A Martha Pumpkin Swirl

So I've never really been a follower of Martha Stuart, but after my little adventure I might have to reconsider my feelings towards her.  I love pumpkin, I love chocolate, and I love recipes that require more than two bowls.  Not that I love washing them, but I derive a certain pleasure from the process of baking and if there's something that will prolong that process and improve the taste, I'm in favor of trying it.  So when I found a Martha Stuart Pumpkin Chocolate Brownie Swirl recipe, I figured I'd give it a go.

The list of ingredients is not quite daunting, though it is a bit longer than most brownie recipes.  After having made it, I'd probably make a few changes to the recipe.  I found it on the Smitten Kitchen blog (here's the direct link) but the following is my own slightly altered version.  I'm including alterations I'd make if I were to do it again.  If you try it and it doesn't work, feel free to blame it on me.  There are plenty of other things to blame failure on though, so I encourage you to try the blame on them first, but I guess I'm a good third or fourth scapegoat.  

Anyway, here's the ingredient list if you're making it in a 9x13 inch baking pan.  Also, I would say this is more of a cake than a brownie, despite what Martha and Smitten seem to think.  We clearly have differing opinions of what constitutes a brownie.  

Ingredients:

1 cup butter or margarine (for those of you afraid of cholesterol or dairy)

12 oz (1 regular size bag) semisweet chocolate chips

3 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cup sugar

6 eggs plus 2 egg whites (or 8 eggs if you can stomach cracking that many eggs into one dessert)

2 Tb vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (about 1 1/2 cans)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup chocolate chips (extra for mixing in, not to be confused with what you're melting)

1/2 cup chopped pecans

First preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  I forgot to do this until halfway through which was fine, because this recipe takes a while to make and our oven heats up fast.  But all recipes start with preheating the oven, so there's no real reason to do this one any differently.

Next mix together in a bowl the eggs, vanilla extract and sugar beating until you get a pretty foamy layer on top.  Five minutes with electric beaters, or three if you're impatient like myself.  It should look something like this:

Now go get a pan (don't try it in the microwave, you are likely to burn the chocolate, trust me I've done it enough times) and melt the butter and chocolate over the stove until smooth.  It should look something like Willy Wonka's chocolate river.  Or the picture below:

Now mix the flour, baking powder, cayenne pepper, and salt together in a bowl.  I hate doing this and usually just add all the dry ingredients into the wet at once.  But you're going to need the second bowl later anyway, so with this recipe you might as well.

Good, now you're going to beat the flour mixture into the egg mixture in batches until it's all nicely combined like this:

Doesn't that just make you want to start baking this recipe immediately?  It just looks so darn tasty.  God, I'm starting to want to make it all over again just posting these pictures.  But I guess I should finish my post first.

So now you're going to split this batter between your two bowls (see, I wasn't lying when I said you'd need it anyway).  I didn't read the whole recipe before I started to make it and at this point realized I should have just mixed the dry ingredients together in the second bowl to begin with.  Ah well, live and learn.

Now that you've split the batter, you're going to pour the chocolate mixture into one of the bowls and beat it in with the batter.  You will likely begin to drool at this point, so I suggest wearing a face mask.  Learning to shut your mouth when cooking might also work, but I have yet to master that technique.  Now try not to drool on your laptop, but this is what it should look like:

Great, so now you're going to add the pumpkin, oil, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the other bowl of batter and beat it all together.  Side by side it looks like these lovely ladies:

Now I think things could always use chocolate chips, so I would recommend adding a cup of chocolate chips to the chocolate bowl.  You could really put them in either, but the chocolate chips might dim the orange/brown contrast of batters if there's already brown in the orange batter.  I think I might have made that sentence unnecessarily complicated.  I'm going to assume you're smart enough to piece out my meaning.

Now you're going to grease a 9x13 pan and pour half the chocolate batter into the bottom of the pan.  Top it with half the pumpkin batter.  It looks like this:

Spread it evenly across the chocolate bottom, and then put down another chocolate layer and a final pumpkin layer.  Using a knife, swirl it around until you get the marbling effect you wanted:

Sprinkle the pecans on top and bake for about an hour, but check on it at 45 minutes in case your oven is much faster than mine.  When it's done it will look like this:

And it will taste like this:

YUM!!!

