Posts from the “Cookies, Cakes & Bars” Category

Giving thanks, with dessert.

Posted on November 19, 2012

One of my dearest friends emailed me the other day with some news of a difficult family situation. She wanted to let me know what was going on, as we so often do with friends we’ve had for decades. And she wanted to share with me that in rereading some of ginger&jam that day she was grateful for the renewed perspective it gave her—a reminder of the importance of valuing the little things and being in awe of how they fit into a greater picture of this thing we call life. This is such an incredible compliment, knowing that this little space of mine here is touching at least one person out there.

Little did my friend know (until I told her) how perfect her timing was for me, too. I’ve been challenged by a few things of my own in these last few weeks, and I was instantly grateful for her validation of what I’m doing in this season of my life—validation that only someone who knows you oh so well can give. It’s altogether too easy for us to lose site of the value of how we choose to spend our lives each day. What we do is important, and I know all too well how easy it is to forget that. To belittle ourselves. To deem ourselves somehow less important than others, and in doing so forgetting that we each have a unique role to play. My friend’s email was an important reminder of how blessed I am by so many things, including my dear family and friends.

In just a few days my parents and one of my sisters is coming to Boston to share Thanksgiving with some friends and me. I’ve always been that person in my family, in my generation, who’s waited for years to host a big family holiday feast. There’s something magical for me about holidays and traditions and celebrations—parties full of loved ones surrounded by laughter and, of course, delicious food. So now’s my chance to host, and I swear to you I will not let my fear of cooking a turkey bring me down. I’ve never cooked a turkey before. Why does this one culinary feat seem so hard?! Any tips or tricks you can share? I’m taking all the help I can get! I even bought my turkey from Kate Stillman, owner of Stillman’s Turkey Farm, who I work for at my weekly farmers’ market. Today I asked her how she cooks her own Thanksgiving turkey, figuring she’s a pretty darn good source of information. Don’t you worry, I’ll let you know how it goes. And in the meantime, if you’re still looking for a delicious, festive, relatively easy dessert to contribute to your Thanksgiving table, these pumpkin chocolate chip bars will be loved by children and grandparents alike. They may not be as traditional as a pumpkin pie, but they’re cakey and moist, very chocolaty, and even more full of the fall holiday spices everyone loves. Assuming, that is, that you don’t eat every last one before it’s time to share! So, Happy Thanksgiving to you. I hope this holiday is a joyous reminder of whatever blessings fill your life.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bars

Adapted from two peas & their pod

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.

2. Line a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with parchment paper, enough to cover all sides of the pan. Fold the corners over themselves neatly so that the bars will have clean corners. (Note: the parchment paper eliminates the need to grease the pan, and makes it easy to lift the bars out for cutting.)

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together both flours, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking soda, and salt.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until smooth and lighter in color. Beat in the egg and vanilla on medium-low until combined. Add the pumpkin puree and mix well. The mixture will look somewhat curdled. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the dry ingredients until just combined. Then add the chocolate chips.

5. Spread the batter (it will be very thick!) evenly in the prepared pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached. It’s better to under bake than over bake these!

6. Cool the bars completely in the pan. Once cool, remove them by carefully pulling the parchment paper out of the pan. Cut into squares and serve. These will freeze well if individually wrapped tightly in plastic wrap.

The. Best. Brownies.

Posted on October 7, 2012

The leaves here are quickly progressing from summery greens to bright reds, yellows, and oranges. The air is getting pretty darn cold at night. In fact, the heat kicked on for the first time yesterday. I had dinner at a friend’s house this week and she made butternut squash chili and hot apple cider with cloves and cinnamon. I ventured out of the city to Volante Farm the next day and enjoyed my first apple cider donut this season, fresh out of the oven, and bought a few more miniature pumpkins. My UGGs have come out from under the bed, along with my warmer winter scarves and tights. A few days ago a friend and I nailed down our menu for the Thanksgiving meal we’re co-hosting for our families. I’ve already begun work on my final projects for this semester’s classes, and I’m about to buy a plane ticket to California for the holidays. Turns out, it’s October.

One of the things I love most about any change of season is the way your cravings change, too. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You and I may crave different foods each season, but we’re both craving something. Winter turns to spring and you turn in the soup pot for the salad bowl. Spring turns to summer and all you can think about is devouring juicy watermelon while sipping a cold Corona on a sandy beach. Then summer turns to fall and suddenly you find the soup pot has made its way back onto the stove. You start to crave full-bodied red wine, hot chocolate spiked with Baileys, and steaming mulled cider. Your cereal bowl becomes filled with hot oatmeal topped with maple syrup and cinnamon. You retire your stone fruit dessert recipes for anything containing pumpkin or apples or chocolate.

