beverage

Foodbuzz 24×24: The Make-Ahead Holiday Breakfast Party (Recipe: Salted Caramel Mocha Hot Chocolate)

I remember that Christmas morning with all the clarity of the glass icicles adorning our Christmas tree — at least one of which was shattered each year, an inadvertent Christmas tradition. Mom was sitting on the couch in her dramatic floral robe. The scent of coffee — which I loved, despite being averse to the bitter taste — filled the house. The rest of the family was milling about the living room, preparing to distribute the presents.

Suddenly, with a pine needley, jingle-jangly harrrrrumph!, the Christmas tree outright fell on my mother.

I mean, one minute that thing was standing tall, looking regal and festive, and the next it was on her head. She let out a startled cry and flailed from between its branches, sending ornaments and pine needles flying around the room.

Mom will disagree — and okay, my little brother’s First Christmas ornament broke, and that was sad — but this was quite possibly the most hilarious and lively Ruble Christmas morning to date.

Other Christmas mornings were notable too. There was the one where I found, after opening all my gifts, that I hadn’t received the one thing I wanted most: a pedal go-kart. I pasted on a happy face, but I was disappointed. I did have one present left, but it was a card and didn’t look promising.

The card turned out to be from Santa. I scanned it halfheartedly, and realized that it was a set of instructions. I was supposed to head upstairs to my sister’s room. Suddenly, my heart filled with hope. I charged up the stairs eagerly and shot through the door. There, in all its bright yellow glory, was my go-kart!

Other years brought a dose of holiday reality. When I was around 6, I opened my parents’ closet a few days before Christmas to put some clothes away. To my great surprise, I found myself staring at a gigantic dollhouse. I was so stunned that it took me a few moments to realize that this must be a poorly hidden Christmas present.

My tiny heart filled with glee as I briefly surveyed the three-story mansion, complete with furniture, a balcony, and landscaping. I’d always been enamored with miniatures, and now my parents had apparently decided to indulge my dollhouse obsession. I closed the door, thrilled at my discovery and determined to act surprised when I received my gift.

On Christmas morning, I ran downstairs and sure enough, the dollhouse was standing in the living room like a beacon of childhood happiness, boasting a big bow. I squealed joyfully and ran over to it, only to hear my parents call out, “That’s for your sister!

Those four words — so tiny! so brief! — cut me down faster than a fir tree on a Christmas farm.


family photo!

Then there was the Christmas morning I woke up and accidentally stabbed myself in the nose while trying to brush my hair out of my face. My entire family, probably confused but not surprised by the fact that I’d managed to injure myself immediately upon waking, waited patiently while I tried to stop the bleeding.

I couldn’t make this stuff up.


salted caramel.

It’s true; Christmas morning has varied wildly over the years — exciting, disappointing, joyous, dangerous, absurd. One constant that we’ve all come to cherish, though, is Christmas morning breakfast. Every single year, without fail, my mother wakes up early, bakes an egg casserole, and rolls out dough to make fresh cinnamon rolls. While we’re all still counting sugar plums in our jammies, she’s hard at work in the kitchen.

This year, in her honor, I decided to design some recipes specifically for a holiday breakfast — dishes that in addition to being fancy and indulgent, could be prepared almost entirely in advance. To test my menu — that’s my excuse, and I’m stickin’ to it — I threw a Make-Ahead Holiday Breakfast Party, where I decked my halls and created a make-believe Christmas morning.

The party turned out to be special even beyond the menu. See, Mike and I have never spent a Christmas morning together, despite being in a relationship for most of the past 12 years.

I’m not complaining. So many families are separated on Christmas morning because of deployment, distance, and even death. Our situation is downright joyful by comparison. We’re separated each year because both of our families have Christmas morning traditions. We spend time with our own parents in the morning before meeting later to enjoy Christmas afternoon together. This year, though, my Make-Ahead Holiday Breakfast Party was the perfect way to create a “Christmas morning” for just us.

So yesterday morning, we donned our PJs and slippers in true Christmas morning fashion. I lit my first ever fire, put the finishing touches on all of the make-ahead dishes I’d prepared earlier in the week, and we sat down together to eat. Little Byrd sat between us eating her Christmas kibble. Our plates, however, were loaded down with Gingerbread Coffee Cake, Cinnamon Stix with Eggnog Glaze, Savory Bread Pudding with Cranberries and Fennel, Winter Breakfast Chili in Sourdough Bowls, and Buttered Toast with Bright Pepper Jam.

Between bites, we sipped this Salted Caramel Mocha Hot Chocolate. I’m not one for hot breakfast drinks, usually, but I’d make an exception for this thing any day. You coat the mug with hot, buttery salted caramel before pouring in the steaming mocha hot chocolate (where coffee plays a supporting role than the lead). The whole thing is topped with a mess of caramel whipped cream and a caramel drizzle.

I’ll be sharing the other make-ahead breakfast recipes with you throughout the coming weeks as you prepare for the holidays. In the meantime, share your favorite Christmas morning memories. Anyone have any harrowing experience with falling Christmas trees?

