🎶You put the lime in the coconut, then fill it with Easter candy?🎶
Feel free to correct me if that doesn’t seem correct.
Recently, I did a sponsored collaboration with Eggland’s Best to feature their liquid egg whites in an Easter recipe! I was trying to think a little outside of the box on this one: I love a good meringue cookie, but I wanted to invoke that springtime feeling. I know I’ve seen “bird’s nests” before with toasted coconut, and I love how they evoke that twig & straw visual. I never tried it for myself, so there was able experimentation on the best way to distribute the shredded coconut all over these sticky meringues before they were baked.
A little experimentation, a little bit of patience, and I came up with what had been living in my head.
*woohoo*
Eggland’s Best 100% Liquid Egg Whites are awesome, and I am firmly in the camp of “work smart, not hard.” Normally, for a recipe like this, I’d be cracking and separating about 6 eggs. One, it’s messy. Two, it’s icky. Three, one minuscule drop of yolk in the egg whites, and you’re basically DONE, because that meringue will not whip up the way you want to. (Trust, I speak from experience.) But, with pourable egg whites, I can save myself time and a mess. I am HERE for that!
These Coconut Lime Meringue Nests truly are a great dessert for spring, Easter, or just because! The hit of lime zest is surprisingly potent, but not omnipresent. It just pairs well with its classic partner in crime, the coconut. As a fun treat, fill them with easter candies like I did. Other ideas? Perhaps whip up a lime curd to fill them with! That’ll certainly brighten this already-stellar dessert up!
Coconut Lime Meringue Nests, made with Eggland’s Best 100% Liquid Egg Whites
Coconut Lime Meringue Nests, made with Eggland’s Best 100% Liquid Egg Whites
Coconut Lime Meringue Nests, made with Eggland’s Best 100% Liquid Egg Whites
NOTE: This blog post was based on content I created for a sponsored Instagram post & recipe created for Eggland’s Best in March 2021. As always, all opinions are my own.
I am not including myself in a list of the five best female bakers in NYC. I might rank about 129,697th in NYC. Ha! When it comes to baking, it has never been a true passion of mine. I’d rather cook – which can be much more forgiving & easy to experiment with – than bake, which can be a true science. Sure, I’ll get on my kicks on baked donuts every so often, and I’ll get heavy into apple pies and crips in the autumn; given the choice, I’d rather pull out my debit card and buy my goodies, let someone else do the work. 😅
Throughout this pandemic, I feel I have become more acquainted with many of the bakeries in my area and online; I’ve been awestruck at the virtual bakeries that have popped up, to be honest. So many folks are baking and shipping out of their own apartments; in NYC, that might mean they’re working out of a half-sized oven in a galley kitchen in a 200 square foot studio. *phew*
With the exception of Hadley Go Lucky – I first met Hadley many years ago at a Yelp Elite Event! Throwback! 😂 – I have gotten to know these other brands better during the course of the pandemic, ordering from them directly or buying their baked goods at local stores. To see so many women thrive just makes me want to celebrate…with all of their cakes, cookies, and breads! Now THAT is where I want to put my money down!
Please click the links for each baker to see menu items and availability; some of their baked goods are sold in stores, while others strictly run virtual bakeries. No matter where you get their goodies from, you’ll be impressed and ready to buy more, I guarantee it!
Ahhhh, Valentine’s Day. A day full of commercialized romance. Nuts to love, just give me the SWEETS.
I’m sure this Valentine’s Day will be different for many as we continue to trudge through this pandemic. Many will stay home with the ones they love – their partner, their kids, their pets, or THEMSELVES! – instead of going out. (Then there will be the people that go out anyways, but…let’s not open THAT can of worms here…)
Though I am more of a salty gal than a sweet gal – I take after my mother compared to my father in that regard – I do love the occasional sweets, and I was really turned onto ruby chocolate a few years ago when I ate it in a Valentine’s Day-inspired cookie from Chip City. The unique fruitiness and distinctive tang – not to mention its rosy hue – drew me in, and I enjoy it enough to buy it on its own to snack on: Chocolove produces my FAVORITE Ruby Chocolate bar, and it’s easy to find at most grocery or corner stores in NYC!
When it comes to experimenting with ruby chocolate, I’ve seen others do it better than me. I put my recipe development hat on early last year – pre-pandemic, what a time! – and tried to get clever; my recent query as to whether it’d make for a good dip for candied citrus fruit was answered by Giora Stuchiner when he recently posted ruby chocolate-dipped candied oranges. (A project for me for another day!)
After trying to think of something on the more unique side, I decided not to get too inventive with ruby chocolate and just stick to something I knew how to make: ganache. The general formula for ganache stays the same, and I just switched ruby chocolate in for my usual milk or dark chocolate. Making a ruby chocolate ganache is ridiculously easy, almost fool-proof, in my opinion.
You know what else I’m good at making? Baked vanilla donuts, a long-time fan of the AsEasy As Apple Pie recipe.
