Got buns?

The last couple weeks of March, I was lucky enough to work from home. I finally had the chance to scratch a couple of food items off of my ever growing "to cook" list. Including these Whirligig buns from Nigella, which has been starred in my Google Reader for what seems like eternity. Yes, I admit, a large part of the reason I wanted to make these was just because of the name. Whirligig. Whirl-i-gig! Whiiiiiiirligig! But what could possibly be better than waking up in the morning and having warm chocolate and almond buns? Plus, it was an excuse to finally use the dough hook on the KitchenAid.

I followed The Wednesday Chef's advice on this recipe - substituting some almonds, eliminating the bottom dough piece, and cooking at a lower temperature. I wanted these to be amazing and the fact that they weren't out of this world (after reading three bloggers tell me how amazing they were) makes me wonder if I'm just not cut out for "real" baking (i.e. things that involve yeast, things other than cookies). They were still good, just a little bit bland and a tad on the dry side. That said, they were good enough for me to venture to make these again...and I'd encourage you to make them one day and let me know your results.

Buns aside, after over a year of local gigs and a couple weeks spent lounging at home, I'm on the road again (insert Willie Nelson song here). Inevitably part of the consulting lifestyle, I fly out to the client site on Monday morning and fly back home either Thursday or Friday. Sure, it has its perks like racking up United miles and Hilton Honors points plus a daily food allowance, but it also means that my opportunities to cook become almost non existent. Yes, there are weekends, but weekends are usually spent catching up with friends over food and drinks. Hopefully, you'll stick with me as this blog possibly deviates to more random food tidbits and the not-so-glamorous food life of a traveling consultant. I hope to take advantage of having a daily food allowance to try out new restaurants. In return, I'll be trying to do as much cooking as possible on weekends to stock up for posts during the week.

And I can't really complain...living in a beach town as summer approaches isn't exactly a rough life.

Chocolate-Almond Whirligig Buns
Makes 20-30 buns

Dough
5 to 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 packets instant yeast (6 3/4 teaspoons)
7 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup milk
2 large eggs
Vegetable oil

Filling
8 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
3/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 large egg, beaten

1. Dough - combine 5 cups of flour, sugar, salt and yeast. In a small saucepan, combine butter and milk and heat to lukewarm. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk them into the milk mixture. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ones.

2. Using a mixer with a dough hook, or by hand, knead dough until smooth and springy, adding more flour if necessary. Form into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 30 minutes.

3. Punch down dough. Line a 13 x 10-inch baking pan with parchment paper or silicon mat. Roll out dough to a rectangle.

4. For the filling, mix together the butter and sugar to a paste. Spread the paste over large rectangle of dough. Sprinkle almonds evenly over the dough, then top with chocolate chips. Starting from longest side, carefully roll up dough so it looks like a long sausage. Cut dough into 20 slices, about 3/4 inch thick, and arrange with a cut side up on top of the dough in the pan.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush buns with beaten egg and let them sit in a warm place until puffed up and snugly fitting pan, about 15-20 minutes. Bake until buns have risen and are golden-brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from baking pan to cool on a rack. Serve warm.

Link love:
Inspired by The Wednesday Chef's writeup of the Whirligig Buns
this little piglet
Tea and Cookies

Chocolate Decadence Cake with Raspberry Sauce

Since it IS currently the header picture of my blog, it's about time I post the recipe for the chocolate decadence cake. This cake scared me at first, I'll admit. My staunch "I cook, not bake" attitude would be completely destroyed if I baked a cake, other than baking with my good friend Betty Crocker. Granted, a large number of the recipes on this blog so far are of cookies, but for some reason, cookies seem to defy the baking category, at least in my state of denial towards baking. Yes, serious baking scares me because you have to be so precise with measurements and to me, that takes away the "a little bit of this, a little bit of that" fun that cookings brings me. But, in order to properly bribe, I mean motivate, a member of my project team, I promised chocolate cake. And chocolate cake it was.

This is a surprisingly easy recipe, and I think it would be even easier now with my lovely Kitchen Aid companion. I followed the instructions line by line and ended up with a beautiful and quite tasty cake that made many break their diets. *insert evil laugh here* As the magnet on my fridge says, "Lord, if you can't make me skinny, please make all my friends fat."

Chocolate Decadence Cake with Raspberry Sauce

I didn't have any raspberries or raspberry flavored liquer, so I used strawberries instead. The liquer would have given it that extra oomph, but it was just fine without.

For the raspberry sauce:
2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries or thawed frozen unsweetened raspberries
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1/4 cup framboise or other raspberry-flavored liqueur (optional)

For the cake:
1 lb. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
10 Tbs. (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (I didn't have XL eggs, so I used 4 large eggs + one egg white)
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1 cup heavy cream, whipped


To make the raspberry sauce, place the raspberries, sugar and framboise, if using, in a blender or in a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Puree until smooth. If you prefer a seedless sauce, pass the puree through a sieve.

To make the cake, position a rack in the middle of an oven and preheat to 425ºF. Butter an 8 or 9-inch springform pan or a layer cake pan. Line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper or waxed paper cut to fit precisely. Butter the paper and dust with flour; tap out any excess.

Place the chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl or the top pan of a double boiler. Set over a pan of gently simmering water but not touching the water. Stir occasionally until melted and combined completely. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

Place the eggs and sugar in a bowl. Using an electric mixer set on high speed, beat until light, fluffy and tripled in volume, 5 to 10 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and beat in the flour. Using a rubber spatula, fold one-third of the egg mixture into the chocolate to lighten it, then fold in the remaining egg mixture, taking care not to deflate the batter. Pour and scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake for exactly 15 minutes. Let cool completely to room temperature. Do not refrigerate or the cake will stick to the pan. Invert the cake onto a flat serving plate and peel off the paper.

Cut into small wedges and serve each wedge atop some of the raspberry sauce. Top with whipped cream. Makes one 8 or 9-inch cake; serves 12.

Cranberry Bread Pudding

As a self-proclaimed foodie, I'm on a personal quest to reduce the number of foods that I dislike. On the list of conquered food items we have avocados, tomatoes, and most recently, bread pudding. And of course now that I actually crave bread pudding, Dad made one just in time for a New Year's dessert to ship me off.

Ingredients

1 Panettone (We used Trader Joes with cranberries because I haven't conquered my dislike of raisins yet. You could use any type of Panettone or any type of bread you have lying around).
4 eggs
4 cups of milk
10 tablespoons Splenda
Fresh orange zest
Cinnamon
Freshly ground nutmeg
3 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon almond extract
Favorite type of nuts (Dad used pecans. I later tried this with pecans with much success)
Cinnamon/sugar for sprinkling on top

Note: You can really get creative with the ingredients here. I added chocolate chips to the Raisin one I made back here in SF. Later, I'll be trying a chocolate orange and then a dulce de leche.

Directions
1. Cut up the Panettone into bite size pieces, about a half inch by half inch by half inch.
2. Prepare mixture by combining the eggs, milk, Splenda, orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, extracts, and nuts. Mix well.
3. Add the Panettone/bread pieces to the mixture. Soak for 15 minutes. Mix. Soak for an additional 15 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350. You should have two oven racks spaced in the middle - one for the bread pudding and the other below for a water bath.
5. Spray baking pan for bread pudding with a non-stick spray. Fill another baking dish with some water.
6. Pour Panettone mixture into the baking pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle walnuts, cinnamon and sugar on top. Place bread pudding and water bath in oven.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool before cutting.

Say it with a Kiss

In continuation of my previous post about the perfect peanut butter cookie, this is the cookie that started it all. Simple, yet oh-so-popular, these cookies have won the hearts of all of Boy's coworkers (if they had it their way, I'd be living my dream cooking all day long). I've used these to say sorry (and surprise, my apology was accepted). These cookies have been notorious to show up at parties such as the 2007 Super Bowl party, 2007 Fourth of July and most recently, the 2007 Blue Angels party. World famous for their simpliciy and bite size happiness from the made-in-heaven pairing of peanut butter and chocolate, these cookies certainly have their way with people.

I've always been keen on pointing out the difference between baking and cooking. "Yes, I love sweets, but I'm really into COOKING not BAKING, and yes there is a big difference." I swore up and down that I'd keep to my cooking and leave baking to the cafe down the street. However, since baked goods lend themselves to office treats much better than, say, crabcakes or lamb chops, I've found myself pseudo-baking recently. My efforts were validated the day I brought in the Chocolate Decadence Cake (see banner at top). Needing some code from one of the developers quickly, I offered to send over a piece of cake in exchange for the code. I think the code was in my inbox before I could even finish the sentence. So, yes, baking does pay off.

With my recent mini-adventures into baking, I've quickly discovered and read a few tips of the trade, which I offer here:

Prep

Make sure the ingredients are at the proper temperature. I wouldn't have known this one (why can't I just microwave the butter to make it easy to mix quicker?). I delight in finishing things quicker than expected, so I'm always looking for a shortcut, and perhaps this is one of my qualms with baking - shortcuts are generally bad. This usually applies to eggs and butter. The butter is suppose to be between 65 and 70 degrees - if Goldilocks claims the butter is too soft, it won't become fluffy when you beat it with the eggs, which leads to greasy cookies. If Golidocks says the butter is too firm, you also won't be able to cream the butter properly since the sugar can't work its way into the butter to aerate it. Also bad. For eggs, they incorporate better into the batter when they are room temperature.

