Massaging balls & forking: what I did in the name of peanut butter cookies

Making cookies can be a pain in the rear end, especially if the dough is hard to work with. These peanut butter cookies were particularly trying because the dough turned out like wet sand: too dry to hold together. Based on user complaints that the cookies were turning out too thin, I modified the recipe by adding 1/2 cup of peanut butter and 1/2 cup of flour. The consensus among commenters was that this was the right proportion. But it probably could’ve used another egg, too.

I sprinkled this batch with Kosher salt instead of forking the tops.

As a result, I had to massage each ball, kneading them like Play-Doh until the dough was the right consistency. Then on my first tray, I used a fork to make the traditional cross-hatch pattern you see on peanut butter cookies. But this process caused some of the cookies to begin breaking apart again. Patience running thin, I decided to forgo the forking, instead sprinkling a bit of Kosher salt on top before putting the remaining cookies in the oven. Fortunately, these turned out tasty (crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle) and the salt adds a nice touch, used sparingly.

The recipe, including the modifications below, made almost 4 dozen and takes a much more patient baker than me.

Modifications:

• Additional 1/2 cup peanut butter, totaling 1.5 cups or about 1 jar
• Additional 1/2 cup flour
• Creamy peanut butter, since that’s what I had handy
• Pinch of Kosher salt sprinkled on top before putting into the oven
• Baking time was 10 minutes per baking sheet of 9 cookies

Earl Grey shortbread. If I can, you can too!

This recipe, which was featured recently on Gojee, made me wonder (1) why I don’t drink Earl Grey more often, and (2) why I’ve never made shortbread before. It’s frickin’ easy (and I say this as someone who’s had many a baking disaster), especially when you consider how difficult some cookies doughs can be to work with. Shortbread is basically just flour, butter, and sugar. It doesn’t have eggs, so it doesn’t get sticky. You don’t need to flour your counter to prevent the dough from sticking when you roll it–awesome.

I used 7 decaf Bigelow teabags for the 2 tablespoons the recipe calls for (not a fantastic brand of tea, but cheap!). You can’t buy the fancy whole-leaf teas for this because you need it finely ground.

My modifications to the recipe: I used 1 stick of regular unsalted butter, and 1 stick of higher-fat European butter, just because I had the latter lying around. The recipe made 2 cookie trays’ worth. So halfway through the baking, I switched the baking sheets to the other rack to ensure even baking. I baked mine for at least 5 minutes more than the recommended 12 minutes. Just make sure to monitor them after the 10-minute mark. The shortbread is done when the edges are browned. Straight out of the oven, they’re soft, but will harden after cooling.

We’ve been eating these with ice cream for that butter-cream 1-2 punch. Mmmmm.

Maple Avenue’s sweet treats

Sometimes you gotta venture out of your comfort zone to try new things. For a belated birthday brunch, I recently took Mr. X-sXe to Maple Avenue Restaurant in Vienna, VA—that exotic state where you can still get plastic grocery bags for free.

The dining space is tiny, probably less than 10 tables with no separate foyer/entrance area. We went for the brunch tasting menu. The food was consistently good: a gooey mac and cheese with panko, a savory mushroom crepe, cauliflower with Thai sauce and a sprinkling of scallions. But there were a few hints that the menu needed more thought.

The feast launches with a charcuterie plate—something I don’t necessarily have an appetite for first thing in the morning. Also, my stomach was hoping for some respite from the parade of heavy dishes coming out back-to-back. I craved a salad or fruit dish to cut the fat in this meat-and-dairy show. (Mind you, the set menu does change regularly.)

And now we turn to the most important part of the meal: dessert.

Yuzu-lime tart (above photo)

Wow, right? This was beautiful—its marshmallow peaks perfectly torched, blanketing the citrusy filling on a thick graham crust. Perhaps this wasn’t the chef’s intent, but anytime I see “lime” on a dessert menu, I’m hoping for some mouth-puckering action. Here the sweetness of the marshmallow fluff actually overwhelmed the delicate flavor of the yuzu-lime filling. Note: we ordered this separately from the tasting menu.

