Quadruple Chocolate Brownies

Remember the Roland Mesnier brownies I kept talking about last Fall? Their ba-ack! This time they were for my cousin's baby girl's naming ceremony. (I realize I said my cousin's baby...she would be my cousin too, but you get my point!) I knew there were going to be other desserts, so I figured nice small pieces would be good. I also knew that there were going to be a lot of people I didn't know well, so I figured no nuts would be safest, multiple different chocolates would satisfy everyone, and no funky flavors (like orange or coffee).

I decided on the normal brownie recipe, except I substituted chocolate chips for the optional nuts (plus I used the chocolate chips it calls for.) I used 1/3 white chocolate chips, 1/3 milk chocolate chips, 1/3 semi-sweet chocolate chips. They were excellent!!!

French Culinary Institute

This evening I sat in on a level 2 Pastry Arts class at the FCI. I also handed in my application for the Pastry Arts course starting in mid-August. I can't believe it, I'm really doing this!

Anyway, the class was amazing. All the chef instructors were nice and welcoming, and I actually knew a couple of the answers to the questions they posed to the class! It looks like really hard work, but really fun! I can't wait!

After the class, I met my mom at L'Ecole, the FCI's restaurant, for dinner. Yum! It was good food, good portions, and great service. And the truffled mac and cheese was absolutely amazing! They gave us packages of cookies to take home as well, the perfect end to the night!

Espresso Brownies

Another Fat Witch brownie! These espresso brownies are certainly good, but not my favorite brownie. It's funny because I usually love espresso and chocolate, but for some reason these didn't knock it out of the park. That said, they are still very, very good, and I've eaten more than enough of them! What this recipe does get right is the texture--a bit cakey but still moist, light but not too airy.

Apocalypse Not

Today is May 22, 2011.  As I'm sure you have gathered, the world did not come to an end yesterday.  Perhaps I shouldn't have eaten an entire tray of brownies...  No, just kidding, I didn't really eat all the brownies I made, though had yesterday really been my last day I would have regretted not finishing them off.  Of course that's all assuming I was one of the elect who gets vacuumed up into Heaven.  God knows, I probably wouldn't have been one (I've mocked the whole idea of yesterday being judgement day far too much for Him to chose me!)  Anyway, if they had been right and I wasn't sucked up into Heaven, you know what I'd be doing right now?  Eating!  I'd be eating for the next five months.  You'd better believe that if we all really did only have five months until (as either CNN or USA Today put it) "the world goes kaput" I would spend as much of that time as possible eating.  I figure there would be no point in worrying about hardened arteries or high cholesterol or becoming morbidly obese.  Alas, the apocalypse does not seem to be upon us.  It is not the end of days; so, unfortunately, it is not the end of diets!

I'll be back tomorrow to tell you about those brownies!

Tea at the Peninsula

Day before yesterday I officially graduated! To celebrate, my mom, pops and I went to afternoon tea at the Peninsula. I love their afternoon tea. It's the best tea this side of the Atlantic. The sandwiches are excellent and very fancy (but in a good way). For example, one of them was lobster salad on a mini brioche roll...yum! The scones are good, British scones, nothing out of this world, but really nice. They serve them with real clotted cream (none of this whipped crap that American restaurants tend to use) and very nice jam. Then there are the desserts. I find that some are OK, but not amazing, and some are just perfect! What's especially nice is they will bring you extras of everything, without making you feel like a pig for asking. They are so nice, if you say "oh I really like that chocolate cake," they'll bring you a plate with extra pieces of that cake! And if you tell them that it's a special occasion when you make the reservation, they'll give you an extra dessert (because that's just what I need, more dessert...not that I'm complaining, mind you)! They gave me a gorgeous piece of chocolate cake layered with a light whipped chocolate icing or mousse, topped with a chocolate ganache and beautiful chocolate decorations.

Dessert at Cafe Luxembourg

I graduated yesterday!  The day before was the presentation of degree candidates.  So to celebrate being a degree candidate we all went out to a big dinner at Cafe Luxembourg.  It's on the upper west side of NYC and it is really good.  It's basically an upscale French bistro.  They have excellent desserts (I highly recommend their homemade ice cream, though that's not what I had on Tuesday.)  I had their special molten chocolate cake. It was excellent.  Warm and gooey on the inside, cakey on the outside, and the chocolate ice cream was creamy and delicious. They put a candle in it and wrote happy graduation in chocolate on the plate, which was very nice.  And yummy!

