Toffee Pecan Blondies

Sometimes… sometimes you just get that craving for something gooey, chocolatey and sweet. I get this craving most… when I watch Russell Crowe (dressed in 1970s attire, no less) strut his stuff as a tough, womanizing cop/attorney. So… it goes without saying… that after watching American Gangster… I was ready for some gooey, chocolatey, sweet stuff. I dunno… it probably had more to do with hormones than with Russell Crowe, but whatever.

The thing is… when I get this craving… not just any ole thing will do. No…. for this particular craving, it typically has to be in bar form. And it always has to be easy, because I’m lazy and unmotivated when I’m dealing with a craving.

This Recipe fit the bill. It took me a long time to find it. Actually, now that I think about it… I should just set up a separate tabs in my recipe collection based on these cravings… there would be a Daniel Craig tab (all things brownie-ish and substantial), an Edward Norton tab (all things creamy and decadent), and.. an Eric Bana tab (yummy salty and peanut buttery things). Okay, enough with the man tabs (but... it is an idea).

So, this recipe was very gooey (I definitely underbaked these bars) and really sweet. I added the optional chocolate chips in the recipe (of course). But, I found that the toffee bits were just kind of wasted in the recipe. I didn’t really get any flavor from them. I don’t know, maybe they melted in and contributed, but I think next time, I might swap something else out for the toffee bits. Something like butterscotch chips, or more chocolate chips.

David Lebovitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve been holding out on you…

And for that, I apologize.

It’s not because I’m trying to keep a recipe away from you… that’s not it at all. It’s more because I’m afraid you’ll think of me as a one trick pony. I mean, how many chocolate chip cookie recipes can a girl try?

So, to be sure… I made this recipe 4 times in one week. And while, one time, the cookies came out kind of thin (because I made them too small, I think), they’ve been delicious and easy everytime.

Please… don’t groan. It is another chocolate chip recipe, but this one is a really, really, really good one! And I’m not the only one who thinks so!

David Lebovitz, I thank you, sir. These cookies are delicious.

Recipe Notes: I’ve been on a kick lately where I’ve been using Ghiradelli’s Milk Chocolate Chips, but for this recipe, I use Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet. Also, make sure you make these cookies big. Three times I’ve made these, I’ve double my cookie scoop for the cookies and they turned out perfect. One time, I just used one scoop from my cookie scoop and they thinned out significantly.
They are very chewy, with the right amount of crisp that you would expect from a chocolate chip cookie.



Great Chocolate Chip Cookies from David Lebovitz's Great Book of Chocolate



1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar

8 tablespoons (1 stick) (115 grams) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/2-inch (1cm) pieces

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup(130 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped


Adjust the oven rack to the top 1/3 of the oven and preheat to 300F (150C). Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Beat the sugars and butters together until smooth. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda. Stir together the flour and salt, then mix them into the batter. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Scoop the cookie dough into 2-tablespoon (5cm) balls and place 8 balls, spaced 4 inches (10cm) apart, on each of the baking sheets.

Bake for 18 minutes, or until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Make about 20 cookies.

TWD: French Chocolate Brownies

Fruit? Good.
Chocolate? Good.
Fruit and Chocolate together? Not good.

Or so I used to think. You know how it is… it’s hard to shake your childhood palette sometimes. In my head, some things just aren’t supposed to go together and to illustrate that… I present the following evidence…
Russell Stover’s Boxed Chocolates.

Oh sure, they are innocent looking enough, with all the deliciously draped milk and dark chocolates. But beneath that luscious, silky chocolate… lies potential secret grossness. Oh, sure there are a couple in there that have caramel in them.. (my bet was always on the milk chocolate square shaped ones… and I was usually right) and there are a few nutty type ones that were good. But, the majority of these are filled with yucky orange, strawberry, lemon, or raspberry creams. Presenting a tastebud game of roulette that I could never resist, but always regretted (sounds eerily familiar to the vegas roulette, no?).

Whenever I hear of chocolate and fruit, I think back to those chocolates.

