Peppermint Patties

Basically, these are homemade York peppermint patties. And they are SO GOOD. The recipe claims that they are "healthy" because they have about 100 calories per patty and significantly less fat than most chocolate candies. I'm not sure that qualifies as healthy, but they are definitely delicious. If you like the mint + chocolate combo, these are perfect. For mine, I used dark chocolate (~55% cacao content) and was very pleased. In addition to the instructions in the recipe, I would do the following:

- let the balls of peppermint filling harden for about 5 minutes in the fridge before flattening them, that made it much easier and less sticky.

- split the batch of patties onto two separate sheets of wax paper, so you only have half of them out of the fridge while applying the chocolate coating. This maintains an optimal ratio of cold patty to room temperature chocolate, which I found to be key to a fun and attractive coating process. I put the whole pan back in the fridge halfway through coating to harden the remaining patties that were softening at room temp, and in the interim the chocolate hardened just a little too much, and the last few patties were really ugly and difficult to coat. Tragically, I had to eat them because they were too ugly to give away.

from seriouseats.com

Peppermint Patties

I have a blog?!?

Sorry about the delay. Med school is hard.

Without further ado, some much needed updates:

Things I've Been Making

Chewy Granola Bars - great snacking material

Salted Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats - the most addictive thing (and requested!) thing I've made in a long time

English Toffee - candy-making can be inconsistent, but when it works, this takes about 10 minutes and will impress the pants off people

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies - I use unsalted butter, and double the amount of salt called for in the recipe, and no joke, these are some fierce chocolate chip cookies

Mujadara - cheap! vegetarian! easy! delicious! you're welcome!

Grilled Rib-eye steak - not cheap, decidedly NOT vegetarian, but transcendent when properly cooked. This is a great tutorial for those not super familiar with cooking steak.

Rosemary Rolls - using either pre-made dough or your own yeasted version, these rolls, cooked in a skillet, are the perfect side for any large-ish meal

Bourbon-glazed sweet potatoes - we adapted this squash recipe to peeled, cubed sweet potatoes, tossing them in the glaze and roasting for 400F for ~15 min and WOW. A new favorite.

Of course, there have been others. Better late than never...right?

Bourbon peach crumble

Is anyone else wondering what to do with those glorious fragrant peaches that are in season right now? Well, now you know - THIS is what you should be doing with them; in fact, I'm willing to declare this most-delicious-smelling-fruit-filling ever. It's an amalgamation of several recipes I've been eyeing, but none seemed perfect for what I wanted, which mostly included not having to go back to the grocery store and not having to spend 6 hours waiting for pastry dough to be properly chilled and workable (damn you, humid Rhode Island!). This crumble was a smashing success: it showcased the peaches in a lovely way, with a ridiculously simple but amazingly great topping (which I consider to be The Best Part), and took very little time to come together. One thing I would have liked to have done but didn't (in keeping with my desire to not go back to the store) is add some sliced almonds to the topping. Peaches and almonds are such natural partners, and it would have really complimented the flavor of the almond extract in the filling, while giving the topping a satisfying crunch. You could also substitute cinnamon for the cardamom for a slightly different flavor.

Makes one 9 x 9" square baking dish.

Topping:

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 c. old-fashioned rolled oats

3/4 c. packed brown-sugar

3/4 c. unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces

Filling:

2 lbs. peaches (5-6 medium sized) peeled, pitted, and cut into 1" pieces

1/4 c. granulated sugar

1 Tbs. bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve - the good stuff makes a difference)

1/4 tsp. almond extract

pinch of salt

1/4 tsp. cardamom

1/4 c. all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375F. If you're a real planner, cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil to place under your pan and save the bottom of your oven. Grease a 9" square baking dish.

For the topping: Mix together the flour, sugar, and oats. Add the butter, cutting it into the dry ingredients with two knives or a pastry cutter. Blend until the largest butter pieces are about the size of small peas. Blend lightly with your hands to mix. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and chill while preparing the filling.

For the filling: Peel, pit, and slice the peaches. In a bowl, cover them with the sugar, mix loosely with your hands, and let sit for 10-15 minutes (this will draw the liquid out of the peaches). Add the bourbon, almond extract, salt, cardamom, and flour, mixing with your hands until evenly coating the peaches.

