Category Archives: baking

Classic chocolate chip cookies

baking, kids 3 Comments

Just makes you want to reach for a glass of milk, doesn’t it?

These are classic, easy, ridiculously nom-worthy chocolate chip cookies from my very favorite cookbook. Get the oven heating!

You will need:

  • 1/4 cup softened butter
  • 1/4 cup softened shortening
  • 3/4 cup sugar — half brown, half white
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 1/8 cup flour
  • 1/4 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 6 oz. chocolate chips (about 1 1/4 cups, or half a bag)

And then:

  1. Mix together butter, shortening, sugar, egg and vanilla till creamy, but not fluffy
  2. Sift together and stir in flour, soda, salt and mix in with wet ingredients
  3. Add in chocolate chips and stir
  4. Chill dough while oven is preheating to 375F
  5. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheet, about 2″ apart
  6. Bake 8-10 minutes until they are just barely starting to brown — Betty says “delicately browned.” I love that
  7. Cool slightly on the cookie sheet, then move to a rack to cool completely

Makes about 3 dozen 2″ cookies. And they don’t last long.

Emergency chocolate cake

baking, snacks 10 Comments

You know how it works: it’s 10:30 at night and you just. have. to. have. chocolate. cake. right. now. NOW. Nothing else will do. What’s that? No cake in the pantry? Well in three minutes there will be one in your hot little hands.

I’ve been tweaking this recipe for a while now, purely in the name of research (what??), and this is the best incarnation I’ve come up with. I do not use the egg that most recipes call for because it’s just too much; all you taste and feel is boiled egg. I use cake flour because AP flour can feel dense in this and make the cake too heavy, but obviously if you’re experiencing an Official Chocolate Emergency, use what you have.

So next time you’re dying for chocolate cake, try this:

Start by spraying the inside of a coffee mug with nonstick spray. Then put into the mug:

  • 2 Tbsp. cake flour
  • 2 Tbsp. sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tsp. cocoa powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 Tbsp. milk
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 tsp. oil
  1. Stir together with a fork until well blended
  2. Microwave for 60 seconds
  3. Turn out onto a plate; eat it plain or top with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, or both!

Isn’t that easy?

Emergency chocolate cake

baking, snacks 8 Comments

You know how it works: it’s 10:30 at night and you just. have. to. have. chocolate. cake. right. now. NOW. Nothing else will do. What’s that? No cake in the pantry? Well in three minutes there will be one in your hot little hands.

I’ve been tweaking this recipe for a while now, purely in the name of research (what??), and this is the best incarnation I’ve come up with. I do not use the egg that most recipes call for because it’s just too much; all you taste and feel is boiled egg. I use cake flour because AP flour can feel dense in this and make the cake too heavy, but obviously if you’re experiencing an Official Chocolate Emergency, use what you have.

So next time you’re dying for chocolate cake, try this:

Start by spraying the inside of a coffee mug with nonstick spray. Then put into the mug:

  • 2 Tbsp. cake flour
  • 2 Tbsp. sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tsp. cocoa powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 Tbsp. milk
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 tsp. oil
  1. Stir together with a fork until well blended
  2. Microwave for 60 seconds
  3. Turn out onto a plate; eat it plain or top with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, or both!

Isn’t that easy?

Life changing icebox dough

baking 16 Comments

A couple months ago I bought the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It’s nigh onto life changing.

Have you ever looked at the clock and realized it’s 5:00 and you were going to make a loaf of crusty bread for supper but now it’s too late? Never again.

Have you ever wished you could have really good homemade pizza at home but didn’t want to knead bread forever, and didn’t start no-knead pizza dough the night before? No problem.

Wish you could serve homemade yeast rolls to the family for supper tonight without calling on Sister Shubert? Done.

This is such an easy solution that it’s almost ridiculous: keep dough in the fridge. The end. It takes five minutes to mix it up, and keeps for two weeks. So what are you waiting for?

If you’re not sure you’ll use it all in two weeks, you can make a half portion of the recipe. I do this because only The Yankee and I will eat it (The Kiddo not so much), and I don’t want any to go to waste:

  • 3 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water*
  • 3/4 tbsp. yeast
  • 3/4 tbsp. salt

*If you’ve been straining yogurt and have some whey left you can use whey in place of water — a great way to add some protein and a little sourdough-like tang to the bread.

Mix all that together with a dough whisk, a wooden spoon, a mixer, or whatever. No kneading — you just want everything to be well combined. Put it in a container that’s not quite airtight: this 14 cup produce container with the insert removed is perfect for a half portion of the recipe, and is designed to let produce breathe a bit, so it’s become my designated dough container. After two hours at room temperature, move it to the fridge to chill.

Now go bread crazy! I use the dough for pizza, for crusty bread, for buttery dinner rolls, for hamburger buns, even monkey bread! Maybe some barbecue chicken pizza? Dust a little flour on a corner of your chilled dough and pull off a piece as big as you need. Shape it into a ball and let it rise for at least half an hour, but an hour is great if you have the time. Then bake and enjoy! No harder than cracking open a tube of bread with questionable ingredients, and worlds healthier.

Most configurations of the dough will do great at 400 degrees in the oven. Baking time will obviously depend on the size of the bread, but you want the internal temp to be about 190 degrees and the bread to be nicely browned.

I really do recommend picking up the book. It has many different variations of the recipe, and many uses for each recipe. It’s about $17 at Amazon right now, and well worth the price.

Enjoy it, and let me know what you make with it!

Craisin bagels

baking, breakfast 15 Comments

Oh my moly.

Can one addition change a really great recipe into a really amazing recipe? You bet your Red Rider it can. Especially when that one addition is a bag of Craisins.

I started with the recipe for super simple bagels. You remember this, right? Flour, water, yeast, salt. I said they were simple! But to the mix, toward the end of the kneading, I added a bag of Craisins.

They still puffed up just right.

They survived the boiling just fine.

And they baked up beautifully.

And I got to eat this for breakfast!

Hard to argue with that, isn’t it?

Here’s a quick run-down of the recipe; full details can be found at the original post.

Make a starter of:

  • 2 1/8 oz bread flour
  • 2 oz. cool water
  • a pinch of yeast

and let it sit overnight at room temperature.

The next morning mix your bubbly starter with:

  • 17 ounces bread flour
  • 10 ounces cool water
  • 1 3/4 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

Then:

  1. Knead with abandon. Bread flour is high protein and will take longer to develop gluten; I let the stand mixer have at it for about eight minutes
  2. About five minutes into the kneading, add one bag of Craisins
  3. Let the dough rise for one hour, then deflate it. Let it rise for thirty minutes more
  4. Divide the dough into 12 roughly-equal parts, roll into balls, and let rise under plastic wrap for 30 minutes
  5. Preheat oven to 425 and bring a pan of water with 1 Tbsp. brown sugar to boil
  6. Poke your finger through the middle of the dough balls and twirl on your finger to shape into a bagel. Poke in any Craisins trying to escape
  7. Boil bagels, a few at a time, for 2 minutes on one side; flip with chopsticks and boil for one minute on the second side, then move to parchment-lined cookie sheets
  8. Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes, but start checking after 15 — you want them browned, but not too crispy

Enjoy! These are great with cream cheese. They also mail rather well, which is a nice bonus. 😀