Hand Coding

The Dallas Camera Club has a potluck holiday party each year and, after thinking about it for a bit, I decided to make some blondies for this year’s party. (Blondies, in case you’re not familiar with them, are like brownies but without the chocolate; they’re a bar cookie which generally have a butterscotch-type flavor.) Well, to be sure, that I kinda had in mind was something like the Sheila’s Dream Bars from Potbelly Sandwiches. To be honest, I’m not even sure if Sheila's Dream Bars qualify and blondies, but that was my best guess — they're moist and dense bar cookies (in the way that a good brownie would be) with oats and chocolate chunks.

As a side note, I’m apparently not the only one looking for something analogous to Sheila's Dream Bars. One guy even wrote to Potbelly to ask for the recipe (but was politely declined). I also came across an attempt at a clone recipe at AllRecipes. Interestingly enough, one reviewer “was trying to duplicate the very addictive Sheila's Dream Bars from Potbelly” and went on to say that “these are EXACTLY what I was looking for” while another reviewer said that they’re “not even close to Sheila’s Dream Bars at Potbelly Sandwich Shoppe”. Great. How’s that for indecisiveness?

Since I didn't really want to take a chance on a recipe which was a toss-up between being “exactly” or “not even close” to what I was looking for, I turned to America’s Test Kitchen to get their take. (America’s Test Kitchen is a half-hour cooking show on PBS. Made by the same group that publishes Cook’s Illustrated magazine, the two groups are known for testing dozens of variants on a recipe before selecting their favorite which they then publish.)

I had recently picked up a couple DVD box sets of past seasons from the show and so I flipped through those to see if there was a blondie recipe. As it turns out, there was (it was from the 2005 season, for those curious). And, pleasantly enough, the recipe wasn’t too complicated either; with the exception of the chocolate chips or pecans, you might even have most of the other ingredients in your cupboard already (flour, eggs, sugar, and so on). The recipe also called for melted butter, so there wasn’t even a need for a mixer — only a spatula to fold some ingredients together.

Next up: the recipe; after that, I’ve included some comments on how they turned out.

Ingredients:

• Vegetable cooking spray
• 1 1/2 cups (7 1/2) ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (These can be toasted by putting them on a pan and placing them in a 350° oven for 5-7 mins.)

Directions:

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13- by 9-inch baking pan with 2 pieces of foil. Coat the foil-lined pan with vegetable cooking spray.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar together until combined. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until just combined. Do not overmix.

4. Fold in the semisweet and white chocolate chips and the nuts, and turn the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula.

5. Bake until the top is shiny and cracked and feels firm to the touch, for 22 to 25 minutes. Place the pan on a rack and let cool completely (about an hour). Cut into 1 1/2- by 2-inch bars.

Makes 36 bars.

I’m generally pleased with how these blondies turned out — they’re tasty and I have few worries about having any left over at the end of the holiday party. Still, I’m not sure they exactly matched how I thought they’d turn out (more on that in a bit). In preparation for writing this post, I took a notebook with me to the kitchen and jotted down a few thoughts as I ate one of the blondies:

• Aroma: Right out of the oven (or out of the RubberMaid cookie container), these have a pleasant butterscotch aroma.

• Texture: Their texture, for the post part, is quite good. They tend to break apart easily in your mouth without being fragile enough to crumble apart in your hands.

• Density: This is one of the few gripes that I had — these have a density quite similar to a cake-style brownie. Now, if that's your bag, you're all set. For me, though, I tend to prefer more of a gooey brownie and I think that type of texture would have been my preference here.

• Other notes: The flavor white chocolate chips came through quite well. That’s all well and good, but I think I would have preferred if the semisweet chocolate chips could have taken a more prominent role. In fairness, some rejiggering of the ratio between white chocolate and semisweet chocolate chips could probably take care of this. (Or, if you really like white chocolate, the recipe could probably remain unchanged.)

In all, I think I’d give these blondies about a 7/10. They’re quite good and, for all I know, they might represent the Canonical Blondie Taste™. I think it just happened to work out that I was making a recipe for something which the recipe might not have been aiming for.

