Salted Caramel Brownies

Salted Caramel Brownies - made September 8, 2013, recipe adapted from The Busty Baker

The original recipe for these called for dulce de leche but I used salted caramel so I'm renaming them.  The chocolate flavor comes solely from the cocoa powder and I only had Pernigotti to use so I knew this would turn out to be a very dark chocolate brownie.  So I decided to contrast the dark chocolate with a load of caramel.

Baking with caramel can be a little tricky.  When baking caramel into brownies, I like to bake the bottom layer for at least 10 minutes first to give it a little time to set up.  If you layer the caramel over the unbaked layer, the caramel melts into the batter and incorporates itself into it rather than remaining a distinct layer.  Once I par-bake the bottom layer and spread the caramel over it, I also like to cover the caramel layer completely with the remaining batter rather than letting any peek through.  A swirl of caramel always looks pretty in the finished product but I find that exposing the caramel to high heat causes it to bubble during baking then once it cools, the caramel becomes chewy and hard instead of creamy and soft.  Hence the covering.

However, there is something appealing about puddles of soft, creamy caramel on top of a rich chocolaty brownie so this is where the chopped up Milky Way caramels come in.  Cut them into generous chunks then sprinkle them on top during the last few minutes of baking.  The caramels will melt slightly but you don't bake them long enough for them to melt completely then re-form into hardened chewy bits. I find this to be a good use of Milky Way caramels which is why they're usually on my post-Halloween, get-them-on-sale, candy-buying list so I can use them for baking later.

 

These brownies were good but a little too dark chocolate for me so I'm glad I loaded them with the caramel, both as a middle layer and on top.  If you don't like dark chocolate, this is one of the rare times I'd advise using a more bland cocoa powder to cut into the high end dark cocoa.  I still recommend using the good stuff but you can substitute up to half of the cocoa powder with the less chocolatey cocoa like Hershey's or Trader Joe's brand.

10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup salted caramel
1 cup Milky Way caramels, chopped
Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, allowing the sides to hang over by 2 inches. Spray with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
2. Melt butter in microwave. Add sugar and cocoa and stir until incorporated and smooth, and no bits of butter remain.
3. Remove from heat and stir in salt, vanilla extract, and eggs until well combined and glossy. Add flour, stirring until just combined and no streaks of flour remain. Once combined, with a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, fold batter vigorously for about 30-45 seconds.
4. Pour half of batter into prepared pan, spreading to the edges. Bake for 10 minutes.  Dollop 1/2 cup salted caramel in teaspoon sized drops over the batter. Pour remaining batter over top and gently smooth to edges, trying to cover as much of the caramel as possible.
5. Bake 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a just a bit of batter attached and center barely jiggles when the pan is shaken. 5 minutes before the brownies are done, sprinkle with chunks of Milky Way caramels. When brownie is done, remove from oven and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Cool in pan for 20 minutes. Using foil overhang, lift from pan and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cooled, slice with a sharp knife into 16 squares.

Restaurant Review: Asian Pearl (dim sum)

Asian Pearl - lunch on August 25, 2013 (I linked to the yelp review which gives the link to the main Asian Pearl restaurant group website which in turn gives the direct link to this particular Asian Pearl Restaurant but when I tried going there, the security settings on my browser classified the site as "suspicious" so I'm not providing a direct link like I normally do)

Asian Pearl Seafood Restaurant

Pacific Commons Shopping Center

43635 Boscell Rd

Fremont, CA 94538

510-979-1368

Partial shot of the inside which is even bigger than this shows

I don't go to dim sum that often. My family had a favorite dim sum place to go to for Sunday lunch when I was younger but it closed and we fell out of the habit of going for dim sum after church because there weren't that many places where my parents lived that served it.  It's usually best to go with a large group so you can get a variety of plates but it's also best to go early, like mid-morning, which is when most places open or you might have a hard time being seated with a large party. Most dim sum places open at 10 am and I have to admit, that feels a little early for me to eat savory dim sum. And if we go on Sunday, we don't get out of church until 11 and by then, dim sum places are packed since they've been open for an hour by then.

One of the dim sum carts

However, we did manage one Sunday to go to a new-to-me dim sum restaurant called Asian Pearl. There were only 3 of us and we were lucky to get a table as soon as we got there but the restaurant was packed and by the time we left, people crowded the foyer and spilled outside, waiting for tables to free up.

