Holiday Party Small Bites: a Trio of Cake Truffles, Berry Meringues, Stamped Citrus Shortbread, and Peanut Candy Shortbread
I serve a lot of cookies and bars at our annual holiday party, but in this post I'm only going to cover recipes I haven't blogged about before. I'll provide the complete party menu in a later post.
In 2018, I served two kinds of cake truffles at our holiday party: "B'day Truffles" and "Mint Cookies and Cream Truffles," both from Christina Tosi's All About Cake. The birthday cake truffles were one of the most popular desserts at the party that year and our guests ate them all before I could get a picture. This year I made the birthday cake truffles again, along with with two other varieties: "Chocolate Malt Cake Truffles" and "Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Truffles."
I made sure to get a picture of the birthday cake truffles before the party. In the photo below, the top portion shows the naked truffle centers before they were coated, and the bottom portion shows the finished truffles after being coated in white chocolate and rolled in birthday sand. The birthday cake that forms the truffle center is flavored with clear (i.e., imitation) vanilla extract, and clear vanilla is also in vanilla milk soak that moistens the cake crumbs, and in the birthday crumbs that form the coating. So the truffle as a whole definitely has that fake vanilla/boxed-birthday-cake flavor that many of us might remember from our childhoods. It's sweet and saccharine, but people can't seem to get enough of it.
The chocolate malt cake truffles have chocolate cake crumbs moistened with malted milk soak, coated in white chocolate, and coated in malted milk sand. Both the malted milk soak and malted milk sand are supposed to include classic malt-flavored Ovaltine. I decided to use Carnation malted milk powder instead, since I keep it on hand, and I didn't want to buy Ovaltine just for this recipe (it comes in rather large containers). I don't know actually know how the flavor of classic malt Ovaltine compares to straight malted milk powder.
But in any case, I was happy with the result. I do know that Ovaltine is not the same color as malted milk powder. The latter is ivory, while the former creates a drink the color of a latte. In the cookbook, the chocolate malt cake truffles are tan, while mine were definitely not (see photo below). I was surprised that the malt flavor was not all that prominent in the finished truffle. The truffles tasted primarily like chocolate cake, with just a touch of malt. They were fantastic.
My personal favorite of the three cake truffles I served was the pineapple upside-down cake truffles, even though I think they would more accurately be described as coconut cake truffles (it's a good thing that I love coconut). These truffles have coconut cake crumbs combined with toasted yellow cake mix (!), moistened with pineapple juice, coated in white chocolate, and rolled in toasted unsweetened coconut. I used up all of fine shredded coconut I had on hand making the cake batter, so what I had left for the truffle coating was fat coconut flakes. I toasted the coconut flakes in the oven and then pulsed them a few times in the food processor to get smaller pieces, but you can see in the photo below that there were still some larger chunks.
With the coconut cake and coconut coating, these truffles primarily taste like coconut. The pineapple flavor for the juice used to moisten the cake crumbs is pretty faint, although it does definitely give the truffles a certain fruity brightness. But the heavy dose of coconut is exactly why I love these truffles so much, especially with the wonderful chewy texture of the toasted coconut coating.
I prefer all of my cake truffles straight from the freezer, when the white chocolate coating is a hard shell. And the fact that you can make the truffles far in advance and keep them in the freezer for weeks is a huge bonus. Cake truffles are just a wonderful party food.
I always try to have a few gluten-free items at the party and this year I made some "Berry Meringue Kisses" from a recipe written to use Heilala's berry vanilla extract. Last year I decided to try Heilala vanilla after reading an article about it in the Wall Street Journal. The vanilla is sourced from Tonga and while it's quite spendy, I've been keeping the vanilla paste on hand and using it liberally whenever I think it would be nice to see vanilla seeds in the finished product.
