Happy Christmas!: Caramel Cup Cookies

Happy Christmas and happy holidays to all my friends and followers. I hope you spend these days, surrounded by those

whom you hold dear, with tables ladened with delicious foods and drinks.

I know I've been remiss in posting my kitchen adventures these past few weeks. Lots of things have kept me busy...and out of the kitchen. I hope to get back into the swing of things in the new year...but until then, I have but a plate of caramel cup cookies to offer you and Santa.

These cookies are baked in two-bite or mini muffin tins and the end result is a cookie-encased caramel cup, kissed with whisky (What? Given all the busy-ness of the season, a little extra, hidden Christmas cheer is never a bad thing).

Caramel Cup Cookies

Yield: 24

Ingredients

125g (225ml/ 1c less 1Tbsp and 2tsp) all purpose flour

0.25tsp (1.25ml) salt

0.5tsp (2.5ml) bicarbonate of soda

110g (125ml/0.5c) softened butter

100g (125ml/0.5c) brown sugar

1 egg

0.5tsp (2.5ml) vanilla extract

Splash of whisky (optional)

24 mini caramel cups, denuded of papers and set in the freezer for at least 15 minutes

Method

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.

Sift together flour and bicarb. Set aside

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Incorporate vanilla, salt and egg. Add flour mixture and mix well.

Divide the batter into 24 equal portions--approximately the size of a chestnut. Roll into balls and plop one into each of the 24 mini bun pans.

Bake for about 10 minutes. The edges will be golden, but the centres will be this side of anemic.

Immediately after you take the tray out of the oven, spritz or dribble the whisky into each cookie before shoving a frozen caramel cup into the centre of each hot cookie.

Let cool in the pan before popping out.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Chocolate chip pecan toffee cookies

Oops!  I mean Lacey Chocolate chip pecan toffee cookies

Even though it's only been about five or six weeks since I last posted, it feels longer...much longer.  I fully admit to a bit of sheepishness about the length of this past break.  My usual two or so week break stretched to three...and then a month...and then it became...umm...a wee bit longer.

I think I have good reason.  The fact is...I really didn't cook or bake a lot this summer. Between this and that, this food fete and that dinner, most of my kitchen activity seemed to be microwaving or simply pulling a cold drink...erm...salad fixings from the fridge.

That's the way it goes sometimes.

This week I made a very conscious effort to reacquaint myself with my kitchen and create something to write about.  I decided upon chocolate chip cookies.

Goodness knows I've made hundreds of dozens of them over the years.  That should be a nice, easy way of easing me back into the swing of things.

Ermm.

You know what it's like to take a yoga class after not doing a Dwi Pada Viparita Dandasana for five years?  That feeling that even the corpse pose is well beyond capabilities?

Okay...maybe you don't.  But I do...and it's weighing heavily as I'll be unfurling my mat for the first time in half a decade on Tuesday.  No...I'm not concerned...overly.

Yeah.  That's what it was like baking these cookies.

I looked at a few recipes, including the Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookie #10 (aka the Toll House Recipe) and a couple of community even cookbooks and came up with another way to build a chocolate chip cookie (because, of course, the world needs another chocolate chip cookie recipe).

It all came together nicely and I scooped out the first tray of cookies.

After eight minutes I took out the first tray of cookies from the oven.

The first tray looked more like crocheted lace doilies by someone obsessed with the popcorn stitch.  Half the tray was one lacy cookie ooze of sugar and butter, held together by the occasional molten pool of toffee and studded with softened chocolate, as well as the just scant amount of flour I used.

Don't get me wrong, they were buttery and soft and nummily sticky with melted toffee bits...but they didn't have  the toothsome weight that I wanted.

Thank goodness I can fix things on the fly.

Based on the amount of dough left, I measured out some flour.  Presto!  Cookies that keep their shape without being too cakey (the bane of My Dear Little Cardamummy's cookies (but you didn't hear that from me)), lovely and chewy and just salty enough to cut through the combined sweetness of the dough, the chocolate and the toffee.

Not bad for my return to the kitchen, I think.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Toffee Cookies

Chocolate Chip Toffee Pecan Cookies 
Yield 3-4 dozen

175g (1.25c/300ml) all purpose flour
0.5tsp (2.5ml) bicarbonate of soda
0.5tsp (2.5ml) salt
115g (0.5c/120ml) soft butter
125g (10Tbsp/150ml) brown sugar
75ml (6Tbsp/90ml) white sugar
0.5tsp (2.5ml) vanilla extract
1 egg
175g (1c/250ml) chocolate chips
100g (0.5c/125ml) chopped pecans
75g (0.5c/125ml) toffee bits

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Moderate. Line cookie trays with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, bicarb and salt. Set aside.

