Chicken Patties (a savory strudel alike)

Posted by - Dixya @ Food, Pleasure, and Health



I can't believe Christmas went by so quickly and New Years is only a couple days away- WHAAAT.. I am still in denial and don't want to stop eating more cookies in the name of holidays! 

But at the same time I am excited to welcome 2013, a new year, new beginnings. Hope it will be another year full of happiness, success and good health. Lots of wishes from me to you and your family ♥

On any other day I probably would not have promoted this recipe - buttery, flaky chicken patties but c'mon its New Years - it deserves special attention; it comes just once a year - 365 days. 52 weeks. All I am trying to say warn you is - don't get too hooked because this buttery, flaky pastry sheets stuffed with flavorful chicken pieces are pretty hard to stop after your first bite. Even though every bite is so worth the calories, I usually save it for the special moments like these, a New Years gift from me to you!

...I love how these chicken patties take me back to middle school; times where I securely held on to my mother's hand and walked swiftly towards a small bakery after school that displayed colorful pastries, old-fashioned glazed doughnuts, different cookies, and patties. I occasionally craved for cream rolls but chicken patties & I were BFFs.

Still today, when I take a bite of this, I go back to a time where life's biggest concerns were chicken patties, more play time, and less homework!  So simple, so naive... 

Its like eating soft, buttery sheets with a spicy chicken surprise waiting inside but feel free to add other fillings of your choice: potatoes, mix veggies, paneer or whatever tickles your fancy! 

All you need are puff pastry shells, filling of your choice, and ten minutes of patience! I eyeballed all the ingredients, so please adjust it to your liking all you want.

Chicken Patties

Ingredients

*puff pastry shells, thawed

boneless chicken tenderloins (may use chicken breast too)

milk

chicken tandoori masala

Miracle whip

hot sauce

salt & pepper

*note- i used puff pastry sheets but i highly recommend using shells.

Directions

- In a sauce pan, boil milk and add chicken with tandoori masala until chicken is cooked.

-Shred the chicken and place it in a bowl

-Mix in with more tandoori masala, hot sauce, miracle whip, salt and adjust the taste as needed

The main goal is to make sure the chicken is not too dry and adding Miracle whip/mayonnaise helped keep it moist.

-In a preheated oven @ 400F, place pastry shells/sheets for 10 minutes or so until it turns slightly yellow/brown and top pops up

-Place the fillings and put it back in the oven for additional few minutes until its evenly golden

Serve it hot and this recipe stores well in the freezer. Simply reheat it in a toaster oven and enjoy :)

See you all next year!

Apple Strudel from Rhonda's Saucy Adventures

Posted by - Rhonda

Apple filling adapted from Paula Dean, Pastry Puff Directions from puffpastry.com

I have always been afraid to make strudel, so I am glad this months challenge got me out of my comfort  zone.  I LOVE this recipe and will definitely make it again.

Apple Strudel:
1 egg
1 tbsp  water
1/4 cup golden raisins
17.3-ounce package Pepperidge Farm® Puff Pastry Sheets (1 sheet), thawed
1 Fuji apple
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1 Tablespoon flour
1/2 cup vanilla wafers
 1/4 cup chopped pecans
  Glaze:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons milk
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the raisins, apples, flour, lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon, brown sugar, cookie crumbs, and pecans, in a 3 qt pan. Cook on low for 15 minutes, stir occasionally. 1.Remove pastry puff from the box, unfold the pastry sheet on the work surface. Roll the pastry sheet into a 16 x 12-inch rectangle. With the short side facing you, spoon the apple mixture onto the bottom half of the pastry sheet to within 1 inch of the edge. Roll up like a jelly roll. Place seam-side down onto a baking sheet. Tuck the ends under to seal. Brush the pastry with the egg mixture. Cut several slits in the top of the pastry. 2.Bake for 35 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Let the pastry cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with the confectioners' sugar, if desired. 3.Drizzle Caramel Ice cream sauce if desired. For the Glaze: Mix ingredients thoroughly. *Cook's Note: If too thick add a little bit of milk. If too thin add a little bit of confectioners' sugar.

December Challenge: Strudel

Posted by - Rena

Happy December! Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season so far.

