a kilo is 1000 grams

I fully intended to return my cousin's baking scale and Bread Bible when I saw her last weekend. I have had it for almost a year and, while I greatly enjoy having it close at hand just in case, I don't think I have used it enough to warrant such an extended loan time. However, I forgot to return the book and it is still sitting with my continuously expanding cookbook collection.

In order to assuage some of my guilt at holding the Bible hostage, I vowed to put the thing to use. Since real bread baking is a very long and patience-demanding process, I decided to stick with something small for this round: biscuits. I have attempted to create the most delicious of small quick- bread items on multiple occasions. Most recently, Dani, Camila and I had some luck with our biscuit attempt (although the tasty factor might have had something to do with the copious amounts of clotted cream we piled on top of them..). I have never been fully thrilled with the outcome, though. As I closely followed Rose Levy Beranbaum's instructions, I became increasingly convinced that these biscuits would join the ranks of previous failures. How mistaken I was.

Butter is better than shortening biscuits

adapted from Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

* 3 tbsp butter (the book recipe called for shortening but ew)

* 3 tbsp sugar

* 1 1/2 cups flour

* 2 tsp baking powder

* 1 tsp salt

* 1/2 cup heavy cream

* 3/4 cup buttermilk (can use one or the other, but this is the combination I used based on the amount of cream that I had left after brownies)

* 1 cup extra flour

Preheat oven to 475˚ F. Grease a cake pan. Place a cookie sheet on the middle rack and leave in the oven.

Mix the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl. Crumble in the butter with your fingertips until it resembles... small crumbs.

Stir in the cream/buttermilk mixture. Don't overbeat. The mixture will be very soft and wet (Rose described it as resembling mashed potatoes, but mine was even wetter, much to my initial distress).

Pour the extra cup of flour into a separate cake pan. Use a spoon to scoop biscuit-sized (interpret as you will) clumps of dough/batter into the flour. Pour more flour on top of dough until coated with flour. Place the floured dough-ball into the greased cake pan. Note: this step involved a good deal of guesswork. Rose's recipe instructed simply sprinkling some flour on top of the dough balls before transferring them to the baking dish. Since mine were so wet, I had to use a good amount of flour to form the dough into a proper ball shape, otherwise the clump would remain runny and shape-less. Once coated in flour, they held up relatively well.

Repeat the flouring process, placing the balls in the pan so they are all touching. Once all the dough has been formed and in the pan, place on the baking sheet in the oven and raise temperature to 500˚ F. Bake for 5 minutes, then lower temperature back to 475˚ F. Bake for 10-15 minutes longer until brownish and risen. Let them cool in the pan for a few minutes, then turn out onto a plate.

I ended up with something of a biscuit cake, despite my excessive flouring, the biscuits had fused together during the baking process and it was difficult to tell exactly where to pull them apart. This turned out to be a negligible problem. While the biscuit shapes were not perfectly round and the sizes varied, the buttery, light, warm fluffiness of the biscuits compensated for any asymmetry. Clotted cream would have been an ideal addition, but jam, buttery spread (product placement!), and lemon curd did the trick.

Never again

I am easy to please when it comes to most things. Food is no exception. While I would like to consider myself something of a foodie, I am not nearly critical enough to warrant this title. I love food and I bake a lot, but if there is enough butter or sugar (or, let's be honest, enough flour) in any recipe, I'll eat the whole thing in one sitting if left uninterrupted.

This week, though, I outdid myself. When I set out to create Matt and Renato's Sweet and Salty Brownie, I was convinced something would go wrong. Firstly, the initial step required making caramel. Having epicly failed to make fudge on multiple occasions, I now shy away from recipes involving boiled sugar. Secondly, believe it or not, I have yet to produce a batch of brownies (Ina Garten's box brownies excluded) that have been truly mind-blowing. At least, I hadn't until this week.

With some assistance from Dani and Sophie, I was able to produce a baked good that allowed me to both reassess my fears of caramel and brownies, and deeply regret not proposing brownies for bake-off. Cruel world.

Sweet and Salt Brownies

followed exactly from Baked Explorations

Caramel-part

* 1 cup sugar

* 2 tbsp light corn syrup

* 1/2 cup heavy cream

* 1 tsp fleur de sel

* 1/4 cup sour cream

Brownie-part

* 1 1/4 cup flour

* 1 tsp salt

* 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

* 11 oz dark chocolate (might have used slightly more, but who's counting)

* 2 sticks butter

* 1 1/2 cups sugar

* 1/2 cup brown sugar

* 5 eggs

* 2 tsp vanilla

For the caramel: Mix the sugar, corn syrup and 1/4 cup water in a saucepan and put over high heat. Boil for 6-8 minutes or until the mixture is "dark amber" colored (or 350˚ if you have a thermometer). Once it has reached this stage of caramelization, turn off the heat and whisk in the heavy cream (careful of extremely hot bubbling mixture), then add the fleur de sel. Whisk in the sour cream. Set aside.

(Note: this was by far the most stressful step of a baking project I have ever undertaken. For one thing, while I was watching and stirring the sugar and corn syrup mixture, something was smelling very weird. Like an over used sponge. Since caramel is supposed to be delicious in taste and scent, this was distressing. When I pointed out the weird odor, Dani pointed out that the corn syrup had expired in 2007. She also maintained that I was removing the mixture from the stovetop before it had reached optimal amberization. At this point, I resigned myself to the caramel being disgusting and the brownies being a complete failure. Nonetheless, I continued with the recipe.)

For the brownie: Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Butter and parchment paper a 9x13 inch baking dish (usually I skip parchment paper as a rule, but due to the stickiness factor of caramel, I complied this time).

Put the chocolate and butter in a medium-large heatproof bowl. Place on top of a pot of simmering water. I recommend breaking up the chocolate and cutting up the butter. I skipped this step and it all worked out in the end, but might have saved some time. While the melting is underway, mix the flour, salt and cocoa powder in a separate bowl.

Once chocolate and butter are fully melted, turn off the heat (I forgot to do this, which was OK, but the point is to allow the mixture to cool before adding the eggs) but leave over the water. Mix in the sugars. Once combined, remove the bowl from the stove. When the mixture reaches room temp, whisk in 3 of the eggs. Add the other two eggs and the vanilla and mix until just combined, but don't overmix (or, Matt and Renato warn, you will have cakey brownies! The horror!!!!)

Sprinkle the flour mixture on top. Fold into the chocolate mixture until almost all the flour has been absorbed.

Put half the brownie batter into the pan and spread out. Pour about 3/4 of the caramel mixture onto the batter layer (seriously, no more. The recipe does not call for the rest of the caramel, but it can and should be saved and added to the brownies once they are baked. Or poured over ice cream). Finally, top it all off with the rest of the batter. Cover as much of the caramel as possible with the batter (Note: I left a decent amount of caramel uncovered because I put too much batter on the bottom. It was only after I had put it in the oven that I read the recipe's side-note, warning that uncovered caramel risked burning in the oven. By this time there was no going back. Luckily, this batch did not burn. The moral of the story is: it is probably OK to leave some caramel uncovered.).

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove and sprinkle with 1 1/2 tsp fleur de sel. Let cool completely (for me, this involved a 5 minute refrigerator stint) before cutting. Eat with milk.

Needless to say, the brownies were indescribably delicious. Even the caramel, over which I had gained a few gray hairs, was to die for (tip: corn syrup doesn't expire!). Special thanks to Dani, Sophie, Cat, Nick and my parents for helping demolish these in less than 24 hours.

Final point: the pictures from this baking session simply cannot do the thing justice. It is an extreme situation that would oblige me to rob readers of food-tography, and in this case, the photos were not only sub-par, they were pretty unappetizing. For this reason, all the photos in this post are completely irrelevant, but will be less likely to discourage you from making these brownies, which you should do immediately.

Happy Hour

After working all weekend, the last thing I wanted to do on Sunday (my new Friday) was sit around at home watching the Grammys with my family. I wanted to at least have a few drinks and maybe dance for a minute.

Not surprisingly, Dani ended up at my house shortly after I got home. She had other ideas: "Let's watch the Grammys at my house!" I persisted for a short time trying to finagle a night out, but Dani was adamant. "Fine," I finally conceded. "But we are going to bake something." And so came to be Grammy Crumb Cake. Baked Explorations guided me in this endeavor. This guidance entailed a detailed account of the difference between coffee cake and New York Style Crumb cake. This cake is the latter. Now, as I might have already mentioned, I am a coffee cake master (bake-off crowned). Crumb cake, while similar, is different enough that I decided it was worth experimenting with a new recipe and not simply re-creating my tiara winning coffee cake. The result was quite excellent, although Dani had the brilliant suggestion of using the cake recipe I use for coffee cake, and combining this with the crumb part of the crumb cake to make a perfect coffee crumb hybrid. Drool.

Anyway, I branched out a little from the Baked recipe. Since, as always, we had no sour cream, I used yogurt instead. This has never noticeably hurt a recipe, to the best of my knowledge (and yes, I suppose it is better for you). I also substituted in some whole wheat flour for all-purpose, and cut back on some cinnamon in the topping. Cheers to Dani for top quality photography.

Grammy Crumb Cake

Top-part
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 tbsp cinnamon
* 1 cup butter, melted (I used one stick salted, one stick unsalted)
* 2 1/2 cups flour

Cake-part
* 1 cup all purpose flour
* 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
* 3/4 tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1 1/2 sticks butter
* 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
* 2 eggies
* 1 1/4 cups yogurt
* 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Make the top-part. Mix the sugars, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter. Gently fold in the butter (mostly to avoid a giant mess). Set aside.

Make the cake-part. Combine the flours, b.p., b.s. and salt in a medium-sized bowl. In a larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar (I again turned to the beaters, but Dani quickly commandeered this step with a wooden spoon and much vigor). When well creamed, beat in the eggs, then yogurt and vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients in three batches (a common step for cake making). Don't overmix, but don't undermix.

Grease a 9x13 inch glass baking pan. Pour in the batter. Grab a handful of the crumble part and squeeze it together. Break off big chunks of the crumble and drop onto the batter.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for at least 20 minutes (or as long as you can handle) before cutting. Then demolish.

I wanna eat a cowboy cookie baby

At the end of the day, I cannot claim to be a real baker. I can make a bake-off winning coffee cake here and there, and the occasional buttermilk pie. But if we are being brutally honest, deep down I am a cookie maker. Cookies are, and will always be, my favorite kind of baked good (not biscotti, or jam filled cookies, or oreos, but the kind that drips with butter and oozes chocolate chips).

The recipe for cowboy cookies in Baked Explorations was one that jumped out after a few reads through the book. Any food item that evokes the Wild West is OK with me, and what is more wild and western than cowboys? Furthermore, the recipe contained oats, chocolate and pretzels. YUM.

When I finally got to making these cookies, I ended up leaving out the pretzels (I didn't have any, and it seemed like a good idea at the time). I had the thought of sprinkling the tops of each cookie with a pinch of the fancy salt flakes my mom buys in lieu of pretzels, but in the moment I forgot this step. Some extra salt, either pure or in pretzel form, would have made these cookies more exciting, but even without the added hypertensive they were not too shabby.

I also diverged from Matt and Renato's instructions in the dough refrigeration time. They recommended chilling the dough for at least 4 hours before baking. I left the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes before I realized that it was disappearing at an alarming rate (into my mouth); if I wanted to have any left for actual baking, I had to act fast. As a result the cookies were extra thin and slightly crispy (this is what happens with not-too-cold butter in cookie dough). Again, not complaining.

In conclusion, the final product strongly resembled (physically and... orally) oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I can think of worse fates.

Cowgirl Cookies
adapted from Baked Explorations

* 1 3/4 cups flour
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 2 cups rolled oats
* 1 1/2 sticks butter
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 2 eggs (the recipe called for 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, but I am lazy and opposed to wasting and/or storing parts of eggs, so the whole thing went in)
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 1 tsp instant espresso powder (a very nice touch, I might add)
* 1-2 cups chocolate chunks
* 1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped (my compensation for no pretzels, and a completely futile attempt to make the cookies less appealing to myself)














Mix together the flour, b.s., b.p. and salt. Add the oats and combine.














In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together (I used an electric mixer this time, but a wooden spoon will do the trick). Add the eggs and continue beating, then the vanilla. Mix until well combined. Pour 1/4 cup of water over the espresso powder and dissolve. Beat this into the wet mixture.














Add in the dry ingredients in two additions and stir until well combined. Mix in the chocolate chunks and nuts.














Cover the bowl and refrigerate for as long as possible without risking the loss of all the dough to swallowing.

Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Grease two cookie sheets (I initially ignored the recipe's instructions to line the sheets with parchment paper, much to my dismay as the cookies refused to part with the metal beneath them). Place balls of dough on the buttered/papered sheet and bake for 10-14 minutes. If you are using two sheets on two racks, be sure to switch the sheets halfway through to ensure even baking.


















While these were not the most original cookies I have ever created, they were still a hit at Chez Dani, as well as at my place of occupation (I decided that if I can't be the tiara wearing champion baker, at least I can be the most prolific). I even managed to demolish one or ten myself.

Everything but the chocolate chips

Sometimes it is a good thing when plans fall through. On Tuesday, instead of going bowling, I made cookies. As Dani lounged about talking to Nic and watching Jerry Maguire (why does that movie exist?), I set to scavenging in her kitchen for bake-able cookie ingredients. She shot down my ideas for adding dried apricots and/or nuts (ew, I know, but I wasn't baking for myself and I was hard up). She also rejected my proposal of dried cherries, and refused to let me touch the remains of the peanut butter in her fridge. She also repeatedly reminded me that she had no chocolate chips. Exasperated, I proposed aborting the entire endeavor. She would not have this either.

I sighed, gritted my teeth and returned to the kitchen to get to work. I measured everything very loosely, if at all, so take all the amounts listed below with a grain of salt (baking pun!).

Better Than Bowling Cookies

* 1 stick butter (salted. I love cookies. I was slightly distracted during the baking process, and accidentally melted some of the stick onto the microwave plate in an attempt to soften the frozen butter. I should probably not use a microwave unsupervised.)

* 1 cup + 2 tbsp flour

* 1/4 cup hot chocolate powder (after tasting the first batch, Dani established that the cookies needed more chocolate. She dumped another 1/3 cup of powder or so into the mix and subsequently pronounced the next batch not as good. Make of this what you will)

* 1 egg

* 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed

* 1/4 cups honey (don't really know what I was going for here... Since I lost some of the butter in my scuffle with the microwave, I thought the honey might make up for some of the lost liquid. On the whole I the honey did not harm the cookies, but probably did not add much either. More sugar would have been an acceptable alternative)

* 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

* 1/2 tsp salt

* 1 tsp vanilla

* a handful (or more) marcona almonds, chopped (yum! Best kind of almonds ever. Despite my nuts in baked goods aversion, I was excited at the prospect of including these in Dani's cookies)

* 1/4 cup or so chopped dried apricots (after batch 1, Dani suggested adding dried apricots. I pointed out that I had already put this idea forth, only to be rejected by Dani herself. She chose to ignore this detail and threw the chopped apricots into the remaining dough)

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Soften (but don't melt!) the butter. Mix the sugar and honey into the butter. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until combined (yes. Cookies are clearly the best food in the world). Place balls of dough on a cookie sheet and bake for 7-10 minutes.

Feed to Dani. She might complain and try to alter the recipe, but she will still eat at least 4.

PS. I had no good pictures of the final result, and they looked the same as all other chocolate cookies anyway, so please enjoy the initial shot of a recent attempt at homemade mission dogs.

Bake-off XI: Tha rematch

On Monday, February 7, 2011 the much anticipated bake-off rematch arrived. For those who don't remember, December 2010 brought us bake-off X: Battle Shortbread to fruition, a showdown in which my competitor took the tiara with a 1 point lead. Unfortunately for her, for true bake-off championship the victor must crush the competition by at least 3 points. Needless to say, a rematch was inevitable following her narrow and hardly relevant win.

After months of deliberation, mother-insulting, and the occasional laboratory tussle (no rats were harmed and I think the fluorescent orange mark on my shoulder is fading...), we landed on a baked good for the rematch: muffins. At the last bake-off we had shared a recipe. This time, we left it general. Any muffin was fair game (with the exception of bran, which meant automatic disqualification).

The choice for me was obvious. Too many people dislike blueberry muffins. Besides, these would fail my avoid-fruit-in-baked-goods-at-all-costs rule (as would raspberry or apple muffins). Banana nut would violate my avoid-nuts-in-baked-goods-at-all-costs rule. Corn muffins violated no rules and happen to be a favorite of mine, but they are too easy to mess up. Chocolate chocolate chip it was. Not only were no other muffins worthy of bake-off, but choc-choc chip muffins are the most delicious things in the world.

As a wee high schooler I had produced a batch of Chocolate Ricotta Muffins from my favorite Mollie Katzen cookbook: Sunlight Cafe

The time had come to reproduce these tiny mounds of rich sweetness.

Chocolate Ricotta Muffins

adapted from Sunlight Cafe by Mollie Katzen

* 2 1/3 cups flour

* 8 tbsp cocoa powder

* 1 tsp baking powder

* 3/4 tsp salt

* 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (or as many as you want)

* 2 eggs

* 1 cup ricotta

* 1/2 stick butter, melted

* 1 1/3 cups milk

* 1 tbsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

Combine the flour, cocoa, salt, b.p. and choc chips in a bowl. As opposed as I am to separate mixing of wet and dry ingredients, muffins are a different story (especially bake-off muffins). There is a great danger of overmixing with quick-bread type foods, which (I'm told) yields dense, overly chewy results.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, the add the ricotta, milk and vanilla, then whisk to combine (story time: brilliant and experienced baker that I am, I somehow managed to forget the vanilla in the process of creating these muffins. Fortunately, I remembered this most crucial ingredient right before putting the muffins in the oven. I proceeded to pour the batter out of the muffin wrappers I had used and remix the whole thing. Not gonna quit my day job any time soon).

Add the wet ingredients and melted butter to the dry ingredients bowl and mix until just combined. Assuming you not forgotten to add any key ingredients, fill muffin tin with the batter. Fill each compartment almost to the top. This made 15 muffins. If you are using muffin wrappers, you do not need to grease the pan. Since all the papers I had were ruined by my vanilla oversight, I went without and instead buttered the tin. Alas.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool on rack.

My two biggest fans, Dani and Sophie, gave the muffins nothing but positive feedback. I also sampled on the night before bake-off, and was thrilled with the chocolate overload I experienced from just half a muffin.

I showed up to work the next day only to find that my competitor had made pumpkin cream cheese muffins: the other best kind of muffin in the world (or should I say cupcake?!). In that moment I knew that, although I might get lucky with a chocoholic group of judges, the competition was far from in the bag. My heart thudded as each judge tasted the muffins, ranking each from 1-10. As the numbers were tallied on a paper towel (bake-off tradition) I began feeling lightheaded and found myself leaning on the wall and cracking bad jokes to ease the tension. It was looking very close. After two re-counts (no one seemed to be able to find a calculator) the final results were tallied. My competitor had won by 4.5 points. My time in the bake-off had come to a premature but unquestionable end. I managed to maintain my composure through the end of the day, smiling and shaking hands with the victor. But mark my words, this is not the last the GI division bake-off will see of the Noe Valley viper (yes, that is my bake-off pseudonym/alter ego). I'll be back, and there will be hell to pay.

Smash

Yes. I am obsessed with Heidi Swanson's website, 101cookbooks. She has an unrivaled ability to make "healthy" baked goods sound more appealing than cookie dough. And, while on the whole, nothing can ever touch cookie dough, most 101cookbooks recipes do not fail to please.

When I saw the headline for Brown Butter Spice Cake on her website, I was immediately sold. Upon further examination, though, my enthusiasm dwindled. A key ingredient in this cake is squash. Squash is an extra effort ingredient, and these do not thrill me. Still, despite this flaw the recipe remained on the back burners of my mind.

A few days ago I found myself in the kitchen with Wilma. "I need to do something with these squashes!" she exclaimed, distressed. My eyes lit up. I had not previously observed the presence of two teensy pumpkin-like squashes that had been sitting, neglected, on our counter, camouflaged by the piles of fruit surrounding them, for at least a month.

"I'll use them!" I volunteered. A wave of relief washed over Wilma's face, as I immediately determined that the next day would be squash cake day. I added a few personal touches to the recipe, including following Heidi's suggestion of substituting coconut oil for the brown butter (effort saving step to compensate for the squash!). Following my recent disappointment with cinnamon I substituted 1/2 tsp ginger for the 3/4 tsp cinnamon in the original recipe.

Squash Cake

adapted from 101cookbooks.com

* 1 squash (you will only need 1/2 cup of mashed squash, but every squash is different, and if you roast the whole thing you will not regret it)

* about 1 tbsp butter

* 1/2 cup coconut oil, just melted (butter is fine. Brown butter too. This will take longer. You have been warned. The recipe also called for 1 tbsp almond oil, or extra butter. I roasted the squash with a lot of butter, and concluded this would compensate for leaving out this extra oil)

* 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

* 1 tsp baking soda

* 1/2 tsp ground ginger

* 1 tsp garam masala (this involved braving the spice cabinet. For those who read about the time I cleaned out the baking cabinet, let's just say that was nothing compared to the even more outrageously over-stocked spice cabinet in my home).

* 1/2 tsp salt

* 1 cup sugar

* 1/4 cup milk

* 2 eggs

Note: If you would like this to be a quicker process (I won't hold it against you), buy some canned pumpkin and use 1/2 cup for the squash component. In the interest of demonstrating just how much effort I put into this cake (and providing instructions for those who are unfamiliar with the art of vegetable roasting), I have included steps for roasting squash. Take it or leave it.

Preheat oven to 360˚ F.

Cut the squash in half. Remove seeds. Place pieces of butter on and in the squash. Put squash on a baking sheet and put in the oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour (depends on size and oven). Once the squash is cooled, scoop out 1/2 cup and mash well with a fork. Probably wouldn't hurt to use a food processor if you are serious about your mushed squash being fully pureed (I am not serious about such things, and even enjoy a squash lump here or there, but this is a personal preference and a result of my hatred of cleaning food processors).

While the squash cools, lower the oven temperature to 350˚.

In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, garam masala, ginger and salt. In a smaller bowl (I used a liquid cup measure, which was on the small side but eh), mix the squash, eggs, sugar and milk. Add to the dry ingredients, along with the melted and cooled coconut oil. Mix it all together.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan (I really dig loaf pans, in case that was not evident). Bake for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

My toughest critic, Dani, wept tears of joy upon tasting the cake-bread. She admonished me for not sharing her adoration of this particular baked good, to the point that I now love it and wish I hadn't given it all away to her mom. Last night.