Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

So it was hot on Saturday and my husband and I decided that it was best that we head out to find someplace with air conditioning. We chose Barnes and Noble since you can walk around for hours there. Every time we go I get to pick out one cookbook. I must limit myself or else who knows how much bigger my now 200 and something collection would be. After much scrutiny and going back and forth I chose Gale Gand’s Just A Bite(I am a huge fan of the mini food movement). I fell in love with the photo on the cover of what looked like a chocolate cake covered in caramel and some sort of nut. I skimmed though it that night not really paying any attention to the ingredients. So when I went to make the cake today, bad me did not have vegetable oil. I’m not really a fan of cakes that use vegetable oil, so right away I was a little disappointed in the book. But I was still inspired by the photo and so I used what I had. I decided just to make a sour cream based chocolate cake(my no fail recipe) and make a caramel topping…hers had coconut and macadamia nuts, which sounded good, but are two more things my husband wont eat…but he will eat walnuts. I have to say it was quite yummy and I have not ruled out anything of my new cookbook. I plan on finding something else this week in it to post here(be on the look out).

Old Fashion Chocolate Cake:
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 ¼ cups lightly packed brown sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 eggs

3 ounces unsweetend chocolate, melted
2 ¼ cups sifted cake flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350F.
Place the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, until well blended, about 3 minutes. With the mixer on low speed., add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing well after each addition. Continue to beat for 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Stop the mixer add the chocolate, and mix well. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add about half of the dry ingredients to the batter, beat on low speed until well blended, and then add about half of the sour cream and beat well. Add the remaining dry ingredients followed by the remaining sour cream, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating well after each addition. Add the boiling water and beat until smooth.
Divide the batter between two greased 9-inch round cake pans and bake until the cake springs back when touched lightly in the center, 30-35 minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes, then remove cakes from pan and let cool completely.
Source: Caprial’s Desserts by Capril Pence and Melissa Carey

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For the Caramel:
1 ¼ cup sugar
2/3 cup heavy cream
½ cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

Pour the sugar into the center of a deep saucepan. Carefully pour 1/3 cup water around the walls of the pan, trying not to splash any of the sugar onto the walls. Do not stir; gently draw you finger twice through the center of the sugar, making a cross, to moisten it. Over high heat, bring to a full boil and cook without stirring, swirling the pan occasionally to even out the color, until the mixture is medium caramel in color, 5 to 10 minutes. Immediately turn off the heat and use a wooden spoon to slowly and carefully stir in the cream(it will bubble up and may splatter). Stir in the walnuts. Set aside.
Source: Gale Gand’s Just a Bite
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To Assemble: Cut rounds of the cooled cake with biscuit(1 ½ to 2 inch round) or cookie cutters. Pour sauce over the cake and serve.

I’m always supportive of a recipe that uses ¾ of a pound of butter. So when I ran across these Chocolate Dalmatians I was all over it. Now these are not the left over by product of Cruella de Ville, but wonderful shortbread type cookies spotted with mini chocolate chips. Though I did not get 101 of them, I did manage to muster up 44. Mine did not spread out much, unlike the photo in the book. I also made the executive decision to use the entire bag of chocolate chips than just 8 ounces.

Chocolate Dalmatians

4 ounces of white chocolate, chopped into ¼ inch pieces
¾ pound unsalted butter, cut into 1 ounce pieces
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
8 ounces semisweet chocolate mini-morsels( I used all 12oz that came in the bag)

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Melt chocolate in a double boiler over medium heat. Use a rubber spatula to stir the chocolate until completely smooth, about 2 minutes.
Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle. Beat on medium for 4 minutes until light(but not fluffy). Add the vanilla extract and the melted white chocolate. Beat on medium for 1 minute. Operate the mixer on low while gradually adding the flour and salt. Mix for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the chocolate mini morsels and mix on low for 30 seconds. Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a spatula to finish mixing the ingredients until thoroughly combined.
Portion the dough into 48(I got 44) slightly heaping tablespoons-sized pieces(approximately 1 ounce per piece). Roll each portion into a ball. Place the dough balls onto a non-stick baking sheet, fitting 12 to a sheet. Place the baking sheets in the center rack. Bake for 14-16 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through the baking time. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool at room temperature.

