’t need a lot of different kinds of tips to create pretty blossoms. For example, using the Wilton #104 tip can make several different designs; simply change the way you angle the bag and tip, from 45 degrees (see page 28) to vertically straight up and down and more.

Cookie Decorating Supplies, $10.99 on Amazon

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The final piece of advice I can offer is this: When decorating cookies, do not stress about making your cookies look perfect! Give yourself a break and have fun with it. The more you decorate, the better you’ll get. If you make a mistake, just scrape it off with a knife and start again—or better yet, eat it!

Note from Jenny

When snipping the tip of a pastry bag, don’t cut off too much! It’s always better to cut less and adjust or else your decorating tip or coupler may slide right out of the hole, especially when you exert pressure on the bag.

When to Break Out Couplers

Before you fill your pastry bag(s) with icing, decide how you plan to decorate. If you’ll be using one color with just one tip, then snip the tip of the pastry bag, insert the decorating tip, fill the bag with icing, and get started! But if you want to use the same tip with more than one color, it’s time to break out the couplers.

Photography by Kelly Clare Photography

Couplers are a two-part plastic piece that allow you to change out tips on the same bag of icing. Snip the tip of the pastry bag, insert the coupler base so that it pokes out of the hole a bit, fit the desired tip on the base, and then screw on the coupler ring to hold the tip in place. When you want to change tips, simply unscrew the ring and repeat. 

Sprinkles!

Photography by Kelly Clare Photography

• Sugar cookies become all the more whimsical with sprinkles, nonpareils, sanding sugars, and more. To make sure they stick, add them when the icing is not yet dry. 
• Use sprinkles to disguise mistakes or messy decorating. Simply dip the decorated cookies into a bowl of sanding sugar or sprinkles and voilà!
• Add sprinkle accents to cookies by using them as elements on the cookie. Nonpareils become fans on a football field or the coat of a llama, brown sprinkles resemble Big Foot’s fur, and a mixture of sprinkles stands in for candy. Get creative!
• Combine sanding sugar, nonpareils, confetti quins, pearls, and sprinkles to create a personalized sprinkle mix.

Jolly Snowmen Recipe

Give these snowmen cookies a holiday flavor by adding peppermint extract to the icing before decorating.

Jolly Snowmen

Ingredients

• 1 batch Sugar Cookie Dough
• 2½-inch (6.35-cm) round cookie cutter
• 3 pastry bags
• 1 Wilton #1A decorating tip
• 1 Wilton #2 decorating tip
• 1 Wilton #3 decorating tip
• 1 batch buttercream Icing (page 26), divided and dyed as follows
• ½ cup (120 ml) black
• ½ cup (120 ml) orange
• Remainder undyed (white)

Instructions

1. Follow baking instructions for sugar cookie dough.
2. Fit one pastry bag with the #1A decorating tip and fill with white icing. Fit one pastry bag with #2 decorating tip and fill with the black icing. Fit one pastry bag with the #3 decorating tip and fill with orange icing.
3. Using the white icing, pipe a large dollop onto the cookie to cover the entire surface. If your icing ends up shaped like a chocolate kiss, gently tap the cookie on the counter to encourage the icing to settle.
4. Using the black icing, pipe the snowman’s eyes and mouth.
5. Using the orange icing, pipe a nose to resemble a carrot.

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What Is the Difference Between Baking Soda and Baking Powder?

Baking soda and baking powder: two necessary ingredients in any baker’s pantry and two very similar looking items that, for the outside, look like they do very similar. Baked good recipes often call for a mere teaspoon of one or the other in your mixture, but you’ve probably wondered why you need to keep both in your pantry. After all, they both create gas, causing a chemical reaction which makes baked goods rise. Each contains sodium bicarbonate, an alkaline chemical that gives off carbon dioxide when mixed with an acid. So what is the difference between baking soda and baking powder?

Related Reading: 15 Must-Make Christmas Cookies

Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda

Baking soda consists purely of sodium bicarbonate, so recipes calling for it must include an acidic ingredient like lemon juice, buttermilk, or brown sugar (the molasses in brown sugar is acidic) to activate it. Baking powder contains some baking soda, cornstarch to keep it from clumping together, and one or more acidic salts, which act as the activating/neutralizing agents for the bicarbonate. 

