Hi everyone, it has been a long time since my last post - because it has been a long time since the last Thursday night cookies. Between that whole Thanksgiving thing, and then the Center had Rohatsu sesshin, which ran for 9 days and spanned 2 Thursdays, this is my first baking since mid-November. Well, my first cookie baking. I have been busy with a few other things around Thanksgiving and all, but I have not blogged about them yet.
And after this, the next cookies for a Thursday night are not, at least "officially," until February - next week there is no talk/tea/cookies, and the following week we are in sesshin. In January, the Center observes a bare-bones month, with no talk/tea/cookies, so we only resume again in February. Wow. And by then, there will be lots of change.
OK, well this week, we are turning to two repeats, for reasons explained below. The recipes:
Chocolate Mint Squares, from The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion
Oatmeal-Currant Cookies, from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food
The chocolate mint squares have long been a staple. A number of people simply love them - as in LOVE them - Andrew Bodhi-Heart being one of those people. They are pretty easy to make - the base is a variant on a brownie, with walnuts and peppermint extract. A confectioners' sugar and peppermint icing goes on top, and then a drizzle of chocolate. Not subtle, not particularly sophisticated, but the chocolate-mint combination is a definite flavor of the season!
The oatmeal-currant cookies are for Roshi (I hope she attends). Oatmeal raisin cookies are her favorite. Since she is leaving on January 1 for a one-year sabbatical, this is the last cookie event before her departure, and I wanted to make one of her favorite cookies as a nice send-off. I made this recipe back in March, but she was not around at the time. This is a recipe from Alice Waters' most recent book. It is interesting because you grind the oats, almost to a flour, rather than using them whole. It leads to a more delicate cookie. I also use a really nice dark brown sugar, which gives a very deep flavor. The only issue with them is that they are a bit delicate and fall apart easily. Hopefully these will hold together better.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
For November 18
Hermit Bars
Chocolate Gingerbread Squares
both from Martha Stewart
A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a new, seasonal magazine in the grocery store - a Holiday Cookies magazine from Martha Stewart. While there was an older magazine of the same type - which eventually was turned into the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook - this had lots of new recipes that I had not seen before. So I happily scooped it up, and this week we break it in with two recipes. (I now see that both are older recipes available on her Web site, but the magazine is very pretty and has all the great design elements that her print materials feature). There are a lot of other promising recipes in the magazine, so this is, I am sure, only the beginning....
Anyway, this also seems to be the week for molasses and ginger, since both recipes feature these ingredients. These ingredients are official harbingers of winter and holidays. Here, they are used in rather interesting ways.
The hermit bars are a variation on the usual hermits. Hermits are an old New England recipe that rely on a variety of spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves), molasses, brown sugar and raisins. They are often made in a pan and then sliced into squares. Here, the technique is closer to that of biscotti, except they are only baked once, not twice. After the dough is made, you cool it a little to make it easier to handle, then it is formed into logs and baked. Once it is cooked, the logs are sliced. The resulting "bar" looks just like a biscotti, but is quite a bit softer. There is nothing elegant about this cookie, but it is very flavorful.
The chocolate gingerbread is another variation on a familiar favorite. I love gingerbread (at least if it is made well). Here, the gingerbread had cocoa powder and chocolate chips added, and the pan is dusted with cocoa powder. The chocoate-ginger combination is not a usual pairing, so it pulls your attention. It screams for whipped cream (or to be dunked in milk). A fun variation.
Next week is Thanksgiving, an d then the Center begins Rohatsu sesshin, which will extend over two Thursdays, so there are no formal cookie obligations again until December 16, a month from now. Until then, take good care!
Chocolate Gingerbread Squares
both from Martha Stewart
A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a new, seasonal magazine in the grocery store - a Holiday Cookies magazine from Martha Stewart. While there was an older magazine of the same type - which eventually was turned into the Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook - this had lots of new recipes that I had not seen before. So I happily scooped it up, and this week we break it in with two recipes. (I now see that both are older recipes available on her Web site, but the magazine is very pretty and has all the great design elements that her print materials feature). There are a lot of other promising recipes in the magazine, so this is, I am sure, only the beginning....
Anyway, this also seems to be the week for molasses and ginger, since both recipes feature these ingredients. These ingredients are official harbingers of winter and holidays. Here, they are used in rather interesting ways.
The hermit bars are a variation on the usual hermits. Hermits are an old New England recipe that rely on a variety of spices (ginger, cinnamon, cloves), molasses, brown sugar and raisins. They are often made in a pan and then sliced into squares. Here, the technique is closer to that of biscotti, except they are only baked once, not twice. After the dough is made, you cool it a little to make it easier to handle, then it is formed into logs and baked. Once it is cooked, the logs are sliced. The resulting "bar" looks just like a biscotti, but is quite a bit softer. There is nothing elegant about this cookie, but it is very flavorful.
The chocolate gingerbread is another variation on a familiar favorite. I love gingerbread (at least if it is made well). Here, the gingerbread had cocoa powder and chocolate chips added, and the pan is dusted with cocoa powder. The chocoate-ginger combination is not a usual pairing, so it pulls your attention. It screams for whipped cream (or to be dunked in milk). A fun variation.
Next week is Thanksgiving, an d then the Center begins Rohatsu sesshin, which will extend over two Thursdays, so there are no formal cookie obligations again until December 16, a month from now. Until then, take good care!
For November 11
This week, my niece and her daughter were arriving on Thursday, and I was really busy at work, so it was time to fall back on old friends. Well, more or less.
Chocolate Chip Cookies, from The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard
Honey Nut Brownies, from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan
Sherry Yard's chocolate chip cookies are a welcome standby. One of the things I like about them is that you can make the dough and refrigerate it overnight, and then make the cookies. Actually, it seems that 24 hours of refrigeration is becoming the new favored technique for chocolate chip cookies, as it allows the fat in the butter to be absorbed better by the flour and leads to a better cookie. When you make the recipe in this way, you form it into logs and refrigerate it. But the dough never gets very solid, and you can't really just slice it and bake it; it is a bit of a messy process to form the cookies, but they are so good that it is worth the effort!
Although I made these brownies before, it was a long time ago. There is enough chocolate in them to justify the "brownie" in the name, but the overwhelming flavor comes from the honey - almost all of the sweetener is honey, and the recipe calls for using something more interesting than the normal clover honey. (I used sage.) The chocolate, honey, pecan combination (probably not in that order) is interesting. Honey is not my favorite flavor, so these are not my favorite brownies, but they are certainly an interesting and unusual variation on a favorite that can often become a bit too boring.
Chocolate Chip Cookies, from The Secrets of Baking by Sherry Yard
Honey Nut Brownies, from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan
Sherry Yard's chocolate chip cookies are a welcome standby. One of the things I like about them is that you can make the dough and refrigerate it overnight, and then make the cookies. Actually, it seems that 24 hours of refrigeration is becoming the new favored technique for chocolate chip cookies, as it allows the fat in the butter to be absorbed better by the flour and leads to a better cookie. When you make the recipe in this way, you form it into logs and refrigerate it. But the dough never gets very solid, and you can't really just slice it and bake it; it is a bit of a messy process to form the cookies, but they are so good that it is worth the effort!
Although I made these brownies before, it was a long time ago. There is enough chocolate in them to justify the "brownie" in the name, but the overwhelming flavor comes from the honey - almost all of the sweetener is honey, and the recipe calls for using something more interesting than the normal clover honey. (I used sage.) The chocolate, honey, pecan combination (probably not in that order) is interesting. Honey is not my favorite flavor, so these are not my favorite brownies, but they are certainly an interesting and unusual variation on a favorite that can often become a bit too boring.
For November 4 (catching up)
Spicy Cherry Chocolate Brownies, from the LA Times
Mapledoodles, from the King Arthur Flour Recipe Site
Recently, the Los Angeles Times did an article on interesting cookie flavors involving combinations of sugar and spice. One of the recipes was for the spicy cherry chocolate brownies that I made this week. The recipe calls for a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. And the "spicy" in the name is not a case of overpromising - these are quite spicy. It is an interesting recipe, because the chocolate flavor is quite strong when you first bite into the brownie, but then over time it gives way to the spiciness of the cayenne. The dried sweet cherries add an extra, unusual flavor to the combination. This was an interesting and different take on brownies. While you have to like spicy food to enjoy it, it is very good!
Mapledoodles - well, the name says it all. Snickerdoodles, but with maple. Oh, autumn! This recipe uses a mixture of plain and maple sugar in making the dough, and then when you form balls of dough you roll them in a mixture of regular and maple sugar as well. Although the recipe calls for an icing in addition, I omitted it, and these were really nice - good maple flavor, but not overwhelming, and a nice texture as well. Recommended!
Mapledoodles, from the King Arthur Flour Recipe Site
Recently, the Los Angeles Times did an article on interesting cookie flavors involving combinations of sugar and spice. One of the recipes was for the spicy cherry chocolate brownies that I made this week. The recipe calls for a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. And the "spicy" in the name is not a case of overpromising - these are quite spicy. It is an interesting recipe, because the chocolate flavor is quite strong when you first bite into the brownie, but then over time it gives way to the spiciness of the cayenne. The dried sweet cherries add an extra, unusual flavor to the combination. This was an interesting and different take on brownies. While you have to like spicy food to enjoy it, it is very good!
Mapledoodles - well, the name says it all. Snickerdoodles, but with maple. Oh, autumn! This recipe uses a mixture of plain and maple sugar in making the dough, and then when you form balls of dough you roll them in a mixture of regular and maple sugar as well. Although the recipe calls for an icing in addition, I omitted it, and these were really nice - good maple flavor, but not overwhelming, and a nice texture as well. Recommended!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
For October 21
Next week, the Zen Center is in sesshin (a form of meditation retreat), so this is my last post for October. This marks the 5 year mark on this crazy cookie project - it was at the end of October 2005 that I received an email from Jotai in the office asking if anyone was willing to step forward and bring the cookies for the Thursday night tea and cookies. I volunteered and, being a bit self-important, decided to actually bake something from scratch that first week (brownies), rather than buy it at the store as we had done more or less all the time before then. That one time decision set the stage for what has come since then - five years of baking, almost every week, two recipes a week. This is really a crazy labor of love.
This week's cookies:
Pumpkin Cookies, from Martha Stewart's cookie-a-day site.
Brownies Cockaigne, from Joy of Cooking, All About Cookies
The pumpkin cookies are another reminder that it is October. Martha Stewart has a very cook web site that has a cookie recipe a day; it is very cook and seasonally oriented. Anyway, I was looking for an easy autumn recipe (busy week this week) and saw this and, given my love of pumpkin, decided to do a pumpkin recipe for the second week in a row. This makes a cakey pumpkin cookie which you then drizzle with melted bittersweet chocolate. The cookie is not that sweet, so the chocolate drizzle is definitely useful. There is a lot of pumpkin in these cookies, and they are quite low fat. I think they could use some additional spicing to give them a bit more flavor, and would definitely increase the spice accordingly if I make them again; pumpkin is, after all, a squash, and while it has a distinctive taste, the flavors we associate with pumpkin pie tend to be the cinnamon, ginger, and other spices more than the pumpkin. Here, I would pump up the spices a bit. But a nice cookie, with a lot of good stuff for you and not too much fat.
My friend Bob Gido Fisher, a professional pastry chef extraordinaire, gave me the Joy of Cooking All About Cookies cookbook for my birthday a few weeks ago. I have two different versions of the Joy of Cooking cookbook at home, but I never thing of going to them for cookie recipes. So it is great to get this book, which has a lot of illustrations, sidebars and other stuff the normal cookbook lacks, and this was my first recipe from it. In the Joy of Cooking books, if a recipe title includes the term "cockaigne" it means it is one of the authors' favorites. According to them, this brownie recipe has been in the Joy of Cooking since the 1st edition back in the 1930s. It is a good recipe, and makes a very middle-of-the-road brownie - not too fudgy, not too cakey. I made one variation on the recipe - when I was at the store looking through the chocolates for sale, I picked up a new item, Callebaut chocolate chips (they didn't call them "chocolate chips", of course, since that would be too pedestrian, but that is exactly what they are), and added a cup or so of them to the recipe. These chocolate chips are fantastic! The flavor is wonderful. Most chocolate chips are made using a lower quality chocolate, and you can taste it, but these are just incredibly smooth and flavorful. Anyway, so I added these along with some walnuts to the recipe, and the result is a very nice, fairly interesting, brownie. It is appropriate that, on the fifth anniversary of this venture, I should go back to its roots with a brownie recipe to celebrate.
Enjoy, and I'll see you in November!
