TWD - Caramel Crunch Bars

Dateline: Monday, February 23, 2009. Early afternoon.

I look at the clock, and realize that I need to get going on baking this week's Caramel Crunch Bars if they are going to be done, cooled and cut in time for the all-important Late Afternoon Sun Photography Window.

(The bars were this week's TWD choice, picked by Whitney of What's left on the table? I approve of this choice.)

2:12 pm - assemble ingredients on counter. Feel a gush of relief pleased and organized that for once, all ingredients are on hand, in sufficient quantities to prepare recipe. Feel slightly smug that I even remembered to pull out my sticks of butter in time for them to be room temperature. I am invincible.

Begin by creaming butter and sugar. Scrape down bowl and take tiny nibble of fluffy creamed substance.

Add dry ingredients. Breathe deeply the whiff of espresso and cinnamon that reaches up to tickle and tantalize my senses. Decide that I need to take another nibble, to see if the flavors are, you know, balanced.

Add chocolate to dough. Need to confirm that bittersweet chocolate is not overpowering other flavors. Take nibble.

Decide to spread dough in a 9x9 pan instead of the recommended 9x13, to have thicker base layer. Dough is sticky, gets all over knuckles. The only option at this point is to lick knuckles clean.

I notice that there is some extra dough stuck to Kitchen Aid paddle attachment. I remedy the situation.

The pan goes into the oven, I give it an extra ten minutes or so since I am making a thicker layer, and while it cooks, I make sure there is not any errant dough on the bowl or the rubber scraper, since my dishwasher will be incapable of thoroughly removing this stuck-on food. When my children happen to pass through the kitchen, I turn my back to them and pretend my mouth is not full.

2:52 pm - cookies are out of oven. I sprinkle chips over all and start to spread. Darn! Chips are gooey and I get chocolate on the side of my hand as I spread! I lick it off.

There is an alarming amount of chocolate stuck on my offset spatula that will not work it's way into the chocolate layer on the cookie. I must clean my spatula.

I add toffee bits to the chocolate layer, and carefully following Dorie's instructions, press them down lightly into the chocolate with my fingertips. This results in chocolate and toffee bits all over my fingers. I clean them, the old-fashioned way.

3:15 pm - since my crunch bars have the nerve to not be completely set up and ready to eat after 15 minutes, I pop them in the freezer. I mean, come ON.

3:45 pm - ready to cut! Okay, maybe there are a few shiny spots left on the top, but I'm sure it will all work out.

Dorie says to trim the edges where they are thick. Who am I to argue? And what is to become of all those crunchy edges? I test one to see how the bar tastes, now that everything is cooked. I'm not sure I got the full Flavor Rainbow with the first bite. I'd better try again. I'll pay better attention this time, I promise.

I cut the bars into small squares, but since they persist in being not-quite-completely-cooled, they crumble quite a bit, and leave a swath of warm chocolate on the side of my serrated knife. I hate dirty knives. And I hate crumbs all over my counter. I will feel much more peaceful if I clean those up.

But - wait! I tried one of those nice crispy edge pieces, but I really ought to compare that to the soft, gooey piece in the middle. Otherwise, how will I give an accurate opinion about this recipe? In the interest of my readers, I try a middle piece.

I take the bars over to my Late Afternoon Sun Photography Studio Window, and snap some pictures while there are still bars to be photographed. Because the way the afternoon is going, there might not be any left by sundown.

TWD - Devil's Food White Out Cake

Yay, the cover photo recipe for Dorie's book! Cake! Frosting! Do the wave, people!

I made this cake over the weekend, made the frosting yesterday afternoon, and took it to last night's scout meeting, where I successfully used it to bribe the other parents into taking on volunteer positions. There is nothing like cake to bend people to my will.

(aside: this is why the cake pictured is sitting on a lovely Harvest Gold Tupperware cake taker. Just keepin' it real for you guys.)

(aside to the aside: they say you can tell how long ago someone got married by the color of their Tupperware. Mine is almost all that pale aqua-blue color, with the exception of the Harvest Gold Cake Taker. But I was a child bride.)

The cake went together well; it did what it was supposed to do, I didn't really have any problems with rising like some other TWD'ers had, and while I was nervous about the meringue frosting, having never made one before, it came together without a hitch. Score!

Everyone at the troop meeting told me how good the cake was, so I'm going to have to take their word for it, because here comes my deep, troubling confession:

I hate marshmallows. HATE them. Oh, I will eat s'mores with the best of them, but only by thrusting my marshmallow directly into the flame and charring it to a smoldering, blackened heap that no longer tastes like marshmallow, but is hot enough to smelt iron and therefore also to cause my Hershey bar to become softened and gooey and yum. I do not eat Rocky Road anything. I do not eat sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping. I do not like them, Sam I Am.

But, I dutifully ate a piece of cake. And spent the whole time choking back the oppressive taste of the marshmallow in the frosting, just thinking of England and wanting it to be over.