This month's challenge is to make strudel. You can make whatever kind you like. Strudel is typically a layered pastry with a sweet filling inside but you can go the savory route if you prefer. Since everyone is busy with the holidays, strudel seems perfect. The possibilities are endless for fillings so go crazy!

I wish you all a wonderful holiday and I'll see you next year! 

photo from MarthaStewart.com

Gingerbread Cookies

Posted by -colleen

I am a BIG fan of gingerbread cookies but I have never actually made them. My Christmas cut-outs are the fluffy, soft kind which I highly prefer to the crispier versions so that was my mission when looking for a good gingerbread recipe. The title of this cookie seemed to fit the bill so this is the recipe I tried:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/big-soft-ginger-cookies/detail.aspx

	Ingredients: 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons ground ginger 1 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/4 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup margarine, softened 1 cup white sugar 1 egg 1 tablespoon water 1/4 cup molasses 2 tablespoons white sugar Directions: 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside. 2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly. 3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
	Modifications? No-it's the holidays and this is not the time for my weird, calorie-cutting experiments. The only thing I left out was rolling the prepared dough in sugar. This wasn't because I didn't want them to be too sweet. I did because I wanted to frost my baked cookies in cream cheese frosting. Oh yeah. These cookies are awesome. Frosting or not, these are hands-down THE BEST gingerbread cookies EVER! I will be quite surprised if anyone else gets them in my holiday cookie tins.

Thankfully, I also own appropriate gingerbread man cooking-baking attire (thank you Target circa 2008):

Ginger biscotti with more good things

Posted by - Winnie

**This post was originally written in Hebrew. This is the translated version from google.**

Ginger biscotti
with nuts and raisins
great and healthy snack

Cookies very fast and easy preparation.
hard and crispy I can not stop eating next to a hot drink, drink, cold and without drinking at all

These Hbiskoti story began when I joined the bloggers every month receives a copy of any subject and each makes up his blog entry. So this month the topic is ginger cookies.
gingerbread cookies, country are less familiar, very popular in different countries at this time of year, and are usually no fixed forms.

It was clear to me that these cookies do not want to make, and I have to find a slightly different direction.

And this direction came as a biscotti.
a long time since I made ​​cookies biscotti, cookies, and these actually I really love munchies (as if I do not like cookies?), like something hard and crispy, and do a lot of crumbs that eat them (Hhhh)

Okay, so I started looking for a recipe when I was also clear that I want it with butter.
Why? It's obvious - I'm quite fond of butter, and earlier this week when I bake, I usually bake dairy recipes.

So nice that I decided that rather recipes I saw were all with oil.

Never mind, I said to myself, I just replace the oil with the butter.

Well, I found a recipe that seemed to me and I decided to make.

But ....... Good grief! Selected recipe has only 2 tablespoons of oil.

No kidding, really disappointed. Replace 2 tablespoons of butter fat it does not matter

Aofffffffff cookies earlier this week and will be without butter.

I already try to find another recipe, but ...... Precisely the combination here with nuts and raisins really appealed to me.

Hopefully they'll be successful, I consoled myself, and I began to prepare.

Successful?? Are successful Madddddddddddddddd and I just can not stop munchies them
and when you look at the recipe turns out these Shbiskoti even contain healthy things, and it really was not intentional.
And one last thing - they are very easy and very fast to prepare .

Customer recipe source map , but still I did it some changes

100 g walnuts

50 g oats (not instant)

50 g bran - finely ground oat
flour 225 g

160 g dark brown sugar

½ teaspoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 / 4 teaspoon ground ginger

2 large eggs

60 ml (¼ cup) Sedan

2 tablespoons oil

½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon nuts - see note

95 g dark or golden raisins

Coating - optional

60 g powdered sugar (½ cup)

¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract - can also be a lemon

2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 175 degrees, and look forward to baking paper format

Mfzriim the walnuts / pecans and put in oven for 10 minutes. Remove, let cool and chop coarsely. Put in a small bowl, add the raisins. And set aside.

Mixer bowl mix the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl mix the egg + oil + Sedan

While mixing the mixer on low speed slowly add the liquid mixture to dry mixture, until everyone is reunited, and if necessary to scrape the sides of the mixer so itchy. Add the nuts and raisins and blend the Union.

