The pink peppercorn rides again

In the course of my holiday baking each year, I like to make a couple of different kinds of shortbready-sably type cookies. And each year, I like to try out something a little different.

This year, by different, I meant really different. As in, peppercorny different. In fact, I think that’s where it started. At some point during my planning, TD always asks the same question: “you aren’t going make anything pink peppercorny are you?”

Why yes, yes I am.

If you don’t know about TD and pink peppercorns, you can catch up here. A couple of years ago I had some success with raspberry and pink peppercorn macarons so I thought it might be fun to translate that into a sable.

I added in some white chocolate chunks and accessorized with bright pink sanding sugar for a little pizzazz (yes, I just said pizzazz).

The results were interesting. While not for everyone, I thought they were a complex, if not festive addition.

Raspberry, White Chocolate and Pink Peppercorn Sables

a play on Dorie Greenspan’s sable cookie

Ingredients

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably sea salt
2 large egg yolks, preferably at room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground pink peppercorns (I use a coffee grinder)
3 heaping TBS freeze dried raspberry powder (I find freeze dried fruit at Trader Joes. You can also find it on Amazon. I also used the coffee grinder to pulverize the raspberries)
8 ounces white chocolate chunks
Sanding sugar if you want to get fancy

Directions

Working with a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until it is smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars and salt and continue to beat until smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy, about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 2 egg yolks, again beating until well blended.

Turn off the mixer, pour in the flour, raspberry and pink peppercorn powders. Drape a kitchen towel over the mixer and pulse the mixer about 5 times at low speed for 1 or 2 seconds each time. Take a peek; if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, stir for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. If you still have some flour on the bottom of the bowl, stop mixing and use a rubber spatula to work the rest of it into the dough. (The dough will not come together in a ball — and it shouldn’t. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you’re aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy dough. When pinched, it should feel a little like Play-Doh.)

3. Scrape the dough onto a work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long (it’s easiest to work on a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to help form the log). Wrap the logs well and chill them for at least 2 hours. The dough may be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

4. When ready to bake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper and keep it at the ready.

6. Place the rounds on the baking sheet, leaving an inch of space between each cookie, and bake for 17 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the halfway point. When properly baked, the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top. Let the cookies rest 1 or 2 minutes before carefully lifting them onto a cooling rack with a wide metal spatula. Repeat with the remaining log of dough. (Make sure the sheet is cool before baking each batch.)

Pumpkin Blondies

Pumpkin it seems, is all the rage this fall. So much so that I’m surprised Pinterest hasn’t added it as a category. The funny thing is that I kind of think it’s actually the spice profile people love about pumpkin and not the actual gourd itself. Of course, I’m basing this off of the fact that Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latter doesn’t actually have any pumpkin in it. Or maybe it’s my well documented “not love” for all things squash coloring my belief that anyone could love pumpkin as a food.

But what can I say, I’m a sell-out and felt obligated to include at least one pumpkin-based goodie in my baking line-up this fall.

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This pumpkin blondie, while not exactly healthy, is a little less indulgent than, say, a regular blondie. The pumpkin replaces about half of the butter and eggs without missing a beat.

And while these are just fine as is, I think this recipe begs for additions. How about some roasted pepitas? Extra white chocolate chunks…ooh…or maybe some butterscotch chips? If nothing else, I recommend a dusting of powdered sugar before serving these very autumnal squares.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Blondies

this is a Misanthropic Hostess recipe

Ingredients

1 scant TBS cinnamon
3/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp all spice
3/4 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated if you can)
3/4 tsp kosher salt
2 + 1/4 C all purpose flour
1 C golden brown sugar
1/4-1/2 C granulated sugar (depends on how sweet you want these)
2 tsp vanilla
1 can (usually about 14 ounces) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
8 TBS (1 stick) unsalted butter
11 ounces white chocolate chips or chunks

Other things to add-in:

