Labor Day Desserts

Hello from the other side of Labor Day! This early September post brings tidings of how I spent - or more specifically, ate during - my long weekend. I visited towns of the new and port varieties, doing Newburyport, MA one day and Newport, RI another. Your blogger is a sucker for New England seaside villages, so she got the most out of summer's last hurrah.

Newburyport

Ah, Newburyport - perhaps my favorite of all those villages, the place I could easily visit each weekend, the town which every other town should emulate. My family has a bit of history with the area, so I try to get there each summer. I'm so glad I was able eat fresh seafood at Michael's, sample fresh beer at Newburyport Brewing Company, enjoy live music in the waterfront park, browse endearing local shops, and eat raspberry chip ice cream at Gram's Homemade Ice Cream.

Gram's makes many fantastic flavors, but years (decades?) of trips have led me to zero in on this one. The raspberry flavor of this bright pink ice cream is not the diluted, overly saccharine version you usually find. Rather, it is bright and tangy, with a freshness (and occasional seed) that convinces me that real berries are in it. Imagine a sorbet's pert flavor with an ice cream's composition. Then, it has two kinds of chocolate chips! First, we have large, flat, semisweet chips. These brittle additions add a nice crunch, though they don't really melt in your mouth. Then, we have the scene-stealers. Imagine the tiniest possible peanut butter cups, but instead of having peanut butter on the inside, they're filled with raspberry jam. Such glorious nuggets were liberally incorporated into the ice cream, so that one could get tangy berry freshness, smooth creaminess, a bitter chocolate crunch, the warmth of milk chocolate, and a small burst of fruit all in one bite. A treat if I've ever had one!

Gram's always gets me going, but I was beyond excited to discover a new bakery off State Street! Buttermilk Baking Company's unassuming sign somehow caught my eye; when I walked up to their storefront and opened the door, I knew I had found the Clear Flour of Newburyport. You're greeted by the heady scent of warm, buttery dough and fresh fruit; you see cases filled with fruit tarts, pies, cakes, cookies, scones, all with that hearty and rustic look. It turns out that they're a year-old farm-to-table operation that clearly takes pride in what they've hand-made from local sources. (Thanks to Buttermilk's site [linked above] for this image!)

I took a small peach raspberry pie home, and boy, did it deliver! It made a fantastic visual impression, due to a lightly browned crust ornamented with sparkling turbinado sugar and occasional oozed filling. Also, I love the little dough heart that crowned it all!

The interior was similarly impressive. The filling had peach slices, finely-chopped peach bits, and whole raspberries, reduced by the oven into a soft and gooey mixture. I doubt any sugar was added to the filling, it was so delightfully tart. There may have been spices in there - I couldn't quite place what I'd call a faint chutney quality - but that quality didn't take away from the main event, the superior fresh fruit.

The combination of crust and filling was perfection. The crust was solid, chewy, and buttery, and it really stood up to the dense filling. Its bottom and sides did not get soggy! No flimsy flakes here, phew. The filling had mostly settled into the pie's base, but the top crust crumbled nicely (with its crunchy sugary bits!) into the filling to guarantee all bites had fruit and pastry.

Buttermilk offers a wide range of pies. I wonder what they'll have when I'm next in town. Will I bring home an apple cranberry? A strawberry rhubarb? Or even a Mississippi Mud?!

Newport
I saw a different side of Rhode Island's tony town this weekend. A past excursion involved the lovely Cliff Walk and amblings among stately homes, while this trip centered on the (unfortunately tourist-trap-like) shopping area and waterfront scene. At least there were delicious desserts among the tacky tees!

To me, fudge isn't eaten under "normal" circumstances. I won't crave it in the city or my hometown. Rather, I'll get it on getaways only. It's like it can't exist without quaint architecture, wildflower gardens, cobblestone streets, a town square, and fresh mountain or seaside air. Fortunately, such places tend to have at least one small-batch fudgery - and Newport was no exception! The Newport Fudgery's fudge is hand-whipped in copper kettles; imagine churning butter on a larger (and tastier) scale. They had at least 10 flavors available, so I left with (only) two! I ate the gooey treats over the next few days. I don't have pictures for you, but one description might get your mouth watering.

The fudge's texture was perfect - talk about incredibly smooth and consistent, entirely lacking the graininess that often spoils fudge. Flavor-wise, I'm happiest with the chocolate peanut butter fudge. It was a creamy, harmonious blend of milk chocolate and peanut butter; I really can't imagine a better expression of those two ingredients together. The only downside? It had occasional peanuts mixed in, which got soggy over time. Gross! The triple chocolate fudge was much less appealing, even though it lacked nuts. I thought of Baker's chocolate squares, fudgified - sure, you can tell it's made predominantly from semisweet chocolate (as the other two chocolate flavors stayed hidden), but there's also a waxy, chalky taste that really disappoints. I wonder if more sugar would have helped? This was my first semisweet fudge, and I won't need another.

I ate a completely different dessert on-site! Newport Cookie Company has a delightful bakery store that offers cookies, cupcakes, and ice cream in a tea room-inspired setting. Their big draw, for us, was the make-your-own ice cream sandwich. You could choose any of their varied cookie offerings, and an ice cream flavor, to create your own dessert heaven. I chose a heath bar cookie, a chocolate peanut butter chip cookie, and cookies 'n' cream ice cream.

Look at that monster! The ice cream was made by Gifford's, a Maine creamery whose distribution pattern seems to match wherever I'm allowed to have fudge. (I've seen their New England-inspired flavors before, at Woodman's of Essex - a fried-seafood institution just a short drive from Crane Beach.) Their cookies 'n' cream flavor is solid, though they use more Oreo crumbs than actual cookie pieces. The cookie "bread" was what really stole the show! The chocolate peanut butter chip cookie was lumpy and soft, almost like a chewy brownie, with a pleasantly rich chocolate flavor. The chips were sweet and gooey, obviously preferable to actual peanuts. The heath bar cookie was flatter and stronger, made of a sugar cookie dough with heath bar crumbles scattered throughout. I appreciated the cookie's (very high) candy density! I love the caramel notes and solid crunch that toffee brings to baked goods.

That said, these three parts didn't stay together too well. I spooned most of my ice cream out the sandwich's sides, and broke off cookie pieces as they crumbled away. However, those cookie bits that got soggy with melting ice cream were particularly good.

I'd stop by the Cookie Company again, though who knows if I'd get a cookie? I might have to encourage their tendency to decorate with my favorite color - seriously, all non-cookie items had purple flourishes - by buying a cupcake. :-)

Things In Things: Oreo Peanut Butter Brownies

I'm seeing a trend when baking recipes surface on social networks. Everyone's combining multiple mass-produced treats into any number of uber-desserts - or so I've seen in friends' recipe suggestions, culled from Facebook and Pinterest. Think of them as homemade via premade. One colleague is particularly good at sharing these ideas with me, so that a small part of each workday is spent salivating over [insert CANDY NAME plus SOMETHING TASTY AND SPREADABLE plus BAKED GOOD TYPE here] rather than, say, project management. I baked the most tempting of Shannon's recommendations just the other week.

The treats in question were Oreo and peanut butter double-stuffed brownies. If there's usually a correlation between name length and difficulty of recipe, these are an exception to the rule. You will need:

• Cupcake liners. Spray their interiors with cooking spray before you start. Doing so will keep your treats from sticking at the end.
• 1 box of Oreos. You could be ambitious and use Double Stuffs, but they're probably too thick for the cupcake pan.
• Creamy peanut butter
• Brownie mix, prepared as directed on the box. I normally make brownies from scratch, but that effort's not worth it when the brownie is just one of many "things" in the "thing".

And now, the process!

Take an Oreo, and spread one side with peanut butter. Do the same with another Oreo. Stick one on top of the other, and place them in a cupcake liner. Repeat until your cupcake pan is full.

Prepare the brownie mix according to the package's instructions. Then, pour some over each Oreo.

Bake the treats for 15 minutes, remove them from the oven, and let them cool in the pan on a cooling rack FOR A WHILE. I tried removing them too soon; they remained gooey well after the cooling limit for cakes and muffins.

The finished product tastes exactly as you would expect. There are a lot of soft Oreo crumbles, and not enough Oreo filling. (This is when I wish the Double Stuffs would have fit!) There's gooey peanut butter oozing between the layers, which flows like fudge after being heated. Lastly, there's a thin coating of brownie around it all. I was very pleased with the fudgy and flavorful Ghirardelli mix, but there isn't enough of it per treat to really satisfy a brownie craving. That said, the dessert in its entirety satisfies any sweet, and a hint of savory, craving that you might have had due to its size.

These are so easy to make, and they go over so well, that I highly recommend making them if you ever need a quick, tasty crowd-pleaser. Thanks, Shan, for the idea!

Of Baked Goods and Beer

Some of you know that I have a little obsession with craft beer. Fortunately for that, the past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of beer enjoyment and experimentation, with some baked goods on the side!

First up was my favorite BeerAdvocate event, the Belgian Beer Fest's Night of the Funk ! This event showcases extreme Belgian beers, with plenty of sour, funky, creatively flavored, and higher-ABV brews to try. Two-ounce pours ensure you can try a huge variety, and you walk away with improved knowledge of the various styles as well as a significantly longer cellar wish list! I won't go into my favorites here - let's just say that my in-media-Fest tasting notes are not as coherent as this blog - but I will share a stellar food item that helped us power through the night. Meet the Waffle Cabin's Belgian waffle.

Blurriness aside, you can get a sense of the waffle's heft, as well as a glimmer of the sweet glaze that coated it. The waffle itself is a dense, chewy masterpiece, with a pleasant vanilla taste. It's coated in a sticky, sugary glaze that must be freshly made - there's a graininess to it, as if all the sugar used to make it hasn't fully dissolved. (That occasional sweet crunch is so good!) You can really sink your teeth into this treat, and, strictly speaking, it doesn't need tinkering to be satisfying. But I'm me, and Taza Chocolate was also on hand - so, Chocolate had to meet Waffle. It was a happy coincidence that Taza's Fest samples were cut to fit perfectly in the waffle's grooves. The chocolate softened from the waffle's warmth and melted into each little reservoir. The samples were from Taza's aggressive Mexicano line; imagine high percents cacao, sans sweeteners, with a pronounced grainy texture owing to their stone-ground process. Flavors included cinnamon, chipotle, ginger, orange, and salted almond. I grabbed a square of each flavor for the waffle above. Let's hope I have an opportunity to do a more thorough review of Taza at some point; until then, suffice it to say that these items, combined, made for the best possible Fest food! Oh, along with Corey's pretzel necklaces, gummy worms, and...pepperoni.

The fun did not end that night. You may recall a blurb on post-ACBF fun at the Bocoup Loft; we all met up there again for a bit of post-BBF/NotF fun the next week. Corey and Greg brought the beers, I brought the cookies. I've blogged about my Valrhona triple-chocolate cookies previously, so I won't repeat what I've already said. Just know that this third batch of them was the best yet, in terms of both personal satisfaction with the outcome and their rate of disappearance. (The entire batch lasted maybe an hour, max?) However, let's go over a few of the cookie/beer pairings. First up, we have the Alchemist Brewery's famous Heady Topper! It's been vying with Russian River's Plinys (both Elder and Younger) for the best beer on BeerAdvocate's ratings, and that clout has made it difficult to procure. We got lucky with a Vermonter in our midst. This double IPA has multilayered grassy notes and a long-lingering aftertaste. It's surprisingly light on the tongue for a double.

Next is a collaboration between Sierra Nevada and Russian River, the beloved Santa Rosa (CA) brewery whose groundbreaking IPAs and sours are sadly not distributed on the East Coast. I guess it took Sierra Nevada's partnership to get Brux, a wild ale, out to us. This ale smells rather fresh and is vibrantly carbonated, with only a hint of sourness. I would have expected more from a brewery with an impeccable track record in sours, but that's not to say I wouldn't drink it again. Also, it looks like someone has nibbled a cookie...

Later brews included Jolly Pumpkin's Bam Biere and Hill Farmstead Brewery's Arthur (both saisons), plus nightcaps of New England Brewing's 668 (a Belgian strong pale ale) and Elm City Pilsner. All in all, a great night!

But wait - there's more. Non-cookie foods were obtained outside the Loft. After a series of appetizers at Lucky's (and my first Pumpkinhead of the season - I guess it really is fall!), we stopped by Sportello's bakery counter. Sportello makes incredibly good, unique cupcakes. Here are our strawberry cheesecake cupcakes, readied for travel in upside-down cups. That travel config was fortunate, since I took my cupcake home and ate it the following day.

Sportello "translates" cheesecake to cupcake in an interesting way. We have a graham cracker cake in place of crust, cream cheese frosting in place of actual cheesecake, and strawberry filling plus freeze-dried strawberry garnish in place of fruit topping. Here is the partially-consumed treat; look at that filling and the texture of the cake and frosting!

The graham cracker base was really unique. Store-bought graham crackers are more like sawdust than cake, and their taste is forgettable. This cake, full of brown sugar and cinnamon and butter, was moist and dense and flavorful. The strawberry filling, with fruit pieces and jam, added additional moisture and flavor. The cream cheese frosting was simply perfect! It was sweet and slightly tangy, with a dense, smooth, and even texture. If real cheesecake were anything like this frosting, I would be eating it all the time.

Alas, after the beerdulgence (that's beer indulgence) the night before, I did not wash this cupcake down with yet another brew. Even I have my limits!

So, which beer / baked good combination will be next? I'll take requests.

A Whirlwind of NYC Food

I still owe you the details on London's Afternoon Tea, but let's momentarily divert our attention to a closer metropolis and its plentiful food offerings!

Several of my college friends converged upon New York City this past weekend! Carr and I came from Boston; Linda traveled up from Philadelphia, and Mary and Steph already lived as close as you can get in Hoboken. This happy mini-reunion involved catching up, urban exploration, and - surprise, surprise - delicious food. Let's go through the many and varied eats of Saturday, July 14!

Stop 1: Sugar Sweet Sunshine

We had 30 minutes to kill before our lunch table would be ready. We were near a renowned cupcakery. We all like cupcakes. What did we do? Stop by Sugar Sweet Sunshine, of course, and get cupcakes to go! Ok, those reasons may not qualify for SSS' top ten, but we felt they were more than valid.

I really enjoyed my last visit to SSS, so I was glad to return and introduce others to their delights. I left with the Goodie Goodie (dark chocolate cake with whipped peanut butter buttercream) and carried it back to lunch, then to the High Line, down the length of said park, and around Chelsea Market, until (a) it was a warm mess of a dessert with frosting smeared and melted all over the wax paper bag, and (b) I thought I might have room for it. Talk about a well-traveled dessert! Fortunately, it tasted much better than it looked at that point. The frosting was extremely light, like a whisper of what frosting usually is, with a very subtle and sweet peanut flavor. The chocolate cake had a stronger cocoa flavor, though it was a bit dry. I blame the heat!

Stop 2: The Meatball Shop

Lunch at The Meatball Shop was one of the best meals I've had year-to-date. The shop's premise is simple enough: take meatballs, drench them in sauce, and serve them with or over a side. What's astounding is how impressively good each component is, and how much you get! Take it all in with your eyes, and then imagine me taking it all in with my eyes and stomach..

I ordered the classic beef meatballs with parmesan cream sauce over freshly-milled polenta. The meatballs were hearty and flavorful, consisting of all-natural beef mixed with prosciutto, ricotta cheese, and oregano. The sauce was thick and fragrant with tangy Parmesan cheese, much better than the average alfredo or cheese sauce. The polenta, a true food of the gods with its mashed-potato-meets-cornbread quality, was an ideal consistency - smooth and creamy, with occasional distinct cornmeal grains that gave it texture. As if that weren't enough, shaved cheese was sprinkled over the top of it all. Each bite was the very height of savory decadence.

The deliciousness didn't end there! The presence of the aforementioned cupcakes-to-go did not prevent us from ordering the Shop's signature dessert. They offered customizable ice cream sandwiches, made from store-made ice cream and cookies. They even let you choose two different cookies for the "bread" of the sandwich! So, here is my espresso ice cream with chocolate chip and brownie walnut cookies.

The ice cream was light, more like frozen milk than cream. I appreciated that after the heavy lunch, and it also let the bright espresso flavor assert itself rather than be overwhelmed by the cream. The brownie walnut cookie was moist, chewy, and chocolatey, with (fortunately) fewer nuts than expected; the chocolate chip cookie, though, was dry and forgettable. Now that I've tried the ice cream sandwich, I don't feel the need to repeat it; however, I would gladly re-indulge in a meatball lunch/dinner at the earliest opportunity!

Stop 3: Blue Bottle Coffee

We were quite thirsty after walking the length of The High Line, so we found refreshment at Blue Bottle Coffee. Their cold-brew single origin iced coffee was positively bursting with flavor! I detected the usual cocoa and caramel notes, as well as something fruitier and tangier that I couldn't quite place. Could it have something to do with bean terroir and roasting protocol? (Why didn't I ask the former barista among us?!)

Stop 4: Chelsea Market

Chelsea Market is in a vast building under The High Line, right across the street from Blue Bottle. We naturally moved toward it. It's an indoor labyrinth filled with miniature shops (in store form, not stalls or carts) selling everything from pastries to lobster. Look at the pretty main hall, with its colorful lanterns!

We were still full from the Lower East Side's ballstravaganza; otherwise, I'm sure we would have indulged in a Market treat while there. Instead, I got a brownie to go from the Fat Witch Bakery!

Yes, I bought a brownie advertising an overrated musical. But it was the mint chocolate brownie! And it proved its worth when I snacked on it two days later. As you can see, it's sprinkled with green sugar crystals. They added a nice, sweet crunch. Less visible are the equally green mint chips mixed throughout the brownie, but clustered more toward its bottom.They were soft and creamy, and their mint flavor thoroughly imbued the surrounding batter. The brownie reminded me of a cake bite, having the same fudgy texture as those little treats, but its chocolate wasn't as strong or mouth-coating as fudge. Even though my preferred chocolate threshold was unmet, I'd recommend this Witch for its texture and assertive, sweet mintiness.

At this point, we washed our cupcakes down with whatever coffee was left, and headed back to the East Village.

Stop 5: Maharlika

Believe it or not, it was nearly dinnertime! We chilled at Yuca, sipping on sangria for an hour or so...

...before moving on to Maharlika, a modern Filipino restaurant. I was SO excited to try Flilipino cuisine after learning about the culture in college. We split appetizers of chicharron and lechon kawali, flavorful pork rinds and belly, respectively. (To quote one thread of conversation: "You gotta love a culture that knows what to do with pork!") We also sipped on calamansi juice, a refreshing beverage made from a citrus fruit native to the Philippines. Imagine a delicate juice subtly tasting of lime, lemon, and orange, with just a hint of tartness and sweetness, and none of the usual citrus bitterness. It was the perfect summer drink! Then, I had the tender and flavorful chicken adobo for dinner.

Plump pieces of chicken marinate in soy-based abodo sauce before being simmered in the same sauce and browned afterward. The chicken is served in more sauce, with steamed rice on the side. I enjoyed the soft, moist meat; the peppery, garlicky adobo flavor; and the fragrant white rice's soaking up the sauce. I got busog rather quickly, to use the restaurant's Tagalog word of the day. If only I could have taken leftovers home for the following night!

Stop 6: Momofuku Milk Bar

Our walk toward nighttime birthday festivities took us past the East Village outpost of Momofuku Milk Bar. I've been kind of obsessed with this bakery since I browsed their cookbook in a bookstore a while back, and wanted to bake or try most things from it. How did I satisfy a dessert dream while being too full for dessert? By getting something for later, of course. I enjoyed their birthday cake truffles the following day during the trip back to Boston. The truffles got smushed in transit, losing all photographic potential - so, here's a bakery shot from their press kit.

The truffles were really cute. Imagine small, round cake bites, made from yellowy-brown cake and crushed rainbow sprinkles. Their exterior was coated in drier crumbs of the same cake, plus some intact sprinkles. Adorable! All other characteristics matched their cheerful appearance, bringing any number of childhood treats and moods to mind. The cake was moist and chewy, much denser than, say, a Funfetti cake. The sprinkles added another kind of chewy texture to the mix. Then, they were flavored to the max with vanilla - and sugar. They were almost too sweet, which I could not have handled in a larger amount of truffles or an actual cake slice. Still, I loved that Milk Bar was able to pack so much dessert into a tiny package. It gave me enough of a taste of their wares that I wanted more! Maybe a Cereal Milk latte and candy bar pie from their Brooklyn flagship bakery...or, something I make when I finally buy that cookbook?

*cue unprecedented food coma here*

I hope you enjoyed that New York day in the life of a Boston foodie. Here's to my next trip - and whatever I sample next at any of the above establishments!

Mac 'n' Cheese Tiki Room Throwdown Mintstravaganza

Tony and I wanted to redo our brilliant Bakestravaganza this winter, with a different theme. The pumpkin event had been a success, but it was time to try something new; fortunately, my suggestion of chocolate mint desserts also appealed to him. I found a plethora of inspiring recipes, from grasshopper brownies to peppermint hot fudge, with chocolate mint whoopie pies and several cookie varieties thrown in for good measure. I realized we'd need a day and then some to process all these items through the kitchen. A tall order...

...until Tony had a better idea! Enter a reprise of a social foodie/tippler gathering that long precedes any Bakestravaganza: the THROWDOWN.

I can't tell you how that word came to define this particular style of gathering, but I will share what a typical throwdown entails:

• Mac 'n' cheese - the ultimate comfort food, infinitely variable in ingredients and execution. Spicy varieties, made that way either via assorted peppers or unusual hot sauces, are especially popular.
• Tiki drinks - back when the Tiki Bar TV podcast had regular episodes, we watched the episodes ad infinitum and made the corresponding beverages. Volcano bowls were even pilfered from the Hong Kong (or was it Kowloon?) to make Tiki throwdowns more "authentic", which are still used to this day - as is my Drinkbot impersonation. Current beverages are not so podcast-driven, but no less Tiki-inspired.
• Dessert - obviously. I usually have free reign here.
• Electronica - the boys love their techno, and they taught me to love it, too. If you haven't whipped up batter to a throbbing dubstep beat, you haven't lived. 
• Campy entertainment - in this case, The Room! Oh, hi, Mark.

I hope this post's elaborate title now makes more sense. So, how did it go this time around? In a word, marvelously! T and Nick made two tasty mac 'n' cheeses, pictured below. Greg was Master of Cocktails as well as the creator of a tasty salmon appetizer. Tony provided the tunes. Randall came late, but his salsa and willingness to be krumped by yours truly made up for that. We all laughed at The Room. And I baked chocolate mint chip cookies! See, a little bit of the hoped-for Mintstravaganza happened after all.

The recipe appealed to me for several reasons:

• It requires nearly a cup of cocoa powder!
• There are no eggs to bind the dough together. Instead, you use milk.
• The mintiness comes from mint chips, as opposed to peppermint extract.

I have re-copied it here, with my commentary in italics.