BOOM.
Ruby Chocolate-Glazed Baked Donuts.
I first made these last year for a Galentine’s Day party at my friend’s old apartment in Harlem last year, and they were a smash! I made them a few times again recently, and they were delicious…except my baking powder has seen better days, because those donuts just did not rise! This photo? It’s a year old. Ha! But at least there is one good shot of them in their ruby chocolate glory. Perhaps I’ll get better photos in due time, but…am I that content creator that wanted to get one good Valentine’s Day dessert recipe online this week?
I have used both white granulated sugar as well as coconut sugar, both with success in this recipe.
I have used whole dairy milk as well as oat milk, both with success in this recipe.
This recipe will yield roughly a dozen mini-donuts if you are using a mini-donut pan.
Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a donut pan (6-donut capacity or 12-mini-donut capacity) with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2.) Over a large bowl, pour & shake flour through a large sieve to remove any lumps. Whisk in sugar, salt, and baking power.
3.) In a second large bowl, whisk together oil, egg, milk, and vanilla extract. Pour into dry ingredients and mix until combined; be careful not to overmix! Overmixed batter will result in flatter donuts. (Speaking from experience!)
4.) Carefully spoon donut batter into cavities of donut pan, filling until they are approximately 3/4 full; do not fill to top, or else your donuts will spill over and you’ll lose that quintessential donut hole in the center!
5.) Place in oven and bake for 12 – 14 minutes until golden yet springy to the touch. Remove and place on a cooling rack for 15 minutes before carefully removing from donut pan. Place donuts on cooling rack and cool to room temperature.
6.) Once donuts have cooled, assemble the ganache: Roughly yet finely chop up ruby chocolate and place into a large heat-safe bowl. Heat heavy cream in a heat-safe in the microwave for 45 – 60 seconds; keep an eye on the cream to make sure it doesn’t boil over or scorch. Remove cream from microwave, slowly pour over ruby chocolate, and allow to sit for one minute Use a whisk to combine cream and chocolate until smooth.
7.) Dip donuts into ganache while it’s warm and place ganache-side up on cooling rack until ganache has set; top with some white nonpareils if you’re feeling the need for a little bit of extra texture in your life.
8.) Eat same day – of course! – or place in an airtight container for up to 2 days in a cool place.
Before I dive into my awesome Rosemary Feta Dip recipe, I must be a Millennial and complain about my lack of access to certain technologies right now: I am without a phone. My Pixel 2 met its untimely demise at the hands of the blizzard that hit NYC yesterday. Well, perhaps it was the blizzard indirectly; if I had kept my balance, I might not have slipped and fell on my hip pocket which – I thought – safely housed said phone. I should be able to pick up my Pixel 5 either today or tomorrow, but living this life of not being able to scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and various news sources is…
…well, it’s fantastic. Nuts to all of that! Do I even WANT a new phone? Should I just live that wonderful life my father lives sans computer or phones, like a true hippie?
…nah, I think I’d actually miss Instagram after a while, but I’d give up the rest. HA!
OKAY. Enough with the First World Problems. Back to the Rosemary Feta Dip.
A few months back, when I did my Bud Light Seltzer #UnquestionablyGoodPairings campaign, I whipped up a tasty little dip to go along with it in my photos.
“Is it Rosemary Feta Dip?” you may ask?
Well, I think you’ve figured out this whole post already. What gave it away? 😏
I wanted a chance to formally share it, because it is absolutely delicious, and if you are the type of watch the Super Bowl – be it for the actual game, the halftime show, or the commercials – it’ll be nice to have a few snacks in front of your television or computer screen. This is an easy dip to make for the Super Bowl, or anytime, frankly! It keeps well in the fridge for a few days, and I love to eat it with some crackers or sesame sticks.
Let’s get snacking! (Safety. At home. With no one outside of your household. Pandemic still, y’all.)
Rosemary Feta Dip
Rosemary Feta Dip
Ingredients:
6 oz. crumbled Feta (Go for authentic! Look for that PDO label!)
4 oz. cream cheese, softened at room temperature
3 tablespoons olive oil (Go for a milder flavored olive oil)
1/2 teaspoon fresh minced rosemary
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
A hearty squeeze of lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Directions:
1.) Combine all ingredients in a bowl until thoroughly combined. Serve immediately or store in fridge for up to five days; bring dip up to room temperature and give a thorough stir to reconstitute all of the ingredients. (See? Told you this was easy!)
NOTE: This recipe was related to a sponsored post I did for Bud Light Seltzer in December 2020. This recipe is an original creation, and all opinions of Bud Light Seltzer are my own. And I love their Cranberry Flavor. YUH!
Welcome to Seek Satiation! My name is Allison, an NYC-based culinary content creator. From recipe development to food photography, I dabble in many areas! My motto always rings true: Thoughtfully Curating Culinary Love.
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