The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie?

Okay, before we begin today's post, I have some breaking news: I AM TAKING A MASTER CLASS WITH DORIE GREENSPAN! Yes, you read that correctly. Quake with jealousy.

Turns out that Dorie Greenspan's son went to our high school and graduated two years ahead of Rebecca, and she's doing a free master class for Dalton alumni. Don't know why, don't care why, but when Rebecca called me and told me the exciting news, I signed up immediately! Now I am counting the minutes until 10:00 on November 7th, when I will be meeting our muse/idol/hero/[your creepy noun of choice here.] Sadly, Rebecca won't be there, for obvious reasons, but I will take pictures and get autographs up the wazoo, so never fear.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Our mom is a great lady. She is always there for us. She also works, and has been a great role model on how to balance work and family. (Or as she says: "I love you girls, but if I had had to stay home with you all day, I would have killed myself.") Anyway, I had this big problem with my housing. It's a long, sad story but the crux of it is that Brown University Office of Residential Life can suck it. Mommy was really helpful throughout the whole ordeal and it all worked out in the end (mostly). So in honor of her being the best mother, I thought I should make her the best chocolate chip cookies.

For those of you who somehow missed this - shame on you - the New York Times did a highly scientific search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. They eventually settled on a Jacques Torres recipe. We're lucky enough to have a Jacques Torres location less than half a mile away, but I had never made the recipe because it seemed too fussy, what with its two types of flour, specifically shaped chocolate disks and minimum 24-hour chilling time. In my mind, chocolate chip cookies just should not be that high-maintenance. However, for my mother I was willing to try.

I admit, I didn't follow the recipe completely. I subsituted all-purpose flour for the bread flour and an all-purpose flour/cornstarch mix for the cake flour (my go-to substitution is 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons of flour plus two tablespoons of cornstarch- it seems to work well, something about the gluten blah blah blah). I also just used chopped-up Ghirardelli chocolate instead of the disks. This might have been a mistake, since the chocolate melted sort of strangely and spread out in a way that was somewhat unattractive, though still tasty. Lastly, I only chilled the dough for 21 hours, because I needed to make the cookies before my mother got home. Sue me. However, I do hear that you should chill for 36 hours to get the optimal interplay of flavors that the chilling is supposed to achieve. Maybe next time.

So in sum, I pretty much eliminated or mitigated everything that makes this cookie distinctive/fussy. And was it still the perfect chocolate chip cookie? No, probably not, though it was pretty darn good. The chilling really does bring out certain flavors, like the molasses in the brown sugar, that are otherwise hidden. My tip for you should you attempt the recipe is to space out the cookies widely, because they spread like crazy and bleed together. My question for you is: Do you have any strategies for how to add the salt? Reading about these cookies was the first time I realized the potential of salt in baked goods, but when I just sprinkled it on some of the cookies had way too much salt and some had way too little. Something to think about for next time I decide I want to make 36-hour cookies.

Recipe (from the New York Times Website)

Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
Sea salt.

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.

Note: Disks are sold at Jacques Torres Chocolate; Valrhona fèves, oval-shaped chocolate pieces, are at Whole Foods.

Adventures with the Ice Cream Maker: BEST ICE CREAM EVER!!

So, when I read in David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop that this was his favorite ice cream in the whole book, I could not believe it. What is so great about Malted Milk Ice Cream? But then, I made it (with the third Baking Sister Rachel) and I understood. Oh boy, was this good. Smooth and creamy, with a good malt flavor in the ice cream, plus a crunch from the Whoppers that were folded into it. I can't wait to make this again. It was even good after the freezer accidentally stayed open all day and the ice cream melted and then refroze (yes, that was a bad day). I think that is the test of excellent ice cream -- that you want to eat it even when it is not at its best.

In other news, if there is anyone out there reading our blog, leave us a comment and let us know. We want to know if you are out there and we promise to respond!

And now, without further ado...
The recipe:

David Lebovitz's Malted Milk Ice Cream
Recipe by David Lebovitz

Ingredients
1 cup half-and-half
3/4 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup malt powder
6 large egg yolks
2 cups malted milk balls, coarsely chopped

Warm the half-and-half, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. In a large bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, vanilla, and malt powder and set a mesh strainer on top.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and whisk it into the malted milk mixture. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. As you remove the ice cream from the machine, fold in the chopped malted milk balls.

Not Your Grandmother's Lemon Chiffon Cake...or is it?

Baking coverage of our family reunion continues this evening with this INCREDIBLE lemon chiffon cake. Having decided that I would be making one rich chocolate dessert, I needed to find a light, non-chocolate dessert to complement it. This was easier than it sounds, thanks to the amazing blog 17 and Baking. It is by a girl who is 17, and yes, she bakes. And takes beautiful photographs. She makes me feel very under-accomplished, sort of like Michael Phelps does.

