12.31.07
Posted in Persnickety Bits at 11:46 pm by julie
2007 was a year of ups and downs, and altogether, I’m very glad to bid it goodbye and welcome a new year. While we wait for midnight, here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the past year:
January: This was before the formal start of my food blog. I had been keeping a personal food journal offline, and Jeremy set me up a private blog to write out recipes online for easier access, since we don’t have a printer. We tried out the ice cream maker (a present from my folks) for the first time with chocolate velvet ice cream, and I butterflied my first chicken.
February: I made Jeremy some massamun curry for his birthday with the help of Curry Simple, and I actually thought it was pretty tasty, a big first for me. For Valentine’s Day, there was a Meyer lemon tart with a chocolate-painted crust, and we decided we still don’t like citrus-chocolate combinations; I used the other half of the pâte sucrée recipe to make an all-chocolate tart, and that was much better!
March: I cooked with veal and *gulp* whole fish for the first time, and got over my fear of flipping crepes.
April: Some Greek lamb meatballs made me realize that maybe it was time to start making my food blog public. I began photographing our meals more regularly, with the help of the new camera lens we got to document the life and times of our German shepherd puppy, Freyja. I found my way to my new standard for roast chicken, and tried celeriac for the first time.
May: The farmer’s market opened for the season: we took Freyja out to meet all the other dogs and their people, and I bought pea shoots and rhubarb and asparagus. We discovered the mushroom stand at the market and gave roasted maitake mushrooms a whirl; I practically did a gig when I found the Silver Falls Creamery booth and its delicious goat cheese.
June: Our big excitement for June was a brand-new blue Prius, our first car since selling the Jetta in 2004 when Jeremy headed off to art school. We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary with a chocolate emergency kit and a trip to the beach. I made spaetzle with my new ricer, cooked with fava beans for the first time, and made the best strawberry ice cream ever.
July: Freyja’s lack of interest in being housebroken finally led us to rip out our carpets and refinish the original flooring underneath. I learned that the Lake Oswego farmer’s market near our vet’s office has an artichoke vendor, and found a zucchini recipe I actually liked. I won my first foodblog contest with boysenberry cobblers, and read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows while eating scones. Even more exciting, I joined the Daring Bakers and participated in my first challenge, strawberry mirror cake.
August: This was a difficult month. We lost our eldest ferret, Pandora, who had been part of our family since just a few months after our wedding. We were also shocked to find out we were pregnant, although we didn’t announce it publicly for a few months. In the food world, I made brownie batter ice cream and ate lamb with a spoon. I also ate a lot of out-of-season grapefruit, and kept wanting mac and cheese even though it was too hot out for it, but that wasn’t the best blog fodder. The Daring Bakers August challenge was a fabulous milk chocolate caramel tart, which gave me the opportunity to get over some of my caramel-making fears.
September: September was bookended with cinnamon rolls. I started the month with sweet potato cinnamon rolls, and ended it with the Daring Bakers challenge of cinnamon and sticky buns (and the announcement of our own bun in the oven. I cooked my first duck for Labor Day, ate water buffalo yogurt, made homemade ricotta, and gleefully baked a grape pie. I was also fortunate enough to win a copy of Morimoto’s new cookbook from Cooking with Amy.
October: October was a doozy. We were pretty badly rear-ended on the freeway on September 30th, so we spent a good part of the month recovering physically and emotionally, wrestling with insurance issues (it was a 6-car pile-up), and mourning our mangled car. I didn’t do much blogging because we also had family visiting around my birthday on the 21st, and a month-long scare over abnormal quad screen results that culminated in a successful amniocentesis. Fortunately, we had the World Series to distract us, and two great teams to root for (with accompanying pastries, of course!): my home-town Colorado Rockies and a rocky road brownie tart, and Jeremy’s lifelong favorites, the Boston Red Sox, who may have won the series thanks to the collective willpower of the Daring Bakers and our bostini cream pies.
