Texas Fudge Cookies

Texas Fudge Cookies - made March 9, 2014 from Cookies and Cups

I've been writing my blog for several years now but it occurred to me only recently that I've never fully explained my scale. Not the kind you step on and it makes you cry but my taste rating scale when I evaluate what I bake. You can probably glean from random posts that, because I bake so much and so often, I have finicky taste buds when it comes to desserts and a pretty high bar on what I consider worth the empty calories. I balance things out (most of the time) with a whole lot of exercise so I always evaluate whether something is worth a session at the gym, a run for X number of miles, walking for umpteenth hours and tackling my 20-lb dumbbells (my dumbbell set goes to 50 lbs but let's not kid ourselves).

But, not everyone exercises to the same extent or understands how I balance my universe of taste buds vs waistband fit so let me tackle it another way. As you know, I give away 90-95% of what I bake. I'll take a taste test piece, evaluate it, photograph it, write it up and give everything else away. Some of the feedback from my recipients I reflect in my evaluation and some just go into my mental files. But their feedback is how I've come up with my taste scale.

Me: These are okay. Meh.
Everyone else: These are really good.
Me: These are good.
Everyone else: OMG, these are fantastic! To die for! Love them!
Me: OMG, these are fantastic! I think I'll have TWO pieces!
Everyone else: Can I have the recipe? I'm SO making these. When are you making them again? Do you take orders?

Now that you've gotten a little primer on my taste rating scale, you'll have the context to understand when I rate these as "OMG, these are fantastic!" My love for Texas Fudge Cake has extended itself to this cookie version from Cookies and Cups. Fudgy cookies are enrobed in Texas Fudge Cake frosting  to the same stupendous results. Little (or not so little) bites of fudgy goodness. The only cautionary note is please don't overbake these. If they puff and crack on top, they're overbaked and can be a little dry (I discovered that with the first batch). They're still salvageable because of the frosting but they're better a little underbaked so they remain moist and fudgy. The cookies aren't too sweet or overly chocolaty; that comes from the frosting. If you have high end baking chocolate (I used Tcho), use that instead of the regular Nestle chocolate chips; they're worth it. And, in keeping with my rating scale, yes, I ate two cookies before giving the rest away to my friend Cindy when we met for dinner and to my coworkers the next day. Cindy asked me for the recipe so my taste rating scale remains intact.

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted and lukewarm

Icing
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons milk
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
3. In bowl of stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, scraping down sides of mixing bowl frequently.
4. Add in egg and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Mix in baking powder and salt.
5. With mixer on low, slowly add in flour. Mix in melted chocolate chips until evenly incorporated.
6. Drop dough in tablespoon-sized mounds onto baking sheet. Bake for 7-9 minutes until cookies just appear set. Do not overbake. Cool on wire racks.

Icing

1. In a medium saucepan combine butter, cocoa powder, and milk over medium heat, whisking until smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in powdered sugar.
2. Pour icing over cookies and allow to set before serving.

Salted Nutella Butter Bars

Salted Nutella Butter Bars - made March 2, 2014 from Cookies and Cups

This was the third dessert I made for care packages, along with the Texas Sheet Cake and the Gooey Cookies and Cream Cake Bars. Since the first two were primarily chocolate, I wanted something with a different flavor profile so butter bars seemed the way to go.

You'll notice very quickly that there's a pound of butter in these bars. Yes, a pound. For something that only makes a 9 x 13 pan, that's a lot of butter. For context, most similarly-sized desserts might contain half that amount. So these aren't called butter bars for nothing.

With all this butter, as you can expect, this was like eating a very rich shortbread with some nutella. I like nutella but I don't know if I like it with the butter shortbread. I also should've baked this a little longer and let the top become more golden brown. When baked enough, the texture of the top layer is almost crisp like good shortbread should be. Because I didn't bake it long enough, they tended to be soft and you can taste the butter all the more. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I would have preferred more of a texture contrast between the snap of butter shortbread and the creaminess of the nutella. Oh and I would recommend sprinkling the sea salt (I used fleur de sel) on top even though the recipe says it's optional. The salt breaks up the richness of the butter a bit and provides a nice flavor contrast.

