Cowboy Cookies

I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this, but my spin instructor actually complains about losing weight in the heat of the summer. Personally, I can’t imagine ever being unhappy about shedding an extra pound or two, but apparently for him, when it’s hot outside and he’s teaching several spin classes a week and can’t maintain his normal weight, it’s annoying. He dropped a hint about how since I do a lot of baking, some cookies might help with his weight loss issue. That sounded like a perfect trade-off to me. I go to him to burn calories, and he comes to me to consume calories. I used this opportunity to try the cowboy cookies from Baked Explorations, and I’m so glad to have gotten to know these particular cookies. After baking a batch and taking them to the gym, just a few days later, I was pulling out the book to bake them again for a birthday. It could have been the hint of espresso in the cookies that works wonders with the chocolate chunks, but really it was probably the salty pretzels that are stirred into the dough that made me like these cookies so much.

This is a cookie dough that needs to rest and firm up in the refrigerator, so you do have to plan ahead. The dry ingredients were whisked together, and those included flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Oats were then added to that mix. Butter was creamed with granulated sugar and dark brown sugar, and an egg, egg yolk, and then vanilla were added. Espresso powder was dissolved in hot water, and that was mixed into the butter mixture. The dry ingredients were stirred into the dough, and last, chocolate chunks and broken pretzel pieces were added. The dough was left in the refrigerator for about four hours. After scooping balls of dough onto the cookie sheets, more broken pretzel pieces were pressed into the top of each dough ball. The cookies baked for twelve or so minutes, and then I wanted to eat them all.

Crunchy, chewy, chocolaty, and slightly salty cookies work for me. Now, I’ll be looking for just about any excuse to bake these again. But, since I’m not in need of increasing my calorie intake, I guess I’ll have to find a way to attend some extra spin classes.

Chocolate Pear Cake

I know that I’m easily distracted, but sometimes that leads to very good things. The other day, I was thumbing through Donna Hay’s book Flavors looking for something, and now I don’t even remember what that was. As the pages of the chocolate chapter flipped by, I caught a glimpse of the gorgeous cake with halved pears nestled into it with a sticky, caramelly top. I had to know more about this cake. There were pears in my refrigerator that had just arrived from my CSA, and I always have cocoa powder on hand. It was entirely possible that I could go straight to the kitchen and make this cake. A quick scan of the ingredient list confirmed that I indeed had everything I would need. And, hence, off I went forgetting all about whatever it was that made me pick up the book in the first place. I’m sure I’ll think of it eventually, but for the time being, I was very happy to focus on this chocolate pear cake. It’s an easy, upside-down, fruit-filled cake with a built-in caramel sauce that ends up glistening on top and settling into the cored-out pears when the cake is turned out onto a platter.

You’ll want to use small pears, and the ones I had were just the right size. They should be peeled, halved, and cored. I use a melon baller to remove the cores from pears and then a knife to cut out any pieces of core that are missed on the edges of the pears. The pear halves were cooked in a skillet in a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar, and water. You’ll need to adjust the cooking time depending on how firm your pears are. They should soften some but still be able to hold their shape while baking. After a few minutes or so of cooking, the skillet was removed from the heat and set aside. A nine inch round cake pan was lined with parchment paper. Then, room temperature butter and more brown sugar were mixed, and three eggs were added one at a time. Flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder were sifted together and then stirred into the butter mixture. The pears were placed in the prepared cake pan cut-side down, and the buttery caramel was poured over them. The chocolate batter was spooned over the pears, and the cake baked for 50 minutes.

It’s suggested that the cake be served with cream, but I was very happy with it just as it was. With the fruit and caramel, the cake doesn’t stand a chance of becoming dry, and it didn’t last long enough to do so anyway. Chocolate, pears, and caramel were absolutely worth the distraction. Now, I should try to remember what I was looking for in the first place.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk and Coconut Cookies

I think I might have started a new thing for family birthdays. It's happened twice now, so it's at least on its way to becoming a thing. Since I bake a lot, and I really can't or shouldn't eat as much as I bake, I decided to send cookies to family members on their birthdays. I'm sure that now this is in writing, I'll not have time to send cookies for the next birthday. It might just be a when-I-have-time thing, and that way the cookies will always be a surprise, right? This cookie recipe is from The Greyston Bakery Cookbook, and coconut is added to the dough. I bought a bag of natural, unsweetened, shredded coconut and then worried that the cookies wouldn't be sweet enough since I didn't use the regular, sweetened stuff. I tasted the dough before I baked the cookies to see if I thought I should add more sugar, and it seemed good to me. Kurt was happy to taste test a cookie fresh out of the oven, and his reaction made me confident they were just fine. The cookies almost disappeared before I could box them up for shipping.

