Stuck in the House with a Bunch of Pistachios: Nut Brittle and Madeleines

Today I had to stick around the house for most of the day while we had some work done on our chimney. The first to-do item I wanted to tackle was making a little thank-you gift for our next door neighbors, who looked after our house while we were on vacation last week. I thought about making some caramels, but there was no cream in the house (we got back in town late last night and I didn't have a chance to go to the grocery store yet). I started thinking about other ideas for gift-y items and considered making peanut brittle, but I couldn't find any peanuts in the house, either. After I found a pound and a half of pistachios, I decided to make some pistachio brittle instead.

This recipe is easy, so long as you have a candy thermometer. The brittle does set up really quickly, so you have to work fast to spread it out on the pan before it sets. This stuff is quite tasty, very attractive, and does in fact make a great gift.

I also decided that it was a good day to try a recipe for pistachio madeleines that I've been holding onto for years. The recipe is adapted from the Keswick Hall Hotel in Charlottesville, VA, and I spotted it when it was featured in the Los Angeles Times Culinary SOS column in 1999, and again a few months ago when the column ran the recipe a second time. Previously, I only had silicone madeleine pans, which I didn't particularly like (I have a bunch of silicone making pans, most of which I never use because I find them extremely difficult to clean). I recently received some nonstick metal madeleine pans as wedding gifts (thanks Katherine, Chris, and Yee!), and I was eager to try them out.

Today was an especially good time for me to try out this recipe, because the first step of making and chilling the clarified butter requires a few hours. I usually don't have that much time to make anything on a weekday after work. But being stuck at home for almost the entire day, I had lots of time to make my own clarified butter and refrigerate it until it was firm.

I used a cookie scoop to drop rounded balls of batter into the greased madeleine molds, and the batter spread nicely to fill out the molds and bake into the distinctive shell shapes. I was happy with the way these turned out; they had a nice golden crust on them and they were light, moist, and had a nice pistachio crunch. Plus, I love the dainty appearance of madeleines. I hope these are only the first of many different delicious types of madeleines I bake with my new pans!

Recipes:

• "Best Ever Nut Brittle" from Food and Wine.
  
• "Pistachio Madeleines" from the Los Angeles Times Culinary SOS column, May 6, 2009.

Did Someone Punch My Cookie in the Face?: Giant Thumbprint Cookies

I had originally planned to make some giant thumbprint cookies for our holiday open house last weekend; I even purchased some Bonne Maman cherry preserves to use for the recipe. However, I ended up cutting the cookies from the menu after I became a little pressed for time. With the jar of cherry preserves still sitting on the counter, I decided to make giant thumbprint cookies for our office holiday party a few days ago.

I made the dough, shaped it, and filled the cookies with the cherry preserves. When I took the cookies out of the oven, I was horrified to see that the preserves had run and leaked an ugly red puddle on a significant portion of the cookie. The image was slightly reminiscent of a bloodshot eyeball and I immediately thought that it looked like someone had punched the cookies in the face.

I was able to switch to Polaner apricot spreadable fruit for the rest of the cookies, which I baked without incident.

I do have to say, though, that the cherry cookies were really delicious. Those preserves are very flavorful, with bits of cherry skin included. Tom and I thoroughly enjoyed eating these homely rejects! It's just a shame that the consistency of the preserves doesn't hold up in the oven and results in a cookie too ugly to leave the house.

Recipe: "Giant Thumbprint Cookies" from Butter Sugar Flour Eggs: Whimsical Irresistible Desserts, by Gale Gand.

Previous Posts:

• "A Lasting Impression: Giant Thumbprint Cookies," February 24, 2009.
• "I'll Take Foods That Start With the Letter Q, Alex," August 13, 2009.
  

A Party Leftover Project: Caramel Cake

As I have previously described, I often find myself finding taking on baking projects solely as a way to use up leftover ingredients in the fridge. After baking two red velvet cakes and making some caramels for our holiday party, I had some extra buttermilk and some extra heavy cream on hand. I found what seemed like the perfect recipe for this situation on epicurious.com -- a caramel cake that requires a cup of both.

