Sweet Potato Biscuits

Sweet Potato Biscuits - made October 12, 2013 from Martha Stewart

Goodbye, third sweet potato - you were sacrificed for this recipe because I loved how the picture of these biscuits looked on Martha's website.  Unfortunately, you might've been sacrificed in vain because my biscuits didn't come out looking like hers. Nor did they taste very sweet potato-ey.  Sorry about that but I will think of you fondly for contributing to the cause.

Okay, now that I'm done talking to the sweet potato, here's the deal with these biscuits: easy to make and only gets as complex as boiling the sweet potato I was conversing with, mashing it with a little salt and pepper and using 3/4 cup of it in the biscuits. Then you make like any other biscuits by mixing wet and dry ingredients, patting dough into a disc and cutting out round biscuits to bake closely together in a pan.

Mine didn't get the height of Martha's biscuits so they were a bit flat.  Not sure why but maybe I should've kept the dough disc thicker before cutting out the biscuits.  They were good but I didn't really get much of a sweet potato flavor from them. They tasted like normal biscuits that were slightly colored orange. Oh well, back to the store for more sweet potatoes and back to crawling pinterest for more sweet potato recipes.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and shaping
2 tablespoons light-brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus 1/2 tablespoon melted butter and more for pan
3/4 cup, chilled Sweet-Potato Puree
1/3 cup buttermilk

1. Make the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with some pea-sized lumps of butter remaining. In a small bowl, whisk together sweet potato puree and buttermilk; stir quickly into flour mixture until combined; do not overmix.
2. Shape the biscuits: Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead very gently until dough comes together but is still slightly lumpy, five or six times. (If dough is too sticky, work in up to 1/4 cup additional flour.) Shape into a disk, and pat to an even 1-inch thickness. With a floured 2-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits as close together as possible. Gather together scraps, and repeat to cut out more biscuits; do not reuse scraps more than once.
3. Bake the biscuits: Preheat oven to 425 degrees, with rack on lower shelf. (I baked at 400 degrees as 425 is too hot for my oven and would burn the tops of the biscuits before they're fully baked.) Butter an 8-inch cake pan. Arrange biscuits snugly in pan (to help them stay upright). Brush with melted butter. Bake until golden, rotating once, 20 to 24 minutes.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies - made October 6, 2013 from The Brown-Eyed Baker

My confession for today is I don't get the love some people have for cookie dough.  I know there are a lot of cookie dough lovers out there as evidenced by the plethora of cookie dough products: cookie dough ice cream, cookie dough "bites" enrobed in chocolate, cookie dough dropped in cupcakes, cookie dough frosting, even cookie dough extract.  I even have friends who've confessed they buy those tubes of cookie dough and eat it "straight" from the tube.  Let me take a moment to wrap my mind around that.  Except I can't because my mind is busy being boggled.  Really? I'm having trouble grasping the concept (even aside from grappling with the idea of store-bought cookie dough) since I'm not even one to lick the bowl and I definitely don't snitch cookie dough before I bake it.   

I don't like cookie dough because of the grit from the unbaked sugar.  Plus it tastes sweeter than its baked counterpart.  Not to mention the whole salmonella risk from eating cookie dough made with raw eggs.  But cookie dough lovers assure me they're fearless on that score and their cookie dough passion makes them risk takers.  I'll take their word for it.

So in an effort to overcome yet another culinary prejudice, I tested out these cookie dough brownies.  You make the brownie layer just like you would any other brownie recipe, let it cool completely, then layer on an eggless cookie dough over it (I will not risk salmonella, even if others would).  Chill, cut and serve cold. While I myself couldn't see the appeal of this brownie, I figured I'd have coworkers who might.  In other words, I was trying to flush out who were the cookie dough lovers in the office.

