Trick or Treat!: Better-Than-Tootsie Taffy

My candy thermometer was my best friend this Halloween weekend, as I made up a selection of candies to give to friends and neighbors. I made some peanut brittle and salted caramels, and I also decided to also try a recipe for "Better-Than-Tootsie Taffy" from Chocolate Bar. I have made chocolate caramels in the past, but I have never made taffy of any sort before.

This recipe seemed straightforward enough. Heat water, cocoa powder, sugar, corn syrup, vinegar, baking soda, and salt on the stove until it reaches 250 degrees, stir in butter, pour it out onto a Silpat until it's cool enough to handle, pull the taffy for about ten minutes, cool completely, and then cut into pieces. Midway through making the taffy, I realized that there is an error in the recipe somewhere. The recipe only calls for 2 tablespoons of butter, but directs you to include butter (an unspecified quantity) with the other ingredients before heating on the stove, as well as 2 tablespoons at the end once the mixture reaches 250 degrees -- so either the recipe requires more than 2 tablespoons of butter, or you're not really supposed to add butter at two different times. Unsure of what to do, I added 2 tablespoons of butter both at the beginning and the end. The resulting taffies were very hard -- almost impossible to cut, and a real chore to chew. I tried the recipe again adding only the 2 tablespoons of butter at the end, and the texture was much better.

In fact, these taffies are quite similar to Tootsie Rolls. They are chocolately, and the texture is very close to the real thing -- super chewy, but not difficult to eat. When I wrapped the taffies in wax paper, they took on the shape of the wrapper, just like a real Tootsie Roll does. I left a few taffies unwrapped for a day, and the sharp cut edges on the taffies rounded out a bit. Below, the taffy on the left was wrapped in wax paper, but the one of the right was left out unwrapped.

Making these taffies is a bit of work. Pulling the taffy was tiring -- especially because I had to do it twice! But I was happy with the result. Not sure it I'm happy enough to make these again instead of just spending a couple of bucks on a bag of Tootsie Rolls -- but at least now I know it's an option!

Recipe: "Better-Than-Tootsie Taffy," from Chocolate Bar: Recipes and Entertaining Ideas for Living the Sweet Life by Matt Lewis and Alison Nelson.

Previous Posts:

• "Stuck in the House with a Bunch of Pistachios: Nut Brittle and Madeleines," December 28, 2009.
• "A Lovely Little Bite: Salted Caramels," November 6, 2009.
  

A Delicate Delicacy: Raspberry Crumb Bars

Even though I made some raspberry bars just last week, I couldn't help myself from trying Joanne Chang's recipe for Raspberry Crumb Bars from her recently released cookbook last night. This recipe caught my eye the first time I flipped through the cookbook, because of the interesting preparation method.

The top and bottom and top layers of this bar are comprised of a delicate shortbread made from butter, sugar, powdered sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder, and salt. After you mix up the batter, you shape three-quarters of the dough into a patty and stick it in the refrigerator; you stash the remaining portion of dough in the freezer. After a few hours (or up to a few days), you roll out the chilled dough to make the bottom crust. You bake the crust alone before cooling it a bit and spreading on raspberry preserves. You then sprinkle grated bits of the frozen dough over the raspberry layer, and bake the bars some more until the top is golden.

After the bars cool, all you need to do is sprinkle them with some powdered sugar to get an absolutely gorgeous, very refined-looking dessert.

According to the recipe directions, you are suppose to make these bars essentially free form -- rolling out the bottom layer of dough to an approximately 9- by 13-inch rectangle and trimming it so that sides are even, and baking the crust on a larger baking sheet. Then, after the other layers are added and baked, you are supposed to trim the edges again before cutting into nine bars. (Nine? Cutting a 9- by 13-inch rectangle into nine bars will yield ginormous serving sizes!) I thought that so long as I was rolling something out into a 9- by 13-inch rectangle, I might as well just drop it (including the parchment on which it was rolled) into a 9- by 13-inch pan before baking it. Then there was no extra trimming needed at the end and no additional waste.

