Salt of the Earth...

I'd like to say I've moved beyond stress eating in my life, and to an extent, that is true, but only because the nature of the stress in my life has changed. In college, I used to eat an entire bag of Cheetos or Doritos in the span of writing an important essay only hours before it was due. I tried simply not buying those particular vices, but when the going got tough, I would simply eat my roommates' snacks instead, sheepishly offer an apology, and buy them a replacement. Now that I do all the grocery shopping, I can keep those kinds of temptations out of the house all together, but I also don't tend to get myself into the kind of overwhelming situations that prompted that behavior any more.

Still, now that I find myself facing the constant, low-grade stress of being unemployed, I find that certain cravings have returned. Just yesterday, I was sitting at my computer, searching for jobs, when an unrelated thought popped into my head: chocolate cake. I wanted chocolate cake so bad I could practically taste it.

Once the craving was there, it simply wouldn't go away. I tried checking my Pinterest dessert board for chocolate cake inspiration, but there wasn't anything there that wasn't overly elaborate, or large enough to serve a crowd of people. Brownies would have to suffice; not only did I have plenty of brownie recipes just waiting to be made, they could be made in a more reasonable portion.

Though I have long since returned it to the library, I selected a recipe from Baked Explorations that I had seen on a blog and squirreled away ages ago. The original Baked bakery in Brooklyn is famous for its brownies, so much so that they now sell brownie mix at gourmet and specialty shops, though they have also given out the recipe in their cookbooks for those who to prefer to cook from scratch. I had never tried the original, but naturally, I was drawn to a variation included in their second book that called for adding salted caramel to the mix. I have yet to find a dessert that wasn't improved by added salted caramel, so I figured these brownies were bound to be a hit.

Making the salted caramel sauce to pour between the layers of brownie batter definitely increased the time-to-completion on this dessert, but I ultimately didn't mind the extra step because I didn't end up using all the caramel sauce for the brownies. (The recipe is written that way, because it is difficult to make smaller amounts of caramel without burning it.) As a result, I now have extra salted caramel sauce hanging out in my fridge that I can use as a topping for ice cream or something, so it's kind of like making two desserts in one. In fact, if I were feeling extra-decadent, I could make a brownie sundae with one of the salted caramel brownies, vanilla ice cream, and leftover caramel sauce. How indulgent does that sound?

I'm not sure that the brownies themselves would be the best ever without the caramel sauce. They were plenty chocolatey (as they should have been, given the almost three-quarters of a pound of chocolate they contained), but I think it was the salted caramel sauce that really took them to the next level. Instead of creating a distinct layer between the brownies, it was largely absorbed into the batter, creating an exceptionally fudgey, moist texture. I've always been team fudgey in the battle between fudgey and cakey brownie fans, so this was a major selling point for me. 

Every now and then, eating the brownies, I would come across a pocket where the caramel hadn't been fully absorbed, and therefore was the most prominent flavor in that bite. These were the best parts, in my caramel-loving opinion. In fact, the key to these brownies is the salty/sweet contrast. Mine were perhaps a bit too far toward the sweet side of the spectrum, because I skimped a little bit when sprinkling them with fleur de sel at the end. I second-guessed the recipe and thought it sounded like too much, so I used a lighter hand when applying it, and I shouldn't have.

Irregardless, these brownies were excellent. They definitely satisfied my chocolate baked goods craving, with the added bonus of leaving me with a second dessert waiting in the wings. To date, I've never found a brownie recipe that I wanted to make more than once, but these will definitely be in contention the next time I have a brownie craving...

Sweet and Salty Brownies

adapted from Baked Explorations

Caramel

1 c. sugar

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

1/4 c. water

1/2 c. heavy cream

1 teaspoon fleur de sel

1/4 c. sour cream

Brownies

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

11 oz. bittersweet (or semisweet) chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 c. unsalted butter, cut into smaller pieces

1 1/2 c. granulated sugar

1/2 c. packed light brown sugar

5 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons fleur de sel

1 teaspoon coarse sugar

To make the caramel: Add the sugar, corn syrup and water to a medium saucepan and stir gently to combine. Set the pan over medium-high heat and cook until the mixture registers 350 on a candy thermometer (if you don't have a thermometer cook until the mixture is amber in color). Turn off the heat under the pan and slowly add the cream (the caramel will bubble up quite a bit so be mindful) then the fleur de sel. Stir in the sour cream until the mixture is smooth. Let cool while you work on the brownies.

