Conversion

It's official. Melbourne falls into the top 10 cities I've visited in the world. Contributing to its greatness, of course, is the presence of the lovely Henrietta, my wonderful host during my time here. I have sadly reached the end of my Melbourne visit, but the sorrow is somewhat complimented by my adventures on Sunday, namely the creation of a peach crisp-pie. I am sure this exists, but a quick search revealed no results for such a concoction. As a result, naturally, I threw together a few recipes and came up with this:


Peach Crisp-Crumble Pie

Dough
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 1/2 tbsp sugar
* pinch salt
* 113 grams butter
* 5 tbsp ice water

Filling
* 5 medium peaches
* approx 2 tbsp sugar (note: feel free to add more/less based on your taste preferences. This amount yielded a not-too-sweet pie)
* approx 1 tbsp flour

Crisp
* 3/4 cup flour
* 1/2 cup oats
* 3/4 cup sugar (note: I used all white sugar because I was not thinking really, but I reckon using some brown sugar (if not mostly) is preferable)
* pinch of salt
* 113 grams butter

First, make the dough. Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Cube the butter, then toss it into the dry mixture. Coat each cube with flour mixture. You are meant to then either food process, two knives cut or pastry cut the butter into the flour mixture. I find (and Hen's mom agreed) that hands are the most effective mixers of cold butter into flour, so this is what I used. Once the mixtures resembles small crumbs, begin adding the water. I recommend going 1-2 tbsp at a time then giving a mix. Too much water is not good. When it has all come together, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and pop in the fridge for 3o minutes at the minimum.

Next, prep the filling. Some to most recipes will tell you to peel the peaches. I find this morbidly wasteful of food, time and effort. Instead, feel free to slice the peaches as uniformly as possible (for baking purposes). Throw them into a bowl and add the flour and sugar. Toss it all together. Note: I ended up completing this process a good hour before the pie was to be assembled. I'm pretty sure this is not an issue.














Lastly, create the crisp. Combine flour, oats, sugar and salt in a bowl. Cube the butter, then incorporate butter into the mixture using the same technique as utilized for the crust.

Preheat oven to 350˚ F/180˚ C. Remove the dough from the fridge. Roll out the dough and spread over a pie dish. Note: The dish we used was on the smaller side and probably could have used slightly less dough in the interest of a fully baked crust.. but so it goes. If you want to be hardcore about the whole thing, place the dish with the crust back in the fridge for 15 minutes or so. We skipped this step and went straight to the blind baking. Use pie weights/dried beans and parchment paper to weigh down the dough (see below).














Bake for about 10-12 minutes like this. After this step I deferred to Hen's lovely mum and removed the beans, then baked the crust uncovered for another 2-4 minutes. Yum! (Again, might have done OK baking slightly longer, but patience is not a concept with which I am familiar).

Finally, assemble the pie. Pour the peach mixture into the crust shell. Sprinkle the crisp/crumble over the top. Place pie on baking sheet (in case bubbling-over peach juice occurs). Bake for 40-45 minutes.














Let cool slightly (a journey to the pier for some penguin viewing and back should be sufficiently long) before consuming so pie can set. Enjoy with cream, ice cream, yog(h)urt, or as is.

what did you do in that pan?

I wish I could begin to apologize sufficiently for the immense wrong I have done to my poor fans during this extended hiatus from diamonds-ing. All I can do is plead overall life upheaval getting in the way of me indulging in anything pleasant for the past few months (well, almost anything...). But that is irrelevant now. I am here, and you can all rest easy.

Yesterday, while spending an extended time in bed attempting to recover from some seriously strong mimosas, I rediscovered my favorite pastime - click-the-recipe on foodnetwork.com. During my clickings I stumbled across Paula Deen creating a gooey butter cake. I had seen this baked good title previously and been intrigued, but always slightly intimidated. This time, I took a closer look and noticed that among the ingredients listed was yellow box cake. As luck would have it, when I moved out of the hellhole that contributed to/entirely caused aforementioned life upheaval, I discovered an unopened box of yellow cake mix. This had to happen. After a delightful morning of shoe/legging shopping with Miss Camila, we returned to my new home and set to work. Here's how it went:

Gooey Chocolate Chip Butter Cake
(slightly but not even really (thanks to Camila) adjusted from Paula Deen's recipe)

Bottom
* one box yellow cake mix
* 1/2 cup butter, melted
* 1 egg

Filling
* 8 oz package cream cheese
* 2 eggs
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 16 oz confectioners sugar
* 1/2 cup butter, melted
* some choc chips (1/2 cup should suffice)

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease 12x9 pan (approx..)

Mix the cake mix with the butter, then the egg. Mixture will be thick. Scoop into the greased pan and spread evenly.

