Chocolate Chip Peppermint Scones

Posted on September 23, 2011 by sparecake

Several years ago one my mom’s staff gave me the Pink Princess Cookbook.

The book is full of cute foods, lots of pink things, and recipes varying from “dead simple” to “not very hard.” I was therefore quite surprised when my first go at these scones produced some awful unattractive (although still tasty) blobs. The dough was just way, way too sticky to shape in any sort of Princess-appropriate way.

I know, adorable, right?

I tried again, adding more flour to make the dough more of a dough, less of a sticky mess, and got something that almost holds a shape, although they’re still not nearly as perfect as the ones in the illustration. They’re a bit…cakier, than your standard scone, but still pretty tasty.

Ingredients:

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk chocolate chips
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • 1/2 cup crushed peppermint candies
  • powdered sugar for dusting

They're practically little bullseyes, just asking to be smashed!

One of those little ‘1 for 59 cents, 2 for a dollar’ bags of peppermints you can get at CVS and everywhere else turns out to be about half a cup when crushed. You can definitely get away with eating one, and sharing with anyone else in the kitchen as well. I crushed up the whole bag, and had more peppermint crumbs than scones to pile them on.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Stir until well combined.

Oh boy. White on white.

Add the chocolate chips and stir until they are coated with flour and evenly spread through the flour.

Add one cup of the cream and stir until the mixture starts to hold together.

Turn the mixture out onto a heavily floured surface and knead until a soft dough forms. Holding the dough in one hand, re-flour your work surface. Pat the dough into a rough disk, putting it down on the floured surface when it gets too big to conveniently hold. The book said one inch thick, but then shows scones much, much thinner. I’d aim for half an inch thick, max.

Lightly grease a cookie cutter and cut out scones, placing them on parchment-lined baking sheets.

The Pink Princess Cookbook seemed to demand cutesy cookie cutters.

Reform the dough as necessary to keep cutting shapes out of it, keeping the work surface floured and the cookie cutters greased.

Brush the scones with the remaining 2 tablespoons of cream.

Sprinkle the crushed peppermints on top.Bake at 375 degrees 15 to 20 minutes or until very lightly browned. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

One important tip: The peppermint bits will melt, and some of that will run off the sides of the scone. If there’s melted peppermint hanging on to the bottom of your scone and it’s still white, red, or pink – cool, eat it! If it’s started browning, break that off and throw it out, because WOW that is a lastingly horrid bitter taste. Oof.

These are best, texture-wise, when eaten the day they were baked. That did not stop me from breakfasting on them for the next several days, but they were very sticky by the end.

As the Pink Princess Cookbook says: Yummy peppermint treats!

Chocolate Chip Peppermint Scones

Adapted from the Pink Princess Cookbook.

  • 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk chocolate chips
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • 1/3 – 1/2 cup crushed peppermint candies
  • powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl. Add the chocolate chips and toss to coat with flour. Pour 1 cup of cream into the mixture and stir until just starting to hold together.

Turn mixture out onto a heavily floured surface and knead until a soft dough forms, about 2 minutes. Re-flour surface and pat dough to 1/2″ thick.

Grease cookie cutters and cut out scones, placing on the baking sheets. Brush scones with remaining 2 tablespoons cream and sprinkle with peppermint.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until very lightly browned. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Posted in Breakfast | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Apple Bread

Posted on September 21, 2011 by sparecake

I spent last weekend in Kansas City visiting Alex and Lauren, my former roommates. We spent most of the weekend eating, and, unusually for us, only ended up having time to cook one thing ourselves. Luckily, it was delicious!

Custard and cupcakes. Alex is working his best photogenic face, clearly.

After getting some apples at a huge farmers market, we decided to change a blackberry & apple bread recipe I’ve had bookmarked for ages to just apple.

Ingredients:

Dough:

  • 1 small apple, peeled and cut into small chunks
  • 1/2 cup lukewarm milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon plus 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into small pieces

Egg Wash:

  • 1 tablespoon cream
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Streusel Topping:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces

Topping:

  • 3 small apples peeled and cut into thin slices

Heck of a list, but you probably actually already own most of it…

Start by putting the milk, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, and the yeast in a large bowl and stirring lightly to combine. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes until the yeast has started foaming. Add the flour, remaining sugar, and salt and beat with a mixer until combined.