In any case, this ended up being my grandmother's birthday cake- hence, the extraordinarily wit-less title of this post. I really like baking with lemon, but I had recently been burned by a lemon pound cake that went all wrong, so I hadn't used any in over two months. Luckily, this cake was well worth the venture. It was unbelievably light, delicious, and simple to make to boot. I was in the minority, but I liked it even better than the chocolate cake (though they went well together, tanks to the citrus in the chocolate cake.) Plus, it allowed me to zest lemons, one of my favorite activities. I'm definitely going to make it again, and maybe I'll try some of the variations she mentions at the bottom of the page. Here's the recipe; this one is a definite recommend!

Lemon Chiffon Cake
Makes one 7″ cake
From Martha Stewart Living

3/4 cup cake flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar, divided
3 large eggs, separated, room temperature
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp grated lemon zest (about 4 lemons)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 cup sugar. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the three egg yolks, oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, vanilla, and water. Stir in the dry ingredients.

In an electric mixer, beat the three egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat on high until soft peaks form, 1-2 minutes. Gradually add the tablespoon of sugar, beating on high for about 3 minutes until stiff peaks form.

Stir 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the batter, then use a rubber spatula to gently fold the remaining 2/3 into the batter. Pour into an ungreased 7″ tube pan and smooth the top with the spatula. Bake 45 minutes or until a skewer poked into the cake comes out clean and the top is golden.

Cool the cake upside down by inverting the pan onto a bottle. Let cool to room temperature, at least 2 hours, before running a knife between cake and pan and inverting onto a plate. Dust with powdered sugar and serve. You can also split the layers horizontally and fill with lemon curd, or pour a glaze over the cake. It’s also delicious with fresh fruit or ice cream.

Le Fabuleux Glorieux

Oh hai. Remember us? We used to have a blog here. It's been a long time, since I've been on vacation and Rebecca's been...I don't know, petulantly refusing to blog until I do. Whatever. There still has been lots of baking happening, and now you get to read about it.

So the first couple of days of our vacation were devoted to a family reunion. Said reunion was in celebration of both my aunt and uncle's 30th anniversary and my grandmother's birthday. (I could be all coy and say "I won't tell you how old she is," but you're going to find out on the next posting anyway because the number of her age is written out with candles. She's 85.) We went to a yummy restaurant that was BYOB, and, in our case, BYOC. In other words, I was drafted as a cake slave.

As avid readers of the blog know, I loved/was inspired by the movie "Julie and Julia," so I decided to make my first-ever attempt at a Julia Child recipe. I went for "Le Glorieux," a chocolate cake with a hint of orange from pg. 495 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 2. She described it as a "very rich, very light chocolate cake" (whatever that means); the secret is the use of cornstarch instead of flour.

The recipe was long and detailed but not very hard to follow. The only consistent problem I had was with thickness; she writes that certain concoctions, like the melted chocolate-butter-orange mixture, should have the consistency of mayonnaise. No matter how much I stirred it over ice (her suggested remedy for thinness), it didn't have the consistency of mayonnaise. Yet although she insisted that the thickness was vital, it didn't seem detrimental to the cake.

In fact, the cake was a big hit. I iced it with the powdered sugar buttercream frosting from pg. 681 of Volume 1, which was pretty much just butter so I had to add some other stuff. I also had to refrigerate it and it didn't really have time to thaw before I took the icing spatula to it. Although the whole process was a little messy it gave it a kind of neat marble effect in the end. Everyone really liked it, although the orange taste was a little strong for me. I prefer my chocolate to be unadulterated. But I figured out what Julia Child meant by "very rich, very light." The taste was indeed rich, but the texture was not overwhelming and didn't fill you up in that uncomfortable way that rich cakes usually do. It was a fun and successful first Julia Child recipe (though I don't think I'm going to pull a Julie Powell any time soon).

I love Muffins: Corniest Corn Muffins

I love muffins. Especially blueberry. And cranberry. And chocolate chip. And really any flavor. I love corn muffins, but often when you buy a corn muffin, you don't really get a lot of corn flavor and they are too sweet. These corn muffins, from the great Dorie Greenspan are different. They have a lot of corn flavor, thanks to stone ground cornmeal and actual pieces of corn and the texture is excellent. I made them in a muffin tin without wrappers and, with greasing the pan, they came out easily. What can I say other than, fresh corn season is almost over, so make these. I'm sure they would be good with canned corn or frozen corn, but they get a special pop from the fresh kernels (you don't have to cook them first, since they cook in the muffins). Yummy. Extra yummy toasted with a little butter (Dorie recommends honey butter, which I didn't make. I like the salty kick you get from regular butter).

Here is the recipe, from Baking from My Home to Yours:

Corniest Corn Muffins

Yield: 12 regular-sized muffins or 48 miniature ones

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional)
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil (I used olive oil since it was handy)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup corn kernels (add up to 1/3 cup more if you’d like) - fresh, frozen or canned (in which case they should be drained and patted dry)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg, if you’re using it. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, melted butter, oil, egg and yolk together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough - the batter will be lumpy, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the corn kernels. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes (12 minutes for minis), or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

OMGalettes!

PEACHES!

Peaches peaches peaches!

So juicy and delicious! I read somewhere (the New York Times Dining section?) that, while most produce has suffered from this summer's schizoid weather, this is a great year for peaches. So I went out and bought peaches at the Union Square Farmer's Market. Yellow peaches, white peaches- I don't discriminate.

Now, what to do with all these peaches? I was faced with a similar fruity dilemma, thanks to the five containers of blueberries in our fridge after my Farmer's Market binge. (It's just me and my dad in the house now, and much as we love blueberries, it's a little much.) Daddy suggested that I make pie, but since there's only two of us, I thought I should make something a little more manageable. Poof- galettes!

A lot of people don't seem to know what a galette is. It's sort of like a pie or tart, but instead of being made in a dish you just dump the filling onto a circular piece of dough and fold up the edges. The word most frequently used to describe galettes is "rustic." Take that to mean what you will, but I take it to mean that it's okay to be messy. Galettes are also nice because you can make them whatever size you want. I made one little one (which I ate), one medium-sized one (which my dad ate), and one big one (which is sitting in the fridge). It's kind of like Goldilocks, if the papa bear's bowl of porridge was sitting in the fridge.

The recipe was a joint effort between Tartelette and LaDue & Crew. I like Tartelette a lot but usually I'm too intimidated to try her recipes, because they look so elegant as to be inaccessible for a novice baker like me. Still, I had made the galette that I linked to for my college suitemates as a Valentine's Day treat, and they gave the dough rave reviews, so I decided I wanted to try it myself. As for LaDue & Crew, I had never heard of her, but it was the first result that came up when I searched "peach blueberry galette," and it looks like she has some yummy recipes! Yay the Internet!

I have to say, despite what my suitemates said, I wasn't sure the galette dough was worth it. It was pretty good but not amazing, and it's a female dog to make. Both times I just couldn't get it to cohere (even though this time I cheated and used a food processor for the first part). Instead, the middle of the dough was sticky, while along the periphery it was crumbly and crumbs spilled everywhere. In general it's really difficult to work with, so I think that next time I'll try a different dough. Still, the thing I liked most about it was that it wasn't too sweet, so it didn't overpower the natural sugars in the fruit.

The filling was delightful, though I sort of made up the ratios. I didn't want to put in too much fruit because I knew I wasn't making many galettes, but I kept dipping in the bowl to eat the peaches! They were just so good! Anyway, I had a lot of leftover fruit at the end, so I just ate that. Om nom nom. I also added some cinnamon, which I think gave it a nice extra kick.

Overall, these were pretty fun to make, and a great summer treat. I did learn the hard way, however, that if you make your galettes on parchment paper and then set the baking sheet on the stove to cool, you should not turn on an open flame right next to the sheet. I almost burned down our kitchen!

For the Pate Sucree:
2 cups (250gr) all purpose flour
2 tablespoons (25gr) sugar
pinch of salt
1 stick (113gr) butter, cut in small dices
1 egg
2-4 tablespoons cold water

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt and cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two forks until the mixture ressembles forms pea size crumbs. Make a well in the center and add the egg. With a fork, start working the flour in a little at a time and when most of it is incorporated, quickly mix the dough into a coherent and smooth mass, adding some cold water, a tablespoon at a time, if necessary (this varies depending on the humidity or altitude of where you live). Wrap the dough in plastic and let it rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

For the filling:

6 or 7 large peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced

1 c fresh blueberries

1/2 c packed brown sugar

1/8 tsp nutmeg

2 Tbs cornstarch

1 tsp Vanilla

1/8 c slivered almonds

Blogger's note- I added about 1 1/2 tsps of cinnamon

Combine peaches and blueberries in a large bowl. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and nutmeg. Then add cornstarch, and combine well. Pour into bowl with fruit and mix. Add vanilla, and mix. Set aside.

To assemble:
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Roll the dough onto a lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thick and cut three 6-inch rounds in it and place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Fill the center of each round with the filling and crimp the edges towards the center. I don't like to cover the fruit that much with the dough but that is a personal preference. Brush the crust with egg wash and sprinkle with the remaining sugar over the galettes. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. (Blogger's note: I have no idea where she got that number. Both times I made it it was closer to 35 minutes, and it didn't even get very brown in that time.)

Bagels II: Because We Still Don't Live in NYC

So, we still don't leave in New York City, which is, in my opinion, the only place where one can really get good bagels. So, I decided to try again to make bagels that tasted more like the bagels I know and love. Not that my first batch wasn't good (they were), but they lacked some of that classic bagel flavor.

This recipe, which I got on Smitten Kitchen and is from Peter Reinhart, comes much closer to an NYC bagel. Some of the differences are that this bagel is made with a sponge that is allowed to rise and then ingredients are added to it, there is malt syrup in the recipe which gives is a bagel-y flavor, and the bagels are retarded in the fridge overnight. Yes, this is a two day process.

Despite baking soda in the water, my bagels still came out flat. I'm not sure why that is. Any suggestions?

You can find the bagel recipe here. I would say that if you live anywhere near where you can get a good bagel, it might not be worth making your own. Then again, if you live far away from bagels like me, you might seriously consider devoting two days to the bagel-making endeavor.