Category: Chocolate

Good for Brunch, Good for Dessert

March 17, 2011


Hey, guess what?  I’m in the April issue of Sunset magazine. They did an article on boutique cooking classes and I am in there!  Cool, huh?

On the whole, mine is a family of savory eaters.  No one turns up their nose at my sweets but everyone is happier with dinner than dessert.  Each person, however, has their thing they cannot resist.  As a good treat maker, I know each person’s Achilles heel.  For my dad, it is coconut.  My brother Alex – anything lemon and he also will eat almost an entire batch of my mom’s snickerdoodles in one sitting.  Michael will eat cookies until he is sick and then eat another one.  Randy’s weakness is white chocolate and he also loves carrot cake (which I have yet to make for him because I hate carrot cake).  I want my last meal on earth to include a brownie.  (This one is my current favorite.)  My mom loves nuts – she would love these bars.  But she also loves a good old fashioned coffee cake.

Last week, my parents and Michael came over for dinner.  I was fresh out of cookies so decided to make a quick cake that I found in my Baked Explorations book.  This book is a mystery to me.  I have looked at it so many times and have also made many things from it.  I feel like the recipes reproduce overnight or something because every time I open it, I feel like there is something new in there.  Some new treasure.

Anyway, as I have written about many times here, I am a big fan of a simple cake.  Not simple as in boring, simple as in not a three layer cake with fillings and buttercream frosting on a Tuesday night simple.  A good simple cake is gold for me.

This is no beauty contest winner.  But as I brought it out, my  mom said, “That is my favorite kind of cake.”  And, seeing as this recipe is found under the Breakfast chapter, it really is a coffee cake.  But it is great at night as well.  Spencer surprised me by wanting me to scrape off his frosting.  He only wanted to eat the cake.  This from a child who licks the frosting off his cupcakes and discards the cake part.  I guess it is a testament to how tasty this simple cake is.  But do make the frosting.  Easy and yummy.

One Year Ago: Golden Split Pea Soup
Two Years Ago: Peanut Brittle and Caramel Crunch Ice Cream Pie

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Baked Explorations
Makes one 9×13-inch cake

For the cake
8 ounces chocolate chips
½ tsp. Scotch or bourbon
1½ cups plus 2 tbsp. all purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, at room temperature
2 eggs, slightly beaten
¾ cup granulated sugar
1¼ cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1½ tsp. cinnamon

For the cream cheese frosting
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
5½ ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
¾ tsp. pure vanilla extract

Make the cake
Preheat the oven to 375ºF and position the rack in the center.  Butter the sides and bottom of 9-by-13-inch glass or light-colored metal baking pan.  Heat 1¼ cups water to boiling.

Place the chocolate chips in a small bowl and toss them with the bourbon until covered.  Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the flour over the chips and toss until coated.  This will keep them from settling at the bottom during baking.  Set aside.

Place the oats and butter cubes in a large bowl.  Pour the boiling water over the oat mixture, wait 30 seconds, and stir to moisten all the oats and melt the butter.  Set the mixture aside for 25 to 30 minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, both sugars, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon until combined.  Fold in the cooled oatmeal and stir until well combined.  Gently fold in the remaining flour and then the chocolate chips.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the cake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let the cake cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes.

Make the cream cheese frosting
In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until it is completely smooth.  Add the cream cheese and beat until combined.

Add the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth, about 1 minute.  Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.  (DT: I skipped this step.  It did not seem necessary to me.)

Assemble the cake
Spread a thin even layer of frosting over the cake.  Chill it for 15 minutes so that it can set.  Slice and serve.  The frosted cake can be keep, refrigerated and tightly covered, for up to 3 days.  Bring the cake back to room temperature before serving.



Trust the Expert

March 2, 2011

I’ve spent a lot of my adult life in the kitchen.  I’ve taught myself to cook and bake by reading good books and through practice.  Over time, I have learned to trust myself.  If something sounds wrong in a recipe, I trust my gut and I am usually right.  I have learned tricks and short cuts and generally accepted practices.  Once in a while, I get humbled.