It will still be quite dry at this point.

Add the egg and beat, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in the butter until the dough is soft and silky.

Knead in the apples, adding another small handful of flour if the moisture from the apples makes the dough very sticky. When done, put the dough in a greased bowl.

Cover the bowl and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled, 1 1/2-2 hours. Ours didn’t actually seem like it had grown a ton to me after 2 hours, but I was able to pull off the next step, so I guess it was ok.

Spread the dough out over a greased and floured or parchment-lined jelly roll pan. You could roll it out on a floured surface, but i basically just shaped it into a rough rectangle in my hands and then pushed it around the pan as needed to fill in gaps.

Cover, and let rise until doubled – 45 minutes to an hour. Again…ours rose, but I don’t think it ever doubled…

While the dough is rising, make the streusel by combining the sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut the butter into the mixture with a pastry blender or forks.

Set aside the streusel and whisk together the egg wash ingredients. Spread the egg wash evenly over the surface of the dough.

Spread the apples evenly over the egg washed dough.

Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the apples.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool, or just scarf right away!

I’m glad I finally tried this recipe, even if we didn’t follow the original too closely!

Apple Bread

Adapted from Joy of Baking.

Dough:

  • 1 small apple, peeled and cut into small chunks
  • 1/2 cup lukewarm milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon plus 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into small pieces

Egg Wash:

  • 1 tablespoon cream
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Streusel Topping:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces

Topping:

  • 3 small apples peeled and cut into thin slices

Place the milk, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, and the yeast in a large bowl and stir lightly to combine. Let sit for 5-10 minutes until the yeast has started foaming. Add the flour, remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and salt and beat with a mixer until combined. Add the egg and beat, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in the butter until the dough is soft and silky.

Knead in the apples, adding another small handful of flour if the moisture from the apples makes the dough too sticky. When done, put the dough in a greased bowl and cover. Let rise in a warm place 1 1/2 – 2 hours until doubled.

Spread the dough to cover a greased and floured or parchment lined jelly roll pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, 45 minutes to an hour.

While the dough is rising, make the streusel by combining the sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut the butter into the mixture with a pastry blender or forks. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together the egg wash ingredients, then brush over the dough. Cover with a layer of apples. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the apples and bake for 35 minutes. Cool on a wire rack until ready to eat.

Posted in Bread, Breakfast, Snack | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Cherry Popcorn Coffee Cake

Posted on September 19, 2011 by sparecake

This is the first of a few recipes I want to make in the next few weeks from Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn Cookbook. The book manages to work popcorn into everything, and it’s pretty fun.

Oh, as I was typing up the ingredient list below I just now noticing that the recipe said to use half a can of cherry pie filling. Whoops. That explains why mine overflowed. Still, I think that the whole can was right, proportion-wise, so I’d just say bump up the pie plate size!

Ingredients:

Streusel:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 cups popped Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Original Popping Corn (slightly less than half a bag of microwave popcorn)
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 chopped nuts (just kidding, that’s gross, I swapped in white chocolate chips)

Cake:

  • 2 cups Bisquick
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 21 oz can cherry (or other fruit you like) pie filling

Icing:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk (it said water…I vote milk.)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Start by creaming the butter and sugar, then beating in the cinnamon. Add the popcorn, lightly crushing it as you transfer it from the measuring cup to the bowl. I just grabbed it by the handful and squeezed, until there were no whole pieces left. Make sure not to get any unpopped kernels, as those are a bummer to bite. Add the flour and white chocolate chips, and stir by hand until well combined.

Whisk together all the cake ingredients except for the pie filling.

Pour the cake batter into a greased 9.5″ or 10″ pie dish (or a 9″ pie dish if that’s all you’ve got, but put it on a foil-lined baking sheet to catch any overflow in the oven). Sprinkle half the streusel over the batter.