There was nothing unusual about making the cookie dough here. You could use chocolate chips, but the recipe called for chunks, so I chopped a bar of bittersweet chocolate into bits. At two different cooking classes I attended, I learned the same lesson from both Nick Malgieri and Alice Medrich. When you chop chocolate into chunks for cookies, you want to leave the chocolate dust behind. Nick Malgieri places the chopped chocolate in a sieve and shakes it to remove the pulverized stuff and keep the chunks. Alice Medrich used her hands to pull the chunks away from the dust on the cutting board. The fine, powdery chocolate muddies the look of the dough and using only the chunks results in a neater cookie. So, cream butter and brown sugar, add an egg and vanilla, sift flour, baking soda, and salt and add oatmeal then add that to butter mixture, then fold in shredded coconut and natural, unsweetened is fine and neat, dust-free, chocolate chunks. Drop into mounds on baking sheets and bake.

These were easy, straightforward cookies, but the addition of coconut to an oatmeal chocolate chunk cookie was new for me. It's an excellent addition, adding a little chewiness, and one I'll continue to include from now on. Actually, now that Kurt knows about this cookie flavor and will no doubt be requesting it frequently, I'll be baking a lot of these cookies.

Chocolate Mint Sandwich Cookies

I had two cookie recipes in mind, and I was trying to decide which one to bake for a party. I called in Kurt to make the final choice. Without even asking for details, he instantly pointed straight at these chocolate mint sandwiches and said: make those. Well, that settled that, not that there was anything wrong with the other option. I knew he’d like the mint, and they do look fetching on the back cover of Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies. They’re thin and crisp chocolate wafer cookies sandwiched with a layer of mint-flavored white chocolate, and this was just one of four ways these cookies were presented in the book. With several of the cookie recipes, Alice Medrich included “upgrades” or variations on the theme. In this case, the base recipe was plain chocolate wafers. The possible upgrades for these were spicy wafers with cinnamon, cayenne, and ground black pepper added to the dough, extra-bittersweet wafers with added ground unsweetened chocolate, and the version I made with white chocolate and mint sandwiched between two wafers.

The dough requires some time in the refrigerator before being cut into cookies which means it can be made well in advance. It was entirely mixed in a food processor. First, flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, and baking powder were pulsed, and then chopped, softened butter was mixed in by pulsing. Last, milk and vanilla were added through the feed tube while the machine was running. The dough was formed into a log, wrapped in parchment, and chilled for at least an hour. Possibly the most difficult part of this recipe was cutting the dough into thin rounds. The log was marked at one inch lengths, and each inch of dough was cut into six skinny, little, fragile cookies. The rounds were baked, and as soon as they came out of the oven, small circles were cut in half of them. I used the big end of a piping tip to cut the circles. When the cookies were cool, white chocolate was melted and mixed with mint extract for the filling. Scant half teaspoons of white chocolate filling were spread on half of the cookies which were topped with the ones with holes.

Naturally, I thought the half teaspoon of filling was not nearly enough. I would have preferred to slather on a thick, generous layer of mint white chocolate, but I was wrong. It was just enough to add sweetness and richness and let the chocolate of the cookies shine through. Kurt made a great choice with this one.

