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December 10, 2005
Orange Oil
Boyajian orange oil is one of the most amazing products I've ever smelled. Tonight I mixed up the gingerbread dough, and I mixed the butter for sugar cookies and apricot foldovers (for my parents) with 1/8 tsp of lemon oil and 1/4 tsp orange oil, and copious amounts of vanilla extract. Those are going to rock. Speaking of gingerbread, I wound up cutting up a fair amount of crystallized ginger, soaking that in the melted butter (was about 1/3c finely chopped ginger), and adding about a tablespoon of grated fresh ginger in place of the 2 tsps of dried ginger that the recipe called for. I also substituted 1/4c heavy cream and 1/4c milk for the evaporated milk that I didn't bother to pick up. Everything was pretty wet, so I ended up adding an extra 1/2c of flour, but I think everything will still be okay. I'm going to try the Alton Brown hint of using powdered sugar to roll things out instead of flour.
And finally, I sampled a boozy ball tonight -- they are very good, a nice kick at the end, but not overpowering. I still might experiment with cherry/kirsch/almond/nilla wafer not chocolate balls. Those should be significantly easier since I have the ground almond flour from Surfas. I'll just toast that in a pan a bit beforehand and then go with it.
Posted by jodikins at December 10, 2005 2:08 AM