Roasted, salted pepitas
Spiced pecans
White chocolate chunks
Dried fruit (cherries would be the bomb)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 9X13 inch baking pan with parchment, butter pan and parchment.
In a medium, heavy bottomed sauce pan melt butter over low heat.
Once butter is melted, remove from heat, add white chocolate, swirl to cover and let sit for 3 minutes. Whisk butter and chocolate together until smooth and allow to cool.
In a medium bowl, sift together first 6 ingredients. Set aside.
In a larger bowl, whisk together sugars and eggs until combined. Whisk-in vanilla.
Whisk-in pumpkin. Then whisk-in cooled buter and chocolate mixture.
Switch to a spatula and gently fold-in flour mixture.
Transfer batter to prepared pan and cook for 30-40 minutes (they were done at 34 minutes in my oven) until an inserted skewer comes up clean and sides start to pull away from pan.
Allow to cool completely. Cut into squares.

Brown Butter Blondies…no, that’s NOT code

Why yes, it is Wednesday. As you read this, TD and I are on a teeny tiny plane headed to Montana. If his predictions are correct, at some point we will get snowed-in. To hear TD explain it, this will trigger the zombie apocalypse whereupon only the strongest (or least best tasting) will survive to see spring. Yeah, I don’t really understand either. But, just in case, here is this week’s post.

Depsite my agonizingly detailed planning, about 2/3 of the way through my holiday baking, it became clear to me that I was going to need a bigger boat. And by bigger boat, I mean more baked goods. As my caramel crunch square supply quickly dwindled, I sprang into action with a recipe I’ve been playing with for a couple of months: the brown butter blondie.

Here is the flavor profile: brown butter, roasted walnuts, white chocolate. The BBBs also have the added benefit of a neat cut. You know what I mean, no sloppy edges or oozing middle (not that, provided the appropriate context, sloppy edges and oozing middles are a bad thing). This is a slightly fancy bar that comes together relatively quickly and is made from ingredients that are generally on-hand. Plus and plus. In fact, these went together so easily that I knocked out two batches in the early morning hours before work.

I am officially signing-off until the 28th. That’s assuming I’m not lobotomized by a brains seeking Santa Claus along the way. Which would be sad because I’m all set to pontificate on the 2013 Pantone color of the year and what it has to do with a cognitive condition I never knew I had until TD scientifically proved I am statistically weird.

Brown Butter Blondies

Ingredients

1/2 LB (16 TBS) unsalted butter
1 1/2 C golden or light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 C all-purpose flour
10 ounces chopped white chocolate or white chocolate chips
1 C roasted walnut pieces

Directions

To brown butter: in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, add butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the butter takes on a deep golden color. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temp. This step can be done in advance.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9X13 inch baking pan with parchment and butter the parchment and sides.
In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.
In a standing mixer, add sugar to brown butter and cream until smooth, roughly 2-3 minutes. You will not get the same consistency as you would with regular butter straight from the stick. Don’t worry about it.
With the mixer running on medium, add eggs one at a time allowing them to be completely incorporated after each add. Let the mixer run for another minute and add vanilla until mixed- in.
Add-in flour mixture. With the mixer on its lowest setting, run until the flour is just incorporated. Watch carefully, this will happen quickly.
By hand, fold-in chocolate and walnuts.
Gently press the dough into the prepared pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top is pale gold and the edges are just starting to turn a deeper gold.
Allow to cool completely before cutting.

That’s-a-spicy-a-brownie!

There aren’t many pictures for this post because I tested this recipe veeeeery early one morning before the sun was up. And, as you’ve all had to painfully experience, the lighting in my kitchen is awful (that’s right, I’m blaming the environment, not the photographer). I had a meeting. It was a committee meeting. The way to get committee people to do stuff is to trick them into it by providing tasty vittles, asking for volunteers and then reminding them that you’ve fed them. Well, it works some of the time.

In this case, my weapon of choice was a spiced white chocolate brownie. I know, I know, we had spiced cake last week. What can I say, it’s fall. In a word, this baked good is “unexpected.” With brownies or blondies you aren’t generally thinking cinnamon, ginger or clove. So, they made a nice contrast to the traditional brownies I also brought (I had a lot to ask for).

