Rocky Road Mud Bars

Rocky Road Mud Bars - made September 21, 2013, modified from Chocolate Chocolate by Lisa Yockelson

I mentioned going on a business trip (or 2) earlier.  For my first trip, I flew to our company headquarters to meet with my counterparts at HQ and make the rounds of in-person meetings I needed to have.  Whenever I go to headquarters, I've now made it a practice to bring goodie bags with me to distribute to my coworkers there.  After all, I bake for my local office pretty much every week but only go out to headquarters once a quarter or so.  Fair's fair.  However, I didn't have a lot of time before I went so I only made a couple of different brownies and a sheet cake.  That may sound like a lot but I also have a lot of coworkers so I had to split the bounty across a broad base.

I hadn't made anything from Lisa Yockelson in awhile and, thanks to striking upon using Midnight Milky Ways for anything that calls for marshmallows, like a kid with a new toy, I went searching for something I previously had skipped because of the marshmallow factor.  Rocky Road Mud Bars was an obvious choice. The picture in the book itself is a little deceiving because it looks like she layered the marshmallows on top to feature prominently but the directions have you mixing it into the batter. I decided to do both and re-wrote the directions accordingly.

Anything that has an Oreo cookie crumb crust is a great way to use up Oreos from a package that's been opened for awhile.  You know, where the Oreos haven't gone stale yet and still have some crunch but not the snap they had when the package is first opened.  When you pulverize them into crumbs, add melted butter and spread them in an even layer in the pan, none of that matters.

The main thing you have to be careful about with the crust is not to dislodge it when you're spreading the brownie batter.  I recommend dropping the batter in even dollops all over the pan so you only have to do minimally spreading to cover the bottom layer completely. As usual with brownies, the key is not to overbake it.  Shortly before they're done (moist crumbs on the toothpick when inserted near the center) is when you want to sprinkle the chopped up Midnight Milky Ways on top so they'll partially melt on top of the hot brownie.  If you've inadvertently baked the brownies longer or to "doneness", just turn the oven off and sprinkle the candy on top to give it even a little melting time without baking the brownie for much longer. I thought these were decent but I could probably have used more Midnight Milky Ways on top and/or also added Milky Way Caramels to really push them into the decadent zone.

Chocolate Cookie Layer

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid

1 ½ cups plus 3 tablespoons chocolate sandwich cookie crumbs (I used Oreos)

Mud Brownie Batter

1 ¼ cups bleached cake flour

¼ cup unsweetened alkalized cocoa powder

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

¾ cup semisweet chocolate chips

½ pound (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to tepid

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled to tepid

5 large eggs

2 cups superfine sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts (I left out)

1/3 cup Midnight Milky Ways, cut into large dice plus another ½ cup for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 325⁰F. Line a 10-inch square baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Mix the cookie layer: Pour the melted butter into the prepared pan.  Sprinkle the chocolate cookie crumbs evenly over the melted butter.  Press down on the crumbs with the underside of an offset metal spatula so that the crumbs absorb the butter.  Bake the cookie layer in the preheated oven for 4 minutes.  Place the baking pan on a cooling rack and let stand for 10 minutes.
3. Mix the batter: Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt onto a sheet of waxed paper.  In a small bowl, toss the chocolate chips with ½ teaspoon of the sifted mixture.
4. Whisk the melted butter and melted chocolate in a medium-size mixing bowl until smooth.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs for 1 minute to blend, add the sugar and whisk for 45 seconds to 1 minute, or until just incorporated.  Blend in the melted butter-chocolate mixture, mixing thoroughly.  Blend in the vanilla extract.  Sift the flour mixture over and slowly stir it in, mixing until the particles of flour are absorbed, using a whisk, wooden spoon or flat wooden paddle.  Blend in the chocolate chips, walnuts (if using) and 1/3 cup Midnight Milky Ways.
5. Spoon the batter in large dollops on the cookie crumb layer.  Carefully spread the batter over the cookie layer, using a flexible palette knife or spatula.
6. Bake the brownies in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until set.  5 minutes before the brownies are done, sprinkle with the ½ cup of Midnight Milky Ways and return to oven to soften. Remove when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.  Cool the brownies completely in the pan on a rack. Cut when cool.