Spread the pie filling evenly over the first streusel layer, and top with the remaining streusel.

Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes, or until a wooden pick in the center comes out clean. I probably had mine in the oven closer to 50 minutes, since it was thicker, and it didn’t burn at all. It did overflow, though, as I mentioned.

Let your cake cool for 15 minutes (I mostly spent those 15 minutes eating the overflow…), and make the icing by just stirring together the icing ingredients. It’s a pretty thick icing, but that just means it stays mostly where you put it. Drizzle it over the cake, and enjoy.

I thought the streusel was really good, and this is very easy to throw together in the morning. Thanks, Orville!

Good Morning Cheery Cherry Coffee Cake

Adapted from Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn Cookbook.

Streusel:

  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 3 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 3 cups popped Orville Redenbacher’s Gourmet Original Popping Corn
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 white chocolate chips

Cake:

  • 2 cups Bisquick
  • 2/3 cup milk
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 21 oz can cherry pie filling

Icing:

  • 1 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon milk (it said water…I vote milk.)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 1/2 or 10 inch pie dish.

Cream together the sugar and butter, then mix in cinnamon. Add remaining streusel ingredients, lightly crushing popcorn and avoiding unpopped kernels. Blend until crumbly, then set aside.

Whisk together all the cake ingredients except for the pie filling. Pour into the prepared pie dish.

Cover cake with half the streusel. Spread the pie filling evenly over the first streusel layer, then cover with remaining streusel.

Bake 40-50 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes.

While the cake cools, whisk together the icing ingredients in a small bowl. Drizzle over the coffee cake.

Posted in Breakfast | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

The Chunkiest Shepherd

Posted on September 17, 2011 by sparecake

The spelling of the word shepherd doesn’t make sense at all. Should it not have two ‘e’s, if it’s sheep-herd? Or else ditch the h, since my 3rd grade reading skills tell me to pronounce it as sheferd? I can’t approve.

Spelling aside, the recipe I’ve got to share today is, I guess, basically just a plumped up shepherd’s pie. Kyle rated it a 9/10 for taste, but an 11/10 when you consider how easy it was – and that’s after I made him peel and mash the potatoes. So… pretty good. Plus, it’s a brilliant excuse to eat a lot of ketchup.

God I love ketchup.

Ingredients:

  • 4 pounds potatoes
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard
  • 3 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 egg
  • 1 onion soup mix packet (the ones I found were Lipton, and came two to a small box)
  • 1 15.25 ounce can of sweet corn, drained
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar
  • 3 pounds ground beef
  • extra ketchup for serving

You should probably use the least fatty beef you see in that quantity, as there’s no chance to drain it after cooking.

Start a large pot of water boiling on the stove and get your roommate to peel the potatoes. Chop them into large chunks – we had sad little potatoes from Giant, so into quarters was enough.

Boil the potatoes until they’re soft enough that you can stick a fork in them with basically no resistance. Drain, and then in the same pot add the butter, cream, garlic, salt and pepper, and mash thoroughly, tasting to decide if you need more salt or pepper. (Remember, it’s easier to add more than to take some out!)

Honestly…if you used instant mashed potatoes, I wouldn’t judge, but I already had a bag of potatoes and using instant on a food blog seems kind of…not the point?  The texture from ‘real’ mashed potatoes is probably better.

Set the potatoes aside for a minute preheat the oven to 400 degrees. If you didn’t feel like buying bread crumbs earlier, it should be ok – I just toasted and then briefly food processed some homemade bread and it made some grand bread crumbs! Whatever bread you’ve got around should do the same. However you come by them, put the bread crumbs in a large bowl and add the onion soup mix, ketchup, Worcestershire, egg, and mustard.

Add the beef and mix to combine well. You might as well use your hands, as they’re going to get dirty in a minute anyway.

Beef ball!

Take half the meat mixture and spread it in a 9X13″ dish.

Sprinkle the drained corn evenly over the beef.

Top with the remaining half of the beef, and then cover with the cheese.

