faux canneles

i've been working pretty hard, and i rewarded myself recently with a cannele mold (the smallest one i've ever seen! not that i have seen a lot of cannele molds, but it's smaller than i thought it would be) from amazon. i don't really have the time to devote to proper canneles, but wanted to test-drive the mold. solution: cake. this is the buttermilk cake from smitten kitchen, which makes a cake that isn't particularly good for special molds, but that is really quite delicious. it makes a fairly light vanilla cake with a bit of a tang and a nice soft crumb. the crumb, however, is loose enough that it doesn't really mold that well. i should have made that vanilla rum cake or something, or perhaps tiny poundcakes. beyond canneles, i'm definitely interested in seeing how the larger cakes (like poundcake, which i always do in a bundt) hold up texture-wise in smaller units. with respect to unmolding, this mold does quite well - it's thin enough that you can invert each mold to get the cake out if it's being recalcitrant. as you can see from the photo, the cakes brown quite nicely.

instead of raspberries, c had cranberries on hand so we cooked them to smushed-berry stage with some water and sugar, and scattered it in the cake. the tang of the cranberries goes quite well with the cake - it's a balanced sweet-and-tangy cake. we made this cake with m, a few weeks ago, and used strawberries, which produced an entirely different kind of cake - it was much more strawberries-and-cream in flavor profile.

regardless of the fruit that you use, i highly recommend. i have been using real vanilla in most things since i have tons of beans from the last time i bought em (the place i buy them from always sends free beans), to pretty good effect.

coming up: c and i bought a ham on sale at the supermarket, necessitating a ham date in january when i'm done with thesis. i also have plans to have a birthday party this year! with lots of cute things to eat, of course. j and i have a bolognese date to schedule - we're going to taste-test the four-hour bolognese that he found online with the fergus henderson 12-hour bolognese that i recently came across. (for reference, the one i make is a six-hour deal.)

i'm a believer

okay, okay. i believe you now, serrated knife. i believe in you, too. who knew that a serrated knife would cut so easily through dough? assuming that the serrations would just rip the dough instead of cutting through it, i used my trusty pastry...scraper? (the name of this object escapes me at the moment; all i can think of is its woodworking brethren, the bench scraper.) that is - i did that the first time i made these overnight cinnabuns. unfortunately, cutting the cinnabun roll into buns with my pastry scraper gave them these pinched edges. pinched edges that became all the more offensive - and permanent - when it turned out that the yeast that i used was not particularly active. i kicked myself - this recipe consumes 5 eggs, 4 cups of flour, buttermilk (which i don't usually have on hand), and a not insignificant amount of brown sugar - so it's not the most economical food item to make. nor are they particularly easy to put together the night before - you still have to wait for the first rising of the dough. the payoff, though, is huge, if you can get it right. the dough is fabulous - so good (buttery, rich...) that that first batch was still edible, if not the right texture.

and this is what i did: i went out and bought new yeast, proofed the yeast before adding it to the dough, let the dough rise in the oven after i turned it off the warm cycle (it's cold!), and cut the roll with a serrated knife. and now i've got those babies (see above photo) in the fridge. i'm going to bake them tomorrow, and you better believe that they will obey my need for cinnamon buns. yeah, cinnamon buns, i'm looking at you, i've coddled you enough; now it's time for you to give back.

i'll report back on them tomorrow, with a recipe.

bacon bread

i'm unable these days to really take on any big cooking projects, due to exhaustion from school. anything that requires more than an hour is pretty much out of the question right now, unless i don't have to babysit it - making chicken stock comes to mind. in the past few months i've either split any slightly involved projects over multiple days, or more likely, i just haven't thought about them seriously at all.

i've been thinking about this bread, though, and talking it up enough since it came out in bon appetit a few months ago that i finally decided to make it. that is, a week ago i decided to make it, while shopping for dinner with mary. i made the bacon-onion-dried pear mix actually about 10 days ago (maybe i shouldn't be telling you this, but there you go). and i had bought the dried pears about 3 weeks before that. so this bread has been in the works for a while.

i finally went to look at the recipe on epicurious, only to find that the reviews were less than stellar - people complained that the bread was dry and bland. multiple people offered suggestions for substitutions, which i duly noted. i mean, if you're going to go to all the trouble of procuring bacon, cheddar and dried pears, all at the same time, it better be good, right? beyond the rarity of all of those stars aligning (the only place at which i have found dried pears is arax, where we happened to stop by after brunch at delux town diner one day), there's the expense of the ingredients.

i was determined to ensure that this bread was neither dry nor bland, so i made quite a few alterations to the original recipe, none of them based in the science that is probably well documented in on food and cooking. first, i replaced the olive oil with melted butter - this was suggested by a few of the reviews, and i agreed, as i have often found that olive oil-based cakes are oddly on the dry side. to bolster any lingering dryness issues, i increased the milk to a 1/2 cup and added a stonyfield container's worth of yogurt (it was fruit on the bottom, so i added everything except the fruit jam). i threw in a bit of extra cheese - i got an 8-oz brick of cabot seriously sharp, and threw in the ounce and a half i had left of an extra-sharp brick. to balance the savory ingredients, i added a little dark brown sugar. i used rosemary instead of sage, because that is what we had on hand when i was making dinner with mary - you must make sure that it is very fresh, so it's still soft. i increased the amount of pears and threw in some onions for good measure.

