How I learned to bake, and the best brown sugar cookies you’ll ever have

May14

When I was a kid, my mom baked all the time. There were layered cakes, crispy cookies, sweet breads to accompany our tea, and so much more. But when I watched her bake, I never once saw her measure a single ingredient – we didn’t even own measuring cups or a scale. She would just scoop ingredients into a bowl with a little ceramic teacup, stir them while balancing the bowl between her hip and forearm, put whatever it was into the oven and soon, the smell emanating from the oven alone would leave us speechless and drooling. I don’t remember her ever messing up a dessert so I assumed she was some sort of magician with a sixth sense.

So, when I started baking, I didn’t take measuring seriously, especially since I’ve been cooking for a while already and had gotten used to eyeballing ingredients. I understood recipes and directions like, “butter at room temperature” and “gradually add flour” to be guidelines. I guess I thought I could outsmart the recipe and if my intentions were good, the dessert would somehow just work out. But unsurprisingly, it didn’t. I couldn’t make a single edible cookie. I remember how my mom would stand next to me, scraping the burnt bottoms of cookies with a butter knife after yet another failed attempt, comforting me and saying that next time, I would certainly do better.

It wasn’t until I started reading and re-reading the recipe before baking and following measurements and directions exactly that anything worked out. I learned that if a lemon bars were advised to be cooled before being cut, I should do just that, and that if a recipe calls for brown sugar, substituting with white just won’t do. It is now that I realize that despite how amazing my mother is, she is no magician. She’s just made so many cakes and cookies by the time she had me, that baking became second nature to her – she, as they say, just felt it.

Whereas cooking is about intuition, instinct and pleasure, it is careful attention, precision and patience that matter in baking. I’ve still a long way to go til I can flawlessly frost a cake, but these cookies (and these!) are proof that I have finally mastered at least one type of dessert.

This recipe from Epicurious (click HERE for the recipe) is incredible. The cookies are quick to prepare and bake, and they don’t dry out, even days after baking. They’re soft, chewy, fragrant and ideal for minimalist dessert lovers like me. I strongly advise you to make them!

What is your experience with baking like?

Lemon Bars from The Brown Betty Cookbook

Mar18

Remember this post where I told you about the incredible Brown Betty Cookbook? Well, when I was looking to bake something in celebration of Women’s Day (I’m Ukrainian and this day is not taken lightly in Eastern European cultures), I returned to its pages in search of another great recipe. I didn’t have to look hard as I’d placed a flag on the page with this lemon bars recipe before and here they are.

Although the bars are, in my opinion, quite festive, they require no fancy ingredients and are relatively simple to make. First a buttery crust is mixed and parbaked. Then a simple custard-like filling is prepared and poured over the crust. And then (the hardest part) they bake for half an hour and you pace back and forth in your kitchen in anticipation.

I scaled the recipe down to two-thirds of its original. I think I should’ve baked the crust at a higher temp but I didn’t. As a result, the crust didn’t completely solidify after its proposed 25-minute bake time and in the end turned out more crispy and less buttery and delicate as was intended by the recipe. They were still incredibly yummy with a super lemony, clean taste, and my mom, sister and I inhaled them nonetheless Below is the original printed recipe. Also, the book suggests using a stand mixer for these – I used a food processor and it worked just as well.

Recipe from The Brown Betty Cookbook (Wiley, 2012)

(Yield: 21 bars)

Crust

1 tbsp plus 2 sticks butter, at room temp

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

1/2 c white sugar

1/2 c packed light brown sugar

Filling

8 oz cream cheese, at room temp

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c sugar

2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs, beaten

3 tbsp fresh lemon juice

2 tsp lemon zest

Procedure: Preheat oven to 350F. Coat 9x13x2″ baking pan with 1 tbsp butter. For the crust, in a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and sugars. Add butter and mix until dough forms. Pat dough into pan and bake until golden brown, about 25 min. Set aside. For the filling, beat together cream cheese and salt until smooth. Gradually add sugar, flour and baking powder and beat until blended. Add eggs, lemon juice and zest and beat until blended. Do not overmix. Pour the filling over crust and bake until a wooden pick inserted into a corner comes out clean, 30 to 35 min. Transfer the pan to wire rack to cool completely. When cool, cut into bars.

Ponchiki (Russian doughnut holes)

Feb18

We all have food memories that we may have fabricated, right? They are blurry, gray, distant and vague; they are memories of us eating something not necessarily good or bad, but an imprint of them has remained in the brain nonetheless. Years down the line we try to look back to those memories and there is but a hint of them left – nothing to actually hold on to. Let us refer to those as phantom food memories.

