Hidden treasures.

Even though I really enjoy looking at other people's blogs and seeing their creativity, I am terrible at following them consistently. For that reason, it makes me really appreciate when people leave comments or tell me they love reading my blog--I know that it takes time to do something like that. And it's knowing that people read this that helps keep me going. So for today, I'd like to spotlight one of my readers, who has played a part in helping me keep my endeavor up. I'll refer to her as "Bikegal", the alias she uses in her comments, and I've asked her to be a guest blogger on this site to share a recipe that she discovered recently. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks so much Bikegal--they look yummy!


Cookies are a mystery to me. You can do everything right from the perfect dough to the ideal convection oven, it can still come out flat as a pancake. Just as I had nearly given up my search for the perfect cookie recipe, life presented me with an opportunity to redeem myself; road trip and the Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies! That's right, a road trip means many hours in a car which means a need to snack. The Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies that has gotten lost in my kitchen cabinet has over 475 recipes so the odds are definitely in my favor. I wanted cocoa for its health values and almond butter because I like the taste. BHG didn't let me down and I was able to find this cookie recipe which turned out to be a real jewel!

The original recipe is peanut butter filled chocolate cookie but since I loved almond butter, I simply switched the main ingredient. I was a little nervous how this would alter the consistency and taste but it didn't seem to be an issue.


Almond Butter-Filled Chocolate Cookies
Adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies recipe

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup almond butter
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar (I skipped the sifting)
1/2 cup almond butter

1. In a medium bowl combine flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda; set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter, the 1/2 cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, and the 1/4 cup almond butter with an electric mixer until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour mixture with a wooden spoon. Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls (should have 32) set aside. I ended up with 24 since I made bigger cookies.

2. For almond butter filling, in a medium bowl stir together powdered sugar and the 1/2 cup almond butter until smooth. Shape mixture into 1/4 inch balls. (should have 32). * I didn't bother to shape it into a balls but just generally mixed it together and it was just in a large clump.

3. On a work surface, or in your hands, slightly flatten each chocolate dough ball and top with an almond butter ball. * I just peeled off a small clump from the bigger clump. Roll dough into balls.

4. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

5. Bake in a 350 degree about 8 minutes or until just set and surface is slightly cracked. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool. * In a convection oven, the cookie sheet placed closed to top of oven was done in 8 minutes but sheets on the lower shelf took an extra 5 minutes.

A bite into the almond butter inside the cookie was like finding the hidden treasure that is the ultimate flat proof cookie recipe!

Starstruck.

This past week has been a little bit crazy. There's always work, and I've been trying to train for a 10K which I hope to run the end of next month (operative word being "trying"), and I was getting ready for an Oscar party a good friend was hosting--which turned out so nice and fun! I usually get sucked into the glamor of the Oscars, and the Academy Awards is the one award show I watch every year. One year in high school, I got to work at the Academy Awards bringing people up to the press box in the elevator. I was so thrilled, and I remember seeing Marisa Tomei that year, who had won for best supporting actress for her role in My Cousin Vinnie. She was surrounded by photographers and reporters, looking elated, and I fell in love with her dress (I think it was a Chanel?) and thought she was adorable (she looked great this year too). I've been an Academy Awards devotee ever since.


For the Oscar party, my friend laid out a red carpet with gold balloons in her house, and we invited some ("some" grew to be about 25) good friends, a number of whom have young children now--and for once, this was an event I didn't bake for at all. My friend who hosted the party made a chocolate cake with a frosting reminiscent of thick chocolate milkshake--thinking about it now makes my mouth water. It was all a little chaotic with kids and food everywhere, so I don't think I even really watched much of the Oscars at all. But it was worth missing to catch up with friends, at least as best I could amid the noise--though I was able to catch the last award (and, in my mind, the most important award) for best picture, which went to Slumdog Millionaire (hooray!).

So all that to say...I didn't bake anything new this past week at all. In thinking about what recipe I could possibly share with you for this post, I decided on red velvet cupcakes--which, in the world of cupcakes, deserves its place on the red carpet as far as I'm concerned. (Unfortunately, they don't look as red in the pictures as they did in real life.)

