Cookie Lovin'

Cookies are little circles of love, even when they are squares. As I've mentioned before, I love giving cookies away because the love always comes back. One of my favorite people to give cookies to is my chiropractor. He is such an appreciative receiver, moaning, whimpering, and saying, "Oh my gosh, this is sooooo good!" This must be interesting for the people in the next "room" who can hear perfectly well over the half wall.

There was, of course, the chance that he's an extra nice person and fakes it so as not to hurt my feelings. But I knew he meant it when he asked me to provide cookies for a party he was having. I was thrilled! What an honor to be asked. And I was even more thrilled when he offered to trade services. A massage? Hmm, let me think - YES!


So I made two cookies I've previously posted and his new favorite, peanut butter raisin bars. These are super easy to throw together and they always turn out great. If you like a moist bar cookie filled with fat raisins, humming with a gentle peanut butter flavor, then you really need to try these. They might not get you a massage, but you'll definitely feel the love.

Peanut Butter Raisin Bars

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup butter
1-1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1-1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate (optional)

1- Combine peanut butter and butter in a sauce pan over medium-low heat until melted. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder; stir into mixture. Stir in raisins.

2 -Spread batter in greased and floured 13 x 9: pan. Bake at 350 deg. F for 25 min or until toothpick comes out clean. The top should be golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

3- If desired, melt the chocolate in a microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring often. Drizzle over the top of the bars. Cool then cut into 32 bars.

Also, along the lines of what goes around comes around, the fabulous Blue Zebra of Mulligan Stew Me awarded me the "Nice Matters Award." Thank you so much! I'm pleased and honored that you chose me as a Nice Blogger. Now I have the pleasure of picking seven bloggers who I think are nice. Because they always have kind things to say, reply to the people who take the time to leave comments, and encourage other bloggers, I pass this on to:

Gigi of Gigi Cakes - A talented baker with nice things to say for everyone

Fiona of Wok And Spoon- Thoughtful and generous

Melinda of Melinda's Online Diary - Funny, real, and nice. I'd like her for my next-door neighbor.

Belinda of What's Cooking in a Southern Kitchen - All the warmth and kindness you'd expect from a southern kitchen

Anne of Simply Anne's - Busy mother, amazing baker who takes the time to be kind to others

Aimee of Under The High Chair- Another busy mom with little ones who takes the time to be kind

Fanny of Foodbeam - Talented baker with a gorgeous blog who remembers that being nice is important, too

Baking Blind

Why does anyone bother to make a cookbook that has no pictures? Cooking from a cookbook without pictures is like shopping in a bakery that has no diplay cases. You have to know exactly what you want going in, and there's zero chance of coming out with a little something wonderful and unexpected just because it called to you.

Can you imagine your favorite cooking show without pictures? Can you imagine Emeril sitting in a comfy chair describing how he'd make a dish? Where's the zip and sizzle when you're listening to a description?

Have you ever been in a restaurant and watched someone else's dinner go by and told the waiter, "That's what I want!" That's because, rather than just reading a description in the menu or having your waiter tell you about it, you saw it.

I'd seen several blogs with wonderful posts about baked goods made from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. Needing to get in on this action, I requested it from the library. When it came I thought, "Wait a minute. I've already checked this one out. And never made a single thing from it!" Sure enough, same book. No pictures.

But since it had gotten such glowing reviews from other bloggers I flipped through the barren pages to see what it had to offer. By the time I returned it to the library (after renewing it once) it was bristling with bookmarks. Everything in there sounded amazing.

With a name like Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies, I just had to try them. What separates them from the masses of p.b. cookies out there? Peanut butter chips for extra punch. Yes!! As I made the cookies I had a wonderful idea. I had a quart of Roasted Banana Ice Cream in the freezer (from The Perfect Scoop, of course, and it's totally worth making, even if just for the heavenly aroma of the bananas and brown sugar roasting in the oven) and bananas and peanut butter are one of my favorite pairings. Ta Da - Peanut Butter Roasted Banana Ice Cream Sandwiches. Delicious! And I'll show you the pictures to prove it.