1 pound butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Nutella, warmed slightly to be of easy spreading consistency
1-2 teaspoons fleur de sel, optional but highly recommend

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
3. In bowl of mixer, combine butter and sugars. With mixer on medium speed, beat together until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla and beat until combined. Slowly add the flour into the butter mixture until dough comes together.
4. Press about one-third of the dough evenly into the pan to form a bottom crust. Wrap remaining dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator.
5. Bake crust until firm and the edges are a pale golden brown, approximately 12-14 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and let cool 10 minutes.
6. Spread softened Nutella evenly over crust, about 1/4" away from the edges.
7. Remove remaining dough from the refrigerator and crumble remaining dough on top. Bake another 20-25 minutes until top is set and lightly golden.
8. Sprinkle immediately with fleur de sel, if desired.
9. Cool and cut into squares.

Restaurant Review: Grand Palace (dim sum)

Grand Palace - lunch on March 3, 2014

This is the restaurant my niece Lauren and I went to for dim sum for our day in San Francisco. We didn't do anything technologically advanced to find it - we didn't check yelp, we didn't do a google search on best dim sum places in Chinatown. Instead, since we were in Chinatown, we just walked around until we found a sit down restaurant for dim sum. Which is not hard to do.

It wasn't fancy or all that cheap considering it was Chinatown and some might even say it was a little rundown but we weren't that picky. The restaurant ran long and narrow so it wasn't conducive to dim sum carts roaming the aisles. Instead we ordered dim sum from the menu along with pan-fried noodles, Hong Kong style. There was a regular menu that spelled Grand Palace correctly and a pictorial dim sum menu that did not. What I liked about the pictorial menu is I could finally see what some of the dim sum items were called. For the most part, my guesswork in the past was fairly correct. My "pork puff pastry thingie" is called "BBQ Pork Puff". Close enough.

Our food came out promptly and it was really good. The siu mai was a notch above the usual dim sum fare and everything else was up to our high dim sum standards. The BBQ Pork Puff was really flaky. It could've used a little more BBQ pork filling but otherwise was tasty. The only things we didn't get that we normally do were the pork buns and egg custards since we'd already bought those at Garden Bakery.

BBQ Pork Puff

Siu Mai

Har Gow (shrimp dumpling)

Lotus Wrapped Pork & Sticky Rice

Pork & Sticky Rice

Pan-fried noodles, Hong Kong style

While the dim sum was good, the prices aren't cheap considering it's Chinatown. For all of the above dishes, including tip, our bill came to $35. That's actually expensive for dim sum. One word of caution: according to the rather abrupt waiter, they only take cash. A fact that is belied by the Visa/Mastercard stickers on their cash registers at the front. Either those stickers are just for show or they do take credit cards and they push for cash unless someone fusses and points out the stickers. I tend to pay cash for most things anyway so it wasn't a big deal to me but it might be to others. Grand Palace also seems more Americanized than what I would've expected in Chinatown and, looking back, the patrons while we were there were mostly non-Chinese folks. I don't think that was because of the food because we thought the food was pretty good so maybe it was due to the prices. No elderly Chinese people here.

Sweet Potato Chips - it's National Potato Chip Day

Sweet Potato Chips - made March 9, 2014 from The Recipe Diva

I was going to put up a different post for today until I saw earlier on facebook that it was National Potato Chip Day. Pi(e) Day I get because it's 3.14 (pi, get it??) but it turns out the potato chip has to share the glory with its more famous counterpart. You know pie, that spotlight hog. I didn't have a pie in the baking rotation (I ate a piece of one but didn't bake it myself - does that count?) but I had made these sweet potato chips last week so I'm throwing them in there just in the nick of time.

I actually don't like potato chips. Not the thin, greasy kind. I'll mow through a bag of Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos and/or Sun Chips whenever I want salt but the straightforward, simple, humble potato chip? I don't think so. However, I saw nothing wrong with switching my allegiance to sweet potato chips. The sweet potato has ousted the white potato in my affections so I figured I would like sweet potato chips just fine.

And so I did. I didn't bake these long enough so they weren't all crunchy, just a few pieces that started to think about burning before I took them out of the oven. But I liked the spices sprinkled over them and they still tasted better than a bag of potato chips. If you want them crunchy like "real" chips, slice them thinly and evenly then leave them in the oven as long as you can stand. You don't even need to sprinkle additional salt on these since the spice mixture already makes them good eating. Move over Ruffles; the homemade sweet potato chip has you beat.

2 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed clean and sliced into 1/8" slices (I also peeled mine)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon paprika

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Place sweet potato slices and oil in a re-sealable bag and shake to coat.
3. In a small dish, combine the seasonings and add to the sweet potatoes. Shake again to evenly coat.
4. Lay potato slices on a foil-lined baking sheet and bake for 12-14 minutes. Remove the potatoes from the oven and flip. Cook for an additional 10 minutes until crisp.
5. Place potatoes on a wire cooling rack to cool - they crisp up more as they cool.

Gooey Cookies and Cream Double Chocolate Cake Bars

Gooey Cookies and Cream Double Chocolate Cake Bars - made March 1, 2014 from Picky Palate

I was making up care packages and needed a bar cookie to go with the Texas Sheet Cake I made earlier. I saw this on pinterest and had half a package of Oreos to use up so it seemed like a good one to try. You'll notice it has cake mix as an ingredient and you know my prejudice against those. One of the care packages I was sending was to my friend Kendra who, in the past, has unwittingly tormented me by making things from box mixes. It isn't so much that she uses the mixes (I try to tell myself that's none of my business, it's a free country, I don't have to be there to witness it, etc) but that she thinks the box mix product is just fine or "will do" in place of scratch when she wants something as convenient as "ripping open the box". I get it. Sort of. So I decided to try out this recipe and send it along with made-from-scratch baked goods to see if she (or I) will really think the box mix stuff is just as good.

Whenever I use a box mix, I always run it through my sifter first, not only to get rid of the lumps but to keep out the very hard lumpy lumps left after I finish sifting it all (pictured above). I kid you not - this is what's in every mix; particles so hard that they don't break up and can't be sifted through a strainer. They're not chocolate chips either but are rather like little pebbles. Ugh, I draw the line at including them in my baked goods.

Texture-wise, these didn't turn out very gooey but that was my fault. In a rare move, I think I baked these longer than I should have. The sweetened condensed milk was still "raw looking" so I baked it longer but in hindsight, I shouldn't have. The bar cookies weren't necessarily dry but just normal. But you don't want normal for "gooey" cake bars; you want - well - gooey. Did I subconsciously sabotage these bars because of my cake-mix prejudices? Maybe. So mine didn't turn out as good-looking as the ones from Picky Palate. Taste-wise these were okay but I think they would've been better had I not baked them for as long as I did. I liked the crunch from the Oreos but the rest of the bar cookie was just standard.

1 devil's food cake mix
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
14 Oreo cookies, broken into bite-size pieces
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Place cake mix, butter and egg into a large bowl, mixing to combine. Press into prepared baking pan, making an even layer. Top with broken pieces of Oreo cookies.
3. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over cookie pieces and top with chocolate chips. Bake for 23-25 minutes, until cooked through. Remove from oven and let cool. Lift out of pan using foil ends and cut into squares.

Texas Sheet Cake (another one)

Texas Sheet Cake - made March 2, 2014 from Chocolate, Chocolate, and More

My obsession with Texas Fudge Cake or Texas Sheet Cake continues. Nowadays I find myself searching out a new recipe for it whenever I need a good quantity of something to give away. I used to do that with new brownie recipes but the brownies are getting nudged aside by Texas Sheet Cake. It's probably a phase but I don't see it ending anytime soon.

Even I am surprised at my recent devotion to it though as I didn't think brownies could be toppled off my baking must-have list. But Texas Sheet Cake is just as easy to make as brownies and that whole pouring frosting over it while the cake is warm is luring me in like a siren's song. If sirens were male. While I normally make Texas Sheet Cake in a 9 x 13" pan instead of a sheet pan because I like a thicker cake, this time I did hold back some of the batter and instead baked two thin layers in 6" round cake pans. Not sure why except to experiment with my new 6" cake pans that came in a set of 5. I have grandiose visions that I'm going to make a 5-layer cake someday. But this time around, I only did two layers, just enough to use up the extra frosting I inevitably end up with whenever I bake a sheet cake in a 9 x 13 pan and there's less surface area for the frosting.

It probably goes without saying that this was fantastic. I liked it better than the last version I made and it was more consistent with earlier versions I've made that hooked me on Texas Sheet Cake in the first place. It was cakey and fluffy yet moist, aided by the frosting melting into the top layer. Just the right amount of chocolate tempered with the sweetness of a thin layer of frosting. So much goodness, so much exercise I need to do to offset it. But worth it.

1 cup butter
1 cup water
1/3 cup cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
dash of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Icing
1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup milk
4 1/2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 15 x 10 x 1" jelly roll pan or a 9 x 13" pan for a thicker cake; set aside.
2. Sift together flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In a medium saucepan, combine butter, water and cocoa. Heat until butter is melted. Remove from heat, add in sugar, eggs, sour cream and vanilla, blending well.
4. Carefully whisk in flour a little at a time, making sure there are no lumps or flour pockets. Pour batter into pan, spreading evenly. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Remove from oven and frost immediately. Let cool completely before serving.
5. While cake is baking, make the icing: combine butter, cocoa and milk in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add in vanilla and powdered sugar. Mix well; strain if powdered sugar lumps remain. Spread over hot cake.

A Day in San Francisco - from Chinatown to Pac Heights to Fisherman's Wharf

San Francisco, March 3, 2014

A street in SF Chinatown

One of my nieces, Lauren, has been studying abroad in Spain for a good part of her junior year. She returned to the US last month and recently came to visit her sister, me and my parents before she heads back to school. She stayed with my other niece in Berkeley during most of her visit but I took a day off from work and met her in San Francisco last week for some aunt-niece bonding time.

We had a whole day ahead of us so I asked Lauren what she wanted to do in the city. Her first response was "I want bao! And dim sum!" Yup, she's my niece all right. It's all about the food for both of us. In case you're not familiar with what a bao is, it's a filled Chinese bread roll like pork buns or cocktail buns. Dim sum I've waxed poetical about enough times that hopefully that's not a new term on my blog. And when you're in San Francisco, there's no better place to get dim sum and baos than in Chinatown.

I searched for "cocktail buns in San Francisco" and yelp obligingly spit out Garden Bakery. It's got a 4-star rating from 75 reviews but what really sold me on it was one review mentioning it was well patronized by elderly Chinese people. You can't ask for a better affirmation than that because they would know a good place to go for cocktail buns and pork buns, right? It's like the old adage that a sign of a good Chinese restaurant was if Chinese people ate there. This was no different.

1 baked pork bun, 2 cocktail buns

Lauren holding the baked pork bun

We met at the Powell St BART station and made the walk to Chinatown. Or I should say climb. When you google map places in San Francisco, everything looks deceptively close and walkable since SF is rather small in land mass compared to other major cities. What's a mile or two? Nothing if it happened to be flat terrain but in San Francisco, you can count on a good number of hills. Getting to Chinatown from downtown was an uphill trek and by the time Lauren and I got to Garden Bakery, we felt we'd earned those baos. The bakery is rather small and, sure enough, populated mostly by elderly Chinese folks. Score. The baked goods are in a glass display case but you have to know what to ask for as I know from past experience that just because you don't see it doesn't mean they don't have it. Sure enough, both the baked pork buns and the cocktail buns weren't in the glass display but behind the counter on baker's racks. I got a pork bun and two cocktail buns for later - all three for $1.80. Super cheap as out in the 'burbs, even at a cheap Asian bakery like Sheng Kee, I'd pay almost that much just for one. Gotta love Chinatown. My Chinese friends said I got the non-Chinese price as they would have likely been charged $1.20 for the 3. Whatevs, it was still cheap to me, lol.

Then we hit the second item on Lauren's must-eat list and found a sit down restaurant for dim sum - restaurant review to follow in a separate post.  As usual, after indulging ourselves with good food, we had to get on the move to burn off lunch. Also as usual, what motivates me to walk is if our next destination was another food place. In this case, it was Sift, a cupcake bakery I'd first heard about on Cupcake Wars. Review to follow in a separate post as well.

After Sift (and dim sum and egg custards and pork buns), we really needed a good long walk. But we were rapidly tiring of the hills, literally, metaphorically and figuratively so we decided not to do the hilly backtrack to Market Street but instead headed for the wharf since most of that seemed to be flat walking ground. We walked from Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow to the Presidio (some hills were sadly unavoidable), Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, pausing by Ghirardelli Square, home of San Francisco chocolate (no, we didn't eat any). A brief pause to refresh ourselves with drinks then, walking along the pier, onward to the Ferry Building to poke around the little shops and past Embarcadero. On the walk along the wharf, we discovered Tcho Chocolate housed in a building on the pier. Separate post on Tcho to follow in the future.

Ferry Building

The day was overcast and muggy, unseasonably warm for San Francisco but we were lucky that it didn't start raining until we made our way from the Embarcadero to Westfield City Center at the Powell St BART station. All in all, we walked over 10 miles that day, including the uphills and downhills that forcibly reminded me of almost every single muscle in my legs. My fitbit even congratulated me for walking over 34,000 steps that day. Fortunately, both Lauren and I run for exercise so it never occurred to us we couldn't do it so we did. It also helped that I didn't realize just how far we had walked until I mapped our ambulatory wanderings the next day. Powered by dim sum and cupcakes, we can go anywhere.....