Pat the mashed potatoes on top. It’s sort of a satisfying feeling, patting a potato-pile!

It’s not a bad idea to put your dish on a foil-lined baking sheet, just in case anything oozes over the side while cooking – this is a FULL dish!

Bake for 45 minutes. If the potatoes aren’t browned to your liking at that point, broil it briefly. On our oven, the broiler is a separate death-trap drawer underneath the main oven. I super hate putting anything in there. Hopefully in your oven, the broiler is just the top elements in the oven!

Serve with lots of ketchup, and expect leftovers if it’s just two of you because your other roommate left for a week without mentioning it to you… Luckily, the leftovers are just as good later!

Beef Trifle???

Chunky Shepherd’s Pie

  • 4 pounds potatoes
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons mustard
  • 3 tablespoons ketchup
  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 egg
  • 1 onion soup mix packet
  • 1 15.25 ounce can of sweet corn, drained
  • 2 cups shredded cheddar
  • 3 pounds lean ground beef
  • extra ketchup for serving

Bring large pot of water to boil. Peel and roughly chop potatoes. Boil until soft – when they can be easily stabbed with a fork. Drain, return to pot, and mash with cream, butter, garlic, salt, and pepper.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine bread crumbs, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire, onion soup packet, and egg in large bowl. Add beef, mixing well.

Press half of meat mixture into a 9X13″ dish. Spread corn evenly over the beef layer, then cover with the second half of beef. Spread cheese evenly, then coat with potatoes.

Bake 45 minutes, and broil at end to brown potatoes if needed. Serve with ketchup.

Posted in Dinner | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Chocolate Rugelach

Posted on September 15, 2011 by sparecake

A month or two ago at Costco, Alex pointed out a case of rugelach and mentioned that, even though he didn’t know what they were called, he was a fan. I promised to make them eventually, and this weekend’s DCFixed cookout seemed like as good a time as any.

Ingredients:

Dough:

  • 7 ounces (14 tablespoons) butter
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

  • 1 tablespoon cocoa
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup grated bittersweet chocolate
  • butter, melted

Topping:

  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup sugar

Beat the cream cheese and butter together in a large bowl.

Add the sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add the flour and mix until just combined.

Chill in the fridge for at least an hour, up to over night. Before removing the dough from the fridge, prepare the filling. If you can find bars or chunks of bittersweet chocolate, you can grate them on a cheese grater. Otherwise, freeze bittersweet chocolate chips for at least an hour, then place in a food processor and chop to small bits. Unfortunately, I learned rather too late that I’ve apparently killed our mini food processor, so I had to rub handfuls of chocolate chips against a cheese grater, which was…not ideal.

Combine the cocoa, cinnamon, and sugar with the chocolate and set aside.

Remove the dough from the fridge and divide into four balls. It was not at all the texture I was expecting, much butterier than most doughs, but it baked into a nice dough.

Put three of the balls back in the fridge and pat the fourth into a rough disk. Roll the disk into a 1/8″ thick circle on a floured surface. Make sure the bottom of the disk is well floured so you’ll be able to lift it easily from your counter a few steps on. Melt butter (start with 2 tablespoons, melt more if you need it) and brush it over the surface of the dough.

Sprinkle a quarter of the filling over the disk. Cut the disk into wedges. The outside edge should be 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide.

Starting at the wide edge, roll the dough towards the point. Place each, point-down, on parchment lined baking sheets.

The last few were rolled up in a haze of filling, and got a bit dirty looking.

Repeat with the remaining three dough-balls.

Beat the egg briefly with a fork. Brush the egg over each pastry, then sprinkle with sugar. I somehow forgot this step until I was rotating the pans during baking, but I did it then and it came out fine.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden.

After a bit of confusion (“Want a rugelach?” “Isn’t arugula a vegetable??”), these were quite popular.

I will probably try these again with various fillings (although what can top chocolate?), since I really enjoyed them.

Chocolate Rugelach

From About.com.