Source: Death By Chocolate Cookies by Marcel Desaulniers

My friend Kristen is the type of person who’s most used tool in the kitchen is the phone to call for take out. But she loves to live vicariously through me and is always sending me recipes that she finds from time to time. She went to a craft fair where one of the booths along with selling quits was selling what she thought was ice cream but they just called it chocolate frozen treat. My friend was so enamored by it that she asked for the recipe which they kindly sold to her for $1. So I receive this recipe in the mail half crumpled up and stained and what not and put it aside…six years later I find it and decide we will give it a try.
It was very much like a pudding recipe and set up like pudding would also. I was hoping that it was going to taste like frozen custard(which I LOVE) but knew with only 2 eggs that wasn’t going to be the case. I had quite a few left over items: crushed chocolate cookies, ¼ of a bag of milk chocolate chips and what I had originally planned…marshmallows and walnuts .I decided to throw in the extra things to my rocky road as my week has been a bit bumpy and I wanted to make something to represent that. It’s hot again and so baking is not high on my agenda right now so this was a good alternative. If I wear to describe it’s taste and texture I would say it is somewhere between a pudding pop and chocolate ice cream.

Chocolate Extra Rocky Road Frozen Treat

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped finely
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped finely
1 cup sugar
½ cup whole milk
1 cup half and half
½ heavy or whipping cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 cup chopped walnuts
¼ bag of milk chocolate chips
½ cup crushed chocolate cookies

Place the milk, half and half, cream and vanilla extract in a heavy sauce pan over medium heat and bring just to a boil.
Whisk together the eggs and sugar in a bowl. Pour milk mixture over chopped chocolate pieces. Slowly whisk 1 cup of the hot milk mixture into the egg mixture to temper it. Pour the mixture back into the sauce pan and again cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it has thickened slightly and just barely coats the back of a spoon, about 7 minutes. Remove the pan from heat. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
Place the mixture into an ice cream maker and follow the directions for your machine. When the frozen treat is very thick(about after 20 minutes) add your “extras” and continue freezing to a soft consistency. Transfer the treat to a covered container and place in freezer to freeze.

I feel like a prisoner in my apartment. They have been resurfacing our apartment complex and yesterday and today I have been cooped up. Sure I can go drive somewhere but we had to park sooooo far away that I would need to pack a lunch just to make it there. And let’s be honest, I am too lazy to walk down there today. So when stuck at home, break out the apron and get your bake on.
So another non-food blogger suggested making a blackberry cobbler. Spending most of my cooking years in Arizona there are not farmer’s markets, no one is bringing you squash from their gardens or hazelnuts from their trees. So to move here to Washington and have all this wonderful fresh produce is so truly amazing you can not even imagine.
I wanted to make something slightly different than your regular cobbler and boy did I find it. When I read the comments that people made about the recipe I must concure that they all said it would be messy and they were right. What I found most interesting about this recipe was the fact that they were rolled up like cinnamon rolls and cut and then placed into a pool of melted butter. Then completely immersed in simple syrup. When I put it into the oven I was extremely skeptical. It did not look good at all and I just kept thinking, there went some perfectly good blackberries. But when the hour was up….behold it all worked out. Now mine was a little more juicy than I would have liked and the next time I will throw a tad bit of cornstarch in the mix. It is an unusual biscut/cinnamon roll type crust that is melt in your mouth good. I fully intend on making other fruit cobblers with this recipe. I would have loved this with some vanilla ice cream like the recipe suggest but all we had was whipped cream so it will just have to do….after all it is too much of a hike for me to go get ice cream(it will have melted by the time I got home).

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, 1/2 stick cut into bits and chilled
1 cup water
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups self-rising cake flour
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 cups fresh or thawed frozen blackberries (about 1 pound)
Accompaniment if desired: vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a 10-inch glass pie plate or baking dish melt 1/2 stick uncut butter in oven.

In a small saucepan combine water and 1 cup sugar and heat over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar is completely dissolved.

In a food processor pulse together flour and remaining 1/2 stick cut-up butter until mixture resembles fine meal. Add milk and pulse just until a dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and with a floured rolling pin roll into an 11- by 9-inch rectangle. Sprinkle dough with cinnamon and scatter blackberries evenly over top. Beginning with a long side roll up dough jelly-roll fashion and cut into 1 1/2-inch thick slices. (Slices will come apart and be messy). Arrange slices, cut sides up, on melted butter in pie plate or baking dish. Pour sugar syrup over slices, soaking dough, and bake «cobbler» in middle of oven 45 minutes. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over cobbler and bake 15 minutes more, or until golden.

Serve cobbler warm with ice cream.

Serves 6.

Source: Gourmet
June 1996
Denise Maguire: Saint Petersburg, Florida