And then I threw in some shortbread for good measure. I like to kick people when they’re down.

Spiced White Chocolate Brownies

Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest, Christmas Cookies, 2011

Ingredients

2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1 C butter, unsalted
1 3/4 C packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 TBS rum
1 tsp vanilla
6 oz white baking chocolate chopped (TMH note–I used 12 oz)
1 TBS finely chopped crystalized ginger
Powdered sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13X9 inch baking pan with parchment paper. Grease paper and pan, set aside.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cardamom, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt. Set aside.
In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle (or large bowl and electric mixer), cream butter and brown sugar scraping down bowl as needed. Beat-in eggs, rum and vanilla until combined.
Turn speed setting to low and add flour mixture until combined. Fold-in chocolate. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes.
Cool on wire rack. If desired, sprinkle brownies with powdered sugar and cut as desired.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (or Bars) Cockaigne

That’s right…I said cockaigne. Sounds dirty doesn’t it?

I originally found this cookie recipe while thumbing through the Joy of Cooking and thought it was a nice alternative to the classic chocolate chip cookie. It has some additional ingredients like ground oatmeal and a second kind of chocolate that make it kind of special. Kind of cockaigney don’t you think?

Okay, okay, I had no idea what cockaigne meant when I first came across the recipe. Though, I did have a fantasy that the recipe was developed in a tiny village in the South of France where the baker lived alone save for her trusted and loyal pet rooster. A little research revealed no such romantic tale. In fact, my little research revealed very little about the word and its relationship to food. According to the OED, the term refers to a mythical land of plenty and good (not the other way around). Another source revealed that at some point in the last 200 years, it was used specifically to describe the city of London. As in cockney.

Okay.

Not real sure what all that has to do with a cookie recipe, gov’ner.

A little more digging and I’ve come to suspect that the use of the word cockaigne is related more to the authors of the Joy of Cooking than the recipe’s origin as it appears in a couple other recipe titles. So in a culinary context, I suppose the adjective cockaigne is a little something like “supreme” or “surprise.”

Works for me.

In the photos below, I’m making them as bars and have one-and-a-halved the recipe. I needed to make a lot of bars. The same principles apply to the bar version as they do to the original cookie version.

I started at the end because it involved the food processor (that’s right, Bessy was in the house). First, I ground up some quick oats.

Then I ground up some white chocolate. The original recipe calls for milk chocolate but I thought I’d be rebellious and go white (if white chocolate is actually really chocolate at all…it’s kind of like a panda bear in that way).

I then looked around for something else to grind. Alas, finding nothing but my teeth (oh come on, you knew I was going to say this), I moved on to creaming together butter and sugar. I then added in the dry ingredients…but obviously didn’t take any pictures of it.

No need to rest or refrigerate the dough. Right into the pan (or onto the sheet it goes).

Into the oven and out it comes golden brown and definitely cockaigne.

Let cool and cut as desired. I realize this blog has been very bar heavy as of late. I’ve got two more bar recipes to share and then we’ll move on. Perhaps to the rhombus.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Cockaigne

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ C sugar
2/3 C golden brown sugar
1 egg (I use extra large)
1 1/2 TBS milk
1 TBS vanilla
1 2/3 C flour
1 ¼ t baking soda
¾ t baking powder
¼ t salt
1 1/3 C ground quick oats (grind them in the food processor)
1 C chocolate chips
3 oz grated milk chocolate (I use ground white chocolate…though its good both ways)

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add in sugars and cream. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla.

While butter is creaming, in a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Set aside.

Once wet ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add in flour mixture and combine until dough just comes together. Stir in oats, chocolate chips and milk/white chocolate until just combined.

For cookies: spoon on to parchment-lined baking sheets, two inches apart and bake until golden, 8-12 minutes.

For bars: oil and line with parchment 9X13 baking pan. Spread-out dough evenly (I find that the parchment likes to scrunch around. To keep it from moving, I hold it in place in one corner with a finger and the carefully spread the dough using a spatula with the other hand) Bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.