Snickery Hidden Treasure Cookies

Snickery Hidden Treasure Cookies - first made May 1, 2006 from Cake Mix Cookies by Camilla V. Saulsbury

Here's another way to use up leftover Halloween candy. Although the recipe specifies Snickers, you can also use Baby Ruths, PayDays, etc. The only candy I wouldn't recommend is $100,000 bars or Rolos. The caramel centers are too hard when the cookies cool and are jarring to eat with the cookie when you have to chew and chew the caramel part. Plus I'm not sure if the caramels will leak out of the cookie, ruining the effect of the "hidden treasure".

1 18.25-ounce package yellow cake mix
2 large eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 bag mini-size chocolate-covered caramel nougat candy bar pieces (e.g. Snickers), unwrapped

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Position oven rack in middle of oven. Set aside an ungreased cookie sheet.
2. In a large bowl place half of the cake mix along with the eggs and oil. Blend with an electric mixer set on medium-high speed 1-2 minutes, until blended. Stir in the remaining cake mix until all dry ingredients are moistened.
3. Cut candy bars in half to create square-shaped pieces. Shape dough into 1 ½ inch balls. Place a candy bar half into the center of a ball of dough, shaping the dough around the candy to cover completely.
4. Place dough balls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
5. Bake 9-11 minutes or until dough is just set. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Cocoa Kiss Cookies

Cocoa Kiss Cookies - first made October 7, 2005

Here's a great way to use up any leftover Hershey's kisses - you know the ones you bought that were wrapped in fall colors but you can't really use them once Halloween and Thanksgiving are over unless you pick out just the ones in the silver foil. Although Hershey's has come up with a plethora of different varieties on the Hershey's kiss, use the one that's solid chocolate, whether it be dark, milk, or white or any combo. Don't use the caramel kisses with these or anything with a soft center as they'll just melt and leak out of the cookie dough.

This is a simple cookie from Hershey's Classic Recipes book - you make a chocolate dough, wrap it around the Hershey's kiss and roll into a ball and bake. I like to freeze them first then bake them later so the cookies retain more of their round shape. They don't come out round after you bake them but, done correctly, they're not exactly shaped like a Hershey's kiss either. They're more of the shape of the Baci candy. This helps camouflage that there's a Hershey's kiss inside.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup Hershey’s cocoa
1 cup finely chopped pecans
1 bag (9 ounces) Hershey’s Kisses Milk Chocolates
Powered sugar

1. Beat butter, granulated sugar and vanilla in large bowl until creamy. Stir together flour and cocoa; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Add pecans; beat until well blended. Refrigerate dough about 1 hour or until firm enough to handle.
2. Heat oven to 375˚F. Remove wrappers from chocolate pieces. Mold scant tablespoon of dough around each chocolate piece, covering completely. Shape into balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set. Cool slightly, about 1 minute; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely. Roll in powdered sugar. Roll in sugar again just before serving, if desired.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Bars

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Bars - first made January 20, 2003

Since it's Halloween, thought I'd post some recipes that can use up any leftover Halloween candy. If you have peanut butter cups leftover, you might like to use them in this recipe from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle. This makes really good brownies and the "surprise" part is the peanut butter cup that's in the middle of each piece. The tricky thing with this brownie is lining up the peanut butter cups correctly and then knowing where to slice so that the peanut butter cup is (ideally) in the middle of the brownie or at least somewhere in there so you don't see it coming out the side. I sliced the top brownie in half so you could see the inside but the brownie on the left bottom has a PB cup peeking through so you know I was off by a bit.

What I've found helps is to not completely submerge the peanut butter cups or else you'll completely lose sight of them. After you make the brownie batter, wait a few minutes as the batter will stiffen up. This will help support the weight of the peanut butter cups as you arrange them in the pan so they don't sink straight to the bottom. The downside of the more stiff batter is it's harder to spread over the peanut butter cups without rearranging them. The recipe calls for only 16 peanut butter cups so 4 rows of 4 but I find that cuts into relatively large pieces. I prefer to do 5 rows of 5 or 4 rows of 5.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 miniature peanut butter cups

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325˚F. Line a 9-inch square pan with aluminum foil so that the foil extends 2 inches beyond 2 opposite sides of the pan. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of the pan.
2. Place the butter and chocolate in the top of a double boiler over simmering water and heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth. Remove the pan from the heat and cool the chocolate mixture until tepid.
3. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Stir until blended.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the eggs at medium speed until blended. Gradually beat in both sugars, mixing just until blended. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the chocolate mixture and vanilla extract. Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until blended.
5. Scrape half of the brownie batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Arrange the peanut butter cups evenly over the batter, in four rows of four cups each. Press down lightly on each cup. Scrape the remaining batter over the cups and carefully spread it into an even layer, without moving the cups. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a wire rack.
6. Using the ends of the foil as handles, lift the brownies out of the pan. Cover the plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
7. Remove the plastic wrap from the brownies and invert them onto a cutting board. Peel off the foil. Reinvert the brownies and cut them into 16 squares.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week or freeze up to a month.

