Posts tagged ‘chocolate’

Good. Food. Stories. is traveling over the Hudson and Susquehanna rivers and through the Palisade and Allegheny woods to various relatives’ houses for the holidays. We’ll be back on Monday, December 28 for a few more days of goodness before we head off again to ring in 2010 with friends up and down the East Coast.

But whether or not you still believe in Santa Claus, it wouldn’t be Christmas Eve without some cookies and milk. If you have a few minutes to whip up a batch for a mysterious midnight visitor, I’m sure these snacks will disappear quickly from the fireplace hearth overnight. With only five ingredients, they come together in minutes, and would be additionally festive with a big mug of hot chocolate, should you be so inclined. Happy holidays, buon natale, and watch out for the icy patch!

Quick Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter (this is one of those times to stay away from the natural/fresh-ground style)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup milk-chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350˚.

Combine the first four ingredients in a large bowl, then stir in the chocolate chips. Scoop tablespoons of the dough onto two baking sheets, spaced an inch apart, and use a fork to squish the traditional peanut butter cookie crosshatch pattern onto each round.

Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown, and cool on a rack before storing. (If you even get around to storing them—I highly suggest sampling one or two while they’re warm.

I know Danielle will disagree with me on this point because she hates to bake, but one of my big pet peeves is the general population’s reliance on boxed cake, brownie, and cookie mixes. I just don’t see why people settle for these and why the prevailing school of thought is that it’s so much harder to pull together a dessert from scratch.

So to disprove the haters, I decided to do a head-to-head test of my favorite homemade brownie recipe (a very easy one; no chopping chocolate involved) and what I consider to be a decent-tasting boxed mix, Cherrybrook Kitchen’s Fudge Brownie Mix with Chocolate Chips.

First up, the Cherrybrook Kitchen box, in addition to the mix, called for:

• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup cold water
• 2 tsp vegetable oil

It took me 2 minutes to melt the butter – this would have been quicker and easier if I had known exactly how many tablespoons of butter melted down to 1/3 cup, but I had to keep chunking butter and melting in the microwave until I got the right amount (it’s about 5 tbsp, for future reference).

It took another 5 minutes to stir all the ingredients together, and another 5 minutes for the oven to heat up to 350 degrees. Although the package said it would take 16-18 minutes to get a cakey brownie, it took 20 minutes with the homemade brownies baking alongside.
Total time: 32 minutes

Next, the homemade brownies, adapted from the Best Cocoa Brownies recipe in Bittersweet by Alice Medrich.

• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cold large eggs
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

I made my ad hoc double boiler by bringing a small pan of water up to a simmer (5 minutes) and put the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a heatproof bowl while the water was heating up. I placed the bowl over the simmering water and stirred the mixture occasionally for another 5 minutes until the butter was melted and the mixture became warm and shiny but still a little granular. When I wasn’t stirring the cocoa mixture, I measured out the flour and vanilla extract, and cracked the eggs into a cup.

When I took the mixture off the heat, I stirred in the vanilla and then the eggs one at a time until it looked shiny and well-blended. Finally, I added the flour and beat well for about 30 seconds until it was all incorporated.

All in all, to get the ingredients together and into the pan took 13 minutes (during which time the oven can preheat to 350 degrees, so no extra time tacked on for that), and 23 minutes to bake.
Total time: 36 minutes

Note that for both recipes, I used a greased and floured 9-inch square glass pan and did the toothpick test, removing the brownies from the oven when a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan came out with moist cakey chunks on it.

Final verdict:
In a shocking conclusion, the mix brownies were overwhelmingly embraced by all and even I will admit that they were actually very, very good. The homemade recipe was intensely fudge-like and smooth, almost like a flourless chocolate cake, while the boxed mix was cakier and really did benefit from the inclusion of chocolate chips. The general consensus was neck and neck, but some were turned off by the homemade brownie’s richness.

After a few days (hey, I’ve been testing them on various friends and co-workers!), the homemade brownies started to get a little stale, but creepily enough, the boxed mix still tasted fresh. I don’t know if this is a pro or a con, to be honest.

