times of no anxiety: you go out for chinese food, and when you crack open your forture cookie and find no fortune, you curse the vagaries of assembly lines.
times of anxiety: you go out for chinese food, and when you crack open your fortune cookie and find no fortune, you feel a dark cloud descend upon you as you realize that this is a sign you're totally going to die.
Showing posts with label cookies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cookies. Show all posts
Monday, January 23, 2012
Sunday, December 18, 2011
christmas is coming, my ass is getting fat.
so for the past few hours, i've been babbling on facebook and reading the pioneer woman's website and thinking, "i wish i had a blog where i could yak about how my kitchen smells like warm marshmallows because there's puffy little clouds of chocolate chip meringue roasting away in the oven".
and then i remembered that, oh yeah, i do have a blog where i can do that. albeit, a blog with one-millionth the viewership that the pioneer woman has, but well... quality versus quantity and all that.*
but yes, my kitchen smells like happy and my meringues are sweatin' away, and my lobsters are shiny and pink. the lobster part is made more awesome by the fact that it is my first time ever making cookie icing, and the recipe i used sorta-kinda sucked. well, obviously it didn't suck all that bad since i was able to use it after all, but... i'm glad i'm not totally mentally deficient. or things would've gone down much differently today.
my first clue lay in the ratio of ingredients: 2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar to barely four tablespoons of liquid? most of which was actually syrup? i wish i'd gotten pictures of the glaze as it was when i followed the directions exactly; it looked like actual lobster meat in both color(s) and texture. several doses of red food coloring and milk later yielded forth a substance that was shiny, smooth, and knife-spreadable, which will explain to all those getting cookies this year why some of your lobsters look better than others. about two-thirds of the way through, the glaze was thickening up some, so i poured a little more milk in, and finally got the kind of glaze cookie decorators more experienced than myself call for when "flooding" cookies.
now, off to crochet until my fingers fall off whilst the cream-and-white-chocolate filling for this evening's homemade oreos cools to yet another kind of stable, spreadable consistency. if only my moods were so amiable.
*this does not at all imply that the people who read the pioneer woman's website are not a quality lot. i just need things to make me feel good sometimes, ya know?
and then i remembered that, oh yeah, i do have a blog where i can do that. albeit, a blog with one-millionth the viewership that the pioneer woman has, but well... quality versus quantity and all that.*
but yes, my kitchen smells like happy and my meringues are sweatin' away, and my lobsters are shiny and pink. the lobster part is made more awesome by the fact that it is my first time ever making cookie icing, and the recipe i used sorta-kinda sucked. well, obviously it didn't suck all that bad since i was able to use it after all, but... i'm glad i'm not totally mentally deficient. or things would've gone down much differently today.
my first clue lay in the ratio of ingredients: 2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar to barely four tablespoons of liquid? most of which was actually syrup? i wish i'd gotten pictures of the glaze as it was when i followed the directions exactly; it looked like actual lobster meat in both color(s) and texture. several doses of red food coloring and milk later yielded forth a substance that was shiny, smooth, and knife-spreadable, which will explain to all those getting cookies this year why some of your lobsters look better than others. about two-thirds of the way through, the glaze was thickening up some, so i poured a little more milk in, and finally got the kind of glaze cookie decorators more experienced than myself call for when "flooding" cookies.
now, off to crochet until my fingers fall off whilst the cream-and-white-chocolate filling for this evening's homemade oreos cools to yet another kind of stable, spreadable consistency. if only my moods were so amiable.
*this does not at all imply that the people who read the pioneer woman's website are not a quality lot. i just need things to make me feel good sometimes, ya know?
Monday, March 7, 2011
+100 things that make me happy+ #1: chocolate chip cookies.
what's this? 100 things that make someone happy? that someone being me?
a while ago i started a list at work. that list was 100 things that make you happy. i got the idea from some article online, i think it was in the yahoo dating section or some crap. anywho, i think i got to maybe number 20 before it was time to leave, and then my coworkers found it and lorded over me that they had the power to turn me into putty in their hands because they knew what made me happy, BWA HA HA HA.
long story short, i never finished the list. so i have started it over, and will post all one hundred things i come up with. some will be tangible, some will be intangible. some will be adult, some will be childish. sometimes i will falter, and feel like a loser because i can't even think of 100 happy things and what's wrong with me. and then sometimes i will kick myself in the ass and get over it and continue with my list.
#1: chocolate chip cookies
there are a LOT of cookies out there. macarons, macaroons, peanut butter, brown butter, chocolate, vanilla, sandwich, wafer... it would take charlie sheen's mind to fully elucidate upon the entire spectrum of cookies that exist in this world (or "terrestrial realm", as mr. sheen would put it).
that said, the one cookie that will always remain beautiful in my heart and mind is the chocolate chip cookie. it has everything delicious in this world: butter, sugar (two kinds!), salt, chocolate... and then you mess with deeply browned butter; all light brown sugar versus white and dark; milk chocolate chips vs. semi-sweet vs. 88%; coarse sea salt... my god.
and considering that the chocolate chip cookie is a cookie that is infinitely open to experimentation, they are almost impossible to screw up, and therefore stand as the litmus test of all bakeries, cafes and coffee shops. if you can't even get a chocolate chip cookie right, then why the hell am i going to trust your scrambled eggs or pork chops? i'd probably come out with worms AND head lice. (yes, your crappy pork chops would give me lice. because you failed at chocolate chip cookies)
i am still on the search, like so many in this world, for the chocolate chip cookie. luckily, or perhaps unluckily, as there are billions of palates in this world, there's millions of recipes. i have a folder in my bookmarks dedicated to nothing but chocolate chip cookie recipes. there are 17 recipes in it. most of them proclaim to be the "best" cookie ever, and extol its magnificence up and down, elaborating upon its crumb, and moistness, and chip-to-dough ratio.
what is my idea of the perfect chocolate chip cookie? well:
1. it has to be big. if you're going to eat a chocolate chip cookie, eat a chocolate chip cookie.
2. a high chocolate-to-dough ratio. notice i didn't say chip-to-dough; if you use those awesome chocolate discs instead of chips, then obviously you will have a higher ratio of chocolate but a lower ratio of chips. you will also have a high ratio of delicious.
3. soft. crisp is meringues and shortbread. hard is for biscotti. the perfect chocolate chip cookie must have a firm, chewy exterior, and a moist, almost gooey interior. and it must also have...
4. a good shelf life, meaning that it retains those texture variances for a few days, or as long as they last in the jar.
5. a good backbone. the dough has to have something to balance that chocolate. i recently tried my hand at browning butter for a cookie recipe, to develop those malty, caramel-y notes that people wax romantic over in food blogs. i unfortunately did it too well, and ended up with ghee. i used it anyway. they were ok. i also didn't use vanilla, having read earlier that day about a certain famous new york cookie shop that didn't use vanilla in their chocolate cookie recipes, and they have a cult-like following for their chocolate chip cookies.
again, they were ok.
so i have some baking to do, some practice to tuck under my belt--or gut, depending on how long it takes me to the get the recipe right and how many "failures" i'll have to taste test along the way. until then, here's a recipe that hasn't let me down yet, and is oh-so close to my perfection.
best big, fat, chewy chocolate chip cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (i added a full teaspoon last time i made them, and they had, in my opinion, a better fluffiness to them without being cake-y)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted (if you know how to properly brown butter, by all means, rock on)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (sorry fancy new york bakery with slews of fans, but there was a little something missing when i didn't use extract. and it was extract.)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (i used 72% chocolate disks)
now, when i make chocolate chip cookies, a secret i've learned is to make your dough, then refrigerate it for at least eight hours, longer if possible. i think my minimum in the past has been twelve, i usually strive for twenty-four; and i've read tell of those who say anything less than 36 hours is just a waste of time. if you need your cookies NOW, however, preheat to 325F. and you should have parchment paper. parchment paper is the BEST.
sift together your flour, soda and salt. my method of sifting is to whisk it with a fork. set aside.
cream together your melted/browned butter and sugars until well blended. beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. mix in dry ingredients until just blended. stir in chips/disks.
drop dough by the QUARTER CUP (1/4 CUP) onto your prepped sheets. no, really, do it. don't look at your silverware drawer for a tablespoon, grab your quarter cup measuring cup and fill it with dough, and then put that dough on a sheet. you will like yourself more for it, i promise. the original recipe says to leave three inches between, but i found that between the refrigeration, the extremely melted butter, and the extra baking soda, they keep their form fairly well, so you can probably get away with less room.
bake about 15-17 minutes, but definitely check at the 15 minute mark. you want toasty edges and sorta-soggy centers. let them cool for a few minutes on the sheets, then move them to a rack to complete their cycle of coolness.