the result is a long list of ingredients, but i promise you that it's worth it. this bread comes out a crusty golden brown at the edges and on top from the cheese - a slightly flaky, browned cheese type of golden brown. the crumb is very moist and soft - you might not need all of the yogurt - but holds up well to the "fill." i imagine that it would taste good toasted, since the edges will get even crustier. and, quite honestly, this bread is more than the sum of its parts - i had tasted the dried pears they tasted a bit vinegary to me, but that just meant that they go well with the bacon. typically i use whole foods maple-cured bacon, but this time i got niman ranch bacon because it was slightly cheaper. i hate to encourage the crazy yuppie foodies who insist on everything organic from a farmer whose name they know, but the niman bacon is actually better than the whole foods stuff - its flavor just permeates whatever you put it in. i think it was even better in this bread than it was when we ate some after cooking it. do make sure that you use a good thick-cut bacon when you make this, as opposed to a typical thin-cut supermarket bacon.

p.s. i know you would all love to see photos - because, face it, we're all much more likely to make something if we can see what it can and should look like. when i get my life back, consider it a done deal that there will be more photos.

bacon-cheddar-pear bread
1 3/4c flour
1/2t salt
1/4t pepper
1/4c dark brown sugar
1T baking powder
1 c cheddar, grated, plus 1/2c cheddar, in 1/4" cubes (8 to 10 oz)
3 eggs
1/3c yogurt
1/2c whole milk
1/2c butter, melted and cooled to room temp
8 oz bacon
1c diced dried pears
1/2c onions, diced
1/2t fresh rosemary, chopped fine
1/4t dried thyme (optional)

1. heat a large skillet on medium; cut the bacon slices in half and cook until crispy, 15-30 minutes depending on the thickness of the bacon. remove from pan with tongs and drain on paper towels. pour off all of the fat except 1 tablespoon and add the onions, rosemary, and dried pears. while the onion mixture is cooking, cut into small pieces with kitchen shears or a knife, then add back into the onion mixture. cook until onions are cooked all the way through and transfer to a bowl to cool. (this step can be done in advance; cover the bowl and refrigerate until using, within a week.)

2. grease two 5"x9" loaf pans and line with parchment paper. preheat oven to 350F. in a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, pepper, dark brown sugar, and baking powder, stirring with a fork and breaking up any lumps of brown sugar. add grated and cubed cheeses and stir with a fork or your hands to mix completely, making sure that the cheese doesn't clump together.

3. in a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs until well. add whole milk and yogurt and whisk until combined. to add the butter, pour in a slow stream into the egg-milk mixture while whisking. add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until completely combined. the batter will be on the wet side. add the bacon-onion mixture and thyme (if using) and stir until thoroughly combined.

4. using a rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pans and bake 45-55 minutes, until golden brown on top and a tester comes out with a few crumbs clinging to it (make sure to test in the batter, not in a piece of cheese or pear). serve immediately, or toast the next day.

[makes 2 loaves, about 15-20 slices]

artificial drink mix gone...right?

so i found these cookies on photograzing: apple-cider cookies with caramel inside. the photo looks amazing - a ribbon of caramel stretching lusciously between two halves of a cookie - and i'm thinking to myself, a stuffed cookie like a caramel-filled truffle? no awkward compression and repositioning of cookie filling as happens with sandwich cookies? sold.

that is, until i looked more closely at the recipe and found that all of the important flavor components come from artificial, processed sources. the cider flavor comes from cider drink mix, and the caramels are just kraft caramels from the candy aisle. typically, i would attempt to replace these ingredients with non-artificial stuff, but, well, i wanted these cookies. what do you replace apple cider drink mix with, anyway? you can't replace it with reduced apple cider, because it throws off the balance of wet and dry ingredients, and i unfortunately don't have a deyhydrator with which to make apple cider powder.

i held off for about a week before their siren call necessitated a trip to the supermarket for artificially flavored sugar products. i made the cookies, and, well, they were pretty awesome. so now i guess i need to figure out how to make them without the processed sugar. in the meantime, here's the original recipe.


caramel-filled apple cider cookies
2 sticks butter
1c granulated sugar (i used what i had on hand, 1/3c white sugar and 2/3c brown sugar)
1t salt
1 7.4-oz box of alpine cider drink mix (original, not sugar free)
2 eggs
1t vanilla
1t baking soda
1/2t baking powder
3c flour
1 14-oz bag kraft caramels

1. in a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, salt, and drink mix (yep, the whole box).

2. add the eggs and vanilla, and beat until incorporated. add the baking soda and powder and beat until incorporated.

3. fold in the flour with a spatula. cover and chill the dough for about an hour.