Peanut Butter Roasted Banana Ice Cream Sandwiches
adapted from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup chunky-style peanut butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp (for sprinkling) sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.

In another large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisscross pattern, but to not overly glatten cookies. Lightly sprinkle cookies with sugar. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not.

Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Allow Roasted Banana ice cream (or other favorite) to soften a bit, spread a generous amount onto the back (flat side) of one cookie. Press the back of another cookie onto the ice cream, so that the two cookies encase the ice cream and the fork-patterned sides face out. Wrap each sandwich individually in plastic wrap and place in the freezer to harden. You might want to hide them, otherwise they'll disappear quickly!

Health Food

I like to think of myself as a healthy person. I try to eat moderately, I think about exercising almost every day. I try to include something green on the menu at least once a week.

Thus it was that when I packed for our marathon road trip last week that I put in yogurt and granola for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and apples and granola bars to snack on. I know from experience the perils of having tasty snacks in the car - you end up snorking them all up out of sheer boredom. So much better and more sensible to pack light, healthy foods.

That's what I was thinking right up until about hour #8 of the drive. Then I started thinking, "Why didn't I pack some cookies? Cookies would be good about now." Hour #10 I started getting seriously itchy for some chocolate. "Why didn't I pack chocolate? What was I thinking making a drive like this without chocolate?" And by hour #11 I was gripping the steering wheel tightly screaming (inside my head, so as not to freak out my children in the back seat), "Where is the sugar? Why is there no sugar? I need sugar!!" Thankfully, hour #12 was spent navigating construction traffic cones in pitch black through a torrential downpour, so I had no extra thoughts to spare on the appalling lack of sugared items in the car.

I'm back home safe and sound. I can go back to pretending to be healthy, feeling smug because I don't eat Cap'n Sucrose for breakfast. But the veneer has been stripped off. I now know I'm only eight hours away from taking candy from small children, knocking over little old ladies for their chocolate cake, or holding up a bakery for some sugar cookies. So, if you're coming to visit, you might check that I've baked recently. Or it could get ugly.

Deep Dark Chocolate Truffles
adapted from The Great Book of Chocolate by David Lebovitz

3/4 cup heavy cream
8 to 10 oz (225 to 285 g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
1 to 3 tsps cognac, to taste (or other favorite liquor)

Coating

4 oz (115 g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup (50 g) unsweetened cocoa powder

In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream just to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until melted. Add the liquor and pour into a bowl. Let stand for at least 2 hours, or until firm. Alternately, you can cover and refrigerate it until firm, but you'll need to let it warm slightly before scooping.

Dip a melon baller into very warm water, tap off the excess water, and scoop the truffle mixture into 3/4-inch (2-cm) balls and set them on a plate. Once you've scooped all the mixture, roll each one with your hands until it's round.

Chill the truffles thoroughly.

Melt the remaining 4 oz (115 g) chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water. Spread the cocoa powder in a pie plate.

If you're right-handed, spread some of the melted chocolate into your right hand. (Reverse if left-handed). Pick up a truffle with your clean left and hand place it into your chocolate-covered right hand. Smear chocolate all over the truffle and drop it into the cocoa powder. Repeat until the truffles fill the pie plate, keeping your left hand clean. Shake the pie plate to cover the truffles with cocoa powder, then place them in a strainer to shake off the excess cocoa powder. Repeat with the remaining truffles.

The truffles can be served immediately or kept in the refrigerator for up to 10 days. Remove them from the refrigerator 1 hour prior to serving.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

There was a time in my childhood when my sister and I pretended to be twins. We are two years apart, but at that time were similarly sized. Our mother made us matching dresses and a kind neighbor lady made our dolls matching dresses out of the fabric remnants. Even though we don't look identical, we'd often get asked if we were twins. This made us smile and giggle at our shared secret.

We share many things these days. We're both married, have kids, and have a passion for baking. One of my favorite ways to pass an afternoon is to get together with her and try out a new recipe. Unfortunately, one thing we don't share is the same state. So it was that with a combination of dread for the 14 hour drive and elation at seeing my relatives again that I packed my kids and enough gear to lead a polar expedition into my van and set off.

It was a wonderful visit. Besides lots of laughing, sharing, and shopping at the thrift store, we made ice cream. I'd taken along my copy of The Perfect Scoop and we decided on the fresh mint ice cream, since she had tons of mint growing. Also, she's a huge fan of Peppermint Patties, so we made those to stir in. I thought her mint looked odd, different from the mint in my neck of the woods, but it wasn't until we'd made the ice cream and tasted it that we realized it was spearmint. Tossing back and forth names for the ice cream we looked at each other and said in unison, "Double Mint Ice Cream!"

If you like mint, this is the ice cream for you. Smooth creamy ice cream, redolent with fresh spearmint flavor, laced with chunks of heavenly peppermint patties. Share it with a kindred spirit and double your pleasure!

Double Mint Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
Pinch of salt
2 cups (80 g) lightly packed fresh spearmint leaves
5 large egg yolks

If your spearmint is fresh from your garden, rinse it under cold water, pat dry, and spin in a salad spinner, if you have one.

In a small saucepan warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup (250 ml) of the cream, and salt. Add the spearmint leaves and stir until they're immersed in the liquid. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.

Pour the mint-infused mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan, pressing on the leaves with a rubber spatula to extract the most flavor. Discard the leaves. Pour the remaining 1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top.

Rewarm the mint-infused mixture. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm mint liquid into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath. Put the mixture in the refrigerator to chill completely.

Pour the chilled mixture into your ice cream freezer and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. In the last minutes of freezing, stir in chopped up peppermint patties. I made mine according to the recipe in The Perfect Scoop, but it is no violation of ice cream ordinances to buy and chop up York Peppermint Patties.

Bake Happy

Sometimes life gets you down. Whether it's bills, relationships, or just feeling blue for no reason at all (i.e. hormones), there are times that the lower lip puffs out and quivers and tears well up in your eyes. At those times you might put on your favorite weepy movie and go through a box of tissues, call your best friend and wail over the phone, or you can decide that it's not that bad, put on happy music, and bake cookies.

These are just about the happiest cookies I know. They're so bright and cheerful, no one could stay depressed while looking at one. And with peanut butter and chocolate dancing together on your tongue, it's like a party in your mouth!

So when you're tempted to go for a walk down Self-Pity Lane, instead tie on your brightest apron, bake a batch of happiness, and invite friends over for cookies. Afterwards, chances are that even if you remember why you were feeling down, it'll seem insignificant and not worth wasting tissues on in the first place.

Peanut Butter M & M Cookies

5 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 tsp baking soda

1 lb. butter
1-1/2 cup sugar
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter

4 cups M & M's

Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda into a bowl. Set aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugars, eggs, vanilla and peanut butter and beat till creamy.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Beat 3-4 minutes.

By hand gently stir in 3 cups plain M & M's. Mix well. Spoon by 1/8 cup onto ungreased baking sheet. From the remaining one cup of M & M's, press a few into the top of each cookie. Bake at 350 deg. F for 11 minutes. The cookies should be just set, very lightly browned on the edges. Cool on baking sheet for a few minutes. The cookies will continue to cook from the heat of the baking sheet. Remove them to a cooling rack to complete cooling.

Lovely Lavender

My house is undergoing a facelift. With the big wedding coming up next summer we decided that it was time to pay attention to our yard. There's the on again/ off again chance that the wedding might actually take place in our back yard and it wouldn't be a very classy event if we had to place chairs around the rusted kiddie swingset, walking the guests over the cracked, weedy driveway, past the garbage cans, and into the dog's potty, I mean back yard.

We hired a landscape architect to draw up plans and for the last two months we've been living with mounds of dirt, mounds of gravel, and lots of workmen. They got rid of the driveway, the front steps, and lots of sad, spindly plants. One thing I wouldn't let them touch, though, was my lavender. It's wonderful. I grew it from seed and it's survived transplants and has even had baby plants which have been adopted around the neighborhood.

