The Un-Grilled Cookies

It's a rainy day on the Cape.  The wind is gusting at 45 mph.  It is a day for tea and cookies.  Alas, it is the Cape, so we have no cookies that aren't soft with moisture.  Ahh, humidity...

Point of the story: I made cookies.  I used the grill cookbook like usual, but it's raining, so I baked them inside.  It was novel, using the oven in the summer to bake. 

Chunky Chewy Chocolate Cookies a la Sarah (i.e. I replaced the ingredients I didn't have with what I found in the house)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 package (11.5 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks, divided
3 large eggs
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (only had dark brown sugar, so I used about 3/4 cup)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (didn't use)
1 cup shredded coconut (Didn't use - used butterscotch chips instead)
1 cup raisins or dried cherries, or use half of each

1. In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt the butter with 1/2 package (about 1 cup) of the chocolate chunks, stirring constantly until smooth. Set aside to cool to lukewarm.   I used the double boiler.  I never understand why I should stir constantly if I can just let something cook for a while in a double boiler.

2. Prepare the grill for indirect cooking over medium heat (about 350°F).  (I preheated the oven to 350)

3. In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in the cooled butter-chocolate mixture.

4. In a medium bowl sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Gradually stir into the large bowl of batter. Add the walnuts, coconut, raisins and/or cherries, and the remaining 1 cup of chocolate chunks; stir to blend. The batter will be stiff.

5. Use a tablespoon and wet fingertips to drop 1-inch mounds of the batter onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, keeping the mounds about 2 inches apart (the cookies do not spread when baked). Grill, in batches, over indirect medium heat, with the lid closed as much as possible, for 20 minutes, keeping the grill's temperature as close to 350°F as possible. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet until they are easy to remove with a spatula, 2 to 3 minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.  I baked them for about 22 minutes.

Makes about 36 cookies

They came out very interestingly.   They kind of have a brownie-like consistency, definitely dense, but moist as well.  They're good, though not my favorite cookies of all time.  I'm not huge on chocolate-chocolate chip in general, so probably not the best judge.  They look awesome and don't spread at all when baking, so you can really jam them on the tray.  I think they'll do better when cooler.

I have pics, but the net down here won't ever let me load them, so I'll put them on when I get home.

http://weber.com/grillout/RecipeDetails.aspx?key=148&cid=8This picture is from the Weber website.

The Peanut Butter-Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cake (again)

I am naming 2010 the Year of Peanut Butter.

When asked what kind of cake she would like for her birthday, my friend Patti responded with a dainty, "chocolate peanut butter, please."  And so, I recreated the chocolate peanut butter chocolate cake from a few months ago. 

This time, don't tell, but I totally cheated.  I used a chocolate cake mix.  I made the ganache and buttercream from scratch, but the problem is the the chocolate cake from a cake mix really tastes as good as anything I make from scratch.  Often, it's better.  Chemicals make for good moisture, what can I say?

Anyway, here it is C-PB-C take two:

Patti enjoying her cake.

The Peanut Butter Cupcakes

It is my friend Anne (of guest-post fame)'s birthday tonight and therefore, I decided to make cupcakes.  I knew peanut butter was going to be making an appearance, and I was pretty sure about chocolate, but it took a while to figure out what the plan was.  Finally, I decided that this would be a good chance to play with the filling tip I bought the other day, so I decided to make peanut butter cup cakes and fill half with chocolate frosting and the other half with fluff, ice them with peanut butter buttercream and decorate with cuteness.  

After a bit of searching (and rejecting Paula Deen), I found a recipe for peanut butter cake that sounded peanut buttery enough on the "I Heart Cuppy Cakes" blog.  For the record, I do not approve of the name of this blog.  Recipe is in the link and posted below.

Peanut butter, vanilla, egg, butter, brown sugar, flour and baking powder, what could be bad?

I used the same frosting recipe as for the Chocolate Peanut Butter Awesomeness cake (also posted below)

The cupcakes looked and smelled like big peanut butter cookies.  Well, I guess they looked big, but smelled like normal peanut butter cookies.

I needed a variety of ingredients for the filling and topping.  I affectionately refer to this picture as Sugar High.

Half got filled with marshmallow fluff. The other half with chocolate frosting (which, yes, I bought, I was not going to make a 1/2 Cup of chocolate frosting). I should mention at this point that I had never filled cupcakes before.  And, honestly, I don't think I'll be doing it again anytime soon.  The tip is a 2" long metal tip that you're supposed to shove into the cupcake and squeeze.  I read the directions that came with it and it basically said, "shove the tip in the cupcake and fill with desired amount of filling, then release."  So, you know, that was helpful.  Because of the awesome instructions and my naivete, this did not go quite according to plan.  I pushed and I shoved and my pastry bag exploded three times.  It was gooey, and I thought the only thing to do with the exploded fluff was to eat it.  It was very yummy and I will be doing about 1,000 sit-ups later...  The chocolate ones filled slightly better, though I still really have no idea if there's actually anything inside them.  

