Cordially Cherry Happy Janes

So as I mentioned before.. I came up with a new flavor of Happy Janes this past weekend. ok.. so the IDEA for the flavor stemmed a long time ago from my husband who, several months ago, begged me to do a chocolate and cherry combination.

well maybe not BEGGED.

he might have done a gorilla-styled "oooh-oooh-oooh!!!" in asking me, though.

not one to disappoint, I declared February would be the month to do it. I mulled around some different ideas.. fresh cherries, dried cherries, cherry extract... white chocolate, milk chocolate.. DARK chocolate.... Finally I decided to go with a chocolate cookie base, topped with a cherry-infused ganache, coated in a dark chocolate.


cherry-infused, you ask?

yeah. so I took some cherries, and added them to my heavy cream during the boiling process of making my ganache. once the cream was boiling, I strained the cherries out. This part was NOT very pretty, and gave the cream a funky reddish-brown color... but I definitely feel there was a certain sweet after-taste that the cherries added.

once my chocolate was fully melted and mixed with the cream, I folded in some finely chopped DRIED cherries. As you can see.. I totally avoided using cherry extract. for one.. because it's crap. but seriously.. it gives things such a maraschino FAKE cherry taste that I can't be affiliated with. bleh! so no extract.

after the piping was done, I coated in a bittersweet and extra dark chocolate blend, then topped with some festive heart sprinkles.

these are truly a chocolate lover's treat.... but I do enjoy the chewy and zingy-sweet element the cherries add. So let's say hello and welcome to the newest Jane in the neighborhood... the Cordially Cherry.

if the description and pictures of the Cordially Cherry Happy Janes aren't enough for you.. take a stroll over to A Taste of Stepford. By the end of March, things will be set up there for you to be able to order your very own batch of Janes.

We have a WINNER

First off.. I want to say thanks to all that visited my blog and participated in this latest contest!

As I type, I have a fresh batch of cookies in the oven, partially on their way to becoming a tasty valentine treat for one of you.

what's that? oh... you want to know who won???

ok, ok... I'll spare you the agony of waiting any more.

The lucky winner, via the cool random number generator.... is #18!!!

So let's send some big love and congratulations to Jodes!

Jodes, please e-mail me the address to which you would like for your dozen cookies to be sent to, and your personalized batch will be on their way! you can e-mail me at czernikowski@hotmail.com

Thanks again to all who participated... and for my first FOLLOWER! Thanks to Melinda Mey for being my first groupie! (you too can be a follower, btw... there's a place to click along the left sidebar!)

look for some new posts this week... I've been doing a ton of baking! I also came up with a new flavor for my Happy Janes, so I'll be sharing that... and very soon I'll be talking more about my side project, A Taste of Stepford. Then, of course.. you never know when I'm going to bust out with another contest!

thanks again for all who participated.. and congrats to Jodes! Happy Valentine's Day!!

A Little More Conversation - A Contest!

Well... on the verge of Valentine's day, and with all this LOVE in the air... I decided it was high time for me to host another contest. Besides... I need to be baking more, and this poor blog has been feeling lonely!



One of the most popular treats you see at Valentine's day are those little boxes of 'conversation hearts'. personally? I can't stand them! Now, that doesn't mean to say that I don't EAT some every year... (what can I say... you never know if/when your tastes may change!) but invariably.. every year... BLEH.


So... out of respect for the item's popularity, but keeping my tastes and talents in mind... I like to make some Conversation Heart Cookies. Below you'll see some I've made in the past.







This year? I'm giving you a chance to win your very own batch.... (that'd be a dozen)... right in time for Valentine's Day! what's the catch? none. well.. you DO have to leave a comment, and you DO have to live in the Continental US. After that... the handy-dandy random number generator will do the work. Oh, and leave your comment before NOON EST on MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9th.


Really. it's that easy. one comment = a chance to win.

ANNNND... since I'm feeling crazy... I'll even give you a SECOND chance to win. Link to this post on your blog, facebook, or twitter feed, and you'll get another entry. Just come back here after you link me, and leave me a comment saying where you pimped me out.




Can you feel the love tonight?



good... now let's give them somethin' to talk about!

