Move Beyond the Pint and Spoon

Once in a valiant effort to drown my sorrows I ate about a half gallon of Butter Pecan ice cream direct from the carton. I was sitting on the floor of my parents bedroom watching television from a distance that would have likely gotten me yelled at had my mother been home.  I figured that was better than eating ice cream in her bed.  I may have been depressed, but I still had scruples.  Eating ice cream in moments of misery is such a time honored tradition that it's become cliche.  Can you even count the chick flicks that feature a woman spurned and her trusty pint and spoon?  It's a lot and frankly, it's time to move on.  Don't look at me that way.  You know me better than that right?  Do I seem like the kind of person that would offer up fat-free yogurt to someone in pain?  Hell no.  I'm the kind of person who would bring you homemade chocolate mousse.  That's right, this is no health sermon, this is a straight up upgrade.  Step away from the the freezer burned pint of whatever the heck is.  Dip your spoon into the silky, creamy, dark chocolately goodness.  Whether or not you let a fruit sully your indulgence is entirely up to you.

SERIOUS CHOCOLATE MOUSSE
Desperate times call for desperate measures.  This is technically a 2/3 recipe.  The original is in
The Essence of Chocolate which you probably need to own anyway.  The original full recipe says it serves six.  I served 8 with the 2/3 recipe because it's that rich.  But I will NOT tell anyone if you eat the whole thing yourself.  Nor will I judge.

INGREDIENTS:
2 4 oz bars of chocolate - I used 1 bittersweet and 1 semisweet.  Modify this based on how dark you like your chocolate
3 egg yolks
2/3 C whole milk
2 T sugar
1/2 C heavy cream

DIRECTIONS:
Start by chopping up your chocolate, nice and fine.  Put it in a large bowl and put a strainer on top (you'll need this later) and put it near the stove, where you can grab it when things get going later.  Put the milk in a pan and heat it up to a simmer.  Once it's simmering, dissolve 1 Tablespoon of sugar into it.  While you're waiting for it to heat up you can whisk or stir your egg yolks so you have a nice eggy mess.  You're going to need to combine the warm milk with the cold eggs which is a nasty business, but it must be done.  Take the milk/sugar off the heat and very slowly pour it into the eggs.  You will need to continuously stir the eggs while doing this, because you don't want them to get too hot too fast.  That will result in a scrambled egg mousse which would be beyond gross.  Also, realize that if you're pouring the milk and stirring the eggs you officially have NO hands left to hold the bowl.  So don't use a flimsy one.  Use a nice solid well anchored one.  Once you've combined them, hopefully without any egg scrambling you'll need to pour them BACK into the saucepan and then put that back on the stove. Stir constantly with that spatula or wooden spoon until the custard is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.  This should take 6-10 minutes, but if it's really thickening up fast, use your judgement.  You don't want it to get little curds in it.  If it does that it's heating up too fast, you want it to be one consistency throughout (and yes, I've had it mess up and get curds and yes it really was salvageable and once I did remake just the egg/milk part).  Take your pan off the heat and pour the custard into the strainer that's above the chocolate.  The general idea is that the lumps won't go through and the custard will begin melting your chocolate.  Once you've gotten the custard through, stir up your chocolate until it's all melted and is the same color and consistency throughout.  Set this aside and get out your heavy cream.  I prefer to whip cream with a hand mixer, my stand mixer can't quite reach the bottom it's own bowl to whip small amounts and my arm gets tired if I do it by hand.  Whip the cream until it is soft and fluffy and can hold a soft peak.  Once the cream is whipped add the other tablespoon of sugar and whip it in.  Don't whip it too much or you'll make butter.  The chocolate mixture needs to be room temperature so it doesn't melt all your beautiful whipped cream, so make sure before you start to fold in the whipped cream. You can fold in the cream gently until the chocolate is a uniform color.  This can be put in the fridge for cooling and setting in one giant bowl if you're a)an accomplished scooper and server or b)you plan on eating it all yourself direct from the bowl.  If you're sharing it (I know, it's a crazy idea) you might like to portion it into bowls or ramekins before refrigerating.  It should take a few hours to set up (the original recipe said four but mine was fine before that). 

Snow Day Provisions

I tend to feel that certain things are best marked with celebratory snacks. Snow days are definitely one of them. I don't know about you but to me snow days mean cocoa. Today while I was making the requisite cup, I started eyeing my mini marshmallows. Adorable, fluffy, cottony little bits of sweetness, they were calling out for something bigger and better than a slow melting demise on top of the cocoa. And so, rocky road cookies.

But here's the rub. I got a new silpat for Christmas and so I was able to rotate pans while baking. I baked half the cookies on my old mat and an old black standard lipped cookie pan. I baked half the cookies on my new mat on a shiny flat silvery cookie sheet. They turned out totally different. The ones on the old mat and pan were fat and plump (as well they should be, little mounds of chocolatey, nutty, marshmallowy goodness). The ones on the new mat and sheet were spread very wide and flat (still tasty but more regular chocolate between bites). What the heck happened? Clearly something mat/sheet related right? All cookies were baked for the same amount of time. They were alternated in the oven, so it wasn't like the plump ones baked up first or anything. Where the frick is Alton Brown when I need some food science answers. Probably off eating his own, non-tempermental rocky road cookies. Bastard.

ROCKY ROAD COOKIES
This recipe probably needs a bit of tinkering with given its tempermental nature. I'm thinking of cutting back on butter and sugar next time, so feel free to try doing that yourself. Less butter because I'm blaming it for the over spread, less sugar because when you're adding chocolate and marshmallows you don't need the base to be as sweet.

INGREDIENTS:
2 C flour
3/4 C cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 t salt
2.5 sticks unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 C sugar
3/4 C chopped pecans
3/4 C mini marshmallows - halved if you can stand it, full size they stick more and compromise the structural integrity of the cookie a bit
3/4 C chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix well. Add the vanilla. Sift together the dry ingredients. Add slowly, a cup or so at a time, mixing in between additions.
Add the pecans, marshmallows and chocolate chips and stir gently but thoroughly so the mix-ins are evenly distributed. Using an old black cookie sheet and your old silpat mat, put heaping tablespoons of batter on the sheet (I may have rolled mine, I'm weird like that). Leave some room for them to spread, a lot if you fear they'll bizarrely flatten like mine. Bake for 7-9 minutes, no more than 9 though. Leave to cool 5 minutes on the pan before removing to a wire rack. Try any sooner and you'll have serious cookie carnage.

An Attempt at a Puddle Cookie

This is what things have come to around here. I had to actually stop my husband as he was about to grab one of these and beg to take a photo before the last of the batch disappeared into his belly.

My father's words on tasting these? "If you had a store to sell these, you wouldn't need to sell anything else."

All of which was very reassuring to me, since I tweaked a recipe I found on 101 Cookbooks, and I think the end result was not exactly what was intended. I'm pretty sure mine were a bit chewier than the originals. The upside is, whatever these are, they are good. Delicious even. And to be perfectly honest, they're more candy than cookie. No flour. That my friends is highly suspicious, but it tastes so good I'm not complaining.

Also, off topic - but just in case you missed it, my Friday post on a tomato and bacon topped pizza somehow ended up posted before the kale salad. So if you haven't seen it, scroll on down to check it out.

NOT REALLY PUDDLE COOKIES
adapted from 101 Cookbooks

INGREDIENTS:
3 C confectioner's sugar
2/3 cocoa powder
2 1/2 C toasted pecans chopped
1/2 C egg beaters whites only
1 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS:
Mix ingredients together. I toasted my pecans by putting them on a baking sheet in the toaster oven at 350 for about 6-10 minutes. Anyway, just mix it all and then spoon onto a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment or a silpat mat. The batter will be looser than a normal cookie batter. Don't try for more than six on a sheet as they expand somewhat. I baked mine at 350 for 10 minutes and tried to ignore dire warnings that underbaking and overbaking would ruin my life. I pulled them when they looked done, not wet anymore but dry and with a bit of a gloss and crackle.