My mom got a chocolate mousse cake, which was also incredible. And it was topped with salted caramel ice cream that, I have to say, was slightly better than my chocolate ice cream. The cake was good too! It was two layers of good chocolate cake with a layer of mousse between and a layer of chocolate on top. The plate was decorated with caramel sauce and dark chocolate tuiles.

Brownies

Yesterday I handed my final paper.  I am officially done with all my college work!  In addition to handing in my paper, I brought some brownies into my final "class."  I put class in quotes because it wasn't mandatory and it was really more of a party than a class, hence the brownies.

The recipe is in Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess.  It is one of my favorite cookbooks ever.  However, I remember I made these brownies two or three years ago and didn't really like them.  I don't know what I did wrong that time, because this time they were excellent!  They were fudgy but not overly so, and they were quite chocolaty.  They are a really good, easy to make, staple brownie.  Every single brownie I brought to class was gone by the end of the hour!

Flourless Chocolate Cookies

  

I made these to bring into my final thesis seminar meeting.  Of course we already handed in our theses, so this was just a celebration.  Since it is still Passover, I had to do something flourless and I didn't want to make macaroons again.  So I made these amazing flourless chocolate cookies from Francois Payard's Chocolate Epiphany.  They are so good I make them year round, plus they have the added bonus of being flourless for Passover (or for those who can't eat gluten).  I'm not the only one who thinks they are that good.  One of my classmates told me that they were "really good, and not just for Passover food."

Basically, these cookies are powdered sugar, cocoa powder, egg whites, and ground/chopped walnuts.  The trick is to not over mix them.  If you do the egg whites stiffen a bit too much and the cookies end up puffier and a little less brownie-like in the center.  That said, I tend to over mix them a bit, and I still love them, so don't worry too much.  Just know that they won't look as even and flat as his do in the book.  FYI, I make mine smaller than he calls for, just because I like being able to have two cookies but not be piggy.  If you do that, just make sure to check them often, as they'll bake quicker.

Chocolate Coconut Pie

Wow this was amazing!  I really wanted to try a recipe from my new Martha Stewart Pies and Tarts cookbook that I got for my birthday.  However, with my thesis due this past Monday I didn't have time before Passover to bake a pie.  I was a bit irked, because I really didn't want to wait any longer.  Happily I found this pie (Crisp Coconut and Chocolate Pie...or perhaps Coconut Crisp and Chocolate Pie), which is Passover friendly.

This is not only an incredible Passover dessert, but also a wonderful anytime dessert.  It is basically a thick pie crust made of coconut filled with chocolate ganache.  The crust is baked before you pour in the ganache and then it is just chilled.  This process, in my opinion makes it a good summer pie, because the oven isn't on for long intervals and it's served chilled.  Plus there's something summery about coconut, I think.

Anyway, my one pointer for this is do not make it too last minute.  The cookbook says to let it chill for anywhere from an hour to a day.  The one hour guideline is too short.  It's what I followed (because I'm rather impatient!) and the filling was not fully set.  That said, it was still amazing!  It had an almost pudding like texture.  Although, if I'm honest, I did like it slightly more the next day when it was fully set and chilled through to the center.  I'd suggest making it in the morning or very early afternoon if you can, then let it chill until dessert time.  That seems like it would work well.

Vanilla and Chocolate Coconut Macaroons

These are the same coconut macaroons I make a lot.  I love them anytime, so during Passover, when I can't eat the majority of baked goods, they are wonderful!  This time I made them a little differently.  I made a double batch by doubling the quantities of coconut and egg white and increasing the amount of sugar (but not quite doubling it since I use sweetened coconut).  I divided the coconut mixture in half and flavored each half separately.  In the first half, I used vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract in the vanilla ones to give them an extra kick.  In the second half, I added cocoa powder and a tad extra super fine sugar until it looked chocolately and delicious (not that you can taste it, since it is so eggy, but you can tell when it's chocolately enough because it looks it.)

