TWD: Honey Wheat Cookies

*sigh*

Yep, another picture-less week. Nikon has received my camera as of Saturday, so I'm hopeful that I'll have it back in the next 7-10 days. Another point for Nikon - they emailed me an "invoice" telling me that a) my camera is under warranty so the repair will be free and b) exactly what accessories (battery, memory card, etc) my camera came with. Nothing like peace of mind for my poor little camera.

But that hasn't stopped me from baking! I currently have brownies, cake, and two types of cookies in my freezer right now. Don't look at me cross-eyed - it's the only way I can keep myself from sneaking cookie after cookie at night! Lucky for me, one of the types of cookies I have squirreled away is this honey wheat cookie. As crunchy-hippy as these cookies may sound (a cup of wheat germ?), they're a wonderful surprise. Soft, slightly sweet (I used a pumpkin honey from my local farmer's market), and wonderfully textured from the wheat germ.

And please tell me I'm not the only one who sat there and portioned out the cookies, rolled them in wheat germ, and decided that they looked exactly like haystacks? Cute little furry haystack-cookies? I nearly didn't bake them, just because they looked so adorable unbaked. But no worries - just for you, readers, they were sacrificed. I mean baked. And eaten. This is a sleeper hit of a cookie recipe, let me tell you. Although I have a secret: I didn't take them into work. Wheat germ is wasted on guys who believe the only good beer is Miller Lite *shudder*

So take home message? Well, two - Nikon is awesome, and so are these honey wheat cookies. So Michelle? You rock. In an awesomely crunchy-hippy-wheat germ-y way.

TWD: Chocolate Chip Cookies, Brownies, and Zero Photos

Yes, I'm still camera-less. The nice Nikon service tech person tells me that I'll get it back in 10-14 days, so it'll be another couple of weeks before my posts have pictures. Sadness, eh? By the way though, their service line is AWESOME. Seriously, I called, and within 2 minutes was not only talking to someone, they emailed me a link to the webpage for setting up and printing out a packing slip, told me what they believed the problem was, and reassured me that it should be an easy fix. Nice job, Nikon.

So lest you think I haven't been baking, I decided to visit and attempt to prevail upon your faith in my good character. I did bake both the brownies and cookies, I swear - there's just no photo proof. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I know I have no good character, so just trust me despite everything your brain is telling you. Please?

Tanya chose Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia last week, and while it took me until Wednesday to make them, I prevailed! I've been in a bit of a funk, so actually wanting to bake was a huge thing. There were some pretty significant changes though - I halved the butter (I know! I know!) and used half semisweet and half unsweetened chocolate. The latter change was because that's all I had, and the former? Well, let's just say I forgot to haul out 2 sticks of butter that morning and so I only had one stick softened when the baking urge hit. They baked up in 23 minutes in an 11"x7" "brownie" pan (somehow I have two of these???), and into the freezer they went. Even minus the butter, they were intensely fudgey and chocolatey - definitely a good recipe, although not my favorite.

This week we had Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - I had made these in the espresso version a year or so ago, so knew what I wanted to do to make them more to my liking. Hers come out very thin and crispy on the edges, with a LOT of chocolate chunks. I, on the other hand, find that my favorite chocolate chip cookies have a prominent vanilla flavor, use a hefty amount of brown sugar, and are chewy through and through. With the blessing of a number of people in the P&Q, I halved the butter, flipped the proportions of white and brown sugar, halved the amount of chocolate chunks, and refrigerated them prior to baking. While they still don't beat my favorites (Nestle Tollhouse, how I love thee), they're still a wonderfully tasty chocolate chip cookie. So thank you to Kait for picking these - being able to do a redux on them is something I can't claim of many of Dorie's recipes!

So there you have it. An overly wordy and inordinately picture-less post on the last two weeks of TWD. I promise, we will have pictures again - just keep your fingers crossed for me!

Two Weeks Ago: Bittersweet Chocolate Mini Bundts
Next Week: Honey Wheat Cookies

NFR: A good axiom to live by

If you can't say something good, don't say anything at all.

I'll try to take pictures of the TWD brownies when my camera is fixed, but posts are on hold until then. Cross your fingers for me.

Baci di Cioccolato

The fiance and I don't do Valentine's Day. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's a wonderful holiday. Unfortunately, I still have horrific flashbacks to Catholic school, where they told us that Saint Valentine was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity. Yay, what a cheerful way to start a holiday for lovers! Catholicism really has a way of sticking martyrdom or guilt into everything possible, not that I'm jaded after 13 years of Catholic school at all. Nope.