_________________

Official Rules:

• one comment/entry per person, with one BONUS entry allowable if a second comment is left showing where/how you link back to this post.

• All comments/link backs must be posted PRIOR to 12:00pm EST, Monday, February 9th.

• Winner will receive 1 dozen personalized Conversation Heart cookies, shipping via USPS Priority 2-3 day Mail.... just in time for the 14th

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comments are now officially closed!

And baby makes Three!

A few weeks ago, I got my first 'gig' doing cookies for someone. A friend was hosting a baby shower for someone who was having their third baby... and she asked me to do cookies as favors for the party guests. It was an exciting event for me, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my nerves were on edge the whole week. I mean.. for the first time I was baking for a guest of honor that I didn't know!!!

would the cookies be good enough?

would they hold up well? (shipped to Arizona!)

would they get there in time????

Supposedly all turned out well... I've only had sporadic contact with the hostess since the event. The good news is that no matter what... I was able to get more practice in. and my shrink-wrapping is coming along rather well, too! (especially considering the SHAPE of these cookies)

Poor Susie... when I did the monster truck cookies for her son, Liam.. yikes. the shrink wrap on them was like an INCH thick. hah! and they were CIRCLES! so yeah.. definitely getting better about those.

also got a chance to play with backgrounds for the cookies. I'm finding that fabric backgrounds seem to take the best pictures for the cookies. While the wrapping paper offers great colors.. I always get a shine. and bonus! a friend of mine reminded me that fabric stores always have a TON of scraps for super cheap.... so look for (hopefully!!) some better pictures highlighting my efforts in posts to come.





speaking of things to come... February bake sale is this coming weekend. I had a request to make my biscotti again... and I have a new Happy Jane flavor in the works. Also? can you believe I've never done my cookies for the bake sale??? so yeah. I think some nicely decorated hearts are in order.

Oh, Fudge!

yeah. so you know those times when you get a crazy idea to do something at 9pm, and the voice of reason FAILS you, so you end up doing it??


well.. I decided, on a whim, to make FUDGE one evening.


first of all.. I have never made fudge before, but I decided it was high time I make some, and more importantly.. EAT some.


let the record show that this was a big mistake.



I didn't even bother taking pictures of it, because for ONE.. I didn't know what I was doing, and TWO... I was too bent on EATING the creation to even think straight.


I feel foolish, as the ingredients for MOST fudge recipes are merely chocolate and condensed milk... but somewhere between chopping the chocolate and sticking my fingers in and licking the ingredients as they melted, things went astray.


In the end.. it was eaten. but it was not so much fudgey as it was a grainy chocolate bar. bleh. I would have been better off just sticking a straw into a bottle of chocolate syrup and going to town, or just eating the baking chips right out of the package.

I'm chalking this up as a hormonal-driven catastrophe. Ordinarily I wouldn't/shouldn't post about hot messes like this.. but I need to document these kind of mistakes so I can learn from them. really. cooking is not always about the ingredients and techniques you use.. it also has a lot to do with your mental state while PERFORMING such tasks as baking/creating/cooking.


I do plan on attempting the fudge again, though. (I won't go down without at least another fight!) I WILL, however.. wait until a better time of the month for my next attempt.. and maybe try it during the day when I'm a little less 'cagey'. just sayin'.

More-than-S'Mores

Ladies and gentlemen... I'm happy to announce I have created another Happy Jane Flavor.

Meet the "More-than-a-S'more"....

I was going to call them S'mores a Go-Go, but I used that name for a post I did about little S'mores favors I made for my son's first birthday. Who knows.. maybe I will go with the Go-Go name. but not now. Now I just want to share the latest Jane.

So she was SUPER easy to make... did a batch of the home-made graham crackers. I'm definitely loving that recipe that Cupcake Project posted. LOVE IT!

As usual, I roll it out on the thick side, then cut out my rounds. I like the bottoms to be thick because the topping are just SO sweet that the thicker cookie base is needed for balance. otherwise.. why am I not just making filled chocolates, you know?