German Chocolate Cake

This really didn’t need to be so complicated. I asked Kurt what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, and he didn’t say “you can decide” or “give me some options.” His answer was “German chocolate.” Easy enough, but then I proceeded to pull out every book I have with cakes in it and compare and contrast every recipe I could find for this type of cake. Then, I recalled that Bobby Flay had prepared a delectable-looking German chocolate cake on an episode of Throwdown. I found that recipe online too. So, let me explain my decision-making process for how I ended up with the cake you see here. Classic German chocolate cake frosting is what the cake is all about, but in Bobby Flay’s version, it became a coconut-pecan-cajeta frosting. I had to try that. However, the actual cake in his recipe was a little rich. His cake was also coated with a chocolate ganache and served with coconut whipped cream, and that seemed like too much to me. Then, there was the one in the Baked book. Again, the cake itself was a little rich with lots of butter, it had a more traditional coconut and pecan frosting, but it was also decorated with a ruffle of milk chocolate buttercream around the top. Last, I looked to The Greyston Bakery Cookbook where I found the layers were made from nice, airy chocolate chiffon, and the frosting was straightforward and traditional. Here’s what happened: I baked the chocolate chiffon layers from Greyston Bakery, I attempted Bobby Flay’s cajeta frosting and ended up changing it, and I coated the sides of the cake in the milk chocolate buttercream from Baked.

Making the cake layers was simple, and they turned out lovely. The cake ingredients were whisked together, egg whites were whipped to soft peaks, and the whites were folded into the batter. No problems there. Then, I just knew by looking at Bobby’s cajeta frosting recipe there were going to be issues. I seem to lack the ability to make a mixture of caramel and milk thicken, but I foolishly moved forward anyway. You start by caramelizing sugar and then adding whole milk, coconut milk, goat milk, seeds from a vanilla bean, and some light corn syrup, and then you let that simmer and reduce for about an hour. I shouldn’t have turned away from the stove while milk was coming to a boil, and so that was exactly what I did at exactly the wrong moment. Of course, it did boil over, and I caught it a second too late. I moved the saucepan to another burner and continued. The mixture eventually reduced, but it didn’t seem to be thickening. After more than an hour of simmering, I turned off the heat and added the butter, vanilla extract, and rum and poured the milk mixture into a bowl to cool. It didn’t thicken, but it was delicious. Since I wasn’t willing to waste all those ingredients and because it was in fact quite delicious, I decided to wing it in an attempt to save the frosting. I poured the cooled mixture back into a clean saucepan and added two egg yolks and a another couple of tablespoons of butter. As it came back up to a simmer, it thickened and the frosting was saved. Back into a bowl it went to cool again, and then shredded coconut and chopped pecans were added. The version of the cake in the Baked book with the milk chocolate buttercream on top was calling to me. I made the buttercream. I pulled out a piping bag. I set one cake layer on a platter and piped a circle of buttercream around the perimeter to hold in the other frosting. The now cooled and thickened coconut pecan frosting was added inside the buttercream ring, and the second layer was set on top. Then, I realized that I have no business using a piping bag especially at the end of a long baking day. So I smoothed the chocolate frosting around the sides of the cake, added the remaining coconut pecan frosting on top, and decorated with a trail of finely chopped pecans around the base and top edge of the cake.

I know, I completely over-complicated the process, but I learned something from it. The flavors in the Bobby Flay frosting were so fantastic I’m glad I attempted it. In fact, when Kurt tasted it, he even asked how it was made because it was so good, and he’s never before asked about how anything is actually made. Next time though, I’ll simplify the process by keeping the combination of whole milk, coconut milk, and goat milk, but I’ll make it the more traditional way from the beginning with egg yolks and more butter. The chocolate chiffon layers were a very good choice, and I’ll definitely make those again. And, the milk chocolate buttercream was delicious on the cake and dressed it up a little even though it wasn’t piped into a pretty ruffle. Most importantly, Kurt really liked his birthday cake.

Pretzel, Peanut Butter, and Chocolate Candies

This looked a sure-fire idea when I saw it in the January issue of Living magazine. There’s no way a mix of salty pretzels, creamy, fresh peanut butter, and rich, melted chocolate could go wrong. The one-page article was about fresh hard pretzels sold at farmers’ markets. I’d never seen pretzels at our local markets, but I definitely would have bought them if I had. I checked with my friend Kristi, from Austin Farm to Table, who visited several farmers’ markets in different parts of the country last year, and she had only seen pretzels at a market in New York. I’m curious if anyone else gets to buy locally made pretzels at farmers’ markets, or if it’s just the lucky people of New York? Well, regardless of where you get the pretzels, and I found some very good ones at the grocery store, these candies are still going to be outstanding. They’re simple to make and highly addictive.