I don’t remember eating ponchiki (pon-chee-key) often as a child. My mom might have made them for my sister and I once or twice but it wasn’t a regular thing – cuz, you know, deep-fried dough isn’t really good for kids. I don’t even remember what they tasted like to me as a child, but I do remember being excited about eating them. And so, since I’ve been meaning to try making doughnuts at home for a long time now, I figured I’d ask my mom about this phantom recipe as a start. To my pleasant surprise, she practically knew it by heart and it turned out to be super easy, too. No fancy equipment, yeast, or proofing time required! Eating the final product, unfortunately, did not force those memories to float to the surface. But eh, who cares – they were freakin’ delicious!

(Yield: about 12 ponchiki)

Ingredients:

250 g (1 c plus 1 tbsp) farmer’s cheese

1/2 c sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 tsp lemon zest

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp lemon juice

1 1/4 c all-purpose flour (plus more for dusting)

Vegetable oil for frying

Powdered sugar for dusting

Procedure: Combine cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla and zest in a mixing bowl. Then squirt lemon juice into baking soda, let it fizzle for a few seconds, and add to mixture. Stir mixture until fully combined. Stir in 1 c flour – don’t overmix. The mixture should be slightly sticky and soft; if at this point the mixture is too thin, add another 1/4 c flour, or more if necessary to achieve desired consistency. Then pour oil into pot or saute pan – the oil should be about 3 inches deep. Place over high heat. Heat oil until it starts to gently ripple – about 10 min.

While the oil heats up, form the ponchiki. Place about a third of the dough on a generously floured surface. Sprinkle top with more flour and form into a log.

Cut the log into 3 or 4 pieces.

Shape into golf ball-sized pieces (as you would with meatballs). If dough is too sticky, sprinkle some more flour on it.

When oil is hot enough, turn heat down to low. Add 3 or 4 ponchiki into the oil at a time – they should sizzle and rise to the top immediately. Cook each batch for about 5 min, turning occasionally to ensure even cooking. The ponchiki will puff up as they cook.

Using a slotted spoon or other straining utensil, remove ponchiki from hot oil and drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining ponchiki.

Dust with powdered sugar. Serve warm, alongside preserves or this homemade strawberry sauce.

What are your phantom food memories?

Guest post by the tasty tRuth: Recipe for spiced pear coffee cake

Nov19

This guest post was written by Ruthie of the tasty tRuth, a fellow foodie I met thanks to the NYC Food Bloggers. Ruthie hails from the Midwest but has recently relocated to the Big Apple to pursue her goal of becoming a food writer. She is passionate about natural, sustainable food, and looooves cheese. Her recipes are unique and her writing is heartfelt and engaging – I highly recommend that you subscribe to her blog. Okay, this is starting to sound like an eHarmony profile, so without further ado…

Normally, this late in the fall, I have made and/or consumed multiple apple crisps. My mom has made her favorite dense apple cake, and I have purchased a pumpkin bar every Saturday as I made my rounds at the farmers’ market. I’m not the first and I won’t be the last to admit there is a bit-too-large corner of my heart dedicated to the lauded pumpkin and apple autumnal baked goods.

But as I considered which fruits are generally in season during the fall, I wondered why the winter-ripe pear so rarely makes an appearance in our fall indulgences. I also developed a unique fascination with pears after reading Yann Martel’s fictional story, Beatrice and Virgil, in which one character makes a standard pear sound irresistible and God-sent as she describes it to a character who has never before seen one. Read this book for that chapter, if for nothing else.

The day I give up my pumpkin bars and apple crisps is not soon to come, but after making Spiced Pear Coffee Cake, I’m thinking pear desserts will have to become a regular part of the rotation. This fruit lends a sweetness and a softness to the coffee cake that is undeniably tasty; autumnal; pear.

Spiced Pear Coffee Cake

Adapted from Food 52

Makes one 9 x 13 cake

Ingredients

Cake

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 ¾ cups dark brown sugar

¾ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon (divided: ½ teaspoon + 1 more teaspoon for the topping)

½ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon cloves

3/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Filling

4 medium pears (I used barely ripe Anjou)

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Dash of cloves

1 tablespoon dark brown sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 9” x 13” baking pan with butter or cooking spray. Pulse the flour, brown sugar, salt, and spices in a food processor four or five times, until combined. Add the butter and process for about ten seconds; scrape down the sides and pulse three or four times. Remove ¾ cup of that and put in a small bowl with the nuts and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Stir well to combine. Add the baking soda and baking powder to the dry ingredients in the food processor and pulse two or three times.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk. Then add the buttermilk and whisk well to combine. Core and coarsely chop the pears; toss with the filling spices (1/4 teaspoon each of cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg, and a dash of cloves) and the tablespoon of dark brown sugar. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until smooth. Put half of the batter in the prepared baking pan. Spread the pears over the batter; then, cover with the remaining batter. Sprinkle on the topping. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the center springs back when lightly touched. Allow to cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes before cutting. Enjoy!

Betty’s Buttermilk Pound Cake from The Brown Betty Cookbook

Nov16

A few weeks ago, the editor of this scrumptious cookbook hosted a giveaway on his blog and yours truly won!

The Brown Betty Cookbook (John Wiley & Sons, 2012) is a collection of dessert recipes from the Brown Betty Dessert Boutique in Philadelphia. The boutique was founded by mother-daughter team, Linda Hinton Brown and Norrinda Brown Hayat, and inspired by Linda’s mother Betty’s legacy of weekly biscuit, pie and cake feasts. From the cover art and the photos inside, to the family stories told throughout, and even down to the font choices, this book is absolutely beautiful. It features recipes for cookies, pies and cupcakes, but has a definite accent on their famous layered cakes.

When I first received the book, I hoped that there would be a classic pound cake recipe in it as it is my favorite dessert. Thankfully, there was. Those of you who are familiar with my blog know that I am not by any stretch of the imagination a good baker. I can handle simple cookies and banana bread but I have yet to tackle a layered cake. Hopefully one day I’ll feel confident enough to take on the challenge, and when that day comes, I know where I’ll find the perfect recipe.

This cake was meant to be baked in a round pan and frosted with lemon buttercream, but since I am an amateur (and a minimalist), I scaled the recipe down to one third of its original, baked it in a loaf pan and ate it plain.

Adapted from Betty’s Buttermilk Pound Cake (pg. 31)

(Yield: one medium loaf pan)

Ingredients:

1 ½ c all-purpose flour

1/3 tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp baking soda

4 oz butter, at room temperature

1 c sugar

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk

½ tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon juice

½ tsp lemon zest

1/3 c + 2 tbsp buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and soda. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and fluffy, and add sugar. Beat until smooth. Then add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition. Then beat in vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Then, alternate between adding dry ingredients and buttermilk, starting and ending with dry ingredients, in two additions. Pour batter into greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour, or until golden brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

The cake came out dense, moist and rather perfect. I look forward to using this recipe time and time again.

Alyssa Shelasky’s “Apron Anxiety” and The Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nov5

When Apron Anxiety came out earlier this year, all I heard about it was that some chick who dated Top Chef’s adorable Spike Mendelsohn wrote it and that she learned to cook because of him. I expected something Fifty Shades-esque, with a few memorable meals strewn throughout.

Alyssa Shelasky is still practically a girl; she definitely looks like it. What could she know about life? I always assumed that one would have to be old and wrinkly to write a memoir. And, what? She learned to cook for a guy? Bid whoop. Small step for Shelasky, big step backwards for womankind. I didn’t want to like the book. But I was curious, dammit, and after reading the first couple of pages, I knew I was hooked; I laughed, I cried, I cringed and I got hungry.

In her memoir, Shelasky talks about her childhood, her crazy twenties in Manhattan, and her heart wrenching romance with the man to whom she only refers as the Chef. At a time when she was lonely, when her writing career was in the gutter, and when her “relationchef” was being held together by a thread, Alyssa decided to christen that room in the house with the stove in it, to keep busy and be productive. And just like that, she went from “someone who thought sweetbreads were, well… sweet breads”, to someone who gets off on farmer’s markets, restaurant openings, and making people happy with her food. She started a blog to document her kitchen escapades so that Chef could read about them after work – “He is so excited to hear about my culinary adventures that you’d think I was Anthony Bourdain with boobs.” – and that very blog laid the foundation for this book. Shelasky’s life is certainly remarkable. She seems to meet fascinating people everywhere she goes, and her outlook on life is refreshing. It is incredible the way she seems to mature with each chapter.

I realized that it is impossible to not like this book because there is just too much heart in it. It’s also funny and wildly entertaining, with equal parts Carrie Bradshaw, Ruth Reichl and Chelsea Handler. As avid a reader as I am, it is rare that after finishing a book, I feel like I know the author and feel connected to him or her – Shelasky definitely made that happen. I can’t wait to read her next book, and the next one and the one after that. If foodie memoirs are your thing, I strongly suggest you get your hands on a copy of Apron Anxiety.

Each chapter of the book ends with a landmark recipe or two and these cookies are one of them. The Neiman Marcus cookie is somewhat of an urban legend (read the full story here) but the recipe in Apron Anxiety is the real deal. The real recipe calls for espresso powder as the secret ingredient, not blended oats!

Also, click here to read Alyssa Shelasky’s ten things to know if you want to be a food writer via Bon Appetit Mag.

Fried pockets of heaven.

Jul20

This recipe came to be as a result of me having just a few leftover wonton skins from these two recipes: Chinese fried wontons and carrot and coconut pockets from earlier this week. I’ve seen Nutella wonton-like recipes all over the blogosphere, the most recent being on Lynna’s beautiful blog, Hearts in my oven. I threw in a few other leftover ingredients and boom! Magic.

These measurements are not exact and they don’t have to be.

Ingredients:

About 10 store-bought wonton skins

2 heaping tbsp Nutella

1 generous handful of sweetened coconut flakes

About 1/2 c chopped peanuts

Vegetable oil

Procedure: Combine Nutella, coconut and peanuts in a bowl. Pour about one inch of oil into frying pan and place over medium heat. While it heats up, start to form the pockets. Working with one skin at a time, lay it flat and place about 1 tbsp of filling in the center. Brush the side that is furthest from you with egg, as well as the top two thirds of the right and left sides. Roll/fold, starting from the bottom, to form pocket. Press down to seal the sides and seal the back. Repeat with remaining skins. Place 6-8 pockets into oil at once and fry about 2 min per side. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Because of the other ingredients, the Nutella doesn’t get all runny after the hot oil, which is what I expected. The filling ends up being chewy and the peanuts get even crunchier after frying.

I meant it when I said magic, you know. If you are going to cook any one recipe from my blog, let it be this one!

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Berry cobbler

Jun25

My cousin Donna recently paid me a visit and we planned to spend the day roaming around the city. We woke up in the morning to the sound of rain and thunder outside, and the weather forecast predicted rain for the rest of the day. We were pretty bummed but decided not to despair and spend the day baking something yummy instead.

I went through my manila folder of torn out food magazine pages (Why yes, I do have one of those. I’m old-fashioned, OK?) and picked this recipe from the June 2012 issue of Martha Stewart Living out of the stack.

The recipe calls for raspberries but I used half raspberries and half strawberries.

The fruit is topped with squares of shortcut pastry, which calls for butter AND heavy cream.

My squares kind of melted into each other but that was because I didn’t account for the size of the pan when preparing it.

The cobbler turned out quite magnificent – the berries got all mushy and sort of gelatinous, while the topping was crunchy and flaky on top and chewy on the bottom.

Click here for the full recipe!

Oatmeal ‘compost’ cookies

Jun5

Momofuku Milk Bar‘s Compost Cookie – created by renown pastry chef Christina Tosi – is one of the NYC store’s most popular items. It a large, soft cookie that’s studded with everything but the kitchen sink: crushed potato chips and pretzels, chocolate chucks, ground coffee, etc. — hence ‘compost.’

The other night I was really in the mood to bake cookies and being somewhat disabled in the baking department, this mood most often leads to oatmeal cookies, since in my opinion, this treat is practically impossible to mess up. I wanted to channel some of Tosi’s inspiration and this was the result.

Adapted from my original oatmeal cookie recipe

(Yield: 12-14 cookies)

Ingredients:

¾ c all-purpose flour

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

4 oz butter, at room temp

½ c brown sugar

¼ c white sugar

1 egg, at room temp

1 ¼ c plain oats

1/3 c sweetened coconut flakes

1/3 c chopped walnuts

1/3 c crushed salted pretzels

Procedure: Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with foil and set aside. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugars until smooth in stand mixer or food processor. Add egg. Then add flour mixture and mix just until combined. (If using food processor, remove blade and use spoon to stir in manually) – Stir in the oats, coconut, nuts and pretzels. Using ice-cream scoop, place dough on baking sheet, leaving one inch between cookies. Bake for 12-14 min, until golden brown. Transfer to cooling rack. When cooled, store in airtight container for up to one week.

Although my cookie skills do in fact suffer, I can honestly say that this recipe is amazing. These cookies are crispy on the bottom and chewy throughout; and they’re perfect for those of us who enjoy a nice salty surprise in our sweets.

Nutella surprise coconut muffins

Apr20

I had some leftover coconut flakes and Nutella in my cupboard and I wanted to combine them into one treat. I searched my favorite recipe engine, FOODILY, for a muffin recipe and decided to go with a yogurt-based batter. The recipe called for whole milk yogurt but I used the low fat kind because that’s what was already in my fridge. I knew the substitution would make a huge difference but went against my better judgment. The muffins turned out good but they didn’t rise as much as I expected them to, and kind of got stuck to the paper liners.

Since I wasn’t totally satisfied with the end result, I won’t share the recipe with you. Substitutions are just a bad idea when it comes to baking, man…