Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Pretzel & Butterscotch Chocolate-chip Cookies



I sponsored a blood drive today at work, so I brought cookies for the donors.  Chocolate chip cookies are about as close to "American comfort food" as you'll find, but these have a fun difference -- they contain pretzels, browned butter, and bread flour!  (They are an alteration of Alton Brown's The Chewy.)

Blood donors are encouraged to eat salty snacks after donating.  Between the pretzels and the little bit of kosher salt sprinkled on top, I thought these would be a good snack choice.  In addition, the pretzels provide a nice crunch that you normally get from nuts, but since so many people have nut allergies I didn't want to bring anything with nuts.

Midway through smooshing the dough balls.

I missed the part of the recipe that called for a rounded tablespoon of dough for each cookie -- I used a cookie scoop that was about a level tablespoon.  That would explain why I ended up with 66 cookies!

Although to get the stated yield, you'd have to use 3 tablespoons of dough for each cookie.  That's a BIG cookie.


A light sprinkling of kosher salt adds a nice flavor contrast.

Also, they baked up hard and crunchy rather than chewy, probably due to the smaller size.  They were still delicious, though!  The browned butter gave them a flavor that reminded me of a toasted marshmallow.

Delicious!

Conclusion:  Sweet and salty -- a great combination.  For a chewy cookie, I guess they need to be much larger.  At a smaller size, they come out crunchy when cooked as directed, so an adjustment would have to be made to the time and/or temperature.   Overall, though, a very good cookie (and I prefer this smaller size.)

Recipe:  Pretzel-Scotch Cookies via une gamine dans la cuisine

Friday, January 3, 2014

January ABC Challenge: Mole-spiced Brownies with Lime Cheesecake Swirl



To be honest, I approached this month's challenge with reservation.  Once upon a time, I was the type of person  who, if the dessert menu included Death By Chocolate, I was all over it.  The richer, more decadent a dessert was, especially if it included chocolate, the better.  But at some point several years ago, chocolate started to lose its appeal (gasp!), and rich foods of any kind quickly followed suit.  Besides that, the whole chocolate-and-cheesecake thing has been done a million times.  I had to find a twist or it wasn't going to happen.

A friend recently made a sweet bread with chocolate and spiced with chili and cinnamon.  I decided to go the same route with these brownies.  Interestingly, when one doesn't have a stake in the outcome, it really opens the doors to adventure!  Once underway, I decided to go even further and add the sweet spices from traditional mole along with some tangy lime, in keeping with the Mexican flavor.  (Okay, so Chinese 5-spice isn't Mexican, but it brought the anise and cloves to the party in one easy-to-use measure.)

A chopstick  really helped to break up the
thick chocolate batter and get it swirled in.
The directions call for cooking the butter and sugar "until the mixture is smooth and shiny."  Well, it was getting pretty thick after several minutes, but it still wasn't smooth.  I took it off the heat anyway.  As it cooled, it got even thicker.  (I wonder if this affected the final texture.)  Consequently, it was something of a challenge getting it swirled into the creamy cheesecake batter.

As it turns out, these brownies were a disappointment.  For one, they confirmed a growing suspicion...  I don't like cinnamon and chocolate!  I don't know why not.  They were also extremely rich, as I knew they would be.  I think the addition of chocolate chips was overkill.  They are already so intense, even with reduced sugar, and chocolate tends to steal the show anyway, no matter what.  I would have preferred a ratio of cheesecake to chocolate of about 3:1; the recipe is closer to 1:2.

Lastly, though  many people complained that they needed much longer to cook, mine were overdone in just 35 minutes.  I had halved the recipe and used an 8x8" pan, which is larger than half of a 9x13"  pan, so I should have started checking them after 25 minutes.  They didn't burn, but were a little on the gummy side, and the cheesecake had large air pockets throughout, as if there were too much egg  or something.  (Perhaps it was the flour...  Why is there flour in the cheesecake anyway?  And did I forget to cut the flour quantity in half??)

Besides the added flavors, I reduced the sugar, increased the salt, reduced the vanilla, and omitted the chocolate chips.  Here are the ingredients I worked with for a half recipe quantity, with my changes noted:

Chocolate batter
1/2 cup unsalted butter
*3/4 cup sugar (reduced from 1 1/8 c)
5/8 cup baking cocoa
*1 teaspoon salt (increased from 1/2 t)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
*1 1/4 teaspoon ground red chili (likely New Mexico hatch)
*1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice
*1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

Cream cheese batter
8-ounce package cream cheese
3/8 cup sugar
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
*1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (reduced from 1 t)
1/8 cup heavy cream
1 large egg
*zest and juice of one lime



Conclusion:  This type of item doesn't appeal to me, so I would not make it again.  The flavor combination I used was interesting; I really liked the little bit of heat from the chili, and the tangy lime was a nice contrast against the richness of the brownie.  I will definitely use the chocolate/chili/lime combination again.

Recipe:  Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies via King Arthur Flour