Dough:

  • 7 ounces (14 tablespoons) butter
  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

  • 1 tablespoon cocoa
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup grated bittersweet chocolate
  • butter, melted

Topping:

  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup sugar

In a large bowl, blend the butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add flour and mix until just combined. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly flour a work surface.

Chop or grate the bittersweet chocolate and stir together with the remaining filling ingredients. Set aside.

Divide the dough into four balls and return three to the fridge. Pat the fourth ball into a rough disk, then roll to a 1/8″ thick circle on the floured surface.

Melt butter and brush over the circle. Sprinkle with one quarter of the filling, then cut into wedges 1″-1.5″ wide at the base. Roll each wedge from the wide end to the point. Place on parchment-lined sheets, point-down.

Repeat with remaining three dough balls.

Whisk egg and brush over rugelach. Sprinkle sugar on top. Bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Nifty Things Edition

Posted on September 14, 2011 by sparecake

Posted in Pictures | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Posted on September 12, 2011 by sparecake

The Small Press Expo was this weekend outside DC. Lots of web comic artists that I like were there, several of whom I talk to on twitter some times. Several weeks ago via the twits I asked Dave Shabet, the artist who writes/draws Dead Winter, what kind of cookies he thought comic artists like, and he suggested thick chewy chocolate chunk cookies. These cookies didn’t turn out as thick as I’d hoped, but were otherwise grand and well received by everyone I threw a bag of cookies at.

Jon's friend Brad got the Dead Winter book, and asked for a robot in it.

Ingredients:

  • 340 grams unsalted butter (12 ounces) =3 sticks
  • 200 grams granulated sugar (7 ounces) = 1 cup
  • 400 grams brown sugar (14 ounces) = 2 very, very tightly packed cups light brown sugar
  • 21 ounces flour (4 2/3 cup)
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon coarse type kosher salt or 1/2 tablespoon Morton’s Kosher salt (Apparently it’s not that hugely grained, for a kosher salt? The more times you see Kosher in a row, the less it looks like a word. Kosher Kosher Kosher )
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 21 ounces good quality chocolate chopped into chunks

Whole Foods (oh god I felt like a yuppie locking my bike up outside Whole Foods) had this Icelandic chocolate that was delicious, and also the cheapest chocolate they had. Works for me!

I liked Iceland already after last summer's trip, but now...ready to move!

Melt the butter (nuking it for a minute should do), then let it cool slightly while you measure out the next few things. Beat the sugars into the butter.

400 grams of brown sugar is a nice little mountain.

Add the eggs, beating after each addition.

Let me pause a moment to tell you that as I sit here writing this, I am watching a movie with my roommates where Jason Statham is both on fire and punching a man. WHAT. This is the worst thing.

Ok, onwards.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, then beat into the batter.

Fold in the chocolate chunks with a spoon or spatula.

If you’ve got time, chill the dough for several hours, or preferably overnight, to help prevent the cookies from spreading as they bake. Bummer now, but it’ll be worth it tomorrow.

When you’re ready to bake, heat the oven to 325 degrees. Scoop the dough into some pretty large balls, and space them widely.

Bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a...baseball? I don't know, I don't do sports.

Bake the cookies for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

This was the first batch. I had left the chocolate chunks too huge to spread with the dough, but broke it up more in later batches.

I think they may have stayed puffier if I had baked then another minute or two? They were towards the underdone side, but in a tasty way.

This made a goodly pile of cookies, and, as I said, was delicious. Packed them up in baggies and handed them to all the artists at SPX whose comics I read. Good deal!

SPX itself was fun. The guy in charge of volunteers was cool, the cash register only had 3 buttons I had to know how to use, and there were tons of artists I’d never heard of to check out. Although, that’s not entirely great, because then you’d see something with an interesting name, flip through it and realize you don’t actually care, then put it back and try not to make eye contact because, oh god, you’re judging someone’s art/baby/job. Might as well just go kick puppies, in terms of feeling good about yourself. Oh well… I also ran into friends!

The only people I took a picture of at the thing were the people I already see all the time. Reasonable.

And, since I had about 4 inches of clear wall space left to fill up, I got 2 prints and a poster, plus a Noncanon book which I got drawn on.