This week's cookies:
Pumpkin Cookies, from Martha Stewart's cookie-a-day site.
Brownies Cockaigne, from Joy of Cooking, All About Cookies
The pumpkin cookies are another reminder that it is October. Martha Stewart has a very cook web site that has a cookie recipe a day; it is very cook and seasonally oriented. Anyway, I was looking for an easy autumn recipe (busy week this week) and saw this and, given my love of pumpkin, decided to do a pumpkin recipe for the second week in a row. This makes a cakey pumpkin cookie which you then drizzle with melted bittersweet chocolate. The cookie is not that sweet, so the chocolate drizzle is definitely useful. There is a lot of pumpkin in these cookies, and they are quite low fat. I think they could use some additional spicing to give them a bit more flavor, and would definitely increase the spice accordingly if I make them again; pumpkin is, after all, a squash, and while it has a distinctive taste, the flavors we associate with pumpkin pie tend to be the cinnamon, ginger, and other spices more than the pumpkin. Here, I would pump up the spices a bit. But a nice cookie, with a lot of good stuff for you and not too much fat.
My friend Bob Gido Fisher, a professional pastry chef extraordinaire, gave me the Joy of Cooking All About Cookies cookbook for my birthday a few weeks ago. I have two different versions of the Joy of Cooking cookbook at home, but I never thing of going to them for cookie recipes. So it is great to get this book, which has a lot of illustrations, sidebars and other stuff the normal cookbook lacks, and this was my first recipe from it. In the Joy of Cooking books, if a recipe title includes the term "cockaigne" it means it is one of the authors' favorites. According to them, this brownie recipe has been in the Joy of Cooking since the 1st edition back in the 1930s. It is a good recipe, and makes a very middle-of-the-road brownie - not too fudgy, not too cakey. I made one variation on the recipe - when I was at the store looking through the chocolates for sale, I picked up a new item, Callebaut chocolate chips (they didn't call them "chocolate chips", of course, since that would be too pedestrian, but that is exactly what they are), and added a cup or so of them to the recipe. These chocolate chips are fantastic! The flavor is wonderful. Most chocolate chips are made using a lower quality chocolate, and you can taste it, but these are just incredibly smooth and flavorful. Anyway, so I added these along with some walnuts to the recipe, and the result is a very nice, fairly interesting, brownie. It is appropriate that, on the fifth anniversary of this venture, I should go back to its roots with a brownie recipe to celebrate.
Enjoy, and I'll see you in November!
For October 19 (an extra cookie event this week!)
This week, Zen Center hosted Rev. Nakano from Japan, who was a Specially Dispatched Teacher from the Sotoshu on a tour of various Zen centers in the United States. Anyway, due to his schedule, he came and gave a talk on Tuesday night, which we followed with tea and cookies. This was an event that called for repeats, to wit:
Whole Wheat Sables with Cacao Nibs, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert
Midnight Crackles, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours
These are probably my two favorite cookbook authors, and they did not disappoint me. The sables are absolutely amazing, some of my favorite cookies ever. Along with the basic recipe, which is for plain, whole wheat sables, there are a number of variations, including this one that adds cacao nibs. I think that the nuttiness of the whole wheat flour and the elusive, earthy quality of the cacao nibs is a very good combination. Very straightforward to make, but so sophisticated a result! Highly recommended.
With the midnight crackles, they are a pretty simple chocolate variation cookie - there is a good amount of chocolate (between melted chocolate and cocoa powder) in the recipe, but it also has a number of spices to make it a bit more interesting than it otherwise appears to be. Dorie includes a variation, which I used, that has cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, allspice and coriander (I wonder if she meant cardamom?). Oh, and salt. So it is an interesting cookie - unlike the sables, which emphasize a paring down of ingredients to highlight single notes, this is more a symphony, with a lot of different things going on, some in progression, others all at once. Not a world changing cookie (like the sables) but a very fun, kinda grown-up chocolate cookie.
Whole Wheat Sables with Cacao Nibs, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert
Midnight Crackles, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours
These are probably my two favorite cookbook authors, and they did not disappoint me. The sables are absolutely amazing, some of my favorite cookies ever. Along with the basic recipe, which is for plain, whole wheat sables, there are a number of variations, including this one that adds cacao nibs. I think that the nuttiness of the whole wheat flour and the elusive, earthy quality of the cacao nibs is a very good combination. Very straightforward to make, but so sophisticated a result! Highly recommended.
With the midnight crackles, they are a pretty simple chocolate variation cookie - there is a good amount of chocolate (between melted chocolate and cocoa powder) in the recipe, but it also has a number of spices to make it a bit more interesting than it otherwise appears to be. Dorie includes a variation, which I used, that has cinnamon, ground cloves, ginger, allspice and coriander (I wonder if she meant cardamom?). Oh, and salt. So it is an interesting cookie - unlike the sables, which emphasize a paring down of ingredients to highlight single notes, this is more a symphony, with a lot of different things going on, some in progression, others all at once. Not a world changing cookie (like the sables) but a very fun, kinda grown-up chocolate cookie.
For October 14 (also a little late)
I am a little behind on my blogging! The worst part is that my memory for what I am making starts to slip pretty quickly, so I do need to get my laptop by my bed and start doing these entries when I am just finished baking.
Last week was a double Martha week; happily, most of her recipes are available online:
Pumpkin Cookies with Maple Brown Butter Icing, from Martha Stewart Cookies
Hazelnut Cookies, from Martha Stewart Living (October 2010).
The pumpkin cookie is one of my favorite cookies. I have made it a few times before and every time I make it I am happy. The combination of the soft, cakey cookie with the brown butter icing is really good. The cookie is relatively straightforward to make. Although the recipe calls for piping the cookie dough (a very soft, batter-like consistency) out using a pastry bag, I just use a tablespoon-sized ice cream scoop, which makes them much less uniform and round, but keeps me from making a fool of myself with a pastry bag. The most challenging element of this recipe is the icing, since it calls for browning the butter, which can be an anxious process for those doing it for the first time. Having done it before a few times, it seemed like a breeze this time - it went much more quickly, was much less anxiety-inducing, and was all around straightforward. Anyway, I ended up replacing about 1/4 of the confectioner's sugar called for in the icing recipe with maple sugar to give some maple flavor to the icing. These are a great cookie, and they are fall icons in my book. I highly recommend them!
The second recipe was out of the current Martha Stewart Living magazine. I have to admit, not my favorite, although many people seemed to like it. Very few ingredients, so it really focuses on the hazelnut. In making the dough, I found it didn't hold together as I had thought it would - it was a very loose, falling-apart dough, so it requires quite a lot of work to form individual 1" balls and then to press them down to flatten them and not have them just fall apart. I am happy to have made it, and ready to move on.
Last week was a double Martha week; happily, most of her recipes are available online:
Pumpkin Cookies with Maple Brown Butter Icing, from Martha Stewart Cookies
Hazelnut Cookies, from Martha Stewart Living (October 2010).
The pumpkin cookie is one of my favorite cookies. I have made it a few times before and every time I make it I am happy. The combination of the soft, cakey cookie with the brown butter icing is really good. The cookie is relatively straightforward to make. Although the recipe calls for piping the cookie dough (a very soft, batter-like consistency) out using a pastry bag, I just use a tablespoon-sized ice cream scoop, which makes them much less uniform and round, but keeps me from making a fool of myself with a pastry bag. The most challenging element of this recipe is the icing, since it calls for browning the butter, which can be an anxious process for those doing it for the first time. Having done it before a few times, it seemed like a breeze this time - it went much more quickly, was much less anxiety-inducing, and was all around straightforward. Anyway, I ended up replacing about 1/4 of the confectioner's sugar called for in the icing recipe with maple sugar to give some maple flavor to the icing. These are a great cookie, and they are fall icons in my book. I highly recommend them!
The second recipe was out of the current Martha Stewart Living magazine. I have to admit, not my favorite, although many people seemed to like it. Very few ingredients, so it really focuses on the hazelnut. In making the dough, I found it didn't hold together as I had thought it would - it was a very loose, falling-apart dough, so it requires quite a lot of work to form individual 1" balls and then to press them down to flatten them and not have them just fall apart. I am happy to have made it, and ready to move on.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
For October 7 (a little late)
Last week we went to NY and CT for a long weekend to celebrate my sister's birthday. But before going, I baked and left some treats behind for the Zen Center! Here were last week's items:
Toasted Walnut Cookies, from Deborah Madison, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Pecan-Maple Shortbread
both from Melissa Clark - Food Writer
I am a big fan of Deborah Madison's, since she was the founding chef of Greens in San Francisco. I took a cooking and writing class with her a few years ago at Tassajara; it was a lot of fun and she is a wonderful woman. She is not a baker by nature, and her cookbooks tend to rely mostly on desserts that are fruit-based. As amazing a cookbook as it is, I don't think I had ever even looked through Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for cookie recipes, since I don't associate her with such things. But through the seamless web of the Web, I ended up last week on the blog of Melissa Clark, a food writer who contributes a lot to the New York Times, and I saw these two recipes there, one being the walnut cookie recipe of Deborah's, the other being a shortbread with lots and lots of variations. I decided to make them both.
The walnut cookie recipe is, well, good but not great. (It kinda confirmed what I had thought.) It is very straightforward to make, and the flavor is good. I suspect that the cookies would have been better had I cooked them a minute or two more; as it is, they are slightly toothy, when I think that a sandy/crisp texture would have worked better. But they are a nice, basic variation on the butter cookie with nuts.
The shortbread recipe is a "start with this and then add that or that or even that" kind of affair. So I ended up adding pulverized roasted pecans and maple sugar (and a wee bit of pure maple flavoring to kick it up a notch) to announce that autumn has arrived. While I know that maple is usually associated with walnuts, I am very fond of it with pecans, and having already made a walnut cookie I wanted to mix it up. Along the way, I had browsed the recipe for maple shortbread in the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion and made a few adaptations to my recipe based on their ideas (basically sprinkling some maple sugar on the bottom of the pan before pressing in the shortbread, and then sprinkling some on top of the shortbread, to give it a bit of extra crunch and flavor), so this is something of an amalgam recipe. In the end, Andrew raved about it, and I thought it was pretty good, too; I brought some with me to Connecticut and shared with family, and they all liked it, as well. So I recommend it. And some of the variations on Melissa Clark's web site look very intereating - particularly adding rosemary to it!
This week, I am planning on one of my favorite recipes, which is a hallmark of autumn - but the forecast is for weather in the 80s all week, so there is gonna be some cognitive dissonance going on...
Enjoy!
Toasted Walnut Cookies, from Deborah Madison, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Pecan-Maple Shortbread
both from Melissa Clark - Food Writer
I am a big fan of Deborah Madison's, since she was the founding chef of Greens in San Francisco. I took a cooking and writing class with her a few years ago at Tassajara; it was a lot of fun and she is a wonderful woman. She is not a baker by nature, and her cookbooks tend to rely mostly on desserts that are fruit-based. As amazing a cookbook as it is, I don't think I had ever even looked through Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for cookie recipes, since I don't associate her with such things. But through the seamless web of the Web, I ended up last week on the blog of Melissa Clark, a food writer who contributes a lot to the New York Times, and I saw these two recipes there, one being the walnut cookie recipe of Deborah's, the other being a shortbread with lots and lots of variations. I decided to make them both.
The walnut cookie recipe is, well, good but not great. (It kinda confirmed what I had thought.) It is very straightforward to make, and the flavor is good. I suspect that the cookies would have been better had I cooked them a minute or two more; as it is, they are slightly toothy, when I think that a sandy/crisp texture would have worked better. But they are a nice, basic variation on the butter cookie with nuts.
The shortbread recipe is a "start with this and then add that or that or even that" kind of affair. So I ended up adding pulverized roasted pecans and maple sugar (and a wee bit of pure maple flavoring to kick it up a notch) to announce that autumn has arrived. While I know that maple is usually associated with walnuts, I am very fond of it with pecans, and having already made a walnut cookie I wanted to mix it up. Along the way, I had browsed the recipe for maple shortbread in the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion and made a few adaptations to my recipe based on their ideas (basically sprinkling some maple sugar on the bottom of the pan before pressing in the shortbread, and then sprinkling some on top of the shortbread, to give it a bit of extra crunch and flavor), so this is something of an amalgam recipe. In the end, Andrew raved about it, and I thought it was pretty good, too; I brought some with me to Connecticut and shared with family, and they all liked it, as well. So I recommend it. And some of the variations on Melissa Clark's web site look very intereating - particularly adding rosemary to it!