To make the brownies: Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray, then line the pan with parchment, leaving an overhang on opposite sides so you can lift the brownies out afterward.

Whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder together in a medium bowl. Add the chocolate and butter to a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until both are melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove the pan and bowl from the heat, but leave the bowl sitting on top of the pan. Add both sugars to the bowl and whisk until well combined. Remove the bowl from the pan. Crack three eggs into the batter, whisking to incorporate just until combined. Add the remaining 2 eggs, again whisking only until just combined. Stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and use a rubber spatula to fold them in until just a few streaks of flour remain.

Pour half of the brownie batter into the prepared pan and spread in an even layer. Add 3/4 cup of the caramel (don't use it all) on top of the brownie batter and spread evenly - try to keep it away from the sides of the pan or it might burn as it cooks. Drop heaping spoonfuls of the brownie batter over the caramel and spread as best you can to cover the caramel. It won't be perfect, don't worry too much about it.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and sprinkle the tops with the fleur de sel and coarse sugar. Let the brownies cool completely before lifting them out and cutting them into squares.

Store the brownies tightly wrapped at room temperature. They also freeze well.

Positive Reinforcement...

I really try hard not to be too much of a nag. Nagging seems to come naturally to me, but basically every source of relationship wisdom in the world warns me of its deleterious effect on relationships, so I work hard to find other means of getting my way. Most of the time, I try to frame all my requests for cleaning and household chores in the sweetest way possible, or drop hints about how happy I would be if some project were to be completed. Luckily for me, Justin is very good at picking up on my subtlety, and I rarely have to advance to more aggressive forms of pressure, but occasionally I have to up my game.

That is where bribery comes in. For instance, Justin's parents have been asking him for months now to come back to their house and finish cleaning out his bedroom so they can use it as a guest room. Back when we moved in late January, Justin's room was in such a state that there simply wasn't time to deal with all of its contents, so he focused on what he would need to bring with him, and postponed dealing with all of his papers, mementos, and tchotchkes from the twenty-nine years he spent inhabiting the space. Understandably, however, now that he is gone, his parents want to reclaim the room.

We've made a couple trips over to their house in the last month for Justin to work on cleaning, but it didn't feel like we were making a lot of progress. So I came up with an idea for him to spend the night there over a weekend to work at chipping away at it, but Justin needed a little encouragement to sign on to my plan. So I promised him that if he went and made some serious headway, I would make him a special treat.

I had something in mind that I wanted to bake for him -- some apricot bar cookies I had seen in Baked Explorations when I was flipping through it and found his birthday cake. Since my man is a huge apricot fan, I predicted that he would love these bars, but I still wanted to wait for the right moment to come along to make them. They seemed like just the thing to reward him for a weekend of hard work, and provide some positive reinforcement for doing some cleaning and organizing.

I ended up making the bars today, before I sent him off for the weekend, because I didn't want to have the whole batch of bar cookies sitting around for him to eat by himself. Though it went against the doctrine of positive reinforcement to give him his reward before doing the work, I also wanted to share the bars with his family, to spread the love. Besides, I knew his family would appreciate them as well, since that's where he gets his apricot obsession. 

Like many Baked recipes, this one was a little unorthodox. It called for adding rosemary, an herb not typically associated with sweets, to a buttery shortbread base, then topping it with a layer of pureed dried apricots and honey, and finally, a crunchy layer of pecans and crumb topping. Though I could pick up on the rosemary right away, Justin was none the wiser. For him, it just added a special something that he couldn't quite put his finger on, though he knew he liked them. In fact, I think he was a little sad that he was being asked to share them.

For my part, though I don't love apricots in the same way that Justin does, I enjoyed these bars as well. The apricot filling was sticky and chewy, with a beautiful tartness. The rosemary added a woody fragrance that complimented the fruit surprisingly well, and the crumb topping drew everything together. They were truly exceptional, and a worthy incentive for Justin.

