Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok... sorry again I'm not done with the peanut butter - I had to use almost a whole jar. This might be my new favorite cookie. They're chewy and slightly crunchy and I loovveeee oats. (They look weird in my photo because I flattened them out right when they came out of the oven.)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Brownies

Sorry peanut allergists, I really love peanut butter. I was tasked with getting rid of the "gross" peanut butter, which isn't even "gross" it's just the natural type where the oil separates from the rest of the peanut butter. So I had to make these brownies and I'm really glad I did. It takes the brownie to another level. There's only a slight peanut-ness to them. Delicious and not too sweet.

Ad Hoc Brownies

My sister got me 3 Thomas Keller cookbooks for my birthday, I spent a week (and actually I still do this) reading them before I go to bed. There are a lot of background stories and helpful tips about techniques and equipment. I also found the recipe for the Ad Hoc Brownies online. I've never actually been to Ad Hoc, but it is on my list of places to go.

The brownies were so chocolate-y. I think one slice was enough for most people- it was just so. much. cocoa! (one whole cup!) whew, make sure you share- you will not be able to finish it yourself.

Apple Pie, Apple Jam and Apple Tart

It's raining apples. Let me start from the beginning.... Ilya requested an apple tart for his birthday so I bought a few apples, which turned out to be too much. So I bought a few more apples to make miniature apple pies... and I STILL had some apples left over so I made some apple jam.

My first time making jam and despite boiling ALL the peels and leftover apple bits my jam would not thicken. A night in the fridge helped a little, but it was still a soupier jam than I would've liked. I have to work on this- Summer 2011 is going to be the summer of jam for me.

The pies were delicious and cute! The apple tart really was the simplest apple tart ever. There's very little sugar in the apples so it was rather tart, not sure if I like that or not... But if you find yourself with a lot of apples, give these recipes a try.

Vegan coconut cake

One of my favorite cakes is the vegan coconut cake at the Golden Mean Cafe, introduced to me by an old roommate. She also managed to get me the recipe for the cake! Still have to figure out the recipe for the frosting so I whipped a batch of strawberry butter cream and, for fun, colored it pink. It tasted similar, but not exaccctttllyy like the real cake... time to experiment!

3 cups of spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
2 tbspn vanilla extract
1 tbspn coconut extract
2 cups vegetable cane sugar
2 cups cold water
2/3 cup canola oil
2 tbspn apple cider vinegar

bake 350 degrees.

and now... all the photos I didn't shoot

I lost my camera for a few weeks (later found thankfully) and here's a quick list of what I made and ate:

Chewy Pretzel Bites. These taste pretty much like Wetzel's Pretzels. They take a bit of time to make, but it makes a LOT of pretzels. Eat the day you make them or else they turn into stale bits of dough, no good.

Chocolate Kettle Corn. I used my leftover popping corn to make this gluttonous snack. There's butter, sugar and chocolate. You can't go wrong. It's good and it's bad.

Breakfast Pizza. bacon + eggs??? So good! Didn't try the dessert pizza, but it looks drop dead delicious as well.

Victorian Sponge Cupcakes. Not quite as light as I expected, but a good simple cake with a jam filling.

Chocolate and Pecan Cookies

This is another recipe to use the huge bag of pecans I bought to make the german chocolate cake. This is Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip cookie. That would be Dorie as in Dorie Greenspan. There's a great group of blogs that makes a new Dorie Greenspan recipe every Tuesday (known as Tuesdays with Dorie). A good way to learn how to bake although sometimes the recipes are beyond difficult.

Now the blogger I got this from tested various resting times and temps for the dough so I decided to pop my cookies in the freezer for a bit before baking. It seemed to work- I didn't have time to freeze the last batch and they spread out into thin (and burnt) cookies.

Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Sorry peanut-allergic friends, it's another peanut butter recipe. This time it's a dark chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting. I had some soft caramel candies left over from the samoa's so I melted it in intervals in the microwave. Be sure to use a very large bowl because the caramel bubbles as it heats up and if you don't use a huge bowl you'll end up cleaning caramel off the bowl sides and the microwave like me.

These were really good- you can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter. I also chopped some pecans and sprinkled some on top so you weren't as overwhelmed by all the sugar. The cake was surprisingly not that sweet so you can eat the whole thing without feeling like keeling over from sugar overload.

Toffee Saltine Bark

all you need to make delicious toffee

Toffee is one of my favorite guilty pleasures.... unfortunately my previous sugar candy making endeavors resulted in grainy junk, but this is a really easy recipe. You probably have all the ingredients. The addition of saltine crackers was kinda weird, but it fits in the salty+sweet combination. Be sure to eat within a few days or the crackers get stale. I upped the salty+sweet factor by liberally sprinkling sea salt on top, yum.

Cinnamon rolls

There was a time a few years back when I was as obsessed with cinnamon rolls as I am with pizza now. I went through a LOT of recipes and variations and then got sick of them. I found this recipe while perusing the cooking light website.