I’ll definitely continue to make the homemade recipe if I need a base for a brownie sundae or am craving the fudgy texture over cakey, and being me, I’ll also try out a few more homemade brownie recipes for the hell of it. However, if you can’t abide baking (ahem, Danielle), it’s probably worth it to find a smaller purveyor’s boxed mix. You won’t save that much time by doing so, but you won’t lose that much in taste either.

I need a chocolate dessert recipe that’s easy to make and is easily transportable on the subway. Give me something good!

When it comes to easier-than-expected desserts that are seemingly fail-proof, I have to turn to my favorite hipster baking geniuses, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito of Baked. (Seriously. Buy their cookbook. I have yet to find a bad recipe in there.) Here’s an adapted version of a recipe I served to great acclaim this past December, although I think it works for the non-holiday seasons too.

Chocolate-Mint Thumbprints
Makes 4 dozen

For the cookies:
• 2 oz. chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (I use the Valrhona chunks but if pressed, you could chop up a good-quality chocolate bar
• 2 oz. chopped mint chocolate (the Baked guys actually recommend Andes candies for this!)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 2 sticks softened unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• Sugar in the Raw, for rolling

For the ganache filling:

• 3 oz. chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
• 3 tbsp. heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp. mint extract

Melt the two chocolates in the microwave until just about melted, stopping to stir every 30 seconds (the chocolate will retain its shape until touched, so stirring is crucial to see where you are in the melting process). Whisk until smooth, then let cool while you whisk together the flour, cocoa and salt in a separate medium bowl.

Using a Mixmaster or electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy, then add the regular and brown sugars and beat for about 2 minutes more until well-incorporated and extremely fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Add half the dry ingredients, stir to combine, and then add the other half, stirring until smooth. Turn the dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, pat into a disk, seal it up and refrigerate for an hour or until fully chilled.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Pour your raw sugar into a shallow bowl. Roll up tablespoonfuls of the dough into balls and dredge in the sugar, then move to the baking sheets. Using your thumb, smush the balls slightly so there’s an indentation in each (this is where you’ll put your choco-mint ganache filling), and bake for 10 minutes. Check the cookies and make sure your indentations haven’t disappeared as the cookie bakes and puffs; you’ll probably have to re-smush them again. Then bake for 5 more minutes and transfer the cookies to cooling racks until they come down to room temperature.

Transfer the cookies back to the cooled baking sheets (cram them in; it’s ok if they touch but not overlap). Heat the cream in the microwave about 30 seconds or until it boils – it won’t take long. Pour the cream over the remaining 3 oz. of chopped chocolate and let stand about a minute until the chocolate has melted, then whisk until smooth. If there are still chocolate chunks, microwave in 5-second intervals, stirring between each, until they melt.

Stir in the mint extract and fill each of the thumbprint indentations, licking any extra ganache out of the bowl – you’re allowed. Place the baking sheets in the fridge for a half hour to chill and set the filling, then serve to your appreciative audience.

Ask Casey any food-related queries (or challenge me to a Rock Band sing-off) at caseyATgoodfoodstoriesDOTcom.

Today’s post is by C.C.—”Culinarily Challenged”—a San Francisco based writer and editor. C.C. has decided to use a non-de-plume lest her foodie friends pelt her with ramps.

Let me make one thing very clear: I am “culinarily challenged,” one could say a food retard, but that would not be p.c., and this culinarily challenged woman happens to live in the p.c. food Mecca of San Francisco in an age, (post-age really), where Food is the New Sex, 40 is the New 30, and Bacon is King, and everybody has a blog, including my most excellent and dear friend Danielle, and so in my zeitgeistian way, of course I’m food-blogging on the occasion of my bacon-loving boyfriend’s birthday, for which I’ve taken it upon myself to bake up some dark chocolate bacon cupcakes. Here’s how it went down….

>> Bacon Chocolate Cupcakes coming up… >>