Basque Cake

Basque Cake - October 30, 2009

Of all the things we made at CIA, Basque Cake has to rank as one of my all-time favorites. Perhaps it's just the simplicity of the cake after all the fancy stuff we made. Or maybe just because it's so good. Basque Cake is a vanilla butter cake filled with pastry cream. The edges are a little crisp and the middle is soft and gooey with the goodness of butter and pastry cream. I don't make it that often though because it's so rich with butter, sugar and pastry cream and I want to keep on fitting in my clothes.

The recipe calls for baking in a 10-inch springform pan but I made these in a molten chocolate cake pan with 6 individual-sized cups with removable bottoms. My friend Annie the Baker and I found these pans on sale at Shackford's, a wonderful little kitchen store in Napa. They were on sale and there were 2 left so Annie and I each got one. Using the pans with removable bottoms is great because you can just push the cakes up when they're baked and take them out intact. There was enough batter and pastry cream left over that I also made a cake in a ramekin and an 8" round cake pan. Don't try taking it out of the pan(s) while they're still too hot or they'll break apart. Also, if you're going to use any pan with a removable bottom or a springform pan, line the bottom of the pan with foil. There's so much butter in the batter that some of it leaks out when it's first placed in a hot oven and you don't want that dripping in the bottom of your oven.

To make this cake, you're going to need a kitchen scale to weigh everything accurately. I don't have the volume measurements for this, only weights. Every baker should have a food scale anyway - you can be much more accurate when baking if you weighed rather than volume measured everything.

Basque Cake

1 pound butter, softened
1 pound sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs, at room temperature
13 ounces cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dark rum
8 ounces pastry cream
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 325˚F – 350˚F.
2. Grease and flour 1 10-inch cake pan or springform pan. Put parchment paper on bottom.
3. Cream butter with sugar and vanilla. Do not overwhip; use paddle attachment. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt, and gradually fold into butter mixture with wooden spoon.
5. Spoon into large pastry bag fitting with a plain tip (#9). Pipe approximately half of the mixture in a spiral onto bottom of prepared pan. Pipe extra ring around inside edge of pan to prevent filling from sticking to sides of pan.
6. Stir rum into vanilla custard. Spread evenly over mixture inside of outer ring, using small spatula or palette knife.
7. Pipe remaining mixture in spiral over filling.
8. Bake in preheated oven 45 to 60 minutes or until center of cake springs back when lightly pressed. Cool in pan on wire rack 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely.
9. Dust top with sifted confectioners’ sugar just before serving. Alternatively, spread mixture in pan instead of piping it.

Pastry Cream

Pastry Cream - October 30, 2009

One of the first things we were taught to make in culinary school was pastry cream. My CIA chef instructor said bakeries used this in many of their offerings and was one of their staples. It's pretty simple to make but there are techniques you should use to make it successfully. The original recipe below is straight from my CIA recipe book and yep, it's that sparse in instructions since we were shown how to do it and the recipe is pretty much the bare bones of how to make it.

I hadn't made pastry cream in years and I think I've lost the knack as when I was heating up the whole mixture, mine started clumping instead of thickening gradually. Fortunately, the baking gods invented strainers and I was able to strain mine into respectability. When you make this, whisk the sugar/cornstarch/eggs until blended then temper with the hot milk, meaning add the milk a little at a time, and whisking to incorporate the milk fully into the custard. When you put the whole thing back in the pan and heat to boiling, keep stirring it constantly. I think that was my mistake as I was trying to clean up and wash the dishes instead of keeping a constant stir of the mixture over the stove. But it still tasted pretty good to me. I'm not much of a pudding or custard-type dessert person but I'll make an exception for pastry cream. I can eat this thing like pudding. I made half of this recipe in order to use it for Basque Cake. Oh and when you've finishing making it, cover it with plastic wrap directly over the pastry cream itself, not over the rim of the bowl. This will prevent a skin from forming over the cream.

1 quart milk
8 ounces sugar
3 ounces cornstarch
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
Vanilla extract to taste
3 ounces butter

1. Heat milk.
2. Mix sugar and cornstarch, then add eggs.
3. Temper in milk.
4. Boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat. Add butter and vanilla.
5. Strain and cool.

Chocolate Wafer Sandwich Cookies

Chocolate Wafer Sandwich Cookies - October 29, 2009

I don't make sandwich cookies that often. They're usually easy to make but they take longer than drop cookies and I don't always have that kind of time when I'm working. But since I'm on vacation (!), I figured today would be a good day to try one. Most sandwich cookie recipes are generally the same - make the dough, chill it, roll it out, cut out the shapes, bake, make the filling, put two cooled cookies together with the filling to make the sandwich cookie.

