Sables au Chocolat

Sables au Chocolat - made February 11, 2012 from La Maison du Chocolat by Robert Linxe (book #191)

French is supposed to be the language of love.  I also say it's the language of food because almost every edible sounds classier in French, lol.  Sables (pronounced "sah-blay" and no, don't pronounce the second "s" in there) au Chocolat sounds more upscale than "chocolate cookies".  I've only been to Paris once and I did the usual touristy things like climb the Eiffel Tower and L'Arc de Triomphe and do a day trip out to Versaille.  But my favorite part about France was being able to walk into any hole-in-the-wall food shop and get the best bread ever.  I don't know if it was my imagination but everything just seemed to taste better in Paris, especially the fresh baguettes.

One place, however, that I missed out on, simply because at the time I didn't know about it, was visiting La Maison du Chocolat, a confection-boutique chain of high-end chocolates by chocolatier Robert Linxe.  I didn't know about it until after my trip and I could kick myself for not making a point of going there.  I haven't returned to Paris since then but it's definitely on my bucket list to go visit.  For now, this recipe book will have to stand in for it.

The picture of these cookies in the recipe book is what moved me to try them but I have to admit I'm a little disappointed in how they turned out.  I thought they would crisp up and have more of a snap to them, like maybe the upscale cocoa version of the Oreo cookie.  Not so, mes amis.  Instead they were not moist, not dry.  They were just....there.  So then I tried covering half the tops with chocolate to give them a little punch.  Eh.  Just okay.  And I did follow the recipe to the letter, including timing them in the oven since they were chocolate cookies and it's hard to tell by looks alone if chocolate cookies - excuse me, sables au chocolat, are done.  But they are how they are.  Perhaps I need to stick to the all-American brownie after all.

2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 stick plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

2 eggs

2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

¼ cup granulated sugar

1.   Combine the confectioners’ sugar and the cocoa powder in a bowl and mix to blend.  Set aside.

2.   Place the butter in a mixing bowl, add the cocoa powder mixture and beat until smooth.  Add the eggs and beat vigorously.  Add one third of the flour and fold just to blend with a spatula; do not overmix.  Repeat for the remaining flour, adding in two more batches.  Form the dough into a large ball and refrigerate for 2 hours.

3.   About 30 minutes before baking, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes. Form the dough into little sausage shapes, about 1 inch in diameter, and roll in the granulated sugar.  Return to the refrigerator for 15 minutes.

4.   Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Slice the dough sausages into circles about ¼-inch thick and arrange on a nonstick baking sheet. 

5.   Bake for 12-15 minutes.  Remove from the oven and set aside to cool before serving.

Valentine Sugar Cookie Cake

Valentine Sugar Cookie Cake - made February 13, 2012 from my own experimentation

I'd been seeing "sugar cookie cakes" around the foodie blogosphere lately - they're essentially sugar cookies but made as bar cookies topped with frosting or as "cakes".  I like sugar cookies but find them a pain to roll out, cut, ice, decorate, etc.  So the idea of a sugar cookie cake where you simply spread the batter in the pan, bake, cool and frost was appealing.  I was on another "gotta use up buttermilk before it expires" recipe quest so I made up this recipe adaped from several different ones I'd seen, including one for buttermilk sugar cookies from one of my cake books.  My first attempt didn't quite turn out as I had envisioned.  For my original results, I had too much cookie dough for the 9 x 13 pan I used so the sugar cookie cake came out thick.  Which normally wouldn't be a problem but it called for baking them long enough for the middle to bake which means the ends came out a little dry.  So it's better to make them a bit thinner with less batter and underbake (very slightly) rather than fully bake them.

The recipe below is my second attempt. I made less batter and baked in a smaller pan.  It had a lighter texture than my first attempt and was much more moist.  Actually it was more cake than cookie but that's okay.  Instead of a sugar cookie cake, I could've accidentally just invented a good vanilla cake too, lol.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Frosting
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
2-3 tablespoons of milk or just enough to get the consistency you want
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
a few drops of red food coloring (enough to make a Valentine pink)

1. Line a 9 x 9-inch square baking pan with foil and spray lightly with nonstick cooking spray.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy, 1-2 minutes.  Add egg, egg yolk, vanilla and vanilla bean paste. 
3. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir in dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk
4. Spread into prepared baking pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out just barely clean. Cool completely and spread with icing.
5. For the icing: Beat butter until creamy and no lumps remain. Add 1/2 cup of powdered sugar at a time and beat until light and fluffy, adding milk as needed for desired consistency. Add vanilla extract and red food coloring until you have the desired color. Beat until evenly colored. Spread over cooled cake.