• 1 1/4 C flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 salt
• 2/3 C Dutch process cocoa - Ghirardelli's cocoa always works well!
• 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 white sugar
• 1/2 dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 t vanilla
• 1/3 C milk
• 1 bag of mint chips - I used 1.5 packages of Andes mints since I couldn't find any mint chips. I chopped the mints into fine pieces for inclusion in the cookies, which I have pictured here in my favorite dessert bowl! (The text inside the bowl reads "mint chocolate chip with cookie crumbles", referring to an ice cream flavor.)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa together; set the mixture aside.
3. Beat the butter with an electric mixer until light, and add the sugars. Cream well. Add the vanilla, and beat until smooth. I eliminated the butter-creaming step, creaming the sugars with the butter from the start.
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture in two batches, with the milk added in between. Mix well. The dough is sturdy, but not stiff.
5. Stir in the mint chips.
6. Let the dough chill for at least 15 minutes. 15 minutes was not enough. The dough was still warm and sticky when I took it out of the fridge. I would try chilling it for at least an hour, and the original cook even says that it can be made (and chilled) up to two days prior to baking. Such a wait would test my patience, but at least the dough would be easier to work with.
7. Scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet, and bake for 14-15 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the sheet once they're removed from the oven; they will set up at this point. I fit 9 cookies on each sheet, making 18 cookies total - a far cry from the recipe's estimated output of 3 dozen treats. Perhaps I just scoop a larger cookie than most folks? The cookies are still gooey when they come out of the oven, but they do solidify quickly as they rest on the sheet.

I love how these cookies turned out. First of all, they're so pretty! Note their deep chocolate color, with occasional bursts of bright minty green, and a rough, toothsome texture.

Secondly, they're really tasty! (I am not alone in thinking this; the boys gobbled them up.) The chocolate dough is rather intense. I expect that's due to the liberal amount of unsweetened cocoa, hardly any "regular" sugar, and the dark brown sugar's bitter molasses tang. These are not sweet cookies. It's also a surprisingly moist dough, considering that we only have butter and a small amount of milk to make the cookies wet; each cookie left an oily imprint on the parchment paper, and they didn't dry out too much when left in the open. The Andes mints melted nicely, and ran like little veins throughout the baked dough. They even remained gooey after the cookies had a chance to cool! Their mintiness managed to infuse the batter overall, so every bite had the pleasing duet of chocolate and mint even if there were no delicious Andes pieces within. Lastly, they're so easy! You get something extremely delicious with minimal effort. I'll definitely be baking these again.

So, yeah. We threw down, and it was good! I can't wait for the next one. (I also can't wait to make those grasshopper brownies...)

The Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookie?!

I really enjoy well-crafted or "artisanal" versions of classic comfort foods. That's probably why Flour's creations appeal to me so much, and why I can never turn down a good gastropub mac 'n' cheese or pot pie. So, you shouldn't be surprised that, even though I love and respect the classic Toll House cookie, I wanted to find a recipe that kicked said humble chocolate chipper up a notch. A simple search led me to a well-loved food blog that referenced another well-loved food blog - Leite's Culinaria by way of Smitten Kitchen. If David Leite tells me that something is the consummate chocolate chip cookie, I am tempted to believe him. Still, I knew I had to make it and see for myself.

The actual recipe appealed to me for several reasons:

• All-purpose flour, be gone! The recipe requires near-equal amounts of cake and bread flours. These flours are supposed to yield an airier dough with a finer crumb.
• Sea salt sprinkled on top of each cookie? Yes, please!
• You get to bake with Valrhona chocolate. Consider this the chocoholic's equivalent of a violinist playing a Stradivarius, or a craft beer aficionado drinking Westvleteren on tap. Widely regarded as among the world's finest chocolate, Valrhona is distinctive, assertive, and complex. The recipe suggests any variety above 60% cacao; Manjari, at 64%, is the first variety to fit that bill. You may obtain this chocolate in oval-shaped baking discs called "feves"; I found them at one of Cambridge's larger Whole Foods.

I first made these cookies in the fall, following the recipe exactly. The hardest part was letting the mixture sit for hours; as I waited to bake it, I'm pretty sure I ate several cookies' worth of dough in my impatience. But, good things come to those who wait! Here is a plateful of the resulting delights, so bountifully large and chocolatey:

The cookies were unlike any I had ever encountered! The sturdy dough thinned out and spread rather far while being baked, resulting in large, flat discs. The dough was also fluffier and chewier than a standard-flour dough, even in its flattened state. Most significantly, the Valrhona feves caused the most unusual chocolate distribution and flavor I had ever seen or tasted in a cookie. Chocolate chips stay intact when baked; feves do not. They melt and spread horizontally within the dough, creating a marbled effect. This was advantageous for two reasons: (1) there were no chocolate-free bites, and (2) the pungent Manjari taste was diffused evenly throughout the cookie rather than being concentrated in overwhelming, mouth-coating chunks. What pungent taste, you ask? Manjari chocolate is very bitter and fruity, with tangy citrus notes detectable within the aggressive cacao punch. A little bit goes a long way, and even though there is no particular creaminess or thickness to the melted feves, they manage to coat your mouth and cause the flavor to linger much longer than similar high-percent-cacao chocolates' flavors. Lastly, I was ultimately indifferent to the sea salt. I would have appreciated its savory counterpoint if the chocolate had been sweeter, but the bittersweet Manjari never quite struck a balance with the salt, and their coexistence felt a bit uneasy.

Still, I considered these cookies a success, as did the many people who tried them. (My efforts yielded twice as many cookies as Leite's!) I could appreciate their distinctive, nearly-overwhelming nature. However, there was nothing comforting about them. To me, chocolate chip cookies are primarily about chocolate, warmth (both literal and figurative), and happiness, with their "art" value being secondary; I don't think Leite's priorities aligned with mine. So, I knew I had to re-attempt this recipe with a Julie-esque twist...and the perfect opportunity came toward the end of January!