I'm not sharing the recipe, just because it was exceptionally lengthy, and it took most of an afternoon to complete. If you are interested, you can either pick up your own copy of Baked Explorations (I'm seriously contemplating adding it to my collection of Baked books myself), or pick it up from your local library like I did...

Happy Birthday To Justin...

For months now, I have been planning for a very special occasion. You see, a certain gentleman of my acquaintance is celebrating a milestone birthday, and I was keen to celebrate with a cake befitting the occasion. That's right: Justin turned thirty today!

I've been pestering him for months, asking him what kind of cake he wanted. I offered to recreate last year's epic white chocolate and lemon masterpiece; now that I'm unemployed, I could have surely done it in under four days since I'd have daylight hours to work on it as well as evenings. Though he loved that cake, he knows me well enough to know that I don't relish the thought of repeating recipes, and that I'm always on the lookout for excuses to try something new.

I suggested a number of flavor combinations and recipes to him, and all were met with an overwhelming ambivalence. Finally, I suggested the mint chocolate grasshopper cake I had wanted to make for Mom's own milestone birthday back in June, that she rebuffed in favor of making healthier choices. Though he didn't initially seem any more enthusiastic about that idea, his ears perked up when I mentioned that the recipe came from Baked: New Frontiers In Baking, the book that he got me for Valentine's Day in 2011. I've only ever made two recipes from it, and Justin seemed pleased that it would get some additional use in honor of his big day.

Still, I could sense that his acquiescence to the grasshopper cake was less about a craving for chocolate and mint and more about his desire to give me a chance to bake the cake I've been eying for months. As luck would have it, I found myself skimming through a pile of baking books from the library last week that included the sequel to the original Baked -- Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented. I tossed out a few ideas from the book to Justin in lieu of the grasshopper cake, but when I flipped to the last recipe of the cake section, I knew my quest was over. Though it was called "Aunt Sassy Cake," when I described the cake to Justin as a pistachio cake with honey vanilla buttercream, garnished with more pistachios, I received the most exuberant endorsement from him that I had heard in months. My quest was over.

Though this year's cake recipe was less complex than last year, it still featured a few unique points that kept me on my toes. The cake itself, for example, had an unusual batter that called for adding the dry ingredients alternating with ice water, followed by folding in whipped egg whites at the end, for lightness. And the frosting was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Instead of a traditional buttercream, which involves sugar syrups and whipped egg whites, or so-called buttercream "cheats" that involve little more than powdered sugar and butter, this one called for boiling a mixture of flour, sugar, and milk, allowing it to cool, and then whipping it with the butter, honey, and vanilla. 

I was skeptical that anything that began life as a flour and milk paste would taste good, but the frosting was actually better than many I have made. It was the perfect consistency for spreading; neither too stiff or too runny, and it was slightly less sugary-tasting than most frostings, which I appreciated. Excessive sweetness is one of the primary reasons why I've always been vehemently anti-frosting, so this unconventional recipe from Baked might just be making another appearance in my kitchen someday.

Pistachios have always ranked near the bottom of my nut preference hierarchy, so this cake was truly a labor of love for Justin. I'll admit, they did add a nice buttery quality to the cake, but it was hard for me to love the finished product, given the extremely prominent pistachio flavor. The cake miraculously managed to be both exceptionally light and fluffy and moist, a combination that can be rare in homemade cake, which tend to be more on the dense and coarse side. The frosting, while perfect in texture and not too sweet, did not especially taste like honey, which I hoped would be more assertive, as I thought it would pair well with the pistachios.

I know, there's only half a cake here, but we celebrated Justin's birthday a few different times, with different sets of people, in order to get rid of enough cake that we wouldn't be eating it all ourselves.

Let it be said that Justin loved this cake, and since I made it as a physical manifestation of my love for him, his opinion is the only one that really matters. Everyone I fed the cake to loved it as well, but then again, they were also uniformly pistachio lovers across the board. As for me, I thought there were good things about the cake, such as the texture, the moistness, and the well-balanced frosting. I also may have hit upon the solution for my spotty cake decorating skills -- covering the sides of the cake with nuts to camouflage my sloppy frosting job. I'm going to have to remember that for the future.

