Banana Muffins With Stuff

Lots of stuff.
Ingredients

• 2 very ripe bananas
• 1/2c oil
• 1c white flour
• 1tsp salt
• 3/4tsp baking soda
• 1/2tsp baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 2/3c brown sugar
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ~1/2c chocolate chips
• ~1/2c raisins
• ~1/4c sunflower seeds
• ~1/3c chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375. Then basically mix everything except the various "add-ins". Then add in the chocolate chips, raisins, sunflower seeds, and walnuts. We actually soaked the raisins in some boiling water for ~5 minutes then drained them before adding them. You can add just about anything to these - we just added what stuff we had on hand.

Distribute to 12 muffin cups. Bake 20 minutes.

Thoughts: These were awesome. I wouldn't change anything.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Coconut Milk Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 1.5 cans of coconut milk (about 1.5 to 2c)
• 1/4 c semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 1/2 c sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Pour a small amount of coconut milk (about 1/2c) into a pot. Add the chocolate chips, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix another 1/4c of coconut milk with the cornstarch. Set the pot with the chocolate on the stove on medium heat until the chocolate chips have melted and the mixture is starting to boil a little. Remove it from the heat and stir in the cornstarch mixture, then return to the heat and bring to a boil. After about 10-30 seconds of boiling, remove the whole thing from the heat and add the vanilla extract and all the remaining coconut milk.

Let the mixture cool in the freezer for about 20 minutes, then churn in an ice cream maker once you think it's cool enough.

Thoughts: 20 minutes in the freezer is not enough to cool the mixture down initially, so when we churned this, it didn't freeze. So I removed everything from the ice cream maker, put it in the refrigerator again, reset the process, and waiting 8 hours to re-churn it. Second time's a charm. The flavor is really nice and chocolatey, but the coconut flavor started to come through the second day. I would count this among the most successful ice creams we've ever made. I wonder if coconut milk wouldn't be a good base for other flavors.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Mole Negro

This was also invented by me based on some recipes online. This was my most successful mole negro to date, so I will blog it. As I see it, the ratios of this recipe depend a lot on what you're looking for in a mole. The important thing to take away is the method.

Ingredients

• 3-6 dried Mexican chiles of various sorts. We went with some smokier varieties.
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp raisins (ish)
• Pinch of clove
• 2 pinches of allspice
• 1/4tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp adobo
• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• 1/4c (or so) bittersweet chocolate
• 2 tbsp almond butter (or I guess peanut butter if you can't it? I don't know - might consider just using almonds)
• water

To a sauce pan, add the onion and saute with some neutral oil. When it gets translucent, add the chiles, garlic, clove, allspice, cinnamon, and adobo and toast for a while. Then add about 1c water (enough to cover) along with the raisins and bring to a boil for a few minutes. Remove from the heat and blend in a blender until pretty damn smooth - about a minute on high. Pour this back into the pan and add the chocolate, stirring until it's melted. Then add the almond butter and do the same. Taste it and adjust seasonings as necessary. Now return it to heat and bring it to a boil. The almond butter should cause it to thicken considerably. Thin to desired consistency and salt to taste.

Thoughts: This was our first really successful mole, and I think that the differences were boiling the mixture and blending it in an actual blender, not using a stick blender. Those things are fine, but they won't get the texture REALLY smooth like a stand blender will. I feel like when I made this, I may have added more than 1/4c chocolate. You can also add cocoa powder or more chips if you don't get enough chocolate flavor, but the chocolate shouldn't overpower everything. We served this on fish tacos. Then on shrimp tacos. Then on enchiladas. I don't think we've used it all yet, but it's good.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Our best chocolate chip cookie recipe to date, I believe? I think that when we make Wookie Cookies next, it may behoove us to take some lessons from this recipe. Based on Alton Brown's recipe.

Ingredients

• 4oz unsalted butter
• 6oz unbleached AP flour
• .5 tsp salt (to taste - we used .75ish)
• .5 tsp baking soda
• 4oz dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• .75 tsp vanilla extract
• 6oz (1c) chocolate chips (we used bittersweet).

