Tag Archives: Christmas

Your Tray or Mine Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Crinkles

22 Dec
Betty Crocker's Cooky Book

Can you spot the Chocolate Crinkle cookie on the cover of our cookbook?

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 15, 2011

This recipe is an original to our cookie trays and I like it because it makes a lot of cookies, so it’s not a cookie that you have to ration one per tray or anything like that. You can be generous when you give them out.

I also think these are such pretty cookies, like snowflakes, which is funny for a chocolate based cookie.

They’re easy to make but you do need to make sure you make the batter ahead of time and chill it, so take that into account when you’re doing your planning.

CHOCOLATE CRINKLES

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 sq. unsweetened chocolate (4 oz.) melted

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup Confectioner’s Sugar

Chocolate Crinkles on baking sheet

Chocolate Crinkles fresh out of the oven

DIRECTIONS

Mix oil, chocolate and granulated sugar.

Blend in one egg at a time until well mixed.

Add vanilla.

Measure flour by dipping method or by sifting (I really just measure. I’m not sure what either of those methods are, although it says See p. 5 to find out what the dipping method is.)

Stir flour, baking powder and salt into oil mixture.

Chill several hours or overnight.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Drop teaspoonfuls of dough into confectioner’s sugar BEFORE rolling into balls. Roll in sugar, shape into balls. (This is how you get the snowflake look when they bake.)

Place about 2″ apart on greased baking sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes. Do not overbake. Makes about six dozen cookies.

Three tiered cookie rack with crinkles

This recipe is the whole reason why I wanted this three tiered cooling rack this year. It makes a ton of cookies!

Baking with the kids

Many hands make light work. Messy work, but light work. Powdered sugar everywhere!

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Your Tray or Mine: Glazed Pineapple Cookies A Family Favorite

20 Dec

My dad’s favorite, the Glazed Pineapple Cookies come from this cookbook.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED DECEMBER 20, 2011

Today’s recipe is the last one for the Your Tray or Mine series!

It is my dad’s favorite cookie tray recipe as well as one of my mom’s favorites. He only gets these cookies once a year and he looks forward to them all year long. They are glazed pineapple cookies, such a pretty cookie on our tray, and not a stitch of chocolate on them!

My mom and I split the list of recipes in half each year, each making about 6 different kinds, and merging them on our trays. This one is one of the ones on her to do list each year. This recipe comes from her McCall’s Cookie Collection Cookbook. It looks very similar to a glazed egg biscuit, but it’s a completely different cookie.

Glazed Pineapple Cookie

Glazed Pineapple cookies….my dad’s fave.

GLAZED PINEAPPLE COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

1 can (8 3/4 oz.) crushed pineapple

2 cups sifted all purpose flour

1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup light brown sugar firmly packed

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

INGREDIENTS FOR GLAZE

4 cups sifted confectioners sugar

3 to 4 tablespoons liquid from pineapple plus about 2 tablespoons hot water

DIRECTIONS

1)Drain pineapple, reserving liquid.

2) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets.

3) Sift flour with baking powder, baking soda, and salt, set aside.

4) In large bowl, with wooden spoon, or portable electric mixer at medium speed, cream shortening with sugar until light.

5) Beat in egg and vanilla until light and fluffy.

6) Add drained pineapple, mix well.

7) Stir in flour mixture until well combined.

8) Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, two inches apart, onto prepared cookie sheets.

9) Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove to wire rack; cool partially.

DIRECTIONS FOR GLAZE:

In a medium bowl combine sugar with pineapple liquid. Stir until smooth.

Spread tops of cookies with glaze while they are still slightly warm.

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen.

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Your Tray or Mine: Baking with the Grandmas…More Family Favorites

19 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 14, 2011

I am very, very lucky and I know it. I still have two of my grandmothers living and although they are both now in their 90s, they are both healthy and they are both tremendous cooks. I literally was born into this tradition of baking and cooking. Knowing that so many of the grandmas’ recipes were “in their heads,” we’ve taken a great deal of effort to get them to put them down on paper recently. Especially important to me are the two recipes for the cookies that go on our Christmas Cookie Trays. Grandma Rose makes hundreds of tiny Wine Biscuits each year for her trays and ours, and Grandma Grello makes her delicious iced Prune Cookies for our trays as well. Like I said, we are very lucky.

In honor of the Grandmas I am going to share with you their two cookie recipes. Consider them passed on from me to you. 🙂

Grandma Rose

This is Grandma Rose with our girls, three of her five great-grandchildren, on her 90th birthday this past November.

GRANDMA ROSE’S WINE BISCUITS

5 cups flour

1 cup sugar

3 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup wine (Deep Burgundy)

3/4 cup oil

Grandma Rose's Wine Biscuits

Can you imagine making 400 of these every Christmas? Grandma Rose can!

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll dough into small logs, form into knots.

Brush beaten egg yolk on knots for glaze before baking.

Bake 18 to 20 minutes til lightly browned

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Grandma Grello and the girls

This is Grandma Grello with our girls, three out of I think 15? great grandchildren, this past July which is shortly after she turned 91 in May.

GRANDMA GRELLO’S ICED PRUNE COOKIES

*Note: This recipe, as well as her Meat Pies recipe, was featured in the Providence Journal’s Food Section this past year.

A note from my mom:

Although this recipe may seem involved, it’s really not difficult because the cookies are made in several steps, and the various steps can be spread out over a period of time.

FOR THE FILLING:

1 large box of pitted prunes (18 oz. or more)

1/2 lb. raisins (dark, not golden)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup strong black coffee

Zest of one lemon and one orange

1/2 lemon

1/2 orange

=====================================

10 oz. jar maraschino cherries, drained and chopped

1/2 cup coffee brandy or Kahlúa

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Cover prunes and raisins with water.  Add sugar, coffee, lemon zest, orange zest, the half lemon and the half orange.  Cook until prunes and raisins are soft to the touch.  Drain well and return to pan.  Add chopped cherries and coffee brandy or Kahlúa.  Mix well and refrigerate overnight or for several days.

This is what the finished Prune Cookies roll looks like before you slice it for serving or putting on trays.

FOR THE DOUGH:

6 cups all purpose flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup Crisco shortening

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla

6 eggs

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and set aside.  In another bowl, combine sugar and shortening and beat with mixer until smooth.  Add milk and vanilla.  Add eggs one at a time.  Add this mixture to dry ingredients and mix together by hand with a large spoon.  Once incorporated (and with lightweight “kitchen-type” gloves, if possible), finish mixing with your hands until it comes together into a smooth dough.  Transfer to a floured surface, and use a knife to cut dough into six pieces.  Roll each piece out into a long strip (approximately 13-14” long and about 7” wide), one at a time, and fill center of strip with a portion of the prune filling.  Fold each side over the middle and fold the ends under.  Place filled strip on parchment-lined cookie sheet (two strips per sheet) with seam side down.

Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.  Transfer to wire rack and cool completely before adding glaze.  (If desired, the strips can be frozen without glaze for later use.  To freeze, wrap them individually, first in parchment paper and then in heavy duty foil.  Then when needed, thaw completely and add glaze.)

Let glaze “set” (dry), and then slice before serving.

Here is what they look like once they are sliced.

FOR THE GLAZE:

The following amounts may be adjusted for consistency and flavor desired, but these ingredients should frost six strips.

4 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

4 1/2 tbl. lemon juice

3 to 4 1/2 tbl. hot water (try with 3 tbl. first, then add more as needed)

Multi-colored nonpareils (optional)

Mix until smooth.  Top each strip with glaze, and if desired, add nonpareils.

ENJOY TODAY’S COOKING WITH THE GRANDMAS RECIPES!

Enjoy!

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Your Tray or Mine? Recipe of the Day: Cherry Squares

18 Dec

This recipe is not a recipe that I’ve ever posted on FB before but it’s one of my mom’s recipes that I love. Each year her office celebrates the holidays by taking turns bringing in treats for everyone in the office. Each year my mom brings these in and each year she gives me all the corners. I *love* the corners of bar cookies, brownies and cakes!! Sometimes I’ll arrive home to find a little package in my door of four wrapped corners just for me. 🙂

This Sunday and the next two I will post bar cookie recipes. You can include them on your trays or you can bring them to a party on a tray all their own. Either way, they’re delicious!

