Galactic Cookies and Crappy Photoshopping...YAY!

Just a quick post today and a really crappy Photoshop of one of the Galactic Spiral Shortbread Cookies I baked a few days ago. (Cut me some slack, I'm pressed for time this week, what with vacation prep and all!)

I've seen photos of these kinds of swirl cookies floating about Tastespotting and other food blogs and decided to add my own spin to them when I noticed their galactic nature. I settled on a recipe I found on FoodNetwork.com, but decided to top them with those chocolate buttons that are covered with those candy dots. I think the buttons add an accent of sweetness to an otherwise not-so-sweet cookie.

They are mighty tasty, though, if not a bit labour intensive. Give them a go if you're looking for a cookie with some visual punch for your next cookie swap!

Galactic Swirl Cookies
via FoodNetwork.com
modified by Tom

Vanilla Dough:

1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 large egg
1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup unsalted butter, (2 sticks), room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour

Chocolate Dough:

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup natural cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup unsalted butter, (2 sticks) room temperature
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

About six dozen chocolate buttons

Directions

For the vanilla dough: Mix the 2 sugars and the salt together in a medium bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the egg and mint extract and set aside. With a hand held mixer beat the butter until smooth in a large bowl. While mixing, gradually add the sugar mixture, and continue beating until lightly colored and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Stop mixing and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg mixture and beat until smooth. Gradually add the flour, mixing slowly until blended.

Turn the dough out of the bowl, divide in half. Place the halves between 2 pieces of lightly floured parchment or waxed paper. Roll into a 10 by 12 by 1/4 inch rectangle. Slide the sheets of dough/parchment sheets onto a baking sheet, and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

For the chocolate dough: Whisk the sugar, cocoa, salt in a medium bowl. With a hand held mixer beat the butter until smooth in a large bowl. While mixing, add the cocoa mixture, and continue beating until lightly colored and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Stop mixing and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Gradually add the flour, mixing slowly until blended.

Turn the dough out of the bowl, divide in half. Place the halves between 2 pieces of lightly floured parchment or waxed paper. Roll into a 10 by 12 by 1/4 inch rectangle. Slide the sheets of dough/parchment sheets onto a baking sheet, and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours or overnight.

For a spiral cookie: Put 1 of the chocolate doughs on the workspace and remove the top sheet of parchment. Brush dough lightly with cold water. Place a sheet of vanilla dough on the workspace, and remove top sheet of paper. Using the bottom piece of the paper to lift the dough, place the vanilla dough on top of the chocolate dough. Take care to line up the edges of the 2 doughs and trim as needed. Lightly press to smooth and seal the doughs together. Remove the top piece of paper. Brush the surface of the dough lightly with cold water. Position the sandwiched doughs with the long edge facing you. Using the edge of the paper as a guide, roll the doughs into a tight cylinder, 2 inches wide. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hour. Repeat with remaining 2 sheets of dough.

Evenly position racks in the oven, and preheat to 325 degrees F.

Slice the dough crosswise into 1/4-inch thick cookies. Lay about 1/2-inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until just golden - not too dark you'll lose the definition of the spiral, about 14 to 16 minutes. After removing from oven, place one chocolate button in the center of each cookie. Allow cookies to cool until chocolate re-solidifies. I put mine in the fridge to expidite this process.

Chocolate + Cardamom + Bread = T3h Awesome!

Work and life in general have both conspired to keep me too busy to do much in the way of baking or blogging, as of late. Thus, when I had two days off in a row (something of a rarity for me) I decided to take advantage of it and get off my lazy ass and bake something!

I don't know why, but the thought of a chocolate bread popped into my mind pretty quickly. I did not, however, want to end up baking what amounted to a chocolate loaf cake...I wanted bread, the kind with yeast you get to knead in a Tai Chi-like motion, thus gaining peace and mental centrality. (I think I just made up that last bit, but it sounds good so I'm rolling with it!) I hunted about for recipes and finally found one that fit the bill!

The bread come out looking like a loaf of whole wheat bread, even though it's all just unbleached AP flour--ah, the wonders of unsweetened cocoa powder. The chocolate flavor isn't apparent at first, but it sinks in as you chew. I took a little liberty with the recipe and added in a couple of pods worth of fresh ground cardamom seed (my favorite spice), which gave it that little something of curiosity. The white you see on top of the loaf is just more flour, though I did consider powdered sugar, but wanting to keep with a non-sweet chocolate bread, I opted instead for flour.

All and all I do like the bread, and it makes for a killer peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

Chocolate Cardamom Bread
via About.com and tweaked just slightly by moi.

4 cups Unbleached AP Flour, approx.
¼ cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Brown Sugar
2 ¼ tsp (or one packet) Active Dry Yeast
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 ½ cups Warm Water (about 110°F)

In large bow, mix together 2 cups bread flour, cocoa, sugar, brown sugar, yeast, salt, oil, and water. Mix in the remaining flour, about a quarter cup at a time, until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead for 5 minutes, adding only a small sprinkle of flour each time the dough gets too sticky.

