Best Brownies Ever, Take... Several

I've tweaked my brownie recipe again, in response to Aaron's suggestion. I asked him how I could make my brownies better, and he said, "More kinds of chocolate." So I added two more kinds of chocolate, and I'm extremely pleased with the results. The texture is moist, fudgy, almost gooey, but without being dry.

Triple Chocolate Brownies

1 stick salted butter
1/2 c Dutch process cocoa
1 1/3 c sugar
2 eggs
4 tbsp Hershey's syrup
2 tsp Mexican vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c flour
1/2 c Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate morsels

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a 9x9 square pan (I use Pyrex) with nonstick aluminum foil. Put the butter in a metal mixing bowl and stick it in the oven just long enough to melt. Whisk in the cocoa, sugar, and eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition. Whisk in the chocolate syrup and vanilla. Then switch to a wooden spoon and gently stir in the flour and salt. Pour the batter into the pan. Sprinkle the chocolate morsels evenly over the top, then press them slightly into the batter using the wooden spoon. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife in the middle of the pan comes out almost clean.

I think I've finally achieved the perfect (according to my taste anyway) brownie. It's all I can do not to bake another batch tonight.

Best Darn Yellow Cake Period

Maybe I should have titled this blog "The Intuitive Baker." I really do cook; I just have been leaning toward baking recently because I don't have many occasions to make non-desserts for a crowd. Today is an exception, though, being Easter. My friends are having a potluck, and I'm excited. There will be paczki, which I've heard of but never tried (I've actually never even had a regular old jelly doughnut, to be honest), and maraschino cherry cupcakes, and other than that I know not what. But the dessert spots were quickly claimed, so I decided to bring potatoes au gratin, keeping up my streak of cooking things for large groups of people that I've never made before.

If they come out great, I'll post the recipe, of course. But for now, here's one I promised a while ago. I adapted this recipe from an edition of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the early 1940s.

Best Darn Yellow Cake Period

½ c butter (I use salted), at room temperature
1 c sugar
3 eggs
½ c milk
1½ teaspoons vanilla
¼ teaspoon almond or orange extract (optional but delicious)
1½ c flour, plus a little
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon. In a smaller bowl, whisk the eggs until frothy (much longer than you'd beat them for most cakes), then add the milk and vanilla, as well as the almond or orange extract if you're using it. Whisk to combine, then add the wet ingredients to the butter-sugar mixture, whisking until most of the lumps are gone. Add the flour, baking powder and salt, and gently stir (spoon will probably work better than whisk at this point) until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Pour into a 9x9 square pan (you can line it with nonstick foil if you like, but I've never had this cake stick) and bake until golden brown on top, about 40 minutes.

Quick Buttercream

In a medium bowl, start with ¼ c softened butter and about 1 c powdered sugar. Whisk until combined. Now you have to decide what flavor buttercream you want. For chocolate, get some cocoa; for mocha, cocoa and coffee; for orange or lemon or lime, that flavor juice; and so on. The possibilities are basically endless. Add more dry ingredient—cocoa or powdered sugar, most likely—until the mixture feels stiff when you stir it, and then dribble in the wet (you can use milk or water if you aren't trying to add flavor with the liquid) until the mixture is a little more liquid than you want it. Taste it and see if the flavor is strong enough; if not, add more flavoring of whatever sort, making sure that your ending consistency is a little more liquid than you want your final product to be. Finally, whisk in more powdered sugar until your frosting is soft, but spreadable. Starting with this amount of butter should produce about enough frosting for the above cake, unless you get fancy and cut it into layers, in which case you'll either need more frosting, or else some kind of filling.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Use the above recipe for yellow cake, but replace the milk with pineapple juice (one can of rings will provide enough) and add 1½ teaspoons of amaretto to the batter if you have it. Before you make the batter, melt 1 stick of butter in the pan (just stick it in the preheating oven for a minute or two), stir in 1½ cups brown sugar, and lay down 1 can of pineapple rings with maraschino cherries in the holes. Make the cake batter and bake the cake as in the above recipe. Make sure to let the cake cool for at least half an hour before turning it out onto a cookie sheet or platter.

This cake is what made James tell me that I'm officially his house baker. I might still let him make cookies, but when it comes to cakes, I'll happily do the work if I get to eat this cake as my reward.

I have a good chocolate cake recipe to share, too, but it's not the rich, über-chocolatey cake that many people think of, and I'm searching for a recipe for that so I can present the two together as delicious alternatives. Feel free to let me know if you have a good recipe for moist, dark chocolate cake: the sort you can imagine filling with raspberry preserves and covering in chocolate ganache.

Raisin Scones

I don't know why I never tried making scones before. I guess I haven't really been into baking for long, and I generally bake for events rather than for myself, and really, what would people think if I showed up to a potluck dinner with a basket of scones? But I might have to do just that sometime soon, because these scones are too good and too easy not to make often.

I started with Alton Brown's recipe and tweaked a few things: butter for the shortening (vegetable shortening grosses me out) and milk for the cream (just because I didn't have any cream), a bit of extra salt for that great salt/sugar balance, and there's no way I'm rolling out dough this wet, so I did them like drop biscuits and they were awesome. Unfortunately, I forgot to preheat the oven, so mine turned out rather flat because the egg and baking powder reacted too long before they went in the oven. Don't be like me.

Raisin Scones

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt (less if using iodized salt)
1/3 cup sugar
6 tablespoons very cold butter, cut into small bits
3/4 cup 2% milk
1 egg
Generous handful golden raisins
Cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 375°. In a large bowl, mix together the first four ingredients. Add butter and combine with your fingers until the mixture (as recipe authors always say) resembles coarse meal. This means smooshing all the butter pieces as you mix. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the egg and milk, then add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine. Throw in the raisins and mix again. Drop onto a cookie sheet or two (I used nonstick foil on mine, but the batter is buttery enough that they probably didn't need it) in roughly 10-12 biscuit-sized pieces. Sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 15 minutes.