The shortbread in this bar literally melts in your mouth. I normally think of shortbread as being quite firm, but this shortbread had a delicate, ethereal texture. The buttery shortbread with the slightly tart preserves and the touch of sweetness from the confectioners sugar on top made for a delectable flavor combination.

I prefer this bar over last week's back-to-school raspberry granola bar (in large part because I love the texture of the shortbread), but Tom can't decide which one he likes better. The bars are a bit difficult to compare. The granola bar is a homey and comforting mix of textures and flavors, while this bar is a slice of elegant sophistication. Both are delicious.

Recipe: "Raspberry Crumb Bars" from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe, by Joanne Chang.

Previous Posts:

• "It's Not Really Granola, But Who Cares?: Back-to-School Raspberry Granola Bars," October 21, 2010.
• "For Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner: Raspberry Crumb Breakfast Bars," August 14, 2010.
  

It's Not Really Granola, But Who Cares?: Back-to-School Raspberry Granola Bars

Last night I was flipping through The Craft of Baking when I came across a lovely photo of some "Back-to-School Raspberry Granola Bars." It was an easy decision to try the recipe, because it calls for only a few basic ingredients and doesn't require much effort beyond stirring with a wooden spoon.

To make the batter that comprises both the bottom crust and the topping, all you have to do is combine flour, oats, sugar, dark brown sugar, baking soda, and pecans, and then stir in melted butter. You press two-thirds of the mixture into the bottom of a pan, spread on a layer of raspberry preserves (I used seedless spreadable fruit), sprinkle on the remaining batter, and bake.

These bars are rich and buttery and very yummy. The topping is a bit crumbly and makes the bar slightly messy to eat -- use of a napkin and plate is definitely advisable. But the raspberry filling is delicious with the oats and pecans, and these bars are a satisfying and decadent sweet treat. They don't really resemble granola bars very much (last time I checked, granola bars don't contain plentiful quantities of butter) but they are tasty enough that I'm not going to quibble!

Recipe: "Back-to-School Raspberry Granola Bars" from The Craft of Baking: Cakes, Cookies & Other Sweets with Ideas for Inventing Your Own by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox.

Fragrant but Forgettable: Apple Snacking Spice Cake

I have been on a bit of a cookbook shopping spree lately, and my most recent acquisition is Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe by owner Joanne Chang. I have never had the pleasure of visiting Flour Bakery, but I did watch Chang give Bobby Flay a sticky bun smackdown on an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. That alone was enough to convince me to buy the cookbook -- although I also can't help but get sucked in a bit by Chang's fairy tale success story, which is quite remarkable. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in applied math and economics, she worked as a management consultant for two years before deciding to pursue food as a career. With absolutely no professional experience or formal training, Chang managed to get hired at Biba, and also worked as pastry chef Rialto and Mistral (with a stint with Francois Payard in New York City in between), before opening her bakery Flour in the fall of 2000. Today, there are three Flour Bakery locations in the Boston area, and Chang and her husband also have a Chinese restaurant in Boston's South End.

But back to the cookbook. I flipped through the entire thing as soon as it arrived, and this is a fairly serious cookbook with some pretty complicated recipes; I would not advise it for beginners. I decided to start with one of the easier recipes -- and since fall is now upon us, the Apple Snacking Spice Cake seemed like a perfect seasonal choice.

The recipe seemed slightly unusual to me, as it does not start out with the usual creaming of butter and sugar. Instead, you start out by sifting dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, cloves) into the bowl of a standing mixer, and you then beat in sugar and room temperature butter, followed by eggs. At that point, you have a fluffy batter, and you fold in sliced Granny Smith apples, raisins, and pecans. You bake, cool, dust with powdered sugar, and serve.

The ratio of apple to batter is quite high, as you can see in the photo above. In fact, the recipe instruction to fold in the apples is accompanied by the note: "The batter will be very stiff and thick. It will look like too many apples and not enough batter, but that's okay."

