Hu Kitchen Chocolate

Chocolate is life, right? And because I love chocolate so much, I was excited to be asked to promote Hu Kitchen's chocolate bars. The 70% stone ground dark chocolate hits all the right notes with me: it's made from organic, fair-trade cacao beans and contains no GMOs, emulsifiers, or soy lecithin. It's also vegan, gluten-free, and contains no dairy or refined sugar. There are bars stuffed with hazelnut, cashew, or almond butters, made crispy with quinoa and crunchy with cacao nibs, but also plain and salted bars. My favorite to eat out of hand is the almond butter + puffed quinoa bar, but I knew if the chocolate was that good for snacking on its own, it would be terrific for baking.

So I made chocolate chip cookies. Giant ones. I usually don't make them that large, but I really wanted the chocolate to stand out.

I think it does, don't you?

This recipe makes 6 large cookies, but you can make smaller ones if you so desire, just break the chocolate into smaller bits. Definitely don't omit the sea salt.

Giant Chocolate Chunk Cookies

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 2.1oz Hu Kitchen chocolate bars, salty or simple or one of each
Handful of chopped nuts (optional, I used almonds)
Maldon sea salt

Put the melted butter and sugars in a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Add the vanilla and egg and stir again. Dump in the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix well until all of the flour is incorporated.

Break 1 of the chocolate bars into small pieces and stir into the batter along with the nuts, if using. Refrigerate this mixture for at least one hour, until firm.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Divide dough into six evenly sized balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheets at least 4 inches apart. (I put four cookies on a standard sheet and two more on a smaller pan.) Take the other chocolate bar and break apart the segments, then cut each segment into two pieces. Press about half of the chocolate into the balls of dough. Reserve the rest for later.

Bake the cookies for 14-16 minutes, until golden brown. If using two baking sheets, about halfway through, rotate the pans and move the top sheet to the lower rack and vice versa.

Remove the cookies on the parchment to cooling racks. Press the remaining chocolate pieces into the cookies while they are still warm. Sprinkle each with a generous pinch of the sea salt.

Allow to cool completely before eating.

Makes six large cookies.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sheila G's Brownie Brittle

Have you ever found yourself nibbling on the crispy bits of brownie clinging to the pan after you've served up a fresh batch from the oven? Sheila G has. In fact, this is her favorite part of the brownie, so she decided to make a line of snacks specifically created to taste like those crunchy morsels there never seems to be enough of.

Brownie Brittle, as she calls it, comes in four flavors: Chocolate Chip, Mint Chocolate Chip, Toffee Crunch, and Salted Caramel. They're cracker thin and roughly square shaped, but tend to break apart into smaller pieces in the bag, much like real brittle. Despite their diminutive snack size, Brownie Brittle is intensely chocolate flavored so you won't need to eat too many to feel satisfied.

The Chocolate Chip flavor is the most reminiscent of a traditional brownie, but the crispy texture might also give you nostalgic memories of eating Coco Pebbles while watching cartoons on TV. The Toffee Crunch is also quite good with just enough toffee to give you the flavor without getting unwanted bits of gooey sugar stuck in your teeth. Salted Caramel is a hot flavor right now, so it's no surprise that Sheila G has a version of it. I just wish it had a tad more salt to drive home the contrast with the caramel.

After an unfortunate childhood incident where I ate a half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream by myself and got sick, I've never been a fan of that flavor combination. However, in the interest of thorough reporting, I sampled the mint chocolate chip Brownie Brittle. To my relief, the mint is fairly subtle, providing a touch of refreshing support to the rich chocolate flavor. I could actually eat a few of these without any bad flashbacks. For mint and chocolate lovers, I'm sure this would be a favorite.

Sheila G's Brownie Brittle allows you to enjoy the flavors of a brownie with far fewer calories than eating a whole brownie square. In fact, a 1-ounce serving has only 120 calories. So if you go hog wild and eat the whole 5-serving bag, well, at least you'll still have a couple of calories left in your daily allowance for some vegetables. You know, for balance.

Later this year, Brownie Brittle will be available with holiday decorations. The mint, chocolate chip, and salted caramel versions will each have a chocolaty drizzle on top, to make them a little more festive.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Your Chocolate in My Peanut Butter (and vice versa)

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Doctor Dolittle, a 1967 movie about a man who could talk to animals, starring the hunky Rex Harrison. I even had a stuffed pushmi-pullyu--allegedly a cross between two animals with unique horns (a gazelle and a unicorn, and yes I know the latter is fictional) despite not having any horns at all. It looked just like a two-headed, buttless llama. How the poor creature pooped, I do not know, but I loved my little stuffed beast anyway. I still have it, actually, 40-umpteen years later.