4. unwrap 36 of the caramels. take about a tablespoon of dough and flatten it out enough to wrap one of the caramels in it. roll the ball of dough in your hands to make sure the caramel is sealed in, then place on a cookie sheet. bake 12 cookies to a sheet, for about 10-12 minutes - until the rims are just turning golden brown. let cool completely before removing from the cookie sheet. you can line the cookie sheet with foil and slide the foil off to keep making more cookies.

note: the caramel will still be soft and melty when right out of the oven. the caramel will stiffen up as the cookies cool - to rewarm, nuke the cookies for about five seconds in the microwave, or set over a hot mug of tea or coffee.

[makes 36 large cookies]

***

p.s. i have been tinkering with the pumpkin pie-tart recipe, specifically with the filling, so look out for a new version of the recipe soon.

when a pie is not a pie

for the past several months, i've been taking friday evenings off - it's the end of the week, and i'm really feeling the sleep deprivation for that particular week. plus, i work the weekends, so essentially friday nights are my weekend. usually i find myself making dinner with mary, though at this point we're fairly notorious for not actually eating until 10pm or later. by the time mary gets out of work and to central, it's 7:30, and then we invariably go food shopping; we start cooking around 8:30 or 9...you get the point.

i've had a craving for pumpkin pie ever since fall really arrived - there's just something so festive and seasonal about it. we never really ate pie growing up - cheesecake was our MO - and so now i love all kinds of pies: pumpkin, pecan, chocolate, custard, cream. and of course the best kind of pie is leftover pie - leftover pie for breakfast the next day.

anyway, i didn't have the energy to make a regular pie crust by hand, so we did a cookie crust with my favorite gingersnaps. i often find that cookie crumb crusts are too insubstantial, and lack structure, falling apart at the mere proximity of a fork; instead, i made the pie in a tart pan, which had the unintended consequence of making this pie technically a tart. and in doing so, it unintentionally made it into a faux upscale sort of thing - a yuppie move if i ever saw one. it seems odd that a pie can become something totally different just by changing its shape a little bit - the difference was highlighted all the more by the strong associations i have between the nostalgia of pumpkin pie and its tradtional shape. it really begs the question of whether this pie is still a pie, even though it's in a slightly different shape. i would say that there are fundamental differences between pies and tarts - pies are often more robust and homey, whereas tarts are more delicate and finessed. pies are all about functionality as a flavor delivery system, whereas tarts are more about presentation and display. i guess a pie topped with meringue has quite a bit of drama to it, especially when it's slightly bruleed on its exterior with a butane torch, but there's nothing like a tart for an OCD person to obsess over the arrangement of pieces of fruit. my verdict is probably that even though this pie is shaped like a tart, its filling doesn't really change from one shape to the other, so really it's still a pie.

despite the yuppie factor, this pie/tart is pretty excellent. out of sheer laziness i made the recipe on the back of the can - usually i use a cream-and-egg-based recipe from saveur - and upped the spices and ginger in particular. this pie is a bit on the sweet side, so a glass of cold milk or unsweetened whipped cream would be great accompaniments.

gingered pumpkin tart

for the crust

3 boxes of anna's gingersnaps

1 to 1 1/4 sticks butter

1 egg white (optional)

for the filling

1 can pumpkin

scant 1c sugar

1 1/2t ground ginger

1/2t freshly ground nutmeg

1 1/2 to 2t cinnamon

2T crystallized ginger, minced fine

pinch kosher salt

2 eggs

1 12-oz can evaporated milk

1. preheat the oven to 350F. place the gingersnaps in the bowl of a food processor, coarsely breaking them up with your fingers as you take them out of the box. pulse until the cookies are completely ground up. (alternatively, put them in a large, heavy-duty ziploc bag and crush the cookies with a rolling pin or other heavy/solid implement - a wine bottle would be good, a drinking glass less so.) add the butter and pulse until the crumbs are saturated and slightly wet looking.

2. press the mixture into an 11-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom and bake for 20 minutes or so, until the crust has browned a little bit. you may want to use pie weights to keep the crust in place, as it may slip down the tart pan a little bit. if it does, though, you can also just press the crust back into place when you take it out of the oven (which i did, and recommend doing, anyway). let the crust cool while you make the filling. if you want the crust to stay crispier when you bake the filling into it, you can beat the egg white until foamy and brush the foam onto the crust right after you take the crust out (but after you reform it if necessary), while it's still hot. the egg white will dry as the crust cools and seal it against the filling.

3. in a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and sugar. add the spices, salt, and crystallized ginger and whisk to combine. whisk in the eggs one at a time, then slowly whisk in the evaporated milk. pour the filling into the crust and bake until the center is just set, about 45 minutes. you may have too much filling - just put the extra into a ramekin and bake alongside the tart. let the tart cool fully - you can eat it while it's hot if you're desperate for pie (just wait 15 minutes), but i think it's better when it has cooled and set.

