Life Philosophy #734: If not for yourself, bake for others. 

I haven’t been baking enough. It’s been a strained relationship with my oven, and the poor appliance has been complaining of neglect.

And worse, I’ve been denying myself of something I really enjoy. I love mixing and stirring and folding and spreading batter in a tin. I love that you can’t tinker forever with your baking – you do the work, pop it in the oven, and then you are done and you must pray and wait.

The real problem is that when I bake, I eat. Ah, but moderation, you say! It’s as simple as moderation! Well, frankly, I’m not very good at moderation. When I bake, I eat and eat and eat, until I’ve finished the entire batch of cookies over a period of an afternoon. Sometimes, I’ll alternate cookies with bites of cheddar to get that elusive sweet and salty combination. Or I rationalize bundt cake for both breakfast and afternoon snack. When I bake, the line between treat and meal becomes blurred, and terrible things happen.

At some point in the past several years, I gave up my love of baking to pursue more health conscious pursuits. Now, instead of cookies, my oven is used for braising or heating up a single frozen biscuit, or maybe some Trader Joe’s Naan. On good days, I may bake an apple and at least get the satisfaction of the smell of warming cinnamon. This restriction has been good for keeping myself on the right track (calorically speaking), but I’ve suffered emotionally. I miss the calming effect of baking, the sweet smells in the kitchen, and the satisfaction when things turn out right.

So with holidays around the corner, and the potential for winter doldrums, I’m going to be back peeking in at rising cookies, cakes, and breads. And I’m just going to give most of what I bake away. If you are a committed eater, let me know, and we can work something out.

I think my plan has been working out pretty splendidly. Last week I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake. It’s my absolute favorite recipe in the world. I divided the batch into two loaves, and sent one to my brother who is a sophomore at George Mason, the other I brought to Devon’s office in a sort of stealth cake-drop that made people really happy. (I snuck in and left the cake on his desk when they were out of the office). Instead of eating cake for days, I had one slice, and it was delicious.

This week, I decided to make cookies. It was good timing because Bob’s Red Mill and California Olive Ranch had just offered to send me some of their products to bake with. And lord knows I love free baking ingredients. Since I use both of these companies’ products regularly, this was a no brainer.

There are so many delightful things you can bake with olive oil. My favorite flavor pairing is olive oil with citrus. There is something about the sweet citrus that stands up nicely to the sort of spicy, fruitiness of the oil. (This works well in salads, too.) And then you can take the combination a step further, and add almonds, or polenta.

One of my favorite cakes is a recipe from Claudia Roden, made with whole oranges, almonds and olive oil. I’ve love Gina DePalma’s Olive Oil and Polenta Cake,  and am desperate to try Niahm Shields‘ recipe for ‘little polenta, almond, and blood orange cakes’ in her new book ‘Comfort and Spice‘.

But, this week, instead of a cake (that I’d likely consume in its entirety), I opted to boost my classic shortbread recipe, and play around with citrus, olive oil and polenta. And then do a second round, gluten free. These cookies remind me of Italy, and christmas, and happiness in winter.

Orange Olive Oil Shortbread
Makes about 2 dozen

I actually made two separate batches of this cookie. The first I used 1 1/2 cups regular AP flour and 1/2 cup cornmeal (polenta) and it resulted in a satisfying crunchy cookie. The second go around I used 2 cups of Bob’s Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour, and omitted the cornmeal. I wanted to see if I could do a good GF version, and was happy to find that it worked out well! The gluten free version was lighter and crispier, but both were pretty splendid.

About the olive oil – you can actually use a pretty robust olive oil, and you’ll get a nice grassy, fruity undertone. Or, if you’d like to tone the olive back a little bit, you can use a more mild and buttery oil. California Olive Ranch sent over the Artois Ranch, which was more mellow for baking, but I’ve also used their Everyday Extra Virgin with great success in cookies.