That particular Saturday was just asking for a dessert like this, with freshly-fallen snow, hockey, a concert, and a delicious lamb dinner all in the plan! I prepared the dough the night before to accommodate Leite's recommended sitting time, following the recipe as written but with two key changes: I omitted the sea salt, and I used three different kinds of feves. A triple chocolate chip cookie is inherently more consummate than a one-trick treat, right? I stuck with Valrhona's exceptional chocolates:

• Manjari, 64% cacao - the same chocolate I used in Take 1, just 1/3 as much
• Jivara, 40% cacao - smooth, sweet milk chocolate, with pleasant caramel notes
• Ivoire, no cacao - creamy white chocolate, with hints of warm vanilla

Here are the feves in glorious abundance, waiting to be added to the dough...

...and here they are, being incorporated!

The recipe's oven and cooling times were not spot-on for the multi-feve dough. The Manjari melted and oozed as intended, but the milk chocolate barely got gooey, and the white chocolate retained its shape. Also, I was baking in a gas oven (as opposed to my apartment's electric oven), and was not prepared for how powerful it was. The cookies were significantly drier than they would have been if baked in my oven for the same time and temperature.

That said, I was very pleased with Take 2! A variety of chocolates with a variety of textures is better than only one type of chocolate; plus, the milk and white chocolates were actually enjoyable in concentrated chunks, so I didn't mind that they retained their shape while the Manjari oozed around them. This simple change made the cookies much warmer and me much happier, satisfying my comfort requirements mentioned above. Then, I solved the oven problem the following day by baking the remaining dough back home. I used my home-field advantage to slightly under-cook the cookies, which resulted in extra-moist, extra-gooey treats! Soft, brown-sugar-y dough with three exceptional softened chocolates in one bite? Oh, my, yes. I absolutely loved these iterations of the cookies, as did their fellow samplers.

So...

Are these cookies among the best I have ever baked? Yes, and they're definitely the fanciest. Are they really the "consummate chocolate chip cookie"? Well, I got them closer to that ideal with the triple-chip upgrade, but I'm still hesitant to bestow such a title when it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Who's to say that a refined, artistic cookie is the way to go? I'm still open to being blown away by a heaped, lumpy pile of dough that's bursting with delicious, gooey chocolate, and that only gets better when dunked in a tall glass of milk. If you have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that you think is worthy of this title, get it to me ASAP!

Bell the Cat's Caramelita Bar

One of the best things about business trips to my company's Belfast, Maine office is getting lunch at Bell the Cat. The emporium is a strange, yet instantly endearing, hodgepodge of cafe, sandwich shop, bookseller, and music store...in a way that is the epitome of mid-coast Maine, and nothing like a Barnes & Noble Starbucks. When I talk about BtC's excellent local flavor, though, I'm referring to more than its unique atmosphere - I'm complimenting some of the best sandwiches, and cafe-style baked goods, I've ever had. Even my favorite sandwich from Cambridge's beloved Darwin's doesn't hold a candle to Bell's Californian, a delightful assortment of my favorite veggies and cheeses piled high or melted on a toasted croissant. What, you'd rather hear about the baked goods? :-)

Well...one is immediately met with a stunning array of cookie jars, and bars piled on bars, upon entering the shop. The variety of cookies is really impressive - think any combination of chocolate, nut, spice, jam, etc - but if I had to single out one baked good to rule them all, it would be the Caramelita bar. I have enjoyed this treat on each 4-hour trip back to Boston since discovering it last year!

What makes this bar such a delight?

• The base cookie is a rich, buttery blend of shortbread and oatmeal cookie. Dense, textured, and surprisingly warm and creamy, it's a perfect support structure for the decadence to follow.
• A very thick layer of soft milk chocolate coats the base cookie. The chocolate is incredibly even and smooth, almost fudgy. Small semisweet chocolate chips are mixed throughout for flavor and textural contrast.
• Large walnut chunks dot the chocolate's surface. Drizzled swirls of thick, milky, slightly-salty caramel coat and secure the nuts to the chocolate, and help meld the delightful dessert flavors.
• Sugar cookie crumbles, with a hint of cinnamon and perhaps more brown sugar than usual, form the top layer of the bar. The crumbles are soft and give in easily to my teeth. They are the lightest characteristic of a bar that gets denser and more delicious the deeper you go.

So, each bite includes two distinctly delicious cookies, some of the best chocolate to be put near a pastry, hearty nuts, and gooey caramel. What's not to love?

Somehow, the Caramelita manages to combine an at-home look and feel with big-time bakery flavor. I could probably replicate the bar in my own kitchen without too much effort, but there is something to be said for letting it keep its place of honor in my Downeast gastronomic repertoire. I will always have something to look forward to, and my stomach can growl in anticipation, whenever I travel to Belfast!

So Many *More* Cookies

I tried two new cookie recipes this past month! One was a marriage of the most popular mass-produced cookie and the most popular homemade cookie, and the other was my second creation from the Flour cookbook.

My friend Leah, whose yearly Superbowl party has become a social institution, had sent me a recipe for Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. She hinted strongly that I should make these for the 2011 Superbowl, and I gladly obliged in the spirit of contributing to the outsize excess of sporting-event foods. "Excessive" is the perfect adjective for these behemoth cookies.

The recipe couldn't be simpler: make dough for chocolate chip cookies, mold dough around Oreos (or, if you're feeling extra-indulgent [as I was], Double Stufs), and bake. The cookie dough took some effort to incorporate, as it is designed to be stiff enough to maintain coverage of each Oreo within. The recipe said to use two cookie scoop's worth of dough per Oreo, but I eyeballed the amount in the absence of a cookie scoop. I may have been overly careful in covering the Oreos, as I could only cover 20 of them instead of the recipe's estimated 24. I baked the cookies for the upper time limit given, and they still looked underdone when I removed them from the oven; fortunately, 5 minutes of cooling on the baking sheet helped them settle into a solid-enough, yet still soft and chewy, state. I'd call that an ideal cookie texture!