Cream together butter, both sugars and vanilla for about five minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Mix in the flour until just combined. Fold in the chocolate, nuts and toffee.

Roll into teaspoon-sized balls and place about 4cm (1.5") apart on the prepared cookie trays. Do not flatten.  Bake for 7-9 minutes, or until the cookies have spread and are golden around the edges and on the bottom.

Let cool on the the tray for about five minutes and then transfer to a wire wrack to cool completely.

Note: for the lacey version, reduce the flour by about 35g (0.25c/60ml); when you portion them out, flatten then slightly before baking.

cheers!

jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Milk chocolate pecan toffee cookies

A couple of years ago I heard about Blue Monday.

No, not the very fabulous song by New Order that hit the charts back in the day, but what feels to me like very suspect "research" to pinpoint when "we" are at our psychological low points.

Heh...I guess I was right to be suspect. When I did my own fleeting research, I found this probably-soon-to-be-removed Wikipedia article, claiming it was part of SkyTravel's PR campaign three years ago.

Regardless, the past two weeks proved to be quite trying for a number of people in my real and virtual circles. Broken hearts, work-related stresses, multiple deaths and multiple hosptilisations (for those of you who wish to read the exbf's adventure in emerg, click this. Remember, it's only funny because he's alive). There were days my heart ached when I checked my voicemail, email, replies, direct messages and message via my Twitter account.

I do what I can to help: do this and that to help ease their burden, offer an ear, shoulder or point of view, offer comfort food.

Comfort cookies, to be precise.

Everyone who bakes chocolate chip cookies has at least one recipe in hand. I probably have serveral dozen in my collection, but Anna Olson's chocolate chip cookies is one of the two I return to over and over again. In its original format it produces a reasonable number (24) of delicious, buttery, chewy cookies, which with a minor tweak can turn into a reasonable number (24) of delicious, buttery, crisp cookies.

When comfort and restoration are calle for, sometimes chocolate chips need a little additional help. Thankfully, chopped pecans and toffee bits stepped in to do their part to add extra butteryness and crunch to the chocolaty chewy cookies.

I'm not so egotistical to claim these cookies will make your life easier and solve all your problems. Simply, they just may make you feel better...and isn't that what a good cookie should do?


Chocolate Chip, Toffee and Pecan Cookies
Adapted from Anna Olson's Chocolate Chip Cookies in Sugar

Yield three dozen, depending upon the size of your cookie spoon

280g (2c) all purpose flour
1dspn (2tsp) corn starch
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5tsp salt
170g (0.75c) softened butter
200g (1c) brown sugar
50g (0.25c) sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
135g (1c) milk chocolate chips or buttons
50g (0.5c) chopped pecans
40g (0.33c) toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line cookie trays with parchment.

Sift together flour, cornstarch, bicarb and salt. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugars until smooth. Mix in vanilla and eggs. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix in the flour mixture in two batches. Scrape down the sides again, before folding in the chocolate, toffee and nuts.

Drop by tablespoonful onto the prepared cookie sheet, slightly pressing the tops. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are golden and the bottoms are slighly brown and easily lift from the tray.

Cool on the tray for a few minutes before removing them to a cooling rack.


cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Twas the week before Christmas

And all through these weeks,
I've been up to my eyeballs,
In cookies and treats.

Okay...that's all I can muster.

Needless to say December has been a whirl of lunches and dinners (some less edible than others), gatherings, treats and nights in the kitchen fighting with Beelzebub to procure 500 cookies. The next few weeks will bring much the same (except no more cookies--if you've not received any...well...umm...be nicer to me and we'll see if you get on next year's list).

I've had a couple of requests for recommendations for books for foodies. I receive a number of food related books to review each year--not everything gets a post, but I did select a couple which I've not yet reviewed but deserve to be mentioned. Both were given to me courtesy of their publishers:

The Widow Cliquot

by Tilar Mazzeo

Harper Collins

254pp/C$33.99

Mazzeo tells the story of a young widow, assumes the helm of what would become one of the world's most famous champagnes. Tracing Mme Cliquot's story from revolutionary to Napoleonic France, the author deftly combines socio-political events with the personal struggles of a young widow, mother and business woman.

Keys to Good Cooking: a guide to making the best of foods and recipes

by Harold McGee

Doubleday Canada/Random House Canada

576pp/C$42

McGee's latest tome easily takes the home cook by the hand and guides them through the basics of cooking and more important why recipes work (or more importantly, don't work). He guides the the reader though tools, concepts and ingredients in simple, straightforward language. I think it would be good for those who are rather new to the kitchen and it's frustrating ways.