Valentine Cookies - get your red, white and pink on

Valentine Cookies - made February 8, 2012, recipe adapted from The Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn

I've already blogged a few Valentine's Day-appropriate recipes in the past that have the red velvet  theme going:
Red Velvet Cookies
Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies
Red Velvet Brownies with White Chocolate Frosting
Red Velvet Pancakes
Red Velvet Cake
Red Velvet Cupcakes

But I also wanted to try out a new Valentine Cookie, also still using red velvet as the base.  I have a one-track mind.  I adapted this recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor by Anne Byrn.  The original recipe was for chocolate cookies but since red velvet is a form of chocolate, I decided to see how it would turn out using a red velvet cake mix instead of a devil's food cake mix.  And to give it that Valentine's flair, I used the Valentine package of plain M&Ms instead of chocolate chips and nuts.  I admit, I'm girly girl enough to like all the pink, red and white schmaltzy  stuff. 

These turned out somewhat decent but I wouldn't rave about them.  I was hoping they would have crisp edges and chewy middles like a chocolate chip cookie.  They were fine, more chewy all around than I would've preferred but they didn't wow me.  And I like to be wowed.  I think the missing link is they didn't really taste like anything.  Good red velvet has that chocolate flavor.  These just tasted like....cookies.  But I refused to be defeated.  If I wanted that chocolate flavor, I was going to get that chocolate flavor.  So I went with the obvious and coated them in chocolate.

1 package (18.25 ounces) red velvet cake mix

1/3 cup water

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, melted

1 large egg

6 ounces (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped nuts

1.   Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2.   Place the cake mix, water, melted butter and egg in large mixing bowl.  Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, increase speed to medium and beat for 1 more minute.  The cookie dough will be thick.  Fold in chips and nuts.

3.   Drop heaping teaspoons of dough 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.  Bake the cookies until they have set but are still a little soft in the center, 10 to 12 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cookies rest on cookie sheet for 1 minute before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cheesecake Brownies with Oreos

Marbled Fudge Brownies - made February 4, 2012 from Great Chefs, Great Chocolate, edited by Julie M. Pitkin (book #190)

My niece was visiting me last weekend and, as has become our tradition when she spends the night, we eat and we bake.  Besides the apple pie we made, we also baked these brownies for her to take back to her friends.  Because I can't resist tinkering when it comes to brownie recipes, I also added chopped up Oreos to the chocolate batter, partly because I like Oreos and partly because it gave us an excuse to snack on a few while she was chopping them up to add to the batter.

Because the ratio of cream cheese batter to chocolate batter was nearly 1:1, I would consider these to be more like cheesecake brownies than simply "marbled" brownies as the original name declares.  I also didn't marble them much on purpose just to keep the two batters distinct.  I liked the addition of the Oreos because it gave the brownies a little crunch.  The recipe calls for making them in four 4 x 1" round pans but I used an 8 x 8-inch pan which I lined with foil and sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, thus eliminating the need for dusting with unsweetened cocoa.  The 8-inch pan made the brownies of a nice thickness.

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa for dusting (didn't use)

Fudge Mixture

9 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 eggs

¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar

½ cup all-purpose flour

Pinch salt
Oreos, chopped (use as much or as little as you like), optional

Cream Cheese Mixture

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature

¼ cup sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1.   Preheat the oven to 350⁰F.  Butter four 4 x 1-inch round molds (I used one 8 x 8-inch pan, lined with foil and lightly sprayed with nonstick cooking spray) and dust with the cocoa.  In a double boiler over barely simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring to combine thoroughly.  Set aside to cool slightly.

2.   In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until well combined.  Add the chocolate mixture and stir well to incorporate.  Stir in the flour and salt until blended, but do not overmix.  Add the chopped up Oreos if using.

3.   Cream cheese mixture: In a medium bowl, beat  the cream cheese and sugar until well blended.  Add the vanilla and egg and continue to beat until smooth.

4.   Fill the prepared molds (pan) three-fourths full with the chocolate mixture, then top off with cream cheese.  Using a fork, swirl the layers 2 or 3 times, using a folding motion.  Be careful not to overmix or to scrape the sides or bottom of the pan, or the brownies could stick.

