Sugar High Friday #52: Baby TKO’s

Food blog events used to be a regular part of my blogging routine. I found that they encouraged me to try new things as I sought out dishes that could be made to conform to the given theme. I seem to have gotten away from participating in blogging events lately but when I saw that the theme for this month’s Sugar High Friday, (hosted by Palachinka) was Copycat Recipes I knew it was an excuse to finally make TKO’s, (Thomas Keller Oreos). These have been on my ‘to-make’ list for ages but recently got bumped to the top after I sampled a real TKO from Bouchon Bakery in Yountville.

The TKO’s at Bouchon Bakery are quite large and although usually I’m all for supporting anything that complies with my ‘Go Big or Go Home’ motto, today I decided to make baby TKO’s. Each one is only about an inch across which makes it easy to grab a whole handful to enjoy with a glass of milk.

TKO's (from Thomas Keller in Essence of Chocolate)

Filling

1/2 cup cream

8 ounces white chocolate, chopped

Cookies

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

7 1/2 ounces butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes

For the filling: Place the white chocolate in a bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat on the stove.

Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk together to melt the chocolate. I find this is a pretty high chocolate-to-cream ratio, so if you are unable to get all the chocolate to melt, you can place the bowl over a bain-marie and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.

Transfer the filling to another bowl and let cool until it has thickened enough to spread - it may take a few hours. You can speed up the process by putting the bowl in the refrigerator. If the filling gets too stiff, you can heat it up again in the microwave.

For the cookies: you will make this dough and bake the cookies right away - there is no chilling time needed, so plan accordingly.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper or Silpats.

Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in an electric mixer. With the mixer still running on low speed, add the butter a few pieces at a time. Let the dough continue mixing until it comes together - it should go from looking like pebbles or cornmeal to a cohesive mass.

Turn the dough out onto a floured working surface and work into a solid block. Divide the block into two pieces.

Working with one piece at a time, roll out between two sheets of parchment paper until 1/8" thick. Using a 2-in cookie cutter, cut out shapes and place on the baking sheets about 1 inch apart (cookies will spread a bit in the oven).

Bake the cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through baking time. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks for a few minutes (cookies will be too soft to move at first), then transfer cookies to wire racks and let finish cooling.

To assemble the cookies: Place half of the cookies upside down on a work surface.

Whisk the filling lightly to fluff it up a bit and make it spreadable.

Using a small spoon, scoop a small dollop of filling onto the center of each cookie. Top with another cookie right side up. Press the cookies together until the filling spreads out to the edges.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies (or 18 sandwiches)

The cookies with keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Inspiration

Inspiration comes in many forms and from many different places. Although lately I’ve felt as though my cooking inspiration has overwhelmed my writing inspiration and I’ve been struggling to find ways to tell you about all of the things I’ve been making. And then I realized that I should just tell you what’s been inspiring me to cook.

I don’t even think it’s necessary to say how inspiring my experiences were at the Thomas Keller restaurants, The French Laundry, Ad Hoc and Bouchon Bakery in California. While I was there I kept a list going of all the things I wanted to make once I returned home. Somewhere on that list were simply the words “make anything Thomas Keller”. If it’s on the list, it has to be done. I decided to go with a recipe from the Bouchon cookbook, which is ironically, the only Keller restaurant that I didn’t eat at while in Yountville. I guess I felt like I was missing out and needed to fill that void with my recreation of a Bouchon meal, Boeuf Bourguignon. In typical Keller fashion, no detail is left out and the steps required to make the dish are multiple. It’s worth it in the end.

Bone Marrow from Bistro Jeanty (Left) and My Kitchen (Right)

While in Yountville I managed to eat at one non-Keller restaurant and that was Bistro Jeanty. I had received a recommendation from the good folks at Foodbuzz that Bistro Jeanty was a fine place to go and I’m glad I went because it was there that I was introduced to bone marrow. They had it on the menu as a special appetizer for the evening and I was immediately drawn to it. I’d heard nothing but good things about bone marrow and I’ve lived for far too long without trying it. That appetizer was the best part of the meal and when I got back to the hotel that night I wrote “make bone barrow” on my to-do list. So of course, it had to be done. I used a recipe from Fat, (subtitle: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, oh yeah!) and did my best to recreate Roasted Bone Marrow with Red Wine Sauce. And although it would have been easier to eat if my bones had been cut in half, it was tasty nonetheless.