I'm sure there are plenty of awesome variations on this recipe, but I have such a weakness for raisin scones that I may never try them.

Smoked Sausage Thingamadoo

I've been eating the same thing for dinner pretty often recently, and as it's delicious, healthy and easy as pie, I figured I should mention it. I have no idea what to call it, but here it is. Core and thinly slice one apple (I used Fuji apples) and 1/4 of a large sweet onion. Throw them in a nonstick skillet with about a teaspoon of butter and cook over medium-low heat for about five minutes. Toss or stir occasionally so that nothing sticks, but keep a lid on the pan most of the time so the apples soften faster. While the apple and onion are cooking, slice two Johnsonville Smoked Turkey Sausages on the diagonal into bite-size pieces. Add them to the pan, turn up the heat to medium, and cook everything together, stirring every minute or so, for about five more minutes.

That's it. No seasoning except what's in the sausage. Takes ten minutes and very little thought, and since it's so easy to make in individual portions, no leftovers. (I hate leftovers.)

The Perfect Brownie?

I'm on a quest for the perfect brownie, so I've been trying out a few recipes. So far, my favorite is a variation on one I invented myself a few years ago. I'm not 100% sure its perfect, but I thought I'd post it here in case anyone needs a good brownie recipe (I can promise you, it's very good).

The Perfect Brownie?

1 1/3 sticks salted butter
1/2 c cocoa powder (I used Dutch process this time, although normally I don't)
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract (I prefer Mexican)
1/4 tsp almond extract
dash salt
2/3 c flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a medium-size microwaveable bowl, or over medium-low heat in a medium-size saucepan. Turn off heat and whisk in the other ingredients in order, making sure that the batter is smooth after each addition. Don't overmix once you've added the flour.

Pour into an 8x8 square pan lined with nonstick aluminum foil (Reynolds Release Wrap is the sine qua non of baking in my kitchen), or parchment would probably work too. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a knife or toothpick inserted in the middle of the pan comes out almost clean.

These need to cool for an unusually long time before being cut, or they will fall apart into mush (sweet, delicious mush). Allow at least an hour for cooling, and cut carefully. Makes 16 very rich brownies.

I also think I've cobbled together the perfect pineapple upside down cake recipe, but that'll have to wait.

Real Banana Bread

This is the first thing I think of when my bananas start getting speckly. Mom used to make it when I was a kid. It's based on a recipe in an old edition of the Fannie Farmer cookbook, though if I remember correctly, the recipe in newer editions is different.

This isn't a banana cake, moist and dense and buttery, as many "banana breads" are. This one contains no butter or oil, its texture is similar to Boston brown bread, and it's only moderately sweet. I like it best toasted and spread with cream cheese.

Real Banana Bread

3 ripe or overripe bananas
2 eggs
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda (so says the recipe; I used 1-1/4 teaspoons of baking powder)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
(optional: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium or large bowl, mash the bananas with a potato masher or a fork (lumps are okay). Add the eggs and whisk well. Add the dry ingredients and stir until combined, adding a bit of water if necessary (my batter was too thick to stir at first, but a tablespoon of water fixed it right up). Stir in nuts, if you like. Spread in a greased loaf pan and bake for one hour.

That's it! One of these days I'll try making it with semisweet chocolate chips, like my godmother does with her banana bread (though hers is much sweeter than this one).

This would be a nice thing to whip up if you have company coming for breakfast or weekend houseguests: it takes about five minutes to put together and an hour to bake, and is actually better the next day.

I'm having it for dinner.

Humble Omelet

I've been MIA for what I would consider a valid reason: I've been having trouble eating. I didn't cook for probably about a month. I was mostly consuming Vitamin Water, Luna bars and Easy Mac, with an occasional restaurant meal in there because when I felt good enough to eat, I wanted to cram in the calories.

I write now because I'm on medication, and it seems to be working at least some, so I cooked myself dinner tonight, and I'm really, really happy about it. Nothing fancy at all, but it's food, and I made it.

Humble Omelet

2 eggs
about two ounces of thinly sliced deli ham, cut into thin strips
1/4 large white or yellow onion, sliced very thin
salt
pepper
dill weed
butter

In a small skillet, melt butter over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook, stirring often. While the onions are cooking, beat the eggs in a small bowl together with the salt, pepper and dill. When the onions are very soft and browned, stir in the ham and continue to cook a couple more minutes, until your kitchen smells like ham. Set this pan aside and replace it with a larger skillet or omelet pan (nonstick is nice). A little butter in the pan is a good idea. Keeping the heat medium low, pour in the egg mixture. Let it cook just until, when you tilt the skillet, the eggs don't run. Don't wait for the omelet to look dry on top, or it will be overdone. Add the onions and ham to the pan in a strip down the middle of the omelet, and fold over both sides to cover the filling. Cook for another minute, then serve.

I've made this omelet a couple times now, and it's awesome. I'm only just discovering omelets without cheese. I went to Blue Moon Diner maybe six months ago and saw that they had smoked trout as an omelet ingredient. Now, I love smoked trout, but I couldn't imagine what cheese would go well with it. I asked our waitress, and she crinkled up her nose and thought but didn't come up with anything either. So I went with just smoked trout and caramelized onions, and I probably don't need to tell you that it was awesome.

Actually, most of the things I cook are rip-offs of things I eat in restaurants, although occasionally my brain will invent something seemingly out of whole cloth. I don't mind being derivative as long as the food tastes good.

I'm just so happy to be able to cook myself dinner again.