I brought some cupcakes in to work last week and I thought I’d share the recipe here. Thinking over what I should bring, I was looking for something more substantial than a cookie, but still hand-held (for the sake of easier office eating). I soon narrowed it down to cupcakes and I looked through the cupcakes section of AllRecipes to see if anything caught my eye — and the Chocolate & Cream Cheese cupcakes sounded pretty good.

So, I bought some cream cheese and cocoa over the weekend and made the cupcakes later that week. I made them with Splenda and I’m pleased with how they turned out. And, other than the flour and chocolate chips, the cupcakes were relatively low carb (well, by cupcake standards, anyway). There’s also a photo of the cupcakes at the RD2 blog. Anyhow, on to the recipe:

Black Bottom Cupcakes I

Prep Time: approx. 30 Minutes
Cook Time: approx. 30 Minutes
Ready in: approx. 1 Hour
Makes 2 dozen cupcakes (24 servings)

Ingredients:

• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips [regular-sized chips worked fine for me]
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar [or Splenda, natch]
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder [I upped this to a heaping 1/3 cup, as recommended in the reviews]
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup water [I used a cup of milk instead, as recommended in the reviews]
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C). Line muffin tins with paper cups or lightly spray with non-stick cooking spray. [I both lined and sprayed, just to be sure.]

2. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese, egg, 1/3 cup sugar and 1/8 teaspoon salt until light and fluffy. Stir in the chocolate chips and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, 1 cup sugar, cocoa, baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Make a well in the center and add the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Stir together until well blended. Fill muffin tins 1/3 full with the batter and top with a dollop of the cream cheese mixture.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes [I only baked mine for about 20 minutes, as recommended in the reviews].

The only change I might make would be to make extra cream cheese topping next time, as I almost didn't have enough for all of the cupcakes. But, other than that, I think I’d make these again sometime.

I enjoy some of the cooking shows on Food Network and one of the episodes of Sweet Dreams (a show on desserts) focused on just brownie recipes (w00t). And, rather than Gale (the host) coming up with her own recipes, she baked brownie recipes submitted by viewers. One in particular, the Peanut Butter-Hazelnut Brownies, caught my eye. Of course, the “hazelnut-chocolate spread” to which they refer in the recipe is really just Nutella.

That recipe sounded pretty good to me at the time and so I exported that episode from my TiVo to VHS for safekeeping. Then, when the December Cocktail Event/Holiday Party came up, I figured that I could put the recipe to good use. So, the weekend before, I bought all the ingredients which I didn’t already have — which was primarily flour, cocoa powder and Nutella. And, on Tuesday evening (the day before the party), I baked the brownies.

Per the instructions, I baked the brownies at 350° for 30 minutes and then I let them cool to room temperature before cutting. In my case, the brownies weren’t quite cool when I was heading for bed and so I left the cutting for the following day. Then, after work that next day, I proceeded to cut the brownies and place them into a rectangular Rubbermaid container for the party. And, as I am wont to do, I tried one to ensure that they turned out all right.

It was horrible.

Somehow, the brownie had completely dried up; I was actually so dry that I needed a glass of water to help wash it down. And, the peanut butter and Nutella flavors were nowhere to be seen. Figuring that maybe the outside edge had dried, I then tried a square cut from the center — no such luck, it was just as bad. I couldn’t even make it through eating the whole square and I ended up throwing out the batch. Of course, I still had to bring something to the party (“a snack or dessert”) and so I stopped by Super Target to buy some cookies from their bakery department.

Not to be discouraged, I recalled that the Dallas Camera Club’s Holiday Dinner was coming up (which was also a pot-luck) and I decided to try the recipe again. Fortunately, I had enough ingredients left over from the first attempt that I didn’t need to go back to the store. So, as before, I followed the recipe exactly but I baked the brownies for just 15 minutes this time, and added increments of 5 more minutes until a knife came out clean (for a total of about 23 minutes).

Of course, I had to allow the brownies to cool before cutting them and so I didn’t know right away whether I had succeeded. And, the following day, I sliced the brownies into squares and sampled one — it was distinctly moister but still a bit chalky. After rummaging through my cupboard, I found a legacy can of frosting (left from a former roommate) which I thought to try (Betty Crocker's “Rich & Creamy Mint Chocolate Chip”, fwiw).