A good sandwich cookie to me will offer complementary flavors between the filling and the cookies and contrasting textures which is typically crisp cookies and soft fillings. That's what I like in a sandwich cookie anyway. This one didn't disappoint. It's also from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook and offers the option of a vanilla cream filling and a chocolate filling. Since the cookies were already chocolate, I opted for the vanilla filling. You'll notice the original recipe calls for equal parts shortening and butter. I deviated and used all butter. I can't stand the idea of eating shortening as is, even if you mix it with butter and sugar. Martha, what were you thinking? My instincts were right and the vanilla cream filling made with all butter was pretty tasty (it's butter, what's not to love?).

What I liked about these sandwich cookies was the chocolate cookie was crisp so it was perfect with the creamy filling. And the filling was just the right texture, not runny or too hard, and held the cookies together quite well. One other note about making sandwich cookies: after you bake them and they're cool, match the ones that are closest in size to each other before you start applying the filling. Even though I used the same cookie cutter for all the shapes, some came out in slightly varying sizes. You don't want one big cookie and one smaller one sandwiched together - it just looks weird.

Chocolate Wafer Sandwich Cookies

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Vanilla Cream Filling or Chocolate Cream Filling

1. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla; beat to combine. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture, and beat to combine, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
2. Turn out the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, and divide in half. With floured hands, shape each piece into a flattened rectangle, wrap with plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
3. Place one rectangle of dough only a lightly floured work surface. Roll out dough to a scant 1/8-inch thickness, stopping every so often to release the dough by running an offset spatula underneath. You should end up with a rectangle that’s about 14 by 11 inches. Transfer dough to a prepared baking sheet, and freeze until very firm, about 30 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough.
4. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Place one rectangle of dough on a clean work surface. Working quickly, cut out rounds using a 2” cookie cutter. (If the dough begins to soften too much, return to the freezer for a few minutes.) Using a wide metal spatula, transfer rounds to parchment-lined baking sheets, about 1 ½ inches apart. Gather together remaining scraps, reroll, and cut out more rounds. Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes. Repeat with remaining rectangle of dough.
5. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until the centers of the cookies feel firm when lightly pressed, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Using an offset spatula, spread 1 tablespoon desired filling onto the flat sides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies, keeping the flat sides down. Unfilled cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. Once filled, cookies are best eaten the day they are made, but they can be kept in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Yield: about 2 dozen sandwich cookies

Vanilla Cream Filling

1 1/3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine all ingredients. Beat on medium high speed until fluffy and light, 3 to 4 minutes. Use immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Let soften at room temperature before using.

Chocolate Cream Filling

4 ½ ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped (1 cup)
¾ ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup (half of one 14-ounce can) sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Melt chocolates in a heatproof bowl set over (but not touching) simmering water, stirring occasionally. Add condensed milk, butter, and extract; stir to combine. Continue to stir over simmering water until all ingredients are smooth, 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and set aside to cool slightly.

Linked to Everyday Sisters blog

Classic Crumb Cake ala Martha Stewart

Crumb Cake - October 29, 2009

In case you're wondering why I'm baking so much today when I said I wasn't really baking this week because I was on vacation and wouldn't have anyone to give the baked goods to, I was able to find some willing recipients today. My friend Karen and her husband Rex are building a house and their construction crews have been regular recipients of what I make. I was in a baking mood so I arranged for Karen to come pick up all the stuff I made today for the crew. Which was nice because it allowed me to try out several new recipes today.

One of those recipes was the Classic Crumb Cake recipe from the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. At first I was worried because the crumb topping recipe made a lot of crumb topping. As in, there was more crumb than cake when I was layering them in the pan. And the amount of butter listed for the crumb toppping is NOT a typo. I was worried Martha had gone off her rocker with that much crumb mixture but as it turned out, it actually worked. I guess that's why they call it crumb cake. This is not the same as streusel coffee cake which has a lighter layer of streusel on top. A crumb topping doesn't usually contain nuts whereas most streusel toppings do.

Watch the baking time on this cake. I actually timed this one and took it out when the recipe said to (and you know how haphazard I am sometimes about timing things). I almost didn't take it out on time because the middle part of the crumb topping still looked a bit wet and I thought it should be more crumby. But I also know a cake with this kind of texture should never be overbaked or it'll be dry. For my oven, it was the right call because the cake turned out moist with a nice soft texture. The crumb topping was delicious - just turn a blind eye to how much butter and sugar is in it (as I did with the shortbread).

Cake
1 ¼ sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups sour cream

Crumb Topping
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Generously butter a 13-by-9-inch baking pan; set aside. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and sour cream; beat just until combined.
3. Spoon the batter into the pan, and smooth with an offset spatula. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the batter. Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Before serving, dust with confectioners’ sugar, if using.

Crumb Topping

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt
3 ½ sticks (1 ¾ cups) unsalted butter, room temperature

1. In a medium bowl, whisk to combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon and salt; cut in the butter using a pastry blender, until large, moist clumps form. (Alternatively, mix together in a food processor.) Topping can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.