carmen makes

Carmen Makes on My Frying Pan

2010-01-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

Many thanks to Ben for featuring my cookies on My Frying Pan this week!!

Be sure to check out his recipes too... I have my eye on these banana chocolate macadamia nut pancakes... mmm.

Lemon Sandwich Cookies

2010-01-17T19:55:00.017-05:00

With all the sandwich-style sweets that have been popping up everywhere in the past couple of months (whoopie pies predicted to be the "dessert trend of 2010" by Epicurious, chocolate sandwich cookies on Martha Stewart, macarons in Starbucks, in this popular book and all over Tastespotting), "make some type of sandwich cookie" has been an item on my "to bake/cook/eat" list for almost as long. But I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to make, until yesterday. We've been having some unseasonably balmy weather, so Brendan and I went on a long walk to Trader Joe's, and along the way I dragged him into One Girl with me, where we sampled a few of their dainty little cookies.

All the cookies were delicious, but the one that got my wheels turning was their lemon sandwich cookie: It was the Girl Scout Lemon Pastry Cream cookie, which was a favorite of my childhood but a flavor I haven't thought about in a while since that cookie has been discontinued. It was fresh and light and spring-y (and oh, how I am longing for warmer weather!), in contrast to the chocolates and the heavy, over-spiced root-vegetable pies of winter. I wanted to make this cookie for myself, and I could picture it all in my head: which cookie recipe I would use, what I would need to pick up at the grocery store (and we were already on our way there!); I had the whole afternoon free to bake to my heart's content, and a get-together scheduled in the evening where I could win some people's hearts by sharing my treats with everyone. It was a Saturday afternoon planned.

These cookies are the same as the Citrus Sugar Cookies I made this past Thanksgiving, with the zest of one entire lemon added (more like one tablespoon, as opposed to the one teaspoon called for in the recipe). I cut out the cookies with 1.5" circular cookie cutter to get the cute, bite-size One Girl-ish scale.

Sandwiched in-between is a creamy lemon filling:

Creamy Lemon Filling adapted from Martha Stewart

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from 1 lemon)
1 to 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

In a small bowl, mix cream cheese and zest until smooth. Gradually add 1 cup confectioners' sugar, mixing until smooth. Mix in remaining sugar as necessary to create a firm but spreadable filling.

This recipe made enough cookies for me to share at my friends' house and still keep some for myself. I think it might be time for me to take a break from baking, though, and focus my creative energies elsewhere, because I just ate about 10 of these in one sitting!

Vegan Chocolate Bundt Cake

2010-01-14T00:11:00.007-05:00

This past weekend I attended my first Kirtan chanting event at Laughing Lotus yoga studio, and to get myself hyped up before I went to it, I flipped through the December 2009 issue of Yoga Journal. I bought it in November at the same time as a couple of other magazines, and I must not have had the time to look through it, or else my baking radar might have detected Rachel Meyer's article about a year of baking cakes, and the included vegan chocolate bundt cake recipe (adapted from Veganomicon). Or, maybe when I read it the first time, my senses just weren't as finely tuned to seek out bundt cake recipes as they have been ever since my boyfriend gave me my first bundt cake pan for Christmas. At any rate, I was inspired: the picture in the magazine just looked delicious, and I already had all of the ingredients handy, so I saw no reason not to give this cake a try.

I don't usually bake vegan things due to a few sub-par baking experiences I had in high school (when I was a vegetarian) and the general lack of personality I feel most of the vegan baked goods I've eaten since then have had, even from some of the most well-reputed bakeries. It also doesn't help that most vegan cookbooks (at least the ones I've owned) aren't published with pictures, and without a preview I'm not always inclined to trust that I'm going to be happy with whatever comes out of the oven. But the picture in this magazine depicted the most modest, no-frills, confident-looking cake, with only that light dusting of powdered sugar to wear; no sign of the overly dense, crumbly, dry consistency I've come to expect from my vegan baked goods. And I can say the same positive things about the the cake I ended up with, too: it was moist, chocolatey, and surprisingly as satisfying as any non-vegan cake.