Remove the dough and divide in half.
on a floured surface shape each part of a long cylinder and transfer the pattern while maintaining a margin of about 7 -8 cm Between the rollers.

Bake about 30 minutes until golden bolts, and stable to the touch.
Remove and let cool on a grid for about 10 minutes.
lower the oven temperature to 150 degrees, cut the rolls into slices as thick diagonal2 cm, Put back in

Bake for 6-8 minutes on each side until the slices dry.
Remove and cool,

If you want biscotti really hard - let cool in the oven then blown out. I left the oven (turned off) for 20 minutes and then got out and cool J.

Preparation of coating - Mix For thick texture, and with a spoon drip lines on Hbiskoti. Completely dried at room temperature.

Store in a sealed container well. Can be kept so for a few weeks ..

Y source nuts are hazelnuts, peeled and roasted. Although I have in roasted hazelnuts and shelled decided I wanted to actually walnuts.
You can also pecans, and almonds also possible. Or any type of nuts who like, the point to be roasted

do not have to buy Bran - Oatmeal. You can take oats (not instant) have already played this recipe, and grind it in a food processor.

source sweetener is molasses. I changed Seelan.

coating is really not required. The original recipe has milk. I think actually more appropriate lemon. in the past I bought my shopping hazelnut extract so I decided to add it Lbiskoti. This essence is of course not mandatory, but I think definitely adds. and I'll tell you a secret - when I took the essence out I had too drawer walnut extract that I bought and I've completely forgotten I was just using it of course.

Chocolate Gingerbread Men and Women

Posted by - Vivian

This months "Have the Cake" challenge was to make gingerbread men.  While I love ginger cookies, I'm really not a big fan or rolled out gingerbread cookies... they are too dry and hard.  Still, this recipe was rather decent (still not a fan, but almost!) and it had chocolate.  Come on, you know anything with chocolate just has to taste better!  Frost with royal icing, if desired.

Chocolate Gingerbread Men (and women!)

adapted by Vivian 

original By Sydney Mike

Ingredients

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus

2/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted 

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2/3 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 large egg, room temperature

3/4 cup unsulphured molasses

Directions:
Position racks in the top & bottom thirds of the oven, then preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Grease several large baking sheets, then set aside (or cheat like I do and use a Silpat!).
In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and baking powder until spices & coca are evenly distributed, then set aside.
In a 2nd large bowl, & using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream shortening & brown sugar until smooth & airy, about 1 minute. Beat in egg & then the molasses.
Turn off mixer & add prepared flour mixture, then AT VERY LOW SPEED beat just until crumbly bits of dough form, but not until the mass begins to cohere into a ball.
With flour lightly dust a clean, dry work surface as well as your hands. Turn dough out & knead just until it forms a smooth mass, about 30 seconds.Divide into thirds & cover them with a clean kitchen towel.
With flour lightly dust the work surface again & roll one of the thirds to a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Flour the dough & a rolling pin only as necessary (I like to use a piece of  Cling wrap on top of the dough to prevent sticking).
Use a large gingerbread-man cookie cutter to cut the dough into the desired shapes, then use a metal spatula to transfer them carefully to the prepared baking sheet(s). Gather any scraps, lightly dust again with flour & roll out a 2nd time, creating additional gingerbread men.
Bake for 4 minutes, then rotate sheets top to bottom & front to back; Bake another 4 minutes, or until cookies feel dry but still are a little soft.
Remove from oven & cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes before transferring the cookies to wire racks to cool completely.
Keep no longer than 2 days at room temperature, several more days in the refrigerator, OR up to a month in the freezer.
Original recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/chocolate-gingerbread-men-334306#ixzz1fjGb4r8u

December Challenge: Gingerbread Cookies

photo from Figi's Gifts

The holidays made me do it!

I've never actually made gingerbread cookies, men or houses. I celebrate Hanukkah so I'm usually stuffing my face with potato goodies and jelly donuts instead of cookies. I love gingerbread cookies so here we go! Feel free to make any version of these that you want, be it a gingerbread man, woman, house or city. Go crazy! If you have a deep dislike for gingerbread cookies, feel free to choose another type of cookies that suits your taste.