For the filling: beat the cream cheese. This is meant to be done with a standing mixer, but being that not all of us are fortunate enough to have standing mixers, it can be done by hand with a whisk and wooden spoon combination effort. Once cream cheese is smooth and well beaten, beat in the eggs, then the vanilla. Beat well. Mix in the sugar (I recommend starting in the middle and doing a slow incorporation in order to avoid dusting yourself with sugar), then pour in and incorporate the butter. Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips (or toffee pieces, or nuts if you like nuts in your mouth). Pour the filling over the cake part. Bake for 45 minutes. The edges will pull away slightly. The top will be golden brown and slightly soft. Cool slightly. Prepare to be worshiped.

Note: pictures on Cam's camera. Soon to come.

Maui Wowee

A few days ago I found myself extremely bored at my parents' house. Computer-less and banished from the TV room, baking seemed like the perfect solution. I had limited time, so making cookies was the obvious option. However, after the previous week's cookie dough extravaganza (one night I made cookie dough just to eat the cookie dough...), it was clear that whatever I concocted would have to be unappealing in dough form.

In honor of my mother's impending birthday, I decided to make her favorite: biscotti. My personal feelings about biscotti are mixed. While I rarely crave them, there is something very soothing about a rock-hard biscotti dipped in coffee or tea and soaked to softened perfection. Indeed, in my youth I would often make tea just for the sole purpose of biscotti dipping. That said, biscotti are a staple in my mother's diet and their absence is infrequent in Parent-house.

Fortunately, on this particular day, there were no biscotti to be found. Naturally, I, along the with the Big Book of Baking, came to the rescue.

Plain old Biscotti
Adapted from the Big Book of Baking

* 1 3/4 cups flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 2 eggs
* zest of 1 orange
* a few handfuls of slivered almonds (whole almonds are better, but one must work with what one's got)

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Beat the eggs in a bowl (or don't if you are lazy). Mix with the sugar, along with the orange rind. Combine the with the flour and baking soda until they form a dough. Stir/knead in the almonds.

Divide the dough into two logs and stretch/roll them out until they are a little over 1 inch in diameter.














Bake the logs for about 15-25 minutes on a baking sheet. Note: this part involved some guesswork on my part. The recipe in the Big Book was very blunt with its baking and cooling times, almost leading me to blindly trust when it said to bake the logs for 10 minutes then remove. After 10 minutes, though, the logs were clearly not ready to leave the oven. I poked one with a knife in anticipation of thinly slicing the logs into individual cookies. Rather than gentle resistance but ultimate submission from the logs, I was met with oozing dough out when I jabbed the log. After about 25 minutes (it took longer because I kept taking the baking sheet out to check for doneness), the logs looked ready for slicing. Let them cool first for 5 minutes.














Use a serrated knife to carefully cut the logs diagonally into 1/2 inch thick slices. Place these almost-biscotti sides down on the baking sheet. Bake for another 15 minutes. Let them cool/dry on the sheet. Dip in your hot liquid of choice.

Mushy

On Saturday night, we had a housewarming/birthday party for me. Naturally, I made cookies. I kept it simple and went with plain chocolate chip. I was well on my way to being passed out face down on my bed (yes, that is how the night ended) when I began the baking process. Miraculously, I managed to make a batch consisting of a good balance of raw and pseudo caramelized cookies. The cookies seemed to be a success, stealing much of the attention from me until they disappeared twenty minutes after emerging from the oven. Relief.

Anyway, I was in no state to document this cookie process. Instead, I will share tonight's bake sesh. Wilma, despite being spread thin with philanthropy, generously donated two overripe bananas to the feed-Marissa cause. Obviously, banana bread was in the near future. On the whole, the creation of the banana bread was standard. It involved a trip to the grocery store to replace the bag of chocolate chips my lovely roomie may or may not have consumed in a moment of chocolate desperation. Once the key ingredient (contrary to popular belief, it is chocolate chips and not bananas that are most necessary for making banana bread) was obtained, the rest fell together with ease.

Commonwealth Banana Bread
adapted from allrecipes.com

* 1 stick butter
* 3/4 cups brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 2 bananas
* 2 cups flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 - 2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugar (or, in this case, have Dani beat the shit out of the butter and sugar until they are indistinguishable from each other). Add the eggs and bananas. Mashing the bananas in advance is not a bad idea. Obviously, I did not do this and instead used a combination of wooden spoon and fork to get the banana sufficiently mashed.

Add the flour, b.s. and salt. Mix well. Then add the choc chips. Stir until combined. Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes. Note: don't let Dani try and force you to take it out early. She will be persistent, but it is imperative that you resist.

Virgin baking

Let me begin by apologizing for this inexcusable extended lapse in posts. The truth is I recently re-located to a new living space leaving me with a smaller kitchen, fewer kitchen utensils and appliances, and a substantially diminished disposable income. Nonetheless, when my roomie so generously stayed home from work to wait for my mattress to be delivered, it was clear to me that her selflessness had to be rewarded with cookies.

I considered a few options, including peanut butter, chocolate chocolate chip, even ginger cookies. Eventually, though, the boss of all cookies won out - Anna's oatmeal chocolate chip magic cookies. One morning before work, I traipsed down the street to my new friendly neighborhood grocery store, purchased all the necessary ingredients, and lugged the pounds of baking products (and a broom. And a plunger) up the hill to the apartment. The cookie-making process had been set into motion.

During a spell of impatience-induced boredom, I ended up making the cookies at my parents' house. They were delicious and did not survive for long. Tonight after watching Glee and eating roasted carrots, I needed cookie dough. I was not paying the closest attention to the process (for a change) and ended up inventing a new cookie.

Extra floured chocolate chip mounds

* 1 stick (sketchy, possibly fake) butter
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* generous 1/4 cup sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 4 generous 1/2 cups of flour
* 3/4 cup choc chips

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla. Pour in the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix well. Note: the dough will be very dry and require more aggressive mixing than usual in order to get the flour properly absorbed into the mix. Add the chocolate chips and mix well. (At this point, I consumed about 3 cookies in dough form. The dough was less sweet than what I am used to, but definitely hit the spot).

Bake whatever remains of the dough for 10-ish minutes. I took them out slightly early for fear of the cookies being too dry, but Abbie approved of the final result. I have not recovered enough from my cookie dough OD to taste one, but best believe that I will.

Lastly, I don't know where my camera is at this point in time, hence irrelevant photograph.

Aye

I have been dreaming and planning butterscotch brownies with cream cheese swirl for weeks. Possibly months. As I mentioned previously, I even purchased a bag of butterscotch chips (half of which I consumed as is) and cream cheese. There was no way that these would not be delicious. It was only a matter of when to make them and who to subsequently force them upon. Yesterday, the time finally came.

I was, indeed, short on the butterscotch chips, but I compensated by adjusting the recipe to include some chocolate chips, a few of which had survived a recent batch of corn nut cookies. Judging by the less-than-one-minute survival time once placed in front of my co-workers (not to mention the five that I demolished) these were pretty tasty.

Oh, and I'd like to say a special thanks to my dad, who inspires me always, even though he doesn't like butterscotch.

Sugar Non-brownies with cream cheese swirl (Nick made the astute observation that brownies are not golden brown, as these were, but dark and chocolatey. Fair enough)
adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

Cream cheese part:
* 8 oz cream cheese
* 1 egg
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 2 tbsp flour

Non-brownie part:
* 2 cups flour
* 2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips
* 1/4 cup chocolate chips
* 1 stick butter
* 2 cups packed brown sugar
* 4 eggs
* 1 tsp vanilla (or maybe 1 1/2..)

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Add the egg and flour and beat until combined.













For the non-brownies: In a medium sized bowl, mix the flour, bp and salt. In a medium-large saucepan melt the chips and butter over low heat. Stir occasionally.













Remove the pot from the heat and mix in the brown sugar. Once mixture has cooled slightly, whisk in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour batter into greased 8x12 inch pan. Drop teaspoon sized scoops of the cream cheese mixture on top of the batter. Use a small knife to swirl the mixture into the batter (way easier than you might think to make it not look awful. Even I pulled it off!)

Put the pan in the oven. The recipe said to bake for 25-30 minutes. I ended up leaving it in for about 40 as it was still wobbly and the batter seemed raw when a toothpicked it. I think 35 minutes might have been the perfect time, but who's complaining about slightly caramelized brownies? Definitely not Dani.

Garbage cookies

In a final attempt to take advantage of an empty house, I decided to have a barbecue a few days before my housemates returned. I had been anticipating a BBQ with much excitement for many months, frequently planning one only to be foiled by rain, parents, or some combination of the two. This time would be different. The month-long downpour been fully replaced by sun; parental units were in Africa; 10 hot dogs cost a dollar at safeway. Nothing could stop me. Or so I thought...

During the winter months, my barbecue had been stashed away in the basement for safekeeping. Thirty minutes before my first guest was meant to arrive, I delved into the depths of the clutter and began yanking the big black UFO-like object from its hiding place. I got it past one doorway and was moving towards the second one when a heavy metal pole collided painfully with my bare foot. After screaming in pain for a few minutes, I turned my gaze downward to confront my attacker. It turned out to be none other than one of the legs of the barbecue. "Hmm," I thought, perplexed. "I didn't realize our barbecue was collapsible." I left the leg alone, as it was still attached (albeit loosely) to the bottom of the apparatus, and recommenced dragging. I had barely moved a foot before my shin became the victim of yet another brutal attack, this time by another barbecue leg. "What the hell!" I exclaimed at the rebellious contraption. "If I wanted to collapse you, I would!"

I continued to battle with the barbecue and was consistently met with wobbly resistance. I managed to get it onto the back deck, only to have the huge bulbous grill topple dangerously near my already fearful toes. At this point I concluded that the barbecue was not collapsible, but completely totaled. The thought of returning the busted device to the basement tripled my heart rate, compelling me to abandon it where it was and return inside to figure out plan B.

Fortunately, I had already made these:

Salted pudding cookies

* 1 stick butter
* 1 egg
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1 tbsp corn syrup
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1/4 cup chocolate pudding mix
* scant 3/4 cup flour
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 3/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup chocolate chips
* 1 cup potato chips, crushed

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugar. I added the pudding mix at this time too because I had turned my brain off at the time. It was not the best decision, as pudding mix definitely falls into the category of dry ingredient, but it worked out in the end and blended with the butter-sugar sufficiently.

Mix in the egg, vanilla and corn syrup. Add the dry ingredients (again, I'd recommend adding the pudding at this stage, rather than earlier) and stir until dough is formed. Mix in the chips x 2 and any other snacks you would like to encounter in the cookies.













Place on a baking sheet (greasing unnecessary, but un-harmful) and bake for 9-11 minutes. So good.

Comal

Dani, I apologize in advance for this post which is not really sharing a recipe or specific culinary-venture. Instead I am going to waste your time contemplating some food related concepts, with the occasional pseudo-recipe interspersed, and the more frequent revelation of my inability to properly use my alleged brain.


#1: Butterscotch. What's up with that. I recently purchased a bag of butterscotch chips for a butterscotch brownie recipe. In true me form, I opened the bag before I intended to actually bake with the chips. I wanted to use a few in a fake sundae I was making myself with yogurt and chocolate chips. Butterscotch seemed the cherry on top to eliminate all possible health-redemption from the yogurt. Suggestion: don't try this if you don't want to be fat. I found myself returning to the cupboard every few bites to add a few more butterscotches to the mixture. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed my butterscotch-chips-with-yogurt. I'm sure the regret will set in when I find I am 1 cup short on the butterscotch for the brownies and 10 pounds heavier. Until then, I will be snacking on butterscotch/choc chip trail mix (yes, I just invented this. No, there are no other ingredients).














#2: Beans. Yum. Always. With Dani off in Portland, I found myself longing to hear her attempting to lure me to her house with the promise of beans (this always works when I am hungry). Her mom, a kitchen boss, makes the most delicious beans in the ever-intimidating pressure cooker. I, very obligingly, consume the beans at any and every opportunity. They are delicious with cheese, tortillas, avocados, mushrooms, chicken?, really any sauteed vegetable, or just plain. As luck would have it, Nic had left an unopened can of black beans at my house (cheers). Being that I do not have a pressure cooker or beans skills, canned is my only feasible option for creating something edible involving beans. I set to work improvising. I cooked some garlic and threw in a random pepper that miraculously happened to be in my house. I let these items sizzle for some time (and burn just a little..) before I poured in the beans, and about 3/4 tsp ground cumin. Upon tasting the beans, I decided to add some chipotle flakes and chili flakes. A good decision. As I have no comal, I stove top heated some tortillas and devoured. It could have been worse.














#3: Hummus: A tragedy. Well, if we're being honest, the real tragedy is my absolute idiocy in certain contexts. I realize that I take a chance whenever I diverge from the recipes I follow in baking projects; baking is a science blah blah blah. This is a risk I am willing to take in the interest of saving time and resources and maybe, just maybe, coming out with a win (baseball season metaphor). The point being, most of my foodie failures stem from an adventurous laziness, rather than from pure stupidity. My most recent attempt at hummus does not fall into this category of failures.

I had made Molly Katzen's hummus a few weeks ago, much to my delight, and decided to repeat it. I dumped 1 can chickpeas, 3 tbsp tahini, 2 tbsp lemon juice, a clove of garlic and 1 tsp cumin into my shiny new food processor, secured the top (with far fewer hiccups than my last attempt to use Cuizzee (rhymes with weezy), and pressed "pulse." Nothing. I removed the lid, re-attached it, pressed pulse. Nothing. I removed the bowl, re-attached it, pressed pulse. Nothing. I un-plugged the machine, removed the lid and the bowl, re-attached the bowl and secured the lid, plugged in the base and pressed pulse. Nothing. It was not until the genius Camila took a crack at assembling the machine a week later that I realized (although I did not admit this at the time) that I had been putting the bowl on backwards (it seemed to click into place at the time, leading me to assume that the cuisinart was defective, and not I). Woops. After multiple frustrated attempts, I eventually scraped the contents into the itsy-bitsy and highly temperamental cuinsinart we have. Lil Cuizzee made a valiant effort to chop all these ingredients into a smooth, cohesive dip-spread, but it just couldn't take the pressure. The end result was a very chunky, lemony substance, with the occasional large bite of garlic. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't hummus. Perhaps something got lost in transferal of the ingredients from vessel to vessel. Perhaps Cuizzee hates me (see future post about cuisinart bread attempt 2). Either way, after I write this, I will be throwing the remains of the non-hummus to the worms.

One hundred Camilas

Yesterday was a momentous day: my favorite person named after a Cuban revolutionary came to town. Naturally, I had to bake something to celebrate this occasion. I had re-created Heidi's delicious spice cake earlier this week using canned pumpkin. The recipe had only used 1/2 cup of the pumpkin, leaving me lots left to work with. I considered making the cake once again, as Dani, an avid fan of this cake, had not gotten to sample the most recent trial. Upon further thought and exploration of options, though, I decided to branch out. The extra sugary Magnolia Bakery Cookbook provided the solution in the form of a recipe for "Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing." Amazingly enough, I had all the ingredients. I had been saving the cream cheese for a baking project intended to impress someone at work, but this was clearly more important.

I intended to stick with the recipe completely, minus the nuts (ew). I struggled to reach the full amount of pumpkin called for in the recipe, but with lots of scraping and spatul-ing of the can I think I made it happen. Either way, it was impossible to tell in the end. I also decreased the cinnamon by 1 tsp because nothing can ruin a cake like too much cinnamon.

Pumpkin Cake (I don't know what pumpkin bars are. This was a cake) with Cream Cheese Frosting
adapted from recipe by Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel

Cake part:
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/4 tsp salt
* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin puree
* 1 1/4 cups sugar
* 3/4 cups vegetable oil (I considered using butter instead, but oil was definitely the way to go on this one. Moist!)
* 3 eggs

Frosting part:
* 8 oz cream cheese, room temp
* 3 1/2 tbsp butter, room temp
* 2 ish cups powdered sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla

Cake: Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Mix the flour, b.p., cinnamon, b.s., and salt in a small bowl or liquid cup measure (efficiency!).













In a large bowl, beat the pumpkin, sugar, oil and eggs until smooth and well combined (I used the hand beaters to ensure the ingredients were sufficiently blended). Pour in the dry ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into the pan and bake 28-33 minutes.



























While the cake is cooling, make the frosting: Using beaters or a standing mixer, whip the cream cheese and butter together. Add the vanilla and beat again. Add the sugar by the half cup until sweetened to your liking. When the cake has cooled, spread a thick layer of frosting over the top. Kidnap your friends and being them to your house and force them to eat the cake (between eight of us the cake did not survive the night).

Lastly, my apologies for the shitty pictures. As with all extremely tasty things I make, it was impossible to remember to photograph pieces of the cake before they were rapidly demolished. But trust me, it was beautiful.

Control Freaks

Sometimes one just has to bake something vegan. Usually this only happens when you are with a vegan and trying to be sensitive. Actually, this does only happen when you are with a vegan and trying to be sensitive. That said, when Nic showed up unexpectedly at my door I knew there would be some animal product-less baking in our near futures.

We perused a few vegan websites and were not unimpressed with the selection of recipes, but the true answer did not take long to find. Allowing my taste buds' agenda to take over, I embarked on a google search of "vegan peanut butter cookies." The rationale for wanting vegan peanut butter cookies was that the nuttiness of peanut butter overtakes the other flavors in peanut butter cookies. A frequent conundrum with vegan baking is that the flavors are somehow not as stellar as those of butter, eggs and granulated sugar (for some reason many vegan recipes shy away from sugar in exchange for agave or maple syrup. Explain, someone), and are instead just a little weird. On the other hand, it is very difficult to craft a truly foul flavored PB cookie (that said, I hated the things, vegan or not, for most of my childhood... but we are all young and stupid at some point). But I digress.

The second link that came up was for none other than 101cookbooks's vegan PB cookies. Nic agreed that they sounded half decent. She also agreed to let me use almond butter (the container was open and the PB was sealed) and some agave instead of all maple syrup (maple syrup is expensive and I have no other foreseeable use for the agave).

MaNic/Nuts Cookies

adapted from recipe by Heidi Swanson

* 2 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 3/4 tsp salt
* 1/2 cup almond butter
* 1/2 cup peanut butter (I had chunky because it's better, but creamy will suffice)
* 1/2 cup maple syrup
* 1/2 cup agave
* 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 1/3 cup olive oil

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Have your fellow control freak mix the flours, b.p. and salt in a bowl. In a larger bowl, combine the nut butters, maple syrup/agave, olive oil and vanilla. Mix them until very well combine and smooth (except for the peanut chunks).

Pour in the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix until just barely combined. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes (or so. We all now how I feel about waiting). Give a few more stirs. The dough is sticky, so it is advisable to use a spoon to scoop dough onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool before removing from the sheet, as they will be soft still and fall apart easily when still hot.

Final commentary: When they first came out of the oven, the cookies were good, but had a slight bitterness (most probably from the almond butter and olive oil) that exacerbated the fact that they were not very sweet. They were not bad, just - different. That said, after sitting for a night the bitterness dissipated and the maple/agave flavor strengthened. They maintained their x-factor, as the olive oil flavor subtly remained, but they were slightly more delicious after resting.

dough boy fresh

Title. Today was a wake and bake kind of day. It was Sunday, rainy and I had the house (mostly) to myself. But in the interest of being moderately productive with the day, I decided to make soda bread instead. I first thought I'd have a second go with cuisinart bread, but was quickly put off by memories of the waiting/rising process, etc. I had also failed to celebrate St. Patrick's Day (unless you count getting drunk and belligerent on Guinness when it was still light out and proceeding to get in a physical fight with one of my good friends as celebrating St. Patrick's Day...), and soda bread seemed like a good tribute to my Irish non-brethren.

I attempted to find a recipe for soda bread I had found successful previously (not the oat one I wrote about in here). I am pretty sure it came from the Bread Bible, but upon comparing the B.B. recipe with one I found in the Big Book of Baking, I decided to try the latter. I made a minor adjustment, adding 2 cups of whole wheat flour (I had done this the first time I made soda bread to my immense delight. Flavor and fiber!), but otherwise was content with the simplicity of the recipe.

American Soda Bread

adapted from recipe from The Big Book and Baking

* 2 cups flour

* 2 cups whole wheat flour

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1 tsp salt

* 1 3/4 cups buttermilk (I made the genius error of reading 1 1/4 cups at first and was most perplexed when the dough was excessively floury and dry until I finally learned to read)

Preheat oven to 425˚ F. Lightly grease a cookie sheet.

Mix the flours, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Make a well and add the buttermilk (ideally the proper amount). Stir until the dough just comes together. It should not be too wet.

Turn dough onto floured surface and knead a few times. Shape into a 8-inch circle (NOTE: THIS STEP IS CRUCIAL). Place the loaf on the cookie sheet. Make a cross on the top with a knife. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden and hollow sounding when tapped. Cool on a wire rack.

Now for the fun part: I was very pleased with my first impression of the bread. It was a gorgeous color and well risen, if slightly lopsided. The first slice I tasted was the perfect temperature, slightly crunchy on the outsides and subtly flavored. I immediately went in for a second piece, only to discover an oval of raw dough in the center of my bread. I cut another piece to see if the dough problem had invaded the whole loaf. It had. Now, for anyone who knows me, raw things are not problematic. I will eat most things from raw mushrooms to, as it happens, bread dough. This was a little troubling, though. I ate the pieces I had cut with some buttery spread while pondering 1) how I could fix this and 2) how it happened. I re-heated the oven to 350˚ and put the bread back in for 3 minutes before deciding that this was not a good idea - the rest of the loaf was borderline dry already and this would most likely ruin the whole thing without fixing the central problem (hehe). I removed it, ate another piece, then grabbed a spoon. It was time to excavate. I scooped out as much of the raw part as possible and shaped it together into a mini loaf. I stuck it in the toaster oven at 350˚ for about 5 minutes, then shoved this small, mostly baked piece back into the cavernous loaf. I am nothing if not creative. And crazy.

As for what happened, Dani proposed that I did not sufficiently flatten the dough (hence above warning at the shaping step). I think I also failed to tightly pinch the dough seams together, which, while this might not have contributed to the un-baked factor, is always important in bread making. Duly noted.

Freaks and Banana Bread

Baking for a group of people is always an interesting activity. The other night, I invited a few friends over for some TV, champagne and baking. I sold the baking component as something of a group activity ("we can all bake something!"), but deep down I knew full well that, aside from dishes like the Boston Cream Pie, baking, for me, is a highly personal and individualized activity (what? I'm an only child). Towards midnight on aforementioned night, my eyes began to droop slightly. We were on our third episode of Freaks and Geeks and our third row of girl scout cookies. I wasn't sure if I was still up for this momentous baking I had promised. When Becky piped up with, "are we still going to bake?," her voice laden with hope, I knew that quitting was not an option. In record time, they reached the conclusion that they wanted banana bread with, obviously, chocolate chips. Despite having only two rather dinky bananas lying around, it was on.

Allrecipes.com provided a most basic recipe to follow (side rant: what's up with everyone trying to put all kinds of s..stuff in banana bread? While less is more is usually-but-not-always the case with baking, it should be a rule with banana bread).

Banana Bread

recipe adapted from allrecipes.com

* 2 cups flour

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1/4 tsp salt

* 1 stick butter

* 3/4 cup brown sugar

* 2 eggs

* 1 tsp vanilla (final touch I decided to throw in. Vanilla makes everything better)

* 2-3 ripe bananas (recipe called for 2 1/3 cups, but I barely had 1 cup and it turned out just dandy)

* 1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease a loaf pan.

Mash the bananas in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add the eggs and stir in completely. Add the bananas and vanilla and mix until well combined. Pour in the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until just combined (no overmixing). Lastly, fold in the chocolate chips.

Scoop the batter into the loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Feed to a frenzy of girls.

Biscuit case

I have created a monster (or two). Ever since my most recent (and most successful) biscuit attempt, Dani has been drooling in anticipation of the next batch. The other night I felt compelled to bake, but had no hunger for baked goods. As a result, I allowed Dani to make the executive decision of what to make. Without an extra thought, she exclaimed, "biscuits!" Sophie, who was also present, quickly seconded this suggestion. It was decided. The only problem was this blog. There is no fun in re-baking something I already know is great, like the biscuits from the Bread Bible because the story and recipe will not be new and exciting. So we turned to my old go-to site, foodnetwork.com. Alton Brown had a decent looking recipe, so we decided to give it a try. We altered it slightly, leaving out the shortening in exchange for extra butter.

Biscuits 2

adapted from recipe by Alton Brown

* 2 cups flour

* 4 tsp baking powder

* 1/4 tsp baking soda

* 3/4 tsp salt

* 4 tbsp butter

* 1 cup buttermilk (upon discovering some heavy cream in the refrigerator, I attempted to replace some of the buttermilk with cream. Disappointment ensued, though, when the cream was slightly solidified and clearly past its prime. Buttermilk had to suffice).