November: We breathed a sigh of relief in November, and celebrated with comfort foods: gussied-up mac and cheese; homemade chicken noodle, roasted cauliflower, and baked potato soups; apple cider donuts; and a smorgasbord of Thanksgiving favorites, including the be-all and end-all of apple crumb pies. I even found time to make potato bread for the November DB challenge.
December: At long last, we got our Prius back, almost as good as new. I conquered souffles for the first time and made some gorgeous sandwich rolls for barbeque brisket, and then it was off to the races, Christmas baking-style. Three loaves of quick bread, six batches of cookies and candies, and a DB-style yule log later, it’s probably a good thing we bought ourselves a Bowflex for Christmas. 
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12.29.07
Posted in Dairy, Dessert, Ice Cream at 6:23 pm by julie
If you ever have a surplus of egg yolks, I would highly recommend making ice cream. My problem is generally the opposite, but I found myself with a little bowlful of yolks leftover from making the yule log, thanks to its Swiss meringue buttercream and meringue mushrooms. I gleefully handed the ice cream book to my dad and asked him to pick out something custard-based to take care of that little problem, and he put his finger down on Tin Roof Ice Cream, a delectable concoction of French vanilla ice cream layered with fudge ripple and chocolate-covered peanuts. It lasted us all of two days.
My adjustments included using vanilla paste instead of a bean and 1% milk instead of whole in the custard. The resulting ice cream was nevertheless incredibly creamy and pleasantly perfumed with flecks of vanilla bean. I think, in fact, that it may have been my best vanilla ice cream effort to date. I cut the recipe for chocolate-covered peanuts in half to get the right amount for the ice cream, but I didn’t halve the fudge ripple and I have quite a bit of that leftover. Since polishing off the tin roof ice cream, we’ve already been eyeing the gianduja gelato, and I have a inkling that a fudge ripple would not be an unwelcome addition.
Tin Roof Ice Cream
3/4 C 1% milk
3/4 C sugar
Pinch salt
1 1/2 C heavy cream
2 tsp vanilla paste
4 large egg yolks
3/4 C Chocolate-Covered Peanuts (recipe below)
Chilled Fudge Ripple (recipe below)
Warm the milk, sugar, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan (I added an extra splash of cream to bring the fat content closer to that of the original recipe, which called for whole milk).
Pour the remaining cup of cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan. Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Mix in the vanilla paste, then pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream to cool. Stir this bowl until cool over an ice bath, then chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.
Before freezing, make and chill the fudge ripple, then make the chocolate-covered peanuts and allow to harden. Freeze the ice cream in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. While the ice cream is freezing, chop the chocolate-covered peanuts into bite-sized pieces, and fold the pieces into the ice cream as you remove it from the machine, layering it with Fudge Ripple. Start with a puddle of Fudge Ripple in the bottom of the storage container and then alternate layers of ice cream with layers of sauce.
Chocolate-Covered Peanuts
2 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts
Put the pices of chocolate in an absolutely dry heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to melt th chocolate, stirring until smooth. In the meantime, stretch a piece of plastic wrap over a dinner plate.
Once the chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat and stir in the peanuts, coasting them with the chocolate. Spread the mixture on the plastic-lined plate and chill in the refrigerator. Makes 3/4 cup.
Fudge Ripple
1/2 C sugar
1/3 C light corn syrup
1/2 C water
6 T unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Whisk together the sugar, corn syrup, water, and cocoa powder in a medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture begins to bubble at the edges.
Continue to whisk until it just comes to a low boil. Cook for 1 minute, whisking frequently. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla, and let cool. Chill in the refrigerator before using. Makes 1 cup.
