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

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

Cinnamon Rolls

It's shameful that I have not blogged this yet, since I've been making variations on it for years. We made these again today, and Claire remembered not liking the recipe. I told her she was creating false memories, and what she didn't like was our variations (particularly when we tried to add raisins). Turns out: I was right. Still an awesome recipe. It's basically from this recipe, though we have our own version of frosting and some minor edits.

Ingredients

• Rolls
• 4.5c all purpose unbleached flour
• 1/2c granulated sugar
• 2.25tsp yeast
• 4tbsp butter (half a stick), melted
• 1c milk, warmed in the microwave
• 1tsp salt (we didn't add this the last go-round, and it wasn't as good as it could be. Next time I think we'll do this, though).
• Filling
• 4tbsp butter (the other half of that stick), melted
• 3/4c (packed) brown sugar
• 2tbsp cinnamon
• Frosting
• 4tbsp butter
• 4oz cream cheese
• 1.33c powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Make the rolls. Basically, combine all the ingredients and knead into a dough. Turn out onto a floured counter and knead until smooth. Return to the (now liberally greased) bowl and cover to rise for two hours. THE FULL two hours. Don't skimp.

Now make the filling. Melt the butter. Mix in the other things. DONE.

After two hours have elapsed, take the dough out of the bowl and put on the counter. DON'T PUNCH IT DOWN. Just roll the dough out into a huge rectangle, like 18" wide and maybe 14" deep? As big as you can manage, keeping the dough about 1cm thick. Spread the filling across the whole dough using a spatula. Or your hands, or whatever. Now starting at the wide end, roll the dough up. Cut into 12 pieces (cut into fourths, then each fourth into thirds). Stand these up in a 9x13 casserole pan.

Now preheat the oven to 400 and cover the cinnamon rolls (loosely) to rise for another 30 minutes. When they've risen and the oven has preheated, bake for 15-20 minutes. We did exactly 15 this last time, and they were a LITTLE doughy, but who's complaining? Next time, 18-20, though.

While those go, you can make the frosting. Bring the butter and cream cheese to room temperature. Using an electric mixer of some kind, cream together the butter and cream cheese, then add the powdered sugar by 1/3 cups until you've got it all mixed. Then add the vanilla.

We recommend not frosting the cinnamon rolls until you're ready to eat them. Although this recipe has a lot of steps, it's actually not harder than making a loaf of bread. Once you do it the first time, it'll be easy from then on.

Thoughts: Just what I needed: diabetes.

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

Cheese Blintzes

Kind of like crepes, but, you know, Lithuanian.

Ingredients

• Blintz Batter
• 2 eggs
• 1c water
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/2c flour
• Filling
• 8oz of nonfat, small-curd, unsalted cottage cheese
• 2tbsp sugar (or more)
• 1/2tsp vanilla

This recipe is kind of ridiculous(ly easy). Basically, mix together the batter ingredients. Set aside. Mix together the filling ingredients. Set aside. In a nonstick pan (or on a griddle) on medium heat, pour out some batter. Tilt the pan around to make a blintz, um, wrapper? You probably need about 7" diameter. It DOES NOT MATTER if the edges look crazy or if it's not round. Anyway, when it's done on one side (and not until then), remove from the heat and put on a plate. Put about 2tbsp of filling in the middle of the blintz, then fold it like a burrito (i.e., fold in half toward you, then fold the sides in, then roll it up along the remaining edge). When you're done with all of them, serve (hot or cold) with jam or sour cream... or maple syrup, or whatever.

Thoughts: The filling we made had a very delicate flavor. Next time, I think we'll taste the filling a few times and try to adjust the seasoning - more salt may be indicated, and possibly more sugar. One could also add fruit to the filling - blueberries are obvious.

Disaster Index: 2/10 - the only bad part was that the filling wasn't quite perfect. Otherwise, this is a potential 1/10 recipe.

Tres Leches Bread Pudding

This recipe requires you to do a little math. I recommend you check out the original bread pudding recipe I posted here to get an idea of how bread pudding works. I tweaked the bake time for this. The main difference is that I replaced some milk with evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk.