I made this cake with intention to feed it to my friends on Sunday quesadilla night, but after dinner everyone was too full to eat much so I brought the rest to work the next day, where it was devoured! A lot of my coworkers liked it so much they even asked for the recipe, which I posted after the cut.

Vegan Chocolate Bundt Cake (adapted from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero)

1 3/4 cup freshly brewed coffee
2/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil (I used regular vegetable oil)
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose white flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Heat the coffee in a saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low and whisk in cocoa powder until it has dissolved. Remove the saucepan from the heat and set aside to bring to room temperature.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, oil, applesauce, and cornstarch until the sugar and cornstarch dissolve, about 2 minutes. Mix in the extracts. Once the chocolate mixture has cooled a bit, stir that in as well.

Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the batter. Beat until the batter is relatively smooth (for other cakes, I usually leave a few lumps in the batter with the intention to not-overmix, but for this batter you will want to be sure that all of the flour is incorporated).

Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake's center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 20 minutes, then invert the cake onto a serving plate and cool completely.

Once the cake is cool, sift the confectioners' sugar over top.

Thanks to everyone who has come to visit my blog this week! I hadn't told many people about it before (I guess I just wanted to establish a style or a rhythm before I did), but I took advantage of the opportunity to share it this week with some of my coworkers when they asked about this cake, and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback. I even found out that some of my coworkers keep blogs too! It's been such a happy confidence-boosting experience to learn more and meet on common ground with some of the people I work with.

I've also (not related, but coincidentally) gotten more comments this week and it makes me feel so good to know that people are reading and responding to my entries! Hi, and thanks!

Chocolate-Covered Cherries

2010-01-09T15:30:00.007-05:00

Every Christmas, I give my dad a box of cordial cherries. They're a favorite in his family, probably because his mother used to make them from scratch when he was a kid. I wasn't old enough to try my grandmother's cherries before she passed away, but I do remember my grandfather and my great-grandmother always keeping the boxes of Queen Anne's cherries around when we would visit them during the holidays; I'm not sure if we always ate the store-bought ones, or if that was a tradition that started after my grandmother died, but they're a tradition in our family nevertheless, a treat that literally drips with nostalgia for those Christmases past.

When I was a kid, taking my time, painstakingly sipping the sugary liquid out of a small bite in my cordial cherry, I would wonder what magical powers my grandmother must have had to be able to make these. How does one go about making something with a liquid center? Made confident by my previous candy-making endeavor, I decided to do some research and attempt making my own chocolate-covered cherries. Without my grandmother's recipe, I went to Allrecipes for instructions, and found they are really not all that difficult to make, though they do take some patience.

Chocolate-Covered Cherries adapted from Allrecipes.com
Makes 60

60 Maraschino cherries
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 tablespoons corn syrup
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 pound chocolate confectioners' coating (I didn't have this around, so instead I used one 12-oz bag of bittersweet chocolate chips and a handful of miniature Hershey's milk chocolate bars)

1. Drain cherries (I rinsed them in a colander) and set on paper towels to dry.

2. In a medium bowl, combine butter and corn syrup until smooth. Stir in confectioners' sugar and knead to form a dough. Chill to stiffen if necessary. Wrap each cherry in about 1 teaspoon of dough and roll into a ball. Chill until firm.

3. Melt confectioners' coating in a heavy saucepan over low heat (I melted my chocolate in a double-boiler). Drop each fondant-covered cherry in the chocolate, and use a fork to guide the ball through the chocolate until it is completely covered. Using the fork, lift the ball out of the chocolate from underneath, and tap off the excess chocolate. Place each cherry on waxed paper to set.*

*- You will want to be sure that each cherry is completely covered with chocolate, or else place each dipped cherry into a small paper cupcake cup, because if the fondant isn't completely sealed-in you will end up with a sticky mess as it starts to liquefy. I found that after a single dipping, my cherries' fondant was still exposed at the bottom, so I dipped them each a second time, and they turned out great!

