Hey! You’ve found my fun, very-much-on-hiatus side project. As a baker and reader, I wanted to find a way to combine the two, so I began creating recipes inspired by the food I found in the latest (or some of my favorite) books I had read. It’s great fun, but hard work, so I set it aside and intend to update it utterly at my leisure. It’s here as a fun thing to share and show my personality!

Fair warning: while I can follow a recipe like a pro, I can’t yet make up my own like one. So although I found each of these recipes delish, they’re not pro quality, friends! Try at your own risk 😉

A Review of The Beautiful and Beignets

Confession time: I bought this almost immediately after it released. But then I took forever to read it, and then I took forever to write this. So, I’m keeping it brief so that I can stick to what I remember.

I loved Flame in the Mist so, so much. So when I saw that Renee Ahdieh was coming out with this book, I was excited to read it.

In some ways I was disappointed, in some ways not.

I knew going in that this wasn’t going to have the Japanese culture that made me fall so in love with Flame in the Mist. I was pleasantly surprised by the reveal that Celine Rousseau, the protagonist, is mixed (apparently with Asian), as are a few other prominent characters. Celine is white passing, and has been taught all her life to hide her heritage by her white father in France. I liked that Ahdieh chose to explore this aspect of being mixed–that some of us are shamed by one parent for the other parent’s bloodline, however unintentionally. It felt real, but wasn’t hammered home so much that it became too big of a focus.

TINY SPOILER ALERT:

You’ll have seen in other reviews that this is a story with vampires. That’s true, but it’s told a little differently than certain other YA vampire stories (cough). The mystery of what La Cour des Lions really is isn’t made into a thing. Instead, it’s part of the story’s larger tapestry, which is filled with lots of other lovely things like friendship, romantic tension, and hidden secrets. So if that’s what has you hesitating to read this, don’t worry.

SPOILER OVER

The most polarizing part of the story: its over-the-top-ness. Maybe it’s my lack of experience with the era, but the way everyone spoke, the villains, the dialogue, Celine’s personality and humor, the writing itself; it all felt rich and heavy in a way that didn’t necessarily do credit to the book’s content. That said, it absolutely fit well with the beautiful background of 1872 New Orleans Ahdieh paints. For that reason I forgive the more cloying aspects of the book ever so slightly.

And what’s the best part of 1872 New Orleans?

Beignets, people. Ben. YAYS.

Also, did you know that the most famous beignet cafe (heh, it rhymes) in New Orleans, Cafe du Monde, opened in 1862? That means it was there when Celine came to town.

Beignets

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbs evaporated milk
• 2 tbs unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 4 cups bread flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• Oil for frying
• Powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Measure out 3/4 cup water that’s between 105 and 115 degrees F. Or you can practice my funny trick: run some hot water until it’s hot enough that you can only stick your hand in for a second, but NOT steaming. It may take some trial and error but I promise getting the hang of it will pay off in the long run (no more taking the temperature of water…ugh).
2. Whisk together the water, sugar, and yeast. Cover with a clean towel and set aside for ten minutes.
3. Beat the egg and beat in the vanilla, evaporated milk, and butter. Set aside.
4. Combine flour and salt. Set aside.
5. Add the egg and yeast mixtures to the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon.
6. When everything has mostly come together, dump onto a clean surface and knead until smooth and slightly tacky. (I kneaded for 20 minutes. My right shoulder cried.)
7. Spray a large bowl with oil. Dump the kneaded dough in, flipping once. Cover the bowl with a clean towel and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours.
8. Punch the dough down and roll out to 1/3-inch thickness. Cut into squares/rectangles around 2×4 inches.
9. Fill a gallon bag with powdered sugar.
10. HARD PART AHEAD. All the directions I found said to deep fry at 360 degrees F for 1 minute a side. I used my dutch oven to fry, and that temperature turned my poor little guys black. I ended up keeping the oil somewhere between 330 and 350 degrees, and I fried the bennies for 4 minutes a side. I highly suggest doing a few test bennies to figure out your ideal method. If you’re a deep frying pro, just listen to your heart.
11. Remove the beignets from the oil with a slotted spoon and let drain for a few seconds on a wire rack. While they’re still warm, dump them into the gallon bag and shake it all about to coat the bennies with sugar.
12. Eat immediately. (They’re still delicious on the second and third days, but they don’t look so good :P)

This month I am determined to post one recipe for each week. After I decided on this one, I thought how brilliant it would be to make this holiday month all about some of my absolute FAVORITE heroines growing up.