My findings were interesting.  It turns out that cookie dough is like coconut.  People either really like it or really don't.  Not many people were in the indifferent middle.  I had a few coworkers rave about these ("I love cookie dough!") while at the other end of the spectrum, one coworker confessed she took off the cookie dough layer and just ate the brownie.  LOL, I would've done the same if I hadn't had to taste test this.  For this particular recipe, I think it would've been better if the brownie layer had been even more dark chocolaty, just to offset the sweetness of the cookie dough layer. Because you're supposed to chill it and serve it cold due to the cookie dough layer, the brownie flavor doesn't come across as well when it's cold as opposed to room temperature. But again, that's my prejudice.  If you're a cookie dough lover, you might like these.

For the Brownie:
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

For the Cookie Dough:
¾ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons whole milk
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups mini chocolate chips

1. Prepare the Brownies: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9x13-inch pan with foil and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium glass bowl, melt the chocolate in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each, until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract, scraping the bowl as needed. Mix in the melted chocolate until combined. Reduce the speed to low, add the flour and mix just until combined (don't over-mix). Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Bake 25 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool completely.
4. Prepare the Cookie Dough: In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to combine the butter and both sugars. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until combined. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the flour just until combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Spread the cookie dough over the cooled brownies. Refrigerate until the dough is firm, about an hour. Use a sharp knife or a pizza cutter to cut the brownies. Store the brownies in an airtight container at cool room temperature or in the refrigerator.

Bakery Cafe Review: Specialty's

Specialty's - breakfast and lunch more times than I can count

I discovered Specialty's when I was working at my first job out of college in San Francisco.  I would sometimes walk around downtown during my lunch hour and I'd always see a line outside this shop.  I mean, always, regardless of which day it was. Back then, it was one of a handful of small Specialty's shops sprinkled in downtown San Francisco: each one typically a small storefront with a glass display lined with trays full of breads, scones and cookies.  People would point to what they wanted from the display case or put in an order for a sandwich and the cashiers would take your money and your order would be handed over instantly or, if a sandwich, within a few minutes. Further personal research led me to discover that if you just happened to walk by around 10 or 11 in the morning, you could get a small round loaf of the best potato poppyseed bread ever, hot and piping from the oven.  For a dollar.  Or potato cheese bread shaped like a cinnamon roll except it was savory and instead of the sweet cinnamon filling, it would be melted cheese.  That might've been $1.25.  To a carb lover like me, it was the cheapest and best way to gain 30 pounds.

Years later, Specialty's has expanded beyond the city and thankfully, I've contracted so those 30 pounds are gone (thank you, exercise and keeping my mouth shut more often than not).  I'm still a regular patron of Specialty's but unfortunately (or fortunately) those mini round loaves of potato poppyseed bread and the potato cheese rolls are no more.  They sell the big bread loaves of potato poppyseed but I know better than to buy one of those because I'll eat it all.  And neither my waistline nor I have seen a potato cheese roll in years.

What they do have, however, is a plethora of everything else. From a small sandwich shop also known for its big, thick cookies, it's expanded to a chain of bakery cafes in 4 states with soups, salads, sandwiches, coffee and teas and, of course, baked goods.  My new Kryptonite at Specialty's is their savory filled croissants.  They have turkey and swiss or ham and cheese.  And I don't mean they take a croissant, slice it in half and build it as a normal sandwich.  I'm talking some culinary genius who I worship unknown filled an unbaked croissant with sliced meat and cheese, let it rise then baked it to melting goodness. Love that.

There's a Specialty's on my way to work and they're now so sophisticated that I can order online before I leave my house, ask for ASAP pickup (within 15 minutes of placing my order), pay for my order online, and pick up my order already bagged as I head into the office. Which I do more often than I care to admit.  Although I do try to coincide those croissant-eating days to those running-on-the-treadmill days as well.  I'm not looking to pack those 30 pounds back on, after all, no matter how good the croissant is.

