Nanny's Crescents

By all accounts, Ryan's grandmother was an excellent cook.  This means that when Ryan's father (who lives alone, in Alabama) comes to visit, he is an extremely appreciative audience.  He knows good home cooking, but he almost never gets it.  Since he was coming into town this weekend, I wanted to make sure to have some dessert on hand and proposed making cookies.  Ryan's mother suggested that I make his favorites, crescents.  She e-mailed his sister for his mom's recipe and in no time, we were mixing up a batch.  They are delicate and crumbly and sweet, even when slightly overdone (which is how Ryan's dad likes them).

NANNY'S CRESCENTS

INGREDIENTS:
2 C flour
1/2 lb butter
4 1/2 T powdered sugar (plus more for rolling)
1 t vanilla
1 t orange juice
1 t cold water
1/2 C chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS:
Pre-heat your oven to 350 F.  Start by cutting the 2 sticks (that's usually how many are in a half pound) of butter into smaller bits.  Then, in your stand mixer, mix your butter until creamy and add the powdered sugar. Then add the orange juice, water and vanilla, continuing to mix.  Slowly add the flour while mixing on low until it is incorporated.  Finally add the walnuts.  Mix one last time to distribute the walnuts evenly.  Form into crescent shapes and set on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done (mine were definitely done at 20 minutes, any longer would possibly have made them too brown even for Ryan's dad).  Take them out and toss them in powdered sugar and set to cool. Try to keep them in the house for more than a day.

Pilgrimage

Last weekend, Ryan and I ate our way through Boston.  I could pretend my priorities were otherwise, but aside from seeing my best friend, I really only cared about the food.  We started with lunch Legal Seafood where I ordered my standard cup of chowder and steamers.  It's always the right choice. Dinner was at Mistral, which is still incredible after all these years.  And brunch the next day was at Zaftig's in Brookline where I devoured the challah french toast.  But with our spare time?  Our minimal spare time between meals?  Well, Ryan asked what I wanted to do.  And did I ask for a ride on the Swan Boats?  Or a trip to the MFA or the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum?  A stroll down Newbury Street?  Nope.  I asked to go to Mike's.  Home of the best cannoli evah.*  Our hotel was a conveniently short walk from the North End, and at 10am, Mike's is as empty as I've ever seen it.  I picked out 2 chocolate chip cannoli, Ryan opted for a pistachio and even though it's highly nontraditional, 

I got one chocolate ricotta with chocolate chips.  Ridiculously decadent, I know.  We've been slowly rationing them out, and they will be gone too soon, but oh, so worth it.

*Yes, I'm aware there's an ongoing debate as to whether Mike's or Modern is the best place to get cannoli. I am unwavering in my devotion to Mike's.  If you want to waste your time over at Modern, go for it.  It makes the line shorter for me.

Happy Birthday Nana!

My grandmother's birthday is today, a mere two days post-Christmas.  She's never really liked having it so close as people tend to lump the two holidays together (really shabby of them, honestly).  But this year, having her birthday so soon is letting me fix a major Christmas gifting oversight.

You see, my grandmother loves coconut.  And because we all know this, she got coconut scented soaps and lotions and even lip balms for Christmas.  Which is why it broke my heart a little when she said "but, I can't eat any of it".  This is a very fair point.  Determined to fix this injustice in time for her birthday, I headed to Whole Foods to pick up some type of coconut treat.  They had chocolate with hazelnuts, coffee beans, pink peppercorns, ginger, but not a single chocolate+coconut=happiness treat.

So I took matters into my own hands and made her some special coconut birthday treats.  They were super easy and taste delicious, although the chocolate does overpower the coconut a bit.

EASY COCONUT CANDIES

adapted only slightly from Not Enough Cinnamon.  My deepest thanks to her for the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

1 C unsweetened shredded coconut (I used the dried coconut flakes from Whole Foods) 

  +  extra coconut for toasting

5 oz Ghiradelli 60% Chocolate (Bittersweet) bars

5 T sweetened condensed milk

DIRECTIONS:

Mix the cup of coconut together with the condensed milk.  Prepare a cookie sheet by laying down a sheet of parchment.  Roll small balls of the coconut mixture and place on the cookie sheet.  Not Enough  Cinnamon strongly recommends rinsing your hands every few balls or so and it does a lot to prevent sticking.  Pop the tray into the freezer for about 20 minutes.  I only left them for 15 but you know I'm lazy.  

Toast a few tablespoons of coconut.  I used my toaster oven for 2-3 minutes on toast.  Set aside.