Actually, I thought it was just ok but everyone else seemed to love it and it was gone by the end of Saturday afternoon so I guess something went right.  Perhaps it's because I have a different expectation of brownies.  I want them to be moist and not at all spongy, so this was a bit too cake-like for me.  But With my suggested alterations (more sugar, less flour, added chocolate chips) I think it will be a bit more brownie-esque.  But really, I like pleasing others with my food just as much as I like pleasing myself, so in that regard it really was a success.  

In other exciting news, my sister just bought me a new copy of my favorite dessert cookbook (I long ago wore my last copy to pieces) so when I return to DC I will attempt to bake everything from the book I haven't tried before.  There isn't much, but I'm giving it all a shot.  That means you have some donuts and several candies coming at you in the next few weeks.  Get excited!  I certainly am.

I'll Be Back. Schwarzennegar Style

I am still cooking, I promise.  Baking too.  Unfortunately, this week has been rather busy and I've been out to eat for almost every meal.  While this means my belly is very happy, it also means I haven't really had a chance (or need) to bake anything. 

Regardless of how little I may need the actual food product, I can hear my electric beaters calling out to me from inside the cabinet.  The eggs in the refrigerator tempt me every time I go into the kitchen.  They seem to be begging to be cracked and mixed with sugar and butter and cocoa.  But I must resist until Friday when I'm home in Chicago for Thanksgiving.  Then the pumpkin swirl brownies will pour from my fingertips (not literally of course, though that would be a pretty bad ass super power).  I will mix to my heart's content and be, well, content.  Sadly, brownies don't travel well.  And who knows what kind of damage the x-ray scanning machines might have on them.  So I will have to settle with everyone else making the food for Thanksgiving, and me waiting for Friday afternoon to bake for Shabbat.

If I can't scan pictures of those desserts, I promise that next week I will make something incredibly extravagantly beautiful.  It will be worth the long wait, I assure you.

On a completely unrelated and separate note, I would like to take a moment to be thankful for something in particular this Thanksgiving Day.  I would like to be thankful for Herbert Johnson, who in 1908, invented electric beaters. 

While it's possible that I might have far stronger muscles without this invention, it's far more likely that I would just never make anything requiring stiff egg whites.  So next time you eat a meringue, take a moment to silently thank Johnson for his gift to the kitchen without which we might be far less inclined to bake.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving and please keep coming back.  Otherwise I might have to be thankful for the entire pie in my refrigerator.   

An Acceptable Amount of Pumpkin Bread

There are many reasons for this post.  Firstly, a friend gave me some home cooked pumpkin puree, so I had fresh ingredients waiting in my fridge with a real expiration date.  Secondly, this week marks the beginning of the end of the Harry Potter Saga, and I promised my date for the movie that we would have appropriate snack food on hand.  Pumpkin felt witch and wizard food.  Thirdly, I am having a Friday night dessert at my house and needed to make something for it.  Currently I am the only confirmed guest, but I have some cute neighbors so if no one else shows up I'll just bring my bread over and use it to earn a place for me on their couch.  Lastly and most importantly, all pumpkin bread recipes make an obscene amount of bread.  Who needs three loaves of pumpkin bread?  OK, let me rephrase that.  Who has the metabolism that allows for the caloric intake that would inevitably follow the baking of three pumpkin breads?  Not me, that's for sure.

So with all that in mind I went on a hunt for a recipe, made some alterations, and got baking.

Now let me preface this by explaining that a lot of my best equipment is back at home in the kitchen where I learned to cook.  I am rather poor right now what with working for a non-profit and all, so I haven't invested in a flour sifter yet.  Also, being at the lower end of the income scale has quickly made it apparent how expensive unnecessary baking can be.  Organic eggs (the only kind I'm willing to buy, I'm a hippie at heart and I'm not afraid to admit it), pounds of sugar, butter, and chocolate are all expensive.  So I really haven't been baking nearly as much as I have in the past.  Which is just my way of excusing my stupid mistakes which we'll see in just a moment.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned or fresh pumpkin puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/3 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
handful of chopped pecans
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
Start by setting the oven to 350 degrees.  Now the basic easy directions are this: mix together wet ingredients plus sugar.  Add in sifted flour and baking soda, then pecans and chocolate chips, put it in a pan and bake it for about an hour and a half.

