This One Goes Out to David

Now it is time to discuss The Recipe That Launched A Thousand Copies. My friend David has formulated a chocolate chip cookie recipe that you probably know about, if you are reading this. If you do not know what I am talking about, I am sorry. Your life is clearly incomplete. If memory serves right, I first had these wonderful creations on May 9, 2006. The date could be wrong, but it was a Monday night sometime in early May. That was a good day. Well, actually, it had been one of the worst days that entire year. I don't think Dave knew that, but anyway the cookies made me feel completely better. Sometime this past fall, I discovered that a certain employee of his had acquired this recipe. Unbeknownst to him, she was handing out photocopies to half of the free world. She even gave me one, under the condition that I didn't tell David that I had it. It laid dormant, waiting until I could buy vanilla bean paste.

Fast forward two months later- I broke down and asked David where to buy vanilla bean paste, and the cat was outta the proverbial bag. I made them, and it was good. I had putzed around the kitchen baking some baguettes, and some pumpkin bread for my friend Heather because the scent of it reminds her of Autumn, but this is when I really started getting enthusiastic about baking. Long story short, I kept making cookies, and here we are. Today, I made these because I haven't had the time to bake lately and I was going crazy. My sister also likes it when I make cookie with chocolate in them, because I usually make the peanut butter one's and she hates them. She's never actually tried one, by the way.
Now, I've played around with this recipe. I substituted a secret ingredient for the milk a while back, and David was of the opinion I improved upon his achievement. I don't know about all that, but they were tasty. Today, I was out of that special sumthin', and have you been outside lately? I was not about to get in the rickety old van that doesn't have heat to go and get the special sumthin'. So, I used something else in addition to the milk. I will not tell you people what it was, but I will say this much: my mother was highly skeptical of my idea, and upon tasting the cookie she declared it was the best chocolate chip cookie of her life. I also went equal parts with the two different types of flour, and I chilled the dough for longer than required. As a result, these cookies are about one inch tall and two inches wide, and a bit crunchy on the outside. That last part is my fault, I left the last three sheets in the oven a bit longer to get them a slight golden brown, because the first (and best) sheet was too pale for my liking.
I myself have had four this evening. I also have a headache from the sugar. Let's hope they survive until tomorrow for their intended recipient(s). Here are some bad photos.


Does the above photo really surprise you?


This is one of the later, and more brown, cookies.


Again, the last one outta the oven.

This was the first sheet. See how pale (and blurry) they are?

That is all. I will bake something else soon, and it will probably show up in the break room at work.

Anticipation

The title is falsely presumptuous. I don't actually think anyone is waiting on pins and needles for my posts. Anyways, because I'm just whiling away the minutes until I go to sleep, I thought I'd say I will make cookies, or something, tomorrow and blog about it.

Brown Sugah

Well, today's stab at the Muffin Territory was the most successful yet! The muffin pan came with a recipe for Blueberry muffins, and I devised my own recipe using the former as a broad guideline. I followed most of the ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, milk, eggs, butter), and added or altered a few of my own. I decided I would make some brown sugar-cinnamon muffins, and I ended up throwing in some nutmeg as well. I don't know why, I don't particularly care for our nutmeg because I think it smells and tastes like soap, but it just seemed like something I was suppose to do. In adding the brown sugar, I simply reduced the regular granulated sugar by a half cup and substituted the other half cup with brown sugar. For the cinnamon and nutmeg, I threw in a teaspoon of each to the dry ingredients. As always, I sort of just poured the vanilla bean paste in until I was tired of holding the bottle. Now, as per the instructions, I alternated adding the dry/wet ingredients to the base batter. I used an electric mixer for the first half, which I think might have been a bad idea. Apparently, the idea you're going for when you make muffin batter is lumpiness, or a general coarseness. I think mine was too well-mixed, which could have altered the intended texture. I'll try it all-wooden-spoon next time. I sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon liberally on top of the muffins prior to baking them. I have some vanilla sugar from the Heidelberg Cafe that I considered adding, but I was afraid it would be too vanilla-y. I don't mind vanilla-y, but someone else might. To be honest, the sugar was upstairs from the kitchen and I was tired tonight.

Here are some photos.





I even tried one tonight! They taste like spice cake. It had an excellent moisture, with a very fine, crumbly texture. It tasted like spice cake, minus the icing. My mother found hers to be delicious, and believes it will go well with coffee tomorrow morning. We still have more left over. Anybody want a muffin? Or the recipe?

All Points Bulletin

I am running out of people to push my baked goods on. I can't make it to work everyday to put them in the break room, bake-swaps online seem a bit dubious, and my family can't eat everything I make. I either need to meet more people who love carbs, or I should start selling/giving away what I make. What has clued me into this despite my flour-induced pipe dreams?

When you're starting to store loaves of bread in the garage freezer, you know you've got a problem...

This One Goes Out To John

It is now time to talk about a cookie that has achieved some small degree of fame, due to Mr. John Peddie. When I first happened upon this recipe, I knew I had to make them for said man and my good friend Molly. If memory serves right, I baked them up on a Tuesday night, intending to schlep them around during my school day and give them to John at work that night. Molly loves peanut butter cookies, so I let her try a cookie before I gave them to John. Partly because I wanted to test them out before giving them to John, and because she was drooling over the package I carried. She and her friend Taylor tried one each, and the threatened to knock me out and steal them away. Needless to say, they made it to work for John and his wife Amy. I made them to celebrate the coming Child of Peddie (after new information was received, this has been edited to Son of Peddie).

Well, long story short, I don't think I will ever see the look John had on his face as he tried that cookie again. The man is a FIEND for these cookies. To his credit and my delight, he seems to enjoy most of my baked goods. I am glad. One day, I'll write about The Great Christmas Cookie Tower. However, today I only have time for the most recent batch of Peanut Butter with Snicker's cookies. The actual recipe name is "Santa's Surprise! Cookies", but that title is, for lack of a better word, lame.

I did not have the time to bake this batch tonight, for I have found myself staring down the barrel of that vicious gun Time yet once again. I'm already skirting disaster staying up late to make the dough, which has to chill for a few hours, because I have to be on the road to Bloomington for an Important Exam at 8 this all too quickly coming morning.

Enough talk! This is what the dough looks like. Inside of My KitchenAid.



Why is this underlined? I don't know what I just did...um. Well, as you can see, I ran out of saran wrap ( I do this baking thing quite often), so I MacGuyver'd a giant Ziploc bag for the job. I credit my friend David for this trick.

Ok, so now we're not underlined? I don't understand. This is mysterious. Um. OK, so these are the snickers bites that will go inside of the cookies at seven o'clock this coming morning. Wait, did I mention why I'm making these? Dangit. I promised my friend Paul that I would bring him homebaked cookies when I made it down to Bloomington. Tomorrow, I plan on delivering. Ouch...sorry about the bad pun.

Hey, look! I ran out of flour. Again, I do this 'baking' thing on an almost daily basis. No, really. I do. Want some cookies? You can see my 'apron' in the below photo. Today I discovered that I can secure a towel through my belt instead of throwing it over my shoulder. I should probably get an apron one of these days.

Ah, and here we have the finished product: The Cookie. My friend David has a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that he is known far and wide throughout the land for, I'll write about that recipe another day, and I think that I have made a similar, lesser known niche for myself with this sucker.

They are best when warm. I shipped them to my friend Jason and his fiance, Letha, but I don't know how the cargo fared. He said they were "grrreat!", but even though I appreciated that, it was somewhat vague.

I haven't modified the original recipe terribly much. I use vanilla bean paste instead of extract, dark brown sugar in place of light brown, and I do not drizzle melted chocolate on top. I tried to melt chocolate once...and I almost started a fire.

The next modification I'm going to try is whole wheat flour. On a very ordinary, unsuspecting day...

Muffins Elude Me

So, I like to bake. I've been doing so much of it lately, that I decided I would make a little blog about it for my own amusement. Besides, I've just got loads of free time on my hands! Why not add another task to the to-do list? All sarcasm aside, I decided I would kick off with my most recent food stuff: muffins.

For the past few weeks, I had been keeping a lustful eye on the bake ware in Williams-Sonoma, a cooking store in the mall where I 'work'. The hand-held Kitchen Aid mixers, the perforated baguette pan, the loaf pans (of many different sizes, most notably the miniature ones that would make giving bread away very easy to do), the pastry board, and the muffins pans. Now, I don't really eat muffins. I don't care for them. I don't actually eat many of the things I bake, to tell you the truth. When I do, I don't really taste anything special. An exception to this was a certain batch of chocolate chip cookies I gave a friend for Christmas; I have yet to re-create that symphonic miracle. Yet, for some reason, I have felt to urge to being learning how to make really great muffins. My 'paycheck' last week was far larger than I anticipated, and I decided that I would pick myself up a little something as a treat to me. The Chosen Item was a muffin pan. A six muffin, aluminized steel, crowned muffin pan, to be exact.

It is a thing of beauty.
That night, I christened it with a batch of Betty Crocker's Pumpkin Muffin's. I put cream cheese in half of the muffins, after hearing my friend talk about the deliciousness that it cream cheese filled muffins. The verdict?

The muffins are beautiful, but nothing special. I blame the recipe. It called for 'Pumpkin Pie Spice', which I reluctantly used. I felt that using nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and some ginger in their individual incarnations would be a wiser idea. I should have followed my intuition. I was told the muffins tasted of pepper.

Pepper? I like pepper just fine, I'm rather fond of it, but in muffins? That is incorrect.

Lesson Learned: Screw 'Pumpkin Pie Spice'.