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The two leavening agents work at different speeds. Baking soda produces gas immediately upon contact with liquid acid. Remember when you were a kid and you’d mix it with Coke to get a crazy foaming effect? Your dough or batter begins rising the minute you mix in the soda. Baking powder, on the other hand, creates a little gas when you first mix it in (that’s the baking soda working), and then more when the acidic salts have had a chance to fully dissolve, and yet a little more when your product is put in the oven.

That’s because the acidic salts most commonly used in baking powder need heat to work fully. The names of these acid salts are cream of tartar—also known as potassium bitartrate, a by-product of winemaking that has nothing to do with tartar sauce—and calcium aluminum phosphate. That’s why the vast majority of baking powders sold in grocery stores today are what’s known as double-acting: They’re rising once, then again.

When to Use Baking Soda and Baking Powder

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So why use one over the other? Baking powder is often called for in recipes in which there is no acidic ingredient, as the powder contains its own acid component. And that built-in acid ensures that the soapy taste of unneutralized bicarbonate will not be present in what you’re making. Baking soda is often called for in recipes in which color is an issue, says baking expert Shirley Corriher, author of the book “CookWise.” Cookies that are more alkaline will brown better, Corriher explains. Dark chocolate cakes will be darker the more alkaline they are.

Related Reading: Which Is Better, Pancakes or Waffles?

But beware of confusing the two. If you use baking soda in a recipe that calls for baking powder, and there isn’t an acid among the ingredients, your product won’t rise. Even if there are acidic elements in your recipe, it may still not rise, because you made the batter too alkaline. (Eggs need the proper acidity to set, for instance.) If you switch out powder for soda, you may not get enough gas, because baking powder contains so much less bicarbonate per volume than soda.

Where Does Baking Soda Come From?

But the most interesting part of this story is where baking soda comes from. It’s mined from the earth. Most of the baking soda in North America comes from trona, a sodium bicarbonate–containing mineral whose largest deposit is underneath Green River, Wyoming. The trona is cleaned and milled to a powder, and you’ve got baking soda. In places without extensive trona deposits, like Europe, baking soda is made using the Solvay process, a reaction involving table salt and ammonia.

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Another side note: Some people don’t like to use baking powder with aluminum because they believe it gives food a vaguely metallic taste, and because it has been suggested that there may be a link between aluminum consumption and Alzheimer’s disease. Studies have not proven this, however.

How to Make Baking Powder at Home

Want to make your own baking powder and ensure it doesn’t have any aluminum in it? It’s easy. Simply add two parts cream of tartar to one part each of baking soda and cornstarch.

And if you’re buying baking soda and baking powder from a store, make sure you check the shelf life date: Neither will work if it’s expired, and nobody wants flopped and dry pancakes, muffins, or baked goods.

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11 Ingredients to Up Your Baking Game

Whether you’re baking chocolate chip cookies or a fancy three-layer cake with lemon curd and whipped cream frosting, the quality of ingredients can make a huge difference in the final product. By following a few tips from fellow pastry chefs, and splurging on a few ingredients (which is easy thanks to online specialty stores), your baked goods will go from amateur to professional quality in no time. Here are 11 ingredients that will up your baking game exponentially.

Related Reading: A Guide to Essential Baking Tools | The Best New Baking Books

In all cases, even when it comes to plain old baking soda and baking powder, be sure you’re using fresh products (not the boxes that have been in your cupboard since last year’s holiday baking jam!), and as always, the higher the quality, the better.

1. Salt

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Salt is a maybe-not-so-secret ingredient all bakers and pastry chefs like to use. Just a little sprinkle of salt into your cookie dough, cake batter, or tart dough not only enhances the sweetness of a dish, but also makes citrus taste fresher, brings out the fragrance in spices, and adds overall complexity to a dessert. So if you’ve ever skipped over the dash of salt in a sweet recipe because it sounded weird or unnecessary, stop that!