  Somewhere on the internets I had seen someone decorate cupcakes with mini peanut butter cups disguised as mini-cupcakes, and I thought that was the CUTEST IDEA EVER.  So I stole it.  I apologize to whomever I am stealing from, but I have no recollection of where I saw it.  I used a small start tip to swirl frosting onto the peanut butter cups and made the look super cute. 

I thought since I was using peanut butter cups for the cupcakes filled with chocolate, that I should also have something to depict the cupcakes filled with fluff.  I found mini Charleston Chews at the store, so used them.  I think they're super cute too.

 

Attempting to pretend I know how to take a picture, I placed the cupcakes on white paper for a solid background(?).  I am including these next two images just in case anyone ever wondered what a mug shot of a cupcake would look like.

Recipes:
Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes (I got 14)

INGREDIENTS
For cupcakes
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter, room temp
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk


INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tin cupcs with paper cupcake liners
Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar until smoothly blended and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. Mix in egg. Add vanilla and beat for 1 minute or until batter smooth.
On low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 additions and the milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and mixing until the flour is incorporated and the batter looks smooth.
Fill each liner with a generous 1/4 cup of batter, to about 1/3 inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and are lightly browned and a toothpic inserted in the center comes out clean, about 22 minutes. There will be cracks on the top. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan on wire rack.

Peanut Butter Buttercream
(Cooks Illustrated, March 2005)
Ingredients

8	tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2	cup smooth peanut butter (don't use old-fashioned or natural brand)
3/4	cups confectioners' sugar
	Pinch table salt
1/2	teaspoon vanilla extract
1	tablespoon heavy cream

Instructions: 

In standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat butter and peanut butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners' sugar and salt; beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds; scrape bowl, add vanilla and heavy cream, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.

The Apple Cake

I've been on this baking-on-the-grill kick this summer and I realized that I never posted about the apple cake, which was the first thing I ever baked on the grill.  I think this one is the tastiest, followed closely by the vanilla cake used in Maggie's birthday cake. 

The apple cake recipe cake from the Weber's Real Grilling book as well.  I don't follow the directions 100% because they want you to cut in the butter and I want to do the whole thing in the mix master. 

I've made this twice with apples and once with plums and each time it's bee successful.  The one time I use the food processor instead of the mixer the batter was a little too thin and the consistency wasn't the same, but the flavor was good. 

Here are the recipe, links and pics:  
Apple Cake with Cinnamon Sugar 

Prep Time30 minutes 

Grilling Time35 to 40 minutes

Batter

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, plus more for greasing the pie pan

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup whole milk (I used 2%)

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Topping

1 large Granny Smith apple (I used a mac, it was what I had)

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup heavy cream, whipped (optional)

1. Prepare the grill for indirect cooking over medium heat (350° to 450°F).

2. Generously grease a 10-inch metal pie pan with butter. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cloves and mix well. Cut the 5 tablespoons of butter into small pieces and add to the bowl, mixing with your fingertips until you have a coarse meal. Whisk the milk, eggs, and vanilla and add to the bowl. Mix well. The batter should be well combined but still have some lumps. Pour the batter evenly into the pie pan.

3. Core and then slice the apple lengthwise into 1/8-inch thick slices. Arrange the slices on top of the batter around the outer edge of the pie pan, like petals of a flower, overlapping them slightly. In a small bowl mix the brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle evenly over the top of the apples and batter.

4. Grill over indirect medium heat, with the lid closed, for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan 90 degrees. Continue grilling, with the lid closed, until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes more. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve at room temperature with whipped cream, if desired.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

Again, I combined everything in the mix master, and it came out fine.  Indirect Medium Head, by the way, is when the front and the back burners are on medium and the middle burner is off.  You put the pan right in the middle of the grill.  By turning it half way through, it cooks evenly.

  I am loving this prepping all the ingredients before you start cooking thing.  Not only does it save time and clean-up, but it forces me to read the recipe in advance, which is something I typically forget to do.

I think this is sideways, but it's the cake ready to go into the oven.

Yummy

The Incredibly Hot Ice Cream Cake

For those of you who don't know, New England has been having an absurdly hot summer this year.  I am not really complaining- it's better than the absurdly rainy summer we had last year.  It has though, been making baking a bit of a challenge.  My father's birthday was June 30th.  Like any good daughter, I decided to make him a cake.  Baking for my dad is a bit of a challenge because he doesn't eat chocolate at night, doesn't eat nuts (ever) and doesn't have anything that screams out "DAD" at you.  Or so I though.  Until I remembered caramel.  My father loves caramel, butterscotch, all of that burnt, overly-sweet, sugary goodness.  So, I thought I'd make him a caramel cake.  But it was 1,000 degrees, so I thought I'd make him a caramel ICE CREAM cake...

Here's what happened:

Early on the morning of June 30th, I woke up on the Cape.  My parents left to get my niece and I was all alone to bake and boil in peace.  I found a recipe I liked and decided to go to town.  It was 88 degrees in the house when I started the process.  I had not discovered and embraced the idea of grill baking. 