Red Velvet Cupcakes
(I don't remember where I got this recipe from)
Makes about 18 cupcakes

2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch-processed
1 t. salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 t. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
2 T. red liquid food color
1-1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 350F degrees, and line cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt with a wire whisk. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar together until fluffy and light in color. Mix in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla, scraping down the bowl in between eggs. Combine the food color with the buttermilk, then add the buttermilk mixture and flour mixture, alternating between each mixture in 3 turns. Mix in the baking soda and vinegar until combined. Pour the batter into the cupcake wells. Bake on the middle rack for approximately 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, you can use a cream cheese frosting (but without the orange zest; and which I read somewhere is not the traditional frosting even though I've only ever had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting), and garnish with chopped pecans on top.

The sweetest thing.

I admit it, I ripped this post title off of the U2 song. I was listening to my iTunes as I started writing this, and I thought it'd be the perfect title. Valentine's Day is Saturday, and it seems to either evoke disdain or anticipation. I get the sense that it's a little more fashionable to just not care about it. It's a commercial enterprise they say, a way for jewelry stores and restaurants to prey on couples by creating high expectations that need to be fulfilled (usually, it's the women with the high expectations, I would expect--and I can say this, being one myself).

In spite of what people say (and I do agree that Valentine's Day is commercial) I don't mind the concept really--to give a little more love to a special someone, because we probably don't always do it the other 364 days of the year. I think it's rather sweet. And I've always found that it's the little things that count, like washing the dishes left on the kitchen counter or making someone a cup of tea. Maybe Valentine's Day also doesn't have to be about a romantic interest, and maybe it could include anyone we loved--a dear friend, a supportive brother,...an estranged relative? We'd probably do well to give a little more love all around.

I was flipping through Marcy Goldman's A Passion For Baking this past Sunday, looking for something to make for an informal dinner gathering at a friend's house. We were having homemade pizza(!), and what better dessert to go with pizza than some rich, chewy and chocolatey brownies? Marcy Goldman includes a recipe for a fudge brownie mix that can be packaged in a jar as gifts, and I thought that would be so cute (and inexpensive!) to give to friends! Seldom have I met a person who did not at least like chocolate. And isn't chocolate anything the universal gift that says "I love you"?

I thought it would be a good idea to test the "brownie mix in a jar" recipe before I started giving them out, so I made them for the pizza dinner. I sprinkled chocolate chips on top after spreading the batter into the pan, and lightly pressed them down with a spatula. I cut the brownies before they cooled completely, so it was a little sloppy with the melted chocolate chips, but it certainly didn't affect the taste! I had another brownie the day after, and they were even better. I would be more than happy if someone gave me this "brownie mix in a jar"! And after baking them up, I would make sure the person who gave it to me got a corner piece, because that's my favorite.

Fudge Brownies
Adapted from Marcy Goldman's A Passion For Baking
Makes about 24 brownies

Dry ingredients (these can go into into a jar or other air-tight container as a gift*):
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup good-quality unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 t. baking soda
1/8 t. salt
2-1/2 cups sugar

Wet ingredients:
1-1/2 stick of butter (or 3/4 cup), melted
4 large eggs

Optional add-ins:
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup nuts, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Grease a 13"x9" pan.

In a mixing bowl, mix the melted butter with all the dry ingredients, then add eggs and mix until combined. Spread the batter evenly into the pan. Bake on the middle rack for approximately 25 minutes, then allow the pan to cool completely, at least 30 minutes.

*The nuts can be added to the jar, if you're giving it as a gift. Keeping the ingredients in layers makes for a prettier presentation, too. Print out instructions on a card and attach the card to the jar with a ribbon for the perfect gift.

The beginning.

I am probably one of the most unlikely people to ever start a blog. My exposure to posting anything on-line has been limited to writing on someone's wall on Facebook, which I've only recently gotten used to, and rarely do I read other people's blogs. But I've always loved writing, and once contemplated writing a novel, only to find that my lack of creativity was an insurmountable roadblock. But there is one thing I can probably write about: food, mainly baked goods and making them.

My foray into baking as a pastime really began only about two years ago (I'm not counting making cake from a box mix), when a good friend gave me a cookbook--a cupcake cookbook--for my birthday. Most of my time spent in the kitchen had been to fry eggs for dinner (!) or to heat up leftovers in a microwave. I might try making a dish or dessert here and there, but I never fully appreciated the comfort that creating a pastry has to offer. That was until I tried making my first cupcake.