Using a double boiler, or a metal bowl over a pot, heat all but about an ounce of the chocolate.  I chop the chocolate before putting it in the bowl, but your reserved piece should be in just one or two chunks. Heat the chocolate to 105 F, stirring to melt.  Remove it from the heat and keep stirring.  As the chocolate temperature lowers, add the reserved pieces and keep stirring until the temperature drops to 88 F.  Grab the balls from the freezer and using two forks, dip them in chocolate, coating completely and then replace on the tray and sprinkle with the toasted coconut.  Cool in fridge and store in an airtight container (not in fridge) for about 5 days).

Some words of warning/tips - your chocolate will cool FAST once it hits 88 F.  You'll need to speed.  It's hard to sprinkle the coconut before the chocolate has hardened, but also have enough time to toss all the balls in the chocolate before it's too sticky.  Also, if you have any gaps that didn't get fully coated by the chocolate the evaporated milk will leak out these holes making it sticky and less pretty.  

Tasting Fall

I can't help it.  When the weather finally starts to turn and there's a chill in the air, I immediately think of  New England.  In my mind they are almost synonymous, so that when I think of fall, I picture the warm  coppers and fiery oranges of the foliage in Connecticut. I can practically smell the leaves burning in Massachusetts yards.  I can taste the crisp apples from Lyman Orchards*, the tart freshness of cranberries from the Cape Cod bogs.  But if there's one flavor that New England has exclusive rights to, it might be maple walnut.  No where else in the country does the maple have so much depth and richness.  It's not the cloying bland impostor known as "pancake syrup", it's not a faint background sugary-ness.  And the walnuts are never sad little bland bits of crunch.  They are substantial with an earthy smoothness behind the chew.  Now usually the combination is the star in cool, velvety ice cream, but these cookies will deliver all of the deliciousness in a form compatible with brisk evenings and warm cups of tea.

*More on Lyman Orchards in upcoming posts!

MAPLE WALNUT COOKIES
adapted from Cooking Light
Makes between 2-3 dozen small cookies

NB: If you're interested in baking with maple syrup you might want to invest in some Grade B syrup which is darker in color and deeper in flavor.  It will stand up better in recipes than it's lighter pancake loving Grade A counterpart.

INGREDIENTS:

COOKIES
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t ground ginger
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/8 t ground nutmeg
3/4 C packed brown sugar
1/4 C softened butter
3 T maple syrup (if you use Grade B, you might get away with 2 T)
1 large egg

FROSTING
1 C powdered sugar
3 T maple syrup
1 T milk
2 T butter, softened

TOPPING
1/2 C chopped walnuts, toasted (toast by popping them on a sheet pan in a toaster oven or oven set to 350 for about 5 minute)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F.  In a stand mixer, combine the butter and brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy.  Add the maple syrup and the egg and mix until combined.  In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, salt and (which you can skip if you use salted butter), nutmeg. Stir well to combine thoroughly.  Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and set the mixer on low until it comes together.

Use a spoon to help form small balls.  I found that these are rather puffy if left in ball shape which makes them harder to glaze and top with walnuts.  I sort of gently pressed down the tops once I placed them on the baking sheet to encourage a flatter shape.  Arrange balls on the baking sheet, leaving space between (as I mentioned, mine didn't spread a ton, but you know, better safe than sorry).  Bake at 350 until lightly browned.  I started checking mine around 10 minutes.  It averaged 10-12 minutes although the original recipe said 14, so know your oven.  I was able to transfer them to a cooling rack pretty quickly.

Mix together the frosting by combining the maple syrup, milk and butter and then adding the powdered sugar.  You can whisk or stir until smooth.  Mine was a bit liquidy which resulted in the sort of rustic poured look you see above.  The magazine had sort of perfectly round frosting spread on each cookie.  That was not happening in my world.  One you've frosted, press the walnuts on top quickly so they stick.

Enjoy autumn!

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). 

Pink Elephants On Parade

Another year, another baby shower, another set of sugar cookies! This time, pink elephants were the star of the show.

Sugar Cookie Logistics:
Start with this recipe.

I tend to do this over two days. Either make the dough and bake one night, then ice the next or make the dough one night and bake plus ice the next. All in one night will drain you!!

You can dye the dough to make cute cookies with less icing. Keep in mind that butter cookie dough has a yellow cast and therefore blues can have a greenish, unappetizing cast (ask me about the blue elephants I didn't photograph for you).

The dough needs to be C-O-L-D when you work with it. If you have it out too long it will stick to your counter or rolling mat and you'll lose your hard work.

Ideally, the baking sheets should cool between each batch. A failure to do this will mean your cookies could have random bubbling. I am lazy and don't care. But if you're going to go fancy, you very well might.

I've never had trouble with this recipe spreading. If you usually have trouble with spreading, try this one. If you still have trouble, let me know. I'm really curious.

You must pull the cookies before they brown. You might think they're underdone, but they look so ugly when they start to brown. Act quickly!

Icing Logistics:

I use meringue powder for safety reasons, especially when baking for a baby shower. Real royal icing means raw egg whites. Ew.