But the fiance always was sure it was a trap when I said I didn't care to do anything special for Valentine's Day. You know, the whole "Oh, it's no big deal, don't get me anything" when the girl really means "For the love of God if you don't give me something I'm going to break up with you!" Not to be a downer, but wouldn't it be more fabulous if your significant other just got you something for the heck of it, some random day?


One thing Valentine's Day has for it though is the absolute preponderance of chocolate. Chocolate in every form, chocolate truffles and chocolate bars, chocolates in heart-shaped cardboard boxes, chocolates shaped into a dozen roses, wrapped in red foil... Oh yeah, that I can get behind. Which is why, although I'm not a Valentine's sorta gal, I wanted to make something for it - chocolate kisses. Baci di Cioccolato. Sounds pretty damned sexy in Italian, doesn't it? Gotta love a language where everything sounds sexy though.


These cookies are wonderfully chocolatey, slightly crumbly from almond meal, and incredibly awesome. Even without the ganache sandwiching two cookies together that Gina DePalma suggests as traditional. But you see, I didn't have the oomph to whip up ganache and pipe little dollops on half the cookies so I could make little sandwich cookies, for one very good reason. I inexplicably decided that the correct amount of dough per cookie was a 1/2 teaspoon. A level half teaspoon. Do you want to know how many cookies I got from my half batch? SEVENTY. No way was I patiently dotting 35 little bitty cookies with ganache, sandwiching them, and then shoehorning something so they didn't tip and squish or slide anywhere.


But hey, maybe you guys are a bit nicer than I am. But seriously, after making 70 teensy weensy cookies, my eyes were crossing, my lower back hurt, it felt like the cookies were breeding, and the last thing I wanted to do was anything other than just eating them. Immediately. (I'd wait until they cool though, because they are very tender and crumbly until they've cooled.)

So make them for your Valentine. Just don't go and tell them the story of Saint Valentine. It's a bit of a downer.


Baci di Cioccolato

Adapted from Dolce Italiano by Gina DePalma

For the cookies

1/2 cup almond meal
1 Tbsp sugar, plus more for rolling
1 1/2 cups plus 1 Tbsp flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 Tbsp dark rum (I stole some from the fiance's stash after his Christmas trip to Jamaica)

To make the cookies: Cream together the butter and confectioners' sugar until creamy and light, about 2 minutes. Beat in the vanilla extract and rum and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the dry ingredients, followed by the almond meal. Chill dough for about 1 hour, until it is firm enough to handle.

Preheat the oven to 325*F. Lightly grease two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper. Using a half teaspoon measure, portion out the dough. Roll each piece into a ball and roll it in graulated sugar. Repeat with the rest of the dough, placing the cookies 1/2 inch apart.

Bake the cookies, rotating the sheets 180 degrees to ensure even browning, until they are puffed and cracking slightly on top, 9-11 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool on the sheets for 1 or 2 minutes, then use a spatula to remove them gently to a wire rack to cool completely. Be careful during transfer, because they are still quite delicate.

Makes approximately 140 itsy bitsy cookies.

The cookies can be stored, layered between sheets of parchment paper, in an airtight container kept in a cool place for up to 3 days.

TWD: Bittersweet Chocolate Mini Bundts

This is so not fair. Dorie, I have a schtick. A schtick, I tell you! Everything gets miniaturized. It's my thing. Okay, so it's not an incredibly interesting schtick, but c'mon, I'm not an incredibly exciting person. When my idea of an enjoyable Saturday (a la last weekend) is to go to the farmers' market, then to the local bagel place, then home to bake and lounge while the fiance does a jigsaw puzzle, you know I'm not really much of a firecracker.


But minis! They're my thing! My schtick! And yes, I'm using every occasion to plug in the word "schtick," because it's a fun word to say. And then Dorie goes and gives us mini milk chocolate bundt cakes. Six of them, so I can't even really reduce them that way. Hmph. Hmph, I tell you. So without a schtick, I had to do something, right? Thus, I looked at the milk chocolate in the recipe and immediately decided I didn't want milk chocolate, I wanted bittersweet. Because the only milk chocolate I can find nearby is insipid, and the last thing I want is an insipid chocolate dessert. That's just sad.


I knew others had had issues with dry cakes, but I cheated a bit. Mine baked for the standard amount of time, but once they cooled to room temperature, they were tucked away into a plastic bag to chill out and redistribute the moisture. When we wanted dessert, we just nuked them in the microwave for a minute or so, and voila! Moist, warm, chocolate-y, nutty bundtlets! Almost enough to forgive Dorie for taking my schtick.


Last Week: Cocoa-Nana Bread (yeah, big fail on this one - even guys at work didn't like it much)
Next Week: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia