Ethnic Flavor: Brooke's Mom's Mandelbrot

So, my friend Brooke has received a shout-out on this blog before, because she is the one who got me the great bowls that held the pudding.  However, I thought she deserved a proper posting because she is really an awesome person and a great friend.  And, she brought this mandelbrot into my life (via her mom), so just for that she gets a posting.

For those of you who are wondering what mandelbrot is, it is a lot like Jewish biscotti.  In fact, it might be the same thing.  However, this mandelbrot is not exactly like biscotti.  You see, I never thought I liked mandelbrot.  I don't go for the hard cookies, especially ones with nuts.  Then Brooke let me in on a little secret.  First, you don't have to put the nuts in.  Second, you don't have to bake it a second time.  So I don't, and it is delicious.  I'm not sure it is exactly mandelbrot, but it is delicious nonetheless.

When I moved here to Texas, I bought about 12 bags of parve (non-dairy) chocolate chips from Trader Joe's.  You see, I knew that I would be unable to get parve chips where I live (especially since there is no Trader Joe's -- yes, we are in mourning) so I decided that hoarding them was the answer.  And yes, I took them on the plane from New York to Texas, packed safely in my suitcase.

But back to the mandelbrot.  Usually this is a parve treat, served after Shabbat dinners of chicken or brisket, so you need the parve chips.  I have deemed this dessert good enough to use a bag of my precious chips, and that is really saying something.  I sub soy milk for the milk in the recipe, and they come out great.  You might think it is just a big chocolate chip cookie in a different shape, but once you make it, you'll see that it has a very pleasant crumbly texture, very much unlike a regular cookie.  It also freezes really well, so I will usually just make all three loaves and put one or two in the freezer until I need another parve dessert. 

Many thanks to Brooke and her mom for this recipe.

Brooke's Mom's Mandelbrot

Makes 3 loaves

1 stick margarine

1 cup sugar

3 beaten eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup walnuts (optional)

2 cups chocolate chips

3 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

Less than 1/4 cup milk (or soy milk)

Mix together the margarine and sugar.  Add the eggs, vanilla, nuts and chocolate chips and mix until combined.  Add the flour, one cup at a time, the baking powder and the salt and mix well.  Add the milk and mix until combined.

Take a foil covered baking sheet (I use a silpat, which works great) and make three moundy loaves.  These rise, so don't put them too close together, but you can probably fit them all on one cookie sheet.

Cook until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

If you want to make more traditional mandelbrot, slice them when cool and bake again for about 10 minutes.  If you don't want to bake them again, just slice and serve.

Devious Cornbread

I have written about my suitemates before, not always in the most flattering of terms. ("They are all very thin. They think that cauliflower makes the perfect dessert. They're in Running Club.") But if Jen's recent behavior don't beat all, I don't know what does. She decided to embark on some moronic "challenge" where all she eats are fruits and vegetables. Healthy, except the part where you get no protein, fat or carbohydrates. I was very against this idea, and so I fought against it the only way I knew how – telling her so, loudly and obnoxiously. And baking.

Jen LOVES cornbread. It is her favorite food. And why not? Cornbread is tasty, nutritious (sorta) and easy to make. All you have to do is observe our coffee table, which currently has two bags of cornbread on it; we all know how much Jen loves cornbread, and so whenever the Ivy Room is selling it, we all buy a bag to bring to her. BECAUSE WE CARE ABOUT HER AND WANT HER TO EAT FOOD.

So I devised a devious, devious plan to get her to break her ridiculous diet. I whipped up a batch of cornbread, and when she came in, I was sitting there, smiling and offering her a piece of still-warm cornbread. "I'll eat this later," she said, taking it to her room with her. I wondered if she was going to eat it in secret. I had just found out, to my delight, that our suitemate Emily had failed the "challenge" thanks to my delicious cornbread!

Later that night, I admitted the plan to Jen. "And here I thought you were trying to be nice!" she exclaimed. "And I was trying to spare your feelings by taking the cornbread to my room and saying I would eat it later." Then she and Emily got into an involved discussion over whether or not Jen's saving the cornbread rather than eating it proved that she loved it more or less than Emily. It was involved.

Now Jen's diet is over and the bags of cornbread on our coffee table will soon be gone, but the cornbread recipe lives on! It was so delicious. I worried it would be too sweet, and if you like Southern-style cornbread it probably will be, but for me (and more importantly for Jen) it was just right. It was fluffy, moist and totally low-maintenance; a breeze to put together, and it baked like a dream, perfectly evenly. I may have to make some more, now that Jen is done, to prove that I'm not just a devious witch and what women's magazines would call a "bad friend" for trying to break her diet.