Store in an airtight container in a cool place (but not in the refrigerator). You will be tempted to eat these right away (and they will taste great!) but if you want the creamy center you expect from a cordial cherry, you should wait 1 to 2 weeks, when the fondant dough has had time to liquefy.

If you are really interested in making these chocolates, I highly suggest you read over the comments section for this recipe on Allrecipes, too. It's a popular recipe and the other users have contributed some great tips.

I made these chocolates while I was at home in South Carolina and served them up at the New Year's Eve party I went to (alongside my Baked Alaska), where they were a hit!

Baked Alaska

2010-01-03T22:50:00.018-05:00

Happy New Year! My friends and I rang in the new year in style, with a potluck-style dinner for which I was happily assigned dessert duty. I don't normally have the opportunity to cook one big thing for a group so I racked my brain for the most extravagant thing I have wanted to make that I could think of; it wasn't hard to decide I wanted to get ambitious and make Baked Alaska.

I'm not going to pretend I was the first to have the idea to make Baked Alaska; it's an old-fashioned dessert I first heard about from a college roommate, and then it reappeared on my radar this year as one of the "festive finales" in the Martha Stewart Holiday Sweets magazine I've been studying this season for inspiration (the online version of her instructions is here). If you don't know what Baked Alaska is (and I had to explain it to my fellow dinner party guests enough times to tell you you're definitely not alone!), it's an ice cream cake molded in the shape of an igloo, covered in meringue.

Martha prescribes her own recipe for the cake-base of her Alaska, but I decided to substitute mine and Christine's favorite brownie recipe from the Baked cookbook (that recipe is available here).

I got busy with preparing my Alaska in my party-throwing friends' home the day before. I made the brownies in a 9" round cake pan (lined with aluminum foil for easy release). Since the recipe is written to be made in a 9x13" pan, I had some leftover batter that I made into a few extra cupcake-size brownies to tide over my friends from nibbling on the real deal before the big night!

At this time, I also molded the ice cream top of the cake. I chose a 9" diameter bowl to fit perfectly on top of the brownie, and lined it with plastic wrap. I let pistachio and butter pecan ice creams sit out for a few minutes until they were soft enough to scoop, and then I spooned in an outer layer of pistachio ice cream into the bowl, followed by an inner layer of butter pecan. After that I covered the entire bowl with plastic wrap, turned down the freezer and let it harden in there for a day.

On the night of the party when I arrived, I turned the ice cream out on top of the brownie and let it continue to set in the freezer. About 30 minutes before we were ready to eat dessert, I ran into the kitchen to make the meringue (for this, I doubled Martha's recipe for Swiss Meringue). I heated the egg whites and sugar over a double-boiler before whipping them with a hand mixer.

Beautiful meringue peaks

I was already anxious about having the ice cream sitting out for too long while I decorated it with the meringue, and I also guessed that at this point in the party I wouldn't have the patience to be piping Martha's obsessive rosettes all over my cake, so I just spread the meringue on it with a spatula. Then I poked the meringue repeatedly with my finger to make peaks all over the cake (I envisioned it coming out to look like this cake in a recent article in Fine Cooking).

And then (the moment of truth) I put the whole thing into the oven to broil on high for a minute, to just-brown the meringue for the glorious hot/cold effect. I kept my eye on it the whole time to monitor any ice cream seepage or uneven browning, but I wasn't expecting my masterpiece to catch on fire!! My shrieking ended a rowdy game of Catchphrase, and my boyfriend swatted the fire out with a dish towel, leaving us with charred, crispy, sorry-I-almost-burned-your-house-down Alaska.

