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.