So, that's it for me until the New Year. Until then, I'm leaving you with a plate of linzer sandwich cookies: nutty, sweet and flavoured with cinnamon and cloves.

The recipe is from Canadian Living's cookie edition. The only real change I made was to use preground filberts--I don't have a food processer, so I bought a packet of ground nuts and went to work. The recipe comes together nicely and is so easy to work with...and, unlike other cookie doughs, you can easily re-roll the scraps withouth the finished cookie toughening.

Linzer Cookies
Adapted from Canadian Living's recipe
Yield three dozen

Ingredients
215g (1.5c) ground filberts (hazelnuts)
240g (2c) ap flour
1tsp baking powder
1.5tsp cinnamon
0.25tsp ground cloves
0.25tsp salt
grated zest of one lemon
280g (1.25c) butter
150g (0.75c) sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1tsp vanilla
250ml (1c) jam (raspberry, apricot, strawberry, blueberry, whatever you have on hand)

Method
Toast the ground nuts either by spreading it in an even layer on a tin foil-lined cookies sheet and popping it into a 180C/350F for about five minutes or until golden and fragrant OR toast the flour in batches on the stovetop, over a medium heat, in a large cast iron pan until golden and fragrant.

Mix toasted ground nuts with flour, baking powder, spices, salt and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Then beat in the vanilla, the whole egg and yolk one at a time. Stir in the nut flour mixture in two or three additions, until the dough comes together, without over mixing. Divide the dough in half and flatten into discs. Wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F and line cookie sheets with parchment.

Roll out each disc onto a lightly floured surface to 0.5cm/0.25" thickness. Using a 6cm (2.5") round cutter. If desired, use a smaller cutter to cut a shaped hole from half the cookies (for the tops).

Bake 2.5cm (1") apart for 8-12 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly golden. Let cool on pans for a few minutes before transferring to racks. Let cool thoroughly before sandwiching.

Option: dust with icing sugar before serving.

To assemble:
Spoon a teaspoon of jam onto the bottom of a "bottom" biscuit and sandwich with a top.

Notes:
- I've not tried it but you can probably substitute other nuts for filberts, such as walnuts or almonds.

- For crispier cookies, sandwich the day your are serving them, otherwise the the jam will soften the cookies, the longer they've been assembled. Nothing wrong with that...

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Daring Bakers: Claudia Fleming's Macarons...or is it macaroons?

Recipe: Macaroons
Recipe origins: Claudia Fleming's The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy TavernHostess: Ami. S of Baking Without Fear

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Hosting a Daring Bakers' challenge is not an easy thing. Trust me, I know.

There's a wide range of abilities, experience and attitudes. From those who've never stepped foot into a kitchen (I could comment, but I won't) to those who probably own a professional kitchen. From those who try and keep to DB origins and follow a recipe exactly as written (unless there are financial, ethical or health reasons that force otherwise) to those who think of themselves as the sparkliest snowflakes of all, believing rules do not apply to them and will present a chocolate sponge as a completed challenge when the host called for a lemon meringue. metric vs Imperial, weights vs. volumes...it can be quite the tempest in a teapot.

Whenever I've come across a recipe I wasn't sure of I've done my best with it and have tried to post an accurate account of my adventures. Sometimes they are straightforward and produce fantastically tasty treats, sometimes as convoluted as Suicide Squid's origin story that sometimes produce the same fantastically tasty treats...but sometimes not so tasty treats.

When the results are good, they are very good. When they aren't, well, I try not to be unduly spiteful...quite honestly, I don't know how succesful I am at the not being unduly spiteful part.

So when it came to this month's DB challenge...well, I wasn't sure what to expect. Partly because I didn't know if I was making macarons...or macaroons. The write-up said "macaroon" but as the accompanying photos didn't look like the coconutty mini-mountains, and looked like a cross between 19thC nightcaps and happy little jellyfish, I assumed they were macarons.

Semantics, yes...but it's important.

Anyway...I've never made either before. I've eaten macaroons. I've never eaten a macaron.

I'm going on blind faith that whatever this recipe produces is a macaron.

The batter came together well enough, I suppose. I was a little concerned after the first third of the whites were incorporated as it just seemed too crumbly. By the final third, it looked good.

Which was probably the last time it actually looked good.

The first baking seemed okay...they were round and poofy, but rather lacklustre.

By the time the oven came to temp for the second baking the round, poofy lacklustryness collapsted into themselves...they kind of looked like a beanbag chair that lost the essence of being a chair.

When I took them out of the oven...they looked...rumpled. Like punching bags that had been punched one time too many.