This week, I am planning on one of my favorite recipes, which is a hallmark of autumn - but the forecast is for weather in the 80s all week, so there is gonna be some cognitive dissonance going on...
Enjoy!
Thursday, September 23, 2010
For September 23
This week, Mark Shogen Bloodgood is giving a personal practice talk at the Zen Center. Shogen is a vegan, and in his honor this week's recipes are both vegan:
Toasted Almond Cookies
Chocolate Chip Brownies
both from Peter Berley, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen
Peter Berley is a prominent cookbook author and chef whose first book, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, was almost entirely vegan. It is somewhat challenging to find vegan cookie recipes, but he has several in his book, and they sounded delicious, so I decided to do both recipes this week from the same source.
Now, I am not a vegan-phobe, but I now realize that I am a lacto-ovo-phile. Many of my recipes have been made without eggs or without butter, but I can't remember any previous ones that have had neither. So I entered into this project with some trepidation, but I really wanted to support Shogen, who is coming down from Arroyo Grande to give his talk. Vegan cooking was interesting. It was unbelievably expensive - I thought that my normal recipes were expensive, but these recipes hand's-down win my "most expensive recipe" award. Both of them rely on fairly expensive ingredients (or at least the ingredients that I bought were expensive). So the almond cookies called for quite a lot of coconut oil as the fat, and then use maple syrup as the sweetener. The brownies call for a generous amount of maple syrup, a lot of cocoa powder, sucanat (a natural, less-processed sugar), and other stuff. Anyway, taking out the eggs and the butter doesn't mean no fat, it means different fat, and often different other things to act as binding agents.
Of the two recipes, I think the brownies worked out better, at least as of now. The brownies are a pretty close approximation of "regular" brownies - lots of sweetener, cocoa powder, fat (canola oil), nuts, flour. Most brownies reply on a substantial volume of eggs, and these obviously have none of that, and they are a bit more crumbly as a result - they are not dry, but they are a bit crumbly. The flavors are good - they should be, given the amount of coca powder and chocolate chips - and the texture is also good. Overall, while I am not a big fan of these, I could easily see making them for vegan company.
The flavor of the toasted almond cookies is wonderful - lots of toasted almonds, a little orange zest, the maple flavor peeking through - but the consistency says "yep, that's a vegan cookie, all right." These are not delicate cookies - they are almost the opposite. Little boulders or something similar - not because they are hard to bite (although I think they probably would fall in the "al dente" category if they were a pasta) but because the dough does not melt into a traditional cookie in the baking process. This was a fairly stiff dough, and you form it into walnut sized balls and place them on the cookie sheet, squash them a little, then bake. With most cookies, they bake into beautiful rounds. These were unchanged. So not too beautiful to look at, texture is not my style, flavor is good. A vegan cookie. Oy.
Next week is my birthday, so it is "baker's choice." Hmmmm.....what will it be?
Toasted Almond Cookies
Chocolate Chip Brownies
both from Peter Berley, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen
Peter Berley is a prominent cookbook author and chef whose first book, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, was almost entirely vegan. It is somewhat challenging to find vegan cookie recipes, but he has several in his book, and they sounded delicious, so I decided to do both recipes this week from the same source.
Now, I am not a vegan-phobe, but I now realize that I am a lacto-ovo-phile. Many of my recipes have been made without eggs or without butter, but I can't remember any previous ones that have had neither. So I entered into this project with some trepidation, but I really wanted to support Shogen, who is coming down from Arroyo Grande to give his talk. Vegan cooking was interesting. It was unbelievably expensive - I thought that my normal recipes were expensive, but these recipes hand's-down win my "most expensive recipe" award. Both of them rely on fairly expensive ingredients (or at least the ingredients that I bought were expensive). So the almond cookies called for quite a lot of coconut oil as the fat, and then use maple syrup as the sweetener. The brownies call for a generous amount of maple syrup, a lot of cocoa powder, sucanat (a natural, less-processed sugar), and other stuff. Anyway, taking out the eggs and the butter doesn't mean no fat, it means different fat, and often different other things to act as binding agents.
Of the two recipes, I think the brownies worked out better, at least as of now. The brownies are a pretty close approximation of "regular" brownies - lots of sweetener, cocoa powder, fat (canola oil), nuts, flour. Most brownies reply on a substantial volume of eggs, and these obviously have none of that, and they are a bit more crumbly as a result - they are not dry, but they are a bit crumbly. The flavors are good - they should be, given the amount of coca powder and chocolate chips - and the texture is also good. Overall, while I am not a big fan of these, I could easily see making them for vegan company.
The flavor of the toasted almond cookies is wonderful - lots of toasted almonds, a little orange zest, the maple flavor peeking through - but the consistency says "yep, that's a vegan cookie, all right." These are not delicate cookies - they are almost the opposite. Little boulders or something similar - not because they are hard to bite (although I think they probably would fall in the "al dente" category if they were a pasta) but because the dough does not melt into a traditional cookie in the baking process. This was a fairly stiff dough, and you form it into walnut sized balls and place them on the cookie sheet, squash them a little, then bake. With most cookies, they bake into beautiful rounds. These were unchanged. So not too beautiful to look at, texture is not my style, flavor is good. A vegan cookie. Oy.
Next week is my birthday, so it is "baker's choice." Hmmmm.....what will it be?
Thursday, September 16, 2010
For September 16
Two very different cookies this week:
Cinnamon sugar cookies, from Mary Bergin, Spago Desserts
Melting chocolate meringues, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
I think this is the first time I have made each of these cookies. The cinnamon sugar cookies seem pretty much to be snickerdoodles in all but name, but maybe at a restaurant like Spago they can't call them by their true name. Well, anyway, this is a wonderful recipe - they are basically cinnamon-vanilla sugar cookies (and these suckers use a LOT of vanilla) that have a very delicate texture, and are coated with cinnamon sugar. Like snickerdoodles, they use cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is an ancient leavening agent that was used before we invented baking soda and baking powder (both of which are quite recent additions to the baking scene). In my experience, if a recipe calls for cream of tartar, it is usually a sign that it is a recipe with some history behind it, since nowadays people mostly use baking powder or baking soda.
This is my second week making a cookie from Mary Bergin's Spago Desserts. Her cookie recipes are pretty uniformly great, and all rely on the same basic technique, which involves making the dough, letting it chill, then forming individual cookies. It is a long process, but yields good cookies.
Interestingly, Alice Medrich's Melting Chocolate Meringues also use baking powder, but I doubt they have the same provenance as the sugar cookies. These are another gluten free cookie. Here, the cream of tartar is added as you beat the egg whites to help provide some stabilizing to them. It is an interesting technique to this recipe - melt the chocolate; chop lots of walnuts; whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar and sugar; put in nuts; pour melted chocolate over; fold until uniform in color; scoop and bake.
These are not my favorite cookie, and not my favorite gluten free or meringue-style cookie. I think the recipe from Tartine that I made a few months ago wins that award, and I think I'll make it again soon using a different nut (hazelnut?) this time. We'll see. Which is not to say that these are bad cookies - I am sure they will be gobbled up and everyone will like them. But for me, eh. Of course, snickerdoodles are one of my most favorite cookie, so it may be that, with a different companion cookie, I would feel differently about them. Hmmm....
Cinnamon sugar cookies, from Mary Bergin, Spago Desserts
Melting chocolate meringues, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
I think this is the first time I have made each of these cookies. The cinnamon sugar cookies seem pretty much to be snickerdoodles in all but name, but maybe at a restaurant like Spago they can't call them by their true name. Well, anyway, this is a wonderful recipe - they are basically cinnamon-vanilla sugar cookies (and these suckers use a LOT of vanilla) that have a very delicate texture, and are coated with cinnamon sugar. Like snickerdoodles, they use cream of tartar. Cream of tartar is an ancient leavening agent that was used before we invented baking soda and baking powder (both of which are quite recent additions to the baking scene). In my experience, if a recipe calls for cream of tartar, it is usually a sign that it is a recipe with some history behind it, since nowadays people mostly use baking powder or baking soda.
This is my second week making a cookie from Mary Bergin's Spago Desserts. Her cookie recipes are pretty uniformly great, and all rely on the same basic technique, which involves making the dough, letting it chill, then forming individual cookies. It is a long process, but yields good cookies.
Interestingly, Alice Medrich's Melting Chocolate Meringues also use baking powder, but I doubt they have the same provenance as the sugar cookies. These are another gluten free cookie. Here, the cream of tartar is added as you beat the egg whites to help provide some stabilizing to them. It is an interesting technique to this recipe - melt the chocolate; chop lots of walnuts; whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar and sugar; put in nuts; pour melted chocolate over; fold until uniform in color; scoop and bake.
These are not my favorite cookie, and not my favorite gluten free or meringue-style cookie. I think the recipe from Tartine that I made a few months ago wins that award, and I think I'll make it again soon using a different nut (hazelnut?) this time. We'll see. Which is not to say that these are bad cookies - I am sure they will be gobbled up and everyone will like them. But for me, eh. Of course, snickerdoodles are one of my most favorite cookie, so it may be that, with a different companion cookie, I would feel differently about them. Hmmm....
Monday, September 13, 2010
For September 9
The Center was closed for summer recess so there were no cookies on Sept. 2. For September 9, it was back to school, with two cookies:
Chocolate Sparkle Cookies, via the Los Angeles Times
Oatmeal Current Cookies, from Mary Bergin, Spago Desserts
The chocolate sparkle cookies were a happy byproduct - I have an ancient, bulging folder of recipes I have printed out or cut out of newspapers, etc. over the years, and I was looking through it for my favorite chocolate cake recipe over Labor Day weekend, when I stumbled upon this recipe, which was first printed in the LA Times almost 10 years ago. The recipe itself is from a bakery in Victoria, British Columbia. I apparently printed this out years ago, threw it in the folder, and never made it. Well, now I have, and it is wonderful! This is a gluten-free recipe - there is no flour. Instead, it relies on almond meal. While the recipe calls for grinding almonds, I took the lazy way out and bought a bag of almond meal at Whole Foods. Almond meal has become fairly easy to find these days, so it is a nice timesaver over grinding the almonds, etc. Regardless, this recipe makes small but powerful cookies - there are only 5 ingredients (butter, sugar, eggs, almonds, chocolate). It looks a lot like the fairly common chocolate crackle cookie - the outside will crack during baking, particularly if you use a convection oven - but more intense. They are fairly straightforward to make, and the reward at the end is great. And, as I mentioned, they are gluten free, to boot!
The second cookie was a repeat of an old favorite. Mary Bergin was the original pastry chef at Spago when it was in West Hollywood, and then went to Las Vegas to help open the first Spago offshoot there in 1992. I received her cookbook, Spago Desserts, from my friend Chris Kennedy, a partner at Irell who recruited me out of law school and who was singularly responsible for me coming to Los Angeles. Chris had a lot of health issues and died far too young. The copy of the cookbook has both Mary's autograph as well as Chris', so it is a treasure. Anyway, this oatmeal currant cookie recipe is very good. If the chocolate sparkle cookies have only a few ingredients, this recipe makes up for it. While it is an oatmeal currant cookie, it has almost as many walnuts as currants, and lots of spices, particularly cinnamon and allspice. These are very flavorful, interesting cookies, and every time I make them I am reminded how much I like them. The recipes in this book all seem very good. (The peanut butter cookie recipe, which also has currants in it, is one of Andrew's signature recipes, and one of the only peanut butter cookies we will eat.)
Chocolate Sparkle Cookies, via the Los Angeles Times
Oatmeal Current Cookies, from Mary Bergin, Spago Desserts
The chocolate sparkle cookies were a happy byproduct - I have an ancient, bulging folder of recipes I have printed out or cut out of newspapers, etc. over the years, and I was looking through it for my favorite chocolate cake recipe over Labor Day weekend, when I stumbled upon this recipe, which was first printed in the LA Times almost 10 years ago. The recipe itself is from a bakery in Victoria, British Columbia. I apparently printed this out years ago, threw it in the folder, and never made it. Well, now I have, and it is wonderful! This is a gluten-free recipe - there is no flour. Instead, it relies on almond meal. While the recipe calls for grinding almonds, I took the lazy way out and bought a bag of almond meal at Whole Foods. Almond meal has become fairly easy to find these days, so it is a nice timesaver over grinding the almonds, etc. Regardless, this recipe makes small but powerful cookies - there are only 5 ingredients (butter, sugar, eggs, almonds, chocolate). It looks a lot like the fairly common chocolate crackle cookie - the outside will crack during baking, particularly if you use a convection oven - but more intense. They are fairly straightforward to make, and the reward at the end is great. And, as I mentioned, they are gluten free, to boot!
