Category Archives: Desserts

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

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You know how I roll: it’s 10 p.m. and crap, I forgot to make the cookies I promised the PTA I’d bring tomorrow for Teacher Appreciation Week or some such made up holiday.  (Not that I don’t appreciate teachers, because I DO.  Bless them.  Thank you, teachers everywhere.  But do I really have to make cookies at 10 p.m.?) (Don’t answer that.)

This has become my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe.  It’s barely adapted from Smitten Kitchen, a site that I like because I feel confident that Deb cares just as much as I do about food being very, very delicious.  And these cookies fit the bill: they’re classic, chock-full of chocolate, and chewy with a crispy edge.  What more can you ask of a cookie?  Well, I’ll tell you the final way in which they’re perfect: they’re made with melted butter.  If you, like me, never plan ahead to have softened butter waiting on your counter to make cookies, this will mean something to you.  And if it means nothing to you, lucky you, just go ahead and love these cookies for their other charms.

Continue reading Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies (click for recipe)

Hazelnut Baked Pears

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A ripe pear is a beautiful thing.  You can’t really improve on the experience of just eating the luscious thing with a napkin handy.  We all know that.

But sometimes, maybe once a year, you might want to try something different.  I’m not saying better, although I truly love this recipe–but different.  I try to reserve a few perfect pears each year to bake, always stuffed with this sweet hazelnut butter.

The recipe comes from Deborah Madison’s Seasonal Fruit Desserts, not to be confused with Rustic Fruit Desserts, which I was lauding last week when I made my favorite Rhubarb Cake with Crystallized Ginger.  (And I also have the fruit-heavy Chez Panisse Desserts book.  This may be an unreasonable collection given that, in the end, my heart belongs to chocolate.  But I digress.)  I never have the hazelnut oil that the recipe calls for so I used walnut oil this time, and I didn’t have Frangelico so I used water.  And even so, they were perfect: sweet and nutty, soft and crunchy, maybe even as good as a ripe pear alone.

One word of warning: wait for your pears to ripen before you bake them.  They will be so much better.  And this recipe is not the place to jettison your overripe pears, either; when your pears are past their prime, make this instead.  Continue reading Hazelnut Baked Pears (click for recipe)

Banana Olive Oil Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Is it wrong to make cake two days in a row?  My weekend was just kind of like that.  Watch for some healthy salads in the coming days to balance things out!  Well, maybe.

Yesterday’s rhubarb cake was inspired by the new produce of springtime, but today’s recipe is inspired by old produce: a bunch of browning bananas.  I tend to throw them in the freezer and forget about them, but it was my turn to bring snack to the soccer game, so I figured I’d toss the bananas into some healthy muffins.  Instead, I made these cupcakes–a happy accident.

See, the recipe comes from the Moosewood Simple Suppers book, and it features four ripe bananas, olive oil, and yogurt.  Healthy, right?  I somehow glossed over the amount of sugar until I was actually measuring it into the bowl.  These are cupcakes, folks, plain and simple.  And good ones!  And quick to make.

The cream cheese frosting is optional and we enjoyed most of our cupcakes plain. If you do choose to make the frosting, though, the recipe gives you the option of dressing it up with a splash of coffee or a spoonful of cocoa powder, either of which would be a worthy compliment to the sweet banana flavor.

Continue reading Banana Olive Oil Cupcakes (click for recipe)

Rhubarb Cake with Crystallized Ginger Crumb

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Remember when my backyard rhubarb was barely poking its head up through the ground?  I was happy to see the first signs of spring, sure, and new life unfurling is always inspiring, yada yada, but really?  I was excited because I was already thinking about this cake.

It’s sweet and light, with barely-tart shards of rhubarb nestled in every bite.  It’s topped with a crystallized ginger crumb that gives it a bit of a coffee cake appearance, which lets you get away with serving it for breakfast.  (I’ve never understood why topping a sugary cake with MORE sugar makes it into breakfast fare, but I’m not complaining.)  It’s a family favorite.

This recipe comes from Rustic Fruit Desserts, a book by Portland baker Julie Richardson and chef Cory Schreiber.  If you don’t have it already, you might want to run out and get it right now.  I know I’ll be using my copy all summer. Continue reading Rhubarb Cake with Crystallized Ginger Crumb (click for recipe)

A One Year Old’s First Birthday Cake, or, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Our baby is one!

We’ve had her in our lives for a whole year.  And what a year the first year of life is!  A baby grows from a shapeless, snuggly bundle of tiny fingers, big eyes, and warmth into a little person who can play peekaboo and demand bananas.  It’s been a good year.

A birthday, at our house, calls for a cake.  I know there are birthday-pie people and people who think one-year-olds shouldn’t eat sugar (they probably shouldn’t), and we aren’t even really cake people so much but…. Birthday. So cake.  I have made this same cake for all three of my little ones’ first birthdays.  Here it is.

You can think of this particular cake in two ways.  If you want to feel virtuous, you can describe it as a tender, butter-free whole wheat cake, glazed with a maple-sweetened cream cheese frosting, chock full of carrots and tinted pink with beet.  If you want to feel honest, you can describe it as a total sugarbomb of a cake, well-suited to any celebratory occasion.

In the past, I’ve grated a beet and squeezed it in cheesecloth to use as pink food coloring.  This time, I came across powdered dried beet at my spice shop and gratefully took that less-messy route.  I bought about a quarter cup of the stuff.  Achieving the magnificently pink hue below required half a teaspoon.  Oops.  Does anyone need some powdered beet?  What should I do with the rest? Continue reading A First Birthday Cake, or, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (click for recipe)

Bittersweet Chocolate and Dried Apricot Cookies

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There has long been a sweet little cafe in Seattle called Macrina Bakery. It has a few outposts now, and any of them are fortunate places to find yourself at lunchtime or when you need an afternoon pick-me-up.  Or for breakfast, of course.  Or whenever.  Freshly baked breads, good coffee, great pastries, a handful of equally decadent savory options to round out the offerings.  And lucky for us, they published a cookbook.

I was in search of a unique chocolate chip cookie.  Do yourself a favor and don’t waste time idly Google-ing “unique chocolate chip cookie.”  Sometimes the internet is useful, and sometimes it’s not.  I needed a cookbook.

My cookbook collection is largely geared toward the savory side of life, it turns out.  What are your favorite baking books?  I picked up one of the few I own, Leslie Mackie’s Macrina cookbook, and luckily it came through for me.

Chopped bittersweet chocolate and dried apricots certainly contribute generously to this cookie’s appeal.  But there’s another deeper, darker secret: the mere half teaspoon of finely ground espresso.  It lends a rich, difficult-to-place depth to the cookie’s flavor, firmly cementing its status as THE unique chocolate chip cookie I was looking for.

One friendly tip.  The recipe instructs you to chill the dough before baking it.  That is not the kind of thing I like to do.  If you know me, you know that I do everything at the last minute, which means that when I make cookies they are going straight into the oven because I need them to be ready ten minutes from now.  But in the spirit of experimentation, I also set aside a bit of dough and baked it the next day.  The cookies were even better.  The flavor was a bit more caramelized, deeper.  The original cookies were good.  The chilled batch was amazing.

So hey, what’s your favorite baking book?  I like easy, unfussy, not insanely decadent.  I can certainly recommend the Macrina cookbook (and not just on the strength of this recipe; I’ve made some others, and had still others made for me, all great).  I also love Rustic Fruit Desserts, by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson, and I am looking forward to pulling that one out more come summertime.

Bittersweet Chocolate and Dried Apricot Cookies: In a large bowl, combine 2 1/2 c. flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. finely ground espresso beans, 10 oz. chopped bittersweet chocolate, and 3/4 c. finely diced unsulfured dried apricots.  Cream 8 oz. (2 sticks) butter with 3/4 c. granulated sugar and 3/4 c. light brown sugar on medium speed for 5 minutes.  Add 2 eggs and 2 tsp. vanilla, scraping down the bowl as you go.  Add half of dry ingredients, mix until incorporated, then add other half and repeat.  Refrigerate the dough for one hour (or up to 4 days) if you can possibly wait.  Roll into 1″ balls, flatten slightly, and bake 8-10 minutes on parchment-lined sheets at 350, until the edges are golden brown.

Hazelnut Tea Cookies

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Sometimes you just need a little something sweet.  Friends or neighbors stopping by?  Late night and no dessert in the house?  Feels like a milk-and-cookies afternoon?  These cookies have you covered.  They’re quick to make, but try to let them cool for a few minutes after they come out of the oven.  You’ll be rewarded with a crispy edge to contrast with the rich, chewy, nut-studded center.

You can choose to add a bit of chopped bittersweet chocolate to this dough, of course.  And chocolate is always good in chocolate’s own way, but omitting the chocolate really lets the hazelnut flavor shine.  Or–go crazy–make them with another nut, your favorite.  (What IS your favorite?  I have a hard time deciding.)  Whatever you choose, you’ll want to use good nuts here, so taste them before you buy them if possible.  Here in Seattle, I buy Holmquist Orchards Dry Roasted Hazelnuts at my farmers’ market.  They’re also available at the Pike Place Market (every day except Tuesdays) and by mail.

Continue reading Hazelnut Tea Cookies (click for recipe)

Brown Rice Pudding with Golden Raisins

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The other day I came across this list of common cooking mistakes, several of which apply specifically to healthy cooking techniques.  Guess which ones I make?  I’ll give you a clue: most of them have to do with trying to speed through the cooking process when a bit of patience is warranted.  Like here.  See tip No. 7: overheating milk can cause it to curdle.  So take it slow when you make this rice pudding.  Or use cream.

And in another classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do move, I’m going to advise you to reheat any leftovers of this dish gently for breakfast, thinning with a little milk if necessary. But then I will admit to you that I couldn’t wait and just scooped a bowl cold from the fridge, and that wasn’t half bad either. Continue reading Brown Rice Pudding with Golden Raisins (click for recipe)

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

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First off, before we go any further, I want you to know that I do not delude myself into thinking that a sugar-filled, buttery, chocolate-laden cookie becomes health food when I make it with whole wheat flour.  And I will also tell you something else: these cookies are good.  The whole wheat flour gives them a nutty flavor and deep color.  The butter gives them a crispy edge.  And the chocolate chips anchor them firmly in the realm of kid-friendly cookies.

I had never made a bar cookie before tonight but I think they have won my heart.  No rolling, no cutting, no shaping, no scooping, no baking of multiple batches because I had to spread the cookies out on multiple cookie sheets.  This is pure, streamlined cookie production.  The only downside is that the bars in the middle of the pan don’t have a crisp edge, so if you are an edge person you may want to take that into consideration and shape cookies instead.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars: In a medium bowl, combine 3 c. whole wheat flour (I used Nash’s soft white whole wheat flour, but I have also used regular whole wheat flour, which comes out tasting a little whole-wheat-ier; I like both), 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, and 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt.  In a mixer, combine 2 sticks cold butter cut into 1/2 inch pieces with 1 c. dark brown sugar and 3/4 c. granulated sugar* and mix on low speed for a minute or two to integrate the butter and sugar.  Mix in two eggs and 2 tsp. vanilla, then add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Mix in a cup and a half of semisweet chocolate chips (or 8 oz. chopped bittersweet chocolate, see below).  Butter a large rimmed baking sheet (mine is 12×17) and spread the dough evenly across it.  Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until the center is just set.  Remove from oven and allow the tray to cool completely, then cut the cookies into bars.

*The original recipe, from Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain cookbook, calls for 1 c. granulated sugar and bittersweet instead of semisweet chocolate.  I used what I had, but if you have bittersweet chocolate I think it would be great, and you might choose to use the larger measure of sugar with it.

If you prefer to have a few freshly-baked cookies at a time, I’ve had good luck rolling the dough into balls and freezing them on a tray, then moving them to a freezer bag once they are frozen solid.  Bake them without defrosting; it will take a minute or two longer than usual.

Oatmeal Cracker with Black Pepper, Parmesan, and Rosemary

Savory Oatmeal Cookies with Rosemary, Black Pepper, and Parmesan

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Continuing the cheese-and-cracker-in-one theme of this week’s happy hour menus, I baked a batch of savory oatmeal “cookies” with rosemary, black pepper, and Parmesan cheese.  It sounded a little zany when I first read the recipe on The Kitchn, but I was on a tear with the homemade crackers and jumped right in.  (A much later search on the internet turned up all manner of variations on the theme of cookies and crackers combining oats, Parmesan and savory herbs–who knew?)Oatmeal Cracker with Black Pepper, Parmesan, and Rosemary

These are not really cookies and not really crackers.  They’re a little sweet and a lot savory.  Cookers?  Crackies?  No matter.  They wouldn’t be out of place in a cocktail party spread or on a cheese board, but they’d also make a great ending to a meal by themselves alongside a glass of port.  Or, you know, just leave a jar of them on the counter.  They’ll be gone before you know it.

Savory Oatmeal Cookies with Rosemary, Black Pepper, and Parmesan: Sprinkle 1/4 c. hot water over 1 c. rolled oats in a large mixing bowl.  In a smaller bowl, whisk one egg with 1/3 c. olive oil and 1/4 c. light brown sugar.  Pour this mixture over the oats and stir to combine.  In a third bowl (I know, sorry!), mix 1 c. flour with 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 2 tsp. chopped rosemary, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. freshly cracked black pepper, then stir in 1 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Gradually stir the flour mixture into the oat mixture until well combined.  Roll into 1″ balls, flatten each to 1/4″ thick, and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  They can be close together because they don’t grow much.  Sprinkle a pinch of salt (flaky sea salt if you have it) on top of each cookie.  Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes, until the edges are crisp and golden brown, then move to a rack to cool.

Pictured on the left: Savory Oatmeal Cookies.  On the right: Parmesan and Black Pepper Crackers.  Just add Rye Crackers with Apricot Chevre Spread, a bowl of salty nuts, and the house cocktail.