When I'm not indulging for breakfast or I'm too lazy to pack a lunch, once again, I can go online and put in an order for a sandwich. Or if I'm meeting a friend at Specialty's, I can order at their ipad ordering kiosks instead of giving my order to the humans behind the counter - gotta love high tech ordering, especially when it helps keep the lines down and there's very little wait time. All the sandwiches are listed with what they're normally comprised of and you can customize your order easily by crossing out what you don't want.  I always get the BBQ Chicken sandwich and it normally comes on toasted ciabatta bread with cole slaw, BBQ sauce, bacon and chicken.  I cross off the cole slaw and bacon and ask for untoasted bread (they toast the bread with butter and those are unwanted calories I'm not going to taste with the BBQ sauce anyway). Each menu option, for better or worse, comes with a calorie count so you can always see the caloric effect of what you're adding or subtracting, including what type of bread you use. An appetite killer, I know, but at least you know what you're signing up for and can make an informed choice.

BBQ chicken sandwich, sans cole slaw and bacon

One of my early motivators for going to Specialty's is their cookies.  I started off loyal to the milk chocolate chunk cookie, expanded to white chocolate macadamia, black and white, and their snickerdoodle.  When I'm feeling like I want to be "healthy", I get the oatmeal wheat germ chocolate chip.  Okay, I'm not really kidding myself that it's healthy but I just like it. It's not as sweet as the other cookies and has a nice chewy texture.

Oatmeal Wheat Germ Chocolate Chip Cookie

Half-eaten Oatmeal Wheat Germ Chocolate Chip Cookie

In the past few years, Specialty's has expanded their product line and now offer their cookie mixes for sale.  The mixes only come in semisweet chocolate chunk, milk chocolate chunk and white chocolate chunk.  They retail for $12 each or 3 for $33 or 4 for $40.  Which is rather pricey if you think about it, especially considering each mix only makes 12 Specialty's-sized cookies.  Yet, each individual cookie is sold at Specialty's for $2.59 so if you ever need a dozen Specialty's cookies, it's cheaper to buy the mix and make them yourself.  And yes, they do taste similar to what you can buy in their shop.

I've tried out the white chocolate chunk and the milk chocolate chunk when they first came out "just to see" what they were like. They were fine but not so stupendous that I'd be willing to keep paying that much for the box mix.  If I really needed a dozen or more cookies to give out, I'd bake them from scratch.

Probably the main drawback to be aware of when it comes to Specialty's is, like any bakery cafe, because they make their products fresh daily, if you go too late in the day, chances are there isn't much to choose from in the way of baked goods.  They bake all day but stop baking sometime in the afternoon so they can sell out as much as possible.  Anything that's day old is sold at half price the following day.  I'm not a fan of day old anything so I'd rather pay full price for the fresh stuff.

White Chocolate Chunk cookies baked from their cookie mix

Not pictured here because I haven't had it in a long time but if you ever want a good cinnamon roll, Specialty's has amazing ones.  Especially if they heat it up for you just enough to warm the roll and get the glaze a little runny.  Yowza.  You'll never eat Cinnabon again.

Spiced & Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Spiced & Baked Sweet Potato Fries - made October 8, 2013 from Baltic Maid

This was the recipe I tried with the second of my three sweet potatoes.  Sweet potato fries are my new guilty pleasure and when I go out to eat, I've taken to ordering a burger just so I could have sweet potato fries with them if they're available.  So I had to make my own with at least one of the sweet potatoes I bought.  The advantage of baking vs deep-frying is these are healthier and have less fat.  The disadvantage is they don't get crisp or as crisp if you bake them.  Despite their french fry appearance which implies crispness, these were actually soft.  I still liked them and the spices gave them a great flavor though.  I think they would've eventually gotten more crisp if I had baked them even longer but I didn't want them to burn.  I wasn't risking not having my sweet potato fries.

1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 large garlic clove, grated (I didn't have any so I left it out)
about 1 1/2 lbs / 680 g sweet potatoes
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp cumin (I only used 1/4 teaspoon)
1/4 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground ginger
a few pinches cayenne

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F/ 230°C. Combine the grated garlic and the olive oil in a bowl. Set aside. Wash and peel the sweet potatoes. Cut them into 1/3 inch (0.85 cm) thick sticks. Add the sweet potato sticks to the bowl with the oil and toss them until they’re evenly coated.
2. Mix the spices together in a small dish. Sprinkle this spice mix over the sweet potatoes and toss them to coat them evenly.
3. Place the fries on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake them for 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Flip them and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until cooked to preference.