Like I said, everyone else liked it. Or at least told me they did. And volunteered for things, so it works for that if you need a fail-safe plan. But I probably won't be eating this particular cake again soon.

Since it's not Stephanie's fault that I have deep and troubling marshmallow issues, go check out her blog, Confessions of a City Eater, for the recipe and just to say, "hey, thanks! We love marshmallows!" And check out the TWD blogroll because there are some really interesting interpretations of this week's recipe, as well.

Next week: Caramel Crunch Bars, which I am certain I will be able to genuinely embrace, to the point that someone will probably have to prise my greedy fingers off the top of the aqua blue square Tupperware lid.

lovin' from the oven

It's one of those low key Valentine's days around our house. We're currently on the Budget Plan (see: recession), so no fancy dinners or expensive chocolates. Which is fine. It's been a long and busy week, and honestly, the idea of laying low around the house, making a fire and playing board games sounds so much more love-ly to me today.

But I didn't want to let the day pass completely unrecognized, so I whipped up a batch of these streusel muffins this morning. They are pink, see? Get it? Valentines = pink/red stuff?

Yeah, I don't get why either, but never mind.

These are quick, yummy, super-moist muffins. And if your sweethearts are anything like mine, they will ask for seconds. And because it's Valentine's Day, you will give them seconds, and a kiss on the cheek, and tell them you love them.

May you be surrounded by love today.

Cherry Streusel Muffins
serves 12

2 cups frozen unsweetened tart cherries
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 t. vanilla
1 t. almond extract
1/2 cup milk
2 cups flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt

streusel topping:

1/3 cup flour
3 T. packed brown sugar
3 T. cold unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 375. Grease muffin tin or line with paper liners.
Place frozen cherries in food processor and process until coarsely chopped. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla, almond and milk and beat until smooth. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt, and add slowly to butter mixture. Do not overmix. Fold in chopped cherries.
Divide batter evenly among 12 muffin tins. ( ed note: I actually got batter for more like 14 muffins.) Sprinkle with streusel topping. Bake 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and firm. Cool in pan 10 minutes.

to make streusel:

combine brown sugar and flour. Cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over muffins.

TWD - Floating Islands

I was really looking forward to making this week's Tuesdays with Dorie challenge - Floating Islands. I've never tried this technique before, and it sounded like an impressive dessert. Plus, custard. What's not to love?

However, as previously mentioned, the Mother of All Head Colds has taken up residence at our house. So in addition to having trouble staying vertical long enough to make a complicated dessert, it seemed rather pointless when no one in the building would have been able to taste it.

So instead, we've spent the weekend doing Nyquil jello shots and watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond. Because we are party animals, and that's how we roll.

There are lots of other healthy TWD bloggers who have risen to the challenge, though, so you should go check them out - and leave nice comments for them! They worked hard. Make sure to visit Shari at Whisk: A Food Blog for this week's recipe.

Next week is Devil's Food White Out Cake, and I will be making it, even if they have to wheel me from the morgue to my kitchen. Hmph.

Everyday Chili

I was pladdig to get a lot of bloggig dud dis weeked, but I hab a head code. So, dot so much. I used lots ub kleenex, idstead.


Generally, we are pharmaceutical minimalists around our house. I'm not anti-pharmaceutical (Lord knows, the amount of sudafed I've ingested over the last 72 hours has been anything but minimal), but if there's another way to help us feel better, we tend to go that route. So when the whole family gets blasted with the head cold from Hades, one of my go-to remedies is homemade chili. There's nothing that packs a phlegm-busting wallop like a good bowl of steamy, spicy chili, and it's nice to be able to smell again for a little while. Especially when you are smelling chili. And just about the time that you start thinking, "you know, now that I can smell again, I notice that no one in the house has changed out of their jammies or showered for the last 48 hours...", well, the mucus monster blessedly sets in again. But the relief feels good while it lasts.

This chili achieves The Recipe Trifecta: it is easy, good and cheap. It's the kind of recipe that you can make even in the midst of feeling like death in a paper cup. You do, of course, have pre-browned hamburger sitting in ziploc bags in your freezer, right? (Yes, of course you do.) This clocks your need-to-be-vertical time at about 10 minutes for the whole batch, because you can just thaw the meat for one minute in the microwave and dump it into the recipe. Brilliant! But the recipe is also good enough that you might end up wanting to make it any old weeknight that you happen to be jonesing for chili. And cheap? Yeah, well that just leaves you more money for kleenex now, doesn't it?

Everyday Chili
serves 6

2 pounds of hamburger
1 onion, diced
2 -15 oz. cans kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 -14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes, undrained
1- 6 oz. can tomato paste
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 T. chili powder
1/4-1 t. cumin (or more), depending on taste or nasal congestion
1 t. ground black pepper
1 t. salt

Brown hamburger and onion in a large skillet; drain. In a large pot, combine hamburger mixture, beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic and spices. Stir to combine, and simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

If you are thinking ahead, you can also brown the hamburger and onion and combine everything in a slow cooker. Set it on low for 6-8 hours while you nap and blow your nose, then serve.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Happy World Nutella Day 2009!