Source: Slightly adapted from The Perfect Scoop
, by David Lebovitz
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12.28.07
Posted in Beef, Breakfast, Dinner, Fish, Meats, Seafood, Sides, Veggies at 1:10 pm by julie
We had a lovely quiet Christmas holiday with my parents this year. Freyja, our persnickety puppy, was just in heaven to have company, and made fast friends with my mom. We also had a 3D/4D ultrasound done on the 22nd so my parents could have their first look at our little gourmet in the making. In the absence of more interesting things to eat, he seemed to spend the entire session nibbling on his hands and feet and umbilical cord; unfortunately, that doesn’t allow the best photo opportunities, but I decided to share one here anyway.
For our meals, braising turned out to be the watchword. I made braised wild monkfish from a Mario Batali recipe on Christmas Eve. My mom isn’t a big fan of fish, but since monkfish is sometimes considered to be “the poor man’s lobster,” I thought that perhaps she wouldn’t object too much. I adapted the recipe slightly and served it over quinoa. Everyone actually did seem to like it—except me. I found the texture difficult to eat, and the flavor not worth the trouble. The one thing I did find really amusing about it was the fact that right after we finished eating, we watched an episode of Planet Earth that we’d never seen before about the “Ocean Deep,” and it featured a live monkfish doing its thing. Not a pretty character, so it’s a good thing we weren’t watching while we ate.
Christmas dinner was braised beef short ribs. I wanted to do osso buco, but Whole Foods was fresh out of veal shanks for the job, so we made a last-minute change of plans. I usually like to make lots of extra short ribs because they reheat so well, but we were barely able to purchase enough for the four of us. Does everyone really cook standing rib roasts for Christmas? They had an awfully large selection of those.
I used my standard short rib recipe, adapted from Suzanne Goin. We got it going in a low oven, and on my birdwatching dad’s suggestion, drove out to Ankeny Wildlife Refuge in what ended up being a mix of rain and SNOW. It didn’t stick, of course, but it still counts as a white Christmas for Oregon in my book! We mostly ended up sitting in the car with binoculars because of the cold and wet and wind, but saw a surprising number of species: Northern pintails, canvasbacks, cormorants, ruddy ducks, Canada geese and mallards, great egrets and a great blue heron, tundra swans, a kestrel, two hovering harriers that caused quite a ruckus among the ducks, and even a bald eagle.
Getting back to the ribs, I served them with mashed potatoes and the cream-braised Brussels sprouts from All About Braising. You can find a version of this recipe at Orangette here. I only had about 3/4 C of cream left and quite possibly more than a pound of sprouts, so I supplemented the braising liquid with some chicken stock, and it did just fine. More than fine, actually, since everyone raved about them. I had noted with surprise my father’s reluctance when I started sorting through the sprouts at Fred Meyer; my mom said they were one of his favorite vegetables, so I thought they were a gimme. Afterwards—while eating the last few sprouts straight from the saute pan as we washed dishes—he explained that he had been worried because Brussels sprouts are so easy to cook into tasteless mush. I’d say the key is to choose nice tight sprouts of the same size, which allows for even cooking. The smaller ones cook faster and are less bitter. Needless to say, this recipe will be going in my permanent rotation.
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12.23.07
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 11:00 pm by julie
And on we forge! After filling and rolling the genoise on Friday night, around about midnight, I wasn’t able to get back to get back to the cake until the next evening. (We went and had a 3D/4D ultrasound done so my parents could watch it. Very cool!) The roll set up nicely in the fridge, and I got it all laid out with cut stumps and limbs on a brand-new platter purchased just for the occasion. The chocolate genoise was so rough and bark-ish by itself that it almost didn’t even need frosting, but where would the fun be in that?
The branches held together just fine without toothpicks, as you can see, but I took no chances and frosted all the joints first. I left the cut edges bare so that the roll itself could act as the tree’s rings. The frosting was just slathered on roughly and then scuffed up with a fork to look like bark.
Once I had the frosted log back in the fridge, I did all the advance prep for the decorations. First I made meringue for the mushrooms. Although I purchased a set of pastry bags and tips especially for the occasion, none of the tips were the right size or shape for the mushrooms, so I ended up using a snipped plastic bag after all.