The previous recipes I've used make gigantic rolls, but this made 18 smaller-than-your-palm ones. They tasted okay up to the second day after I made them, after that they were lethal weapons.

Thomas Keller Oreos

Another recipe from Thomas Keller. This time it's his version of an oreo. I didn't have a fluted pastry cutter so I ended up using an old plastic wine glass I had, which worked out pretty well. The shortbread is salty- so good with the white chocolate cream. I had an issue with the white chocolate being too viscous so I let it rest in the fridge for a day instead of the 6 hours and that seemed to solve it. Also thank goodness the blogger mentioned that the dough will at first look like sand because it did and I wasn't sure if I was making it correctly. But just keep mixing and it will eventually come together.

Watermelon Sorbet

My roommates and I wanted to make some watermelon sorbet before watermelon season ended and I picked up one from the farmer's market. This was my first time making sorbet and something went wrong. I ended up with basically a giant watermelon ice cube. Did I add too much water?? I have no idea what went wrong.... I'll have to try again.

Look at all the watermelon pulp left!!

It froze so hard that you can't even scoop it, just shave off thin slivers at a time.

Momofuku's Compost Cookie

It's the one and only compost cookie from David Chang's Momofuku (well... actually Christina Tosi since she's the pastry chef). It is a delicious use for all your leftover baking bits and salty snacks. The annoying part is that you have to refrigerate the dough for a few hours before baking AAHH! Does anyone ever bake 6 hours before they crave a cookie?

The first time I made it with potato chips, honey wheat pretzels, a skor bar and chocolate chips.


The second time I made it with regular kettle chips, thin pretzels, chocolate rice crispy cereal and chocolate chips.

The first batch I made still had some large pieces of chips and pretzels left so there were some bits of salty, chewyness. EH not the tastiest cookie, but I made sure to bash the chips and pretzels properly for the second batch. The only complaint (if you are a butter hater) that I heard was that it was "too buttery" so I'll decrease the butter by a tablespoon or two for the next batch.

Whole Wheat Brownies and Apple Pie Ice Cream

In an attempt to be more healthy I bought white whole wheat flour. I've been using it in regular APF recipes- usually substituting 1/4 of the APF with whole wheat. This recipe is all whole wheat and somehow it's still good- usually you can still feel the difference (like whole wheat pasta vs regular pasta). Also since a brownie doesn't have to be fluffy or tender it's a good place to start with whole wheat flour. I couldn't tell the difference between this brownie and any other brownie even though I ate it right after baking (the recipe has you wait overnight for the wheat germ to soften).


I had apple pie ice cream at Scoops and it started an apple pie obsession. I don't even LIKE pie- the filling is too sweet and goopy. I ate some form of apple pie every couple of days for 3 weeks- including the tasty apple pie from the Apple Pan. Finally my wallet was bled dry and I set out to make my own apple pie ice cream via this recipe. The only thing it's missing is the crust and it doesn't make that much- it was enough for 4 servings.

Arroz Verde and Strawberry Sorbet

Green rice! Weird, right? I found the recipe from NY Time's recipes for health - I had a huge bag of baby spinach that was about to go bad. It tasted like rice with onions and garlic, not spinach-y, but maybe that's the point. I don't know why my rice looks so wet compared to the NY Times' one- I'm just not very good at making fluffy rice in a pan, that's what rice cookers are for! I'm sure this would be a hit with kids and it's a good way to use up some extra produce.

Sorry this is the only photo I took of the strawberry sorbet! The recipe is once again from David Lebovitz. It's a very strawberry-y sorbet because the only ingredients are strawberries, sugar and salt (and kirsch if you want). I used the full amount of sugar because my strawberries didn't taste very sweet, but it came out to be too sweet- I added lemon juice to balance it out again.

Sugar-crusted popovers and Daifuku

Sugar-crusted popovers, aka donuts you don't have to deep fry AND you can use your muffin pan! This recipe comes from David Lebovitz, again. Every recipe of his that I've tried has been amazing.

Right out of the oven, they're sort of bland (already deflating) popovers. Soft and fluffy, but otherwise not very flavorful. Brush them with a bit of butter and roll them in cinnamon and sugar and they are ready to be devoured. They were still good the next day- the butter kept them crisp.


Daifuku: otherwise known as filled mochi. I didn't realize that average home bakers could make daifuku! I always thought the process was complicated and involved top secret home equipment. I had fresh mochi when I went to Japan in spring and it was so good. This doesn't taste quite like the one I had in Japan- theirs was more sticky, pliable and liquid. Jenny showed me this recipe and it turn out you only need FIVE ingredients. And a microwave. Seriously, you can make this!

Blast the mochiko and water in the microwave and then roll it out- you will need a lot of corn starch! And you have to work quickly before the mochi gets cold and hard, but carefully since you just microwaved it for several minutes.

Trying to combine the strawberries and red bean paste (anko). Turns out they do not like to stick to each other.