The second cookie was a repeat of an old favorite. Mary Bergin was the original pastry chef at Spago when it was in West Hollywood, and then went to Las Vegas to help open the first Spago offshoot there in 1992. I received her cookbook, Spago Desserts, from my friend Chris Kennedy, a partner at Irell who recruited me out of law school and who was singularly responsible for me coming to Los Angeles. Chris had a lot of health issues and died far too young. The copy of the cookbook has both Mary's autograph as well as Chris', so it is a treasure. Anyway, this oatmeal currant cookie recipe is very good. If the chocolate sparkle cookies have only a few ingredients, this recipe makes up for it. While it is an oatmeal currant cookie, it has almost as many walnuts as currants, and lots of spices, particularly cinnamon and allspice. These are very flavorful, interesting cookies, and every time I make them I am reminded how much I like them. The recipes in this book all seem very good. (The peanut butter cookie recipe, which also has currants in it, is one of Andrew's signature recipes, and one of the only peanut butter cookies we will eat.)
Monday, August 30, 2010
For August 26
ZCLA is now on summer break, so there will be no cookies for Sept. 2. This gives me a chance to do a little catch-up, since I didn't post for last week. The cookies for Aug. 26 were:
Palm Beach Brownies, from Maida Heatter, Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts
Chewy Orange-Almond Cookies, from Martha Stewart
This was week of opposites. The brownies are a legendary recipe from the great doyenne of desserts, Maida Heatter. Heatter was a giant of the dessert/baking world in the 1970s and 1980s, and fortunately some of her books are still available. I have three, including her Book of Great Chocolate Desserts, Book of Great Desserts, and Cookies. But I first found the recipe for these brownies on an electronic BBS system when I was a grad student in Boston in the early spring of 1988. I still have the dot-matrix printed recipe in my recipe folder. It didn't include the name of the chef, or the name of the brownies; it was called "obscenely good brownies" and that is how I have always referred to them. A long time later I traced it back to Maida Heatter. Anyway, this recipe makes an intense, flavor-bomb, fudgy brownie that is really different than any other I have experienced. It uses a lot of everything - chocolate, butter, espresso powder, sugar, etc etc. It is also a recipe that is best made by those with a stand mixer, because it calls for you to beat the butter/sugar etc. set of ingredients on high speed for 10 minutes. There were literally two decades where I did this, and almost willingly, so good are these brownies. But this recipe is one of the best reasons to own a stand mixer if you can - put the ingredients in, turn to high, set the timer, do other stuff. I love you, KitchenAid! Anyway, the only downside on this recipe is that, if you do it correctly, you end up with a burned crust - this is a sign you have done it correctly! Now, with brownies, as long as it is not too burned, you can get away with not cutting it off, but usually you have to take a bread knife and gently cut off the edges and shave a bit of the bottom. I don't know if we could get the same results in a way that would give us less burned outside, but it would be worth investigating. And these brownies are best if you can give them around 24 hours before you eat them. Good luck!
In contrast, the other cookie is almost ethereal. I stumbled across the Chewy Orange-Almond Cookies on the Martha Stewart web site (which has a cookie a day page, wow). These are almost meringues - they have no added fat and use lots and lots of egg whites. The flavor comes from the almonds (which are ground and comprise most of the dry ingredients) and the orange zest. I had to triple the recipe, which meant zesting 6 oranges - the best reason to own a microplane grater! They are awesome (as long as you give them the respect they deserve, otherwise they can really grate your fingers quite efficiently). Anyway, the resulting cookie is light, and intensely orangey. They are a stark contrast to the brownies.
As I said, no cookies this week, so back at ya' next week!
Palm Beach Brownies, from Maida Heatter, Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts
Chewy Orange-Almond Cookies, from Martha Stewart
This was week of opposites. The brownies are a legendary recipe from the great doyenne of desserts, Maida Heatter. Heatter was a giant of the dessert/baking world in the 1970s and 1980s, and fortunately some of her books are still available. I have three, including her Book of Great Chocolate Desserts, Book of Great Desserts, and Cookies. But I first found the recipe for these brownies on an electronic BBS system when I was a grad student in Boston in the early spring of 1988. I still have the dot-matrix printed recipe in my recipe folder. It didn't include the name of the chef, or the name of the brownies; it was called "obscenely good brownies" and that is how I have always referred to them. A long time later I traced it back to Maida Heatter. Anyway, this recipe makes an intense, flavor-bomb, fudgy brownie that is really different than any other I have experienced. It uses a lot of everything - chocolate, butter, espresso powder, sugar, etc etc. It is also a recipe that is best made by those with a stand mixer, because it calls for you to beat the butter/sugar etc. set of ingredients on high speed for 10 minutes. There were literally two decades where I did this, and almost willingly, so good are these brownies. But this recipe is one of the best reasons to own a stand mixer if you can - put the ingredients in, turn to high, set the timer, do other stuff. I love you, KitchenAid! Anyway, the only downside on this recipe is that, if you do it correctly, you end up with a burned crust - this is a sign you have done it correctly! Now, with brownies, as long as it is not too burned, you can get away with not cutting it off, but usually you have to take a bread knife and gently cut off the edges and shave a bit of the bottom. I don't know if we could get the same results in a way that would give us less burned outside, but it would be worth investigating. And these brownies are best if you can give them around 24 hours before you eat them. Good luck!
In contrast, the other cookie is almost ethereal. I stumbled across the Chewy Orange-Almond Cookies on the Martha Stewart web site (which has a cookie a day page, wow). These are almost meringues - they have no added fat and use lots and lots of egg whites. The flavor comes from the almonds (which are ground and comprise most of the dry ingredients) and the orange zest. I had to triple the recipe, which meant zesting 6 oranges - the best reason to own a microplane grater! They are awesome (as long as you give them the respect they deserve, otherwise they can really grate your fingers quite efficiently). Anyway, the resulting cookie is light, and intensely orangey. They are a stark contrast to the brownies.
As I said, no cookies this week, so back at ya' next week!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
For August 19
The blog is 2 years old this week. Happy Birthday!
So today we get the freshest cookies ever - because they were made THIS MORNING. And not as in after midnight, as in 8 a.m. today. Apparently some sort of oil/sludge had gotten on the bottom of our oven so when I went to preheat it last night, smoke started billowing out. And even after I cooled it down and cleaned it as much as I could, smoke still billowed out. So I used, for the first time, the self-clean function on the oven. The good news - it heats the oven to 800+ degrees and burns everything off, so no billowing smoke afterward. The bad news - it is a 4 hour process, heats the house up like crazy, and destroys any plans you have to use the oven. Sooooo it was up early to bake today.
And here is what I baked:
Chocolate Black Pepper Cookies, from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Vanilla Pecan Squares, from Chocolate & Zucchini
Andrew Bodhi-Heart pointed out that a few weeks ago, I made the world peace cookies, which are basically chocolate and salt cookies, and now I am making chocolate and black pepper cookies. Hmmm. I didn't really notice that. Anyway, I made these once years ago, and they are an interesting and nice cookie. There is a good amount of fresh-ground black pepper in these; they call for more to be sprinkled on top, but I think there is enough in the dough itself. They are a fun and different item.
As are the vanilla pecan squares. These are almost like a very thin cake. The batter is a thick cake batter, which is poured in the pan, then pecans are placed on top, one for each (eventual) square, then baked. Almost like a biscotti, after it comes out of the oven and cools, you cut the squares, place them on a baking pan, separated, and then place them back in the (turned off) oven for 30 minutes to dry and crisp. Very interesting!
(And, for the record, I omitted the rum that the recipe calls for, and added a few drops of almond extract instead.)
OK, gotta go. Stay cool!
So today we get the freshest cookies ever - because they were made THIS MORNING. And not as in after midnight, as in 8 a.m. today. Apparently some sort of oil/sludge had gotten on the bottom of our oven so when I went to preheat it last night, smoke started billowing out. And even after I cooled it down and cleaned it as much as I could, smoke still billowed out. So I used, for the first time, the self-clean function on the oven. The good news - it heats the oven to 800+ degrees and burns everything off, so no billowing smoke afterward. The bad news - it is a 4 hour process, heats the house up like crazy, and destroys any plans you have to use the oven. Sooooo it was up early to bake today.
And here is what I baked:
Chocolate Black Pepper Cookies, from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Vanilla Pecan Squares, from Chocolate & Zucchini
Andrew Bodhi-Heart pointed out that a few weeks ago, I made the world peace cookies, which are basically chocolate and salt cookies, and now I am making chocolate and black pepper cookies. Hmmm. I didn't really notice that. Anyway, I made these once years ago, and they are an interesting and nice cookie. There is a good amount of fresh-ground black pepper in these; they call for more to be sprinkled on top, but I think there is enough in the dough itself. They are a fun and different item.
As are the vanilla pecan squares. These are almost like a very thin cake. The batter is a thick cake batter, which is poured in the pan, then pecans are placed on top, one for each (eventual) square, then baked. Almost like a biscotti, after it comes out of the oven and cools, you cut the squares, place them on a baking pan, separated, and then place them back in the (turned off) oven for 30 minutes to dry and crisp. Very interesting!
(And, for the record, I omitted the rum that the recipe calls for, and added a few drops of almond extract instead.)
OK, gotta go. Stay cool!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
For August 12
Last week was all Martha, this week is all Sherry Yard, the pastry chef at Spago Beverly Hills:
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Butterscotch Cookies
both from Sherry Yard, The Secrets of Baking
I am a big fan of this book, and I think both of these are repeats. I know that the chocolate chip cookies are, and although I thought the Butterscotch cookies were a newbie, seeing them cook they looked very familiar.
The chocolate chip cookies are good - crisp. (Apparently Wolfgang Puck likes his chocolate chip cookies crisp.) I like a little chewier than this, but these are still wonderful. These use hand-chopped chocolate instead of store-bought chips, and they end up looking beautiful as a result - almost marbled! No nuts, very simple ingredients. They are great dipped in milk!
The butterscotch cookies are very similar to the chocolate chip cookies in technique and ingredients, with a few key exceptions (like no chocolate). This uses dark brown sugar (and I use a great dark brown sugar, not the standard stuff) and butter to get the butterscotch flavor. There are not a lot of ingredients other than those - some flour, some eggs, a little vanilla, salt, and that's about it. After making the dough, you chill it, but this one never got firm - after 24 hours, it was still a mess to work with! It must be the amount of butter. Anyway, after "slicing" them (good luck), you sprinkle them with demerara sugar before baking. Very simple, very pure flavors.
Enjoy!
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Butterscotch Cookies
both from Sherry Yard, The Secrets of Baking
I am a big fan of this book, and I think both of these are repeats. I know that the chocolate chip cookies are, and although I thought the Butterscotch cookies were a newbie, seeing them cook they looked very familiar.
The chocolate chip cookies are good - crisp. (Apparently Wolfgang Puck likes his chocolate chip cookies crisp.) I like a little chewier than this, but these are still wonderful. These use hand-chopped chocolate instead of store-bought chips, and they end up looking beautiful as a result - almost marbled! No nuts, very simple ingredients. They are great dipped in milk!
The butterscotch cookies are very similar to the chocolate chip cookies in technique and ingredients, with a few key exceptions (like no chocolate). This uses dark brown sugar (and I use a great dark brown sugar, not the standard stuff) and butter to get the butterscotch flavor. There are not a lot of ingredients other than those - some flour, some eggs, a little vanilla, salt, and that's about it. After making the dough, you chill it, but this one never got firm - after 24 hours, it was still a mess to work with! It must be the amount of butter. Anyway, after "slicing" them (good luck), you sprinkle them with demerara sugar before baking. Very simple, very pure flavors.
Enjoy!
For August 5
Another catch-up (not katsup) post. Last week was all about Martha:
Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread
Double Chocolate Brownies
both from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Both yummy - this week, in a first (or first in my limited memory), I came out liking the chocolate item less then the others. I really liked the shortbread cookies - they were buttery but also had a good dose of salt, so there was a sweet and salty aspect. The recipe called for including orange zest, but I ended up with a 2/3 orange zest-1/3 lemon zest combination to try to give it a little more character. The shortbread also includes a small amount of cornmeal (I used a very fine cornmeal, not the usual coarse, stone-ground variety) and then the dough logs are rolled in cornmeal to give an edging to each cookie. All in all, I liked them a lot, and since these are slice and bake cookies, as long as you prepare the dough ahead and refrigerate it, you have a really nice cookie available with very little immediate effort.