Preheat oven to 450˚ F. Mix the flour, b.p., b.s., and salt in a bowl. Crumble in the butter (pastry cutter or fingertips will work) until mixture resembles crumbs. Pour in the buttermilk and mix until just combined. Place the dough on a floured surface. Sprinkle top with flour and fold the dough over 5-6 times.

Here we again diverged from the recipe. Rather than rolling out the dough and punching out circles with a cookie cutter, we pinched off pieces of dough and dropped them into a (lightly greased) round cake pan. I was a big fan of how this baking vessel worked with the previous round of biscuits, ensuring they bake upwards rather than puffing out too far.

Bake 15-20 minutes (we did 15. Tasting them the next morning, I concluded that a few more minutes would not have hurt). Eat with butter, jam, lemon curd, peanut butter, nothing.

Deez corn nuts

My Portland baking companions Aly and Kathleen recently introduced me to the most delicious cookies I have had in a long time: compost cookies. I had heard of these miraculous treats (notably from baking queen Julie), but never bothered to look into them too much. The ones A and K sent had chocolate chips and what I first thought was corn flakes, but later discovered to be POTATO CHIPS. YES. I ate about 4 of the cookies in one sitting, and finished the rest throughout the day (with some help from Dani).

In the week following this most amazing cookie gift, producing a similarly creative compost-type cookie became an obsession for me and Dani. On one grocery store trip we purchased chocolate chips, potato chips, chocolate pudding, corn nuts, avocados and PBR. We did no research on how one goes about constructing a compost cookie - from the taste/appearance I assumed the recipe closely resembled that of basic chocolate chip cookies, with the addition of some form(s) of salty relief. Having subsequently read a bit about compost cookie theory, I feel that our lack of knowledge was in the spirit of compost cookie making. We bought what looked good (?) and blindly sprinted into the realm of throwing random junk food into dough.

After this bout of mania, our enthusiasm waned slightly. Aside from devouring >3/4 of the bag of corn nuts one evening (a traumatizing occurrence), we more or less forgot about our grand plans. Until beer pong time rolled around (a friend of mine recently started a beer pong league. Don't be jealous). This would be the venue to experiment with cookies. As soon as I got home from work on the night of scheduled beer pong I pulled a stick of butter and an egg from the fridge and...

Tooth Breaker Cookies

* 1 stick butter (I went with normal over unsalted, as I usually do with choc chip cookies)
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/4 cup white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1 cup + 3 tbsp flour (slightly less flour would probably work, especially if you like your cookies on the thin/chewy side)
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 cup (or so) chocolate chips
* 1/2 cup (or so) plain corn nuts

Note: I did not add any extra salt in this recipe. Salt is a crucial component of all chocolate chip-esque cookies, but the high sodium content (like, really high) of corn nuts and salted butter seemed to suffice in this case.

Preheat oven ton 350˚ F.

Cream butter and sugars. Wooden spoon style is always most rewarding. Beat in the egg and then vanilla. Once well combined, add the flour and baking soda (note: the compost cookie recipes I looked at subsequently called for baking powder, some in addition to and some instead of baking soda. If I understood the difference between the two I would comment on this. Since I do not understand the difference, I went with baking soda, which is traditional in chocolate chip cookies). Mix well until dough is formed.

Pour in the chocolate chips and corn nuts. Mix well. Place balls of dough on cookie sheet. Bake for 10-ish minutes (less for softer and chewier, longer for crispier and dryer).

Serve with beer. Or on their own. Note: Dani insisted on killing the element of surprise by telling/warning everyone about the corn nuts they were about to encounter, claiming she wanted to protect people from chipping their teeth. I have never known someone to break a tooth on a corn nut (even a surprise corn nut). I will, however, certainly be using her suggestion of adding more corn nuts and crushing them slightly before adding them when I recreate these cookies. This will happen as soon as I can face a bag of corn nuts again...

Muffin-crushing

Dani has been fantasizing about Toblerone muffins ever since she discovered the recipe about a year ago. We have made many plans to bring this dream into reality, all of which have fallen through. We came very close recently, even purchasing the two necessary bars of Toblerone. This attempt was foiled, though, by a collective failure of self control, which resulted in the consumption of 1.5 of aforementioned bars. While I am not a recipe stickler, even I will delay baking when I am missing 3/4 of the recommended chocolate.

On Wednesday we managed to obtain replacement Toblerone. After consuming a painfully healthy dinner of cauliflower and millet (produced by Wilma. It was actually quite delicious), we set about constructing these nutrition-free muffins.

Toblerone Muffins

adapted from Sweet Endings by Sharon Glass

* 2 1/2 cups flour

* 1 tbsp baking powder

* 2/3 cup sugar

* 1/2 cup ground almonds

* 6 tbsp butter

* 1 egg

* 1 cup buttermilk

* 1/4 cup milk

* 1 1/2-2 bars Toblerone

Preheat oven to 375˚ F.