Apricot Ginger Scones

Sometimes inspiration is as simple as Mom requesting that I make her something with apricots. Occasionally such broad guidelines are agonizing for me because I can’t choose only one thing. Other times one word is enough to spark an idea and I immediately know what I’m going to make. When Mom said she wanted apricots it meshed perfectly with my desire to make scones and Ginger Apricot Scones were the result. If only it were always that easy…

While in New York City in January I ate at Bar Boulud and Café Boulud and enjoyed both experiences very much. This made me want to recreate some Daniel Boulud magic in my own kitchen. I have the Café Boulud cookbook, (co-authored by Dorie Greenspan) so I pulled it off the shelf and promptly lost the next hour just reading through the book before deciding to make Spiced Fresh Pork Belly with Lentils. You can never go wrong if the dish you’re making contains the almighty pig.

Spiced Fresh Pork Belly with Lentils

One of the places that inspiration comes from is, like it or not, The Food Network. I know there are a lot of mixed feelings about TFN but I get tons of ideas from it. I don’t love all of the shows, but I can still manage to find inspiration even in the ones I don’t like. For example I decided to braise oxtail for the first time in my life after seeing Paula Deen make them on Paula’s Home Cooking. I usually switch to the music station when Paula Deen comes on because in general I find her terribly annoying and can’t stand how she uses “y’all” as punctuation. But on this particular day, the remote control was out of reach and I was quite simply too lazy to be bothered to get up to change the channel. The result was that I saw how ridiculously easy it was to make braised oxtail and decided to make it for dinner the following night. I loved it and will definitely be making oxtail again.

Where does your inspiration come from?

Braised Oxtails with Egg Noodles

Braised Oxtails (from Paula Deen)

2 whole oxtails, sliced in 2-inch pieces
House Seasoning, recipe follows
Several dashes soy sauce
2 large yellow onions, sliced into half-moons
3 to 4 bay leaves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Trim fat from oxtails. In a broiling pan, toss oxtails with House Seasoning and soy sauce. Top with onions and bay leaves. Add water to fill pan 1/4 of the way to the top. Cover pan with foil and bake until oxtails are tender, about 2 1/2 to 4 hours. Remove foil cover from meat and brown in oven for an additional 5 to 8 minutes.
Paula served her oxtails over rice, I chose egg noodles.

Disasters Are More Entertaining Than Success

Linzer Sables

The other day at work Chef told me to make a pineapple upside down cake to try to use up a mountain of leftover pineapple. For the record, I don’t like pineapple upside down cake, so the thought of making one on the fly didn’t exactly thrill me. But it was baking, and I like baking, so I sucked it up and got to work. As much as I love baking though, I frequently do something to mess it up. That’s why I like to have a recipe and a plan. Some days, however, even those can’t help me. This was one of those days. I decided that I couldn’t wing a recipe for pineapple upside down cake and therefore sought one out in the binder labeled ‘Standardized Recipes’. It’s a binder that Chef claims has many more recipes in it than it actually does. Many of the recipes in there are also incomplete or have been changed but not noted. I therefore usually approach the binder with optimistic skepticism.

Chocolate Pots de Creme with Green Tea Cookie

On this occasion it seemed as though luck was on my side. I found a recipe for apple pudding cake that I had made before so I was fairly sure that I could sub pineapple for the apples and that it would work out. I’m sure it would have too, if I had put any sugar in the cake. About half way through baking I started to have a vague notion that something was missing. I shrugged it off for a bit as there was nothing I could do, the cake was already in the oven. Then it hit me, there was no sugar. I hoped against all odds that the caramel on the bottom of the cake would somehow transfer throughout so that the cake was salvageable. Not a chance. This was made abundantly clear when I pulled the cake out of the oven, unmolded it and discovered that not only was the cake horribly inedible due to the lack of sugar, it was also horribly underbaked with a largely gooey centre.