Baked Pork Buns

If you've ever been to dim sum, you know how it works.  You wait at your table and dim sum carts come rolling past, typically pushed by Chinese ladies who tout the wares on their cart. If there's something on the cart you want, you speak or gesture (or ask questions) when they come to your table.  Once you've selected something, the cart lady will place it on your table and stamp the dim sum card left on your table by the host who seated you.  Depending on what you chose, it'll be classified as a small, medium or large dim sum dish and billed accordingly once you've finished eating.

Fried Fish

Most dim sum dishes (with some exceptions like the fish above and other dishes classified as "large") typically come in servings of 3 or 4 pieces.  If the pieces are large, the cart lady will cut them after she lays the plate on your table. Sauces that are meant to go with your dim sum selection are also placed by her before she stamps your card and rolls over for the next table. You can also order from the menu if you want something instead of or in addition to dim sum.

Deep Fried Shrimp Balls - one of my favorites

Now, I don't speak Chinese but I do speak dim sum, if you will.  There are certain things we (or I) always have to get and I've learned either what they're called so I can ask for them specifically if I don't see them roll by on the dim sum cart or I can gesture with the best of them when I do see them on the cart.

Something steamed with shrimp and veggies inside

Regular family favorites:
- Cha Siu Bao (pork buns, I prefer the baked kind over the steamed)
- Siu Mai (steamed pork dumplings)
- Deep fried shrimp balls (no idea what their Chinese name is but I know what they look like)
-Har Gow (steamed shrimp dumplings) - we didn't get these this time around because by the time they had them, we were already stuffed.
- Pork cocktail buns - these are rectangular, flaky pastries filled with barbecue pork and sprinkled with sesame seeds on top.  I have no idea what they're called but again, I know what to look for on the rolling carts. Not to be confused with pork buns.

For this particular visit, we also got the shrimp wrapped in long, flat rice noodles with a light soy sauce (or something like soy sauce).

Siu Mai

My dad picked up the tab so I couldn't tell you what the plates cost :) but I thought Asian Pearl served a pretty good dim sum.  The only dish we tried that none of us liked was the fried fish.  It tasted just a little too "fishy" to be good and one of the breaded fried fish "sticks" turned out not to be fish but seemingly part of a very large fish bone - almost like the thickest part of the spinal cord on a big dish. The Siu Mai, however, was particularly good as were the baked pork buns.  I didn't care for the very sticky glaze on the pork buns but the buns themselves were good.

 BBQ Pork flaky turnover thingies

The main drawbacks of Asian Pearl were how crowded it was (but that's typical of most good dim sum places on a weekend morning) and that there were very few dim sum carts rolling around, especially considering the size of the room and the crowded restaurant. I think I only saw 3-4 different carts and they moved slowly because they had a lot of tables to service.  To alleviate that issue, there were dim sum servers walking around with a tray of one particular dim sum, offering them at tables throughout the room.  The advantage is there were more of them walking around and you didn't have to wait for a rare cart to come by.  The disadvantage is they only carried one type of dim sum and if that wasn't what you wanted, you still had to wait for the next offering to come by.  Still, Asian Pearl is a good dim sum option to go to and I'm glad there's one in the neighborhood.

Chocolate Pecan Caramel Shortbread

Chocolate Pecan Caramel Shortbread - made September 2, 2013 from Godiva.com

I found this recipe on godiva.com years and years ago.  It's no longer on their site as they refresh and rotate recipes around hence why I don't have a link to the specific recipe in the blog title and instead am just linking to the Godiva site above.  I'm glad I snagged this when I did. 

I suppose you could call this a Turtle Shortbread since it has all the key turtle elements: nuts, caramel and chocolate.  Actually, I've been on a turtle kick lately (the confection, not the sea creature) as you'll see with this shortbread and (upcoming) Turtle Cookies and Turtle Cake.  Coincidence, I assure you. Or simply my love of caramel and chocolate together.

Now I did change the recipe to make it more turtle confection-like because the original recipe called for baking this as a round shortbread, filling it with the pecan filling, baking it, then covering with ganache, and piping white chocolate decoratively on top.  I even remember the original picture of this from long ago where it looked very pretty and professional.  Yeah, I didn't choose to go that route.  Instead, I put the shortbread dough into a rectangular tart part instead of a round one for easier portioning out to give away and par-baked the shortbread layer so it would brown and bake first.  The reason for that is I was afraid that if I filled the unbaked shell with the caramelized pecan filling, the time the shell would need to bake would be longer than I wanted to bake the filling.  I wanted a soft caramel filling, not a hardened caramelized one.