Put dough in greased bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so that the dough top is also lightly greased. Cover bowl with plastic wrap or clean kitchen cloth and let rise in warm place for 1 hour.

Punch down dough. Turn dough out onto board and knead for another 5 minutes. Shape dough into loaf. Put loaf in greased 9x5-inch loaf pan. Cover loaf and let rise for about 30 minutes or until double in size.

Bake at 400°F for about 25 minutes or until bread sounds hollow when you tap on it.

The five minute artisan bread that took a week to make.

It's been a couple of years since Mark Bittman and the New York Times published their first articles on various no-knead breads, which have since popped up on sites like Tastespotting and many a food blog.

And now it's my turn! Hey, it had to happen at some point I suppose.

No-knead bread is something I've actually avoided ever since I first read about it one morning in the photo lab, on campus, a couple of years ago. Personally, if I want fresh bread, I want it today...not tomorrow. Then, a couple of weeks ago, while listening to The Splendid Table, I listened intently as Lynne spoke with Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg, authors of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking. At first I thought their method was just another clone of the many recipes for no-knead bread which are mostly the same. The difference, and the step that really caught my attention, is that with this recipe, you actually want to let it age or ripen in the fridge for as long as two weeks. Now that had to make an interesting loaf!

Another point I like about this bread is that ou needn't bake it all at once. I have actually been using small handfulls at a time to make even a single roll, or rolling out a little bit and making flatbread on the grill, so this is a batch that you can come back to all week long. At least, that's how long I've been aging my dough! And the longer you age it, the more intense and flavorful it becomes. After a week it has an almost sourdough-like flavor to it.

This, being my first attempt, I didn't mess with the recipe much, with the exception of replacing three cups of all purpose flour with whole wheat, just to give it a bit more flavor and a more old worldliness, I suppose you could say. Next time, which will be very soon, maybe even tomorrow, I may try using bread flour cut with rye flour, or maybe barley flour.

Five-Minute Artisan Bread
From Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007). Copyright 2007 by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.


Serves 4

Note: This recipe must be prepared in advance.

1-1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1-1/2 packets)
1-1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6-1/2 cups unbleached flour, plus extra for dusting dough
Cornmeal

In a large plastic resealable container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water. Using a large spoon, stir in flour, mixing until mixture is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough will be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of plastic container. Cover, but not with an airtight lid.

Let dough rise at room temperature, until dough begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours. (At this point, dough can be refrigerated up to 2 weeks; refrigerated dough is easier to work with than room-temperature dough, so the authors recommend that first-time bakers refrigerate dough overnight or at least 3 hours.)

When ready to bake, sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza peel. Place a broiler pan on bottom rack of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and preheat oven to 450 degrees, preheating baking stone for at least 20 minutes.

Sprinkle a little flour on dough and on your hands. Pull dough up and, using a serrated knife, cut off a grapefruit-size piece (about 1 pound). Working for 30 to 60 seconds (and adding flour as needed to prevent dough from sticking to hands; most dusting flour will fall off, it's not intended to be incorporated into dough), turn dough in hands, gently stretching surface of dough, rotating ball a quarter-turn as you go, creating a rounded top and a bunched bottom.

Place shaped dough on prepared pizza peel and let rest, uncovered, for 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it in lidded container. (Even one day's storage improves flavor and texture of bread. Dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in airtight containers and defrosted overnight in refrigerator prior to baking day.) Dust dough with flour.

Using a serrated knife, slash top of dough in three parallel, 1/4-inch deep cuts (or in a tic-tac-toe pattern). Slide dough onto preheated baking stone. Pour 1 cup hot tap water into broiler pan and quickly close oven door to trap steam. Bake until crust is well-browned and firm to the touch, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven to a wire rack and cool completely.

Belated Christmas Cookies!

Whew! What a busy month...not so much with the baking, but with work. The problem about working the retail shtick (even specialty retail) is the non-stop work work work nature of the Christmas season. It's been so hectic and exhausting that I had few chances to do much baking this year. Bummer, and now Christmas is come and gone...but that doesn't mean I can't get caught up, not does it? After all, Christmas cookies taste just as sweet, rich, and delicious after Christmas as they do at the height of the season! Therefor may I present to you, Mrs. Santa's Magical Cookies...

Now, these are no ordinary cookies, oh no, these cookies are truly of the magical variety; the recipe of which come not from a mere cookbook, but from the pen of Mrs. Santa herself. Allow me to regale you with the tale of how I came by this recipe...

About five years ago, in the month of December, my family and I were at the Heber Valley Railway Station enjoying the sites and sounds of the old rail station turned museum, when something amazing happened. A sky full of snow danced down from the heavens. "From outside came the sounds of hissing steam and squeaking metal. I looked through window and saw a train standing perfectly still."

Everyone rushed outside to the old platform to see a wondrous train, hung with the holly and the ivy, and garland. I looked at the engine and tried to read the big, white letters but could not make them out amid the steam. We all marveled at the site, wondering what to happen next? Was the train for us? Where would it take us? As we all talked and wondered at the mystery and the magic, a shadow, hidden in the steam, was seen to emerge from the front car of the train. Though most everyone stepped back, not knowing who or what it was, one little girl stood still without fear, looking with wonder at the shadow as it stepped out from the mist to reveal a nice old man, dressed in a conductor's uniform, a warm smile, framed in wrinkles, sitting on his face. He looked like he could be anyone's favorite grandpa. He patted the child on her head, then looked at the crowd.