[serves about 10]

breakin' in the bundt

a couple weeks ago, i fell in love. i don't normally go for non-classic bundt pans because they are usually too complicated. why would i want a sunflower-, rose-, or sandcastle-shaped bundt pan? that the cake isn't a standard layer cake is already enough for me, without unnecessary bells and whistles.

but i saw this bundt pan - the "heritage" by williams sonoma - and couldn't resist. as you can see in the photo, it's not the classic bundt, but it's not an overly complicated one either. well, i took one look at it, and added to my shopping cart online. yeah, i considered for about 10 seconds before i bought that baby.

i can't usually afford things at williams sonoma, unless i'm at their outlet, or i'm buying a spatula. this pan wasn't too much more than i would pay at a nice kitchen store, and i'm fully prepared to say that it was worth it. my classic bundt also has a classic nonstick coating, which has stood up well over the past four or so years that i've had it - not that i make bundt cakes frequently. the pan has probably seen use maybe 10-15 times. but this new bundt pan has a pretty amazing nonstick coating - it's a proprietary williams sonoma one, so that the pan is kind of golden-gray. when i made a cake in this bundt for the first time, i waited about 30 seconds to turn the cake out on a plate, and the "whoosh" that a cake makes when it comes out of the pan was immediate and perfect. i will have to try a few of my very unforgiving bundt recipes to check the coating comprehensively, but this cake bodes well.

unfortunately, you have to cut across the swirl pattern to serve it, but you do at least get some oohs and aahs when you bring it out, so make the most of it!

and on to the cake - this is a rum-vanilla pound cake. it's not technically a pound cake with respect to the technique - it is much easier and much more forgiving - but it has the texture of one. it's very bad for you - tons of eggs, sugar, and butter, fortified with lots of baking powder - but it's quite good. i think i would adjust the sugar, and have done so in the recipe i've included below - i decreased it by a third cup, in case you want to make it with the full balance of sugar. there is a small possibility that you may get less of a caramelized crust on your cake, but i think that possibility is pretty small. i also made quite a lot of rum syrup, which was on the rummier side than the sugary side. rum-soaked means rum-soaked, people. i used the 8-year aged rum by bacardi, which is pretty good for a big brand.

as for aesthetics - i grabbed this recipe from a blog i came across, and the cake on that blog was rather pale. i saw another version of this cake on another blog that was fully caramelized, so i was confident that it would be ok when i made it - i think this is from dorie greenspan's book. this cake has a dense, but soft crumb, a bit wet from the eggs, and an almost crispy-chewy crust from the high amount of sugar. the caramelized crust is really quite pretty, so it's perfect for showing off a bundt cake.

rum-soaked vanilla pound cake

2 2/3c flour

2 1/2t baking powder

1/2t salt

2c sugar

6 eggs

1 vanilla bean, or 2t vanilla extract (really, go for the beans on this one - the little flecks in the cake are quite pretty)

2/3c whole milk

3T rum

15T butter, melted and cooled

1. preheat oven to 350F. generously butter a 12-cup bundt pan, or a 10-cup bundt plus a few cupcakes.

2. sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. in another bowl, whisk together the eggs, then add the sugar and whisk until completely incorporated. split the vanilla bean and scrape out the beans, then add to the egg-sugar mixture. you may have to use a spoon or spatula to separate the beans a bit, but as you whisk, they will evenly distribute through the mixture. add the milk and rum, and whisk to combine.

3. add the wet ingredients to the dry, and slowly whisk to combine completely (no lumps). add the butter and fold in with a spatula.

4. pour batter into the pan and bake 45-60 minutes. mine was done after about 45 minutes, but i was also using a 10-cup bundt, not a 12-cup. while the cake is baking, make the rum syrup. combine the water and sugar in a small saucepan and heat over medium until the mixture boils. remove and stir in the rum, and let cool. i ended up using the syrup and then just brushing rum straight onto the cake because i didn't think it had enough rum in it. i think i probably used an extra quarter cup of rum.

5. when the cake is done, remove from oven and let sit for about a minute, then turn the pan over onto a large plate. if you want, poke the cake all over with a thin skewer (i never do this because i think the cake isn't as pretty) and then brush with the rum syrup. let cool completely, then cover.

[serves 10-12]

**

p.s. i am aware that there are problems with the recipe index...i will fix this, but am slammed at school right now so probably it won't get fixed until end of nov or mid dec. sorry!

odds and ends

just a few odds and ends today. i have a ton of recipes to post that i've tried out in the past couple of months, but not the motivation yet to write about them. i'm in search of a good carrot cake recipe, so if you see one, let me know. i'm looking for a cake that uses either oil or butter, raisins, brown sugar (instead of white sugar), but not pineapple or any of that whickety whack. i just tried a recipe today and thus far i think i may have slightly overdone the nutmeg because it was microplaned fresh instead of storebought ground. more carrots, too, i think.

i have been looking everywhere for the november issue of saveur, which apparently newstands have ceased carrying. when did that happen? saveur is my favorite food magazine because it doesn't follow seasonal and general food trends as closely as gourmet/bon appetit, but instead profiles the food of different cultures. the november issue has an article about gingerbread in it - specifically, about the test kitchen trying out different recipes. i love gingerbread, and i want this issue. apparently cvs and star market do not want me to have the issue.