There was one exception though. The cordial cherry. For whatever reason, a chocolate covered cherry got a free pass in my culinary world. My argument would be that the chocolate didn’t actually touch the cherry… the syrupy goodness served as a buffer between the two.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve slowly warmed up to some fruit and chocolate marriages. For instance… chocolate covered strawberries. While, I’d probably enjoy them more, if they were separately on their own, I do like chocolate covered strawberries and will eat them happily.

So, when I first saw that Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook chose something called French Chocolate Brownies, I was initially very excited. Yum. Brownies. Then I read the recipe…

RAISINS? WITH CHOCOLATE? WHO EATS RAISINS AND CHOCOLATE TOGETHER??

… oh yeah…apparently lots of people do (raisinetes. duh). And then I realized… my palette has grown, but it hasn’t grown quite that far yet. So, instead of raisins, I subbed dried cherries. Problem solved. .
The only other issue I had with the recipe, is that while I do love rum, rum doesn’t love me. In fact, it hates my body so much, that I can have one rum and coke and about 15 minutes later… well… I’ll just leave it with the comment, that I need a ponytail holder close by. I realize that by baking with rum, I’d not have a problem… but, I didn’t want to make a special trip to the liquor store to buy a mini bottle of rum (basically, because instead of leaving with just the one mini bottle of rum, I’d presumably leave with 5-6 bottles of wine, some tequila and maybe some vodka, oh yeah and hopefully I wouldn’t forget that mini bottle of rum. Okay, you’re right, I would). At first I thought, well I’ll just plump the cherries in some water and skip the flambéed part. But, I started snooping around in my cabinets and fridge looking for a sufficient cherry plumper. That’s when I saw the unfinished bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon sitting on my counter. People drink wine with chocolate, don’t they? So, that’s what I used instead of rum.

These brownies are what I would call sophisticated brownies. These are the type of brownies that you’d bake for your significant other’s snooty sister that lives in some up and coming chic neighborhood outside of Seattle or Chicago or Austin or something. You know what I mean… these are pretentious brownies. They present a multi-leveled flavor buffet for your palette. I think it has more to do with the cinnamon than anything else. I’ve never had cinnamon with chocolate, and the jurys still out on whether or not I actually like the two together.

Try these brownies sometime when you are looking to serve something that looks simple, but tastes different. I might make these again sometime, especially as a dessert for a wine tasting party or something.

Be sure to check out everyone elses over at Tuesdays with Dorie.


French Chocolate Brownies
- makes 16 brownies -Adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours.


Ingredients
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

1/3 cup raisins, dark or golden

1 1/2 tablespoons water

1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons; 6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 12 pieces

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sugar


Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet, and set aside.


Whisk together the flour, salt and cinnamon, if you're using it.


Put the raisins in a small saucepan with the water, bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until the water almost evaporates. Add the rum, let it warm for about 30 seconds, turn off the heat, stand back and ignite the rum. Allow the flames to die down, and set the raisins aside until needed.


Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Slowly and gently melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring so that it melts. It's important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you've got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them—it's better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole. Set the chocolate aside for the moment.
Working with a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Lower the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter, mixing only until it is incorporated—you'll have a thick, creamy batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds—the dry ingredients won't be completely incorporated and that's fine. Finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula, then fold in the raisins along with any liquid remaining in the pan.
Scrape the batter into the pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the brownies to cool to warm or room temperature.


Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. With a long-bladed knife, cut the brownies into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.


Serving: The brownies are good just warm or at room temperature; they're even fine cold. I like these with a little something on top or alongside—good go-alongs are whipped crème fraiche or whipped cream, ice cream or chocolate sauce or even all three!


Storing: Wrapped well, these can be kept at room temperature for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

Butter Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I have taken it upon myself to dub myself as the official special occasion baker of the family. I don’t really think anyone minds so much. My mom is the only one who enjoys cooking and she’s not one for following recipes or trying out new recipes… she’s more of the “cooking” type, I suppose.

