ROOTS & WINGS

1. Christmas Rebound (2 in 1)

I admit it. I wanted to use up the eggnog I bought for Christmas Baking last year. Googling came up with conflicting info for keepability, taste preservation, etc., so I didn't want to take any risk.

Well, drink it, you may say.

Uh, well, thing is... I find eggnog bloody disgusting, and only bought it for baking.

And don't complain... after all one of the two following recipes is original. Yup, dropped out of a brain gyrus and there it was.

So here we go.



Serves:

6 - 16 pieces CAKE: depending on how big you like your pieces; also it turned out pretty flat although, down to the tin size, I did follow the recipe to the dot; therefore the difference

25 - 30 cookies



Prep Time:

1.5 hrs PLUS cooling off time CAKE

1.5 hrs PLUS cooling off time (and probably chilling dough overnight) COOKIES: 3 sheets in my case.



Degree of Difficulty: Easy BOTH

EGGNOG NY-STYLE CHEESE CAKE style because Graham Crackers for the original base aren't available here



WE NEED


BASE

150 gr / 5.25 oz. butter cookies
70 gr / 2.5 oz. butter


FILLING

400 gr / 0.9 lb. double cream cheese Interesting FACT: the more you eat full fat, the quicker you're sated In Europe the saying CHEESE "CLOSES" THE STOMACH is NO hollow phrase.

190 (200) ml / 6.5 US fl.oz. eggnog Probably I took a sip to try it... and therefore could conclude that it's bloody disgusting on its own.

2 eggs M-sized
80 gr / 2.75 oz. sugar
1 pck = 8 gr = 0.3 oz. vanilla sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch

2 pinches + 1 tsp ground cinnamon. CEYLON not the (cheaper!) CASSIA as that contains more Cumarin which at regular use can damage your liver


ADDITIONALLY


22 x 22 cm / 8.7 x 8.7 in baking/brownie tin




WE DO

1. Preheat the oven to 175 (160)°C / 350 (320)°F top / bottom heat OR fan / convection and line the baking tin with baking paper OR heat-resistant cling film / microwave film.


2. Break the butter cookies into rough chunks and finely grind them with the food processor. Melt the butter and mix it with the cookie flour. Fill the crumbs into the tin and press them onto the bottom until compact + smooth. Bake them in the oven for 12-15 minutes OR until golden brown. Since every oven is different that can take longer/shorter Remove and let cool slightly.


3. Beat the cream cheese until creamy, then add eggnog, eggs, vanilla /-sugar and mix until well-combined. Then add cornstarch + 2 pinches cinnamon, and mix well again. Pour the cake mass onto the base and sprinkle with cinnamon. I admit I used rather a HEAPED tsp.


HERE, recipe, and how I did it, DIVERT The recipe says to put the baking tin into a larger, oven proof tin, to fill it with water so the baking tin is 2/3s in the water and so rather cook than bake the cake. Since I don't own SUCH a big ovenproof dish, I did the following:


4. Cover the baking tin with aluminum foil and bake the cake for 40-45 minutes OR until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. In MY case it took 1 hr until that happened. Remember, every oven's different, etc.


5. Remove the baking tin from the oven (and the double-boiler) and let it rest for at least 4 hrs / better: overnight. (Dudes, you know me.)


6. Cut it into pieces convenient-sized for you (see SERVES above), store leftovers in the fridge, and


GUTEN HUNGER!

ORIGINAL POST-CHRISTMAS COOKIES


For these I used all remaining ingredients left from last year's Christmas Baking, a pretty wild mix if you asked me. But it worked.


WE NEED

55 gr / 2 oz. (soft) apricots
80 gr / 2.75 oz. dates
110 gr / 4 oz. sultanas
115 gr / 4 oz. butter
225 gr / 8 oz. hazelnut flour whole nuts blitzed until they were flour.
140 ml / 4.75 US fl.oz. eggnog
33 gr / 1.25 oz. peanut butter UN-sweetened, and FREE of other chemicals! Good luck.
3 gr / 0,1 oz. baking powder
5 gr / 0.2 oz. lemon zest
27 ml / 1 US fl.oz. lemon juice
60 ml / 2 US fl.oz. sweetened condensed milk

(Okay, like 7 oz. molasses were left, too, but that would've become WAY too sweet. I like my life without diabetes, and I'd like to keep my teeth, too.)



WE DO


1. (Finely) chop dates + apricots (and, if you want to, the sultanas). You SHOULD do that BY HAND as at least MY food processor CAPITULATED faced with them.


2. Beat butter + eggnog until creamy. Add almost everything else and mix until well-combined, then gently stir in the hazelnut flour, at last.

TIP: since the dough is VERY greasy, I'd chill it overnight in the fridge. I HAD to, because I was out of baking paper, and it was out in the corner shop I jumped in before having to continue working. It was too late for supermarkets when I was finished, so I had to go the next morning.)

Anyway, enough babble!


3. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F fan/convection and line (a) baking sheet(s) with baking paper. With a TEA-spoon, take bits and dollop them onto the sheet(s) with some space between them – they expand.

DON'T (try to) roll them into "pretty" shape between your palms and then put them onto the sheet(s) because the bloody poops are STILL bloody greasy and stick to your bloody fingers and become a mess anyway.


4. Bake them in the oven for about 20 minutes OR until golden-brown. Since EVERY oven... you know the song.


5. Let them "post-cure" on the hot baking sheet(s) before transferring them onto a cake rack – otherwise they crumble apart. – to cool off. You might have to crumble off burned butter rims , but otherwise...


GUTEN HUNGER!