in a bit of good news, the price of butter has gone down to 2000ish prices. i remember when the price of butter went up in boston area supermarkets, to $4/lb - it was when the price of milk went up to $4/gal. it was also when i was food steward at lmf, so you see why i would pay attention to these things. well, in the past year or so, butter has always been cheapest at whole foods, but usually i would just wait until it went on sale at star market, then buy 6-8 lbs. yeah, that's right. i used to bake quite a lot. anyway, whole foods is still slightly cheaper - $2.39/lb as opposed to $2.79/lb - but now i can feel ok about buying butter at star while it's not on sale. incidentally, it is on sale this week, for $1.88/lb, but all the unsalted was gone by the time i got to the supermarket (at noon on saturday!).

i was walking home from 7-11 - a circuit that included the mit press bookstore since i felt too embarrassed to go to star market three times in a span of 15 hours - during which trip i spent an embarrassing amount for two bricks of cream cheese. i was reminded exactly why i never buy anything at 7-11, beyond the fact that it's simply out of my way. i like to walk home around 5 if i can, the back way (along main street) because there's a small "park" (a clearing with stone benches in it and a few miserable-looking trees) behind a restaurant. at 5, everyone has finished family meal and is sitting outside in that park smoking. while i'm not a huge fan of the restaurant being in my neighborhood (though the food is excellent), it's kind of nice to see someone using those benches, which had sat empty about 90% of the time before this restaurant moved in.

homemade chocolate liqueur

just found a use for that really attractive, 10cane (ten cane, not iocane) rum bottle: another homemade liqueur. i have some cherry bounce in the fridge that's maturing, and vanilla extract maturing in my room (it's about a month and a half into its four month duration), and now i've got some chocolate liqueur to add to the pack. the recipe is kind of obvious - it's a simple infusion of aromatic spices into alcohol - but i think i might let it sit for a few months and give it away over xmas. the original recipe called for a high-proof rum (150-proof), but i went with a 40-proof mid-range rum (bacardi select). i figure that if it sits for longer than the 3-week period specified in the recipe, the infusion will be just as chocolatey and it won't be overwhelmingly alcoholic.

we'll see.

chocolate liqueur

1 bottle (750 mL) rum

1/2c cocoa nibs

2 vanilla beans, cut in half and split lengthwise

1. fill the bottom of a bottle with the cocoa nibs and vanilla beans. presumably, you could just add the nibs and beans to the bottle of rum. maybe it's easier to get everything in the same place if you're not trying to pour things into the liquid, but rather vice versa? i don't know; i used a different bottle because the one i had was prettier.

2. let sit for at least a month. before using/giving away, strain the cocoa nibs and vanilla out of the rum.

AT LAST....my love has come along

The night I looked at you
I found a dream that I could speak to...
I found a thrill to rest my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known...

And here we are in heaven
For you are mine
At last

--

friends, this is a momentous occasion: the brownie hunt is over, thanks to katharine hepburn and her brownie recipe. i have fond memories of slightly-undercooked brownies, allowed to chill in the fridge before being consumed in a state of cold, slightly chewy fudginess. i certainly used to sneak more than my fair share...

in general, if it's homemade, it's better than the mix version. however, i held out in the case of brownies for years, as homemade brownie after homemade brownie didn't meet my standards: too cakey, too dry, not chocolatey enough... unfortunately, this belief was proved wrong when i tried two brownie mixes last fall, in a bid to revisit the glory days of cold, fudgy brownies. all of a sudden, i really could taste all of the chemicals and preservatives that go into these mixes, and they lacked both richness and depth of flavor. to add insult on top of injury, i failed to be attentive enough to the brownies and allowed them to overbake, bringing their texture closer to foam blocks than fudgy heaven.

since then, i've made brownies only once - thekitchn's one-bowl mascarpone brownies (incidentally, really you should never use more than one bowl when making brownies). they were adequately fudgy, but a touch too...well, they felt a little thick on the tongue, rather than settling into a buttery, chocolatey layer in your month. and this is where a homemade brownie, with an adequate recipe, will finally help you out - the butter allows a good brownie to nearly melt in your mouth. i have adapted katharine hepburn's original recipe slightly - i cut the sugar, used half cocoa and half flour, and doubled the recipe, based on user comments of the original brownies being too thin, too sweet, etc.

one of the dangers of homemade brownies is that you can cut into them too early, before they set. one must not give in to temptation, however; homemade brownies are invariably better when you allow them to cool. i did abide by this brownie maxim tonight, and was duly rewarded tenfold. these brownies are super-chocolatey because of the use of unsweetened chocolate, and the sugar required to balance that chocolate creates that delectable crunchy top on the brownies. the key, though, is that the body of the brownies remains wonderfully fudgy, with only the faintest hint of flour to help the brownies hold their shape. best to cut them into small squares in order to prevent yourself from eating the whole pan yourself.

homemade brownies

(adapted from katharine hepburn's brownies)

1c (2 sticks) butter

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, broken or chopped into smallish pieces

1 3/4c sugar

4 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4c flour

1/4c good quality cocoa (valrhona is good, hershey's not so much)

1. grease a 9" square pan (i used a 9" square pyrex) with butter. line with a wide strip of parchment paper, extending past the edge of the pan, to make it easier to take the brownies out, and butter the paper. preheat oven to 325F.