Cheater Cheater Cookie Eater

In all honesty, the hardest thing about baking, for me, is that first step where I have to actually pry my ass off the sofa and go into the kitchen. Once I start, things usually go along very nicely. I have a lovely stand mixer, which I consider essential for painless baking. No longer do I leave baking until after dinner, instead I do it early in the day (when I have energy), or right before dinner (when I can be prepping something else during the waiting phases). I've learned to wash up while the cookies are in the oven, so that when they come out they are all ready and I have nothing left to do but enjoy. But another thing I do to ensure painless baking is cheat. While I do make ultra complex recipes (Remember the Rugelach?), most of the time, I do something easy for regular baking. And if it isn't easy, I make it easy. When I saw the recipe for Hazelnut Chocolate Thumbprints on Smitten Kitchen, I knew I had to make them. But like many other readers I was shocked to realize that she expected me to grind my own hazelnuts, rather than open a jar of Nutella. Clearly she doesn't know me AT ALL. So I cheated. I took thumbprint cookies and filled them with Nutella, no toasting hazelnuts, no skinning hazelnuts (seriously, a huge pain in the ass), no grinding hazelnuts. Just a stand mixer, a jar and a spoon. And trust me, it is delicious. Who says cheaters never prosper?

CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT THUMBPRINT COOKIES
inspired by Smitten Kitchen
yield: approximately 24-30 cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 stick plus 5 T butter
2/3 C sugar
2 C flour
1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla
Nutella (I went straight from the jar, but I'm betting I used 1/2 C or less)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. In the stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and salt (really, you should, I on the other hand, sort of sprinkled the salt in the bottom of the measuring cup for the flour and tossed it up a bit, yeah I know). Add the dry ingredients in stages, mixing in between each addition. The dough will not roll itself together, it will seem rather pebbly, but if you press it together with your hands, you'll find it holds together pretty well. I refrigerated mine for 20 minutes, but mainly because I was baking off 2 as samples, I'm pretty sure you don't have to. Roll the dough into small balls (a bit smaller than golf balls, like meatballs maybe?) and place on a baking sheet, I laid down my silpat for this. Then use the back of a teaspoon measuring spoon to indent the top of each. Sometimes they'll kind of fall apart when you do this and look like this:You can fix this problem by sort of smooshing it back together with your fingers until it looks better:
Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Again, all thumbprint recipes I've used called for 20-25 minutes, but mine were browner than I would like at 17 minutes. You should pull them before they are browned on top, just a smidge golden. Let them cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. When they are completely cool, fill with a teaspooon of Nutella per cookie. I used two spoons to get the Nutella off in a relatively neat manner, and had a cup of hot water at the ready for when things got sticky.

Dark Chocolate Almond Bark

Oh. Sorry. The above picture is very much NOT something edible. It's what happens when you take one completely adorable snow-loving dog for a walk in the midst of a winter storm. He gets so cute that he turns into a stuffed animal.

All right, enough with the thoroughly unhelpful pet photos. I assume you're here for the holiday candy-making. I began making almond bark because it's my father's favorite chocolate candy. I'd found a store near me that made it with really dark chocolate and was excited to pick some up for a present last Christmas. Not only were they out, they couldn't tell me either when or if they'd ever have it again. Very helpful. So I figured I could make my own. It's really not difficult, it's just a lot of stirring.


ALMOND BARK
I strongly recommend using a candy thermometer with this recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
8 oz ghirardelli (or other high quality) chocolate. I use 70% because we like things very dark around here.
almonds - I completely eyeballed it, and then tossed the bag. I think I used a bit less than a cup. It kind of depends what kind of almond to chocolate ratio you prefer.

DIRECTIONS:
Use a double boiler or place a bowl over top of a pot. Use about 1/2 inch of water and if using a bowl, make sure the bowl does not touch the water. Chop your blocks of chocolate into smaller pieces. They don't need to be tiny or anything. Reserve a piece of chocolate that's about 1" by 1/2". Place the chocolate into the top part of the double boiler. Turn on your burner to medium. Turn on your candy thermometer. Heat the chocolate, while stirring, until the temperature reaches about 105 F. Then remove the bowl from the pot and continue to stir. The temperature may increase slightly before it starts going down. Add your piece of reserved chocolate at this point. Continue stirring constantly and keep a close eye on the temperature. When the temperature reaches 88 F add the almonds and stir until they're completely coated. Then using a spatula smear the chocolate almond mixture over a sheet of foil or parchment paper. Many recipes will tell you to premark the area you'll be covering with chocolate first (um, like before you even started melting the chocolate because when it reached 88F you don't want to be messing around) but I'm not uptight like that. You don't want it to be too thin, I think mine covered about an 8 by 8" or 9 by 9" area. Allow to harden. You can allow it to harden in the fridge. If you did the process correctly, you've tempered your chocolate which will keep it from getting to melty at room temperature and from coming off all over your hands. The refrigeration only speeds up the hardening, but you should be able to leave the bark out after that. If you mess up, no big deal. It still tastes good, you'll just have to lick your fingers more.