Most meringue powder has its own recipe printed on the container. Mine calls for four cups of confectioner's sugar. I could probably coat every surface in my kitchen with that amount of icing. I made a quarter recipe for the detail work on about 4 dozen cookies. If you're flooding (covering the whole surface of the cookie), you may want a much larger amount, but if you're only piping on details (much easier to do well if you're a beginner), don't do it. Unless you have some holes that need spackling.

If you make a quarter recipe, like I did, you'll really want a hand mixer, not a stand mixer. It doesn't have enough volume for your stand mixer to really work with. (Yes, I've held the bottom bowl up so that the mixing attachment could actually mix it, but it's a much bigger pain that you want to deal with).

If you're flooding, you need two consistencies of icing, a thick and a thinner. Do the thick first, then when you've done the details, use water to thin out the remaining icing.

Use a ziploc bag to pipe. It's cheap and accessible. You can use a knife to poke out the bottom hole or a pair of scissors to snip. You want a TINY hole. Much easier to control that way. I usually fill the bag and dye the icing first and then snip.

It's easiest to fill the ziploc bag if you put it in a glass. Think trash bag. So pop the ziploc in a cup and arrange the edges over the side. Then the glass will hold it up for you while you pour in your icing. You can even do your dying then and stir it around with a spoon, and only squish the sealed bag to evenly distribute the colors.

A little goes a long way when it comes to color. Also, plan ahead. If you want blue icing and green, then make the blue first, use it and then add your yellow dye to that bag to make green.
Also, I'd rather run out of a color and have to dye more of the base icing than have an excess of pink and nowhere to use it. I dye each color as I need it rather than making the colors in advance.

If you trace the cookie cutter onto paper, you can use a pencil to plan your design so you know about where the eyes should go or if a tail makes it look like the elephant is pooping (hint, yes, it does).

Unless you're perfect, you'll have a couple of substandard cookies. Ice these first. You can keep them, rather than bring them to your event or serve them at your party, but it won't matter if you wreck them and it will help you get in a rhythm for icing and try out new ideas.

Icing can be really tiring. I do it sitting down at the dining room table. I find I have a steadier hand and better stamina when I sit.

Make sure you let the icing dry completely before putting the cookies away! You don't want your hard work to go to waste!

By Popular Demand - Lemon Ricotta Cake

Dairy products and I have a love-hate relationship. Milk, for example, is the nectar of the devil. It tastes awful and it makes me sick to my stomach. I need it on occasion to bake, but that is it. Consequently, it is really hard for me to tell if milk has spoiled. I have to rely entirely on how it smells, because it always tastes off to me. Cheese on the other hand, I adore. Hard cheeses, soft cheeses, stinky blue, creamy brie, nutty gruyere. So deliciously happy-making. However, in between these lie a sort of dairy limbo that includes yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta. On any given day I can enjoy one of these thoroughly, or take against it. The latter is particularly true when freshness is in question. No amount of rational thought can ease my worries. I simply can't. Just can't. Hate. And this exact thing happened when I went to use up the ricotta from the tomato crostini. It had only been open a few days. The expiration date swore it was fine. But that nagging little dairy fairy on my shoulder was saying "ew" really loudly. And I decided the only way to deal with it was to make sure the ricotta was baked. Because somehow, that would make it okay. (Which is ridiculous, because of course it was okay, I swear I'm not baking with nasty ricotta here). Lucky for me, using up dairy that irrationally scares me can result in a completely heavenly dessert. Like little clouds of lemony cakey goodness. And the pendulum swings back to love.

LEMON RICOTTA CAKE
inspired by Giada De Laurentiis

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 C flour (all-purpose will do)
2 1/2 t baking powder
3/4 C salted butter (this is 1 1/2 sticks) plus more for greasing the pan
1 1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 C ricotta cheese (I used part skim and it worked fine).
3 large eggs
1 t vanilla
2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
zest from 1-2 lemons
powdered sugar for dusting
optional: 1/4 to 1/2 C lemon curd

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9" round cake pan.
In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar (about 3 minutes). Add the ricotta and mix until incorporated. One at a time add the eggs, mixing between each. Then add your vanilla, lemon juice and zest. In a bowl,combine the flour and baking powder. Add your dry ingredients and give it a final mix. My batter was lumpy and also all the zest attached itself to the paddle. I fixed the zest problem by tossing it back into the batter and quickly mixing with a spatula before pouring it in to the cake pan. The lumps baked themselves away. Bake for 35-40 minutes. It is done when a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Optional section: If you like, slice the cake in half so it has two layers (Doesn't that sound easy? It was my first attempt at something like that and those were not so even. Oh well.) Then spread lemon curd on the bottom layer. I used a quarter cup because I wanted it to be subtle, but it may have been almost too subtle so I might move up to a half cup next time. Or maybe I'll just be lazy and not do it at all. Either way.

Serve with powdered sugar on top (you do this by holding a fine mesh strainer over the cake, pouring in a bit of sugar and then tapping the side of the strainer gently so the powder comes down). If you are serving the whole cake at party powder it all at once, if you're eating the slices for dessert each night powder a slice at a time.

Cook a Book

I have a particular weakness for books that involve cooking. Not just cookbooks mind you, but any books that have lots of cooking in them. My latest read that sent me running to the kitchen was a teen book called Flavor of the Week. Not the best thing I've ever read, but I've held it out of the library for about two weeks after finishing it because it has recipes. Mouth watering recipes. Recipes like this one for kitchen sink cookies. Who can resist something that is not only delicious but allows you to clean out your cabinets! Do you have any favorite foodie books that we should read?


KITCHEN SINK COOKIES
from Flavor of the Week

INGREDIENTS:
1 3/4 C flour
1 t baking soda
2 sticks butter, softened (remember, I usually bake with salted butter, so if you use unsalted, throw in a pinch of salt).
1 1/4 C firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 t milk
3 t vanilla extract
2 C uncooked old fashioned rolled oats (I just bought quaker, regular not instant)
1 C chocolate chips (the recipe calls for semisweet, I only had bittersweet, still delicious)
1-2 C other stuff, like nuts, or coconut flakes, or whatever. I used 1 package of mini m&ms, about a cup of chopped pecans and a half cup of mini marshmallows.

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Combine flour, baking soda and salt (if you need salt). Mix well. In your stand mixer, combine the butter and brown sugar. Mix until creamy. Add the eggs and mix again. Add the nutmeg, milk and vanilla. Mix again. Add the flour mixture (guess what?), mix again. Remove your mixing bowl from the stand mixer, because you're finishing up by hand. Add the oats and mix by hand. The add your mix-ins. When everything is combined, drop rounded tablespoonfuls onto your lined cookie sheets (I used silpat, use parchment if you don't have silpat). Bake for 9-10 minutes. Cool for 1-2 minute on sheet before removing to a wire rack.

PS: David Lebovitz has his own version in case you're interested. He'll even let you use up bugles, or pretzels or chocolate covered marshmallow bears (I want one!).

I Baked a Cake!

During the summer I don't always get a lot done during the day. But every day Ryan asks what I did. I tend to mumble out of embarrassment due to my utter lack of productivity. "I read. I watched TV. I took a nap. I tickled the dog". But Wednesday I had something to report. I practiced saying it. Excited: "I baked a cake today!" Casual: "Oh, you know, I just baked a cake." I even debated the basic grunt and point "Urg. Cake." Because come on, isn't that cake pretty enough to do the talking for itself? Two moist chocolatey layers, light and fluffy frosting of whipped cream and cream cheese, sweet sweet strawberries. It's so good. You know you want to be able to brag about it too!

CAKE!
A million thanks to Debbie for the basis of the cake recipe and guiding me through the round pan thingy. Go Debbie!! Also, Debbie now has a cookbook. You really might need it. Lookie here.
Please note, all the things I have done to this cake firmly negate any low calorie/weight-watchery virtues she may have mentioned.

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 t salt (if you use salted butter, please only use a pinch, if that. This measurement is for unsalted butter users)
1 C dutch-process cocoa (admission, I used Hershey's because it's what was in the cabinet. It sufficed).
10 T butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
2 t vanilla
2 large eggs
1 C plain nonfat yogurt

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Debbie suggests greasing and flouring your pans. I found this insufficient and would put parchment down in the bottom of each round if doing it again, this was a nasty little beast to remove from the pans.

In a medium bowl combine your flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt (if using). Set aside.

Cream your butter and sugar until thoroughly mixed and fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs and then mix again until combined. Alternate adding the yogurt and the dry ingredients about a third at a time. After each addition, mix. This is a thick batter, so don't overmix it.

Evenly divide it between your pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the pan (try a half hour) and then run your knife carefully around the edge to separate it further. Very, very carefully turn it out and cool completely, on a rack if you can manage it, but one of mine was so fiddly it needed to cool on a plate. Be careful.

FROSTING!
adapted from here
INGREDIENTS:
8 oz cream cheese
2 C heavy cream
1/4 C sugar

DIRECTIONS:
Whip together the cream cheese and sugar. Then add the heavy cream and keep whipping until the cream can hold a stiff peak. Feel free to mess with the ration of cream cheese to whipping cream, just keeping in mind that the more whipped cream vs. cream cheese you use, the less stable it is, and it will need to be eaten sooner. But you may like the fluffier consistency if the cake will be eaten same day.

NB: Due to a slacker shopping job, I made/used a half recipe of this frosting. As you can see, it made do just fine. I'm giving you the whole recipe because I felt a bit stingy. You may want to feel extravagant or have the option of frosting the sides or you know, just stick your face in it. I don't judge.