Even though this cake contains a relatively small amount of spices (only 1/4 teaspoon each cinnamon and ginger, and 1/8 teaspoon cloves), the cake had an intense and irresistible aroma as it was baking. I cannot remember the last time I made something so beautifully fragrant in my kitchen. The cake was dense, but very moist and strongly flavored with apple. While this cake was certainly a solid performer and had a nice homey/comfort vibe, I don't think there was anything particularly memorable about it.

Recipe: "Apple Snacking Spice Cake," from Flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery + Cafe, by Joanne Chang.

Soft and Squishy, Pink and Poufy: Strawberry Marshmallows

Last week, Tom sent me a link to a gallery of homemade candy recipes from Saveur's web site. I can take a hint! I decided to try the recipe for strawberry marshmallows, since I have made a lot of chocolate and vanilla marshmallows in the past, but I've never tried a recipe for any other flavor.

This recipe was pretty easy, as marshmallows go. The final mixture was extremely sticky and a bit difficult to get spread out evenly in the prepared pan (if you have ever made Rice Krispies treats, you have some idea how messy melted marshmallow is).

These marshmallows had the best texture of any homemade marshmallows I've ever made or tasted. They were tall, poufy, soft, and squishy -- very similar to (but even better than) commercial marshmallows. The ones in the picture above are 2-inches square and an inch and a half tall. They stayed soft with no degradation in texture over the several days that they lasted.

I wasn't 100% thrilled with the flavor, though. These marshmallows have no flavoring except for the bits of diced dried strawberry. Even though I used a mild clover honey to make these, I thought there was a strong honey flavor to them, which I didn't particularly like -- although this flavor did subside after the second day or so. I only had 4 oz. of dried strawberries on hand, so I was a little short -- I think that more strawberries would have improved the flavor. Also, I'm thinking about trying these again with freeze-dried (instead of just dried) strawberries or other fruit. Freeze-dried fruit has all of the moisture removed from it, and so it weighs very little and has a crunchy, friable texture. But since it crumbles easily, there is always a lot of fruit dust at the bottom of the package. I think that adding the fruit dust (or even intentionally creating some more by crushing the freeze-dried fruit) would help disperse fruit flavor more evenly throughout the marshmallows, and maybe also help add more natural color. I am thinking about trying this recipe with freeze-dried pears next.

Recipe: Strawberry Marshmallows from Saveur #131.

There Is Such a Thing as Too Much Butter: Heartland Turtle Bars

Continuing to bake my way through Baked Explorations, last night I tried the recipe for Heartland Turtle Bars -- an oatmeal bar with a layer of pecans, chocolate chips, and caramel in the middle. One of reasons I chose the recipe was that it didn't require a lot of time or fuss.

The oatmeal portion of the batter is made simply by combining flour, salt, baking soda, brown sugar, and rolled oats, and then stirring in melted butter. You spread two-thirds of the batter into the bottom of a 9- by 13-inch pan, bake it for ten minutes, and then let it cool. You sprinkle chopped pecans and chocolate chips onto the cooled crust, and then pour on some caramel (made by heating together brown sugar and butter, and then adding in some heavy cream). You sprinkle on the rest of the oatmeal batter, bake, cool, chill, cut, and serve.

I had one minor problem executing this recipe. The recipe doesn't make a lot of caramel (the caramel is made from 1/2 cup brown sugar, 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, and 2 tablespoons heavy cream). When I poured the caramel over the pecans and chocolate chips on the cooled crust, there wasn't really enough to cover the nuts and chocolate. I tried to spread out the caramel as directed in the recipe, but this ended up melting some of the chocolate chips and creating a bit of a melted chocolate-caramel mess. If I make this recipe again, I would probably pour the caramel directly onto the cooled bottom layer, spread it out evenly, and then sprinkle the chocolate chips and pecans on top of the caramel -- I think this would be the easiest way to achieve an even distribution of everything in the middle layer.