Mix

Cream butter and sugar properly - When you cream the butter and sugar together, you cut the sugar into the butter, creating little pockets of air in the fat - aerating it. This air determines if you will get a tender, light cookie or a dense, leaden one, thus the butter at the right temperature bit. But how do I know when it's creamed properly? As you're beating, watch for the butter and sugar to start increasing in volume as well as becoming lighter in color. Watch carefully so you don't overbeat (mixture becomes shiny).

Shape

Keep 'em uniform - The cookie scoop my dad gave me was a godsend. This will make sure that the cookies bake the same, hopefully eliminating those random "extra crispy" cookies.

Bake

Be aware of the cookie sheet - I bought some heavy duty Cuisinart sheets recently that won't warp like my other ones have in the past. These have rims though, which can change the baking time of the cookies as the heat doesn't get to the cookies evenly. The ideal cookie sheets are sturdy (won't warp in the oven to make for uneven baking) and rimless (rims won't block the heat) and light colored (dark colors may cook the bottoms of the cookies before the tops are done).

Parchment paper (not for chicken) - My roommate somehow got the idea to use my parchment paper (which I think is expensive) to cover chicken as he pounded the chicken. And he used the LAST BIT, leaving me without parchment paper three days later when I baked cookies. Having to go sans parchment paper, I can't emphasize what a difference the parchment paper makes. Suck it up and buy some.

Don't blame the oven - No two ovens are the same. You should learn your oven (I'm still learning mine). To help combat uneveness, rotate the cookie sheets halfway through and also switch racks. After rotating (if it takes a bit of time), be aware that you may need to bake for a little longer.

Check-in early - I always set the timer for a couple of minutes before the estimated time. Don't check too often or you'll lower the temperature too much. Still, you want to make sure that you...

Remove cookies before they are done - Cookies usually don't LOOK done when they are perfect and those that look perfect usually turn to rock after cooling. You can always put them back in the oven.

Don't reuse hot sheets - I'm a hypocrite on this one, but I've read it time and time again. Cool off the sheets with cold water before reusing - otherwise, the hot sheet can melt the dough before it's allowed to bake properly.

Back to the cookies - Since the Boy and myself aren't huge fans of chocolate, I'm thinking about trying just the dough and making them in the shape of the typical peanut butter cookie. Another thought was adding the ground, roasted and salted peanuts from the previous recipe to add another peanut kick to these cookies. You can also substitute the milk chocolate Hershey Kiss for one of the many varieties of Kisses available, or even go for a Reese's Peanut Butter cup minature if you're a peanut butter fanatic.

One last note - apparently they sell unwrapped Hershey Kisses, but I've yet to find them in the store. If you do, let me know where! Otherwise, be sure that you have the Kisses unwrapped before the cookies come out of the oven so you can place them on the cookies while the cookies are hot.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. peanut butter
1 egg
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Extra sugar in a small bowl to coat cookie dough

Prep
1. Pre-heat oven to 350.
2. Unwrap hershey kisses.

Mix
3. Combine and mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt).
4. Add butter, peanut butter, egg, milk and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined. The dough should be soft, but easily made into dough balls.

Shape
5. In a small bowl (or plate), pour about a 1/2 cup of granulated sugar. As you shape the dough balls, give them a small toss in the sugar bowl to evenly coat the cookie dough. I've found that using a bowl to toss/swirl the dough makes this much quicker and more even than rolling the dough around a plate.
6. Place the dough balls about an inch apart on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. These cookies don't expand too much during baking, but when you add the Hershey Kiss, the dough flattens and expands a bit.

Bake
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes. These will turn slightly brown when done.
8. Remove from oven immediately. Place one Hershey's Kiss on each cookie and press down gently. Leave the cookies in safe place to cook all the way. The chocolate melts as it sits on the cookie and I've had plenty of mishaps trying to mess with the cookies before completely cool.

ISO perfect peanut butter cookie recipe

Wannabe cook ISO the perfect peanut butter cookie recipe to woo the heart of a boy.