Melt the butter. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda in a bowl. In an electric mixer (with paddle attachment), add the butter and sugar and beat for about 2 minutes. Then add the egg and vanilla and continue to beat until you're satisfied, I guess. Add the flour mixture and mix until thoroughly combined. Then toss in the chips and beat until they're well-mixed-in.

Toss the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 375. When they come out, scoop on to parchment-lined cookie sheets (probably just one sheet if you make a single batch). Scoop into 1.5" balls or so and space them out as evenly as you can. Bake for 15 minutes, depending on your elevation. Take them out when they're JUST turning a pale golden. You don't want them to get crisp, after all.

Thoughts: We've made several versions of chocolate chip cookies before, but these came out very well. They were chewy and cakey and soft. AB uses bread flour, and we didn't have any when we made these, so maybe that's why they came out more cake-y. Next time we will try with bread flour, I think.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Decadent (?) Chocolate Puffy Things

Thanks to Emily and Mom for pointing this recipe out. They both made basically the same thing at the same time without having communicated about it. We were inspired, and we wound up with something about half-way in between their versions. I'm not thrilled with the name, but it's better than the recipe we got it from. Maybe appropriate because we've been eating 2-5 cookies per day since we made them. Anyway, I'm just recording it here to note the minor changes we made so we can do it again the same way next time.

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick (4tbsp) butter
• 4.5 oz bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1.5 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1/4 c unbleached AP flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 5/8 c sugar (1/2c + 2tbsp)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 c (12 oz) bittersweet chocolate chips

Basically you make this like any other cookies:

Preheat oven to 350. Whip the eggs in a stand-mixer, add the sugar and beat. In a separate pan (or to be honest, probably in the microwave) mix the butter, 4.5oz chips, and 1.5oz unsweetened chocolate and melt, stirring often. We used a double-boiler - probably better than straight on the heat source. When that's melted and cooled, add to the egg/sugar mixture. Add the salt and vanilla. Then add the flour and baking powder. When that's smooth, add the 2 c chocolate chips. Pop the whole thing in the freezer for 20 minutes to stiffen. Then, using a 2" ice cream scoop, spoon the batter onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake for 17-20 minutes, rotating half-way through. Take them out as soon as they're JUST getting done so they don't over-cook. Makes about 2 dozen.

Thoughts: I'm glad we halved this recipe. At the same time, this is awesome. These cookies are pretty amazing. Far and away the best chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies I've ever made. They have the advantage of being not too dry and incredibly powerfully chocolate-y. These are a winner. I think the ONE tough part about the recipe is taking the cookies out early enough. We could possibly have gone 16:00 or 16:30 instead of 17:00 (what we did) and it would have been perfect. But we're at a high altitude, so thinks dry out more quickly.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Mousse Redux

Passover but sick of flourless chocolate cake? How about a layered chocolate and strawberry mousse instead? That was the plan. Instead of use our typical chocolate mousse recipe, we thought we'd go with a classic: Julia Child (by way of David Lebovitz). Then strawberry mousse.

Chocolate Mousse

• 6oz good chocolate chips
• 4 eggs, separated
• 2/3c sugar
• 6oz butter
• 1tsp instant espresso powder and 1/4c water (or 1/4c strong coffee)
• 2tbsp water
• pinch of salt
• 1/2tsp vanilla

This is a little complicated. Plan out your choice of bowls ahead of time. So, in one bowl, combine the chocolate chips, butter, and espresso. Melt over a double-boiler until, well, melted. Remove from heat. In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks, sugar, and 2tbsp water. Prepare a cold water bath. Whip the egg mixture together over a double boiler for 3 minutes, then remove and whip in the cold water bath until thick (it gets very thick). In a THIRD bowl, whip the egg whites and a pinch of salt until firm, then add the sugar and continue to beat until shiny and stiff. Add the vanilla and incorporate.

