This is Madam Chow, on hiatus in Las Vegas.  No, not a pleasure trip.  Well, except for the buffets, but more on that when I get back home.  What I did manage to do before I left was to bake the TWD challenge: This week, Ulrike of Küchenlatein chose Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies on pages 146-147 (or look for the recipe on Ulrike’s blog).

These are not the soft and chewy sugar cookies of my youth; rather, they are very crispy.  The only thing I tweaked when it came to this recipe was the amount of vanilla extract – I increased the amount to 1-1/2 teaspoons, and I sure could taste it, which is a GOOD thing, as far as I’m concerned! Master Chow, a.k.a. The Cookie Monster, also liked these tasty little morsels.  Little, because I made them rather small, and they did not spread at all in the oven.  I should say that I froze this dough for a few hours, then sliced and baked the cookies straight from the freezer.  Slice and bake cookies are a dream come true for people who are averse to cookie baking, like I am, or who are very busy, also like me.  Oh, and probably all of you TWD bakers out there!

A couple of points on the baking.  First, I thought the cookies were sweet enough without any sprinkled sugar or icing on top.  Second, as I mentioned before, they hardly spread at all, so keep that in mind if you want a specific size.  Finally, Dorie’s baking instructions are perfect – these cookies should not get dark.  Mine turned a light golden color on the bottom and around the edges, but the top stayed pale.

Thanks Ulrike, for a great pick.  I’ll be making these again, and experimenting with different flavorings.  I loved the crisp texture and bright flavor in these cookies.  To see what others did with the recipe, check out the TWD blogroll.

Currently, I am out of town.  Hopefully, when I get back I’ll have some pics and write-ups of a couple culinary adventures.  In the meantime, I leave you with a photo of the Dynamic Hairy Duo, Daisy (left) and Gus (right).

Now, it’s True Confessions time.  I had to crop the pictures to eliminate a large hair ball that found itself in the frame.  You see those white speckles on my kitchen cabinets?  That’s bread dough.  I’m not sure what I did to get it there, and on the walls, and on the window, but I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  Do you know how hard it is to get dried bread dough off everything?  Sigh.  An amateur baker’s work is never done!

This month, Anne Strawberry and Holly the PheMomenon chose “Holiday Songs” as the theme for “You Want Pies with That?” After a lot of head scratching over this one, I decided on a “The Christmas Song,” because “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” kept dancing through my head. Well, I didn’t have any chestnuts, and I didn’t want to get any chestnuts, and I didn’t want to roast and peel any chestnuts. So I used walnuts, which Master Chow happens to love.

I found a recipe for a honeyed walnut tart from a 2005 issue of Bon Appetit.  Much to my delight, the recipe also called for orange flower water, one of those little items in my cupboard that I rarely use but would like to incorporate a bit more into my cooking.  Instead of making an 11-inch rustic tart, I made a plain old 9-inch pie, and had some filling left over (don’t overfill your crust or you’ll have one major mess in the oven).  The one thing that I’d do differently in the future is to cut back on the sugar, but that’s just me.  Master Chow would vehemently disagree, as he likes things SWEET.  The citrus zest added great dimension to the pie, which actually tasted a lot like baklava, so if you’re a fan of that dessert, you should really give this a try.

To see what ideas pie bakers who are a lot more creative than I came up with, check out the PWT blogroll.  To see how I’ll make the pie in the future, the recipe is after the jump.  And just as an aside, Nat King Cole was one of my earliest crushes.  I remember hearing him sing “Mona Lisa” on an LP (those existed back in the Olden Days), and I fell in love.  I believe I was 2 or 3 years old.
continue reading "You Want Pies With That? A Fragrant Walnut Pie"

This week, for Tuesdays with Dorie, Dennis of Living the Life chose Linzer Sables on pages 134-135 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.  I decided to make heart-shaped cookies along with some sandwich cookies.

I’m glad that I followed the advice of other bakers on the TWD blog, and rolled the dough for the sandwich cookies a lot thinner than the 1/4-inch that Dorie recommends in the recipe, or they would have been far too thick.  I chose ground almonds for the dough, and cut back the cinnamon to 1 teaspoon because I was used Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon, which is a lot stronger than the stuff you usually find in the grocery store.  I think one of the key tricks here is not to let the cookies get too dark, or you spoil the pretty effect of the sandwich cookies.  If you rolled out the dough rather unevenly, that may require that you pull some cookies off a baking sheet before the others are quite done.   

The result was a crisp, flavorful but not-too-spicy cookie, that Master Chow, my honorable husband, thought was quite tasty.  I used some Polaner brand Black Cherry jam for the sandwich cookies, and he thought that it was apple butter, so next time I’ll probably try apricot jam.  I thought they were okay on their own, but really good dunked into a cup of hot tea with milk.  Yum.  Be sure to check out the TWD blogroll to see the wonderful creations of about 300 other bakers!

