a couple of recipes for you

ok, nothing fancy here - just wanted to share a few recipes with you. the first is a chocolate cake, like the one i use for everything (the stout cake), but for when you don't have beer on hand. it's much the same in consistency, and a little bit healthier! (note: a little bit. still...) it's a wonderful chocolate cake, keeps well, not too sweet. and, of course, moist despite not having any oil in it.

the second is one for snickerdoodle blondies. they turn out wonderfully chewy and are rife with cinnamon, like a dense, concentrated snickerdoodle - but i couldn't help thinking about all the butter in them as i ate one. so, i provide the recipe i used originally, but i bet you could use 1 1/2 sticks of butter and nobody would be the wiser (except your heart). the key here is to use good quality cinnamon - i tried vietnamese cinnamon for the first time and boy, was it good. more depth of flavor than the usual cinnamon, and intangibly sweeter without actually being sweeter. make these - i took a bowl of these babies to a friend's house as a pre-dinner snack (yes, of cookies) and the bowl was empty in no time.

lastly, i have a new chocolate chip cookie recipe for you. these turn out wonderfully - just thick enough, without thinned edges, with a mix of chocolate and wheat-y flavor. they stay nicely soft in the middles without the use of shortening (blegh. double blegh.). i have to say, though, that i am surprised. i have found a chocolate chip cookie that is actually better when baked up crisp - stick-it-in-your-coffee crisp, an amber golden brown. just before burnt. they are a beautiful marriage of chocolate and wheat and butter, and you will be a convert if you bake up just one pan of these in all of their crispy glory. i think the whole wheat flour really needs some time to develop and cook in the oven, so this time, forgo the soft chewy cookie for the one with superior flavor.

chocolate cake (for when no beer is on hand)

1c Dutch-process cocoa

2 1/3c flour

1 2/3c brown sugar

1 1/2t baking powder

1t espresso powder, optional

1 1/2t baking soda

1t salt

1 1/2c chocolate chips (8 oz....but honestly you can just use the whole bag), optional

3 eggs

1 1/2c whole milk

1T rum

1T cider vinegar (or white if that's what you have)

1 stick butter, melted

1. preheat oven to 350F. grease two 9" cake pans and line withparchment paper, or line a muffin tin with cupcake wrappers (you'll have two batches).

2. in a large bowl, whisk together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking powder, espresso powder (if using), baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips.

3. in a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and rum. stir egg mixture into the dry ingrdients, mixing until just combined (some dry streaks are fine).

4. stir in vinegar and melted butter until combined. spoon the batter into the prepared pans, filling the cups 3/4 full if making cupcakes. bake 23-25 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. if you made cakes, then wait 10 minutes, and invert onto plate, then flip back over onto a rack to cool.

[makes 24 cupcakes or two 9" cakes]

snickerdoodle blondies

2 2/3c flour

2t baking powder

1 1/2t vietnamese cinnamon

1/4t nutmeg

1c butter, softened

2c brown sugar

2 eggs

1T rum

2T sugar

2t vietnamese cinnamon

1. preheat oven to 350F. butter a 9x13 pan and line with foil, then butter the foil lightly.

2. in a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

3. in a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer, then add the brown sugar and beat until fluffy and completely combined. beat in the eggs one at a time, until completely combined, scraping the bowl after each addition. beat in the rum until completely combined, then mix in the dry ingredients on low until completely combined - your batter will be quite stiff.

4. scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly with a spatula. in a small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the batter. bake 25-35 minutes, until a tester comes out clean (the batter will rise, then fall). let cool to room temperature and cut into squares. small squares. the blondies will set up and become chewier as they cool.

[makes 24 2" square blondies]

whole wheat chocolate chip cookies

3c whole wheat flour

1 1/2t baking powder

1t baking soda

1 1/2t salt

2 sticks butter, softened

1c dark brown sugar, packed

1c sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2t rum

8 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped coarsely (i chopped up chocolate chips)

1. in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

2. in a large bowl, cream the butter, then add both sugars and beat until fluffy and completely combined. beat in the eggs one at a time, until completely combined, scraping down the bowl in between each egg. beat in the rum. add the dry ingrdients and mix in on low, until completely combined.

3. scoop the dough out of the bowl with your hands and check to see that all of the flour has been incorporated. smooth and shape into a large roundish ball and wrap securely in plastic wrap. refrigerate dough for at least 12 hours (to allow the flour to absorb enough moisture) and up to 2 days.

