Brown Sugar Cookies with Fleur de Sel

For Kathleen's birthday I made her new favorite cookie which is the brown sugar cookie with sea salt. For those of the savory variety and not the sweet (I am not in this camp if you haven't already noticed that) this is a great cookie for you. It is a pretty sweet cookie but it has a good deal amount of fleur de sel ("flower of salt" in french) which is a quite salty salt. So a little goes a long way. The recipe calls for a lot of sugar (mostly brown) which surprised me because even regular unsalted cookies have less sugar than these, but am not one to complain about sugar content. Another interesting component of the recipe is that it uses browned butter. Butter cooked to the point where is just starts to turn brown and right before the milk solids actually burn. Mine burned a bit (okay, I've never brown butter) but I just strained off those pesky milk solids and all was well. The browned butter I have to say is a nice touch. Adds a little extra nuttiness to the cookies (and butteriness).

The dough had a delicious molassas-y aroma and was a nice rich, nutty, brown color. I decided to split it up into three different cookies. One with pinch of fleur de sel on top, ones rolled in a mixture of brown and white sugar (what the recipe called for) and ones that I piped on the letters of happy birthday and then dredged in salt. So all camps were accounted for. The recipe called for the cookies to be pulled out when the inside was still a bit raw which is what I normally do (makes for a very chewy cookie-my fav) but this time, every time I would check on the cookies they still seemed far from done until I decided to pull them out and they looked great but turned out to be a bit on the crunchy/done side. So, don't go with your instincts on this one, just pull them out when they are raw, after about 12 minutes. The cookies, aside from texture were delicious. I love brown sugar. Who doesn't? The salt was a nice addition and for those that enjoy a little more savoriness in their lives than sweet, this is a nice treat for you.

Here's the recipe I used:

http://noshwithme.com/2009/01/brown-sugar-cookies/

This recipe is identical to the one that made this type of cookie Kathleen's new favorite, except salt is added to the sugar mixture the dough balls are rolled in. Perhaps a nice medium between camps?

Happy Birthday Kathleen!

Photos by Collin Monda

Whiskey Apple Pie

I finally have acquired the skills to make pastry dough. Triumph! Ok, it's a piece of cake (pie?) if you have a Cuisinart and as far as I'm concerned there is no other way. I can not even begin to imagine how people made/make pastry dough without one. I tried, believe me, with the Tarte Normande and it was something similar to a disaster. Sure it looked ok, but it just wasn't right in any capacity. I felt like I had offended Julia and perhaps she rolled over in her grave. It was close to a shamful experience. A bit dramatic, but in comparison to my Cuisinart dough, you would understand. The Cuisinart makes the perfect, buttery dough that just barely holds together but doesn't crumble out of control and is silky smooth. Just like Julia told me. Well mashing chunks of butter into flour with your warm thumbs trying to keep your palms out of it doesn't exactly work the same as a high speed blade slicing the butter into tiny little particles perfectly mixed and in a nice equilibrium with the dough. If you don't have a Cuisinart, get one, somehow. I borrowed (took) my mom's but I'm guessing they have old ones (which are perfectly good believe me! That's what I'm using) on ebay or second hand at a shop. The new ones are a bit pricey, but sweet jesus are they beautiful.

www.cuisinart.com

Anyway, somehow acquire a Cuisinart and you can make any pie. Guaranteed. Ok, enough with my shameless promotion of the Cuisinart food processors, but seriously, it made all the difference for me. Once you have the perfect dough, your pie has pretty much made itself.

When I was home in Portland my cousin Nici and I got a lesson from the pie/Cuisinart masters (my mom and cousin Autumn). 

The first trick given by Autumn is to mix half the amount of butter called for (usually one stick, a healthy amount) into your flour as well as the remaining amount in the form of Crisco. Yum, I know, but really, it makes all the difference. Makes it flakey and buttery and perfect. Keep the Crisco in the freezer (it won't freeze......yea I know). It just keeps it that much colder and really what else would you be using Crisco for? Hopefully nothing. 

So once you've got your flour and butter/crisco equilibrium after a few pulses of the food processor then you slowly (slowly!) add ice water (yes, ice in the water) in a steady stream until......now this is where the masters differ. I chose sides. Sorry. Until.....the dough JUST forms a ball. NOT when it's rolling around in there in one big lump. You've gone too far at that point and the gluten starts to break down. Bad for pastry dough. So, add it until it just forms a dough. Others say when it just starts to form big chunks but not to the point of a ball. So, try it out and see what you prefer. I like the ball because those extra few seconds make the dough that much easier to roll out and manage, but it doesn't make all that big of difference. Choose whichever side you like. 