The brownies were, well brownies. These were "double chocolate" because they used both cocoa powder as well as bittersweet chocolate. These are apparently one of the most popular recipes from the Martha Stewart web site or whatever, and I can see why - they are most but not super dense, and not cakey (yuck). A very good, solid, respectable brownie.
Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread
Double Chocolate Brownies
both from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Both yummy - this week, in a first (or first in my limited memory), I came out liking the chocolate item less then the others. I really liked the shortbread cookies - they were buttery but also had a good dose of salt, so there was a sweet and salty aspect. The recipe called for including orange zest, but I ended up with a 2/3 orange zest-1/3 lemon zest combination to try to give it a little more character. The shortbread also includes a small amount of cornmeal (I used a very fine cornmeal, not the usual coarse, stone-ground variety) and then the dough logs are rolled in cornmeal to give an edging to each cookie. All in all, I liked them a lot, and since these are slice and bake cookies, as long as you prepare the dough ahead and refrigerate it, you have a really nice cookie available with very little immediate effort.
The brownies were, well brownies. These were "double chocolate" because they used both cocoa powder as well as bittersweet chocolate. These are apparently one of the most popular recipes from the Martha Stewart web site or whatever, and I can see why - they are most but not super dense, and not cakey (yuck). A very good, solid, respectable brownie.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
For July 29
Last week was sesshin, so no cookies, just sitting. This week, back to the normal schedule.
Two items, both from Dorie Greenspan, one new, one a repeat:
World Peace Cookies
Almond-Currant Teacakes
both by Dorie Greenspan
As any reader knows, I am in love with this woman. Her recipes are just consistently great. I have made the world peace cookie a couple of times before. Andrew Bodhi-Heart says it is one of his favorites. I didn't remember it until I, uh, sampled one last night. One of the distinctive things about it is that it is quite salty - a mix of chocolate and salty. Dorie credits Pierre Herme as the creator of this cookie, and she is apparently herself a rabid fan of it, since she says that it should rank up there with the invention of the Toll House cookie in the annals of baking. Apparently it got its current name because a neighbor of hers told her that if everyone could have a regular supply of these cookies, they would be so happy that world peace would break out. So let's get cookin'!
The second recipe was a very last minute item. I had originally thought that, in honor of the opening of a Magnolia Bakery here in LA, I would do something out of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. But, to be honest, their first cookbook is not very tempting. (I hear the second one is better, but I don't have it.) Everything in it is too over the top. Everything seems a little bit frenetic, and crazy sweet. So I closed that book and moved on.
While getting something out of my laptop case, I opened a side pocket and found two recipes in there that I had printed from the web a long time ago and forgotten. One of them was for these teacakes, which I must have found through Dorie's web site. (The recipe itself is published on the AARP web site which, by the way, seems to have a really amazing recipe section - who knew!) Anything that involves almond is a winner in my book, and this looked really good - little mini-cupcake sized cakes filled with almond and currant flavors. Making them was quite straightforward, and they are really yummy, and a nice contrast to the chocolate and salt of the world peace cookies. And I think that the mini size is just right - having a regular sized version would be too much, but this is juuuuust right.
I was very lucky last night, because when I got home I found Bodhi-Heart already had done the slicing and started the baking on the cookies (I had made the dough the night before), so I handled the tea cakes. That gave me a little time at the end of the night to work on my sewing. My ordination is now less than 3 weeks away, and I am still busy sewing! Yikes! It will all be done, but the push is on.
OK, back to work now. Enjoy!
Two items, both from Dorie Greenspan, one new, one a repeat:
World Peace Cookies
Almond-Currant Teacakes
both by Dorie Greenspan
As any reader knows, I am in love with this woman. Her recipes are just consistently great. I have made the world peace cookie a couple of times before. Andrew Bodhi-Heart says it is one of his favorites. I didn't remember it until I, uh, sampled one last night. One of the distinctive things about it is that it is quite salty - a mix of chocolate and salty. Dorie credits Pierre Herme as the creator of this cookie, and she is apparently herself a rabid fan of it, since she says that it should rank up there with the invention of the Toll House cookie in the annals of baking. Apparently it got its current name because a neighbor of hers told her that if everyone could have a regular supply of these cookies, they would be so happy that world peace would break out. So let's get cookin'!
The second recipe was a very last minute item. I had originally thought that, in honor of the opening of a Magnolia Bakery here in LA, I would do something out of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. But, to be honest, their first cookbook is not very tempting. (I hear the second one is better, but I don't have it.) Everything in it is too over the top. Everything seems a little bit frenetic, and crazy sweet. So I closed that book and moved on.
While getting something out of my laptop case, I opened a side pocket and found two recipes in there that I had printed from the web a long time ago and forgotten. One of them was for these teacakes, which I must have found through Dorie's web site. (The recipe itself is published on the AARP web site which, by the way, seems to have a really amazing recipe section - who knew!) Anything that involves almond is a winner in my book, and this looked really good - little mini-cupcake sized cakes filled with almond and currant flavors. Making them was quite straightforward, and they are really yummy, and a nice contrast to the chocolate and salt of the world peace cookies. And I think that the mini size is just right - having a regular sized version would be too much, but this is juuuuust right.
I was very lucky last night, because when I got home I found Bodhi-Heart already had done the slicing and started the baking on the cookies (I had made the dough the night before), so I handled the tea cakes. That gave me a little time at the end of the night to work on my sewing. My ordination is now less than 3 weeks away, and I am still busy sewing! Yikes! It will all be done, but the push is on.
OK, back to work now. Enjoy!
For July 15
Lemon Cookies, from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion
Chewy Fudge Brownies, from the New York Times
Chewy Fudge Brownies, from the New York Times
Thursday, July 8, 2010
For July 1
Last week, Andrew and I left for Tassajara on Thursday morning, but I made cookies to leave behind before heading out. Both cookies were from one of my favorite cooks, Alice Medrich:
Nibby Pecan Sables
Real Chocolate Wafers
both from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
The chocolate wafer cookie was a new recipe for me. The cookie is exactly what it says it is - a chocolate wafer. Probably quite good with milk, and as Alice says in her notes, crushed up they would make an excellent pie crust. Not my favorite cookie on its own, but it has very good flavor. (Mini ice-cream sandwiches would be amazing with this.)
The sables are an old favorite. I'll write more later.
Nibby Pecan Sables
Real Chocolate Wafers
both from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
The chocolate wafer cookie was a new recipe for me. The cookie is exactly what it says it is - a chocolate wafer. Probably quite good with milk, and as Alice says in her notes, crushed up they would make an excellent pie crust. Not my favorite cookie on its own, but it has very good flavor. (Mini ice-cream sandwiches would be amazing with this.)
The sables are an old favorite. I'll write more later.
For June 24...
For June 24, I was just back in town from a week away. We had a guest baker this week, Bob Gido Fisher. He made two ridiculously good items:
Chocolate Crinkles, from Martha Stewart Cookies
Oatmeal Lace Cookies
The oatmeal lace cookies were amazing. Lucky for me, Gido even gave me the recipe, so I will get to try it after a suitable break.
Thanks, Gido!
Chocolate Crinkles, from Martha Stewart Cookies
Oatmeal Lace Cookies
The oatmeal lace cookies were amazing. Lucky for me, Gido even gave me the recipe, so I will get to try it after a suitable break.
Thanks, Gido!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
For June 10
Quick post, very tired. Two very different cookies this week:
Double Chocolate Cookies, from Milk
Orange Cashew Biscotti, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion
Milk is an amazing ice cream shop and bakery on Beverly Boulevard. While people go mostly for the ice cream, their baked goods are, IMHO, even better. This recipe for double chocolate cookies was printed about 18 months ago in the LA Times, and I am happy to finally be making it. It is a hedonist's cookie - a lot of chocolate with a bit of egg and flour to hold it all together. Very intense, very wonderful. Just be sure to use good chocolate!
The biscotti were a response to my "challenge" from Andrew, who asked me to make a recipe with orange. (I just mentioned this to him, and he had forgotten.) Anyway, I am not a huge fan of orange in cookies, but I thought that I would browse my biscotti variations, and I came across this recipe that involves both orange as well as salted, roasted cashews, one of Andrew's major food groups. Well, how could I resist? (A rhetorical question.) Anyway, the orange in these is from our tree - we have a Valencia orange tree in our front yard and it makes the sweetest and juciest oranges that we rarely take advantage of. So today I got to use zest and juice to make these biscotti. They are a nice, delicate flavor - the cashews are not nearly as strong a flavor as I expected them to be, and the orange is a predominant flavor. They are a nice cookie and a good contrast to the intensity of the chocolate cookies. We'll see as they cool and settle down how the flavor develops.
I should add that I was helped greatly by Andrew Bodhi-Heart this week. I made the dough for the double chocolate cookies on Tuesday night because it had to chill a bit before portioning out. He got home early on Wednesday and decided to surprise me by baking the cookies for me, so when I got home around 7:30, the chocolate cookies were all done and cooling on racks or already packed up for delivery. Hurray! It made the rest of the evening much more enjoyable. Thanks!
OK, night night!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
For June3
OK, back on track, even if exhausted. This week, two rather experimental cookies - which is probably kinda silly, probably should have done only ONE experimental cookie in a week. But noooooo...... So here is the lineup:
Iced Multigrain Oatmeal Cookies, adapted from Kim Boyce, Good to the Grain
Chocolate Chip Cookies with Buckwheat Groats, from The Wednesday Chef blog
Two interesting cookies. Now, neither of them is going to come in as "healthy," believe me, but they are both whole grain based cookies. The oatmeal cookies are VERY whole grain. The recipe involved whole oats (which you grind into a coarse meal), whole wheat flour, oat flour, barley flour, millet flour and rye flour. Andrew was agog at all the little flour bags that were strewn over the counter at the end of this process; the only reason he forgave me was that we managed to reduce the rolled oat containers in our cupboard in making the recipe, and somehow the oats seem to be breeding in there in the dark or something, we have so many of them. Anyway, these are a very nice cookie - the cookie has all these amazing whole grains, and then most of the sweetener is the good, dark brown muscovado sugar that I have been using recently, which is so much better than the normal dark brown sugar (albeit a wee bit more expensive - or maybe a wee bit more than a wee bit). After they cool, they are iced to give them a little extra flavor (there is a boatload of cinnamon in the icing, which is why it is BROWN) and a kick of sweetness. I have to admit, I was a bit guarded about this "whole grain" recipe, but this one is really yummy. I am sure that the butter and the brown sugar may have something to do with that. But now, what do I do with 4 cups of millet flour?
The other recipe was one of those spur of the moment moves. I have never been to this woman's blog before, but I was browsing around looking for a different recipe and landed on her wonderful food blog - I recommend it highly, and it is quite entertaining and enjoyable. Anyway, looking at her index of cookie recipes, I saw this one for chocolate chip cookies with buckwheat groats. Huh??? Buckwheat groats? In chocolate chip cookies? What are buckwheat groats, anyway?
Well, Whole Foods being, well, Whole Foods, it had multiple choices of buckwheat groats. The recipe calls for "buckwheat groats (kasha)" but it seems clear after my Whole Foods shopping experience that buckwheat groats are not the same as kasha - kasha is a roasted version of buckwheat groats. (Some of the brands did not make this distinction, either, so I may be just making this all up, but it's just too late and I'm too tired to research this to a resolution.) So I was left with the question of buying the roasted version (kasha) or the raw version (groats). I went for the roasted version, thinking that it would give a nutty, richer flavor to the cookie. Anyway, the recipe is a pretty straightforward chocolate chip cookie recipe, except that instead of adding nuts or whatever with the chips, you add the buckwheat groats. (Oh, and it calls for whole wheat pastry flour instead of the usual white flour, so this was truly a whole grain cooking night.) And it does indeed give the cookies a very interesting, unusual twist - there is both an interesting texture from the crunchiness of the groats, and also an interesting flavor. The cookies came out on the crisp/crunch side to begin with, and the groats add further crunch, so not for those of you who like your cookies chewy or soft.
