Nuts in cookies - nah....

Double Chocolate Almond Cookies - September 12, 2009

Although these are officially called Double Chocolate Almond Cookies, I took some liberties with the recipe. As a general rule, I don't like nuts in my cookies. I like nuts to be crisp and toasted as a contrast to whatever they're baked in and when you bake nuts into cookies, they steam and soften. Instead, I substituted Heath Toffee bits for the almonds. I also used three kinds of chocolate chips: semisweet, milk and white chocolate. This recipe is from Tate's Bake Shop. Most of their cookie recipes come out rather thin but I prefer my cookies to be thick and not spread out so I always, always freeze cookie dough first before baking. These still spread out but not as much as they normally would have. You have to be careful when baking chocolate cookies because you can't always tell when they're done by looks alone and you can't go by "golden brown" at the edges because, well, they're chocolate! Plus, when a cookie dough has a high concentration of chocolate, you don't want to overbake it. Chocolate will "set" once it cools so don't worry about underbaking. These turned out pretty well, a bit fragile, especially when underbaked, but the taste is awesome if you're in the mood for a chocolate cookie.

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups salted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup almonds, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease two cookie sheets or line them with Silpat.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars. Add the egg and vanilla and mix them together. Add the flour mixture and mix it till it’s just combined.
4. Add the chocolates and almonds. Mix them till they are combined.
5. Using two tablespoons or a small ice cream scoop, drop the dough two inches apart on the cookie sheets.
6. Bake them for 15 minutes.
7. Cool the cookies on the cookie sheets. The cookies should be very soft when they are removed from the oven. They will firm up as they cool.

Yield: 52 cookies

Peanut Butter Crumb Cake

Peanut Butter Crumb Cake - September 12, 2009

I haven't updated this note in awhile but that doesn't mean I haven't been baking because I have. Normally I like to try out 1-2 new recipes a week, sometimes during the weekend and sometimes during the week. My work schedule has been so crazy these last few months though that I've been doing most of my baking during the weekend. I make up cookie doughs and put them in the freezer to bake during the week, I'll bake brownies and freeze them and bring them into work the following week, and I'll make cakes that'll carry over into Monday.

Today, this Peanut Butter Crumb Cake is the first thing I made this morning. This is a recipe from Fearless Baking by Elinor Klivans. Turned out pretty well and would make a nice sweet for a brunch. I'm not a huge peanut butter fan. I like it well enough but I don't obsess over it like I would with chocolate or caramel. But the texture was nice and cakey with a good crumb. Not too overwhelmingly peanut butter-y either and it's super easy to make. My friend Karen was able to pick them up today to give to her house construction crew so it freed me up to bake some other stuff.

Orange Poppyseed Cake

Orange Poppyseed Cake - February 7, 2009

I've always loved poppyseed cake, although traditionally it's been lemon poppyseed. I tried this one for something different since it's orange poppyseed cake. This recipe is from Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri. It came out pretty well albeit not that orangey. The orange syrup soaked in but didn't make the cake wet, just moist. I was afraid of it making the texture soppy but it didn't. Overall, I'd give it a thumbs up. The texture is just right for a cakey cake, not dense like a pound cake or too light like a chiffon.

Sometimes simple tastes are the best

Best Vanilla Pound Cake - February 6, 2009

This recipe really is the best vanilla pound cake I've made or tasted. It has a nice dense crumb like all good pound cakes should and it's rich with butter and vanilla. It looks so deceptively simple but the appeal is all in the flavor. If you like butter, this is your cake. I even prefer this cake over a chocolate cake.

The recipe is from The Country Baking Treasury by Lisa Yockelson. I don't know if it's even in print anymore but I found this modest little book in a bookstore in the bargain aisle. Best $5 I've ever spent as every recipe I've made from it has turned out really well. Lisa Yockelson has published other cookbooks that I also bought and she scores every time. I think there are probably only a few recipes I've made from her cookbooks that haven't turned out but dozens of others have and some have become my favorites. Considering how much baking I've done, that says a lot. I think my favorite aspect of this cake is how simple it is but I just enjoy the simple, good taste of it. Nothing fancy, no frosting or glaze, no chips or nuts, just a good simple vanilla butter cake. Sometimes simple is the best. The key to a good pound cake is creaming together the ingredients and making sure you beat in enough air when you cream the butter and sugar together. Don't skimp on this part. If you have a stand mixer, use it. Pound cakes are also one reason why I love my Kitchenaid mixer - makes it effortless.

3 cups unsifted all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

2¾ cups vanilla-scented granulated sugar

Seed scrapings from 1 vanilla bean

5 jumbo eggs, at room temperature

1½ tablespoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup milk, at room temperature

Confectioners’ sugar for dusting, optional

1. Lightly butter and flour a 10-inch tube pan or a 10-inch fluted Bundt pan. Preheat the oven to 325˚F.
2. Resift the flour with the baking powder and salt onto a large sheet of waxed paper. Cream the butter in the large bowl of an electric mixer on moderately high speed for 3 minutes. Beat in the sugar in 3 additions, beating for 1 minute after each portion has been added. Blend in the vanilla bean scrapings. Beat on high speed for 1-2 minutes.
3. With the mixer on moderate speed, beat in the eggs, one at a time, blending well after each one; scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl frequently to keep the mixture even textured. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture in 3 additions and the milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with flour. Pour and scrape batter into the prepared pan.
4. Bake the cake on the lower-third-level rack of the preheated oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes or until golden on top and a wooden pick inserted in the middles of the cake comes out clean and dry.
5. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Gently loosen the sides of the cake from the pan with a thin, flexible palette knife. Invert onto a second cooling rack, then invert again to cool right side up. Dust the top of the cake with sifted confectioners’ sugar if desired.

Buttermilk Devil's Food Cake

Basic Buttermilk Devil's Food Cake - February 6, 2009

Another simple recipe from The Cake Mix Doctor - base is a devil's food cake mix and you add buttermilk, oil, eggs and cocoa. The cocoa is to presumably strengthen the chocolate flavor. It works as this one tasted less like a mix. The texture/crumb was soft and the cake was moist but not overly so.

Solid vegetable shortening for greasing the pans
Flour or unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting the pans
1 package (18.25 ozs) plain devil’s food cake mix
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1⅓ cups buttermilk
½ cup vegetable oil, such as canola, corn, safflower, soybean or sunflower
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350˚F. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour or unsweetened cocoa powder. Shake out the excess flour then set the pans aside.
2. Place the cake mix, 3 tablespoons cocoa powder, buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. The batter should look thick and well combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it out with a rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side.
3. Bake the cake until it is golden brown and springs back when lightly pressed with your finger, 28 to 30 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edge of each layer and invert them each onto a rack, then invert them again onto another rack so that the cakes are right side up. Allow the cakes to cool completely, 30 minutes more. Frost as desired.
4. Store this cake, unfrosted, covered in aluminum foil, at room temperature, for up to 4 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Using a cake mix as a base

Basic Buttermilk Spice Cake - February 5, 2009

I like to try a lot of different recipes, mostly to justify the dozens of dessert cookbooks I've acquired over the years, some of them barely used. What determines what I bake is partly decided from the recipes available to me and partly by the ingredients I have on hand and need to use up. This week it's milk and buttermilk to be used before their expiration dates. I made a buttermilk spice cake to use up not only some buttermilk but also a spice cake mix I bought on sale awhile back. This recipe is from The Cake Mix Doctor by Ann Byrn. While I, as a baking snob, prefer to bake all things from scratch, a good recipe starting from a cake mix can, on occasion, be forgivable. The recipes I've tried from the Cake Mix Doctor have generally been good. While the taste is usually not very remarkable (it ends up inevitably tasting like the cake mix it came from), the crumb and texture is pretty good. I like my cakes to be, well, cakey. They either need to have a tender crumb with a moist texture (can't abide dry cakes) or they need to be packed full of flavor and have dense texture like a pound cake. I don't care much for chiffons or angel food cakes. It's a texture thing then a flavor thing. Anyway, this one turned out well.

Solid vegetable shortening for greasing the pans

Flour for dusting the pans

1 package (18.25 ozs) plain spice cake mix

1 cup buttermilk

⅓ cup unsweetened applesauce

⅓ cup vegetable oil, such as canola, corn, safflower, soybean or sunflower

3 large eggs

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350˚F. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans with solid vegetable shortening, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour then set the pans aside.

2. Place the cake mix, buttermilk, applesauce, oil, eggs and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. The batter should look thick and well combined. Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it out with a rubber spatula. Place the pans in the oven side by side.

3. Bake the cake until it is golden brown and springs back when lightly pressed with your finger, 26 to 28 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and place them on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edge of each layer and invert them each onto a rack, then invert them again onto another rack so that the cakes are right side up. Allow the cakes to cool completely, 30 minutes more. Frost as desired.

4. Store this cake, unfrosted, covered in aluminum foil, at room temperature, for up to 4 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Chocolate Cookies

Double Chocolate Cookies - February 4, 2009

Tonight's baking is Double Chocolate Cookies from Baking with Julia by Julia Child. I've made these cookies before but I forgot to take a picture of them the first time I made them so I had to make them again and take a pic for posterity and my next tastebook. I'm bringing them into work tomorrow for a coworker lunch. These are pretty good - they don't spread that much and are really rich.

The trick to pure chocolate cookies is to use the best quality chocolate possible. It doesn't have to be super high end but don't use the no-name generic, cheap stuff either. It won't be worth making if you do. So many people ask me for recipes and I give it to them but when they make it on their own, they say it didn't turn out like mine. Most of the time, using the right ingredients is the difference. You know you've made chocolate cookies right when you taste them at room temperature and the chocolate flavor really comes through. Also, it's better to underbake cookies rather than overbake them, especially chocolate cookies. The cookies may not look done yet when you take them out of the oven but remember, the chocolate "sets" as it cools. Overbaking will make a dry, tough cookie and those simply aren't worth the calories.

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, cut into larger than chip size chunks

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1½ cups sugar

1. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside until needed. Divide the bittersweet chocolate in half and set half aside.

2. Place the butter, the remaining bittersweet chocolate, and the unsweetened chocolate in the top of a double boiler over, but not touching, simmering water. Heat the mixture, stirring occasionally, until the butter and chocolates are melted and smooth. Remove from the heat.

3. Meanwhile, put the eggs, sugar, coffee and vanilla in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat at high speed for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is very thick and forms a slowly dissolving ribbon when the whisk is lifted and the mixture is allowed to drizzle back into the bowl.

4. With the mixer on low speed, very gradually add the warm butter-chocolate mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and work your rubber spatula around the bottom of the bowl, then continue to mix just until the chocolate is thoroughly incorporated. Add the dry ingredients and the remaining bittersweet chocolate chunks and mix thoroughly. The mixture will look like a thick, marshmallowy cake batter.

5. Chilling the dough: Cover the bowl with plastic and chill for several hours, or overnight. The dough can be made ahead and kept refrigerated for up to 4 days.

6. Baking the cookies: When you are ready to bake, position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

7. Using a heaping tablespoon of dough for each cookie, drop the dough onto the lined sheets, leaving at least 2 inches of space between each mound of dough – these are spreaders. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking period. The cookies will puff, then sink and crinkle and wrinkle around the edges. These cookies are better underdone than overbaked, so if you have any doubts, pull them out of the oven earlier rather than later. These shouldn’t appear dry and they won’t be crisp. Use a wide metal spatula to transfer the cookies to cooling racks to cool to room temperature. Repeat with the remaining dough.

8. Storing: The cookies can be wrapped in plastic and kept at room temperature for 2 days or frozen for up to a month. Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature.