Chili Cheese Dog Muffins for #MuffinMonday

When you think about it, (or is that just me?) almost anything can be made into a muffin, including a chili cheese hot dog: Spicy chili, sharp cheddar and hot dogs baked in a muffin then topped with more cheese, onions and mustard. Happy Memorial Day! 

This week I am channeling Coney Island and bringing you a chili cheese dog muffin, in honor of Memorial Day, the holiday when we Americans honor and thank the members of the armed forces who  sacrificed their lives in the line of duty to protect our nation. It is also the kickoff to hot dog eating season. Not that we can’t and don’t eat them year round but according to Forbes.com Americans eat an incredible seven billion hot dogs between Memorial Day in May and Labor Day in September. No telling how many of those are chili cheese dogs. But this year at least, a few of them will be muffins.

Ingredients
For the muffins:
2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon flakey sea salt or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 oz or 115g extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup or 250g spicy beef chili
1/4 cup or 60ml canola or other light oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup or 120ml water
4 hot dogs (about 7 1/2 oz or 215g total weight) I like all beef Ball Park Franks. (Plus they are on sale this weekend at my Houston grocery store – Score!)

Note: I used homemade beef chili that is very thick, mostly meat, cooked down till there’s not much liquid left. If you are going to use store-bought or juicier chili, cut back on the amount of water.

For garnish:
2-4 tablespoons finely chopped onions
Yellow mustard

Method
Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your 12-cup muffin tin by spraying with non-stick spray or lining with muffin papers. If you have a kind and generous mother like mine, see if she’ll volunteer for a Dollar Tree run to buy paper liners with little blue and red stars. You can pay her back in chili cheese dog muffins.

Grate your cheddar if it didn’t already come grated and finely chop your onion. Set aside a handful of the cheese for topping.

Slice the hot dogs into small circles and set aside 12 to poke into the tops of the muffins before baking.

Combine your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cheese in a large mixing bowl.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your eggs, oil, chili and water.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stop when it’s still quite dry looking.

Toss in the big pile of hot dog circles and stir again.

Divide your batter between the 12 muffin cups.

Sprinkle the tops with the reserved cheese and chopped onions. Add one reserved hot dog circle to each and push it in just a little bit to make it stick.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to continue cooling on a wire rack.

Drizzle with a little yellow mustard, if desired. But I say, what’s a chili cheese dog without a generous drizzle of mustard?

Enjoy!

Now go shake a soldier's hand and thank him or her for her service. And pray for peace and that no one need ever make the ultimate sacrifice. And perhaps bake some muffins to share.

Easy Homemade Almond Marshmallows

Homemade marshmallows are actually quite easy to make but I have to warn you that they will spoil you for store-bought marshmallows forever, so wonderful are they. 

I have a few things on my bucket list that I want to make some day. Real puff pastry, ice cream, my friend Ishita’s mustard fish, marshmallows and Jamie Oliver’s wine-braised chicken with grapes, just to name a few. My friend Jenni Field, of Pastry Chef Online, dreamed up an ice cream challenge that would take care of two of those in one fell swoop. She wanted to take her Ice Cream Tuesdays to another level by adding marshmallow in some form and invited a group of us to join her. I could have taken the easy way out and used store bought but I figured it was time to step up and do the marshmallows myself.

Store bought marshmallows are light morsels best set aflame and eaten in front of a campfire, with sticky fingers and ash. These homemade ones are their distant ethereal cousin, the one that shows up at the wedding and makes the groom reconsider his commitment to the bride. The groomsmen fall all over themselves to seat her and the bridesmaids all want to be her. Elderly relatives all nudge each other and remark with awe, how she has grown and blossomed since they last saw her as a gangly, awkward preteen at the family reunion years ago! But you know what? She’s sweet and unassuming, not brash or overbearing, a genuinely nice person that everyone can’t help but like. May I introduce my almond marshmallows? I think you are going to like them.

Ingredients
4 1/2 oz or 125g whole raw almonds
2 tablespoons powdered gelatin
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon or 133ml cold water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/2 cups 0r 340g sugar
1 cup or 240ml corn syrup
1 1/2 tablespoons water
1 cup or 125g powdered sugar
1 cup or 135g cornstarch

Method
Toast your almonds in a small heavy skillet over a medium low flame. Toss or stir the nuts frequently to prevent scorching. The almonds are properly toasted when they are light brown and smell wonderfully nutty. Set aside to cool for a few minutes and then pulse in a food processor until you have small toasted almond crumbs.

Dissolve your gelatin in the cold water in the bowl of your stand mixer or another mixing bowl if using a hand held mixer.

(If your gelatin instructions say to dissolve in hot water, like mine do, heat three of tablespoons of the water and dissolve the gelatin in that. Allow to cool and then gradually add the cold water to your gelatin mixture, stirring continually so it doesn’t lump up on you, then put the gelatin mixture in your mixing bowl and continue as follows.)

My gelatin was made in New Zealand. I have no idea why it is brown but when dissolved, it turned clear. Whew.

Add the salt and almond extract to the mixing bowl with the water and gelatin. Stir well.

Meanwhile, mix your powdered sugar with your cornstarch and set aside.

Spray a half-sheet pan with non-stick spray. Line the pan with cling film, making sure it goes up the sides of the pan as well. Make sure you don’t have any bubbles under the cling film. You want the cling film stuck tight all over the pan.

Now spray the cling film with more non-stick spray and put it on thick. Use a sifter or strainer to cover the whole pan with a good layer of the powdered sugar/cornstarch mixture.

Sprinkle half of the ground almonds over the cornstarch/sugar mixture. Set the pan aside.