Now assemble: mix the chocolate and egg yolks together until completely mixed. Fold in 1/3 of the egg white, then the remaining egg white. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate. After 2 hours, top this with a layer of sliced strawberries.

Strawberry Mousse

• 1lb strawberries
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/2c sugar
• 1/4c water
• 4 egg whites
• pinch of salt
• 1tbsp sugar
• 1/2c heavy whipping cream

In a saucepan, cook down the strawberries, lemon juice, sugar, and water until the strawberries are pretty decomposed. I even mashed them with a potato masher, actually. Then blend them (we used a stick blender) and let cool. When it's pretty cool (doesn't have to be COMPLETELY cool, but cool enough to touch), whip the egg whites with the salt and sugar, following the same process as outlined above. Then whip the whipping cream into stiff peaks in a separate bowl. Combine the strawberries and whipped cream, then the egg whites (1/3 first then the remainder). Pour over the now stiffened chocolate mousse. After 2 hours, top with another layer of sliced strawberries.

You could go on all day doing this, but we didn't. Serve (with a spoon? I guess?) and top with whipped cream.

Thoughts: This recipe is a little complicated, for either part. If you clean as you go and you plan out your bowls and utensils, you can get away without making a huge mess. If you don't plan ahead, you're going to have a bad time. But then, we had a bad time anyway. By the time we served this, it had completely deflated. It was like soup. Claire suggested maybe it was because we let it get warm and then cold again, which messed up the structural integrity, but I think we've had better success before. Anyway, total disaster. It was embarrassing because we had to serve it to everyone. Ugh. But then when we got home, we salvaged it by churning it into some extremely respectable ice cream.

Disaster Index: 6/10, but only because the flavor was good and it became good ice cream.

Soft Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

We never got around to making hamentaschen this year, and I felt wrong not having cookies. So I made some peanut butter cookies. I wanted a "chewy" recipe, so I wound up making my own version based on this and this. I did something in the middle. I baked six and froze the rest in individual portions.

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 1 c smooth peanut butter
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 egg
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 c flour
• about 8oz chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Using a stand mixer, cream together the butter, peanut butter, the sugars, and the salt until you get sick of it. Beat in the vanilla, milk, and the egg. Then beat in the soda, powder, and flour, slowly at first so you don't cover the kitchen in those ingredients. Then just add the chocolate chips. Portion out 2tbsp of dough per cookie onto a baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Don't overbake - they don't look done when they come out, but carryover cooking will do the rest while they cool. I guess if you want to eat them hot out of the oven you should bake at least 12 minutes, because if you bake these for just 10 minutes, you won't even be able to pick them up because they'll fall apart completely.

Thoughts: This wasn't EXACTLY what I was looking for, but maybe it's even better. In the future, I would experiment with not using butter and not using as much flour, I guess. These were pretty greasy. But I'd still give it 1/10 because they were excellent. Claire liked them, too, I think.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies

When we made this, we added the sugar too early, and it took FOREVER to whip the egg whites. The instructions include the CORRECT method.

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites (which is a scant 1/2 cup) (Claire hates it when I call it albumin, but really it's hilarious)
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/4tsp cream of tartar
• 2tsp vanilla
• 1c superfine sugar
• 12oz good chocolate chips
• 1/2c nuts optional (we didn't use 'em)

Preheat the oven to 200*, if you think that kind of thing is important.

In a bowl, combine the egg whites, salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla, and beat until it forms soft peaks. Then add the sugar and beat until it forms stiff peaks. Our problem was that we misinterpreted what "soft peaks" means, so we under-whipped before we added the sugar.

Anyway, roughly chop the chocolate chips (and nuts, if using), and fold those in.

Spoon the "batter" onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet (about 1 to 1.5tbsp per cookie) and bake (yes, at 200*) for about 2 hours, until "lightly golden".