Pumpkin Muffins

I contemplated taking a picture of it at the time but decided photographic evidence of my shortcomings was unnecessary. I will however, give you a picture of a whole lemon tart, that may have overflowed but was still delicious, (and therefore not a disaster). Just so you know, the batter that overflowed did not go to waste. It was promptly scooped off the silpat and into my mouth and it made me wonder if I didn’t want to eat the whole tart that way.

Overflowing Whole Lemon Tart

I always seem to have more to say about baking disasters than successes. I guess that’s why I’ve had this picture of Dorie’s Pumpkin Muffins, (pg #13 in BFMHTY) on my computer since fall, as noted by the leaves. They’re fantastic muffins, they just needed an excuse to be seen. Same goes for the Honey Spiced Madeleines. I made those as soon as I saw Dorie post about them at the beginning of December but was slow to share my success. The Linzer Sables, (pg #134) and Chocolate Pots de Crème, (pg #390) which were served with green tea cookies, were made much more recently and seemed like a good way to round out a Dorie recipe filled post.

Honey Spiced Madeleines, (from Dorie Greenspan)

Makes 12 large or more than 36 mini madeleines

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves (or a little less, if you prefer)

Pinch of salt

Pinch of freshly ground black pepper

1/3 cup sugar

Grated zest of 1/2 orange

2 large eggs, at room temperature

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, spices, salt and pepper and keep at hand.

Working in a mixer bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Fit the mixer with the whisk attachment (you can make this batter easily with a handheld mixer or just a whisk, if you prefer), add the eggs to the bowl and beat until the mixture is light, fluffy and thickened, about 2 minutes; beat in the honey, then the vanilla. Switch to a rubber spatula and very gently fold in the dry ingredients followed by the melted butter. You may use the batter now, but it's better if you can give it a little rest. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the batter and chill for 3 hours or, if you have the time, overnight. (For real convenience, you can spoon the batter into buttered-and-floured madeleine molds, cover, chill, then bake the cookies directly from the fridge. See below for instructions on prepping the pans.)

Getting ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter 12 full-size madeleine molds (or 36 mini-molds), dust the insides with flour and tap out the excess. If you have a nonstick madeleine mold, butter and flour it or give it a light coating of vegetable cooking spray. (If your pan is silicone, you can leave it as is.) Place the pan on a baking sheet.

Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each one. Bake the large madeleines for 11 to 13 minutes and the minis for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the madeleines are golden and the tops spring back when prodded gently. Remove the pan from the oven and release the madeleines from the molds by rapping the edge of the pan against the counter. Gently pry any recalcitrant madeleines from the pan using your fingers or a butter knife. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to just-warm or room temperature.

Chocolate Gelée

My Anti-Valentine’s Day post featured a Dorie Greenspan cake that was flavoured with chocolate, prunes and Armagnac, a combination of flavours that I’m currently in love with. Since I like that trio so much I decided to rework them into a new dessert. A friend of mine had recently been to a chocolate workshop and one of the recipes that was demonstrated was a chocolate gelée, made with agar agar. I’ve been playing around with agar lately so he forwarded me the recipe to try. I’ve had mixed results with agar, (I think mainly due to not using proper ratios of liquid to agar) but was fairly pleased with how the chocolate gelée turned out. I knew it couldn’t be served alone though because although it was good, it wasn’t memorable on its own and needed some other textures and tastes to make it complete. And that’s where the prune and Armagnac came into play. I made a simple prune and Armagnac compote, as well as candied some orange slices and whipped some cream with which to garnish the gelée. All of that was easy enough to do, then came the hard part: plating. I’m working on coming up with more interesting plating presentations for my desserts and this is resulting in much frustration. I must have plated this one about half a dozen times before finally photographing it. I still don’t quite like how it turned out visually, but at that point I didn’t want to look at it anymore, (or have to clean my only square white plate again so that I could keep using it in the pictures).