I was a little alarmed when I pulled the cake out of the oven, because the top was quite dark, on the verge of looking burned. But after I poured on the caramel glaze, I came to appreciate that the dark color of the top adds to the overall visual appeal of the finished cake. The glaze was semi-transparent, and the final product reminded me a lot of a flan -- a creamy yellow base with a dark top and a layer of caramel on top of that.


I thought this cake was okay, but nothing special. The cake was moist, although not especially flavorful, and the glaze had a nice light caramel flavor. One thing I definitely found annoying was that the glaze remained sticky (including on the sides of the cake), making it inconvenient to handle. My glaze also seemed a little thin. I will probably try this cake again at some point, however, especially when I happen to have the right combination of ingredients waiting to be used up in my fridge!

Recipe: Caramel Cake from epicurious.com.

We Ate, Drank, and Were Merry: Goat Cheese Soufflés in Phyllo Cups

Last weekend, Tom and I hosted our annual holiday open house, our biggest party of the year where friends and neighbors come over to eat, drink, and be merry. As usual, Tom was responsible for meat and savory dishes, while I took care of all of the baked goods and desserts. The dessert menu was nothing new (salted chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, double-ginger chocolate chunk cookies, Midnight Milky Way brownies, red velvet cake, buttercrunch melt-a-ways, cranberry biscotti, fleur de sel caramels), so I'll spare you the details.

But I did try one new recipe this year. I thought I would try to take some of the burden off of Tom for preparing the hot food, since this always requires the most work during the party. While I make all of my desserts beforehand, Tom spends a good portion of the evening outside at the grill or stuck in the kitchen tending to food in the oven, which is sort of a drag. Since Tom had meat dishes completely covered (this year he served skirt steak, a ham, chorizo, chicken wings, and rumaki), I decided to make a vegetarian hors d'oeuvre. I browsed epicurious.com and decided to try making some mini goat cheese soufflés in phyllo cups.

I followed the recipe except that I used mini-muffin pans to make the phyllo cups instead of regular muffin pans. I made 6 dozen mini phyllo cups and prepared a double batch of soufflé filling the morning of the party. During the party, I whipped the egg whites and incorporated them into the soufflé base, and then used a #60 scoop to fill the phyllo cups with the soufflé batter. In 15 minutes, they baked into adorable little soufflés, the perfect size for a passed hors d'oeuvre. They were easy to pick up, they tasted fabulous, and our party guests loved them. These may have to become a regular feature on the holiday party menu.

This year I also set up a clearly labeled "Take Home Station" at the party that was stocked with Saran Wrap, Ziploc bags, red lunch sacks, and an explicit request that guests pack up some food to take home with them. Most people complied and left with a bag (or two) of goodies, but we still had quite a few baked goods leftovers... I think that next year I might stock with take home station with gallon size Ziplocs instead of the quart size to encourage guests to take more. Or maybe institute a 10 cookie per person minimum. Or something. Because goodness knows I'm not likely to start baking less!

Recipe: Goat Cheese Soufflés in Phyllo Cups from epicurious.com.

More Crystallized Ginger = Ginger Scones

I had to find a way to use up the rest of the candied ginger I had purchased from Whole Foods, so I decided to try making ginger scones. Although I make scones regularly -- in a variety of sweet and savory flavors -- I had never made (or even tasted) a ginger scone before. I found a recipe on epicurious from Nancy Silverton, who commented that ginger scones are the best selling scone at La Brea Bakery.

The scone recipe wasn't anything particularly novel or different from other scone recipes I've made. The recipe is written to yield eight 3-inch round scones; I doubled the recipe and made 30 smaller wedge-shaped scones. The dough seemed a little dry and I was worried that the scones would come out tough. I was very pleasantly surprised when these came out light and buttery, with a tender melt-in-your mouth texture. The ginger flavor was pronounced, but not too spicy. All in all, it was an excellent scone, and a nice change of pace from the fruity flavors I usually make. I can't believe I never tried a ginger scone until now... I have really been missing out!

Recipe: Ginger Scones from Nancy Silverton's Pastries from the La Brea Bakery, available on epicurious.com.