With all the effort I put into planning, I had hoped for an aesthetically prettier end to 2009, but in retrospect what more appropriate way could we have ended a year of rolling with unexpected challenges and having to work with what we've got? Even though it didn't turn out as beautifully as I'd imagined for its opening night, it's the inside that counts (which was still as tasty as expected), and the commotion over the fire was admittedly more exciting than another quiet moment of domestic perfection. It gave me an adrenaline rush to ride into the new year!

I didn't expect this cake to keep after the one night, but we've kept it stored in the freezer and it has actually improved with age; re-frozen, at present it looks like it does in the beautiful cross-section photo at the beginning of this post, which was taken the next day.

Resources

Baked Alaska @ Martha Stewart
The Baked Brownie @ Nibbledish
Swiss Meringue at Martha Stewart

Oma's Pecan Tarts

2009-12-30T17:00:00.014-05:00

Pecans are a Southern treat; pop-up stores and mall shopping carts are peddling them all over my hometown during the holidays, and my family is known to ship candied, chocolate-covered, chocolate-and-toffee-covered, and butter-roasted gift sets of them to each other for Christmas, birthdays, and other occasions (a gift card just doesn't remind one of home in quite the same way!).

Every year my grandmother (who we have always lovingly called "Oma") collects and shells her own pecans in the late summer and freezes them for the winter months, so that we can always have her special pecan tarts for the holidays. Tiny pecan pies, they're little bites of a Southern classic (though you may decide you'd like two bites, or four...). Oma makes plates of these to exchange with her friends but keeps plenty around for us to have all we can eat, too. This year she let my sister Olivia and I help her make them. She also gave me her recipe so that I can continue the tradition by making my own, and I am happy to share it in this post, for anyone else who might like to try a taste of my family's holiday treats.

These tarts have a simple cream cheese-based crust and a sugary chopped pecan filling, and they are baked in miniature muffin pans. To shape the dough to the muffin cups, we used a Pampered Chef mini-tart shaper that my mom came across a handful of years ago, but you can also use your hands to do it, as my grandmother did for years before this nifty little gadget happened onto the scene.

Because we usually give these as gifts, Oma's recipe makes a large batch, but it can be easily halved.

Olivia with the tart crusts

Shaping the tart crusts

Filling the tarts

Oma's Pecan Tarts
Makes between 4 and 5 dozen

For the crust:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups chopped pecans (this is an approximate measurement, you may want to keep an additional cup handy)

Prepare the dough for the crust in advance. Cream together the cream cheese and butter, then add the flour and beat until combined. You can turn the dough out and wrap it in plastic to form a ball, or just cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a separate bowl, prepare the filling by combining the eggs, brown sugar, butter and vanilla. Stir in pecans. The syrup should coat the pecans well, but the filling should not be soupy. If it is, add more pecans.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Using your hands, roll the dough into balls a little smaller than 1 inch in diameter (you might have to experiment to get the right amount of dough for your size muffin pan cups). Place one ball of dough per muffin cup. Mold each ball of dough to its cup. If you are using a tart-shaper, keep a small bowl of flour nearby to coat it before pressing each cup so that it doesn't stick to the dough. If you are using your hands, use a little flour to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers. Make sure there are no holes in the shells, because the sticky filling will cause the tart to stick to the pan.

Fill each tart shell almost to its brim with pecan filling (do not overfill) and bake for 25-30 minutes. After baking, turn the tarts out onto paper towels, or a drying rack if you have one. If any of the tarts stick, use a knife to gently loosen them.

The pecans, for me, make these mini-pies nostalgic, but I'm sure you could substitute any other pie filling, too. I'm thinking I'd like to make these on my own with apple pie filling, pumpkin pie filling, or something savory like spinach.

Holiday treats made by friends in SC

2009-12-29T18:00:00.015-05:00

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I did, and in spite of all the rush I was able to spend some time in the kitchen as well. I'm back in Brooklyn now and excited to blog about what I made very soon. I don't have much time at this very moment to write a lot of details (I'm in the midst of planning a New Year's Eve dessert project and almost late for yoga class!), but I did want to take a minute to share some photos of a couple of my favorite holiday creations other people made that I got to enjoy when I was at home.

