For October 1

Two recipes from an old source this week:

Chocolate Mint Snaps

Rosemary Pine Nut Currant Biscotti

both from/adapted from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

I won't be at the Center on Thursday, because Andrew and I are going to see a fundraiser screening of the new movie Where The Wild Things Are. I am looking forward to it a lot, but I am sorry I won't be able to hear Sensei Ryodo's talk. Happily it will at least be recorded!

Anyway, busy week this week, since Tuesday was my birthday and there was no baking that night. So a busy baking night tonight. For some reason I had it in my head that I wanted to do something with rosemary (I swear I had this idea before we had rosemary cookies at Pizzeria Mozza last night, really) so I have adapted a biscotti recipe that called for fennel and replaced it with rosemary. I think it is a subtle flavor, but Andrew's response to that was that it was subtle just like as if you were gnawing on a branch of rosemary. Ha ha. Anyway, it is an interesting flavor addition to the biscotti - I think it works.

I also for some reason think that the mint in the chocolate mint snaps is rather understated. I think Andrew actually snorted in response. Oh, well, maybe my taste buds are not working tonight. Anyway, I was amazed when I found this recipe tonight, since Andrew is a huge chocolate-mint fan, and I had no idea that I had not made all the chocolate mint recipes that were in this book. But noooo, at least one remained. ("No," said Yoda, "There is another." But I digress.) Anyway, these are a very thin, crisp cookie. They are really nice - they do cry out for a glass of milk, though. I don't know if tea will do. Oh, dear - but what do I care, I won't be there, anyway. Ha ha!

OK, it is midnight, and I am obviously overtired. Night night!

For September 24

Oh yeah, that was two days ago! Oops.

So Andy was out of town from Wed. through today, and I had a big brief due on Friday, so it has been a bit hectic. So I did do the baking, but the blogging has been delayed. But here it is, Saturday night, and I am lying in bed typing on a computer. Something is very, very wrong.

OK, anyway, on to this week's recipes:

Salt and Black Pepper Cocoa Shortbread Cookies

Bi-rownies (aka Chipster Topped Brownies)

Both from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours

Who knew there were still a few cookie recipes that I hadn't made out of this cookbook of Dorie's, but here are two of them. These are very different recipes - the shortbread cookies are very delicate, and the salt and pepper cut the sugar quite effectively. The bi-rownies are just a bomb of chocolate and sugar.

Speaking of bombs - I had a bit of a problem making the shortbread cookies, and the next morning Andrew said it looked like a chocolate bomb had gone off in our kitchen. (Sheepish grin.) These were a bit more of a challenge than I was expecting. This is a recipe where you make your dough, then you collect it into a cylinder, and then refrigerate it for a few hours or more before slicing and baking. Well, I don't know if it was because of the heat spell we've been having or what, but when this dough was made, it was waaaaay too soft to form into a cylinder to refrigerate. I tried. (Chocolate bomb.) Anyway, so I just threw the bowl into the refrigerator, and went to bed. The next morning, I had a meeting downtown, so I got up extra early and marched into the kitchen for round 2 with this dough. I took it out of the refrigerator and eventually managed to form the cylinders from the now very hard dough. But this dough has a very high amount of butter in it, so that when you handle it, the outer parts soften up very quickly. So here I was, breaking portions of the hard dough off and then trying to form it into cylinders, but while the interior is this hard lump, the exterior was quickly softening up to goop. (Chocolate bomb #2.) Anyway, with a lot of chocolate on my hands (and other places), I finally managed to make my cylinders and shove it back into the refrigerator to firm up again. It ends up being a wonderful cookie - very delicate, and very sophisticated. Was it worth it? I'll try it again in the dead of winter and we'll see how that turns out....

The other recipe was one that I had seen and thought about a lot, because it is so decadent. Dorie's name for it is "chipster topped brownies" but I am not in love with the name. So I have rechristened them bi-rownies. Here's the deal. First, you make a brownie batter with walnuts, and spread it in a 9x13 pan. Then, you make a chocolate chip cookie (i.e., blondie) dough, and you cover the brownie matter with it and then bake it. So it is both a blondie and a brownie in one - hence my bi-rownie. Nothing particularly subtle about this recipe, just pure deliciousness.

OK, enough about last week. Now, on to next week....

Actually, next week I will be baking, but I won't be at the Center on Thursday. Andrew and I are going instead to a benefit screening of the new movie "Where The Wild Things Are" and then a party afterwards. I am excited to see the movie, and really looking forward to this event. But somehow we'll still figure out a way to get the cookies to those in need...

Take good care.

For September 17

Back from Tassajara! Sigh. We had some good food, and good desserts and cookies (and one that falls in the "really?" category, but never mind about that...) Anyway, this Thursday, David Green will be receiving jukai on Thursday night, so our usual schedule is set aside - except for the tea and cookies (uh, sweets) part. And tonight one of our members is giving a recital at USC, so I had to do all my baking last night, which explains why this is being written at 11:50 a.m. rather than 11:50 p.m. Anyway, enough chatter, here is this week's lineup:

Sugar Cookies, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My House to Yours
Almond Cake, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

I am not sure I have, from the beginning, made a cookie that was simply called a sugar cookie. And I have been feeling recently like I have neglected them and wanted to make some. So here is a simple sugar cookie. Well, since I had a lemon on hand, I did grate the zest and add it to the sugar to give it a subtle lemon flavor, but it was 1 lemon for around 85 cookies, so it is just there in the background. These are a simple cookie - a bit on the crunch side, not soft and chewy (I'll have to do those next, since that is my preference). For those who like simple sugar cookies, this one is a nice recipe.

The cake is a change of pace. This cake has been whispering to me since I bought this cookbook last year. There is a photo of it that is so beautiful....it just says "make me!" Since we are celebrating a jukai this week, I decided to take the plunge and make it. This is an intense cake, not a light and fluffy cake like the birthday cake of our childhood. This is like a torte - rather flat and just packed with almond flavor. This variation on the recipe involves a crunchy almond crust - this is spread on the bottom of the pan and, after the cake is baked, the pan is inverted and removed - leading to a moment of terror as it is inverted and the question of whether the cake is going to come out cleanly hangs there. This time, the cakes came out fairly cleanly. Phew!

For September 10

Andrew and I will be out of town again this week - going to Tassajara for the last weekend of guest season, which is an old tradition for us by now - so there has been a lot of busy baking in advance, amid a week where Andrew has been sick and I have been super busy at work. Anyway, here is this week's line-up:

Hazelnut whole wheat sables

New bittersweet brownies

both from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

I think that both of these are probably repeats at this point, but they are worth doing again. As I have said before, the cookbook these come from, Pure Dessert, is a wonderful book. The idea of the book is to pare back all the extra flavors and ingredients in desserts to allow intense flavors to shine through. So the recipes tend to have limited numbers of ingredients, and as a result they really do have an intensity of flavor that is great - very "Zen" baking!

The brownies are intense - two-thirds 70% Scharffen Berger chocolate mixed with one-third 66% Valrhona. In the basic recipe, it calls for 8 oz of chocolate and only 1.2 oz of flour, so while not flourless brownies, the flour is there just to hold it together. (With so little flour, do these qualify as low-carb? Probably not.) There are just 7 ingredients in this recipe, including the salt and vanilla. No nuts to get in the way of the chocolate. Very intense.

The sables are a contrast. These are a type of butter cookie. The focus here in on some earthiness, with whole wheat flour and roasted hazelnuts providing the flavor profile. Again, only 7 ingredients, including the salt and vanilla. Alice Medrich's sable recipes are just amazing, and these fully live up to those I have made before.

Enjoy!