4. preheat the oven to 350F. form tablespoons of the dough into round balls and place on baking sheets lined with foil or parchment paper. bake cookies 16-25 minutes, until the edges are golden and the tops are cracked. for best flavor, bake cookies until they are on the crisp side, completely amber-golden-brown.

[makes 36-40 cookies]

i like these so much i can't countenance giving them away

it's the dead of the winter, and the gray skies have the happy consequence of making lemon taste like sunshine. there's nothing like eating something that you know is definitely out of season, you know? and i don't know about you, but i don't feel guilty at all.

what i do feel guilty about is that while i usually am happy to give away scads of baked goods, these hit the spot so well that i am thinking about keeping them all for myself. how big a pan of them did i make, you ask? oh, a paltry jelly roll pan's worth. and while i am actually using some of them in an experiment to see how they would fare frozen and thawed again (thus making it possible to eat them over a period of time...), there is no way that i really need to eat this many lemon bars. i just really, really want to.

the thing that is lovely about these lemon bars is that they have a thick enough shortbread crust that the bottom of it stays nicely crisp, while the middle gets imbued with moisture from the lemon custard. you get a nice gradient of soft to slightly soft to crisp, and it all tastes sharp, but not too sharp, because the mixture has a healthy dose of milk in it. the milk does double duty - it makes the custard creamier, and cuts the acidity of the lemons a bit, but not too much. also, these bars don't have too much crust or too much filling, and the result is a very lemon-y, custardy, crispy confection that tastes divine out of the fridge.

this is adapted from cook's illustrated - i accidentally put in twice as much milk, so then i compensated by adding a couple of eggs. i also subbed in flour for cornstarch - the recipe says it makes the crust more tender, but i'm not convinced by the idea of a tender shortbread. shortbread is crispy and tastes like caramelized butter, people! anyway, i have scaled it back down to a 9x13" pan, but this doubles well (though it takes about twice as long to bake - don't worry, the custard won't curdle or get hard). you could also make it as a tart, if you like, and serve it with...i dunno, meringue, whipped cream, things like that. btw, i don't dust lemon bars with powdered sugar because i hate inhaling sugar before eating something, but go ahead if you like.

lemon bars

crust

2c flour

2/3c sugar

1t salt

1 1/2 sticks butter

filling

5 eggs

1 1/3c sugar

3T flour

zest of 2 lemons

2/3c lemon juice from 3-4 lemons

2/3c whole milk

1/4t salt

1. to make the crust: lightly butter a 13x9" baking pan and line with parchment paper or foil (i used foil, it sticks better). lightly grease that layer, then apply one more layer crosswise over it. preheat the oven to 350F.

2. pulse flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor. add the butter in chunks and process to blend, 8 to 10 seconds, then pulse a few times until mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse meal. you can also do this by hand - mix in the butter with your fingers or a pastry blender. sprinkle the mixture into the prepared pan and press into the pan, 1/2" up the sides with a thickness of about 1/4". chill for 30 minutes in the fridge, then bake until golden brown, 20-30 minutes (by "golden brown," i mean the butter should have started browning the crust a little, but don't toast it to death since it will go back in the oven to acquire more color and caramel flavor).

3. while the crust is baking, make the filling: in a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and flour to blend. add the eggs and beat until mixed well. add the milk, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt, and whisk until completely incorporated.

4. take the crust out when it's done, and leave the oven door open; reduce heat to 325F. immediately, while the crust is still hot, pour the filling into it. return the pan to the oven and bake until the filling is just completely set, 20-25 minutes (closer to 40 if you have doubled the recipe). let cool to room temp (at least 30 minutes, more if you've doubled the recipe), then cut into 2" squares with a knife, pizza cutter, or dough scraper.