That turned out to be a good call as I got some nice browning on the shortbread by par-baking and only needed another 15 minutes to bake it with the filling before the pecans achieved the toastiness I wanted.

I left the original recipe below for anyone who does want to make this as a round confection and go the pretty route with the white chocolate piping on top.  Me, I'm of the belief you can't go wrong with caramel paired with chocolate so after I spread the ganache over the cooled pecan shortbread tart, I also dolloped salted caramel (from Trader Joe's but you can also make your own if you're inclined) on top then sprinkled with mini chocolate chips.

The beauty about baking is you can't really go wrong with what you choose to mix and match.  Yes, you should follow the recipe to make the crust, the filling and the ganache so each element will turn out properly but you can choose to do what I did and add a caramel layer or leave it out and go with white chocolate.  Either way, I'm going to guess it'll be pretty good.

I brought these into work and they went fairly quickly.  Because I couldn't stack the pieces (the ganache was too soft), I brought them in on two paper plates.  Both plates emptied before the morning was over. And I had coworkers mentioning them to me the day of and days later as being good so that's a good sign.

Shortbread crust

1 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon double-acting baking powder

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

Pecan filling

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

½ cup light brown sugar

1 cup pecan halves

2 tablespoons heavy cream

Chocolate topping

½ cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Garnish

1 ounce white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1.     Make the shortbread crust: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350˚F. 

2.    Into a medium bowl, sift together the flour, salt and baking powder

3.    In a medium bowl, using a hand-held electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla and mix at low speed until combined.  While continuing to mix at low speed, add the flour mixture in three batches, mixing just until the dough starts to come together.

4.    Scrape the dough into a 9 ½” fluted tart pan with a removable bottom.  Using your fingertips, press the dough evenly into the bottom and up the sides of the pan.  Set the crust aside.  Alternatively, you can choose to parbake for 15-20 minutes or until crust is very lightly golden brown before you add the filling.

5.    Make the pecan filling: In a small saucepan, place the butter, honey, sugar and brown sugar.  Cook over medium-high heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil.  Continue to boil the mixture for 3 minutes.  Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the pecan halves.  Stir in the cream.  Pour the pecan mixture into the prepared crust and bake for 30 minutes (15-20 minutes if you've parbaked the crust first).  Cool the tart on a wire rack for hour.

6.    Make the chocolate topping: In a small saucepan, combine the cream and sugar.  Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil.  Remove the pan from heat and stir in the chocolate chips.  Whisk the mixture until smooth.  Set aside 1/3 cup of the topping in the refrigerator for garnish.

7.    Garnish the shortbread: Pour the warm chocolate topping over the top of the tart and spread it evenly with a small metal cake spatula. 

8.    Place the tart uncovered in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to set the chocolate.  Melt the white chocolate.

9.    Fill a small parchment cone with the melted chocolate.  Pipe the chocolate in fine lines across the top of the tart in a crisscross pattern.

10.  Fill a pastry bag fitted with a medium star tip (such as Ateco #5) with the reserved chocolate topping.  Pipe 8 rosettes around the edge of the tart.  Top each rosette with a pecan half.

Restaurant Review: Dish Dash

Dish Dash - lunch on August 20, 2013

Every couple of months or so, I take my team out for lunch.  It's a chance for us to look up from the never-ending stream of spreadsheets and emails and talk to each other about topics other than work.  To get out of the office, relax and do that team bonding thing.  Oh and to eat good food and have dessert.

Inside Dish Dash Grill

We rotate the duty of scheduling the lunch and booking the restaurant but I think I've been slacking lately in having these so I took it on this time and asked for suggestions.  Someone suggested Dish Dash and meant their original location in Sunnyvale but I discovered they opened a new location that was closer to the office so that's where we went.

Hummus

I've never been to either location before and whenever someone hears I've never been to Dish Dash, invariably I get a "what, were you raised by wolves, you've never been to Dish Dash"? sort of reaction.  Every single person not only thought it was good but was baffled by someone who's never been there.  Honestly, it got to the point that I couldn't help my own eye roll and think "seriously, how good can this place be?" I usually find when something's hyped that much, that it rarely lives up to the propaganda. 2029 reviews on yelp adding up to a 4.5-star rating?  Really?