"Well? You all coming?" he asked.

"Where?" the girl asked.

"Why, to the North Pole, of course!" He said, joy pulsing from his being. "This is the Polar Express!"

I would be lying if I said we all jumped on board without hesitation, but the conductor's warm smile reassured us. What followed is best documented in Chris Van Allsburg's "The Polar Express." As you may remember in the book, cookies and hot chocolate were served, and truly magical cookies the were, as they were made by Mrs. Santa herself. So delicious were those cookie that I could not help but ask for the recipe. After a few minutes, a grandmotherly woman, dressed in a red winter dress, trimmed in white, walked into the car. She came up to me, looked me over, and smiled.

"A cook's heart, pure and good, always striving for the perfect cookie and cake and showing his love and friendship with his cooking. Here you are, young man," and she gave me a red card with a recipe on it, and she walked away.

"The Polar Express is about faith, and the power of imagination to sustain faith. It's also about the desire to reside in a world where magic can happen, the kind of world we all believed in as children, but one that disappears as we grow older.” - Chris Van Allsburg

And it's all true, every letter! Well...most of it, anyway, and here's the very recipe she gave to me, which I have up until recently, kept secret. In the spirit of the season, however, I have decided to share it with the world!

Mrs. Santa's Magical Cookies
by Kay Shean

1½ cups white sugar.
The giggle from an elf
2 cups of brown sugar
Found high on a shelf.
1 pound of sweet butter
A reindeer’s shy wink,
Three eggs freshly chosen,
Fairy Dust colored pink,
1½ teaspoons salt
A wish from a child,
1½ teaspoons soda,
One griffin smile-wild.
6 cups of white flour,
One gallon of joy
The twinkle that’s found
in a small girl or boy.
2 cups nuts if you like them,
if not, leave them out.
4 cups chocolate chips.
Remove all signs of doubt.
2 tablespoons vanilla
A huge dash of love,
A sprinkle of peace
From the wings of a dove.

Cream the butter and sugars, ten minutes for sure,
Mix in the giggle and winks, add the eggs and beat more.
Add salt, soda, flour, fairy dust and the wish,
The griffin’s sweet smile and beat well - What a dish!
Add the chips and vanilla, and nut if you will,
Scoop with small ice cream scooper and your cookie sheets fill.
Bake 350 degrees, 7 minutes ‘til done,
Eat with love, joy and peace and have bundles of fun!

Joyeux Noël, everyone, even if I am a bit late in saying so.

Lubkuchen: Time to put that candied peel to work!

I don't know where I first had the thought to start baking lebkuchen. All I recall is that a few years ago I just had to bake them. It probably had something to do with my springerle fixation and wanting to become more versed in the Christmas baking of the Old World. Those Germans really know their sweets! ^_^

Well, regardless of where the impulse originated, I'm certainly glad it did, as these cookies are Christmas cookies incarnate! Plus they're made with the candied citrus peel I told you about yesterday! (double score!)

Lebkuchen are essentially a soft, German spice cookie (one among many). The base is a nut flour mixture, sweetened with honey and flavored with cinnamon, clove, ginger, and candied citrus peel. Originating in Franconia, Germany, the lebkuchen has had a place in traditional German Christmas celebration since the late 13th century. So the cookies have been around for over 700 years, they gotta be winners with that kind of record!

The recipe isn't hard, and is pretty straight forward. It is also fairly traditional from the sources I've looked at, and the lebkuchen I've tasted in the past. The only real part where I deviate from tradition is that in traditional lebkuchen, you place the cookie dough balls onto oblaten, a thin wafer cookie, which prevents them from cementing themselves to the pan. I've been unable to find small oblaten anywhere but online, and I'm not really keen on having to have them shipped every time I want lebkuchen. Thus I just bake mine on a parchment paper, which works beautifully. You could also do as the recipe suggests and use rice paper.

Lebkuchen
via Epicurious.com

For nut flour
3/4 cup hazelnuts (3 1/2 oz)
3/4 cup sliced almonds (2 1/2 oz)
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

For cookies
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup mild honey
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1/2 cup finely chopped fine-quality mixed candied fruit such as citron, orange, and lemon
4 (11 1/2- by 8 1/4-inch) sheets edible rice paper, cut with scissors into 32 (2 1/2-inch) rounds (optional)

For icing
2 cups confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons water

Make nut flour:
Finely grind nuts with remaining nut flour ingredients in a food processor.

Make dough:
Beat together brown sugar, honey, and butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until creamy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in nut flour at low speed until just blended, then stir in candied fruit.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Arrange rice-paper rounds, shiny sides down, on 2 large baking sheets. Roll level 2-tablespoon amounts of dough into balls with dampened hands, then put 1 on each paper round and flatten slightly (dough will spread to cover paper during baking).

