Author: admin

I'm a suburban amateur chef and professional writer who hates grocery shopping. Go figure.

TWD: Brrrr-ownies

I baked Tuesday and then worked late Wednesday, which means that when I got home after dark I found PT asleep and The Other Eater (is he now Another Eater, since there are three of us?) cooling off with a glass of milk and two brrrr-ownies.

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And he seemed pleased with his find. I was glad, because they sure were unattractive when I finished slicing them. Dorie wasn’t kidding when she recommended chilling them before slicing, because they are sticky and sweet and the counter-cooled creations stuck to the knife like skin to vinyl upholstery in August. But fresh from the fridge at the end of another humid July day, Another Eater said they were perfect! Gooey but not sticky. Minty. Dense and chocolate-y. I’m looking forward to my snack after work tonight!

If you can see beyond my shotty slicing job, they look good, with the big white chucks peeking through the shiny dark chocolate. They are the perfect picnic treat, but they’d melt on the buffet.  Hmmmmm…too bad I’ll have to hoard them in my own fridge this week! It’s hard being me.

Dorie’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wasn’t overly impressed.

But first, an apology: I’ve been away for far too long.  But I have a GREAT excuse.

PTB

P.T. was born March 13, and he’s kept me quite busy. Sure he looks cute and serene here, but man does he have lungs! He’s a good baby, and I’m working hard to keep up with him. Baking has been secondary.

my best cookies

But now, back to the cookies. They were good cookies – dunked in milk they were loaded with brown sugar and made a great late-night TV-watching snack. I mixed dark chocolate chips, mini chips and semi-sweet chips in mine (honestly, I was cleaning out the baking drawer and just threw in all my remnants, but my story is that it made for a nice surprise when you bit into a chip). But these are still cookies and thus too crisp for my taste.  I prefer cookie bars because they are softer and more cake-y.  But I can see how they’d be a hit at a picnic this summer or in a room full of kids. Bake away!

Pickle Sickles? Really?

Don’t miss the full report  on the next best thing to come out of Texas (but still a far second to Shiner beer, in my opinion), the Frozen Pickle Pop. Yes, some entrepreneur has juiced and frozen the salty snack for consumption.

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From Fox News:

 

“Bob’s Pickle Pops,” made from pressed pickles and pickle juice, is a dream-come-true for those who prefer their frozen treats sour and salty to sweet and sugary. Loving pickles is the only prerequisite. Howard created them at his “Outerskate Rollerink” in Seguin, a town 35 miles east of San Antonio that dates back to the days of the Republic. Texans, he says, have a long-standing and cherished relationship with pickles and the juices they’re pickled in: “There are pickle juice Sno-Cones at fairs and carnivals all over Texas.”

 

Pickle juice, whose main ingredient is vinegar, with added water, salt, sugar and spices like dill, garlic, onion, coriander seeds and cloves, has ardent and inventive fans. They put it in tuna and potato salads, add it to sauces and dips, and blend it with oil for homemade salad dressing. They marinate soft cheeses and hard-boiled eggs in it. They braise, steam and poach with it. They swear it cures hangovers. The greatest ideas always seem to be the most obvious, so it’s hard to believe that Howard and his brother-in-law, David Millar, were the only ones who thought about freezing and packaging this versatile elixir.

limoncello poundcake

This tasted like spring!

The sun is finally shining in Chicago, just enough to melt the icicles off the  side of my house and clear the blacktop driveway. It doesn’t matter to anyone that it’s still cold enough to safely store groceries in the back of your care for long periods of time; we are all just thrilled to have enough daylight to find our keys at the end of the work day.

This bright yellow lemony pound cake seemed to further my feeling that spring is on its way!

limon cello poundcake

The cake was moist and buttery, with just the right amount of lemon flavor. But the liquor (my mother-in-law and sister-in-law made their own a few summers ago, and it is still wonderful) kept the cake from being too sweet to eat for breakfast, lunch, while I was cooking dinner, and then again before I went to bed. IT didn’t last too long in my house, and I’m thinking another loaf will find its way to my freezer before this baby is born and I’m too pooped to bake.

I’m so glad to have found it online! You can find the recipe here, at MyBakingAdventures.com

Was this really stressing people out?

Did everyone read yesterday that Heinz is rolling out a new ketchup packet? It will hold three times the volume of ketchup and allow for dunking fries while driving your car.

THIS was weighing heavily on people’s minds?