ASSEMBLY!!
Rinse, dry and slice up most of a 16oz package of strawberries.

On a pretty serving plate, lay down one of the chocolate layers. Smooth on a suitable amount of the frosting. Artfully arrange the strawberries. (I'm a freak, the inside layer looks pretty much like the top, minus the one central berry). Carefully lower on the second chocolate layer. Top with more whipped cream frosting deliciousness. Artfully arrange more berries. Admire. Announce to anyone who will listen that you baked a cake.

Barter System

As far as I know there are two types of people in the world. Those who can be bribed with cookies, and those of us who are very relieved to find out cookies will be accepted as a bribe.
At work, this cookie-bribing thing has developed into a whole barter system.

The woman who works next to me is one of those people who has everything you would never think to have, but always somehow need. So far this year I've gone to her for pain medication, a serated knife, tin foil and popsicle sticks. I don't even think to ask anyone else. I know that somewhere in the insane miscellany of her world she will have anything I desire. And she comes cheap. All I do is pay her in cookies, usually just a few, not even a whole batch. (Or at least I haven't asked for anything major enough to warrant a whole batch yet; I'll let you know if I do!)

Just this week I had to ante up. This time it was my NEW! chocolate crinkle cookies.
So just in case you're looking to bribe someone sometime soon...

CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES
adapted from William-Sonoma, I was going to try Betty Crocker's recipe but do I have 3 hours? No, I damn well don't.

INGREDIENTS:
1 2/3 C flour
1/2 C unsweeted cocoa powder, I used Ghiradelli
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt (I omitted because I use salted butter)
1 stick butter
1 1/2 C sugar + 1/4 - 1/2 C extra for rolling (I'm not a big confectioner's sugar person).
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350F.
Cream together your butter and sugar (I use a stand mixer). In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt(if you're using the salt). Return to your stand mixer and your light and fluffy butter. Now add the eggs, one at a time, mixing in between. Then add your vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix carefully. When everything is incorporated you're ready to roll! I prepared to pans by covering them with silpat but you could just grease them. Then get a small bowl and put in regular sugar (remember I think confectioner's is kind of nasty anyway). Form smallish balls, I did probably about walnut sized balls and place on the baking sheets, leaving some room for spreading. Bake for 8-10 minutes then remove to cool on a wire baking rack.

Crummy

If you want romantic and cute this Valentine's Day, please, immediately click over to one of the plethora of food bloggers peddling adorable, sexy holiday treats.

I've got none of that. I am heading into this holiday with all the joy and anticipation I imagine most people feel prior to a root canal (having never had a root canal this is purely speculation on my part). Why so bitter? Am I not happily married?

I have in fact spent the past 8 Valentine's Days with my husband. We're not big celebrators, but most of the time I try to do something to make the day, a little special, a little like what I'd want it to be. But I'm out. I completely forgot to make any type of specially themed goody. It was all I could do this weekend to rustle up dessert, to say nothing of something that would communicate endless love for my spouse.

Instead I made a very crummy chocolate cake. I wanted to make Debbie's Chocolate Yogurt Cake. But I was lazy and a fool and instead I made the Chocolate Honeycake I found in the back of my Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook. Big mistake. Huge mistake. I am now out a half a cup of store-brand (but still overpriced) honey, and I possess a cake that tastes more than a little nasty. I should have gone to the store for yogurt. Then at least whilst I wallow in my anti-Valentine's misery I could be eating something I like.

Third Time's A Charm

I have been neglecting this blog. I can be honest. I am stressed and anxious and busy and this is the thing that has fallen by the wayside. In part because there has been no food in my house. It is incredibly hard to blog about cooking when your meals consist of things like the heel of a loaf of bread with some peanut butter on it. But I was determined to fix this, to cook something tasty, to have a worthy post. So to that end I planned and grocery shopped and tried out not one, not two, but three new recipes on Saturday night.

Most unfortunately the main result of this was me realizing just how much I can hate trying out new recipes. I tried making roast chicken with bacon and brandy, inspired by Nigella and Tyler Florence. It came out distinctly uninspiring. Also dry. But I'm blaming the meat thermometer for the dry part. I made these fancy shmancy potatoes that I once saw on Cooking for Real. They only took an extra 30 minutes to cook. Let me be real with you, I do not have an hour and a half to spend on something that looks like an armadillo and tastes exactly like a normal baked potato. Oh hell no.

It was no small blessing that dessert turned out tasty. If it hadn't there's no telling what would have happened over here. The applesauce cake is simple, old-fashioned and easy. A definite winner.

