Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Tanya of Chocolatechic. It’s probably not a big surprise that she chose a decadent chocolate recipe, and she chose Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia. Dorie’s previous book was Baking with Julia, and she was also there when Julia Child was filming the PBS series Baking with Julia. These come from that time, a recipe that chef Rick Katz created for Julia Child. These are quite special and if you’d like to give the recipe a try, visit Tanya’s blog for the complete recipe.

I love brownies, but there are some brownies out there that I don’t like very much. Brownies from a box look good and come together quickly, but I’m so disappointed when I eat them. They are too cakey, and I prefer a fudgy brownie. These are certainly to my liking because I don’t think that you could make a fudgier brownie. They’re on the verge of being raw, but that’s ok. Handle them right and you can have your cake (err, brownie) and eat it too.

The brownies are simple in terms of the ingredients they contain, but the method to put them together is different. You melt the chocolate and butter and combine eggs and sugar. You add half of that mixture to the chocolate, but then whip the remaining egg/sugar mixture until light and then fold it in. The eggs are the only leavening in this brownie, so they have a fairly dense texture. They aren’t dry at all. In fact, it’s a little hard to tell when they are done, since they are still gooey when you take them out of the oven. I baked mine for the specified time plus a minute or two, and hoped for the best.

Dorie says to cut these into 18 bars, but I cut mine smaller since they are so very rich. I chilled mine after they had cooled since I knew some of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers had trouble cutting them due to their gooey-ness. They cut beautifully when chilled! These are the ultimate fudgy brownie. They are pure, unadulterated chocolate!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 91.

Iced Lemon Shortbread Fingers

Long before I started this blog, I made a lot of cookies for the people I worked with. This even continued when I was in graduate school, although I certainly didn’t have as much time then! I worked as an intern at a federal library at the time, and I would occasionally make treats and bring them to work. My boss really enjoyed the things I brought, but she was quite the foodie. That year for Christmas I was surprised when she gave me The All American Cookie Book. It’s been one of my favorites ever since.

I like lemon bars a lot, but sometimes they are just a little too fussy. They don’t travel well, and sometimes they just aren’t lemony enough. I had found these lemon shortbread fingers a couple of years ago and they are the perfect option when you want something with lemon. They contain quite a bit of lemon zest and fresh lemon juice, so they are very lemony. The buttery shortbread is a nice balance to the tangy, sweet icing. These really are perfect.

1-1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
½ cup powdered sugar
2-1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest
¾ cup butter, softened
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Icing
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1-1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1 cup powdered sugar

Grease a 9-inch square baking pan and then line with foil, allowing the foil to overhang by 2 inches on the sides. In a small bowl, combine the flour and cornstarch.

In a food processor, process the powdered sugar, sugar, and lemon zest until the zest is pulverized. Add the butter, salt and lemon juice and process until well blended and fluffy. Add the flour mixture and process in on/off pulses until well blended. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Press the dough evenly into the prepared pan and bake for 37-45 minutes or until pale golden brown and slightly dark at the edges. Transfer pan to wire rack and cool completely.

To make the icing, in a food processor, process the sugar and lemon zest. Add the lemon juice and corn syrup and process until combined. Add the powdered sugar and pulse until combined. If the icing is too thick to spread, add a couple drops of water.

Remove the shortbread from the pan and peel away the foil. Place on a cutting board and spread with the icing. Let set for 5 minutes and then cut into fingers. After cutting, allow the icing to set completely, about an hour.

Recipe from The All-American Cookie Book by Nancy Baggett

Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Kristin of I’m Right About Everything. She picked Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes. Visit Kristin’s blog for the complete recipe. I love baking in my Bundt pans and I already had the mini Bundt pans, so I was happy to put them to good use.

The only issue that I have had with my mini Bundt pans is that the cake always sticks and I can’t get them out of the pan. Some of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers noted that this was an issue, but I hoped for the best. I really buttered the pan heavily. I figured that there was no way that they could stick, and I was right. They came out of the pan perfectly and effortlessly. I was very pleased.

This is a rather petite recipe, since it only makes 6 mini Bundts. Since there is just the two of us, it was nice to make something that didn’t have so much left over. I splurged and used the good chocolate, and since that is the main flavor of the cake I’m glad I did. I bought my chocolate at Whole Foods, where they sell it in big chunks. They often have gianduja (chocolate with hazelnut) bars there too and this recipe would be excellent made with gianduja!

The hardest part of the recipe was portioning out the batter between the pans. You put a little batter in the bottom of the pan, sprinkle with a nut-sugar-cocoa powder mixture, and then top with the remaining batter. I used my cookie scoop to portion out small amounts of batter, and this made the job a lot easier. In the end they were fairly forgiving, as I couldn’t tell any difference between the ones that I got the filling complete covered and the ones that were a little shy of enough batter to cover the filling. I skipped the glaze and just dusted with powdered sugar. I love the milk chocolate flavor of these Bundts. I bake so frequently with dark or bittersweet chocolate that this was a nice change. I thought that these were pretty easy but look special, so they’d be great to serve to guests.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 188 and 189

White Chocolate Macadamia Crackles

After last week’s chocolate overload, I decided on something less extravagant this week. I try to rotate between bar cookies, shaped and drop cookie, and also between chocolate, citrus, nut, and other flavors. Sometimes time is a concern as well, as I don’t always have a lot of time to bake! I had a lot of work this week that had to be finished so I ended up baking sheets of cookies between getting extra bits of work done. Hopefully next week won’t be so busy!

I had purchased macadamia nuts a couple of weeks ago for another recipe. I couldn’t find that recipe when I was looking for what to make (although I did find that recipe just a moment ago!) but these use the same amount of nuts so I thought it would be perfect. I had thought about making a lemon/orange macadamia cookie, but this worked out just as well. White chocolate and macadamias are often paired together. The sweetness of the white chocolate balances the richness of the macadamias.

These are really addicting! They are chewy on the bottom but because of the sugar-coated top, they are light and crispy on the top. I really like the extra texture that dipping them in sugar adds. They are very buttery, a combination of the butter and the macadamias I think. They do tend to spread a bit so go ahead and make them small; they won’t seem so small after baking. This batch makes about 4-1/2 dozen, which will get eaten very quickly if you aren’t careful. Make a double batch!

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chunks
½ cup coarsely chopped macadamia nuts
Additional sugar

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, shortening, and sugars until light and fluffy. Stir in the egg and the vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Gradually add this mixture to the creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in the white chocolate chunks and the macadamias. Form into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for one hour or until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats. Shape the dough into one inch balls. Dip the top half of the ball in water and then in sugar. Place the cookies, sugar side up, on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Recipe from Taste of Home Best Loved Cookies & Bars

Cocoa-Nana Bread

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Steph of Obsessed with Baking. She chose Cocoa-Nana Bread, which is chocolate banana bread. There was quite a bit of discussion about this one! Does banana go with chocolate? Can you substitute something else for the banana? Do you think chocolate and banana go together? If you do, check out Steph’s blog for the complete recipe. You can also check out the other Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers and see how they fared with this week’s recipe.

Now, I don’t like bananas at all, but I do like banana bread, so I was quite intrigued by this recipe. I think that chocolate and banana does go together; think of chocolate fondue or a banana split! The bananas that I used weren’t very ripe, so you can’t taste the banana much at all. I’m ok with that, but maybe the chocolate is too overpowering. It uses an entire cup of cocoa powder, which is quite a lot.

This bread doesn’t have the moist texture that I am used to with banana bread; it’s quite dry. It seems more like a pound cake or something like that. If you think that it will be like banana bread, then you will be disappointed since it is so different. If you think it’s a cake, then you are in business. Overall, this was pretty good, a lot different than expected but I am glad I tried it.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 46.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

I spotted these cookies on Tastespotting and I moved them right to the top of my “cookies to make” list. I’m on quite a chocolate kick this week, making the Tuesdays with Dorie cookies plus another decadent cake for a birthday celebration at work. I’ll post that cake soon. So I figured I would continue the trend and make a chocolate cookie. It’s hard to go wrong with a chocolate and peanut butter cookie!

I love cookies that use basic ingredients that you have in the cupboard. I did end up using up the last bits of sugar in the house, so I need to restock. I didn’t have any peanut butter chips, which I was surprised since I swear I have about 12 different bags of chips in there: mint, butterscotch, cinnamon, chocolate raspberry swirl, but no peanut butter.

These came together in about 10 minutes, and then take 10 minutes to bake. They don’t look fancy, but they are tasty. My husband thought that the unbaked dough was excellent, but he’s an unbaked cookie dough type of guy. I prefer my cookies baked! From talking with my friends, I guess I am the odd one out that I don’t eat the dough. These are best hot from the oven, when everything is still soft and gooey, but they are still pretty tasty later, too. They have a good balance of flavors, chocolaty without being too heavy, with a nice peanut butter flavor.

1 cup butter
½ cup peanut butter (I used creamy)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with silicone baking mats and set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and sugar. Once the mixture is combined, stir in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, stir into the creamed mixture. Finally, stir in the peanut butter chips.

Drop cookies by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until set. Cool on wire racks.

Recipe from My Baking Addiction, who adapted the recipe from All Recipes.

Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm. She picked the Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars, which are just my kind of cookie: rich, multi-layered, and decadent! These would be the sort of thing that I would choose! To see the complete recipe, visit Lillian’s blog. This is a good one so you’ll certainly want to get the recipe.

This cookie starts with an oat, brown sugar, and peanut base. You use half of that for the base of the cookie and the other half for the top. In between is a layer of chocolate, sweetened condensed milk, peanuts and raisins. The raisins are a bit different, and I used dried cranberries instead. They are a very substantial cookie, and the pan is really heavy when you get everything together.

There are a little messy to assemble, but they are worth it! After you take them out of the oven it is critical that you let them cool completely. I let them cool for about 3 hours and they were still too soft. I cut the pan into 8 big pieces, removed them from the pan and then stuck them in the refrigerator for a couple hours. They were easy to cut at that point. So I recommend putting the bars in the refrigerator before attempting to cut these.

I like these a lot, but I’m not surprised since they are exactly the kind of cookie that I like making. I’m not 100% sold on the raisins/dried cranberries in the middle layer. They add an unexpected texture to the mix. I had thought about substituting something else, but I couldn’t think of anything to add that wasn’t already there! These make a lot of cookies since I cut them small, so I am sending the leftovers to work with my husband. I hope they like them as much as I did.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 114 and 115