Oreo truffle snowmen

My sister threw a holiday party with all of her friends a couple of days before I came home, and I had the pleasure of sampling some interesting leftovers. My favorite, though (playing to my obsessive/aesthetic tastes), were my sister's friend Morgan's Oreo truffle snowmen! These are truffles made from Oreos and cream cheese, dipped in white chocolate and decorated with dark chocolate and powdered sugar. The hat is made from a small chocolate disk and a marshmallow dipped in melted chocolate. I didn't get a chance to talk to Morgan about what inspired her to make these or the recipe she used, but I found a similar recipe and instructions here. So cute!

Giant cupcake inside of a brownie

My other favorite creation of the week was a cake my cousin Ryan brought to our Christmas Eve dinner. This is a giant strawberry cupcake (made with one of these pans) with puppy chow in the center, nestled in the middle of a brownie, and covered with Funfetti icing. With my purist philosophies and control issues about baking I'd definitely have trouble allowing myself to let loose enough in the kitchen to even conceive of an idea like this unless I was having a lot of fun, which is why I love this cake and the fact that it exists so much (not to mention that icing with the colored dots mixed in seems so hard to find these days, even though it was a staple when we were kids and it is so good!).

For all the praises I can give this cake intellectually, I can't say the artificial strawberry flavoring was exactly my style, but you can see the chunk of brownie I took out on the right.

Chocolate-Dipped Mint Wafers

2009-12-22T08:51:00.007-05:00

I'm going home today, so last night I decided to make some cookies to bring home (and procrastinate about packing!): Chocolate-Dipped Mint Wafers (or Girl Scout "Thin Mints").

For these cookies, I used a simple chocolate wafer cookie recipe to make the dough a couple nights ago, and stored it in the refrigerator until I was ready to use it. I was excited because this was my first chance to break in my new French tapered rolling pin (!). To cut out the cookies, I used the scalloped round of a linzer cookie cutter.

Chocolate-Dipped Mint Wafers (chocolate wafer cookie recipe adapted from Martha Stewart)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
9 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon pure peppermint extract

1. Whisk together flour, cocoa, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and confectioners' sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, beating to combine. Divide dough in half; form into disks, and wrap in plastic. Chill until firm.

2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Working with one disk at a time, roll out dough to a 1/8 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using a scalloped round cookie cutter, cut out shapes and transfer to baking sheets. Chill until firm, about 15 minutes.

3. Bake cookies until edges are firm, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

4. Combine dark chocolate and peppermint extract in a double boiler over simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove from heat.

5. Holding each cookie across the tines of a fork, dip in chocolate to coat completely, then tap underside of fork on side of the bowl to allow excess chocolate to drip off. Place on a wax paper-lined baking sheet and refrigerate until hardened, or overnight.

Cookies freshly dipped

Chilled overnight

These cookies turned out well and I'm excited to overwhelm my family with all the goodies I've been making! I also packed up the rest of the truffles from Sunday.

I will be in South Carolina for a week without the comfort of my iMac, so I won't be posting any pictures until I get back, though I do intend to entertain myself by baking/making while I am at home, too, if things don't get too busy on their own as holidays tend to do. I'm feeling pretty inspired by the New York Times' recent holiday cookie feature and might have to give some of the recipes a try.

Happy holidays!

Chocolate-Champagne Truffles

2009-12-20T22:48:00.011-05:00

Working at a design studio, I've seen some beautiful holiday confections circulating the office for the past couple of weeks (supplied by both clients and crafty coworkers alike), and I've been waiting and hoping for things to calm down so that I would have my own chance to get in the kitchen and bake something pretty for my coworkers too (because when the rare opportunity to make small personal food gifts arises, one must take advantage of it!). This weekend I had my chance: my friends went out of town and I got up early to finish my holiday errands before the afternoon shopping rush, leaving one whole day to myself to cook up whatever confection I pleased. Not to mention we had a big beautiful snowfall on Saturday night to make staying in the next day feel even more romantic and cozy.

My first thought was to make some kind of rolled-and-cut-out cookie like I did in my previous entry, since I had so much success with the sugar cookies. However, two of my coworkers eat gluten-free and I wanted to make something we could all enjoy, so I decided to make chocolate truffles instead. Two kinds: champagne truffles rolled in powdered sugar, and Grand Marnier truffles dipped in dark chocolate and garnished with candied orange peel.

Truth be told, I ruined a batch of truffles on my first and only previous attempt, so I was extra careful and did lots of research to make this one work. As I learned, do not attempt to make truffles with lower-fat anything, because if you skimp the ganache will not set!

Chocolate-Champagne Truffles adapted from Martha Stewart's chocolate-champagne truffle recipe, as well as this truffle recipe from the Cabernet Inn in North Conway, New Hampshire.
Makes about 3 dozen

1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
9 ounces finely chopped dark chocolate (I used one half of a Trader Joe's Pound Plus 56% dark chocolate bar)
2 1/2 tablespoons champagne
1/2 tablespoon cognac
powdered sugar, for rolling

Place the dark chocolate in a pie pan and set aside. In a saucepan over medium heat, bring cream and butter to a full boil. Immediately pour the hot cream over the chocolate and cover the pie pan with a large plate or plastic wrap, to melt the chocolate. Let stand, undisturbed, for 5 minutes.

Whisk the ganache slowly to avoid creating air bubbles, until it is smooth and silky in texture. Add the champagne and cognac and whisk until it is all incorporated. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or until the ganache is set (I left it in the refrigerator overnight).

Using a melon baller, scoop the ganache to form 1-inch balls (if the mixture is too hard to scoop, allow the pan to sit out for a few minutes until it has warmed to room temperature). Using your hands, pinch and roll each scoop to form a solid ball. Transfer the balls to a wax paper-lined baking sheet and refrigerate for another 15 minutes.

Place powdered sugar in a shallow bowl. Using your hands, roll each ball until completely smooth, then roll in powdered sugar to coat. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Variation: Dark Chocolate-dipped Grand Marnier Truffles with Candied Orange Peel

Prepare truffles as above, replacing champagne and cognac with 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier liqueur. Do not roll the truffles in powdered sugar. Make sure to refrigerate the truffles for at least an hour after scooping, so that they will be cold enough to survive dipping!

Prepare candied orange peel (I followed this very simple recipe). After peels have dried, chop some into small pieces for garnish, about 2 or 3 tablespoons.

Roughly chop 9 ounces dark chocolate (this could be the other half of your Pound Plus bar) and melt in a double boiler, stirring with a fork until smooth. Lay out wax paper for drying the truffles after dipping.

Remove a few of the truffles from the refrigerator at a time. Drop one at a time into the melted chocolate, using the fork to guide and cover the truffle with the chocolate, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Dry the truffle on the wax paper, garnishing with the candied orange peel. Allow chocolate to set; store covered in the refrigerator.

We can waste a lot of paper at work, which has been a daily source of guilt since I started working there, it's just a given about the kind of industry we're in and it's not practical to try to save it all. However, I do usually try to set aside printouts I can see a specific re-purpose for, like full pages of artwork for gift wrap and other projects. This week I used recycled paper to make origami boxes for the truffles. They're so cute I can hardly even stand it. I'm proud of how these came out and I'm so excited to gift these tomorrow!!

