geek

Equal Pay For Equal Work Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

chocolate crinkle cookies

I know that over the years there has been much talk on the internets regarding the lack of accuracy in Martha Stewart’s recipes. I always figured there was some truth to it but that some portion could be attributed to personal tastes, preferences, and perceptions and it was no biggie. I rarely follow a recipe and so I’ve never had an issue with it. But a few months ago I checked out Martha Stewart’s Cookies book from the library and I loved it, so much that I returned it overdue and had to pay a fine. Last week I bought a copy for myself thinking I would use it as I always do, a reference to guide me.

Typically I choose an item to bake and then I pull 3 or 4 recipes from my bookshelf, the internets, and the library. I compare and contrast the components of each, make adjustments, and add my own something-something that screams Vanessa. I scribble it down in my notebook, bake it up, and move on. However, that’s a time consuming practice fraught with the perils of distraction wherein I lose hours browsing my way through books and the internets on subjects far from my intended topic.

As I’ve been kind of busy lately I just decided to throw caution to the wind and follow the recipe exactly. Wouldn’t you know the damn thing confounded me with two descriptions that just seemed totally inappropriate and I ended up making adjustments and noting them in the margins. Honestly, that will be the last time I ditch my method and follow a recipe blindly. Despite all that I still love Martha, mostly because she’s a kick-ass, alpha female… smart, tough, and talented. But since I reworked the recipe I decided to rename it too…my prerogative.

I love Martha’s technique for rolling the cookies in granulated sugar before rolling them in the powdered sugar. It makes the powdered sugar really cling to the cookies. I don’t understand why except that perhaps it provides more texture? Any ideas out there? The overnight stay in the refrigerator helps make the insides chewy and dense. Beating the eggs, butter, and sugar until fluffy and light gives them that high dome and lightness. This cookie has it all, deep rich chocolate flavor, a chewy middle and crispy outside surfaces, powdered sugar to get all over your face, plus they politely remind us about the wage disparity issue…all good things.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
printer friendly version

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk
1 cup powdered sugar for rolling
1 cup granulated sugar for rolling

Note: Once the cookie dough is mixed it will need to chill for at least a few hours… I recommend an overnight stay in Chez Refrigerator.

Put the chocolate in a glass bowl and put it in the microwave. Cook for 2 minutes on temperature level 7. Set it aside.

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Using a mixer, beat the butter and brown sugar together until they are well combines. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and mix to combine well. With mixer on low speed, alternate adding dry ingredients and milk until just combined.

The dough should be pretty thick and heavy now. Leave it in the bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and pop it into the refrigerator for its overnight stay or at least until really very firm (see note above).

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Remove the dough when it is properly chilled and using either a tablespoon cookie scoop or just a normal tablespoon shovel up heaping tablespoons of dough and then roll them in your hands to create a ball (about ¾ the size of a ping pong ball). Drop it into a bowl of granulated sugar and roll it around to cover it then transfer it to a bowl of powdered sugar and roll it around again. Place it on a parchment or a silpat lined baking sheet, spacing each cookie about 1.5 inches apart. Bake for about 11-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let them rest for about 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

November 20, 2008 | Filed Under baking, chocolate, cookbook, cookie, food, recipe | 22 Comments 

Strawberry pie forever

strawberry pieHave I convinced you to make a pie yet? I’ve written about the joys of pie…there’s apple, blueberry, cherry, rhubarb, and now I’m pleased to introduce you to strawberry pie. No rhubarb, absolutely nothing but pure strawberry bliss. I love pie because of it’s bright, simple flavors, plus it’s never dry, it’s always just a simple, unearthly amalgamate of fruit and sweet buttery crust.

It’s only in the past 8 years that I’ve learned how to make pie. My mom rarely made pies and when she did I always understood it to be an ify proposition so I know how daunting the idea of making a pie can be…I too would never have believed that making a pie could be easy. But believe me, it is easy. I know that home cooks and food professionals alike have spent a lot of time and energy telling people that pie dough is tricky. I’m not sure why they feel that way because I’ve found that it is totally fool-proof, me being the fool and the pies I make are the proof.

Let me clarify it by saying that my pal Julia Child is the woman who cleared the cobwebs from my eyes and exposed pie making (among other cooking endeavors) for what it is, a simple and delicious baked pastry meant to be devoured immediately. Truthfully, I never got the honor to meet Julia, but I always feel that she’s by my side and I know that we would have been good friends had we the chance…she always seemed as goofy and as enthusiastic as I am. Besides what better role model is there for this life I lead?

You might say “but Vanessa, you’re pies don’t look like a typical American pie…where’s the pie plate?” You’re right, I don’t make pies in a pie dish. I personally find those pies very unsatisfying. The bottom crust is invariably soggy and the top crust is usually less than flaky, crisp, and chewy and yes I do require a tight combination of flaky, crisp, and chewy…I’m the demanding type.