Once your dough forms a ball, divide it in two if you've made a double recipe (typical when making pies with a top) and wrap it up in saran wrap (mom says wax paper) and form a ball, then smash it into a disc  and refrigerate it for as long as you see fit (I do an hour). While you're waiting, whip up your filling. I did an apple pie made with whiskey. I kind of merged two recipes so here is my little summery of the frankenstein I made (a delicious one at that). So follow the recipe below but disregard the part about the steps in making the filling and just use the ingredient amounts and listen to me. 

Apple Pie Recipe

So mix all the ingredients together except for the whiskey and vanilla (I know, it's not listed). 

Probably the most important part of this, besides the whiskey is that you should use Honeycrisp apples if you can get your hands on them. They are abundant in the fall and are hands down THE BEST APPLES. To eat. And to bake with. Delicious! Always firm and crisp and never mealy. Juicy and amazing. So use them! It will make your pie that much better. 

Ok, that said, place your peeled, cored, and sliced apple and sugar etc. mixture in a sauce pan and simmer on a lowish-medium. This forces most of the liquid out of the apples so it doesn't all end up in your pie and overflow all over the oven. Makes for a soupy pie and the fire alarm going off. No good. So cook them for about 5-10 minutes. While your waiting, take your pie dough (after an hour)  and roll it out on a silicon pad (if you have it-so much easier!) and then transfer it to your pie plate. It's easy to just kind of flip it into the pie plate if you get under the dough  a bit, or you can fold it in quarters and then lay it in the plate and unfold it. Crimp the edges and trim off the dough hanging over. Mix in two tsp. of vanilla and one teaspoon of whiskey (a bourbon whiskey like Makers or Knob Creek) in to the apple mixture. The whisky and vanilla make such an impact on the flavor of the pie it's kind of incredible. When I did this myself I added the whisky before I cooked down the apples and I think it cooked out the liquor (for shame!). So wait, till they are already cooked to add it. 

Put your partially cooked apples in the pie crust and add about half the liquid. Put the pot with the rest of the liquid back on the stove to simmer for another five or so minutes until carmely. Roll out the other half of your dough and cut into strips (using a crimper to do this looks so pretty). Starting with the edge place one strip vertically and another horizontally and keep moving in a diagonal until you reach the opposite corner, if a circle had a corner. Then rub some butter on the top of your lattice dough and sprinkle with some raw sugar (or whatever you have). Not too much, just enough to make it a bit sparkly. You can also do cookie cutter shapes or nothing. Up to you.

Bake for about an hour. Drizzle with the reduced carmel sauce and let cool for several hours. Must be served with vanilla ice cream. It just has to. 

It's pretty and oh so good and not too hard to make right? There are a lot of steps but really, once you can make the crust, like I said, the pie just makes itself. 

Enjoy!

Any excuse to drink while you eat is an excuse I can get behind. 

Me triumphant. Pastry dough "mastered". 

Photos by Collin Monda and Autumn Webring

Pumpkin Cookies

I recently made pumpkin cookies, a very appropriate fall dessert. I usually love them but since last fall, I found them to be a bit on the sweet side this time. I think I may not be used to the copious amounts of buttercream I put on anything I can this time around, so next time I probably will add just a bit. The cookies are subtly sweet, much like pumpkin pie, so a little frosting is nice, but a little goes a long way. These cookies are a cinch to make and don't take much time at all so I'd definitely recommend giving them a try. Also, one cookie is more than satisfying to any sweet tooth so you wont feel too guilty around the holiday dessert table. Admittedly, one probably isn't that healthy, but still, having only one will make you feel good about yourself! I like to add a touch of cinnamon to the top for affect, but you could do nutmeg or any fall-like spice. 

Here's the recipe I use:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/iced-pumpkin-cookies-recipe/index.html

Photo by Collin Monda

Lemon Poppyseed Cake

Last week I made Lemon Poppyseed cake and used a recipe from my beloved joyofbaking.com and was extremely disappointed. It was overly dense and a little dry. Also, the color was more white than yellow even though I added a whole lemon zest and juice. I thought this was odd. I should have stuck to my mom's or cousin Autumn's recipes. Those are SO good. I realized the crucial difference in a lemon cake recipe is the eggs. You need a lot of eggs. Like 3-5 eggs and sometimes more yolks. A lot. It keep it really moist which is what you want in a pound cake. Also, I found that when you have a really moist lemon cake it doesn't need any glaze whatsoever. Sweet enough on it's own and so delicious. My cake definitely needed the additonal eggs and more importantly, the extra egg yolks which provide the desired yellow color. Also, buttermilk does a lot to keep cakes moist and many recipes include it. 

Here is an example of a much better recipe:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,166,136189-244196,00.html

I will definitely  have to make this cake again and try a recipe that has more eggs and probably buttermilk too and I wont glaze it this time.

Also, if you want poppyseeds in your cake, many recipes are just plain lemon, so add 2 tablespoons and that should be enough. I also sprinkled some on top of my glaze for decoration when the cake was finished. 

Photo by Collin Monda

Brownies and Recipes

So I remade the brownies from the AIDS walk for a party at Collin's sister and boyfriend's place for the Australian football championship and I have to say they were amazing. It probably was because they were fresh out of the oven but they were one of the best brownies I've had. Granted, I'm not a huge brownie fan, but nevertheless they were great. 

Also, I have had several "complaints" (haha I find this kind of amusing) that I haven't been adding the recipes to the blog. I will start doing this right away. I realize it's kind of the whole point of doing this blog but I felt in the beginning it was more about the process and the analysis of the types of desserts in general and less about the specifics of the recipe. But, the people have spoken and I must appease the few that actually do read this so here is a fresh start. 

My fav brownie recipe so far:

http://www.joyofbaking.com/barsandsquares/ChocolateBrownies.html

P.S. If you ever need a recipe for something sweet, check out this website. It has such great stuff. I feel a little guilty ransacking it all the time, but it is amazing. 

http://www.joyofbaking.com

AIDS Walk Bake Sale

I was asked to make a couple of things for the upcoming bake sale at Collin's sister's office (NBBJ)  for the AIDS walk in Seattle so I made some vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with a kind of mint colored buttercream (I wanted it to be more grayish blue) but it turned out mint....still looked pretty, but don't know how that happened (used blue food coloring). I also made some brownies with a semisweet chocolate ganache. I tasted the brownies and they were pretty good (really chewy and with frosting, my favorite kind). 

The vanilla cupcakes turned out really well (looks wise, I didn't taste) and puffed up nicely, but the chocolate however, seemed to condense rather than rise. They shrunk away from their paper liners and became small little cupcakes. Seemed fine but looked a little messy with the papers hanging off. The chocolate cupcakes called for a chocolate fudge frosting but I had so much vanilla buttercream that I decided to just frost them all with it and it looked rather pretty against the chocolate color. 

All of the recipes I really liked; the batters were thick and smooth, especially the vanilla. The brownies, like I said were really chewy and moist so I might have to make those again for myself. I usually am not a brownie person because they are more often than not hard and crispy. Not a fan. 

All in all, I'm glad I contributed. I work in an HIV research lab and should have participated in the walk to do my part but perhaps baking for a cause is good enough? I guess it's better than nothing! 

I was planning initially to make white buttercream frosting and sugar cookies and pipe on red ribbons and am glad I didn't. Way too kitsch. I figured people would probably spend more money on pretty cupcakes rather than something kitschy. Who knows though. Hopefully they make some money!

Photo by Collin Monda

Tarte Normande aux Pommes

So I recently signed up for a local, organic produce delivery system called Full Circle Farm (http://www.fullcirclefarm.com/ It's fantastic-check it out!) and included in this week's bundle was four deliciously ripe pears (poires, you'll see why my tart has pommes later) which immediately inspired me to make a French tarte. Beautiful fruit are best displayed in a tart. The only problem was I have never made a tart of any kind, let alone pastry dough.....cakes are my thing, not pies....yet. 

Pastry dough, I quickly learned is a huge pain. Like all things in my life I jump right in and try it out. It comes from having little to no patience. Things went pretty well once I combined the ingredients but soon after that things began to crumble, much like my dough, pretty rapidly. Julia (Who else would I use for making a French tart) tells me that the dough should just stick together but not be sticky. Ok? So I added just enough cold water for the dough to bind but once I started to blend the fat by kneading it with the heel of my hand, the dough didn't stick together at all but just fell apart. I added more water and more water and still it never really was a cohesive mass. I think it went too far in the sticky realm, but what could be done? I refrigerated the dough and in a couple days went to finish my tart but the pears had gone bad and Collin had eaten a couple so I switched to apples......

I attempted to roll out my dough and somehow was surprised that it still wasn't sticking together even though I had done nothing to magically transform it and had to add yet more water. I was able to roll it out to about 8 inches in an oblong shape an decided to forgo my plan of using an 8in springform pan and used my oval Le Creuset caserole dish instead. Couldn't bear the frustration of rolling it out any longer. Like I said, pastry dough is not my thing. I don't even like to eat it so it is decidedly not my friend. 

I put it in the pan, attempted to make some decoration around the edge with a fork but some of it just crumbled off and some of it stayed with the fork marks. Whatever. I moved on. 

