BBF Brownies

As several past posts attest, I love baked goods and craft beer. The latest Bocoup Beer Fest inspired me to combine the two in a new way - namely, baking with beer. (I don't know what took me so long...)

I knew I had a winner when I saw an appealing recipe from The Kitchy Kitchen. Why did I choose it?

• It uses three distinct chocolates - cocoa powder, semisweet chips, and dark (70+% cacao) chocolate.
• It uses three distinct spices - cinnamon, cayenne pepper, and espresso (not technically a spice, but you know what I'm getting at).
• It uses beer - something dark and malty, which makes sense for baking with chocolate (though not for my personal drinking enjoyment).

What better, or more intriguing, way is there to get creative with brownies?! I'm sharing the slightly-reworded recipe here, with my notes in italics.

• 1 C flour
• 1/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder. The original recipe suggests Valrhona, but I already had Ghirardelli.
• 1/4 t cayenne pepper. I more than tripled this, but I could barely taste it in the finished product.
• 1/4 t cinnamon. I more than tripled this, too, and WOW - the pungent spice really came through in the end. I loved it!
• 8 T (1 stick) butter
• 1 T instant espresso. I used 3 packets of Starbucks' Via Italian Roast. It's not technically espresso, but it successfully imparts a strong coffee flavor to whatever I put it in.
• 3 1/2 oz dark chocolate. I used Valrhona's Guanaja feves.
• 1/2 C malty beer. I used Southern Tier's Choklat, an imperial stout brewed with...chocolate!
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 C white sugar
• 1 C brown sugar
• 2 t vanilla
• 1 C semisweet chocolate chips. I used the Whole Foods house brand. Their chips bake better than Toll House's ever have!

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degres. Line a 13x9-inch baking pan with parchment paper, and spray it with a nonstick cooking spray.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, pepper, and cinnamon together.
3. Melt the butter, dark chocolate, and espresso in a saucepan over heat. Stir the beer in once everything is melted, and let the mixture cool. The beer bubbled and frothed when it was added. It was here that I realized the carbonation was a key component of the recipe.
4. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugars, and vanilla together.
5. Add the dry and wet ingredients alternatively to the egg mixture, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Do not overmix. The batter is very thin, almost watery - more like a cake batter than a brownie mix.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips. I enjoyed seeing the beer's bubbles poke up between the chocolate chips.
7. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, and bake for 30-35 minutes. 32 minutes worked just fine.

(Two side notes: I omitted toasted walnuts for reasons my regular readers understand. Also, Claire said any malty beer would work, even a Belgian-style quadrupel! I'll use a quad next to see what Belgian yeast flavor, if any, makes it to the end.)

I am obsessed with these brownies for two reasons. First of all, the chemistry of baking with a carbonated beverage fascinates me. The beer provides carbon dioxide, so the recipe did not call for baking's typical White Powders. Secondly, the brownies look, feel, and taste unlike anything I've ever made or eaten.

The surface turned out pock-marked and irregular. (Thanks, beer bubbles!) Their texture was like a moist, dense cake with a soft, large crumb. The brownies' only fudgy aspect was at the bottom of the pan, where the chocolate chips had sunk and melted into a gooey layer. This almost-fudge was fantastic, and the melted feves plus cocoa powder added plenty of chocolatey depth to the cakier portion. Aside from the chocolate, the most aggressive flavors were the cinnamon and espresso. Both were so strong that I was reminded of Mexican chocolate. The cayenne pepper, even in its tripled quantity, was barely noticeable. The beer added some maltiness, but that, too, would have slipped past my taste buds if I hadn't been actively searching. Still, the variety in something as simple as a brownie has me wanting more, ASAP! My BBF compatriots must have agreed, since, yet again, the treats were gone in an hour.

What other items, if any, have you baked with beer?

Also, for those of you who may be wondering when I'm going to start a beer blog:

I already have one, in the form of Untappd! This app is basically a Facebook for beer. You check in beers as you drink them, with the option of adding your current location (powered by Foursquare), a rating for the beer (up to five stars, in increments of 0.5), a photo, and a Twitter-style 140-character-limit description. I'm pretty diligent about using it, so I have a record of nearly every beer I've had, plus tasting notes, since I downloaded the app last August.

Follow your friends and see what they're drinking. Like - or in Untappd parlance, toast - and comment on your friends' check-ins. Get ideas for future beerventures from the beers the app suggests following each check-in. Make a note of beers you'd love to have by adding them to your Wish List.