5.   Bake the brownies for 35 minutes, or until the tops are golden and the centers are somewhat firm.  Let cool on a wire rack and unmold.  Serve with chocolate sauce and your favorite ice cream or dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Apple Pie for National Pie Month

Apple Pie - made February 4, 2012, crust from Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry (book #188) and filling from Pie Town, New Mexico 2011 cookbook (book #189)

Did you know February is National Pie Month?  Just  thought I'd mention it so you don't think February is just about the Super Bowl and Valentine's Day.  The pie deserves some love too.  Many people love pies and I'm no exception.  Except for me, the only pie in the world is apple pie.  Sure, there's pecan pie and chocolate pie (which I'll never eat again after watching The Help), coconut custard pie, etc and those are well and good too.  But for fruit pies, only apple does it for me.  With ice cream.  Not whipped cream but ice cream.  I don't like whipped cream.  To me, whipped cream is flavored air with calories.  Plus, if something is going to look like ice cream, it should be ice cream.  And with apple pie, it can only be vanilla ice cream.

The pie gives the ice cream something to sit on

My sister and her boyfriend went to the Pie Festival in Pie Town, New Mexico last year and brought me back the cookbook that all the pie festival participants contributed to, sharing their prize-winning recipes.  You can tell they're probably a bunch of pie experts as, on some of the recipes, the directions are alarmingly vague: "mix ingredients together as you would any pie crust".  Uh, what if you don't normally make pies or have never made pie crust before?  If so, clearly, you're not entering any contests in Pie Town, New Mexico anytime soon.  But of course I have to make something from the pie festival cookbook for National Pie Month.  So I compromised - I used the Flaky Pie Crust recipe from Nick Malgieri's Perfect Pastry cookbook and the apple pie filling recipe from one of the apple pie recipes in the Pie Town cookbook.  Even for the filling recipe, I added my notes in italicized blue font just to flesh them out a bit.

Bear in mind I'm not a pie maker by any means.  I know just enough to be dangerous but I don't make pies anywhere near as much as I make brownies, cookies, cakes, and the like.  However, I was fairly pleased with how this turned out.  The pie crust uses all butter so it was appropriately flaky-to-die-for, not to mention deliciously buttery.  The filling was also good, not too tart or too sweet, although my niece, who I made this with, and I probably cut into the still-warm pie a little too soon because the juices all ran out after I took out the first piece.  But it did solidify enough later after it had cooled without being too gelatinous.

Oh, and if you don't want to waste perfectly good pie dough scraps, do what I did: gather all the scraps and make into a round "cookie", sprinkle with vanilla sugar and bake along with the pie.  We ended up with a buttery, sugary crust-cookie that was really good.  I would've taken a picture of it so you can see what I mean but I'm afraid we ate it too fast for the camera to capture.

We had to make sure we had enough ice cream

Flaky Pastry Dough

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, about 10 ounces

¼ cup cake flour, about 1 ounce

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

2 sticks unsalted butter, 8 ounces, cool

5 to 6 tablespoons ice water

1.   Combine the all-purpose flour, cake flour, salt and baking powder; cut up and add the butter, and gently toss to coat. 

2.   Rub in the butter until the mixture looks sandy.  Sprinkle over 3 tablespoons of ice water; toss with a fork.  Add another tablespoon of water if necessary.  Press the dough together.  Wrap and chill.

Apple Pie

To: Honor IV. Burrell (I don't know who this is but it's what's listed in the book)

5-7 tart apples (I used Granny Smith)

¾ - 1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup)

2 tablespoons flour

Dash of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 recipe plain pastry (I used the pie crust recipe above but you can substitute your own)

2 tablespoons butter

1.   Prepare apples and slice thin.  Mix sugar, flour, spices – add to apples. 

2.   Fill 9-inch pastry-lined pan.  Adjust top crust. Crimp edges and cut slits in top crust to let steam escape. Dot with butter (note: it's a little unclear whether she means to dot the butter on top of the crust or underneath it.  I went with underneath the top crust and egg washed the top crust itself before putting it in the oven).  Place pie pan on a cookie sheet to catch any drips. Bake in hot oven (400 degrees) for 50 minutes. If crust is browning too quickly, lower temperature to 375 degrees.  If apples are not tart, add 1 tablespoon lemon juice or grated lemon peel, if desired.

Also linked to Sweet Treats Thursday

Banana Coffee Cake

Banana Bread with Nutty Streusel - made Feburary 3, 2012 from Miette by Meg Ray with Leslie Jonath (book #187)

Now that the holidays are over, as you can tell, I'm back to trying out new recipes and back on my baking challenge.  Much as I love baking for the holidays, I also love constantly trying new recipes.  One thing I made over and over for my holiday gifts was Petra's banana bread.  So you'd think I'd be sick of making it by now.  And in a way, I am.  But I still can't resist trying out a new recipe, especially since I still had overripe bananas on hand. This recipe from Miette includes a streusel so it was a little different from my usual recipe.  Besides, you gotta love streusel.  I also liked that in the description of the recipe, the book describes it as being more cakey, which is also like Petra's recipe.