The frostiing was a little hard to spread, right out of the can, but I nuked it for about 15 seconds which softened it up. And, I ended up using the whole can on the brownies’ 9x13 pan. I then sampled a square once more and found that this was reasonably all right. It wasn’t the best batch brownies I had ever had, but the frosting pushed them over the line from “bad” to “ok”.

Considering the ingredients, Nutella and peanut butter, I didn’t think I could go wrong. But, this recipe confounded me. I suppose can’t rule out that maybe my oven’s thermostat could be miscalibrated, though that wouldn’t explain the good results I’ve had with other baked goods. Anyhow, if you’re looking for a Nutella-based brownie recipe, I would try something else. And, if you can get this recipe to come out deliciously, then you’re a better man/woman than I.

I brought along some Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Blondies to the LucciHouse Holiday Party last weekend and I thought I’d share the recipe here:

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Blondies

Ingredients:

• 1 cup margarine
• 2 cups white sugar [I used Splenda instead]
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chunky peanut butter [I used creamy peanut butter instead]
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 10x15 inch jellyroll pan with parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla and peanut butter until smooth. Combine the flour and baking powder, then stir into the peanut butter mixture. Finally, fold in the chocolate chips. Spread the dough out flat on the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until the tops of the bars look dry. Cool in pan, then cut into squares.

I got the idea for blondies from a cookie run earlier that week — Leia and I walked to Eatzi’s to grab some cookies from their bakery section. In addition to a dozen peanut butter cookies, I also picked up a peanut butter blondie. It was pretty tasty and I pondered whether I could make some myself.

So, I checked AllRecipes’ cookie section and searched for blondie recipes. While there were a fair number of recipes for regular blondies, there were relatively few for peanut butter blondies (why, I have no idea). In addition to the recipe on which I decided, I also considered the recipe for Best Ever Chocolate-Free Blondies but I ruled that one out as I didn’t want to deal with peanut butter chips (at best they tend to resemble peanut butter).

I was pleased with how the blondies turned out, though their consistency was different than I had expected. The blondie which I had at Eatzi’s was fairly chewy but these were flaky in texture. Their texture was almost like that of a thick peanut-butter flavored sugar cookie. I’m curious whether swapping the sugar for Splenda, as I did, had any effect on their chewiness.

The Dallas Camera Club meets twice a month and members take turns bringing in snacks (chosen by rotating through the membership list). Tuesday’s meeting was my turn to bring in snacks and so I decided to bake some cookies. Sure, some people just stop by Kroger and buy a box of cookies, but I figured that baked cookies would be much nicer.

I stopped by AllRecipes a few days ahead of time to select a recipe. Once in their Cookie section, I headed straight for the subsection on Chocolate Chip Cookies. It's not that I had ruled out other cookie types, but I thought I had a good chance of finding a workable chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Fortunately, all the recipes at AllRecipes are rated (on a scale of one to five). With dozens of chocolate chip cookie recipes, I just ignored all the non-5-star entries. And, I had in mind more of a soft cookie (rather than crunchy) and that further narrowed the playing field. And one that I finally settled on was called (simply) Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. In particular, the tagline sounded enticing: “Crisp edges, chewy middles”.

As the recipe called for chocolate chips (as you would expect) but also chopped walnuts, I thought I'd have to make a special trip to Super Target for sure. But, I glanced through my pantry beforehand and it turned out that I had all the ingredients already.

When it came time to bake the cookies, the recipe was actually a little easier than I expected. There was no melting of any kind (neither butter nor chocolate) and there're only three steps in total (the first of which is “preheat oven”, so that one hardly counts, even). The one nebulous portion of the recipe was the baking time — “Bake for about 10 minutes […] or until edges are nicely browned”. I don’t like guesswork when it comes to recipes and so I just went with an even 10-minutes for the first batch (well, actually 5 minutes + 5 minutes, as I swapped racks halfway through).

After that first batch, the edges were slightly browned, but who was I to say if that meant “nicely”? To be sure, I baked the second (and third) batches for 11 minutes (5 minutes + 6 minutes) and those were slightly more golden-brown around the edges.

