Cookies to be wrapped up in brown paper packages tied up with string... aka IKEA tupperware and packing tape. But that's not nearly as romantic.
Make someone's day and put a little homemade luv in the mail. Above are rugelach (read ruge-love), chai snickerdoodles, and vegan toasted oat cookies.
Nerd Note: If you're going to mail cookies, choose ones of similar moisture content since their water will equilibrate in the package during shipping. In other words, don't pack crisp and chewy cookies together.
The phrase 'cream pie' sounds so dated and evokes visions of jello pudding mix poured into premade pie crust, possibly available a la carte in the school cafeteria. That's a pretty harsh sentence for something as delicious as pie.
This peanut butter banana cream pie does absolutely everything right to dispel any misconceptions. Ripe bananas are folded into luscious, velvety pastry cream and poured into a graham cracker crust layered with dark chocolate and fresh ground peanut butter, then topped with fresh whipped cream.
For those of us more technically inclined, this pie is a lot of fun to make. You get to hit things, double boil things, whip hot things, whip cold things... I swear it's fun, and you feel like a fancy cook.
For pastry cream success, there are two tricks I learned not usually included in recipes:
1. Thoroughly whisk the sugar and cornstarch together before adding any wet ingredients. They help keep each other from clumping, keeping lumps out of your cream.
2. Add a little bit of the unheated milk to the egg yolks going into said sugar/cornstarch mixture. Many recipes call for beating just the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together, but sometimes this isn't enough moisture to realistically mix them. A little milk will make your life much easier.
I followed this well written recipe as printed by Joy the Baker. The bananas and whipped cream balance the richness of the pastry cream, while the dark chocolate and peanut butter balance the sweetness. Yeah, it was really good. The only quibble I had was after chilling the pie, the chocolate layer was hard and difficult to cut through. In the future I might mix in a little heavy cream with the melted chocolate to make a sort of spreadable ganache layer. Also, it says that the pastry cream mixture will take about 6 minutes to thicken up. For me, it was ready in more like two.
After many adventures into cookies needing fancy things like cocoa nibs and cardamom, pastry cutters and microplane graters, and tofu and toasted oats, I felt a calling to a) procrastinate, and b) make an unfussy cookie.
Unfussy cookies I did make, and let me tell you how much sweeter procrastination is with warm chocolate chip cookies in hand. The next time you need to do work, I suggest you have a cookie instead.
Ironically, instead I'm going to post about this fussy chocolate chip cookie recipe from the New York Times. If you recall the bacon cookies from last summer, these are actually those cookies. They're notable because I actually followed the recipe EXACTLY as printed. As a scientist you'd think I'd see the value in baking a control, but as a baker I'm too smart for my own good and always have to meddle. Was it worth it?
There are four notable things about this recipe:
1. It uses odd amounts of ingredients. 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour? This is because the recipe converts ingredients by weight into volume. Notice that it calls for 8.5 oz of bread and cake flour, but by volume are different by almost 1/3 cup. Theoretically this would give you a more consistent cookie every time you make it.
2. It uses really good quality chocolate. See those huge melty disks of chocolatey-ness in the photo? Hershey's chocolate chips can't hold a candle.
3. You're supposed to refrigerate the dough for 24-36 hours to improve the crumb, shape, and color of the final cookie. I used to never chill dough, but this recipe convinced me that at least a little waiting is worth it. However, 24 hours seems a bit much to ask when warm cookies are at stake - I'd say bake a few off immediately to tide you over, then chill the rest for at least an hour or two.
4. The cookies are finished with a sprinkle of coarse salt, playing up on the ever popular sweet and savory.
Conclusion? Quality ingredients and chilling dough pays off, but don't let fussy recipes get in your way of enjoying fresh baked cookies. The recipe on the bag of Toll House chocolate chips is pretty good, too...
Sunshine and citrus groves on a plate - how could you not be happy eating these? You're going to need some alone time with these.
There are a couple touches that make these way better than the standard super sweet, fluorescent yellow lemon bars you usually see. First, the toasted nuts and wheat germ round out the flavor of the crust and give the bar a bit more texture. Then there's the filling. Oh, the filling. It comes out addictively smooth, bright, and creamy like pastry cream. None of this gooey jaundiced gel business here. Finally, this recipe is easy. There's no frou frou curd making or straining through sieves. Just prepare a crust and pour the filling in.
Any combination of citrus works, really. Just adjust the sugar if you're using more sweet or tart fruits.