This seems simple enough.  But if you know me, and I'm pretty sure I don't have any followers who don't know me personally, you know I have a habit of making mistakes rather easily.  So I started by mixing the sugar and wet ingredients together.  They looked kind of soupy, but that's to be expected.

Then I added in all the rest of the ingredients at once.

This is where it gets complicated.  The reason recipes tell you to mix the dry ingredients together first, and then add in the nuts and chocolate chips, is perhaps because it's much harder to break up clumps of flour when there is a (comparatively) giant pecan bit in the way.  This wouldn't have been an issue at all had I sifted the flour first with a handy (and fun) sifter.  They're really only a few dollars and using it makes you feel professional not to mention it's just fun.  You just turn a crank on the side of a sifter that looks like this:

and it pushes the de-clumped flour right through.  It's awesome.  I did not buy one, did not use one, and ended up with some major clumping.  This means someone will bite into my bread, look at a white spot, and ask if I put white chocolate in the recipe.  Then they'll realize it's flour and leave the rest of the uneaten bread on their plate.  Another reason I hate pre-sifting the flour and baking soda is that it just gives me another bowl to rinse, which I hate.  So this might have failed.  But regardless, this is how it looked after I took it out of the oven:

It did make the whole apartment smell delicious though.  So there's always that positive side of things.
But back to the negative, if you really want to make the bread work right you should dust the chocolate chips in 1 Tb of flour before adding them to the batter or they'll just sink right to the bottom of the mixture and you'll have a layer of chocolate chips on the bottom of the pan.  This is what happened with my bread because I was lazy and threw it all in at once.  And the moral of the story is: don't bake when you're feeling lazy or it won't come out the way you'd like it to. On the bright side, the bread does taste pretty wonderful.

If I get enough people to come Friday night, I'll also make an apple/pecan cake or a chocolate pie, but I'm not counting on it so those recipes may have to wait.

Until then, sift out, eat up, and pumpkin over to a rather tasty bread.

The Peanut Butter Experiment

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

I follow recipes.  I do not make things up when I am baking because so much depends on ratios and if you mess it up a little you might end up with a bad batch of brownies.  And that just seems like a waste of perfectly good ingredients.  So what happened tonight was out of necessity. Kind of.

I got home around 10 and started thinking about the dessert I have to make for a meat meal this Friday night at a friend's place.  She doesn't like for anyone to use margarine (actually, I don't really like using it all that much either) so I wanted a chocolate recipe for brownies that didn't call for butter or margarine.  I couldn't find one I liked online so I modified a cake recipe I've been making for years.  It uses oil instead of margarine or butter, which may not be much better than margarine, but for the moment I'll pretend.

Anyway, I wanted something with peanut butter, so I found some recipes online, mixed them in with the one I already had, and came out with a batch of brownies that (though I have yet to taste them) look pretty killer.

The ingredients are basic enough:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup vegetable oil (or you can do 1/4 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup oil if you want to be healthier about it)
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips

First turn the oven up to 350 degrees.  Then get out your handy dandy mixing bowl.  Technically you're supposed to mix the dry ingredients together and get out all the lumps, then separately mix the wet ingredients, and then pour the dry into the wet.  I know this will make a better, smoother cake but I hate having to wash the extra bowl so I just mix the wet ingredients:

and then add in all the dry ingredients at once.  As you're mixing the flour into the batter, put the peanut butter in the microwave for about 40 seconds until it's kind of soft and gooey.  I just microwave it in the glass measuring cup to save myself more dishes, but you can try microwaving it in the plastic container.  This might give you some disease down the road or just melt the plastic, but it might not.  Wow, this is like choose your own adventure baking!  Anyway, now you can pour half of the melted peanut butter in with the batter and mix it all up.  I guess this isn't necessary, but I figured the more peanut butter in the batter the better.