It worked out alright, and I just left the meringues in the cooling oven overnight to dry out as much as possible. As you can see, I dusted the caps with cocoa powder, and when I put them together this afternoon shortly before we left for the party, I used melted chocolate for the “glue” that stuck the pieces together. The finished mushrooms came out really cute and surprisingly realistic. Half my family thought they were real mushrooms at first glance.
Next, I made homemade marzipan. Since I forgot to buy almond paste when we were at the grocery store earlier in the day, I also ended up making that, using equal parts whole almonds and powdered sugar, whizzed together in the food processor with an egg white and a bit of almond extract until they formed a smooth, uniform ball. It was much easier to make than I had expected, and tasted better than the marzipan I’ve encountered in the past. I left half of it uncolored (it was a nut-brown beige due to the almond skins) and tinted the rest a bright green. In the morning, I shaped the uncolored marzipan into little acorns and painted their caps with melted chocolate; the green marzipan was rolled out on a silpat and cut out in the shape of ivy leaves, with rolled vines and tendrils.
As finishing touches, I also made some sugared rosemary by brushing fresh rosemary branches with corn syrup and thoroughly sprinkling it with sugar. I used corn syrup because the alternative was egg white and I already had four orphaned yolks in the fridge. The corn syrup didn’t ever dry, though, so I’d use the egg white next time, regardless. Finally, as another decadent touch, I made some very simple bittersweet truffles rolled in cocoa powder. I’ve done these before, but ran into the unexpected snag of having warm hands. (I usually have ice-cold hands all the time, which is great for working with truffle ganache, but my hands have been really warm during my pregnancy. Weird.) Good thing they were meant to look rustic!
As you can see, I decided to play with the mushroom shapes a bit, and made some shelf mushrooms to insert on the sides of the log. They came out really cute, and were a nice detail.
Here’s the finished log in all its glory. It had a lot going on, but I think it came out beautifully, and I had a lot of fun playing around with the artistic aspects of decorating the cake. It was a big hit at my family party, too, though everyone assumed it was filled with ice cream for some reason. They also refused to cut it, so I ended up doing the serving myself, a bit of a challenge with the irregular shape. I wasn’t personally able to discern the chestnut flavor in the filling, but all the frosting was delicious and silky smooth, balancing well with the tender chocolate genoise.
This cake was a showstopper and delicious to boot. There is also a ton of room for creativity in flavoring and decorating it; so, although I might not make a yule log every year, it will definitely make an appearance on my holiday table again, in one form or another. For the full recipe, visit our gracious host, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. And as always, be sure to check out all the other fabulously daring creations on the Daring Bakers Blogroll here.
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12.22.07
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Dessert, Foodblog Events at 11:38 pm by julie
Daring Bakers can’t stop being daring just because it’s Christmas. This month’s challenge was a big one: to make a Yule Log, complete with meringue or marzipan mushrooms, and write about it mere days before Christmas. I decided to make mine for a family holiday dinner on the 23rd, so timing has come right down to the wire. I’m still working on decorations, and will finish them up in the morning, but I wanted to write about the first part of my buche-building experience now (while I am up anyway waiting for ganache to cool and pate fermentee to rise).
The yule log challenge was threefold: make a genoise cake capable of being rolled, make a Swiss meringue buttercream to fill and frost the cake, and make either marzipan or meringue mushrooms to decorate it. We were given quite a bit of leeway as far as flavoring the cake: I went with chestnut buttercream for the filling, chocolate genoise, and chocolate buttercream for the frosting. I made the meringue mushrooms and some homemade marzipan for other decorations on the log.
I tackled the buttercream first because I had heard many stories about curdled or broken efforts, and figured that I should give myself the time to screw up—and retry it—if necessary, before moving on to the cake. I used organic cultured butter and softened it thoroughly via low power in the microwave. When I was done, I had a reasonably smooth but very runny unflavored buttercream. Because I wanted to use two different flavorings, I split the batch in half and popped both bowls in the fridge to chill, in hopes of thickening it up.