Knockoff Swig Sugar Cookies

Knockoff Swig Sugar Cookies - made September 15, 2013 from Vintage Revivals

Normally I would post the actual recipe on my blog, with any modifications I've made and link to the original blog the recipe is from in the recipe title and to the original blog it's from following the date above.  But on Vintage Revivals' site, there's a specific request not to repost her recipe and just to link back to her blog so I am honoring that request.  As with all my blog posts from another site, you can click to the original recipe by clicking on the recipe title above. I just won't be re-posting the recipe on my blog.  Which makes it a little tricky as I did modify her recipe a bit but you'll have to click back and forth between sites to get both the original recipe and my modifications (sorry).

My ingredient modifications

• I added an extra 1/4 cup flour because the dough was too soft, even with 5 1/2 cups flour
• I added 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste because I thought it was unusual for sugar cookies not to have vanilla flavoring (plus I just love vanilla).

My recipe direction modifications
The directions are pretty sparse on the original blog so I'm fleshing them out a little for any novice bakers:

• Cream the butter first until no lumps remain then add the sugars before adding the vegetable oil.  If you just add the first 5 ingredients all at once, I'm afraid of the butter clumping, especially if your butter is cool to start with and also when mixing with oil since it's hard to get those two ingredients to emulsify.  Best to have a butter-sugar mixture first then add in the oil, water and eggs.
• Add the dry ingredients 1 cup of flour at a time then the last half cup.  If your dough is too soft (as mine was), add up to 1/4 cup more flour.  You don't want the dough to be too soft.  It should hold its shape when you form it into golf-ball-sized balls.
• Once you have the dough rolled into balls and press them with the bottom of a glass, freeze the flattened cookies 2-3 hours or overnight before baking. 

I liked these cookies - they were soft and not too sweet.  Plus I like how thick they stayed.  Early in my baking days, I always got easily frustrated when sugar cookies would spread too thin.  Not a problem with these cookies.

Ironically, though, I didn't really care for the frosting.  The sour cream gives it a tang and if the cookies had been sweeter, it would've been great to offset the sweetness.  But because the cookies weren't that sweet, the frosting didn't provide much of a taste contrast.  I think I'd try frosting these with a more traditional vanilla frosting (butter, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla) without the sour cream to make them a little sweeter.

Restaurant Review: Blue Moon Fish, Ft Lauderdale, FL

Blue Moon Fish Co, Ft Lauderdale, FL - lunch on September 24, 2013

For the last two weeks, I've criss-crossed the country coast to coast twice on 2 separate business trips. It was exhausting but now I'm back home for awhile.  Fortunately, there's good food to be had in many parts of the country and even more fortunately, I have coworkers who know where to take me when I'm in town. I've been to this particular restaurant, Blue Moon Fish, several times on previous visits when my boss would take our team out for a team dinner when I was in town.  But this was the first time I'd gone there for lunch.

One of my favorite coworkers from our company HQ took me there, partly because they serve good food, partly because it was near the office, and partly because for lunch, everything's 2 for 1.  Yep, buy 1 entree, get a 2nd of equal or lesser value for free. Same with drinks, appetizers, and (of course) dessert.  Which makes it an excellent deal because Blue Moon Fish isn't cheap but the food is worth it.  We got there before it was too crowded and were able to get a table in the covered, air-conditioned patio.  Air conditioning is a must in humid, warm South Florida, especially to a spoiled weather princess like me.  Patio seating was terrific because we had a great view of the water from our table.

10-ounce Short Rib Burger with fries

When I'd eaten at Blue Moon Fish before, I'd always gotten a seafood entree, typically scallops and/or shrimp or some kind of fish.  I mean, it's a seafood restaurant, it's in South Florida, it's right by the water, there's "fish" in its name and past experience has proven they have very good seafood.  But this time around, I got a burger and fries :).  That's what my coworker ordered and it sounded good to me.  Plus, with the 2 for 1 thing, it was just easier to get the same thing. And I can pretend it was for reasons other than I just wanted French fries.  In any case, it turned out to be a good choice because the burger was delicious and the fries lived up to expectations: crisp on the outside, mealy on the inside. 

Icky Sticky Caramel Bread Pudding

But let's be honest, even more than the fries, I really cared about dessert.  And remember, 2 for 1 means we had to get 2 desserts.  Fortunately, it wasn't hard to choose which ones we wanted: the Icky Sticky Caramel Bread Pudding and the molten chocolate cake.  On Blue Moon Fish Co's website menu, it lists the first as Icky Sticky Caramel Tarte but I don't know if they changed it because I distinctly thought it was a bread pudding rather than a tarte.  Because all things delicious stick in my memory.

