Baking Chez Moi is très magnifique!

I know I haven’t posted anything in forever, which is a shame because I’ve been meaning to. I have a kick-ass lentil soup recipe that I’ve been meaning to write down. (The secret is red wine vinegar and French lentils.) Plus, there is my almost-entirely-from-scratch enchilada recipe. (I make everything except the tortillas, though I do have a tortilla press, so maybe one day.) I should actually write those out because I wing them every time.  

However, today, I am all about the Apple Custardy Squares from Baking Chez Moi. If you like apples, these are near perfect food. The recipe can be found here. (Thank you, Boston Globe and Dorrie Greenspan!)

How perfect is this food? Well, I didn’t get a picture because it didn’t cross my mind because it smelled so good I had to cut and eat it immediately, or after the obligatory fifteen-minute waiting period. Since I’ve basically eaten the whole thing myself, it is good that it only makes a small pan, and it’s great that it only requires ingredients you probably have around the house anyway.

The Apple Custardy Squares are the second recipe I’ve tried from Baking Chez Moi, and I just have to say how excited I am about this cookbook. It was one of my two Christmas gifts from my boyfriend, and sadly, it arrived during a period of immense tummy trouble for me. That’s why I tried it out for the first time only two weekends ago.

I did look at it as soon as I opened it, of course, and the recipes had me salivating and planning what to cook. What’s more, I immediately fell in love with the tone of the writing. It feels like Dorrie Greenspan is in your kitchen chatting you up and offering stories and advice. Every recipe comes with helpful info regarding serving and storing, but the most useful feature might be the Bonne Idée, or good idea. Not every recipe has a Bonne Idèe, but when the recipe does, it lives up to the name. The Bonne Idèe typically offers substitutions or additions to the recipe that might be good to try. For the Apple Custardy Squares, for example, she suggests adding some alcohol or almond extract. (I opted for two tablespoons of dark rum, which I had around because it was an optional ingredient in the first recipe I made, the Brown-Butter-and-Vanilla-Bean Weekend Cake. This is a lady who doesn’t mind a little liquor in her baked goods, yet another reason to love her.) She also suggests using pears or a combination of pears of apples or going tropical and using mangoes in the place of apples.

And this pretty much exemplifies what is so fantastic about this cookbook: there’s no dogma here. Greenspan encourages her readers to have fun, experiment, and make the recipes fit their tastes. I love that because it is how I approach cooking and because I think the dogma keeps a lot of people out of the kitchen. When you are scared of doing it wrong, you are less likely to try. Greenspan’s breezy tone and her many Bonnes Idèes make cooking seem less like a rigorous discipline and more like a fun and enjoyable way to feed yourself, your friends, and your family. Of course, yes, there is and can be some rigorous discipline in cooking; some recipes require it if you want them to turn out properly.  However, my idea of perfect in the kitchen is something the cook is happy with and enjoys eating.  Beyond that, I’m not sure there is a right and wrong so much as a good and even better.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is my recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  Actually, it is from The New York Times, but it has my notes because I'm practically incapable of following directions.  My notes are in italics.  If you want the original recipe along with the article, which is very informative and explains some of the whys for the recipe, go here.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Jacques Torres
Ingredients

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour (Can be done with all-purpose flour, I have, but cake flour is better.  It's makes the cookie more tender.)
• 1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour (Non-negotiable.  You need the gluten proteins for binding or something like that.)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt (The big crystals are because you have to let it sit in the fridge a few days, but if you aren't going to do that, which would be a mistake, use smaller salt crystals or they won't be able to dissolve and you'll get salty bites.)
• 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter (Seriously.  Unsalted.)
• 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar (Not dark, which will have a different flavor.)
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs (The fresher, the better.)
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (I think the fèves are too big, but I use Ghiradelli chocolate chips which are bigger than Nestle and tastier, too.)
• Sea salt (I have tried it with and without and find it unnecessary.  People I have made these for mostly liked it either way.)

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside. (Do not try to sift coarse salt. It doesn’t work. It just gets stuck in the sifter.  Sift the rest and whisk in the salt afterward. Actually, if you don’t have a sifter, just whisk everything together really, really, really well.)

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. (Or, if like me, you don’t have a fancy mixer with a paddle attachment, just use your beaters, but make sure they have a good motor because this is thick.) Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. (It takes longer with beaters.) Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. (Do this with a rubber spatula unless you have the paddle attachment thingy.) Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. (This is super important.  Err on the side of 36 hours.)  Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. (I do not make my cookies quite this big. I go for a little smaller than golf balls. To give you a sense, I get about 20 to 22 cookies from one batch of dough.) Sprinkle lightly with sea salt (This is the part I skip. My apologies, Jacques.) and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. (Smaller cookies need less cooking time. Better to err on the side of undercooked than to overcook them.  I think I go with 16 to 18 minutes.) Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. (Cooling racks are another must in my view.  Really any old thing that will let air circulate all around will do the trick.  I have been known to improvise.)  Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.

Master Muffin/Quick Bread Recipe (and that's master in every sense of the word!)