ANYWAY. after my rounds were made, I had some dough left, so I rolled it nice and thin so I could have some graham crackers for the kids. (for the kids.. THIN is the key. I've made fun shapes for them in the past, using the same thickness as I do for my sugar cookies, and wow.. it's like eating dog biscuits. So for non-Happy-Jane graham cracker making? thinner is better in our house.)

but back to the Janes. I piped a home-made marshmallow butter cream on the rounds, then dipped them in a dark chocolate.

these were very very sweet. ALMOST too sweet for my taste with that marshmallow filling... but again.. the thicker graham rounds help spread out that sweetness so it wasn't a full-on assault of your teeth. (I do NOT recommend eating the toppings off the cookies first. really. TOO SWEET! YOW!)

Nonetheless... I think these will make a fine addition to the Happy Jane Flavor Roster. the best part? no camping required to enjoy them!

Lessons Learned: the marshmallow butter cream is not nearly as thick as some of my other toppings. when in the dipping stage, I find it is far better to dip the cookies and filling right after they have been removed from the freezer so they can withstand the heat of the melted chocolate. towards the end of the batch I had on my tray, I found that the filling was melting under the chocolate, and gave way to a 'broken shell' appearance. Still tasty.. but not as pretty to me.

oops!

Cookie Kits

One of the biggest indicators of me being 'off my mark' lately is the lack of activity on this blog. Ask me how much Christmas baking I've done this year. It's right about at the same level of how much shopping and Christmas card making/sending I've done.

next to nothing.

oh well.

there's still a few days til Christmas, so I may still get a fire under me and crank some stuff out. I DID, however, put some time aside to make some cookie kits for my daughter's preschool class.

I was lucky to be one of the volunteer moms for her Christmas party last week. Highlights of the party were to include pizza making, a story, and cookie decorating. The other mom said she would take care of the pizza supplies, so I happily said I'd take care of the cookie decorating.

The cookies themselves were no great shakes... I used a simple butter cookie recipe, and made enough so that each child would get one candy-cane shaped and one tree-shaped cookie to decorate. Because these kids are 4 years old, I kept the cookies on the thin side, versus my normal thick style I use for decorating with royal icing.

Inspiration hit to create the 'kits' when my daughter and son were working on a project together. arms flailing, tempers rising, and too much whining while two kids fought over who gets to use what materials are not a good combination when trying to stay on Santa's good list... and I pictured what it would be like with TEN boys and girls trying to reach for the same sprinkles at once.

Hence.. the cookie kits were born.

I hit up my local super-everything-store and purchased some inexpensive plastic containers. At a price of $2-something for a 4 pack... I'd say I got a good deal while staying on point for a budget.

Each kits also received three types of sprinkles, which were put in little plastic condiment cups. Let me tell you.. those cups are FANTASTIC. for storing sprinkles to putting ranch dressing for my daughter's carrot-stick snacks, to individual servings of jello-shots back in the day when my husband and I had more of an industrious social life.... anyways... LOVE them. and the lids... don't forget the lids! seriously.. they are so perfect and useful for SO many things... I always have them in my pantry.

so each kit got the sprinkles, two cookies, a plastic spoon, and some vanilla frosting that I put in the disposable pastry bags, then tied in a knot. no mess, no fuss, no fighting or reaching or germs spreading from one set of sticky fingers to the communal sprinkles. Well.. maybe not so much on the 'no mess' part. they are FOUR, after all.

I rounded out each kit with a splash of color on the top, then individual labels for each child.

really.. this was such an easy thing to prepare.. and so inexpensive... and each child felt special cause it was made especially for them.

So while this project didn't involve a LOT of baking.. I think it deserves to be on here in my baking journal because it accompanies the experience of EATING the baked goods. I will totally do these kits again for one of my children's future birthday parties. From what I could tell, it was a hit with the kids and teachers alike.... so for sure this will be on my list of things to do again. After all.. happy, non-fighting kids equals happy, non-yelling mom.

Lessons Learned: If I were to ever market this, I would definitely include a 'decorating mat' of some sorts, and perhaps a little explanatory note card. Something cutesy and fun like a check-list or decorating ideas... whatever was age or theme appropriate. Best part is that this can be made to suit any theme, and as said previously... was fairly inexpensive to create.