SPICED APPLESAUCE CAKE
from SmittenKitchen who is clearly better at recipe writing and testing than those suckers at Food Network

INGREDIENTS:
2 C flour
2 t baking power
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon (SK used 3/4, but I'm a cinnamon kind of girl)
1/2 t ground ginger
pinch ground cloves
1 stick butter (I almost always use salted butter, which is NOT ideal for baking, but then I omit the salt from the recipe, things usually even out)
1 C light brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 large eggs (that's 1/2 C eggbeaters for those watching their cholesterol)
1 C unsweetened applesauce

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and mix well. Add the eggs, mixing between each one. Then add the applesauce. Again, mix to combine. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Stir to combine. Add in small batches to the wet ingredients, mixing between each addition until all are incorporated. Grease and flour a round cake pan (I'm not a square kind of gal). Pour in the cake batter. Bake for 30-45 minutes (mine took 30 flat). Remove carefully from pan and set aside to cool. Frost when cool.

FROSTING

INGREDIENTS:
5 oz cream cheese, softened (cream cheese has these awesome lines like butter so you can cut it right, who knew?)
3 T butter, softened
1 t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
1 C confectioner's sugar

DIRECTIONS:
Whip together the cream cheese and butter until uniform. Add the vanilla and give it another whip. Sift the confectioner's sugar and cinnamon into the mixture. DO NOT skip on sifting because you are lazy. It will result in little lumps like I had. I don't do frosting really, so this was a learning experience for me. I realized as poured in the sugar that I was being an idiot but it was too late for me to do anything. Save yourselves. Make nice smooth pretty frosting. Sift in the stupid sugar. Beat again then frost the cake!

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.

This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

I'm not sure it's a good sign that it's 8am and I already can't get the song from Nightmare Before Christmas out of my head! However, if you don't already have Halloween cookies, you may need to start making them now, because in my opinion this is really a whole day affair. Between the mixing of the dough, the refrigerating of the dough, the rolling of the dough, the cutting of the cookies, the freezing of the cookies, the baking of the cookies, the cooling of the cookies, the mixing of the royal icing, the dyeing of the royal icing, the frosting and decorating of the cookies, you can absolutely keep yourself (or your kids) occupied until the witching hour.

I used Martha Stewart's Maple Roll Out Cookie recipe for the dough. It's really delicious, but a the flavor is a bit delicate and I felt it was a bit of a waste on the ghosties who needed to be drowned in royal icing anyway. Far better to save the maple recipe for something unfrosted. Also, and I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me before, but your brain is really anticipating "sugar cookie" when you bite into one, so there's always this element of "huh" followed by "Oh yeah! This is yummy!" which is perhaps a bit more mental processing than I'd like with my dessert.

What you need to know about using Martha's recipe:
I know this is probably not going to come as a surprise to you, but the lady is a liar. I made a half recipe, because being a sane rational person who is not giving gift boxes to everyone I'd ever met, I don't need 8 dozen cookies. The half recipe made 2 and a half dozen and it's probable that I rolled them too thin to try to eke out that many. And although this is certainly enough for the two of us, it's possibly fewer than you want. If do you choose to make half recipe, really try to savor the moment where you need half an egg yolk. Afterward, try to figure out who you can feed three quarters of an egg to - my answer? Ryan. You also might want to start with a shorter cook time. Mine took about 10 minutes. Blame my oven or how thin I rolled them - either way we would have been looking at some burnt treats if I'd let it go as long as her.

Colored Pumpkins, oh boy!!:
To get half your cookies pumpkin colored, separate your dough in half. Set half aside for ghosties. Then mix 5 drops yellow food coloring and 4 drops red of McCormick Assorted Food Coloring. You can blend with a mixer a bit, but do finish kneading by hand to get rid of any streakiness.

I am a complete disaster when it comes to royal icing. Seriously. Don't listen to me. I'm not showing you the ghosts that didn't come out well. Also, I made a really small amount because I didn't actually need that much, which meant whipping by hand. Stupid. Update: You'll be a happier person if you check in with Words to Eat By. Debbie knows her stuff.

Royal Icing Advice:
If you're making them for anyone who is squicked out by raw egg, or you know is a child, pregnant woman, elderly person, person with a compromised immune system, use meringue powder. I used the recipe on the back of the meringue powder container. Not fancy, but functional. I piped on details by putting the icing in plastic baggies and poking a teensy hole in the corner. Mix your color in a bowl, not the baggies, ignore anyone who tells you otherwise. They are sadists and are probably cackling evilly as they write that direction. I poured the icing over the ghosts which takes somewhat more icing than you may think. Also let that harden completely before doing eyeballs. It takes a few hours to harden.

Happy October!!

I've always been a big fan of October. The World Series, livable temperatures, beautiful foliage, adorable children in Halloween costumes, pumpkins - what's not to like? I love October so much that I always try my hardest to squeeze every bit of Octobery goodness out of it. I watch Halloweeny movies to get in the mood. Over on Between These Pages I'll be blogging about all sorts of witchy and wizardy children's books. And here is the perfect accompaniment to all of my festive plans - Pumpkin Snickerdoodles. Oh yes. They are every bit as good as they sound.

PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLES
a mad hybrid of Smitten Kitchen, We are not Martha with some necessary adjustments by me.
Makes an obscene 5 dozen (or a bit more) cookies. Half of mine are in the freezer waiting.

INGREDIENTS:
3 1/2 C flour
2 t cream of tartar
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt (only if using unsalted butter)
1 stick of butter
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C +3 T canned pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
2 eggs
for rolling:
1/4 C sugar
2 T cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 400F. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin and mix well. Add the eggs and stir until incorporated. Sift together the flour, baking soda and cream of tarter. Add half the dry mixture to the wet. Stir. Add the rest. Stir. You will now have some incredibly wet batter. It will be beautiful and orange and it will taste delicious. Stop eating it. Don't you know there's a salmonella scare people? Stay away from the raw egg!Refrigerate for 30 minutes. At least. Please. You'll thank me. Roll into small balls and roll in cinnamon sugar mixture like so:

Arrange on a baking sheet. These do not spread as much as traditional snickerdoodles, but still need a bit of space. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack. Please all your little pumpkin eaters.

Disappointment and Pondering

This is a beautiful honey cake. I made it using a fairly majorly altered version of this recipe. Sadly, as pretty as it is, it's just not for me, there just wasn't enough going on there - which is odd, because as I was mixing together the nine million ingredients I was thinking there was too much going on there. At any rate, I ended up very disappointed that I hadn't made my usual (but very nontraditional) little honey cupcakes.

Now I'm left with an underwhelming bundt to finish off and also a bit of roast chicken. (Come on, I know I'm not the only one in this position around Rosh Hashanah). The obvious choice right now is to make soup. But I'm feeling awfully whiny about what kind of soup. Also I kind of want meatballs. I know, not helpful. Since I'm being less than helpful, perhaps you can help sort it out.

poll by twiigs.com

Not Enough Time

This summer I'd become a little obsessed with the idea of making this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I hadn't done it, in part because Ryan and I had a small spat at the Farmer's Market. I asked him if he wanted to come to the market, he said yes, and then when we got there, he refused to have an opinion about anything.

Me: "Should I get some more of the delicious tomatoes?"

Ry: "I don't care. What would you make?"

Me: "Do I need to know now? They're tomatoes!"

Me: "Would you like some peaches?" Peaches are Ryan's favorite fruit.

Ry: "I don't know. Did you want to get them?"

Me: "Is there anything here you want?"

Ry: "I just don't care."

I didn't get the peaches.

Then last week my dad called and told me he had an excess of peaches and would I please do something about that. I did not have to be asked twice. It was time for bourbon peach hand pies. Right. Time. This recipe takes hours. All day kind of hours. You better not have anything else you want to do hours. I thought they were delicious, but I don't know that the end result justified the work. Ryan reports they are "pretty good." Which really does not justify the work.

THERE'S NOT ENOUGH TIME FOR THESE PEACH HAND PIES
adapted from SmittenKitchen

INGREDIENTS:
for the dough
All right folks, the dough is what causes this to be too much work. It's a delicious soft dough, but after it's been out of the oven for awhile it loses some of it's light flakiness - think of how a croissant wilts slightly after it's been out a bit. Smitten says this is the only dough that will work properly, but as I've used my standard dough for empanaditas, I can tell you it will fold easily too. It will not be as light and flaky, but you also won't spend the whole day doing it.

2 1/2 C all purpose flour
1/2 t salt
2 sticks of butter cut into small pieces
1/2 C sour cream
4 t fresh lemon juice (honestly I felt the lemon flavor came out too much, but I don't know if it's needed to tenderize the dough or some such)
1/2 C ice water

for the filling
2 pounds of peaches
1/4 C flour
1/4 C salt
1 t bourbon
1/2 t vanilla
pinch cinnamon
pinch nutmeg

for topping
one egg yolk beaten with a bit of water

DIRECTIONS:
Clear your agenda for the whole day. Mix the flour and salt together in one bowl. Stick the chopped up butter in the other. Put in the freezer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter and muscles the size of The Rock's. You should do this until the texture resembles coarse meal. I ended up busting out a pair of steak knives and cutting the butter in that way. Whisk together the sour cream, water and lemon juice. Make a well in the center of your flour/butter and add half of this mixture. Use your fingers to smoosh this into the the flour mixture. Keep pressing it all together. Get another bowl. Transfer out the doughy parts to the new bowl, so you just have crumbly flour butter meal in your first bowl. Then add the rest of the sour cream/water/lemon stuff and repeat. Then put all the doughy parts together and pat it all into a ball, trying to get up all the flour bits, but not overworking the dough! Refrigerate the dough for an hour.