Chocolate Gelée with Prune and Armagnac Compote, Whipped Cream and Candied Citrus

Like with this dessert, some things need to be reworked not because they’re necessarily bad to begin with but because the innocent, (or guilty) parties involved need protecting. As I’ve mentioned before, I like for people to tell me stories and will often just ask for whoever I’m with to tell me one. This has resulted in some blank stares but also some pretty interesting tales. I think I could write a book of other people’s stories with some of the gems I’ve received. The unfortunate part is that I’m not always at liberty to repeat what I’ve been told. I almost have to preface my stories with one of those warnings that names have been changed. I think in most cases I’d have to change more than just names or else some people would be getting into trouble. So although I’ve got lots of stories I’d like to tell, I really can’t. But I shouldn’t leave you without at least a bit of a story, right? Right. So there was this one time in Vegas… ah, I can’t tell you that, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Well what about a story that involves a group of people that liked to secretly get together… hmmm, I think there were rules to that one too, something along the lines of, the first rule of Fight Club is - you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is - you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. All these rules are making it awfully hard for me to tell you stories.

How about one from my University days? Those are always fun. In first year of university, I lived in a dorm and, like many others, had a roommate. I was fortunate to be matched up with a wonderful roommate who I became best friends with. Not everyone was so lucky. Living in such close quarters with someone you don’t get along with can be a struggle. Over the course of a year, people can start to do some pretty weird things to help them cope with an awkward living situation. I witnessed a whole range of behaviours, ranging from people eating their roommate’s food and drinking their alcohol, (both of which were later denied) to hiding their belongings, (including important ones like alarm clocks and textbooks) to dressing up in their roommates skating outfits and taking pictures with friends. And then getting their friends to dress up in the outfits as well… This usually occurred after the roommate’s alcohol had been consumed. Somehow that person never found out.

Now it’s your turn: Tell me a story!

The Anti-Valentine's Day Post

Valentine’s Day. Bleh. I vote we move it to the end of February so that it’s only celebrated once every 4 years, or better yet, not at all. Clearly, I’m not the biggest fan of V-Day. I don’t even want to get into last year, (I skipped writing about it altogether) but on Valentine’s Day two years ago, I wrote briefly about being Anti-Valentine’s Day and then more in depth about this Chocolate Armagnac Cake. The cake is what’s important and I feel like it deserves another highlight because I absolutely love the combination of chocolate, Armagnac and prunes. Yes, prunes. If you want to be snobby about it you can call them dried plums but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re prunes and that they make this cake awesome.

To appease those who love Valentine’s Day, (and I know there’s a ridiculous number of you out there based on all the red, pink and hearts I’ve been seeing on the blogs for the past week) I decided to work flowers into the plating of my cake. Mine won’t die on you though, they’re all edible. The rose is made out of Chocolate Playdough which I first saw on Cake on the Brain and have wanted to do something fun with ever since. After working with the stuff though I came to two quick realizations. The first is that I never want to have to make 100 of these. The second is that warm hands make a mess of chocolate. I had to repeatedly throw everything in the freezer, (perhaps I should have gotten in there too?) so that it didn’t turn to mush. The dried edible flowers were much easier to deal with. Pop open the jar and sprinkle at will. Instant pretty! If I had been on top of things this past summer, those could have come from my garden. Instead they were a much appreciated gift. I think that actually makes them better.

The recipe for this wonderful cake is from none other than Dorie Greenspan and can be found on page 279 of Baking: From My Home to Yours. And although you could make this cake for a Valentine, I'd opt to take the selfish route and keep it all for yourself. Just look at all that chocolately goodness... Don't bother sharing.

Mushrooms: The Good Fungus

We had beautiful spring-like weather here today, a respite from the bone chilling cold of last month. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. I even heard birds chirping. So of course, I got on my bike and went for a ride. Bike riding in February is a rarity and even though I ended up covered in mud, it was wonderful. This type of weather has me looking forward to spring but unfortunately I know we’ll still get hit with a few more hard snowfalls before that happens. In spite of that, I’m thinking ahead to longer, warmer days and being able to go outside without wearing 7 layers of clothing.

When I think of spring, one of the first things that come to mind is hunting for mushrooms. Following a warm rain, when the flowers start coming up so do the mushrooms and that makes for some pretty great meals. Luckily, I don’t have to wait three more months to get my fix. Regardless of the season I know I can always get a variety of certified organic, specialty mushrooms from Wylie Mycologicals, (you can order online, although I pick mine up in person) to satisfy my need for fungus enriched dishes. I usually get a box of shiitakes along with some oyster mushrooms and lion’s manes. If I’m lazy I just fry them up in some butter and eat them as is. If I’m feeling like playing around in the kitchen there’s no end to the possibilities. I make pizza for lunch about once a week, (using my regular stove as throughout the winter months I can’t use my wood fired oven) and mushrooms definitely make an appearance as a topping on my weekly pie.

Lately though I’ve also been experimenting with adding mushroom to the crust in powdered form. This came about when I had a surplus of shiitakes and decided to dry them. After the mushrooms are dehydrated it’s easy to blend them into various states. When they’re ground to a powder they can be used as a substitution for some of the flour in the pizza crust. I’m still working on the proper ratio for that one. I’ll let you know when I get it figured out. When the shiitakes are coarsely ground I’ve found they make an excellent addition to, (among other things) hot wings. The little bumps you see in the wing photo are actually bits of mushroom which give the wings a different texture and flavour. Shiitakes take chicken wings to a whole new level.

I also like to make mixed mushroom ravioli. I’ve made these a number of times and never the exact same way twice. On this occasion I used my recently acquired ravioli molds, (yay for new toys!) and made a red pepper cream sauce to accompany the ravioli. I’m still not entirely satisfied with the way that one turned out, so I’m working on that too. It has potential to be better. So do I.

What are your favourite ways to enjoy mushrooms?

Banana Bread with Espresso and Dark Chocolate Chips

I’m not a huge coffee drinker. I seemed to be one of the few people that didn’t survive on it during exam time at University and I don’t crave it first thing in the morning like some people do. I enjoy a cup every now and then but I think the reason I don’t drink it more often is the aftereffect. I hate coffee-breath. I feel like I need to brush my teeth immediately after I finish a coffee to get the lingering taste out of my mouth. If coffee didn’t leave me with coffee breath I could definitely see myself being an addict. Since I drink it so infrequently though, the caffeine really hits me. A single cup of coffee is enough to make me unusually chatty and a little bit shaky. I can’t drink it in the evening either or else I’ll be up all night. But I like the smell of coffee and I especially like it in ice cream and baked goods.

Today, while looking for a banana bread recipe I stumbled across one I’ve made before, courtesy of Elise of Simply Recipes. I started reading the comments section and saw one from David Lebovitz that suggested adding a shot of espresso to the batter. I think I would follow along with pretty much anything David Lebovitz suggested based on how much I love The Perfect Scoop. So off I went to the kitchen to give the espresso banana bread a try. I like chocolate chips in my banana bread so I added some dark ones of those too.

I’ve noticed while typing this post that Demetri Martin was right when he said “I feel stupid when I write the word banana. Its like, how many na’s are on this thing? ‘Cause I’m like ‘Ba-na… keep going. Bana-na-na… Damn!” Thank God for youtube because by the time I baked up my banana bread and waited for it to cool it was too late in the day for me to be eating it with coffee but I did anyways so now I won’t be sleeping for quite a while. At least I’ve got Demetri to keep me company. I’m going to start by watching The Jokes with Guitar for the 74^th time…

Banana Bread (Adapted from Simply Recipes)

3 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
¾ cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons espresso powder
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
2/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda, espresso powder and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour and chocolate chips and mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

Ad Hoc

Ad Hoc: For Temporary Relief of Hunger. Or, because you can never have too much Thomas Keller in your life. I thought I’d give you a little breather from my epically long French Laundry post before I launched into another Thomas Keller lovefest. My trip to the Napa Valley was specifically to eat at The French Laundry but I figured while I was there I might as well experience as much amazing food as I could and that meant more Keller, in the form of Ad Hoc and Bouchon Bakery.