For Catching Bears of Very Little Brain

These delicious honey chocolate crisps are possibly exactly what Winnie the Pooh would like if invited to tea. They are chewy, sweet without being too cloying and have just the right amount of chocolate. Elegant enough for adult parties, but simple enough to be a smackerel for any small person's tea party you might need to organize. But beware, you're likely to find you have to share, with friends, housemates, or small yellow bears.


CHOCOLATE HONEY CRISPS
from Donna Hay's Off the Shelf cookbook

INGREDIENTS:
For the cookies:
1 stick butter
1 cup honey
1 t baking soda
2 cups flour
3/4 cup superfine sugar (turn regular sugar into superfine by putting through your food processor)

For the topping:
1/3 C cream (I used heavy cream)
8 oz (approximately 1.5 C?) chocolate (Donna Hay says milk chocolate, I used semisweet chips, with 2 t sugar to sweeten it. I have no scale and using the chips needed a cup equivalent, I had more than enough topping).

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. On the stovetop, heat up the butter and honey - this goes a bit better if you've sliced your butter, it melts faster than if you drop a whole stick in. Don't let it get too hot. When it's all melted together, add the baking soda. It will make it all carmely colored and foamy. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl combine your flour and sugar. Mix well. When the butter/honey mixture is ready and slightly cooled, pour it into you flour and sugar. This can be done mixing by hand, but it is a pretty stiff dough, so you'll get some exercise. The dough should be smooth and shiny. Use a tablespoon to measure out small balls of the dough. Roll the balls between your hands to make them smooth. The smoother the ball, the rounder the finished cookie. Place them on lined cookie sheets - I tried both parchment paper and foil and the parchment was a million times easier to get the cookies off. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. This is a very, very chewy cookie, so don't overbake. Allow the cookies to cool while you mix up the chocolate topping. In a small saucepan over low heat, add the cream and chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Allow to cool slightly. Place a teaspoon worth of chocolate in the center of each cookie.

My chocolate did not harden completely so these are not easy to store. Maybe it's just the heat. Oh well, I guess you'll just have to eat them quickly!

Birthday Cake

Truth: I have had the same birthday cake every year since my very first birthday.
I have never made this cake myself. My mother does it, with love, as she always has.

It is delicious.

Just as a great birthday cake should be, it is moist. It is not so chocolatey as to coat your mouth (just the cheeks of a one year old). It can be iced with chocolate or as I request now, mocha. It's simple, basic, tasty - what storebought cake mixes are trying so desperately to replicate.
Also, it's incredibly easy.

I'm simply going to pass along my mother's recipe and her comments, unedited, because really, mother knows best.

BIRTHDAY CAKE AND FROSTING
Ultimate Chocolate Cake -
This came from one of those hippie parenting books. It is made in one pan, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of taste. It was a great book with all sorts of crafts and activities for having fun with kids.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 C evaporated milk (no, it is not the whole can; you are just going to have to make two cakes!)
1 t vinegar
4 squares chocolate (1 square = 1 oz) I use a combo of semi-sweetened and unsweetened or whatever I have on had. Who knows what it was meant to be?
1/2 C butter, cut into pieces
1 C boiling water
2 C flour
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 t baking SODA
1/2 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

In a bowl, combine 1/2 C evaporated milk, 1 t vinegar. In a sauce pan, combine 4 squares chocolate, 1/2 C butter, 1 C boiling water. Stir until melted. Add the canned milk/vinegar. Stir again. Add 2 C flour, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 t baking SODA, 1/2 t vanilla. Beat well with a wooden spoon. Pour into two greased and floured cake pans. Bake 35-40 min at 375 degrees.