[makes 20-25 bars]

note: i'm seeing how well these freeze and will edit this recipe when i have results!

edited 02-13: so, they freeze flawlessly. the single caveat is that these are really best for the first four days after you've baked them, as the crust retains some modicum of crispness. when they've sat for a week or been in the freezer, the crust absorbs moisture and the bars have a slightly "fudgier" mouthfeel, which i feel is not as desirable in lemon bars. but if you get cravings for lemon, freeze away! i know i will.

kill your heart with chocolate + toasted nuts

those of you who know me well, know that i am not the biggest fan of nuts. i hate the way they get stuck in your teeth: not only little bits of the meat of the nut, but also flakes of skin that stick to your teeth. then you're struggling not to look weird while trying to get stuff off your teeth, because you're ocd and you can't stand when there's stuff on your teeth. suffice it to say that i do not have the best relationship with nuts.

suffice it to say that these cookies are one of the few items for which i will bear nut skins stuck to my teeth. these are deeply chocolaty from the unsweetened chocolate, with a slightly "wet" crunch from the toasted nuts (do not skip the toasting step!!!). they stay soft but are best the first two days after you make them - although magically, the nuts retain their crunch. make these: you won't regret it! then give most of them away so you don't eat them for breakfast and inadvertently kill your heart.

chocolate chubbies

(adapted from the sarabeth bakery cookbook)

8T butter

9 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped*

3 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/2c flour

1/2t baking powder

1/2t salt

3 eggs, room temp

1 1/4c sugar

2t dark rum

1 3/4c bittersweet chocolate chips (11 oz)

1 1/2c (5.5 oz) pecan halves

1 1/4c (4.5 oz) walnut halves

1. preheat oven to 350F. spread pecans and walnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast 15 minutes. remove from oven, let cool 15 minutes, and break into pieces (size irregular, but don't break them into pieces that are too small). leave the oven preheated. while the nuts are toasting, you can chop the chocolate.

2. melt the butter and chopped chocolates together in a bowl over a double boiler (or on low heat in the microwave, in a heatproof or pyrex bowl; remove from microwave every two minutes to give it a stir), stirring to incorporate. remove bowl from heat and let stand, until cooled slightly.

3. in the meantime, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. in a large bowl, whip the eggs on medium-high speed with an electric mixer until eggs are foamy and lightly thickened, ~30 seconds. add sugar and rum and whip on high speed until the mixture is very thick and pale yellow, about 4 minutes. reduce mixer speed to medium and beat in cooled chocolate, until completely incorporated.

4. add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until just incorporated (or fold in with a spatula). stir in the chocolate chips, pecans, and walnuts with a spatula, making sure that they are evenly distributed throughout the cookie batter. the dough will be soft, and stiffen up slightly as it sits.

5. using a 2-inch ice cream scoop (or a large spoon), scoop 2T balls of dough onto a baking sheet lined with a silpat or foil, 1 1/2" apart. bake 15-20 minutes, until cookies are set around the edges but still seem slightly underdone in the middle - be careful not to overbake. cool completely on the baking pans before removing (you may transfer the foil or silpat off the pan with the cookies on it, to do another batch.

*you may cheat with good-quality bittersweet chocolate chips if you are feeling lazy, or unfortunately didn't realize you didn't have any actual bittersweet chocolate in the house, like i did.

[makes 24-36 cookies; these keep for a week in an airtight container]

"recipe adapted" (also: samoas)

this post is really about homemade samoas, a recipe that i noticed popping up on the blogs a few weeks ago. but first (first?!), a digression about that label on so many blog recipes: "recipe adapted from." for the samoas, i used graham crackers as a base that i saw a photo of on somebody's blog. it turns out that that person had posted the recipe as being adapted from heidi's recipe over at 101cookbooks. i was curious, and went through the recipes side-by-side. well, readers, these recipes were exactly the same, word for word. that's simply not ok.

for me, recipes are intellectual property just like anything else - a song, a patent, etc. i think that the community, potluck aspects to recipes on blogs and in magazines do allow for a creative commons-type usage, hence the "recipe adapted from" label that allows for "fair use" along with absolution from legal entanglement. but here's the thing: if you adapted the recipe, it should no longer be the same recipe. yours is derivative, but it's its own variation. and i would say that nearly all of my recipes are truly adapted - there may be one or two that i posted in my early days, when i didn't know how to cook that well, which are less well-adapted. i'm not that stringent in my position on the ethics of adaptation, either - i fully support a wide range of degrees of adaptation. on the minimum side of the spectrum, a really good recipe that's in tune with my tastes won't require very many adjustments in the combination of ingredients, and sometimes a recipe doesn't work unless you use the exact measurements as the original. in this case, i will always write my own instructions, with the notes and thoughts that i know will help me remember the recipe the next time i make it. on the maximum side of the spectrum, there are recipes that i completely retool, both in ingredients and instructions. these are recipes that are overly wordy or incorrect in their instructions, or that don't completely accord with my own tastes of what constitutes sweet, savory, balanced. unless there's an attribution, though, i would never post a recipe without any changes.