Thoughts: For me, the flavor of these cookies was fantastic, and the texture was amazing. If you cook them at 300 for 25 minutes, they're supposed to be crispy and hollow, but I wanted them to be more ethereal. Though it does make one wonder - could I bake them hollow and then pipe something into them? Maybe worth investigating. I would use a bit less sugar next time - maybe as little as half a cup? Otherwise, I think this was very successful. Claire thinks they're weird. SHE'S THE WEIRD ONE.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Pumpkin Soup with Mole Sauce

This was kind of made up, but it worked.

Ingredients

• Soup
• 1 small pumpkin, peeled, insides scooped, chopped
• 1 apple, peeled and chopped
• 4c chicken stock
• pepper
• a couple of small, hot peppers, chopped
• Mole Sauce 
• pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin
• one onion, chopped
• garlic
• about 1tbsp dutch processed cocoa
• 1/4c raisins
• 1/4tsp cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cayenne, ancho chili powder, oregano, anise seed
• 2 dried chilies, seeds included
• 1-2 tomatoes (in our case, actually, about 3tbsp tomato paste)
• 1c chicken stock
• salt to taste
• water as necessary
• Some honey (optional - I like my mole a little sweeter)
• olive oil

First, scoop the seeds out of the pumpkin. Peel and chop the pumpkin. Toss with olive oil and some pepper and roast for about 30 minutes at 350, until soft.

Meanwhile, toast the pumpkin seeds in a pan with some olive oil until lightly toasted. Add onions and saute until translucent. Throw in the garlic and cook until fragrant. Put the onion, garlic, and pumpkin seeds in a blender with all the other ingredients, and blend until mostly smooth. At this point, I put the sauce on the stove and boiled for 15 minutes or so with some extra water, but I don't know if this is necessary? Anyway, press through a sieve into a bowl. Season to taste. DONE WITH MOLE.

The soup is so easy, it hardly counts as cooking. Add the pumpkin, apples, stock, and peppers to a pot. Cook until the apples are soft (about 20 minutes?) and blend (we used an immersion blender). Season to taste.

Serve soup with mole drizzled on top.

Thoughts: The soup was easy, but the mole took a while. Next time I would use almonds instead of pumpkin seeds, since I failed to hull the pumpkin seeds, I guess, and they were very tough. Anyway, the flavor combination worked, which I think we were all a little surprised about, since this was completely made up. But awesome! Claire says "interesting texture on the soup" - it's true, it was pretty thick, but velvety.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Waldorf Astoria Hundred-dollar Chocolate Cake

We found this in Dan's family cookbook (it's his mother's recipe)and made it for his birthday. Totally awesome y'all.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
  
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 cup mayonnaise
  
• 2 tsp vanilla.

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together all the dry ingredients. Add the wet ingredients. Make sure the cocoa chunks are mostly dissolved. We used a square Pyrex baking dish (8x8).
Bake for 45 minutes (original recipe says 35 but it took us way longer -- maybe our oven runs cold?).
Top with buttercream-cheese frosting.

Thoughts: This is super easy. It literally could not be easier. And it's really moist (maybe it's the mayonnaise?). I don't usually like chocolate cake because it gets so dry, but this one did not. On the other hand, it was sort of crumbly. But who cares?

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate banana icebox cake

Ingredients

• 15 oz chocolate chips -- we did a mixture of milk and semi-sweet
• 5 large egg yolks
• salt
• 3 cups heavy whipping cream
• graham crackers -- just buy a box of them. We used the cinnamon ones.
  
