Stowe Away!

Your blogger just returned from a few glorious days' vacation in Stowe, Vermont! The most memorable parts of this getaway involved winter sports and apres-ski relaxation, but a few desserts (obviously) found their way into the mix. So, what sweetened my vacation?

 

Let's start with a food item I have justified as breakfast as well as dessert: the apple cider donut. This classic New England donut may have found its most ultimate incarnation at Waterbury's Cold Hollow Cider Mill. The donuts are made mere minutes before they are served, with a rather interesting machine that is maybe a meter or so in length. A ring of dough is squirted into a bath of hot oil, which cooks the dough and sweeps it via some small current into a light glaze of shortening. This glaze soaks into the donut as it is pulled out of the oil by a conveyor belt, moved a short distance to help it dry and cool, and then dropped onto some waiting, oil-absorbing paper towels. The apparatus is rather efficient, as it kept up with the steady stream of donut-demanding customers. I understood why there were so many customers as soon as I tried a donut.

The treats are small, but they're positively bursting with apple and spice flavor. Apple varieties are so nuanced, and these donuts captured so many of those nuances, from the tangy and tart to the sturdy and sweet. (That's also a testament to Cold Hollow's wonderful cider, which uses multiple apple varieties in each batch!) Hints of cinnamon and nutmeg helped bring out the complexity. Many cider donuts use too little cider and therefore taste no different than a plain cake donut, or they go overboard with the spices. Cold Hollow avoids both traps and really lets their cider shine. The donuts' texture is unique, too. The edges were crispy, fresh out of the machine and even after a day or two post-making, while the inside remained chewy. It's no surprise that we brought a dozen of these little delights home!

 

After Cold Hollow, we stopped at the store that may be considered my life's introduction to specialty food emporia: Stowe's Harvest Market! Its enticing architecture (a barn-style building made modern, with floor-to-ceiling windows and exposed rafters/beams) and delectable contents (cheese, charcuterie, antipasti, bakery, chocolate, wine, beer, prepared sides) had me hooked from the first time I visited, years ago. As per usual, I left HM with a few containers of their homemade granola - oh so perfect with vanilla yogurt! - and a bakery treat. This year, it was a lemon square. The square had a somewhat-gooey shortbread base, which was delightfully buttery and sweet. The lemon filling was sturdy and tart, somewhere between a custard filling and the standard sugary glop used in most fruit squares. The topping was unusual; instead of the usual crumble topping or repeat of the base layer, it looked as though a basic sugar dough had been spread very thinly over the lemon filling, and left to harden and crackle as the treat was baking. I'm not usually a fan of sugar dough, but in this gooey setting I appreciated its grainy crunch. Turbinado sugar crystals also dotted that top layer, adding a little sparkle. The bakery case was overflowing with other equally tempting treats - muffins, brownies, cookie bars, miniature cakes, and so on. I would have loved to try them, but I knew that ample delights would be waiting at the top of the mountain!

Our lovely mountaintop resort was like heaven for the blissful few days I was there. Cold but not frigid temperatures, a fresh snowfall on top of existing snowpack, and cheerful sunlight all made for a wonderful time exploring the backcountry on skis and snowshoes. Inside, comforting European decor, cozy living rooms, roaring fires, fragrant fresh flowers, and quality locavore fare enabled an equally wonderful time spent relaxing and recharging. I'd like to call out four particular dessert experiences:

• Afternoon tea - every afternoon, the resort offered tea and cookies in the lounge. It felt so good, after a full morning and afternoon of exercise, to come in from the cold, sip something warm, and nibble something sweet. I reliably drank Harney & Sons' Red Raspberry herbal tea, and munched on whatever cookies looked best. I remember having cranberry oatmeal, chocolate chip, and chocolate cake cookies...and on Valentine's Day, a heart-shaped sugar cookie completely covered in red sugar. Yum!
• Lake Champlain chocolates - every evening, staff would come into the guest rooms, turn down your bed, and leave chocolates on your pillow. These heart-shaped Lake Champlain nibbles were so tasty, and the cutest way to end the day! Creamy milk chocolate came in a pinkish-purple wrapper, and smooth dark chocolate was wrapped in bold red.
• The ultimate fudge brownie - the resort's network of cross-country ski trails take you all sorts of interesting places, one of which is a rustic log cabin that offers hearty lunch fare. I skied the winding, uphill trails to the cabin twice during our stay, and was rewarded with one of the most epic brownies I've ever had. Imagine a THICK top layer of fudge, with a brownie underneath that had more textures than you thought was possible in a 3/4"-thick baked good. The part nearest the fudge absorbed the moisture from that fudge and became just as gooey, while the non-fudge surface was dry and crumbly. The intervening brownie fell anywhere on the spectrum between those two extremes. Such a delight! It had such a good chocolate flavor, too. This may become a more compelling reason to ski to the cabin than the beneficial exercise...
• Sachertorte - or, what one bakery staff member called a sachertorte. This Wikipedia article suggests that a genuine sachertorte has chocolate sponge cake and apricot jam, two things our dessert lacked. Still, it was delicious! The cake was very dense and chocolatey, like an extremely concentrated bittersweet chocolate mousse. I don't think it contained any flour, and there was no airiness at all; the cake was smooth enough, with maybe a little graininess from what I'm guessing was cocoa powder. In addition to the robust bittersweet chocolate flavor, the cake had a hint of sourness or tanginess about it, as if sour cream or yogurt were used as its liquid base. The cake was covered in an extremely thin layer of slightly sweeter chocolate; it crackled into eggshell-like pieces when I forked through it. I'm guessing it was applied as a melted drizzle rather than spread with a knife. The cake's top had the pleasant addition of white chocolate dollops, which had been swirled into the existing chocolate coating to make heart-like shapes on the surface. So sweet! You can see the cake here; to its right is a mug of the resort's homebrewed Vienna lager. Ah, dessert and beer. I was clearly happy with this repast, but I'm still in search of a genuine sachertorte.

That search will have to continue in the post-Stowe world, as I am now back in Boston. I miss the slopes and the invigorating mountain air, but a good dose of city life won't hurt! Here's to whatever dessert - and vacation! - may be next.

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!