Chocolate Flew Over the Cupid’s Nest: Part II

As promised, here’s the second portion of my holiday chocolate-palooza. ***Be forewarned, only small portions of this decadent dessert are advised. Anyone found to consume more than a 2 by 2 square may find themselves in a catatonic state due to a persistent sugar high.***

Recipe #2: Divine Peanut Butter Crispy Bars (courtesy of Baked by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito)

Raw Materials:
Crispy Crust
1.75 cups of crisped rice cereal
.25 cup of sugar
3 tbsps of light corn syrup
3 tbsps of unsalted butter

Milk chocolate peanut butter layer
5 oz of milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup of creamy peanut butter

Dark chocolate icing
3 oz dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
.5 tsp of light corn syrup
4 tbsps (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Tools & Bakeware
8-in square pan (or round ~ why not?)
Metal bowl
Saucepan
Wooden spoon

What I did and what you should do given what I did:
Although the directions indicated to use an 8-in square baking pan, I ended up using a 9 inch round pan, because – well, that was what was available at the moment .  But, if you plan on making neat bars, a square pan is of course advisable.

What to do: Lightly spray a paper towel with nonstick cooking spray and use it to rub the bottom and sides of the pan, or you can also use a bit of butter instead. Put the cereal in a large bowl and set aside. Put 1/4 cup water into a saucepan. Add the sugar and corn syrup to the pan and use a small wooden spoon to stir the mixture just until combined. Cook over medium-high heat and bring to a boil; cook until the mixture reaches 235 F on a candy thermometer (known as the soft-ball stage).

This is of course very useful if you have a candy thermometer…. but if you’re anything like me, candy thermometers aren’t just lying around. So how do you know when the mixture has reached this elusive stage? Good question. I found this video to be a HUGE help. You want the mixture to boil for several minutes, until it gets frothy with bubbles. Then, pour a few drops of the syrup into a bowl of cold water and swirl it gently with your finger. If it forms into a soft ball, then you’ve reached the right stage.

Once there, remove from the heat, stir in the melted butter and pour the mixture over the cereal. Working quickly, stir until the cereal is thoroughly coated, then pour into the prepared pan. Using a rubber spatula or even the back of a spoon (I found this much more efficient), press the cereal mixture into the bottom of the pan only. Let cool to room temperature while you make the next layer.

To make the milk chocolate-peanut butter layer: In a large metal bowl stir together the chocolate and peanut butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook until the mixture is smooth, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the cooled crust. Put the pan in the refrigerator for 1 hour, or until the top layer hardens.

To make the dark chocolate layer: In a large  metal bowl, combine the chocolate, corn syrup and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook until the mixture is completely smooth, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir to cool, as before. Pour the mixture over the cooled milk chocolate-peanut butter layer and spread into an even layer. I found simply tilting the pan to spread the chocolate around to be the best way of getting a smooth and even top surface. Put the pan in the refrigerator for another hour or until the topping hardens. And now, you’re ready to serve!

 

On behalf of Valentine,
Bon Appetit!

Chocolate Flew Over the Cupid’s Nest

Happy belated Valentine’s Day (and Chinese New Year ), everyone! Did you know that while we spend countless of dollars on flowers, chocolates, and ummm…baking, the actual history behind this day of love is still a cryptic unknown? Some say that our dear Valentine was a rebellious priest, marrying couples in secret despite Emperor Claudius II’s law prohibiting matrimony to maintain his army reserve. Other stories tell of a courageous man jailed for freeing persecuted Christians, credited with sending the first love note signed “From your Valentine” to the jailer’s daughter (apparently named Julia!) on the day of his execution. Whatever the real story may be, the day should really be a simple reminder of the love we keep around us all year round.

Hence, keeping with the tradition of never celebrating the national hallmark day of love on February 14th, this post is quite a bit delayed, and as for the day itself -  I spent it interviewing for clinical psychology PhD programs in upstate NY. Still, I’m a romantic at heart, and so I couldn’t depart without having left Jay with something sweet and crunchy to miss me by.

This week’s posting is going to be a double feature, given that my coworker, the lovely and talented Melissa Benedict has shared with me her V-Day treats and sweets. Taking the quite predictable chocolate-chip cookie, recipe courtesy of Nestle Toll House, she added a fun twist with yet another awesome baking utensil – the Cookie Cutter.  As for my end, I combined Jay’s favorite: crispy bar + peanut butter + milk chocolate + dark chocolate = ???? You’ll have to just wait and see. All in all, this was one chocolaty valentine.