Divide the dough in half. Roll out half the dough and cut it into circles using a 5 1/2" cutter. I used the metal top of a cookie jar. Place the circles on a parchment covered cookie sheet and stick back in the fridge (I made layers of parchment/dough circles). The unused scraps can be reused, but they'll need to be refrigerated again first, because this dough will be so soft by the time you're done it will be melting into your counter. Repeat with the second half of the dough. Chill the circles for 30 minutes. I don't think I chilled them that long. Maybe 10-15? It depends on how hot it is in your kitchen.

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Make the filling. Chop the peaches into 1/2" dice. Mix with flour, sugar, bourbon, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Spoon the filling onto the circles. Use a bit of ice water around the edge of the circle to help create a seal when you fold it over. Use the tines of a fork to seal the edge in a pretty design. If needed refrigerate for another 30 minutes (I definitely skipped this). Baste the top with egg wash. Cut a small slit in the top of each. Bake for 20 minutes until lightly browned and cracked.

You could cut out a lot of trouble by using a dough that did not need constant refrigeration, I promise.

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.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I first made these cookies there was not going to be any blog post. Then I got mad. I wrote a scathing report in order to share with you the VERY important news that Mark Bittman is a fool. I was going to take back any points I had given him over the delicious shrimp and white beans dish because he had so led me astray.

It all began when I stopped buying Nestle's chocolate chips and started buying Ghirardelli chips. I somehow failed to realize that I would no longer get the recipe for chocolate chip cookies on the bag. I do realize that with the age of the internet, I would easily be able to google up the recipe, but I said to myself, Mark Bittman knows how to cook everything. It says it right there on the front of the book: How to Cook Everything.

So I mixed up his chocolate chip cookie recipe, filled with hope. It was a disaster. The cookies stuck to the tray. They stuck to parchment. They stuck to silpat. I chipped and pried them up and fed my not very discriminating husband bits and pieces of ooey gooey chocolate goop and slightly charred crumbles. And then I had to try to clean up. It is possible at this point that there was some combination of swearing, crying and banging of pans. I was so annoyed and upset that I took the second dozen and shoved them on a tray in the freezer, froze them, and then threw them in a bag to be dealt with later.

It is now LATER.

Later is a delicious place to be. Also, remarkably less sticky.

NEED TO BE FROZEN FIRST, MARK, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
from How to Cook Everything*
*except chocolate chip cookies

INGREDIENTS:
2 sticks of butter softened
1/4 C white sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
2 C all purpose flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t vanilla extract
2 C chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing well until blended. Then add the vanilla. Sift together the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt). Add to the butter/sugar/eggs mixture and mix until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Form into balls and place on a cookie sheet in your freezer. In about 30 minutes to an hour, take the balls off the cookie sheet and place in plastic freezer bags.

To bake from frozen, place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a silpat mat. Cook 10-12 minutes at 375. Let cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to cool further. Or transfer directly to your mouth. Your choice.

Visions of Sugar Plums

On Saturday Half a Yard invited me to share some photos I took at the Trenton Farmer's Market. Over here on the Hungry Hippo, I'm cooking up the goods. And these my friend are not the confections of Nutcracker and Night Before Christmas fame; these are adorable sweet, juicy little plums. Small children may not dream of them, I can't say as I saw any fairies dance, but I certainly had visions of a plummy baked good. I ended up with this plum torte (again, what is with people? This had a cakey base. How is this a torte?...Hmm, googling reveals we should probably blame the Italians - anything round is a torta. Fine. I still say it's more of a coffee cake).

The deep golden brown color? Oh yes, that would be cinnamon and sugar sprinkled all over it. And the plums deepen in color to the beautiful purpley red. Tasty and pretty, what more could you want?

PLUM COFFEECAKE
modified from Splendid Table's Original Plum Torte recipe

INGREDIENTS:
Most of 1 pint of sugar plums (I strongly suspect you could use other fruit for this if you liked)
1 stick of unsalted butter (4 oz)
3/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
1 C flour, sifted
1 t baking powder
1 pinch salt

to sprinkle on top:
1 T white sugar
1 T brown sugar
1 t ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F.
Cream together the butter and sugar until well blended. Add the eggs, mixing well between each addition. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Mix until just incorporated. Grease and flour a 9" springform pan. Pour in the dough and use a spatula to get it as even as you can. Then start on the plums. Sugar plums are VERY hard to pit neatly. I gave up on using halves. I ended up getting two messy halves of plum and then cutting those in half two times (so what's that? eighths?) making the cute little triangles you see in the picture. Arrange them over the top of the cake. If you use regular plums, slices or halves will do nicely. Mix together the white sugar, tablespoon of brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle liberally on top. This is what gives it that nice coffee-cakey flavor. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes at 350. It's done when a knife comes out clean.