In a medium sized heavy bottomed pot, Stir your sugar and corn syrup with about a tablespoon and a half of water and bring to a low boil. Put the lid on and cook for two or three minutes more. Remove the lid and put your candy thermometer in the liquid. Heat till 244°F or 118°C.

When your syrup reaches temperature, pour it carefully down the inside of your mixing bowl.

If you are using a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment or beat on medium for a few minutes.

That's steam, people!

Once it’s all mixed together, turn the knob to high and beat until the mixture triples in volume. This is such fun to watch, as the clear liquid turns to fluffy white stuff.

Use non-stick spray to coat a rubber spatula and use it to scrape the beautiful sticky white stuff into your prepared pan.

Spread the marshmallow cream evenly around the pan, using more spray on your spatula whenever necessary.

Now spray the top of your marshmallow cream liberally.

Sprinkle on the rest of your toasted almond crumbs.  Now use your sifter or strainer again to cover the top of the marshmallow cream with a thick layer of the powdered sugar/ cornstarch mixture. No shiny marshmallow should peek out.  Put it on THICK! Don't be shy.

Set aside, uncovered, for several hours in a cool dry place to set.

When the marshmallow feels spongy yet firm, cut it into squares with a greased knife and coat all the sides in more powdered sugar/cornstarch to stop the pieces from sticking together.

A little tip: After you have cut a few slices and removed them to a big bowl with powdered sugar/cornstarch, you can cut the following slices and roll them over and over on the cling film, which will coat the long cut sides. Since you put a healthy layer of that stuff in the pan, right? Then you just have to coat the short sides as you cut the long pieces into squares.

Jenni was right. These marshmallows are like a whole different thing, compared to store-bought marshmallows. They are soooo good. And soft and fluffy and nutty and divine. She's made a wonderful video of her making marshmallows live that you should watch too.

Check back this Tuesday when I’ll be putting some of them in homemade no-churn (no ice cream machine needed!) coffee Amaretto ice cream, along with some candied almonds.

But don’t worry, this makes plenty enough marshmallows just to eat straight.

Enjoy!

If it just happens to be your helper's seventh birthday when you are making these, share a couple with him.

Hibiscus Sugar Cookies with Hibiscus Syrup #CreativeCookieExchange

Dried hibiscus flowers have long been used to make tea or, more technically correct, a tisane, which is sipped hot or cold. The tart beverage is said to lower blood pressure and to have antioxidants a plenty. I’m here to tell you that hibiscus petals also make some pretty tasty sugar cookies and a divine flavored syrup.

In my current part of the world, hibiscus tisane (“tea” made from flowers) is a thing. Iranians call it sour tea and they aren’t kidding. The dried petals are available in the bulk section of my local supermarket, along with the spices, dried pulses, marinated olives and chunks of local cheese. Sometimes I just wander over to that area to inhale the fragrances but, often, I am seduced into making a purchase. Who can resist?

This is an immense oval with spices and other goodies on all sides - Carrefour Hypermarket, Mirdiff City Centre

When our Creative Cookie Exchange host, Laura from The Spiced Life, posted this month’s theme – Flowers – I practically clapped my hands with glee. After my week of baking with tea back in March, when I was visiting my friend who owns a tea shop in Michigan, I knew hibiscus cookies were not only possible, but that they would be delicious.

Ingredients
For about 32-36 cookies:
1/2 cup or 16g dried hibiscus
1 cup or 225g unsalted butter
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon Cognac (or sub orange juice if you don’t do alcohol)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups or 280g flour

For the syrup:
1/4 cup or 8g hibiscus
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
Pinch salt
1/4 cup or 60ml water

Method
Pulse the hibiscus petals in a food processor until they are in small pieces, stopping before you create complete hibiscus dust. There will be some pink dust but that’s okay.

With a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy and light.

Add in the eggs, Cognac, salt, vanilla, flour and hibiscus petals and mix until a soft dough forms.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap. Let rest at least one hour in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare your baking pan by lining it with parchment paper.

Cut off small chunks of dough and roll them between your hand.

Space them out two inches or four centimeters apart on the prepared pan. Press them gently into circles with your palm.

Bake for about 10 minutes, until light gold at the edges. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Meanwhile, to make the syrup, put all the ingredients except the butter into a small pot and bring it to the boil.

The color starts to seep out, even before I've turned the stove on!

Turn the pot down and let it bubble away gently until the liquid is reduced by almost half. The color should be a gorgeous fuchsia. (By the way, as a complete aside, hibiscus water is a great natural coloring to dye white eggs for Easter.)

Strain the syrup into a small bowl.

Add the butter. Stir until it’s melted.

Spread the candied petals out on parchment paper, pulling them apart so they can dry a little. They are going to be very sticky. I have to tell you that I couldn’t pass by the parchment without pinching one and eating it. They are sour and sweet and definitely more-ish. If they don’t appeal to you, you don’t have to save them but do give them a try.

When the cookies are completely cool, drizzle a little syrup over each.

Top with the candied petals, if desired.

Enjoy!

                                                       

If all the spring showers have put you in the flower mood, you are going to love all the cookies the group has baked this month!

• Orange Blossom Honey Madeleines from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Flower Cookies from A Baker's House
• Rose-Lemon Meltaways from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Lebanese Orange Blossom Water and Pistachio Cookies from The Spiced Life
• Lemon Persian Rose Shortbread from Noshing with the Nolands
• Lavender Poppy Seed Shortbread from Magnolia Days
• Hibiscus Sugar Cookies from Food Lust People Love

If you would like to join us for future Creative Cookie Exchange challenges, just contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.

You can also use us as a great resource for cookie recipes--be sure to check out our Pinterest Board, and our monthly posts. You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!