CHERRY SQUARES

INGREDIENTS

2 sticks butter or margarine, softened

2 cups sugar

4 eggs added one at a time

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

3 cups flour

2 cans cherry (or any other) pie filling

Confectioners sugar for sprinkling on top, when completely cool, for presentation

DIRECTIONS

In large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together.

Add eggs, one at a time.

Add vanilla and almond extracts.

Gradually add the flour til all ingredients are combined.

Spread three quarters of the batter in the pan. My mom uses a greased 11 x 17 cookie sheet pan for hers.

Top with the fruit filling.

Top with remaining batter. (Batter will be thick and not spread easily on top of the filling, so just drop small spoonfuls of it randomly across the top of the filling. It will spread as it bakes.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Sprinkle with confectioners sugar and cut into bars for serving.

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Your Tray or Mine Recipe of the Day: Brown Eyed Susans, a Family Favorite

16 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 7, 2011

When I posted my first recipe last week for Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies, I mentioned that it was one of my top two favorite cookies on our trays each year (I’ll let you know what my other favorite is when I post it.) However, the thing about cookie trays is that everyone has their own favorites. Mine tend to be all the ones that are heavily chocolate chip based, but not everyone’s are.

Brown Eyed Susans for Christmas Cookie Trays

I had a near meltdown when I realized we were totally out of any sprinkles for the tops of the cookies. I recovered when I found red and green stars instead.

Today’s recipe is for Brown Eyed Susans, which are my brother’s favorites. I might have one each year, but he *loves* them. They’re good and easy to make. I hope you’ll try them!

BROWN EYED SUSANS

INGREDIENTS

Cream together the following:

1 cup butter

3 TBL. sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

CHILL FOR TWO HOURS.

Rolled and flattened cookie dough

Here’s what the cookies look like as they are rolled and then as they are flattened.

DIRECTIONS

Roll into about 1 level tablespoon ball and place on greased cookie sheet.

Flatten slightly using your fingers. (This is a good place to have your kids help out.)

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Frost while warm. (You can make these ahead, freeze cookies and then frost them when thawed.)

I find that if you fill all your baking sheets with the rolled and flattened cookies first, you can use the baking time to make up the frosting so that it’s ready for you to frost them while they’re warm.

Brown Eyed Susans

These look pretty with any sort of decorations on top, but we normally use sprinkes as shown here.

FROSTING INGEDIENTS

1 cup Confectioner’s Sugar

2 TBL Baking Cocoa

2 TBL hot water

1/2 tsp vanilla

Use about 1/2 tsp on top of each cookie (yes the frosting does drip off the cookies, so put wax paper underneath.)
**I found that the 1/2 tsp measure on top of each cookie is important. If you use just any spoon to frost them you run out of frosting because too much goes onto the cookies and then drips off the cookies onto the wax paper and then you have to make another batch of frosting.

Sprinkle colored sprinkles or chocolate sprinkles (or place an almond, or whatever you’d like,) on top. This is also a good “job” for kids to do, decorating the tops of the frosted cookies, that and running their fingers all over the waxed paper where the chocolate has dripped once the cookies are safely removed!

**In Rhode Island, the sprinkles are called Jimmies. My dad is Jimmy and my mom is Pat so we call our colored ones Patsies. Just a random fact for you…

A single recipe makes about 36 cookies.

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Your Tray or Mine Bar Recipe of the Day: Double Delicious Bars

12 Dec
Double Delcious Bars

Hot out of the oven, this peanut butter-chocolate chip dessert is one of our favorites!

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED DECEMBER 18, 2011

This recipe incorporates peanut butter, so if you have allergies…please take note.

I love this one, it’s super fast and easy and as the title says: delicious. Kids can totally help out with this one too, it’s literally just layering of ingredients, dumping bags of chips into a baking pan.

INGREDIENTS

1 stick butter

One package Nabisco “Famous” Chocolate wafer cookies

One 14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk

2/3 of a 12 oz. package semisweet chocolate chips (I totally use the whole package. No 2/3 for me!)

2/3 of a 12 oz. package peanut butter chips (again I use the whole bag, and if it’s a 10 oz. bag you definitely use the whole thing.)