2. melt the butter and chocolate together in a medium saucepan with a heavy bottom. stir together with a rubber spatula as they melt.

2. whisk in the sugar until well incorporated. make sure the mixture isn't too hot (it can be hotter than lukewarm, but not too much more than that) and whisk in the eggs one at a time. whisk in the vanilla and salt.

3. stir in the flour with the spatula. sift the cocoa into the batter and stir that in as well. your batter should be thick, and slightly glossy.

4. pour into the prepared pan. bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top looks crusty and the batter doesn't jiggle when you shake the pan slightly. a toothpick inserted into the batter will come out with rather wet crumbs adhering to it, but it is indeed done. let cool for 1-2 hours, then slice - these will be easiest to slice if you refrigerate them overnight, then cut them the next day, but i understand if you need to satisfy a craving. cut these into small squares (1.25"-1.5") because they are quite rich.

[makes about 25 small brownies]

gettin' my mojo back

for the entirety of this summer, i have been trying to convince myself and my health that i am on vacation, and that life is normal again. for about a year - since june 2008 - i haven't had a real break, one where i puttered around the house doing nothing but maintaining the rituals of daily life, and thinking about cooking. and by the rituals of daily life, i mean really mundane things: doing laundry, making my bed, putting away clothes, vaccuming the carpet, cleaning the kitchen counters. every now and then, given the privations of grad school and employment, i need at least a week of doing nothing - waking up whenever, doing whatever.

i expected to get a break this summer, but apparently it wasn't meant to be. there were trips to lowell for work, a site visit for thesis, training sessions for my teaching job, teaching at the bac, then more work at lowell and an attempt to work on thesis...you get the point. and although these commitments don't come close to those that i maintain during the school year, they were enough to deprive me of any chance to really get back up to speed and feel like i was motivated to do anything. and i do mean anything - it has taken two and a half months, but i am finally motivated to cook regularly again. i haven't done very much thesis work in the past two days, even though our first review is in a few weeks, but i have woken up late and cooked a lot, and i feel vastly better right now than i have since that happy time of rejuvenation in june 2008.

and so i have a few recipes here as a reward for reading through this angst-ridden post. i made dinner for roommates tonight: creamed leeks and tomatoes, chicken in milk, and hide bread. we had the brownies for dessert, and then i have a new cookie recipe for you.

the leeks and tomatoes are pretty standard technique, so i won't include those here - basically, olive oil, saute the leeks, add the tomatoes and a bit of whatever cream or half and half you have on hand. the chicken in milk is a jamie oliver recipe i found on thekitchn, and it is quite good and fairly easy - wonderfully aromatic, a bit different from a traditional roast chicken. it is a bit cool tonight, so i thought it would be a good night for roast chicken. this is the second time i've made this particular chicken, and it was better this time around - i think last time we couldn't get sage at the supermarket, but this time i put in the whole package, with more garlic. the chicken is steamed and roasted in milk, with lemon zest, sage, and garlic - i think i would add even more lemon zest, because this time around, the sage and milky-cream flavor dominated, with notes of lemon and cinnamon. i think we got the cinnamon right, but it could use 1-2 more lemons. fyi, the lemon zest causes the milk to curdle into a thickish sauce. it tastes better than it sounds... also, once we stripped all of the meat from the bones, i dumped them into a pot of broth that i have been periodically mixing and strengthening with broths and bones from additional chickens. as most of the chicken i have been cooking this summer is asian, it's flavored with ginger and garlic, and now lemongrass, sage, and cinnamon...i have to say, it smells pretty good now and should be pretty chicken-y.

anyway, the star of the night is the hide bread - in addition to a desire for roast chicken, i chose this particular recipe because it involves plentiful sauce that would soak into the bread. these scone-slash-rolls are named for a person, not because they are in any way close to jerky in texture. they are from a recipe from the big sur bakery, via 101cookbooks, and are essentially very seedy scones that actually taste good. typically, perhaps because i grew up on super-seedy bread, i hate seeded breads, but this one is quite good. and it's quite good for you, i imagine - it's very seedy and fiber-y: oat bran, flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, amaranth. it is closer to scones than rolls in technique, as you mix together all the dry ingredients, then stir in the wet until just combined. i made a half-recipe, because some of the comments on 101cookbooks noted that theirs came out like hockey pucks, but we really enjoyed them. they are a bit hard on the outside, and you are supposed to split them and toast them, then slather them with butter. however, if you have good teeth, these would make a wonderful breakfast with a bit of butter and sugar, or jam. if you don't, well, they soften quite nicely in a sauce, providing a healthy but delicious option for carbs and starches at dinnertime.

and finally, i have a fabulous new cookie recipe for you. it is easiest made in a food processor, but you could probably make do without one. these cookies made me appreciate what a food processor can do for you, because it literally takes five minutes to put them together. i have been wanting to try these earl grey tea cookies for quite some time, since i saw them on thekitchn in september 2008. they're basically a shortbread cookie with tea in them; i used tea from tea bags as recommended, with fabulous results. these cookies are perfectly crisp, and imbued with great tea flavor. i made two batches - one with earl grey, and one with jasmine. as expected, both taste better the day after they were baked. the jasmine cookies taste more jasmine-y, while the earl grey cookies have mellowed out a bit.