If you're as nerdy about craft beer as I am, find me on Untappd - and if you're curious about the check-in pictured above, you'll learn more in my next post! Don't worry, there will be plenty of desserts.

Maple Cranberry Pecan Breakfast Cake

Are breakfast baked goods desserts? Well, they are in this blog! They're also my biggest food weakness. I probably get more satisfaction from a fluffy, chock-full-of-something-tasty muffin than almost any dessert. However, such indulgences are not practical - so, I usually settle on cereal or Greek yogurt. Unless it's a week when I do a lot of running...

...or there's a potluck brunch at work.

A year ago, we had work brunches fairly regularly. All team members contributed something, and we'd have "team meetings" while noshing on all manner of morning treats. An ideal meeting scenario, correct? I was so excited when my manager put a brunch back on the calendar in 2013. I jump at any opportunity to try another Flour recipe, so I thumbed through my baking Bible, hoping for inspiration. Inspiration came in the form of a maple cranberry pecan breakfast cake.

The recipe is in Joanne's cookbook, so I won't copy it here. This post's title lists its flagship ingredients, and Joanne's instructions, though verbose, are easy to follow. That said, I have two suggestions.

• Thaw, then chop, the cranberries. The frozen fruit rolled out from under my knife, which nearly sliced the fingers holding the fruit in place. Next time, I'll either thaw the fruit to room temperature before chopping, or I'll use fresh cranberries. The chopping is necessary to keep the fruit incorporated throughout the batter; the whole cranberries floated to the top of the loaf as it baked.
• Line the loaf pan in parchment paper. As the berries floated to the top, the caramelized pecans sank to the bottom. I was not prepared for how sticky they'd be, frustrating all efforts at removing the cake from the pan. I finally got the cake out in chunks, with the base of the loaf separated from the crown; fortunately, it wasn't too hard to reassemble, and it held fast once set. Still, none of that would have happened if I had lined the loaf pan in parchment paper for easy removal. Lesson frustratedly learned.

Here is the reassembled cake, ready to go in its glazed glory! (Yep, that's a drizzle made of powdered sugar and maple syrup. Whoa.)

Inconsistent distribution of contents aside, I was really pleased with this cake. First of all, it looks extremely festive. Secondly, it has a taste to match! It has a syrup-soaked flavor without a syrup-soaked texture; just the right amount of syrup, apparently, goes in the batter. Its texture varies from top to bottom; you start with something fluffy and buttery, and end with something dense and moist. The overall effect is like a buttermilk pancake, stuffed with tasty fruits and nuts, that has been exposed to varying degrees of maple syrup. Another way of saying that is that it's a Friendly Toast pancake, in actual-cake form. (Cantabrigians and New Hampshirites will understand the praise in that analogy.) The cranberries provided pleasant bursts of tart juice that cut through the sweetness, and the caramelized pecans enriched the batter with their dense chewiness and earthy flavor. Oh, and that maple glaze? It was literally icing on the cake!

The baked good went over well at our potluck brunch, alongside the chocolate chip pancakes, French toast casserole, miniature quiches, maple sausage meatballs, donuts, bagels, and fried chicken with waffles ( ! ) that rounded out the spread. But really, would you have expected a lesser reception for anything from Flour? I hope not.

Here's to the next brunch, whenever it may be!

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!

Smitten with Blondies

I AM SO BEHIND IN BLOGGING, AND IT IS MILDLY STRESSING ME OUT. Let's pretend that you've read all about:

• Sportello's fantastic whoopie pies,
• a pie-making extravaganza at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts,
• the pumpkin-y treats at CBC's Great Pumpkin Festival, and
• desserts for Thanksgiving and tree-decorating.

Now that those are done, let's talk about rainy-day baking! Yep, today's weather provided the perfect excuse to stay indoors and make something cozy and delicious. I searched a favorite source for something easy, quick, and filling; needless to say, I found something I wanted to bake in less than a minute. Friends, meet the Smitten Kitchen's blondies.

Blondies are, in some ways, more challenging than brownies. The dough is so basic that it could easily turn out bland, and the quality of your chocolate - if you're like me, you always cram your blondies full of chocolate chips - is significantly more exposed in that dough. I expected to save some experimentation toward the perfect blondie by going with Deb's selection. As you'll see, that expectation wasn't really met. Here is the recipe, with my commentary in italics.

• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 C brown sugar. Once you've used Whole Foods' light brown sugar, you can't go back to Domino's. I was pretty certain that this strong, molasses-y sugar was the key to a flavorful blondie dough.
• 1 large egg
• 1 t vanilla
• a pinch of salt
• 1 C flour
• 1 C chocolate chips. I used Whole Foods' organic semisweet chips, due to their past versatility in my (mom's) brownies.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8x8-inch pan. The buttering wasn't enough; the finished product still stuck formidably to the pan. Use buttered parchment next time!
2. Mix the melted butter with the brown sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in the egg, and then add the vanilla and pinch of salt.
4. Stir in the flour and the chocolate chips.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes, keeping in mind that under-baking the dessert will yield more of a cookie-dough-like result. I took the blondies out after 23 minutes, and they took hours to solidify. I wonder if the 25-30 minutes you usually see on brownie recipes would be a better timeframe here.

I admired the blondies' smooth, porous surface as I waited for them to cool. They really reflect my kitchen's garish light.

Now, behold them all cut up and ready to eat!

Don't they look appetizing?
 

Looks aren't everything. These look much better than they taste or feel. Let's start with the texture. Even after hours of cooling, they were more gelatinous than cakelike, as if cookie dough had been slightly melted, (UPDATE: The next morning, after sitting overnight at room temperature, they're as dense and hard as a cold stick of butter.) Odd. Also, they're very oily, thanks to an actual stick of butter that's mixed into relatively little batter. Neither of those characteristics are bad per se, but they weren't what I wanted when I set out to make blondies. Also, they could be tastier. The brown sugar's robust flavor came through, thankfully, but it would have been much more enjoyable in a properly chewy, cake-like substance than it was in mush. The chocolate chips' flavor also came through, which, I realized, was not as good as I had anticipated. I've used Whole Foods chips before, but I always melted them - and never dealt with them intact, apart from the token handful enjoyed while mixing batter. They're rather waxy, and the cocoa seems really flat. These blondies really brought those qualities - or lack thereof, ha - to the forefront. I guess there's a reason I've increasingly used Ghirardelli, Guittard, and Valrhona chocolates when I need chips to stay chips. I'll know to use such brands in my next blondie foray. Forgetting quality for a moment, I managed to get the quantity of chocolate right. One cup of chips guarantees this batter is nearly bursting with the stuff!

It's going to take a while to get through these.

I hope I have better luck the next time I make blondies - and whenever I next turn to Smitten Kitchen. Speaking of which, did you know there's a Smitten Kitchen cookbook? I haven't bought it yet, since I haven't come anywhere close to exhausting Deb's online repertoire. Also, I've never been able to perch bound cookbooks near work surfaces in a way that they stay open. Still, if any of you would like to gift me with said cookbook, I wouldn't say no. 'Tis the season, after all... ;-)

Lastly, I have a new social media obsession. I just started using Instagram! I've edited and posted many more photos than I would usually add to Facebook in the equivalent timeframe. You can probably tell that the above photo is from Instagram; follow @somuchdessert for more drool-worthy pics, as well as visual insights into your blogger's "real" life. Happy snapping!

Smitten with Brownies

I've sworn by my mom's Double Chocolate Brownie recipe for years. If we've ever been at a party together where guests bring food, you've probably had them. They have won renown, both in her circles and mine, for their bold chocolate flavor and dense, chewy texture. They're so good that I sometimes call them my Epic Brownies - if there has ever been a food that could anchor a great sweeping saga, it is these brownies. I never thought I would want to bake a different brownie recipe...

...until a few weeks ago.

I love the Smitten Kitchen food blog, and use it for specific recipes and general foodie inspiration. I ended up clicking through her "Bar Cookies or Blondies and Brownies" category one afternoon, which led me to this simply- yet effectively-titled post. It looked easy enough to make, and if Deb has a favorite, well, I'm more likely to consider her's than a lot of people's. I did my best to ignore any qualms I had about cheating on my mom's recipe, and baked them that evening. The recipe as published on SK makes an 8x8-inch pan's worth of brownies; I prepared that amount for the initial test round, but I've doubled it since to accommodate a 13x9-inch pan. Yes. I've baked this recipe three times and counting. It's that good - and my friends and colleagues would agree.

Here's the Favorite Brownies recipe with slight rewordings, and doubled ingredients to enable double the brownies. My commentary is in italics.