Cornbread Recipe
from AllRecipes

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8 inch square pan.
2. Melt butter in large skillet. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Dorie's Chocolate Pudding: Not Like Jello

So, first let me say that it is really, really hard to photograph chocolate pudding. It just looks kind of...yuck. Even in the cute bowls that my friend Brooke gave me and are really ice cream bowls. If anyone out there has any suggestions for photographing pudding (or food in general), let me know. I am happy for the tips.

However, even if it looks yucky, it tastes YUMMY! Rich but light at the same time. I do think it would have benefited from a dollop of whipped cream, which I will try to remedy the next time I eat it. This was some seriously good pudding. Now, I like Jello pudding as much as the next person, but if you are looking for a real treat, this pudding is it. My pudding was a little more like mousse in texture than pudding, but it was still delicious.

I made some modifications to Dorie's recipe. First, instead of 2 1/4 cups of whole milk, I used one cup of skim and 1 1/4 cups of whole. I don't think it affected the texture or the taste at all. Second, I don't have a food processor for dairy (it is parve, so that I can use it to make things like sauces and such), so I used a blender instead. I wonder if use of the blender contributed to the mousse-like texture, since it may have gotten more air than with a food processor. Third, I didn't put it back in the blender at the end of the recipe -- I just whisked in the butter, melted chocolate and vanilla. I know this is ok, because Dorie herself said so. Oh, and I don't like skin on my pudding, so I made a tight seal with the saran wrap before putting it in the fridge. Finally, I didn't put it in ramekins, but it one big container.

Here is the recipe (from doriegreenspan.com and Baking from My Home to Yours):

CHOCOLATE PUDDING

Makes 6 servings

2 1/4 cups whole milk

6 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and still warm

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Getting Ready: Have six ramekins or pudding cups, each holding 4 to 6 ounces (1/2 to 3/4 cup), at hand.

Bring 2 cups of the milk and 3 tablespoons of the sugar to a boil in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan.

While the milk is heating, put the cocoa, cornstarch and salt into a food processor and whir to blend. Turn them out onto a piece of wax paper, put the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, the egg and egg yolks into the processor and blend for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the remaining 1/4 cup milk and pulse just to mix, then add the dry ingredients and pulse a few times to blend.

With the machine running, very slowly pour in the hot milk mixture. Process for a few seconds, then put everything back into the saucepan. Whisk without stopping over medium heat - making sure to get into the edges of the pan - until the pudding thickens and a couple of bubbles burble up to the surface and pop (about 2 minutes). You want the pudding to thicken, but you don't want it to boil, so lower the heat if necessary.

Scrape the pudding back into the processor (if there's a scorched spot, avoid it as you scrape) and pulse a couple of times. Add the chocolate, butter and vanilla and pulse until everything is evenly blended.

Pour the pudding into ramekins. If you don't want a skin to form (some people think the skin is the best part), press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of each pudding to create an airtight seal. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Experimental Birthday Cake

Rebecca: We must be the only bloggers not posting pumpkin recipes.
Sarah: That's because pumpkin is gross.
Rebecca: True.

So if you were wondering why we weren't posting pumpkin recipes, there's your answer.

And now a story: last November, came time for my friend Melissa's birthday. I gave her the choice of a couple of cakes, and she picked one that had a meringue topping. I was still pretty skittish about meringue at the time, and that combined with my ghetto baking made for kind of a disastrous result - namely, an undercooked cake, topped with meringue...that had a heat coil imprint on it from being too close to the top of the oven. Oy.

So for Melissa's birthday this year, I wanted to make a simple but delicious cake, and thus I tried a little experiment. I didn't have a recipe off the top of my head, and so I just looked up "birthday cake recipe" on Google and picked the first result. (Okay, not the first - the first was from AllRecipes, which is wonderful but I worried would be too hit-or-miss for someone else's birthday cake, and the second was from Wilton, so I picked the third result.) It came from Smitten Kitchen, and the author claimed that it was, in fact, the BEST birthday cake. So that was a pretty tall order to live up to.

One thing that I really liked about this cake was how tall it grew in the oven. This is great if you are trying to make a layer cake, which I was! Unfortunately, I am a layer-making moron, so despite the obliging height of the cake, I still only ended up with three layers, and one was cracked. C'est la vie. The actual taste was not quite what I look for in a yellow cake - it was a little too heavy and dry. Then again, I'm probably too used to the Duncan Hines stuff, and who knows what sort of crap they put in their mix to make it taste like that. All in all, I would say it was pretty good.

The frosting was even better. It was easy to make, easy to spread and pretty-looking. I made a crumb coat but I didn't actually need to; the frosting spread evenly and beautifully. Plus, it tasted really good. My suitemates and I were eating it out of the bowl, and one of them commented that it tastes like ganache (only it doesn't have all that heavy cream!)

I thought the cake looked a little boring, so I added some powdered sugar around the edges. Classay. I don't really know what it tasted like altogether, since I gave it to Melissa, but I did get to try the frosting with pieces of the layer that had fallen apart, and I was quite pleased with the result. Definitely better than last year's birthday cake!

Yellow Cake Recipe

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

Frosting Recipe

15 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 teaspoons instant espresso (optional, but can be used to pick up the flavor of average chocolate)
2 1/4 cups sour cream, at room temperature
1/4 to 1/2 cup light corn syrup
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the chocolate and espresso powder, if using, in the top of a double-boiler or in a heatproof bowl over simmering water. Stir until the chocolate is melted. (Alternately, you can melt the chocolate in a microwave for 30 seconds, stirring well, and then heating in 15 second increments, stirring between each, until the chocolate is melted.) Remove from heat and let chocolate cool until tepid.

Whisk together the sour cream, 1/4 cup of the corn syrup and vanilla extract until combined. Add the tepid chocolate slowly and stir quickly until the mixture is uniform. Taste for sweetness, and if needed, add additional corn syrup in one tablespoon increments until desired level of sweetness is achieved.

Let cool in the refrigerator until the frosting is a spreadable consistency. This should not take more than 30 minutes. Should the frosting become too thick or stiff, just leave it out until it softens again.

Easy Yummy Chocolate Cookies

One of my favorite blogs is the King Arthur Flour Blog. They make lots of things that sound really good and they have amazing step by step pictures of all their recipes, so you know if you are doing something wrong. They also often highlight new products, many of which I want, but haven't yet given in to buying.

When I saw these cookies on the blog, I knew I had to make them immediately. They looked sooo good. However, since my husband doesn't like chocolate, I needed an excuse. My community is donating baked goods to families of hospice patients and I am sure that they will love these cookies.

The dough of these cookies was really stiff and they didn't spread very much in the oven. When I opened the oven after 10 minutes, I was sure the cookies weren't done, but I took them out anyway, and they actually were. They are really soft when they come out, and they get firmer as they cool. They were really good, although I think I should have used fewer chocolate chips -- it seemed like there were too many for the dough. When I make them again, I will use 3/4 of a cup of each kind of chip. I also want to try these with white chocolate chips, but I didn't have any. I also didn't have espresso powder, so I used instant coffee and it came out well. It really boosted the flavor, and it did not taste like coffee at all.

You can find this delicious recipe here and don't forget to check out the blog post about the cookies (where you can find the amazing pictures).

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: Ben & Jerry's Got There First

Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream by Ben & Jerrys has always been one of my favorite ice cream flavors. You see, I am not a big fan of stuff in my ice cream, since I don't generally like to bite on hard chunks while eating it (exceptions were made for this ice cream, since it is just too good), so Chocolate Fudge Brownie is perfect because it has the brownies in it, but they are soft.

I decided to make my own, since it is still very warm here (80 degrees in November -- WHAT?!?!). I used Philadelphia Style chocolate ice cream (no eggs, no custard to make, which saves time) from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Then I made a box of Ghirardelli brownie mix and allowed it to cool. Yes, I could have made them from scratch, but I had the mix, so it was just easier. When the brownies were cool, I cut it into small squares (really, really small) and also crumbled some up and I put it into the ice cream in the last minute of churnning. In retrospect, I think I put the brownies in a bit too early, because many of them turned into crumbs, instead of staying in chunks, but it was still delicious. The brownies were still soft even when the ice cream was frozen, and the whole thing had an intense chocolate flavor that was almost over the top (but not quite).

Here is the ice cream recipe:

Chocolate Ice Cream (Philadelphia Style)

2 ¼ cups heavy cream

6 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk together the cream, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it comes to a full, rolling boil (it will start to foam up). Remove from the heat and whisk un the chocolate until it’s completely melted, then whisk in the milk and vanilla. Pour the mixture into a blender and blend for 30 seconds, until very smooth.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Baking with Dorie!