I put three lavender plants into an arid area that we'd ripped prickery bushes out of and it's the only thing that was able to live there. I am not a good gardener. My gardening speciality is being wooed by the bright flats of flowers at the home center while my husband is buying boring things like boards and insulation. I bring the delightful flowers home and put them outside so they'll get sunshine while waiting to be planted. They wait. And wait. And wither and die from neglect in their little plastic condos. So when I'm able to get a plant to grow and stay with me, year after year, I am thrilled. And if the same plant imparts a heady fragrance to the area and sends out dainty little flowers, too, I jump up and down with joy.



It was not until this year, though, that I'd considered the culinary uses of lavender. I saw several posts of other bloggers who'd baked with lavender and the idea intrigued me. But it was my love affair with The Perfect Scoop that motivated me to finally cook with lavender. David's Lavender and Honey ice cream called to me. All summer, it sang a persistent song to me, begging to be made. When I did, it was one of those, "Dang, why did I wait so long to make this?" moments. It's fabulous. Smooth, creamy texture and a subtle, rich flavor that spreads gently in your mouth. I think it's an adult flavor, not in the XXX sense, but in the sense that you wouldn't want to waste it on a child who'd rather have hot pink bubble-gum flavored ice cream. Let them have their nasty, brash flavorings and sit down with a small dish of this beautiful ice cream and savor every spoonful.

Lavender-Honey Ice Cream
adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1/2 cup (125 ml) good-flavored honey
1/4 cup (8 g) dried or fresh lavender flowers
1-1/2 cups (375 ml) whole milk
1/4 cup (50 g) sugar
Pinch of kosher salt
1-1/2 cups (375 ml) heavy cream
5 large egg yolks

Heat the honey and 2 Tbsp of the lavender in a small saucepan. Once it's warm, remove it from the heat and set aside to steep, covered, at room temperature for 1 hour.

Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Pour the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. Pour the lavender-infused honey into the cream through the strainer. Press on the lavender flowers with a rubber spatula to extract as much flavor as possible, then discard the lavender and set the strainer back over the cream.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Place the bowl on a rubber glove to keep it from dancing around the counter and slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Add the remaining 2 Tbsp of lavender flowers and stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture overnight in the refrigerator. The next day strain the mixture, again pressing on the lavender flowers to extract their flavor. This will also impart a subtle purply-grey color to the mixture. Discard the flowers, then freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's directions.

Friend or Faux

When I went to the David Lebovitz class he said that in his opinion some foods just didn't translate across cultures. There was something that prevented people in France from being able to make brownies - it's just not in their culture, so they don't know what they're supposed to be like, so their attempts always come out badly. (However, marinating in US culture has positive effects in this regard, since Tartelette, the French pastry chef, is now the reigning BrownieBabe).

Likewise, croissants can not be found in the USA. Sure you can find many things that might be shaped like a croissant or by called by a similar name, but, according to David, it's not possible to find a good croissant here. I think it starts with the name. People here, instead of admitting that they have no idea how to speak French or pronounce a French word will mangle the word, almost beyond recognition. Instead of just saying crescent roll, they Americanize "croissant" to be "crassant." Just thinking about it hurts my ears.

If they can't even say it, how are they supposed to bake it?

I can say croissant, but I certainly can't make it. I've seen them made on cooking shows. The thought of all that rolling and folding and chilling and folding and chilling and rolling is daunting. I'd be eating the rolling pin before those pups got done. Which is why a recipe in a bread machine cookbook for croissants caught my eye. Now I'm not fool enough to think that anything coming out of a bread machine would rival something you'd buy in a Paris boulangerie, but I'm an incurable optimist when it comes to trying new ways to get dinner on the table on time.

The result? Not surprisingly, they are not croissants. But they are tender, buttery rolls, quite good. Why pretend to be something they're clearly not? I won't have them laboring under the shame of being faux French food, instead I'll call them proudly American crescent rolls. And if I serve them with a hunk of Brie cheese, well, that's just between me and the rolls.