This month’s recipe was chosen by Meg of Joy Through Cooking and Lori of Lipsmacking Goodness, and they turned to Bravo’s Top Chef Chicago for this recipe, which you can find here, and on the R2R blog.  We had to make our own stock and then use it to whip up a squash soup, very appropriate for the cold weather that has now settled in our area.  This recipe made a huge amount of soup, so I halved it, and still had a huge amount of soup.

I ended up using all butternut squash, and while Master Chow LOVED this soup, I did not.  I had added a lot of mushrooms to the stock, and I think that flavor came through a bit too much for me.  Or was it the miso paste that the recipe called for?  I spooned a bit of vanilla whipped cream on top (no creme fraiche on hand), and I thought it made the dish more visually appealing and improved the flavor a bit.

To be honest, for all the pots and pans that I used to make this, I prefer other squash soups that I’ve made.  I really think it may have been the miso, so if I ever make another squash soup, I’m definitely not including it, even though I like miso soup).  Now, I’ve just re-read my post, and I sound like a grump.  Really, I’m not, and I welcomed making this recipe.  Like many others of you, I’m just swamped this time of year, and feeling the pressure!

To see how others did, be sure to check out the R2R blogroll.  There are some beautiful photos out there, and some great results!

I’ll have to take a pass this time – between Thanksgiving and an out of town guest, time just got away from me!

Yup. And I’m making these today for Thanksgiving – a light, healthful dish that may convert some Brussels sprout haters.  I got the idea for these after seeing a recipe where they had you take off every leaf of each sprout.  Nice, but that’s not going to happen around here.  I save that kind of anal behavior for my baking, thank you very much.

At any rate, you start with about 2 pounds of sprouts.  Just clean each sprout by cutting off the bottom and discarding any damaged outer leaves.  Then you pop them in your food processor using the number 1 slicing disk (or whatever thickness you prefer).  Melt a bit of butter and olive oil in a deep saute pan over medium heat, and add one or two cloves of crushed or minced garlic.  Don’t let the garlic burn, but after about thirty seconds, add the sprouts and some salt and pepper. Pop the lid on the pan, keeping the heat on medium, and stir once in a while.  You may need to add a bit more butter or salt and pepper, so taste as you go along, until the sprouts are tender but not mushy, about 12-15 minutes.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Like a lot of other TWD bakers, I’ll be posting a bit later this week because it’s Thanksgiving.  I just spent 2.5 hours dealing with an internet security vendor, trying to get them to credit me for a double charge on my credit card, and I am in one heck of a foul mood.  I can see I’m going to need some sweet baked goods to get me back to my old self, so I’ll be back in a couple of days with some announcements, so stay tuned!

Make a big, huge, indulgent cake, that’s what!

I had a bunch of snack-sized assorted chocolate bars left over, and I wanted to use them up and get them out of the house in one fell swoop, so I turned to Marcy Goldman’s A Passion for Baking.

My mission:  To use up a bunch of odds and ends in my baking pantry  by making Goldman’s Caramel-Chocolate Cookie-Stuffed Sour Cream Deluxe Cake. Leftover chocolate bars, chocolate chips, dulce to leche, sour cream, and chocolate syrup came together in a HUGE tube cake.  This thing would feed an army!

The tasting results:  even after I had added some lemon zest, I thought the cake was too sweet (as usual,because I think most desserts are too sweet).  Again, as usual, my husband’s co-workers loved this, and did not think it was too sweet at all.  Women, in particular, seemed to like this cake.  Chocolate, you see, is soul food to many females.

One of the handy little gadgets that I used was my new flexible red silicon bowl, a birthday gift from my in-laws.  It’s wonderful for holding dry ingredients, making it a lot easier to add them to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer.

Some tips:  make sure that the cake pan is very well greased and floured to prevent it from sticking to the sides.  I also recommend baking this on a baking sheet because the cake is so dense that it bakes for quite a long time, and without the baking sheet, the bottom of the cake may over-brown.

Recipe after the jump
continue reading "What To Do With Leftover Halloween Candy"

This week, Isabelle of Les Gourmandises d’Isa picked Arborio Rice Pudding. We could make chocolate, or vanilla, or both, and I chose vanilla because chocolate rice pudding is . . . just not right.  It threatens the order of the culinary universe.  Lesson learned: recipe does not work with almond milk, which I decided to experiment with because Master Chow has a mild milk allergy.

I knew I’d have problems getting it to set given the experiences of other TWD bakers, who made the pudding with whole milk.  Needless to say, I did not take a picture of the odd-tasting “soup.”  I’m going to try this again, and I will increase the amount of arborio rice up to about 1/2 a cup, and use a combo of almond milk and cream (which he can tolerate), and see how that works out. To see how others fared (and some of the flavor combos were wonderful), check out the TWD blogroll.

This was a public service announcement:  Madam Chow, conducting failed mad experiments with rice pudding, so you don’t have to!

Update:  some lactose intolerant folks are mentioning that heating milk seems to help.  Thanks for the tip, but Master Chow is actually allergic to milk proteins, and is not lactose intolerant, so heating doesn’t help, but I’ll keep the tip in mind!