Tuile Time

It’s that time again for another Daring Bakers challenge. This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umrühren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

I’ll admit that I wasn’t that excited about this month’s recipe. I can appreciate the lightness of this recipe after all the holiday goodies, it was nice to have a lighter treat to make. However, I’m not one to exercise my creativity often, so with all the leniency we had I was stumped. I liked the butterfly idea but in the end didn’t have any luck. I tried drawing an outline on the back of parchment paper but that didn’t work. I did not try the stencil. I thought I could make some bowls for the sorbet I was going to make, but I couldn’t get the consistency of the dough right to form them good. I basically ended up using a rolling pin and attempted a fortune cookie shape. I did manage to get a few “bowls” and got a picture with the orange sorbet. I even squeezed the orange juice myself to make the frozen treat.
The flavors of the cookies were really good though. I found it difficult to stop eating them once I got started.

The only real issue I had while making the dough was that I didn’t bring my egg whites to room temperature before combining with the butter. I had a mental lapse I suppose and the butter hardened in little bits among the egg whites. I tried letting them sit for a little while to come to room temp but it was taking too long and I was impatient so I just added the flour and hoped for the best. In the end it turned out just fine.

Thanks to Karen and Zorra for hosting this month.

Cookie Obsessed

It seems I am a little behind in seeing the throwdown episode with Lavain Bakery. I caught it last weekend and like many others I had to find a copycat recipe. I first tried Judy's at http://judyskitchen.blogspot.com/ . They were very good. I haven't had one from the Levain Bakery so I can't do a true comparison, but I liked the concept of having a thick and chewy cookie.

I also tried Bobby's recipe from the show. Although still good, it looked sad in comparison, so flat and more crispy. I also made smaller versions of the Levain recipe...

So, then I thougth I could beef up Bobby's recipe to get a thicker cookie and make it look more like the Levain. It turned out all right. It had a more crackly top. I did change his in respect to the sugars. I switched the amounts of white sugar to brown sugar. I also added about 1/2 cup more flour to thicken the dough.

So over this past week I did more searching regarding the Lavain recipe. I came upon Su Good Sweets blog...http://www.sugoodsweets.com/blog/2006/04/levain/ . There has been much discussion going on on her site since February when I believe the show Throwdown show first aired. One contributor in particular took the lead on discovery as close of a copycat as possible. Her name is Lisa and she now has her own blog at http://lisamichele.wordpress.com/ . Here you can find the next two recipes I tried, the basic chocolate chip cookie and the dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookie. I did not use walnuts in any of my attempts, but I did use pecans in some of the cookies. I really enjoy the toasted pecans with the chocolate. Also, instead of peanut butter chips in the chocolate cookies I used mini Reese's peanut butter cups (chips).

I actually weighed the dough out to 6 oz to see what a true Levain cookie would look like and it is huge! But it looks awesome. I made smaller ones again (1 tablespoon size) to try. I want to take the bigger ones to work to show everyone and then maybe we can split them.

I just couldn't stop there though. I decided I needed to make about 4 or 5 other recipes, I've lost count now... I had made two of them before but I wanted to do a tast comparison against the Levain copy's. Also, I wanted to mention that I love how the Lavaib Bakery has embraced everyone trying to figure out their recipe that they have linked to the blogs I have mentioned on their own website. http://www.levainbakery.com/cookies/recipes.aspx

One of the ones I had made before was the Neiman Marcus cookies. This is the recipe that they posted on their website after an urban myth went around about how a lady bought the recipe for $200 and then spread it to everyone. It's a good basic recipe which has a little espresso powder in it. I added some cappacino chips to some of the dough, which turned out some very sweet cookies.
I also tried Bake or Breaks favorite chocolate chip cookie that uses ground oatmeal. This turned out a nice crispy and chewy cookie that didn't scream oatmeal. It also combines milk and dark chocolate chips. I'm sure it will be most excellent with some milk later. http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2008/07/09/my-favorite-chocolate-chip-cookies/


The other recipe I made again is from All Recipes and it's called the Best Big Fat Chewy Cookie . http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Big-Fat-Chewy-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie/Detail.aspx These turned out as big as the Levain cookies. I admit that I inadvertantly used baking powder and then realized what I had done so I added a little soda too. This might have made a difference in the puffiness. I don't recall them getting this big the last time I made them. I haven't tried them again yet. Sadly, I've almost made myself sick from sampling cookie dough and the baked cookies.
I also made oatmeal, pecan chocolate chip cookies. These have cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves added to the dough. Awesome!!! Makes me believe it is fall, even if the weather hasn't changed much yet. I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Her recipe calls for orange zest, which I left out, but these cookies are still great. http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/11/oatmeal-chocolate-chip-and-pecan-cookies/
These are the smaller versions of the Lavain cookies. I also made Dori Greenspan's Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. I believe the Tuesdays with Dori group made these a few weeks ago. They were met with mixed reviews from the blogs I saw. I still had to try them. I think they have a wonderful chocolate taste and the malt is not overwhelming. I didn't get a close up shot but they are the other chocolate cookies in the plated picture of all my cookies at the top of the post.