Chocolate wafer crumbs

First layers: melted butter and chocolate wafer crumbs

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees or 325 for a glass dish.

In 13×9 pan, melt one stick of butter in the heated oven.

Crush one package of Nabisco “Famous” chocolate wafer cookies (or if you can find crushed chocolate cookie crumbs, use 1 1/2 cups of those.)

Spread 1 1/2 cups of the crushed wafers into the melted butter.

Pour 1 can (14 oz) of Sweetened Condensed Milk evenly over crumbs.

Top with 2/3 of a 12 oz. bag of semisweet chocolate chips and 2/3 of a 12 oz. bag of peanut butter chips. (If the peanut butter chips are 10 oz, use the whole bag. Depends on the brand you buy.)

Press down slightly to set.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned.

Double Delicious Bars before going into the oven

You don’t even need a mixing bowl for this recipe. You just layer it all in the baking dish.

Cool and cut into bars.

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Your Tray or Mine: Old World Raspberry Bars

10 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2011

In keeping with my promise to do one bar recipe each Sunday, here is today’s recipe.

Old World Raspberry Bars original recipe card

Here’s the original recipe that I work from when I make these! It’s funny to see my old handwriting and maiden name!

This is such an old recipe that I’ve been making since I was in elementary school. When I was in about 4th grade the Girl Scouts had a bake off and I won twice with this recipe. When I make them, I still read off a photocopy of the original recipe card that I wrote out for the contest. It’s funny to see my 4th gr. handwriting and my maiden name at the top. You can use raspberry, strawberry, or apricot jelly. These are fast and easy and only have a few ingredients. I make them several times each holiday season. A friend of mine even melts chocolate and drizzles it over the top before cutting.

INGREDIENTS

2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup margarine (2 sticks)
1 egg

Filling: 12 oz. raspberry jelly (seedless works well) or choose your own flavor

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

This recipe says to grease an 8 x 12 pan, but I use 11×7. You probably could use 9 x 13, they’d just be thinner.

Mix together all ingredients EXCEPT jelly.

Beat at low speed, scraping sides of bowl occasionally until evenly mixed.

Reserve approx. 1 cup of mixture, set aside.

Alex and Caroline making Raspberry Squares

This recipe has lots of opportunities for the kids to help out including measuring the ingredients and putting the dough and jam into the dish.

Press remaining mixture into baking dish.

Spread jelly within 1/2″ of edges.

Crumble (break into little pieces and drop them all over the top) the remaining 1 cup of batter over the jelly.

Bake at 350 degrees 42-50 minutes until lightly brown around the edges.

Cool completely and cut into bars.

Enjoy!

**When I originally typed this, I typed two and one half cups of flour, but it was a typo! Should be two and one quarter cups of flour. I caught it the day it posted, but I hope I didn’t cause anyone to mess up their batter! My apologies…
Jen

Raspberry Squares before they're baked

This is how the raspberry squares look just before going into the oven….

Baked raspberry squares

….and how they look when they come out, nice and brown around the edges!

Apricot bars

Here’s the apricot version of these bars, just as delicious!

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A Your Tray or Mine Recipe and an Online Cookie Swap: Chocolate Buttersweets

8 Dec
Chocolate Buttersweets

These are my other top favorite cookie from our trays!

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2014

This week I was invited to participate in such a fun activity: a digital cookie exchange! Now, you know how much I love cookies, and what a fun idea to do an online recipe swap! I was invited by Patience Brewster, a company that offers a unique line of handmade, hand painted ornaments and gifts for holiday and every day decor.  Their products are so beautiful! Every piece in the collection is based on original artwork by artist/designer Patience Brewster and is filled with intricate details and fanciful designs. You can read more about the company here.

As I was going through my favorite cookie recipes, trying to decide which one to choose for today’s online cookie exchange with Patience Brewster, I had such a hard time deciding! Not just any cookie would do. Ultimately I decided to run the recipe for one of my top two favorite Christmas cookies, the Chocolate Buttersweets. These cookies were the ultimate equivalent of a beautiful Patience Brewster ornament, in a cookie. Hand-glazed, multi-step, multi-layer, delectable cookies, beautiful confections….it’s a perfect fit.