Last summer I contributed to a Heilala Kickstarter to fund a new line of flavored vanilla extracts, and as my reward, I received a six-pack of flavored extracts and a digital book of recipes developed by Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen. Her berry meringue kisses contain just three ingredients: egg whites, sugar, and Heilala berry vanilla extract. I had some freeze-dried strawberries on hand, so I also dusted some of the meringues with ground strawberries to reinforce the strawberry flavor. But I was surprised at how strong the berry flavor was in the meringues without the strawberry powder, just from the extract. The meringues were crunchy, sweet, and satisfying.
A late addition to the party menu was Susan Spungen's Stamped Citrus Shortbreads, which I came across in an early December New York Times Cooking feature on Christmas cookies. Spungen's name rang a bell because ten years ago I discovered her delicious recipe for double-ginger chocolate chunk cookies from the now-defunct More magazine (that recipe is now available here on Susan's website). And coincidentally, I had purchased several Nordic Ware cast iron cookie stamps at a store in Sheboygan a while ago during one of our trips to visit Tom's mom. The store offered a large selection of the stamps for purchase individually, which I appreciated -- because on Amazon you can only buy the stamps in pre-determined sets of three.
You can make the dough for the cookies in a few minutes, by creaming softened butter with sugar, lemon zest, and orange zest; adding vanilla and lemon extract; mixing in the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, and salt); and chilling the dough until firm. The recipe method for shaping the cookies struck me as a bit odd. It directs you to divide the dough into walnut-sized balls, dip each ball and the cookie stamp in flour, stamp each ball of dough, and use a cookie cutter to trim each cookie. This seemed like a huge hassle, so I just rolled out the dough into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, stamped out designs, cut individual cookies, and re-rolled the scraps. I got 39 two-inch cookies from a batch of dough. When the cookies are still warm from the oven, you brush on a glaze made from powdered sugar, melted butter, orange juice, orange zest, and lemon zest. The glaze dried shiny and hard and I loved the look of the cookies.
These shortbreads were delicious. Especially fresh from the oven, they were light and ethereal, practically melting in your mouth. The did become a bit sturdier as they aged, but the bright citrus flavor remained, and these dainty cookies were just lovely.
Finally, I found a way to make use of the extra peanut candy filling I had leftover from the homemade Butterfingers I made for the party. I decided to adapt a Melissa Clark recipe for "Tahini Chocolate Shortbread Bars." Her bars have a brown sugar shortbread base made with tahini, topped with a layer of chocolate and a sprinkling of halvah. I have never made my own halvah, but I have seen recipes for homemade versions (like Melissa Clark's, here), and the method seemed similar to how I made the peanut butter candy for the Butterfinger centers. Halvah is basically hot sugar syrup mixed with tahini, and the Butterfinger centers were basically hot sugar syrup mixed with peanut butter. I figured that I could easily switch up Clark's shortbread by substituting peanut butter and my homemade peanut butter candy for the tahini and halvah.
You make the shortbread dough in the food processor (from flour, sugar, salt, butter, vanilla, and tahini -- or in my case, peanut butter), press it into a pan, dock the dough, and bake it until golden brown. You sprinkle chocolate on top of the hot shortbread; return the pan to the oven briefly to melt the chocolate; spread the chocolate over the shortbread; and sprinkle on halvah (or the crumbled leftover filling from some homemade Butterfingers).
I sliced the bars into slim fingers after they were completely cooled and I was surprised that the base was a little soft. It seemed more like a blondie than a shortbread cookie. I'm not sure if perhaps I undercooked the shortbread somewhat, but I didn't mind the texture of the cookie base -- although these bars are all about the chocolate and the topping. And this topping was so dang good. I'm sure that the original tahini-halvah recipe is also delicious, but I was so pleased with my peanut butter-peanut candy version.
Recipes:
In 2018, I served two kinds of cake truffles at our holiday party: "B'day Truffles" and "Mint Cookies and Cream Truffles," both from Christina Tosi's All About Cake. The birthday cake truffles were one of the most popular desserts at the party that year and our guests ate them all before I could get a picture. This year I made the birthday cake truffles again, along with with two other varieties: "Chocolate Malt Cake Truffles" and "Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Truffles."