Liquid Center Double Chocolate Torte

I'm normally all about the chocolate desserts and the chocolate torte was good too but if I had to choose 1 (when there's no 2 for 1 deal, ha), I'd go with the Icky Sticky Caramel - it was that good. Still, you can't go wrong with either and I'm sure the rest of the dessert menu is also mouthwatering.  I've been to Blue Moon Fish at least 3-4 times and I haven't had anything that wasn't scrumptious and worth every calorie.

According to its website, the restaurant has been open for over 16 years and is owned/operated by 2 chefs, one a graduate of the California Culinary Academy and the other the Culinary Institute of America, my alma mater, except he graduated from the main campus in Hyde Park, NY while I only did the certification program in Baking & Pastry Arts in St Helena, CA.  These guys know how to make great food.  If you're ever in Ft Lauderdale, I highly recommend Blue Moon Fish Co.

Soft Pudding Monster Cookies

Soft Pudding Monster Cookies - made dough September 16, 2013 from For the Love of Dessert

I always love how great Monster Cookies look.  By their very nature and name, they need to be large, chubby cookies filled with various goodness like peanut butter, oats, chocolate chips, M&Ms, even nuts if you're so inclined (I'm not).  They're not quite everything-but-the-kitchen-sink type of cookies but they generally have the above combination in order to qualify them as monster cookies.

Although I love how they look, especially these (look at the chubby!), monster cookies are not my favorite cookie in general.  Many people like them but to me, they have commitment issues. There aren't enough oats in them to make them oatmeal cookies or enough peanut butter to make them peanut butter cookies.  The addition of those ingredients disqualifies them from being straight-up chocolate chip cookies or M&M cookies.  They're a little bit of everything. I like them well enough but I make them more as crowd pleasers, or, in this case, bake sale contenders, rather than because I want to eat one.  I made a mini version of these for my taste test cookie and it was good: the edges were crisp and the middle was chewy.  The crunch and chocolate from the M&Ms is probably my favorite part.  If you like monster cookies, this is a good version to make.  Don't forget to make them monster size!  I made the dough balls just a little bigger than the size of golf balls and baked from frozen dough so they didn't spread much and stayed satisfyingly chubby.

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 box (3.4 oz) vanilla pudding 

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 stick of butter, softened 

1/2 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1 cup mini M&Ms

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (if baking right away).
2. In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, and vanilla pudding; set aside. 
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with paddle attachment, on medium speed cream together butter, peanut butter, and sugars until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Then add egg and vanilla. Scrape down sides. 
4. Reduce to low speed and add flour mixture. Combine until just incorporated. 
5. Add oats, M&Ms, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips. The batter should be thick enough to work with and roll. 
6. Line cookie sheets with parchment or a baking mat and scoop golf-sized balls of dough. Roll into ball shape between palms and space cookies 2 inches apart. (You can freeze them at this point.) Bake for 10-12 minutes or longer depending on the size. Bake just until the middle no longer looks raw and the edges are golden. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Frosted Fudge Brownies

Frosted Fudge Brownies - made September 20, 2013 from Godiva.com

When a brownie turns out the way I want, I love taking pictures of it - can you tell? I have a slight obsession fixation with trying to get people to bake brownies properly so I want to show what I think a "properly baked" brownie looks like.  I don't know why but nothing makes me cringe more than a dry brownie.  Except maybe a dry brownie made from a box mix but don't even get me started on that or this post will never end.  My tendency to underbake things doesn't work with cakes or cupcakes but it serves me well when it comes to brownies and cookies.

The most common comment I get from people after they've tried one of my brownies is "how do you get it so moist???" like they've never had a moist brownie before.  I can usually gauge by the level of surprise in their voice how much of an overbaker they are. Overbakers think the toothpick test means the toothpick has to emerge "clean".  I always advocate to bake the brownie only until the toothpick poked in the middle comes out with moist crumbs, not raw batter, and in most cases, not clean.  Clean is okay if the corners are that way but the middle yields moist crumbs on the toothpick.  If you bake it until the toothpick comes out clean in the corner, edges and middle, chances are you've overbaked the brownie.

Why?  Because chocolate sets when it cools.  Those moist crumbs you see on the toothpick from the middle might look too raw to you while the brownie is hot in the oven and, if you take it out and try a piece then, it might be too mushy and gooey.  Actually, it probably will be more like thick hot fudge than a brownie.  But once that brownie cools, you get moist, fudgy brownie bliss. I've done this with every brownie recipe I've tried and the only ones that have failed are the ones I've inadvertently overbaked.  Okay, there might have been some I've underbaked too much but the great thing about underbaking is you can always pop it back into the oven and bake it a few minutes longer to rectify the mistake.  But you can't unbake an overbaked brownie.

