Cream Puffs

Cream puff aka profiteroles have been on my to do list for a while. Actually ever since James sent me the table of ratios for different types of doughs from Michael Ruhlman's book "Ratio". I didn't even know how to pronounce "pate au choux" ... not sure I do now. But I know how to make it! After two batches of cream puffs based on two different recipes and two batches of pastry cream in less than a week I can confidently say cream puffs are my new favorite thing to make.

Pate au choux is a light pastry dough used to make not only cream puffs but also eclairs, croquembouches, beignets, gougeres, etc. According to its history on Wikipedia, the pastry was invented in 1540 by a chef of the Medici family, shortly after they all fled Florence. The name came much later, in the 18th century, when a patissier by the name Avice invented the Choux Buns and the name of the dough became pate au choux because the buns resembled little cabbages - choux in French. They really look like miniature cabbage heads, don't they?

The first recipe (let's call it Recipe A) came form Brown Eyed Baker's fantastic tutorial:

Pate Au Choux

2 large eggs + 1 large egg white (1/2 C eggs)
5 Tbs unsalted butter
2 Tbs milk
6 Tbs water
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C flour, sifted

The second recipe (Recipe B) comes from Michael Ruhlman's ratio approach:

Ratio Pate Au Choix

1/2 C butter
1 C water + milk
1 C eggs (3 large, ~5 medium eggs)
1/2 C flour, sifted
1 Tbs sugar
pinch of salt

The process of making the pastry is soooo simple. Heat butter, milk, water, sugar, and salt in a pan over medium heat, stirring until the butter is melted the mix starts to bubble. Take off the heat and immediately add the flour, stirring briskly, until a paste is formed. Return to low heat and stir until the batter is glossy and easily separates from the sides. Take off the heat, stir briskly to cool a bit. Then slowly pour in the eggs while stirring until smooth. The batter will be sticky, but thick. To make the puffs, transfer the batter to a pastry bag with a plane tip and pipe 1 to 1 1/2 inch mounds on a wax-paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 min @ 415F + 8 min @ 375F. Then turn off the oven, crack open the door and let the puffs cool in the oven. More detailed instructions can be found here.

Now, for the comparison. The two recipes actually had very different ratios of ingredients. The first recipe was 1:1:5/8:1 of liquid:egg:butter:flour, so almost 1:1:1:1. Michael Rulman advocates a very different ratio - 1:2:2:1, so the batter has a lot more egg and butter. In the end however, I was surprised at how similar the batters looked. They had almost the same consistency with B being sweeter and just a bit more runny and unable to hold height when piped. The baking results however were quite different. The puffs from Recipe A held their shape pretty well, puffed a bit but not too much and at the end of the baking were quite sturdy. The puffs from Recipe B puffed up like little balloons and even some of them merged together. They became huge! But at the end of the baking they were still quite moist and some of them collapsed as soon as they were out of the oven. Meh. I personally prefer the first batter though I would increase the sugar to 1 Tbs next time. Ruhlman's ratio works but it the result was not all that satisfying.

Now for the filling:

Pastry Cream

2 C whole milk
1/2 C sugar, divided
5 yolks
3 Tbs corn starch
2 Tbs unsalted butter

Additional for chocolate pastry cream:
3 Tbs cocoa
2 oz quality semi-sweet chocolate

Again, for more elaborate instructions check out Brown Eyed Baker's tutorial. Here is my brief summary: beat yolks + 2 Tbs sugar; add corn startch and beat until mixed well; heat milk + 6 Tbs sugar until boiling; over low heat add the yolk mixture to the milk in a thin stream while stirring well and keep stirring until the mix thickens and begins to bubble; take it off the heat and stir in the butter. For chocolate pastry cream, add the cocoa to the yolk-starch mix and add the chocolate with the butter at the end. Straining the cream is not a bad idea, because there are always lumps. Then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Honestly, I don't know what cocaine tastes like but I can imagine it tastes like pastry cream. This stuff is so tasty it can be addictive. I am adding pastry cream to the list of foods I love, love, love, right next to Thai yellow curry, Monica's lasagna, James's risotto and the 9-grain bagels at Bentley's, among other things.