Why do I bring up this inconsequential trivia? Because that's how I roll. And I thought it was an apt introduction to my latest baking invention--the two headed-brownie. Or is it a two-headed blondie? It's both, really. Half of the bar cookie is a blondie, flavored with creamy peanut butter and studded with chocolate chips. The other half is a brownie with peanut butter chips. Together, the combination makes for one decadent, peanut-butter-y treat with more than a hint of chocolate.

I used a large baking pan and made standard 3/4"-high cookies, but you can certainly pack the dough into an 8"- or 9"-square pan and bake it for an extra 15 minutes or so, if you want something impressive that shows the layers more obviously. Just make sure to cut them into fairly small pieces, as these babies are rich.

Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar Cookies

For the blondie layer:
1 stick butter, melted
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Pinch salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup chocolate chips

For the brownie layer:
1 stick butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa powder
Pinch salt
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 9 x 13 pan.

To make blondies: Whisk together the melted butter and sugar in a bowl. Stir in the egg, vanilla, and peanut butter and beat until well incorporated. Stir in the salt and flour until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in the chocolate chips.

To make brownies: Whisk together the melted butter and sugar in a bowl. Stir in the egg and vanilla and beat until well incorporated. Combine the cocoa, salt, and flour. Stir/into the butter sugar mixture until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in the peanut butter chips.

Scrape the blondie batter into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top. Dollop the brownie batter on top as evenly as possible and spread slightly with a spatula to fill the gaps. Try not to mix or marble the two batters.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Allow to cool before cutting into squares.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

More is More

As they say, less is more. But sometimes more is more.

I was looking for a quick desserty-type thing to whip up on the weekend, and found a one-pan cookie cake recipe on the Joy the Baker site. She tossed bananas, walnuts, and chocolate chips into a batter that was both stirred up and baked in a cast iron skillet. Being cast iron skillet-less myself (heresy, I know), I opted to bake my cake in an 8-inch square glass baking dish. Since the recipe called for melting butter, I decided to go a little further and make brown butter. And in addition to chocolate chips, banana, and nuts, I tossed in some Heath bits, well, because they were there. The chocolate chips and toffee bits melted a bit in the hot pot, turning this cookie cake into a cookie and candy cake. Pretty tasty!

If you don't eat it all in one go (I don't recommend doing that), store it in the fridge. The candy part will harden quite a bit when cold, If you want a chewier, cakier texture, allow your serving to come to room temperature before eating.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Banana Almond Toffee Cookie Cake (inspired by Joy the Baker)

1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 ripe banana
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark chocolate chunks
1/2 cup coarsely chopped almonds
1/4 cup Heath bar bits

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Melt butter in a large saucepot over medium-high heat. Cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally, until the butter ceases to make sputtering noises and begins to brown and smell nutty. Remove from heat and stir in sugar until completely combined. Mash in banana, then add the egg, stirring well. Whisk in the vanilla, then add the cinnamon, flour, oats, baking soda, and salt. Stir well with a wooden spoon to incorporate all of the flour.

Fold in the chocolate, almonds, and Heath bar bits. The heat from the pot will melt the chocolate and Heath bits a bit. Pour into a greased 8x8 baking pan. Smooth top and bake for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Tate's Bake Shop

Long Island bakery Tate's Bake Shop is famous for its chocolate chip cookies. How do I know this? Well, the press release said so. Apparently bakery founder Kathleen King's recipe has received recognition from Consumer Reports, and Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine. Hmpf. You all know Rachael doesn't impress me. But what is impressive is that King won the Specialty Food Association's 2011 sofi Gold award for Outstanding Cookie. But what does this all mean? Do the cookies taste good?

The answer is...drumroll please...yes!

Tate's sent us a sample bag of their gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, and I must say - they are pretty damn good. Crispy and buttery-tasting, Tate's cookies contain a goodly amount of chocolate, and are pretty much indistinguishable from a gluten-full cookie apart from a slightly sandy after-texture.

These cookies are hitting the Baltimore area and should be available at Whole Foods, MOM's - My Organic Market, Fresh Market, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Wegman's. If you'd rather make your own cookies, there's also a new cookbook. Called Tate's Bake Shop: Baking for Friends, it contains recipes for scones, tarts, and quick breads as well as about 40 cookie recipes.

What struck my fancy as I perused the book for the first time was the recipe for pineapple upside-down cake. Kathleen King used a lovely cheat for the topping - toffee bits - which add more caramelly flavor than the usual brown sugar and a bonus of tiny almond bits. The other thing I liked about the recipe was that the eggs were added whole. So many traditional recipes for pineapple upside-down cake require that the eggs be separated and the whites whipped before adding. King's recipe is completely un-fussy and produces a moist and tender cake that might be the best pineapple upside-down cake I've ever tried.

