Tag Archives: korknisse

Puff the magic pastry, encore

Posted on January 1, 2017 | 4 comments

Happy new year!

Apparently I’m a fan of the repeat, especially for things that are quick, easy, and look good. My Stopover is a case in point.

So are Korknisse.

I’m also a fan of the quick and easy in the kitchen, but it has to be delicious.

One of my go-to desserts is a simple pear tart. Fresh sliced pears tossed with lemon juice, arranged on a bed of puff pastry, brushed with butter and sprinkled with sugar before a little turn in the oven.

Paired (peared? hah!) with my favorite bourbon caramel sauce, this is a heavenly dish. My favorite aunt sends me pears at Christmas, so we had pear tart with Hanukkah dinner last Saturday.

What else can you do with puff pastry? These chocolate chip pinwheels showed up in my Facebook feed as something I did 3 years ago. Looking at the recipe, I thought it could benefit from a hotter oven than the previous go-round, so I had to try it again to figure out time and temperature. We had these on the last night of Hanukkah yesterday. A week bookended with brisket, latkes, and puff pastry is a good week indeed.

Chocolate pinwheel puffs
Yield: 9 pretty puffs, and two not so pretty ones

Ingredients:
1 sheet frozen puff pastry (I used Pepperidge Farm)
3/4 to 1 cup mini chocolate chips
1 egg
sprinkle of sugar, optional

Thaw puff pastry for 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Use a little non-stick spray in the bottom of a standard muffin tin to keep melted chocolate from sticking, or paper muffin cups.

Use a rolling pin to roll out dough to about 12″ by 12″, not a lot thinner, mostly just to roll out the creases. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips over the surface. I’m guessing on the amount, you could go lighter or heavier if you want. Let your conscience be your guide. Mine looked like this. (sorry, bad kitchen lighting)

Roll the dough up into a tube. Scramble the egg to make an egg wash, and brush some on the edge to seal the roll. Slice the roll into 1 inch pieces. Place the pieces into the muffin pan. They look like they’re too small for the pan, but they’ll puff up. The two end pieces won’t be as pretty; you can add additional chocolate chips to make up for it. Brush the pinwheels lightly with the egg wash, and sprinkle them with sugar for a bit of sparkle and crunch if you’d like.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-17 minutes, until pastry is golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Eat the not quite so pretty end pieces first to hide the evidence.

I’m on to blocking for my Stopover. I was shocked at the difference in feel between the unblocked red sweater and the blocked blue sweater. Blocking is magic with Lopi! I’m hoping it’s dry tomorrow, so I can show you which color I chose for the color pops.

Happy knitting, and happy munching!

4 Comments

Posted in foodies!, Knit, recipe

Tagged chocolate pinwheel puffs, korknisse, pear tart, puff pastry, Stopover

Desperately seeking sea arch (Hawaii edition)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 2 comments

We made a return trip to the Big Island just before Christmas to get a little sunshine and warmth.

We wanted to do a hike south of Kona that promised a number of sea arches. Having seen Holei Sea Arch at the end of the Chain of Craters Road last year, I was pretty excited.

Either we missed the trailhead, or the directions were wrong, but it was going to be a long hike over uneven lava rock gravel down to the shore. No thanks. We opted to go to another beach, Ho’okena, which was supposed to have one nice arch.

We wandered the pahoehoe lava shore for a while, and found these.

A consultation with Facebook friends later determined that they are shingle urchins. They’re about the size of a quarter, and look like purple leather buttons with flower petals under them. Cool!

Heading back, we found what we think is the aforementioned arch. It’s over an opening in the rock, so water pushes up through the hole behind the arch when the waves come in.

It wasn’t overwhelming, but at that point we were just trying to declare victory.

When the kids came to join us a couple days later, I told them of our quest. CollegeKid pointed out that there was an arch right below our condo’s lanai. Much easier to get to, and much more interesting!

This isn’t as terrifying as it looks; there is a lot of rock in front of/below them.

But it wasn’t all beach and waves. I got some knitting done! Malabrigo worsted + champagne corks = Korknisse!

Volcano hike and more aloha in a later post…for now happy new year’s eve!

2 Comments

Posted in Knit, travel

Tagged big island, hawaii, kona, korknisse, sea arch, shield urchin

Chasing the moonset, and Korknisse aloha!

Posted on December 24, 2013 | 7 comments

Our vacation in Hawaii last week coincided with the full moon. I love watching the moon set over the water, and this time I was prepared! The moon set later each successive morning, so my pictures were different every day.

Monday, the 16th, 5:24 a.m. HST.

By 5:51, things were looking distinctly reddish!

Tuesday, 6:23 a.m. The moon was full last night at 11 p.m., so this is the full moon setting. The sky is a lot lighter, closer to dawn.

Wednesday, 6:25 a.m. The moon is a lot higher than yesterday’s pic at this time.

By 6:51, the sky was pretty light. No more lovely moonlight on the water, but I do like the puppy-shaped cloud.

At that point, I wasn’t planning to wake early for any more moon pics, but on Thursday, I woke up early by accident, and saw Jupiter, below and to the right of the moon. 6:25 a.m.

I learned a lot about my new camera, and have a lot more to learn. Looking forward to it!

On Friday and Saturday, the surf was unusually high, and the beaches on the west side of the Big Island were closed. This meant less beach time for us, but we enjoyed watching the waves from our lanai. All the comforts of home, and surfers to entertain us, too.

I’ll tell you about our close encounter with a volcano in another post…

Have you finished your gift knitting? I don’t like scheduled gift knitting; it’s too much pressure for me. But I do like a little knitting for a personal touch. Do you remember the Korknisse I knit a couple years ago? (Pattern: Korknisse by Manne)

I decided to knit a few on vacation. But my gauge was a lot looser this time around (a little too much aloha?), so I had to dress up champagne corks instead of regular corks.