Vanilla Butter Layer Cake

Vanilla Butter Layer Cake - made September 27, 2013 from Food Loves Writing

I saw a picture of this on pinterest and instantly thought, "I've got to try this recipe."  Not because I wanted a vanilla cake but because I just loved how the texture looked on Food Loves Writing's cake. That picture showed a perfectly baked cake and defines what I mean by "fluffy" when I talk about perfect cake texture.

You can't get that kind of texture if you underbake a cake (hello, self, are you listening?) because the texture will be dense, not fluffy.  If you overbake it, it might look better but it'll have a dry mouthfeel. 

I did try to go for the fluffy, which, in my underbaking madness, means I left the cake pans in the oven a few minutes after I wanted to take them out, turned off the oven then sat on my hands a few minutes after that, fighting every baking instinct I had not to take them out while voices in my head shrieked "It'll be dry! Take them out NOW!" When I couldn't stand the ringing in my ears any longer, I did take them out.  They weren't quite as fluffy as the original picture that inspired me to bake this but still better than my usual cake attempts that come out too soon.  Overall, this is a very good vanilla layer cake recipe. I would probably amp up the vanilla by increasing the amount of vanilla extract and adding a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste or scrapings from a fresh vanilla bean but it's a good cake. With a fluffy texture if you don't underbake it.

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus additional to grease pans
2 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk (I used whole milk)
Frosting (recipe follows)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper.
2. Melt butter and let it cool to room temperature.
3. Combine the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt in the large bowl of a stand mixer. On medium speed, add the butter, incorporating in several additions. Beat for about 2 minutes, or until combined; the texture should resemble cornmeal.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, vanilla extract and milk. Add to the flour-butter mixture in two batches (scraping the bowl once), and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until smooth.
5. Distribute the batter evenly between the two prepared pans. Bake for 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack and cool for 20 minutes. Remove cakes from pans to cool completely. Frost the cake. It can stand at room temperature for 1 hour; otherwise, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Frosting (I only used a half recipe since I don't like a lot of frosting)
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 pounds (7 1/2 -8 cups) confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream, (may substitute whole, low-fat or nonfat milk)

1. In a stand mixer on medium speed, beat the butter until fluffy. On low speed, add the sugar in batches, increasing the speed to high after each addition is incorporated. 
2. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla extract and cream in a steady stream on low speed until incorporated. 
3. Add a few drops of food coloring, if desired. Beat on high speed for 8-10 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Restaurant Review: Kaluz, Ft Lauderdale, FL

Kaluz - dinner on October 2, 2013

If you've been tracking my last few restaurant reviews, by now you're probably assuming I did nothing on either of my Florida trips but eat.  Never fear, I also worked (a lot) and exercised (could've done more) in the hotel gym.  But I don't take pictures of myself doing either of those things so you will have to make do with the food pics.  Although this set didn't really come out since I was taking them with my iphone and the lighting wasn't very good.  You can't read "Kaluz" in the above sign but that is what it says.  I just liked the picture because of the palm trees with a backdrop of the falling night sky.

The pictures get a little worse inside because of the bad lighting - at least bad for pictures but I imagine restaurant diners really don't want to be flooded with bright florescent lights so they settle for the mood lighting.

The glass case didn't let me take a good shot but here's their wine bottle display

The bar area

I went to Kaluz with several of my coworkers from our offsite as it was near our hotel and we had heard the food was good.  The appetizer was a flatbread BBQ chicken pizza that we all shared.  It was pretty good and as always, I judge any pizza by its crust.  I'm less picky with flatbread pizza because all I ask for is a crisp crust at the edges that's also chewy and not too soggy in the middle.  This was a little soggy but not enough to mar the taste.

BBQ Chicken Flatbread Pizza appetizer

Kaluz has a variety of items on its menu so everyone was able to find something to their taste.  For the Tuna Tartare, my coworker had our waitperson verify the tuna was from the Atlantic, not the Pacific, in case anyone goes there and wants to know before they order it.  (We still have concerns about any fish from the Pacific given the nuclear accident in Japan.)