Below you’ll find the step-by-step instructions for this cookie. I hope you’ll give it a try, and I certainly hope that you’ll go on over to the Patience Brewster site and and take a look at their beautiful creations.

In the meantime, I’d like to tag my friend Paula over at My Soup for You and invite her to join in on our online cookie exchange! Paula is a wonderful cook and baker, and I know she’ll be doing some baking this weekend, too! In fact, I’d like to challenge all of my readers and fellow bloggers. Link up a great cookie recipe in the comments here, blog about a good cookie recipe on your own blog, or share a cookie recipe wherever you share, and tag us all!

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ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2011

When I first began the Your Tray or Mine series of recipes earlier this month, I began with the Chocolate Thumbprints, which I said were one of my top two favorite cookie recipes from the trays my mom and I do. Today’s cookie, the Chocolate Buttersweets, are my other top favorite cookie on the tray.

This recipe is not complicated, although it does have three distinct steps: the cookie, the filling and the frosting. Because the cookie should be frosted when it’s warm (but not hot) I recommend prepping the filling first, so that it’s ready. Then make your cookies, and after they are filled, make your frosting and frost the filled cookies.

INGREDIENTS

Cookie base for chocolate buttersweets

If you have a wooden spoon with a round handle, you can use it to poke the holes in the tops of the cookies before baking.

Cookies:
1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour (we also make these gluten free, using Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 flour)

**Filling:
6 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
4 TBL flour
2 tsp vanilla

Frosting:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
4 TBL butter or margarine
4 TBL water
1 cup confectioners sugar

DIRECTIONS:
**Prepare the filling first. The cookies, when done, need to be filled while warm. Have the filling ready to go.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

FOR COOKIES:
1) In large bowl cream together butter, confectioners sugar, salt and vanilla.
2) Gradually add flour to creamed mixture, mix well.
3) Roll dough into 1″ balls, placing them 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
4) Press hole in center of each cookie with finger or the handle end of wooden spoon (if handle is round, not flat.)
5) Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until edges are lightly brown.
6) Fill while warm
7) Frost

Filled Chocolate Buttersweets

Step two: fill the cookies while warm.

FOR FILLING:
Soften cream cheese. Blend in sugar, flour, vanilla. Cream well. Fill cookies.

FOR FROSTING:
In small saucepan melt chocolate chips, butter, and water over low heat. Stir constantly. Stir in confectioners sugar and mix well. Will be lumpy at first until the sugar melts. Spoon a little frosting onto each cookie.

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Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day: Snickerdoodles

6 Dec
Snickerdoodle Cookies

These are fast and easy cookies to make and one of my kids’ favorites.

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 12, 2011

Today’s recipe is a new addition to our cookie trays. It is not one that we did when I was growing up but it’s one I include every year now.

Several years ago when my kids were in preschool we attended a book fair there prior to Christmas. I got them a “Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats” cookbook and this recipe is from there! It had all “regular” ingredients (aka ingredients I had on hand) and that’s why I liked it.

I usually have them help me by dropping the cookie dough in the cinnamon and sugar and having them roll them. Rolled cookies are good for that!

I often double this one, it’s a fast tray filler.

Tomorrow be on the lookout for a fun craft for the kids to go along with this recipe!

Strawberry Shortcake Holiday Treats Cookbook

Here’s the girls’ cookbook that this recipe came from.

SNICKERDOODLES
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

also 2 Tbl. white sugar

1 egg

2 Tbl milk or cream

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375

In medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside

Use the electric mixer to cream together the butter and 1 cup of sugar.

Beat in the egg. Add the milk and vanilla. Beat until all combined.

Add in dry ingredients and beat til well mixed.

In the small bowl, stir together the 2 TBL sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Roll the dough into 1″ balls. Roll the balls in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place them about two inches apart on the baking tray.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are done. Remove to wire rack and cool completely.

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Christmas Dessert: Mocha Roll and Christmas Cookies

29 Dec
Christmas cookie tray

All together now: all of the cookies made by my mom, me and both grandmas, all on one tray.