Table salt will be just fine for most baking recipes. You can use kosher if you like, but per Joy the Baker’s advice, beware: Coarse kosher salt will not disperse as evenly throughout the dough or batter, so it’s better if you have fine grained kosher salt.

Related Reading: All the Salts That Deserve a Spot in Your Pantry

Also, a sprinkle of flaky sea salt to top off sweet cookies and other baked goods is a perfect finishing touch.

2. AA Butter (Bonus If It’s Browned)

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Butter is butter, right? Wrong. There are many different styles and grades of butter available in most supermarkets, and which one you choose affects the structure and flavor of your baked goods. According to the experts at King Arthur Flour, you should be sure to choose a higher-fat AA butter; it contains less water so will give you more tender results, and flakier pastry when making pie dough. You don’t necessarily need (or want) a European style butter for baking, though they’re tops on warm bread and rolls.

But what about salted vs unsalted? Some pastry chefs insist on using unsalted butter, so they can control the amount of salt that is going into a recipe. But since many novice bakers tend to undersalt their baked goods, using salted butter is a good way to bring out the sweetness and help refine the other flavors present—with the obvious caveat that it’s easy to go overboard if you add additional salt per your recipe. If you use salted butter, take a small taste of your dough (caveat #2: raw flour can be dangerous) before adding any more sodium.

If you prefer to adjust salt levels strictly by adding a sprinkle (or two), consider nutty browned butter as another secret weapon in baking. Any recipe that calls for melted butter will be even better if you take it further and brown the butter before cooling slightly and adding to your batter. (This 1:1 swap won’t work so well in recipes that call for creamed butter.)

3. Vanilla Beans or Vanilla Bean Paste

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Vanilla extract is featured in many baking recipes, but using fresh vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste means stronger vanilla flavor and scent. Both can be pricey, but a little goes a long way. Fresh vanilla bean can have the seeds scraped out to use in a recipe, and the pod can be used to flavor syrups and sugar. Vanilla bean paste (thickened extract with bean specks) will last longer than fresh beans—but also has added sugar (check the label to make sure it doesn’t contain corn syrup). It can be swapped in at a 1:1 ratio in place of extract, or use about a tablespoon in place of one fresh vanilla bean.

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If you do go with extract, spend more on a high-quality brand, or consider taking on an extra project and make homemade vanilla extract with vanilla beans and the booze of your choice.

Vanilla Extract

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Vodka creates the most pure vanilla flavor, but using rum or bourbon creates an extract with more nuance and depth. Try making smaller batches of both kinds to compare and see which one you prefer. This also makes an amazing homemade gift.

4. Lemon Zest

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Whether you are making a lemon-flavored dessert or something light and fruity with berries, a little lemon zest can give your dish a punch of fresh flavor. The tartness of berries, like strawberry and blueberry, can often be masked by the sugar content of a baked good recipe. Lemon zest revives the pleasant pucker without adding any extra liquid to the mixing bowl.

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Try other citrus zest, or for another dimension of flavor and texture, cut the zest into thin strips (avoiding as much of the bitter white pith as possible), then candy them and use to garnish cakes, cookies, and more.

5. High-Quality Chocolate

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Depending on the brand you use, a high-quality chocolate can make your basic brownie, chocolate ganache, or chocolate cake taste more nuanced, with floral, bitter, or even smoky flavors. Here are a few brands (but by no means all of your options) that can blow Hershey’s chocolate out of the water: Ghirardelli, Scharffen Berger, Valrhona, Guittard, Callebaut, and Michel Cluizel. Be sure to taste before using to find your favorite.

If you’re not melting the chocolate, buying féves (flat, oval discs of chocolate) or solid bars also allows you to chop it by hand so you get both bigger pools of melted chocolate and finer flecks that freckle the dough—a huge step up from uniform chocolate chips.

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6. Bitters

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Cocktail bitters come in so many complex flavors, and often include baking stalwart spices like clove; they make an interesting substitute for vanilla extract in baked goods. As the name suggests, however, they are bitter, so you may need to increase the sugar slightly in the recipe—or, only replace a small amount of the vanilla or other flavored extract with bitters (up to a 50/50 mix).

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Seek out craft bitters online or in local stores, or try infusing your own, like our Orange Bitters or Aromatic Bitters.

7. Unusual Jams

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If you’re making thumbprint cookies, split second jam cookies, or the lovely linzer sablés above—or swirling jam into a Danish or cheesecake—level up instantly by grabbing a jar of something more interesting than the usual raspberry preserves. Whether you make your own jam or seek out store-bought, there’s a whole world of intriguing flavor combos to try.

If you want to DIY, look into Cinnamon Blueberry Jam, Strawberry Habanero Jam, or Pear Ginger Jam to start. Or look online for alluring options, like these:

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8. Freshly Ground Spices

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No matter how fresh your purchased bottles of ground spices are, their flavor will never quite compare to the taste you get from grinding your own whole spices at home (obviously, the whole spices should also be freshly purchased, from a supplier with high turnover).

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Bonus points if you lightly toast them first; just toss them over medium heat in a dry pan (one of those mini cast iron skillets if you have one!) for a few minutes until you smell their fragrance wafting over you, then pulverize in a grinder and use in your recipe. Even simple snickerdoodles will never be the same.

9. Alternative Flours

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If you were watching my stories yesterday these were the cookies I made yesterday and baked off this morning. If you weren’t watching let me reintroduce you to my espresso and rye chocolate chip cookies, one of my favourite twists on the classic cookie. – Link to recipe in my profile – #chocolatechipcookies #chocolatechip #ryecookies #cookiegram #cookiesofinstagram #chocolateporn #theboywhobakes #foodphotography #foodstyling – https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.theboywhobakes.co.uk/recipes/2019/8/15/espresso-and-rye-chocolate-chip-cookies%3fformat=amp

A post shared by Edd Kimber (@theboywhobakes) on Oct 21, 2019 at 9:54am PDT

We’re not talking about experimenting with gluten-free flours like almond meal or cassava flour in place of conventional flour—though that’s certainly another worthy kitchen pursuit. In this case, we’re talking about bumping up the flavor of conventional baked goods by using something like rye flour or coffee flour in place of some of the all-purpose.

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Try this Chocolate Chip Rye Cookie recipe for starters, or these Gluten-Free Coffee Flour Coconut Cookies (don’t expect an espresso taste, though; coffee flour is more nutty, slightly bitter, and faintly fruity).

10. Tahini

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Top three favorite cookies: 1) chocolate chip obvs, 2) peanut buttah because… peanut butter, and 3) these chewy tahini cookies that are actually life changing they’re crinkle-y and sesame-y and have the most insane chewy factor that I can’t even relay in this caption you just need to try them for yourself. Linking in my bio, hope you guys LOVE!! ♥️ . http://thetoastedpinenut.com/tahini-cookies/

A post shared by Lindsay Grimes Freedman (@thetoastedpinenut) on Sep 24, 2018 at 7:19pm PDT

Halvah in desserts is sweet-savory-sesame perfection, so using straight-up sesame paste (aka, tahini) is an obvious extension. Since it’s rather runny, tahini blends well into batters for everything from banana bread to chocolate chip cookies. The rich, roasty, slightly bitter flavor it adds is fantastic. While it pairs exceptionally well with chocolate, try showcasing it in something like this simple Tahini Cookie recipe too.

11. Flavorful Decorations

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Start the holiday baking season out right with these Peppermint Meltaway Cookies!☃ You'll want the hoard the whole batch away for yourself! RECIPE LINK IN BIO

A post shared by Cooking Classy (@cookingclassy) on Dec 1, 2016 at 8:26pm PST

Sprinkles and sanding sugars are classic and we use them liberally to jazz up royal icing, but consider incorporating other, more flavorful decorations for your sugar cookies too. Think finely crushed peppermint candies, pulverized toasted nuts, dark chocolate grated on a Microplane, shredded coconut, and light dustings of matcha or freeze dried fruit powders. They all stick to wet icing just as well as specks of colored sugar, and add their own flavor and texture to the mix in the bargain.

Related Video: Dorie Greenspan’s Genius Trick for Perfectly Round Cookies

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