Nancy Bagget’s The All American Cookie Book is a book I turn to over and over for cookie inspiration.  Her recipes are incredibly well-researched and written with that perfect mixture of clarity but not condescension.  I have never made anything less than delicious from that book.  In looking for a new treat, I decided on Chocolate Espresso White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.  As I was making them, I started composing this post in my head.  (If you have a food blog, tell me you do this as well.)  I was planning on titling it “Pulling a Fast One” and talking about how something Randy hates (coffee) and something Randy loves (white chocolate) are in one cookie and that the white chocolate managed to disguise the coffee.  But then I ignored Bagget’s advice to allow three inches between each cookie on the sheet and I also ignored her advice to lay parchment paper on the baking sheets.  Which meant that many of the cookies stuck and many of them oozed into one another.

Did it matter?  Only in the looks department.  I know white chocolate is something that makes some chocolate lovers turn up their noses.  According to that kind, it’s not real chocolate.  I myself am not nearly so snobby.  Sure, I prefer the brown version, but I do think that white chocolate can play a nice role in a cookie – especially one that is so intense with the flavor of bittersweet chocolate held together with the just the smallest amount of flour.  The white stuff distracts you for a moment, takes away from the richness but in a good way.  Much the way that nuts would do, if I let nuts near my cookies.

Randy’s response?
“I know I say I don’t like chocolate, but this is a really good cookie.”
“There is coffee in there.”
“Hmmm.  Doesn’t matter, I don’t taste it.”

Fast one pulled.

One Year Ago: Cucumber Raita and Grilled Haloumi Cheese and Lemon
Two Years Ago: Rosemary Flatbread with Blue Cheese, Grapes and Honey

Chocolate Espresso White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
The All-American Cookie Book
Makes about 20 cookies

I actually doubled this recipe and got 36 large cookies.  It is essential here to use great chocolate.

5 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, broken or coarsely chopped
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
¼ cup plus 1 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
¾ cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. instant espresso powder or granules, dissolved in 1 tbsp. hot water
1½ tsp. vanilla extract
8 ounces top-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped

In a medium, microwave-safe bowl, microwave the bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate and butter on 100-percent power for 1 minutes. Stir well.  Continue microwaving on 50-percent power, stirring at 30-second intervals.  Stop microwaving before the chocolate completely melts and let the residual heat finish the job.  (Alternatively, in small, heavy saucepan, melt the chocolate and butter over lowest heat, stirring frequently; be very careful not to burn.  Immediately remove from the heat.)  Let cool to warm.

In a medium bowl, thoroughly stir together the flour and cocoa powder; set aside.  In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium then high speed, beat together the sugar, salt, eggs, espresso mixture, and vanilla for 2 to 3 minutes, or until well blended, slightly thick, and lightened.  Beat in the melted chocolate mixture, then the flour mixture, until well blended.  Stir in the white chocolate until evenly incorporated.  Refrigerate the dough for at least 1½ hours, or until firm enough to shape.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Divide the dough into quarters.  Divide each quarter into 5 or 6 equal pieces.  Shape then into balls with lightly greased hands.  Place on baking sheets, spacing them about 3 inches apart.  Pat down the balls just slightly.

Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, in the middle of the oven for 9 to 12 minutes, or until barely firm when pressed in the centers.  Reverse the sheet from front to back halfway thought baking to ensure even browning.  Transfer the sheet to a wire rack and let stand until the cookies firm up slightly, 2 to 3 minutes.  Slide the cookies, still attached to the parchment paper, onto a wire rack.  Let stand until completely cooled.  Carefully peel the cookies from the parchment.

These cookies are best when fresh but may be stored in an airtight container for up to 4 days or frozen up to 1 month.



Macaroon Brownie Bars

January 31, 2011

I went to a college where we had self-scheduled exams.  After classes were over, there was a 10 day period when exams were held at three different times of day.  When you were ready to take your European History exam for example, you showed up to the appointed place in the morning, afternoon, or evening and took the test.  If you decided you weren’t quite ready, you could wait until you were.  Whenever I tell people about this phenomenon, they always ask if people cheated.  Of course they did.  But we all signed an honor code at the beginning of our freshman year saying we wouldn’t.

For me, exam week was a very interesting exercise in time management.  Because I went to college 3,000 miles away from home, I always had a plane ticket limiting my time.  I would get to the end of the semester, look at all the papers I still had to write, all the studying I had to do, and the exams I had to take, I would panic, and then I would realize that I just simply had to get it all done.  Regardless of how overwhelming the work, how many all-nighters I was going to have to pull, I had a deadline with wings.