So, as the special occasion baker, I asked my brother whose birthday was Thursday, what he wanted me to bake for his birthday. My brother, Mike is one of the smartest, most creative people I know. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of knowledge that is floating around in that head of his. He’s always been that way, too. But, aside from that… aside from the intelligence and creativity, he has a huge heart. And while it’s great to be smart and talented… having a big, open heart with lots of love to give is what I look up to the most in my big brother. For his birthday dessert, he simply asked for a yellow cake with chocolate icing. No problem.
The thing is… yellow cake is a color of cake… not a flavor! So, I waffled between a vanilla cake (which typically turns out white in color) and a butter cake (the more traditional yellow color). I finally decided on a butter cake after finding this recipe.

The icing… well, that was interesting. I wanted to make a buttercream. But, for whatever reason, like a dumb ass, I just made the recipe on the back of the Hershey's Dark Cocoa Box. Once I made it and tasted it, I decided that this wasn’t the frosting that I thought I was making… No, I wanted to make this frosting. But, I couldn’t find this recipe in my folder. This is one of those times that instead of being glad that I don’t have a computer at home…. I was quite frustrated. So, I had to find another buttercream recipe and decided to try one of Dorie’s buttercream recipes: Chocolate-Malt Buttercream. Except… I couldn’t remember if my brother liked Malt (incidentally, he does), so I left the malt out. I ended up using the dark frosting for decoration.

Anyway… long story short… This cake and frosting was a miss. The cake was dry and tasteless and the frosting was sweet and gritty (from the brown sugar). I think that not using the malt, made the frosting have less flavor, I should’ve amped up the chocolate since I was leaving the malt out.

I’ve not had a lot of luck with cake textures. It seems that I do well with chocolate cakes, they are usually pretty moist, but for whatever reason, I can’t get a really moist cake texture from any other cake. The cakes previously had still been good, but honestly… not as good and moist as a boxed cake. Which seems so weird to me. Homemade should be better, right?

The worst part is that when you bake for a special occasion you want it to be something really great. So, it sucks that my brother’s cake wasn’t really all that great. I’m not quite sure if it was the recipe or me (though, let’s be honest… the cake recipe was a 5 star recipe on Southern Living…. It must have been me), but I’m not giving up on cakes just yet.

Happy Birthday Mike! I’m sorry your cake kind of sucked.

Also…. As a side note, my blog also had a birthday of sorts… May 23rd was the one year anniversary of my blog! C-R-A-Z-Y!

For the Chocolate-Malt Buttercream

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup malted milk powder
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted, butter, at room temperature
Pinch of salt
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
To Make the Buttercream: Melt the chocolate with half the brown sugar in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from the heat.

Whisk the malt powder and cocoa together in a small bowl, pour over 3 tablespoons of the boiling water and whisk until smooth. Whisking the melted chocolate gently, gradually pour in the hot malt-cocoa mixture and stir to blend—it should be dark, smooth and glossy; set aside.

Working with the stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the remaining brown sugar and beat for 2 to 3 minutes more, until well blended. Beat in the salt and vanilla extract, then reduce the mixer speed to low. Scrape in the chocolate mixture and mix until smooth. Still working on low speed, gradually add the confectioners' sugar. When all the sugar is in, increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for a couple of minutes. Lower the speed and add the remaining tablespoon of boiling water, then increase the speed and give the frosting another quick spin. It will be light and should be thick enough to use immediately. If it doesn't hold its shape, beat it just a bit more.

TWD: Madeleines

Admission: I minored in English and consider myself to be fairly well-read, but I cannot name you one thing that Marcel Proust has written. And it's funny, because... you hear his name tossed around at cocktail parties a lot (okay, well not at the cocktail parties that I go to, but I'm sure that in cocktail parties in new york or paris they're comparing Proust to Camus while sipping absinthe). Thanks to wikipedia I was able to read up on him and now... the next time I'm at a swanky cocktail party (which is likely to be never) I can confidently throw out something about Proust's greatest work: In Search of Lost Time.