I think I've decided I don't have to have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I just love cookies and will enjoy trying recipes and different takes on this favorite treat of mine.

I've also included this one picture of my second attempt at the pate choux recipe from the daring bakers August challenge. This time I think turned out a little bette than my first. Most of them stayed nice and puffed up. I made Dori's pastry cream again and added a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract to it, which I think made them even better. I made my chocolate sauce a little thicker this time too.

Back to simpler things

I just wanted to quickly update on my baking endeavors. Last week I made some white chocolate chip cookies with amaretto soaked cranberries. The recipe calls for brandy soaked berries but I like amaretto and didn't have any brandy. They still turned out pretty tasty though. I also upped the amount of brown sugar and lowered the white sugar. Next time I'll leave out the extra liqueur because they cookies were a bit flat.

This weekend I did my own little taste test experiment with brownies. I have pretty much always stuck with the boxed mixes. They're easy and still taste good to me. But I'm trying to break from my comfort zone and try new things. Brownies are not difficult to make but the recipes I tried did step up the process a little by involving a double boiler. I tried three different recipes and two types of cocoa with one of them for a total of four types of brownies. I made Alice Medrich's Best Cocoa Brownies one with dutch process cocoa and the other with natural cocoa. I also made Alton Brown's cocoa brownies and then Dorie Greenspan's Bittersweet brownies. I meant to keep everything basic and go by the recipe exactly but I found myself not able to resist adding a tad bit of almond extract to Dorie's recipe. OMG, were they good. I still don't have a favorite yet out of the results. I think I need to do more tastings. Dorie's definitely gets most gooey and I liked the natural cocoa over the dutch process which surprised me because the blackness of the latter really appeals to me.

I also barbecued out again this weekend. My neighbor friend came down to eat with me. I made sangria to go with it all and we had a very enjoyable time. I like throwing things on the grill to see what the outcome is. I tried tomatoes, bell peppers, asparagus and mushrooms this time along with pork chops and chicken. I just have to keep watch because flare ups happen quickly on my little grill and cause the food to get charred more than I'd necessarily like.

So, a more basic weekend with no real problems. Just yumminess.

Cookies and (attempt at) Macaroons

Well, this weekend I kept up my momentum of baking but thought I was keeping it pretty safe with my choices. That didn't turn out to be the case. I had some cinnamon chips that I wanted to try in a cookie, but wasn't sure which to try. I decided to try the recipe on the bag which was an oatmeal cookie. The cinnamon chips are insane with cinnamon flavor. It's really impressive when first trying them. The cookies turned out pretty well, but the recipe didn't call for any salt and I think in the end it could have used a touch. So, I'll probably do some more searching for another attempt at using these morsels. I know there are some mentions on other blogs about them so I'll have to look out for other ideas.

I attempted macaroons using a recipe from the book I got the genoise recipe from. Again, I didn't have so much luck. I have to figure out this whipping egg whites thing. I second guess it all, like it that a stiff peak, maybe I should beat it a little more but I don't want to beat it too much. So, I'll keep working on that skill. However, the cookie dough was not thick enough but I pressed on and baked them anyway. They ran but I was able to salvage a few for consumption and they still tasted pretty good. Maybe I need to use a different book. I'm 0 for 2 from this one. But then again, it's probably me...more so than the recipes.

I also made shortbread for the first time. I used a recipe from My Sweetest Dreams blog. Around the holidays last year I was out with my mom shopping in the small town she lives in and I grew up in. There aren't many stores to go to but we make our usual rounds. This day we checked out a little thrift store that had some really cool things in it. We found this piece of stoneware that had pretty flower designs in it. I wasn't sure what it was used for but liked it and it was like $2 so we got it. I discovered that it was a shortbread pan. Now, six months later I decided to finally try using it. The recipe was great and they tast awesome. I did have a little trouble getting the cookie loose and away from the pan in one piece, so I'll have to be more careful next time.

All in all I was satisfied with my endeavors this weekend. I also tried my hand at grilling with a little gas grill that I got over a year ago. I bought it as a hurricane supply but we've been lucky since the 2004 ones when I didn't have a grill. So, I finally put it together and cooked up some chicken, shrimp, and burgers. Then last night my neighbor friend had me down for steaks which we cooked on the grill also. They turned out really good.

The weekend didn't go without it's hiccups though. I had an incident Saturday morning. I still don't know how I accomplished this mess, but it was a good one. I some how managed to splatter a half a cup of coffee all over myself, the floor, the refrigerator, wall and cabinets in a 360 degree manner. I didn't know so little liquid could make such a mess. Good thing I had planned on cleaning the floors that morning anyway. :-)