which reminds me - i have one last cookie recipe for you as well - brown-butter shortbread cookies. it seems like i've been making quite a lot of shortbread-type cookies these days, and for good reason - they are always crispy, stay crispy for longer, and don't go stale nearly as fast as chocolate chip cookies. i've made these brown-butter cookies a couple times now - they were good the first time, but even better the second. i had made the dough, then as has happened frequently this summer, i didn't have the energy left to actually make the cookies. i let the dough languish in the fridge for a little over a week before finally baking them, and disbursing them to roommates and family. they went over pretty well, in part due, i think, to a a longer stay in the fridge for the flavors to develop, and also because i let the butter brown for longer than i usually do. i was convinced that i had accidentally burned it, in a fortuitous instance of forgetfulness, but forged ahead anyway.

and without further ado, here are the recipes:

chicken in milk

(adapted from jamie oliver)

1 roasting chicken, about 5 lbs or so

salt and pepper

3T butter

2T olive oil

1/2 cinnamon stick

1 pkg of fresh sage, leaves picked from the stems and torn coarsely

zest of 3-4 lemons

15 cloves of garlic, smashed and skinned (smash them with the flat of a chef's knife to skin them)

2 1/2c milk

1. preheat oven to 375F. melt the butter and olive oil in a dutch oven and when it's hot, sear the chicken all over, at least a few minutes each side until you get it nice and browned. use a pair of tongs (or a couple of pairs of tongs) to move the chicken to a plate, then pour off the fat in a ramekin. (the original recipe instructs you to discard the fat, but i think you could easily cook other things with it, so i saved mine.)

2. return the chicken to the dutch oven, breast side up, and scatter the sage, lemon zest, cinnamon stick, and cloves of garlic around it. add the milk, then put the lid on and slide it in the oven. cook for an hour with the lid on, then a half hour with it off (it was getting a bit late for dinner, so instead i did 45 minutes with the lid on, 25 minutes with it off, and it was properly cooked temperature-wise). every now and then, take the lid off and spoon the liquids over the chicken.

3. remove chicken from the oven, and serve immediately. we ate it right out of the dutch oven (ie, carving by each person as they served themselves), but if you are making this for a nice dinner party, or a party where you care more about etiquette, then you could use a nice serving bowl and carve the chicken into it, then spoon all the sauce around it. i wouldn't recommend serving the sauce in a gravy boat or anything, though.

[serves 4-6]

note: i'm not quite sure how many this recipe will serve. the original recipe serves 4, though i have used a larger chicken, and we have about 2 cups of shredded chicken in leftovers, so it could quite possibly serve 6 people if you really carve the chicken well, or if you are not as hungry as we were!

hide bread (super-seedy scones)

(adapted from big sur bakery)

5 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra flour for dusting

1/2 cup flax seeds

1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted

2 cups oat bran

1/4 cup sunflower seeds (i used pumpkin seeds, as i don't like sunflower seeds)

1/2 cup amaranth, quinoa, millet, or poppy seeds (i used amaranth because i have never had it before, but you can use any combo of these...i think think amaranth and poppy seeds would be good - the amaranth was still quite crunchy after baking)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons beer

2 1/2 cups buttermilk, half-and-half, milk, or water (i used half and half...i would not use water in these)

1. preheat oven to 375F. line a baking sheet with parchment, or use a silpat (really, i just used the silpat because i had it on hand, and the batter is very sticky so i wanted to make sure the scones would come off the pan).

2. mix together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then add the wet. stir with a wooden spoon until a thick, sticky dough/batter forms. plop handfuls of the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving at least 2 inches in between; your handfuls will be about 3.5-4" in diameter, 1.5" thick. if you don't do too much shaping, then the cragginess of the dough will form a crunchier top when baked. don't make them too small - stick to the recommended yield - or you will get hockey pucks that are inedible. these are somewhat denser than the typical scone, but not too heavy.

4. bake for 45 minutes, or until they are golden on top. if your tops are very craggy and not smooth, then they may not look like they are completely golden on top, but make sure you do not overbake. you can eat these either on their own, or as recommended by the original recipe - split, toasted, and slathered with butter. store in an airtight container.

[makes 14 scones, though this recipe is easily halved to make 7]

tea-flavored shortbread cookies

1c flour

1/4c sugar

1/4c confectioners' sugar

5-6 teabags' worth Earl Grey (or other) tea leaves

1/4t salt (i was a bit more generous with the salt, which provides a nice counterpoint to the sweet in this cookie)

1t water

1 stick (1/2c) butter

1. preheat oven to 375F. if you are using a food processor, pulse together all of the dry ingredients until the tea leaves are pulverized.