Waffles with Nutella and vanilla bean ice cream (part of the brunch tasting menu)

Sure, this elevates the waffles you’d get at the breakfast bar of a Comfort Inn. But is it good enough to warrant being on the menu of a nice restaurant? I’m leaning towards no. I was curious whether the Nutella was from the jar or made in-house. The menu didn’t elaborate on this point, but it tasted like the jar stuff (which is NOT health food, despite what the ads claim. Hence the class-action lawsuit. #onlyinAmerica).

Los angeles dessert haikus

A bit of wisdom served up on Santa Monica Pier.

We’ve been on blog break because we were eating our way through LA, trying sweets from various restaurants and bakeries. While we had some good ones (the coconut bavarois from Red Medicine is now a fond memory), most were unspectacular. We also tried one patisserie (Jin in Venice) that made us all-the-more grateful for Bethesda’s Tout de Sweet. As much as I wanted to like Jin–Asian owner, picturesque outdoor seating, tempting selection of lunch options–the goods just didn’t deliver.

A rundown of the sugar tour:

 

Red Medicine:

Coconut dessert

In a tropical ant farm

Reluctant to share

Bitter chocolate

Ruined by string of butter

Pastry chef misstep

 

Gjelina:

Famous pot de creme

JELL-O pudding on steroids

It’s salty! It’s sweet!

Strawberry rhubarb

A crisp more like a pot pie

Overly soupy

 Jin Patisserie:

Macarons and cake

A feast for the eyes, not mouth

Post-dessert remorse

Lavender-almond

Sesame-peanut cookies

Jin redeems itself?

 

Tender Greens:

Caramel cupcake

Like midget banana bread

Icing overload

 

Cake Monkey:

Two kinds of cookies

Both chocolatey sandwiches

Unmemorable

To juice or not to juice?

The wheatgrass shot from Puree Juice Bar, Bethesda, is the least-disgusting wheatgrass juice I've ever tasted.

After watching the documentary “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead,” Mr. X-sXe ran out and bought a juicer. This purchase was a point of contention, since he tends to get obsessed with one food craze, only to eventually abandon it for the next best thing (see Kombucha, Yonanas, yogurt-making).

A couple months later, I’m still undecided on whether the juicer was a good idea. On the upside, it’s inspired us to incorporate more fresh fruits and vegetables into our diets. There are green veggies I don’t love eating that I will happily drink. But most of the roughage is purged, so you lose an important benefit from eating fresh produce. I can’t help but think of my immigrant parents tsk-tsking at the amount of waste. (gardeners: the leftovers make a good compost.)

As for juicing as a weight-loss solution, we haven’t been use our juices as meal replacements so much as supplements. In “Fat, Sick,” the guys go on a crash diet, drinking only juice for months. I’m way too into my solids to give them up.

Our green mocktail. See recipe below.

Back to Mr. X-sXe’s adventures in juicing. In a misguided attempt to be healthy, his first recipe involved Brussels sprouts, onions, kale, carrots, and asparagus. DO NOT DO EVER MAKE THIS, UNLESS IT’S IN THE NAME OF REVENGE. This “juice” stank up the entire house, literally, but he drank it anyway. Afterwards, sulfuric fumes emanated from his pores.

Since then, our rule-of-thumb has been this: don’t juice onions or cruciferous veggies. The key to tastiness seems to be adding a sweet base to blend with other ingredients.  You can try sticking with similar color groupings. For example:

Green juice:

• Green apples
• Spinach or chard or kale
• Cucumber

Red juice:

• Beets
• Red apples
• Strawberries

Orange juice:

• Oranges
• Carrots
• Mango
• Ginger (use sparingly)

This recipe below is a modification of the green juice. It’s really tasty–surprisingly, there are no odd flavors reminding you that you’re drinking something healthy. The fennel is not overpoweringly licorice-y, while the mint leaves a clean feeling in your mouth. “Even the burps taste good,” Mr. X-sXe commented.