Bake cookies in upper and lower thirds of oven, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until surface no longer appears wet, about 15 minutes total. Transfer to racks to cool.

Ice cookies:
Sift confectioners sugar into a bowl, then stir in water until smooth. Evenly brush tops of cooled cookies with icing. Let icing set, about 1 hour.

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Cooking with Alicia & Annie: Amish Shoofly Tart

After taking the month of October off from blogging (no reason, really, just didn't feel inspired to type), I have been raised from the post-Halloween grave to blog once again! What has roused me, you ask? It was none other than Cooking with Alicia & Annie's November Blog Event!

The challenge: Choose a recipe from either Alicia or Annie's recipe sites, make it, shoot it, and blog it.

The stakes: The Holiday Baker's Bundle, a collection of collapsible bowls, measuring cups, cookie cutters, etc.

...Bring it on!

I chose the take another crack at the odd-ball Amish Shoofly Pie, a molasses pie of Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch origin. I've tried making this simple dessert before, and had mixed results. The pie was overall good, but the crust (having been par baked before adding the filling) came out, shall we say, "over-caramelized," i.e. burnt.

Now it was time for Round 2, and this time I'd call it a sweet success!

I stayed true to the original recipe except for two things: First, I cut the recipe in half to make one pie, rather than two. Second, I was aching to try my new tart pan, so in lieu of a pie pan, a tart pan it was. I also reduced the baking temps a bit, same with the time.

Amish Shoofly Tart

Crumb Mixture
1 c. flour
6 tbsp. brown sugar
3 tbsp. butter
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon


SYRUP MIXTURE
1/2 c. molasses
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. hot water
1/2 tsp. baking soda, dissolved in the hot water
1 (unbaked) 11" tart crust


Instructions
Mix crumb ingredients together until crumbs are formed. In separate bowl, mix syrup ingredients together. Pour the syrup into the tart shell, then top with crumbs.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 45 more minutes, until the crust is, as Alton Brown would say, golden brown and delicious.

Cool completely before cutting.

If you've never tried shoofly pie, the flavor can be hard to describe. As I ate it, I couldn't help but think that I had tasted this somewhere before, but where? Then it hit me! Shoofly pie tastes remarkably like a S'mores Pop-Tart, only much better!

Springerle season kick-off, 2008.

Yep, I'm at it again. With the turn of the seasons comes a desire to try and, again, perfect my springerle skillz and break-in my new mold, with visible success!

Those who were following my trials and tribulations last year, will remember my ongoing issue with big hollows forming in the cookies (pillowing, as I've dubbed it), and that I had to make some adjustments to the recipe. I think those adjustments have worked well, and I made another change by using extra large eggs, rather than just large eggs. I think the added moisture went a long way to help the dough stay "coherent," you might say. No large voids, no pillows, just a consistent cookie. And look, they grew perfect feet!

Now, the hardest part of all, allowing the springerle to ripen for a week before eating any more of them! ^_^;

Here's the recipe I've been using, along with my alterations...

Whole Egg Springerle
from cookiemolds.com
originally published by Sharon Hudgins
"Edible Art," The World and I Magazine, Dec. 2001

4 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp anise extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar*
grated zest of 1 lemon
4 cups all purpose flour*
3/4 tsp. baking powder
Optional: 2 Tbsp. whole anise seed

* First sift, then measure by spooning gently into a measuring cup and
leveling off the top with a knife.

Beat eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed for 10 minutes, until they are very pale and thick. Reduce mixer speed to medium; add anise oil. Gradually add confectioners' sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, beating continuously. After all the sugar has been added, beat on high speed for 10 minutes longer. Stir in grated lemon zest.

Sift flour and baking powder together into another bowl. Gradually stir into egg mixture, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing with a large wooden spoon until dough is smooth. Transfer dough to a floured pastry board and knead by hand for 5 minutes, until dough is soft and smooth and doesn't stick to your hands. Wrap dough securely in Plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.

Lightly butter (or spray with PAM) two large cookie sheets (not the air insulated variety). Optional:Put anise seed into a small plastic bag and crush them lightly with a rolling pin. Sprinkle crushed anise seed evenly over the cookie sheets.

Lightly dust a pastry board with flour or confectioners' sugar. Break off one-fourth of the chilled dough, leaving the remainder tightly wrapped in plastic (at room temperature if you are working quickly, or return to refrigerator if you not). Working quickly, because it dries rapidly, roll out dough with a standard rolling pin to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Dust top of dough lightly with confectioners' sugar, flour, or cornstarch.

Dust the mold to be used with confectioners' sugar and shake off excess. If using flat Springerle boards, press them firmly into the dough, to stamp the designs on the dough. If using a Springerle rolling pin, roll it only once firmly across the sheet of dough. With a fluted pastry cutter, pizza cutter, or sharp knife, cut the imprinted dough into individual cookies, each with a separate design in the middle. (If you plan to use the cookies as ornaments, punch a hole in the top of each with a skewer or matchstick. After baking, put a ribbon or piece of yarn through the hole to hang cookies on the tree.)