Short of stealing the Specialty's peanut butter cookie recipe, I believe this recipe may be the way to a peanut butter boy's heart. It's roommate approved (he stole one from the plate in the kitchen, and then took the time to peek in my room to announce "those cookies are pretty damn good" with that guilty look on his face). It's Boy approved. Make that Boy X 2 appproved, Lauren :)

A couple of notes regarding this recipe - watch the cookies in the oven closely. Ideally, you'd want the cookies to have golden brown, crispy edges with a chewy center, slightly sweet and tons of peanut buttery goodness flavor. My oven cooks a bit uneven, so we ended up with a range of golden brown/chewiness. To combat the uneveness a bit, be sure you use a cookie scoop to even out the size of your cookies. I use one similar to this. It's quite sturdy and seems that it will stand up to my many many batches of cookies.

Cooks Illustrated suggests commercial peanut butter instead of the natural peanut butter, which based on my previous peanut butter cookies experiments, I completely agree. This recipe also adds roasted, salted peanuts ground in a food processor, which added a level of peanut flavor that other cookies lacked.

Peanut Butter Cookies (to win a boy's heart)

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt

1/2 pound butter (2 sticks), salted
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup extra-crunchy peanut butter , preferably Jif
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup roasted salted peanuts , ground in food processor to resemble bread crumbs, about 14 pulses (about 1 cup, packed)

Prep
1. Bring butter and eggs to room temperature.
2. Pre-heat oven to 350.
3. Grind roasted salted peanuts in a food processor. Set aside.

Mix
4. In a small bowl, sift or mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
5. In a separate medium to large bowl (this is the bowl that all your batter will end up in), beat the butter until creamy.
6. Add sugars and beat until fluffy. You may need to scrape down the bowl.
7. Beat in peanut butter, then eggs, and then vanilla.
8. Slowly incoporate the dry ingredients while beating.
9. Add ground peanuts and stir gently just until incoporated.

Shape
10. On a parchment paper covered cookie sheet, use 2 tablespoons of dough (two of my scoops = 1 cookie) to roll into a ball. Place approximately two inches apart.
11. Using the back of a fork dipped in cold water (to prevent sticking), make a criss-cross pattern on the cookie.

Bake
12. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Rotating the sheet after about 5-6 minutes helps the cookies bake more evenly. If you do this, you might tack on a little extra time in the oven, since opening the oven causes the temperature to drop.
13. The cookies are done when they are slightly golden brown on the top. Cool the cookies completely before eating - they'll taste much better.

Coming up next: Hershey Kisses Peanut Butter Cookies

Addicted to Crack

berry. As in Pinkberry.

Pinkberry received $27.5M from Starbucks founder's VC firm.

If you aren't familiar with Pinkberry, it's a frozen yogurt cult phenomenon - a refreshing tangy/sour and a little sweet frozen yogurt in original or green tea topped with fresh fruit, a variety of cereal, or even mochi served in a contemporary minimalist environment. They have 32 stores, mainly in LA and NY, with plans for expansion. Why SF is not on the list is beyond me.

A loyal customer of 21 Choices in Pasadena, (we made daily trips from USC, 30 miles roundtrip, after compulsively checking the website) and known gelato/ice cream/frozen yogurt fanatic, everyone kept telling me I had to check out the "new 21 choices." I walked in with lofty expectations, waiting to be blown away by this new fangled concept. The line was out the door, a good start. I anxiously waited for my little cup of heaven, continuously peeking around the line to see "are we there yet?" Finally, a cup of the famed Pinkberry sat in front of me. I took a scoop, inhaled with anticipation, and took a bite.

I hated it.

I've been waiting like a kid on Christmas Eve for THIS? This plain, chalky, lackluster so-called frozen yogurt that leaves an after taste in my mouth? Is it too late to run to 21 Choices to get some REAL frozen yogurt to get this horrendous taste out of my mouth? Did people have that low of an opinion of 21 Choices if they thought this was better? I didn't even finish my (very expensive, more than a Starbucks latte that I don't even allow myself anymore) cup, sighing to myself and thinking, "Thank goodness I have my 21 choices."

2 days later, I craved Pinkberry. Badly.

For some reason, this second go-around, I loved it. Maybe it was the lack of expectations - or the expectations of it being horrible. Maybe it was because it was hotter outside. Maybe it was because I was extra hungry. Whatever it was, I loved the Pinkberry.

2 years later, without a location in San Francisco, I look forward to LA trips as much for Pinkberry as for 21 Choices and all my other foodie hangouts.

I don't know what it is, but they are doing something right. Maybe they just add crack. And the imitators aren't even close. Even David Lebovitz, an ice cream guru, author of my favorite ice cream book The Perfect Scoop and among my favorite bloggers, is addicted to the Pinkberry. And that's despite the fact he has a frozen yogurt recipe of his own that Heidi at 101 Cookbooks (another favorite blog) says Pinkberry has nothing on.

Anybody up for a trip to LA?