• 6 oz unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped or broken. I used a combination of Ghirardelli chocolate and Baker's squares, since that's what was in my kitchen at the moment.
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
• 2 2/3 C granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 t table salt
• 1 1/3 C all-purpose flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 13x9-inch baking pan with parchment, extending it up two sides. Butter the parchment, or spray it with a nonstick cooking spray. The buttering is key - otherwise, the brownies will stick to the paper and you'll have a difficult time peeling them off.
2. In a medium heatproof bowl over gently simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter together. The elevated bowl is unnecessary. Melt your butter and chocolate in a pot on the stovetop, stirring frequently so that the chocolate doesn't burn. Not only will this save you dishes, but it gives you enough room to mix in all following ingredients. My double boiler is NOT large enough for all the batter!
3. Whisk in the sugar, then the eggs, and then the vanilla and salt. Stir in the flour.
4. Scrape the batter into the pan, and spread until it's even. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out batter-free. 27 minutes worked best for me.
5. Let the brownies cool before cutting into your desired size. These take a LONG time to cool, most likely because they're so dense. Give yourself plenty of time if you're baking them to bring somewhere!

Let's take a quick look at the gorgeous, deep, dark batter...

...followed by the shiny, textured surface of the fresh-out-of-the-oven treats! I love when the top layer of a brownie or bar cookie peels slightly away from the batter; this does that in abundance.

Lastly, behold the finished product! (Of course I put them in a Fortnum & Mason tin...but I wish I had chosen a better beer to join them.)

These brownies are easily the densest, fudgiest brownies I've ever had. If there weren't the cup or so of flour, they probably would be fudge. You should treat them like fudge, too - they get a little soft when eaten warm or at room temperature, so keep them chilled until you're ready to dive in. Also, a small piece goes a long way! I was initially concerned about all that unsweetened chocolate resulting in a bitter brownie, but the ample amount of sugar takes care of that. They're surprisingly sweet! The chocolate really shines in this setting, with the sugar to temper the bitterness and the butter to warm it up. (If I were ever to try making these with a lesser-percent-cacao chocolate, I'd have to cut back on the sugar.) In a word, phenomenal.

I'll still bake my mom's brownies. After all, the recipe's imprinted in my brain - I could go and make it in your kitchen, right now, if you wanted. And her brownies are beyond delicious! But if you're looking to be truly blown away by a baked good, or (dare I say it) smitten, I'd also want you to try Smitten Kitchen's.

A New Hampshire Easter

Happy belated Easter, friends! I thought I'd share a few treats from my holiday at home.

To start, the Easter Bunny was very generous - again! - this year. I've written before about how I absolutely love the Easter color palette, so resplendent with whites and pastels and soft metallics. This close-up of my Easter basket should convince you, too, to love these spring shades. The candy, of course, is wonderful, sourced from the Midwest's beloved Fannie May chocolatier. (Once my family establishes a food tradition, it's hard to unseat it, even if it's been over 18 years since we lived where FM was readily available. Thank you, Internets!)

Next up was the Easter breakfast. Ina Garten's enthusiastically citrusy lemon cake made a repeat appearance, and I think this was its best year yet! I was nervous to bake it at first, since my parents just installed a new oven; while my mom testified to the oven's capabilities, already producing such classics as a chicken pot pie and from-scratch brownies without a hitch in its week of existence, I was afraid my contribution would go awry. Fortunately, it didn't. Why do I love this cake so?

• The recipe makes two loaves. So much dessert, indeed! This allows me to bring several breakfasts' worth of cake back to Boston, while leaving my family with the same.
• It uses the zest of eight lemons. A citrus lover's dream.
• It has two lemon-sugar glazes! The first is a warm sauce made of heated lemon juice and dissolved granulated sugar; it is poured over the cakes as soon as they are removed from their loaf pans. The sauce sinks into the porous loaves and infuses them with moist, tangy, citrusy joy. Then, once they have cooled, they are coated with the second glaze. This traditional decoration, of much confectioners' sugar mixed in significantly less lemon juice, covers the cakes' surfaces in solid white, almost like fondant. It has a bright, sweet, concentrated lemon flavor.

The overall effect is one of increasing lemon intensity. The base of the cake is light and fluffy, with a definite lemon presence from all that zest - but, it's still comparatively dainty, and perfect for tea. As you move up the cake, you encounter more of the sugared lemon juice; it makes the cake moister, chewier, and stronger. The very top of the cake is thoroughly soaked in the juice, and then crowned with the fondant-esque glaze for the most robust lemon experience yet. I always save the top bites for last, never tiring of their cheerful citrus zing. That flavor conquers anything else near your palate, even a cup of strongly-brewed Royal Blend!

Never one to be still when there is an excuse for extravagant baking, I did not begin and end my Easter exploits with Ina. It was time to work on the Easter dessert...with Joanne.