To finish thinks off, I recommend leaving the puffs uncovered overnight (to dry them even further) and the pastry cream in the fridge also overnight (to thicken and cool). Make little holes on the sides of the puffs and pipe the cream in, slowly and gently so that the cream doesn't come out squirting from the side. Eat as soon as possible - the longer they sit the soggier they get. Cream puffs week is over.

Dobos Torte

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

I sure hope that starting the Monday morning with a piece of cake is a good sign for the week. It must be, especially if the cake is fantastically delicious like this one turned out. I am craving a second piece now... The Dobos Torte is a 5 to 12 layer sponge cake filled with chocolate buttercream and topped with wedges of caramel. From the Darling Baker's site: "It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely."

I must admit I procrastinated on this one. Big time. It is August in Southern California and in my 1940's house with no central air-conditioning August is the month you give the oven a break. It has been so hot and with the wild fires raging just miles away, my enthusiasm to make a cake kept waning as the days of August kept slipping away. Also, I must admit, I found the recipe a bit intimidating. With all the measurements in grams and the equipment list as long as the Torah, my kitchen felt ill prepared for the challenge. But in the end, it all turned out well to my utter surprise, nothing was too hard to handle, the sponge was great and the cake is amazingly delicious. Maybe I'll go home for lunch and have another piece...

I only made half the recipe and cut the layers in rectangular shapes to simplify things. However below I am including the full recipe. The elements can be made separately and then assembled. Store the layers in the fridge between layers of parchment paper.

Dobos Torte

For the layers:
6 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 1/3 C powder sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C + 2 TBS sifted cake flour
pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 400F. Beat the yolks with 2/3 C of sugar and the vanilla until the mixture is pale yellow and thin ribbons form when the beaters are lifted. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and then gradually add the remaining sugar. Gently fold the whites into the yolk mixture, not stirring completely. Sift in the flour and salt, a tablespoon at a time and incorporate very gently. None of that vigorous stirring here - you need to be very gentle. If you do not have cake flour do not despair - mix 3 Tbs corn starch and 13 Tbs regular flour and sift to combine.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. For the rectangular layers I spread the batter all over the sheet, not quite reaching the edges. I you want circular layers, then trace the circles (bottom of a spring-form pan) on the reverse side of the parchment paper and then spread 3/4 C of the batter very thinly to just fill the circle. Bake at 400F for 4 minutes. Once you start smelling the sweet aroma of the baked cake, the layer is ready. Repeat to make the rest of the layers - you need at least 6 of them. Cool very well. Once the layers are cooled, you can peel the parchment paper (carefully!) and trim them to the desired size and shape (I used a pair of scissors though they pinched the dough a bit at the edges).

For the buttercream:
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 C sugar
4 oz bakers or dark chocolate, chopped
1C + 2 Tbs unsalted butter, at room temperature.

Beat the eggs and the sugar in a bowl until well mixed. Place the mix in a double-boiler or improvise one with a bowl nested in a pot and cook the mixture over water at a rolling boil for a few minutes until the mixture is hot to the touch, stirring constantly. Once hot, take the egg mix off the burner and stir in the chopped chocolate until it is all melted. Let cool. Beat the butter in the chocolate mix piece y piece and finish off on high until the mix is smooth and no butter lumps are visible. Refrigerate to thicken.

For the caramel:
1 C sugar
12 Tbs water
8 tsp lemon juice
1 tablespoon neutral oil

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and oil it lightly. Place the best-looking layer on top (the layer better be at room temperature) and cut as desired - sections or strips or whatever. In a small pan combine the sugar, water and lemon juice. Heat at low until the sugar is melted and then crank up the heat and bring the syrup to boil. It will foam - that's ok, just make sure the heat is not so high that the syrup will boil out. Occasionally turn the heat down and check the state of the syrup. Eventually it will turn thick and brown. At that point pour it over the cut-up layer, using a spatula to distribute it evenly all over. You must be pretty quick because the caramel will start setting quite fast. Do not spread the caramel over the edges of the cake layer because that will make removal difficult. Let the caramel set and then peel the pieces off the paper.