I decided to kind of combine Julia's Tarte Normande with her Tarte aux Pommes. I wanted the fruit to be on top so I used the basic tart part for that and I wanted it to have custard, but under the fruit, so I used the Normande part for that. It was a bit confusing but I managed it. I cooked the apples in their sugar and cinnamon (I evidently decreased the amount of apples called for and used the same amount of sugar....not a problem for me) seperately and cooked the custard in the partially baked shell and then layered the apples on top and baked for a bit longer. Covered it with powered sugar at then end. It turned out rather pretty and I was pleased.

However, the custard either cooked too long and became a bit thick or it soaked in completely to the crust because it was nearly impossible to distinguish crust from custard. The apples were delicious though, but Honeycrips always are (my favorite apples). The custard/crust was nice and vanilla-y because I added vanilla instead of apply brandy (didn't have it....who does?). It was tasty and pretty which I guess is all that matters in baking. At some point here I've got to learn how to make a decent pastry dough. Mom? Sasha? Anybody? Julia is far too confusing. 

Photo by Collin Monda

Red Velvet Cake

This is probably my favorite cake. I always liked it but I have come to love it. It is the most rich, moist, and delicious cake I have ever made. It definitely lives up to the name "red velvet". The recipe I've been using, although not authentic or special in any way, is the Paul Deen recipe which was her grandmother's. I love it because it has a lot of EVERYTHING. Including butter, sugar, and red food coloring. I'm not sure if I should divulge to you exactly how much red food coloring it does contain, but lets just say that it isn't that incredibly rich, deep red color from just a few drops from the squeeze bottle. In fact, no measuring in drops or tablespoons is even necessary. This cake is unique in both taste and ingredients. Part of what makes it so good is that it contains a chemical rxn (well aside from the usual ingredients involved in the baking process....."cooking is chemistry" as my mom always says) involving baking soda and vinegar. This is the reaction.

NaHCO₃ (aq) + CH₃COOH (aq) ----> CO₂ (g) + H₂O (l) + CH₃COONa (aq)

So CO2 is produced (the bubbles/foam) and you're left with a dilute solution of sodium acetate in water. The CO2 is what allows the cake to rise. It seems as though it causes it to rise only slightly (just enough) because overall the cake is quite dense and produces relatively thin layers (recipe calls for 3 layers). You could make two thicker layers. 

Here is the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/grandmother-pauls-red-velvet-cake-recipe/index.html

I never get tired of making this cake. It is that good. Also, traditionally the cake calls for cream cheese frosting but I have been know to substitute it for buttercream (if I'm making it mostly for myself...). Just an extra something. Also, it says to mix in the coconut and pecans before you frost the cake but I sprinkle on the coconut after. It gives it more texture and just looks better than having the coconut mixed in and hidden. Also, I don't add pecans. I hate nuts in desserts but mainly I just think it takes away from it's texture and it's beauty. Leave the outside pure white and when you cut into it the inside is bright red. Very impressive. A good cake at anytime, but especially for the holidays!

  

    

Photos by Collin Monda

Carrot Cake

For the first "official" cake of the cake club I was asked by several people to make a carrot cake. My least favorite cake except for maybe fruit cake. But, since I've never made it and never liked it I thought it would be a good chance to try my hand at it and hopefully like my own creation. This was not the case. Everyone else seemed to love it though!

The cake batter however was delicious (yes, I ALWAYS try it) and I felt hopeful that my opinion would change despite the large chunks of walnuts (I hate nuts in desserts) and mostly cream cheese, cream cheese frosting (not a favorite to say the least). It was fun to make though, especially piping the carrots on top, even though I completely winged that. The first couple were a little askew and I should probably have piped the leaves but didn't feel like washing the pastry bag twice. It's a complete hassle. 

I thought it was interesting though that the carrot cake came about during the Middle Ages because carrots, beets, and other "sweet" vegetables and fruits were used as a way to sweeten the cake when refined sugar supplies were low or too costly. Another fascinating anthropological fact is that carrots were first used and cultivated in the 7th century AD in Afghanistan and were purple instead of orange! Eating a cake with so much beta carotene justifies it enough for me. If I was to make this cake for myself, which I tried to suppress the desire to do this this time, I would have cut the walnuts way down so they were barely even chunks and used buttercream (my favorite!) instead of cream cheese frosting. I would probably still leave in the whole lemon's worth of zest though. It was a nice touch and added a bit of tartness to counter the sugar. If you like carrot cake this was a good one. If you don't, it probably doesn't matter if it was good or not. I still may never come around. Vegetables in cake? No thanks. 

                                                

Made Collin a couple cupcakes from the batter. They may have turned out better. Less chunks of walnuts. 

Photos by Collin Monda

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