Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Desserts

Brown That Butter! Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie Update

Last year, I attempted Cook's Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies from the May 2009 issue. The cookies turned out really well (note the positive comments from my cookie taster friends) even though I didn't quite follow the recipe. A few weeks back, I decided to give the cookie recipe another go, but this time that I would actually perform the recipe's most critical step — browning the butter — instead of just melting it as I had done the first time.

The difference in the result was amazing — the cookies had this amazingly rich, caramel and butterscotch-like flavor to them that I don't think I have ever experienced in a cookie. The first time I made these cookies without browning the butter I thought they were rich and had caramel undertones, but wow, actually browning the butter made such an impact to enhance these cookies. To brown the butter, I used an All Clad skillet and heated the butter for much longer than called for in the recipe — maybe 7 minutes instead of the 1 – 3 the recipe indicated it would take. I also recommend baking the cookies until they look completely set because if you follow the recipe's baking instructions (just until the edges are set, and centers are still soft), the cookies seem way too underbaked, at least for my taste.

So, brown that butter! And let me know if there are other baked goods that would benefit from this technique!

October 26, 2011
Madhu Knits and Cooks Returns with Mark Bittman’s Mango-Coconut-Lime Bars!

Hello again! I recently moved and the relocation process unfortunately included putting most of my apartment stuff (including all of my cooking equipment) into storage. The unpacking/settling in process has also taken more time than I envisioned, so blogging — though certainly not knitting or cooking — has fallen a bit by the wayside. I am happy to finally return though with another library cookbook experiment — Mark Bittman's mango-coconut lime bars from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

I picked up the book while browsing the shelfs at my new public library branch, and was very excited to see it. I have been debating for years whether I should buy this book which is supposed to be a comprehensive vegetarian cookbook (and written by Mark Bittman, who I adore, of course). I have held back though given my previous track record with neglecting the cookbooks and cooking magazines I own. I haven't made a final decision on the Bittman book yet, but will probably pick up the book again from the library in the coming months to try a few more of the recipes before making the final decision.

I decided to try the mango-cococut-lime bars after flipping through the index to find recipes that incorporate mangos because I had a rapidly ripening mango sitting on my new kitchen counter for days. The mango-coconut-lime bars seemed perfect because I also had half of a lime in my fridge from some salsa I made, and could easily buy shredded coconut on my next trip to the Indian grocery store.

The bars were pretty easy to make — basically a variant of lemon bars, with a shortbread base, a citrus-custardy topping, and toasted coconut flakes on top instead of powdered sugar. While I enjoyed these bars, I have to admit that I found them to be a little bit too eggy in flavor. After the bars sat in the fridge for the day, the mango and lime flavors came out a bit more, but I still felt like I was eating some sort of egg custard instead of a citrus bar. If I make this recipe again, I will probably add more than 1/4 cup of the mango puree and maybe increase the amount of lime zest and/or juice used.

August 10, 2011
Cook’s Illustrated Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cake — A Great Seasonal Treat

Cook's Illustrated delivers another great recipe with the Classic Gingerbread Cake from the January & February 2011 issue. I was intrigued by the recipe because I don't think I have ever had gingerbread cake — just gingerbread cookies (and I don't think I've tried gingerbread cookies in years!). The recipe also seemed interesting because it called for fresh ginger in addition to the dried ginger that one usually sees in gingerbread (cookie) recipes. I've been buying a lot of fresh ginger lately for my cooking, so trying this cake recipe seemed like a good way to not only use up some leftover ginger, but also have an excuse to finally buy some molasses!

The cake was fairly easy to prepare and bake. My only modification was to decrease the amount of dried ginger to 1 tablespoon as suggested in the recipe note. The flavor and consistency of the cake were both fantastic — well-spiced, just lightly sweet, and moist. I served the cake by itself (without whipped cream), but when I probably make it next winter, I will likely convert the cake into more of a "finished" product by adding some sort of cream or sauce to it.

March 22, 2011
Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins/Cupcakes — So Great that I Made Them Twice in One Week!

Lots of rapidly aging oranges + dwindling bag of chocolate chips (due to my inability to stop eating handfuls of them as a fake dessert/snack) + hankering for real desserts = opening every cookbook in my house to find something to make use of these two ingredients! I initially thought I would just find a recipe that could serve as a good base for the orange and the chocolate chips, but not a recipe that would actually be built around them.

Enter the Gourmet Cookbook and its recipe for Orange Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting. The cupcakes were incredibly easy to make, and hot out of the oven, they tasted like those delicious holiday orange flavored chocolates — a wonderful, unexpected bonus! I omitted the chocolate frosting — too much additional work that would have prevented me from consuming several cupcakes once they had barely cooled from baking. By skipping the chocolate frosting, I also convinced myself that I could call them "muffins" and therefore eat them for breakfast as well.

A modified version of the recipe can be found online here.