Not all of them turned out--and that is, I think a fault of Beelzebub--of the 20 blobs (I scaled the recipe down to 40 per cent), 10 had charred bottoms: a hazard of using a stove possessed by the spirit of a lazy food-hating daemon who'd rather see me reliant upon big-box processed microwavable fud than...well...bake.

I will say of those that survived the baking process, most of them had the little feet or jellyfish skirt that I've seen in photos. For that I'm rather tickled.

So that left me 10 blobs, enough for five sandwich cookies. Given there's only one of me, five cookies are absolutely fine. Part of the challenge was to fill them and quite honestly, I wasn't very imaginative and reached for the last of the raspberry jam. Almonds, raspberries--very Bakewell Tart-like.


What did I think? Well, I'm not sure if they came out as they should. I'm also not entirely sure of the texture. I thought they'd be light and crisp not light-ish and chewy.

I've read a few Tweets by more experienced bakers than I voicing concern over the recipe, so maybe they're a better judge of this recipe than I.

But I do know I want to try my hand at macaron-making, but perhaps with a different recipe.

Click here for a list of participating Daring Bakers.

cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

Elvis has left the building: Meet my nemesis

Meet my nemesis: Tamias minimus.

Yes. You read correctly. Nemesis.

Many of us have one. Heck. Some of us have more than one.

It could be the guy who always gets the last double chocolate doughnut with the sparkly sprinkles on the rack leaving you with the stale unglazed-because-they-forgot-to-ice-them generic-things-that-could-be-better-used-as-hemorrhoids-cushions doughnuts; the woman who, regardless of which store she's in, can always get an eager and helpful sales clerk, while you've an armload of items to try on and the clerk guarding the changerooms is too busy texting her friend to bother unlocking a door for you, or the gal who can always get the cutest pair of shoes in her size, at 60 per cent off regular price because her feet are just so dainty. (Umm...yeah--I'm the one who usually gets the last good doughnut, sales clerks (and waiters) fawn over me and umm...I have teeny feet).

I hear you cooing over the cute, fuzzy wittle woodland cweature above. "How could such an adorable little thing be a nemisis?" you ask.

Trust me. They're only cute and fuzzy when they're in a woodland setting. They are NOT cute and fuzzy when they're running through and hiding in your main floor. When they are running through and hiding in your main floor, they are what I call "vermin."

And while I've not had dealings with this particular chipmunk before, I've lived the main points of this tale before. We have a history.

I had a rotten morning, punctuated by miscommunications and my jumping to conclusions; by noon I was hoping for a do-over. Since I don't have a TARDIS, my next best option was to ponder my stupidity by planting some lovely violet and plum coloured icicle pansies and assess the bunny damage to my plants. The front doors were wide open, so I could traipse in and out as my little bewildered heart pleased.

That's when the little begger decided to stage a home invasion.

Sure...strike when I'm down. I expect that from my enemies.

Admittedly, I didn't notice anything was wrong at first. I cleaned up from playing in the mud continued my contemplative therapies, this time armed with bucket, broom and mild abrasives.

And that's when I saw him...standing all cock-of-the-walk-like on my credenza. Sure he could have been mistaken for a stuffed animal (my little stuffed Cthulhu does live in the dining room), but really given my B&E history with others of his ilk, I have no desire to keep reminders around.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

It scampered into hiding, behind the stack of cookery books I have yet to review.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

There's poo and pee all over the credenza. There's poo and pee all over a shelf I've set up for food photography. A teak shelf. A teak shelf that's now chipmunk pee stained.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

I clean it up and go into the kitchen. There's poo in several places...including the cat's water dish and my aprons' tails.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

Darn you, you little cute furry little woodland creature who's out of his element!

I summoned the cats.

The cats did not come.

I went to look for the cats.

Hagia was on in the TV temple, snoozing on the couch. She opened her big pumpkin eyes.

"Hagia. Time to earn your keep. Go stalk and eat the chipmunk."

She closed her big pumpkin eyes and went back to sleep.

Zeus was in the carton behind the fireplace, willing himself to be invisible...or so I think...I couldn't see him.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

After almost three hours, camped out in the dark, eyes trained on the open kitchen door, ironically quiet as a mouse (well, not so quiet--I was occasionally updating my Twitter feed about this), the chipmunk exited my condo.

Yes, after a few false starts, Elvis has left the building...

...but not before helping himself to the cats' food and water. The door was closed after him.

YAY

I went into the dining room to take a look at whatever damage the critter caused.

I might as well have not cleaned up the dining room after lunch. I'd heard little animals void their bowels while running, to make them lighter, ergo, faster. Apparently chipmunks are poo-propelled as its output rivalled that of a bull moose.

I even found poo in the bowls of my mini muffin tin.