As far as the finished bar goes, I wasn't in love with it. I thought the oatmeal component was the most interesting part, as the oats gave the bar a very interesting flavor and substantial texture. However, the middle layer of chocolate, pecan, and caramel sort of all ran together, and the dessert had a very clunky, inelegant quality. Another complaint is that the oatmeal batter was too buttery. I should have guessed this might be the case, since there is actually a warning about the bar's high butter content accompanying the recipe ("This is quite a buttery dessert. I, personally, have never found anything too buttery... but if you want to cut back on the butter in the recipe, leave out a tablespoon or two in the oatmeal crust..."). I would definitely reduce the amount of butter from the two sticks called for in the oatmeal batter recipe if I ever make these again -- the bars were greasy to handle, and they had an odd waxy quality when chilled due to the high butter content. I can't believe I'm saying this, but really, there is a thing as too much butter.

Recipe: "Heartland Turtle Bars" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.

Easy as 1-2-3: Mustard Batons

I recently ordered Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan, which is a bit of an unusual purchase for me since I normally only buy cookbooks that focus solely on baking. This cookbook contains a wide range of savory recipes for appetizers and mains, with only a small section on desserts -- but I am a fan of Greenspan's, so I figured that this cookbook would be a worthwhile investment.

I got a chance to try out one of the recipes from Around My French Table over the weekend, while we were in Wisconsin visiting Tom's mother to celebrate her 70th birthday. I generally dislike baking in other people's homes -- when I'm faced with unfamiliar equipment and an unknown oven, it always causes me great anxiety. I volunteered to make a few items for the birthday dinner that Tom was preparing, but I wanted to stick to some simple baked goods that would be difficult to screw up. It was the perfect opportunity to try out Greenspan's recipe for Mustard Batons.

This recipe is marvelously simple, and it calls for only three ingredients -- purchased puff pastry, dijon mustard, and an egg. You thaw the puff pastry, roll it out, spread on some mustard, fold over the pastry, cut it into strips, brush with egg wash, and bake. Fifteen minutes later, you have some beautiful golden breadsticks. And they are delicious!

I tried making half of the batons with Grey Poupon and the rest with a mixture of Grey Poupon and Gulden's brown mustard. We all agreed that the batons made with the Grey Poupon-Gulden's mix were better and more flavorful. But they were all good, even without any poppy seeds or sesame seeds on top.

For my foolproof dessert, I threw together some cream puffs (which I filled with store-bought coffee ice cream) and hot fudge sauce. All in all, I was very pleased with the way my baked goods came out -- and even though everything I made was simple, I hope my contributions rose to the occasion.

Recipe: Mustard Batons from Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan; recipe also available on Dorie Greenspan's website, here.

A Deep, Dark, Salty Caramel and Chocolate Delight: The Sweet & Salty Brownie

One of my favorite cookbooks to come out in recent years is Baked by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. When I heard that the proprietors of Baked bakery in Brooklyn were coming out with a second cookbook, I pre-ordered Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented as soon as I could -- and it finally arrived a couple of weeks ago!

I decided that the first recipe I wanted to try was the Sweet & Salty Brownie. The Sweet and Salty Cake recipe from the first Baked cookbook is really delicious, and this brownie recipe includes the exact same salted caramel made from sugar, corn syrup, heavy cream, fleur de sel, and sour cream.

The brownie itself is made from flour, salt, cocoa, chocolate, unsalted butter, sugar, light brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. The recipe specifies dark chocolate with 60 to 72% cacao content. I made this recipe twice -- once with Callebaut extra bittersweet (70.4%), and once with Hershey's Special Dark bars (45%). I'm happy to report that it comes out just as well with either. To assemble the bars, you spread half of the brownie batter in a pan, drizzle on a layer of caramel, cover the caramel with the remaining brownie batter, and bake. After you take the brownie out of the oven, you sprinkle on both fleur de sel and sanding sugar (which, much to my surprise, actually stuck to the brownie top and didn't just fall off).

The first time I made these brownies, I let them cool at room temperature before cutting. The second time, I put the bars in the refrigerator before cutting. I would highly recommend chilling the bars before cutting, because it makes them easier to cut and allows you to make cleaner cuts with a much neater appearance. The caramel is not really visible as a distinct layer after the bars are cut, although you can most definitely taste the salty, smoky caramel in the finished product. I kind of like the fact that these brownies look fairly ordinary, but deliver a surprisingly deep and complex flavor. These bars are awesome. There was a slightly more intense chocolate flavor in the bars I made with the 70.4% Callebaut, but the bars made with Hershey's Special Dark were also very tasty. I will happily make these with Hershey's Special Dark in the future and no one will notice the difference.

The bars are very fudgy, but I thought the creamy texture was decadent and divine. One warning -- these bars are most definitely salty. For a single batch of brownies in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan, there is a teaspoon of fleur de sel in the caramel, another teaspoon of salt in the brownie batter, and an additional teaspoon and a half of fleur de sel sprinkled on top. In fact, Claire Robinson declared the Baked Sweet and Salty Brownie as her favorite "salty goodness" food on an episode of the Food Network's "The Best Thing I Ever Ate."

I knew those boys from Baked wouldn't let me down!

Recipe: "Sweet & Salty Brownie" from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.

Previous Post: "The Sweet and Salty Cake: Chocolate Cake, Salted Caramel, and a Runaway Ganache," February 8, 2009.

It's the End of the Great Pumpkin Shortage, Charlie Brown: Pumpkin Plus Bars

Those of you who are not bakers may have been blissfully unaware, but this country has been suffering a terrible canned pumpkin shortage. I have not made any pumpkin baked goods since the beginning of the year because Libby's canned pumpkin -- the gold standard for baking -- has been completely unavailable due to a bad harvest. (You can read more about the problem in this Washington Post article.) I have been clinging to three cans I had leftover from last year, saving them for a pumpkin emergency (like Thanksgiving). But then lo and behold -- two weeks ago I was in Harris Teeter and I saw Libby's back on the shelf! The great pumpkin shortage is over! Now with my canned pumpkin supplies back at comfortable levels (I was able to buy eight additional cans), I can not only return to baking with pumpkin, but I can even spare enough to risk trying out some new pumpkin recipes!

So in this spirit, I decided to try the recipe for Pumpkin Plus Bars from the Fat Witch Brownie cookbook. Let me begin by saying that I may have spoken too soon when I recently decided to give this cookbook another chance. I'm starting to think that this book needs to be permanently benched, because there were multiple aspects of this recipe that were fairly annoying.

This bar contains a layer of pumpkin on top of a layer of chocolate. You mix the chocolate batter (melter butter and bittersweet chocolate chips, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, salt, semisweet chocolate chips) and pour it into a pan. Then you mix up the pumpkin batter (butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, canned pumpkin, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves), pour the pumpkin mixture over the chocolate layer, and bake.

So let me note a few things that are wrong with this recipe.

First, the recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate chips, and your average home baker is not going to be able to find bittersweet (as opposed to semisweet) chips at the neighborhood grocery store. While FDA regulations define semisweet and bittersweet chocolate as equivalent (chocolate with at least 35% chocolate liquor, see 21 CFR 163.123), I'm assuming that the cookbook is using the term "bittersweet" as it is commonly understood -- chocolate containing at least 50% chocolate liquor. After all, this recipe calls for both bittersweet and semisweet chips, so the author must think there is a distinction between the two.

A second related problem is that none of the recipes in the book provide weight alternatives for the chocolate measurements -- they are all given as volume measurements for chips. This is really irritating. I chopped up a bittersweet chocolate bar to use in place of the bittersweet chips, and it would have been a lot easier if I just knew how many ounces of chocolate to weigh out.

Third -- and most egregious -- there is no way to evenly spread the pumpkin batter on top of the chocolate batter. The pumpkin batter is quite thick and completely unpourable. I tried to gently spread the pumpkin into an even layer with an offset spatula, but I could see that the thinner chocolate layer underneath was being pushed into undulating waves, even poking up through the pumpkin layer at some points. Normally, I would have expected that the brownie layer would need to be at least partially baked before adding on the pumpkin layer. I was convinced that there must have been an error in the recipe omitting a direction to pre-bake the chocolate layer; I searched the internet and the cookbook publisher's website for an errata sheet to see if the chocolate layer was supposed to be baked alone first to form a firm crust for the pumpkin layer. I couldn't find anything except a review of the cookbook noting the exact same problem with this recipe.