2 cups all purpose flour (or 1.5 cups + 1/2 cup cornmeal)
a pinch of kosher salt
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
zest of a small fragrant orange

1. In a bowl, mix flour, cornmeal (if using) and salt, and set aside.

2. In the bowl of a mixer, add olive oil, softened butter and sugar, and beat on medium speed just until just smooth, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla extract, and orange zest, and beat until combined. Set speed of mixer to low. Slowly add flour mixture to the mixer, and beat on a low speed until blended and just coming together. This will be a moist and airy dough, but will firm up enough to cut when put in the freezer.

3. On a piece of parchment on top of a piece of tin foil, form dough into a log and roll up (like a burrito); freeze 1 hour (or up to a month). 10 minutes before taking the dough out of the freezer, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. Remove shortbread from the freezer and remove parchment. Slice logs into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, and space about 1 inch apart on baking sheets. Bake in the preheated oven until the edges are just slightly golden, about 12 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. (Cooling both allows the cookies to firm up so that they don’t fall apart, and will also help you to avoid burning your mouth on 350 degree butter.)

Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 1 week, but believe me, they won’t last this long. They are also freezable, for up to a month. The bonus when you freeze them is that the butter in the cookie firms up slightly. They taste pretty fantastic frozen, if you ask me.

Every morning I wake up and head to the kitchen to put the kettle on. I’m not sure when coffee became part of my morning routine – sometime after I graduated college and settled into my own first kitchen, perhaps – but it quickly became my favorite part of the day, a personal and quiet moment just for me.

I like coffee in the morning because it requires a little bit of careful attention to make a good cup, but nothing I can’t do while still groggy from my deep slumber. There are a bevy of contraptions to use – the coffee machine, the Mukka, the single dripper and filter, but lately I’ve been using my French Press. It makes more coffee than I need, but I get great satisfaction out of pushing down the plunger and separating the grinds from my magic liquid elixir.

There is also ritual in the type of drinking vessel and how you take your coffee. My mom drinks hers black, from the mugs she collects around the world from each city she visits. My dad likes his in the small grey San Francisco mug, with fat free half and half, and several packets of Splenda. I think he’d prefer cream and sugar, but he abstains. I have mugs for different moods: short, round and white with a curved handle, or brown with no handle and a rubber ring you can hold without burning your fingers. I take my coffee too, according to mood – sometimes black to taste the true flavor of the beans, more often with a splash of half and half, or on the days I feel like treating myself, mixed with heavy whipping cream.

Once the coffee is done, I sit down with my mug and a book and begin my morning. Right now my wake-up literature is Best Food Writing 2011, thanks to the kind folks at Da Capo Press. I’ve been reading the collection backwards, and the first story I read, a short piece about Toast by Michael Procopio is in itself worth buying the book for.

On weekends, I sit down with my coffee and some breakfast and my computer, and attempt to plan out my week in food. Usually I surround myself with cookbooks as well, and create lists of breakfasts, lunches and dinners and a few good kitchen projects to get me excited about life.

This week I decided that my kitchen adventure was going to include coffee. This is problematic because I am in a committed relationship with someone who does not like coffee in the least bit, and is happily content living a life without. The only exception he makes is for ice cream, and it has been seasonally cold this week, so I wasn’t too keen on that idea.

But, then, I thought – a trick! What if I put the coffee in pudding? Devon loves pudding in all forms! If I put the coffee in the pudding, he will not be able to resist it. He will eat it even if he doesn’t love the taste, but will be happy because it is pudding, that sweet and creamy manna from heaven! I’m well aware that this logic is selfish, and not very loving, (and will make him grumble when he reads this) but you should see his face when he has just made himself a box of Dr. Oetker’s butterscotch. And home made pudding is always better.

I found a good recipe (see below) and adapted it: my first go around was a chocolate coffee pudding with Kahlua whipped cream. Then I made a second batch, adapting it once more: having tweaked my pudding technique, I made a riff on Turkish coffee – a straight coffee pudding scented with heady cardamom pods.