It thickened alright, and curdled too. When I stirred a few tablespoons of sweetened chestnut puree into one half of the buttercream, it curdled even more, and I started to panic (hence no photo). Since I had nothing to lose, I decided to melt down part of the curdled muck over a water bath, pour it back into the rest, and beat the heck out of it with my stand mixer.
As you can see, it totally did the trick. I used pretty much the same trick with the chocolate buttercream, but it just needed the heat of the melted chocolate to whip it back into shape.
Next on the docket was the genoise. I had a bit of a scare because when I pulled the box of parchment paper out of the drawer, it looked like I was not going to have enough to line the jelly roll pan. But in a Christmas miracle, I had exactly the amount I needed, no more and no less. I couldn’t have cut it more perfectly if I had tried. The batter itself was fairly straightforward, though I had a heck of a time incorporating all the dry ingredients into the aerated egg mixture without deflating it too much. I baked it for just under the time called for, and it sprang back perfectly.
To prepare it for rolling, I took Rose Levy Berenbaum’s advice and draped a damp tea towel over the hot cake while it was still in the pan. When it had cooled enough not to melt the buttercream, I ran a knife around the edges, spread on the chestnut buttercream filling, and used the parchment as an aid in rolling up the cake from the long end. It cooperated much better than I had anticipated, with no cracks in sight; I wrapped it in plastic wrap and gave it the night to set up.
Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment, which will cover cutting, frosting, and decorating the log!
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12.21.07
Posted in Cookies & Candies, Dessert at 3:47 pm by julie
Jeremy and I aren’t big on sugar cookies, or most other cut-out cookies for that matter. Yet for some reason, we couldn’t resist buying a copper cookie cutter of an angel when we were at Whole Foods just before Thanksgiving. I didn’t notice the price tag, and if I had, I think we would have passed it by (8 bucks for one cutter!). Since we got it, though, I decided a batch of sugar cookies was in order to show it off.
The eagle-eyed among you are now noticing that there are no angel cookies in the photo above. That’s because I decided to include some sugar cookies with the variety we shared at work this year, and I wanted a bunch of small shapes for that. I reserved half the dough in the fridge, however, and will roll that up this weekend and break in the angel cutter while my parents are visiting. It was good forethought on my part, I have to say, because the last snowball disappeared from the last box at lunchtime today, so more cookies are definitely in order.
As I mentioned, we aren’t huge sugar cookie fans, but we both love this recipe. It’s easy to work with and produces perfect cookies that hold their shape. Mine were crisp straight from the oven, and softened up after a day or two of storage with everything else, but I actually preferred them that way. I used a simple milk-and-sugar glaze mixed to pipeable consistency, and squeezed out some very simple designs through the corner of a Ziploc. I don’t have any food coloring, but white is always classic, right? Anyway, if you use the same proportions of glaze as I did, be sure to allow plenty of drying time. I put my cookies away too soon, and a lot of the frosting got mussed, but it hardened nicely overnight; I think I was just impatient.
Alice’s Sugar Cookies
Preheat oven to 375F.
Cream: ½ C butter
1 C sugar
Blend in: 1 egg
Sift and add: 2 to 2 ¼ C flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
Add: ½ tsp vanilla
Chill dough (you can skip this if you are in a hurry). Roll dough to about 1/8” and cut. Bake at 375F for 8-10 minute, or until just golden around the edges.
Source: My co-worker, Alice. This is her family recipe for sugar cookies—lucky family!
Vanilla Icing
1 C confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 T milk (plus enough additional to bring to desired consistency)
Food coloring, optional
Mix together confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and 1 T milk. Continue stirring and adding milk by the teaspoon until desired consistency (for piping, spreading, or drizzling, etc.). Add a few drops of food coloring if desired. (This made just enough to pipe decorations on a half batch of sugar cookies. Double it if you’re baking all the dough at once, or if you want to coat the entire surface of the cookie with icing.)