This recipe is from Godiva so of course they list their brand of chocolate but this worked perfectly fine with Valrhona that I bought at Trader Joe's. I only had a sliver for the taste test because I was baking this for Zoe's bake sale but it seemed like a good standard fudgy brownie.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
1/2 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
5 bars (1.5 ounces each) GODIVA Dark Chocolate, chopped (I used Valrhona)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil so that foil extends 2 inches beyond two opposite sides of pan. Lightly butter bottom and sides of foil-lined pan.
2. In medium saucepan, combine butter pieces, brown sugar and chocolate. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until butter and chocolate melt and mixture is smooth. Transfer to medium bowl.
3. With wooden spoon, stir in granulated sugar. Stir in eggs, one at a time, until there is no trace of yolk. Mix in vanilla extract. Add flour and salt and mix vigorously until mixture is shiny and smooth. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top with rubber spatula
4. Bake brownies for 35-40 minutes or until cake tester inserted into center comes out slightly moist. Do not overbake. Place pan on wire rack and let cool for 45 minutes. Using two ends of foil as handles, lift brownies out of pan. Invert onto cooling rack and peel off foil. Let cool completely (brownies will be frosted on smooth side). 

Frosting
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
1.5 ounces dark chocolate
1.5 ounces milk chocolate
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
pinch of salt
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Place butter and chocolate in medium saucepan. Heat over very low heat, stirring constantly, until butter and chocolate melt and mixture is smooth. Transfer to bowl of electric mixer. On low speed, add half of confectioners' sugar, salt, then half of heavy cream. Blend in remaining confectioners' sugar and remaining heavy cream. Beat in vanilla extract. Beat frosting on medium speed for 30 seconds or until smooth and shiny. 
2. Spread frosting over uncut brownies, smoothing the top.  Garnish with nuts, toffee or M&Ms as desired.  Cut into 9 squares and serve at room temperature.

White Chocolate Macadamia Brownies

White Chocolate Macadamia Blondies - made September 20, 2013 from Life's Simple Measures

This is another bar cookie I made for Zoe's bake sale.  I already had White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies but I had more macadamias and white chocolate on hand so I forged ahead with a bar cookie version just to make sure I had enough baked goods to bring to the bake sale.

I was baking a lot of stuff the day before the bake sale and I couldn't taste test them all.  I ended up only having (literally) a sliver of this just to make sure it was okay.  I think it was.  This was a brown sugar blondie with white chocolate and macadamias.  This is very easy to overbake so watch it carefully.  I don't think I overbaked it but it might've been better if I had underbaked it a little more.  The middle was okay but the corners and edges would have benefited from a few minutes less in the oven.

1 cup butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 cups plus 1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups white chocolate chips

1 cup macadamia nuts, toasted and rough chopped

1. Heat oven to 350°F.  Line a 13x9-inch pan with foil and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray. Dust with flour and shake out the excess.  Set aside.
2. Place butter and brown sugar in bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment and cream together on medium speed until smooth batter is formed (about 3 minutes).  While the mixer is running, add eggs and vanilla extract, until incorporated into batter.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together 3 cups of flour and baking powder.  Slowly add flour mixture to the batter and mix on low speed until a dough is formed.  Very gently, fold in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts into dough.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and evenly spread.  Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until set yet still moist.

Restaurant Review: Tomatina's

Tomatina - lunch on September 19, 2013

Tomatina is a conveniently-located-to-me casual Italian restaurant that's a good place to go for lunch with friends and/or colleagues.  They have 5 locations in the Bay Area and fortunately one very close to my office so it was a good place for a coworker and I to go for lunch during the week.  It pays to get there as close to noon as possible before the restaurant gets too busy when there might be a wait for a table.  It's not usually a very long wait but people from surrounding office buildings know they can get a good lunch for a reasonable price in a fairly short amount of time so it's popular with the business crowd on weekdays.

The interior is very casual with bench-style seating at both normal height and counter height tables.  There are also booths, 4-tops and 2-tops. Wood-fired ovens can be seen over the kitchen counter where Tomatina bakes its pizzas and piadines.  This is a good place to go for just 2 people or a crowd, especially if you have vegetarians in the group as there are plenty of meatless options on tap and you can easily fit a group of people at one of the long tables.  Between the pizzas, salads, piadines, pastas, and main entrees on their menu, there's an abundance of choices for varied tastes. Price points are at the medium range between $10-$20 per entree.  The entrees aren't feeding-trough-size but still a decent amount that you can eat well and still have leftovers to take home....as long as you subscribe to the fact that restaurant portions aren't single servings :).

