Late Night Baking with Chef Caroline

I had some additional baking I wanted to get done on Friday night after the kids went to bed and I decided to get some alone time with Caroline at the same time.  Normally, she's not that into baking with me when I bake and now I know why.  She hates baking with her siblings - which I can totally understand.  Bryce and Piper completely monopolize the process and fights break out every.single.time.  So on Friday afternoon, I went up to her room after school and proposed the idea of a secret baking night.  She loved it!  She loved that we pretended she was going down complete with us nagging her to get into her pajamas and quiet down to read.  Thankfully, Bryce and Piper passed out quickly and before long she was downstairs and we were getting set to make Butter Brickle Biscotti.  

In between helping me with the mixing steps, she would go in and sit and watch Pawn Stars with Jason.  She was just enjoying the time without competition and complete attention.  Because it was only her helping me mix and she's more competent at measuring, I was able to let her do a lot of the mixing and dumping.  With Bryce and Piper they can't do much without a complete mess.  I also enjoyed the fact that she can read everything AND she understands the notion of 1/4, 1/3 and 1/2 in terms of measuring.  I taught her the difference between a teaspoon and tablespoon and showed her how easy it is to measure butter.  Finally the biscotti was in the oven and she got to enjoy a cup from my secret stash of soy nog.

We then mixed up a new recipe for peppermint chocolate cookies, but they had to be refrigerated over night so we didn't get to bake them.  Then she helped me put the chocolate icing swirls on all of my biscotti that I had baked a few weeks ago that had been in the freezer.  Finally, by 10pm, all the baking was done and she went off to bed happy.  We asked her to keep the secret from her siblings or they might expect the same treatment, but Bryce just told me that she told him about her baking adventures.  I'm not that surprised though - she enjoyed it so much she just HAD to brag about it to him.

King Arthur to the Rescue

I found the answer to my eggnog biscotti problem!  And I found it in the mecca of baking places, King Arthur Flour.   A friend of mine is a near expert baker and she recommended buying some eggnog flavored coffee flavoring, which I was going to do but then I decided to finally check out KAF.  KAF is THE most awesome baking site and known for their ingredients to make baking the best it can be.  So you can imagine my surprise when I was just browsing around (not even looking for eggnog flavoring) when it popped up.  And because it's a flavoring made for baking, it's super concentrated and you don't have to worry about it affecting the consistency of your dough.  Woohoo!  Now to decide on the glaze.  I already made 2 big batches of pumpkin pie biscotti that I'll be giving out to teachers and a few others for Thanksgiving and saving the rest for Christmas.

Baking Dreams

Now that it's November 2, we all know how close we are to the holidays.  And while I've started on gift lists and just a wee bit of online shopping, my most enjoyable thing to think about is baking!  I love baking.  And I've decided that this year will be the year of biscotti.  While I generally make biscotti every year, this year I think it's going to be the only thing I make in terms of baked gifts.  In the past, I've done a mix of quick breads (cranberry, pumpkin, and eggnog) and biscotti as gifts.  But the problem with the quick breads is that if you want to make them ahead of time and then freeze them, they can sometimes get a little soggy when they come out.  Not terribly so but I don't always like the result.  Anyway, biscotti can be made even further in advance and freezes beautifully as long as you don't do any chocolate coating.  Plus, I've got like 4 new recipes I'm dying to try that are a little less common.  Coconut Lime, Pumpkin Pie, Butter Brickle, and Chai-Chocolate.  I'd also LOVE to find an eggnog biscotti recipe, but I haven't found one.  That's not completely true, I did find a few but none of them have a drop of eggnog in them and the reviews haven't been great.  After making the eggnog quick bread, I want a biscotti recipe that tastes like that bread.  I'm a little afraid of making up my own though based on the fact that it involves adding liquid to a cookie dough that could totally throw everything off.  I will probably make one or two of my old standby recipes that are really good too.  So my goal is at least 6 different kinds of biscotti and perhaps doubling a few of the recipes.

I'm trying to decide when to start because I don't want it to get to December and have to make it all.  Plus, this year being in a new office with a LOT of women who I interact with on a regular basis and like very much, I'll be giving out more baked good gifts than usual.  So I really need to get cracking and this is NOT a task I like to do while the kids are underfoot.  (They either want to help - which isn't helpful for biscotti - or they make it more difficult.)

So if anyone happens upon an eggnog biscotti recipe, please forward it onto me.

I guess I better go and add a bunch of baking ingredients to the Peapod list.....