Chop the chocolate. Note: I had Dani do a very rough chop. This meant the chocolate was not well distributed throughout the muffins. For this reason, the few Toblerone chunks were extra special, but a slightly smaller chop would have meant more chocolate encounters, therefore more delicious muffins.

Have your faithful assistant mix the dry ingredients, including the sugar and almonds. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Whisk in the buttermilk/milk (it can all be buttermilk, but it was easier for me to do 1/4 cup milk and I am lazy), then the egg. Make sure to whisk constantly so the egg does not cook.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Fold in the Toblerone. Either grease a muffin tin, or fill with muffin cups. The recipe said 6 muffins would come from a batch, but we ended up with 12 reasonably sized muffins. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool before eating.

Final consensus: The muffins were far from inedible - Dani, in fact, polished off two fresh out of the oven. On the other hand, they were not spectacular. I attribute the mediocrity to the actual muffin part (obviously the slightly melty Toblerone was out of this world). The muffin was pale, bland and too milky (maybe if I had used buttermilk instead of a combination of buttermilk and milk this would have helped. Maybe not). In theory, a plain muffin base is ideal to support a flavor such as that of Toblerone. In this case, though, I was underwhelmed. Upon further contemplation, Dani and I concluded that perhaps more egg and less milk, and/or finer chopped chocolate, and/or a chocolate muffin would have produced a more cohesive and delicious overall muffin experience. I would not repeat this exact recipe, but I would certainly experiment with it.

Final final note: While we were baking, Dani brought to my attention her opinion that the pictures in this blog are sub-par. I would like to take a moment to apologize profusely to the world (aka the only important people in the world aka the people reading this) for the not-as-amazing-as-apparently-they-should-be food images that I have been subjecting you to. I hope you can forgive me until the day when I am a famous food-tographer with a real camera and real skills. Sorry.

Processed

White bread. Does it have any redeeming qualities? It has negative health value; it is far less exciting than rye, challah or potato rosemary bread; it it is the worst insult one can bestow on a city. But let's be honest. Aside from these flaws, there is nothing not to like about white bread. It is inoffensive, holds up well in a sandwich (unlike the seed-heavy brown breads my mom likes), and will not clash with anything you want to put on it.

In the interest of keeping with my commitment to use the Bread Bible more, I decided to break in my new food processor last week. According to a very wise source, food processors are ideal for bread making - superior even to kitchenaid-type contraptions. I began flipping through the Bible for recipes to try. I then decided to make challah in honor of Dani's return home. I then decided that I was too Jewish to make challah not on a Friday (it was Sunday). After extensive perusal, I concluded that my best plan of action would be to follow a recipe from the food-processor instruction book. As much as I love improvising with baking, when it comes to bread, messing around is not yet an option for me. For my first food-processor bread endeavor, I concluded that having explicit steps for when and where to use the machine would be for the best. How right I was!

Classic Cuisinart White Bread

* 1 package active dry yeast

* 2 tsp granulated sugar

* 1/3 cup warm water

* 4 cups flour

* 3 tbsp butter

* 1 1/2 tsp salt

* 1 cup cold water

Step 1: Figure out how to assemble and turn on the food processor (no, I did not do this before starting out and yes, this proved to be highly problematic).

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water in a 2-cup liquid measure. Let mixture sit about 5 minutes until foamy (mine ended up sitting for closer to 20 minutes as I entered a vicious battle with the uncooperative cuisinart soon after mixing the ingredients).

ONLY ONCE YOU ARE SURE THE FOOD PROCESSOR IS PROPERLY ASSEMBLED AND WILL RUN WHEN YOU TURN IT ON SHOULD YOU PROCEED.

Put flour, butter and salt into food processor and process. With the processor running, pour in the liquid, including the cup of cold water. When the dough comes together to form a ball and no longer sticks to the bowl, continue to process for 45 seconds (much better than kneading by hand).

The recipe suggested using a floured plastic bag as a rising vessel for the dough. In an attempt to make the bread slightly more exciting, I greased the rising bowl with olive oil and coated the dough in the oil. I don't think this made much of a difference in the bread flavor, but, if nothing else, it did not hurt the bread. Anyway, let the dough rise in whatever container you choose for 1 to 1 1/2 hours in a warm place (next to the heater works excellently).

Once doubled in size, place the dough on a floured surface. Punch down dough. Divide in half. Roll each piece of dough out into an 8x4 rectangle. Roll the dough up (like a jelly/cinnamon roll). Pinch together well at the seams to seal. Place each dough ball in an 8x4 inch greased bread pan. Cover with plastic wrap. Let dough rise for about 45 mins (until just risen over the top of the pans). Fifteen minutes before baking, preheat oven to 400˚ F.

Bake 30-35 minutes, until loaves are brown and make a hollow sound when tapped. Let cool on cooling rack.

The bread was a success. Excellent with soup, and it made for delicious paninis/grilled cheeses. I take back all bad things I have said before about white bread - it might be boring and cause diabetes, but it tastes like sweet, fluffy comfort.