Bread served warm with marinara dipping sauce

Warm bread served with marinara dipping sauce is complementary and a good filler before your entree arrives. I normally order the spaghetti and meatballs but on this particular lunch, I went with lasagna since that's something I rarely make for myself.  I thought it was pretty good; the tomato sauce wasn't too sweet or too bitter and really, it's hard to fault anything served hot and blanketed in melted cheese.

Lasagna

Tomatina is known for their piadines: warm flatbread topped with cool salad and folded over into a pizza-like "sandwich".  I've never had one since I'm not a big salad-y person but on a prior visit with one of my nieces, we ordered the Pesto Chicken Pizza which was really good.  The crust isn't thick like a deep dish pizza but it's thicker than flatbread and more like an artisan-style pizza.  My niece and I were impressed with the artsy presentation of the pesto pizza as much as the taste.

Pesto Pizza Chicken

Also on that prior visit, I had the Shrimp Capellini.  Whenever I have noodle dishes, I generally prefer the thinner one so I don't get full as quickly (or so I tell myself).  With the shrimp and the underlying marinara sauce, I could even almost convince myself this was healthy, lol.  But this is a good choice if you don't like pasta with heavy sauces.

Shrimp Capellini

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies - made dough September 16, 2013, modified from allrecipes.com

If you click on the recipe title and go to the original recipe for these cookies, the first thing you'll notice is mine don't look quite like that. I'm not sure I used enough white chocolate or maybe even enough macadamia nuts.

This was still a good version of white chocolate macadamia cookies although they spread a bit more than I would've liked and you definitely want to underbake them to get the chewy texture.  This is a brown sugar cookie base so if you bake them until "done" they'll be dry the next day.

I confess I don't have much to say about them because they don't really stand out in my memory. Although that might be understandable since this was another cookie for Zoe's bake sale and it was one out of many I had made and barely tasted.  At some point in my cookie-baking frenzy that afternoon, I was doing the barest taste tests, just enough to make sure I hadn't used salt instead of sugar by the cupfuls or was risking poisoning anybody.  I didn't have the luxury of savoring a test cookie just for the taste.  I was in production mode.

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces good quality white chocolate, chopped
6.5 ounces macadamia nuts, lightly toasted, rough chop

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in the egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, stir in the white chocolate and nuts. Drop cookies by heaping teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks. When cool, store in an airtight container.

Quadruple Chocolate Fudgy Brownie Cookies

Quadruple Chocolate Fudgy Brownie Cookies - made dough September 14, 2013, recipe adapted from Averie Cooks

The original recipe name of these cookies was Quintuple Chocolate Fudgy Brownie Cookies because Averie uses 5 kinds of chocolate: bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder in the dough itself and chocolate chips, truffles and chocolate-filled Oreos for the add-ins.  I didn't have truffles or chocolate-filled Oreos so I just went with milk chocolate chunks and semisweet chocolate chips as my add-ins, hence the quad designation instead.

When I first made the dough, I was a little concerned because it was more like a thick brownie batter than cookie dough and that soft of a dough usually means the cookies will spread, even if baked from frozen dough. I did chill the dough for about 10-15 minutes before portioning it out just for easier handling.  You don't want to chill it for too long, however, or it'll be tough to scoop out as the dough will harden to something more clay-like.  Alternatively, you can just let it sit at room temperature for a bit and the chocolate in the batter will set to make it more like a cookie dough.

My fears were groundless about these spreading too much. They spread a little but still stayed thick enough to be chewy bites of chocolate goodness. You never want to overbake chocolate cookies (or any cookies) because not only will they be dry and crumbly but you lose the chocolate flavor and it's almost fudge-like texture.  These are pretty rich so I recommend either making them a little small or, if normal-sized, getting your glass of milk ready and working out for an hour first.