Tuna Tartare

Rack of Lamb

I pretty much threw caution to the winds and ordered the Kaluz Danish Ribs.  I figured anything with the restaurant's name in the title of the dish is going to be good and it was.  My order came with two sides so I opted for the sweet potato fries and the Crab Mac n Cheese.  No, this was not a light dinner.

Kaluz Danish Ribs with Sweet Potato Fries

I think I surprised my coworkers by how handily I made it through the plate of ribs.  I didn't eat all of it but I made enough of a dent that it was noticeable and I might've taken one of them aback at how much I could pack away, lol. Sorry, Dave, no dainty appetite here.

Crab Mac n Cheese side dish

Cedar Plank Salmon - they really do serve it on a plank

But, not to worry, there's always room for dessert - the Macadamia Caramel Brownie which, by the name alone, is going to be good, and because we were in Florida, someone ordered the Key Lime Pie.  I didn't have enough room to try the pie but I made good inroads into the brownie.  I did share but the others were probably as full as I was so I'm not sure I could really hold anyone responsible for consuming the brownie as much as I did.

Macadamia Caramel Brownie

Key Lime Pie

Fortunately, once we finished dinner and went back to the hotel, despite the late hour, I did persuade myself to go to the gym and workout for an hour.  So there was balance once again in my universe.  Sort of.

Warm Mix-in-a-Mug Chocolate Cake

Warm Mix-in-a-Mug Chocolate Cake - made September 11, 2013 from One Bowl Baking by Yvonne Ruperti

If you've noticed I've tried a few recipes from One Bowl Baking by Yvonne Ruperti lately, it's because I was testing them out for a cookbook review.  So far I've tried out her fudgy brownie recipe, Fluffy Yellow Sheet Cake, Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies and Lunchbox Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies. You can read my cookbook review on the Stir It Up section of the Christian Science Monitor here.  As part of my recipe testing, I also tried out this recipe for a single serving chocolate cake.  I normally don't make microwave desserts since that always feels like "cheating" and technically isn't really baking since I normally associate baking as being done in an oven. But I do make these (feeble) attempts to get out of my comfort zone and there's nothing like chocolate to mitigate any unease in risk taking.

The premise of One Bowl Baking is you only need one bowl to do all your mixing in and not a lot of fancy equipment to make something delicious.  In this case, you don't even need a bowl, just a mug to mix, microwave and eat from. The recipe is as easy as that sounds.  I did have to mentally adjust my baking instincts because I don't normally measure flour or sugar in measurements as small as a teaspoon or tablespoon.  But that's the point of an individual-size dessert; by definition, it's only meant for one.

Which is actually quite handy in this case because this literally took less than 5 minutes to throw together in the mug, mix and microwave.  Included in the 5 minutes was even a minute or two of cooling time before I topped it with ice cream and tried it.  The cake texture was a little dense, almost like a flourless chocolate cake but not as creamy but it was cooked (microwaved?) to doneness.  I wouldn't overcook this or it'll be tough. Don't expect the fluffy texture of a baked cake either, not unless you can time it perfectly to the point of "done" but not underdone or dry.  I added the ice cream as a personal preference to cut the richness. I don't know that this would replace a good slice of chocolate cake for me but as a quick dessert to throw together for one, it fit my need for something sweet (and chocolaty) after dinner with little cleanup and no leftovers.

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the cup

Pinch salt

2 teaspoons water

1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour

Pinch baking soda

1 tablespoon bittersweet chocolate chips (I used mini chocolate chips)

1.       Butter a large microwave-safe mug.

2.       Add the brown sugar, butter, salt, water, and vanilla to the mug and stir to combine.

3.       Add the flour, baking soda and chips and stir until just combined.  Press the dough into the bottom of the mug.

4.       Microwave on high power just until the dough puffs and doesn’t look wet, about 45 seconds.

5.       Remove from the microwave and let rest for 5 minutes before eating.