Anyway, my concerns about doing two experimental, whole grain cookies in one week seem to be allayed. We have survived another baking adventure!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
For May 20 (Final Catch Up)
OK, so I have been totally lame on blogging. Sue me. The big problem is that I really have absolutely no memory about what I made in the earlier weeks, making this an increasingly challenging exercise. Anyway, since I still have these hanging around my house, I am pretty sure about what I made last week. Here's the deal:
Raspberry Honey Financiers, from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Cranberry Oatmeal Bars, from Nick Malgieri
OK, so something went very wrong last week - there was no chocolate involved in the baking! It was largely an accident - I was looking for the page in the Martha Stewart's Cookies book that has the chocolate-black pepper cookies, and passed the page with the financiers and they caught my eye and I decided a) the chocolate cookie recipe required a refrigeration time for the dough that I did not have available and b) the financiers looked soooooo cute! Although part of my motivation was to find a recipe that did not require such a time investment as many drop cookies, that did not turn out to be the case here - the recipe involves quite a few steps, so it was probably a wash in the end. There is not very much flour in the recipe; instead, you toast almonds and then grind them finely. It gives it great flavor and texture. It also requires you to brown the butter, which is always a bit of an anxiety-inducing exercise for me - cooking butter until it is brown (but not burned!) is definitely a mindfulness exercise. Finally, you take fresh raspberries and puree them. Ideally you pass them through a strainer to remove the seeds; if you are me, you try that until, in exasperation, you give up and just dump it all in and mutter something about seeds being good for the soul....
Anyway, these are a tiny (mini-cupcake pan) almond cake with a dollop of raspberry added on top. Now, in the oh-so-pretty cookbook version, you dab the raspberry on top, and then use a knife or some similar object to swirl the dab around to make it heart-shaped. Yeah, right - well, in my world everyone has broken hearts - very, very broken hearts. Anyway, they were yummy all the same.
The cranberry oatmeal bars were very nice. Oats, cranberries, pecans, brown sugar - yum. The cranberries were a nice flavor complement, replacing the usual, sweeter, raisins or currants. This was not very sweet - really, neither of these two items was overly sweet - and would probably also be a good breakfast or mid-morning item rather than simply a "dessert."
Raspberry Honey Financiers, from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Cranberry Oatmeal Bars, from Nick Malgieri
OK, so something went very wrong last week - there was no chocolate involved in the baking! It was largely an accident - I was looking for the page in the Martha Stewart's Cookies book that has the chocolate-black pepper cookies, and passed the page with the financiers and they caught my eye and I decided a) the chocolate cookie recipe required a refrigeration time for the dough that I did not have available and b) the financiers looked soooooo cute! Although part of my motivation was to find a recipe that did not require such a time investment as many drop cookies, that did not turn out to be the case here - the recipe involves quite a few steps, so it was probably a wash in the end. There is not very much flour in the recipe; instead, you toast almonds and then grind them finely. It gives it great flavor and texture. It also requires you to brown the butter, which is always a bit of an anxiety-inducing exercise for me - cooking butter until it is brown (but not burned!) is definitely a mindfulness exercise. Finally, you take fresh raspberries and puree them. Ideally you pass them through a strainer to remove the seeds; if you are me, you try that until, in exasperation, you give up and just dump it all in and mutter something about seeds being good for the soul....
Anyway, these are a tiny (mini-cupcake pan) almond cake with a dollop of raspberry added on top. Now, in the oh-so-pretty cookbook version, you dab the raspberry on top, and then use a knife or some similar object to swirl the dab around to make it heart-shaped. Yeah, right - well, in my world everyone has broken hearts - very, very broken hearts. Anyway, they were yummy all the same.
The cranberry oatmeal bars were very nice. Oats, cranberries, pecans, brown sugar - yum. The cranberries were a nice flavor complement, replacing the usual, sweeter, raisins or currants. This was not very sweet - really, neither of these two items was overly sweet - and would probably also be a good breakfast or mid-morning item rather than simply a "dessert."
For May 13 (More Catch Up)
Need to enter this when I figure out what I made this week, too.
Brownie Bites
Spago Oatmeal Raisin Cookies?
Brownie Bites
Spago Oatmeal Raisin Cookies?
Thursday, April 22, 2010
For April 22
This week is "celebrity chef" week here at Joyful Mind Bakery. Or, at least, celebrity chef recipe week - no celebrity chefs were involved (0r harmed) in the baking of these confections! Anyway, here is the lineup:
Buttery Pecan Rounds, from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Brownies, from Thomas Keller
OK, so the "Martha Stewart's Cookies" cookbook is a reminder of what great book design can be. Even if you don't buy it, even if you would not think of baking a cookie if your life depended on it, next time you are in a respectable bookstore it would be worth your while just to pop over to the cookbooks and look at this book and appreciate it as an example of function and design. It is a wonderful book. The book is organized by "type of cookie" - soft and chewy, sandy, etc. It is a wonderful organizing principle in itself, but even better, the table of contents has a picture of every cookie next to its name! How cool is that? Anyway, the book was just named by the James Beard Foundation as one of the 13 essential baking books to have in your library (along with a few of the others that I have and that readers here have heard about; as for the ones I don't yet own, that is what my Amazon Wish List is for, but I digress...). Anyway, before there was this book, there was a smaller holiday cookie magazine that followed the same organizing principle. I bought that magazine at the grocery store in Oakhurst, California, right outside the south entrance to Yosemite National Park, as we were going into Yosemite for our Thanksgiving celebration in 2005, just a few weeks after I began this baking odyssey, and I spent the entire four-day weekend reading it and becoming entranced. I baked a lot of the recipes out of that magazine early on - the chocolate black pepper cookies that were so popular, as well as the cornmeal thyme cookies, the pine nut cookies, the pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing, and many others. It eventually got expanded into a book, and it is a wonderful book with lots of really good recipes. With as many recipes under my belt as I have now, I would probably edit the text a bit to make some things clearer and revise a few techniques here and there based on things I have learned from other cookbooks, but it is a very good friend to have on hand.
Anyway, these butter pecan rounds are a first time recipe for me. They are a very simple recipe - the dough seems to be little more than dark brown sugar and butter, with some flour thrown in to hold them together. Oh, and there is also a good amount of pecan meal - toasted, chopped pecans that take the place of flour to amp up the flavor of the dough. After the dough is made, you scoop it out, then place a pecan half on each cookie. The good-quality brown sugar is a great foil for the pecans and the butter. It is a nice combination.
The brownies are from Thomas Keller, chef at the French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon, etc. This recipe is from his new cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home, and I found it on the NPR web site. Actually, I had no plan to make brownies this week; I was browsing on my computer trying to find a work-related file in my "My Documents" folder and I found a file called "Thomas Keller Brownies." Huh? It was a MS Word file that I had obviously created, but I had no distinct memory of it, and it didn't indicate where it had come from. (Eventually I googled it and found it in various places, but I now remember that NPR did an interview with him and had a few recipes from the new cookbook on the site. We love you, Google!) I saw the recipe and thought that it would be good to make, since I have been doing a series of brownie recipes recently exploring different variations on the theme. These basically fall into the "I see you and I raise you ten times" or whatever a poker player would say. These are intense. There is a lot of just about everything in them: these brownies are cocoa based, but then there is a substantial amount of bittersweet chocolate that I hand cut and add so that there are little chocolate surprises buried within the brownie. Making two trays of these brownies required - hold on, kids - nine sticks of butter, 3 cups of Valrhona cocoa powder, 18 oz. of Scharffen Berger chocolate, nine eggs, sugar, butter, salt and vanilla. The grocery store bill for these suckers was astounding - so eat up! They are an incredibly midnight black brownie, deeply intense with all the butter, and then the small pockets of chocolate here and there are like little taste bud land mines. Eating these and the pecan cookies together, these have to be eaten second, because your taste buds are just blown out by the intensity of it all.
Anyway, enjoy!
Buttery Pecan Rounds, from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Brownies, from Thomas Keller
OK, so the "Martha Stewart's Cookies" cookbook is a reminder of what great book design can be. Even if you don't buy it, even if you would not think of baking a cookie if your life depended on it, next time you are in a respectable bookstore it would be worth your while just to pop over to the cookbooks and look at this book and appreciate it as an example of function and design. It is a wonderful book. The book is organized by "type of cookie" - soft and chewy, sandy, etc. It is a wonderful organizing principle in itself, but even better, the table of contents has a picture of every cookie next to its name! How cool is that? Anyway, the book was just named by the James Beard Foundation as one of the 13 essential baking books to have in your library (along with a few of the others that I have and that readers here have heard about; as for the ones I don't yet own, that is what my Amazon Wish List is for, but I digress...). Anyway, before there was this book, there was a smaller holiday cookie magazine that followed the same organizing principle. I bought that magazine at the grocery store in Oakhurst, California, right outside the south entrance to Yosemite National Park, as we were going into Yosemite for our Thanksgiving celebration in 2005, just a few weeks after I began this baking odyssey, and I spent the entire four-day weekend reading it and becoming entranced. I baked a lot of the recipes out of that magazine early on - the chocolate black pepper cookies that were so popular, as well as the cornmeal thyme cookies, the pine nut cookies, the pumpkin cookies with brown butter icing, and many others. It eventually got expanded into a book, and it is a wonderful book with lots of really good recipes. With as many recipes under my belt as I have now, I would probably edit the text a bit to make some things clearer and revise a few techniques here and there based on things I have learned from other cookbooks, but it is a very good friend to have on hand.
Anyway, these butter pecan rounds are a first time recipe for me. They are a very simple recipe - the dough seems to be little more than dark brown sugar and butter, with some flour thrown in to hold them together. Oh, and there is also a good amount of pecan meal - toasted, chopped pecans that take the place of flour to amp up the flavor of the dough. After the dough is made, you scoop it out, then place a pecan half on each cookie. The good-quality brown sugar is a great foil for the pecans and the butter. It is a nice combination.
The brownies are from Thomas Keller, chef at the French Laundry, Per Se, Bouchon, etc. This recipe is from his new cookbook, Ad Hoc at Home, and I found it on the NPR web site. Actually, I had no plan to make brownies this week; I was browsing on my computer trying to find a work-related file in my "My Documents" folder and I found a file called "Thomas Keller Brownies." Huh? It was a MS Word file that I had obviously created, but I had no distinct memory of it, and it didn't indicate where it had come from. (Eventually I googled it and found it in various places, but I now remember that NPR did an interview with him and had a few recipes from the new cookbook on the site. We love you, Google!) I saw the recipe and thought that it would be good to make, since I have been doing a series of brownie recipes recently exploring different variations on the theme. These basically fall into the "I see you and I raise you ten times" or whatever a poker player would say. These are intense. There is a lot of just about everything in them: these brownies are cocoa based, but then there is a substantial amount of bittersweet chocolate that I hand cut and add so that there are little chocolate surprises buried within the brownie. Making two trays of these brownies required - hold on, kids - nine sticks of butter, 3 cups of Valrhona cocoa powder, 18 oz. of Scharffen Berger chocolate, nine eggs, sugar, butter, salt and vanilla. The grocery store bill for these suckers was astounding - so eat up! They are an incredibly midnight black brownie, deeply intense with all the butter, and then the small pockets of chocolate here and there are like little taste bud land mines. Eating these and the pecan cookies together, these have to be eaten second, because your taste buds are just blown out by the intensity of it all.
Anyway, enjoy!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
For April 15
Tax Day. It calls for cookies!
Last night, Andrew Bodhi-Heart was working, so I was on my own. Luckily, I planned ahead and made one of my doughs the night before, so all I had to do was slice and bake on Wednesday ... and make the whole other set of cookies. Amazingly, all worked out OK, as I was pretty much done fairly early (as these things go). I am not quite sure how it happened.
Here's the lineup:
Hempseed Whole Wheat Sables, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert
Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, from....Nestle?
I have raved about Alice Medrich's sables before, and I am happy to have another chance to do so. These french butter cookies are really amazing. Her cookbook, Pure Dessert, tries to pare back ingredient lists to the bare minimum to let the intensity of the few remaining ingredients shine through. Here, the two "showcase" ingredients are whole wheat flour and hempseed. Yes, boys and girls, hempseed. Hempseed is a relatively obscure ingredient, but delicious. She likens it to a delicate version of a sunflower seed. Whatever the proper analogy, they are quite good. (At bld restaurant, here in Los Angeles, they have a hempseed-crusted tofu entree that Bodhi-Heart is a big fan of.) Anyway, sorry to disappoint you but there is no psychoactive ingredient in hempseed, so don't get too excited. The hempseeds not only give this a very delicate texture, but also an interesting visual appeal. Highly recommended!
I have also been hankering for good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies. So I grabbed the Toll House recipe off the web and went home and made them! Of course, I used Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chips instead of the usual Nestle semi-sweets, but otherwise I hewed to the recipe. These turned out very nicely, so my craving is satisfied...for now.
Come enjoy!
Last night, Andrew Bodhi-Heart was working, so I was on my own. Luckily, I planned ahead and made one of my doughs the night before, so all I had to do was slice and bake on Wednesday ... and make the whole other set of cookies. Amazingly, all worked out OK, as I was pretty much done fairly early (as these things go). I am not quite sure how it happened.
