Baking with the Boys

[Note:  Huzzah.  Pictures are working now. ]

There is a new cooking/baking group that Tara from Smells Like Home started: Barefoot Bloggers.  We are working our way through Ina Garten’s (the Barefoot Contessa) recipes.  We will be posting twice a month with rotating recipes selected by the members of the group.  Tara chose the first recipe: Herbed Baked Eggs from Ina’s book Barefoot in Paris. 

Generally, we are not a big egg eating family.  My kids, of course, happily consume all manner of cookies, cakes, custards, etc. made with eggs but draw the line at any dish where you can see evidence of an actual egg.  My husband doesn’t even go for the sweets.  I myself have some picky tendencies, especially when it comes to eggs.  I don’t really care for the taste of yolk (at all) and I would rather not see any part of it runny.  We don’t do a lot of brunch around here.

So, with these voluminous restrictions in mind, I set out to make this recipe.  I, clearly, only needed to make one serving or 3 eggs.  Unfortunately, my memory deceived me and I only had two when I thought I had three.  So, two eggs it was.  I melted the butter and cream as instructed, poured in the eggs and topped with the herb mixture, a delicious combination of parsley, thyme, rosemary and parmesan.  My new herb garden proving its worth already!

The eggs were still VERY runny (can’t have that) at 6 minutes so I broiled them for about 5 more minutes.  The smell of the herbs was DIVINE.  And the eggs were cooked enough that I was able to eat around the yolks (victory!).  If I made these again — and the herb mixture might convince me to do so — I would probably skip the heavy cream.  I have no qualms about using cream, butter, oil, etc when it improves or enhances the final product.  In this case I don’t think it did which makes it just wasted calories.

Check out the Barefoot Bloggers to see if people who actually eat eggs regularly enjoyed them.

We had a CRAZY week.  Spent 5 out of 7 nights away from home and worked the other two days.  So, no Dorie this week.  I am now convinced I can accomplish brioche with no stand mixer but this was just not the week.  The kids had a great time with their cousins in Texas so it was worth it.  I WILL be back for the brownies next week.  Flaming raisins?  Oh yeah….

Check out everyone else’s Pecan Honey Sticky Buns here.

  Hanging out with family in Texas…no cooking at all…

Our neighborhood garage sale was this weekend.  I made a deal with myself.  If I found a madeleine pan, I would embark on this week’s recipe for Traditional Madeleines chosen by Tara of Smells Like Home.  Well, no pan.  Had we needed boxes of unused Christmas cards, a belgian waffle maker circa 1978 or tables full of abandoned beanie babies, I would have been in luck.  I thought about trying the “spoon” method discussed in the comments but opted to go with a past recipe, an alternative approved by our fearless leader Laurie.

My schedule didn’t ease up this weekend so, once again, I was looking for something uncomplicated.   I also wanted to do something nice for mom who got somewhat neglected on mother’s day.  The perfect solution?  Brownies, specifically the Quintuple Chocolate Brownies.

My dear mother has what may be the ultimate sweet tooth.  Others may think they know from sweet but I know better.  Seriously…when Dorie created the serving size for the peanut butter torte a few weeks back (that was universally agreed to be for giants) she was speaking directly to mom.  This is the woman who will always take the corner piece of cake coated in sugary frosting, preferably with ice cream and hot fudge (whipped cream, too?  why, of course). 

With sous chef Colin at the ready, we chopped, melted and stirred our way to chocolate bliss.  Knowing mom has little to no use for white chocolate (amateurs, please), we used bittersweet in the batter and made a thick semi-sweet glaze (still quintuple!).  I don’t care for nuts really and especially not big hunks in baked goods.  So, I don’t have a personal review of the finished product.  The batter, however, (which Colin and I licked CLEAN) was very promising.  I will have to make these sans nuts at a later date.  AND mom did call to report that she ate an obscene number of brownies in one day…a true thumbs up!

To see the Madeleines in all their glory and the other past recipe substitutions check out the other blogs here.

Next week, Pecan Honey Sticky Buns but, alas, not for me.  We are going out of town AND I don’t have a stand mixer.  Dorie’s story of practically stirring her arm off for brioche dough just isn’t tempting me, especially for something with Pecan in the title.  I am sure, however, the others will NOT disappoint.

Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

For the Brownies

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

3 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used bittersweet)

2 tablespoons strong coffee

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

6 ounces premium-quality milk chocolate, chopped into chips, or 1 cup store-bought milk chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts

For the Glaze

6 ounces premium-quality white chocolate, finely chopped, or 1 cup store-bought white chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet chocolate)

1/3 heavy cream (just a splash of milk)

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil and place the pan on a baking sheet.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and salt.

To Make the Brownies: Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and add, in the following order, the butter, the two chocolates and the coffee. Keeping the pan over low heat, warm just until the butter and the chocolates are melted– you don’t want the ingredients to separate, so keep an eye on the bowl. Stir gently, and when the mixture is smooth, set it aside for 5 minutes.

Using a whisk or a rubber spatula, beat the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Don’t beat too vigorously– you don’t want to add air to the batter– and don’t be concerned about any graininess. Next, stir the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla. You should have a smooth, glossy batter. If your not already using a rubber spatula, switch to one now and gently stir in the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. Finally, stir in the milk chocolate chips and nuts. Scrape the batter into the pan.

Bake for 35 minutes, or until a think knife inserted into the center comes out streaked but not thickly coated. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let the brownies rest undisturbed for at least 30 minutes. (You can wait longer if you’d like.)

Turn the brownies out onto a rack, peel away the foil and place it under another rack–it will be the drip catcher for the glaze. Invert the brownies onto the rack and let cool completely.

To Make the Glaze: Put the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Bring the heavy cream to a boil and pour it over the chocolate. Wait 30 seconds, then, using a rubber spatula, gently stir until the chocolate is melted.and the glaze is smooth.

Hold a long metal icing spatula in one hand the bowl of glaze in the other. Pour the glaze onto the center of the brownies and use the spatula to nudge it evenly over the surface. Don’t worry if it dribbles over the edges, you can trim the sides later (or not). Refrigerate the brownies for about 20 minutes to dry the glaze.

Cut into 16 squares, each roughly 2 1/4 inches on a side.

“You put the lime in the coconut, you drank ‘em both up, you put the lime…”  Did everyone else sing this all week?  Just me.  Alrighty, then.

This week’s recipe was Florida Pie chosen by Dianne of Dianne’s Dishes.  It is basically a key lime pie with a coconut cream layer and a coconut meringue.  Yes, I took a bite the night before.

My first instinct was to skip this week.  I luurve key lime pie…coconut not so much.  Mostly, we were just insanely busy.  I am entering my busy season at work, my kids were both ring bearers in a wedding, we had tickets to see Wicked (yeah, it just got here) and on and on.  I was assigned to bring breakfast for Friday breakfast club this week.  So that was my only real opportunity to do any baking.  I strongly considered chucking the pie for the orange berry muffins, easy to make for breakfast and I missed it in the recipe rotation.

BUT…I got it in my head to make the pie and somehow adapt it for breakfast.  My husband tells me, and he is absolutely correct, that I have tendency to be inflexible once I decide on something.  I believe this is affectionately referred to as pigheaded.  So I forged ahead.  Meringue?  Out of the question.  I have actually never made it and this was not going to be my first attempt.  Whipped cream instead?  No time.  Coconut cream?  Nope.  I thought about pineapple or banana cream but decided on lemon/lime.  I just grated in a little zest.  Since I didn’t really have an appropriate topping and wanted to get more servings I decided to convert the pie into bars.

I chickened out on the pineapple.

I stirred that cream for over 20 minutes, got impatient (not the week for this recipe clearly) and quit.  Good thing too…my youngest assistant had been “helping” me wash and he had flooded the counter and drowned the coffee grinder.  15 more minutes and we may have needed a rowboat.  I don’t know why I thought the cream would cover the increased surface space.  Mental lapse I guess.  I think I could have skipped this step (especially with the yolks and sweetened condensed milk…another dieters’ delight).

 All the cream added was calories.

Four innocent limes gave their lives for these bars.

I did put some toasted coconut over half and that half was gone first.  Guess I am in the minority on the coconut aversion.  I am happy to report that it tasted great.  I love key lime pie and was pleasantly surprised that this non key lime recipe did not disappoint.

Kitchen lesson #412: When a recipe contains words like “stirring almost constantly”… “reduced by half”…MERINGUE(!) and you are pressed for time this is not your recipe. 

 Next week:  Madeleines (maybe…I don’t have a pan so we shall see).  To see the “real” pie check out the other TWD blogs.

 One of the reasons, I was so short on time this week.

Peanut butter and chocolate…mmm….I am old enough to remember the old Reeses commercials.  Two great tastes that taste great together!  This week’s recipe was Peanut Butter Torte chosen by Elizabeth of Ugg Smell Food.  I love peanut butter and chocolate together.  Well, I love chocolate and a lot of flavors together.  When I was pondering what to do with my cream cheese and cream left overs I started to think of my other favorite chocolate flavor combos….so many, chocolate + mint, chocolate + coffee, chocolate + vanilla…then I saw the oranges sitting innocently on the counter and a second torte was born.

I only made half of the peanut butter torte.  I figured my little family of four (plus grandma who comes over for dinner and dessert on Sunday nights) didn’t need 86 lbs of peanut buttery creamy goodness, especially after Ulrike of Kuchenlatein posted the WW points.  OUCH!  Of course, none of this stopped me from taking what little cream cheese (2 oz!) and whipped cream was leftover and making three little orange chocolate mini-tortes. 

The only real change I made to the peanut butter torte was to skip most of the chopped peanuts.  I like peanut butter but regular peanuts?  not so much.  Instead of the nuts, I made a little peanut butter ganache for the final topping.

When I saw the oranges I thought of swiss orange chip ice cream.  When I was a kid my mom always took me to Swensens ice cream parlor and swiss orange chip was her favorite.  I subbed in semi-sweet chocolate for the peanut butter, used a little less powdered sugar and added some orange zest and orange extract.  Fabulous.  Although, if I made it again, I would probably use bittersweet chocolate instead. 

We all tried dibs and dabs of both until we were STUFFED.   This one got rave reviews.  Too bad there wasn’t enough left to share with the co-workers.  Maybe next time folks.

To see if everyone else stuffed themselves silly, check out Tuesdays With Dorie here.

I cannot compete with the many gorgeous food photos on the blogs.  So, I am going in the opposite direction with some realism.  Here’s what cooking in my kitchen really looks like. 

 Helper (with crazy hair) showing off the splash of sugar when the cream cheese tumbled into the bowl.  He may have enjoyed a few “sample” oreos during crust construction.

  Mom hoping entire contents of torte don’t soon spray all over kitchen.  Counter is cluttered enough.

  Finally, washing up or flooding the counter.  Depends on your perspective.