Chocolate Chocolate Cherry Cookie

I love my cookies very meaty or as simple as can be. It was time for a meaty chunky cookie for a goodbye potluck for some office mates.  Cookies are great for potluck food because you don't need to cut anything, you don't need to serve it on a plate or with silverware, at most you just need a napkin.  

I wanted to make a very chocolaty cookie but also cut the richness with some fruit and add some nuts for texture.  Here is what I came up with...a chocolate base cookie, with two different kinds of chocolates, dried cherries, and some toasted pecan, and topped it off with some fleur del sel salt. This salt is important because it's not too salty but has a nice savory flavor. This recipe also mirror my favorite way to eat a chocolate chip cookie. 

Here is the recipe:

2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of kosher salt
1 cup of butter, soften
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp of vanilla
2 cups of dark chocolate chips
2 cups of milk chocolate chips
1 cup of toasted pecans
1 cup of dried cherries
Sprinkles of Fleur del Sel salt

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and put aside
-In a large bowl, cream butter and both kind of sugars until light and fluffy
-Add eggs and vanilla to the butter and sugar mixture and whip again until light and fluffy
-Add the dry flour mixture to the wet butter mixture until combine, don't over mix
-Add the chocolate chips until combine
-Add pecans and cherries until combine
-Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicon liner
-Using an ice cream scooper, scoop the batter and place on to the baking sheet, keep about three inches of space between the cookies, once baking sheet is full, place in freezer for about 15 minutes
-Once cookies are cold and firm, take out and place in oven and bake for 8 minutes and then rotate racks to bake evenly and bake for 7 more minutes
-As soon as it comes out of the oven, sprinkle the fleur del sel salt.  When you sprinkle the salt right out of the oven, it sticks to the cookie better then when cooled
-Let cool in the baking sheet for 10 minute then transfer to a cooling rack
-Enjoy warm or completely cooled 
-Or put vanilla ice cream between two cookies and freeze for an ice cream sandwich

This was my first attempt for these cookies, and they were pretty good enough the post.  I might try to lighten it by separating the egg yolks and whipping the egg whites like meringue. 

The feedback from the potluck was good too! 

Peach Pecan Butterhorns

It's been almost six months since I've baked anything.  Work has been the reason. I've started a new job, well same job but changed groups and all new customers so it's like starting a new job and have taken some time to ramp up.  It was great to bake something again, and it brings me to a great place to share and feed my friends.  

I've had a love affair with Butterhorns since I used to get them at the Nordstrom's coffee bar.  What are Butterhorns you ask?  Before having baking knowledge, I would have said, it's a long stick cinnamon cookie.  Now days, I can tell you that it's a rolled up pie crust, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, baked, then covered with a simple sugar glaze.  

I've tasted apple filled version from Diva Espresso but they don't carry them anymore. I loved the idea of filling them since the base is a typical pie crust.

For a Fourth of July gathering, I was going to bake a Berry Crisp but had some fresh organic peaches but not enough to put into a pie so decided to try making the Butterhorns instead. 

This is another super easy, I have no time recipe.  I'm going to try other fillings like apple, blueberries, and even a just pecan version. Yum!

2 Rolls of store bought pie shells. I used the Trader Joe version since it's very buttery and more like homemade.  
4 Peaches
3 Tbl of granulated sugar
1 Tsp of ground cinnamon
1/2 Cup of chopped, toasted, salted pecans
1 Cup of powder sugar


-Unroll pie shell and cut diagonal into 8 slices (like pizza slices) then place them on a sheet pan and put in refrigerator until ready to use
-Cut peaches into 1/2 inch slices
-Place peaches, cinnamon, and sugar into a medium size bowl and toss, then let it sit for at least 30 minutes
-Once peaches mixture has developed a watery base and sugar has dissolved into the mixture, drain.  Leave the juice base in the bowl
-To assemble the butterhorn, take one slice of pie shell, and line 2-3 slices of peaches at the tip of the longer edge of the pie shell and then roll once, sprinkle some pecans on top of the rolled dough side. This way it stays crunchy and not soggy by the peaches. Roll rest until tip is fully rolled.(Use about 1/4 cup of it and save rest to top after baking.) Place on baking sheet lined with parchment. Repeat until all 16 are complete. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until ready to bake
-Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown
-Transfer to a rack and cool completely

