Praline Pecan Meringue Ice Cream Sandwiches Rose's Alpha Bakers

Praline Pecan Meringue Ice Cream Sandwich 'The Baking Bible'

Join me on Facebook

A quick, easy and gluten free go to ice cream sandwich biscuit (cookie) today. 

I've made brown sugar meringues and meringue ice cream sandwiches before, but it's the combo of brown muscovado sugar and toasted pecans in these cookies that instantly turns a scoop of ice cream into a portable ice cream sundae.

The recipe called for light muscovado sugar or dark brown sugar, my local Woolies had light and dark muscovado on special this week... and I thought I got one of each, but nah I grabbed two dark muscovado's by mistake so dark it is.  

If you haven't used muscovado before, it has a wonderful aroma and unique treacle-y flavour that is unmatched in the world of sugars. 

Start by toasting your pecans, then leave half whole and chop the rest into small pieces.

Muscovado sugar and egg whites are whipped until thick and light, the cooled pecans are folded in. I divided the mixture as this stage and added choc chips to one half... just because, well "chocolate" hello!  

Scoops are put on your lined baking tray and gently shaped to discs with a spatula. 

Baked, cooled and filled with your favourite ice cream flavour, home made or store bought. Rose includes a recipe for 'Rose Blend Ganache Piping Glaze' for topping the ice cream sandwiches, a lovely white/dark ganache mixture that I didn't pipe I more did the "strewn" thing... delicious either way.  

Think of pairing the biscuits with salted caramel ice cream, bourbon banana for a banana foster ice cream sandwich, chocolate (of course), burnt caramel fig ice cream, coffee (not the sweet Vietnamese coffee type, but rather an Italian espresso type to counter cookie sweetness) or just a scoop of classic vanilla. 

The meringue mix can also be baked as cookies, just bake in scooped shape for chubby, light and crisp with squidgy centres.  

Would I bake again? A definite yes!! Loved these cookies, with only three ingredients (or four if you add chocolate) we all need a quick pantry staple cookie. Fabulous they are gluten free.

Would I change anything? Umm, if I added chocolate I would use a darker higher cocoa ratio variety to play against the sweetness... otherwise no.  

How it works... now I've joined the fabulous existing alpha bakers, once a week I will post about what I have baked from Rose Levy Beranbaum's 'The Baking Bible'. This won't include the recipe due to copyright and publisher restrictions however, I will be posting how it went and photos of making/baking the gorgeous baked goods.

Happy Baking :)

The Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum is available from Amazon and where all good books are sold. 

And for something totally different...  Squid ink grisini recipe.  

Raspberry Custard Melting Moments recipe

                                    raspberry custard melting moments 

Join me on Facebook

Melting moments biscuits (cookies) are popular in Australian cafes and loved by home bakers.

Yum, melting moments today; the soft textured shortbreads sandwiched with a sweet filling are perfect to serve with a cup of tea or favourite brewed beverage (I mean coffee, not beer... but hey I'm not one to judge). 

popular brands of custard powder

Now I've used 'custard powder' as part of the flour component of the recipe, it gives the biscuits a golden glow and a slight custard flavour. Custard powder is a commercial product that Aussies and Brits have been raised with, you can replace with an equal amount of cornflour if desired.

Mine have a white chocolate raspberry ganache filling, but they can also be filled with butter cream or even a simple icing. 

Raspberry Custard Melting Moments

adapted from Donna Hay's 'modern classics book 2'

Preheat oven to 160C (320F)

line two baking trays with non stick paper

makes 36 biscuits (18 sandwiched)

ingredients

175g unsalted butter, cubed and softened 

1/4 cup pure icing sugar (confectioners sugar)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract/essence 

1 cup plain flour, (all purpose) sifted

1/4 cup custard powder sifted 

pinch of salt

filling

90 ml (3 fluid oz) pouring cream

2 tablespoons of raspberry puree (squashed fresh or frozen raspberries pushed through a sieve)

2 tablespoons of homemade or best quality raspberry jam

1 piece of lemon zest (use a potato peeler)

180 grams (6.34 oz) white eating chocolate finely chopped 

method

Place the cubed softened butter, icing sugar and vanilla in the bowl of electric mixer and beat on medium high speed until light and fluffy. 

what light and fluffy looks like

With a spatula or metal spoon stir through the sifted flour, custard powder and salt. You're just stirring until the ingredients are just combined, excess stirring with cause the gluten to develop and toughen the resulting cookies.