there was something i was going to add and now i can't remember, dammit. OH! yes. if you end up refrigerating your dough, leave it in the fridge until your oven is heated and you're ready to start shoveling dough onto your totally prepped sheets. the cooler the dough, the more likely it is to maintain its form. it has something to do with the fats in the butter and whatnot.
annnnnnnd enjoy.
a while ago i started a list at work. that list was 100 things that make you happy. i got the idea from some article online, i think it was in the yahoo dating section or some crap. anywho, i think i got to maybe number 20 before it was time to leave, and then my coworkers found it and lorded over me that they had the power to turn me into putty in their hands because they knew what made me happy, BWA HA HA HA.
long story short, i never finished the list. so i have started it over, and will post all one hundred things i come up with. some will be tangible, some will be intangible. some will be adult, some will be childish. sometimes i will falter, and feel like a loser because i can't even think of 100 happy things and what's wrong with me. and then sometimes i will kick myself in the ass and get over it and continue with my list.
#1: chocolate chip cookies
there are a LOT of cookies out there. macarons, macaroons, peanut butter, brown butter, chocolate, vanilla, sandwich, wafer... it would take charlie sheen's mind to fully elucidate upon the entire spectrum of cookies that exist in this world (or "terrestrial realm", as mr. sheen would put it).
that said, the one cookie that will always remain beautiful in my heart and mind is the chocolate chip cookie. it has everything delicious in this world: butter, sugar (two kinds!), salt, chocolate... and then you mess with deeply browned butter; all light brown sugar versus white and dark; milk chocolate chips vs. semi-sweet vs. 88%; coarse sea salt... my god.
and considering that the chocolate chip cookie is a cookie that is infinitely open to experimentation, they are almost impossible to screw up, and therefore stand as the litmus test of all bakeries, cafes and coffee shops. if you can't even get a chocolate chip cookie right, then why the hell am i going to trust your scrambled eggs or pork chops? i'd probably come out with worms AND head lice. (yes, your crappy pork chops would give me lice. because you failed at chocolate chip cookies)
i am still on the search, like so many in this world, for the chocolate chip cookie. luckily, or perhaps unluckily, as there are billions of palates in this world, there's millions of recipes. i have a folder in my bookmarks dedicated to nothing but chocolate chip cookie recipes. there are 17 recipes in it. most of them proclaim to be the "best" cookie ever, and extol its magnificence up and down, elaborating upon its crumb, and moistness, and chip-to-dough ratio.
what is my idea of the perfect chocolate chip cookie? well:
1. it has to be big. if you're going to eat a chocolate chip cookie, eat a chocolate chip cookie.
2. a high chocolate-to-dough ratio. notice i didn't say chip-to-dough; if you use those awesome chocolate discs instead of chips, then obviously you will have a higher ratio of chocolate but a lower ratio of chips. you will also have a high ratio of delicious.
3. soft. crisp is meringues and shortbread. hard is for biscotti. the perfect chocolate chip cookie must have a firm, chewy exterior, and a moist, almost gooey interior. and it must also have...
4. a good shelf life, meaning that it retains those texture variances for a few days, or as long as they last in the jar.
5. a good backbone. the dough has to have something to balance that chocolate. i recently tried my hand at browning butter for a cookie recipe, to develop those malty, caramel-y notes that people wax romantic over in food blogs. i unfortunately did it too well, and ended up with ghee. i used it anyway. they were ok. i also didn't use vanilla, having read earlier that day about a certain famous new york cookie shop that didn't use vanilla in their chocolate cookie recipes, and they have a cult-like following for their chocolate chip cookies.
again, they were ok.
so i have some baking to do, some practice to tuck under my belt--or gut, depending on how long it takes me to the get the recipe right and how many "failures" i'll have to taste test along the way. until then, here's a recipe that hasn't let me down yet, and is oh-so close to my perfection.
best big, fat, chewy chocolate chip cookies
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (i added a full teaspoon last time i made them, and they had, in my opinion, a better fluffiness to them without being cake-y)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted (if you know how to properly brown butter, by all means, rock on)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (sorry fancy new york bakery with slews of fans, but there was a little something missing when i didn't use extract. and it was extract.)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (i used 72% chocolate disks)
now, when i make chocolate chip cookies, a secret i've learned is to make your dough, then refrigerate it for at least eight hours, longer if possible. i think my minimum in the past has been twelve, i usually strive for twenty-four; and i've read tell of those who say anything less than 36 hours is just a waste of time. if you need your cookies NOW, however, preheat to 325F. and you should have parchment paper. parchment paper is the BEST.
sift together your flour, soda and salt. my method of sifting is to whisk it with a fork. set aside.