November 30, 2010
America’s Test Kitchen Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies — They Didn’t Overpromise!

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of the Cook's Illustrated products. I subscribe to Cook's Illustrated magazine, love watching America's Test Kitchen on PBS, and of course try to use their website whenever possible to get top-notch recipe ideas and technique tips. If you really want to learn how to cook, I think there is no better source than the Cook's Illustrated folks. Check out their products — you won't be disappointed!

This past weekend, I tried their Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe. Sampling a cookie just out of the oven confirmed that this was probably the best homemade cookie I have ever tried. As I'll describe after the picture below, I kind of messed up the recipe too, so I can only imagine what they would have tasted like if I had more closely followed the directions.

The cookies had incredibly complex and satisfying flavors, with deep butter, sugar and caramel tastes in each bite. But don't just take my word for it — check out additional reactions to the cookies:

"man, the cookies are goooooooooood. so rich, so flavorful."

"Madhuri, one of our most important cookie bakers, recaptures the glory of baking cookies from an earlier era. Weaving a delicate intricate mixture of butter sugar and chocolate with passion, vigor and principle, her cookies are classic yet original. Highly recommended eating for both students and professional cookie eaters."

To access this recipe, just complete a free registration with the America's Test Kitchen website and enjoy! My inadvertent recipe modifications follow the picture.

As I was making the recipe, I made the following modifications, most of which were a function of my laziness or what was in my cabinets at the time. First, I didn't fully brown the butter because I decided to use a small pot instead of a larger skillet for melting the butter. Second, I ended up melting all of the butter instead of only melting a portion of the butter because I didn't read the directions correctly. Third, the recipe calls for moist, fresh dark brown sugar and I ended up older dark brown sugar, which may or may not have been passed the "expiration" date on the bag. Fourth, I used only one cup of chocolate chips but that was actually due to personal preference that I don't like chocolate chips to overwhelm the cookie. Finally, I underbaked the first batch of cookies (it was hard for me to tell when they were baked, according to the recipe directions that the centers should still be soft while the edges just set), so after sitting outside of the oven for 10 – 15 minutes, I decided to try "rebaking" them for a few minutes. This led to a slightly overbaked cookie, but I like my cookies to be a bit harder and crunchier so it worked out just fine for me!

The ultimate point with sharing these modifications though is that even if you deviate from this recipe and mess up a few things, the results will likely be fantastic!

November 5, 2010
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting for Carlos! Colorful and Cool for a Celebration! (Apparently “C” is the Letter of the Day!)

I have never been particularly fond of carrot cakes. I actually have a natural aversion to eating carrot cake because they frequently include walnuts, to which I am very allergic. I recently had an excuse though to make a Madhu-friendly, nut-free carrot cake — my friend Carlos had a surprise birthday party thrown in his honor, and there is nothing he likes more than carrot cake (noting of course though that Carlos is an enthusiastic consumer of other MadhuKnitsandCooks.com products).

In making this carrot cake, I successfully stuck to my new-ish pledge of trying to use my cookbooks instead of the Internet for recipe and technique ideas. I used my Gourmet Cookbook, which had a recipe from Felix Papadakis, and the process and result could not have made me happier. The recipe was incredibly easy for a carrot cake novice and I only made a few ingredient changes — I omitted both the walnuts and the optional raisins, and used unsweetened shredded coconut instead of the recipe's sweetened flaked coconut. I also followed the directions pretty closely, though used two 8 by 8-inch square pans instead of two 9-inch round pans to adjust to what I had available. Using the 8-inch square pans required me to bake the cakes for a few minutes longer than what was called for by the recipe. Finally, I probably should have chilled the frosting for longer in the fridge (I had cooled it for only an hour or so after making it). It has been insanely hot in D.C. lately so the frosting at room temperature was a bit tricky to use, which it made it more difficult to frost the cake. But, all in all, it was a really simple (and quick) cake to bake and assemble.

At the surprise birthday party, I am pleased to say that the cake was not only a big hit with Carlos, the birthday celebrator:

But also his fiancee, and the many other friends they had in attendance. While I have avoided carrot cakes pretty zealously in the past, this is a recipe I will not shy away from making in the future, even for non-carrot cake enthusiasts!

July 20, 2010
Smooth and Spicy Cinnamon Ice Cream

To cap off a multi-course Indian meal I cooked for some guests last Thursday night, I decided to try making a new ice cream flavor. Unfortunately, I did not follow my recent rule of trying recipes in my cookbooks and cooking magazines, and instead went straight to the Internet to try to find something new. I was hoping for something Indian-inspired like mango, but couldn't find a recipe that wouldn't require a ripe mango (which given that I was doing this search the morning of my dinner might have been too difficult to procure). So I continued searching for something new — and to clarify, that means a first-time, homemade recipe for me, not the first time I would try that flavor of ice cream. Most of what I could find on Epicurious.com though required an instant thermometer, which I don't have, so I went to Allrecipes.com where I thought the recipes would be a little less precise. Thankfully, I was able to quickly find a recipe that I thought would work — the recipe was a cinnamon flavored ice cream that I thought would have the right flavor and feel to cap off my Indian dinner.

True to my initial impression, the recipe was fairly easy to make though I admit that I overcooked the custard a bit as I was trying to multi-task and wash the dishes while it came to a simmer. I was able to separate the more thick/cooked parts from the majority of the custard though, and the result was incredibly smooth and really flavorful — almost spicy given the amount of cinnamon called for in the recipe. The contrast between the texture and flavor was pretty distinct, and it was not only a big hit at the conclusion of my dinner, but also when I served some of the leftovers on the 4th of July.

I think my next ice cream for an Indian dinner will be grinding up some cardamom for a cardamom-spiced ice cream — I had the best cardamom gelato last night, and it definitely made me kick myself for not thinking of that last week!

July 6, 2010
Awesomely Light and Soft Lime Cookies

For a Memorial Day barbecue, I wanted to make a new dessert that wouldn't require me to head to the grocery store. As I was looking through the fridge, primarily to see if I had any eggs and butter, and I noticed two limes sitting on one of the door shelves. I thought to myself — I make and see baked goods with lemon (lemon bars, lemon ricotta cookies) all the time, why not use limes? And I had just purchased my first microplane the day before, so I think citrus and zesting were on my mind. Unlike my general inclination to look for recipes on the internet as a first resort, I actually did try to look in some of my magazines for a lime-flavored recipe that wouldn't use more than 2 limes. Unfortunately though, I couldn't find anything in at least the handful that I flipped through, so defaulted back to the internet to find something. I went back and forth on a few different recipes on Allrecipes.com, and ended up selecting the linked recipe for Spring Lime Tea Cookies because it met my requirement of using ingredients I had available at home, came up with the perfect amount of cookies for this event (24), and seemed relatively straightforward and quick.

True to my initial impression, this recipe was incredibly easy and fast to make (especially with a microplane, which I highly recommend you purchase), and the cookies were really, really tasty and super-light (almost had the consistency of the lemon ricotta cookie I like so much). I ended up omitting the glaze because it made the cookies have way too much lime and sugar flavor, and detracted from how airy and pop-able these cookies are. Needless to say, these were a big hit at the party, despite folks asking "wait, these are LIME cookies??" before trying them 🙂

June 20, 2010
Experimentation with Roux Continues with Dark Chocolate Souffles

The Vegetarian Times continues to deliver with big hits. Last weekend, I made the Dark Chocolate Souffles in the "roux how-to" section of the March 2010 issue, and each souffle is only 280 calories despite tasting like it was easily double that amount! The souffles were relatively easy to make, and were quite rich and creamy when completed (though I think I slightly underbaked them, so they were a little too creamy compared to other souffles).

I halved the recipe to make 4 souffles instead of 8, and in the process, I made a few unintended alterations to the recipe. I ended up using the full 1/2 cup of sugar instead of halving it for the recipe, and I also used 2 tbsps of cocoa powder instead of reducing the amount from 3 tbsps to 1.5 tbsps. I also baked the souffles for approximately 6 minutes, but would probably go up to 8 the next time I make the recipe.

While not as fluffy as the Mark Bittman easy Chocolate Souffle recipe, the flavor of these souffles is really intense and I think an excellent way to properly finish a good meal. Definitely give this recipe a try, even if its your first souffle!

May 31, 2010
Cook’s Illustrated Chewy Brownies (Just Like the Cardboard Box Kind!)

This will be a relatively brief post to describe my attempt at making the March/April 2010 Cook's Illustrated Chewy Brownies recipe (see, I really am trying to use my cooking magazines more!). First, I have to say, compared to a number of Cook's Illustrated recipes, this baked goods recipe didn't actually require using a number of new techniques or adding several steps beyond a "standard" recipe to achieve a good end result. Sometimes after making their recipes, I admit that I actually pretty tired from all of the effort I put in to their dishes 🙂 However, despite that brief respite that the editors allow us, the recipe called for baking the brownies in a pan that was covered in a foil "sling" — so two large pieces of foil that covered the entire pan, and supposedly allowed one to remove the brownies easily from the pan to allow the brownies to cool more quickly on a wire rack. Removing the foil sling from the brownies once they were fully cooked though ended up being a HUGE pain, and I had to scrape away the foil in some places, despite the healthy coating of cooking spray I had used to coat the sling.

The final result was pretty fantastic — true to the recipe's description, the brownies had a shiny, hard coating on top, just like the brownies that you get when you use a semi pre-made box version of brownies. The brownies were also very dense and fudgy — perfect for any true chocolate lover. While they were a little rich for my taste, the brownies were quickly gobbled up in the office and I think they'll be added into future potluck/picnic/birthday celebration baking rotations.

April 28, 2010