and, of course, there are different kinds of uses of a recipe. adaptation applies to when you repost a recipe that is not originally yours - rather than, say, linking to it. adaptation doesn't apply to merely cooking a recipe; after all, what cook doesn't want somebody else to use her recipes, especially if she's posting them online? but if you are going to publicly share a recipe, and it's not your own original, it should bear the adaptation tag. if you didn't change anything, you should just link to the recipe.

back to the samoas: this recipe is a good example of me liking someone else's general idea, but completely changing the preparation. it's girl scout cookie season, and i love samoas (or rather, caramel delites, as i seem to prefer the latter over the former). this recipe is my homemade version of samoas, which i will just say upfront, are predicated more on my memory of what a samoa tastes like, rather than what a samoa actually tastes like, so be forewarned. these cookies, in my opinion, are better than the authentic version.

the original recipe i found was itself an adaptation from the bakingbites blog. and, as i read through both of them, i didn't really like either one. in the original, the caramel in the topping was simply melted caramels, which is just not a good option (tastewise and ingredientwise, because of all the corn syrup). the adaptation is more a true adaptation in that it makes samoa-like cookie bars, rather than actual cookies, since the cookie base isn't baked before assembling.

wanting a slightly less buttery taste to the cookie, i decided to use a graham cracker base, though i did worry a bit that it would make the cookies taste too healthy. i started making the caramel part of the adapted recipe before noticing that it had a rather odd ingredient - a cup of sour cream - added into it before baking. i kept making the caramel, and i did actually add a bit of sour cream, but nowhere near what was suggested. i then cooked the caramel until softball stage, mixed in the coconut, and molded it onto the cookies while warm so it didn't totally stiffen up. the cookies, as it turned out, were on the very crispy and very slightly hard side of cookieness, and so i was hoping the caramel would actually soften them up just a little bit. i was going to dip the bottoms of the cookies in chocolate, then drizzle them like the real cookies, but i got lazy and just dipped half of each cookie in. (i only dipped about two thirds of the cookies; the photos are from dipping the remaining third. this worked out well, as the cookies i dipped first fit into the cookie jar with no space to spare.)

and so you ask, how did these turn out? well, when i tasted each component on its own, they were good, but not great. when i tasted the finished cookie, they kept on tasting better and better. specifically, when i tasted the caramel, it tasted a bit too buttery, though it didn't have excess butter in it - but the darkness of the chocolate completely eliminated that problem. i think this is the sort of thing that shows you just how bad a storebought cookie can be, because the homemade version tastes so much more complex. these cookies stay good for over two weeks in an airtight container, losing none of the graham cracker's crispiness and snap. the caramel was chewy and pliable, and the whole combination of flavors was really complemented by the chocolate to a degree i haven't recently experienced. in fact, i liked the chocolate on the cookies so much that i would dip the whole cookie in chocolate. use a good chocolate and you will be rewarded many times over.

what i realized after i made these, and opened the box of samoas i had set by to taste-test, is that the cookies i made are almost completely different than the girl scout version. in fact, samoas are mostly cookie, with a thin coat of caramel and a bit of coconut sprinkled into it, with a drizzle of chocolate. the cookies i made are probably 40% cookie, 50% coconut-caramel, and 10% chocolate. while i still favor the crumbly-sandy-yet-tender crumb of the original, i think the balance of components in my version was far superior.

this recipe is still pending some revisions to the cookie base - i'd like to find a cookie with a slightly sandier texture - more tender than the graham crackers, but still just as crisp. you can substitute your own choice of cookie, just make sure they're not too buttery. the caramel needs a bit of salt, i think (which i have added into the recipe), but it's otherwise quite workable. i might fiddle with it, but it retains a nice pliability without stickiness, which is key for this recipe; if anything, let you caramel get a good deep amber so you maximize the effect of the caramelized sugar.

this recipe is easy, but involved due to the number of components - i recommend making the cookies one day, then adding the topping and chocolate coating the next day. when you are melting the chocolate for the coating, melt it slowly to make sure the chocolate doesn't seize, and that there is less of a chance of your chocolate blooming. (fyi, the chocolate did begin to bloom ever so slightly after two weeks; make sure you use good chocolate and this will be less of a problem.)

homemade samoas, aka caramel delites

graham cracker base (adapted from 101cookbooks)