This is precisely where I found myself about a week ago. Craving something warm and gooey and chocolatey. I remembered a recipe I’ve wanted to try since I bought a certain cookbook three years ago. Three years ago. I’m still trying to figure out why it took me so long to make this recipe. I suppose the answer to that no longer matters because as soon as I got brownies on the brain, I couldn’t let the idea go. I had to make them. I had to have them. And thank goodness I did, because now you can make them.

The Baked Brownie

From Baked: New Frontiers in Baking by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

These brownies are just as good as they’re hyped up to be. Oprah apparently loves them. America’s Test Kitchen apparently loves them. And now I love them. They’re incredibly rich with warm and nutty dark chocolate. They’re slightly cakey with a delicate crumb, yet dense and fudgy. At the risk of stating the obvious, I’ll say the key to these is the chocolate. Because the chocolate is the star, it’s incredibly important to use high quality chocolate and cocoa powder. I chose two artisan chocolate makers, which made this one expensive batch of brownies—but it was worth every penny. I used Taza Chocolate’s 70% semi-sweet baking squares and Scharffen Berger’s unsweetened cocoa powder. These brownies keep well, wrapped in plastic at room temperature, for 3-4 days. And if you heat them up slightly, they’re nearly ethereal.

Ingredients

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder

11 ounces dark chocolate (60-72% cacao), coarsely chopped

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

5 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9-by-13-inch glass or light-colored metal baking pan. (I suggest lining your pan with a large piece of parchment paper. No greasing necessary.)

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

3. Put the chocolate, butter, and instant espresso powder in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, then remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature.

4. Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

5. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula (not a whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve.

Bake. Glaze. Eat. Repeat.

Posted on September 19, 2012

It’s the last night of my Bay Area visit about a month ago and I’m sitting in my dear friend, J’s, living room. We’re catching up on everything from family to men to travel to dogs. Essentially our conversation quickly spans all of life’s major topics including, of course, cookies. What? Cookies don’t qualify as a major life topic? I beg to differ.

I’m not going to pretend to be surprised that our conversation that night steered toward some kind of food topic. Most of my conversations do, as anyone who’s ever held one with me can confirm. So, I think I’m just going to go straight for the good stuff with this post because the cookies I’m here to tell you about deserve every word they can get.

When J told me about these cookies I knew they’d make their way here. She quickly sold me with a description of buttery shortbread cookies topped with fresh lemon glaze. Um, yes please! J’s friends and her family love them, her boyfriend and his family love them, and while some prefer the shortbread and others prefer more glaze and still others prefer less glaze, they’re a solid “must make,” J says.

And I promise you these are worth every second it takes to make them. The zesty, sweet lemon glaze provides the perfect topping for these buttery, somehow soft and crunchy shortbread rounds. And together they make one heck of a little melt-in-your-mouth cookie. Now we all owe J for these!

You see, I don’t know about you, but I always prefer to make recipes that have made their way to me via a personal recommendation. And you bet this includes my favorite food blogs because let’s be honest, after you spend months or even years reading someone’s stories you begin to feel like each and every recipe they give you is a personal recommendation. My stuffed-to-the-brim white recipe binder includes everything from handwritten recipe cards, to smudged print outs of my favorite bloggers’ recipes, to recipes cut off the back of boxes.

When you begin the adventure of tackling a new recipe, or making one of your favorites, do you ever pause to think about where you got it or who gave it to you? Was it a friend? A grandmother? A father? I hope you do. After all, even though there exists countless recipes, and even countless recipes for the same dish, those recipes that you hold dear mean something for a reason. Food is the great connector, and I’m convinced that food tastes better when those connections are known and cherished.

Glazed Lemon Cookies

From J, via Real Simple

Yield: 36-48 cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup powdered sugar

2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice, plus more if necessary

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Directions

1. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar until fluffy. Add the egg yolks, vanilla, and salt. Beat to combine. Gradually add the flour, mixing until just incorporated.

2. Divide the dough in half and shape into 1 1/4-inch-diameter logs. Wrap in wax paper and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.

3. Heat oven to 350° F. Slice the logs into 3/8-inch-thick pieces and space them 1 1/2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until lightly golden, 16 to 20 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and zest until it forms a thick but pourable glaze. Add more lemon juice if necessary. Dip the top of each cookie into the glaze and let the cookies set for about 15 minutes.

5. Once the glaze is set and dry you can stack the cookies on each other for storing. That is, if they last that long!

Enjoy!

Posts from the “Cookies, Cakes & Bars” Category

Giving thanks, with dessert.

Posted on November 19, 2012

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The. Best. Brownies.

Posted on October 7, 2012

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Bake. Glaze. Eat. Repeat.

Posted on September 19, 2012

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