Oh and since we're in Halloween candy season, this is a good cookie to incorporate with extra candy, depending on your tastes.  I wouldn't go with candies that melt like caramels (Rolos, Milky Way Caramels, Milky Ways, 3 Musketeers) or anything with nuts (Snickers, Paydays) unless you like nuts in a fudgy cookie but those mini Hershey bars can easily be chopped up into chunks.  Or peanut butter cups might work if you want less of a pure chocolate cookie and more of a chocolate and peanut butter combination.  This is the time of year I tend to go down the Halloween candy aisle looking for what can be incorporated into baked goods as well as serve as what I give out on Halloween.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup bread flour

1/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder (as always, I use Pernigotti cocoa)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt, optional and to taste

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used Lindt 70% and 85% bittersweet chocolate)

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup milk chocolate chunks

1. In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, and optional salt; set aside.
2. In a medium microwave-safe bowl, melt the baking chocolate on high power for about 1 minute, stir, and continue to melt in 30 second increments until fully melted and can be stirred smooth; set aside.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs and vanilla; set aside. 
4. To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the sugars and beat to incorporate and mixture is uniform, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the egg-vanilla mixture and beat until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add the melted baking chocolate and beat until combined, about 1 minute. Add the sifted dry ingredients and beat to just incorporate them, about 1 minute. Do not overmix.
5. Add the semi-sweet chocolate chips, chopped truffles (or chopped candy bar pieces; chopped to the size of a chocolate chip or just slightly larger) and the chopped Oreo cookies and beat for 10 seconds to just incorporate or fold in by hand. Chill dough for at least 15-20 minutes or until firm enough to make into golf-sized balls and hold their shape. Unbaked cookie dough can be formed into balls and stored in an airtight container or ziploc in the freezer for up to 3 months and baked straight from freezer to oven, extending baking time by a minute or two if necessary
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 F and line two baking trays with parchment paper; set aside. Place dough balls on a baking sheet, spaced about 2 inches apart. Bake for approximately 10 minutes.  Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to finish cooling.

Restaurant Review: Xanh

Xanh Restaurant - dinner on September 18, 2013

Crispy Potstickers

Remember when I mentioned my friend Rick whose favorite cookie is Oatmeal Chocolate Chip and that I made him a batch the last time he was in town and a group of us got together for dinner?  Rick arranged the dinner and we ate at Xanh.  Xanh labels itself a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant, going for the hip look with a lounge-y atmosphere. Or at least as hip as you can be if you're not in a trendy neighborhood in San Francisco but are in Castro Street in the suburbs of Mountain View. But I don't care how they brand themselves because their food is amazing and that trumps all.

Inside the crispy potsticker

I'm not even going to go into each dish or else this post would go on forever but I offer the pictures for your visual enjoyment.  Xanh is the rare restaurant that holds the distinction of being a place where I like their savory dishes more than their desserts.  It's not that their desserts are bad - far from it.  But their entrees and appetizers are amazing and my taste buds tell my sweet tooth to pipe down because they're busy enjoying the wonderful entrees that come out. And my sweet tooth subsides because it agrees.

Xanh Full Moon wraps (vegan version)

Everything comes out also visually appealing, creatively and decoratively arranged on platters and dishes in a way that makes you think the kitchen is staffed with culinary artists, not just chefs.  They know what they're doing.

Crispy Shrimp Clouds

It's best to come with a group of people (there were 7 of us this time) as the dishes are meant to be shared. Plus, honestly, you want to try as many dishes as you can because they're just that good.  As Rick says, "I've never had anything bad here." So true.

A close up of a Crispy Shrimp Cloud

My favorite dish is the prawns with garlic noodles (below) - amazing.  But they also have some of the best Shaking Beef I've ever had, tender and perfectly seasoned and flavored (pictured further below).

Garlic Prawns

Xanh can be a bit pricey if you go for dinner and order a lot.  Entrees range up to $30 or so and while they're decent-sized portions, they're not overly huge.  It's still worth it to me because of how good it is but if you're value-conscious and still want to try a range of their offerings, I recommend going to Xanh on a weekday for their lunch buffet.  For $12, it's all you can eat and they put out an excellent spread, including my favorite garlic noodles, soups, fresh Vietnamese spring rolls in three varieties, protein entrees like fish, chicken, and beef, and vegetarian dishes as well.

Peppercorn Beef

You do have to order rice separately as the entrees don't come with it but that's also available as part of the lunch buffet.

Brown Rice

Shaking Beef

Miso Salmon

Vegan dish

Banana Leaf Seabass

Probably the only thing I didn't care for at this particular dinner was the sorbet.  It was mango and passion fruit sorbet enrobed in white chocolate. I tried it to see what it was like but I'm not a fan of either mango or passion fruit and found it too sweet for my taste - and I don't say that very often.  So out of all the times I've gone to Xanh and made my way through their menu, there's ONE thing I didn't like.  Those are pretty good stats.  Everything else on the menu has been delicious.

Split Personality Sorbet

Hazelnut Mousse