Pour the filling into the greased pan. Evenly distribute the crumble over the top of the peaches. Bake until the top is golden brown, and the filling is bubbling up through the topping, 35-40 minutes. Go for maximum indulgence and pair it with some vanilla ice cream.

Chocolate stout cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting

I made these cupcakes to celebrate Jonah's first day at his new job, and they turned out smashingly. A very moist, even crumb to the cupcakes themselves, and the chocolate buttercream frosting was really delicious, and shockingly easy. I kept it in the fridge until we were ready for dessert, and just let the frosting come up to room temperature before spreading. You can really taste the stout in this particular cake, and the creamy sweetness of the buttercream balances out the earthy stout flavor nicely, I think.  

Cake from smittenkitchen.com; buttercream from Cook's Illustrated

makes 14-18 frosted cupcakes, depending how you fill/frost them

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

10 Tbs. unsalted butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

A pinch of salt

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled

Cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Place paper liners in ~16 cupcake moulds. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Set aside to cool.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Pour batter into prepared moulds. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Transfer cake to rack, and cool completely in the pan.

Buttercream:

While the cupcakes are baking, melt 4 oz. chocolate in a double boiler over gently simmering water. Set aside to cool, stirring occasionally. With your trusty hand mixer, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and salt, and beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened. Scrape down the bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 30 seconds; scrape down the bowl, add vanilla and beat at medium speed until incorporated, then reduce speed to low and gradually beat in chocolate. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice.

I've been keeping my cupcakes unfrosted and my buttercream in the fridge, due to humidity. The buttercream quickly softens to room temperature and a spreadable consistency, and can be put back in the fridge when you're done. 

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Strawberry-rhubarb is a classic American dessert combination. Both fruits are signs that spring is finally warming into summer, and they go so well together that the less common rhubarb is rarely found without it's flavor soul mate, strawberry. The tart, crunchy rhubarb is perfectly offset by the sweet, soft strawberries, and they bake up into a beautiful, rich red filling for tarts, pies, crumbles, crisps, or even on their own as a tasty sauce to serve over scones, cakes, or ice cream.

This recipe is an adaptation of several different versions, and represents my preferences for a baked fruit dessert: fairly cohesive filling, not too sweet, and a topping that is more crumbly than a uniform crust. You can play with the proportions to make it more to your taste - less cornstarch for a more liquid filling, melted instead of softened butter for a crust-like topping, exchanging some of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour or rolled oats. The filling also adapts to almost any fruit your little heart desires.

For the topping:

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour 

1 tsp. baking powder

3 Tbp. brown sugar

3 Tbs. raw sugar or evaporated cane juice

zest of one lemon

1 stick unsalted butter, softened but still slightly chilled

For the filling:

2 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1 inch cubes

1 quart + a few extra strawberries, hulled and quartered

1/2 - 2/3 cup sugar **depends on the relative ripeness of your rhubarb and strawberries

juice of one lemon

3 - 4 Tbs. cornstarch

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 375F. Cover an edged baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil.

Combine the rhubarb and strawberry pieces in a medium bowl. Sprinkle the sugar over the surface of the fruit, and let stand for 15 minutes at room temperature.

Combine the dry ingredients for the topping in a medium bowl. Cut the butter into large chunks, and cut into the flour-sugar mixture with a pastry cutter or two knives until large and small pieces form; the largest butter pieces should be pea-sized. Put flour-butter mixture into fridge until you are ready to use it.

Add lemon juice, cornstarch and salt to the fruits, mix well, and pour into a glass baking dish (a 9-inch deep dish pie plate, 8x8-inch pan, or 7x10-inch pan will all work, each giving you slightly different ratios of topping to filling). Smooth fruits with the back of a spoon or your hands. Sprinkle the topping over the fruits, and smooth with the back of a spoon or your hands until it evenly and thickly coats the fruit.

Put the baking dish on the aluminum foil-covered baking sheet. Bake for 40 - 50 minutes, until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling up through the topping.