-For the glaze, add the powder sugar to the peach juice mixture. Using a back of spoon, blend like a paste to ensure smooth glaze and let it sit until fully dissolved and put aside. If your peaches are not very ripe then there will not be as much juice, in that case, add some milk to the glaze and ensure the consistency is like honey to have a perfect glaze
-Once the butterhorns are cooled, spoon the glaze over each butterhorn until it drizzles and covers most the pastry.  Sprinkle remainder of the pecans and allow the glaze to dry, then serve or store in air tight container

Lavender Shortbread

I've done lavender right...I think?

I've never been a fan of adding lavender to foods.  Most of the time, it tastes like soap to me.  I love the smell and the flower but not in food.  Strangely, I think men like the flavors better than women.  I've had more guys say they like lavender and honey ice cream.  


Well, on a past trip to Napa, I picked up a bunch of great things from the lovely store of St. Helena Olive Oil Co.  They specialize in olive oils but they have so much more.  A lot of lavender bath products and one of the items were dried lavender in these little jars. 

When I brought it home, I realized it was for food and not for baths. I mean you can use it for aromatics but it's purpose was for flavoring, so I was thinking how can I best use this for the scent, flavor, but not over powering like soap.

So I made shortbread.  I chopped the small buds and blended it with sugar, then coated the basic shortbread and baked.  It was nice.  Very light lavender flavor and no sign of soap.  It's a nice accent to basic buttery shortbread.

I'm giving these to some friends that I'm meeting for brunch tomorrow, will get their opinion.

It's quite lovely...

I Love Bottega

I was on a work trip to San Francisco last week.  My friend Sue was there for training as well, so we went up to Napa for a girls weekend and enjoyed some great food and some spa time.


Yountville is this cute little, small town between Napa and Calistoga.  It is also the home to my idol chef Thomas Keller's restaurants.  It is also the home of Bottega, Michael Chiarello's Italian restaurant.  If you've never heard of him before, he is a famous chef and has his own show on the Food Network called Easy Entertaining.  He makes great Italian ingredient based foods that are rustic, simple but elegant.   He has also been on Top Chef as a judge and contestant on the Master Chef version of Top Chef.  It is here that he showed his meanie side of his personality and his stubbornness. 


Well, I've heard some great things from people who visited Napa and they all said that I had to try Bottega.  So my friend Sue and I went on Friday night.  We couldn't get a table until 9pm but it worked out well because by the time we got to Napa and checked in, it was around this time.


Bottega
6525 Washington Street, A9
Yountville, CA 94599
http://www.botteganapavalley.com/index.html



After we ordered and got our drinks, they plunk down a thick, warm, rustic sliced chuck of bread right on the table.  No plates, basket or nothing, just on the table lined with paper.  They also brought a little tub of butter and this luscious thick drizzle of grassy olive oil that had tons of parmesan reggiano, garlic, red chili peppers, and herbs I think.  It was amazing!  I would have been happy with just eating this and my wine.

We then had our first course of...


I had the Shaved Artichoke Salad Two Ways lemon olive oil braised and roman fried, shaved parmigiano reggiano

Sue had the Polenta Under Glass, caramelized wild mushrooms, balsamic game sauce.  Wow!  The best dish of the night!  It was creamy and had so much flavor.  Reminded me of the time Soung ordered the polenta at Scarpetta and I wish I had.  When you are at a uber chef's restaurant and you see the polenta on the menu, order it!  Don't expect to share because it's so good, everyone should order their own.

For our second course...


I had Spaghetti alla Chitarra, imported chitarra cut spaghetti, white head-on prawns, tomato-fennel broth, basil & tarragon.  I wanted a simple pasta and sauce dish.  This was good but it was a bit too fishy for me.  I even had them remove the "head".  They didn't have that many veggie items on the menu, they were willing to make accommodations but I really wanted to try something that the chef had intended. 

Sue had Confit of Half Duck mostarda di frutta, panettone bread pudding, red wine duck jus.  She said the best duck she has had by far.  I kept thinking about the ducks that float around
Greenlake when I go running.  :)

We were both full to the max but had to have dessert. Wow! They were amazingly good. I must remember to order the desserts first so I can enjoy them more.


I had Tiramisu Profiteroles, a tramisu & sponge cake gelato, “Cocoa puff”, chocolate sauce.  Need I say more than the pic?  I, like Ted Allen, love table side presentation and love that they poured the chocolate sauce at the table.

Sue had the Salted Caramel gelato Affagato.  It came with this Peanut cookie that was to die for.  Sue was too full and didn't want the cookie so I said I wanted a to go box to eat later.  Well, the next morning I was looking forward to eating the cookie with my morning coffee before we head out...guess what, Sue had eaten all of the cookie before I even got up.  She didn't even save me a nibble. 

There was a moment during dinner when chef Chiarello was making the rounds saying hello to his regular diners and friends.  It caught me by surprise when I saw him talking to our next table to the right.  I was trying to be cool and was trying to alert Sue to by using my ventriloquist voice but she couldn't understand.  I so wanted to take a pic and meet him but I didn't want seem star struck which I was.  Well, he passed our table by and went to another table. I was so jealous.  We even talked to the waitress to ask about him and she said he would totally take a pic with me and say hello.  She said she would try to have him over.  Well...it never happened.  I need to know to seize the moment.  He was right there.  :(


There was one dish that everyone was ordering that we didn't.  It was the Truffle Fries.  Everywhere you look, every table were getting a heaping plate of rustic, homemade fries.  I was kicking myself.  Sue and I had a quick snack of "tie me over" food at the hotel when we arrived.  We had some fries and wine a few hours before hand.   I'm definitely planning another weekend at Napa and getting these fries and the polenta!

Shortbread - 3 Ways

I learned how to make shortbread when I worked at a local bakery cafe.   It's the simplest cookie or "biscuit" to make.  Not only is it easy, but you can vary it up to any flavors you like.   The recipe I learned is was what I call 411, 4 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 pound of butter.  Since then and doing some research, I've learned that shortbread has traditionally been made in ratios of 1 part sugar, 2 part butter, and 3 part flour.  I still use the 411 ratios but usually halve or quarter the recipe for home baking.


I remembered last minute that I had another birthday event to go to this weekend thus decided to revisit making shortbread since it's so easy to make and people always seem to love it.  I decided to do it 3 ways.  My initial goal was to keep the classic flavors the same but only change up the type of sugar to test the textures.  Well...I decided to change flavors to match the sugar type.  I made the classic,  black sesame, and almond.


The recipes below are a quartered recipe of the 411.  It makes about 16 give or take 1/2" cookies.  


The Classic

1/2 cup or 1 stick of unsalted butter (soften)
1/4 cup of granulated sugar
1 cup of flour
Pinch of salt
2 Tbs of extra sugar
-Beat the sugar and butter until light and creamy
-In a separate bowl, add the salt to flour and mix
-Add the flour mixture into the sugar/butter mixture until well blended and forms a crumbly dough
-Dump the dough onto a large sheet of  plastic wrap and form a log about 2 to 2/14 inches wide.   Wrap the plastic over the log, while holding on the sides of the plastic.  You can roll the log with the edges and form a nice even round log.  Refrigerate the log for at least an hour.
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Take the cookie log out of the refrigerator and unwrap from the plastic wrap.
-Put the 2 tbs of extra sugar onto a flat plate or surface.  Roll the cookie log in it until the log is well coated with all the sugar.
-Cut into about 1/2 inch thick slices and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper
-Bake for 10 min then rotate, bake for an additional 3-6 min depending on your oven temperature.  The cookie will stay pretty light and have slight yellowing on the edges when ready.

The Black Sesame
The goal here was to make a lighter cookie and add some texture and nuttiness with the sesame.  I also really like the contrasting colors.

1/2 cup or 1 stick of unsalted butter (soften)

1/4 cup of powder sugar

1 cup of flour

1/4 cup of black sesame

Pinch of salt

2 Tbs of extra powder sugar

-Beat the sugar and butter until light and creamy

-In a separate bowl, add the salt, black sesame to flour and mix

-Add the flour mixture into the sugar/butter mixture until well blended and forms a crumbly dough

-Dump the dough onto a large sheet of  plastic wrap and form a log about 2 to 2/14 inches wide.   Wrap the plastic over the log, while holding on the sides of the plastic.  You can roll the log with the edges and form a nice even round log.  Refrigerate the log for at least an hour.

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-Take the cookie log out of the refrigerator and unwrap from the plastic wrap.

-Put the 2 tbs of extra sugar onto a flat plate or surface.  Roll the cookie log in it until the log is well coated with all the sugar.

-Cut into about 1/2 inch thick slices and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

-Bake for 10 min then rotate, bake for an additional 3-6 min depending on your oven temperature.  The cookie will stay pretty light and have slight yellowing on the edges when ready.

The Almond

This one was inspired by Samad and his love of almonds.  I also wanted to make a 3rd cookie with brown sugar.  I've made this one before and call it Brown Sugar Shortbread.  It's really a nice warm feeling cookie because the brown sugar emits a fall, rainy day, smell.  You can even add some spices to kick it up.

1/2 cup or 1 stick of unsalted butter (soften)

1/4 cup of brown sugar (packed)

3/4 cup of flour

1/4 cup of almond meal

1/4 cup of sliced almonds

Pinch of salt

2 Tbs of turbinado sugar

-Beat the sugar and butter until light and creamy

-In a separate bowl, add the salt, almond meal, almonds to flour and mix

-Add the flour mixture into the sugar/butter mixture until well blended and forms a crumbly dough

-Dump the dough onto a large sheet of  plastic wrap and form a log about 2 to 2/14 inches wide.   Wrap the plastic over the log, while holding on the sides of the plastic.  You can roll the log with the edges and form a nice even round log.  Refrigerate the log for at least an hour.

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-Take the cookie log out of the refrigerator and unwrap from the plastic wrap.

-Put the 2 tbs of turbinado sugar onto a flat plate or surface.  Roll the cookie log in it until the log is well coated with all the sugar.

-Cut into about 1/2 inch thick slices and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

-Bake for 10 min then rotate, bake for an additional 3-6 min depending on your oven temperature.    It will start smelling like maple and touch of molasses.  

Chocolate Chip Cookie

My favorite kind of Chocolate Chip Cookie involves at least 2 different kinds of chocolate, hazelnuts, and salt.  
I'm a huge Nutella fan so I love anything that combines chocolate and hazelnut.  This was my inspiration for my cookie.  My version has big chunks of milk and semisweet chocolate, crushed hazelnuts, and topping it with some salt (preferably Fleur de sel or Kosher salt).  For chocolate, I love Guittard's chocolates.  It's so creamy, smooth, and bakes well.  A lot of the confectioner's use this chocolate as base to create their own flavors and creations.  I know Oh Chocolates uses this brand.
I also love "thick" meaty cookies, not the thin crispy one.  Thin crispy ones have their place but not for this cookie.  There is so much goodness to this cookies that you need a nice amount of dough and crusty like base for the cookie.  
I've tried various recipes from the one on the back of the yellow bag of Toll house Chocolate Chips to Thomas Keller's recipe in Ad Hoc (which is a good one), to Debbie Fields, and some more I can't think of.  I really like the recipe on the back of the Guittard bag.  I've modified the Guittard and Thomas Keller's recipe and came up with this.  Give it a try and let me know what you think!