Ok, if your mixture is too soft to roll into balls pop the whole bowl in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to firm up enough to roll teaspoons of the mixture into balls.

Divide the balls between lined trays. Use a fork to press gently on top of each ball to make a indented pattern.

Bake biscuits 15 to 17 minutes until lightly golden. 

Set aside to cool.

Make the filling by heating the cream, raspberry puree, raspberry jam and lemon zest stirring gently to incorporate until the cream "just" comes to the boil. Remove from heat, remove the lemon zest and pour hot mixture over the white chocolate, stir until smooth. Allow to cool until thick enough to spread.

pipe the filling like I have with raspberry or plop on a little like I have with the *vanilla nutmeg

Spread or pipe filling onto 18 cookie halves and sandwich with another cookie.

Melted moments benefit from being stored overnight before eating... if you can wait!!

Oh, I made up gift tins using small blank tins and printed labels on A4 paper. Clip art reindeer from Microsoft clip art.

Goodness, this story is getting longer and longer I'll go before we hear the New Year countdown.

Happy Baking :)

*vanilla nutmeg filling; follow instructions for raspberry filling omitting the jam, raspberry puree and lemon. Once melted add one teaspoon of pure vanilla extract. Allow to cool until thick enough to spread. Grate fresh nutmeg on filling before sandwiching cookie.

You might also be interested in making you own raspberry jam

Got leftover custard powder, why not give 'Mum's vanilla slices' a try?

Caramel Cashew White Chocolate Cookies

caramel cashew white chocolate cookies

Join me on Facebook

Mini cookies with a big caramel flavour today :) 

I love the Christmas season; minimalists decide there is no such thing as too much tinsel, elegant women don flashing ruldolph pins (there might be Christmas cocktails involved in this), ditto with baking where your famous 85% chocolate fondant will be replaced with more than one can of sweetened condensed milk in some Christmassy treat.

For me, I don't usually shop the commerical lollies isle... but at Christmas if it can be crushed, melted or thrown in whole it's included. 

Today I utilised hard butter candies (Werther's Original) for their unmistakable caramel flavour and Nestle caramel bits, which are new to the Australian market. Oh, plus white chocolate and cashews "just because". 

Nestle caramel bits and Werther's Original butter candies

Caramel Cashew White Chocolate Mini Cookies 

makes 4 to 5 dozen, plenty to pack up for Christmas gift giving

Ingredients

1 cup of Nestle caramel bits (caramel choc chips)

1 cup white eating chocolate chopped into small chunks

2 Werther's Original 50gram (1.75oz) rolls of butter candy  *ground to a fine powder

1 cup dry roasted unsalted cashew nuts, roughly chopped

2 cups plain flour (all purpose)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

250g well-softened unsalted butter (1 cup)

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract or essence

2 tbsp water

1 egg

*I thought it would nice to include "bits" of candy, but as you can see from batch one... the candy melted/popped. Batch two; I ground the candies to a powder in the food processor to get the result I wanted. 

 Method

Preheat the oven to 180C (360F).

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl.·

In a mixer, cream the butter and the three types of sugar. Add the vanilla extract, water and egg. Beat together until just incorporated.

Beat in the flour mixture until just combined.

Stir in the crushed/powdered candies, chocolate chunks, caramel bits, cashews. Drop small teaspoons of the mixture, well spaced, on to non-stick baking parchment.

 

Three types of sugar used, dark brown, light brown and granulated white, you can replace dark with light if you can't find any at your local store.

Bake for 6-8 minutes until golden around the edges. Cool on tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Happy Baking :) 

You might also be interested in brown sugar and making your own