Insert monosyllabic expletive *here.*

A few hours later, my fingers wrinkled from rinse water and the air pungent with bleach and other cleaners, and every surface Elvis obviously touched, ran over or simply looked at was scrubbed within an inch of their anthropomorphic lives, I was in need of a bit of sweet solace.

I've been preoccupied with chocolate chip cookies as of late. It's very much unlike me--to crave chocolate chip cookies, that is. Growing up, My Dear Little Cardamummy baked the occasional batch, but returning to a cookie-perfumed house was not the norm.

My little kitchen must have churned a score or two of chocolate-studded biscuits since the end of August. The main problem being I've misplaced the slip of paper that holds my favourite chocochip cookie recipe. I've tried several recipes and while I've not replicated the *one,* This version by Alton Brown is a step in the right direction.

Unlike most other cookie recipes where you start by creaming butter, sugar and eggs and then add the dry ingredients, this one is put together as you would muffins: sift the dry ingredients together, then mix the wet ingredients, tip the wet into dry, give it a stir and drop onto the prepared sheet.

The number of cookies you get are entirely dependent upon the generosity of your cookie spoon. I used my 1.5 tsp sized spoon and could get about five dozen cookies.

The result are lovely chewy-crisp flat cookies, perfect with a cup of coffee.

Even more perfect after yet another run in with your nemesis.

Chocolate Chip Cookie No. 10
from I'm Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown (opens into my Amazon.ca shop)

150g ap flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
150g sugar
145g brown sugar
225g salted butter, melted
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla
300g chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 180C/375F; line baking sheets with parchment.

Sift dry ingredients together.

Mix wet ingredients together; Tip into dry and stir until combined. Fold chocolate chips into batter.

Drop by spoonful onto prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2.5 cm between each blob. Bake for 6-9 minutes or until golden brown.


cheers!
jasmine

Chipmunk photo credit: Douglas Haase, via Flickr.

I'm a quill for hire!

Comfort and Restoration: Nanaimo Bars

Being ill--not really, really ill, but the kind of ill that leaves one prone to whining and snuffling through days and and raspily breathing and used tissue-piling nights--makes me crave comfort. I want flannelette pyjama bottoms, fleece tops and thick, warm socks. I want layers of blankets and comforters piled on the couch. I want (but rarely get at such times) a purring cat withing petting reach...I really want a manly set of arms and legs at my beck and call for glasses of juice, the latest WFI and to summon the strength to change the channel (not even close to happening).

Yup, I'm one of those people who is only still when she's bubbling snot, setting decibel records for sneezing and quite undecided if her vocal chords have taken a turn towards Demi Moore, Joss Stone or Bonnie Tyler. Heck, I've been known to put in more than a full day's work while bubbling snot, setting decibel records for sneezing while her vocal chords have taken turns at mimicking Demi Moore, Joss Stone and Bonnie Tyler.

I gravitate towards garlicky and peppery soups (tomato or cream of mushroom) and buttered toast. Easy, quick and pretty much instafood that still gives me the illusion of "cooking"--which is good, because I generally don't feel like eating. For the most part colds and flus leave me devoid of useful tastebuds. The only ones that seem to function are those that tell me everything tastes like the underside of a soap dish.

But I know I must eat, so whenever possible I gravitate towards the non-cooking option and order in. Chinese food, usually--hot and sour soup, pan-fried dumplings, General Tsao chicken, extra spicy kung po broccoli and beef, thick noodles with veggies, and mushu veggies...Vast quantities of food--far too much for one person who has no interest in eating--prepared in a not so far off kitchen are temporarily stored in the fridge, steadily consumed over the course of a week.

I'm a firm believer that food is healing. Garlic, pepper, ginger--all good and good for you. When I'm snuffling, the hotter, the better. Which is probably the basis of one of my foodish superstitions: I won't begin to feel better until I have one of my special sandwiches, Death Rain potato chips, a bottle of Jones Blue Bubble Gum soda and a Nanaimo bar.

This combination evolved over time--Death Rain and Jones sodas weren't around when I started this little ritual--but the sandwich and the Nanaimo bar remain.

The sandwich, which has been referred to by friends as "Jasmine's special sandwich" is, by most accounts, inedible. The ideal sandwich was first perfected at a now defunct local build-your-own sandwichery. I think my most successful version was roast beef, turkey, cheddar, lettuce, onions, hot peppers, spicy mustard, horseradish, onions, dill pickles and butter on an onion bun. Now I have a version made at the swankyfoodery: shaved rare or Angus roast beef, cheddar, lettuce, onions, pickles, horseradish, "the bomb" (a house blend of predominantly red, hot and oily things), roasted peppers, aubergines and sundried tomatoes on the bread of the day. It's not quite as good but it usually works.