Ingredients

• Stale bread, torn or cut into smallish (1" or 1.5" pieces) - bagels work, too
• Eggs
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Evaporated Milk
• Whole Milk
• Vanilla
• Sugar
• salt

Preheat oven to 375. Add bread into a casserole pan. Now you have to make the custard. You need the following ratios: 4oz dairy (which is 1/2c milk), 1 egg, .5tsp vanilla, 2tsp sugar. So, for example, one can of sweetened condensed milk is about 15oz. Evaporated milk comes in 5oz cans. That's 20oz total. Add another 1/2c milk, and you have 24oz., so you add 6 eggs, 4tbsp sugar, 3tsp vanilla. Add a pinch of salt, too. If this math is too hard, just do:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 can evaporated
• 1/2c milk
• 6 eggs
• 4tbsp sugar
• 3tsp vanilla
• 1/2tsp salt

Anyway, whisk those ingredients together thoroughly and pour over the bread. You want it to be pretty well soaked. Here's the secret. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then pack down the bread with a spatula or something similar. Let it go another 5 minutes or so and pack down again. You want the bread packed quite densely and quite soaked in custard.

Cover the pan in tin foil. Bake for 30 minutes, then take the foil off and bake for another 15 minutes. Make sure it's set (you want it to look slightly damp, but not "wet" - it's a custard, so it shouldn't be completely dry.) Let sit 10 minutes.

While that's baking, you can make the brandy sauce. You can kind of add your own flavors to this, too. Do what seems right. Rum might be good.

• 1c sugar
• 2/3c water
• 1/3c brandy
• 2tbsp grand marnier
• vanilla bean or cinnamon stick, if you have it (or similar)

To a pan, add 1c sugar and about 2/3c water and vanilla / cinnamon (if using). Boil over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and sauce is slightly thickened, about 5 or 10 minutes? Then take it off the heat and add the brandy and grand marnier.

When the bread pudding is done sitting for 10 minutes, poke holes in it with a chopstick or fork or something. Pour the brandy sauce over the top and serve with whipped cream.

Thoughts: I think I've done something really smart here. Judging by the reaction, this was something of a hit. I only regret that when I put the bread pudding together, I didn't poke holes in the bread pudding and pour the sauce over - I more or less put it on individual servings. I think that in the future I want the brandy sauce to really soak into the dessert. Also, I had so much bread that I needed a LOT of whole milk. I used only 1 can of the sweetened condensed milk and 1 can of evaporated milk, but I could have doubled that and used less whole milk - this would have given it a stronger "tres leches" flavor. But I think we have a winner.

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

Tres Leches

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 5 whole eggs
• 1 cup sugar, divided into 1/4 and 3/4 cups
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cups milk
• 1 can evaporated milk
• 1 can sweetened, condensed milk
• 1/4 cups heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350.
Grease a 9x13 " baking pan.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in large bowl.
Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with 3/4 of the cup of sugar until the yolks are pale yellow.
Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg mixture over the flour mixture and mix to combine.
Beat egg white on high until soft peaks form. With mixer running, add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Whites should be stiff.
Fold egg white mixture into the batter. Be gentle.
Pour into the pan.
Bake for 35-45 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from baking dish and transfer to another dish with a rim/ridge.
Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream together. When the cake is cool, pierce cake with fork all over. Pour the milk mixture slowly over the cake. If you like a wetter tres leches cake, use all the milks. If you like a slightly drier one, reserve 1 cup of the milk.
Allow cake to absorb milks for 30 minutes. Eat.
You should top this with whipped cream, also.

Thoughts: Fucking amazing. That is all.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Buttercream-cheese frosting

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick butter, softened
• 1/4 package of cream cheese/neufchatel, softened
• 1.3 cups powdered sugar
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
  
• 1 tbsp milk

In your Kitchenaid/hands, cream together the butter and cream cheese until completely combined.
Add the sugar (make sure the machine is turned off while you're adding it, and when you turn it back on, make sure it's on the lowest setting. Otherwise you will have a disaster on your hands).
Mix until combined. Add the salt, vanilla, and milk, one at a time.
If the frosting is too loose for your needs, add more sugar. You can't go wrong.

Thoughts: This is actually sort of hard to do in a Kitchenaid because the powdered sugar keeps climbing up the sides of the bowl and not incorporating into the frosting, so you have to keep scraping down the sides. But otherwise, totes awesome. I like the addition of salt, actually. Dan says he might have wanted it less sweet. If you want a frosting that's less sweet, just add less sugar and take out the milk and the stiffness should work out.

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