Jam-Filled Cream Cheese Cookies and Citrus Sugar Cookies

2009-11-29T09:04:00.078-05:00

For the past few years I've lived away from my home in South Carolina, going home for the holidays has usually involved a considerable amount of time spent in airports. I get ridiculous travel anxiety: with all the steps it takes for me to get from my house in Brooklyn to the airline gate (subway, airtrain, security), and the fact that I travel so infrequently that I can never remember the exact amount of time it takes for me to travel from Point A to Point B, I'm one who's prone to grossly overcompensate on the time it takes for me to get there, and then I end up with lots of extra time to kill in airport newsstands. I guess it's better than being unprepared, but I always end up buying magazines to help me pass the time.

This year, while browsing the racks, my recent fixation with baking drove me to buy Martha Stewart's Everyday Food (December 2009 issue). Personal sentiments about Martha aside, it was my first time reading this magazine and I fell in love with it-- the photography is delicious and the entire magazine is only seasonal recipes, which really got me into the holiday mood. I studied the "Sweet Treats" article all the way home, plotting my Black Friday Shut-In Cookie Fest. I chose two rolled-and-cut-out cookie recipes: Jam-Filled Cream Cheese Cookies and Citrus Sugar Cookies.

The first step after making the doughs for each batch is to divide the dough into three portions and roll it out between pieces of parchment paper (I used wax paper), and then refrigerate for 20 minutes. This extra step, allowing the butter to harden again in the refrigerator after the dough is mixed, is a great trick, if not an already well-known one to cookie bakers across the world except for me (before now)! When I was a kid we used the tube-dough you buy ready-made in the grocery store, and we always ended up with overworked, sloppy, room-temperature cut-out cookies. But now, this step will ensure that we always get the pretty, crisp-edged cookies we saw in the magazine (using real butter, as opposed to the partially-hydrogenated oil in pre-made dough, is a good idea too). Below are the sugar cookies at that stage:

Jam-Filled Cream Cheese Cookies adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food, December 2009 issue
Makes 48

8 ounces bar cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 cups jam, jelly, or preserves (jams, jellies, and preserves that include pectin work best)

1. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, and sugar until light and fluffy. With mixer on low, add flour and salt; beat until combined (do not overmix).

2. Divide dough into 3 portions; flatten each into a disk. Roll each disk to an 1/8-inch thickness between sheets of parchment (or wax paper). Stack dough (still in parchment/paper) on a baking sheet; refrigerate 20 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Mix egg yolk with 1/2 teaspoon water. Working with 1 dough sheet at a time, peel off parchment. With a 2 1/2-inch round or 2-inch star-shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon jam into center of each and brush exposed dough with egg wash. Shape cookies (see below: "Before"); arrange, 2 inches apart, on two parchment-lined baking sheets and refrigerate 20 minutes (reroll scraps).

4. Bake until cookies are light golden brown, about 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cool completely on wire racks.

Although these looked beautiful going into the oven, I failed to realize the egg yolk called for in the recipe was supposed to be an adhesive, and not just a brush-on finisher like you do with a pie. Without the egg to glue these cookies together, they all unfolded in the oven, undoing our meticulous hard work! Check out this dramatic before and after:

Before

After

They still tasted delicious, even though they look... not as great as expected.

The sugar cookies, however, were an A+. I can't say enough about how great these cookies turned out. I performed the same butter-grating trick as I did with the pie crust, and the dough was perfect, the cookies cut out perfectly, and they baked to be perfectly crisp and not-too-sweet. I want to reiterate the importance of refrigerating the dough before cutting out the cookies. Call me a novice, but this was the first time I made cookies this way and it was an eye-opener for me, who grew up on the gooey tube-of-dough cookies I previously mentioned, and for whom the creation of shortbread and other crisp-edged cookies had been shrouded in mystery, the stuff of magazine and cookie-factory secrets, until now.

Citrus Sugar Cookies adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food, December 2009 issue
Makes 40 3-inch cookies

4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for working
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg plus 1 large egg white, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest

1. In a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, and salt; pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse crumbs (if you're like me and you don't have a food processor, you can sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and then grate the butter into the dry mixture, lightly tossing to incorporate). Add sugar, eggs, and lemon zest and process until the mixture resembles wet sand.