Here's the lineup:
Hempseed Whole Wheat Sables, from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert
Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, from....Nestle?
I have raved about Alice Medrich's sables before, and I am happy to have another chance to do so. These french butter cookies are really amazing. Her cookbook, Pure Dessert, tries to pare back ingredient lists to the bare minimum to let the intensity of the few remaining ingredients shine through. Here, the two "showcase" ingredients are whole wheat flour and hempseed. Yes, boys and girls, hempseed. Hempseed is a relatively obscure ingredient, but delicious. She likens it to a delicate version of a sunflower seed. Whatever the proper analogy, they are quite good. (At bld restaurant, here in Los Angeles, they have a hempseed-crusted tofu entree that Bodhi-Heart is a big fan of.) Anyway, sorry to disappoint you but there is no psychoactive ingredient in hempseed, so don't get too excited. The hempseeds not only give this a very delicate texture, but also an interesting visual appeal. Highly recommended!
I have also been hankering for good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies. So I grabbed the Toll House recipe off the web and went home and made them! Of course, I used Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chips instead of the usual Nestle semi-sweets, but otherwise I hewed to the recipe. These turned out very nicely, so my craving is satisfied...for now.
Come enjoy!
Catching Up (Again): For April 8
Last week I didn't end up putting up a post on the cookies, so I will do a quick "make-up" post now. Andrew Bodhi-Heart was not working on Wednesday night, and we once again shared baking duties - this time, each of us made one of the two items. It is nice to only have to be responsible for one item - it is like a mini-holiday! Anyway, here was the lineup:
From Bodhi-Heart: Butterscotch Cookies, from Sherry Yard, The Secrets of Baking
From Dharma-Joy: Brownies, from Elisabeth Prueitt & Chad Robertson, Tartine
Bodhi-Heart decided he wanted to make a butterscotch something, and so we went browsing cookbooks to find a something that was butterscotch. "Butterscotch" as a confectionery is based on the combination of brown sugar and butter that are cooked together to that that familiar (and to me, nasty) butterscotch flavor. But in baking the same term is used for items that rely heavily on brown sugar and butter, and so it is with the recipe Bodhi-Heart ended up making. The recipe is fairly straightforward, and relies on the quality of the ingredients to really work well; there is a lot of subtlety to them. The flavors in this recipe definitely developed after a day or so, and Bodhi-Heart says that they were best when dipped in coffee. Hmmm...I thought they were yummy on their own.
The brownies continued my long-term effort in looking for exquisite brownies, and my short-term effort in cooking my way through portions of the "Tartine" cookbook. This is the cookbook from a noted bakery in San Francisco, and the recipes have all been really great. These brownies did not disappoint! The proportions guarantee a hyper-dense, fudgy brownie, so if you like the cake-like versions, look elsewhere. There was a lot of chocolate and eggs, and not much flour in these puppies. I think the flavors on these also developed over time. Highly recommended.
From Bodhi-Heart: Butterscotch Cookies, from Sherry Yard, The Secrets of Baking
From Dharma-Joy: Brownies, from Elisabeth Prueitt & Chad Robertson, Tartine
Bodhi-Heart decided he wanted to make a butterscotch something, and so we went browsing cookbooks to find a something that was butterscotch. "Butterscotch" as a confectionery is based on the combination of brown sugar and butter that are cooked together to that that familiar (and to me, nasty) butterscotch flavor. But in baking the same term is used for items that rely heavily on brown sugar and butter, and so it is with the recipe Bodhi-Heart ended up making. The recipe is fairly straightforward, and relies on the quality of the ingredients to really work well; there is a lot of subtlety to them. The flavors in this recipe definitely developed after a day or so, and Bodhi-Heart says that they were best when dipped in coffee. Hmmm...I thought they were yummy on their own.
The brownies continued my long-term effort in looking for exquisite brownies, and my short-term effort in cooking my way through portions of the "Tartine" cookbook. This is the cookbook from a noted bakery in San Francisco, and the recipes have all been really great. These brownies did not disappoint! The proportions guarantee a hyper-dense, fudgy brownie, so if you like the cake-like versions, look elsewhere. There was a lot of chocolate and eggs, and not much flour in these puppies. I think the flavors on these also developed over time. Highly recommended.
Friday, April 2, 2010
For April 1
Last week the Zen Center began a retreat on Thursday night, so there were no cookies. Since we were in the midst of moving my offices, it was quite OK!
This week, we ended up making two different recipes that originated in Paris bakeries. Here they are:
French Butter Cookies/Les Punitions from Lionel Poilane by way of Dorie Greenspan
Pleyels (French Chocolate Almond Cakes) from La Maison du Chocolat by way of Nick Malgieri
I got home late (again) on Wednesday so Bodhi-Heart (aka Andrew) helped me out by making the butter cookies. I don't know why, but cookies that are rolled out and cut just scare me. So he handled these - thanks! Unfortunately, they are not our favorite cookie. They are a very simple butter cookie - two people mistook them for a shortbread, and they are quite close. They are not as tender as I was hoping for, and need just a little pizazz. I have not made many simple butter cookies, and I think I am going to have to pay some attention to finding a recipe I like.
The second recipe went in a completely different direction. It was also a bit experimental. The recipe is for mini chocolate almond cakes. The recipe reminds me quite a bit of the chocolate hazelnut torte that is one of my favorite recipes, and that I made at Tassajara to serve 100 people. Anyway, I ended up making two adjustments to the recipe (aside from doubling it). First, I roasted the slivered almonds before grinding them - the recipe does not call for roasting them, but I am a big believer in roasted nuts as a flavor booster in recipes. Second, the recipe called for using regular cupcake tins to make these, but they would be wildly oversized for my purposes, so I downsized into mini-cupcake tins. (As a result, the recipe that, when doubled, was supposed to make 24 regular cupcakes ended up making 68 mini-cupcakes.) This requires careful monitoring to make sure they didn't overbake, since they are substantially smaller than in the recipe. I ended up serving them topped with a shake of powdered sugar to give some visual contrast between the deep black of the cupcake and the stark white of the sugar. I am a fan of these types of "cakes," and this one was very yummy. I think that the little chocolate cakes I made a couple of weeks ago were probably higher up my list, but those were completely different - those were airy and light, while these have a more substantial texture.
This week, we ended up making two different recipes that originated in Paris bakeries. Here they are:
French Butter Cookies/Les Punitions from Lionel Poilane by way of Dorie Greenspan
Pleyels (French Chocolate Almond Cakes) from La Maison du Chocolat by way of Nick Malgieri
I got home late (again) on Wednesday so Bodhi-Heart (aka Andrew) helped me out by making the butter cookies. I don't know why, but cookies that are rolled out and cut just scare me. So he handled these - thanks! Unfortunately, they are not our favorite cookie. They are a very simple butter cookie - two people mistook them for a shortbread, and they are quite close. They are not as tender as I was hoping for, and need just a little pizazz. I have not made many simple butter cookies, and I think I am going to have to pay some attention to finding a recipe I like.
The second recipe went in a completely different direction. It was also a bit experimental. The recipe is for mini chocolate almond cakes. The recipe reminds me quite a bit of the chocolate hazelnut torte that is one of my favorite recipes, and that I made at Tassajara to serve 100 people. Anyway, I ended up making two adjustments to the recipe (aside from doubling it). First, I roasted the slivered almonds before grinding them - the recipe does not call for roasting them, but I am a big believer in roasted nuts as a flavor booster in recipes. Second, the recipe called for using regular cupcake tins to make these, but they would be wildly oversized for my purposes, so I downsized into mini-cupcake tins. (As a result, the recipe that, when doubled, was supposed to make 24 regular cupcakes ended up making 68 mini-cupcakes.) This requires careful monitoring to make sure they didn't overbake, since they are substantially smaller than in the recipe. I ended up serving them topped with a shake of powdered sugar to give some visual contrast between the deep black of the cupcake and the stark white of the sugar. I am a fan of these types of "cakes," and this one was very yummy. I think that the little chocolate cakes I made a couple of weeks ago were probably higher up my list, but those were completely different - those were airy and light, while these have a more substantial texture.
Friday, March 19, 2010
For March 18
This entry is a day late, due to some unanticipated work challenges involving a federal court brief filed at 11:53 p.m. on Wednesday night. I will say no more.
Anyway, this was a chocolate week:
Chocolate Peppermint Squares, from The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion
Chocolate Friands, from Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson, Tartine
The chocolate peppermint squares are a repeat. Sensei Merle Kodo Boyd is visiting ZCLA this month from her home in New Jersey, and I happen to know that these are one of her favorites, so in her honor I made them. Although many people think that peppermint is a winter flavor, chocolate and mint are a great combination, and these are a very yummy creation. This involves making a mint-infused base - essentially a mint brownie - that then has a peppermint icing, followed by a squiggle of melted chocolate. It gives me a chance to use my squeeze bottles for decorating - it is like being back in elementary school art class!
The second recipe falls in the "this will rock your world" category of dessert. According to the cookbook, "Friand" means "little mouthful" in French, and these are basically tiny chocolate cakes, but with a wonderful, tender consistency. They are made in mini-cupcake pans, and indeed are just little mouthfuls of cake. It is important not to overmix or overbake these or else they start to not only look but also taste like the Trader Joe's Two Bite Brownies. But otherwise they are really wonderful - the outside is firm, but the inside is incredibly tender and light.
According to the recipe, after they cool you are supposed to make a ganache and dip the tops in, so you have an iced babycake. Andrew helped me tremendously with this project, given my court filing challenge, and we only finished around 1 a.m. We decided to forgo the ganache; instead, I sprinkled powdered sugar over them before serving, which made them very beautiful. The ganache sounds nice, but this way we didn't distract from the pure intensity of the cake itself.
Enjoy!
Anyway, this was a chocolate week:
Chocolate Peppermint Squares, from The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion
Chocolate Friands, from Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson, Tartine
The chocolate peppermint squares are a repeat. Sensei Merle Kodo Boyd is visiting ZCLA this month from her home in New Jersey, and I happen to know that these are one of her favorites, so in her honor I made them. Although many people think that peppermint is a winter flavor, chocolate and mint are a great combination, and these are a very yummy creation. This involves making a mint-infused base - essentially a mint brownie - that then has a peppermint icing, followed by a squiggle of melted chocolate. It gives me a chance to use my squeeze bottles for decorating - it is like being back in elementary school art class!
The second recipe falls in the "this will rock your world" category of dessert. According to the cookbook, "Friand" means "little mouthful" in French, and these are basically tiny chocolate cakes, but with a wonderful, tender consistency. They are made in mini-cupcake pans, and indeed are just little mouthfuls of cake. It is important not to overmix or overbake these or else they start to not only look but also taste like the Trader Joe's Two Bite Brownies. But otherwise they are really wonderful - the outside is firm, but the inside is incredibly tender and light.
According to the recipe, after they cool you are supposed to make a ganache and dip the tops in, so you have an iced babycake. Andrew helped me tremendously with this project, given my court filing challenge, and we only finished around 1 a.m. We decided to forgo the ganache; instead, I sprinkled powdered sugar over them before serving, which made them very beautiful. The ganache sounds nice, but this way we didn't distract from the pure intensity of the cake itself.
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
For March 11
Two recipes this week, both from Tartine, by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson
Deluxe Double Chocolate Cookies
Almond Rochers
The double chocolate cookies are a deeply chocolate affair. They combine high-quality bittersweet chocolate (I am using three different chocolates, with chocolate percentages at 66% (Valrhona), 70% (Scharffen Berger), and 72% (Green & Black Organic)) and a substantial amount of cocoa powder (I am using a mixture of Valrhona and Dagoba - can you see I am trying to clean up my pantry?). The result is a very chocolatey, quite soft and tender cookie. I am curious to see how people like it.
The other cookie is another effort to provide goodies for my friends who have gluten issues. These are almond rochers - "rochers" means "boulders" in French. It is a meringue-based cookie. It involved a few interesting (and, in the making, nerve-wracking) techniques. You take a substantial amount of sliced almonds and toast them well, then crumble them. Next, you make a meringue. This involved heating some egg whites and confectioners sugar in a double boiler. According to the instructions, you should wisk them constantly until the mixture reaches 120 degrees, which it estimates will take 5 minutes. Well....I guess I have kick-ass burners, so after not too long a time (like, 1 minute) the mixture was well (WELL) above the 120 degree mark. It got yanked off and onto the mixer to start whisking into a meringue. I think it all ended up OK, but it was quite a moment of panic. Anyway, a few other ingredients are added, then the almonds are folded in, and then I used a tablespoon scoop to form the cookies, which then bake into, well, baby boulders. While they continue to dry out over time, last night when we had some (uh, I mean when the quality control team checked to make sure they met normal standards) they were really soft and almost creamy inside and crunchy outside. We'll see how they are by tonight. For a cookie with no flour and no fat (other than what is in the almonds) these are really yummy.
Both of these are from Tartine, which is a San Francisco bakery I now obviously have to visit. A few weeks ago, the Tartine lemon bars were a hit, and I think that tonight will continue the winning streak.
Take care!
Deluxe Double Chocolate Cookies
Almond Rochers
The double chocolate cookies are a deeply chocolate affair. They combine high-quality bittersweet chocolate (I am using three different chocolates, with chocolate percentages at 66% (Valrhona), 70% (Scharffen Berger), and 72% (Green & Black Organic)) and a substantial amount of cocoa powder (I am using a mixture of Valrhona and Dagoba - can you see I am trying to clean up my pantry?). The result is a very chocolatey, quite soft and tender cookie. I am curious to see how people like it.
The other cookie is another effort to provide goodies for my friends who have gluten issues. These are almond rochers - "rochers" means "boulders" in French. It is a meringue-based cookie. It involved a few interesting (and, in the making, nerve-wracking) techniques. You take a substantial amount of sliced almonds and toast them well, then crumble them. Next, you make a meringue. This involved heating some egg whites and confectioners sugar in a double boiler. According to the instructions, you should wisk them constantly until the mixture reaches 120 degrees, which it estimates will take 5 minutes. Well....I guess I have kick-ass burners, so after not too long a time (like, 1 minute) the mixture was well (WELL) above the 120 degree mark. It got yanked off and onto the mixer to start whisking into a meringue. I think it all ended up OK, but it was quite a moment of panic. Anyway, a few other ingredients are added, then the almonds are folded in, and then I used a tablespoon scoop to form the cookies, which then bake into, well, baby boulders. While they continue to dry out over time, last night when we had some (uh, I mean when the quality control team checked to make sure they met normal standards) they were really soft and almost creamy inside and crunchy outside. We'll see how they are by tonight. For a cookie with no flour and no fat (other than what is in the almonds) these are really yummy.
Both of these are from Tartine, which is a San Francisco bakery I now obviously have to visit. A few weeks ago, the Tartine lemon bars were a hit, and I think that tonight will continue the winning streak.
Take care!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Catching Up, Part II - For March 4
OK, still a little catch-up work to do before tonight's baking begins. This week was a cookie week, to wit:
Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Flo Braker, Baking For All Occasions
Oatmeal Currant Cookies, from Alice Waters, The Art Of Simple Food
Flo Braker is another of the main movers and bakers on the scene today. I got this book quite a few months back, but finally took it out this week. This is a very simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. No nuts, no special ingredients. The limited number of ingredients and flavors means that quality matters. These were not my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie, but a lot of people liked them. This was a nice recipe because it has you make logs of dough and refrigerate them, then slice and bake later. Since this was a rare week where I was doing two cookies (no bars, no biscotti, just individual cookies), it was great to be able to at least make the dough ahead of time. So this one is a keeper!
The second cookie was a real favorite. This is a recipe from Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. Her most recent cookbook has very few cookie recipes, but this one is very nice. The first step is to take the oats and grind them quite fine in a food processor - almost to a flour. This gives you the oatmeal flavor, but a much, much more delicate cookie. And using currants simply extends that approach, since the currants (which are briefly cooked in water to plump and soften them) are smaller and more delicate than raisins. This produces a soft, delicate cookie, not a big, hard, crunchy type cookie. The abbot of ZCLA is a big oatmeal raisin cookie fan, and I made these for her; happily, she enjoyed them very much!
Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Flo Braker, Baking For All Occasions
Oatmeal Currant Cookies, from Alice Waters, The Art Of Simple Food
Flo Braker is another of the main movers and bakers on the scene today. I got this book quite a few months back, but finally took it out this week. This is a very simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. No nuts, no special ingredients. The limited number of ingredients and flavors means that quality matters. These were not my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie, but a lot of people liked them. This was a nice recipe because it has you make logs of dough and refrigerate them, then slice and bake later. Since this was a rare week where I was doing two cookies (no bars, no biscotti, just individual cookies), it was great to be able to at least make the dough ahead of time. So this one is a keeper!
The second cookie was a real favorite. This is a recipe from Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. Her most recent cookbook has very few cookie recipes, but this one is very nice. The first step is to take the oats and grind them quite fine in a food processor - almost to a flour. This gives you the oatmeal flavor, but a much, much more delicate cookie. And using currants simply extends that approach, since the currants (which are briefly cooked in water to plump and soften them) are smaller and more delicate than raisins. This produces a soft, delicate cookie, not a big, hard, crunchy type cookie. The abbot of ZCLA is a big oatmeal raisin cookie fan, and I made these for her; happily, she enjoyed them very much!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Catching Up, Part I - For February 25
Sorry for the delay in posting! It has been a bit crazy, and I haven't had a chance to post. So here is what has been happening:
February 18 -
Five-Spice Snickerdoodles, from The Los Angeles Times
Best Unsweetened Brownies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
Both of these are recipes I have made before, and both proved worth repeating. The Five-Spice Snickerdoodles are a variation on the traditional snickerdoodle cookie. In the normal snickerdoodle, after making the dough, individual balls of dough are made and rolled in a cinnamon-sugar mixture, then baked. In this variant, which I did in honor of the Chinese New Year, the cinnamon is replaced with Chinese Five-Spice Powder (which has some variants, but usually includes star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Szechwan pepper and ground fennel). The flavors are subtle and pleasant. The recipe is a very nice one, and very straightforward. The cookie is soft and a bit chewy. I recommend it!
The brownie recipe was another one from Alice Medrich's book, Bittersweet. She is amazingly knowledgeable and sophisticated in how she handles chocolate. Each variant on chocolate (cocoa, unsweetened, bittersweet, semisweet, etc.) has its own brownie recipe, with each leading to a different texture (since, as I know understand, a brownie that has all its fat coming from the butter (i.e., a cocoa-based brownie) will lead to a very different result than one that gets most of its fat from the chocolate (semi-sweet)). Anyway, I added some nuts and some cacao nibs to make it interesting. Quite yummy - very intense, not overly sweet. I tend to like a high chocolate to sugar ratio, and this brownie definitely delivers!
February 18 -
Five-Spice Snickerdoodles, from The Los Angeles Times
Best Unsweetened Brownies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
Both of these are recipes I have made before, and both proved worth repeating. The Five-Spice Snickerdoodles are a variation on the traditional snickerdoodle cookie. In the normal snickerdoodle, after making the dough, individual balls of dough are made and rolled in a cinnamon-sugar mixture, then baked. In this variant, which I did in honor of the Chinese New Year, the cinnamon is replaced with Chinese Five-Spice Powder (which has some variants, but usually includes star anise, cloves, cinnamon, Szechwan pepper and ground fennel). The flavors are subtle and pleasant. The recipe is a very nice one, and very straightforward. The cookie is soft and a bit chewy. I recommend it!
The brownie recipe was another one from Alice Medrich's book, Bittersweet. She is amazingly knowledgeable and sophisticated in how she handles chocolate. Each variant on chocolate (cocoa, unsweetened, bittersweet, semisweet, etc.) has its own brownie recipe, with each leading to a different texture (since, as I know understand, a brownie that has all its fat coming from the butter (i.e., a cocoa-based brownie) will lead to a very different result than one that gets most of its fat from the chocolate (semi-sweet)). Anyway, I added some nuts and some cacao nibs to make it interesting. Quite yummy - very intense, not overly sweet. I tend to like a high chocolate to sugar ratio, and this brownie definitely delivers!
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
For February 18
The curse of the chocolate cookie has been broken! Hurrah! This week's cookies:
My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Cafe Volcano Cookies
both from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours
While it is Dorie Greenspan who calls these her favorite chocolate chip cookie, they are awfully good. I like this cookie a lot - it tends to be very crispy/crunch at the edge, and a bit chewy at the center. As usual, I hand cut the chocolate instead of using store bought chocolate chips. This time I am using a mixture of Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet and Green & Black Organic 72% Bittersweet chocolate bars for my "chips." And while the recipe calls for walnuts, tonight I substituted pecans, because I am already using walnuts in the other cookies.
Ah, yes, the other...cookies. OK, I am very narrow minded, I admit it, but given that the Cafe Volcano cookies have no flour and no dairy in them, I have some trouble calling them cookies. But they are cookies, and they are both gluten- and dairy-free. Indeed, these have a very small number of ingredients but make a very interesting cookie that is basically an interesting variation on a meringue. The main ingredients is roasted nuts - almonds and walnuts. The only other significant ingredients are sugar, espresso powder, and some egg whites. They are all mixed together, and then plopped on the baking sheet to cook for 20 minutes. Then voila! Cookies. (Andy says the look like dog poop, but it didn't stop him from eating one.)
OK, time for sleep. Night night!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
For February 11
I think we have to call it the curse of the chocolate chip cookie. Last week, I had planned to make Sherry Yard's chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I ended up getting home from work very late and ended up making a brownie recipe instead. This week, I planned to make Dorie Greenspan's chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I once again ended up getting home from work at 9 p.m., which is just too late at night to make two desserts with one of them being a drop cookie recipe. So, boys and girls, can you guess what I made in its place?
This week's entries:
Lemon Squares With Brown Butter Shortbread, from Prueitt & Robertson, Tartine
Best Cocoa Brownies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
Our friend Liz gave us a bag of Meyer lemons from her trees, so lemon squares are a natural outlet when you have a lot of lemons at hand. Tartine is a very well-known bakery in San Francisco, and my friend Seishin, who left LA to move to SF, emailed me this recipe and said they were the best lemon squares she has ever had. I got this cookbook around a year ago, but this is the first recipe that I have made from it. It looks like there are a number of nice recipes in it, so now that I have made something, perhaps I will try a few more out in the next few weeks. This is an interesting recipe; it calls for a lot of lemon juice, but also a good amount of sugar. The shortbread crust has pine nuts in it, so it will be interesting to try.
Tonight I walked Soba for his last walk of the day, and when we came back into the house, the air was just permeated with the smell of chocolate. Wow, yum. What a nice experience. This is another brownie recipe from Alice Medrich's chocolate book, Bittersweet. Last week I made a variant on the "best semisweet brownies" recipe. This week I am using the "best cocoa brownie" recipe. There are also a best unsweetened and a best bittersweet recipes. Each one produced a slightly different brownie, principally because there is a difference that comes about depending on the source of the fat - in the cocoa brownie recipe, for example, virtually all of the fat comes from butter, which results in a very different texture than in the semisweet recipe, where a significant amount of the fat comes from the cocoa mass. Anyway, these made a very dark, intense looking brownie. We'll see how they actually taste!
Or not...actually I am going to have to go to Las Vegas for work tomorrow, so I will not be at the Center; I will drop them off, instead, and hope that people enjoy them.
It is midnight now, so I am signing off. Ciao!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
For February 4
Happy 2010!
January was bare bones month at the Zen Center - after a busy last 3 months of the year, we chill out in January, which means no talks on Thursday nights, which also means no cookies. But January is now history, and February is already upon us. Yikes!
Work has been very busy, and tonight I only got home at 9 p.m. to start baking. So one of the recipes that I intended to make (chocolate chip cookies) sailed right out the window, since it requires so much time to make the individual cookies. Here is what I finally ended up with:
More-or-less Classic Semisweet Brownies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet
Oatmeal Raisin Biscotti, from Karen DeMasco, The Craft of Baking
The brownies are the pinch hitter here, with a pan of brownies replacing the chocolate chip cookies. In her cookbook, Alice Medrich offers a recipe using unsweetened chocolate, and then several variations using different chocolates (bittersweet, semisweet, etc.) Each varies the amount of chocolate, the butter and the sugar. She is really chocolate-smart. Anyway, I am calling these "more or less" classic because I threw in some cacao nibs at the end to give it a little interest (along with some walnuts). So they are "adapted from" Alice's classic semisweet brownies.
The biscotti are from a new cookbook that entered my library at Christmas. The Craft of Baking was written by the former pastry chef at Craft, a well-known Manhattan restaurant (actually there is a branch across from my office here in Los Angeles, too, but I think she was pretty much based in NY). It has some really nice looking recipes that I will be exploring this year - fewer cookies than I would like, but we'll see how it goes. I chose these biscotti as my inauguration because oatmeal raisin cookies are the favorite of the abbot at the Zen Center.
Speaking of the biscotti, they are due to come out of the oven from their second baking any minute now, and it is past midnight, so ta ta for now!
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