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Read about the new and improved packet – suitable for dipping or squeezing – here.  But I think my favorite part is this:

 “The packet has long been the bane of our consumers,” said Dave Ciesinski, vice president of Heinz Ketchup. “The biggest complaint is there is no way to dip and eat it on-the-go.”

TWD: Milk Chocolate mini-cakes

 I took a stand this week, and it did me no good.  I ended up with really dry mini-cakes.  Though they were exceptionally cute.

Milk Chocolate MiniBundt

On principle, I refused to go out in cold and snow just to buy whole milk for the fraction of a cup this recipe called for. I used the skim I had in my fridge. And that was a mistake.

The cake was delicious, but it totally needed a big glass of (skim) milk to wash it down, as well as a plate to catch all the crumbs that came off in big chunks.  I had pieces breaking off around the delicious walnut-cocoa-sugar swirl. I hoped that piping the melted-chocolate-and-corn-syrup glaze over the top would help – and it was delicious – but the cake remains drier than I would like. I think the fat from whole milk would have made a world of difference.

The Other Eater and I split the valentine treat above for breakfast on Sunday, and the rest went to a baby shower I co-hosted Sunday afternoon. I few made it home from that, but they remain uneaten in my beautiful cake dome four days later. That can’t be a good sign.

Thanks to Kristin from I’m Right About Everything for choosing it.

TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

I’m pretty darn  sure that this is the is the first cookie I have ever rejected warm from the oven.

Like a good lasagna, however, it was far better the second day.

almost candy bars

The batter has (or rather, batters have, since yu have to make the cookie dough and then the chocolate layer) just about everything: oatmeal, peanuts, craisins, chocolate and lots brown sugar. Bakers divide the cookie dough into two parts, spread one in the bottom of the pan, slather with a gooey chocolate mess, and then drop more cookie dough on top.  It’s fun. It’s ok if it’s sloppy. What’s not to like?

Maybe it’s the warm craisins, but these are just not good straight from the oven. Even The Other Eater in this Household said “they’re ok” – a significant rejection, given that his usual criteria for Dorie’s creations include 1) is it good? and 2) did it kill me?

So, I split the tray of cookies in two and took a plate to work with me the next day.  They were a hit!  I didn’t understand it, so I had to try another, and I agreed! Far better than the first day I had baked them.  Who would have guessed?

You can find the recipe here, at Confectiona’s Realm.  They are far easier to put together than the list of ingredients makes them look.

Happy Birthday TWD!

  I am so excited to be celebrating Tuesdays with Dorie’s second birthday by posting on time and in synch this week.  Congratulations to our founder, and to those who have kept up faithfully for the last 104 weeks.  You all should be proud of your accomplishments.

I must say, though, that I think the celebration makes this week’s Tarte Tatin selection especially enjoyable.  It was the simplest of recipes (butter, sugar, apples, pastry dough), but I’m just loving it.  Even though mine looks nothing like the photo is the cookbook, I’m loving the clean flavors. It’s really cold in Chicago right now, and warm apples with whip cream are just what the doctor ordered for when I’m snuggled up on the couch trying to stay warm and awake through the 10 p.m. news. Nevertheless, I think I would be equally comfortable serving this dessert for a dinner party in the dining room.  It’s just that nice.

Apple Tart Tartin

So tonight when I settle in for another slice of Tart, I’ll toast (with my fork) to another 104 weeks of baking with Dorie!

(You can find our host’s analysis and a link to the recipe here)

Holiday Baking

Thank goodness it’s over!  I really enjoy baking, but when my one-woman kitchen begins to resemble the Tollhouse Factory assembly line I tend to get a wee bit crabby.  I have to figure out a way to attack things better next year.

sour cream cake

I made peppermint bark, and snickerdoodle blossoms, and peanut butter fudge, and Tollhouse pan cookies, and toffee bars (at least, that what we’ve always called them – it’s more of a butter cookie with melted Hershey bars on top), and spiced almonds, and mock turtles, and sour cream cherry coffee cake.  All good, but SO. MANY. DISHES. TO. WASH. And then I had to get it all wrapped up and divvied up and off my dining room table in time to set the table for Christmas Eve dinner.  AACK.

But, dinner was lovely, and ended with Dorie’s All in One Holiday Bundt Cake.  I’ve made this before, but I still loved it just as much the second time around. The cake is surprisingly light considering all the stuff it has to hold (cranberries, nuts and apples), and it absolutely doesn’t need the maple icing Dorie suggests.

All in One holiday bundt

We devoured it after a big pasta dinner, and the leftovers were in great demand for Christmas breakfast. Thanks to The Nitty Bitty for picking it back in November!