Ad Hoc, (which literally means, "for this purpose") was initially supposed to be a casual, temporary restaurant, serving family style four course meals that changed daily. The public response was so great that they couldn’t close. And for that, I’m glad.

Ad Hoc is completely different from The French Laundry and yet it’s still Thomas Keller, through and through. When you compare them side to side, however, that may be difficult to see at first. Servers at TFL wear suits. Servers at Ad Hoc wear jeans and running shoes. The lighting at TFL is by candlelight and is dim and intimate. The lighting at Ad Hoc is bright with lots of reflective and shiny surfaces. Courses at TFL are individually and intricately plated. Courses at Ad Hoc are served family style for you to dish up however you’d like. What are the similarities? The food is outstanding, (though different, to be sure) and attention to detail is paramount.

On to the food… First course was an Escarole and Pear Salad with Prosciutto Di San Daniele with torn garlic croutons and creamy olive dressing. The prosciutto melted in my mouth. I enjoyed every bite and it pained me to see the woman to my left doing her best to cut all the fat off her proscuitto. I wanted to tell her she was missing out on the best part! And then swipe it off her plate if she wasn’t going to appreciate it. The pear was a perfect addition to the salad and getting a bite with proscuitto, pear and escarole was delightful.

The second course was Veal Scallopini with Lemon and Capers, Braised Swiss Chard, Toasted Pine Nuts and Buttered Rustichella Tagliatelle. Basically anything that includes pasta is going to get high marks from me, but when you smother that pasta in butter, I’m completely sold on it, (sadly the pasta is hidden under the veal in my pic so you can't actually see it in all its glory). I was happy to see veal on the menu too because it’s not something that I prepare very often at home. This trip has definitely changed my habits though. Since coming home I’ve been making an effort to branch out more and try making things that I ordinarily wouldn’t have, (I actually just bought veal chops today).

A cheese course is featured on the menu at Ad Hoc and on this day it included, in addition to cheese, Marshall’s Farm Wildflower Honey and Spiced Mixed Nuts. I’m becoming a big fan of cheese courses and they’re also something that I wouldn’t have thought twice about in the past. While in Napa I started having afternoon snacks of a few different slices of cheese with a chunk of crusty bread and some honey. Since I was in the land of wine, I had a glass of that too. I really need to carry on that tradition at home.

Finally, dessert was a Buttermilk Panna Cotta with a Vanilla Cookie and French Prune Marmalade. This dessert piqued my interest in panna cotta, which I had previously not had a very high opinion of. Apparently I just hadn’t had it done properly. The panna cotta at Ad Hoc was soft and creamy and lacked that gelatinous, borderline jello-like mouth feel that I previously associated with panna cotta. It was a simple but elegant finish to the meal.

Dining at Ad Hoc made me wish I lived in the Napa Valley because it’s a spot that I would make return visits to. For someone who doesn’t like to go to the same restaurant twice, that’s saying a lot. In fact, contrary to what my posts of late would have you believe, I rarely dine out. When I do, I usually like to try out new places. For the most part though, I find that I’d rather make my own dinner than go out to eat where I pay too much for food that I could make better and for less money. Ad Hoc, however, at $49 for four courses, is a place at which I wish I could be a regular. And since the four courses change nightly I get the benefit of variety combined with the comfort of returning to a place which is familiar.

If I lived in the Napa Valley, I would also be making return visits, (almost daily, in fact) to Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery. I bought bread and treats there every day, (I couldn’t resist the TKOs- Thomas Keller Oreos) and spent an almost creepy amount of time staring through the windows to watch the bakers at work. It made me want an enormous bread oven of my own and a Master Baker to show me proper technique. Bouchon Bakery supplies bread to all of the Keller restaurants in Yountville so they work around the clock pumping out beautiful and delicious loaves of bread in all shapes, sizes and types.

Just writing about all the great food I had on my California trip has made me want to get back in my own kitchen. It was certainly inspiring on a culinary level and I’ve got tons of cooking and baking ideas that need to be worked on so that I can achieve temporary relief of hunger too.

Cookies, Brownies and Music

Goji Berry Brownies

Someone recently asked me why I have music related posts on a blog that’s supposed to be about food. My initial reply was the less than informative “It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.” A more intellectual response would have been that music and food are two things I really enjoy so combining them seems only natural. If you listen to any number of song lyrics, it would appear as though I’m not the only person who thinks so. From comfort foods, to cake, ice cream, umpteen songs referencing pie and all things sweet, food is everywhere. Need some examples?

“Because she's the cheese and I'm the macaroni”
Get it Together, Beastie Boys

“The stew that you're cooking, it smells so good
It's got every man talking in the neighborhood
Your spice's so spicy, your sugar so sweet
Your meat is so tender and your juice is a treat
…
Too many cooks are gonna spoil the stew
There ain't nobody cooking but me and you”
Too Many Cooks, Robert Cray. Unfortunately I couldn’t find an original version of this song. Robert Cray really does it best. If you can find an original, it’s much better, but here’s a cover.

One Bowl Blondies

“I love you like a fat kid love cake”
21 Questions, 50 Cent. This line makes me laugh every time. Is it wrong that I also find it oddly endearing?

“Cool cherry cream, nice apple tart
I feel your taste all the time we’re apart”
Savoy Truffle, The Beatles

“She’s as sweet as tupelo honey
She’s an angel of the first degree
She’s as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee”
Tupelo Honey, Van Morrison

“Pour some sugar on me
Ooh, in the name of love
Pour some sugar on me
C'mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me
Oh, I can't get enough”
Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def Leopard

Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

“She's my cherry pie
Cool drink of water
Such a sweet surprise
Tastes so good
Make a grown man cry
Sweet cherry pie”
Cherry Pie, Warrant. The video for this one is priceless, just check out the hair.

Want more pie? There’s Country Pie by Bob Dylan, American Pie by Don McLean, (and later by Madonna) and Making Pies by Patty Griffin.

I rest my case, food and music and inextricably linked. Of course, it would be more appropriate to post food from the songs I mentioned, but once again, it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want. And by that, I mean as I perused my long list of “Stuff Left to Post” I found a bunch of sweets that I’ve made sometime over the past year that deserve their 10 seconds of fame before they get buried in the depths of my computer, never to surface again.

Roasted Banana Bread

One Bowl Blondies: Smitten Kitchen’s One Bowl Blondies have been made a few times in my kitchen because they’re ridiculously easy and infinitely adaptable. If you’ve craving something sweet without a lot of hassle, these are it. They’re also good with a scoop of ice cream on top. But then again, what isn’t?

Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies: The recipe comes from Coconut and Lime and that’s really all you need to know. Check out her wealth of original recipes for more great dishes.

Roasted Banana Bread: The trouble with taking a year to post about something is that sometimes I don’t have a clue what recipe I used to make it. To the best of my recollection, I took a standard banana bread recipe and substituted roasted banana for raw. I also baked it in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan so that it could be cut into squares.

Goji Berry Brownies: Like with the Roasted Banana Bread, time is not on my side for these. They appear to be brownies with goji berries in them… That’s all I’ve got.

Coconut Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: Just so you know I care, these really deserve a post all of their own, that’s why I’ve included the recipe for them. It’s actually a Brilynn original, so treasure it.

Brilynn’s Coconut Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

½ cup + 2T butter
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 egg
1 ½ cup oats
1 ¼ cups flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp coconut extract
¾ unsweetened desiccated coconut
¾ cup raisins

Cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla and coconut extract and mix. In another bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Combine with wet ingredients until just mixed. Add in oats, coconut and raisins.

Scoop onto parchment or silpat lined baking sheets and bake at 375F for 9-11 minutes until edges are golden brown and cracked. Cool on racks.

To end a post that’s already pretty random, my current favourite song that’s unrelated to food: Closer by Kings of Leon.