So…welcome to Tamora Piercemas! (Or: Piercemukkah, Pierzaa…I’m working on it.)

Anyway. At the beginning of The First Adventure, Alanna uses these tarts to threaten Coram into letting her continue on to the palace to become a lady knight. Well, not the actual tarts themselves. It turns out that Alanna and Thom actually stole these tarts from Cook, who threatened to tattle on them until they used their magic to make Cook See Things.

So one could say that if it weren’t for these tarts…Alanna wouldn’t have made it to the palace! Heh.

I’ve absolutely taken the picture with the wrong book, because I discovered I left The First Adventure at my parents’ house. Sigh.

The first thing I thought of when I decided to make these was: who even owns a tart pan? And also, who the heck wants to buy one to make tarts once a year? Rich people with a lot of pantry space, that’s who.

BUT! What’s something normal people own? Or at least would use more than once? Muffin tins! JUMBO MUFFIN TINS, to be more specific. (Although you could easily adapt this for a 12-muffiner, if you want.)

These mini cherry tarts are the exact right sweetness/tartness, with a little bite of lemon. I was particularly proud of my crusts, which made me feel like I was on The Great British Baking Show, with Paul using a knife to point at my non-soggy-bottom and saying “thats puhhh-fectly baked.” Why, yes, Paul! It is perfect!!

These would be super adorable for a potluck (if you double) or just for a family dessert. Everyone can have their own personal wee pie.

Cook’s Cherry Tarts

Makes 6 mini tarts

Ingredients

Pastry for Single-Crust Pie

These proportions are from an ancient Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. Feel free to use your own favorite recipe for single-crust pie!

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup shortening

Filling

• 1 16-oz can pitted tart red cherries, water packed
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbs cornstarch
• 1/2 tbs butter
• 2 drops almond extract
• 1/8 tsp lemon zest (if you want the lemon to be really prominent, use 1/4 tsp)

Directions

Make the Filling

1. Drain the cherries, reserving 1/2 cup of liquid.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk together 6tbs of the sugar, cornstarch, and reserved cherry liquid. Cook and stir over medium heat till thickened and bubbly; stir for a couple more minutes.
3. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining 2 tbs sugar, butter, almond extract, and lemon zest. Stir in cherries and let the mixture cool while you make the pastry.

Make the Pastry

1. Combine the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl.
2. Cut in the shortening using a pastry cutter or two butter knives until (I’m sure you’ve heard it before) the shortening looks like little peas in flour.
3. Add in cold water one tablespoon at a time until most of the flour is incorporated and form the dough into a ball. Don’t worry if it seems like there’s a lot left out–worry more about the consistency of your pastry. It should feel slightly tacky but should not pull away on your hands when you release it.
4. Roll out your pastry to about 12×12 inches. Find a round cookie cutter or other round cuppish object around 4-5 inches in diameter (e.g. a margarita glass…heh). Lay it gently on the pastry and cut around it with a lattice cutter to get pretty edges. Alternatively, just use the cookie cutter/glass to punch out a plain circle.
5. Try to squeeze out four circles of pastry from this first roll. Lay them aside on a plate or other surface in a dusting of flour.
6. Roll out the pastry again and cut out two more circles as well as any design you’d like to put on top.

Assemble and Bake

1. There is no need to spray your jumbo muffin pan.
2. Lay a pastry circle gently over a jumbo muffin pocket (I think the word is cavity, but ew) and let it drop in on its own, helping it along a bit if it goes crooked. Press the pastry against the bottom and corners of the pocket so there aren’t any air bubbles. The pastry will cling slightly to the sides of the pocket and stretch a bit as you nudge it down, so that it reaches about 2/3 of the way up the pocket. Perfect!
3. Repeat with the five other pastry circles.
4. Give your filling a whisk. Pour 1/4 cup of filling into each of the prepared pastry crusts. Top with any design you’d like–or leave plain.
5. Pop in the oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.
6. Let the pastries cool in the pan for 15-20 minutes. Then pop them out with a spoon, using the spoon to lift the side slightly until you can grab it with your fingers.
7. Cool on a rack for an hour, then chill in the fridge until you’re ready to eat!

