Guest Posting and Additional Chinese New Year Gift Ideas!

Hey everyone! I wanted to share with you one of my favorite foodie/crafty/full of awesomeness blog, La Fuji Mama, who believe it or not, asked me to do a guest post for Chinese New Year! Check it out here! Featured there are Lucky Gifts for the Chinese New Year including a recipe for a fabulous Tangerine Peel Chicken Recipe and an orange applique baby project.

But I’m not done overloading you with citrus, oh no! There is not enough time as I’m already taking up valuable Dim Sum of All Fears free giveaway time. So here is my gift to you on this first day of the Year of the Ox! These are worth it but not as Asiany as your typical Chinese New Year gift: Orange Rolls, Orange Chocolate Fortune Cookies, and Orange Pocky!

I love Lion House rolls and I LOVE orange rolls – how smart that they put the two together?

I like this recipe compared with others because it seems to use more orange zest (!) and less sugar (!!). And it uses up food storage items (!!!) Too good to be true!

Orange Lion House Rolls

modified from a recipe by Brenda Hopkin

Ingredients:

• 1 recipe dough for Lion House Dinner Rolls
• ½ cup butter, melted
• Zest from two oranges
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 recipe Orange Icing (see below)

After dough for Lion House Dinner Rolls has risen the first time, roll dough on floured surface to rectangle about ¼ inch thick. Combine melted butter and orange zest in a small bowl; brush over dough. Sprinkle with sugar. Roll up the dough as you would cinnamon rolls. Using regular unflavored floss, cut the roll into 2-inch thick pieces. Place on lightly greased baking sheet. Allow to rise until double in size, about 40 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes, until light golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with melted butter. Allow to cool about 10 to 15 minutes, drizzle with Orange Icing. Makes 18 rolls.

Orange Icing

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice (reserve from zested oranges used in Orange Roll Recipe)
• 2 to 4 tablespoons heavy cream, or 2 tablespoons half-and-half

Place powdered sugar and orange juice in a small bowl; add half the amount of heavy cream. With spoon or mixer, mix until smooth. If icing is too thick, add more cream a little at a time. The hotter the rolls are when frosted, the thicker the frosting needs to be. Note: You can add more orange flavor by mixing in 1 to 2 teaspoons orange zest if desired.

Lion House Dinner Rolls

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
• 2/3 cup nonfat dry milk (instant or non-instant)
• 2 tablespoons dry yeast
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup butter, shortening, or margarine
• 1 egg
• 5 to 5 ½ cups all-purpose flour, or bread flour

In large bowl or electric mixer, combine water and milk powder; stir until milk dissolves. Add yeast, then sugar, salt, butter, egg, and 2 cups flour. Mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add 2 cups flour; mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. (Dough will be getting stiff and remaining flour may need to be mixed in by hand). Add about ½ cup flour and mix again, by hand or mixer. Dough should be soft, not overly sticky, and not stiff (It is not necessary to use the entire amount of flour).

Scrape dough off sides of bowl and pour about one tablespoon of vegetable oil all around sides of bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so it is covered with oil. (This helps prevent dough from drying out). Cover with plastic and allow to rise in warm place until double in size.

Follow recipe for Orange Rolls at this point.

Jazz up the chocolate dipped fortune cookie idea for a subtle lucky Chinese New Year gift! (even if fortune cookies are a ‘western’ idea)

Orange Chocolate Fortune Cookies

Ingredients

• Fortune cookies
• dipping chocolate
• orange oil (not orange extract!)

Melt chocolate following packaging instructions. Add a couple drops of orange oil to melted chocolate and stir. Add more drops if needed until you reach your desired flavor potency. Dip half of each fortune cookie and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or waxed paper. Let chocolate harden and serve!

Orange Pocky Sticks

And I just really like these and they were a recent find for me! I’ve had Pocky before but had never seen orange flavored. They are pretzel-like biscuit sticks dipped in orange flavored chocolate (white or milk choco) and my Aedan loves them to bits. They can be found at most Asian food grocery stores. Except for maybe this one, which I can’t find anywhere! Deluxe!