2. Turn mixture out onto a lightly floured surface; knead several times until dough comes together. Divide into 3 portions; flatten each into a disk. Roll each disk to an 1/8-inch thickness between sheets of parchment (or wax paper). Stack dough (still in parchment/paper) on a baking sheet; refrigerate 20 minutes.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with racks in middle and lower thirds. Working with 1 dough sheet at a time, peel off parchment. With lightly floured cutters, cut dough into desired shapes and arrange, 1 inch apart, on baking sheets (reroll scraps). Refrigerate 15 minutes.

4. Bake until cookies are set but still pale, 7 to 9 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks and let cool completely.

I had thought of doing a royal icing glaze for them, but two batches of cookies later, I was too tired to by the time they were all done. They're delicious as-is though, and traveled safely back with me to New York. I will definitely be using this recipe again!

Chunky cabled scarf

2009-11-16T13:16:00.020-05:00

I have the luxury of writing this post on a Monday, since I'm trying to use up some vacation days before the end of the year by extending my weekends. It's pretty great-- I had time this weekend to finish this scarf I started working on a few weeks ago. It is two strands of dark brown (sometimes charcoal, in the right light) Cascade 220 yarn knit together in a chunky cable pattern I made up.

I bought the yarn from Purl by my work in Soho, and this scarf took me forever to finish because once I decided I needed more yarn and went back to get more, they were out of this color (I hear a couple of other people bought it all up for sweaters and blankets, so I guess in spite of the delay it caused me I can rest assured I chose a popular color). I'm not trying to say anything bad about Purl for running out, because it does happen... on the contrary, I should give the staff credit for being polite enough to me when I called every day to bother them until the next Cascade shipment arrived!

I'm back and forth on whether I like the cabled Ruben's empanada-looking edge I chose to do... Sometimes it lays the way it should, and sometimes it looks like a twisted ruffle. All in all though I'm pleased with how it turned out. I was so excited to have finished it that I tried to wear it out this weekend, in spite of the mild fall weather we've been having for the past few days. It's a little much to end up carrying over your arm for an entire evening when it's not too cold, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it once it does get miserably Arctic out there.

Classic apple pie

2009-11-09T00:02:00.040-05:00

In installment #3 of what has become a Sunday baking/crafting ritual, this weekend Christine and I made an apple pie.

This pie is made all from scratch, using Crispin and Macoun apples from the Grand Army farmer's market. I made the dough the day before using a cheese grater to shred up the frozen butter, since I don't have a food processor, and after much internet studying, butter-revelations and paranoia over the temperature of the dough we were rewarded with the flakiest buttery crust (as tasty as it is beautiful!). The whole affair took an entire afternoon, and it was almost too precious to eat (give CW credit for the raw sugar crystals and those perfect little leaves). You should have seen both of us with our cameras out taking pictures of it like the "pie-parazzi." Her parallel-post about it is here!

This is the 4th recipe I've made from the Baked cookbook, a collection of a bunch of the recipes from Baked in Red Hook, right here in Brooklyn (you can find their treats in different organic/natural foods grocery store display cases around Ft. Greene, but I've yet to actually go to the real place, maybe one day pre-Ikea?). I'm totally in love with this book though, and not just because I have Brooklyn pride (and not just because they have a second location in my home state!). Most of the recipes are rich/luxe takes on classics that feel even more authentic than the original, like super-fudgy brownies and overly-chipped chocolate chip cookies. And some of the recipes (i.e. pumpkin whoopie pies) are just complicated enough for a control-freak like me to indulge my perfectionist tendencies by making, without feeling too frou-frou.

I've been baking/crafting a lot more recently, and I thought it would be fun to start a new blog to announce progress, finished projects and whatnot. Looking forward to sharing more projects soon!