I got out all my ingredients and got going.

Step 1: boil sugar and water on the stove until it makes goo.

It was now 89 degrees in the house.

Step 2: Preheat oven to 350 degree

It was now 90 degrees in the house.

I put the cake together, using warm, rather than fully cooled caramel because, really, what was it going to cool to? and put it in the oven.  In a springform pan.

NOTE: DO NOT BAKE A REGULAR CAKE IN A SPRINGFORM PAN

Step 3: While the cake was baking, I browned the butter for the frosting.  On the stove.

It was now 91 degrees in the house.

After 15 minutes, I was supposed to rotate the cake.  It's a good thing I did because HALF MY CAKE WAS NOW ON THE BOTTOM OF THE OVEN.

I turned off the oven and spent the next five minutes reaching into the 350 degree oven to get the cake batter off the bottom so the angry lady who lives in the smoke detector and incessantly yells "EVACUATE" would not start hollering at me.

It was now 1,000 degrees in the house. 

When the half-as-high-as-it-should-have-been cake came out of the oven, I went to the grocery store to get the ice cream.

Then came the fun part.  Assembling an ice cream cake in a 95 degree kitchen (it had cooled a bit).  I was really hot, and I kind of did this wrong, but I just want it to be done.

I cut the cake in half length-wise and put the bottom half in the springform pan in the freezer.  After a bit I took it out and smushed the ice cream on top of it.  I then poured on more caramel sauce, put the top of the cake on it, frosted it, dumped some caramel chips on and put it back in the freezer. 

I SHOULD have taken my time and put it back in the freezer after each step: cake, freeze, ice cream, freeze, caramel, freeze, cake top, freeze, and so on.  Because I was working too fast, stuff melted and the caramel sauce never really set.

In the end, it didn't matter, was tasted really good.  (it was actually too sweet for me, I peeled the cake off and just ate the ice cream and got laughed at, like usual) And it didn't look half bad either:

The Second Birthday Cake

My aforementioned niece Maggie turned two this month.  This fact is shocking because a. she is so fricken big, I have no idea when that happened, and b. she already has a little sister, who is already six months old (i.e. family events are a bit chaotic).

Here's a shot from the fourth of me with the two girls, Maggie and Zivah: 

Maggie had two birthday celebrations this year, one on her actual birthday at her house with her big brother, little sister, parents and grandparents (on her mom's side) and one at Grammy's Cape house with my parents (her grandparents on her dad's side) and me a few days later.  Note the pun in the post title: this was both her second birthday cake because she turned two, and the second birthday cake she had to celebrate.  (I crack me up).

Unfortunately, I only have slightly yellow pictures I took with my phone.  There might be more later if my father can find the cord that connects his camera to the computer.  I made a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream because when asked what kind of birthday cake she wanted the week before, Maggie replied, "a white cake with strawberries," and well, we already knew she liked whipped cream.

The coolest part about the cake though, was that I cooked it on the grill.  It was way too hot to turn on the oven in house (a fact I learned the hard way when making my father's birthday cake a few weeks earlier - there is no post because I have no pictures and forgot about it until just now). We have a cookbook called Weber's Real Grilling, which is awesome.  I had made an apple cake from it on the grill in the past, and this time followed a recipe for a vanilla cake.    It was super easy, didn't heat up the house and was incredibly moist and delicious.

I made the single layer and let it cook and then cut it in half horizontally, filled it with whipped cream and strawberries, the decorated the top with the same and it was done.  I think it's one of the prettiest cakes I've ever made and was certainly one of the simplest as well.

One note: the recipe called for a 2" high cake pan.  The one I used was about 1.5" and it was OK, but was definitely pushing it.  I'll be picking up a higher one for when I do it again.  Also, if you make the apple cake (which I recommend), make the batter in a mixer, not a food processor.  I did it both ways and in the food processor the batter turned out too thin and it didn't come out as well.

My father found his camera cord!  Here are some more pics:

The Fourth of July

I am way behind on posting and there has been quite a bit of cooking going on around here.  I am going to start with the 4th of July barbecue this year.

Like last year, my mother did her annual 4th of July barbecue.  This year we thought we'd mix it up a little and decided to make, rather than hamburgers and hot dogs, tuna burger and salmon burger sliders.  The salmon burger was a pretty straight-forward recipe that I think we found somewhere online and the tuna burger was a Thai-style, with cilantro and soy.  Both were very tasty.  We made a cilantro mayonnaise, a wasabi mayonnaise and a chipotle mayonnaise to go along with them.  We found cute little rolls to go with them.  All in all, very successful.

For dessert, my mom found a recipe for a red velvet cake that she liked.  I said she should make it two layers and make one red velvet and the other dye blue, then with the white frosting, it would be red, white and blue.  The thought was taken one step beyond...

We did put whipped-cream filled strawberries on top of the cake.  There was nothing wrong with that.  We also discovered that my niece, Maggie, has no problem helping clean up the whipped cream making process: