When I was in college, I used to open my door during final exams and find a box of cookies underfoot. This meant that Jessica had been hard at work, somehow baking off hundreds of cookies in between studying for and taking exams. For […]
I am invariably disappointed by brownies from the store, be they artisanal or made from a box (the sole exception being the gluten-free King Arthur brownie mix). As you know, I already have a favorite brownie recipe, which is more akin to brownie-flavored fudge […]
i don’t usually take photographs at an angle – that “artistic angle” so favored by food bloggers – but for some reason, the dead-on photos just don’t look as good. something about the straight shooting suppresses the cragginess of these cookies.
so, caramel melts. this is what i discovered upon leaving a tupperware of ganache-topped caramels in the fridge, with no outer coating of chocolate, for over a year. possibly for two years – i’ve forgotten exactly when i put them in for that long, long hibernation. i think i expected them to keep the way that, miraculously, my most prized caramel sauce has kept for two years as i slowly consume it. (the original delicious caramel sauce got a boost of sugar syrup from spiced, baked apples, infused and reduced with tea, that rendered it positively spectacular.) alas, it was not so. beyond acquiring the aroma of the refrigerator – airtight container be damned – the caramels absorbed liquid from the ganache and melted into waxy sludge. (more…)
The night I looked at you I found a dream that I could speak to… I found a thrill to rest my cheek to A thrill that I have never known… And here we are in heaven For you are mine At last — friends, […]
can you believe that i haven’t been watching law & order obsessively? yeah, neither can i. so this isn’t a murder case involving food, but it does involve me surreptitiously copying a recipe out of the best recipe at barnes & noble. this is my […]
i vaguely remember having promised to update you all on the longevity of the pound cake. i also vaguely remember having forgotten – ok, i very distinctly remember having forgotten to do so. so with respect to elvis’ poundcake, i’d like to report that the texture improved over the next several hours or so. its crusty exterior stayed crusty, but as egg-ful things are wont to do, it tasted much less eggy after the cake cooled and set completely. i think it had about a week’s shelf life?
and onto bigger, better things, or at least, more chocolatey things: chocolate pound cake. i can’t remember why i made a chocolate pound cake; i guess just because. this is a recipe i’d made before, generally in loaf pans to make a pound cake for chocolate raspberry trifle. i also wanted to test the efficacy of beating the butter and sugar to provide the cake’s structure, and i have to confess and bite my tongue – it really helps. in fact, it’s pretty amazing how much it helps. the chocolate pound cake that i made relies heavily on the butter and sugar for its tight crumb, and cake flour for its tenderness, and brown sugar for spicy caramel overtones. i would recommend billington’s dark brown sugar for the best spicy caramel overtones – i’m pretty sure that 95% of said overtones come from this particular brown sugar, which i’ve used before to great effect in brown sugar pudding. this particular cake is fantastic plain, but if you need to fancy it up, just drip a chocolate glaze over it. don’t bother with powdered sugar, which i hate with a passion on cakes and tarts because you just end up inhaling it and choking, just as you’re about to take a bite. it’s annoying at your dinner table when you’re with good friends, and embarrassing in social situations as you cough and hack. (more…)