I am reminded of that time in my life because I have a lot to get done in the next couple of weeks.  I am teaching two Seasonal Feast classes, a private class, cooking a yoga retreat dinner for 24 people, and making a birthday cake for my younger son.  All before February 12th.  And classes aren’t just teaching, there is tons of prep involved and recipe testing, shopping, and typing up of recipes.

This would be the time to ask for a hall pass on the weekly treat idea.  But I can’t.  I went to Randy’s new office for the first time last week and there was a white board outside his cube.  On that board was written, “More cookies please” and it was signed the Cookie Monster.  I mean, I can’t let the cookie monster down, right?  No matter how busy I am.

So this week it is Coconut Brownie Bars.  I’m actually surprised this recipe spoke to me.  The two candy bars that were always left in my Halloween bag were Almond Joy (because of the nuts) and Mounds (because of the dark chocolate).  And both of them were also left in there because of the coconut.  My parents were thrilled about this fact because they are both huge coconut fans.  Nuts I still don’t like in my sweets but dark chocolate and I are much better friends.  Coconut – hmmmm.  I’m still on the fence.  Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t.  This  bar is a nice mix of a brownie and a macaroon and I actually really liked the contrast of tastes and textures.

Chocolate and Coconut Previously on Dana Treat: Coconut Bars
One Year Ago: Baked White Bean Purée
Two Years Ago: Lentils with Capers, Walnuts, and Mint

Macaroon Brownie Bars
The Greyston Bakery Cookbook
Makes 16

For the Brownie Base
2/3 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ tsp. salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
½ tsp. pure almond extract
4 ounces good quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks

For the Coconut Topping
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp. pure almond extract
1/3 cup flour
2 ¼ cups (7 ounces) sweetened flaked coconut

Prepare the brownie base
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Grease a 9-inch baking pan and line it with parchment paper, leaving about 1 inch of paper overhanging the two long sides.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt until well blended.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed.  Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Stir in the vanilla and almond extracts.  Gradually mix in the dry ingredients until well combined.  Stir in the chocolate.

Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan.  Bake for 20 minutes, or until the sides begin to set but the center is still soft.  Remove the pan from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool slightly.

Prepare the coconut topping
In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar.  Stir in the almond extract.  Gradually stir in the flour, mixing thoroughly.  Stir in the coconut.

Using two spoons, gently place spoonfuls of the mixture over the partially baked brownie base and spread evenly with the back of a spoon for a rubber spatula.

Return the pan to the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in the middle come out almost clean.  (Some crumbs will still be attached.  Do not overbake.)  Remove the pan from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool completely.  Remove the brownies by grasping and lifting the edges of the parchment paper.  Cut into bars.



It’s Complicated

January 20, 2011

Those two words sum up my relationship with my Baked cookbooks.  It’s complicated.

These books are like the almost perfect boyfriend from high school.  Handsome, smart, useful, interesting, even exciting.  But they can let you down when you least expect it.  And they are not reliable.  When they are good, they are very very good.  And when they are bad, well, sometimes there are tears.

Last weekend, I made the Grasshopper Cake from the first book for a friend’s birthday.  I love the Baked chocolate cake recipe.  It bakes up nice and tall and perfectly flat.  No domed top of slice off.  And it is moist with terrific chocolate flavor.  Adding a mint ganache and a mint buttercream frosting to that perfect cake seemed like a no-brainer.  Their buttercream recipe is not traditional and it did not turn out well for me at all.  I could not get the butter to incorporate no matter how long and how hard I whipped.  I was left with a frosting that tasted good but looked terrible.  There were flat pea sized pieces of butter throughout.  I only used about 1/3 of it – I just couldn’t pile it on – and I covered the cake with flat Dutch mints.  It ended up looking good and my husband and my friend Lauren, both of whom have eaten plenty of my cakes, said it was one of my best.  But throwing out about the equivalent of three sticks of butter made me mad.

Because I’m a girl and I had to come back for more, I decided to make Nutella scones from the new book.  How could you go wrong, right?  Wrong.  In spite of the authors’ warnings of not mixing the dough too much (a common warning with scones), I had to manhandle it and add much more cream than recommended to get anything even resembling a dough.  What came out of the oven did not look like the scones of my past.  They kind of toppled over on the themselves.  And they just didn’t taste good.  At first I thought it was because they weren’t sweet enough but no, they just weren’t good.  My kids were so excited – a chocolate scone! – but they didn’t like them either.  Rats.  And my brother Michael, the one who asks me to make the Nutella Pound Cake any time I offer dessert, he didn’t take a single one home with him.  That, my friends, is a failure.

Oh, but I went back for more.  Rather than break up with my books, I decided to make a cookie that sounded like a home run.  And it is, kind of.  There is almost too much chocolate for the dough (I never thought I would say that), and not quite enough pretzels for them to make sense being there.  If I’m going to have something salty in my cookie, I want to really notice it, not be like, “Huh?  What is a pretzel piece doing in my cookie?”.  But I will be back for more.  I just can’t quit you Baked.

One Year Ago:  Lasagne with Eggplant and Chard
Two Years Ago:  Sicilian Eggplant Spread with Crostini

Cowboy Cookies
Baked Explorations
Makes about 24 large cookies

1¾ cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 cups rolled oats
14 tbsp. (1¾ sticks) unsalted butter, cool but not cold, cut into 1-inch cubes
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. instant espresso powder
2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks (about 12 ounces)
¾ cup thin salty pretzels (about 1½ ounces) broken into tiny pieces but not crushed into dust

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Add the oats and stir to combine.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together until smooth and creamy.  Add the egg and egg yolk, beating until the mixture looks light and fluffy.  Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, add the vanilla, and beat for 5 seconds.  Dissolve the espresso powder in ¼ cup hot water and add it to the bowl, mixing until combined.

Add half the dry ingredients and mix for 15 seconds.  Add the remaining dry ingredients and beat until just incorporated.  Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and fold in the chocolate chunks and ½ cup of the pretzel pieces.  Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Use a small ice cream scoop with a release mechanism to scoop dough in 2 tablespoon-size balls (or use a tablespoon measure) and place the dough balls onto the prepared sheets about 1 inch apart.  Sprinkle the remaining ¼ cup pretzel pieces over the dough balls.  Use the palm of your hand to press the dough down lightly; don’t small the cookie – you just want to slightly flatten the ball and push the pretzel pieces into the dough.

Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until the edges of the cookies are golden brown or just starting to darken.

Set the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes to cool.  Use a spatula to transfer the cookies to the rack to cool completely.  They can be store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.



Change

January 15, 2011

Last week something amazing happened.  On Thursday, at around noon, I sat and had a lunch date with my husband.  In the 6½ years since we returned from London, we had never done that.  I don’t think we ever did it in London either for that matter.

The reason for the lack of lunch dates?  Randy worked at a very large company located across the lake from our house, a company well-known for a certain “culture”.  A company called Microsoft.  Perhaps you have heard of it?  Perhaps you know its reputation for asking a lot of their employees?

Randy is a self-described type Triple-A personality.  He works incredibly hard.  His trajectory since graduating from the Naval Academy in Annapolis goes a little something like this:

Go to flight school and graduate top of his class
Fly A-6 Intruders for a few years until they de-commission the aircraft
Go back to the Naval Academy to teach English
Get a Masters in Philosophy at nearby St. John’s at the same time
Go to Harvard for the MBA program
Move to Seattle to work at a start-up (this is when we met)
Get recruited by Microsoft

Basically, the guy has not slowed down since the day he was born.  Microsoft LOVES people like that.

All along, his career has afforded us a wonderful lifestyle but has also been hard on me and our family.  For the first five years of having children, he rarely saw them during the week.  Because of the commute, he was on the road before they were awake and home after they were in bed.  In the last year and a half, his office moved to the Seattle side of the lake and things got significantly better.  But then his travel schedule picked up dramatically and he was out of state 50-60% of the time.  He would come home and be exhausted from time changes plus the overall stress of travel and the job.

Periodically we would check in.  Is it worth it?  Are we ok?  Are the kids ok?  I would worry about him.  Waking up at 3am and not being able to fall back to sleep night after night because of stress is not sustainable.  To be fair, that was an extreme.  Most of the time, life as a Microsoft employee was challenging but not over the top.  He was very successful there and they recognized his hard work.  He was promoted steadily and received awards for the work he did.  And for the most part, he enjoyed his actual job, the work he did day to day.  He did not enjoy the constant “re-orging” and never being sure if the job he was doing that day would be there the next.

And then one day, Randy had had enough.  It was one request too many or one too many trips.  Maybe it was looking at Graham and thinking, “I have a six year old and I have not been here”.  Whatever it was, he reached a breaking point.  He reached out to his considerable network and started taking recruiting calls more seriously.  A company that had already approached him about a job twice re-appeared, this time with a friend of over 20 years as CEO.  Coffees, conversations, and number crunching happened.  As a family, we weighed the pros and cons.

I had always heard that term “golden handcuffs” but working through the decision, I really came to understand what it meant.  In all the years with Microsoft, we never paid a single cent for health care.  No monthly fees, no co-pays, no deductibles, no cost for drugs.  My two c-sections, Randy’s knee surgery, a herniated belly button surgery for Graham, four years of speech therapy, all the pediatric visits, and the two emergency room visits – we never paid a dime.  It is probably the best health care in the United States.  To me that was much more valuable than the stock left behind.

The fact that Randy would be taking a pay cut and our benefits would become more like most Americans (at least those who have health care) were the cons for the new job.  The pros list was less tangible and more emotional.  Working alongside two people he admires without question, an office 2.1 miles from our house, 25% travel at the most, a conscious decision to slow down – to be more present in our family.  It was that last one we really discussed.  For him to make this move, it had to be a lifestyle move, not just a job change.

I give him a lot of credit.  He was climbing the corporate ladder.  He had over 300 people reporting to him.  He had tremendous success.  And he decided that having lunch with his wife once a week was more important.  This new job is going to be very challenging.  He will still work very hard – he doesn’t know how to work any other way.  But he will go on field trips with Graham, he will be home at 6 (!) every night, he will sleep better, and learn from a trusted friend.

I have always loved the idea of sending Randy to work with a weekly treat.  But Randy has always worked in groups that were too large for it to make sense.  Now that he is at a much smaller company, the weekly treat tradition has begun.  His first week, I asked what he wanted me to make.  I knew it would either be the White Chocolate Almond Chunk Cookies or the Cowgirl Cookies, so I already had the Holly B’s cookbook in hand when I asked.  Sure enough, the Cowgirls won out.

This week, I made something new.  I was paging through my Tartine book, looking for the Lemon Cream recipe for last week’s party, when I happened upon this chocolate amazingness.  How is it that my chocolate loving self never made these?  I know they don’t look like much, but they are one of my most favorite cookies ever.  Essentially, they are a regular cocoa-based chocolate cookie to which you add a half pound of melted bittersweet chocolate.  The batter is like ganache and you pull the cookies out when they are just starting to set and the end result is like a chocolate pillow that you will want to sleep on forever.  As I was scooping them out, I thought a scattering of chocolate chips might be good for texture, but no no no!  No texture needed.  My only change is that I scattered a bit of sea salt (smoked Chardonnay if you must know) over the top of each cookie before baking and that was a good decision.

One Year Ago: Oatmeal Carmelitas

Deluxe Double Chocolate Cookies
Tartine
Makes about 24 large or 36 small cookies

These cookies are very soft when you take them out of the oven so I would advise letting them rest on their baking sheet for a few minutes before moving them to the cooling rack.

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup + 1 tbsp. flour
½ cup + 2 tbsp. cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup + 2 tbsp. sugar
2 large eggs
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk
Sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.  Butter a baking sheet or line with parchment paper.

Pour water to a depth of about 2 inches into a saucepan, place over medium heat, and bring to a simmer.  Put the chocolate into a stainless-steel bowl that will rest securely in the rim of the pan and place it over, not touching, the water.  Make sure the pan is completely dry before you add the chocolate and that no moisture gets into the chocolate.  Moisture will cause the chocolate to seize, or develop lumps.  Heat, stirring occasionally, just until the chocolate melts and is smooth.  Remove from the heat and let cool.

Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder in a bowl.  Set aside.  Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until creamy.  Slowly add the sugar and mix until the mixture is completely smooth and soft.  Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until incorporated before adding the next egg.  Beat in the salt and vanilla, and then add the melted chocolate and beat until incorporated.  Add the milk and beat until combined.  Finally, add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until incorporated.

Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto the prepared sheet, spacing them about 1 inch apart.  Bake the cookies until they are just barely firm on top when lightly touched but are still very soft underneath, about 7 minutes.  They wil get firmer as they cool.  Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool.  They will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for several days.



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