What I am going to share with you now is, well, one of my very favorite recipes for baked goods.  It is also one of my secrets, but I've decided to let the cat out of kitchen, so to speak.  (And for the record, I don't even have a cat, so there's never been a cat in the kitchen, which means no burnt paws and absolutely no cat hair in the food.)  I typed this up a few weeks ago for my baby sister, who, unwisely, elected to use another recipe.  Her mistake because this one is good. 

I've come to it after a lot of mucking about in the kitchen and trying this or that recipe in search of the perfect recipe.  What it is really is the combination of my own likes and dislikes with the best ideas and tricks from other recipes, recipes which were good but not to my taste.  (A special shout out to The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook by Christopher Kimball from which I stole the idea of using liquid fat instead of solid.  Christopher Kimball is one of my cooking gods, though he and I see eye to eye on little.  However, he's a master of technique, helpful information, and interesting stories.  Cook's Illustrated, his magazine, rocks my world.  You should check it out, but most especially if you are a meat-eater.) 

This recipe may not achieve perfection, especially if your tastes are a bit different from mine, but it comes close.  At the very least, it is a great starting point for your own expressions of culinary genius.  Happy baking and, especially, happy eating!

a yummy zucchini muffin

Master Muffin/Quick Bread Recipe

Basic Ingredients

• 2 cups + 3 tbsp. flour
• 1 ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup melted butter
• ¾-1 cup sugar (¾ cup for banana muffins, 1 cup for the others)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Banana Variation

• 2-3 tbsp. buttermilk
• 4 to 5 medium-sized mashed very ripe bananas (around 1 ½ cups, I think)
• ½ cup walnuts (optional)

Zucchini Variation

• 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. nutmeg
• ¼ tsp. ginger
• ⅛ tsp. allspice
• 2-3 tbsp. buttermilk
• 1 to 1½ cups grated zucchini (1 small to medium zucchini)
• ½ tsp finely grated lemon rind
• ½ cup walnuts or almonds (optional)

Cranberry Orange Variation
(Note: Omit the extra 3 tbsp. of flour.)

• 1 ½ medium navel oranges’ worth of rind
• 1/3 cup orange juice (from 1 navel orange) + enough buttermilk to equal 1 cup
• 1 cup dried cranberries

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Grease a standard loaf pan with butter or shortening or line muffin pan with muffin liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and any spices. If called for, add citrus rind you are using to the buttermilk. In a separate bowl, beat the butter, oil, sugar, and eggs for two minutes with an electric mixer at medium speed. Add the vanilla, and then add the wet ingredients from your chosen muffins and the buttermilk and mix for an additional 30 seconds.

2. Using a large rubber spatula, stir in the flour mixture. Mix by hand until just combined. If using nuts or berries, add them now. Don’t overmix. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 60+ minutes or pour into cupcakes liners and bake for 18 minutes or until the top springs back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning the bread or muffins out to cool completely on the wire rack.
Makes 1 loaf or 16 muffins.

Okay, a few last suggestions about modifications.  If you are watching your cholesterol, you can use only canola oil instead of the butter/canola oil mix I use.  Alternately, you can rock it like Christopher Kimball and use only butter.  Using only butter, though, seemed to lead to more browning, which I don't like so much, and a flavor I found--shockingly to me, a lover of butter--to be too buttery.  Instead, I prefer the butter/canola mix and then smearing my finished muffin or quick-bread slice with butter.
 
Another suggestion I have is making muffins instead of bread.  I personally don't like the very crisp, very brown outer shell you get with quick breads.  Because they are dense and wet, they take a long time to cook.  Recipes always say 50 to 60 minutes, but I have found that they generally need more than 60 minutes to cook.  If you make muffins, though, 18 minutes is fine, and they turn out way more light and fluffy than muffins usually do, almost more like cake.  If you want them more brown, they can stand hanging out in the oven up to 22 minutes until they start over-browning and drying out, though of course this totally depends on your oven.  Most of us, I suspect, don't have professionally-calibrated ovens, but if you are a frequent baker, you probably know your oven's particular quirks.
 
One last thing, and then you can get cooking.  Of the variations, the zucchini is probably the superstar.  All the spices add some complexity and make it yummy.  If you are looking to impress, that's the way to go (or to trick your kids into eating some green veggies), and if you want nuts, let me humbly suggest the almonds, a happy discovery that resulted from my not having any walnuts at home one day when I was baking for a person who insisted on having nuts in them.  Zucchini and almonds make great friends.  The banana variation is decidedly plain Jane, especially in comparison to the zucchini.  My mom made hers plain Jane, and that's how I make mine.  If you want to jazz it up, add nuts.  I hate nuts in banana bread, but it is your bread, so you can do what you want.  You can also add some cinnamon, too.  I had an ex who liked that.  As for the cranberry orange, it is a lot sweeter than you might think, but not in a bad way.  If you want it less sweet, use less sugar or see if you can find some unsweetened dried cranberries.  In my local supermarket, however, there were only sweetened ones.