The Lazy Pie

This is a pie I could drown my sorrows in.  Seriously.  Nothing that  falls into the depths of this baby is coming out for air and I mean it. 

I had a bad day last week and I decided the answer was pie.  Clearly I've been busy because I haven't updated my blog since February.  Which doesn't mean I haven't been baking, I've just been too tired to take pictures of my food as I make it which leads to me not blogging about it.

Anyway, I had a bad day and came home to discover I had lots of leftover berries in my refrigerator and freezer so I decided the answer was to make pie.  I also had a pre-made crust so that helped.

Anyway, I started by pulling the basic ingredients you need for a pie.

Ingredients:
10-12 oz Any kind of berry (frozen or fresh.  If using frozen try to thaw it out first and drain the liquid before starting the recipe)
6 Tb Butter (I like salted but unsalted works fine)
3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Brown sugar
1 Tb Lemon juice
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cup Flour
1 frozen Pie crust thawed

Then I added some fun things:
2/3 cup Chocolate chips
1/3 cup Chopped walnuts
3 Tsp Cinnamon

And then I made up a recipe.  It mostly worked, though in the future i would recommend letting the berries completely thaw and draining them of most liquid.  I was in too much of a hurry to get to pie heaven to take this step, which led to a much juicier pie than I intended.  But still good.

Anyway, here's what I did:

1. Mixed the berries in a bowl with 1/2 cup sugar, lemon juice, 3/4 cup flour, and cinnamon.  You can probably use just 1/2 cup flour but I had a lot of liquid from the melting berries that I wanted the flour to absorb.

2. Sprinkled chocolate chips and chopped walnuts onto the defrosted pie crust (I cooked it for about 10 minutes in the oven at 350 first to get it a little firm).

3. Poured the berry mixture on top of the chocolate chips and walnuts.

4. In the same bowl that I mixed the berries (because we know how I feel about washing dishes unnecessarily, and also because I thought the berry juice would add flavor to the crumb topping) I combined the butter with brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, 3/4 flour, and cinnamon.  I mixed it all together with a fork until it made a nice crumbly topping

5. Sprinkled the crumb topping over the berries and baked in the oven at 350 F for about 40 minutes.

6. Let the pie cool.  It's insanely tasty warm, but it is unbelievably wonderfully amazing cold.  The chocolate hardens and makes a nice layer on the bottom that mixes so nicely with berries.  Like I said, this is a pie you can drown in.

So pick up your fork and dig in!

Maple Sweetness

This dessert was so good I made it twice in two days.  Literally.

Of course I got it out of my Toll House cookbook, because that thing is the most amazing gift to bakers and stomachs everywhere.  Yum.  I wanted a dessert that was more exciting than plain chocolate, but I didn't want to avoid the ingredient altogether.  This was a perfect marriage of flavors.  To begin with you will need:

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter softened
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup maple syrup (or in my case, 1/2 cup 'light' maple flavored syrup.  Because it 's cheaper and has 1/3 the calories)
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

I can't quite take credit for using maple flavored syrup.  The recipe in my cookbook actually calls for maple flavored syrup, not real maple syrup.  Perhaps the authors knew that no average American is going to shell out $35 for maple syrup and then pour half a cup of it in brownies.  It would probably make it taste that much better, but I was just fine with the flavored syrup.  After all, I am rather poor these days.

Directions:
Anyway, the first thing you do (after preheating the oven to 350 of course) is beat the butter in a bowl and slowly add in the sugar until it gets nice and creamy:

Now beat in the egg slowly until it's well mixed.  Slowly use the beaters to add in the maple syrup and vanilla:

Now mix in the flour and baking powder:

Beat well. 

Chop up your walnuts and try not to cut yourself like I did (don't worry, I didn't bleed into the batter or anything):

Mix 1 cup of chocolate chips and 3/4 of the walnuts into the batter and spread into a 9x9 inch square baking pan.  Frequently I read recipes that say spread batter evenly, which I don't understand.  Who would choose NOT to spread evenly?  Who would say, "You know, I think I'll spread this batter completely unevenly so it under-cooks on one side and overcooks on the other?"  So I'm not going to tell you to spread evenly.  I'm going to assume you have the wherewithal to know you should do that on your own.  And then I'm going to talk about it for an entire paragraph.

