Orange Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

It’s almost Christmas time and the festive mood is apparent everywhere - houses are beautifully adorned with twinkling lights, cafes serve holiday specials and pretty much every store is full of red and green. It’s indeed a wonderful time of the year. It’s also a time to bake sweet treats and share with your loved ones! Worry not if you’re not really into baking. This is the simplest and easiest cookie recipe you’ll find. The trick is to use instant pudding mix powder which takes care of the sweetener and leavener. You don’t need eggs or any other liquid - just add butter and flour, and let the pudding mix do it’s magic!

Ingredients:

Recipe adapted from Eggless Cooking

1 packet (5.1oz or 145g) of dry instant vanilla pudding mix - I used the Great Value brand

¾ cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1¼ cup all purpose flour

Zest of 1 orange

⅓ cup dark chocolate chips

Omit the orange zest and chocolate chips for simple vanilla cookies.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Sift the dry pudding mix into a large bowl. Sifting helps remove some of the large sugar granules which might not melt and could leave a gritty texture.

Add butter and beat on high speed for ~5 minutes. This might seem excessive but it helps break down and melt the sugar in the pudding mix. Melting the butter before adding the pudding mix also helps, however the dough doesn’t stay quite as stiff and spreads while baking, leading to thinner cookies.

Add the flour & orange zest, and beat on low speed until completely combined. The dough should be thick but not sticky. Mix in the chocolate chips using your hands or a wooden spoon.

Make 1” balls of the dough and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet at least an inch apart. Bake for 11-15 minutes (it took 13 minutes in my oven) until golden brown on the bottom and lightly browned on top.

The cookies will be soft to touch, so let them cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Enjoy with a hot cup of tea, and store the rest in an airtight container once completely cooled.

Wish you all safe and happy holidays!

~Gayatri

Find us on Facebook:

Quick, easy and delicious cookies for Christmas time..http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/12/orange-chocolate-chip-pudding-cookies.htmlHappy holidays everyone!
Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Cranberry & Candied Orange Peel Scones

I have been experimenting with scones lately after finding a nice base recipe in the 100 Best Delicious Chocolate cookbook. This cranberry orange scone is a refreshing fruity version of the Chocolate chip scones recipe. It takes just a little bit longer than the chocolate chip scones since there is an additional step to candy the orange peels, but they taste so delicious that it's totally worth the effort!

Ingredients: (Makes 16 scones)

Base ingredients: Follow this link

Add ins:

Peel from one large orange

¼ cup dried cranberries, whole or chopped roughly

For blanching orange peels

Water

For candying the orange peels

2 cups of water

½ cup of sugar

Chop the orange peels as finely as you like. I diced them about ½ centimeter thick. I used most of the white rind as well - the bitterness can be taken care of by blanching the peels, a process I repeated three times.

To blanch the peels, add them to a couple cups of water and heat it to a rolling boil. Let it boil for a minute, take off the heat and drain the water. Repeat this process two more times with fresh water each time.

To candy the orange peels: In a pot bring 2 cups of water and ½ cup of sugar to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium-low, add the orange peels and simmer for about half an hour. Drain and set the orange peels aside to cool down a little bit.

Preheat oven to 425 F. As per the recipe here, rub the butter into the self rising flour until crumbly. Add sugar, candied orange peels and cranberries. Add milk and mix to form the dough.

Roll the dough out on a floured surface into a square and cut into 16 pieces. Place them on a prepared baking sheet and brush the scones with milk. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. 

Notes:

1. Save the water from blanching the orange peels and use it to water plants.
2. Use the orange infused sugar syrup left over from candying the peels to sweeten and add flavor to tea.

The same process (blanching + boiling with sugar syrup) can be used to make candied orange peels for eating directly. The sugar:water ratio will have to be higher (about 1:1), and after draining the peels can be rolled in fine sugar (optional) before letting them dry for a few hours and then storing in airtight container. The dried peels can also be dipped in chocolate for extra deliciousness!