Recipe # 1: Cupid’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (60 cookies)

Raw Materials:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
1 cup chopped nuts
Tools and Bakeware
small bowl and whisk
15 X 10 in pan
cookie cutters

What you should do:
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.
COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts.
PAN COOKIE: Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan. Prepare dough as above. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Use cookie cutters of your choice to cut out shapes and leave on rack to cool.

Below are the holiday cookie cutters Melissa used:

And here are a few shots of her final delicious result, of which I had the pleasure to partake during our bimonthly office pigout – hehe :

To Be Continued:

(Stay tuned for the rich and tasty crispy chocolate peanut butter bar recipe, coming very soon to an idratherfallinchocolate.wordpress.com near you…)

Bon Appetit (for now!)

Going Bananas!

It may well be that you can identify with this more than you would like to, but I’ve been thinking that life as of late has slowly but surely descended into a state of madness. There are PhD program interviews, crazy schedules, even crazier superiors, hypothetical futures, hypothetical alternatives to hypothetical futures – all in all, such a constant influx of extreme bad and good, it has one quite literally going “bananas.” And so, with peace (and control!) to be found only in the kitchen, I thought – why not make something delicious out of all that crazy. Once again, Matt and Renato, our fave partners in baking crime from my previous pumpkin post and authors of Baked, came to the rescue with their amazing collection of recipes. Presenting: Banana Cupcakes with Vanilla Pastry Cream.  Here’s what you need to get back to your happy place:

Raw Materials:
Cupcakes
2.75 cups of all-purpose flour
1.25 tsps of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
.5 tsp of salt
.5 cup (1 stick) of unsalted butter ( stick in the microwave for 20 sec to soften)
.25 cup of vegetable shortening
1.75 cups of sugar
2 tsps of pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1.5 cups of mashed bananas
.5 cup of buttermilk
Vanilla Pastry Cream
3 cups of half-and-half
6 egg yolks
.5 cup of sugar
3 tbsps of cornstarch
.25 tsp of salt
1 tsp of pure vanilla extract
Tools & Bakeware
2 12-cup cupcake pans
paper liners for pans
sifter/sieve
2 large bowls & whisk
2 medium bowls
medium saucepan
pastry bag (if available) 

What I did and what you should do given what I did:
Truth be told, I don’t think I really have enough people on a random Sunday night to whom I can give away 24 cupcakes, so I halfed the recipe above and made only 12 – in other words only 18. More on this a bit further down. Let’s get started.

What to do: Preheat your oven to 325 F and line the cupcake pans with paper liners. Into a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a second large bowl, beat together the softened butter and shortening until you achieve a creamy consistency. Once again, a mixer would be a godsend, but until then – manual labor it is. Add the sugar and vanilla, and whisk together until fluffy. Add the eggs and whisk together until combined. After adding the egg yolks, mix in the mashed bananas. Now, we combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The authors recommend adding the flour mixture in 3 additions, with half of the flour mixture first, then the buttermilk, followed by the second half of the dry ingredients. Mix together until combined. The mixture is now ready to fill those cupcake liners, 3/4 full! For some reason, although I used half of the above recipe, which should technically make 12 cupcakes, there was enough there for 18! Be prepared with extra cupcake liners and pans if you’re going to half the recipe.  Put the filled pans in the oven to bake for 20-25 minutes.  While the cupcakes are getting ready, you need to get started on the vanilla pastry cream. Further insight here: I may have had enough mixture for 18 cupcakes, but the rule does not apply to the pastry cream. I’d stick to the original recipe proportions just to have some extra  - the cream was done and done by the 12th cupcake, no questions asked!

So, what do you need to do? Pour the half-and-half into the saucepan and bring it to a simmer; keep it warm. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until you arrive at a pale yellow mixture. A word on egg yolk/white separation. It may be surprising, but my boyfriend Jay was the first one to teach me how to do it. If you’re a newbie (like me!) and haven’t mastered this skill yet, watch the video below – oh trusty youtube! – for a quick demonstration:

Back to the recipe: Pour in half of the steamy half-and-half into the yellow mixture and whisk. When mixed, pour the contents into the remaining half-and-half in the saucepan. Cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens, whisking the whole time. It takes several minutes, but the transformation is quick. Turn off the heat and whisk in the vanilla. Using yet another medium bowl with a fine-mesh sieve placed over the top, strain the cream and use a plastic wrap to cover the surface. This prevents a skin from forming. Chill for 1 hour in the refrigerator. You can also ice the cupcakes right away  and stick them in the refrigerator until serving. The logic behind this, according to Matt and Renato, is that pastry cream cannot remain at room temperature for too long. I found that to be unquestionably true, as it starts to develop a jello-y consistency, too bouncy for a cream. My only departure from the above directions was the sieve part, since I didn’t have one at the time. The cream was still wonderful, but I did find it difficult to spread it on the cupcakes without a pastry bag. Still, I made do with an ice-cream scoop and gave the frosting some texture. I topped them off with a fresh slice of banana on top:

And one more =]

Whew! I’m all banana-ed out, but do I need to say it? For those who love bananas – the cupcake does the trick, and the vanilla cream is the perfect pairing. They are light, airy, and once out of the oven, one could observe a certain amateur baker scarfing down the mini-cakes left without frosting. Logical, right? In either case, now that I’m finito – what do you think? =]

Bon Appetit!