cream together your melted/browned butter and sugars until well blended. beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. mix in dry ingredients until just blended. stir in chips/disks.
drop dough by the QUARTER CUP (1/4 CUP) onto your prepped sheets. no, really, do it. don't look at your silverware drawer for a tablespoon, grab your quarter cup measuring cup and fill it with dough, and then put that dough on a sheet. you will like yourself more for it, i promise. the original recipe says to leave three inches between, but i found that between the refrigeration, the extremely melted butter, and the extra baking soda, they keep their form fairly well, so you can probably get away with less room.
bake about 15-17 minutes, but definitely check at the 15 minute mark. you want toasty edges and sorta-soggy centers. let them cool for a few minutes on the sheets, then move them to a rack to complete their cycle of coolness.
there was something i was going to add and now i can't remember, dammit. OH! yes. if you end up refrigerating your dough, leave it in the fridge until your oven is heated and you're ready to start shoveling dough onto your totally prepped sheets. the cooler the dough, the more likely it is to maintain its form. it has something to do with the fats in the butter and whatnot.
annnnnnnd enjoy.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
viva la "lots and lots and lots of words with no end"
it has come to my attention that i write very easily when i don't worry about little things like run-on sentences. when i just allow a thought to ramble on endlessly, everything just kind of flows on its own.
case in point, a recent email to a friend:
"i bought the taste of home holiday magazine because i'm weak-willed and i saw the most adorable idea in it ever and immediately knew that if i didn't buy the magazine i'd forget it and cry the rest of the season, even though i haven't forgotten it at all and i probably could've saved the ten dollars, but dammit, it was so damn cute. they're these little dove-shaped cookies, but what makes them so cute is you layer sliced almonds on them, so they look like feathers. i know, right? there was also a recipe for sugar cookies using cream cheese that i wanted to try, thinking that the cream cheese would bulk them up and make them not so delicate so maybe half of these year's batch wouldn't come out on fire. also, i have parchment paper."
that paragraph is constructed from a mere five sentences. and two of those sentences make up about 70% of the information given. long sentences are FUN. who decided that people shouldn't be able to just write long, meandering, winding lines of text? who decided that my desire to write two pages to someone without a single period was bad form? show me that person, and i'll show you someone about to get punched in the face. with words.
sometimes i think grammar and punctuation rules were invented merely to make writing more intimidating and difficult than it needs to be, to keep the "masses" in check. if word got out that anyone could be brilliant, then what would all the self-proclaimed brilliant people do? cry into their crumpets and silk scarves, that's what they'd do.*
well, ladies and gentlemen and dicks and hos, i am here to tell you, right now, from a completely uninformed standpoint, that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. jump up out of your seat! thrust your fist in the air! then immediately sit back down and thrust both fists at your keyboard and TYPE WORDS ENDLESSLY.
*all brilliant people wear silk scarves and eat crumpets. this is science.
case in point, a recent email to a friend:
"i bought the taste of home holiday magazine because i'm weak-willed and i saw the most adorable idea in it ever and immediately knew that if i didn't buy the magazine i'd forget it and cry the rest of the season, even though i haven't forgotten it at all and i probably could've saved the ten dollars, but dammit, it was so damn cute. they're these little dove-shaped cookies, but what makes them so cute is you layer sliced almonds on them, so they look like feathers. i know, right? there was also a recipe for sugar cookies using cream cheese that i wanted to try, thinking that the cream cheese would bulk them up and make them not so delicate so maybe half of these year's batch wouldn't come out on fire. also, i have parchment paper."
that paragraph is constructed from a mere five sentences. and two of those sentences make up about 70% of the information given. long sentences are FUN. who decided that people shouldn't be able to just write long, meandering, winding lines of text? who decided that my desire to write two pages to someone without a single period was bad form? show me that person, and i'll show you someone about to get punched in the face. with words.
sometimes i think grammar and punctuation rules were invented merely to make writing more intimidating and difficult than it needs to be, to keep the "masses" in check. if word got out that anyone could be brilliant, then what would all the self-proclaimed brilliant people do? cry into their crumpets and silk scarves, that's what they'd do.*
well, ladies and gentlemen and dicks and hos, i am here to tell you, right now, from a completely uninformed standpoint, that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. jump up out of your seat! thrust your fist in the air! then immediately sit back down and thrust both fists at your keyboard and TYPE WORDS ENDLESSLY.
*all brilliant people wear silk scarves and eat crumpets. this is science.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