So, as those of you who read this blog — hell, as those of you who have come within hearing range of me in the last month — know, I was signed up to take a master class with Dorie Greenspan at Dalton. This was pretty much the most exciting thing to happen to me, ever. Dorie is the hero of the Baking Sisters! She even has her own tag on our blog!

The inimitable Dorie Greenspan, as photographed by a highly imitable photographer (me, not that you would really want to imitate my carefully studied "blurry" technique)

In the newly renovated Dalton cafeteria, I was paired with a lovely woman named Linda, who is incidentally a Brown alum. I think that I was the more experienced baker, which made me relieved — I had thought that everyone was going to be an expert! But we made a good team.

We baked the French Yogurt Cake from page 224 of Baking from My Home to Yours. We were quite spoiled; the ingredients were all measured out for us, and the lemons were all pre-zested. Actually, to be honest, zesting is one of my favorite things to do, but luckily I was not deprived of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE step — namely, rubbing the zest and sugar! According to Linda, who studied science, we were "infusing" the sugar with the citrus' oils. Hmmm, I will take it from her.

The cake was simple but yum. When I went home, I made a regular lemon pound cake glaze for it (just lemon juice and confectioner's sugar), even though she suggests a marmalade glaze. We didn't have an marmalade, but I thought it tasted good anyway. I prefer a prominent lemon flavor, and I think the glaze added to it. The cake seems very versatile; you could have it for breakfast, brunch, dessert, whatever, you can top it with all sorts of glazes, you can serve it with fruit. It's a good recipe to have around.

Our cakes before they went into the oven

My cake after it came out of the oven

Dorie also made Tarte Noir. There was neither time nor equipment for the whole class to make it, but that's okay with me since I've made it about a million times. Everyone seemed really impressed that making something so elegant-looking and delicious could be so easy.

I learned a lot of things at the class. Here are some of them:

1) All this time, I had been folding incorrectly. I always thought folding just meant gently scooping the batter up with a spatula and then sort of dragging it through. Turns out you are supposed to turn the bowl a quarter of the way each time, and scrape the batter from the sides.

2) If you are making pie dough in a mixer (as opposed to a food processor), you should add the ingredients in opposite order. This is especially useful advice for me, since I currently don't have a food processor in my possession at school, though I'll probably get one for next year.

Dorie telling us about a chef who makes cookies with one hand literally behind his back. She used this anecdote as an illustration of the importance of adding ingredients in the right order. Also, to demonstrate the inferiority of American butter. Long story.

3) To make pie dough come together, blend it with the heel of your hand. This is some technique that has a French name, but don't ask me what it is because I wasn't taking notes.

4) To make dull ganache shiny again, use a hairdryer! Dorie had made miniature tarte noirs (tartes noir?) for the whole class, and they were DELICIOUS, but when they came out of the fridge the ganache was dull. So...


And voila! Shiny and ready for whipped cream!


This was such a wonderful experience for me. I wish that Rebecca could have been there to share it with me, but I know she was there in spirit! Dorie Greenspan is such a warm, friendly and genuine person. She didn't even seem put off by all my geeky fan-girling, and patiently signed my cookbook as well as labels for Rebecca and my friend Allison to paste into their copies. Plus, best of all, she has been to this blog! So, Dorie, if you are reading this now, it was wonderful to meet you! Thank you for many delicious memories!

Me with Dorie- eyes open

Me with Dorie- eyes closed

French Yogurt Cake Recipe

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup ground almonds (or, if you'd prefer, omit the almonds and use another 1/2 cup all-purpose flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup flavorless oil, such canola or safflower

For the Glaze:
1/2 cup lemon marmalade, strained
1 teaspoon water

Getting Ready:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter an 8 1/2-x-4 1/2-inch loaf pan and place the pan on a baking sheet.

Whisk together the flour, ground almonds, if you're using them, baking powder and salt.

Put the sugar and zest in a medium bowl and, with your fingertips, rub the zest into the sugar until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Add the yogurt, eggs and vanilla and whisking vigorously until the mixture is very well blended. Still whisking, add the dry ingredients, then switch to a large rubber spatula and fold in the oil. You'll have a thick, smooth batter with a slight sheen. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top.

Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until the cake begins to come away from the sides of the pan; it should be golden brown and a thin knife inserted into the center will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes, then run a blunt knife between the cake and the sides of the pan. Unmold, and cool to room temperature right side up on the rack.

To Make the Glaze:
Put the marmalade in a small saucepan or in a microwave-safe bowl, stir in the teaspoon of the water and heat until the jelly is hot and liquefied. Using a pastry brush, gently brush the cake with the glaze.