Now you can get out a round baking dish (or a square one, I won't be shape-ist) and oil/spray/butter it up.  Pour 3/4 of the chocolate batter into the dish, sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, and then dot the top of the batter with the melted peanut butter.  By which I mean take dollops (I really enjoy saying that word) of peanut butter and drop them across the top of the batter.  I got too excited about this to stop and take pictures, which would probably have been helpful for you.  Sucks to be you!  Haha, just kidding.  But back to the recipe...drop dollops (extra points for two usages in one post!) of the chocolate batter on top of the peanut butter and swirl it all around with a kitchen utensil.  I used a spoon.  I'm sure a steak knife or the tip of a ladle would work just as well. 

So anyway, now you put it in the oven and let it bake for 30 minutes.  If you're like me and enjoy the salmonellic thrill of undercooked brownies, take it out when it's still a little gooey in the center and (once it has cooled a bit) place it in the freezer.  It will now be delicious perfection.  Frozen brownie batter is what made Ben and Jerry famous after all.  Well, one of the reasons.

And now you have a great, dairy-free, margarine-free, peanut butter and chocolate dessert that everyone will love.  If they don't love it, they're probably crazy and aren't worthy of conversation anyway.  Not to be judgmental or anything, but I do have standards.

I'll re-post a warning if I bite into this and discover it's all bark and no bite.  I'm not really worried though.

The Angry Apple Bread

Why angry?  Well for starters, any recipe that requires kneading is a good one for those days when you really need to punch something.  I'm sure it's kept me from at least a handful of assault charges.

Secondly, bread recipes tend to make people angry because for some reason the waiting and the rising often lead to less than desirable results.  And thirdly, I always get angry when I realize how much time I have to wait from the time I decide to make the bread to the moment I get to put a piece of the piping hot deliciousness into my mouth.  You will discover fairly quickly that I am not the kind of person who reads ahead, especially in recipes.  So I miss the part about the waiting an hour to let it rise after kneading, and then letting it rise ANOTHER hour after shaping it before you get to bake it for a THIRD hour.  So this is not a recipe for those short on time.  Or those wanting to get to bed early.

Tonight, at about 9 PM, I decided to make apple bread.  After all, it's fall and that is the season of all things coming from orchards.  My cousin/roommate has a minor obsession with apple picking, and there is a giant bag of apples in our refrigerator from her last trip to the orchard.  So with that as an excuse, I decided to make one of my favorite breads.  I actually got the recipe from a neighbor several years ago and I tend to forget about it until fall comes around and then suddenly it's all I want to bake.

The ingredients are fairly simple:
 For the bread-
1 cup warm water 
1/2 cup sugar
1 packet dry yeast

1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
5-6 cups flour

For the filling-
3 cups chopped apples
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tb lemon juice
1 Tb cinnamon

So assuming, unlike me, you've check to make sure you have all of these ingredients before starting to put them altogether, you're good to go.  I can't tell you the number of times I've started to bake something only to realize halfway through I was missing a major ingredient.  Like sugar.  Thank God we had friendly next door neighbors.  It also led to some pretty creative substitutions and some pretty horrible failures, but that's for another post...

Anyway, first you're going to want to get out a big bowl, pour in the packet of yeast, add just a pinch of sugar, and stir in the warm water.  Let it sit for 5 minutes to activate the yeast.  It frightens me that I eat something that needs to be 'activated', but I just pretend it means I'm part robot and that calms be back down.

The lively yeast after its activation

So after you've gone to pee or run out to buy the flour you didn't realize you were missing, come back to the bowl and mix in the oil (or butter if you like it buttery tasting and rich), 2 eggs, the vanilla (no need to be precise when measuring it out), the sugar, the salt (I always measure it because I'm shy when it comes to salt and would likely put in 1/8 of the recommended amount), and the cinnamon.

Now you want to add in the flour.  This is where it gets super fun, and possibly messy.  If you have a cleaning crew, I recommend being as messy as possible because that's half the fun.  If not, you might want to be slightly more careful when it comes to measuring everything into the bowl.  I fall somewhere in between.  So measure in two cups at a time and really mix it together.  By cup 5 you should find yourself having to use your hands to get the flour really well mixed in.  Add in cup 6 slowly and continue to knead the dough until you are no longer angry and/or the dough has reached it's desirable sticky but stretchy consistency.

