Biscochitos: A New Family Tradition

As I previously mentioned I wasn't lucky enough to inherit a biscochito family recipe, so I had to find my own. I fell in LOVE with her recipe mainly because she had pictures of the actual recipe card from her grandma ( If that doesn't make them Authentic New Mexican biscochitos I don't know what does.) The cookies themselves were amazing as well.
Coley and I decided to make cookies this year for our annual Christmas party at work as well as a few for my husband to take to his co-workers, plus plenty for us since we love them so much. :)First you should gather all your ingredients.


 

Then cream the lard.



Next, beat the eggs and add the anise seeds.



You will then add the egg mixture to the lard and mix well.Slowly add in the flour mixture and and combine. (At first you will be able to use your electric mixer, but as the dough gets thicker you will need to knead together with your hands.




Now you will separate your dough into smaller balls and wrap in plastic wrap. ( The recipe says to do 3 balls, but we did 6. It also says to refridgerate overnight, however we put 5 balls of dough in the fridge for about an hour and the 6th one in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Once we took the dough ball from the freezer we rotated another one in.)


While the dough is chilling combine your sugar and cinnamon in a bowl large enough for dipping cookies. During this time you can pick cookie cutters also.




















Once dough is chilled enough flour your rolling surface and roll dough. (We like ours pretty thin.)

 


Dip uncooked cookies in sugar-cinnamon mixture and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

 

Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes, then immediately dip cookies in sugar-cinnamon mixture once again.



Let cool, then enjoy! (Of course we had to throw some Hello Kitty cookies in!)

 

Biscochitos

Makes 9-10 dozen small cookies. 
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups lard (1 pound box)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 teaspoons anise seed
6 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sweet white wine (plus a 1/4 extra if needed) *We use Brandy instead

1/2 cup sugar + 1 Tablespoon cinnamon 

Cream together the lard and 1 1/2 cups sugar. In a separate bowl beat the eggs and anise, add to the lard/sugar mixture. Mix well.

In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add this dry mixture to the wet mixture. Knead well with your hands until dough sticks together, it should be slightly sticky but able to form a firm dough ball. If the dough is too dry add more wine a teaspoon at a time, if it is too sticky add more flour a teaspoon at a time.

Divide the dough into three large balls  *We did six smaller balls instead and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight so the dough becomes firm and manegable. * We did not let them sit overnight.

The next day preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the dough with a liberally floured rolling pin on a liberally floured surface 1/8 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Dip one side of each cookie into cinnamon-sugar mixture and place on cookie sheet sugar side up. To ensure all cookies bake evenly, bake each shape cookie in batches of alike shapes and sizes. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the bottom of the cookies are brown and the tops are golden.

Remove from oven, and immediately dip in cinnamon-sugar again, dipping them while they are warm is key to getting the cinnamon sugar to stick. 

Store in a cool-dry place or freeze for up to six months.

Enjoy!

Home is Where the Heart Is (Or stomach, in my case) ;)

So I don't know how your family celebrates the Holidays, but as a New Mexican when I think of Christmas I think of homes and business beautifully lit up with farolitos.

I also think of food (but who doesn't right?) Being a New Mexican transplanted in Las Vegas (Nevada not New Mexico, because if I was in New Mexico I wouldn't be having this problem.. ) you can not find authentic New Mexican food --Not to be confused with MEXICAN food they are two totally different things. We native New Mexicans are very particular about our food.  

During the holidays we often make our favorite traditional New Mexican dishes. My two favorite are biscochitos and tamales. Everyone I know either thinks their families or their own recipes are best ;)  Many recipes are passed on from generation to generation. My family wasn't so lucky, my grandmother wasn't one of those little old viejitas who baked cookies and steamed tamales. Don't get me wrong my grandma was an amazing cook, however I can't recall her ever baking during the holidays. My sister and I would venture over to my Auntie's house to bake biscochitos with her and we once attempted tamales with our mother ( they didn't turn out very well.)

A few years back I found the perfect biscochito recipe, and have since made it my own. One day I plan on passing down the recipe to my children and grand children. 

As for tamales this year my husband begged me to attempt them. I was a bit nervous since my last attempt did not go so good...

An Uneventful Thanksgiving and My First Attempt at Homemade Donuts

I am finally getting around to writing this post. Last week was Thanksgiving. Since we don't have any family in town it was our first Thanksgiving with only my hubby, sister, and I. Our original plan was to hit a local buffet since Las Vegas has no shortage of those haha! On Wednesday night before Thanksgiving my hubby got a bright idea to make Thanksgiving dinner. Off we head to the grocery store to fight the crowds and buy a turkey, ham, and all the sides. We then rushed home to defrost the bird and get everything ready.

While all of this was going on I should mention that Coley and I had decided to attempt donuts (since we didn't think we were cooking dinner). We decided to try this recipe for the donuts and this one for our glaze.

WEDNESDAY:
We gathered all of our ingredients.

Then started on mixing the dough.

Finally our dough came together.

Now we just had to let it sit.. We aren't the most patient bakers and are often skipping this important part. (And we always wonder why we get bad results lol.)

We let it sit over night in the fridge (covered with plastic wrap). Insert Thanksgiving madness here... Hubby and I fight the grocery store lines, rush defrosting turkey, cleaning out bird :(, etc...

THURSDAY:

I woke up Thanksgiving morning got the turkey and ham ready to go and then Coley and I began the rest of our donut making. 

We rolled and cut donuts. Then had to wait once again for them to rise..

An hour and a half later they were ready to fry. :)

We had originally planned on using a basic donut glaze and decorating them to match these adorable plates I found in the the $1 Section at Target. 

But, the donut glaze did not taste as good as we thought it would. So back to the drawing board we went...

We then decided to use a chocolate ganache with some leftover Ghirardelli chocolate we had from a previous project.

Chocolate Ganache:

2oz. Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate chips

2oz. Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate bar

1/2 cup of Heavy Cream.

Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Remove before it starts boiling, and pour over chocolate setting in a bowl, let sit for a couple minutes, and then stir until chocolate is fully melted, and the ingredients are combined.

I was pretty pleased with the results (and so were my co-workers when we took the leftover donuts to work the next day). However there were a few minor things I would change next time.. I would like to find a recipe or alter the one I used to make the donut dough a little sweeter. I would also use only milk chocolate to make the ganache as the bittersweet chocolate was a little to rich for donuts. 

We finally got the donuts finished about an hour before we were to eat our Thanksgiving dinner. I don't think I've ever made mashed potatoes and sides as fast as I did this year lol.

Maybe next year we will stick to pumpkin pie. ;)