I am incapable of answering "What do you want?" with anything other than PONY.

Not a bad way to kill a Saturday!

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Adapted from Top Chef, via Cookie Madness.

  • 340 grams unsalted butter (12 ounces) =3 sticks
  • 200 grams granulated sugar (7 ounces) = 1 cup
  • 400 grams brown sugar (14 ounces) = 2 very, very tightly packed cups light brown sugar
  • 21 ounces flour (4 2/3 cup)
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon coarse type Kosher salt 1/2 tablespoon Morton’s kosher
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 21 ounces good quality chocolate chopped into chunks

Melt butter, cool slightly. Mix sugars into the melted butter. Add the eggs, beating after each addition.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt, then blend into the sugar mixture. Fold in the chocolate.

Chill the dough, then preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

Posted in Dessert | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Orange Crush Sherbet

Posted on September 9, 2011 by sparecake

I’ve got a couple exciting baked goods coming up in the next week or so (and a heap of Icelandic chocolate I’m looking forward to trying), but until the events I’m baking for happen, here’s a really quick Orange Crush Sherbet recipe to tide you all over.

Ingredients:

  • 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple (undrained)
  • 3 12 oz cans or half of a 2 liter of Orange Crush soda

What one liter of Crush looks like.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to combine. I’m honestly not even positive this step is necessary, since everything will be well churned in the ice cream maker, but it can’t hurt to make sure the condensed milk doesn’t sink to the bottom or anything.

A nice creamsicle color!

Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and freeze according the the ice cream maker’s instructions.

Super simple, takes about 2 minutes of hands-on time, and comes out tasting like creamsicles, but with a hint of the pineapple. It never gets hard, like ice cream when it’s very frozen, so don’t think your ice cream maker’s gone lame or anything, it’s just a soft sherbet. Tastes good, though!

If there are any hot days left this year in your part of the world that aren’t totally drowned under this never-ending rain, this would be the perfect thing to relax with.

Orange Crush Sherbet

From Ezra Pound Cake.

  • 1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple
  • 3 12 oz cans or half of a 2 liter of Orange Crush soda

Combine ingredients in a large bowl and stir to mix. Pour into an ice cream maker and freeze according to the machine’s instructions.

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Homemade Fluffernutters

Posted on September 7, 2011 by sparecake

Over the last year or two I’ve gotten increasingly into homemade things. Bread, granola bars, yogurt, tomato sauce… they’ve all become things worth the time to make myself. This time, though, things got a bit silly and I decided to make homemade fluffernutters. If you’re not familiar, that’s a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. They’re so delicious that there was a battle several years ago about whether or not to ban them in schools in Massachusetts!

SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!

So, we need to make peanut butter, fluff, and bread. Not too bad.

Definitely reasonable proportions!

For the bread, I just made a fresh batch of the Super Bread I made when I was just starting this blog out. It really is a great sandwich bread, and it’s got lots of protein so you feel full for a decently long time.

Particularly nice looking loaves this week, I thought.

Next up, the peanut butter is super easy.

Ingredients:

  • 16 oz roasted & salted peanuts
  • 3 teaspoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon peanut oil

Put the peanuts in a food processor and process for a minute. I (still) only have a tiny food processor, so I did it in two batches.

At this point the chunks will be small, but still definitely there.

Add the honey and oil (or half of them, if you’re doing it in batches), and process another minute and a half to two minutes, until smooth. (Or until your poor tiny food processor starts smoking and you figure that that’s smooth enough.)

…And that’s it. You’ve made peanut butter. You can taste it and add salt or more honey if you like, but I was happy with this as-is. Sort of strange, I normally HATE the “natural” peanut butters, I don’t even think they taste like peanuts. I don’t know what they do to those ones, but I like this much better!

Onwards to the fluff! This is one recipe where I kind of wished I had a KitchenAid, but… oh well, you get by.

Ingredients:

  • 6 tablespoons water
  • 1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
  • 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 4 large egg whites (room temp egg whites beat up much, much, much better than cold ones – remember that always)
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the water, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan. The original recipe said “small” saucepan, but I found that the mixture bubbled pretty wildly on its way up to temp, so don’t go TOO tiny.