Now, a very important trick to making any bread is to line the bowl with oil before letting it rise.  This keeps the dough from sticking to the bowl or drying out.  I put about a tablespoon onto the bottom of the bowl, rub it around the sides, and then roll the ball of dough in the oil until it's covered in a nice glistening coat of oil.  Now cover it up with a towel and place it in the oven (make sure the oven is completely off and cool!!!).  You've got some time, so go watch Dexter.  Paint your nails.  Play a game of Monopoly.  Do some laundry.  I find myself checking the dough far to often.  It's more exciting than watching water boil, but not by much.  So find a nice distraction and when you come back, the dough should be doubled in size.

Mix the chopped apples, 1/4 cup sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon together.  Get your dough, cut it into two pieces, and roll each piece out into a rectangle. 

Cover the dough in cinnamon, sprinkle some sugar on top, and then pour the apple mixture onto the dough.  Roll it up like cinnamon rolls or those Little Debbie's chocolate snacks, and wedge it into a bread pan (I actually used a square baking pan). 

My nicely rolled dough

Now let it sit for another 40 minutes to rise some more.  I know, at this point you're a saint if you're still following the directions.  I usually just let it sit for 20 minutes before going onto the next step.  It's better if you wait longer, but I'm an impatient child.



And this is what it looks like:

Aren't you just so proud of yourself?  If you didn't get all the way through, or you just don't like making bread, invite me over and I'll make it for you.  You'll just have to provide me with the ingredients and perhaps some good conversation.  After all, I'll be there for a few hours...

Now go out into the sunlight and preach my gospel of angry bread.

Because everyone likes pictures

I figured I'd post a few pictures of things I've made over the years.  Nothing is too insanely complicated but this will give you an idea of the fun things you can make.  If you want any of the recipes in particular just leave a comment.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Raspberries, and Blueberries

Onion, Tomato, Peppers, Caper, and Olive Pie

Blueberry Pie with Lattice Crust

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Hamantaschen (uncooked)

The Slightly messy peanut butter and jelly hamantaschen, sitting on top of some peanut butter and chocolate hamantaschen

Blueberry and Cherry Cobbler

A creation of mine: chocolate chip cookie/brownie/sugar cookie cupcakes with frosting

You have to start somewhere

After graduating from college I came to the very sad realization I might never write creatively again.  I work at a theatre with a whole crew of intensely creative people, so this seems a strange and sad fact to face.  Though I'm learning quite a lot at my new job, I don't frequently have the opportunity to create something I can hold in my hand and feel proud of.

So in an attempt to bring creativity back into my life, or at least make sure I don't forget completely how to write in full sentences, I am going to post about something I've been doing since I was seven anyway: Baking.

It started with EasyBake and Betty Crocker cake mixes.  I would stand on the kitchen stool and add an egg and some oil carefully measured out, mix it all together, pour it into a baking pan, and save several spoonfuls of batter for the ever-important pre-baked taste-test.  Being small and perhaps somewhat clumsy, I was not allowed to wash the dishes, so I got all the enjoyment out of the baking without any of the drawbacks.  As I got older, my baking endeavors became increasingly complicated, the number of dirty dishes grew, and I suddenly found myself holding the sponge regardless of how many bowls I protested I might drop and brake.

I learned to bake to relieve my stress, and my very small, very competitive, very expensive high school, provided enough stress to fill my kitchen with a constant line of baked goods.  Hardly a week would go by without a batch of cookies, a three layer cake, or a soupy looking attempt at fudge.  After several complaints from my mother about increasingly expensive grocery bills and growing waistlines, I added cooking to my routine.  I started to make dinner for my family most nights, which became more difficult when I took on veganism my senior year of high school.

I gave up the vegan lifestyle after two years, but remain a vegetarian and have an impressive repertoire of delicious meatless entrees.  My desserts tend to get more recognition, but I maintain that is only due to America's incessant sweet tooth, and not my lack of skill in the kitchen.

So here on my blog, I plan to post the recipes and pictures of the desserts and weekly meals I make.  I have a full-time job at a Children's Theatre so I tend to do all my cooking on Sunday night and then portion it out over the next six days.  Baking is a commitment of time and energy in planning and preparing, but I promise to post simple, straightforward directions and pictures so you can impress all your friends with your new found skills in the kitchen.

It's been my experience that the stomach is the best way to the heart of anyone, so on that note, I hope I help you find your way into the hearts of everyone you feed.