Once they were baked, I set them aside on cooling racks and, as soon as they were cool enough not to burn my tongue, I snarfed one. It was still gooey, of course, but rather tasty. In some ways, it still even had that cookie-dough flavor (as opposed to most other recipes where the cooked product is decidedly different from the raw edition). But, I made a mental note that I'd have to allow them to cool fully before forming a final opinion.

So, the next day, I had one with breakfast (ooh, decadence) and it wasn’t quite the cookie that I recalled from the night before. It was soft, to be sure, but the edges never hardened. Really, it was just soft the whole way through — and some people like it that way, but not me. I wanted that delicate ying & yang of crispiness and softness, but to no avail. So, sure, these cookies are good in the general sense that all cookies are yummy, but I get the feeling that there may be a better chocolate chip cookie recipe out there.

In any case, here’s the recipe.

“Best Chocolate Chip Cookies”

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar [or Splenda, natch]
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons hot water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F (175 degrees C).

2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.

3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned. [11 minutes was an improvement for me, and 12 minutes may be even better]

I brought along some chocolate chocolate-chip cookies to the Independence Day party on Sunday and I thought I’d share the recipe here. Back when I first received the Evite to the party, I noticed the request for desserts and side dishes and I immediately began to ponder what I could bake.

Being the chocolate nut that I am, I decided fairly early on to go with something chocolate-based, but it was only after watching some TiVod episodes of America’s Test Kitchen that I happened upon the idea of chocolate chocolate-chip cookies. (For those not aware, America’s Test Kitchen is a cooking show on PBS which goes through dozens of iterations for each dish before publishing the recipe that works best).

Fortunately, their recipes are also online (for the recent couple seasons, anyway). And, while the as-televised recipe is for Double-Choclate Cookies, their site also lists a varation which I could not ignore: Triple-Chocolate Cookies. For those keeping score, the double chocolate cookies include Dutch-processed cocoa along with a pound of melted bittersweet chocolate. The triple chocolate cookies include those ingredients plus chocolate chips. Well, on to the recipe:

Double-Chocolate Cookies, Thick and Chewy Cookies

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen cookies

To melt the chocolate in a microwave, heat at 50 percent power for 2 minutes, stir, then continue heating at 50 percent power for 1 more minute. If not completely melted, heat an additional 30 to 45 seconds at 50 percent power. We recommend using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop to scoop the dough. Resist the urge to bake the cookies longer than indicated; they may appear underbaked at first but will firm up as they cool.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 16 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons instant coffee or espresso powder
• 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups packed (10 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Melt chocolate in medium heatproof bowl set over pan of almost-simmering water, stirring once or twice, until smooth; remove from heat. Beat eggs and vanilla lightly with fork, sprinkle coffee powder over to dissolve, and set aside.

3. In bowl of standing mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat butter at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 5 seconds. Beat in sugars until combined, about 45 seconds; mixture will look granular. Reduce speed to low and gradually beat in egg mixture until incorporated, about 45 seconds. Add chocolate in steady stream and beat until combined, about 40 seconds. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with rubber spatula. With mixer at low speed, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until consistency is scoopable and fudgelike, about 30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Leaving about 1 1/2 inches between each ball, scoop dough onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with 1 3/4-inch ice cream scoop.

5. Bake, reversing position of baking sheets halfway through baking (from top to bottom and front to back), until edges of cookies have just begun to set but centers are still very soft, about 10 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets about 10 minutes, slide parchment with cookies onto wire racks, and cool to room temperature. Cover one baking sheet with new piece of parchment paper. Scoop remaining dough onto parchment-lined sheet, bake, and cool as directed. Remove cooled cookies from parchment with wide metal spatula and serve.

Variation — Thick and Chewy Triple-Chocolate Cookies:

If you like bursts of warm melted chocolate in your cookies [and who doesn’t? —Alex], include chocolate chips in the batter. The addition of chips will slightly increase the yield of the cookies.

Follow recipe for Thick and Chewy Double-Chocolate Cookies, adding 12 ounces (about 2 cups) semisweet chocolate chips to batter after dry ingredients are incorporated in step 3.

