Almond Cookies & Orange Cake Bon Bons, #Baked with Love

Baked with Love is a monthly event hosted by RoxanasHomeBaking.com. (Scroll down to see the rules of participation.) If you visit Roxana’s blog, you’ll see she bakes (almost) daily with love! Chocolate Marble Banana Bread and Dulce de Leche Bars are but two examples of the care she pours into her delicious and do-able recipes.

Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys and Girls was my entrée into the world of baking. As a child growing up in Japan, the book was mesmerizing. The mythical American homemaker from the Midwest and her baking projects for kids were so different from my experience. (Discussions about and excursions to exhibits of Japanese artisans held center stage in our home.) 

One Sunday morning (circa age 9), I tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen and baked a surprise Betty Crocker coffee cake for brunch. The scents of baking butter, sugar and spice were enchanting. More magical still were the smiles on the faces of my family.

To this day I see baking as a tangible means of expressing care. So, when my friend, Jeanne threw a potluck party for fellow dance classmates, I was delighted to bake for her Asian theme buffet. My contributions of Chinese Almond Cookies and the Ninja Baker’s Orange Cake Bon Bons were a hit.

Chinese Almond Cookie & The Ninja Baker's Cake Bon Bon

I have Nami-san of JustOneCookbook.com to thank for the cookie recipe. The little almond biscuits (as the British would say) are petite gems made with almond and all-purpose flours and studded with an almond on top. All the ingredients are easily mixed in the food processor. The most time consuming and challenging parts are forming little balls that are exactly 10 grams each. However, a food scale and a good TV show make this task simple. Click here for Nami-san’s Almond Cookie recipe.

Chinese Almond Cookies

The Ninja Baker’s Orange Cake Bon Bons are pretty easy, too. First step is to whip up the orange cake recipe from Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The fresh zest and juice in the recipe really do add a zing to the cake. Also, beating the egg yolks and whites separately ensures a lovely lightness.

The Ninja Baker's Cake Bon Bons

To bake simply place mini mounds (about a tablespoonful into a cake pop maker) or mini muffin tin for about 18 minutes and/or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do cool your mini orange cakes before dipping into melted chocolate. (I like to melt my chocolate in a bowl over simmering hot water on the stove.) Sticking the mini cakes into the freezer helps when dunking the cakes into the chocolate mixture. Place in confectionery cases and voilà, you have a cake bon bon. Easy to pop into the mouth, perfect party fare.

If you’d like to share your Baked with Love goodies, please see 
Roxana’s Baked with Love participation rules:

1.) Bake something with love and blog about it. Anything, no matter the complexity, baked from scratch in your own kitchen. Or it could be an informative post, a tutorial or how-to post. Anything that will inspire us to bake more at home. If you don’t have a blog and you’d like to participate, please email me a photo of your bread and the recipe and I will create a page for it.
2.) Include a link back to this post letting your readers know about this monthly event. Uploading the logo in your post or sidebar would be highly appreciated.
3.)  Please link only posts from the current month. You can link as many as you want!
Roxana says:
All submissions will be added to a Baked with love Pinterest board . Also I’ll do my best to promote everyone’s post on other social media channels. I’ll be using the #bakedwithlove hashtag for Twitter and Google+ (feel free to use this to promote linked posts, as well)

At the end of each month I’ll share a roundup post of up to 10-15 posts that caught my eye during the current month.
 

Wishing you a week filled with love.