Use a spatula to transfer Springerle cookies to the baking sheets, placing cookies 1/2 inch apart Roll, stamp, and cut the remaining dough, re-rolling any scraps, until all the dough has been used. Let unbaked cookies sit in the open air, uncovered, in a warm room (away from children and pets) for 12 to 24 hours to dry thoroughly.

Preheat oven to 275ºF. Bake cookies on the middle rack of the oven, one baking sheet at a time, for 20 to 25 minutes. Watch carefully; don't let them over bake. They should be white on the top and pale golden on the bottom. Immediately remove the cookies from the baking sheets and transfer them to wire racks to cool for at least 1 hour. Brush remaining anise seed (if used) into an airtight container to use for storing Springerle.

When they have cooled completely, put them into the container with half an apple or a slice of bread set on top of the cookies, to make the Springerle soften while their flavor is developing. Cover container tightly. Leave cookies in container for at least 1 week (and up to 4 weeks), changing the apple or bread every few days to prevent mold from growing.

After their flavor has been allowed to ripen, Springerle can be eaten or stored for longer periods in the freezer. Stack them in a plastic freezer container, with a piece of wax paper between each
layer of cookies. Serve Springerle with coffee, tea, or a glass of chilled, not-too-dry, Alsatian, Rhine, or Mosel white wine. Makes approximately 60 two-inch-square Springerle cookies. (yield will vary, depending on size of cookie molds used.)

Note: Springerle cookies can be left totally white, or the designs on them can be painted with edible coloring materials.

New springerle mold.

Readers who were following me last year know well of my struggles with trying to bake the perfect springerle, which yielded mixed results. This year, I intend to keep working on my springerle, and even ordered a second mold from Mr. Gene Wilson.

This time 'round I purchased a smaller mold (2.5" x 3.5") featuring a proud/prancing reindeer/stag. It's Christmassy, to be sure, but I can also see using it for a sort of St. Patrick's cookie, as in the White Stag of Celtic legend.

I'll keep you posted about my baking results. I think it's about time I got to practicing my springerle!

Gingerbread: A spicy, autumnal, kick in the face!

Do you feel it? Can you smell it? It's in the air, growing ever crisper. It's in the leaves, growing ever redder. And it in the cooking, which grows ever more warming. Autumn is upon us! I revel is all things autumnal; the changing leaves, the shortening days, wearing sweaters, the cool, crisp days, and the warm cooking and baking, especially. I love the flavors of autumn. Pumpkin, butternut squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, apples, oranges, pears, all of these flavors work in a way that, regardless of what goes on in your life and around the world, well...they make you feel happy.

One of my all-time favorite autumnal sweets (besides candy corn) is gingerbread. Not the cookies (though I love those, too), but the cake. However, I sometimes find it hard to find a suitable recipe. So many that I read extol the virtues of how there is "but a hint of spice," or "a touch of ginger," or "just a touch of molasses" to the flavor. Now, I don't know about you, but when I want gingerbread...I want gingerbread! None of this holding back of flavor. Give it to me full flavored and don't wimp out. I now think I've finally found a recipe that lives up to my demanding expectation, Gramercy Tavern's Gingerbread.

Another wonderful recipe from the folks at Gourmet Magazine, Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread is a dense, almost sticky cake that delivers a kick to the face, as spice and flavor goes. Hell, there's a heaping two tablespoons of ginger in this baby, plus an entire cup of dark molasses. You also get the pleasure of adding a cup of stout beer to the batter, and as we all know, beer makes food better.

I've used stouts in baking before, and yielded delicious results. I've used both Guinness and Sierra Nevada Stout, and both work. However, I have found that Guinness, though great when drunk straight up, does not deliver as much when used in baking. Therefor, I recommend Sierra Nevada Stout, here. It's got more chutzpah, which comes through well when added to a cake batter. You don't really taste the stout so much, but it helps to balance the three cups of sugar (1 cup each dark molasses, dark brown sugar, and white sugar) with some bitterness. It also adds richness to the gingerbread.

Hm...a second slice is looking good, right about now. ^_^;

Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread
via epicurious.com

1 cup oatmeal stout or Guinness Stout
1 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of ground cardamom
3 large eggs
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
Confectioners sugar for dusting

Special equipment: a 10-inch (10- to 12-cup) bundt pan

Accompaniment: unsweetened whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter bundt pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess.

Bring stout and molasses to a boil in a large saucepan and remove from heat. Whisk in baking soda, then cool to room temperature.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and spices in a large bowl. Whisk together eggs and sugars. Whisk in oil, then molasses mixture. Add to flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

Pour batter into bundt pan and rap pan sharply on counter to eliminate air bubbles. Bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out with just a few moist crumbs adhering, about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely.

Serve cake, dusted with confectioners sugar, with whipped cream.

Delicious Simplicity

After the month-and-a-half of ornate, intricate, rich baking and cooking, I decided that today I needed something different, something simple, basic.

White bread. Yeah, that's the ticket.

I had seen a posting via Tastespotting, from Jennie at Straight from the Farm and decided to take a crack at it.