For me, however, this cake will always live in the shadow of last year's luxurious lemon creation. I don't especially like lemon either, but that cake won me over. Perhaps I set the bar too high during my and Justin's first year together, and I'll always feel like I'm not doing enough compared to that unrealistically high standard. Maybe I'm expecting too much of myself; after all, Justin was thrilled with this year's cake, and that ought to be enough. Still, I'm not going to stop searching for the perfect cake for my perfect guy -- he deserves it!

Happy 30th birthday babe!

Minty Fresh...

After all the hasty, last-minute additions that I wedged into my Cookie Bonanza line-up at the last minute, I've been dedicating the weekend to the items that have been firmly ensconced on my agenda since the very beginning. Every year, I try to have something peppermint-flavored, particularly something chocolate and peppermint, because the flavor pairing is a Christmas classic. In fact, at last year's cookie exchange, virtually everyone made a chocolate-peppermint flavored dessert in some sort of minty zeitgeist moment.

Ages and ages ago, I spotted these chocolate thumbprint cookies from Baked Explorations, the second book by the duo behind the New York bakery, Baked. I think it was last Christmas, actually. The only reason I didn't make them then was because I already had a thumbprint cookie in my line-up with a lemon poppy seed twist. So I held off making them all year, but never got around to workshopping them in advance of my holiday giveaway, mostly because I kept forgetting to buy the Andes Mints called for in the recipe. It's just as well -- those things are dangerous to have around the house!

I’ve made a few recipes from the first Baked book, which was a Valentine’s Day gift from Justin earlier this year, and once again, the boys from Baked have proven they really know their stuff -- the dough was a delight to work with. So many doughs for thumbprint cookies crack when  you go to make the indentations, but this dough was smooth and pliable. Not a single cracked cookie going into the oven! 

To save time, I made and shaped the dough earlier this week and froze it, pulling it out this weekend just to bake and fill them. They baked up perfectly, even though they had been frozen, and the white chocolate peppermint ganache went together quickly. I was struck by the attractiveness of the finished cookies as well; they may have been the prettiest cookie in my line-up this year. 

Aside from being exceptionally pretty, with their lovely contrast between dark chocolate cookie and creamy white filling, the cookies also tasted fantastic. Although my lemon poppy seed thumbprints were very well-received last year by the lemon aficionados in my life, and I enjoyed the double chocolate thumbprints I also made last year with their unique honey and vanilla bean ganache centers, I think these chocolate peppermint thumbprints may just be the ones I’ll return to in the future. 

Give these a try if you’re looking for a stand-out Christmas cookie this year, whether to wow your friends and family, or just to stand in front of the fridge shoveling them directly from the container into your mouth. These are perfect either way.

Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

adapted from Baked Explorations

For cookies:

2 oz. dark chocolate, chopped

2 oz. Andes mints, chopped

1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 c. unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 c. sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 c. sanding sugar, for rolling

For filling:

3 oz. good-quality white chocolate, chopped

3 tablespoons heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

1. Melt the dark chocolate and mint chocolate together in a microwave or over a double boiler. Whisk until smooth, then set aside to cool.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy. Add the granulated and brown sugars and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks and vanilla and beat again until combined. Scrape the chocolate into the mixer and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and add the flour mixture all at once. Beat on low speed, scraping the side of the bowl occasionally, until the dough is smooth. Transfer it to a sheet of plastic wrap and pat it into a disk; wrap and refrigerate it until it is chilled and firm, at least 30 minutes.

4. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Pour the coarse sugar into a shallow bowl.

5. With clean hands, form tablespoon-size dough balls, taking care that they have no lumps or cracks. Roll each ball in the coarse sugar and place it on a prepared baking sheet. Use your thumb or a small dowel to make an indentation in the center of the cookie. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the sheet from the oven, and use your thumb or the dowel to make the indentation more visible. Return the sheets to the oven and bake for another 4 to 5 minutes. (These are the type of cookies that can overbake very quickly—pull them out at the first signs of cracking.) Set the baking sheets on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Use a spatula to transfer the cookies to the rack to cool completely before filling them.