I have to add one important direction to the recipe - place the skillet or baking pan on a cookie sheet! I didn't do this and the toffee oozed up one side of the pan and over onto the bottom of the stove, sending plumes of smoke everywhere as it burnt. Fortunately, I keep a sheet of heavy-duty foil on the bottom of the oven and was able to whisk it out of there and replace it (carefully) while the cake was still baking.

Pineapple Toffee Upside-Down Cake (adapted from Tate's Bake Shop: Baking for Friends)

1 20-oz can pineapple rings
1 1/2 sticks salted butter, 4 tablespoons sliced, 8 at room temperature
1 cup toffee bits (I used Heath Bits 'O' Brickle baking pieces)
7 maraschino cherries, drained, stems removed
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup plain nonfat or low-fat Greek yogurt

Position an oven rack in the center of the oven and preheat it to 350F.

Drain the pineapple, discarding the juice (theminx says: make a pina colada!). Reserve seven pineapple rings. Coarsely chop the rest and set aside.

Melt the 4 tablespoons of sliced butter in a 9" ovenproof skillet (or a 9x2 round cake pan - I used a 9" square glass pan) over medium heat. Remove from the heat and sprinkle the toffee bits evenly into the skillet. Arrange the pineapple rings in the skillet, placing a cherry in the center of each one.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, beat the sugar and 8 tablespoons of room temperature butter with an electric mixer set to high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. One at a time, beat in the eggs, followed by the vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with the yogurt in 2 equal additions, mixing until just smooth after each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed. Do not overmix. Stir in the chopped pineapple. Spread the batter evenly over the pineapple rings and cherries in the skillet.

Bake until the top is golden brown and a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the inside of the skillet to loosen the cake. Place a serving plate over the skillet, and, using pot holders, invert the skillet and plate together to unmold the cake. Serve warm or at room temperature.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Post-Christmas Cookies

We had our annual cookie-fest at Casa Minx in the week before Christmas, making the usual chocolate chippers and snickerdoodles, plus a batch of white chocolate/dried cherry cookies from a recipe I had obtained from a friend. (You can find that recipe in the December Minxeats Newsletter. Don't get the newsletter? Then click here to subscribe!) After giving many of them to my brother and eating still more of them for Christmas dessert, by mid-January, we were in a sad state of affairs as far as our cookie inventory was concerned. Since I recently had a nice long weekend thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr., I thought it might be nice to put one of those days aside for baking.

A while back, I had bookmarked a recipe for Red Velvet cookies because: 1) Mr Minx likes Red Velvet cake; 2) they seemed so easy. Honestly, I should know better than to use boxed cake mix, especially cake mix that contains a quantity of red food dye. The cookies came out looking like a sunburnt version of Thing and tasted like, I dunno...propylene glycol, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, and monocalcium phosphate.

Fail.

The bar cookies I'm going to call Reconstructed Florentines came out much better. I figured Florentines were a tasty way of using up candied orange peel left over from making fruitcakes, but I didn't want to deal with the potentially messy chocolate-coated classic version of the cookie. The bar cookie version was nearly perfect, except that I think they would be better with a crisper crust (mine was more like cake). I also varied the recipe by omitting the cherries and using almond flour in place of the chopped almonds (because that's what I had on hand).  

Finally, because Mr Minx is not a big fan of candied orange peel, we baked a third cookie, this time a variation of Milk Bar's Christina Tosi's cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow cookies. We didn't have marshmallows, nor was I about to whip up a batch of "cornflake crunch," so we omitted the former and just used handfuls of plain cornflakes for the latter.

Despite chilling the dough for the required one hour before baking, we had some issues with the resulting cookie. They weren't quite the same flat puddles as the last time I tried a Milk Bar cookie recipe - they were super crispy, somewhat brittle this time - but they were still too flat. Tasted fine though, with a sort of brown-butter-ish note.

I think the problem is that the sugar/butter-to-flour ratios on these cookies are way off from proportions that usually work for me. Compare Tosi's recipe to the classic Nestlé Toll House recipe: both require one cup of butter, but Tosi's calls for a bit more sugar and 3/4 cup less flour. Next time, I need to remember to use more flour to get a crunchier, heartier cookie.

I see cookie experimentation in my future.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

As Black As My Soul

Now tell me those aren't the ugliest cookies you've ever seen. They look like a Rocco Dispirito experiment gone awry, or maybe the digestive result of eating said experiment. The photo honestly doesn't do these double chocolate malt cookies justice - they are even uglier in person. The Hershey's Special Dark cocoa made them so dark brown they are nearly black. (Note: both items I've made so far with that cocoa seem inordinately salty, despite having relatively small amounts of salt. I think the flavor of the cocoa just doesn't work well with salt and probably won't buy it again unless I am desperate.) Those shiny/melty bits in the cookies are actually Ghirardelli 60% cacao dark chocolate chips. And they look pale by comparison. The lighter brown bits are nuts, and the light yellow-ish bits (no they are not corn) are melted malt ball centers.

