Peanut Butter Cookies

 

It quite changes your disposition and your view of the world if you cannot have peanut butter every day.

- William F. Buckley Jr.

(Who knew we had so much in common?)

Did you know? March is National Peanut Month. According to the fantastically titled, Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea, the holiday dates all the way back to 1941, when the National Peanut Council established National Peanut Week to promote the sales of peanuts and peanut products in the U.S.  (And I've officially used up my peanut word count for the entire post). It was expanded to a month-long celebration in 1947, and apparently the average child will eat 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before he/she graduates high school, so I suppose the campaign has been pretty successful.

Cranberry Shortbread Bars

I've had a bag of fresh cranberries sitting in my fridge since before Thanksgiving, causing me great anxiety (luckily, they have a long shelf life); so I whipped up some cranberry shortbread bars for a Christmas party I was attending last night.

This recipe comes from, you guessed it, The Joy of Baking. The base of the bar - and the topping - is a basic shortbread recipe, with the slight variation of adding cornstarch and using brown sugar in place of white. (I also substituted whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour - more out of necessity than a deliberate choice - which produced a more crumbly, rustic-looking crust.)

Toffee Bars

 

I think I fell in love with bars & squares when I made my first magic bars back in high school (or was it middle school?) And while I like to entertain the thought that I've grown more sophisticated in my baking abilities since then, I often fall back on these recipes whenever I'm in a time crunch because they're easy, reliable, and always delicious.

This category of baking seems especially suited for holiday desserts.  Not quite a cookie and not quite a candy bar - or brownie, or pie, depending on what kind we're talking about - these heavenly layered treats have great range and versatility. Many classic desserts can be augmented to the compact size of a bar or square, from cheesecake to pecan pie to lemon tart, which not only puts a new spin on old favorites, it also makes the process of baking, transporting, and storage much easier.  And simplicity is something anyone can appreciate during these busy, blustery days.

banana cake with chocolate frosting

I love when Gus's birthday rolls around because it's one of the rare times that I make a two-layer cake.  This year he asked for a chocolate/banana combination - one of my favorite flavor pairings - so I was more than happy to oblige.  

Gus asked for a chocolate banana cake last year as well, but the results were less than stellar.  The layers were dense and deflated; the heavy ganache icing, though delicious, only flattened them further.  This year I consulted various sources for a good recipe, and settled on one I came across on a couple blogs, originally from Southern Cakes cookbook by Nancie McDermott.

It's a banana cake - composed of buttermilk, mashed ripe bananas, and the usual suspects - paired with a buttery chocolate frosting.  Now, before I proceed, I must admit I'm not very well versed in cakes (unless you count all the hours of  "Ace of Cakes" and Food Network Challenge cake editions I've absorbed).  And I have to semi-retract the statement made in my cupcakes post about baking relying almost solely on a recipe, because cakes - even amateur ones - are an art, requiring skill, time, and patience. It's difficult to get them to rise perfectly, to cook evenly, to achieve layers level, to ice properly.

That being said, I think this recipe is pretty uncomplicated - aside from the frosting issue, which I will address in a moment (and which can be avoided). I did the batter in my KitchenAid (Jean I am forever indebted to you for this wonderful machine); and barely folded in the mashed bananas before popping the cake pans into the oven.  They browned in 35 minutes.  It was minimal effort, really.

The frosting was a bit of a different story.  I was initially drawn to the recipe, in fact, for its frosting intrigue.  It calls for

½ cup (1 stick) butter

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup evaporated milk or half-an-half

4 cups sifted confectioners sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

I liked the idea of using evaporated milk - I can see how it would add a nice consistency - but what I found even more interesting was the fact that the frosting is to be cooked on the stove.  Oh, and I guess this picture had something to do with my wanting to give it a go.

Unfortunately, my frosting did not turn out so well.  One reason may have been the lumpy cocoa powder I brought out of hibernation from my cabinet nook.  If you're going to try this frosting method, I would recommend buying a high quality cocoa powder and/or sifting it to get a fine consistency, because the lumps are really difficult to break up once you add it to the butter.  I would also advise keeping an overly cautious eye on the stove, stirring constantly over medium-low heat.  I thought I was being pretty attentive, but before I knew it I had puddles of liquefied cocoa sloshing around in a pot of simmering butter.