6. Place the white chocolate in a glass measuring cup with a pour spout. Put the cream in a microwave-safe bowl or cup and microwave it on high power until it boils, about 30 seconds. Pour the hot cream over the white chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds, then whisk until smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. Fill the thumbprint cookies with the white chocolate ganache and refrigerate them until set, about 30 minutes.

Let Them Eat Cake...

I've written about it before, but there are times in a woman's life (usually on a monthly basis) when she needs chocolate, and I am no different. I have been craving chocolate like nobody's business the past week or so, and while I partially sated my craving with a batch of Ghirardelli brownies during the blizzard (keeping brownie mix in the house is dangerous, kids), they were merely a substitute to distract myself from what I really wanted -- chocolate cake. It wasn't just any chocolate cake that had captured my imagination either; I was fixated on a recipe I'd seen ages ago on the internet, and never gotten around to trying.

The recipe, for a cake that combined two of my favorite things, chocolate and root beer, came from a book that had stormed the food blogosphere when it was released a few years ago, and I was reminded of this particular recipe when I saw that the book's authors had released a new book. I managed to locate the recipe for the cake online, but I was skeptical of the instructions, which suggested swapping as much as a cup of the root beer in the cake with root beer schnapps for a more intense root beer flavor. Intuitively speaking, a cup seemed like a lot of booze for a cake.

So, before I ventured into the kitchen, I tried to find the hard copy of the original cookbook, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, at my local library, only to find there was a wait list. Discouraged, I tried to silence the cake's siren song in my mind, but I ended up bringing it up to Justin, who quickly located the book on the shelf at the library at which he works, and checked it out on my behalf. A quick scan of the original indicated that the proper substitution was a half cup, not a full cup, so I was glad I checked the source.

Ultimately, the cake didn't taste much like root beer at all, possibly because the soda I used for the cake was rather mild. The recipe calls for regular, not diet soda, which I do not drink, so I ended up purchasing Dad's Root Beer, which I hadn't consumed since my childhood, because it came in a size that was more suitable for baking and wouldn't leave me with tons of extra cans or bottles that I wouldn't want to drink. I didn't realize, however, until the cake was finished that the Dad's Root Beer was very, very mild. I think the root beer flavor might come through more with a more assertive soda in the mix.

That being said, I am prepared to give this recipe another chance. The cake was tasty, if slightly dense, and very chocolatey. Unless I can get the root beer flavor to become more prominent, this recipe won't replace my all-time favorite chocolate cake recipe (about which I still have yet to blog), but I will definitely be filing away the recipe for the frosting from this cake. Not only was it mind-blowingly simple to make, it was also delicious.

I don't say that lightly either -- if you know anything about my taste in baked goods, you'll know that I hate frosting. I was always the kid you wanted at a birthday party growing up, because I wouldn't fight for the edge pieces of the cake, or the pieces with the balloons or flowers. I was perfectly content to get an unadorned, inside piece, scrape off the frosting, and pass along the sugar high to another guest. So for me to say that I really enjoyed the frosting on this cake is somewhat of a minor miracle.

I'll keep you posted on whether I can coax more root beer flavor out of this cake in the future, but if nothing else, I urge you to whip up a batch of this frosting and spread it on some box cake or cupcakes. It's that good. And to my lady readers -- trust me, it will satisfy that deep yearning for chocolate.


Root Beer Chocolate Bundt Cake adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking

Cake
2 cups root beer (if you can find it, swap out 1/2 cup of root beer for root beer schnapps)
1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

Frosting
2 ounces dark chocolate melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup root beer
2/3 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

For the cake:
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour the Bundt pan.
2. In a small saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder, and butter over medium heat until the butter is melted. Add the sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together.
4. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs until just beaten, then whisk them into the cooled cocoa mixture until combined. Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy–do not overbeat, as it could cause the cake to be tough.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a small sharp knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool on a cooling rack completely before frosting.

For the frosting:
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth and shiny. Apply to cake and allow to set before serving.