So, I bought some big, crunchy pretzels and proceeded to smash them which just seemed wrong even though it was necessary here. The crushed pretzel bits were combined with creamy, natural peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, and a little room-temperature butter. All of that was stirred together, and then one inch balls were formed and set on a tray. The tray was placed in the freezer for 30 minutes to let the peanut butter become firm. Then, it was chocolate dipping time. I used milk chocolate, but you could use whatever you prefer. I like El Rey milk chocolate which has a slightly higher cacao percentage than others. After dipping each candy piece and before the chocolate completely set, I sprinkled sea salt on top.

I’ve been craving peanut butter lately anyway, but still, these candies were especially delicious. The little chunks of pretzel encased in mounds of peanut butter inside a chocolate coating were snacking bliss. I should probably conduct some experiments with almond, cashew, and pecan butter just to determine if any one of those is better than peanut butter. And, if I locate any locally made hard pretzels, I’ll try those too.

X Cookies

Something about these cookies intrigued me. The photo I saw of them was fetching, the technique for making them was interesting, and I don’t think I’d ever seen cookies like these before. I came across them in Baking with Julia, and the recipe was contributed by Nick Malgieri. They’re like a Sicilian homemade Fig Newton except for the shape of course. A fig filling, and let me tell you that was one amazing fig filling, was wrapped in dough, rolled into a long cylinder, and cut into pieces which were sliced on the ends and pulled into an X. This was a little bit of a project compared to simpler drop cookies, but I thought the process was fun since it worked exactly as described with no problems. Regarding that filling, it was a grown-up kind of fig filling full of aromatic and delicious things mixed with dried figs like almonds, apricot preserves, golden raisins, candied orange peel, chocolate, dark rum, and cinnamon. I tasted the filling just after it was pureed and realized it could have been served in bowls for dessert all by itself. There’s only a small amount of chocolate, so it doesn’t taste like a chocolate Fig Newton, but the chocolate with all the other filling ingredients makes it a sophisticated mix of flavors. And, the shape is an X which is appropriate for Valentine’s Day even though I didn’t make any O’s, right?

The pastry and the filling were both made in a food processor, and cleaning between steps wasn’t even necessary. The pastry, or pasta frolla, was made by pulsing flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the food processor before adding chopped, cold butter. The butter was cut into the flour by pulsing, and then eggs were added and mixed to form a dough. The dough was kneaded briefly, formed into a log, and covered and set aside. The bowl of the food processor was set back in place, and the filling was made in it next. That was a pureed mix of chopped dried figs, toasted and chopped almonds, apricot preserves, golden raisins, candied orange peel, and yes I was thrilled to use my own candied orange peel again, chopped semisweet chocolate, dark rum, and cinnamon. There are great tips in the recipe such as reminding you that the dried fruit will not become softer or moister after baking. Therefore, if your dried fruits are too dry, they should be plumped in water and drained before using. Although I was tempted to stop there and just eat the filling with a spoon or maybe save a little to plop on top of yogurt for breakfast the next morning, I did continue with the recipe by forming the filling into a log and cutting that into 12 pieces. The pastry was also cut into 12 pieces. Working with one piece of pastry at a time, it was rolled against the countertop into a rope 15 inches long. Then, it was flattened into a three inch wide rectangle. Don’t even bother with a rolling pin. The dough is very easy to press and flatten into the rectangular shape. Just have some flour nearby to sprinkle on the counter to prevent sticking. Next, one piece of filling was rolled into a 15 inch long rope and set on the pastry. The pastry was rolled around the filling and pressed to seal. That filled rope shape was cut into three inch long pieces. Each piece was cut on each end so the ends could be pulled out to form an X shape. It’s really more complicated to write this than it was to do it. The cookies were baked, cooled, and then topped with confectioners’ sugar.

Even though these cookies involved a pastry dough and rolling and shaping, they were far easier than I expected. The dough behaved perfectly, and making the X shapes was quick and painless. The recipe makes a lot of cookies, five dozen in fact, and they keep well for about a week at room temperature. I stashed several of them in the freezer since even we couldn’t get through that many in one week. Whether it was the shape, the fun of making them, or that incredible filling, these have found a place on my favorites list.