2 1/2c flour

1c dark brown sugar

1t baking soda

3/4t kosher salt

1/2c butter

1/3c honey

5T milk

2t vanilla

caramel-coconut topping

1 1/2c sugar

1/2c butter

1/3c sour cream or yogurt, at room temp

1/2t salt

1t vanilla (optional)

2 1/2c unsweetened shredded coconut (any dimension, really; i prefer it to be shredded on the fine side, just make sure it's still somewhat pliable, not dried out)

8-12 oz bittersweet chocolate

1. to make the graham crackers, pulse the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor to combine (this recipe is a typical food processor recipe, in which you cut the butter into the dry ingredients, then add any other wet ingredients). scatter the butter in the dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. in a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients (honey, milk, vanilla) and then add to the flour mixture. pulse a few times, until the dough comes together. turn the dough out onto a clean surface and shape into a large disk, no more than 1 1/2" thick. wrap in plastic and refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight.

2. to bake the graham crackers, preheat the oven to 350F. roll the dough out to slightly more than 1/8" or a scant 1/4" thick (depending on your preference; i tended towards the thinner cookies, which will still rise a bit from the baking soda). cut out cookies with a cookie cutter of your choice (i used two square fluted cutters - 1.5" and 2.5" square). bake 15-25 minutes (depending on the thickness of the cookies), until slightly browned and slightly firm to the touch. the tops of the cookies should look dry. transfer to a rack to cool completely, then store in an airtight container until ready to assemble cookies.

3. to make the caramel, heat the sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat until it melts and caramelizes. as it melts, it will turn a light amber; swirl the pan around a bit in order to get the sugar to melt evenly. you want your sugar to turn a dark amber that is not too brown (too brown = burned) - somewhere slightly lighter than the color of pecan skins. if the color of your sugar is like chestnut shells, it's burned and you should start over - just soak the pan in hot water and the burned sugar will dissolve.

4. when the caramel has turned the correct amber, remove it from the heat (you can turn the stove off) and add the butter. it will spit and bubble, but if you're using a saucepan with sufficiently high sides (ie, nothing skillet-like), you'll be fine. stir the mixture until the butter is incorporated. stir in the yogurt and salt, then let cool for 5 minutes, or until the caramel is hot but not scalding to the touch (so as to not burn the coconut) and before the caramel stiffens up. while the caramel is cooling, set out the cookie bases on some trays or cooling racks. mix the coconut into the caramel until well combined, then immediately start molding the caramel onto the cookies with a knife, while still pliable. if your caramel stiffens up, you could probably reheat it on the stove on low heat, but i didn't reheat mine. don't do this in a cold kitchen - the caramel will stiffen up too quickly. besides pliability, you need to apply the caramel while it's warm, because it will adhere better to the cookie.

5. as the cookies are cooing to room temp, chop the chocolate and melt slowly in a heatproof bowl over a pot of barely simmering water. the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water; you need only 1 to 1 1/2" water in the pot. if your chocolate is heated too fast, it could seize or bloom; i'm not one to temper chocolate unless it's a special occasion, but if you want to temper, go ahead. when the chocolate is melted, set up a silpat and a few large sheets of parchment paper. grab a cookie by its edges (the caramel can be a good way to hang onto it), dip the bottom in chocolate. shake off the excess chocolate and place on the silpat/parchment, about 1" apart. when you've finished all the cookies, dip a spatula in the chocolate and swing it gently over the cookies to deposit chocolate threads on the tops of the cookies. practice over a few of the cookies to get the hang of this - you need to get the right amount of chocolate on the spatula, but not too much. you can also put the chocolate in a squeeze bottle with a fine nozzle, for better control. let the chocolate harden, then transfer to an airtight container.

(approximate) active cooking time: 1-1.5 hrs for the graham crackers, 1-1.5 hrs for the coconut caramel, 1 hr for assembly and dipping

[makes 40-50 small cookies, or 30 large cookies]

caramel...melts

i don't usually take photographs at an angle - that "artistic angle" so favored by food bloggers - but for some reason, the dead-on photos just don't look as good. something about the straight shooting suppresses the cragginess of these cookies.

so, caramel melts. this is what i discovered upon leaving a tupperware of ganache-topped caramels in the fridge, with no outer coating of chocolate, for over a year. possibly for two years - i've forgotten exactly when i put them in for that long, long hibernation. i think i expected them to keep the way that, miraculously, my most prized caramel sauce has kept for two years as i slowly consume it. (the original delicious caramel sauce got a boost of sugar syrup from spiced, baked apples, infused and reduced with tea, that rendered it positively spectacular.) alas, it was not so. beyond acquiring the aroma of the refrigerator - airtight container be damned - the caramels absorbed liquid from the ganache and melted into waxy sludge.

luckily, while cleaning the fridge recently, i found a slab of caramel from some other caramel experiment (i have yet to find a definitive caramel recipe that does not include corn syrup, but the one i've posted before is pretty good nonetheless). i cut myself a bit to taste, and it appeared to be in good enough working condition to include in these cookies. these cookies involve a rather soft dough, due to the inclusion of yogurt to provide some of the moisture, and i think that as they baked, the caramel sort of melted into the batter, producing a cookie that's crisp on the outside, soft on the inside (from the original dough itself), and gooey in the center. that is to say, these cookies are delicious and you should make them asap. as usual, they will taste better if you use good-quality cocoa and caramel.

salted chocolate-caramel cookies

1 1/4c flour

1/4t baking soda

1/2t salt

5T butter

7-8T cocoa

2/3c sugar

1/3c dark brown sugar

1/3c plain yogurt or sour cream

1t vanilla

~3-4oz soft caramel, rolled into 1/2"-diameter balls (dice, then squish the corners in until it resembles a sphere)

1. preheat the oven to 350F (i accidentally baked these at 375, and it was fine). in a small bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda.

2. melt the butter in the microwave in a medium bowl. sift the cocoa over it and mix until combined. add both sugars and mix until combined. add yogurt or sour cream, as well as the vanilla, and mix until combined. slowly mix in the dry ingredients with a spatula or a wooden spoon.

3. take a couple scant teaspoons of dough and form it evenly around a ball of caramel (i stick my thumb into a ball of dough and put the caramel into the ensuing hole). if your caramel balls are bigger than a few teaspoons of dough will cover (you want at least 1/4" of dough on the exterior of your caramel, estimating of course), then use as much dough as you need to make it work. place on a baking sheet about two inches apart and bake until the tops are slightly crackled, but before the caramel starts leaking out of the cookies - about 10 minutes or so. let cool at least 5 minutes - cookies will be very soft and will need to set up a little. transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

4. store in an airtight container and eat 'em within a few days for best flavor!

[makes 30-40 cookies]

the myth of "melt in your mouth"

these cookies look pretty good, right? unfortunately, they're not. well, they're ok, but they were enough of a disappointment that you won't find the recipe here. i saw a post on photograzing for "peppermint meltaways" and was intrigued. i've always been intrigued by things that claim to "melt in your mouth," be it chocolate, meat, or cookie. for example, how does meat melt in your mouth, exactly? surely a bit of steak isn't going to melt in your mouth the same way that, say, butter will? and even if it did, would you really want meat to melt in your mouth? i know that meat wouldn't "melt" the same way butter would, yet i expect it to because of the connotations i attach to the word "melt" (probably, in no small part due to the ubiquity of those m+m commercials during childhood).

that isn't to say that there aren't things that melt in your mouth. the lemon-buttermilk pudding (essentially a pudding cake) at rendezvous recently reaffirmed that, indeed, something can look like cake, but literally melt away in your mouth. (sidebar: it's been about two years since i had this pudding, and i had remembered it as being good, but not as good as it was that evening. it was exactly what i wanted at the end of a meal - cool, refreshing, light but rich...)

it was with all of these things in mind that i made these cookies. i wanted them to be impossibly light, airy, and crispy; buttery and pepperminty. the mechanism in the recipe that renders them "meltaways" is the replacement of some of the flour with cornstarch, and the use of powdered sugar. unfortunately, the meltaway effect was not the epiphany i expected. maybe it's that i just don't like cookies that "melt" - chewing some crispy thing just to have it dissipate immediately is a bit odd, and very different than chewing something soft (ie, cake) and have that "melt." so these cookies were ok, but not amazing. i swapped out the sugar glaze for chocolate, which i thought complement the cookies pretty well; and they do look pretty if i say so myself. their mediocrity, though, is affirmed by the roommate test. after a week in the cookie jar, it's still half full. this, after a batch of chocolate chip cookies lasted about three or four days. i guess it wasn't meant to be.

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.

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]