It's fluffy, light, and fall of flavor, which is a challenge sometimes with white bread. It is indeed Miracle Bread.

MIRACLE BREAD

Part I
2 c. boiling water
2 T. butter
2 T. sugar
2 t. salt

Combine above ingredients and cool to lukewarm.

Part II
1/2 c. hot (but not boiling) water
2 packages of rapid rise dry yeast (2T.)
1 T. (scant) sugar

Whisk together Part II ingredients in a medium bowl and cover with a towel. Let yeast rise for 15-20 minutes, being sure it froths up and expands considerably. If yeast doesn’t rise, toss it and get new yeast before proceeding.

Once yeast has risen, combine with Part I. Add 6 to 6 1/2 cups of flour*, mixing with a spoon at first and then using your hands as it comes together. Add just enough flour to keep dough from being sticky. Knead dough for a few times and then cover bowl with a towel to let it rise. Come back to it every 10 minutes to punch it down and knead it some more, repeating this process 4-5 times. Don’t worry if you leave it longer - just be sure to punch it down a few times before proceeding with baking.

Divide dough in half at least once as it makes two large loaves. You can also divide it more times if you want to make smaller loaves or rolls. Place loaves on a greased baking sheet or in greased loaf pans. Cover again with a towel and let dough rise to double the size. If you want, you can use a sharp knife to make cuts in the dough to create ridges when they’re baked. I used an X shape this time on my round loaves for a nice artisan look.

Preheat oven to 375 F and bake risen loaves for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Take loaves from the oven and brush with melted butter or spray with cooking spray to give loaves a nice sheen.

*The flour can be all unbleached white flour or a mixture of whole wheat and white flour. Use at least 3 cups of white flour or else the dough won’t be as forgiving.

Paix et santé!

Voyons! Mon premier tart tatin aux pommes!

Last week I was listening to NPR's All Things Considered. My interest became piqued when a segment celebrating my favorite Fall fruit, the apple, came on. In the report, chef Dorie Greenspan takes us through the simple process of making an apple tarte tatin (tarte tatin aux pommes, if my as yet poor French serves me).

Really more a technique than a recipe, the tarte tatin is a something of a deconstructed French apple pie (or pear pie, or peach pie, or tomato pie), and is really easy as pie, or easy as a tarte. Sorry, that wasn't even remotely funny. ^_^;

Ad without further ado, le recette pour le tarte tatin aux pommes!

The Third Battle of Springerle

The Sun rises from over the Wasatch Mountains. A lone baker stands in his kitchen, sipping a cup of assam tea. A low heat emanates from the oven behind him. Pacing back and forth, like a general about to lead his Six Hundred into the Valley of Death, he gives a final inspection to the 21 raw springerle cookies that are lined up like soldiers on two steel sheet pans. The Baker turns on his heel, opens the oven door, and places the first of the two pans into the oven. The Third Battle of the Springerle has begun.

The Baker, having closed the oven door, thinks back on his previous engagements with The Springerle. A veteran of two previous battles, he is tired of being beaten, and feels that victory is in reach. He remembers the First Battle. Though the cookies tasted good, the detail of the image pressed into the dough was poor, and all the cookies ended up having large voids or pockets just beneath the surface, and the springerle failed to grow their traditional "feet." The Second Battle ended again with the Baker in retreat. He had decided to reduce the amount of baking powder from one teaspoon, to 3/4 teaspoon. Still, despite this adjustment, the void persisted, though the "feet" almost grew; he could see that the bottoms of the cookies had risen, but not enough to be "feet." So the Baker, defeated a second time, went to consult with his advisers.

First, he went to the creator of the molds he had used to press the springerle, Mr. Gene Wilson. Mr. Wilson advised reducing the temperature of the oven a bit. He also mentioned the effects of humidity and altitude while baking springerle. The Baker agreed, having dealt with the challenge of high-altitude baking many times before. The Baker then consulted his baking allies at The Springerle House. They too agreed that he should reduce the temperature of his oven from 300º F to 250º or 275º F. They also advised that he extend the baking time from 15 minutes to 20 or even 25 minutes.

As for the lack of detail, the Baker decided to allow the rolled dough to first warm up a bit, then having placed the mold, he jumped up on the table and knelled on the mold. (Understand, the Baker is not a big guy, so it takes do effort to press the cookie.)

The Baker applied these insights and techniques on this morning, as he waited for the first tray to finish baking.

Five minutes passed...then ten minutes...then fifteen. He peeked in the oven to see what had become of his springerle. What he saw astounded him, the springerle were floating. He closed the door, while joy and anticipation welled within him. Finally, twenty minutes had passed. He once again open the oven door and pulled out the sheet pan. Here is what awaited his gaze...

good, sharp detail, and...

the Weinachtsmann, standing up on his foot. Yes! The springerle had doubled in thickness, not by puffing up, but by growing a foot.

Encouraged by this new success, he placed the second sheet pan, this one holding cookies made with his new thistle mold, into the oven. Twenty minutes at 275º F later, again, success!