Proudly Crescent Rolls
adapted from The Bread Machine Book by Marjie Lambert

3/4 cup water
3 Tbsp powdered milk
3/4 cup butter
1-1/2 Tbsp sugar
1-1/2 tsp salt
3 cups bread flour
1 Tbsp yeast

Glaze:
1 egg
pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients except glaze in the bread pan in the order suggested by the instructions for your machine. Set for white bread, dough stage. Press start.

Lightly butter two baking sheets.

When the dough is ready, take it out of the bread machine and punch it down and divide into three pieces. Let the dough rest 5 minutes. Roll each piece of dough into a circle about 10 inches in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. To get the dough this thin, you may need to let it relax a little during the rolling.

Cut each circle into eight equal wedges. Take each wedge and roll it one more time with the rolling pin to flatten it. Starting at the wide end of the wedge, roll up the dough toward the point, stretching the dough slightly as you go. Place, with the tip under the roll, on the baking sheet. Wrap the ends toward the front so the roll forms a crescent.

Make glaze by beating egg and salt together with a fork and brush the crescents with the glaze. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375 deg. F. Brush the rolls again with the glaze. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.

Makes 24 rolls.

Ice Cream Bribery

I'm a mean mother. There's no two ways about it. Ask any of my kids and they will confirm it. Mean, cruel, heartless to the bone. Yes, I gave in and let them have a puppy (now known as The Horrible Little Dog). Yes, I OK'd a Nintendo system, opening up the gates of Hades into my family room. Yes, I sat in the rain through many baseball games and swim meets. But I'm still a horrible mother. Why, you ask?

I have never given a child of mine money for the ice cream man. Never. Not once.

Around here the first sign of summer has nothing to do with sunshine, or vacation. The true harbinger of summer is the evening siren call of the ice cream man, driving around with an amplifier mounted on his car playing an annoying, tinny version of Turkey in the Straw or a ragtime tune. Kids are conditioned with a Pavlovian response - as soon as they hear this tune they automatically turn to Mom and whine, "Can I have money for an ice cream? Please, please, pleeeeeeeaaase?"



And I have never said yes. What I've said is, "We've got popsicles in the freezer. You may have one of those." Or when feeling particularly frugal I put juice or yogurt into popsicle molds and let the kids have those. They weren't impressed. Their friends were running off with fistfuls of cash to buy frozen treats from Ice Cream Joe and they were eating frozen, icy yogurt pops. Euww. No, not a good mother at all.

But lately I've been thinking about the future, contemplating how I'll spend my final days. Will my children take the first opportunity to send me to a far off nursing home where I'll spend the remainder of my life sitting in a hallway, alone, talking to myself, and accosting random stranger, hoping they've come to visit me?

With such a grim vision in front of me, I've mended my ways. No, I still don't give the kids money to chase down the ice cream man, but I did make Drumsticks, an ice cream truck staple. Homemade peanut butter ice cream in a sugar cone, dipped in semi-sweet chocolate, sprinkled with chopped peanuts. With a bribe like this I'm sure I won't spend my final years alone in a nursing home. I'm positive the kids will visit once in a while. Won't they?

Bribery Drumsticks
adapted from Ice Cream! by Pippa Cuthbert & Lindsay Cameron Wilson

2-1/4 cups (500 ml) whole milk
1 cup (250 g) smooth peanut butter
3/4 cup (150 g) extra-fine sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 oz (150 g) semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup (30 g) dry roasted, salted peanuts, chopped
8 ice cream cones

Combine the milk and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Stir till the sugar dissolves then add the peanut butter. Stir until smooth. Stir in the vanilla extract. Remove the saucepan from the heat, cool, then chill in the refrigerator. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Spoon into an airtight container and freeze for at least 2 hours.

Have a few glasses ready to hold the cones upright. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, being careful not to let any water or steam get into the chocolate. Remove from the heat and cool slightly. Working quickly, scoop the ice cream into the cones. Spoon the chocolate over the top, sprinkle with chopped nuts and place cones in the glasses. Freeze for 15 minutes, then play Turkey in the Straw and watch the kids come running!