Assembly: This should be pretty obvious. Layer-cream-layer-cream and so on till you run out of layers, frost the sides with the remaining cream, arrange the caramel pieces on top. Optionally, decorate the sides with chopped hazelnuts (I put some hazelnuts between the layers as well).

I would love to make this cake again! It looks very sophisticated but in the end it was not all that difficult to make. Next time I would probably skip on the caramel on top. I thought it really was not worth the trouble - it looks interesting but my caramel pieces were the dentist's nightmare and not really edible. The butter-cream was a bit on the soft side but maybe I did not cook the eggs enough. Anyways it was so delicious I licked the bowl twice. And finally, the hazelnuts were a great addition, on the sides and the top. If you would like to put them between the layers then they must be really finely ground - mine were a bit too chinky. All in all, a fantastic cake. Thank you, Daring Bakers!

Chocolate-Cherry Milano Cookies

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milano Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

This is my first Daring Bakers challenge and I feel seriously embarrassed to be flunking it a bit but the result is edible if not as pretty as I had hoped.

On the scale of one to ten of biblical disasters, making these cookies was probably only 1.5. Still I could have easily done without the excitement. It all started with grandiose plans (as all disasters usually do) to make a few different variations of the cookies - some original ones, some black and white ones, some chocolate cherry ones and to color some of the cookies red to match the cherry filling. It all sounded great and I was already imagining treating myself to one of these wonderful cookies along with my coffee on Monday morning (which I did anyways), but my plans deflated as soon as I popped the first pan in the oven .... and the cookies turned into crapes. Things kept going downhill when, after removing the cookies from the oven, I discovered they were glued to the parchment paper and there was no way to remove them from it. Nothing personal against parchment paper, but I prefer my cookies without it. I managed to salvage one cookie. But I was already out of the white batter. Oh well.

I figured I needed to add more flour (maybe too much of egg whites) which I did, realizing along the way that what I had hoped would be red batter was turning bright pink. To make up for it, the chocolate batter was tasty as hell (mmmmm, coooookiiiie baaaaatter). The pink and brown cookies turned out better if a bit too thick. Finally, I ended up with something more resembling deflated macaroons than Milan cookies. I did stick them together with chocolate and cherry jam, so they are chocolate cherry flavored, which I think worked out fabulously - I love the combination of the two flavors. Lesson learned: store bought Milano cookies are better. However, If you are not convinced, you are welcome to try this for yourself. Here is the recipe by Gale Gand on the Food Network site.

I-Miss-Tucson Triple Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies (First Attempt)

It has been almost four months since I picked up and moved from the scorching heat of Tucson, Arizona to the green lawns of Los Angeles, California. Despite the fact that I have moved to better weather and a better job, I am still missing Tucson a whole lot. One of the things I miss the most (along with that special someone) is the Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea, the place where I spend the last three months of grad school and a significant fraction of the previous six years too. I am really more productive when there are people around me, when there is talking and music and interesting faces to secretly stare at for distraction. The quiet unnerves me and the hustle and bustle of the cozy coffee shop were a fantastic escape. Being able to get a huge mug of hot coffee and a bagel (ah, those fabulous 9-grain bagels) any time during the day was also a big advantage. Last but certainly not least was their fabulous selection of cookies. Mmmmm, cookies! Especially the triple chocolate cinnamon ones which I discovered one cold December day last year. And my life was changed forever. Seriously.

A few days before I moved away I asked the owner for the recipe. She refused politely but ensured that a big jar of cookies was supplied the next day which was sweet but I still wanted the recipe. And then I found this recipe on Epicurious. Aha! So here is my first attempt at making these cookies. I didn't quite follow the original recipe because of limitations on the available ingredients so here is what I did:

Triple Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies

1/4 C + 1 Tbs flour
1/4 C unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 Tbs sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1/2 C (3 ounces) chopped milk chocolate (or chips)
1/2 C chopped walnuts, raw

Preheat oven to 350F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and set aside. In a big bowl beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs and beat till smooth. Add the melted chocolate and mix in. Add the dry ingredients in two batches, beating until incorporated. Stir in the milk chocolate pieces and walnuts. The dough is done.