Okay, this is the part where I confess there was something in those 2029 reviews that averaged out to 4.5 stars. Yes, it was good.  We started off with hummus as an appetizer.  I didn't partake since I don't like hummus; they're made from chickpeas - cough, garbanzo beans, cough - so I passed.  But I did indulge in the flatbread that came with it for dipping into the hummus and I thought that was good.  Oddly enough, French fries were a menu option so I ordered that too.  Not that I had to have fries but it was so unexpected that I couldn't help but wonder what they'd be like.  I don't know much about Middle Eastern food but I assume French fries were not a regular part of their culinary offerings. The fries were good (hard to go wrong with anything deep-fried) but still a head scratcher for me as being on the menu.

French Fries

The kebabs, however, not only properly belonged on the menu but they were sublime.  I ordered the beef kebabs and they were chunky and tender.  Served on a bed of saffron jasmine rice, they were perfectly seasoned (but not spicy) and delicious.  I can understand the Dish Dash love on yelp.  Service was a tad bit slow but we were there at the height of the lunch rush so perhaps that was to be unexpected. I probably felt the timing crunch more acutely than normal because I was on call for a 1 pm meeting and we didn't get there until after 12.

Beef Kebabs

They also have vegetarian offerings and even if someone is leery of trying Middle Eastern food, there are enough "Americanized" offerings that it's a good choice even for people with cautious palates.  You might want to get there before noon though or go on a day when you have time for a more leisurely lunch.  Such was my rush that I didn't get to order dessert (insert lament here) so I have no commentary on that.  I will probably have to go back to Dish Dash and try a few different entrees before I join the incredulous "what, I can't believe you've never been to Dish Dash" crowd but based on the beef kebabs, that kind of research will be no hardship.  And next time, I'm getting dessert.

Caramelized Sweet Potatoes

Caramelized Sweet Potatoes - made August 27, 2013 from MarthaStewart.com

The food blogging world is much like the retail one in that it advances the season - you know, it's not even Halloween yet and the Christmas stuff is already up.  You can't find a winter coat in February but all the swimwear is on display. In food blogging, the goal is to get the seasonal stuff up before the season so people have time to find it, try it out, talk about it, blog their own version, etc. I mean, who makes heart-shaped baked goods in March or Easter baskets in June? I started noticing pumpkin baked goods on pinterest around the 4th of July that nearly freaked me out because I was still doing flag brownies.  I'm still writing up foodie places I've eaten at from August and I'm probably a good two weeks behind in posts about baked goods I've made.  So I'm typically perpetually behind.

But not this time - I'm ahead of the game with a Thanksgiving recipe, woot!  Okay, okay, it didn't start out being for fall or any holiday at all.  I was simply hankering for sweet potatoes last month and trying to talk myself out of buying some sweet potato fries which would in turn lead to a burger because you have to have something to go with the fries. To prevent myself from wandering down that path, I decided to buy sweet potatoes and make something with them. The funny thing is, I never used to like sweet potatoes at all.  I think the first time I had them was in mashed form and someone must've added a lot of sugar to them because all I could taste was over-sugared mush. No thanks.

My palate has evolved a little since then.  I still don't like mashed sweet potatoes but I do like them baked and, of course, fried.  For this experiment, I thought I'd try caramelizing them.  Yes, that would be adding sugar to sweet but I was really going for crunch as in, the sweet potatoes being caramelized in brown sugar would form a bit of a crunchy crust.  I've had them that way before (ironically it was on a tour of China and they were THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD) and they were stupendous.  I sniffed around on the web and came across this recipe from MarthaStewart.com. 

Martha usually knows her stuff and she wasn't wrong this time either.  I loved this recipe.  You can't taste the orange juice and I forgot to zest the orange to sprinkle on top of the caramelized sweet potatoes but they were good nonetheless.  They didn't really get crunchy but that could also be because I was afraid of cooking them too long and setting off my smoke alarm from burnt sugar (why yes, I do know what that's like).  But I did get some nice browning and caramelization before I took them off the burner.  The texture was just right, not overcooked or mushy and not undercooked or tough and I didn't think it was too sweet but just right.  I usually don't make any part of the Thanksgiving meal except for dessert but this year I think I'm going to shoehorn this in as a side dish. I'll take these over mashed potatoes any day.

2 tablespoons butter
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges
3 ounces freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
salt and freshly ground pepper
Zest of 1 orange

1. In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add potato wedges to the pan, and stir until coated with butter. Add 1 cup water and the orange juice; cover, and cook until potatoes are fork-tender, about 5 minutes.
2. Remove cover, reduce heat to medium, and continue cooking, tossing occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated, 3 to 4 minutes more.
3. Combine sugars, and sprinkle over potatoes; toss until coated. Continue cooking until the sugar starts to caramelize and potatoes have a brown glaze, 5 to 6 minutes, tossing occasionally to prevent potatoes from burning. When caramelized sugar bubbles and browns around the edges, remove potatoes from pan. Season with salt and pepper, garnish with orange zest, and serve immediately.

Restaurant Review: Amarin Thai

Amarin Thai - lunch on August 22, 2013

Amarin Thai has three locations in the South Bay and the peninsula and, fortunately for me, one of those is within walking distance of my office.  I went here for lunch with a coworker when we both had time between meetings for the 10-minute walk. I prefer to walk here as they're in a small strip mall and parking is dicey during the busy lunch rush as they have to share the spots with other small eateries.  Walking is better.

This particular location is pretty humble as it's essentially a small room crowded with as many tables as they can fit in there.  I don't advise coming here with more than 4 people in your party as their largest tables only appear to fit four.  You can put tables together, of course, but seriously, this place is small.  The interior shot above was taken from the doorway and there are only 3-4 small tables to the left  that aren't in the picture.  Otherwise, there are also a few 2- or 4-top tables outside which can be utilized in good weather.

Like all places that cater to the business crowd at lunch, Amarin Thai has a lunch special menu along with their regular menu and they serve your order within a few minutes.  The longest I might have ever waited for an order was 7-8 minutes.  Each order comes with a cup of soup: a clear, spicy broth with chopped vegetables.  I almost always get the pad thai (of course), no bean sprouts with chicken and shrimp.  I'm a big fan of pad thai and Amarin Thai serves a good one.  Not quite as good as the one from my favorite Thai place (Krung Thai) but still decent.  It isn't fancy but if you want a quick lunch for $10, it's a good place to go.

Cashew Butter Cookies

Cashew Butter Cookies - made August 24, 2013 from Land O Lakes Cookies

I have certain prejudices when it comes to cookies.  The biggest one I've mentioned before is I don't like nuts in my cookies, especially in the thick, fat, chubby, chewy cookies I typically prefer.  Nuts are meant to be crisp and I don't like them in cookies because they steam and soften during baking.  Notable exceptions are macadamias as in white chocolate macadamia cookies or coconut macadamia cookies or other types of nuts (except walnuts) where they're part of a crisp cookie like almonds in the Lemon Chip Cookies or the Pecan Butter Shortbread or something like Mexican Wedding Cakes where the pecans are the star of the cookie.  I also don't mind nuts on top of cookies or brownies as long as they stay crisp and provide a texture contrast.

But every once in awhile, I try out a recipe that will challenge my prejudice, just in case it turns out so fantastically well that I'll be glad I kept an open mind. Hmm, this recipe didn't quite do that but for an unexpected reason.  It turns out I didn't mind the cashews in the cookies as I have a soft spot for cashews in my cookie-eating heart.  But I didn't like the honey.  I don't care for honey in sweets because I don't like the flavor of honey that much and most of the time, it's a little too sweet for me. I do like it in savory dishes, like when it's paired and offset with something salty like soy sauce.  But I've never been into baked goods like baklava because the honey makes it too sweet. These cookies weren't necessarily overly sweet but the honey flavor was definitely present so I didn't like these cookies as much as I had hoped.

However, I always maintain everyone's tastes are different so while I may not like something, it doesn't mean others won't like it.  I brought a plate of these to work and left them in our communal kitchen one morning.  A few hours later, I walked by and found this:

So someone must've liked them :).

¾ cup butter, softened

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

½ cup honey

1 egg

2 cups all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup chopped salted cashews

1.     Heat oven to 375˚F.  In large mixer bowl combine butter, sugar, honey and egg.  Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes).  Reduce speed to low.  Add all remaining ingredients except chopped cashews and cashew halves.  Continue beating, scraping bowl often, until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes).

2.     By hand, stir in chopped cashews.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets; top each cookie with cashew half.  Bake for 6 to 9 minutes or until golden brown.