Dry Ingredients
21/2 cups of All Purpose Flour

1 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Kosher Salt, more for topping after baking
Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup of Butter (room temperature)
3/4 cups of Sugar
3/4 cups of Brown Sugar (packed)
2 Eggs (room temperature)
1 teaspoon of Vanilla
Other Ingredients
1 cup of Milk Chocolate Chips or Milk Chocolate Bar (cut into pieces)
1 cup of Dark Chocolate Chips or Dark Chcolate Bar (cut into pieces)
1 cup of raw whole Hazelnuts
-Preheat oven to 350
-Measure and mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.
-Measure and mix the butter and sugars until very light and fluff, preferably in a stand mixer or hand mixer.  Add eggs and vanilla and blend/mix again.

-Add dry mixture into the wet mixture until well combined, again with stand or hand mixer.
-Add other ingredients, one at a time to the mixture and hand mix until combined.  (I like to use the stand mixer because it smashes the raw hazelnuts a bit.)
-Spoon a little bigger than a golf size of the mixture onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put into the freezer until cold, about 5 min.

-Bake 13 minutes and golden brown.

-Sprinkle Kosher Salt right after it comes out of the oven.

Memorial Weekend of Baking

What a great 3 day weekend it was!  I did a lot of baking!  It was about Chocolate Cherry Cake, Blueberry Almond Scones, Zucchini Bread, and Peach Chocolate Chip Cookies.


Friday night, had girlfriends over for some Margaritas and Mexican food.  Even made corn tortillas from scratch, but this entry is about baking so more on that on a another entry.  I did bake a Chocolate Cherry Bundt Cake for dessert and also made Chocolate Dipped Cherries.  People are always dipping strawberries but I think the cherries actually make a great fruit to dip and decorate with. It is also very delish!  The cake was pretty good but I'm not as fond of the recipe, I think it needs a bit more chocolate so I'll tweak the recipe and post.

Saturday, I didn't really bake at all. It was my little bro's birthday and I had planned on baking his birthday cake but the day got the best of me and I didn't have enough time.  We did celebrated it with a theme of BBQ and Bowling.  I bought a Whole Food cake.  I know what kind of baker am I?  It was a good cake though!

Sunday, I made some Blueberry Almond Scone for my friend Samad because he really like almonds.  The texture of the scone came out great but I think it needed a little bit more almonds and almond extract.  I didn't add it to my baking that day but included that in the recipe below.  This recipe is a modified recipe from the Grand Central Baking Book.  I think the dry ratio from this book is really superb but I tweaked the wet ratio and used WW flour.  I used to make scones everyday when I worked at Both Ways Cafe a few years back.

Blueberry Almond Scone
Dry Ingredients & Cold Butter
2.5 cups of Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 cups of Sugar
1 tablespoon of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of Salt
1/2 cups of cold Unsalted Butter cut in dice size pieces
Wet Ingredients
1 cup of Buttermilk
1 Egg
1 teaspoon of Almond Extract
Other Ingredients
1.5 cups of Blueberries (I like to use frozen berries for scones because it doesn't burst and bleed during the forming stages.)
1 cups of Almonds (I used sliced but you can use chopped or slivered.)
Turbinado Sugar for sprinkling before baking