Sharp detail and a fluted edge (thanks to a linzer cookie cutter he didn't even know he had), and...

strong, well formed feet on all of the cookies.

Finally victorious after three attempts, the Baker now begins the hardest part of making springerle...letting them sit to ripen for a week before really digging in.

New Cookie Stamp!

What can I say? I couldn't help myself. I loved the springerle mold that I bought from Gene Wilson of CookieMold.com. The details were exquisite, and the old world charm is warming to the heart, so I figured, "Why not get another mold?" This time, however, I decided to get a non-seasonal mold, so as not to be limited in my use of it. After much thought and rummaging through Gene's site, I decided on a 2.25" cookie stamp.

I went with the Thistle Stamp because I am a hopeless Celtophile and love all thing Irish and Scottish. Plus I can use it for a variety of cookies, gingerbread, shortbread, and any other small cookie that doesn't rise much.

I have to, again, congratulate Mr. Gene Wilson on his remarkable craftsmanship. To think that he can make such great molds and stamps, with so much intricate detail, using a router, never ceases to amaze me!

Pre-holidays Springerle Test Run.

(Yes, I know, it's still too early for Christmasy stuff, but I wanted to give my new toy a spin.)

About this time last year, I became very interested in the art of springerle and other Old World Christmas cookies. At the time, however, I was unable to get any springerle molds and set my sights on the lebkuchen legacy (a blog to look for in coming months), and set aside my springerle dreams...until now.

I happened across the work Mr. Gene Wilson of Belleville, Illinois and his website, Hobi Cookie Molds. I looked about and almost immediately ordered my first hand carved springerle mold.

The molds features Weinachtsmann, one of what appear to be numerous variations of Santa in Germany. The mold is from Gene's Heirloom Springerle Collection, it measures three inches wide and five inches tall, and is 3/8 inch thick. The price was about even with most resin reproduction molds I've seen, at $26.

I am very impressed with the detail in the mold. The folds in Weinachtsmann's robe, the texture of the basket, the tree branches, even the three bags of coins...it's all there. But a mold is just a piece of kitchen decoration until one puts it to its intended use. So, I did.

The process of making springerle is pretty involved and requires a bit of planning. First, you have to let the dough rest and chill for two to three hours after mixing it. Second, after you do mold the cookies and cut them out, you have to let them dry on the counter for 12 to 24 hours. You then bake them "in a slow oven," which translates as 300º F, for 12 - 15 minutes. If that wasn't enough, after you cool them you need to let them "ripen" for a week (some recipes call for three weeks) in a container with a slice of bread. This lets you slowly reintroduce moisture into the cookies. Then you may enjoy.

I decided that I would use the included springerle recipe for my first try, and I'm fairly happy with the results.

They lack some of the finer details from the mold, but I guess you can't expect your first batch of springerle to be a blue ribbon entry. As you can see, they're quite puffy, which is a result I didn't see coming. Especially considering how flat and dense the dough was. When I broke one open (I couldn't help myself), the inside was almost cracker-like, with layers of air and cookie. Are they supposed to be like that?

I'll give them another try in a week or two, after my first batch ripens.

I'm already looking at the next molds I want to order from Mr. Wilson. This time I'm thinking...shortbread.

Sláinte!

Chocolate Stout Cake, Modification and Gift Thereof.

When my dad's birthday began to near, I decided that the best gift I could give him was not an impersonal DVD or some other mass produced thingamajig or gadget. When I think about gifts, my mind often goes back to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Essay V: Gifts." In the essay, Emerson reflects on the nature and purpose of gift giving. In the second paragraph, Emerson explains it perfectly...

"Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift, which one of my friends prescribed, is, that we might convey to some person that which properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and pleasing, for it restores society in so far to its primary basis, when a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an index of his merit. But it is a cold, lifeless business when you go to the shops to buy me something, which does not represent your life and talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fit for kings, and rich men who represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of black-mail."

Following this thought, I decided that the best gift I could give my dad was a birthday cake, baked from scratch, in the spirit of his birthday. After much looking, I finally happened upon a cake that I thought he would truly appreciate, and enjoy, a Chocolate Stout Cake. I decided on this cake for a number of reason, including the fact that my dad does love beer, and stout, like Guinness, is one of my favorite styles of beer. Instead of using the ubiquitous Guinness, though, I decided to use my favorite American stout, Sierra Nevada Stout. It's a lot like Guinness, but with more chutzpah.

This recipe has been floating about the internet since after its original publication Bon Appétit Magazine, September 2002, and according to every review I read (and input at the BakeSpace forums) this recipe was to make a monster of a cake. Three 8-inch layers, with batter to spare. There was only one problem with this, and that is that I don't own a single 8-inch cake pan, nor could I really afford to go and buy three. I do however own a couple of 9-inch pans as well as a 9-inch springform that has produced good cake results in the past. So I decided to make a two layer 9-inch cake using a cake pan and my springform.