Alone Time Citrus Bars
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook
Crust
1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup wheat germ
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar
¾ tsp salt
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, frozen and cut into cubes
Filling
4 large eggs
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
Juice of one lemon, lime, tangerine, orange, and grapefruit
1 tsp zest each from lemon, lime, tangerine, orange, and grapefruit
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare crust by whisking everything but the butter together. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut in the butter until the largest pieces are pea sized. Press mixture into bottom and up sides of an ungreased 11x14-in baking pan. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the filling by whisking together the eggs, sugar, and flour until combined. Whisk in juices, zest, and salt. Pour filling into crust. Bake until center is set about 20 minutes. Enjoy warm or chilled.
Jab chae is the Korean take on glass noodles with veggies, playing up on the sweet and savory with a soy and mirin based sauce. The sweet potato noodles used are slippery and translucent, but thick like spaghetti. The dish can endlessly be adapted to fit what's in your fridge. Forgo your usual Asiany stir-fry standby and give this a try. Leftovers are also delightful cold.
Protein and veggies are cooked separately, then tossed all together at the end with the jab chae sauce. Cooking each component one at a time seems like a pain, but your noodles will be too watery by the end if you try cooking everything at once. Each component only takes a few minutes anyway. If your produce deviates from the recipe, split them up by cooking time. ie - cook carrots, celery, and onion together because they soften at about the same rate. Below is a fairly standard version of the recipe.
Jab Chae
4-5 oz sweet potato vermicelli (tang myun), soaked in hot water per package’s directions
½ medium onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 scallion, sliced
2 carrots, cut into strips
1 bunch spinach, cut into thirds
2 cups fresh shiitake or button mushrooms
¼ lb chadolbaegi (thinly sliced beef)
½ kamaboko cake (Japanese fish cake), thinly sliced
Mix all components of jab chae sauce together. Set aside. Set pan on medium high heat. Coat pan lightly with oil. Pan fry chadolbaegi until cooked. Remove and put into a large bowl.
Reset pan on medium high heat. Add more oil if necessary. Cook button and shiitake mushrooms. Remove and set aside in the same bowl as the cooked beef. Repeat and cook carrots and onions. Toss thoroughly until cooked, about 3-4min. Remove from pan and set aside in the same bowl.
Repeat and cook spinach, about 2-3min. Set aside. Repeat and cook fish cake and scallions. Toss for about 2-3min. Set aside.
Finally, reset pan onto medium high heat. Lightly coat pan with oil. Add garlic, stirring for one minute, Add noodles and precooked components to pan. Add jab chae sauce. Toss. Cover for 2 min till sauce has absorbed and everything is heated through.
Generously add fresh ground pepper to taste and finish with sesame seeds.
In Filipino cooking the word adobo refers to some sort of protein or vegetable stewed in vinegar, garlic, and pepper. What potochop means, I haven't been able to figure out, but I'll extrapolate and guess it refers to some preparation of chicken. Essentially, you cook your chicken in its own sweet, tangy marinade and it makes its own sauce. Seriously one pot cooking.
Lifted from Smarticus, here's my take on a super fast, flavorful dish. This marinade would work great with chunks of firm tofu or maybe pork.
Adobo Potochop
3 lbs. chicken parts - bone-in is nicer, though boneless cooks super fast 1/2 cup each soy sauce, rice vinegar, and water 3 tbsp brown sugar 2 bay leaves 5 (!) cloves of minced garlic 1/2 tsp of ground black pepper lime slices
In the pot you're going to cook in, throw in everything but the chicken. Mix. Throw in chicken. Let sit for 30 minutes.
Bring to a boil, stir gently. Knock the heat down to a simmer, and cook for 45 minutes or until the chicken is tender. If using boneless meat, this is more like 15 minutes. Watch it!
If using bone-in chicken bits, you can crisp up the skin on a hot skillet with positive results. Squeeze some lime over finished product and serve up with rice.
If you want to be fancy, you can make a reduction sauce with the leftover cooking liquid. Heat a cup of the liquid and cook it down in a skillet till it thickens up and gets saucy. The thickness will cling to the meat nicely. Drizzle sauce over chicken and you're done.
Yeasted waffles are pretty much the reason waffle irons were invented. Fact. Crisp on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside of course. The cornmeal gives it a nice texture, and the yeast adds that subtle complexity to the flavor that makes bread yummy. Prep time 5 minutes. There's really no reason not to bring a little waffle into your life.
P.S. - Maple syrup. Use the real stuff. It wasn't meant to be dispensed out of bottles shaped like old southern women.
Yeasted Cornmeal Waffles
2 cups milk, warm (110F)
2 tbsp melted butter
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup cornmeal (polenta)
1 pkg (2 1/2 tsp) active dry yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 large egg
In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, yeast, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Stir in milk, butter, egg, and maple syrup. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Cook batter in waffle iron according to manufacturer’s directions. Serve with berries, toasted walnuts, yogurt, maple syrup, and/or honey.
Cookies to be wrapped up in brown paper packages tied up with string... aka IKEA tupperware and packing tape. But that's not nearly as romantic.