2. add vanilla, water, and butter, and pulse together until a dough forms. the dough will be on the wet side of a shortbread dough. dump the dough out onto a piece of wax or parchment paper, and form it into a log about 2-2.5" in diameter. wrap the wax paper around it, and chill for 1 hour or overnight.

3. when you're ready to bake it, slice the log into 1/3" thick pieces (i got exactly 24 cookies). place on baking sheets, about 15 (3 cookies x 5 cookies) at the most, since the cookies do spread quite a bit. if you chill them longer, they will retain their edges better and not spread quite as much. bake 10-13 minutes, until the edges are just brown. (i baked some until the edges were just brown, and some a bit longer, and the recipe was spot on - bake until the edges are just brown - they will still be crisp.)

4. let cookies cool on the sheets for five minutes so they can firm up, then transfer to a plate to cool completely. store in an airtight container up to about 2 weeks.

[makes 24 cookies]

brown butter shortbread cookies

(adapted from Gourmet via smitten kitchen)

3/4c (1 1/2 sticks) butter

1/2c dark brown sugar, packed

1 1/3c flour

1/4t kosher salt

1. cut the butter into a few pieces and cook in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. stir frequently, scraping the bottom of the pan, and cook the butter until it smells kind of nutty, and the particles that have settled on the bottom turn a medium brown. the particles are the milk solids (you would discard these to make ghee, or clarified butter) and basically they are caramelizing; this is browned butter. you don't want the particles to get too dark - that means that they're burned - but neither do you want them to be too light, because the cookies will be less flavorful. the particles should be about the color of hazelnut shells. anyway, once the butter is browned, remove it from the heat and scrape into a small bowl. let cool to room temp, then stick it in the fridge to chill it back into a solid. it should be just firm, and good to go in about an hour.

2. beat together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy (do actually use the electric mixer for these cookies). mix in flour and salt at low speed until just combined.

3. transfer dough to a sheet of wax paper or parchment and form into a 12-inch log, 1.5-2" in diameter. chill, wrapped in wax paper, overnight (alright, if you must have these sooner, chill until firm, 1-2 hours, but these are much better if you let the dough's flavors meld) or a few days.

4. preheat oven to 350F. slice the dough into 1/4" thick slices, then place on a baking sheet (lined with foil if you want, or a silpat) about 1.5" apart - these cookies spread less than the tea cookies did, probably because they were chilled for longer. bake until the surface looks dry and edges are slightly darkened, 10-15 minutes. cool on the pan for 5 minutes so the cookies set up, then transfer to a plate. they will be a bit crumbly in a sandy way, but they will be delicious so it's ok. store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

[makes 20-30 cookies]

cannibal cookies

have you ever wondered what it would be like if you made a cookie with cookies in it? well, it's kind of like the show-within-a-show trick - but naturally, much better. these best-of-both-worlds concoctions don't always work out - instead of increasing your utility, the combo disappoints.

but these cookies definitely do not disappoint. they're certainly more like chocolate chip cookies than oreos, but they add a lovely bit of crunchiness to a traditional soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies. the crunchiness isn't quite that of the sugar-butter crispiness of a chocolate chip cookies, nor is is soft like a chocolate chip; it's somewhere in between. and let me say that i think the baking temperature is actually significant in the case of these cookies. 325 is almost like baking your cookies sous-vide - they're just a bit crunchy at the edges, but totally soft and chewy everywhere else. these cookies are softer than other chocolate chip cookies i've made, and despite the inclusion of melted butter, these cookies didn't spread like crazy when baked immediately after making the dough. in fact, the cookies stay nice and pleasurably thick; i've never liked the thin, crispy genre of chocolate chip cookie.

the bottom line is that these are probably the easiest chocolate chip cookies to make. you can deviate from my typical recommendation to chill the dough before baking, and you don't have to wait for the butter to soften since you're just going to melt it, anyway.

chocolate chip oreo cookies

2c flour

1/2t baking soda

1/2t salt

3/4c butter, melted

1c brown sugar, packed

1/2c sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2c chocolate chips (1 standard pkg)

20 oreos, crushed

1. preheat the oven to 325F. line your cookie sheets with alumninum foil or parchment paper.

2. in a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt (or, skip this and when you add the dry ingredients, mix in the baking soda and salt, then the flour).

3. in a medium bowl, beat together the melted butter and both sugars (i do recommend using an electric mixer for these cookies). make sure the mixture isn't too hot and then beat in the egg and egg yolk, until completely blended (it'll become a little less glossy). mix in the dry ingredients until just blended.

4. with a spatula, mix in the chocolate chips, then the oreo bits (you can break the bits up directly into the batter so you don't have to pre-crush).

5. drop the dough onto the cookie sheets by tablespoonfuls; roll them in your hands a few times if you want them to be more uniform in size. these cookies work best when given space, so don't crowd them on your baking sheet; use the traditional 12 cookies per standard cookie sheet.

6. bake for 14-16 minutes, until edges are just golden and the tops of the cookies look dry (they really are done at this point - i made these twice, and they stayed softer and chewier when i just whisked 'em out at the 15 minute mark). cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to a plate. store in an airtight container for a week or so.

[makes 40 cookies]