Scratch Brownies

Baking on a day when you have nothing else to do is the best! I got up this morning and was full of cooking inspiration. Since I had nothing else to do, I was able to follow the inspirations where they led me. First, I made waffles topped with bacon and apples and a Gouda beer sauce (amazing creation, if I do say so myself!), and about an hour later I decided to try making brownies from scratch (I found a recipe online and decided to add a few tweaks of my own - chipotle powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and bacon grease).

My first thought was that brownies could not be that hard to make. I can make a cake from scratch, how can brownies be that different? That was until I got to the "brownies tend to get tough...don't go wild on the mixing" instructions. How much mixing is too much? With the baking powder biscuits I was told that you could end up with chewy and dense biscuits if you over-mixed, but no one has ever told me that about brownies. So, I mixed a little, and then a little more, but I just couldn't get rid of the big clumps of dough and "dust." I was worried about how dry it was.

It bothering me that there was nothing wet (e.g. milk, oil, etc.) in these brownies. The box mixes always call for something like that don't they? My dough seemed awfully dry to make anything worth eating. I've added these extra dry ingredients to box mixes without adjusting anything, so I figured it wouldn't make a difference here. However, when I changed the ingredients in the cheddar biscuits (see previous entry), I had to add milk to make the very dry and crumbly dough stick together. I looked up a few more recipes and found none that called for anything but the butter, eggs and dry ingredients I was using.

Putting the dough (I keep saying dough because that it what it was like to me, not batter-like at all) into the baking pan was difficult because it was so dry and clumpy. How are you supposed to pour big, dry, clumps into a pan and bake it? I attempted to spread it out, but didn't want to push it around too much for fear of "mixing it too much". There were parts where you could still see the pan and I was worried it would not melt/spread out when baking. At that point I was worried I had my first failure looming.

After about 20 minutes my husband said he smelled brownies, and they smelled good, which seemed to be a good sign. We looked in and they had risen and evened out just a bit. After the suggested cooling time we each tried one. I was afraid, but it smelled wonderful, and then, lo and behold, it tasted wonderful. My brownies were good and not tough or dry at all; my fears had been assuaged! My husband says the spices overpower the chocolate a bit, which he minds, but I don't! These brownies are not really cake-like, but they are not as heavy as fudge-like brownies, they seem to be a good mix. The bacon grease I greased the pan with adds a nice little flavor to the brownies and they are a bit spicy. It might sound like there is a lot going on there between the spices and bacon, but I think it all mixes well. Besides, mixing chocolate and bacon or chocolate and spiciness together is all the rage these days, so it seems natural that they would all go together.

As you know, I am not a big fan of chocolate, so the other flavors are one way to get me to eat brownies. If you are looking for an alternative to the plain chocolate brownie, you might want to try this. And, I guess I proved that it is good to see things through to the end (at least in baking) as they don't always turn out as bad you might think.

The original recipe can be found here. Below is the recipe with my additions. Enjoy!

Scratch Brownies

1 cup melted butter
2 cups white sugar
1 tsp vanilla flavoring
2 eggs
½ cup cocoa
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp chipotle powder
couple tbsp bacon grease

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream margarine and sugar with a mixer.
After the creaming stage, switch to a spoon for mixing. Brownies tend to get tough if worked too much.
Add the vanilla and eggs and mix just until smooth.
Pour in cocoa, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and chipotle powder. Again, mix until smooth and lumps are broken up. Don't go to wild on the mixing.
Grease 9x13 pan with bacon grease.
Spread dough out into pan and bake on 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
Cool brownies for 10 minutes before slicing.

Just for fun, here's a picture of our breakfast. This was a total experiment, and I strongly encourage experimentation in cooking. I started this baking adventure and blog as a way to drag myself off the couch and out of misery and have found that I am not only getting off that couch, I am learning and loving it. The more I learn, the more I want to experiment. I am not saying things will always work out, but why not have fun trying?

Chocolate Covered Potato Chips

Let me apologize for not posting last week. I was on vacation in Portland OR, and regretfully did not take the time to post this. I would like to thank everyone for their encouragement and support. My friend told me last night that she has been checking this blog every day anxiously awaiting a new post. Without further ado, here goes...

Chocolate has never been one of my favorites, and many people have been surprised by this. Perhaps it is the fact that I grew up on cheap waxy chocolates. Perhaps it is the fact that my Grams occasionally spoiled me by sharing one of her dark chocolates filled with cream or nuts and left me never wanting anything but those. Either way, much to my husband's dismay, chocolate has never been something I have eaten or cooked with very often.

About 2 months ago we were going to have people over and bought the makings for a good group dessert, chocolate fondue. However, we never got around to it. Needless to say, the chocolate has been getting dusty on my baking shelf since. But then, last weekend, my parents called asking if we wanted to come over and watch the Seven Year Itch. You know, that's the movie where Marilyn Monroe has an almost affair with her downstairs neighbor and, in the 2nd most famous scene of the movie, shares champagne and potato chips with him. My parents said, that because of that scene, we were going to have champagne and potato chips during the movie. When I mentioned to my boss what I would be doing over the weekend, he asked me if I had ever tried chocolate covered potato chips and that got me thinking. I bought a bag of kettle chips, dusted off the chocolate and talked my husband into helping me.

First, we chopped the chocolate (baking chocolate - about 1 lb.) into little slivers:


Then, we melted the chocolate in a make-shift double boiler; we had a metal bowl that sat in one of our pots fairly well. We filled the lower pot with about an inch of water and put it on a simmer. Once the chocolate melted all the way through, it wais time to dip the chips in it. Note: Be sure that the bowl sits snugly in the pot, so no steam escapes. My husband has had chocolate seize up on him (get hard and not melt down again) from water getting into it. Also, be sure to stir constantly so the chocolate heats evenly.

After the chocolate is melted, dip the chips, one at a time, holding the end of each with either your fingers or tongs, into the chocolate. Let the excess drip off for a few seconds (or scrape off excess with spatula if necessary - it was for us) and then place each chip onto wax paper which has been set onto a baking sheet. When you have filled the wax paper, place the baking sheet into the fridge for 10-15 minutes so the chocolate can set. Note: I failed to put the wax paper onto the baking sheet first and had a heck of a time getting it onto one after. And, I discovered it needed to go into the fridge to set because, as I was packing them up to go, they stuck to each other and were still slightly gooey.

I used dark chocolate for this recipe, since I still don't like milk chocolate, and think it turned out great. I used one regular sized bag of Roundy's Kettle Chips and found they held up well and allowed for more potato chip taste than I would have thought. We had a little chocolate left over so we got to make "haystacks" out of the crumbs and managed to also cover some pretzels we had in the cupboard. Although the dipping of each thing is a bit time consuming and tedious, these really are easy to make; find someone to help you like I did and it will go a lot quicker.

My parents seemed to enjoy their plain potato chips a bit more for the movie occasion, but these did go over well wtih them and others I shared with. We just finished our stash of chocolate covered goodies we made here, and I think we will be making them again, maybe instead of the attempted fondue next time!

Cheddar Chipotle Biscuits

I LOVE cheese! Let's just get that out of the way, right away. I was once told that the hives I was experiencing was an allergic reaction to too much dairy. I cried for a week. Though there are many dairy substitutes available these days (soy, rice, veggie, etc.), nothing compared to plain old from-the-cow dairy. Since that awful doctor's visit, I have significantly cut down on the amount of dairy I eat and switched to mostly organic. However, there are days where I just have to indulge my cravings and have real cheese, and lots of it. These biscuits are a great way to do just that.


Cheddar Chipotle Biscuits:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
pinch chipotle pepper
pinch salt
8 oz extra-sharp Cheddar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk


Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Combine butter, salt and peppers with mixer (on low)
Add flour and combine
Add cheese and milk and mix until ball forms
Wrap ball of dough in wax paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes. If you want to slice and bake, shape dough into a log before refrigerating.
Roll out dough to 1/4" thick on a lightly floured surface and cut biscuits with cookie cutter, or slice rounds from log that are 1/4" thick.
Place dough slices on parchment lined baking sheet and bake until edges are golden brown, about 18 minutes

Store at room temp in a Ziploc or airtight container



I got the original idea for these biscuits from Vegetable Matter. However, I didn't want to spend the money on white cheddar, so I used yellow cheddar, which is usually a few dollars cheaper. I don't know if that made a difference, but I found that my cheese and flour mix did not combine well, and there was much more cheese than anything, so I added the milk and a bit extra flour. I also switched the pepper from cayenne to chipotle, since I like chipotle and we have tons of it . I used the slice and bake method, as you can see in the picture above, which worked fine but gave me slightly misshapen biscuits.

These biscuits smelled delicious as they were baking and I couldn't resist taking one right off the pan and eating it hot. I gave my husband a bite and I guess he liked them; his exact reaction was "take that Red Lobster biscuits! I don't think any of these are going to make it into work, or even until morning." This recipe made 16 biscuits so we did have a few left the next day. Since these received such high praise, I think I will be making these again!

Lemon Upside Down Cake

Luscious Lemon Desserts by Lori Botham has been sitting on my shelf for over a year now. It was one of those things I wanted desperately and vowed to make every recipe out of in the first few weeks. Lemon is one of my favorite flavors and desserts are so good, what could be better than combining the two? However, my lack of motivation got the better of me and the cookbook sat unused until a few days ago.

Last Sunday, we had friends over for the Packer playoff game and made Cajun food and drinks. I had decided we also needed a Cajun dessert. I found some wonderful recipes online, including a lemon meringue pie. As soon as I suggested that, my husband pointed out that if I wanted a lemon dessert, I had a wonderful cookbook I'd been meaning to use for ages. Luckily, we had all of the ingredients for a wonderful looking cake - Lemon Upside Down Cake.

That was the start of an afternoon spent in the kitchen, not watching the Packer game with our friends. They were, however, gracious about it and visited me in the kitchen often (when nothing important was happening, of course). Lemon Upside Down Cake is not the hardest thing to bake, but it contains more elements than I am used to and some techniques (making and folding in stiff-peaked egg whites) that I had not used before.

While trying to make those stiff-peaked egg whites, I had to call my husband in to help. I could not get the egg whites to form any peak, let alone a stiff one, and was afraid of over beating them. Then, folding in the eggs, I was concerned I was either folding them in too much or not enough. The trick, my husband said, is to run the spatula through the batter and then turn it over the egg whites, making them disappear. You will have to do this several times, so don't be too worried if it seems like you are doing it too much.

Then, I got nervous when I realized I had forgoten to zest the lemons before I put them in the brown sugar, so I looked online for substitutes. Lemon extract was suggested, with the tip to use half as much of it as the suggested zest amount, as it is much more potent. After I inverted the cake, I saw that the lemons I forgot to zest wound up shrinking much more than expected. I am almost glad I forgot, otherwise they would have been even smaller! Also, the lemons turn out candied, which makes them taste very good (rind and all), but very hard to cut through.

All in all, I was pleased with the recipe, and my husband and friends seemed to like it. It was not the most Cajun dessert out there but, it was very tasty. I might have to break out that cookbook a bit more often!

Baking Powder Biscuits

Once, while at my in-laws' house, I was instructed to make baking powder biscuits. I was to use a recipe that, I was told, came from a family friend some time ago and has been loved ever since. Never having made biscuits of any kind (except for the Pillsbury in the can kind of biscuits), I was a little leery. However, I soon discovered it was one of the easiest things I would ever bake from scratch!

The other night, while thinking about how hungry my stomach was and how un-filling the scheduled chicken salad sounded, I thought back to those biscuits. Unable to locate the sacred recipe, I searched online for one and found several that would suffice, as most basic recipes call for the same ingredients and steps:

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter or shortening

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Sift the dry ingredients together into a bowl
Cut the butter into the dry ingredients
Make an indent in the mixture, pour the milk into it, and combine
Knead the dough about 10 times
Roll out the dough and cut into circles or grab small handfuls of dough
Place biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake until biscuits are lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

My only advice on this recipe is to be sure not to over-knead the dough; if you do you will have some mighty chewy biscuits.

How easy these biscuits are to make is surprising; how good they are is awesome, and how you can serve them is endless (we ate them with butter on them as a dinner side and my husband made sausage gravy that we poured over them the next day for breakfast). If you haven't tried making them yet, I would definitely suggest it!

Beginning

How do you cope with stress? This is a question that I never thought too much about before but, my answer is "not very well." I sit on the couch wallowing in it. This is not only a colossal waste of precious time, it is not fair to my husband or friends, and in recent years, it has increased my waistline.

The last couple of years have been a bit rough on our family. As a result, I have been spending an unusual amount of time on that couch. Granted, we have a very nice, very comfy new couch, but one should not be glued to said couch from the time they walk in the door after work until the time they go to bed. So, recently, my husband very lovingly suggested that I get a hobby. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking how could someone telling you that you need a hobby be loving? Well, he said in the very nicest way possible, and he went on to state that he thought a hobby could be a creative outlet for some of my stress; I could work out some of my depression/aggression/whatever on a piece of art, a drum set or a wad of dough and see that something good could come of it. He thought the hobby could also provide some fulfillment, which I don't find in my job (and that is where we spend most of our lives! But, I digress). How could I not agree?

The problem was that I used to have hobbies, or little projects I worked on here and there, and I got bored with all of them. I could have tried painting again or knitting, but I didn't really feel any of them was going to be right for what this was starting to represent for me. I needed something more satisfying, something entirely for myself, and something that I would enjoy every process and aspect of.

After much careful thought, I decided I wanted to start baking. I have baked in the past, for parties or work potlucks, but never just for the enjoyment of it or for the learning of new techniques. And, there were many parts of baking that I loved: the joy of seeing flour, eggs, milk and sugar forming together to make dough; the joy of seeing a cake or biscuits rise in the oven; the joy of the first bite and the look on other's faces when they try the first bite; and the fact that something you spent time on could produce such joy. They named the cookbook "The Joy of Baking" for a reason, didn't they?

So, my goal is to bake something (cake, biscuits, pie, bread, etc.) at least once a week and to blog about the experience as a way of getting myself off that couch and bringing a bit of baking joy to myself and others. My husband has dutifully promised to help me eat what he can and take to work what he can't. Though, with all this baking and eating, we might have to make some time for some exercising too!

To therapy through baking, or at the very least, becoming a hobbyist baker...Cheers!