But I think the key is having a Nanaimo bar as my sweet. More often than not, if it's missing the cold will drag on...and on...and on.

So when I endured the never-ending cold I went in search of the sandwich, the chips, the soda and the sweet. The iconic Canadian bar cookie was nowhere to be found. Not at the swankyfoodery, the mediumscarymegamart, any of the Tims on my way from the swankyfooderie to the mediumscary megamart (four), nor the sub shop that used to sell Nanaimos as big as my face. So I didn't have the Nanaimo bar. And the cold took up residence for nearly two months.

When I felt well enough to face pulling ingredients together, I made a batch. It's easy and mostly no-cook. Within a day or two I was less snotty, emitting the daintiest of lady-like sneezes and my voice...well, my voice has alwasy elicited certain comments from men...

Nanaimo bars: the miracle cure for the uncommon cold.

Nanaimo Bars

Bottom Layer
110g unsalted butter
50g sugar
30g cocoa
1 egg beaten
150g graham wafer crumbs
50g finely chopped almonds
75g desiccated coconut

Melt butter, sugar and cocoa in a bain marie. Add the egg and stir until the mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased brownie pan (20cmx20cm/8"x 8").

Second Layer
110g unsalted butter
4dspn (40ml) heavy cream
2 Tbsp vanilla custard powder
250g icing sugar
Cream all the above together. Spread over the cocoa layer.

Third Layer
100g semi-sweet chocolate
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Melt chocolate and butter overlow heat. Cool. Once cool (but still liquid) pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator. Once set, cut into as many pieces as you wish.

cheers!
jasmine

On My Shelves: The Sweet Melissa Baking Book

Thanks to the kind people at Viking Studio/Penguin USA, I found a copy of Melissa Murphy's The Sweet Melissa Baking Book in my hot little hands.

The Sweet Melissa Baking Book: Recipes form the Beloved Bakery for Everyone’s Favorite Treats
By Melissa Murphy
Viking Studio (Penguin Group USA Inc)
240 pages; $27.00


I’m a bit of a sucker for baking books. Big, little, pie-centric, cake-focussed, full-colour and glossy, home made and photocopied, around the world in 400 pages, wham, bam, bake it ma’am—if I’m not careful my rickety shelves would tumble under the weight of those instructions that list piebirds, spring-form pans and recommend strips of baking parchment. They don’t have to be patisserie-perfect, but it’s usually a treat to read tips and tricks of those who’ve dedicated a part of their lives in pursuit of all things made of fat, flour and sugar (with the occasional fruit or nut tossed in for good measure). Melissa Murphy’s collection of her bakeshop’s treats, The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, gives fans—and those of us who’d like to be fans, but for want of a transporter aren’t—the ability to turn our home ovens into satellites of her famed patisserie.

A graduate of New York’s French Culinary Institute, Melissa Murphy is the chef-owner of the Sweet Melissa Pâtisseries in Brooklyn, New York. Her bake shops have been featured in such publications a Food and Wine and The New Yorker, and she has contributed articles to such magazines as Bride’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine and Pastry Arts & Design. Sweet Melissa Patisseries won the 2007 Zagat Marketplace Award for "Best Tarts and Pies" in New York.

Murphy’s 100-plus recipes are sectioned into six: breakfasts, snacks, cakes, fruits, special desserts and candies, all (I assume) from her pâtisseries. Photographs are few and far between—eight full-colour images illustrating a handful of recipes along with half a dozen black and white bakeshop shots—treats in their natural habitat, if you will. The limited illustrations may turn off some potential book owners and perhaps some of the inexperienced or even insecure home bakers, but I think the focus on text is exactly where it should be.

My proclivities lead me not to care what a food stylist does with a slice of cake or the lighting glinting off a fresh berry. I care more about the taste and ease of preparation; the latter is directly linked to the quality and clarity of written instruction. Murphy’s instructions are generally well-considered and ordered making it easy to attempt any of her sweet (and the occasionally savoury) treats. The recipes are easily adaptable to the baker’s palate as she sometimes offers variants to main recipes. Her Chocolate Orange Macaroons (p74) morph into Lemon Macaroons, while her Sweet Muffins recipe (p4) comes with four filling suggestions—Fresh Peach, Strawberry Muffins with Fresh Lemon and Rosemary, Orange Blueberry Muffins with Pecan Crumble and Pear Cranberry Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble.