Poppyseed Angel Food Cake with Grapefruit Curd

I've been a super-procrastinator lately with the updates. There are a few reasons for this, but mostly it's due to laziness. Also, I've been borrowing heavily from smittenkitchen.com, and frankly, it seems a little silly to spend a bunch of time typing up recipes that anyone can get to with mere clicks. Some things I've made recently that have been stellar are the blondies (so easy), peanut butter chocolate rice krispie bars (so dangerous), goat cheese pasta with asparagus (so refreshing), and peanut butter cookies (so classic). Go nuts, kids.

This is another recipe from Regan Daley's In The Sweet Kitchen that is a stunning rendition of a classic cake. The angel food cake gets a little something different from the poppyseeds; I've made this both with and without, and it was very good both ways. I've also played with the grapefruit curd, swapping out the citrus juice and zest for an orange/grapefruit mix, and straight lemon. I thought all three were excellent, but I would probably rank them 1. lemon, 2. grapefruit, 3. orange-grapefruit as my preference. The angel food cake - curd mash-up is really spectacular, and convenient, because the curd uses as many egg yolks as the cake does whites. Most recently, I also made some raspberry sauce to go with the cake-curd combo, and that was a very good idea.  

NB: for this recipe, it is important that the tools you use to make the cake - pan, bowls, mixers, spatulas, etc - all be very clean and grease-free. Even a little bit of fat can keep the egg whites from achieving their full volume.

For the cake:

1 cup cake flour (not self-rising)

1 1/2 cups superfine sugar

1 1/2 cups egg whites, at room temperature (about 10 extra large, 12 large)

2 Tbs. warm water

1 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla extract

3 Tbs. poppyseeds

For the curd:

12 large egg yolks

1 cup superfine sugar

2 tsp. finely grated pink or yellow grapefruit zest

3/4 cup freshly squeezed pink or yellow grapefruit juice

3 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

To make the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350F. Place a clean, removable-bottom 10-inch tube pan off to the side. Working between two sheets of parchment or waxed paper, sift the flour and 1/2 cup of the sugar together 3 times, and set off to the side.

In a very large bowl, beat the egg whites with the warm water until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and the salt a whip the whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining sugar, a little at a time, whipping constantly. When all the sugar has been added, the whites should be firm, glossy and hold stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Incorporate the flour-sugar mixture gently but quickly to avoid deflating the whites. Sprinkle about 1/4 of the flour mixture over the whites and using your clean hands, fold the batter over onto itself, making sure to reach down to the bottom of the bowl and all around the sides. When you don't see or feel lumps, and another 1/4 of the flour mixture. Repeat until the final 1/4 is almost incorporated, and add the poppyseeds. The batter should be very light and fluffy, but smooth. Scrape the batter into the pan without banging the spatula on the bowl or the bowl on the counter, as this will deflate the whites. Smooth the top of the batter, and run a clean knife through the pan to rupture any large air bubbles.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until a wooden skewer comes out clean, and the top is cracked and golden. Invert the pan onto its legs, over the neck of a wine bottle, or into a colander, cake-side down to prevent sinking. Cool completely

To unmold, run a thin-bladed knife around the outside and center tube of the pan. Carefully pull the tube upwards, and run a knife around the bottom of the cake, then invert onto a cake platter. The best way to cut this cake is with 2 back-to-back forks, pulling the pieces apart from the rest of the cake. This will keep the cake from getting smashed by a knife. Well-covered leftovers can be stored for several days at room temp. 

To make the curd:

Fill a large pot with an inch or two of water and bring to a simmer. Place a fine mesh sieve over a medium-sized bowl, set aside. Put the egg yolks in a heat-proof bowl and whisk until frothy, then whisk in the sugar. Whisk in the grapefruit juice and zest, and the lemon juice.

Set the bowl over the simmering water and adjust the heat to keep the water just barely simmering. Cook the mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until the mixture thickly coats the back of the spoon and a finger drawn over the back of the spoon leaves a clean trail, at least 10 minutes. Make sure the spoon sweeps the sides and bottom of the bowl. Once the curd has thickened, pour it through the strainer. **The curd must be kept moving or the yolks will cook unevenly, and you'll end up with a grapefruit flavored omelet, which is exactly as gross as it sounds. 