• 4-5 ripe bananas, sliced in half widthwise, then sliced lengthwise a few times
• whipped cream, for garnish

Place chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl.
Place egg yolks and pinch of salt in another heatproof bowl.
Bring the cream to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Temper the yolks, then slowly incorporate, whisking constantly. You will probably scramble the eggs a little. Don't worry about it.
Return mixture to saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon (about 8 minutes). Do not let mixture come to a boil.
Strain mixture through a fine sieve to remove the bits of egg that you scrambled.
Stir mixture into chocolate until the chocolate fully melts, incorporates, and is smooth.
Refrigerate, stirring occasionally to break up the skin, until the chocolate is thick (about 4 hours -- our fridge is much colder than normal fridges, so we did it for maybe 2. Just do it until it's pretty stiff).
Line a 5x10 loaf pan with plastic wrap. Use about twice as much as you need, since you'll be covering the top of the loaf pan with it when you're done.
Spread 1 cup chocolate evenly into bottom of loaf pan. Top with a layer of graham crackers. You may have to break some of them to fit.
Spread 1/2 cup chocolate over the crackers, and top that layer with bananas. Get as many banana slices as you can onto each layer.
Spread another 1/2 cup chocolate over bananas, and top with more graham crackers.
Repeat this step until you get toward the top. The final layer should be a layer of graham crackers. This will be the bottom crust, since you'll be inverting it to serve.
Cover the top with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
To serve, uncover and turn out onto serving platter. The crackers will have softened to cake-like consistency from the chocolate. It will be delicious.
Serve with whipped cream, if y'all want.

Thoughts: We were not at all sure that this would work out, but it totally did and it was totally awesome. The original recipe called for all milk chocolate, which didn't sit right with us (what is the point of milk chocolate anyway) so we mixed in some semi-sweet, but in the future I think we would just use 100% semi-sweet. The chocolate flavor was not as pronounced as we would have liked. We also would have added more banana. The recipe calls for 4-5 bananas, but we could only fit 3. We probably didn't space them efficiently enough. But we will next time. This was totally delicious. And hella easy. And seriously, who wants to actually bake when it's so hot out? Not us.

Disaster Index:1/10

Waffle Cookies

A SERVICEABLE RECIPE.


Ingredients

• 3/4 stick of butter, softened
  
• 1/8c oil
  
• 1/2c brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1tsp vanilla extract
  
• 3/4c flour
  
• 1.5c rolled oats
  
• 1/2tsp baking soda
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 1c dark chocolate chips
  
• 1/2tsp cinnamon
  

In a bowl, whip together the butter, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Heat a waffle iron and cook big spoonfuls of the batter according to the normal waffle iron procedures.

Thoughts: this idea is almost as cool as it sounds. And it nearly works. But there need to be some modifications. For starters, I would add baking powder. The soda just creates a basic environment so you get browning, but I wanted a little lift. Second of all, I would soak the oats for at least an hour beforehand in milk. I thought the cookies turned out pretty dry, and that's a danger if you're basically creating MORE surface area. I think the oats should help retain moisture, but they need to have moisture to begin with. Flavor was good, though I had to adjust the salt up from 1/4tsp... .75tsp may be an understatement as compared with what I eventually used. Finally, I would probably use whole wheat flour, but that's just me. In general, though, the recipe needs more moisture somewhere. The trick is to sneak it in without ruining the consistency of the dough.

Disaster Index: 3/10, but I'd definitely try it again.

Olive Oil Granola

Best granola recipe yet. This is super addictive. This is my own take on the olive oil granola recipe from the NY Times that's been circulating on the food blogs. I didn't have all the ingredients for that one, so I kind of improvised. I think my flavor combinations are probably better, though. YOU HEARD ME NEW YORK TIMES. Okay.

Ingredients

• 3c rolled oats
  
• 1c quick oats
  
• 1/4c wheat germ
  
• 1tsp salt
  
• ~1/2c packed brown sugar, plus or minus (see thoughts section)
  
• ~1/4c chocolate chips
  
• 1/2c olive oil
  
• .75tsp cinnamon, maybe more
  
• .5tsp cardamom
  
• 1 egg white, whipped until foamy
  

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix together all the dry ingredients until well mixed. Add the olive oil and stir around until coated, then whip the egg white and stir that in until well mixed. Spread the granola over a 9x13 pan with steep sides (like a brownie pan). I had a layer of waxed paper on the bottom of my pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 300, stir lightly, turning over the top layer, and then bake for another 25 minutes. Take the granola out of the oven and let it cool overnight. Don't touch it! This is how you get the clusters. The next morning, you can (carefully) break it apart and put it in the fridge.