I will stipulate that the typical pie-plate type pie is necessary to contain a pecan pie or a sweet coconut cream pie…and I do those but let’s face it, this is fruit pie season. Blueberries will start showing up this week and though we here in Wisconsin may not get local tart cherries like Montmorency we can source them from out of state. So I suggest you get with it and make a pie. It really isn’t hard, and once you get over your pie phobia you’ll be sitting pretty.

strawberry pie

Strawberry Pie
printer-friendly version
Crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream

Put the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the standard blade. Pulse a few times to mix. Use cold butter straight out of the refrigerator. Cut it into chunks and dump it into the food processor and pulse 4 or 5 times until the butter is chopped into the flour but is still in visible chunks. Combine the buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream with the water and dribble it into the bowl of the food processor as you pulse. You may or may not need all. Once the dough starts to clump up stop adding the liquid and stop pulsing. Turn the dough out onto the counter and gently combine the dough into a disc shape. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of three hours or even better, overnight.

After 3 hours the dough should be well chilled. Dust the counter top with a small amount of flour. Rub some flour on both sides of the dough disc and place it on the counter. Using a rolling pin begin to roll out the dough into a circle that is about 15 inches in diameter. Roll up the center, roll to the left and right and then move the dough a quarter turn to the left or right and repeat until the circle is complete. I’ve found a french rolling pin is the best for creating a circle as it is tapered at both ends and this somehow aids in creating a circle. You may need to flip the circle over a few times to keep it from sticking to the counter. Dust it with flour of necessary. Once you’ve got a rough circle about 15 inches in diameter then fold it in half and move the dough to a bake sheet lined with parchment. Unfold the dough and arrange it so it is centered on the sheet.

Filling
2 pints of strawberries.
1/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla

Remove the leafy heads from the strawberries and if they are small enough you won’t have to cut them. However if they are larger than the end of your thumb you might want to cut them in half. Add the sugar, vanilla, and cornstarch and stir it all up. Spoon the filling into the center of the crust leaving about three inches of a crust border all the way around. . Don’t feel compelled to include all the juice in the bottom of the bowl as strawberry pie is already incredibly juicy.

Fold the crust borders over onto the pie, brush them with cold water and sprinkle sugar on to little cover the crust and then slip it into a 375°F oven and bake it for 20 to 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Remove from the oven and cool on a rack for 10 minutes and then serve. There’s no law against adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream to the side…it makes an already perfect pie practically heavenly.

July 8, 2008 | Filed Under baking, cookbook, food, fruit and nuts, pie, recipe | 25 Comments 

Dorie’s great grain muffins…a taste of yellow

multigrain muffin with cranberries and pistachios

You know how much I love strawberry scones, right? Well, even though I haven’t made them as often as I did last year, I still make them…or at least I intend to. On Sunday I fully intended to make scones using Dorie Greenspan’s recipe…but then I remembered all the pain au chocolat that I’ve been eating because Cameron has been turning out such perfect delights lately, and then I thought about the baquette and butter splurge I went on the other evening, and I said to myself “hmmm, you need more whole grains”. Of course Dorie had the answer in the form of her great grain muffins.

A good muffin can be really good, but a bad muffin is often no better than a doorstop. Back in the 80’s I bought Jane Brody’s Good Food Book and learned a lot about whole grain cooking but as usual for me I went overboard…the details are unclear now but what I do remember is that the muffins I made were really dense (like a hockey puck) and heavy and I’m sure they had no resemblance to anything in Jane Brody’s book. The worst part is that I actually gave them to people to eat…I had no frame of reference on what a good muffin should be since I’d never made muffins before and honestly there were no muffins in my background…it wasn’t something my mom ever made.

These muffins are the good kind. They rise up with a nice perky little domes, their texture is good, they’re not heavy or dense…but they are satisfying. I chose to add dried cranberries and pistachios and I think it was a good choice. The colors add some interest and the flavors are well matched. taste of yellowSpeaking of color…this post is my entry into the Taste of Yellow blogging event hosted by Barbara over at Winos and Foodies. I doubt that there is anyone who hasn’t been touched by cancer in some way and LIVESTRONG Day is the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s one-day initiative to raise awareness and funds for the cancer fight. LIVESTRONG Day 2008 will occur on Tuesday, May 13.

multigrain muffin with cranberries and pistachios

Great Grains Muffins
adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan
printer-friendly recipe

1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 stick of butter, melted
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup pistachios

Preheat the oven to 400° and butter a 12 count muffin tin or line the cups with paper muffin cups.

Combine the flours, cornmeal, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Stir to combine. In another bowl combine the milk, yogurt, syrup, sugar, eggs, and butter. Whisk to combine. Add the cranberries and pistachios to the dry mixture. Fold the wet mixture into the dry mixture making sure to only stir enough to combine…don’t over-stir. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into a muffin comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let it rest for 5 minutes. Gently remove the muffins and allow them to cool, or eat them right away…that’s what we do!

April 23, 2008 | Filed Under baking, blog event, breakfast, cookbook, food, fruit and nuts, recipe, sweets | 3 Comments 

Next Page »