Now bake until a toothpick (or fork tip) comes out clean.  This should be about 25 minutes, though it depends how hot your oven gets.  I think it took about 30 for me, but recipes tend to make you under cook things so you don't blame them when your food burns.  You can blame me if it burns.  I can handle it.  Just don't try to feed me your burnt food.

Anyway, once it's out of the oven, spread the second cup of chocolate chips on top and let it sit for a minute or two until they're nice and shiny.  This means they're melty and you can spread them (*evenly*) over the top of the cake so you have a nice chocolate layer on top of the bars.  Now sprinkle the rest of your walnut pieces onto the melted chocolate and let it cool.  At this point it's totally edible, but you're supposed to let things cool first so you don't burn your tongue.  Silly, I know.  But theoretically practical.

Doesn't it just make your mouth water?  I had to leave it at my sister's apartment because she invited me over for dinner, so I went home and made it again so I could have leftovers to eat over the course of the week.  I'm pretty sure it was gone in four days anyway.  So. Good.

Honey, you're sweet!

 I think by boss is pretty awesome, and she was having a rough week.  Then I realized it was her birthday, and from experience I know that crappy birthdays suck.  Probably I don't need the experience to know that, but I have it.  And I wanted to do my best to prevent a sucky birthday.  My best being baked goods.  I decided to make brownies and decorate her desk as a surprise.  Of course I was the one who received the shock upon discovering that I had only one egg in the house.  How this happened is beyond me.  But it did.  I also did not have any of my usual egg substitutes (applesauce, tofu, flax seed, etc.).  I searched for an eggless brownie, but I didn't really like anything I found.  In the end I came up with a recipe I liked and found the whole ordeal to be a great learning experience.

First lesson: always keep more than one egg in the house.  Especially if you like to bake.
Lesson two: Two tablespoons of water and one teaspoon of oil and two teaspoons of baking powder can be substituted for an egg.  Who knew?
Lesson three: Honey is a great addition to frosting.

Let's start with the ingredients:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

Frosting:
3 Tb butter
3 Tb cocoa powder
1 Tb honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup confectioners sugar

I listed all the ingredients you SHOULD have.  Not what I actually had.  As I explained, I had to substitute an egg.  But first, of course, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  Next, I poured the water into a small glass, added the oil, and then mixed in the baking powder.  It did a cool science-class-esque fizzing, and then mixed into a rather nice and gooey liquid:

Next, I melted 1/2 cup butter in a microwave safe bowl.  It's always better to melt butter on the stove top because the mixture is smoother, but I hate extra messes.  So I melted it in the bowl, and then mixed in the sugar, egg, egg substitute, and vanilla until well blended.  If you have two eggs, obviously I recommend you use both of them.  If you're allergic to eggs, this might be a great new lesson for you too.  I didn't try substituting both eggs though, so I can't make any promises that it will work perfectly.  Might be worth a shot though.

Next I measured in the cocoa, the flour, the salt, and the baking powder (I didn't include the baking powder or oil used in my egg substitute in the list of ingredients, so either way you should now add 1/4 tsp baking powder to your batter).

Spread batter into an 8x8 inch greased baking pan and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes. 

Don't over cook, especially if you like super gooey brownies.

 When I got to the frosting, I realized that I didn't have any more cocoa powder.  This was clearly not my day for baking.  But I had a birthday to celebrate and no time for the store.  I just decided to melt some chocolate I had on hand instead.  I melted about 3 tablespoons of chocolate chips over the stove and then removed the chocolate from the heat.  I dropped in the butter:

and then added the honey and vanilla.  Using beaters I mixed t together until well combined and then slowly added confectioners sugar until I got a consistency I liked:

I know that using chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder meant the frosting might be too sweet, but it didn't really bother me.  And in a pinch, it got me what I wanted (i.e. a chocolate frosting)  The original recipe recommends you frost while the brownies are still warm.  I tried this and it didn't entirely work.  I recommend waiting for at least an hour before frosting the brownies.  Then let the frosting set for a bit before serving.  I brought them to work the next day and they were gone by noon.  Most importantly, my boss went home happy.  And as far as I'm concerned, that's what spells success.

Bubble Biscuits? Yes Please!

Several weeks ago my sister asked me about an old Toll House Recipe I used to make called Bubble Biscuits.  I had no idea what she was talking about, but my other sister came the rescue and we found the recipe in my trusty Toll House cookbook.  It's the perfect dessert for your friends with ridiculous allergies because it doesn't use eggs and has just a bit of milk so you can easily make it non-dairy using soy milk or any other milk substitute.  Also, it's delicious.  So that's always a positive.

 To start with you'll need your basic baking supplies.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar, divided
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup butter or margarine
1 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cup milk or soy milk
1 tsp cinnamon

Obviously start by preheating the oven to 375 degrees.

You'll want your butter to be as cold as possible.  Like making a good crust, cold butter leads to a flakier dough, which we like.  So cut up 1/3 cup of the butter and place it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so (assuming you have that added patience and time).  Meanwhile mix the flour, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Cut the frozen butter into the flour mixture:

When you're done it should have a crumbly consistency and look like this:

I got really excited by the next few steps and forgot to take pictures so you'll just have to take a guess of what it looks like.  I'm sure you'll be fine.  Anyway, stir in the chocolate chips and then add milk stirring until the dough holds shape.  Add more flour or milk if necessary to get the right consistency, but at the end it should look like this:

Now take the dough and roll it into 16-18 equal size balls and leave them in the bowl.  Next, you're going to melt the rest of the butter (remaining 1/3 cup) over the stove.

In another bowl (I know, I know, this is yet another recipe with endless bowls) mix the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon.  Pour half the melted butter in the bottom of a 9x9 inch square baking pan and sprinkle half the cinnamon/sugar mixture over the butter in the pan.  Now place the balls of dough in 4x4 rows in the butter in the pan and pour the remaining butter over the balls.  Finally sprinkle the rest of the sugar on the very top.  The balls won't be touching in the pan, but they spread out a lot while baking so don't worry.

Bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown on top and then let cool for a few minutes before eating.  I say let cool because all recipes recommend that so you won't burn your tongue.  But I actually kind of love eating things right out of the oven.  So, on second thought, don't let it cool.  Just don't blame me if it hurts your mouth.

And look, it's just like the picture!

Now go eat and be happy.

Is there a Dr. in the House?

Like I said, this post will be worth your time.  If this is the only post on my blog you ever read, I will be ok with that.  I almost don't want to try to post after this because I just don't know if I can top it in terms of flavor.  That didn't stop me from baking brownies tonight out of sheer boredom, but I didn't even bother taking pictures because it was boring in comparison.  I mean, just look at the ingredients I used for this recipe:

For those of you attempting to repeat this glorious mess at home, the ingredients are:
Cake:
2 cups of sifted flour
2 cups of sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk (surprisingly, despite the name, buttermilk isn't too bad for you)
1 Tb vanilla
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 1/2 cups marshmallows
1 cup Dr. Pepper (I was worried about using diet, but it worked, so feel free to cut the calories in that area)
3 Tb. unsweetened cocoa powder

Frosting:
1 lb bag of confectioners sugar
6 Tb. Dr. Pepper
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3 Tb. unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:
Now mind you, I was making this for a potluck, and we all know the deal about potlucks.  Everyone brings the one thing they're really good at making.  So everything is awesome.  And if you bring something crappy it stands out.  Plus you end up taking it home at the end of the night and what's more embarrassing than having to eat leftover crappy cake alone at home?  Perhaps wetting yourself in public, but I'd say that's about it.

So anyway, I found this recipe book online.  And I know that it's a book of traditionally southern African American desserts.  But I found it somehow calling out to me.  Maybe it's the deep fried chicken and kale I was deprived of as a kid, but something in this recipe book called out to me.  So I asked for it as a Hannukah gift and decided to make this recipe the second I saw it.  Dr. Pepper, marshmallows AND chocolate?  There really was no higher priority in my life than immediately getting all necessary ingredients.