With a clean spoon or rubber spatula, stir the butter into the hot curd a few pieces at a time, blending well after each addition. Press a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the bowl to prevent a skin from forming, poke a few holes with a sharp knife, cool to lukewarm, and refrigerate until cold for 2-8 hours. May be stored, well-covered in the fridge, for 3 days.

S'more Pie

I brought this pie to a Memorial Day barbeque and it was a big hit. I was expecting it to be good - a quick glance at the ingredients will tell you why - but it was very, very good. It had a nice texture balance between the three layers, and was not nearly as sweet as I imagined, even with a milk chocolate filling. Plus, I got to make marshmallows from scratch, which was very exciting and not as messy as it could have been. I don't think I whipped the marshmallow long enough, either because I was getting bored or because my little hand-held beater doesn't have as much oompf as a stand mixer. I followed the time estimate (5-8 minutes) but if you're doing this by hand I would recommend going as much as 10 minutes. The top was totally suitable for a cake, but definitely too runny to work as a stand alone marshmallow. Also, when you're browning the top, keep a very close eye on it. The aluminum foil to protect the crust really focused the heat onto the center of the cake, and we were mere seconds away from unappetizingly burnt topping. Fortunately we got it out in time and it was only pleasingly burnt. You could also brown the top with a creme brulee torch if you were feeling up to the task.

from smittenkitchen.com

Note: Pie (before browning topping) can be chilled up to 1 day.

Crust
5 tablespoons salted or unsalted butter, melted, plus additional for greasing
1 1/2 cups cookie crumbs (10 graham crackers or 24 small gingersnaps; about 6 oz, pulsed in a food processor until finely ground)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt (omitted if you use salted butter)

Chocolate cream filling
7 oz fine-quality milk or semisweet chocolate (not more than 70% cacao; not unsweetened), finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1 large egg, at room temperature for 30 minutes

Marshmallow topping
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (from a 1/4-oz package)
1/2 cup cold water
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Vegetable oil for greasing

Special equipment: a candy thermometer

Make graham cracker crust:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter pie 9- to 9 1/2-inch pie plate.

Stir together all ingredients in a bowl and press evenly on bottom and up side of pie plate. Bake until crisp, 12 to 15 minutes, then cool on a rack to room temperature, about 45 minutes.

Make chocolate cream filling:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Put chocolate in a large bowl. Bring cream just to a boil in a 1- to 1 1/2-quart heavy saucepan, then pour hot cream over chocolate. Let stand 1 minute, then gently whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Gently whisk in egg and a pinch of salt until combined and pour into graham cracker crumb crust (crust will be about half full).

Cover edge of pie with a pie shield or foil and bake until filling is softly set and trembles slightly in center when gently shaken, about 25 minutes. Cool pie to room temperature on a rack (filling will firm as it cools), about 1 hour.

Make marshmallow topping:
Sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 cup cold water in a large deep heatproof bowl and let stand until softened, about 1 minute.

Stir together sugar, corn syrup, a pinch of salt, and remaining 1/4 cup water in cleaned 1- to 1 1/4-quart heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil over moderate heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then boil until thermometer registers 260°F, about 6 minutes.

Begin beating water and gelatin mixture with an electric mixer at medium speed, then carefully pour in hot syrup in a slow stream, beating (avoid beaters and side of bowl). When all of syrup is added, increase speed to high and continue beating until mixture is tripled in volume and very thick, about 5-8 minutes. Add vanilla and beat until combined, then immediately spoon topping onto center of pie filling; it will slowly spread to cover top of pie. Chill, uncovered, 1 hour, then cover loosely with lightly oiled plastic wrap (oiled side down) and chill 3 hours more.

Brown topping:
Preheat broiler.

Transfer pie to a baking sheet. Cover edge of pie with pie shield or foil and broil 3 to 4 inches from heat, rotating pie as necessary, until marshmallow topping is golden brown, no more than 3 minutes. Cool pie on a rack 10 minutes. Slice pie with a large heavy knife dipped in hot water and then dried with a towel before cutting each slice.