Mocha Icing

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 C sweet butter (I use regular butter; sweet butter is w/out salt)
2 1/2 C confectioner's sugar
2 T cocoa
2 T hot coffee
1/2 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Cream butter. Add sugar gradually, beating well between additions. As it becomes thick, add cocoa. Add hot coffee and vanilla. Continue to beat until light and fluffy and thick enough to spread. Use for filling and to frost top and sides of cold cake.

Do not eat it or there will not be enough to cover the cake.

Butter Frosting (CHOCOLATE!)
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 C butter
3 C confectioner's sugar
4 T evaporated milk
3 T cocoa
1 T vanilla

DIRECTIONS: Cream butter. Add remaining ingredients and beat til fluffy.

These (frosting recipes) are from The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedia Cookbook- the new revised deluxe edition. I think you already have a picture of it on your blog. My mother's was bound neatly.Published 1950. Apparently, as in the case of Nana, it was available earlier in segmented sections, including Your Leftovers; Your Canning, Freezing and Preserving; Your Lunch Box; Your Quick Dinners for the Woman in a Hurry. I think the segments were in the supermarket and you could buy one a week or month or whatever and then they sold a wire apparatus so you could clip them into a neat little binder. It was my mother's bible, but then again, she didn't really like to cook!

Long Distance Hug

Sometimes, everything is just completely and thoroughly, exasperatingly crappy and overwhelming. Right now is one of those times. And if I still lived in Boston, I would call my dearest friend and she would make it all better. She would give me a hug, and let me cry and then she'd bake me brownies. The crappy things would all still be crappy, but I'd feel less alone and more able to cope.

There are 300 miles between us, so I'll have make do. I'm starting with the brownies. It's the closest I can get to a hug, long distance.


J'S BROWNIES

Ingredients:
2 squares of unsweetened baking chocolate
1 stick of butter plus a few spoonfuls to coat the pan
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c flour
pinch of salt
spoon of vanilla

Directions:
Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a double boiler (or in a metal bowl resting on top of a saucepan with boiling water in it, like this:

After it's all melted, take off the heat and let it cool for about five minutes. Stir in the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing between each egg. Add the vanilla. Add the flour and salt. Mix well, scraping sides.

Preheat your oven to 375. Turn a 8x8 brownie pan upside-down and mold a sheet of tin foil to it. Take off the foil and flip the the pan. The molded foil should fit nicely inside the pan. Melt the extra butter and coat the foil in the pan. Pour the batter in and bake in a 375 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, depending how done you want them. Try not to over bake, as they will become dry and icky.

Chocolate-Covered Carmelized Matzoh Crunch

Frankly, I feel like a bit of a poser posting a recipe for a Passover dessert, what with not being Jewish and all, but I've been going to seders for off and on for a good 7 years now, and this year, for the first time, I was responsible for dessert. For those unfamiliar, Passover desserts are notoriously not great (since they must be flourless), especially when you consider the selection available at a regular supermarket in Rhode Island, so I volunteered (completely selfishly) to try out this recipe I'd been eyeing jealously for nearly a year. It is insanely easy. It is delicious.
And you still have time to make it for the seder tonight!

I completely stole the recipe from David Lebowitz. I did not alter it in any way, and it turned out perfectly.

CHOCOLATE-COVERED CARMELIZED MATZOH CRUNCH
recipe from David Lebowitz

INGREDIENTS:
4 to 6 sheets of matzoh
1 C butter (sliced) - you can use margarine if needed
1 C brown sugar
1 t vanilla
1/2 bag (160 grams) semi-sweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375. Find a baking sheet with a lip, and line it with foil, making sure to cover up and over the sides. Lay the sheets of matzoh in a single layer over the baking sheet, breaking it as necessary to fill in all gaps. Heat the butter and brown sugar together on the stovetop stirring frequently until boiling. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add vanilla, and pour mixture over the matzoh, smoothing to cover all the matzoh. Reduce oven temperature to 350. Cook matzoh for 15 minutes, watching to make sure it doesn't burn. It will bubble, but if it starts to burn lower temp to 325. Remove from oven, and pour chocolate chips over the surface. Let sit for 5 minutes, then use an offset spatula to smear chocolate all over the top. Let harden, preferably in the fridge, and then break into pieces. Bring as a gift, share with your guests, or shut yourself in the bathroom and gobble it all down yourself.