Murphy’s text offers hints, tips and professional advice—things that many home bakers seek out. Some sections have dedicated pages of advice: in “It’s Somebody’s Birthday!: Special Layer Cakes” Murphy’s seven-page introduction includes words of wisdom about assembling layer cakes, both split and unsplit layer cakes, while “What Will We Do With All This Fruit?” includes four pages that discuss flour, fats, water and techniques for pastry-making. Many recipes include “Pro Tips” such as how to make your own vanilla sugar or what sort of bread to use in bread puddings.

For the most part, this is a good book but there are a few caveats. The first is a general warning about sweetness. Yes, I know this is a baking book, filled with lovely sweetie cakes, squares and pies, but I found the treats to be a bit too sweet for my liking. In each of the sweet recipes I tried, I could have very, very easily reduced the amount of sugar by about 25 per cent and not have undermined the yumminess of the final product. Related to this is my second concern: in this day and age where focus is put on childhood obesity, the rise of Type Two Diabetes and the general free-wheeling of sugar in the North American diet, I found “After-School Snacks” bordering on irresponsible—parents I know would not make these available to children between home time and supper because they’d be so wired (and yes, I know these really are treats and hopefully no parent would regularly provide these goods to their children, but to call them “after school snacks” is really too much). The final thing I didn’t care for was the lack of baking times and temps in the pie recipes. I suppose Murphy thought that as bakers would follow the pastry recipes found on other pages, they’d naturally flip back and forth—I found it annoying and would prefer to have the oven and timer info with the actual recipe. Oh, yes, add my usual displeasure about the use of volume metrics for flour, sugar etc.

And which recipes did I try? This is a book of temptation, to which I succumbed:

Butterscotch Cashew Bars (p54)
Incredibly easy but far too sweet—the butterscotch topping could be halved or quartered and attain a sweet-salty balance. Murphy suggests the quantity was sufficient for 24 bars, written—I cut it into 30 bars and still found it too sweet (even my sugar-loving colleagues thought it was sugar overload).




Carrot Cake with Fresh Orange Cream Cheese Frosting (p 114)
Moist moist moist and not heavy like many carrot cakes I’ve tried. The orange zest in the cream cheese frosting was delicious. I’ve since returned to the frosting recipe, cut down the sugar a bit and substituted extract for zest. The cake will probably be a regular star from my kitchen…probably as muffins.

Double-crusted Caramel Apple Pie (p 156) made with Flaky Pie Dough (p137)
Murphy recommends plain flour for the crust, instead of pastry flour. The crust was flaky enough and wasn’t at all chewy. I will give her full points for the caramel sauce instructions. I have never been able to make an edible caramel before, but I followed her instructions and produced a luscious caramel sauce that rivalled (and dare I say surpassed) any I’ve had from the shops or restaurants.

Savory Muffins: Bosc Pear, Blue Cheese and Walnut Muffins (p8)
This is a variant of the only savoury recipe in the book—which is why I made them. Oh my word these were good—the flavour combination is classic and just ever-so elegant.

The Sweet Melissa’s Baking Book is a good general-purpose sweetie baking book. The flavour combinations are fresh and inspired and will make anyone who follows her instructions a favoured baker.

So how does it rate?
Overall: 3.75/5

The breakdown:
Recipe Selection: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Ease of use: 3.5/5
Yum factor: 4/5
Table-top test*: Pretty much lies flat

Kitchen comfort-level: Novice-intermediate
Pro: Good kitchen tips make these sweet tips accessible to even neophyte bakers.
Con: A little heavy handed with the sugar, but easily fixable.

* I was reminded that a cookbook writer friend judged a cookbook partially on its ability to lie flat on a table, without without (eek!!) cracking the spine. Hey…who really wants to fight to keep a book open while trying to sort out its instructions?

cheers!
jasmine

A tale of two cookies: part two

Where was I?

Oh yes, the second cookie...

So there I was baking butterscotch pecan cookies for the workaversary when I was struck by a moment of brilliance...or insanity (it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between the two):

Why make just one kind when I can make two kinds of cookies?

OOOOH...

I don't know what made me more excited--the idea of offering my colleagues a choice of flavours or the possibility that I might have some left over for ME (the term "ravenous hordes" has been bandied about).

Okay, but what about the second flavour? I was baking at My Dear Little Mummy's as Beelzebub hasn't yet learned to behave like a good little oven, so I was a bit short on options...except for the tub of Nutella I bought on the way over (along with the butter).

For those of you who haven't been enlightened: Nutella is a food of the gawds.

There, now you know. Pass it on.

So there I was, staring at the 400g pot of Nutella, wondering what to do, when it suddenly dawned on me: Nutella cookies.

It may have been the most brilliant thought I'd had all year.