The line of demarcation between the chocolate and pumpkin layers ended up being a wildly haphazard squiggle throughout the bars; there were also some unwanted air pockets. You can see both of these problems in the photo above. The chocolate layer was excessively fudgy and slightly undercooked; I think that the chocolate layer really does require more baking time than the pumpkin layer. The pumpkin layer was dense and borderline rubbery. The texture was unusual and unlike any pumpkin cake I've ever had before, although the spice flavor was comfortably familiar. I think the superdense brownie layer competed with and eclipsed the pumpkin portion of the bar instead of complementing it.

While I did receive some positive comments about these bars, I feel that the flavors are quite unbalanced, and the bars do not allow the pumpkin to shine. Also, the difficulty in spreading out the pumpkin on top of the chocolate before baking just makes these "Pumpkin Plus Aggravation Bars." At least I still have ten cans of pumpkin on hand, so I'm not too sore about having expended one on this recipe.

Recipe: Pumpkin Plus Bars from Fat Witch Brownies: Brownies, Blondies and Bars from New York's Legendary Fat Witch Bakery, by Patricia Healding.

Munchy Crunchy My Dear Snackers: Savory Cheddar Biscotti

After I made cheddar chive scones on Thursday night, I had a small block of extra sharp cheddar left over. Quite a fortuitous circumstance, because I had just enough cheese on hand to try out a recipe for savory cheddar biscotti that I saw in the New York Times last week. The recipe accompanied an article by Mark Bittman about savory biscotti, the online version of which included a video of Bittman demonstrating the recipe:



These biscotti are very easy to make, as you can see in the video -- which I unfortunately didn't watch until after I had tried the recipe. I was a little dismayed when the top of my biscotti loaf split like a french bread baguette during baking, causing a small imperfection on the top of each sliced cookie -- but after I watched the video, I realized that this is expected to happen, and I felt lot better.

I sliced mine quite thin -- so they looked a bit like melba toasts -- and I got 18 biscotti from the recipe. They were nice and crisp, and had a wonderful cheesy flavor. If you like cheese crackers, you will like these biscotti. I think they would be terrific on top of a bowl of tomato soup, or as the base for some hors d'oeuvres at a cocktail party. My only complaint was that I thought they were a little too salty. I will reduce the salt in the recipe the next time I make these (although it could have also been due to the cheese I used -- some types of cheeses are saltier than others).

These biscotti reminded me of one of the best lines from one of my favorite children's books, Bea and Mr. Jones by Amy Schwartz. In the book, kindergartener Bea Jones decides to switch places with her father, who is an advertising executive. At the Smith & Smith Advertising agency, Bea comes up with a catchy jingle just in time to save the Crumbly Crackers account, and I think it describes these biscotti perfectly: "Munchy Crunchy my dear snackers, You will love our Crumbly Crackers!"

Recipe: Savory Cheddar Biscotti from the September 24, 2010, New York Times.

Ipso Fatto Instant Photos: Cecelia and Will's Wedding Shower

For a wedding shower we hosted at the office today, I made some Cheddar Chive Scones and Red Velvet Cupcakes. I made the scones fairly small so that people wouldn't get too full -- the dish holding the scones in the photo below is a regular-sized soup plate. The display of cupcakes in one of my many cupcake stands looked quite festive, notwithstanding the rather mundane conference room decor -- videoconferencing equipment and all!

Congratulations and much love to the happy couple!

Recipes:

• Cheddar Chive Scones from epicurious.com.
  
• Red Velvet Cake from Cake Man Raven.
• Frosting recipe from Pumpkin-Raisin Bars, from epicurious.com.

Previous Posts:

• "Red Velvet Cupcakes = True Love," January 31, 2009.
• "Still Stuck on Scones," August 1, 2008.