After the trek to Whole Foods for kosher marshmallows (which have fish gelatin in them, and I don't usually eat fish, but this was an exception I felt somehow I had to make) I started the complicated journey on the path to perfection.  Otherwise known as making a cake.  Obviously the first thing I did was preheat the oven to 350, though the cake takes a while to put together so if you wait 15 minutes before preheating the oven you'll probably still be fine.

Next you have to melt the butter, marshmallows, cocoa powder, and Dr. Pepper in a saucepan on the oven until it's nice and smooth.  It might get a little frothy for a while but eventually it should have a nice consistent texture:

While it's melting, and assuming you can still pay close enough attention to it that nothing will burn, go ahead and mix together the flour, sugar, and baking soda:

Now slowly pour the melted and smooth marshmallow mixture into the flour mixture and mix it well:

You can beat it a little, but don't get carried away.  It will fall easily off the spoon:

Meanwhile you can beat the eggs in a third bowl until they're nice and fluffy.  I know, lots of bowls in this recipe and lots of clean up.  But I swear it's worth every dish.  Now add in the buttermilk and vanilla and beat for another 30 seconds or so:

Add the egg mixture to the batter and mix until well blended and the batter is smooth.  Pour into a 9x13 inch pan (spray first with butter spray or some equivalent) and bake for 50-55 minutes or until it looks done.  Let cool for at least 10 minutes before frosting, though with this recipe the cake doesn't need to be completely cooled before frosted.  Another reason I love it.  Also just to warn you, when I took the cake out of the oven I was not impressed.  It looked like there were lots of little air bubbles and the cake didn't seem very thick or moist.  Then I frosted it and ate it and realized I could not have been more wrong.  It was perfect.  So please take a moment before judging your naked baked cake.  Give it a chance to impress your tastebuds.  You might be pleasantly surprised.

For the frosting, you're basically going to repeat the first step but with confectioners (aka powdered) sugar.  Melt the butter, cocoa powder, and Dr. Pepper in a saucepan.  I used the same one as before and didn't even bother washing it out because it was mostly the same ingredients.  Once you have a nice smooth consistency, take it off the heat and slowly stir in the whole bag of powdered sugar.  It's a lot of sugar, it's very sweet, and like I said before, it's totally worth it.  Once it's all mixed in you'll still have a pretty drippy looking frosting.  Let it sit for about 10 to 15 minutes, and then pour it over the slightly warm cake.  Then let it sit for at least an hour, preferably two, before serving.  I dusted it with more powdered sugar to make it pretty:

And then bask in the glow of compliments you will undoubtedly receive for this piece of perfection.  You'll never look at Dr. Pepper the same way again.  I certainly won't.

Maybe you'll even get enough compliments that you can convince someone to wash your dishes for you...

A Veritable Cornocopia

Holiday season is upon us, and after a weekend of gorging myself on Thanksgiving treats, it was somewhat depressing to return to DC and discover that the leftovers had not magically returned along with me.  Of course the obvious solution to this problem was to create my own leftovers.  And an early Hannukah offered the perfect excuse.  Additionally, while I would be quite content to nourish myself entirely on cakes and pies, I could hear the Jewish mother in my head reminding me that vegetables are an important food group.  So I dragged myself to the grocery store and spent an embarrassing amount of money on butter, eggs, chocolate, vegetables, cheese and the like.  Then I set to work in the kitchen.

There's really nothing I like more than to spend my day off in my running clothes, covered in flour and cocoa and baking something sweet for people I love.  Occasionally the thought crosses my head that this might be a fun way to spend my life, but then I wouldn't have anything to do with my free time.  Also I like to take my time when I bake, and I'm pretty sure professional bakers are constantly rushing.  And they get up at 4 AM to make bread which does not sound even slightly appealing.

Anyway, I am going to break this post up into several installments only so it's easier to follow the recipes.  I got occasionally distracted while baking so a few recipes have less pictures of the process, but I am confident that should you try to recreate any of these you will do just fine.  Worst case scenario you have a bowl of sugary butter, and there's nothing wrong with that.  Nothing wrong at all.

On my menu for the week was a quinoa-cauliflower-feta invention and a spinach and mushroom lasagna.  I forgot that cheese is surprisingly expensive and that managed to bring me back quite a pretty penny.  But the results were oh-so worth it.  Assuming you're not lactose intolerant.  But if you are you probably have no reason to continue reading my blog other than my occasionally witty remark.  Because I love butter.  And cheese.  A lot.  Perhaps one of the reasons veganism didn't quite work out for me.

But back to the recipes (how did I manage to write so many paragraphs without even hinting at my dessert?!).  Also on the menu were two desserts from my favorite cookbook in the entire world.  It is the Toll House dessert cookbook and I may or may not be obsessed with it. I picked out the Toll House Cake (a white cake with chocolate chips and milk chocolate frosting) and an Apple Pie.  If your mouth isn't watering yet you should check your taste buds to make sure they're still working.  Seriously.

I'll start with the cake recipe and put the rest of them up over the next two days.  Get psyched!

Tollhouse Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
Cake:

2 cups flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup butter/margarine softened
2  tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips (or one chocolate bar chopped into small to medium chunks)


Frosting:
1 cup butter softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350.  But when you're baking, that's almost always a given.

You start by doing the traditional cake thing.  Beat the margarine for about 30 seconds, then gradually add in the two sugars until you get a nice creamy consistency.  It takes about 3 or 4 minutes which always seems like an eternity to me, but it's worth it if you want a good batter.  Then slowly add in the eggs one at a time making sure the beat well after each one.  Your batter should look something like this:

I saw the Cadbury chocolate bar and decided to use it instead of chocolate chips just to mix it up a bit.  I chopped it up and then had a hard time resisting the urge to eat it all before adding it to the batter.

Now, after making sure your flour isn't clumpy, and ideally after mixing it in a separate bowl with the baking powder and salt (though we all know by now I pretty much never do this) you can slowly beat it into the sugar/butter mixture.  I also added a few dashes of cinnamon, because I can really never get enough of that spice.  After that, you can slowly mix in the chocolate chips with a spoon.  Resist the urge to eat all the batter immediately.  And if you're really smart you'll dust the chocolate chips in flour first so they don't all sink to the bottom of the batter as soon as it goes in the oven.  As you can see, I did not do this:

But it turned out okay in the end anyway, so no worries.  I slid it in a small loaf pan:

And baked it for about an hour and a half.  This is because I accidentally preheated my oven to 250 degrees instead of 350 and realized this 30 minutes after I put the cake in the oven.  So I just upped the temperature and periodically checked on the cake until it was thoroughly baked.  Theoretically if you bake it at the correct temperature it should only take 45 minutes to bake.  But you're welcome to try it my way.  I took it out and sliced off the lump on top to make frosting easier.  Cakes ALWAYS have a little lump towards the center, if they don't they have definitely been trimmed before frosting.  It looked so good inside!

While your cake is cooling you can melt a little over a cup of chocolate chips on the stove for the frosting.  You could theoretically do it in the microwave, but chocolate melts better over a low flame, and when you're using it in a frosting consistency is very important.

Now beat the cup of softened butter and slowly add in the confectioner's sugar and vanilla.  Feel free to add more confectioner's sugar if the consistency isn't right, but make sure to beat it for at least 3 minutes after all the sugar is in before adding more.  Once you have a nice frosting-like consistency add in the melted chocolate and beat until you have a nice chocolate colored frosting.

Now, once the cake is cooled remove it from the pan and slice it into four equal layers cutting the long way across.  I like to cut it in half using a bread knife, and then cut each half in half.  This makes for the most even layers, but you're welcome to eyeball it starting from the bottom.

Place the bottom layer on a plate and put a large dollop of frosting down and spread it evenly:

Add a layer and frost continuing until you've done all four.  Then use the remaining frosting on the top and sides.  This recipe doesn't make a ton of frosting so either be conservative in your frosting of the layers, or double the recipe for the frosting.

I added some festive chocolate chips on top.  Unnecessary, and I didn't have enough space to make a proper chanukiya, but still pretty.

And when your guests finally finally FINALLY arrive, you can cut it open and it looks like this:

 

Tada!  Delicious cake magic.  And it only took me 50 million paragraphs to report.

Now go eat and be merry.