Tag Archives: butter

Momofuku Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies {Baked Goods}

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{cornflake crunch cookies–look at the melted marshmallows!}

In celebration of my reaching a milestone in life – over 1,000 pins guys…this is huge – I made another Pinspiring recipe: Momofuku Milk Bar Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies. (We pinners can eat all we want from our sugar-heavy food boards because boards titled “thinspiration” exist to keep us motivated, right? Er, maybe not anymore.)

These guys are ginormous and are almost as big as your hand. Really.

{giant cookie}

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Recipe via dailycandy.com

Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookies
Makes fifteen to twenty

Ingredients
16 tbsp. (2 sticks) room-temperature butter
1¼ c. granulated sugar
2/3 c. light brown sugar, tightly packed
1 egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1½ c. flour
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1½ tsp. kosher salt
3 c. Cornflake Crunch (recipe below)
2/3 c. mini chocolate chips
1¼ c. mini marshmallows (don’t drop them on the floor)

{marshmallow spillage}

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and sugars; cream together on medium-high 2-3 minutes. With a spatula, scrape down sides of bowl, then add egg and vanilla and beat 7-8 minutes.

2. Reduce speed to low; add flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Mix just until dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. (Do not walk away from the machine during this step or risk overmixing.) Scrape down sides of bowl.

3. Still on low speed, paddle in cornflakes and chips until just incorporated, about 30-45 seconds. Paddle in marshmallows.

{best damn cookie batter}

4. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Using a 2-oz. ice cream scoop, portion 1/3 c. dough at a time onto pan. Pat tops of dough domes flat. Wrap pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 1 week. (Do not bake room-temperature disks — they will not hold their shape.)

{refrigerated cookie dough}

5. Heat oven to 375°. On a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan, arrange chilled disks a minimum of 4 inches apart. Bake 18 minutes, until cookies are browned on edges and just beginning to brown toward the center. Cookies will puff, crackle, and spread. Leave them in oven for another minute or so if they still seem pale and doughy on the surface.

{yes, they really need that much space between them}

 

{see?}

6. Cool cookies completely on pan before moving them to a plate or an airtight container for storage. At room temperature, cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.

Good luck keeping a stash around.

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Cornflake Crunch
Yields about four cups

{momofuku cornflake crunch}

Ingredients
5 c. cornflakes
½ c. milk powder
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt
9 tbsp. butter, melted

1. Heat oven to 275°.

{dry ingredients}

2. In a medium bowl, with your hands, crush cornflakes to ¼ of their original size. Add milk powder, sugar, and salt; toss to mix. Add butter; toss to coat. (As you toss, the butter will act as glue, binding the dry ingredients to the cereal, creating small clusters.)

{butter!}

3. On a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan, spread clusters and bake for 20 minutes, at which point they should look toasted, smell buttery, and crunch gently when cooled slightly and chewed.

4. Cool completely before storing or using in a recipe. Stored in an airtight container at room temperature, the crunch will keep fresh for one week; in the fridge or freezer, it will keep with one month.

 

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes {Boozy Baked Goods}

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{happy st. patty’s day!}

Top o’ the mornin’ to ya!  Hoping this particular morning (er, afternoon by now) isn’t too painful after yesterday’s libations.  March 17th is the one day every year I’m allowed to fully indulge my Irish heritage name in my own food blogger way by merging the best of two wonderful worlds: classic Irish boozyness and the sweet indulgence of decadent cupcakes.

Last year’s round of Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes was missing whiskey (blasphemous!) but with my new cupcake corer in tow, I filled these dark, luscious baked goods with an even richer bittersweet chocolate whiskey ganache.

Do I have you drooling yet? (and not post-St. Patty’s day hangover drool?)

I used last year’s recipe and this chocolate ganache recipe.

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IRISH CAR BOMB CUPCAKES

INGREDIENTS

{quintessential irish beverages}

{prep bowls + eggs}

 

For the cupcakes
 1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Guinness stout
2/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder, sifted
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon table salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream

For the ganache filling
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter (at room temperature)
2 tsp Irish whiskey (or more…)

For the frosting
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 pinch table salt
3 tablespoons irish cream (I used Bailey’s…and was a little more heavy handed with this than the recipe called for)
1 tablespoon milk (I ended up using about 1 teaspoon more to get a creamer consistency)

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease 24-30 cupcake cups, or fill with paper liners.