A quick riffle through my Mum's cupboards procured a part packet of milk chocolate chips--she wouldn't mind--she's told me to use up as much of her food as possible while she's away...and I'm a good girl who always obeys her Mummy :)

The only thing was...I didn't have a recipe. Think think think. Nutella is sort of like peanut butter. It had been a while since I last made PB cookies, but I figured I could muddle my way through.

The cookies that emerged weren't cloying. Truthfully, I was worried that they'd take on the supersweetness brought by Nutella, but because I held back (a bit) on the sugar--totally omitted the brown sugar, and just stuck with brown--and added more salt than I'd normally put in a cookie. These weren't chewy as some pb cookies, but they aren't as crispy-dry-hearty as others. They were a nice cross between the two, with a little teeny cakeyness thrown in. I wound up with a chocolaty, slightly nutty-flavoured cookie that went really well with coffee. In that way they were reminiscent of Dorie's World Peace Cookies.

I think they were a hit--I definitely like them. They were very popular in some circles, but others (those poor, deprived souls who weren't brought up with the joys of choco-hazelnut spread) did not go near them. A couple of people who'd never tried the spread ate a cookie...and then another...and then another (even my very young neighbour, who received some of my biscuitty bounty, came knocking on my door--several times--over the weekend wanting the recipe so she could make them with her mum).

Nutella Cookies
Yields about six dozen cookies, depending upon your cookie spoon.

170g very soft butter
200g granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 dsp vanilla extract
250ml Nutella
420g plain flour
1 dsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
250g milk chocolate chips (but I suppose you could use an entire packet of 270g)

Preheat oven to 375F/190C and prepare your cookie trays in the usual way.

Stir together the flour, bicarb and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and Nutella until smooth. Mix in the flour and then fold in the chocolate chips. You will get a fairly stiff batter.

Drop by teaspoonful onto the aforementioned prepared cookie trays. Press slightly and bake until done, about 12 minutes.

cheers!
jasmine

edit: Thanks Dana! I left out half the info on the sugar and texture...they're in now.

Related Post: A tale of two cookies: part one

A tale of two cookies: part one

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."

--Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

That's in the top two best opening lines I've ever read. The other one is from Iain Banks' The Crow Road--"It was the day my grandmother exploded." Now whether or not I'll use the great Mr. Banks' works for titular inspiration remains to be seen.

As apt a present-day commentary as Mr. Dickens' words are this post isn't meant to be a discourse on current events. No, instead it is the first of a two part series on cookies.

This week was one of my work-related milestones: seven years at the company. For whatever reason, the tradition is whenever you have something to celebrate (birthday, engagement, wedding, birth of a child, divorce, whatever) you have to provide the treats...the same goes for workaversaries.

"Harrumph!" I say and "double harrumph!" at that.

Have they not yet realised that they should be fêting me? Didn't they know that they should have laid a rose petal carpet from my prize parking spot to the front door? And what about the balloon bouquets gracing every doorway? How about having Gerard Butler, Colin Firth and Richard Armitage available at my beck and call? Jeans day??

No, apparently not.

Sigh...

So I need to bring a treat in for the workaversary. I usually do a cake or cuppycakes but this year I decided on cookies. The only thing I knew was I didn't want to bring in regular chocolate chip cookies. Not saying anything bad about chocochip cookies--I've had more than my fair share of good ones--I just wanted something different.

What made my cookie making adventure slightly more annoying was the fact we have a Timmys in our office. Which means we have Timmy cookies...and Timmys makes good cookies (IMO)...especially their caramel chocolate pecan ones. Mmmmmmm....caramel chocolate pecan cookies. Not that I'd make caramel chocolate pecan cookies...just be inspired by them

I rummaged through my cupboard and found some butterscotch chips and pecan bits and added them to the basic cookie recipe I use (which happens to be based on the one found on the milk chocolate Chippits bag). What I like about this particular cookie recipe is that you don't have to use a mixer to do the dough--all you need is a bowl and a wooden spoon.

Fresh from the oven they are a little poofy, but chewy and just so buttery good. Cooled they are on this side of butter-pecan. By far, they were a hit at the office...

Butterscotch Pecan Cookies
Yields about 5 dozen cookies, depending upon your cookie spoon.

150ml melted butter
340g light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 dsp hot water
1 tsp vanilla extract
375g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4tsp salt
250g butterscotch chips
150g pecan bits

Preheat oven to 375F/190C and prepare your cookie trays in the usual way.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, hot water and vanilla until smooth. Stir in the flour and then fold in the butterscotch chips and pecan bits.

Drop by teaspoonful onto the aforementioned prepared cookie trays. Press slightly and bake until done, about eight to 10 minutes.

cheers!
jasmine

Related Post: A tale of two cookies: part two