-Preheat oven to 350 degrees
-Measure and mix all the dry ingredients, then add cold butter and mix on low until a crumbly mixture.  If you don't have stand mixer, you can use a pastry cutter or use your hands to blend the butter into the dry mixture until crumbly.  Using a wooden spoon or your hands, add the blueberries and almonds, then toss until the crumbly ingredients are mixed with the fruit and nuts. I like to use hands to again, the berries aren't crushed.   It will be a dampish dry mixture.
-Measure and mix the buttermilk, egg, and almond extract.  
-Slowly start pouring a small amount of wet mixture into the dry mixture and just toss and mix with your hands until all the wet mixture is all into the dry mixture.   I say toss because you are trying to balance the wet mixture into the dry mixture evenly.
-Pour the mixture into a lightly floured surface. Using a scraper or your hands, gather the mixture to form a mound about 2 inches think and oval in shape.  Lightly press the sides toward the center until you have a somewhat firmed dough.  Cut into triangles and put on a sheet pan lined with parchment.  
-Brush the scones with a egg wash or some leftover buttermilk.  Sprinkle some turbinado sugar and a little salt (the sweet salty combo is great).
-Bake for about 30 minutes until nicely golden brown.  


Sunday, I also made the Zucchini Bread for my mom.  She has been asking for some for a while now.  This recipe is from the Tartine Bakery cookbook.  This was the first time I used this recipe thus didn't change much. I only substituted olive oil instead of the vegetable oil they listed.  I also doubled the recipe and didn't sprinkle with sugar.

Dry Ingredients
1 3/4 + 2 tablespoons of All Purpose Flour
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of Salt
Wet Ingredients
 2 Eggs
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of Olive Oil
3/4 cup of Sugar
1/2 cup of Orange Marmalade
Other
2 1/2 cups of Zucchini grated
1 cup of Walnut chopped and lightly toasted
Sugar for topping
-Preheat oven to 350
-Measure and mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.  Now, a lot of recipes call for shifting the dry ingredients, especially for cakes, but I usually just dump it all in a bowl an use a wire wisk to mix it up and fluff it up.  Works for me and much easier.

-Measure and mix all the wet ingredients in a separate larger bowl.

Add zucchini and walnuts to the wet mixture.


-Add the dry mixture into the wet mixture until combined.  Don't over mix or bread will toughen.
-Put into a butter and floured pan or some sprayed pan.
-Bake for about 1 hour until clean tooth pick comes out.

Monday, I made some Peach Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies for my friend Heather who is moving to NYC.  I kept promising her cookies but our timing was never right so tried a new recipe for her.   I see a lot of dried fruit in oatmeal cookies but not combined with chocolate chips.  I love a little fruit with all my desserts. I think it offset the heavy sugar and butter, even if dried fruit.  I like the idea of peaches and cream, so I used dried peaches and white chocolate but also wanted the taste of dark chocolate.  This recipe might seem a bit too much and I should had some restraint but I wanted to put some kind of nuts into so I used almond but now I think about, I think it might be even better with pecans. 

Dry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups of Whole Wheat Flour (For "meaty" cookies, I use wheat flour than all purpose, I just thinks it adds a nice heartiness to the cookie.)
1 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1 teaspoon of Salt, more for topping after baking
1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup of Butter (room temperature)
3/4 cups of Sugar
3/4 cups of Brown Sugar (packed)
2 Eggs (room temperature)
1 teaspoon of Vanilla
Other Ingredients
1 cup of dried Peaches chopped
1 cup of White Chocolate Chips
1 cup of Dark Chocolate Chips
1 cup of nuts (Almond or Pecans)
-Preheat oven to 350
-Measure and mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

-Measure and mix the butter and sugars until very light and fluff, preferably in a stand mixer or hand mixer.  Add eggs and vanilla and blend/mix again.

-Add dry mixture into the wet mixture until well combined, again with stand or hand mixer.
-Add other ingredients, one at a time to the mixture and hand mix until combined. 

-Spoon a little bigger than a golf size of the mixture onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put into the freezer until cold, about 5 min.

-Bake 13 minutes and golden brown.

This is a long entry and it was a long weekend. Hope you enjoyed the entry as much as I did.  A happy weekend in that I got to do so much of what I love to do.  Now I've got to balance with some more running this week to off set all the eating I did!