Strangely enough, though I didn't know a thing about any of his work, there is one thing that I've always known about Proust. He loved him some madeleines. Coincidentally... that's the only thing I knew about madeleines, also. That Proust wrote something about how magnificent they were. And now, thanks to wikipedia I know that he referenced them in In Search of Lost Time.

Wow, isn't learning fun, y'all?

Anyway... back to the cookies or are they tea cakes? I was pretty excited when Tara of Smells Like Home chose Traditional Madeleines because it's something I've always wanted to try, but since there's no chocolate or nuts and it requires a special pan, I'd likely never try to make. But, I'm so glad I did.

I didn't have any lemons, but I did have oranges, so I used orange zest instead of lemon, which made these smell heavenly as they baked. They were so light and airy, I couldn't help but continue to pop them into my mouth while I took pictures of them. So delicate and tasty. Yum.

I made mini madeleines and decided to go a little overboard and fill some of them with a cream cheese-orange zest frosting to make mini madeleine sandwiches and they were delicious, too. Although, honestly... the madeleines didn't need any frosting. They were brilliant on their own.

Another thing I now know of Marcel Proust... he had great taste!

Be sure to check out all the other bloggers Madeleines at Tuesdays with Dorie.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cups

Ohhhhh... Jennifer . I don't know you. But somehow... somehow, you manage to read my mind. Somehow you manage to post the most delicious looking chocolatey, peanut buttery, pecan-filled, hazelnut laced recipes and for that, I thank you. I also hope that you find imitation to be a form of flattery instead of a nuisance, since I tend to make the recipes you've blogged about and then immediately put them on my blog, as well.

Digressing... I know that I've gone on ad nauseum about how much I love chocolate and peanut butter together. So, I won't go into the fact that it's a veritable divine partnership of flavors. No, I'm just going to say that if you, too, like Chocolate and Peanut Butter together... then you should try this recipe.

Faux Skor Bars

When I was a kid... one of my most favorite places was the gas station. I know, I know... that sounds really weird, but its very true. The gas station was like this smorgasboard of sugar. Rows and rows of candy bars and soda... and anytime the whole family was in the car for more than an hour or so and my dad was driving... we'd stop at the gas station and get a drink and a candy bar. Which was a real treat in my family.

You see... my mom... she was kind of into health food when I was growing up. I mean, we ate roman meal wheat bread when it was the ONLY wheat bread available at the store. I can even remember the first time I ever had white bread... it was at a friends house and I was probably 8 years old and I thought it was the most disgusting thing, because it stuck to the roof of my mouth. I couldn't believe that people preferred that to the wheat bread I was used to. So, you can imagine... if we weren't eating white bread all the way back in 1982 or so... then, high fructrose corn syrup was a pretty big no-no in our house. If we wanted something sweet to eat... my mom would whip up a batch of Grandma Cookies.

So, it was a big deal to get a soda and a candy bar. Even if my dad had to go to the gas station on a saturday to fill up gas tanks for the lawn mower or tractor... my brothers or I always wanted to go so that we could pick out our sodas and candy bars... but, if we didnt go, my dad would just bring a bag of snickers and cokes home for us anyway.

One of the candy bars that I got quite often was a Skor bar. Yum. Chocolate covered toffee. I used to eat all the chocolate off the bar first and then savor the toffee on it's own. It seems like now a days... there aren't as many candy bars out there to choose from... and whenever I'm in line at Target or Harris Teeter.. I'm lucky if they've got candy bars in that aisle at all.. let alone a skor bar or a whatchamacallit, etc...

I've had this recipe printed out for awhile, but never had any saltines. I picked up a box of whole wheat saltines just to try this recipe out... and as soon as i had a bite of this... I was instantly taken back to my childhood... they taste exactly like a skor bar! Particularly since I used milk chocolate chips in my recipe. Who knew that you could make skor bars out of wheat saltine crackers???

Anyway... these are delicious and so simple to make!

Saltine Candy/Toffee