Chocolate Coconut Sorbet

After growing up in Illinois where icy, cold wind can whip right across the flat, open land and chill you to the core, I can’t really complain about winter in Austin, Texas where I live now. That is, I can’t complain about the temperatures. What I can and do frequently complain about is winter allergy problems. January is ‘cedar fever’ time, thanks to the abundant pollen from mountain cedar, or ash juniper, trees. Coughing, sneezing, congestion, and lack of sleep become a way of life, and I’m willing to try any and every home remedy I can to combat those issues. One common allergy remedy is avoiding dairy. That seems simple enough except for the fact that I really enjoy eating cheese, and I bake quite a lot with things like butter, cream, and milk. However, when I’d suffered allergy symptoms to the point of almost losing my voice, I decided to put more serious effort into avoiding dairy until the worst part of the season passed. I remembered from reading In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite that author Melissa Clark’s husband doesn’t eat much dairy, and she had created a frozen treat for him using coconut milk. If I could still have something a lot like ice cream for dessert, while not having cream, I could do this dairy-free thing for a short while.

Not only is this an ice cream kind of dessert with no cream, it also has no eggs. It’s made with coconut milk which is naturally rich, but the end result is still a bit lighter than an average ice cream recipe. You begin by warming coconut milk and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Then, chopped bittersweet chocolate, cocoa powder, dark rum, and a little salt were added, and that was whisked until the chocolate was melted and the mixture was smooth. Once again, I used a mix of regular cocoa powder and some black onyx cocoa powder which gives the mixture a good, dark color. The coconut mixture was then transferred to a measuring pitcher and chilled before being refrigerated for a few hours. Once completely cold, it was churned in an ice cream maker.

The chocolate coconut sorbet was creamy and richly chocolate-flavored. There’s a suggestion in the recipe to serve it with shredded coconut and a chocolate sauce to make it reminiscent of a Mounds bar, but instead, I topped it with toasted, shredded coconut, chopped almonds, and pieces of candied orange peel. All those crunchy, chewy toppings made it an especially fun dessert, and the almonds took it in more of an Almond Joy direction in the end. And, you know, I didn’t miss the dairy one bit.

Green Chocolate Mousse

There are so many great food blogs out there that I visit regularly and that always make me hungry. One in particular that never fails to inspire is Delicious Days. I recently bought a copy of Nicole Stich's book which was released in 2008, also called Delicious Days, and I hear she's working on a second book now. Just like the blog, the book is full of beautiful photos and delectable and varied food. This green chocolate mousse is from the "sweet and irresistible" chapter where I've just marked the coffee power, coffee-topped panna cotta, to try next. The green part of the mousse is obviously the green fruit that crowns the top, but there's also a secret green ingredient hidden in the mousse itself that adds a subtle uniqueness. Extra virgin olive oil is the secret, and you would probably never guess that that's what gives the mousse a little special touch. One more element of the dessert which added sweetness and texture was chopped pieces of pine nut brittle that were sprinkled over the fruit.

I used a bar of El Rey chocolate with about 70 percent cacao, and it was chopped into chunks and melted in a double boiler. Once melted, the olive oil was stirred into the chocolate. The brittle was a simple affair of caramelized sugar to which pine nuts were added and that was poured into a flat layer and left to cool. The mousse was finished in the traditional way by adding egg yolks that had been whisked with sugar although it was raw cane sugar in this case. The egg whites were beaten until stiff with regular granulated sugar. And, last, cream was whipped. That does require three small mixing bowls, but you can use a hand mixer for the egg whites and then move it directly into the cream. You don't want to go the other way because any fat from the cream will prevent the egg whites from reaching their full volume. With everything whipped and ready, the egg yolks were added to the chocolate first, then the egg whites were folded in, and that was followed by folding in the whipped cream. The mousse was portioned into individual cups and refrigerated, and just before serving, a green apple, pear, a kiwi, and some grapes were chopped to go on top followed by broken bits of brittle.

The rich and chocolaty mousse was a divine dessert, and I found complete bliss just in licking the spoons and bowls while making it. However, the fruit and brittle topping took it to another level. The fresh, crisp flavors of the green fruits were a nice contrast to the rich, creamy layer below, and the nuts and caramel of the brittle brought sweetness and serious crunch. This is going to be a fun book to continue cooking through, and I'm already curious about what the next one will hold.