In a saucepan, heat the butter, Guinness, cocoa and brown sugar, whisking often, until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

{guys, this batter tastes SO good. eff salmonella!}

Into the work bowl of a stand mixer (or into a large mixing bowl), sift together salt, flour, white sugar and baking soda. Add the cooled Guinness mixture and beat on medium for 1 minute. Add eggs and sour cream and beat on medium for 2 minutes or until smooth.

{pouring the batter}

Divide the batter evenly amongst the cupcake cups. Bake in preheated oven 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then remove and transfer to a cooling rack until completely cooled.

{toothpick test}

Meanwhile, prepare the chocolate ganache and frosting:

GANACHE: Heat heavy cream on low in a small saucepan.  Pour over chopped bittersweet chocolate and stir until chocolate is melted.  Add butter and whiskey.  Stir until combined.

FROSTING: In (cleaned) work bowl of stand mixer, cream butter until very light and fluffy. Add salt, and slowly add confectioners sugar. Do not run the mixer above low, or the sugar will spray all over your kitchen. Add a couple of spoonsful at a time until it has all been absorbed into the butter. Add Bailey’s and milk until spreadable consistency is achieved.

Once cupcakes have cooled, core your cupcakes (a cupcake corer is useful if you have one.  If not, find something in your kitchen with the diameter of about a nickel and press lightly into the tops of the cupcakes, creating an indentations about 1/4 inch off the bottom of the cupcake.

{guys, this batter tastes SO good. in yo face, salmonella!}

Using a pastry bag (or the cheaper version: a ziploc bag with the corner cut off), fill the cupcakes with the cooled chocolate ganache.

{feeling festive whilst piping whiskey ganache}

Frost cupcakes with Bailey’s frosting.

Pass these out at your local pub and toast to celebrating any tie to Irishness you may have (even if that means you adopt a terrible attempt at an Irish accent).

{mini cupcakes + mini liquor bottles}

 

{the beautiful, boozy insides of the cupcake}

Made This Just for the “Halibut”

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Get it?  ”Halibut”?

Anyways, another great fish purchase thanks to my new friend at the seafood counter at Whole Foods was a lovely piece of halibut.  When asking for suggestions, the fish guy said that anything you can do to salmon, you can pretty much do to halibut.  Added bonus for those who aren’t salmon or “fishy” fish fans: halibut is supposed to taste less “fishy” than salmon.

At the end of the workday, I realized I had this filet of halibut to cook, but didn’t quite know what to do to it.  After a quick google search before I shut down my computer, I found a recipe for a lemon butter parsley sauce.  I took a few (ok, a LOT) of liberties with the recipe, and came up with my own (and unmeasured) recipe, that includes:

  • Some butter
  • A clove of minced garlic
  • Some finely chopped parsley
  • Fresh squeezed lemon juice
  • Some dried basil
  • A lemon slice  (just one is ok.  Ignore the 3 extras in the picture below:))

Heat all of the above ingredients (minus the lemon slice) in a saucepan over medium heat until butter is melted:

Pour the sauce over the halibut, skin side down.  Broil for 10ish minutes, or until fish flakes easily from the thickest part.  While I’m a fan of anything I can broil (usually means it cooks in 15 minutes or less), I found out that my oven, well, not so much.  I live in an apartment building with “charm” (which essentially is a euphemism  for “old” and “dilapidated”), and the kitchen appliances aren’t much newer.  So when I set the oven to broil, my entire apartment filled with smoke (there wasn’t even anything in the oven yet?!)  I also found out the hard way that my smoke alarm does indeed work.  While I had the oven preheating, I was jumping up and down trying to fan my smoke alarm in a pathetic attempt to turn it off before the sprinklers went off (and the fire department came to visit).  Thankfully, I didn’t burn my charming apartment building down, and I didn’t have to bother the handsome men of the LAFD.

As ridiculous as that scene was, the overheating oven and smoke-filled apartment were totally worth it.  The sauce is perfectly light (in spite of it being butter-based).  I love the zing of lemon and the crisp hints of parsley.  And the lemon slice and sprig of parsley work wonders in covering up the part of the fish that I tested mutilated for doneness.