Heat on high heat to 246 degrees, keeping an eye on it with a candy thermometer. I don’t know what the deal is with my stove, but I could not get this hot enough until I fashioned a little tinfoil lid to keep some of the heat in. The sugar melted and the mixture went clear at some point, and I thought that must be progress, but it was still 30 degrees too cool at that point.

Super pro?

While the sugar mixture is heating, whip the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until creamy and foamy, about two minutes. If you do have a stand mixer, use the whisk attachment.

With the mixer still on, sprinkle in the remaining tablespoon of sugar and continue beating until the whites hold very soft peaks, about two minutes.

Once the sugar mixture has reached the right temperature, drizzle it in to the eggs with the mixer on slow speed. Be really careful – this stuff gets stringy and behaves in weird ways, and will burn like crazy. I’m pretty sure my mom still has scars from making candy apples when I was a kid, and this will mess you up just as bad if you get it on yourself.

Once you’ve poured all the sugar mixture in, turn the mixer up to high and whisk until thick, fluffy, and nearly completely cooled, about 7 minutes.

It lumps in odd ways. I'm glad this mixer is from a power tool company, as I feel like a wimpy model would have had a rough time with this.

Bring the mixer back to low and mix in the vanilla.

This felt much messier than it now looks.

Now take a big spoon and eat TONS of this. If you’re feeling too healthy, maybe just scoop it up with some grapes? I’ve been known to eat enough fluff and grapes that I make myself ill.

The cleanup is actually not that bad as long as your sink gets super hot water.

Once your parts are all made, all that’s left is to put it together!

And, voila, you’ve successfully killed half a day making a sandwich. A very good sandwich.

Assuming you’re a heathen, the last step is to retreat upstairs and scarf with all haste.

Perfect!

To prevent the peanut butter from separating, you should store it in the fridge. (If you want to put it in the cabinet, you’ll probably have to stir the oil back in when you want some.) I haven’t seen advice on storing the fluff, but I put it in the fridge because I felt weird about putting egg things in the cabinet, and that hasn’t done anything bad to the texture yet.

I’m not sure that I now need to make fluff every time I want to eat some, but it does open up some interesting possibilities as far as replacing the vanilla with other flavorings. Strawberry fluff? Already exists in some stores. Orange fluff? Mint fluff? I’d try them…

Once again, submitted to yeastspotting.

Creamy Peanut Butter

  • 16 oz roasted & salted peanuts
  • 3 teaspoons honey
  • 1 tablespoon peanut oil

Grind peanuts in food processor for one minute. Add honey and oil and process another minute and a half to two minutes, until smooth.

Fluff

From Food Network, via Culinary Concoctions by Peabody.

  • 6 tablespoons water
  • 1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
  • 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 4 large egg whites
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the water, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan. Heat on high heat to 246 degrees, monitoring with a candy thermometer.

While the sugar mixture is heating, whip the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until creamy and foamy, about two minutes. With the mixer still on, sprinkle in the remaining tablespoon of sugar and continue beating until the whites hold very soft peaks, about two minutes.

Once the sugar mixture has reached 246 degrees, drizzle it into the eggs with the mixer on slow speed. Turn the mixer up to high and whisk until thick, fluffy, and nearly completely cooled, about 7 minutes. Bring the mixer back to low and mix in the vanilla.

Fluffernutter Sandwich

  • 2 slices of bread
  • fluff
  • peanut butter

Spread peanut butter on one slice of bread, and fluff on the other. Put them together, then put them in your mouth.

Posted in Bread, Lunch, Snack | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Most Whitebread Samosas Ever

Posted on September 5, 2011 by sparecake

Happy Labor Day, let’s Americanize some food!…

When I first saw this recipe, I was excited because I thought these samosas looked good. I told my Indian friend I was going to make samosas, and she immediately asked to see the recipe to tell me if it was “authentic.” Obviously, they are not. I never thought they were, but honestly…that’s ok. If you’re here for authentic Indian food, this is very much the wrong blog, as I don’t tend to like it. If you just want some tasty filling in a flaky dough, you’re in luck!