Happy Holidays!

December Roundup

Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!

Such a perfect challenge for December. Thank you Nancy! I love the all the varieties that were posted.

I hope everyone got what they were wishing for this holiday season. I am still debating what to gift myself. I'm thinking about a standing mixer (seriously, how pretty is this mixer?!) and a dehydrator. There are so many recipes that use dried fruit that I thought it would be fun to do it myself.

As a gift to the Have the Cake family of bloggers and readers, Overstock.com is offering a 10% discount! (that mixer is so going to be mine) Please scroll to the end of the post for details.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy new year. Looking forward to baking with you in 2011.

Overstock.com discount for Have the Cake
The discount code is: 121745, good for 10% off Overstock products (excluding movies, books, and electronics). This discount code never expires, however, it can only be used once per email address. 202234 - free shipping promo code for electronics.

All the ideas and opinions expressed are my own. No monetary compensation was received for doing this post, however, I was provided with a discount code.

You Had Me at "Short"

Posted by - Dorrie (SweetyetSour)

Any baking project with the word, "short" in it appeals to me since I have a 9 month-old and a two-year old, so when this month's baking challenge turned out to be shortbread, I knew I could come through!

I even exceeded myself and made two different kinds! Both shortbread versions are thanks to my handy, "Short & Sweet" book by Melanie Barnard (I love this book!).

I made both Cranberry-Orange Shortbread and Honey Nut Shortbread. Both begin with the same wonderful ingredient:

Ah! Butter!

For the Cranberry-Orange Shortbread I used:

Cranberries and Orange Peel

8 Tblsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 Tblsp. grated orange peel

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degress. Place the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and melt. Remove the pan from the heat stir in the orange peel, cranberries and powdered sugar. Then stir in the flour making a stiff dough. Spread the dough into an ungreased 8 x 8 square pan and bake until the shortbread is golden brown at the edges, about 20 minutes. After it cools cut into squares, cool again and then remove from the pan.

These were lovely, but I only had dried orange peel around, and they would have been better with fresh orange peel.

Cranberry-Orange Shortbread

The Honey Nut Shortbread began with the same buttery main ingredient, along with these:

Honey, Nuts and Vanilla

(Our lovely babysitter read my Christmas list on the refrigerator and provided me with the Mexican Vanilla extract I wanted, complete with sombrero and serape!)

For the Honey Nut Shortbread use:

8 Tblsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1/4 cup honey

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup coarsely chopped salted mixed nuts

1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Again, preheat the oven to 350 and set out an ungreased 8 x 8 square pan. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and when melted remove from the stove. Add in the honey, vanilla, and nuts. Then stir in the flour to make the dough stiff. Spread in the pan and bake until golden and firm at the edges, about 22-25 minutes. Cool again before cutting and then cool further before removing these from the pan.

The Honey Nut Shortbreads were easy and beautiful,

Honey Nut Shortbread

but I think Cranberry-Orange ones were my favorite.

Either way, I loved this challenge because it was easy, used ingredients I have around the house anyway and allowed me to make it and quickly get back to these guys:

Henry and Anna

Gotta love that!

Shortbread that is Quite Long

Posted by - Chaya

Over the past month, I made a few different shortbread recipes, all coming out nicely, at least I think they are shortbread.
 

Giada's apricot-almond cookies    

 Sables - Baking with Dorie 

 Tonight, I made a batch of shortbread just for Have The Cake and here it is.

For the recipe and what this should really look like, please go here.

I decided to include this.  I have no time or confidence to make a new batch.  Perhaps, humor has found a new home, here.

I have given you the link for the first two photos.  They were good as I am sure these would be, if I knew what I did wrong.  I did cut the recipe in half and went back to check, if I had forgotten anything but no, I seem to be right on target.  I have no idea what I did and poor hubby has no cookies to eat.

The dough was in the refrigerator for hours and it handled beautifully.  I was just commenting on what a pleasure it was to use the dough, when I opened the oven door and found the above.

Now, I am off to see all of your successes.