My thoughts then turned to the apparent large quantity of batter. I felt pretty certain that the two pans would not be able to accommodate so much batter, and not wanting to either guess too much about temperature and time alterations or throw away perfectly good batter, I instead decided to take the hard route and reduce the recipe by 1/4, which wasn't really that hard, and I ended up with some pretty reasonable measurements. I also went and replaced the sour cream with low-fat yogurt, just to make it a little less bad for you. (The recipe is at the end.) So I set forth hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. By that I mean making sure I had enough money to run to Harmon's and buy a cake, if all else failed.

Here are the results after baking the two layers.



Looking very good, so far. Actually, these look better than most round cakes I've attempted lately. Nice and flat without any sink holes.

The frosting is a bit on the odd side. I suppose that you would classify it as a ganache, though it's texture before completely set is more like a pudding. It is good though, deep, dark, rich chocolate flavor without being too sweet. A frosting for grown-ups, I suppose. I found it easiest to spread it on the cake before it had completely set up. It made for easier spreading and a cleaner appearance.

Et voilà!



Beautiful, and one of my better frosting jobs, to boot!

Oops, almost forgot the recipe.

Chocolate Stout Cake à la Tom

Cake
1 1/2 cups stout (such as Sierra Nevada Stout or Guinness)
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/8 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)

3 cups all purpose flour
3 cups sugar
3/4 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/8 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
1 cup natural, plain low-fat yogurt

Icing
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
3/4 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped

For cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans with 2-inch-high sides. Line with parchment paper. Butter paper. Bring 1 1/2 cups stout and 1 1/2 cups butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 1 1/8 teaspoons salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack and cool completely.

For icing:
Bring cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until icing is spreadable, stirring frequently, about 2 hours.

Place 1 cake layer on plate. Spread 2/3-ish cup icing over. Top with second cake layer. Spread remaining icing over top and sides of cake.

Culinary Epilogue (6:41 AM, 7/20/2007): The cake was delicious. It's pretty dense and rich, like a devil's food cake, and not too sweet. The stout, though not overt, adds a noticeable richness to the cake and a hoppiness that is especially tasted in the first few bites. When you sink your teeth in for the first bite, the beer announces its presence with gusto and ushers your taste buds into the chocolaty party, then steps aside and allows you to enjoy the cake, while itself staying off to the side, but keeping things interesting.

Chocolate cookies and chiles...who'da thunk?

Some time ago, I happened on an amazing recipe for Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies. The recipe is pretty simple and also original in that rather than using standard issue rolled oats the cookies use steel-cut or Irish oats. Though great, I was bothered by the seemingly needless inclusion of a mere two tablespoons of oatmeal. The average oatmeal cookie is full of oats, whereas with these cookies the oats were more of an al dente punctuation. I couldn't help but think "Are these oats even necessary? Can I do away with them and still obtain the same cookie?" I'm afraid that I didn't follow up on those thoughts...until today.

I took a long, hard look at the recipe and decided that it needed some tweeking, for the better I assure you. I first decided to double the recipe, as the original only yielded 12 cookies. Seriously...who bakes only 12 cookies? I then turned my attention to the oats, and thought of removing them from the recipe. At first I had been hesitant, as doing so could throw off the moisture balance in to cookies. However, I decided that since steel-cut oats take so long to cook and absorb moisture (about 20 minutes in boiling water) I figured that they would not have enough time to absorb any moisture from the dough to begin with. So out with 'em! Next I changed the semi-sweet chocolate chips to bittersweet chocolate chunks. The darker the chocolate, the better--in my book anyway. I also increased the amount of chocolate chunks from 1/4 cup (1/2 cup in the doubled recipe) to 2/3 cup in order to make up for the lost mass of the oats and besides, more chocolate is better, yes?

Finally came the biggest change in the recipe. I had thought back to the many instances I had read about, or seen segments of Food Network about chocolatiers and confectioners who had added the heat of chilies to chocolate truffles and fudge with great results. The Aztecs also added chilies to their chocolate, and if it's good enough for them, well, who am I to argue? I therefore added the new secret ingredient...

one teaspoon of dried chipotle powder.

You don't really feel the heat when you first bite into the cookie, until you swallow, then the heat makes its debut in the back of your throat. As you eat the cookie you can feel the heat slowly accumulating in your mouth. It's not an intense heat by any stretch of the word. It's a mellow, pleasant warmth that augments the rich chocolate body of the cookie. If the cocoa is the soul of the cookie, then surely the chipotle is the passion within that soul. It gives that extra kick to life.

Dark Chocolate Chipotle Cookies

1½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened (natural) cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1/2 - 1 tsp. chipotle powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks

Heat oven to 350° F.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

Sift together first 5 ingredients into a bowl. In a mixer, beat butter until fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla, beat until well blended. Add flour mixture and bet until moist clumps form. On low speed, mix in bittersweet chocolate chunks, just until evenly incorporated.

Shape half of dough by heaping tablespoonfuls into balls, flatten into 2 inch rounds. Place rounds onto parchment paper, spacing evenly, about 2 inches apart. Repeat with other half of dough.

Bake until center is slightly firm and top is nicely cracked, about 12 - 14 minutes. Cool on sheet pan for 2 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack. Cool completely.

Enjoy!

Makes 24 cookies.