Bake 52 Week 26: Black and White Cookies

This week it was my turn to host - first time!  I wanted to thank everyone for letting me join your baking group, even though you were about half way through.  I've really enjoyed it.  I guess I ought to introduce myself since none of you in the group know me (except my sister Val).  I just moved to Southern California to California City (about 100 miles north of LA).  This is my first time living away from home (Utah), so I found myself with time on my hands.  I miss all those family gatherings that took up my time in Utah but I'm having fun filling my time with baking.  I work for Rio Tinto (parent company of Kennecott Utah Copper) and my move to California was to take a new job with their Boron mine in the middle of the Mojave Desert.  I have two daughters, Jasmine, 18, and just graduated and Jade, 17, one more year of high school.  They live in Utah with their Mom.  My husband and I sure miss seeing them regularly. 

I picked the Black and White cookies.  I can't remember what attracted me to the recipe to be honest.  When I read through this weekend before starting it sounded like a frosted sugar cookie.  I've never been wowed by sugar cookies but a cookie is a cookie and at least half of it was going to chocolate icing.  I figured it had to taste good. 

First I gathered all the ingredients for the cookies, the cast of characters:

I didn't have any whole milk but I had whipping cream, so I measured out half a cup whipping cream and half cup of 1% milk.  Later I saw in the book that you can substitute 2/3 cup 1% milk + 1/3 cup half-and-half for whole milk.  I still had time to switch to that but I wasn't sure half-and-half was the same as whipping cream and half a cup is close enough to 1/3 cup that I wasn't going to worry about it. 

Next step adjust your oven shelves to the top middle and the bottom middle and set the temperature to 350 degrees.

Next I lined my baking sheets (I used half sheet pans) with parchment paper. 

My husband asked why I did that.  I have no idea other than the recipe told me to and it makes for easy clean-up.  Maybe these cookies are prone to sticking??

Next I weighed out my flour.  For me I like weighting powdering ingredients like flour and powdered sugar.  It's faster and more accurate. 

 I added in the baking powder and salt and then stirred the mix with a fork.

Then I moved on to the wet ingredients.  To the butter (which I had pulled out of the freezer and softened in the microwave) I added the sugar.

The recipe said to use an electric mixer, so I did but I wish I had got out my kitchenaid mixer.  After beating the butter and sugar for about 10 minutes it still looked grainy.

I beat it for another 5 minutes or so before I gave up getting it to be light and fluffy and added the eggs, vanilla and lemon extract.

Once I beat in the eggs, vanilla and extract then the mix looked light and fluffy.

The next step was to add the flour and the milk, alternating. 

Here's another time I wish I'd used my mixer. By the time I got all the flour and milk in the bowl was really full and I was getting dough all over the place!

The dough was really soft and creamy.  Not stiff like cookies I've made in the past.  The recipe calls for dipping out 1/4-cup of dough for each cookie. 

The cookies are supposed to be 2 inches apart but I didn't want to be baking these all day so I didn't keep them spaced out that far. 

I just used the back of a spoon to smooth them out.  I wasn't able to get them as round and pretty as they were in the book.

I baked them for 8 minutes and then rotated them and cooked them for another 8 minutes.  They didn't have any color on them so I put them back in for about 2 minutes.

As you can see my cookies spread out and cooked together a bit but not bad.  They were just barely brown around the edges when I pulled them out. 

I ended up with 26 cookies, so pretty close to the 24 I was supposed to.  Once all the cookies were done I tidied up a bit and then got started on the icing. 

The cast of characters:

So once again I used my scale for the powder ingredient. 

I used a medium pot heat the water and corn syrup.  Once it was boiling I took it off the heat and dumped in the powdered sugar.

Once the powdered sugar (and vanilla) was all mixed in I dumped about half of it out into another bowl and added the chocolate to what was left in the pan. 

As you can see I forgot to melt the chocolate first... Luckily there was enough heat left in the pan to melt the chocolate for me. 

I was pretty generous with the chocolate icing and tried to make sure I covered just more than half of every cookie.  Once I had mixed in the chocolate it looked like I had shorted the white frosting...  Next time when it says to "measure" out half of the icing I'll have to dump all of it in a measuring cup and then put half in some other container. 

Half done...waiting on the icing to set.

I was right about not spliting the icing very well.  I had left over chocolate and ran out of the white icing before I was done with all the cookies.

All done, just need to let the icing set up. 

I fiinished just in time to head to a party.  When we got home it was late so I went right to bed.  But these cookies visited me in my dreams.  As soon as I got up I had to have one. 

They were really yummy.  The lemon flavor was really subtle but there.  It really accented the icing.  The cookie was soft and tender.  A great consistency for a cookie.  I love the chocolate icing.  I could have eaten it with a spoon (as a matter of fact I did!).  The white icing was way too sweet on it's own and I was worried it wouldn't taste very good.  But on the cookie it was perfect.  Jonathan loves them too - that's really high praise! 

If you are looking for something relatively simple but classy and very, very tasty you should try this.  Here's the full recipe.

BLACK AND WHITE COOKIES

MAKES about 24 large cookies

Don’t substitute “lemon flavor” or lemon oil for the lemon extract.  However, in a pinch you can substitute fresh lemon juice.  If the chocolate icing cools so that it is no longer spreadable, microwave it for 30 seconds to resoften.

COOKIES

4       cups (16 ounces) cake flour

½      teaspoon baking powder

½      teaspoon salt

16     tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 ¾   cups (12 ¼ ounces) granulated sugar

2       large eggs

1       teaspoon vanilla extract

½      teaspoon lemon extract (see note above)

1         cup whole milk

ICINGS

¼      cup light corn syrup

⅓      cup water

5       cups (20 ounces) confectioners’ sugar

½      teaspoon vanilla extract

2         ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted

2–4  teaspoons water

1.        FOR THE COOKIES:  Adjust the oven racks to the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.  Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl.

2.        In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 6 minutes.  Beat in the eggs, vanilla, an lemon extract until combined, about 30 seconds, scraping down the bowl and beaters as needed.

3.        Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in one-third of the flour mixture, followed by half of the milk.  Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture, and the remaining milk.  Beat in the remaining flour mixture until combined.

4.        Scoop ¼-cup mounds of batter onto the prepared baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart.  Use the back of a spoon or your finger dipped in water to smooth the tops of the cookies.  Bake the cookies until the edges are just beginning to turn light golden brown, about 15 minutes, switching and rotating the baking sheets halfway through baking.

5.        Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour.  Repeat with the remaining dough using cooled, freshly lined baking sheets.

6.        FOR THE ICINGS:  Bring the corn syrup and water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.  Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla until smooth.  Measure half of the icing into a separate bowl and whisk in the melted chocolate and 2 to 4 teaspoons of the water as needed until the mixture is smooth and spreadable.

7.        Place 2 large wire racks over parchment paper for easy cleanup.  Following the photos, spread about 2 tablespoons of the chocolate icing over half of each cookie with a small spatula, then let sit on the wire racks until the icing has just set, about 15 minutes.  Spread the vanilla icing over the other half of each cookie and let sit until the icings have hardened, about 1 hour, before serving. 

Check out the links below to see other reviews on this recipe.

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Bake 52 Week 25: Southern-Style Skillet Cornbread

This is my third dish of the weekend. I was hoping to do more baking but ended up getting sick after lunch on Saturday and didn't feel up to cooking again until late evening on Sunday, which is when I made this.

This was a pretty quick and easy recipe. Unfortunately it tasted terrible! I'm 90% sure that the problem was that my cornmeal was old, very old. I have no memory of when or why I bought it. I knew it was old but didn't think that would change the flavor.

The cast of characters:


The other issue that could have negatively impacted the flavor was the toasting. The first step of the recipe (after heating the cast iron skillet in the oven) is to toast the cornmeal. I toasted it for 5 minutes (as directed by the recipe) but when I pulled it out the edges were smoking and rather than being lightly browned it was pretty dark in some areas.



I also "made" the buttermilk by adding white vinegar to whole milk. It looked kind of gross, lumpy when I dumped it in but I doubt that effected the flavor.

I liked the idea of melting the butter in the hot oil. It really splattered when I added the butter - be careful if you make this yourself.



It cooked up quick and came right out of the pan, no problem. It looks good, right?



Too bad it tasted so yucky... Check out Jen's blog for the full recipe. And try the links below for other reviews...

Whole Wheat Bread

The second dish I decided to bake was whole wheat bread. I love, love, love homemade wheat bread. But I've never been able to get it to turn out unless I use my breadmaker. So when I saw this recipe I figured I couldn't screw it up. Plus it shouldn't take very much time to try.

Unfortunately this didn't turn out very well either.

I followed the recipe exactly, except I had to half it because my mixer won't handle the full thing. That led to needing to measure a quarter of a tablespoon. Does anyone have a 1/4 Tablespoon??? I don't. Unfortunately I didn't work out that 1/4 tablespoon is 3/4 of a teaspoon until just now (and I call myself an engineer...sad). So I just put in 1 T and a scant teaspoon (of yeast and lemon juice).



My scant teaspoon of lemon juice.

Those were two mistakes. I think my other mistake was being too anal about the times they listed in the recipe. When it said to "add the water all at once and mix for one minute" I only mixed for one minute even though there was still dry ingredients that weren't incorporated. I was worried about over mixing the dough.



The picture above is after letting it sit for 10 minutes (the sponging process).

The dough worked out okay, maybe a bit dry. I don't know... Plus I could use some lessons on how to shape my loaves. The first loaf I just sort of squished into the pan. The second one I tried to roll a bit and then "squish into the corners" like the recipe suggests.



The last mistake is the mistake I continually make over and over again...not being patient enough when the bread is rising. This recipe had some kind of quick rise approach. You let it raise in the oven after heating the oven to lukewarm for 1 minute. My understanding of lukewarm is body temperature - 98/99 degrees. Well, the lowest my oven will go is 170. So I set it for that. But in retrospect I think most ovens low temperature is 200, so I probably should have pre-heated the oven at 200 for one minute.

The recipe says that it should only take 10 - 15 minutes for the dough to rise to the top of the pans. I let my bread sit for thirty minutes and it seemed to be at the top of the pans, see below.



Of course, it's only to the top of the pan if you squat down and look at the pans straight one. Looking down, like in the picture, the dough isn't quite to the top. It wasn't as risen as much as I wanted but again being very literal (and impatient) to the recipe I went ahead and baked it.

The recipe said it should take 30 minutes to bake but for this part I wasn't trusting the recipe. I knew that if I checked the temperature of the bread I could be sure it was cooked. It wasn't. I gave it 15 more minutes and got to 190. I love having a surefire way of knowing something is right! I need something like that for every step.



They aren't as beautiful and brown as the picture on the website, so maybe I should have gone longer? The bread came right out of the pans, which was good, since I didn't have the Baker's Secret loaf pans.

Anyway, I ended up with two pretty dense but not bad flavored bread...



Well, I'm going to have to try this recipe again. Next time I'm going to just use the traditional (let the dough sit in a warm space until double in size) raising method. I'm determined to get this right!!

Triple Chocolate Banana Bread

So I'm on my own this weekend while my husband travels back to Utah for his Great Aunt's funeral. Since I didn't have anything planned I thought I'd bake some things that I've been wanting to try.

The first thing I baked was Triple Chocolate Banana Bread which I found here. I had some very ripe banana's in my fridge and when I saw this recipe earlier this week (or maybe last week...) I figured it was the perfect use for them. I'm not a huge fan of regular banana bread too healthy. But chocolate banana bread - what's better than chocolate with bananas?!

The ingredients...



It was a really simple recipe. Mix the dry ingredients.



Cream the eggs and sugar.



Mix in the oil, chocolate syrup and mashed bananas.



Then you fold in the dry ingredients, the walnuts and the chocolate chips.



I have to admit I doubled the chocolate chips. I mean really, a half a cup for a full loaf? That's not nearly enough!

Luckily I planned on using my large loaf pan (9 x 5") because it completely filled that pan.



I cooked the bread for an hour and it looked great when it first came out of the oven.



But after I let it sit for 15 minutes the middle fell. I got it out of the pan but it didn't come out very well. Some of the bottom stayed in the pan. But it sure was tasty!



I figured it probably wasn't cooked all the way through but wasn't sure. The first piece looked and tasted great!



But later when I cut the whole thing up to store it I found that the middle wasn't cooked... I should have checked the temperature to be sure. But since uncooked chocolate banana bread tastes like chocolate cake batter I wasn't too worried about it being undercooked. :)

Bake 52 Week 24: Cinnamon Swirl Bread

This week we made bread, yummy cinnamon bread. I usually bake on Sunday mornings before church. I have 1:00 PM church and get up at 5:00 AM so that is usually plenty of time. But I have really, really bad luck with getting bread products to rise. When I read the recipe I saw that you could make the dough the night before and let it "rise" in the refrigerator over night. I was all over that!

The dough was pretty quick to make but I forgot to put in the 1/4 c. of the cinnamon/sugar mixture until I had mixed up the dough. The dough was still sticky so I had to add more flour so I decided to add the cinnamon/sugar mixture at the same time.



It seemed to work. The next morning the dough was perfectly raised and after 30 minutes of sitting at room temperature, ready to go.

I had issues getting my dough to the right size rectangle. After multiple measurings I finally got it long enough but then it was too wide. Rather than start over I just folded in the sides.



I knew it was likely to give me uneven bread but I wasn't willing to start over. After sprinkling the dough with the rest of the cinnamon/sugar I was ready to roll it up.



You can see from the picture below that the ends were fatter than the middle.


But after letting it rise for 45 minutes or so it had evened out pretty well.



I hate undercooked bread. The taste of dough makes me sick so I was worried about the middle of the bread not being fully cooked. So I got on line and found a recipe that told me how hot the inside should be to be fully cooked (190 - 200 F). When the timer went off after 40 minutes I checked the temperature. It was around 160ish. So I threw it back in for 10 minutes. After ten minutes it was perfectly done.



The bread was very good. The cinnamon/sugar mix on the top pretty much flaked off when I cut it but the inside swirl was pretty tasty. There was one section where the swirl was thicker than the rest and it was the best part. Since I have the biggest sweet tooth I thought the whole swirl should be that thick. If I made it again I'd probably double the amount of sugar/cinnamon mix.



I cut up most of the loaf and took it to work and left it in the breakroom. When I came back at 9:00 to get more water the bread was gone. That's the fastest any of my baked goods have disappeared. The bit I left at home was gone when I got home too. Jonathan really enjoyed the bread. :)

Check out Bekah's blog for the full recipe.