Chistmas Eve Shortbread

Posted by - Nancy

By the time this morning rolled around I thought I had pushed my luck, and time, for baking my shortbread far enough. You see, I am now "full term", so once labor starts, there is no stopping it until the baby is here. And while I haven't had any signs of major labor yet, I have had some contractions. So, since my mom is here and my husband was home to help wrangle the toddler, I baked shortbread.



I decided to use the recipe I posted since people were getting such good results. And while I was missing some of the tools, the recipe did not disappoint. I did splurge on some good butter (European organic) and I had to make my own fine sugar (ground some in the spice grinder). Overall, I love this recipe and the texture of cookie it produced. I would love to use it again and add some embellishments to the recipe, but this batch will remain plain, especially since it is almost gone!

Rosemary-Citrus Scottish Shortbread

Posted by - elena gustavson

I love shortbread. Easy to make, buttery, fragrant and perfect with a hot cup of...something.

Apparently, it is customary to serve shortbread on the Winter Solstice (also called Imbolc) or on New Year's Eve. The round shape, marked with the tine of a fork around the edges, is meant to symbolize the sun for these dark of days of winter and the Scotts would carry them to neighbors and family in celebration.

Because i was making two batches, one plain and one with the herbs and citrus, I doubled a simple, plain Scottish Shortbread recipe I found in the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook and it worked beautifully to fold in the variations at the end. I chilled the doughs for 2 hours and pressed into pie tins, baking at 325F for about 20 minutes.

Not having any fresh oranges on hand for zest, I used orange oil and just a bit of lemon zest. The finished shortbread is crumbly, tender and very fragrant. I'll be putting wedges in gift boxes for friends and eating the rest with a cup of spicy chai tea this afternoon!

King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook
p 343, Scottish Shortbread (with my variations)

1 cup (2 sticks) good quality, unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar (calls for confectioners, but I used evaporated cane)
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 cups King Arthur All Purpose flour
 1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, finely chopped
2 tsp orange/lemon zest or 1 tsp orange oil

Pre-heat your oven to 325F

Cream butter with sugar, add salt and flour, then rosemary and zest/oil, working these ingredients into a soft dough by hand. Chill for a couple of hours or overnight.

Press dough into a round 9 inch pie plate and notch the edges. Score the dough by cutting halfway through it to divide the shortbread into 6 or 8 pie shaped pieces.

Bake until firm and barely golden. (The recipe says 1/2 to 1 hour, but mine was ready in 20 minutes.)

Gingered Shortbread

Posted by - Lena

This is my first attempt making a shortbread, i've not tasted a fresh baked ones before..the ones that i've tried are from the supermarket, scottish shortbreads. Though they are not really fresh from the oven, they taste good. But i dont always eat that..the price is a little bit dear to me about RM11 or slightly more that USD3 for one small packet. The reason why i made this is because i just joined in to this baking group, Have The Cake (HTC). Each month, someone will get a chance to suggest a theme and for this month, it's SHORTBREAD. So anyone who might be interested, just check on the link. I happened to know about this group when i read Zoe's post on her macadamia shortbread.

I do not have any recipes on shortbread offhand so i just checked from the internet and i finally decided to make a gingered shortbread. Tender..yeah so tender that i have to carefully transfer it for phototaking and gives a distinctive flavour due to the added ginger powder and the crystallized ginger. I hope i got the texture right, crumbly but tender and they do melt in your mouth!

Ingredients ( recipe from epicurious.com )
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup white rice flour or cornstarch
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup ( 2 ounces) finely chopped crytallized ginger

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly butter a 91/2 inch springform pan.
2.In a medium bowl, using a handheld electric mixer at hogh speed , beat the butter until creamy for about 1 minute.
3.Add the sugar and continue beating until mixture is light in colour and texture , for about 2 mins.
4.Using a wooden spoon, stir in flour, rice flour and ground ginger to make into a soft dough. Stir in the crystallized ginger.
5.Press the dough evenly into the pan. Using the tines of the fork, press around the perimeter of the dough.
6.Prick the dough, reaching down to the bottom of the pan, into 12 wedges.
7. Bake until lightly browned, about 30minutes. Cool completely in pan. Remove the sides of the pan. Cut the shortbread into wedges, following the perforations of the dough.