This came out pretty well.  I wouldn't say it's better (or worse) than Petra's recipe but I liked it too.  The texture was cakey more than quick-bread-y.  The banana bread itself  is not as sweet as Petra's recipe but that could also be due to the nutty streusel topping imparting a complementary toasted pecan flavor.  But overall it is sweeter because of the streusel.  It's actually more like a banana coffeecake because of the streusel so I'm renaming it for my own purposes.  Overall, thumbs up.

  

Nutty Streusel

½ cup (2 ounces) pecan pieces

¼ cup (2 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup (1 ½ ounces) all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter

¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Banana Bread

2 ¼ cups (11 ounces) all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 ½ cups (10 ½ ounces) sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup vegetable oil

4 medium soft, but not black, bananas (about 1 pound total) peeled and roughly mashed

½ cup (2 ounces) pecan pieces

1.   Liberally butter four 5-by-3-inch or two 8-by-4-inch loaf pans and dust with sifted flour.  Tap out the excess flour.

2.   Preheat the oven to 350 F.

3.   To make the streusel: In a food processor, add the pecans, sugar, flour, butter, cinnamon, vanilla and salt and pulse until coarsely combined.  Transfer to a small bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to use, up to 5 days.

4.   To make the banana bread: sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

5.   In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the sugar, eggs, and vanilla on medium speed until well combined and lightened in color, 4 to 5 minutes.  Reduce the speed to low and drizzle in the oil, whisking until combined.  Add the banana mash and whisk just until combined.  Add the dry ingredients and pecans to the batter in three additions, whisking just to combine after each addition.  Do not overmix.

6.   Divide the batter between the prepared pans.  Sprinkle the tops with the streusel, dividing it evenly.  (You may not need all of the streusel if making the smaller loaves.)  Bake until the breads have risen nicely and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes for the small loaves and 45 to 50 minutes for the larger loaves.  Transfer to wire racks and let cool in the pans for 20 minutes.  Run an offset spatula around the edges of the pans, then invert the cakes onto the racks and let cool for about 20 minutes longer.  Serve right away, or wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to serve, up to 3 days.  To freeze, wrap tightly in a second layer of plastic and store in the freezer for up to 2 months.  Serve at room temperature.

Chocolate Fudge - another fudge fail

Chocolate Fudge - made February 1, 2012 made from Hallelujah! The Welcome Table by Maya Angelou (book #186)

Do you like your fudge dry, crumbly and/or grainy?  If so, let me make your fudge for you.  Because that's how my last couple of attempts to make fudge have turned out.  I know there are "no-fail" fudge recipes out there that use marshmallow creme and/or evaporated milk to minimize the risk of graininess but I was trying to make "real", old-fashioned fudge the old-school way.  Ha, that was a mistake.

If you've ever read any of the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace, they were always making fudge amongst their high school crowd with Betsy, Tacy, Tib, Carney, et al.  They must've had a knack for it because no one ever complained about grainy fudge.  Although it is a work of fiction after all, as fictitious as my making non-grainy fudge.  I knew I was taking a risk though since the instructions were a bit sparse.  I did try the old-fashioned soft ball test of dropping a bit of the boiling fudge mixture into ice-cold water until it formed a soft ball.  It took forever for the fudge to get to that stage and I was afraid of overcooking it.  But actually I think I undercooked it because I cheated and also used a candy thermometer to see when it got to 220 degrees F or "soft ball" stage.  By the ice-cold water test, the fudge formed a soft ball at 210 degrees so I finally took it off since it had been boiling for over 20 minutes and the thermometer hadn't budged a degree above 210 for 10 minutes.  So I got insecure about it and took it off the burner.  I followed the rest of the instructions to a T but my fudge still ended up grainy.  Sigh.  Epic fail.

Someday I will conquer old-fashioned fudge making.  Today was not that day.

3 cups sugar
3 cups milk
2 tablespoons corn syrup
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped roasted almonds

1. Butter 8 x 8-inch pan.
2. In large, heavy saucepan, bring sugar, milk, corn syrup, and chocolate to a boil.
3. Put a drop of mixture in 1 cup of ice-cold water. When the drop forms a soft ball, remove from heat. If ball does not form, continue cooking and repeat until ball forms.
4. Add butter and vanilla extract to hot mixture. Cool. When saucepan with chocolate mixture has cooled to a lukewarm temperature, beat mixture with spoon until it losses its gloss and becomes thick. Stir in almonds before mixture cools completely. Cool in pan. Cut in desired-size squares.