Salted Caramel Mocha Hot Chocolate



Recipe by: Willow Bird Baking, inspired by Savory Sweet Life, adapted from Martha Stewart (caramel and cream) and TLC
Yield: 2 big mugs of hot chocolate

I can’t really quantify how buttery, caramelly, chocolatey, and delicious this Salted Caramel Mocha Hot Chocolate is, so let me just say: mmmmmm. I don’t like coffee, but in this recipe it’s there to add richness and balance, and isn’t the dominant flavor. The recipe is designed to be completed mostly in advance, making it lovely for a holiday morning breakfast — or anytime you’re in a festive mood. Also, don’t be afraid of caramel. This recipe includes temperatures, and as long as you use a candy thermometer, you’ll be great!

Mocha Hot Chocolate Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup brewed coffee
2 tablespoons semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons bittersweet chocolate chips (I love Ghirardelli 60% cacao)
2 tablespoons sugar

Caramel Sauce and Cream Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 cup water
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/8 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of coarse salt

Directions:
1 to 3 days in advance: Make the hot chocolate and the caramel. First, heat the milk, coffee, chocolate, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly until it comes to a boil. Remove it from the heat and whisk it to ensure it’s fully combined. Pour it into a bowl and let it cool, stirring periodically, before covering it and refrigerating it.

Make caramel sauce: Prepare an ice-water bath and set a heavy bowl in it. Heat the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until mixture boils and sugar dissolves (don’t stir at all, or crystals will form and make your caramel grainy). Use a pastry brush to wash down sides of pan often to prevent crystals from forming. When the sugar starts to turn amber, you can swirl a couple of times to ensure it’s caramelizing evenly.

Cook until the sugar turns a dark amber (definitely use a candy thermometer here! You’re looking for it to read about 345 degrees), 5 to 7 minutes more. Immediately remove from heat, and slowly whisk in 1/2 cup cream (reserve the rest of the cream in the fridge). It will bubble up when you do this, so be careful. Return the caramel to medium heat, whisking and heating until the sugar melts completely and the mixture boils.

Remove the pan from the heat and pour the caramel into a bowl set in an ice-water bath. Let the caramel cool, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Whisk in creme fraiche or sour cream, vanilla, and salt. Cover and refrigerate this.

The morning of: Reheat the chocolate mixture in a saucepan over medium heat on the stove (or for a couple of minutes in the microwave), stirring often. In the meantime, whip your remaining 1/4 cup cream in a cold bowl to stiff peaks.

Coat the sides of two mugs with caramel sauce, reserving a little over half of it. Gently fold most of the rest of the caramel sauce into your whipped cream (reserving a little to drizzle on top). Fill caramel coated mugs with mocha hot chocolate. Top with caramel cream and drizzled caramel. Serve immediately.

Note: I received a stipend from Foodbuzz for creating this meal.

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Secret Garden Recipe: Sparkling Raspberry Lemonade

Dear Summer,

I know I haven’t always treated you the way you deserve to be treated. There were plenty of days this summer when I slept through the best part of the morning. I only went out for ice cream one time, and that was after nightfall. I didn’t get to the beach or the pool even once. I never accomplished the picnic I’d planned in the mountains.

Listen, Summer, I know that being a teacher makes this even harder to excuse. I, better than anyone else (besides my students, maybe), should know the value of a great summer. I should have played in sprinklers. I should have driven around town with a slushy in one hand (and hopefully the steering wheel in the other). I should have gone on at least a couple of spontaneous road trips. Trust me, I know.

Give me some credit, though, Summer. I did almost exclusively wear a rotation of 3 sundresses all summer long. I stopped wearing clothes with finicky washing/drying directions to facilitate my summer laziness. I stocked up on dollar store flip flops and barely wore a legitimate shoe the entire season — except for that one time I wore my sassy heels. I started watching some of the horrible reality television that I’m embarrassed to talk about. I met my friend Beth for Indian, and just the other day, met my friend Andrea for sushi.

I filled up my hummingbird feeder! Not with raspberry lemonade, true, but I think the hummingbirds were plenty happy with sugar-water.


Changing up garnishes!

And I didn’t just flit around, either — I also used you, precious Summer, to be productive in ways I love. I planned a Secret Garden surprise party for my sister, for which I made this gorgeous lemonade. I blogged and blogged and blogged. I wrote the syllabus for the new cooking classes I’m teaching this fall. I diligently kept up with Top Chef.

Wait, watching Top Chef counts as productive, right?


Aw, a few raspberries in the pitcher look so nice. Maybe I should have added a lemon slice or two, too?

Summer, even though I’ve made some mistakes, it’s obvious that I care about you. I’m begging you, pleading with you — stay just a little longer. I’ll make amends; I’ll make sparkling raspberry lemonade. I’ll sit on the balcony with little Byrd, sippin’ this tart, fruity, sweet summertime beverage, just like I’m supposed to. Pretty please?

Love,
Julie

Sparkling Raspberry Lemonade



Recipe by: Adapted from Sunset
Yields: about 5 1/2 cups of lemonade

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup raspberries, washed and patted dry
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup lemon juice
1 1/2 cup sparkling water
2 1/2 cups water*

Directions:
Mash raspberries with sugar in a small bowl and let stand for 10 minutes. Press this mixture through a fine mesh strainer into a pitcher and discard the seeds. Add lemon juice, sparkling water, and water, stirring to combine. Taste and add more sugar if desired. Dip each serving glass’s rim into lemon juice and then into sugar. Serve lemonade in these glasses with ice, and garnish with raspberries, mint, pretty straws, lemon slices, etc. as desired.

*NOTE: I am so lame. I fiddled with the original amount of liquid in the recipe and of course didn’t write down the changes I made. This is my best guess as to how much water and sparkling water I added, based on memory, but you can always fiddle with the ratio of ingredients after tasting.

And, because I would be frustrated if someone mentioned their sassy heels on a blog without showing me a picture:

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Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade

Historically, I’ve been biased against beverage-making. First off, Coke Zero exists in the world — why would anyone feel the need to make a different beverage?! Would you be completely ashamed of me if I told you that I drink Coke Zero with breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Would it help if I promised that I drink a lot of water, too?

Second off, why make a beverage when you could be making cupcakes?! Or cakes, or pies, or tarts, or enchiladas, or . . . anything!

It took a great professor to show me the error of my beverage discriminating ways. First, a little background info. I was blessed to go to an amazing college — Davidson College, that is — where I learned so many important life lessons: how to pull an all-nighter studying for multivariable calculus, how to write more simultaneous essays than humans are actually capable of, how to illegally park to turn in an exam before the deadline, and, perhaps most importantly, all the lyrics to Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby.” I jest, but really, I did learn an incredible amount, hone my work ethic, and generally enjoy every moment at that fantastic school.

One facet of Davidson I particularly valued was the faculty and the close bonds formed between professors and students. Classes were invited to dinners at professors’ houses, faculty doors were open wide to chat with students about academics or life in general. I had many wonderful professors (in fact, only one not-so-wonderful professor, which has to be a miracle in 4 years!), including Dr. Peroni. Dr. Peroni is a biology professor with an infectious laugh who is passionate about the outdoors and a great biostatistician. My turtle, Squirt, and I lived above her garage my senior year of college, when he was just a wee shellbaby. It was Dr. P who introduced me to experiencing a beverage, and I’m sure she doesn’t even know it!

One summer I was doing research at Davidson and Dr. P invited a bunch of us lab rats (ha ha) over to her house to make DNA earrings (like these). Shut up! What, you don’t have random biological jewelry?! I’ll have you know that I also proudly own neuron and microscope pendants. So there.

Anyhow, at her house she poured us some freshly brewed ice tea and offered us each a big sprig of mint from her garden to stir it with. The taste itself wasn’t even the point for me — but adding the home-grown mint, the act of sprucing up a beverage and enjoying it slowly instead of just glugluglugging it out of a Coke bottle . . . that was galvanizing. Oh, just like food, drinks can be an experience.

Since then, I’ve been on the lookout for possible drink recipes. All sorts of fantastic lemonades have been catching my eye on the interwebs lately — berry lemonades, herb and lavender lemonades, plain ol’ lemon lemonades. Also catching my eye have been mocktails — snazzy juice and seltzer concoctions that fellow teetotalers enjoy instead of their alcoholic counterparts. When working on my summer dessert, I decided it was also the perfect time to roll out a summer drink. Combining my mocktail and lemonade inspiration, I decided to make some gorgeous Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade — with lots of accoutrements, of course: slices of juicy lemon, plump strawberries, ice cubes, a sugar-crusted rim, green bendy straws, and of course, big sprigs of fresh mint! After all, it’s all about the experience.

Next time I might add more strawberries, because I want an even bolder strawberry-lemon ratio, but the lemonade was perfectly tart and sweet. After embellishing my glass with the above additions, I thoroughly enjoyed sip-sip-sipping my time away. Make a big pitcher of this fresh summer treat and enjoy it on your porch or balcony tonight!

Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade



Recipe by: Adapted from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy
Yields: about 6.5 cups of lemonade

Fresh Strawberry Sauce Ingredients:
1 dry pint fresh strawberries, rinsed and hulled (or maybe a little more)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons cold water

Lemonade Ingredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup very hot water
1 cup fresh lemon juice
4-1/2 cups cold seltzer or sparkling water

Optional Accoutrements:
lemon juice and sugar for glass rims
sprigs of fresh mint
fresh strawberries
slices of lemon
crushed ice
bendy straws!

Directions:
Make strawberry sauce: In a food processor or blender, puree the berries, sugar, lemon juice and water until smooth. Strain the berry mixture into a clean bowl and discard the seeds. Stir in additional sugar, if needed. Cover and refrigerate until used.

Make lemonade: In a pitcher, combine the sugar and hot water and stir until the sugar has dissolved into a syrup. Stir in the lemon juice and cold seltzer water. Add the strawberry sauce and stir to combine. Pour over ice into tall glasses rimmed with sugar (dip rims into lemon juice and then sugar). Garnish with fresh strawberries and other accoutrements, if using. Strawberry lemonade keeps at least 3 days in the refrigerator.


Enjoy!


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