Both flavors came out wonderfully and were big hits.  Pops liked the vanilla a bit more, mom liked the chocolate so that worked well!

P.S. I could have sworn I took a photo of these, but I can't find it...sorry!

White Chocolate, Cranberry, Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies, from Nigella Christmas, are really good.  I made them two years ago to give as gifts on Christmas cookie plates and they are a prefect Christmas cookie.  After all, white chocolate and cranberry seems very holiday-y.  However, when my professor said she loves cranberry and white chocolate cookies, I figured I had to make these for my class.  They were quite a hit.

I barely did anything differently from the last time I made them, so I won't ramble on about them too long since you can read about them here.  All I did was leave out the nuts.  The recipe calls for pecans but I have a friend who is in that class with me who is allergic to nuts.  So I just left them out.  They were really good that way!

P.S. Sorry, I forgot to photograph these.  Just look at that old post to see them, they looked the same (even without the nuts.)

Mini Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Hmm, the color of this photo came out kind-of funny.  Ah well, they still look nice.

Yesterday was my birthday, so I wanted cake.  But let's face it, I really didn't need a whole cake in the house, so I made cupcakes (that way I can give some away easily).  The recipe for the lovely fluffy white cupcakes is from Nigella Bites.  It was surprisingly easy (not that cupcakes are hard, but these were especially simple).  And gosh they were good!  They tasted sweet, but not overly so, and the texture was perfectly cakey and fluffy.

The recipe called for either royal icing (not my favorite) or ganache (I didn't have heavy cream) so I made my favorite vanilla buttercream instead.  I actually didn't use vanilla extract to flavor it, instead I used vanilla powder.  I'm not quite sure how they make it, but it's by the same company who make my vanilla extract.  It's real vanilla, but not with the alcohol and, well, powdered not liquid.  I like it because it doesn't change the color or texture of the buttercream but it still gives it a strong vanilla flavor.  I colored it pink with my new food coloring paste (a ton of fun, I can't wait to use it again) and piped it onto each cupcake with a wide plain pastry tip.  I topped them with an upside down white chocolate chip, because I thought it would be pretty and match the pink and white polka dot muffin papers that I used.  Wow they looked good...and they tasted good too!

The color came out odd on these too, but differently.  Shame, but I suppose you can still get the picture (no pun intended!)

Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze, con't

Oops, I completely forgot to post the photo of the Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze.  Here it is, and an extra for good measure!

Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

I made this quite a while ago and posted it on my old blog, and I feel bad about posting it.  Not that it wasn't excellent, and I certainly want to share it at some point.  The thing is, I've been baking quite a bit because I'm relatively stressed with end of senior year stuff (i.e. finishing my thesis), but I don't really have time to upload new photos and write about what I've made (writing anything that isn't schoolwork is getting difficult!)  Ah well, this is really all I have the time and energy for right now!

I just bought a bundt pan earlier today (when I wrote this ages ago), so I had to use it. Coincidentally, I had recently bought a really excellent new cookbook, Dessert University, which had a bundt cake recipe I wanted to try out. So I made Orange Sabayon Cake, which is really just a orange bundt cake made with with batter prepared, in part, the way a sabayon sauce is prepared. It is a really excellent cake that’s kind of like a light pound cake. The cook book recommends different ways of serving it, but most of them involve heavy cream (which I was out of), so I made a simple glaze with equal parts cocoa and powdered sugar. I just added enough water to make it spreadable and painted it on the bundt with a pastry brush. Simple, and perfect for the cake (perhaps not quite as perfect as ganache and chocolate mousse...though it won’t harden your arteries just by looking at it!)

Guinness Gingerbread

The picture really doesn't do this justice.

Oh my god this was good!  I'm not usually a huge fan of gingerbread--the cookie kind or the traditional cake kind--or Guinness for that matter.  I loved this, though!  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, it was from Nigella Kitchen and I always love Nigella's recipes.  They are tasty and relatively easy.  This was no exception.

It was wonderfully tender and moist and aromatic.  You can't necessarily taste the Guinness, it just adds another layer of flavor.  And the ginger of the gingerbread comes through, but is somewhat understated.  The cake was slightly sticky and really light (almost like a steamed pudding).  Just amazing.  And, of the three St. Patrick's Day desserts I made, the biggest hit at the party!

P.S. When I say this was easy, I mean it.  Everything is mixed in on pan (and when it says medium sauce pan, she means medium-large, I used one that was more medium-small, and that got difficult!) Nigella suggests using a disposable pan, DO IT!  It made clean up a breeze, and I'd imagine it would be difficult to get your good cake pan clean after this stickiness!

St. Patrick's Day Shortbread

Here are the shortbread cookies I made for St. Patrick's Day.  They were amazing!  I have to say, I've had trouble finding a good shortbread cookie recipe that makes decent quantity.  (So many recipes only make around a dozen cookies, and that is not nearly enough!)  Anyway, I found this recipe in Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook.  I'd already made her chocolate shortbread, so I figured her plain one would be good.  I was right!  It really was incredible shortbread.  It was buttery and sweet, but not to sweet.  And the texture was perfect; slightly crumbly, compact but not dense, and ever so slightly crisp.  I used light green sanding sugar on top to make them holiday-ish, but usually I would just use plain sugar, though of course you can use any color you want.

Baileys Brownies

The color doesn't look quite right in this photo (it was richer brown and sparklier green in person), sorry!

As I told you before, I made Baileys Brownies for St. Patrick's Day.  You can read all about them here.  However, that's from the practice batch without the lovely sugar on top.  I'd actually been worried about the sugar weighing down the top and messing with the texture of the brownies.  Well, it did weigh down the to a little, but it actually made the texture better!  It made them uniformly fudgy by stopping that little top flakey, cakey layer that forms on most brownies from forming.  And they added a pleasant crunch, but not too much of one.  Really they were quite wonderful!  (And they looked perfect for the holiday.)

By the way, I cut them into small pieces for the party, but I have to say they were the perfect size for eating in general.  They are quite rich and dense so, as much as I don't like to admit it, they are actually best consumed in small(ish) quantities.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm going to a St. Patrick's Day party tonight hosted by a woman my pops used to work with, and I decided I'd bring a few desserts. She's Irish, so I didn't want to just bring green sugar cookies, I wanted to do something more traditional. So I hunted through my cookbooks and found three recipes.  The Baileys brownies, traditional shortbread, and Guinness gingerbread.  I'll write about them tomorrow or the next day.

Key Lime Pie

Isn't it beautiful?!

Happy Pi Day!  To celebrate, I made pie...key lime pie, to be precise. I've never made key lime pie before, as it turns out, it's pretty easy! Perhaps some recipes are more complex, but this one (from the Williams-Sanoma Pie & Tart cookbook) was wonderfully simple. And it turned out brilliantly!

The filling was creamy and custardy and smooth. And the taste was excellent too.  I made the graham cracker crust myself so I made it a little thicker than usual, because I love it! I had some problems finding key limes, so I used regular limes instead. But since they are bitterer than key limes (I believe, I've never had fresh key limes before) I added in the juice of one lemon with the lime juice, to give it the right balance of tart, sweet and bitter.  It worked! I just whipped up some cream and piped it on top to make it look pretty and voila, a wonderful pi day treat!

Practice Baileys Browines

I want to make something Baileys flavored for St. Patrick's Day.  I don't want to make the brown sugar cupcakes with Bailey's icing that I have a recipe for, but I don't have any other recipes with Baileys.  So I decided that I could tweak the Emerald City Brownies from the Fat Witch Brownies cookbook.  I figured since they have green sugar on top they'd look very holiday-ish.  Plus they had a lot of mint extract, which I figured I could replace with Baileys.  That way I wouldn't have to worry about adding too much liquid, and I assumed the chocolate wasn't quite as strong as in other brownies so that the mint (or as I did it, Baileys) would come through.  I was right!  They are perfect Baileys Brownies.  The liquor flavor isn't too strong, but it definitely comes through.  One problem, I'm not a huge Baileys fan...I don't dislike it, I just don't love it either...so these brownies, while good, aren't my favorite.

I am going to make them again for St. Patty's Day with the green sugar on top (I didn't want to waste it on a trial batch as it's a little pricey).  So I'll post a photo when I make that batch.

In addition, after the holiday, I'm going to try these with different flavored liquors...perhaps Kahlua or Frangelico.  And I love mint, so I'll definitely try them in their original form too!