So, was the excess worth it? The dough was wonderfully chewy, and the textural transition from it to the gooey chocolate chips was seamless. The cookie portion of the Double Stuf had softened somewhat, and had that falling-apart chewiness of Oreo chunks in ice cream. The Double Stuf cream was warm and gooey like the chocolate chips, and some of it had oozed around the chocolate cookies to mix with the dough and chips. Each bite presented new delights, since you could be met with Oreo cookie, nuggets of chocolate, a rush of warm cream, or all the above. The cookies can stand on their own, for sure, but the few bites that I dipped in milk were over the top - in a good way, of course. I would have to rule in favor of bringing on the excess...and my fellow partiers must have agreed, since there were no remainders to take home.

After experiencing the above cookies' chocolate and cream overload, I decided that my next baking project would involve neither - so, enter Flour's ginger molasses cookies. Two parts of the recipe gave me pause. Joanne's description says that she wanted the flavors of non-spice ingredients to be evident, so she uses less cinnamon and ginger than one usually might. Yours truly the Cinnamon-Tripler was apprehensive. Then, one is told to roll quarter-cup balls of dough for baking! (No wonder the recipe's yield was only 16 cookies; I ended up doubling it for my potluck purposes.) I was worried about how the large balls would fare on my cookie sheet.

Well, I (predictably) tripled the cinnamon - my logic being that if my usual tripling results in three times the normal amount of spice, tripling an intentionally lesser amount should break even with that norm. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly. The dough came together very easily, and was fluid enough that the recommended four hours of refrigeration really was necessary. I then scooped out quarter-cup dollops of cooled, hardened dough and rolled them in granulated sugar. I initially placed 12 cookies on a sheet, but most finished edges ended up touching - so, I only baked 8 per sheet after the first round. The doubled recipe yielded 32 large cookies as expected. It is difficult to judge scale from the picture below, so imagine the cookies being a tad larger than a spread palm.

Unsurprisingly, Joanne did it again! These cookies were the best spice cookies I have ever had, beating Dancing Deer's beloved molasses clove delights for the title. They were slightly crunchy near the edge, and pleasantly chewy on the inside. The ginger and cinnamon flavors were happily assertive, but I could still taste the smooth warmth of the butter and the dark syrupy richness of the brown sugar and molasses. The sugar dusting provided the tiniest, but still significant, counterpoint to the nearly-savory nature of this spice cookie, and gave each cookie a very pretty glitter overall. The cracks in the dough also added to the cookies' appearance. I can't wait to make these again, maybe around the holidays.

I was at Flour's Central Square bakery the other day, where I saw small - as in, not from 1/4 C dough! - versions of these cookies. I think I'll follow their lead when I repeat this recipe, as the large size isn't necessary. Hopefully a slight adjustment of the baking time is all I'll need to make that successful. Thanks again, Joanne, for a real potluck pleaser!

Then, I ended my February cookie marathon with a known restaurant delight. I have discussed Finale's Cookies and Cream dessert here before, but I just had to order it again the other night. Finale has switched up the cookies since I last wrote! The preponderance of snickerdoodles is gone, and has been replaced with a similar number of fluffy, sugar-encrusted sugar cookies. Also, the original nut and raisin cookies have been ousted in favor of two stupendous milk chocolate walnut cookies. Both changes improve the overall dessert. My one complaint? You now get two miniature whoopie pies instead of one glorious full-sized treat. This ends up being less whoopie overall, though there is an advantage to being able to eat one in the restaurant and take the other home. I suppose that if I were really intent on enjoying as much whoopie pie as possible, I could buy a full-sized one from Finale's bakery counter...

Happy cookie-ing!

Homemade Oreos

Sigh, fall - or potluck season, as it were! I decided that it was about time I bring something other than brownies to my first potluck of the season, though whatever I brought would (obviously) still be a dessert item. Flour Bakery had taught me the tastiness of a baker's oreo, so I thought I'd try creating my own version of this surprisingly complicated but delicious cookie. Here is the recipe I used, which is cobbled from various online sources with personal modifications. My commentary on the process is in italics.

• 1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 C sugar
• 1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/4 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg
• (frosting) 1 stick butter, room temperature
• (frosting) 1 8oz. block cream cheese, room temperature
• (frosting) 4 C confectioners' sugar
• (frosting) 1 t vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until uniform.
3. Using an electric mixer at low speed, beat in the butter and then the egg. Continue mixing until the dough is a solid mass.
4. Place rounded teaspoons of batter on a parchment-lined baking sheet, approximately 2" apart. Slightly flatten the dough. I spaced the cookies less than 2" apart to maximize the number baked per sheet (25). I should have heeded this recommendation, as most cookies had baked into each other. I cut them apart when they were just out of the oven and still soft, so no harm was done in the long run.
5. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through. Cool the cookies on a rack afterward.
6. (frosting) Cream the butter for 2 minutes. Add the cream cheese and vanilla, and mix well. This is a beautiful blend!
7. (frosting) Gradually add confectioners' sugar until the desired consistency is reached. I used 4 cups, but could have used more. The consistency was more like spreadable cake frosting than the stiff cream of the storebought oreo.
8. (assembly) Put frosting in either a pastry bag with a 1/2" tip, or a ziplock bag with a 1/2" tip cut out. My non-pastry-bagged self had to use the improvised ziplock. I regretted this within a few minutes.
9. (assembly) Add 1 T frosting to the center of one cookie. I couldn't get the frosting to come steadily out of my bag. Intense squeezing ruptured holes all over the ziplock, so that thick streams of frosting shot haphazardly about my assembly area. After sponging frosting off my clothing and cleaning up the spillage, I admitted defeat and took to the holey bag with a knife, using the utensil to spread frosting on my oreos per usual frosting applications.
10. (assembly) Place another cookie on top of the frosted cookie, and press lightly to spread the frosting to the cookies' edges. I had a lot of frosting, so my oreos were robustly filled! The average finished oreo measured 2" to 2.5" wide, and a little over a half-inch tall.

Behold the finished product!