So I discarded it and opted for Plan B, which was to start over and skip the stove-top part altogether.  (One of the bloggers I read did the same thing.)  The result was basically a buttercream frosting, which ended up being the perfect consistency for the moist, springy banana cake.  The light, whipped consistency was also easy to spread. I smushed it around with a butter knife without paying too much attention and it came out pretty nice.

I'm going to go ahead and say it: I think this one was a success.  Despite the minor frosting blip, the cake came together really well. The slices cut perfectly, and four days later, it still tastes great chilled from the fridge.  This is one cake recipe I will likely make again.

vanilla cupcakes

Yesterday was my good friend Danielle's birthday, so baking was obviously in store.  Normally I default to brownies for friend's birthdays, but this time I wanted to try something different, so I opted for cupcakes.

When it comes to baking, I think the end product is almost entirely reliant upon picking out a good recipe, because the rest is just about following instructions. But choosing a good recipe can be a difficult task.  In this case, I initially set out to recreate Magnolia's cupcakes (we had them a couple weeks ago at work and they were so good I continued to eat the stale ones that were leftover last week).  Surprisingly (or not), Magnolia has three cookbooks sharing the bakery owner's famous recipes, and the second one, More from Magnolia contains the recipe for vanilla cupcakes. But it calls for an alarming amount of sugar and butter; and after reading a lot of the negative reviews on Food Network ("SO OVERATED!!!!!!!"; "EXTREMELY sweet"; "spongy and dried out quickly") I started second-guessing it.

So I turned to JoyofBaking.com, one of my go-to sites for cakes, quick breads, and bars.  It's not the most sophisticated website, and the ads are pretty annoying, but they have consistently good, very manageable recipes and a nice little introduction explaining the history and summary of each offering.

Like many of its recipes, JoyofBaking's vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting requires few ingredients and the steps are simple and straightforward.  (In fact, this recipe is quite similar to the Magnolia recipe, but with less butter and sugar.)

I used a mini muffin pan for the bite-size variety (...and because that's the only size pan I have).  The recipe yielded almost exactly 24 mini cupcakes.

Pre-oven

The cupcakes browned at the edges after about 18 minutes.  (Please excuse the imperfect ones in this batch.)

Baking complete

The cake had a nice flavor and a decent texture: not too dry, not too spongy.  The frosting, on the other hand, turned out to be too sugary, though it had a nice, whipped consistency.  (From all of the cupcake reviews and "best of" lists, I gather it's really difficult to nail down a good vanilla frosting.)

Vanilla buttercream frosting

Though I hope to one day master the art of piping icing, I like the homemade look on cupcakes.  So I stuck to my tried-and-true method of massaging it around into dips and waves with a butter knife.  My mom instilled in me a suspicion towards food coloring, so I left these au natural and decided to accessorize instead.  I love making and buying things for Danielle because she's the girliest person I know, and doing such allows me to unleash my inner girly side.  So I went crazy with the pink sugar sprinkles and rainbow snowflakes (which, mind you, do contain food coloring...but it feels less deliberate this way).

Girlified

Probably not the best vanilla cupcake recipe out there, but it's a good, traditional, homemade one (and anyway they photograph nicely). Click here for the full recipe.  And please, if you have a great vanilla cupcake recipe, please share!

Best New York Cupcakes from Serious Eats

Serious Eats recently compiled a list of NY's best cupcakes. And I never tire of "Best of" lists, so I just have to share! Click here for the slideshow.

Perfectly iced cupcakes from Tribeca Treats

Although I can't say I tried any of the cupcakes in the Top 12, I'm inclined to trust their judgment, or at least respect the list, because Serious Eats employed various judges, drew from a large indiscriminate pool of bakeries, lists their criteria, and admits to keeping track of everything in an excel sheet.  (This makes New York Magazine's list from last year, judged by the pastry chef of Gramercy Tavern, seem highly subjective in comparison.)

I think I just found my New Year's resolution for 2011 - a cupcake for every month!

Berrylicious Dessert

It normally irks me when people take liberties with the word "berry," but I made an exception here because it really is the perfect way to describe one of my favorite--and easiest to prepare--summer desserts: the berry crumble.  You can find recipes like this anywhere, or just make one up yourself, which is basically what I did.  Though, to be fair, I borrowed some inspiration from Vegetarian Times magazine (yes, they even do desserts!), The Joy of Cooking, and my mom of course.

If you've never made a crumble, you should! Basically you throw together your favorite assortment of fruit, sprinkle it with a crumb mixture, and bake.  No fancy equipment or technique necessary.  In fact, you can be downright sloppy about it because it's pretty hard to mess up; and because there's no such thing as a perfect-looking crumble.

In this case, I used some strawberries and blueberries that Gus's mom picked up for us at a farm stand.  I'm not sure if there's anything better than fresh, ripe, in-season local produce.  It reminds you of what fruit is at its essence--and of what you're missing out on during the rest of the year.  Sure, I can get big, firm, red--sometimes, even sweet--strawberries at my supermarket, but it's not until I walk past the stands at the Union Square farmer's market that I remember that strawberries have a very strong, sweet scent.  And the taste just doesn't compare.  Anyway, I digress, back to the crumble.  Here are my berries:

Now the next step is sort of optional, but I threw in a little cornstarch to make sure it wasn't terribly drippy.  If I had some lemon juice, I would've squirt some in too.

And now for the most important part: the crumb topping.  This is what makes it, folks. I used The Joy of Cooking's recipe for a basic streusal topping (1/3 C sugar,  2 tbsp flour, 2 tbsp butter) and added 1/2 C quick cooking oats.  Many of the crumble toppings I found online use brown sugar and more flour and butter...which probably makes more sense in retrospect.  But I guess it all depends on how much crumb topping you want in proportion to your berries.  I was using a little bread pan so this was perfect.

Then you just bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (or until it's all nice and bubbly) and you're done! Mine did come out a little soupy, which I didn't mind because I had planned on eating it with vanilla ice cream. 

The wonderful thing about summer berries is that they're great as they are; no need to dip in powdered sugar or chocolate.  But their incredible ripe flavor really comes through in recipes like this, which offers you the satisfaction of baking without all the fuss.

Um, I need this.

NY Mag reports that a 22-year-old hostess-turned-pastry chef at Marc Forgione has created a $9 “Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich” by layering strawberry ice cream between peanut butter cookies and freezing it. Genius.

Top NYC Cupcakes

Grub Street, New York Magazine's food blog, just recently posted an amazing slide show of the best of NYC cupcakes...at least according to Gramercy Tavern's all-star pastry chef, Nancy Olsen:

"Fifteen bakeries — from Brooklyn’s Baked to Two Little Red Hens uptown — dropped off more than 75 cupcakes to New York Magazine headquarters. With milk shots to cleanse the palate, Olson graded their versions of chocolate, vanilla, and everything in between on a ten-point system for taste, five for presentation, and five awarded at her discretion.

If this could somehow be a full-time job, and if such a job did not forge a direct path towards diabetes and morbid obesity, I would be first in line. I guess it's probably best that the ranking is in Olsen's hands--anyone who contributes something as wonderful-sounding as a Crunchy Milk Chocolate–Peanut butter layer cake to the world only deserves the very best.

But I digress. Olsen ranks the top 11 (why 11 and not 10, I'm not so sure) NYC cupcakes. She seems pretty discerning and her descriptions are honest when they need to be (she found many of the cupcakes much too dry). But ultimately, I think the pictures speak for themselves. #5, #4, and #2 top my "to try" list (especially #4--they're only $2 each!). I mean...just look at this picture, I almost don't have to eat it to know that this is probably the best cupcake in the city:
The only comment that made me second-guess Olsen's judgment was her favorable review of Batch's odd selection of cupcakes--"carrot-salted caramel" and "bacon caramel" are pairings which, in themselves sound like oxymorons, and in the context of "cupcakes," well, that just seems downright scary. I guess I can't knock it until I try it. Too bad I'm off pork.

I almost surprise myself to say that I've only ever tried one cupcake producer from this list: Magnolia, of course because I would feel so "out of touch" if I hadn't. From what I remember, the chocolate icing did release a flood of endorphins, but the cake part itself was lackluster. I'm not so sure it lives up to all that hype. I've also tried Crumbs, but that's like saying I've been to Sbarro if this were a pizza competition (ok, maybe that's a little harsh). Gus is a fan of Billy's Bakery and recently became enraptured by Sweet Revenge's red velvet cupcake. Apparently Sugar Sweet Sunshine tops many New Yorker's lists.

As someone who likes to hold strong opinions about food, I just know that I have a lot of catching up to do.