Ipso Fatto Instant Photo: the New and Possibly Improved Ginger Chip Cookie

I tried making the Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookie again, and I refrigerated the dough for about 12 hours before baking. I was much happier with the results this time. The cookies didn't spread as much, the tops were attractively cracked, and the cookies had an overall firmer texture. Tom disagreed with me and preferred the previous iteration of the cookie, both because he liked their chewier texture (I accidentally used regular brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar this time around, so that maybe have contributed a bit to the difference in texture as well), and he liked the milder flavor of the Penzey's crystallized ginger I used last time. This time I used crystallized ginger from Whole Foods -- which is roughly half the price of that from Penzey's -- but you really can definitely tell the difference.

Recipe: "Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies" by Susan Spungen for more.com. [Note: you can now find the recipe on slide #4 at this link.]

Previous Post: "The Best Thing I've Ever Learned During a Conference Call: Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies," December 4, 2009.

The Best Thing I've Ever Learned During a Conference Call: Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I will admit that sometimes when I have to participate in a work-related conference call from home, I multitask and do some baking while I'm on the phone. Once, I accidentally dropped a call after going down into the basement to grab another bag of flour. Earlier this week, during the chitchat at the beginning of a conference call while we waited for everyone to dial in, one of the participants who knows that I bake mentioned that he had discovered a fabulous ginger chocolate chunk cookie recipe. This instantly reminded me of the ginger chip cookie from Lola Cookies & Treats in Leesburg that I fell in love with last year and tried (unsuccessfully) to recreate. I got the recipe and tried it that very evening. I pronounce it amazingly delicious.

I was in a bit of a rush when I made these cookies and so I only chilled the dough for about 40 minutes before baking. I used Penzey's Australian crystallized ginger for the recipe, which is very expensive, but also incredibly tender, sweet and delicious. For the chocolate chunks, I used chopped Hershey's Special Dark Bar. I also rolled the dough in coarse sanding sugar instead of regular granulated sugar before baking. The cookies spread quite a bit in the oven and ended up thin and ultra-chewy. The rich spice flavor, wonderful texture, crunchy sugar coating, and smooth sweet chocolate chunks combined to make a really unusual and special cookie. I will make these again and the only thing I will change is to chill the dough for a longer period of time so that the cookies will hopefully spread a little less.

This cookie is still not the Lola ginger chip cookie, but I think it is equally delicious. I don't know why the combination of ginger and chocolate isn't more commonplace, because it is simply sublime.

Recipe: "Double-Ginger Chocolate Chunk Cookies," by Susan Spungen for more.com. [Note: you can now find the recipe at slide #4 at this link.]

Previous Post: "A Cookie Quest," July 29, 2008.

A Bit of Holiday Sparkle: The Gingerbread Whoopie Pie

I was tooling around the McCormick web site the other day looking for recipes (Tom and I are pretty loyal Penzey's customers when it comes to spices, but I do buy lots and lots and lots of McCormick red food coloring to use for making red velvet cake), and I came across a recipe for gingerbread whoopie pies with lemon creme. I am a big fan of whoopie pies and have made them in the traditional chocolate flavor, as well as pumpkin and carrot varieties. But I had never seen a gingerbread whoopie pie before, and it seemed so seasonally appropriate that I decided to give the recipe a try.

I used a #50 scoop to parcel out my chilled dough, and I rolled each ball of dough in some coarse sugar before baking. The dough puffed up high during baking, but deflated a little upon cooling. The end result was something that looked like a beautiful, sparkly, cracked spice cookie, but in fact had the soft texture of cake. The mix of spices in the cookie was quite nice, and it went well with the light lemon flavoring of the marshmallow-cream cheese filling. Also, the coarse sugar lent the whoopie pies a wonderful crunch. But I wasn't in love with the final product, and I think it was mostly an issue of texture. I'm used to making gingersnaps and spice cookies that are chewy, and I even like my gingerbread to be super chewy. Something just seemed wrong with having the gingerbread component of the whoopie pies be so soft. As pretty and festive as these are, I don't think I will bother making them again.

On a happier note, I tried making cranberry biscotti again, and this time I actually followed the recipe directions and I shaped the dough into two logs, ending up with smaller biscotti. They came out perfectly tender and crunchy this time and I was very pleased with the result.

Recipes:

• Gingerbread Whoopie Pies with Lemon Creme from McCormick.
  
• Dried Cranberry and White Chocolate Biscotti from epicurious.com.

Previous Post: "Crazy for Craisins: Pistachio Cranberry Cookies and Cranberry Biscotti," November 22, 2009.