I made sure to get a picture of the birthday cake truffles before the party. In the photo below, the top portion shows the naked truffle centers before they were coated, and the bottom portion shows the finished truffles after being coated in white chocolate and rolled in birthday sand. The birthday cake that forms the truffle center is flavored with clear (i.e., imitation) vanilla extract, and clear vanilla is also in vanilla milk soak that moistens the cake crumbs, and in the birthday crumbs that form the coating. So the truffle as a whole definitely has that fake vanilla/boxed-birthday-cake flavor that many of us might remember from our childhoods. It's sweet and saccharine, but people can't seem to get enough of it.
But in any case, I was happy with the result. I do know that Ovaltine is not the same color as malted milk powder. The latter is ivory, while the former creates a drink the color of a latte. In the cookbook, the chocolate malt cake truffles are tan, while mine were definitely not (see photo below). I was surprised that the malt flavor was not all that prominent in the finished truffle. The truffles tasted primarily like chocolate cake, with just a touch of malt. They were fantastic.
With the coconut cake and coconut coating, these truffles primarily taste like coconut. The pineapple flavor for the juice used to moisten the cake crumbs is pretty faint, although it does definitely give the truffles a certain fruity brightness. But the heavy dose of coconut is exactly why I love these truffles so much, especially with the wonderful chewy texture of the toasted coconut coating.
I prefer all of my cake truffles straight from the freezer, when the white chocolate coating is a hard shell. And the fact that you can make the truffles far in advance and keep them in the freezer for weeks is a huge bonus. Cake truffles are just a wonderful party food.
Last summer I contributed to a Heilala Kickstarter to fund a new line of flavored vanilla extracts, and as my reward, I received a six-pack of flavored extracts and a digital book of recipes developed by Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen. Her berry meringue kisses contain just three ingredients: egg whites, sugar, and Heilala berry vanilla extract. I had some freeze-dried strawberries on hand, so I also dusted some of the meringues with ground strawberries to reinforce the strawberry flavor. But I was surprised at how strong the berry flavor was in the meringues without the strawberry powder, just from the extract. The meringues were crunchy, sweet, and satisfying.
You can make the dough for the cookies in a few minutes, by creaming softened butter with sugar, lemon zest, and orange zest; adding vanilla and lemon extract; mixing in the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, and salt); and chilling the dough until firm. The recipe method for shaping the cookies struck me as a bit odd. It directs you to divide the dough into walnut-sized balls, dip each ball and the cookie stamp in flour, stamp each ball of dough, and use a cookie cutter to trim each cookie. This seemed like a huge hassle, so I just rolled out the dough into a sheet a quarter of an inch thick, stamped out designs, cut individual cookies, and re-rolled the scraps. I got 39 two-inch cookies from a batch of dough. When the cookies are still warm from the oven, you brush on a glaze made from powdered sugar, melted butter, orange juice, orange zest, and lemon zest. The glaze dried shiny and hard and I loved the look of the cookies.
These shortbreads were delicious. Especially fresh from the oven, they were light and ethereal, practically melting in your mouth. The did become a bit sturdier as they aged, but the bright citrus flavor remained, and these dainty cookies were just lovely.
You make the shortbread dough in the food processor (from flour, sugar, salt, butter, vanilla, and tahini -- or in my case, peanut butter), press it into a pan, dock the dough, and bake it until golden brown. You sprinkle chocolate on top of the hot shortbread; return the pan to the oven briefly to melt the chocolate; spread the chocolate over the shortbread; and sprinkle on halvah (or the crumbled leftover filling from some homemade Butterfingers).
Recipes:
- "B'Day Truffles," "Chocolate Malt Cake Truffles" and "Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Truffles" from All About Cake by Christina Tosi.
- "Berry Meringue Kisses" by Erin Clarkson of Cloudy Kitchen.
- "Stamped Citrus Shortbread" by Susan Spungen, available at The New York Times.
- "Tahini Chocolate Shortbread Bars" by Melissa Clark, available at Food52.
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