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12.20.07
Posted in Chocolate, Dessert at 10:50 am by julie
This is another one I can remember making with my mom since childhood. I expect the recipe originally came off the back of a package of chocolate chips or something, but they’re so yummy and easy to make that I have to mix up a batch for Christmas every few years. When I was growing up, we’d dollop these onto cookie sheets covered with waxed paper and set them out in the cold garage to harden up. This time I just left them on my kitchen counter for a few hours, and they still set up just fine.
Nutty Noodle Clusters
1 12oz package chocolate chips
1 12oz package butterscotch chips
1 6-oz can chow mein noodles
1/2 C peanuts or cashews
Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and quickly stir in noodles and nuts so they are evenly coated. Dip out by tablespoonfuls onto waxed paper and chill or allow to set until hardened. Makes about 24 clusters.
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12.19.07
Posted in Cookies & Candies, Dessert at 8:33 am by julie
These little cookies are notorious for the number of aliases they have. Your family may have called them Russian tea cakes, Mexican (or Italian) wedding cookies, pecan butterballs, snowballs, even Viennese sugar balls; mine called them pecan crescents, but we rarely bothered forming them into crescent shapes. I’ve decided the most straightforward name, at least in my own mind, is snowballs, because that is what they look like to me.
As with the myriad names, every recipe for these sugary confections is slightly different. Some produce a more crumbly dough than others, but through trial and error, I’ve found one that works perfectly for me every time. Since they are essentially a shortbread cookie, this year I tried making the dough in my Cuisinart, and it was ready in the blink of an eye. You don’t have to use pecans to make them—other perfectly viable options include walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds—but pecans fit into my family tradition, so that’s what I use.
Pecan Snowballs
2 C AP flour
1/2 C confectioners sugar
1 C butter, softened
1 pinch salt
1 C pecans
1 T vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350F. Place the flour, sugar, salt and nuts in your Cuisinart; pulse until the nuts are finely chopped and everything is amalgamated. Sprinkle in vanilla and pulse one or twice. Drop in the butter and pulse just until the dough forms a ball. Shape dough into about balls about 1 tablespoon each, and place on a cookie sheet. (Gosh darn it, if that wouldn’t have been another use for a 2-tsp cookie scoop! Ah well, next year!) Bake for 20-25 min or until lightly browned. Cool on a rack, then roll them or dust them heavily with confectioners sugar. Makes 2-3 dozen.
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12.18.07
Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Dessert at 11:12 am by julie
I’ve been making these brownie cookies periodically for the past three years, and they don’t look like much, but they’re always delicious. They stay nice and chewy for several days after baking, and are eye-rollingly delicious if you zap them in the microwave for a few seconds. I found the recipe online somewhere, but realized after having made a batch or two that the recipe was identical to the one on the back of a box of Crisco sticks. Go figure. This year I tweaked it a little in a bare nod to healthy eating habits, and find the fact that I used organic Spectrum shortening instead of Crisco more amusing than perhaps the situation warrants. My other tweaks included the use of Wondercocoa (which is fat-free and virtually caffeine-free), and (surprise!) the inclusion of some white whole wheat flour. I then dumped in a bag of Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chips, which probably negated my meager attempts at bringing down the caffeine, but I prefer to concentrate on their antioxidant properties. In any case, they tasted just the same as always, and Jeremy declared them his favorites out of this year’s cookie crop.
The only important thing to know about these cookies is that when they come out of the oven, they will be (and should be) still very soft and gooey. DO NOT try to move them off the cookie sheet for several minutes. The original recipe says 2 minutes, but I use a baking stone, and a few extra minutes of rest works better for me. If you try to move them or eat them too soon, all you will get is burned fingers and a molten chocolate cookie mess. (There are worse things that could happen in a kitchen, I know.) Give them a chance to cool on the sheet, then on the foil, and everyone will be happier. Or dig in sooner at your own risk.