S’mores Cookies

Last week, I was planning to bake cookies for some friends, and I wanted to come up with something their kids would really like. I asked Kurt what kind of cookies I should bake. His answer, shockingly, was chocolate chip. You should know that anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances, when asked what type of cookie should be baked, Kurt’s answer will be chocolate chip. And, he backed up that predictable response by informing me that everyone likes chocolate chip and surely that would make the kids happy. Well, he had a point, but I also wanted to offer something a little bit different and fun. I went searching through both paper and digital files and found these s’mores cookies that I bookmarked from a cookie slideshow. I thought they definitely qualified as fun. They’re also really easy to make. The cookie base has whole wheat flour and ground oats that give it a graham cracker vibe, and the toasted marshmallow topping looks as good as it tastes.

The cookie dough was started in a food processor by first pulsing the oats until finely ground. All purpose and whole wheat flours were added with cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, and that was pulsed to combine. In a separate bowl, butter was mixed with brown sugar and an egg, and then the flour mixture was added. The cookies were shaped by the tablespoon on baking sheets and topped with squares of chocolate. I used milk chocolate thinking that kids probably prefer that to darker chocolate. The cookies baked for about thirteen minutes, and then each was topped with a marshmallow cut in half. One baking sheet at a time was placed under the broiler for a minute or so to toast the marshmallows.

The chocolate squares don’t actually melt into the cookies. They keep their shape and are good bases for the half marshmallow toppers. When you cut the marshmallows, placing the halves sticky side down prevents them from falling off the cookies when you move the baking sheet to the oven. With such easy preparation and a classic flavor combination like this, it’s a keeper of a recipe. Of course, I made chocolate chip cookies too which made Kurt very happy, but I thought the s’mores cookies were the better of the two.

Celebration Cake

Back in January, I learned about an organization that provides birthday cakes for kids who might not otherwise receive one. Free Cakes for Kids has chapters in various cities, and I’m sure each one operates a little differently. The Austin chapter invites volunteer home bakers to deliver cakes for birthdays as well as other client agency celebrations so that those agencies’ funds can be directed to the needs of the children they assist rather than to cakes. I’ve volunteered a couple of times now to bake and deliver cakes, and it’s been a pleasure to contribute to the good work being done by this organization. Last week, I volunteered to deliver a cake for a going away party at one of the client agencies. The cake flavor was up to me to choose, so I went with what I hoped would be a universally well-like combination. I baked a yellow cake and topped it with chocolate fudge frosting. I knew I could count on any of the cakes from The Modern Baker, and that’s where I found the recipes I used here.

There’s a note in the intro to the recipe regarding the simplified technique that results in such a nice texture for the cake. Rather than separating eggs, beating the whites, and folding them into the batter, whole eggs were mixed into butter, sugar, and vanilla. Half the dry ingredients were added and briefly mixed, the mixer bowl was scraped, and buttermilk was added and mixed. Then, the remaining dry ingredients were added, and the batter was mixed continuously for three minutes. Malgieri claims that last bit of mixing is critical, and I’ll take his word for it since the cake was light as can be. For the frosting, semisweet chocolate was melted, and a combination of warmed cream and corn syrup was added to it. It was whisked until smooth, and then butter was incorporated. The frosting needed to be chilled for a bit to thicken to a good spreading consistency. I left it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes before frosting the cake. It was thick and glossy and very easy to swoop about on top and smooth onto the sides of the cake.

Knowing that the cake was to be delivered and therefore I wouldn’t be able to cut into it myself, I made some extra batter and frosting so I could bake a few cupcakes to keep at home. That was out of a sense of duty, I assure you. I wanted all of you to be able to see the inside of this tender-crumbed and delicious yellow cake. Although, I usually like to experiment with new and different cake flavors, fillings, and frostings, sometimes a reliable, basic cake is exactly what you need. The yellow, vanilla layers could be paired with all sorts of different frostings, but the chocolate ganache would be hard to beat. The frosting was rich and fudgy and not too sweet or heavy. This is a classic that I know I’ll turn to for many more celebrations to come.

Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies and Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

You know I love it when I get to bake some cookies and then promptly get them out of my house. I don’t need those little, tempting treats sitting on my kitchen counter taunting me every time I walk through the room. And, putting them in the freezer is no better. In this weather, frozen cookies are just as irresistible as the ones on the counter. So, when my brother sent me his cookie wish list, I was game. It was an opportunity to whip out the Martha Stewart's Cookies book again, try a couple more recipes, and then box up the results and ship them away. The book has 175 cookie recipes, and I’ve joked that I’ll eventually try all of them. I just counted, and I’ve made sixteen so far. Although not all of them are mentioned on my site, I haven’t encountered a disappointment yet. My brother’s list went something like this: oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies, brownies, chocolate chip, peanut butter cookies. I took some liberties with flavors, naturally, and decided to make the iced oatmeal applesauce cookies and peanut butter swirl brownies.

The iced oatmeal and applesauce cookies are a rather healthy option with only half a stick of butter, one egg, and a half cup of applesauce. Those ingredients were mixed with brown sugar and granulated sugar before the dry ingredients including oats, of course, were added. Last, golden raisins were folded into the dough, and the cookies were baked and cooled. If they weren’t delicious enough on their own, the drizzled maple glaze on top made them stellar. These could easily be one of my favorite cookies from this book.

Up next were the peanut butter swirl brownies. Making a simple batter in a bowl with no need for a mixer is always fun. Unsweetened and semisweet chocolates were melted with butter and then combined with the dry ingredients. Sugar, eggs, and vanilla were added, and that was set aside. Peanut butter was mixed with melted butter, confectioner’s sugar, salt, and vanilla for the filling. Part of the chocolate batter was poured into the prepared, square baking pan. The peanut butter filling was globbed here and there on top of it, and then the remaining batter was poured over the filling. The filling was swirled into the batter with a knife, and the brownies baked for 45 minutes. They came out looking decorative all on their own with no need for added embellishment, and with swooping peanut butter throughout the chocolate brownies, the flavor was perfect. Getting to bake some cookies, have a little taste of them, and then, poof, have all traces gone from the house is my ideal arrangement.

Candy Bar Cupcakes

I think I’ve started a tradition, and I think it’s a good one. You see, every year my spinning instructor starts dropping hints about his birthday a couple of weeks before it arrives. Last year, I took the hints and decided to bring some cupcakes to class on his big day. Having cupcakes in the spinning room was so wrong, so antithetical, so naughty, and so great. One year later, I had to do it again, and this time, I looked to Demolition Desserts for a completely decadent cupcake. The candy bar cupcake is intended to taste like a Snickers bar. It’s a brown sugar cake with caramel filling, a rich chocolate and peanut butter frosting with roasted peanuts on top, and a sprinkling of sea salt. A woman at the front of the room, near the tray of cupcakes, said: I love smelling chocolate while on a spinning bike. It is very good motivation.

The cakes themselves are made with dark brown sugar and were tender and nicely flavored by themselves. As they baked and cooled, the caramel sauce was made from water, cream of tartar, sugar, and light corn syrup. After that mixture came up to temperature, butter and cream were added, and then it was simmered briefly. I chilled the caramel in the refrigerator before piping it into the cupcakes. The technique is a simple one. You push a one-quarter inch tip on a bag filled with the sauce into the top of a cupcake and squeeze in the caramel until the top of the cake just begins to rise a bit. A little caramel dribbles out on top, and that’s fine. The frosting was next, and that was made with milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, heavy cream, peanut butter, and buttercream frosting. I thought it was a little strange that one of the ingredients in the frosting was a half cup of buttercream frosting from another page in the book. Instead, this recipe could have just called for enough butter, confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla to make up one half cup. At any rate, I mixed a little buttercream separately and added it to the chocolate peanut butter frosting, and the finished product was delicious. That was swirled onto the cupcakes and topped with roasted peanuts and sea salt.

These were definitely adequately decadent. Using a natural peanut butter with no added sugar, the bittersweet chocolate, and a touch of sea salt kept them from being too sweet. And, the chocolate, peanut, and caramel mix was reminiscent of a Snickers bar in the best way. Now, I just need to find a way to propel a tray of cupcakes in front of me when I’m out running.