Tag-Archive for ◊ brown sugar ◊

26 Jul 2011 Blueberry Chip Cookies
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Fruits, Sweets  | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,  | 4 Comments

Hey world, there’s a new cookie on the plate!  It’s sort of like a chocolate chip cookie.  It has all the elements of a chocolate chip cookie.  It crunches like a chocolate chip cookie; crisp around the edges and chewy in the middle. It even looks like a chocolate chip cookie.  But it’s NOT!  It’s a Blueberry Chip Cookie!  Nope, not reminiscent of a blueberry muffin  or a blueberry cake.   Nothing like a blueberry tart or a sugar cookie with jam either.  I think it really is a chocolate chip cookie.  With blueberries. And white chocolate chips.

Two secret ingredients:  freeze dried blueberries and dried wild blueberries!  I had never seen freeze dried blueberries either, but there they were right on the shelf at Trader Joe’s, not too far from the dried blueberries.  The freeze dried blueberries are crushed into a powder and then mixed into the dough with the flour.  The small dried blueberries have a lot a flavor and don’t burst into a gooey mess when cooked.   Genius, pure genius!  And we have Irvin, from Eat the Love, to thank for this delightfully twisted Chocolate Chip Cookie 🙂

I made a few changes to the original recipe.  I didn’t use Kamut flour (what IS that?) and I didn’t make these jumbo.  Irvin made 18 cookies from this recipe (they must have been the size of a PIE!), I made 5 dozen.  I am not sure the sugar sprinkle is necessary, I might leave it off next time but my daughter liked the sparkle (she’s such a girlie girl).

Blueberry  Chip  Cookies

  • 3 cups plus 3 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour
  • 1/2 cup freeze dried blueberries, crushed into powder (put into a Ziploc and go to town with a meat tenderizer or rolling pin)
  • 1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) butter at room temperature
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 10 oz white chocolate chips (don’t use Nestle’s-they are nasty)
  • 1 cup dried wild blueberries (I’d probably add an extra 1/4 – 1/2 cup next time)
  • 2 tablespoons white sugar to sprinkle on top (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

2. Place the  flour, freeze dried blueberry powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Whisk vigorously until the dry ingredients are evenly distributed and uniform in color.

3. Place the butter and sugars in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. On medium speed, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about three minutes.

4. Add one egg to the creamed butter and beat on medium until incorporated. Scrape down the sides and repeat with the second egg and then the vanilla.

5. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients to the butter and beat on slow speed turning up the speed to medium as the ingredients incorporate into the dough. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and then add an additional 1/3 of the batter repeat, beating on slow to medium. Scrap and add the final 1/3 dry ingredients.

6. Add the white chocolate chips and dried blueberries to the cookie dough and turn the mixer on to slow speed, mixing in the chips and blueberries until evenly distributed.

7. Scoop a tablespoon of the dough, roll into a ball, place on cookie sheet and flatten slightly. Sprinkle with a little white sugar. Repeat.  I found I could place 14 cookies on each cookie sheet.

8. Bake in preheated 350º oven for  about 13 minutes or until the edges of the cookie starts to look golden brown. Remove from the oven and let rest on the pan for 5 to 10 minutes to cool before moving them to a wire rack to cool to room temperature.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

I am so pleased with these cookies!  They are so much like a chocolate chip cookie, but so different.  The dichotomy tickles me purple!   I hope you are the first person on your block to make Blueberry Chip Cookies!

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today!

13 Jul 2011 Butterbeer Cupcakes
Author:  |  Category: Cakes & Cupcakes, Sweets  | Tags: , , , , , ,  | 10 Comments

Harry Potter.  My 20 year old twins have tickets to the midnight show.  Of course they do.  They were in second grade when I read the first book to them. We stood in line at midnight for the fifth book to be released. After Book Two we had to buy multiple copies of each because no one (myself and their older sister included) could possibly wait for someone else to finish the book before they could start it. They’ve both read all seven books at least three times.  Yes, that’s right.  They’ve both read ALL seven books at least three times.  We have some books on ten disk CD sets.  They listen to them when driving home from college. They saw all seven movies on the day they were released. We own all the DVDs. Tomorrow’s movie premier:  Book Seven, part Two is the end.  The end of everything.  The last Harry Potter movie signals the end of their childhood just as much as their high school graduation, their high school prom, and their first nights in their college dorms rooms did.

My daughter is running a Harry Potter marathon tonight.  She’s  set up the Three Broomsticks Tavern.  Tonight’s specials: Butterbeer cupcakes and Cockroach Clusters (chocolate covered pretzel clusters sprinkled with powdered sugar) and Butterbeer Floats (cream soda with butter pecan ice cream).

These cupcakes are delicious; a from scratch cupcake, a filling, a frosting, and a drizzle!  To die for.  Oops. A double entendre.

I found the recipe at AmyBites, as have a good many other people!  Thanks, Amy!  I left out the artificial butter flavoring, and I should probably say to reduce the ganache by half.  Abby had a lot left over…, but I think it will be a good drizzle for that leftover butter pecan ice cream 🙂

Butterbeer Cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup cream soda

For the ganache (for the filling and the drizzle):

1 11-oz. package butterscotch chips
1 cup heavy cream
.

For the buttercream frosting:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup butterscotch ganache
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 16-oz. package powdered sugar
Splash of milk or cream (as needed)

For the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake pans with paper liners. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter until light and fluffy. Add sugars and beat until well-combined, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Then beat in vanilla. Add one third of flour mixture to butter-sugar mixture and stir to incorporate.  Add half of the buttermilk and half of the cream soda and mix to combine. Add half of remaining flour mixture, mix well.  Add remaining buttermilk and cream soda, mix well.  Stir in remaining flour mixture.

Fill each cupcake liner 3/4 full, then bake for 15 to 17 minutes until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean and cake springs back to the touch. Cool completely on wire racks.

For butterscotch filling: In a double boiler (heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water on the stove), combine butterscotch chips and heavy cream and stir until completely combined and smooth. Cool to room temperature. Fill a squeeze bottle with ganache and insert into the center of each cupcake, squeezing until filling begins to overflow.

For buttercream frosting: Cream butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add in cooled ganache, vanilla, and salt and mix until well combined. Beat in powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until reaching desired consistency. Add milk or cream by the Tablespoon as needed. Frost cupcakes and top with a drizzle of butterscotch ganache.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today!  These are very, very good cupcakes, even if you are not into Harry Potter or Butterbeer 🙂  If you are into Harry Potter, you have to make them.  To mark and to celebrate the end of and era.  A very, very good era.

25 Sep 2010 Cinnamon Roll Pancakes
Author:  |  Category: Breakfast & Brunch  | Tags: , , , ,  | 9 Comments

Love these!  There have been a couple of recipes floating around the web for the last six months or so for Cinnamon Roll pancakes.  I have tried several of them, hoping to find a perfect recipe, but it wasn’t to be found.  This one is the best of the lot, but it’s not perfect.  The pancakes taste really good, but they are not pretty, and they are probably not the best choice for a beginner cook.  You have to know how to cook pancakes, when to flip them and when to take them off the heat.  The first flip is critical, be sure the edges are dry and the batter is cooked as much as possible, without burning the outside of the pancake.  Cooking the second side is important, too.  Cook it too long, and the cinnamon sugar mixture will caramelize and burn (in a second), and you’ll loose the ooey-gooey cinnamon roll swirl.  Undercook it, and you’ll have uncooked pancake batter which is never a good thing.  I’ve made this recipe a few times now (hah! Who am I kidding…I’ve made them six times or more), so I am pretty good at it.  Jump in! I have faith that you can do it, too! Just don’t make your first batch for guests, practice a little first! (Disclaimer, the photo above is of a trial batch…one that looked good, but didn’t taste as good.  To get  your pancakes to look like this, stir 1/3 cup of the pancake batter into the cinnamon swirl batter, then continue as outlined below.)

I am not going to credit anyone in particular for this recipe, as it is on a lot of websites-although I will say I first saw the pictures posted on Foodgawker. Some of the websites have a buttermilk syrup or a cream cheese topping to put on the pancake.  I’ve made them, too, and found them to be totally useless.  The pancake is sweet enough as it is.  No need for more sweetness.  If you DO need more sweetness, nothing will top maple syrup! I also doubled the cinnamon swirl part of the recipe. I hated making more swirl after I used up the first and still had batter leftover (just to be clear, the recipe below has been doubled).

My guess is that any pancake batter could be used to make these pancakes…, but I haven’t tested that.

If you don’t have the buttermilk for this recipe, mix 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or plain vinegar with milk.  In 5 minutes you’ll have buttermilk.  If you bought buttermilk just for this recipe, and now have some leftover, freeze it to use next time.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon honey

Cinnamon swirl:

1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 -3 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons flour

Combine dry ingredients for pancakes in a medium size bowl. Combine wet ingredients in another bowl and then whisk into flour mixture. Batter should be lumpy and not too thin.

In another bowl, combine ingredients for the cinnamon swirl and pour into a plastic Ziploc bag. Snip a tiny triangle off the end of the Ziploc bag for piping. Set aside (The size of the hole determines how much swirl goes into the pancake.  Cutting the Ziploc corner the right size is part of the trial-and-error method of learning this recipe.)

Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Grease with butter, if desired, (I use Pam) and pour on a 1/2 cup of batter. Quickly, use the Ziploc bag (freezer thickness is the best, it won’t burst) to swirl the cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the batter.

Now watch the pancake carefully. When the bubbles on the surface of the pancake begin to pop and no longer fill in with more batter and the edges of the pancake are dry, flip and cook for 30 seconds more. Repeat with remaining batter.

I serve the pancake upside-down, so people can see the swirl.  They are not pretty.  They are yummy, though.  In my book, yummy trumps pretty every time.

Have a great weekend.  I have a feeling these will be served at your house one weekend morning in the VERY near future!

01 May 2010 Brown Sugar Ice Cream
Author:  |  Category: Ice Creams & Sorbets  | Tags: ,  | Leave a Comment

In the last few weeks, I have deemed only one new recipe worthy of posting, this one:  Brown Sugar Ice Cream. My daughter Abby brought home a quart of Haagan-Daz’s Brown Sugar ice-cream a few months ago. So when I ran across this recipe at Dishing Up Delights it wasn’t a completely foreign concept. Just for the record, this homemade version is wayyyy better than the Haagan-Daz version. The Haagan-Daz version has an odd texture and a more of a molasses flavor than a brown sugar flavor. This homemade version is simple, rich, smooth, creamy…

I served this last night with a Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp. The flavor combo was not quite right. I kept thinking this ice cream will be perfect with something but what IS it? I was driving myself CRAZY and finally, almost 24 hours later, it has come to me. I was on the right track with the oatmeal crisp topping, but brown sugar ice cream needs…, apples! MMmmm…, can you imagine a warm apple crisp with oatmeal topping and a bit of Brown Sugar ice-cream on the side? Or, how about Apple pie with Brown Sugar Ice Cream? I know all you nut lovers are going to want to sprinkle a few toasted, glazed, or spiced walnuts or pecans over that!

The recipe below calls for whipping cream and whole milk. I’ve started going one step down on the dairy with all my ice cream recipes. For this recipe I used half-and-half and whole milk. Use anything you want: whipping cream, half-and-half, whole milk, 2% milk. The less fat in the milk or cream, the less creamy and rich the ice-cream. Next time I will use all whole milk or whole milk and 2%…or maybe all 2%…and I’ll make an apple-oatmeal crisp…or maybe a peach-oatmeal crisp..

Now for those leftover egg whites…Pavlova! I’ll post the recipe soon. I’ve promised a friend of mine I would for about 6 weeks now…

Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Ice Cream

Makes 1 quart

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream (see note above)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
3/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar, divided
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 large egg yolks

Combine heavy whipping cream, whole milk, (or your choice of milk/cream products) and 1/2 cup brown sugar in heavy large saucepan. Bring cream mixture to simmer over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Meanwhile, whisk yolks and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar in large bowl of an electric mixer until very thick, about 2 minutes.

Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture. Return mixture to saucepan. Stir over medium heat until custard thickens and thermometer inserted into custard registers 180°F, about 6 minutes (do not boil). Strain custard (if needed) into large bowl set over another bowl of ice and water. Cool custard completely, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Cover and chill overnight (I was only able to chill for about 3 hours).

Process custard in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer ice cream to container. Cover and freeze until firm, at least 6 hours and up to 1 day.

I think he’s closing his eyes!  Do you think he knows how good it’s going to be?

Thanks for visiting!

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