Brownie Cookies
2/3 C shortening
1 1/2 C firmly packed brown sugar
1 T water
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 C AP flour
1/2 C white whole wheat flour
1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 C bittersweet chocolate chips (1 12-oz bag)
Preheat oven to 375F. Place sheets of foil on counter-top for cooling cookies. (I wipe down my counters just before laying the foil, even if they’re clean; the slight dampness prevents the foil from sliding around.)
Combine shortening, brown sugar, water and vanilla in bowl of stand mixer. Beat with paddle at medium speed until well blended. Beat eggs into creamed mixture.
Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Mix into creamed mixture at low speed just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop by rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart onto a baking stone or ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 375F for 7-9 minutes, or until cookies are just set. Do not overbake! Cookies will appear soft and moist, and will need to cool for at least 2 minutes on the baking sheet before being transferred to the foil to cool completely. They do puff up a bit during cooking, and benefit from a flattening tap to their tops when they come out of the oven, as discussed here.
Update 12/21/07: I should add a note that a friend of ours tried to heat up his cookie in the microwave on my suggestion, but put it in for a minute and it burned to a crisp even on low heat. Please note that these are small and just need a few seconds. I think I’ve done full power for about 5-10 seconds on mine. If you see smoke, you’ve left it in too long. 
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12.17.07
Posted in American, Chocolate, Cuisines, Dessert at 10:36 pm by julie
This week’s posts will be all about the Christmas cookies. I haven’t heard any bad news from the doctor’s office about my glucose test last Wednesday, so I’ve forged ahead with the holiday baking. Yesterday was dedicated to baking piles of cookies for Jeremy and I to share with our co-workers before vacation starts.
I was decision-challenged this year when it came time to choose recipes. Jeremy’s only request was a pan of oatmeal carmelitas that we don’t have to share, so that’s at the top of the list when the current stock runs low. In the meantime, I ended up going back to some old favorites that many people will be familiar with, including more chocolatey goodness than I had intended.
Today I’m sharing a recipe for buckeyes, a chocolate-dipped ball of peanut-buttery heaven. It seems only natural that they should be one of my favorites since both of my parents are from Ohio. Strangely, though, I’ve never tried my hand at making them until now. They are very easy to do if you make sure the balls are well-chilled before attempting to dip them in the melted chocolate. I ordered a 2-teaspoon cookie scoop for them, but it was backordered until January, so when it comes, I’ll just have to use it for truffles or something instead… poor us!
Buckeyes
3/4 C creamy peanut butter (I used natural peanut butter with no detriments)
1/4 C butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 - 2 C sifted confectioners sugar
6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips (about half a bag)
1 T shortening
Line a baking sheet with waxed paper; set aside.
In a medium bowl, use your hands to knead together peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and confectioners’ sugar until it forms a stiff, uniform dough. Since the amount of sugar needed may vary a bit based on warmth and humidity, you may want to add the first cup at once, and then a quarter or half cup at a time until it reaches a good consistency: firm, rollable, and neither crumbly nor sticky. Shape the dough into balls using about 2 teaspoons of dough for each ball. As I mentioned, a small cookie scoop would be very helpful here. Place on prepared pan, and refrigerate until firm.
Melt shortening and chocolate together in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth; remove from heat.
Remove balls from refrigerator. Insert a wooden toothpick into a ball, and dip into melted chocolate, leaving a small circle of bare filling visible on top. (I found that angling my pan so the chocolate was all pooling on one side helped facilitate this. Work quickly so the balls stay chilled, as they fall off the toothpick into a lake of chocolate if they are too soft and warm.) Return to wax paper, chocolate side down, and remove toothpick. Repeat with remaining balls. If the toothpick holes bother you, it is the work of a moment to smudge the peanut butter smooth again. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to set the chocolate. Try not to eat them all at once.
Source: Slightly adapted from From My Kitchen to Yours
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