The only downside to the recipe is that it can take longer than other cookie recipes (especially including the 30-minute wait-time after mixing the dough). All the same, I was really pleased with the results and I think these Triple-Chocolate Cookies may be my new favorite cookie :).

I made blueberry muffins yesterday and they turned out fairly well so I thought I’d post the recipe here. I had decided on blueberry muffins a few days beforehand, but I didn’t have a recipe in mind at the time. So, I next checked AllRecipes.com — a handy recipe website with ratings and reviews for each recipe.

I found my way to their recipes for muffins & scones and, from there, to their section on blueberry muffins. They had about twenty blueberry muffin recipes, but the To Die For Blueberry Muffins caught my eye as it had a rating of 5/5 stars and it was also selected for one of the Allrecipes cookbooks.

Here’s the recipe:

To Die For Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients — Muffin Base:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries

Ingredients — Crumb Topping:

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed [half a stick]
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

The muffins turned out well — light and fluffy on the inside with a crunchy-sweet topping. Sliced in half and with a touch of butter, they’re rather delectable. And, other than the blueberries, most of the ingredients are items you probably already have in your pantry.

I wasn’t sure how they’d turn out with Splenda, so I just made them with regular sugar this time. But, I would imagine that Splenda would work fine (though the crumb topping may not have that characteristic sugar crystal crunch without the sugar).

As written, the recipe works out to 1.5 Tbsp sugar in each muffin along with an additional 1 Tbsp sugar for each muffin’s crumb topping (for a total of 2.5 Tbsp sugar). At 16g carbs per Tbsp, that’s 40g carbs per muffin that could be cut out (or at least 24g if you kept the sugar in the crumb topping).

I brought along some fudge to Ru’s party on Saturday and I thought I’d post it here in case anyone would like the recipe. I had in mind that I could bake a dessert and something with nuts & chocolate sounded good. So, I decided on fudge and headed to AllRecipes for an appropriate recipe.

I searched for “fudge” and found my way to their fudge section. From there, I navigated to the Fudge with Nuts recipes and on to the recipes for Chocolate Fudge [with Nuts]. There were about a dozen recipes there and I concetrated on those recipes which already had many reviews (recipes that are highly rated tend to garner more reviews, which leads to more reviews and so on).

I settled on Aunt Teen’s Creamy Chocolate Fudge. It had 343 reviews and still had an average 5-star rating. What I also liked about it — in addition to its inclusion of two types of chocolate along with marshmallow creme — was that it required no fancy candy thermometers (as some fudge recipes do). Here’s the recipe:

Aunt Teen’s Creamy Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients:

• 1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar [see notes below on alterations]
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk [a 5 oz can]
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk chocolate chips [one full 12 oz bag]
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips [half a 12 oz bag]
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts [walnuts work very well here, though pecans would probably also be good]
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Line an 8x8 inch pan with aluminum foil. Set aside.

2. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine marshmallow cream, sugar, evaporated milk, butter and salt. Bring to a full boil, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

3. Remove from heat and pour in semisweet chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips. Stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in nuts and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan. Chill in refrigerator for 2 hours, or until firm.

Recipe notes and alterations:

Though the recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups of sugar, some of the reviews suggested trying just 1 cup of sugar instead. Since I didn’t want an overly-sweet fudge, I went with that suggestion (which worked out well). All the same, I’m inclined to try just 1/2 a cup of sugar next time in an effort to get a fudge with an even higher chocolatiness-to-sweetness ratio.

At one point, I also thought about using Splenda in lieu of sugar altogether. However, I decided not to take a chance on that as fudge recipes tend to rely on the crystalline nature of sugar for the proper chemical reactions (unlike many other baked goods which only use sugar for its sweetening properties). Besides, even though fudge isn’t a low-carb food (this recipe has about 18g carbs per piece), the granular sugar alone isn't that much of a factor towards that count (after all, it’s one cup divided over 48 pieces).