Like us on Facebook:

Cranberry & Candied Orange Peel Scones: Delightfully simple pastry with a fruity flair.. http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/07/cranberry-candied-orange-peel-scones.html

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Thursday, July 9, 2015

Simple Orange-glazed Chicken

This is a simpler, healthier take on the sweet and savory Asian-style orange chicken dish (which, according to Wikipedia, is an American Chinese dish of Hunan origin) typically found in Chinese buffets and fast-food Panda Express type eateries. Though mouth-watering, those orange chicken dishes can be pretty unhealthy with all the breading, not to mention it’s sometimes hard to tell just what part of the chicken is used in those nuggets (ahem...McDonald’s…). This version uses chicken breast and has no breading! But it’s tender and juicy and has just enough spice for a pleasant kick to your taste buds.

Ingredients:

~2 lbs chicken breast, roughly cut into chunks

1 tsp red chili powder

⅛ tsp ground red cayenne pepper (adjust to taste)

3 TBSP maple syrup

3 TBSP orange juice concentrate, thawed (you could probably use normal orange juice, but the taste will be more subtle and the mixture more liquid-y)

¼ tsp salt (optional)

Note: You can double the non-chicken ingredients for additional sauce.

Mix the chili powder, red pepper, maple syrup, orange juice concentrate, and salt. Mix the chicken with the sauce, making sure each piece gets coated.

Cook the chicken in a pan (no oil necessary!) in a single layer over medium heat, about 4-5 minutes per side. If there is any of the sauce left (sometimes I will double the recipe amount to ensure this!), pour it in the pan and let it simmer for a few minutes to thicken into a glaze.

Serve on a bed of rice and drizzle with extra glaze for a deliciously tangy and (moderately) spicy meal!

~Karla

Like us on Facebook: 

Juicy and tender sweet and spicy orange chicken - an easy Asian-style dish!http://cooksofcakeandkindness.blogspot.com/2015/07/simple-orange-glazed-chicken.html

Posted by The Cooks of Cake and Kindness on Monday, July 6, 2015

Orange-glazed Cranberry Orange Bread

A Cooks of Cake and Kindness Culinary Experience Part III: To round out our 3-course dinner of Portabella mushroom caps and Spaghetti and No-Meat Balls, we finished off with a deliciously tangy citrus dessert - certainly a departure from our typical chocolate-based choices! Not only did we have our hungry dinner party to feed (who, by this time, had a high expectation for dessert!), but we also promised one of our coworkers some baked goods, so we ended up making 1.5x the original recipe, resulting in some of the odd ingredient quantities seen below.

 

Ingredients

2¼ cups all-purpose flour (we would typically do a partial substitution with whole wheat flour, but this was our first time making this bread so we didn't want to try anything too radical)

¾ tsp salt (more like just a pinch)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1.5 cups brown sugar

zest of 1-2 large oranges (we had clementines on hand, so we used the zest from 5 of them)

1⅛ cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can make your own: 1 cup buttermilk = 1 cup milk + ~1 TBSP vinegar. Let it sit for a few minutes until the milk curdles)

¾ cup canola oil

3 large eggs, slightly beaten (we used egg-beaters)

1.5 TSBP orange juice

¾ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh cranberries (we used dried cranberries, soaked in warm water for about 30 minutes)

4 mini-loaf pans or 2 4x8 loaf pans (we made one larger and 2 mini loaves)

For orange glaze: ½-1 cup powdered sugar + 1-2 TBSP buttermilk + 1 tsp orange zest (or more if you want more orange flavor)

 

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease loaf pans and set them aside.

In a large bowl, mix together flour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate small bowl, combine sugar and orange zest (rub them together with your fingers to better infuse the orange flavor), then add to the flour mixture.

In another bowl, mix buttermilk, oil, eggs, orange juice, and vanilla. Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Drain the cranberries, then mix them into the batter. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pans, filling each pan until they are about ⅘ full.

Bake 30-40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The larger loaves will take about 5-10 minutes longer than the small loaves. Once the bread is done baking, remove from the oven and let cool for 15 minutes.

While the bread is cooling, mix together the glaze. In a small bowl, start with 1 TBSP buttermilk and ½ cup powdered sugar and about 1 tsp orange zest. Whisk together until the glaze is smooth. Adjust the quantity of sugar and buttermilk as needed.

Drizzle the glaze over the bread. We did this in 2 steps: for the first, we drizzled enough to cover the top of the loaf, then waited about 10 minutes for this first layer of glaze to set. For the next application, we drizzled the glaze in a zig-zag or scribble pattern and let it set.

When you're ready for a sweet but tangy citrus dessert, slice and serve!

~Karla