Throne of Glass is probably one of my favorite series of all time. Like any series, it has its problematic moments (why do I have to say this about every book?) but it also has moments that are knock-your-socks-off new and beautiful. I am a hardcore Rowaelin shipper and NO ONE CAN STOP ME.

These truffles were born out of Rowaelin love. We know our girl Aelin loves her some chocolate. And the time Rowan ate a whole piece of disgusting hazelnut chocolate cake that Aelin made and pretended to love it has gone down in fandom history.

Thus: hazelnut dark chocolate truffles!

I started out trying to straight up mix Nutella with dark chocolate ganache filling, but the dark chocolate completely wiped out any flavor of Nutella no matter how much I put in. I got to thinking I might have to resort to milk chocolate (please no) when I watched an episode of Great British Baking Show and somebody said how dark chocolate by nature overpowers more delicate flavors. In that same episode (or did I watch five at a time again? It’s possible) somebody uses molds to make little chocolate candies. So I tried the molds.

They also did not work. Frustration!

Finally, I caved and went on a quest to find some actual hazelnuts. I found mine at Whole Foods, but you can also find them at Sprouts, where they are surprisingly more expensive. Hazelnuts worked–so today you get an extremely hazelnutty truff.

I want to talk a little about tempering and cooling too. The method I use here is the simplest, but it’s not foolproof. You can also mess up by cooling the chocolate wrong, which is why my guys are a little freckly. I cooled them partly in the refrigerator because I had to drive somewhere else, and they got some speckles.

So, some things to be careful of:

• Microwave your 7oz of chocolate only in 30-second intervals and stop before all of it is melted. Stir to melt the rest. The key here is to get to know your microwave, honestly. Once you do, this method becomes pretty reliable.
• Let the chocolates cool at room temperature.

Have fun 🙂

Rowaelin’s Hazelnut Dark Chocolate Truffles

Makes 18 truffles

Ingredients

• 10oz dark chocolate, divided
• 9oz raw hazelnuts
• 6 tbs butter, softened
• 1 tbs almond milk
• 3 tbs sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4+1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp vanilla

Directions

Prepare the Hazelnuts

1. Spread the hazelnuts out on a cookie sheet and bake at 350F for about 10 minutes.
2. Wrap them in a clean kitchen towel while they’re still hot and let them sit for a minute.
3. Leaving the nuts wrapped in the towel, rub them all over to get as many skins off as you can. It’s okay if there are skins left, and you can take some off with your fingers if it bothers you.
4. Using a food processor or chopper, grind/chop the hazelnuts until they are very fine. (See picture above.) You could also chop them by hand, just know your filling might be a little chunky.

Make the Filling

1. Put your chopped hazelnuts in a medium bowl.
2. Using a spatula, smoosh in the softened butter until fully incorporated. Make sure no large pockets of butter remain.
3. Add the almond milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla and mix until incorporated.
4. Taste and adjust the flavors as you like. After the fact, I felt like some mint would be nice in here.
5. At this point, the mixture should be moldable. Roll it into ~18 1 1/2-inch balls or smaller if you prefer. Set these out on a cookie sheet.
6. Chill for at least 1 hour.

Temper the Chocolate

1. When the truffles are ready, temper your chocolate.
2. Put 7oz of the chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Heat in 30-second intervals, stirring after each. When you see that only a few half-melted chunks remain, stir until they melt fully. Then add in the other 3oz of chocolate. Stir vigorously until all of that chocolate has melted.
3. Your chocolate is in temper!

Make the Truffles

1. To retain the truffles’ structures, take batches of six or so truffles out of the fridge at a time for dipping.
2. Drop the balls of filling into the tempered chocolate one at a time. Using two forks, make sure each ball is fully coated. Then lift it out of the chocolate on the forks. Move it gently up and down and/or between the two forks to let the excess chocolate drip off. Place on the cookie sheet and repeat with the remaining truffs.
3. Cool at room temperature until chocolate has hardened.