I'm telling you, if this week's World Peace Cookies haven't already aligned the planets in perfect harmony, I can't think of what else might do it besides World Nutella Day. A whole day devoted to the celebration of Nutella? (Um, as if I don't celebrate Nutella every other day of the year. Which, maybe I do, and maybe I eat Nutella out of the jar with a spoon, but never when the children are watching because that would make me a bad influence. Please.)

This amazing holiday is the brainchild of Sara of Ms. Adventures in Italy and Michelle of Bleeding Espresso. They both live in Italy. Jealous yet? Yeah, me too, but I'm working hard not to hold it against them. The residual peace from Tuesday's cookies is helping. The Nutella on the end of the spoon that I am currently holding imagining does not hurt, either.

I decided to make Ina Garten's Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing, and subbed out the peanut butter for Nutella. I also made half a recipe because, 24 cupcakes? Holy Weight Watchers, Batman.



The cupcakes are dark and moist, not too sweet and nicely bitter, which is a great foil for the fluffy, sweet Nutella icing. This is not really a kid's-birthday-party kind of cupcake, and even some adults will probably like it better if the amount of sugar is upped a little bit. Me, I loved the way it kind of bit my tongue and grabbed the back of my throat, but that might be because I'm a glutton for punishment. The frosting is sweet and fluffy, but maybe a little too fluffy. I would have liked it to have been a bit more substantial, but I have a feeling adding less cream, or adding more confectioner's sugar would fix that in a jiffy.

Barefoot Contessa's Chocolate Cupcakes


12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, shaken, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
2 tablespoons brewed coffee
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup good cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and 2 sugars on high speed until light and fluffy, approximately 5 minutes. Lower the speed to medium, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. On low speed, add the buttermilk mixture and the flour mixture alternately in thirds to the mixer bowl, beginning with the buttermilk mixture and ending with the flour mixture. Mix only until blended. Fold the batter with a rubber spatula to be sure it's completely blended.

Divide the batter among the cupcake pans (1 rounded standard ice cream scoop per cup is the right amount). Bake in the middle of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (ed note: this is WAY too long. Start checking at about 16 minutes. I took mine out at 18.) Cool for 10 minutes, remove from the pans, and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Serves 24.



World Nutella Day Icing

1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup Nutella
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream
Place the confectioners' sugar, Nutella, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

TWD - World Peace Cookies

Can a cookie, a mere baked good, help achieve world peace? Before tasting these lovelies, I didn't think so. Now I'm not so sure.

I'm thinking we should ask Sam Kass, personal chef to the Obama family both in Illinois and now at the White House, to start slipping these weapons of mass consumption to the Commander in Chief, and see what happens. We may be on the verge of peace in the Middle East, the end of terrorism, beating swords into plowshares... who knows where this cookie could take us?

Let me just say that I felt a lot more peaceful after eating more than a few one of these. These cookies are lovely, dark, chocolaty, with a hint of salt that makes your tongue say, "oh YEAH baby!" (Probably not out loud, but, no guarantees. Be careful the company you keep when you are eating them, just in case.)

The secret is fleur de sel, which is French for "hoity-toity sea salt". I didn't really have my hoity-toity on, though, as all I had in the house was lowly, pas-Francais, coarse sea salt. It's supposedly from some sea that's relatively near France, though, does that count?



The recipe calls for fine sea salt, so I dumped some in my coffee grinder and whinged it around for a bit until it was fine. Resourceful is my middle name.

I had some bittersweet chocolate wafers (see: King Arthur Flour Chocolate Sale), so I chopped them up for inclusion. I had chunks of all sizes, some big, some leetle, and I think that might be part of the reason that my cookies look a little, ahem, drunken, relative to some other pictures I've seen. Or not, I dunno, but it didn't really matter because they tasted That Good. And even though the cookies may be a bit on the ugly duckling side, I loved biting into several one and getting a rush of gooey bittersweet chocolate along with the saltiness. Nirvana.

So: the conclusion is that you need to go make these cookies Right Now, and see for yourself what happens. They may not immediately bring about world peace, but it's entirely possible that they'll chill you out just enough to keep you from yelling at the jerk who just cut you off in traffic. And that would be a good start towards the pursuit of happiness, no?

Thanks to Jess of cookbookhabit for this week's pick; you can get the full recipe at her site or in Dorie's book (which I highly recommend), Baking: From My Home to Yours.

Now go check out the TWD blogroll to pick up some serious internet peace, love and cookie vibes. I mean it. World peace is important, and you're expected to do your part.

Teleflora

I'm not afraid of dark humor, but I cannot think of any Superbowl ad I have ever seen that was more offensive than the Teleflora ads that ran during the Superbowl last night. I have already informed my husband that I don't want him to buy me Teleflora flowers, ever.