Malt ball centers? Since the cookies are pretty gross-looking, you're probably thinking I did something equally disgusting to get to the centers, like maybe lick off the chocolate. But no. The centers are sold by my new favorite Internet merchant, Nuts Online. Last September I purchased a bag of teff flour for making authentic Ethiopian injera. I loved the fast service and the quality of the product, so before Christmas, I ordered several pounds of nuts and dried fruits for making holiday treats, plus a bag of their peppermint malted milk balls. OMG - Best. Malted. Milk. Balls. Ever. We recently ran out of nuts, so I placed another order, this time trying their huge, candy-like dried strawberries, mochi, and the malt ball centers. Tasty enough on their own, I thought they'd also make a good addition to cookies or brownies.

While not exactly a good idea, they weren't a bad idea, either. The sugar content is pretty high, so the malt ball centers melted and oozed a bit. They taste fine - but subtle. If you don't have them, don't worry about it - the cookies will taste quite good without them. And...the longer they sit, the better they taste.

Black as My Soul Double Chocolate Malt Cookies

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup softened butter
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 bag Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips
1 cup malted milk ball centers, lightly crushed
1/2 cup mixed nuts

Preheat oven to 345°F.

Cream the butter and sugars together, add eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour to the butter mixture in batches, mixing well to combine. Stir in chocolate chips, malt balls, and nuts. Onto a Silpat- or parchment-covered baking sheet, scoop dough in generous 2-or-3 tablespoon dollops, flattening with your hand to about 1/2 inch thick. Bake 12 minutes until browned. Remove cookies to a rack to cool. Makes about 3 dozen.

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Erika Davis' Chocolate Chip Cookies

The conclusion to our 10th anniversary dinner was giant chocolate chip cookies, from Top Chef Just Desserts competitor Erika Davis' Elimination Challenge-winning recipe. Called "the ultimate" by one of the competition's judges, I found it was basically just a variation on the famous Toll House cookie recipe, substituting baking powder for half the baking soda and adding a lot less salt and vanilla.

The addition of baking powder kept the cookies from spreading, which I liked. After the initial test batch of somewhat tall, puffy, cookies, the second batch got some manual flattening before baking. I also upped the vanilla. Because I like it.

A search through the pantry revealed a scant 3/4 cup of chocolate chips, so I filled the remaining 3/4 cup with white chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, bits of broken dark chocolate candy bar, and a dash of cocoa nibs. We were also out of walnuts, but had plenty of cashews and pistachios.

They were good - crunchy rather than crispy, at least when eaten the same day they were baked. Storing them in an air-tight plastic container left them a bit less crunchy, but no less tasty. However good, I wouldn't consider these "the ultimate" by any stretch of the imagination. I still haven't found that particular cookie.

Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from Bravotv.com)

¾ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
½ tsp baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ lb butter
2 ½ cups flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups assorted chips - white, chocolate, cinnamon, butterscotch, etc.
1 cup assorted nuts (cashews, pistachios, etc.)

Preheat oven to 345°F.

Cream the butter, sugars, and eggs together then add the vanilla. In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour to the butter mixture in batches, mixing to combine. Stir in chips and nuts. Scoop dough in generous 2-or-3 tablespoon dollops, flattening with your hand to about 1/2 inch thick. Bake 10-12 minutes until browned.

Things I Learned While Baking Cookies

1. Cookies that have a high butter-to-flour ratio (1:1 is high) MUST be baked on a Silpat. Otherwise, they are hard to remove from a standard non-stick baking sheet.

2. If the cookies are allowed to cool for even 30 seconds, they will be impossible to remove from the un-Silpat-ed cookie sheet whole and will become cookie brittle.

3. Cookie brittle makes a great topping for ice cream, particularly if the cookies contain walnuts, pecans, chocolate chips, and toffee bits.

4. Any whole cookies you are fortunate to get out of this mess will be lacy and break easily. But they will still taste good.

More Christmas Cookies

Not only did I bake peanut butter and chocolate gingerbread cookies, I also went a little crazy and made plain chocolate and regular oatmeal cookies to accompany the usual snickerdoodles and Toll House. And I took the leftover bacon fat shortbread dough from the freezer and baked those up as well. Good thing I had my trusty helpers to assist with baking, otherwise I'd be more crippled than I am.

I think we baked at least 30 dozen, if not more. Dad stopped by and took home a bag of assorted goodies (he favors burnt ones), and my brother got about a third of the remainder.

We'll be eating cookies until February. Want some?