My family had fallen into a habit of ordering gourmet cakes from California bakeries as our holiday desserts, with Easter being the latest casualty (after Christmas succumbed to this ravishing buche de Noel). My desire to bake, plus a fortuitous outing to Flour's Fort Point location, changed that for 2012. I ate a carrot cake cupcake at that Flour, loved it, and excitedly found the recipe for the equivalent cake in Flour's cookbook. It took hardly any effort to persuade my parents to let Perfect Endings lie, and grant me a mission in its place.

What a mission it was! Carrot cakes are always time-intensive, but Joanne's recipe - like any good kitchen challenge! - let me try and see new things. Here are some observations.

• The recipe asks for token amounts of spices. I added significantly more of each spice per usual custom, and the cake absorbed them without any trouble. Heck. I could have quadrupled the cinnamon and everything would have still turned out alright! I like a cake that can soak up so much flavor.
• I used pre-chopped walnuts. Enough said.
• I left out the raisins (so gross!), and swapped in the equivalent volume of grated carrots. There's no such thing as too many carrots in a carrot cake.
• You bake the entire cake in one 8" round cake pan. This pan is filled to the brim when you put it in the oven, and looks as though it might spill over while baking its (oddly lengthy) 1 hour and 20 minutes. Fortunately, no spillover occurred - though the final product was also level with the pan's rim.
• The baked cake is probably the densest dessert I have ever made.
• You split the cooled cake into two layers. Baked-good surgery, anyone?! It turns out that all you need to perform this invasive procedure are a quality bread knife, a steady hand, and careful rotation of the cake in question.
• The frosting is a simple mix of cream cheese, butter, and confectioner's sugar. I believe the desired effect is barely-sweetened cream cheese; the ingredients' proportions definitely accomplish this, but I would have preferred a sweeter, more traditional frosting. If I want a cream cheese spread, I'll leave the butter and sugar to the side, and pick up a bagel instead of a cake. (It did taste much better with the cake than by itself, though.)
• The recipe suggests chilling the frosting for 2-3 hours before spreading it. I found that was entirely too much refrigeration; I had to let the frosting warm up for an hour or so post-chilling before it was comfortably usable.
• The split and frosted cake ends up looking pretty close to a "normal" two-layer cake. I was pleasantly surprised! (And anyway, two "full" layers of this cake would have been too much, so I'm glad it passed as is.)

Here's a slice of the cake, followed by what was left after Easter dinner.

Like I mentioned above, the cake's density may be its most noteworthy characteristic. So much is crammed in that one (split) layer that what's normally considered a small-ish slice is actually rather filling. The same could be said about its flavors - in a single tiny bite, you can taste the freshness of the carrots, the roastiness of the toasted walnuts, the warmth of the brown sugar, and the depth of the extravagant spices. Those flavors, in all their variety and richness, remind me of the seasons, which may be why carrot cake always seems like a timely dessert. (Of course, we exploit the carrot content for Easter/spring.) The texture stands out, too - it's extremely gooey and moist thanks to canola oil and buttermilk, but still cake-like. My only complaint, or area of potential improvement, is the frosting. I'm glad it'll be easy enough to just add more confectioner's sugar to the mix next time, and maybe a hint of vanilla extract, too. Here's to yet another sweet success courtesy of Flour!

If you want to see the actual recipe, I cannot recommend the Flour cookbook enough.

I hope you enjoyed a similarly delicious and fulfilling Easter! Are there any particular treats you'd rave about?

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...)

Nutella Cake Pops

Another Superbowl, another excuse to bake something fun and creative!

This year's unfortunate Patriots/Giants rematch fell on World Nutella Day, so I wanted to make a dessert incorporating that glorious chocolate-hazelnut spread. Then, I thought cake pops would be a perfect finger food for a party, and just like regular cakes they can be made in any number of flavors. I put my own recipe together from anecdotes of past "cake-poppers", which I have written down below. It's very straightforward, but multiple cooling and heating steps mean it takes several hours.

• 1 box chocolate cake mix (I used Betty Crocker's SuperMoist Chocolate Fudge)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
• 1 1/4 C water
• 1 jar Nutella
• 2 bags Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips
• paper lollipop/candy sticks

1. Make the box cake as instructed on the packaging, with the next three ingredients. Bake it in a 13"x9" pan, and let it cool completely once it's out of the oven.
2. Take a fork and fluff the entire cake into crumbs.
3. Spoon the majority of the Nutella jar's contents into the crumbs, and blend the Nutella and cake crumbs together. The fork works well for blending, but I finished the task with my hands.
4. Form the mixture into spheres. Mine are about the size of golf balls, or a little smaller; I ended up with 31 balls.
5. Let the balls chill in the fridge for a half-hour.
6. While they are chilling, get a double boiler ready for melting the chocolate. Melt one bag of chocolate chips along with half of whatever Nutella is left in the jar.
7. Take the chilled balls out of the fridge.
8. Dip one end of a candy stick into the melted chocolate, and insert the dipped end into a chilled ball.
9. Dip the ball into the melted chocolate, coating it with the milk chocolate / Nutella mixture.
10. Once the ball is covered, set it on wax or parchment paper to dry.
11. Partway through this process, you will run out of dipping chocolate. Melt the second bag of chocolate chips along with the remaining Nutella - and continue coating those balls once the dip is ready!
12. Transfer all cake pops into the fridge for further cooling; the outer chocolate layer should harden.
13. Enjoy!

First, let's talk process. I rarely if ever use box cakes, since I pride myself on from-scratch baking - but, since this was only going to be torn apart and refashioned into something completely different, I didn't feel much remorse for taking a shortcut. It did feel odd to destroy something I just baked, but helping the cake transform from unruly crumbs into a soft, pudding-like mixture was rather satisfying. Nutella is a thick spread, so I'm guessing the blending part took significantly longer than it would when using regular frosting. I got a rudimentary assembly line together for sticking and coating the bites, but that last step took a long time! The melted chocolate/Nutella mixture is thick, so it did not easily run over the chilled cake as I had envisioned. I ended up manually spooning the mixture over the cake, and twirling the cake around and around in my spoon to make sure it was evenly coated. I had considered embellishing the bites with colored decors, but the coating hardened quicker than I had expected. They still look very pretty, though! 

And now, how did they taste? In a word, marvelous. The moist, almost pudding-like cake center was bursting with Nutella and deep chocolate flavors. The creamy coating was oh so smooth; with Ghirardelli milk chocolate, already a silky and even treat, and Nutella mixed together, how could it not be?! I especially loved how refreshing that chilled exterior was, like biting into cooled, hardened fudge. I'd definitely do cake pops as a party treat again, provided I had an entire afternoon to devote to them in advance.

So the Pats may have lost...but my baking definitely won. We kept on reaching for more pops throughout the game. Did you enjoy any exceptional Superbowl desserts?

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!

Julie Makes A Carrot Cake - or, Finger Food

I made my first carrot cake this past weekend! It was one of my more eventful baking sessions.

Bon Appetit's recipes are rather rewarding, since they force me to grow my kitchen skills (by requiring a new ingredient or technique in the preparation) and never end up less than delicious (a readership of foodies would expect no less!). So, I knew this carrot cake recipe was worth a try.

Preparing this cake felt more like cooking than baking.

• I had to use more counter surface and kitchen implements than the standard two-bowl baked good.
• You use oil, no butter. The initial mixture of oil, sugar, and eggs had a peculiar consistency, at once both gooey and stiff. They blended together effortlessly into a slick, grainy liquid base for the cake.
• I washed, peeled, and grated multiple carrots and ginger roots! Grating is a very satisfying and productive repetitive motion. I had three cups' worth of bright orange vegetable bits in no time, and a gloppy pile of ginger too. The ginger was an unexpectedly off-putting yellow.
• I chopped nuts with my beloved chef's knife. I couldn't find chopped walnuts at Whole Foods (?!), so I got to work with a cutting board, piles of entire nuts, and the 8" Wusthof. I was making good progress against the recipe's goal of 1.25 cups, and about ready to call it quits, when I decided the batter looked like it could use maybe a few more nutty bits. (Why would I ever think that? Stupid girl.) So, I put a few more nuts on the board and thrust the knife downward...

...into my left middle finger.

I didn't feel any pain at first. But then there was blood flowing onto the cutting board, and I understood that something bad was happening - because, why, look, that was a sizable flap of flesh hanging away from the finger itself. Cue running water over the wound. applying pressure to it, and holding the whole thing above my heart. After 20 minutes of that did nothing to staunch the flow, I switched to a hack-ish apparatus of bandaids, paper towels, and tightly wrapped rubber bands. While this ultimately did the job it was intended to do, it made my left hand useless. Your impatient blogger loved that! Buttering and flouring the pan, pouring the batter, and cleaning up the dinner-scale mess were all challenges. But I got it all done, with my finger throbbing out a frustrated heartbeat in accompaniment.

I also managed to whip up the maple cream cheese frosting! I especially love how the maple syrup replaced some powdered sugar.

So, how did it all turn out?

I was very happy with the output, as was its birthday-celebrating recipient! The cake had a pleasantly autumnal, slightly toasted taste. The toastiness came from the nuts, which surprised me a little; I did not roast them at all prior to baking. The spices I used - fresh and ground ginger; cinnamon, tripled - were pungent before I put the cake in the oven, but they mellowed out while baking and made a pleasantly even, subtly aromatic contribution. The carrots softened considerably, and weren't too noticeable in the finished product. The cake's edges were a tad crispy, while the insides stayed soft and chewy. I would not attribute this to overcooking - instead, the results were consistent with other oil-based baked goods I've seen (1369's peach granola muffin, anyone?), and I actually like that oily kind of crunchiness! The frosting wasn't too sweet, in keeping with the somewhat savory nature of the cake. It was very soft, both at room temperature and when chilled. The maple syrup only gave it a hint of maple flavor, which was just enough of a distinctive, sweet taste to offset the tang of the cream cheese - but, I would have liked a little more. You can't have too much maple syrup! 

The finger is also fine, healing marvelously. Consider my lesson learned re careful use of extremely sharp knives.

Lastly, I have recopied the recipe here in case anyone is interested in repeating it, with my minor modifications in italics. Happy (safe) baking!

• 2 C flour
• 2 t baking soda
• 1 t salt
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1 C sugar
• 1 1/4 C canola oil
• 4 large eggs
• 3 C grated peeled carrots
• 1 1/4 C coarsely chopped walnuts
• 2 T minced peeled ginger
• dash of ground ginger
• (frosting) 10 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• (frosting) 5 T unsalted butter, room temperature
• (frosting) 2 1/2 C powdered sugar
• (frosting) 1/4 C maple syrup

1. Butter 2 9"-diameter cake pans. Line the bottoms of the pans with wax or parchment paper. Butter and flour the paper.
2. Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ground ginger together.
3. Whisk the sugar and oil together in a large bowl until well blended. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time.
4. Add the flour mixture to the oil mixture, and stir until blended.
5. Stir in the carrots, walnuts, and fresh ginger.
6. Divide the batter between the pans, and bake them for 40 minutes at 350 degrees F.
7. Cool the cakes in their pans for 15 minutes; then, turn them out onto cooling racks and remove the wax or parchment paper. Let them cool completely.
8. (frosting) Beat the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy.
9. (frosting) Add the powdered sugar and maple syrup; beat until well blended.
10. (frosting) Chill until just firm enough to spread, roughly 30 minutes.
11. Frost and assemble the cake. Keep it chilled until 30 minutes before serving; the flavors do best at room temperature!

Pre-Thanksgiving Feasts

Sometimes I'll digress from this blog's dessert focus and talk generally about awesome food. What better time to post such digressions than around Thanksgiving, when nearly every day involves epic eats?

Friendsgiving!

This is one of my favorite college traditions, which many of us BC alums still in the Boston area have kept alive in the years since. It all started our sophomore year, when we were living in suites and had access to our own kitchens for the first time. What could be better than a friendly potluck the weekend before we all went home for Thanksgiving? Mary offered to do the turkey and stuffing if the rest of us contributed sides…and as a result of these efforts, the common areas of Edmonds 333 were filled with feasting and fun.

8 years later, we still gather at someone’s apartment for Friendsgiving; Pat and Alyssa were kind enough to host this year. Here is my dinner plate!

As you can see, my portions were in no way moderate. (How can they be, when there is so much deliciousness to be had?) This made eating dessert difficult, as I had hardly any room for it. However, I managed to fit in a slice of my apple spice cake, a chocolate peanut butter cookie, and some chocolate pudding pie with an interesting cookie and nut crust. The only thing missing? One of Lena's "drunk pies". For the record, I would have had the chocolate-Frangelico pie!

*Burp.* I did not eat for 16 hours following that meal. I then broke the fast the following day with…

Sausagefest!

Dante regularly hosts spectacular food events. I had a blast at their Al Fresco Fiasco, so when Laura suggested we attend another event on November 20, I obviously said yes. Their yearly pre-Thanksgiving events have focused on a particular type of food – for example, a Ravioli Rumble or Soup Slurpdown – and this year’s sausage-themed event was…the Sausagefest. Chefs from area restaurants served bite-size portions of sausages and accompaniments throughout Dante’s restaurant space and patio.

I’m not traditionally a fan of sausage. I could rattle off a list of why: its composite nature, fashioned from what I consider the reject parts of its source animal(s); nausea-inspiring collegiate encounters with “street meat”; its (gross) best friends Onion and Pepper, and so on. However, I ate well at this event. I think the variety of meats presented – like wild boar! – and creative accompaniments – like cranberry jalapeno salsa! – piqued my interest. Also, Dante!

My favorites were:

• ArtBar’s wild boar sausage in a miniature hot dog bun,
• Stella’s pork sausage with pickled onion, citrus aioli, and crispy potatoes, and
• Prezza’s mild fennel sausage with polenta, tomato sauce, and grated Parmesan.

Many attendees also liked these; Stella’s Evan Deluty was crowned “Sausage King” at the end of the event!

I then moved on to Brighton for…

Short Ribs and Dreamy Apple Pie!

Greg is an impressive cook! I knew this as soon he made me steak over the summer…and I was actually happy to eat it. (Believe it or not, your foodie blogger had never enjoyed a steak until then.) There have been many more delicious meals since that first cooking adventure. All the while, though, he has said that his short ribs are one of his best dishes. I got to see, and taste, that for myself this weekend...after quite the cooking process. The ribs were prepped with some oil, salt, and pepper, and then stewed in a savory sauce of red wine, tomato juice, onions, and shallots, all in a stock pot in the oven, for nearly 4 hours. The pieces of meat had fallen off their bones by the end of that time, and the sauce had taken on a deep, complex flavor. 

Imagine tender, flaky, flavorful beef, with creamy mashed potatoes and the sauce the ribs had cooked in. If it’s possible for meat to very nearly melt in your mouth, I think that’s what happened here. I enjoyed mixing everything together for the best of all meal components in every bite!

Dessert, courtesy of yours truly, was supposed to happen after dinner. We ended up being too full to enjoy it then, but fortunately the next day – today! –  has restored my appetite. One slice in, I know this is a go-to recipe. What is this dessert, you ask?

I came across this Dreamy Apple Pie recipe online, and was instantly intrigued by the creamy sauce used to coat the apples, as well as the pie’s substantial crumble topping. I followed the Pioneer Woman's guidance exactly, with these exceptions:

• Trader Joe’s pie crust instead of homemade – I know, she who prides herself on from-scratch baking really needs to suck it up and just make a crust already. However, I thought the premade version would be easier to work with.
• Cortland apples instead of Granny Smiths – would you have expected anything else?
• Moar cinnamon. Obv.

A few comments on the making of the pie:

• The heavy-cream-based filling, oh my! A nectar of the gods. This syrupy sauce smelled warmly of vanilla and sugar; my extra cinnamon was not enough to overwhelm the more subtle flavors in the mixture.
• I assembled the crumble topping in the food processor as instructed. Wow, that thing can make perfect crumble topping…in less than 10 seconds! I actually over-processed the ingredients and ended up with larger, sticky chunks of topping; I manually broke them apart to achieve a more typical crumble appearance.
•  The premade crust was a tad too thin. I tore it in several places as I tried to get it in the pie dish. I can see homemade crust having an advantage here, since I could roll it to an acceptable thickness.
• The pie baked for 1 hour, and was gently covered in foil up to the last 10 minutes. Those last, uncovered 10 minutes were all we needed to pleasantly brown the pie’s surfaces.

And now, thoughts on the finished pie! The crust was fairly typical and pleasingly buttery. The apples softened an appreciable amount but did not turn to mush, and some of their juice merged with the sugar-cream mixture. In fact, the Londonderry Cortlands' slight tang provided a pleasant and necessary contrast to that sauce. The sauce added a creamy heaviness to the pie, which wasn't a problem in a small slice - no ice cream topping needed! - but would have been overwhelming in a larger one. Still, it was very smooth and sweet, and just apple-y enough. The crumble topping was the best part. Of course, the crumble layer being nearly as thick as the apple layer immediately won me over. There was more to appreciate than just quantity, though. The chopped pecans added a nice nutty depth in both flavor and texture, and I'm still so impressed with the topping's consistency as achieved with the food processor. Overall, I love what this recipe does in terms of taking standard pie ingredients, doing something slightly different to them or adding new twists to the old favorites, and finishing with a really unique and memorable pie.

My only complaint? There is absolutely no way to serve a clean slice of this stuff. Instead, you may expect a plate of pie...slop. It's all good slop, I promise!

~~~

After all that indulgence, I'm going to give my stomach a break - until Thanksgiving, that is. Stay tuned for more on that holiday in these pages!