Among other gifts, Mike got some candy for Christmas, including some Fun Size Milky Way bars. In contrast to their peanut-filled cousins, Snickers, Milky Ways are relatively tame — mostly caramel and nougat. So, on a lark, I decided to check AllRecipes to see whether there were any Milky Way-based recipes. Sure enough, I found one: Milky Way Peanut Butter Cookies.

Since I had some free time yesterday, I decided to give it a shot. The recipe is fairly easy — just three steps — and the only thing to keep in mind is that the recipe needs bite-sized Milky Ways (a typo at one point mentions Fun Size, but the recipe’s reviews confirm that bite size is needed).

Milky Way Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 36 fun [bite] size bars Milky Way [If you have Fun Size bars instead, just cut them in half to create bite size.]

Directions:

1. Cream together white sugar, brown sugar, butter or margarine, vanilla, peanut butter and the egg.
2. Add in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
3. Wrap 1 heaping teaspoon of dough around a bite sized Milky Way candy bar. Bake 13-16 minutes at 350° F (175° C). Let cool 5 minutes before removing from pan.

So, I mixed up the cookie dough and decided on 14 minutes cooking time (well, the directions said 13-16 minutes and 14 sounded like a good mid-point). And even though my oven doesn’t heat that unevenly, I swapped the two cookie sheets halfway through just to be sure.

I took out the cookies after 14 minutes and — as directed by the recipe — I let them cool for 5 minutes. It’s not that they were all that hot, but they needed those few minutes to firm up. And, as soon as the 5-minute timer beeped, I grabbed one and gingerly took a bite.

To my delight, the nougat/caramel had become warm and molten — similar in some ways but even better than a Caramello bar. The cookies turned out even better than I expected and I’m tempted to cookieify some Fun Size Snickers bars later this week :).

I have a Season Pass in my TiVo for Good Eats — a cooking show on Food Network. Oftentimes, the show’s theme may be obscure and I won’t end up watching it — and I thought that the Apple Family Values episode (yeah, just apple recipes) may have been one of those.

I somewhat expected an apple pie recipe in there somewhere, but Alton didn’t go for that. Instead, there were recipes such as Waldorf Salad and Apple Sauce (neither of which were particularly useful to me since I have no plans to make those). However, the Apple Crisp recipe (which he calls “Baker, Baker” on the site) caught my eye. Not only does it look delicious, but it seems fairly foolproof as well :).

Other than the ingredients for the streusel topping, there’s no measuring in the recipe. Mostly, it’s a matter of cutting a hole in the apple, filling most of it with honey, then adding the topping. In short:

• Cut tops off apples with a knife using a diagonal cut towards the center of the apple
• Use a melon baller to remove the seeds and form a shaft down the apple
• Fill the shaft with honey, but leave room where the cone-top used to be
• Add the streusel mixture to the top of the apple until overflowing
• Bake

The recipe looked rather easy and Mike and I were tempted to try it that evening (alas, we had no oats). However, as I looked through the cupboard yesterday, I noticed that Mike had picked up some oats; so, perhaps we’ll be able to make some in the next few days.

Baker, Baker

Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown
Show: Good Eats
Episode: Apple Family Values

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup oats
• 3/4 cup flour
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• Pinch kosher salt
• 1 stick cold unsalted butter, diced
• 4 Braeburn apples (Fuji will substitute)
• 4 teaspoons honey [You don’t really need to measure this]

In a bowl combine all the dry ingredients and diced butter. Rub mixture briskly between finger tips until it forms small moist clumps in a loose sandy mixture. Refrigerate while preparing the apples.

Cut a small layer off the bottom of each apple to create a flat, stable bottom surface. With a small paring knife, cut a cylindrical cone out of the top of the apple, moving about 1-inch outside of the core, similar to removing the top of a pumpkin when carving a Jack O’Lantern. Remove the top and discard. With a melon baller or a teaspoon, remove the remaining core and seeds taking care not to puncture the base of the apple.

Place apples on a baking sheet or pie dish and fill each center with a teaspoon of honey. Spoon in mixture, packing lightly until heaped and overflowing over sides of the apples.

Bake in oven at 350° on the top or middle rack for 40 minutes or until filling is golden brown and the tip of a paring knife can be inserted into the side of the apple with little or no resistance. Let apples stand for 10 minutes before serving.