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 29, 2011

This week I’ve been posting in retrospect about our Christmas Dinner. To me, the best part of any dinner is always the dessert. And like our Christmas Dinner, which is much the same every year, our dessert selection is as well.

First off, there’s the tray of Christmas Cookies. Together with my mom and two grandmothers, we put together a tray of cookies that has about 13 different varieties to choose from. We all have our favorites.

But…we’ve been eating cookies on and off now for two weeks. Well, at least I have. So we have to have another choice also. Enter…the Mocha Roll.

My mom makes the most fabulous frozen dessert called a Mocha Roll.

The Mocha Roll, before the first piece has been cut.

The Mocha Roll before the first piece has been cut.

This picture looks nice enough, but you truly can’t get a good enough idea of what this dessert really is unless you see it cut into a serving, which you will in a minute, when I post the recipe. However, I first must give tons of thanks to my mom here, because I decided to ask her for the recipe *just* as she was getting ready to leave for a cross-country, day-after-Christmas trip and I’m sure she had better things to be doing than emailing me recipes, but sure enough, there it was in my inbox this afternoon. So 1) She made it for yesterday’s dessert, 2) she typed up the recipe for me already so I don’t have to do it and 3) she took the time to send it to me. Thank you Mom!!

Single serving mocha roll

Here’s my dish, whipped cream on the side because I don’t actually like whipped cream. I did that just for you!

Here’s the recipe for her Mocha Roll for you!

FROZEN MOCHA ROLL

(Good Housekeeping Magazine – 1974 or earlier)

Note:  Can be made and frozen one month ahead.

INGREDIENTS

5 eggs, separated, at room temperature

1 cup confectioner’s sugar, divided

Cocoa

Dash salt

Mocha cream (recipe follows)

DIRECTIONS

Day before or early in day:

Preheat oven to 400º.  Grease 15½ X 10½ jelly roll pan with shortening.  Line plan with waxed paper, then grease again and flour.

Separate eggs while they are cold, taking care not to get any yolk mixed in with the whites because if any egg yolk is present in whites, the whites will not beat to their highest volume.  Also, for greatest volume, cover bowl and let egg whites warm to room temperature before beating.

In large bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat egg whites until soft peaks form.  Beating at high sped, sprinkle in 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar.  Beat until sugar is completely dissolved.  Do not scrape sides of bowl.  (Egg whites should be stiff with glossy peaks.)  Set aside.

In small bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored.  At low speed, beat in 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, 3 Tablespoons cocoa, and dash of salt, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula.  Gently fold yolk mixture into whites until blended.  (To do this, with a gentle downward motion and using a spatula, cut through the center of the whites, across the bottom and up the side of the bowl.  Then, give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat the cutting motion until egg-white mixture is broken to the size of small peas.  Fold just until all ingredients are combined, using spatula or whisk.  Over-folding breaks air bubbles, causing a flat jelly roll.)

Spread batter evenly in pan and bake 12-13 minutes.  Cake is done when top springs back when lightly touched with finger.  Do not overbake.

Meanwhile, sprinkle a clean cloth towel with cocoa.  (A flat weave towel, rather than a terry towel, works best.)

When cake is done, use a small spatula to immediately loosen edges from sides of pan.  Invert cake onto prepared towel.  Gently peel waxed paper from cake.  Roll towel together with cake from one of the narrow edges (jelly-roll fashion).  Roll as tightly as possible, but do not press down on cake.   Cool completely, seam-side down, on a wire rack.  Meanwhile, prepare mocha cream.

When cake is cool, unroll from towel.  Evenly spread Mocha Cream on cake almost to edges.  Starting at same narrow end, roll up cake without towel.  Place cake seam-side down on top of plastic wrap.  Wrap cake and then place on heavy duty foil; wrap and freeze cake for several hours or overnight.

About 15 minutes before serving, remove cake from freezer; unwrap; let stand for easier slicing.

MOCHA CREAM:

In medium bowl, whip together, until soft peaks form:

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup light brown sugar

3 teaspoons instant coffee (prefer decaf, but not required)

(You can buy 16 oz. container and use remaining 1 cup to whip and serve with cake; add a little confectioner’s sugar to cream before whipping.)

Serves 8 to 10. This can be refrozen if there are leftovers!

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