This recipe made 30 total oreos - 60 individual cookies, and enough frosting to stick sets of two together. The cookies were crisp and crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle, which was a surprising variance considering their thinness. They softened over time, probably due to the proximity of moist frosting, which actually helped one take the best possible bite - a bite into a softer cookie does not displace as much frosting! They tasted like an exceptionally cocoa-y, buttery devil's food cake. The frosting was very smooth and creamy, with a cream-cheese tanginess that cut through the sugary sweetness. The flavor pairings were great - the cookie's butter and frosting's cream cheese amplified the perception of the other flavor, and the comparatively bitter cocoa powder was tempered by the powdered sugar. The contrasts in texture and density were also notable - the cookies were light and grainy, while the frosting was heavy and smooth.

My fellow potluckers and I were very happy with the outcome of this recipe, though I wish the execution had not been so troublesome. Maybe I'll have to get some pastry bags and hope for better results! I would make this recipe again in my quest to approximate Flour's quality in baking. :-)

So Many Cookies

The Finale desserterie chain recently added a new treat to their restaurant menu, just in time for the fall season and its attendant comfort-food cravings! The menu suggested that the Cookies and Cream dessert offered more, quantity- and variety-wise, than their other plated desserts. I was already familiar with Finale's smaller, fancier indulgences, so I was eager to try something potentially bigger and better. Plus, I knew a plate of warm cookies would feel oh so cozy on an unexpectedly chilly September evening.

As you can see, we have an eclectic cookie assortment, accompanied by a vanilla gelato float crafted with Izze blackberry soda and garnished with white and dark chocolate wedges. This fizzy, fruity float counted as the cream. The cookies, moving clockwise from the float, are:

• Chocolate Chip - a basic cookie filled with melty chocolate slivers. The batter had run rather thin, resulting in a crispy, crunchy cookie - but, this contrasted so nicely with the warm, gooey chocolate bits.
• White Chocolate Cranberry - huge white chocolate chunks, plump cranberries, and small walnut pieces studded a chewy, buttery mound of a cookie. I was really impressed with the robustness and quality of the mixins, as well as the base batter's flavor.
• Brownie - a fairly basic fudge brownie topped with sweet, smooth chocolate ganache.
• Oatmeal Raisin, 3 scattered across plate - alright, I'll admit it. I left these behind. Readers who know my distaste for raisins will understand.
• Linzer - this unusual spice dessert has a cookie base spread with raspberry jam, with dough latticed over the jam layer. This made me think of holiday treats, with plenty of assertive spices that were suggestive of gingerbread.
• Snickerdoodle - a light sugar cookie coated in cinnamon sugar. This wasn't a traditional snickerdoodle in the sense that I know, as the spice was not mixed throughout the batter. Still, Finale's airy version was a welcome respite between bites of heavier cookies.
• Raspberry Shortbread - a thin layer of raspberry jam and evenly-distributed small-crumb streusel topping cover a soft, buttery, salty shortbread cookie. A real winner, probably my second-favorite dessert of the bunch.
• Peanut Butter - a crumbly, dry, and intensely nutty peanut butter shortbread.
• Whoopie Pie - I thought this "pie" might be the best cookie on the plate, so I saved it for last. Goodness, was I correct! Two sizable chocolate cookies - which are stiff but chewy, surprisingly fudgy and almost brownie-like when bitten, and exploding with full dark chocolate flavor - sandwich a thick smear of fresh, tangy white chocolate cream cheese frosting. I wish I had been given 3 of these beauties instead of 3 oatmeal raisin cookies! I made a mental note that the whoopie pies can be ordered individually at the desserterie's to-go counter.

So many cookies, so much dessert! Tasting each cookie was like unwrapping a new present. Dessert as entertainment, even.

Apparently Finale has a prize for whomever manages to eat this entire dessert, but the waitress had not yet seen anybody do so and win it. I put forth a valiant effort and ended up taking home bits and pieces of most cookies. I would definitely order the Cookies and Cream again, as it was delicious; fun; and, considering my little bag of leftovers, two desserts in one! I should also mention that this sweet abundance costs the same as Finale's finer, tinier treats, so it's a great value as well.

Flour Bakery vs The Snack Aisle

In eating lunch at Flour Bakery's Fort Point location this weekend, we decided to break away from our usual cupcake-and-muffin baked-good order and try their take on two snacks known to grocery shoppers everywhere: the Pop Tart and Oreo cookie! Needless to say, both were infinitely tastier than their processed-food counterparts.

Flour's pop tart is a thick shell of puff pastry dough folded around a pile of thick, seedy, flavorful raspberry jam. The baked tart is then covered in a thin confectioner's sugar glaze with a barely-perceptible taste of lemon. It sounds so simple - and it is! - but I had never had a filled fruit pastry that was so successful in fruit, pastry, and overall taste. The flaky, buttery, vanilla-flavored pastry was a delight on its own or with the glaze, but the best bites included the robust jam. You won't find this kind of flavor in the breakfast aisle! I only wish that the jam had been spread more evenly throughout the tart.

Flour's oreo is a sandwich of two thick, dry, yet chewy cocoa-powder cookies and vanilla filling that tasted equally of buttercream and cream cheese frosting. As for the cookies, the traditional oreo taste was kicked up a notch due to more cocoa powder than the mass-produced inspiration, as well as a good amount of butter to hold it together. The slight chewiness was also appreciated. Why? (1) 'Tis a sign of freshness! (2) The buttery cocoa flavor could be more thoroughly enjoyed. (3) The moist filling would have slipped out upon biting two harder, cardboard-style cookies. The filling was a delight - while I initially thought it was the whipped buttercream frosting used in Flour's cupcakes, I detected a taste of cream cheese in later bites that served the filling well. Cream cheese would have thickened the frosting and therefore made it more stable for inclusion in a cookie, and it also added a slight tang to the overall flavor that blended marvelously with the bitter cocoa in the cookie. I'll definitely order some oreos again - if not for immediate eating in the bakery, then to go as a snack for later!