Goes great with a lemon-dressed salad (not pictured).  I just took some mixed greens, a bit of olive oil and a smidgen of balsamic vinegar, poured on some extra lemon juice and topped with a bit of salt and pepper.  The olive oil, vinegar and lemon worked surprisingly well together.  All in all, a wonderfully lemony summer dinner.

(Not) Tahitian Vanilla Cupcakes

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What was supposed to be a simple day of making cupcakes turned out to be an adventure driving all over the valley trying to find Tahitian vanilla extract and beans.

Cher came across a recipe for Tahitian vanilla cupcakes.  Just reading the recipe had my mouth watering.  She graciously offered up her kitchen (and KitchenAid stand mixer:)) this weekend so I could make a mess these cupcakes.  We had regular vanilla extract and Madagascar vanilla beans, but no Tahitian-specific vanilla ingredients.  After trekking to Fresh & Easy, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Ralphs, Gelson’s and World Market, we still came up Tahitian vanilla-less.  World Market had Madagascar vanilla extract and beans, so we ended up using those instead…4 or 5 hours of shopping later!  I have absolutely no idea what the difference is, but since Madagascar was another faraway exotic locale, I figured it would suffice.

The ingredients and the beautiful appliance:)  Also subbed in regular granulated sugar over superfine sugar and 24% cacao white chocolate chunks as opposed to something over 30%…yet another impossible to find ingredient!

This was my first time using vanilla beans, and I was fascinated.  They smell ah-mazing and the beans are stuffed full of tiny little specs of vanilla:

The recipe calls for just a bit of lemon zest to intensify the vanilla flavors.  I was ecstatic when I saw “lemon zest” because that meant I got to de-virginize my new Microplane zester!

This is where I wish I could send you readers smells through your computer screen.  Here, I have all of the cake ingredients mixing together.  It was like smelling the most phenomenal pure vanilla bean ice cream, but even better.  I’m not a cake batter bowl-licker, but I caved for this batter.  Incredible.

While the mini cupcakes were baking, I started on the frosting.  Here I am melting the white chocolate in Cher’s amazing kitchen (and in my favorite apron, no less.  You unfortunately can’t see the lovely little ruffles on the bottom hem:))

After letting the frosting sit in the fridge for 20ish minutes, it was still way too gooey to properly spread over cupcakes.  15 more minutes in the freezer, and we were set.

Like my carrot cake cupcakes, these guys have perishable ingredients in their frosting (cream cheese and sour cream), so they are currently being stored in my fridge.

The cake is super moist with a lovely happy medium between too fluffy and to dense.  You can really taste the loads of vanilla in these…and it’s mind-blowing.  The frosting.  Oh, the frosting.  The only sugar comes from the white chocolate, so you can pile it onto the cupcakes and it’s not overwhelmingly sweet.  I’m not much of a fan of white chocolate, but seriously, I could eat a whole bowl of this stuff.  I’m really at a loss for words how to describe these little cupcakes.  And I can’t talk right now anyway, since my mouth is full of vanilla cupcake:)

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The recipe, as posted on “The Spiced Life” blog.

The Cupcakes

2 large eggs, room temp
2/3 cup (160 g) full fat sour cream
seeds from 3 Tahitian vanilla beans
1 T Tahitian vanilla extract
1 t lemon zest (to amp the vanilla–I was not going for a lemon flavor here)
2 cups (200 g) cake flour
1 cup (200 g) superfine sugar
1/2 t baking powder’1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t fine salt
1 1/2 sticks (12 T, 170 g) unsalted butter, between 65-75 F (Beranbaum says this part is important, because my house was 68 F and because I left the butter out overnight I did not bother verifying)

Line 16 cupcake cups; lightly spray the pan/s with oil. This will ensure no sticking of the liners (this is my trick–maybe this cake wouldn’t stick, who knows? but I have been burned often enough that I am now cautious). Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, the vanilla seeds and extract, the lemon zest, and 3 tablespoons of the sour cream. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or with hand mixer), mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt with the flat beater for 30 seconds on low. Add the butter and remaining sour cream to the dry ingredients; mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened and a higher speed will not cause the flour to fly out of the bowl. Then mix on medium speed (high for hand mixer, 4 for Kitchen Aid) for 1 1/2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Then add the egg mixture in 2 additions, beating on medium speed for 30 seconds after each addition and scraping down the bowl in between. Finish by hand if any parts have not incorporated so as to not overbeat.

Fill each cupcake 3/4 full (or use a #30 disher–which I did not have). Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center cupcake comes out clean with a few crumbs attached. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove to cool completely before frosting.

The “Dreamy Creamy” Frosting

9 oz/255 g of good quality white chocolate, chopped, melted and cooled (I used Valrhona; I suggest at least 30% cacao)
12 oz cream cheese, cool room temp
6 T unsalted butter, cool room temp
1 1/2 T sour cream
1/2 T Tahitian vanilla extract
1/2 T lemon zest

Process everything but the melted white chocolate in a food processor until smooth. Add the melted white chocolate and pulse until smooth. Scrape into a bowl and place in the fridge to chill 15-30 minutes, until firm enough to spread.

“Look to the Cookie, Elaine. Look to the Cookie.”

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“The thing about eating the Black and White cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved.” – Seinfeld, episode 77 “The Dinner Party.”  One of my favorite cookies referenced in one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes (also featuring chocolate babka, which is equally a favorite of mine).

A quintessential New York staple, the black and white cookie is simple in theory but undoubtedly delicious.  Chocolate and vanilla icing atop a perfectly spongey and cake-like cookie.  Like the venerable Oreo, methods of eating vary from person to person.  I’m partial to the vanilla icing, but much like Jerry, I try to get a little bit of both in each bite.

During a recent trip to New York, I indulged in this city staple at the Frank Gehry-designed Conde Nast cafeteria.  Here’s a picture of the famous cookie (already half-eaten) atop an equally famous landmark:

The recipe I came across is from (the unfortunately shuttered) Gourmet magazine.  The finished product is almost identical to the cookie I snagged from the Conde cafeteria, which leads me to believe that they themselves use this recipe.  I am so jealous of the ever changing Gourmet/Bon Appétit-inspired dishes these folks get to eat everyday.

Quite a long intro for one cookie.  But seriously, it deserves it.  The actual recipe (my variations in the tips below):

Mini Black-and-White Cookies

For cookies
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg

For icings
2 3/4 cups confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 to 6 tablespoons water
1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

Special equipment: a small offset spatula

Make cookies:

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 2 large baking sheets.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir together buttermilk and vanilla in a cup.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes, then add egg, beating until combined well. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture and buttermilk mixture alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, and mixing just until smooth.

Drop rounded teaspoons of batter 1 inch apart onto baking sheets. Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until tops are puffed, edges are pale golden, and cookies spring back when touched, 6 to 8 minutes total. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Make icings while cookies cool:

Stir together confectioners sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons water in a small bowl until smooth. If icing is not easily spreadable, add more water, 1/2 teaspoon at a time. Transfer half of icing to another bowl and stir in cocoa, adding more water, 1/2 teaspoon at a time, to thin to same consistency as vanilla icing. Cover surface with a dampened paper towel, then cover bowl with plastic wrap.

Ice cookies:

With offset spatula, spread white icing over half of flat side of each cookie. Starting with cookies you iced first, spread chocolate icing over other half.

Cooks’ note:
Once icing is dry, cookies keep, layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 4 days.

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This recipe is one of those that make me realize I want need a KitchenAid stand mixer, preferably one in Empire Red:)  The whipped fluffy peaks of the cookie ingredients, but not before my hand mixer/I made a mess all over my kitchen, spattering flour e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e:

Ready to be baked:

The black:

and the white (the lemon juice is so slight but SO yummy):

Halfway done:

Finished!  Take a look at these beauties:

The dishfulthinker’s tips:

  • Although the recipe is for “mini” black and white cookies, I decided to go with tablespoon-sized balls of batter for two reasons.  The first being obvious–who wants a tiny cookie?  Second, trying to ice 40+ mini cookies is painstakingly time consuming.  Tablespoon sized batter yielded approximately 24 2-inch cookies.
  • Unless you already have an offset spatula, there really isn’t an absolute need to go run out and buy one.  A standard butter knife worked just fine.
  • I can’t say it enough.  A KitchenAid mixer would be a serious time and mess saver.  And who doesn’t want a beautiful kitchen appliance like this sitting on their countertop?
  • I used parchment paper instead of buttering the baking sheets (easier clean up too).
  • Keep a close eye on the cookies in the oven.  They puff up very quickly, and you don’t want to over bake these!
  • The best tip I can give you for these cookies is to simply enjoy them:)