Green Mocktail Recipe

• 1 bulb fennel (2.50 for 2 bulbs at Trader Joe’s)
• 1 bag baby spinach
• 6 granny smith apples
• 1 package fresh mint leaves, stems removed
• 1 package fresh pineapple (at least 1 pound): cheaper if you buy an entire fresh pineapple for about $3 and let it ripen for a few days
• 1 cucumber
• 2 limes (rind and white part cut off)
• Kosher salt for the rims, if you wanna pimp it out

PS: If you can’t be bothered to buy a juicer, try Puree in downtown Bethesda. They have some really delicious concoctions. Their juices don’t come cheap, so we tend to go for the stuff we can’t make at home, like the wheatgrass shot or orange lassi (not a yogurt drink), which is so rich that it goes down like a dessert.

What the hell are canelés?

They’re not as fetishized as macarons, as common as croissants, or as dunkable as madeleines. But they do hail from France (the Bordeaux region, specifically). And they are worth introducing to your taste buds.

Canelés are basically baked custards that looked like they popped out of a tiny 70s jello mold.

They haven’t been on my radar for a long time. I rarely (never?) see them at DC-area French bakeries. The last time I found these was in the Trader Joe’s frozen case. Those ate like rubber. (Aside: I’m guessing that chewy texture is authentic to canelés and comes from the special baking mold they use. I just don’t like it. See my rant on mochi.)

Then last week, Smack was featured on a recent Tasting Table email. They described theirs as having a special crunch. I was willing to take a risk, ordering an assortment of 25: plain, lemon, chocolate-dipped. (They’ll deliver them to your door for an extra $6.)

When I emailed Smack about leaving the box at my front door, they were concerned about the canelés losing their crunch if exposed to the whims of the weather. This company is definitely a labor of love. Not just because of their concern with the quality, but also the presentation. The caneles come immaculately packaged in a gift box with a giant bow.

BTW, they were spot on about the importance of the crunch. That’s what made these little babies so good. They were just sweet enough, fragrant with vanilla and rum. The dark chocolate ones were the best. Tip: after refrigeration they lose their crunch around day 3, so order only what you can eat while fresh.

The DC cheesecake truck

In a few short years, DC’s gone from having only dirty-water dog trucks to no less than 40 types of roving foodmobiles. One of them, the Sweetz Cheesecake Truck, sells only its namesake. That’s pretty ballsy when you consider how polarizing cheesecake is.

These strawberry and lemon-blueberry cheesecakes survived a Metro trip and car ride home.

Chances are, you know someone who doesn’t do cheesecake because it’s too rich—or they hate cream cheese—or both.  Let’s consider the usual suspects: Cheesecake Factory is the Ben & Jerry’s of cheesecakes* as far as density, so it can take a couple sittings to finish a single piece.

Meanwhile, Junior’s is the gold standard of the classic cheesecake but again, it’s not exactly light fare. This is probably why cheesecake is dessert anathema to even the most dedicated sugar addicts.

These individual cheesecakes from the Cheesecake Truck, however, are the antithesis of the heavy cheesecake. Lots of air whipped into the cake keeps things light. Depending on which flavor your get, it’s sitting on a chocolate cookie crumb or graham-type crust. Each is about 3” in diameter—intimidating at first, until you realize how easily your fork sinks into it. Pretty soon, you’ve polished off one on your own.

Flavors vary every day/season. I tried the black forest, strawberry, and lemon-blueberry. The black forest (chocolate, cherries, chocolate-cookie base) was my favorite. It didn’t last long enough to make it into the photo.

*Ben & Jerry’s has very little air in their ice cream.