I have to admit, I only first became a fan of cupcakes because, well, they were popular in New York City—and if you know me, I love all things New York. On a trip to New York City, I tried a cupcake from a famous bakery which I will refrain from naming, and was just a little disappointed and disenchanted. They were good but not great. Maybe I had high expectations, and I wanted to love cupcakes. As the cupcake fever finally began hitting the West Coast, some of my friends made them for my birthday--a really nice treat! I thought I'd try my own hand at making them, especially since I now had this cookbook, and following my first attempt, I became a true believer—not in cupcakes alone, but the thought that maybe I could really do this. It was rewarding to be able to create something that others could enjoy, almost therapeutic, and it didn’t hurt that cupcakes were so cute. Ever since, I've been baking (not always cupcakes) for fun and for friends.

As you can tell, I’m hardly a seasoned professional or even an experienced homemaker, but I love to experiment and hope you’ll come with me for the ride as I try out new things.

My first cupcake recipe was the chocolate cupcake from Dede Wilson's A Bakers’ Field Guide to Cupcakes. I made them for an Easter brunch, and they turned out to be such a crowd-pleaser (I was pretty proud of myself, too), I've been asked to make these again for birthdays and showers. I believe what made them so good had much to do with the type of cocoa I used. I bought a canister of Italian cocoa from Williams Sonoma on a whim, and the cupcakes had a very rich, deep, unique—almost sharp, chocolate flavor. Sadly, I think Williams Sonoma no longer carries it (I went there today to check again, but it was nowhere to be found). I have used Droste, which you can find at Whole Foods and some supermarkets—the results were still very good, but just not the same.

Here is my adaptation of the recipe that started it all:

Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes about 18 regular-sized cupcakes

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (butter should be a little cold and slightly firm, but not soft like a spread)
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup good quality Dutch-processed cocoa powder
- 1 t. baking soda
- 1 cup 2% lowfat milk, at room temperature (using lower fat milk—but not nonfat—produces results almost indistinguishable from full-fat milk)

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees, and line cupcake pans with cupcake liners.

1. Mix together the dry ingredients except sugar (i.e. flour, cocoa, baking soda) with a whisk in a bowl.
2. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl using an electric mixer on medium speed for a couple of minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add sugar, and cream the sugar and butter until "fluffy" (the butter should look a little more voluminous). Beating the butter on high may make the butter too soft, which renders it unable to incorporate enough air. I check on readiness based on visual cues, but this step usually takes another few minutes.
3. Beat one egg in at a time on low until just combined, scraping down the bowl after each egg. Add the vanilla extract.
4. Beat in the flour mixture and milk on low, alternating between the flour mixture and milk, but always starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined each time the flour mixture or milk is added and try not to over beat (over beating the batter results in a dense texture), and scrape down the sides along the way.
5. Fill the cupcake pan with the finished batter; each well should be about 3/4 full. (I used to use a regular spoon to do this, but discovered that an ice cream scoop really sped things up.)
6. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for about 20-25 minutes. They're done when the cake has risen into a slight dome, and an inserted toothpick comes out mostly clean with slightly moist crumbs. Remove cupcake pans from the oven to cool on cooling racks. Wait until the cupcakes have cooled a little before taking them out of the pan so you don't burn your fingers (I can be kind of overeager and forget to wait for the cupcakes to cool a little!).

Cupcakes should be frosted after they’ve completely cooled—melted frosting on a cupcake is a little messy and unsightly. My favorite frosting on these is a chocolate ganache, which adds the right amount of richness. I like to keep things simple, so to make the ganache, I use the following:

Chocolate Ganache

- 3/4 of a 12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (Trader Joe's chocolate chips are a great economical option)
- 1/2 cup heavy cream (you can vary this depending on the consistency you desire)

1. Pour chocolate chips into a heatproof bowl.
2. Heat the heavy cream in small pot until boiling.
3. Upon reaching boiling, pour the heavy cream over the chocolate chips and stir until the chocolate is melted.
4. At this point, you can take a cupcake and turn it upside down to dip the top into the ganache. I've also spooned the ganache on to the cupcake and used the back of the spoon to spread the dollop of ganache over the cupcake top. Once the ganache cools, I pipe a little pink-tinted whipped cream on top just for fun.