Testing one out- so good! I made this lumpy, delicious blob!

For the second batch, we added some food coloring.

Look how pretty they are! These are Jenny's, mine did not turn out this pretty/smooth/rotund.

Pumpkin Brown Butter Cupcakes & Baked Ziti

I made these cupcakes back in fall (kinda back logged here so I'm posting more frequently). I love pumpkin and I love brown butter so this was awesome. Although I thought it was more muffin-y because it was so dense (or maybe I made it wrong...). I forgot to take a picture of the cupcake sans wrapping, but you should go here and look at the recipe and the blogger's photos. Her photos are way way way better than mine.


Here's another great comfort food for fall or any cold day: baked ziti. Cheese + pasta = you're good. Also I really like recipes that involve the oven because you don't have to fuss around with it.

Both recipes use sage so it's a great way to get to know the herb or use all of it.

Sprinkle's Strawberry Cupcakes

Please tell me you've had Sprinkles cupcakes- they are one of the best LA cupcake eateries (also great? Kiss my Bundt, especially red velvet. They say they're the "first," but I have no idea who came first. My first experience with fancy cupcakes was Magnolia Bakery in New York- and I even had to wait in line. The cupcakes were sweet, teeth-achingly sweet. That killed the fancy cupcake scene for almost a year until someone introduced me to Sprinkles and the spark was rekindled. They are deliciously moist and not-too-sweet, not so tender that they come apart as you peel the paper wrapper.

Please ignore dirty oven/cupcake pan.

The recipe for the strawberry cupcake is posted online at Martha Stewart's website. Sprinkles also sells cupcake mixes, but they're $15 I think? You should just make these instead- there are actual strawberries in the recipe.


Word of caution: if you are using frozen strawberries, make sure you drain them well for the frosting. I didn't do that and ended up with frosting that looked curdled. Delicious, but curdled.

Liquid Center Chocolate Torte

(As seen on Food Network's "Worst Cooks in America")

(My first attempt to make something look artsy on the plate and it was a complete fail! I will keep working on presentation, but I guess plating isn't my specialty.)

What sparked this occasion was to make it for my honey for Valentine's Day. :) That and after watching "Worst Cooks in America," I just couldn't believe how simple it was to make a chocolate torte. If they can do it, why can't I?--was my mindset. After the thrilling adventure, it turns out I might be worse than the worst cooks, 'cause I actually screwed up a part of the recipe. Yikes! =/

Here's the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/liquid-center-chocolate-torte-recipe/index.html

• Instead of plantains, you can see clearly that I used blueberries instead. (I wanted something fresher and more in season than strawberries.) I also served it up with some Haagen Daz vanilla bean ice cream.
  
• Also, like several others, I couldn't find the 4oz cake tins, so I opted to use a 12oz caphalon muffin pan. (This makes 12 mini tortes.) To compensate, I cooked them for about 8-9 minutes at 375F and took them out to cool and harden. I also oiled the pan vigorously with canola oil, knowing that I would not be able to flip the pan inside out.

Here's where the disaster came in though: the caramel. Oh sugar, why are you so hard to work with??

It honestly looks alright but I must not have put enough cream or used too high heat (something along those lines) because once I plated the caramel, it solidified into almost rock-hard. I'll have to experiment more with this at a later time, but for now I might be worse than the worst cooks in America. Sadface :(

But despite my failures, the torte itself came out nicely... as you can see, they turned out very gooey and melty in the middle! Delicious!

Macaroons and Blondies

Well, I had a good first attempt at macaroons. But they still didn't come out quite right- I think I need to watch some you tube videos. I tried to make David Lebovitz's chocolate macaroons and I was going to sandwich them with some nutella.

Ta-DA! a stiff peak!

The good:
- they have (uneven) feet
- they taste good

The bad:
- they are pointy
- they are not circular
- a lot of them cracked

My very poor piping skills.

I will try and tackle this again. I think one of the problems is that I was using almond MEAL, not almond FLOUR. Unfortunately I could only find almond meal and I sifted it as much as I could, but I could still see bigger chunks. And I don't think I'm properly folding the egg whites + chocolate mix. The biggest problem though? I have no idea how to pipe batter... this will be another thing to tackle in the future. At least they tasted good.



I still have leftover macadamia nuts so I made some blondies! Yum, they're from Use Real Butter. Next time I think I might make 2x the batter and keep the same amount of filling- like I said before, I like a 2:1 ratio of dough to nuts/chocolate chips. Other than that, they were GOOD. Toasting the nuts made them nuttier and with that much butter in a 8 x 8 square- you know it's going to be good.

Right now I'm trying out new recipes for my apartment's thanksgiving dinner. I want to make something besides the requisite mashed potatoes and baked mac and cheese. Also one of our friends won't be able to make it so I have to make her sweet potato pie- I'm going to need to practice. I'm thinking a brussel sprout salad with figs. It has to be vegetarian, buffet-style, and maybe kinda healthy too.