Chocolate meets cardamom

Lately, I’ve had cardamom on the brain. It all started with this Naked Beet recipe from Gojee.com. Then, like a sign from above, I uncovered a long-lost bag of cardamom that same week at the bottom of a kitchen basket. I won’t speculate on how old it is—it was unopened with no visible expiration date. That’s good enough for me (if this makes you never want to come to dinner at my house, I totally understand).

Ever had chai? Then you’ve probably tasted cardamom before. The pods are boiled with cinnamon, peppercorns, fennel seeds, and other spices to make that aromatic brew. Cardamom is also commonly used in Indian sweets. It’s definitely got a kick to it: like milder peppercorns with a hint of cinnamon.

One fascinating thing about cardamom is that the seeds naturally neutralize your breath. Gum manufacturers have taken note—it’s shown up in Wrigley’s Eclipse and toothpaste. Chewing on the seed is the best way to experience the flavor full-on, like in these Persian candies.

As the Naked Beet recipe noted, once the seed is ground up, the powder quickly loses its potency. But I had trouble finding cardamom pods that didn’t cost $15 for a small bottle. I also couldn’t find cacao nibs. So I settled for this double chocolate-chip cookie recipe and my recently unearthed bag of ground cardamom.

 Recipe additions/modifications:

1)      1 individual serving packet of Starbucks VIA ground coffee

2)      1 tablespoon ground cardamom

3)      Substitution: I used a Plugra-type cultured, higher-fat butter (totally optional)

Note: do not use cheap cocoa powder. It’s the difference between your baked goods tasting chocolate-y vs. chocolate-ish. When I swapped my Trader Joe’s cocoa powder for Ghirardelli, it made a huge difference.

These cookies won’t freshen your breath, but they’re pretty good. I probably should’ve dissolved the coffee with a bit of water before adding it to the batter, for better incorporation.

These make good breakfast cookies, if you need a jolt of caffeine to get going in the morning. (Yes, I am advocating eating cookies for breakfast. There is scientific evidence that high-fat foods could kick-start your metabolism. At any rate, it’s better than eating a sugar-and-caffeine-packed cookie late at night.)

Get a free macaron on March 20

Free cupcakes are a dime a dozen in this town. But free French macarons? Not so easy to come by.

Behold the Early Grey, salted caramel, and coconut macarons from Tout de Sweet, who makes some of the best French pastries in town.

So tomorrow, head over to Tout De Sweet in Bethesda (a few doors down from Tastee Diner). For those of you in the Capitol Hill/Eastern Market area, the Sweet Lobby is giving out free macarons all day until 5 PM. Just mention that you’re celebrating Macaron Day to get your tiny treasure.

I didn’t realize this was an actual holiday, but I’m all for it. Parisian pastry chef Pierre Hermé started the tradition 7 years ago. Not only do you get a freebie, but participating businesses donate a portion of their Macaron Day proceeds to charity.

Born without the baking gene

One of the first things I ever learned to make was lemon bars, off a recipe clipped from Seventeen magazine. I grew up in a house where my mom used the oven to store pots and pans–so my lemon bars were the rare foray into baking.

A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to revisit those lemon-bar-making days. I finally settled on this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (a modification of the Barefoot Contessa’s, which includes Paula Deen quantities of sugar). What I didn’t realize—until I began laying down the crust dough—was that I was using too large a pan.

What to do, what do to? Most reasonable people would’ve transferred the dough to a smaller baking pan. In a mad panic, I tried building a foil “dam” to prevent the lemon filling from flowing out of the crust that covered 80% of the pan. Here’s what happened:

The resulting lemon bars (to the left of the foil dam; the ones to the right were crustless) were anorexically thin. They tasted ok, but I ended up dumping most of them because keeping them around felt like lemon juice on a wound.

Some people weren’t born to bake, yet we do anyway. Maybe one day I’ll have the patience to follow directions to a T. Until then, expect a few monumental baking failures every year.