Chocolate Coffee Pudding
makes 4 small cups
(or 3 if you manage to eat a full ½ cup while cooking…)

I noticed this recipe for Coffee Pudding on Not Without Salt about a year ago. I bookmarked it, hoping for some excuse to make a batch. Last week I got a package of Peet’s coffee in the mail from the Foodbuzz tastemaker program, and decided that this was as good a time as any. I adapted it for my taste – a punch of chocolate for my sweet tooth.

1 ½ cups heavy cream (or half and half, but the cream makes it tasty!)
½ cup strongly brewed coffee (or espresso)
2 ounces really good quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, in pieces.
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, stir the cream and the coffee, and the chocolate together with a wooden spoon until it comes to a simmer.

2. In a small bowl, stir together the cornstarch, salt and sugar. Whisk to remove the lumps. (I find a mini-whisk is really useful for this purpose!)

3. As soon as the cream and coffee mixture comes to a simmer, take a few tablespoons of the creamy liquid and add it to the cornstarch mixture to create a slurry; whisk well to combine. Then dump the (now wet) cornstarch slurry back into the warm cream and coffee. Bring to a boil for 1 minute as to activate the cornstarch.

4. If you are intent on the smoothest pudding, pour the pudding through a fine strainer to remove any lumps (I’m usually too lazy to do this). Spoon into four small pudding dishes (or two large coffee cups, if you want to be cute and gluttonous at the same time.) You can cover the surface with plastic wrap if you don’t like skin forming, but I do, so I just cover the cups loosely. Refrigerate until set, at least three hours. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

Whipped cream note: to make whipped cream, use heavy cream and a little bit of sugar. You can flavor it with a capful of vanilla extract, or ­in this case, a little rum or even Kahlua works marvelously.

Variation – Coffee Cardamom Pudding: omit the chocolate, and use ¼ cup brown sugar. In the first step, steep 3-5 cardamom pods in the warming cream and coffee. Remove the cardamom when it comes to a simmer, and follow the recipe the same way.

Here’s a public service announcement for you.

This product exists, and my brother smuggled it across the border from Canada. I started weeping.

That’s all for now. I have a date with the jar and a spoon.

Hint To Self #324: If you are hosting a cookie competition, there is no way in hell that you will not eat dozens of delicious cookies. Your plan of 3-5 cookie samples is an outrageous underestimation of the truth, and a lie to yourself. You’ve learned this at countless previous competitions. Plan accordingly.

But, before I re-cap the hardcore competition (yeehaw!), I want to take a quick moment of reflection. Today, a reader who shall go nameless, actually apologized for commenting so often on my blog, and let me know that she hoped I didn’t think she was crazy. This actually made me a little sad, because it couldn’t be farther from the truth. I can’t thank you all enough for coming and reading my blog. The reality is, every time I read a comment, my heart fills with joy. And yes, that even goes for my mom, who I know has been reading every single post dutifully since the beginning.

My first attempts at blogging as a teenager were a personal pursuit. Nobody actually read my LiveJournal, and I was okay with that. I started writing this blog though because I missed my family, my home, my community, and food. It was a scattered attempt to find my place in this world, to share my experiences and to exist within a community of like-minded folks that I so admire. Over the past few years, it has been truly miraculous to meet so many wonderful people because of this blog, and while working at Omnivore Books. You’ve all made my life so much greater for it, and again, I thank you.

Off my sentimental soapbox for a bit, it’s time for another competition round-up from our little corner of the world at Omnivore Books on Food! We’ve had pies, fried chicken, pumpkin recipes, tomato recipes to name a few. This time, with cookies, I think we truly took it to another level.

Now, if you know me personally, you know my love for cookies runs deep. I can tell you that it is exactly an 11 minute walk to Anthony’s Cookies from Omnivore Books. When I test a new cookbook, if they have an oatmeal chocolate chip recipe, you can be sure that I’ll make it. (Mad Hungry is in the lead – see the top cookie shot there). If you are ever in the area near Brown University, you need to make a pit stop for a Meeting Street cookie, which a friend of mine once admitted that if she could, she would pro-create with one. Her grandmother, incidentally, makes a peanut butter cookie that rivals all others. And if you are ever able to make it to Big Sur Bakery, Michelle’s chocolate chocolate chocolate cookies are glorious, as are all of the varieties.

I share this all with you, because, being cookie obsessed I hold very high standards, and today I was very impressed. There was a real breadth of entries in this competition. I’m missing about five here, because in the end we sort of just exploded with cookies.

In no particular order:

Brown Sugar Toffee, Chocolate Chip, Chewy Almond Raspberry, Jacques Torres Spiced Chocolate Sugar Cookies, Orange Polenta, Chai White Chocolate Shortbread, Macadamia White Chocolate Chip, Caramel Cashew Choc-Oat-Ban, Toasted Walnut, Crispy Spicy Gingerbread Coins, S’more Macarons, Mayan Mexican Chocolate, Crispy Sesame Sticks, Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Sugar Babies, Coconut Bars, Chocolate No-Bake Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge-gasms, Double Chocolate Mint, Cranberry Orange Pecan Oat, Coconut Pudding (gluten free!), Mocha Shortbread Chocolate, Salted Caramel Whoopie, Pecan Thumbprints, Raspberry Coconut Swirls, Mocha Squares, Chocolate Pecan Cherry, Mexican Hot Chocolate, Chewy Quinoa Raisin, Lemon Ricotta, Uncle Bill’s Cookies, Chocolate Spiced Cherry, Chocolate Chocolate, Double Chocolate Cherry Toffee, Chocolate Espresso, Triple Ginger, Lavender Shortbread, Salted Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate, Salted Chocolate Cherry Pistachio Cardamom, Toffee Milk Chocolate Dough Balls, Lemon Rosemary, Almond Butter, Cowboy Cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip, Monster Cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip, Perfect Chocolate Chip, Sable with Black Tea and Plum Jam, and Chocolate Toffee with Sea Salt.

I was happy to see so many people I know, and meet lots of new folks as well. (A quick shout out here to Irvin whose wonderful blog Eat The Love just got a nod from Saveur because he is a rockstar!!! And, because I met her for the first time last week, one to Annie the Baker, whose dough balls are the stuff of legend.)

The second place winner – who in my post-sugar-coma I neglected to write down her name – won for her Salted Peanut Butter Triple Chocolate Cookies.  As I started tallying the votes, I realized that I hadn’t tried one of these yet, and they were heading clearly to the lead. I’m glad that I snagged one before they were all gone! For her success, she won a coveted year long membership to The Bakers Dozen.

The winner, Julie Wise, won $150, with her Chocolate Toffee Cookies with Sea Salt. She entered the contest at the urging of her son, and is donating the winnings to his school, Mira Loma! So, pretty much, she also deserves an award in the coolest mom category.

Here is the winning recipe! Now I’m headed to sleep off the sugar coma. Celia, I believe, is a better woman than I, and last I checked twitter is heading to IN-N-OUT. That is dedication people. Have a great rest of the weekend everyone!

Chocolate Toffee Cookies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, where it was adapted from Bon Appetit

*     *     *
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 1.4-ounce chocolate-covered English toffee bars (such as Heath), coarsely chopped
1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped
Flaky sea salt for sprinkling (optional)

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl; whisk to blend. Stir chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Cool mixture to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla.

Stir in flour mixture, then toffee and nuts. Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or waxed paper. Drop batter by spoonfuls onto sheets, spacing two  inches apart. Sprinkle with a pinch of flaky sea salt, if you’re using it. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 10 to 13 minutes. Cool on sheets. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)