Thoughts: This is REALLY good. Olive oil + chocolate = awesome. Trust me on this. But what's more, it's hard to eat more than like 1/3c at a go. For some reason this is really unusually filling. Here are some things I might do differently next time:

1. Salt: wheat germ is just naturally a little salty and olive oil is a little savory. This granola turned out a little on the salty side. Which was OK, but it meant I had to add a little more sugar to compensate. Next time, maybe 1/2 the added salt. Or no added salt.
   
2. Egg Whites: while I got SOME of the granola clusters I was looking for, the effect wasn't quite as pronounced as I'd have liked. In the future, I'll use more than one egg white.
   

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Mousse

My mother makes it better than we do. We're working on it.

Ingredients

• 8oz (1 and 1/3c) chocolate chips
  
• 1 stick butter
  
• 8 eggs, separated (do them one at a time and add to separate bowls)
  
• 1/4tsp cream of tartar (tartaric acid powder)
  
• pinch of salt
  
• vanilla extract
  
• up to 1tbsp instant espresso
  

This recipe is influenced heavily by the order and timing of the things you do. In one bowl, beat together the egg yolks with the vanilla extract. In another bowl, add the cream of tartar to the egg whites, along with a pinch of salt. With a CLEAN whisk (if you're feeling really pumped) or an electric egg beater that you registered for but haven't gotten married yet so you still need to use a whisk... um... whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. Now, melt the chocolate chips with the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan until JUST melted, stirring constantly, and take off the heat as soon as it's done. Add the instant espresso. Then add to the egg yolks slowly, whisking constantly. The danger is NOT that you'll cook the egg yolks - the danger is that the chocolate seizes. When whisked together, add 1/3 of the egg whites and fold together. Now add the remaining egg whites and fold everything together. Pour into a trifle pan or individual serving glasses (like you might for pots de creme?). Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours. *If the chocolate seizes, you need to break it apart. You put it in a cuisinart and blend the hell out of it until it's completely smooth. With luck, you can hide the problem pretty well.

Thoughts: This turned out GREAT for passover desert. Claire thought the texture was unusual, but she was incorrect. My feeling about it was that the flavor was fantastic, but next time I will try to get the yolks to cook a little bit more to thicken the mousse a little more so the ultimate product is a LITTLE firmer. Another possibility would be to use 1/2 the butter. Anyway, this was great. For a first time, especially, this was fantastic.

Disaster Index: 1/10

EMERGENCY Chocolate Cake

In WWII when some foods were rationed, people replaced eggs and butter with mayonnaise, which was readily available. When you try this recipe, you will see that they were right to do so.


Ingredients

• 1.5c white flour
  
• 1c sugar
  
• 1/2tsp baking soda
  
• 1/4tsp salt
  
• 1/2c dutch process cocoa
  
• 1/3c bittersweet chocolate chips (Ghirardelli)
  
• 1c espresso or 1c boiling water with instant coffee powder
  
• 2/3c mayonnaise (we used reduced-fat)
  
• 1 egg
  
• capful of vanilla
  

Preheat oven to 350. In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the cocoa and chocolate chips and pour in the (hot) espresso. Stir until smooth, then add the mayo, egg, and vanilla. Whisk together until smooth, then add to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Pour into a well-greased 8-9" spring-form pan. Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out MOSTLY clean with just a little bit of cake sticking to it.

Thoughts: This cake was delicious. Didn't even have a hint of the mayonnaise vinegar flavor. Rather, it was an incredibly moist, incredibly rich cake. And it was really easy and had cheap ingredients. I would definitely make this again. I made it for an olympics watching party and cut out rings of paper which I put on top, then I put powdered sugar on it and removed the rings (so you can see the olympic rings on top). Unfortunately, the cake was just TOO moist, and the powdered sugar got absorbed into the cake. I know, I have way too much time on my hands.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Blondies

Ingredients

• 2 sticks of butter
• 2c flour
• 2tsp baking powder
• .75tsp salt
• 2c dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten with
• 2tsp vanilla extract
• ~1c dark chocolate chips

In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs and vanilla. In a sauce pan over medium heat, melt the butter. After it melts, keep it on the heat. It will froth up a lot, then the froth will subside and it will start to darken. As soon as it starts to darken, take the butter off the heat and add the brown sugar. Stir vigorously. Add about a tablespoon of water and stir well. Let the mixture sit a little bit to cool (or stir it to cool it faster). Then temper the eggs and stir them in. Whisk together until pretty smooth. Then pour in the dry ingredients and fold together. It will form a very sticky batter. Pour into a 9x13 baking pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Thoughts: 2c is WAY more sugar than it needed, I believe. The batter was REALLY overpowering. But when they baked, the sweetness was quite diminished to tolerable levels. Don't get me wrong - they taste GREAT - but I still think I would use about 1/2 as much sugar next time. Otherwise, the flavor is fantastic, and the texture is great.

Update: I made this with 1.25 sticks of butter, 1c sugar, and 1tsp salt. The flavor is phenomenal, but the texture is a little more cake-y? Maybe this is what the butter was for? Unclear. Hm.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Wookie Cookies

Here they finally are, by popular request:

Ingredients

• 2 and 1/4 cup white flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.
Put flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium-sized bowl and whisk together until fully incorporated. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the soft butter, brown, and white sugars together until completely blended. I used to do this in the blender, but the mixture gets too runny and the cookies come out flat if you do this. If you use a fork or whisk, the batter stays stiffer, which makes for better cookies. Make sure your butter is soft. If it isn't, you'll be really frustrated.
Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
Add the flour mixture and mix completely. Add the 2 cups of chocolate chips and stir in.
If it looks like the batter is too runny (it shouldn't be, but if it is), you can go ahead and refrigerate it for an hour or two.
Drop the dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or a greased cookie sheet).
Bake for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown.
Eat them. Makes about 3 dozen.

Thoughts: These are awesome. There's nothing else to say about them. Try them. You'll like them.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Cowboy Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter, softened
  
• 1/2c vegetable oil
  
• 1c granulated sugar
  
• 1c dark brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1tsp vanilla extract (or 1/2tsp of double strength)
  
• 2c whole wheat flour
  
• 1tsp baking soda
  
• 3/4tsp salt
  
• 1/2tsp baking powder
  
• 2c rolled oats
  
• 1/2c golden raisins, plumped in some boiling water for 5 minutes and drained.
  
• 1c chocolate chips
  
• 3/4c coconut
  
• 3/4tsp cinnamon
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, oil, and sugars. Add the eggs and vanilla and continue beating until well mixed. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well. Add a few tbsp of water if necessary.

Spoon onto a cookie sheet in approximately 1.5 tbsp portions. Bake until done - in our oven about 20 minutes.

Thoughts: Delicious. This recipe was based on one we found on food network, but we modified it slightly to fit what we had/needed to use up and what we wanted. It worked wonderfully, although the bake time is quite long. If you take them out at the right time, though, they're perfectly chewy, not dry at all. Nice texture, too. Not much to say except that they're really great. Wouldn't do a thing differently next time.

Disaster index: 1/10

Brioche

Yes.

Ingredients

• 2tbsp honey
  
• 2.25tsp yeast
  
• 1c whole milk
  
• 4tbsp olive oil
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2tsp salt
  
• about 4.5c flour, plus or minus.
  
• 2tbsp lavender
  
• Chocolate chips
  
• Glaze:
  
  
  
  • 1 egg yolk
    
  • 1tbsp milk
    
  • 1tbsp sugar
    
  
  

Mix together the dough ingredients (including the lavender) but exclude the chocolate chips. When it's starting to come together, turn it out onto a WELL floured counter and knead for about 5 minutes. Put it back into a bowl and toss together with some olive oil. Cover and set in a warm, humid place to rise (a microwave with a cup of boiling water makes a great rising chamber). Rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Take out the dough and punch down. Divide into twelfths (I cut it in half twice to get fourths, and then divided each of those fourths in three to get twelfths). For each ball of dough, press your thumbs into one side and pull taught the other side (so you get a nice rounded surface), folding the edges into the center. Once one side is nice and taught, take a few chocolate chips (8-12) and put them together on the non-taught side. Pull the dough from the edges of the disc and pinch over the chocolate. The idea is basically to have a nice round ball enclosing a pouch of chocolate chips. The bottom of the dough (the non-taught side) doesn't need to look pretty.

Do this with each ball of dough and set on a baking sheet. Cover with a towel to rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 while you wait. Also, mix together all the glaze ingredients.

When the final rise is done, brush each bun with the glaze. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nice and golden brown on top.

Thoughts: Claire was unsure about the olive oil, but I really liked the interesting flavor it imparted. Maybe - MAYBE next time we'll use a neutral oil. The chocolate we used was Guittard, and it was pretty great. Very vanilla-y, which complemented the aromatic qualities of the lavender and olive oil. The original recipe used only 1tsp of yeast and had an initial rise of 12-20 hours. I'll be honest - I think I like my way better. Anyway, these were JUST delicious. They don't require anything else. Just eat them plain. As a note: the recipe says to reheat them you should bake them at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Sounds kind of excessive to me, but we might find out.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Ganache Filled Chocolate Truffles

Amazing - makes about 4 large truffles. They could use to be smaller, though... I can see this recipe making 7-8 normal sized chocolates.

Ingredients

• ~6oz (1c) chocolate
  
• 3tbsp half-and-half
  
• skim milk as needed
  

Reserving a tablespoon of chocolate chips, melt the remainder in the microwave using 30 second bursts and stirring well between each iteration. Once they're FAIRLY melted, just stir them and let the residual heat melt them the rest of the way - don't overcook. Divide the chocolate into two equal portions in different bowls. Heat the half-and-half in the microwave until it's just warm to the touch. Add it to one of the bowls and stir well. It should look a little watery for a second and then thicken into a ganache. Using a DIFFERENT spoon, stir the reserved tablespoon of chocolate chips into the OTHER bowl. This is your tempered chocolate shell. It doesn't matter if it doesn't all melt, but try to get most of the chips dissolved.

Depending on the thickness of the ganache, you can now use a melon baller or small ice-cream scoop to scoop out little blobs of chocolate onto a piece of waxed paper. If the ganache is too liquidy, chill it in the fridge until it gets a little more solid. (If you do chill it, make sure to come by and stir it every five to ten minutes so that it doesn't cool unevenly). Place the blobs of chocolate in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Check on the tempered chocolate, making sure it stays melty. Alton Brown recommends putting the bowl on top of a heating pad turned to low. Just make sure not to let it get too hot.

Now take the blobs out of the freezer. You kind of have to move quickly - take a toothpick and dunk each one in the melted tempered chocolate, then put the truffle on a sheet of waxed paper. Twist the toothpick to get it out of the chocolate, and then you can add a little dab of extra chocolate to cover up any hole it leaves. Do this for each of them. Let them cool for 10 minutes or so on the counter, and then put them in the fridge until they set completely. Then you can take them out and they won't melt all over.

Thoughts: This was a test of a basic truffle recipe. I sort of made up the process, but combined it with some knowledge about the science of tempering chocolate. These turned out GREAT. In the future, it would be easy to add flavors to the chocolates. When you heat the half-and-half, just steep some lavender in it for a while, then filter out the lavender. Or try earl grey. Or orange extract. I'm also thinking that I might sprinkle some sea salt on top of the truffles. Make sure that you make them smallish - mine were fairly large, and they're a little much for one person. You kind of have to split them in half and share.

Disaster Index: 1/10