Ingredients:

Crust:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, chilled
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling:

  • 2 cups cooked potatoes, drained and cubed
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cumin, to taste
  • 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
  • 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce, to taste (optional)
  • salt, pepper to taste
  • egg wash for brushing pastries – one egg mixed with one teaspoon water

To make the dough, combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in half of the butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles granola. Do this quickly so the butter stays cold. I didn’t think mine looked quite as clumpy as ‘granola’ implies, but it came out ok in the end.

Dice the remaining butter and add it, working it in until the size of dried cranberries. (What a weird size description!) Flatten the butter chunks a bit with your fingers in the flour, so they are like thin leaves of butter, coated in flour.

Sprinkle half the ice water over the flour and combine, adding enough of the remaining water to make it all stick together as a rough blob. Knead briefly (just 30 seconds will do), and then divide in half. You want to still be able to see bits of butter in the dough, so don’t worry about kneading too thoroughly.

Press each half into a disc, wrap in saran wrap, and chill in the refrigerator for at least half an hour, or up to overnight. If you’re going to make them after half an hour of chilling, take out the peas to thaw now.

While the dough chills, you can make the filling!

Melt the butter in over medium heat on the stove. Add the onions, then the garlic, cooking until the onions turn translucent.

Getting there.Add the curry powder and cumin and saute for saute for another minute.

Add the potatoes and stir them to coat in the spices. Break up the potatoes over the heat, cooking for a few more minutes. It’s up to you if you want to mash entirely smooth or leave a small chunks.

Taste, and add salt, pepper, and Sriracha to taste. I added just a pinch of pepper, probably a third of a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of Sriracha. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas without crushing them.

Leave the filling to the side to cool slightly, preheat the oven to 400, and start rolling out the dough.

Roll out the dough, one disk at a time, to 1/8″ thick. Cut circles of dough with a 3″ cutter.

Mix together the egg wash and brush over each circle. Place two tablespoons of filling onto each and fold the dough into half moons. Personally…this seemed like way too much filling for me, I ended up just using two per samosa, one as top and one as bottom. Crimp the edges with a fork, and brush the tops with egg wash.

Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until deep golden brown.

You can serve them with yogurt or sour cream for dipping, I thought they were good as-is.

PEAS

I had a small tupperware of filling left. If you do too, it’s pretty good for a quick lunch later heated up in a tortilla.

Samosas

From King Arthur.

Crust:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, chilled
  • 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Filling:

  • 2 cups cooked potatoes, drained and cubed
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cumin, to taste
  • 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
  • 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot sauce, to taste (optional)
  • salt, pepper to taste
  • egg wash for brushing pastries – one egg mixed with one teaspoon water

Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in one stick of butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles granola, working quickly to keep the butter cool.

Dice the remaining butter and work into flour until it is the size of dried cranberries. Flatten the butter pieces slightly with your fingers as you go along, creating leaves of butter coated in flour.

Sprinkle about half of the ice water over the flour mixture and work gently, adding more water as needed until the dough forms a rough mass. Knead briefly and divide dough in half. Press into two disks and wrap each in saran wrap. Chill in the fridge two hours or up to overnight.

While the dough chills, prepare the filling. Melt the butter on the stove over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic, cooking for two to three minutes until they turn translucent. Add the curry powder and cumin and cook an additional minute. Add the potatoes and turn to coat well in the spices. Mash the potatoes, leaving some chunks if desired.

Taste the filling for seasoning, adding salt, pepper, and Sriracha as desired. Remove from the heat and stir in the peas without crushing them. Set the filling aside to cool as you roll out the dough.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment.

Working with one dough-disc at a time, roll the chilled dough to 1/8″ thick. Cut out circles with a 3″ cutter. Brush each with egg wash.

Place two tablespoons of filling on each circle and fold each to a half moon. Crimp the open edge with a fork and brush the tops with more egg wash.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until deep golden brown.

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