Shaping the cookies can be done in two ways - ice-cream-scooping and slicing. I did the latter because I didn't have time to bake the cookies on the evening I made the dough. The scooping is easier: scoop level ice-cream scoops of dough and place them on a parchment-paper, 2-inches apart because cookies will spread. Bake for 12 minutes in the lower third of the oven. Cookies will be a bit soft to the touch and glossy. Let them cool on the pan for a few minutes and then cool completely on a rack. The slicing method is messier because the dough is very soft and sticky. Roll the dough into two logs about an inch and a half in diameter (or bigger if you want bigger cookies) by wrapping it in parchment paper and rolling it. You are bound to have chocolate behind your ears. It's ok. Once the logs are shaped wrap them in plastic wrap and place them in the freezer. The dough can stay in the freezer for a few weeks... if you can wait that long. To bake the cookies, slice the logs into 1/4-inch slices and place on a parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, cool on pan and then on a rack. Eat.

These cookies turned out sooo fabulous! They were soft and chewy, chocolatey with just the right amount of cinnamon and walnuts, so delicious, I could not have just one. Everyone loved them. So did I but they were not quite what I was shooting for. The Bentley's cookies are drier, less chewy and they crack on top. I think I will try making them with all white sugar and adding some more flour next time. I'm going to work on these. Come Christmas, I'll have them perfect!

Birthday Brownies

For some reason or another I have always had home-made birthday cakes. I remember the checkered cake I always begged my Mom for when I was little, and the sponge cakes my Grandma used to make, decorated with red and yellow raspberries like strings of Christmas lights in June. But at the point when one pack of candles is no longer enough to mark my age, birthday cakes have lost their charm and birthday celebrations have become more like an avoidance there of. Instead of a celebration, I try to do something fun and memorable. I had planned to run a marathon this year but with the stress of the last three months my training fell off track big time. BIG time! In place of marathoning, I managed to convince several of my friends to go chasing bears (literately and figuratively) in the Sierra Nevadas over a 36-mile hike. And to fuel the hike I lugged a pack of brownies in place of a cake. Yeah!

You might hate me for saying this, but in my opinion as far as deserts go brownies are usually just too much - too sweet, too choclatey, too sticky. But these ones I like. They have more of a cake consistency and don't feel like a cubic inch of a heart attack. I would like to make them with chopped dark chocolate instead of chocolate chips next time. And unless it is agains your religious convictions, do add the walnuts! The recipe is from King Arthur (and can be found on the back of their flour packs). Yep, that's right, King Arthur made brownies.

Best Brownies Ever

1/2 C unsalted butter
1 C sugar
2 large eggs
1/2+ C Dutch-process cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 C chocolate chips
1/2 C walnut pieces

Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease an 8x8 inch pan. Place butter in microwave safe bowl and melt in the microwave (watch it - 20 seconds are usually enough). Add the sugar, stir and return to microwave for for another 20 seconds, stir and keep heating and stirring until the mixture is hot and glossy but not bubbling. In another bowl mix the next six ingredients (eggs through cocoa) and add the hot butter while stirring. Add the flour and stir till smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and the walnuts. Pour in the pan and bake for ~30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Let them cool well before cutting. If you can.

Biscotti, Revisited

Sometimes the stars somehow align and I come across several recipes for one and the same thing within a couple of days. It must be bound to happen, I think then, and turn on the oven. Such was the story of these two biscotti recipes. I came across the chocolate biscotti on David Lebovitz's blog and then I came across the Twice-baked Cookies in Ursila Ferrigno's book La Dolce Vita (absolutely fantastic book by the way). Or maybe it happened the other way around. Anyways, biscotti were in the star.

Twice-baked Cookies 280g/10oz plain white flour 140g/5oz caster sugar 2 eggs 1 egg yolk 1tsp vanilla extract 115g/4oz blanched slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients except the almonds and mix well by hand. Add the almonds and mix until evenly distributed. Collect into a ball and divide in 2 or 4 balls. Shape each ball into a cigar shape and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 20 minutes. Take out of the oven and slice each "cigar" into 1-inch slices. Place sideways on the baking sheet and return to the oven for another 10-15 minutes, until golden.

Chocolate Biscotti 2 cups flour 3/4 C top-quality cocoa powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 3 large eggs, at room temperature 1 C sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 tsp almond extract 1 C almonds, toasted and very coarsely-chopped 3/4 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the eggs, vanilla, sugar and almond extract. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. Mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips and almonds until evenly distributed. Shape dough in 2 long logs and bake for 25 minutes. Again slice logs into 1-inch slices and return to oven for another 10 minutes.

These turned out so different! Like night and day! The chocolate biscotti were very crisp and airy and also very, very hard! The plain ones were softer and a bit chewy, even. We had made some coffee ricotta to go with the plain ones but it really wasn't necessary, they were great by themselves. The chocolate ones were fantastic with coffee and hot chocolate but a little dangerous on their own. I wonder how many different biscotti recipes are there? These weren't just different flavors from the ones I made back in December, they were completely different cookies - different texture, crumb. All great but so different. I think Ursula Ferrigno's ones are my favorite so far!

Biscoctus Biscotti

In all honesty, i had somehow managed to go through most of my life without discovering biscotti. I even managed to live for a month in Italy without having a single one. Granted, it was June and I was distracted by gelato, Baci chocolates and good-looking Italian men. And until a few weeks ago I had no clue they belonged to an extensive class of "double-baked" cookies. So when I was flipping through the cookie section of The Baker's Dozen Cookbook (my new favorite desert book!) and came across the biscotti recipe I immediately decided I had to make them. Two batches later, I am hooked. They are great and easy to make. The double-baking makes them last forever though that doesn't make much sense around here because they seem to disappear within days...

According to Wikipedia, the word "biscotti" (pronounced [bis-COT-tea]) in Italian is the plural form of biscotto, which applies to any type of biscuit, and originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning "twice-baked": it defined biscuits baked twice in the oven, so they could be stored for long periods of time, which was particularly useful during journeys and wars. Through Middle French, the word was imported into the English language as "biscuit". Frequently the term "biscotti" is taken to refer to a specific type of hard almond-flavoured biscuits traditionally served with vin santo, probably originating from the town of Prato and therefore still known as "biscotti of Prato". In general, biscotti is more a method of preparation, rather than a specific recipe, as pointed out by Laura Schenone from Jellypress.com in her history of biscotti. She also points out the fact that biscotti are usually first baked at high temperature and then on low temperature - probably a consequence of how wood-burning ovens work.

While keeping their hardiness, biscotti today seem to be very different from their ancient predecessors. They are buttery, usually studded with nuts and sometimes covered in chocolate. We are so spoiled, I don't think we would have them any other way.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Biscotti

2 +1/2 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C butter (1 stick)
1 1/4 C sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 C hazelnuts, roasted, chopped
1/3 C quality semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300F. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, and set aside. Beat butter and sugar until combined (1 minute) - do not overbeat, you don't want to incorporate too much air. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour and blend until almost combined, add the nuts and chocolate and mix well. I thought that 2.5 C of flour were a little too much so go easy on the flour at the end, you do not want crumbly dough. Divide the dough in half. Wrap each half in a plastic wrap or parchment paper and roll into a long log, about 14 inches long. Place the two logs about 4 inches apart on a big baking sheet, lined with lightly oiled parchment paper. Bake, turning the sheet around halfway, for 1.5 hours. Remove from the oven and let just cool slightly. Slice carefully into 1/2-inch thick slices using a serrated knife. Return the cookies to the baking sheet, laying the flat and return to the oven for ~10 minutes, until golden. The oven can be turned off before placing the cookies inside. Cool and story in a tin box.

These were marvelous! Crisp but not too hard. They can be eaten as it is or dipped in tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Oh, I love the combination of chocolate and hazelnut, it makes me think of Nutella. Just smelling these is heaven! The variations offered include pistachio-raisin (2/3 C pistachios + 1/3 C raisins in place of the chocolate and hazelnut), pine nut-orange (1/3 C tasted pine nuts + 1/3 C candied orange), and the classic almond anise biscotti (1 C almonds + 1 tsp anise). What other flavors can be made? Any ideas?

Cupcakes: The Ultimate Edition

Over the last six months I have taken up ultimate frisbee and I am loving it! Great exercise, exciting game and awesome people. Today was the end of the fall season and my team - Vodka Rain (don't ask) finished 3rd ... or 4th... Does it matter? I loved my team! I was happy to meet all these guys and be on the team - everyone was so much fun and at the same time we were actually really good! Here is our team picture. Again, don't ask.


My contribution to the team? Scoring half a dozen points and cupcakes. I am still to figure out where exactly I need to be and my forehands still wobble and flip, but I damn well know how to bake a proper batch of chocolate cupcakes! Even better - chocolate-mint cupcakes, which I took to the game tonight. These are so delicious and so infallably good I must have made them a dozen times! The recipe for the cupcakes, again from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the Cake (I love this book!) can be found here: Basic Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes. The frosting is simple buttercream which I have discussed in great detail here. To the buttercream I added a 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract and ~1/2 C crushed candy canes. The decorating style (described in the book in connection with the Tiramisu Cupcakes, yum too!) is simple, yet very pretty and I use it as often as possible: with a small knife cut out a cone from the top of the cupcake; put a dollop of frosting and press the cap back on; finally put a smudge of frosting on top of the cap. I sprinkled them with more crushed candy-canes (used a total of 4 candy canes) and red sugar. Very pretty! And Christmassy too! Enjoy!

El Tour de Tucson Fabulous Chocolate Mousse Pie

Last Saturday Tucson was the course for a huge road bike race - El Tour de Tucson. I think some 8,500 people rode in it, half of them riding the full distance of 108 miles. Insane, I know! Some of my best friends were in the race and had a great time though. I was feeling out of shape and under-trained and didn't want to pay the huge registration fee just to do a mediocre race so instead I decided to do Bike Patrol and help people with more enthusiasm and better training than me perform as best as they can. Over the course of a week I attended three classes, got my bike in a pretty good shape by changing the break pads, lubricating the chain, and managed to coral a respectable pile of useful things to bring along - tire wrenches, patched tubes, WD40, tyvek, chain lube, patch kit, allen wrenches, CO2 cartridges, a medical kit, a few bags of sugar gels and some power bars, duct tape,.. The list goes on. I think I was better prepared than most Bike Patrols out there. All in all, I rode ~55 miles, changed 2.3 tires, removed half a dozen bottles off the road, cheered on for a couple of hundred people, and helped 2 people who were sitting on the side of the road. And had a great day in the sun!

In the evening after the race a friend who rode the whole distance had a BBQ and served an amazing chocolate mousse pie for everyone who needed to catch up on some calories. Turns out the pie is one of the signature desserts of a great restaurant in town - Terra Cotta. Here is the recipe from their website. This pie is insanely delicious - rich but fluffy, chocolatey but not too sweet. I recommend using high quality chocolate, but not too high is cocoa content.


Chocolate Mousse Pie

1 1/2 packages (9 ounces each) Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers (to yield 3 cups crumbs)
4 oz unsalted butter, melted
1 lb bittersweet chocolate
4 C cream
2/3 C powdered sugar
2 whole eggs
4 eggs, separated
shaved chocolate curls for garnish

Lightly oil the sides of a 10-inch springform pan. Grind the cookies to crumbs in a food processor or blender. Mix with the melted butter and press into the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Chill.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot but not boiling water. Meanwhile whip 2 cups of the cream with ½ cup powdered sugar. When the chocolate is melted, remove from the heat and add the two whole eggs and four yolks. Mix very well. Fold in the whipped cream.

Beat the egg whites and fold them into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the chilled crust. Chill overnight or at least 6 hours.
Whip the remaining cream and sugar and spread about half the whipped cream on top of the pie. Un-mold the pie and pipe the remaining cream around the edge with a pastry bag and a star tip. Scatter a layer of chocolate curls evenly over the middle.

Secret Healthful Ingredient Brownies

I was telling my housemate that I was planning on making brownies which had a secret ingredient and she laughed - apparently her Mom had used the "Secret Healthful Ingredient" method with her youngest sister in an effort to sneak something more nutritious than Mac'n'Cheese in her diet by making cookies with white beans. Now, I have no intention to do any such thing to my friends and housemates, for the most part they are all sufficiently nourished, but this recipe was so interesting and unusual that I wanted to try it. What is the secret ingredient? Black beans. So here are the Black Bean Brownies from Baking with Agave Nectar via 101 Cookbooks. Drum-roll, please....

4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1 C unsalted butter
2 C soft-cooked black beans, drained well
1 C walnuts, chopped
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1/8 C + some more instant coffee
1/4 tsp sea salt
4 large eggs
1 to 1 1/4 C light agave nectar

Notes on ingredients: I cooked the beans but I guess canned (probably 2 cans, drained and rinsed) beans would also work; I also used instant coffee (Nescafe), if you like a strong coffee flavor add more; if the batter seems unsweet, add more agave nectar.

How to make them: melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or in impromptu double boiler stirring until no solid clumps are left. In a food processor add the beans, salt, vanilla, half the walnuts and part of the butter-chocolate melt and pulse until well pureed. In a bowl beat the eggs and the agave nectar, add the rest of the chocolate-butter mix, add the bean mixture and the rest of the walnuts. Mix everything well
(with a spoon, the batter it pretty thick). Line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper and oil it lightly or spray it lightly with canola oil cooking spray. Spoon the mixture in and spread well. If you are feeling creative, save 1/2 cup of the eggs-nectar mix and pour it on top of the panned mix and swirl it lightly - that will create white swirls. Bake for 30-40-50 minutes, until the brownies are set and your house is filled with the fragrance of chocolate. Cool, refrigerate, cut. The brownies were really soft and moist out of the oven (I thought I had underbaked them) but they will definitely set after being in the fridge overnight.

I am personally not a big brownie fan but these were actually quite tasty. They are moist and not overwhelmingly sweet (which turned me off brownies to begin with) so you can distinguish the chocolate and coffee flavors and explore the texture as you let them slowly melt in your mouth. Now, I would not say they are healthy considering the large amounts of butter, eggs and chocolate which went in them, but they definitely have a couple healthy ingredients.

Black beans are rich in fiber and protein all for only 227 Kcal per cup as I just found (pass me another brownie). They also contain iron, manganese and antioxidants. Yey! Feeling healthier already.

Now what is this agave nectar stuff? Agave nectar or syrup is the processed sap of the agave plant. It is used as a honey substitute by vegans and and has the same sweetness as honey but lower viscosity. I used light agave syrup which had very mild flavor. There is also dark or amber syrup which I guess has a stronger flavor. Raw varieties (processed at temperatures below 118F) are popular among raw foodies. Agave nectar is high in fructose so drink/use responsibly or you might get a sugar high. If you can't hunt down any agave syrup (I found it at Whole Foods) feel free to substitute it 1:1 with honey. Do not substitute with sugar because that will offset the liquids to solids ratio of the recipe.

These brownies breached a whole new field of desserts for me - flourless cakes - which is apparently quite well populated. There seem to be several different branches to flourless cakes also referred to as tortes. To maintain cake-like consistency some contain ground nuts, some contain breadcrumbs (now, that's just cheating) and some (actually all) ask for ludicrous amounts of eggs. Seriously, this Flourless Chocolate Cake with Toasted Hazelnuts and Brandied Cherries is a heart attach just waiting to happen (but I will bookmark it anyways). So in retrospect, these brownies are actually quite healthy.

So, anyone want some brownies? I am serious though unwilling to ship.

A Tale of Two Sugar Cookies

Once in a while I would get the urge to make cookies. Not because I want to eat them, but just to make them. For some masochistic reason I thoroughly enjoy the mixing, rolling, cutting and baking of cookies. And once I've made them, I truly enjoy packing them up in jars or boxes or bags and giving them away. And then baking another batch.

The most recent cookie-baking urge was directed particularly at sugar cookies as I had never made any. One of the coffee shops I frequent - Bentley's has these cute star-shaped sugar cookies with powder sugar glaze and rainbow sprinkles, which inspired me to try and make something similar. The quest for a recipe led to the baking of three batches of cookies so far (and I think more will come in the near future).

First came the Jackson Pollock cookies. They are based on a Dutch Sugar Cookies recipe from Epicurious.com. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar (don't use regular sugar!)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
(+1/4 cup if the cutout cookies break when you try lifting them)
(+1/2 cup for dusting and keeping the dough together if the 1/4 cup above is not enough)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, baking powder, a pinch of salt and flour (in this order) and mix just to combine. Gather together but don't knead and form into a ball. Refridgerate the dough for a while so that it hardens a bit but not until it freezes because it wouldn't roll out well. Roll to 1/8 inch, cut in your favorite shapes, arrange on a parchment paper - lined cookie sheet and bake for 10-13 minutes in an oven preheated to 325F. 10-11 min will give softer, whiter cookies; at 13 min they are golden and a little harder. Cool. Repeat.

Once they cooled down, I melted some dark chocolate in an impromptu double boiler and drizzled it over the cookies as best as I could. The result was pretty artistic but had to be kept in the fridge because the chocolate melted otherwise. (Warning: The first batch came out a little salty owing probably to my use of salted instead of unsalted butter.) They were oh so tasty and delicate and not too sweet. The chocolate was actually adding to the sweetness instead of being overwhelming.

Then a few weeks later I came across these Brown Sugar Sandwich Cookies, which seemed a lot like the brunette version of the Dutch ones. The idea is very similar - flour, butter and sugar, but it uses brown sugar and whole wheat flour instead. Here's the spell:

2 1/2 C whole wheat (or white) pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
scant 1 tsp salt
2 Tbs + 1 tsp poppy seeds
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 C quality brown sugar (increase to 1 cup)
2 large egg yolks (or 1 egg)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 Tbs milk

1 tablespoon sugar for sprinkling
6-7 ounces dark chocolate, chopped


Mix them in the exact same way as the ones above. Roll them out as thin as possible (saltine thin), sprinkle with sugar and bake for 5-7 minutes. Once they are cooled, melt the chocolate in a double boiler and slightly cool and stick them together in pairs with 1/2 to 1 tsp of chocolate.


Honestly, I was not too impressed by them - I feel they bear some improvement. Sandwiching them with chocolate made them soft and fabulous with coffee. However, they were not sweet at all, so I would increase the sugar a little and avoid using 65% cocoa chocolate but go for something slightly sweeter next time. I would also try making them with white pastry flour - the whole wheat flour made them a little rough, or I might use a mixture of white and whole wheat flour. The poppy seeds were great and I might add some spices next time too - cinnamon, cardamon? I'll report on the results.

What have we learned? Sugar cookies are fun and easy to make. Mix up 1.5-2 sticks of butter with 1-1.5 cups of sugar, add 1 egg and some vanilla, a teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of salt and 2.5 cup of flour and voila - you have a basic sugar cookie. Roll, bake, repeat. Varying the ingredients (flour, sugar), adding stuff (poppy seeds, sesame seeds, spices, vanilla specks) and post-processing (melted chocolate, glaze, sprinkles) can yield tasty and pretty variations. Let me know how you cookies turn out.