A Pumpkin a Day Keeps the Doctor Away…

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but baking is definitely not as easy as some of the amazing people out there make it look. You do get better as you practice though – look at me, now I can bake AND watch Family Guy at the same time. For me, the trick in getting better has been about mastering the basic techniques. This week’s technique is “folding.” I’ve seen it written in a thousand and three recipes, and I’ve sure read about what it means “to fold” in baking, but for the life of me it made no sense whatsoever. Cut where and when and flip what up from the bottom? Finally, I gave up and consulted YouTube. In a matter of minutes, the clouds of confusion parted and clarity shined in. Now, you too can be enlightened by watching the art of “folding” below, thanks to Dyann. Whew!

This weekend I was very much into breakfast baking, so late on Saturday night I cracked open my second partner in crime, the awesome Baked: New Frontiers in Baking from the Brooklyn baker extraordinaires, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Their story is inspiring, and had me sitting on the couch dreaming of my very own little bakery someday. You can read more about them here. In either case, as I leafed through the colorful pages, I fell in love with the seemingly delicious recipe for a pumpkin chocolate chip loaf. It promised to be moist, sweet, and enough to feed us breakfast for several consecutive days. So, I hope you have your baking gear on, because here’s what you need to get started:

Raw Materials
3.25 cups of all-purpose flour
2 tsps of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of ground allspice
1/2 tsp of ground ginger
2 tsps of baking soda
2 tsps of salt
1.75 cups of pumpkin puree (15 oz can)
1 cup of vegetable oil
3 cups of sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract
2/3 cup of water at room temp
1.5 cups of chocolate chips (12 oz)
Bakeware & Tools
2 9in x 5 in loaf pans
2 mixing bowls and whisk (oh, the rustic instruments)
rubber spatula

What I did and what you should do given what I did:

I have to be honest, there’s not going to be much deviation in the case of this amazing recipe. It’s simple, to the point, and yielded the most delicious outcome! There’s enough here to make two loaves and though I shied away from making that much at once, all I have to say is that it was done late Saturday night (along with cupcakes!) and the last piece was finished off 48 hours later.

What to do: Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and lightly dust your pans with flour. In one large bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In another large bowl, pour in the pumpkin puree and oil and whisk together until combined and somewhat creamy.

Then add the sugar, gradually. I found it easier to combine the sugar with the mixture if I wasn’t dumping everything at once, since clumps begin to form pretty easily. Combine the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract. Add the water in gradually and mix.

Stir in the chocolate chips using the spatula. I did not use as many as asked for – only about a cup worth of Hershey’s milk chocolate chips, but that was more than enough. I was told by several tasters that the loaf had “just the right amount of chocolate.” Who knows? Maybe it would still have been the “right” amount at 1.5 cups of chocolate too.

Now comes the fun part, where the instructions tell us to “fold” the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Thankfully, we took preemptive measures and are fully educated in the mysteries of folding (and you thought that story was going to have no point in this week’s recipe – humph!). I poured in only a part of the flour mixture into the puree bowl and followed Dyann’s technique. Matt and Renato suggest folding until the flour is just combined and warn about overmixing. I suspect that deflation can occur not only for whip cream-based concoctions. Once done, pour half of the bowl into one pan and half in the other. I shook my pans from side to side, backward and forward a little to spread out the mixture and even out the top. Here’s what my pumpkin bread to-be looked like before going in:

An hour and 15 minutes later, after baking in the center of the oven and rotating the pans halfway through baking time, as suggested by the authors (another good tip: insert a toothpick into the center and make sure it comes out clean!), it was a pumpkin-filled October night in January:

The result was – to say it plainly – incredible. Soft crust on the outside, luxuriously moist on the inside, the chocolate chips barely melted and the smell of pumpkin fragrant and delicate. We paired it with a glass of kefir, and ate till we licked our fingers, gliding them across the plates attracting wayward crumbs. Two loaves later, having been meticulously devoured by us, our families, and neighbors – and not even a morsel left to share with the local mouse, what else is there left to do but sit back and enjoy the contemplative sounds of digestion. Perhaps – but before we do that, would you care for a slice?

Bon Appetit!