Adventurous Female Seeks Robust, Peanutty Cookie for Longterm Relationship

The other day I was making something with peanut butter--I think it was this wonderful West African Chicken Peanut Stew, which might sound iffy but I promise is really wonderful--and my husband, who was lurking around the kitchen stealing bites of everything, started making big puppy dog eyes at the peanut butter.

He proceeded to toy with my emotions as he told he how much he looooves peanut butter cookies and hasn't had a good one in years, and his love of the cookies stems back to the time in grade school when his mom used to make chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies to celebrate his birthday, and he would bring them to school, and all the kids loved them, and loved him, and his mom too...

Well, by the end of this story, how could I not make him some cookies? And did I mention the puppy-dog eyes?

Unfortunately, these particular cookies were nothing to go gaga over. I used a recipe from the usually-reliable Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, but they were pretty blah. Not a strong peanut butter flavor, and a weirdly soft, insubstantial texture. At one point we described them as "wussy." Certainly nothing you'd want to bring to school on your birthday!


So if you have an awesome peanut butter cookie recipe, I'd love to hear about it--either a book recommendation or a link to an online recipe. Our ideal PB cookie has a strong peanut flavor, and a nice chewy heft (but I do prefer the ones with flour, as opposed to the simple pb/egg/sugar combos.) Thanks, yo!

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TWD: Honey Wheat Cookies

I had my doubts about these Honey Wheat cookies. The truth is, I OD'ed on wheat germ back in high school, and it's been years since I've even wanted to be in the same room with the stuff. (Lunch every day involved yogurt with gobs of wheat germ stirred into it. Four years of this will cure you of any wheat germ cravings right quick.) So I wasn't too excited at the thought of trying to turn my old frenemy into a tasty cookie ingredient.

However, I actually kind of loved these. They weren't my usual crisp on the outside, soft in the center, bursting-with-chocolate extravaganza, and it was refreshing! I loved the chewiness the wheat added, I loved the strong honey flavor, and I loved the addition of lots of lemon zest. I also added a teaspoon of cardamom, which I was hoping to love, but I couldn't taste it at all in the finished cookies, so I guess I'll double it next time and love it later.

These didn't prove as popular with the husband, as he pronounced them "healthy-tasting" with an unmistakable whiff of disdain in his voice. I tried to explain how much butter and sugar was in them, but it didn't do much good. So it's up to me to polish these off, but don't worry, guys, I think I'm up to the job.

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The Best Idea I've Had All Year

Last week I was invited to a fondue party. It was all of my favorite things in one room: friends, melted chocolate, and an immense smorgasbord of bite-sized dippable goodies. What a world we live in, that communal chocolate-dipping is a socially accepted--even celebrated--ritual!

For the fondue party, we were all asked to bring some sort of dipper. I wanted to bring something besides fruit or pound cake, as those are classics I was sure someone else would gladly cover. I debated between homemade marshmallows (good), gourmet rice crispy treats (gooder), until I settled on the most genius idea I have ever had in my life:

BANANA BREAD


I am here to tell you that the combination of moist, fragrant, spiced banana bread and melted chocolate is pure bliss. But you don't have to go to the trouble of whipping up a batch of chocolate fondue to recreate the experience. Adding chocolate chips to your banana bread is almost as good, and it's a heck of a lot easier to transport in lunches and things.


I don't want to be immodest, but this was truly one of the better things I've baked so far this year. As soon as I tasted it, I wondered why I wasn't baking banana bread on a weekly basis--it's that good. Moist, flavorful, with a hint of cinnamon and--let's be honest--way more than a hint of chocolate, I couldn't stop nibbling and picking at it. The recipe is right after the jump...


Moist Banana Bread
Yield: 2 large loaves

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup oil (I used half vegetable, half coconut--you can use all veg)
3 cups coarsely mashed very ripe bananas (about 5-6 large)
1/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla
1-2 cups mix-ins like toasted nuts, chocolate chips, etc (optional)

Spray 2 9x5 loaf pans well with nonstick spray, dust lightly with flour, tap out any excess flour. Preheat oven to 350.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl, set aside.

Beat together eggs and sugars in bowl of electric mixer at medium-high speed until very thick and pale and mixture forms a ribbon when beater is lifted, about 10 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add oil in a slow stream, mixing, then mix in bananas, sour cream, and vanilla. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in flour mixture and any mix-ins thoroughly.

Divide batter between loaf pans, spreading evenly, and bake in middle of oven until golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer comes out clean, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

Cool loaves in pans on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack. Turn loaves right side up and cool completely.

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TWD: Chocolate Chip Cookies

When people hear I'm a pastry chef, they often ask similar questions, like "What's your favorite thing to make?" and "What's your favorite dessert to eat?" I never know how to answer the first question because, seriously, it's work. I enjoy it, but it's still a job, it's not like I waltz into the kitchen every morning and make whatever the spirit inspires me to make. (This is not the usual answer I give, because I want people to think I'm nice. Suckers.)

The second question is equally tricky. While I'd love to dazzle people with my well-refined pastry palate, the truth is that I'm really a cookie and brownie girl at heart. If I'm going to bake for myself, it's probably going to be some variation of soft, gooey, chocolatey cookies or bars. That's why this week's recipe, for Dorie's "Best-Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies," was made several weeks ago...any excuse for a chocolate chip cookie!

But before we get to the good stuff, we must discuss the not-so-good stuff; that is, how these cookies originally turned out. Any cookie called "Best-Ever"deserves some respect, so I followed the recipe to the letter, even going so far as to time the beating of the butter and sugar to make sure I got the right results. And what I got was this:

Flat, crispy cookie frisbees with some chocolate chunks. Now I know there are some heathens out there who insist on crunchy chocolate chip cookies, but I've never tolerated them OR their brittle pucks (apologies if this applies to you--change your mind and we can be friends again), so you can imagine my dismay when I realized I'd produced a batch of the offending cookies in my very own oven. The culprit was obvious: too much butter and too much beating time produced cookies that spread far too much.

Instead of scrapping the rest of the dough, I put it back in the mixer, added more flour (I think about 1/2 cup more) and a touch of baking powder, and baked off another test batch. MUCH better! (Original batch on the right, extra-flour batch on left.)

Now THIS is a cookie I can believe might be someone's "best." Crisp around the edges, but still very soft--almost a touch underbaked--in the middle. I didn't go too crazy with the flavors, because I tend to be a traditionalist...just added some toasted pecans to half the dough to give it a little crunch.

I think I might laminate this picture and keep it in my wallet, so that next time someone asks my favorite dessert, I can brandish it proudly and declare, "the humble chocolate chip cookie!" And then wipe off their drool.

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Crepe Balls of Fire

This year marked the 8th year my husband and I celebrated Valentine's Day together. Our first V-Day, we were both in college, and I cooked him crepes in my dorm kitchen (always a scary proposition) and we ate them on a blanket on the floor of my dorm room. Maybe it was the fumes from the aerosol can of whipped cream that swayed him, but I like to think that it was the magic of crepes that sealed the deal. We were engaged later that spring and married a year later.

So every Valentine's Day since then, we have celebrated by having crepes for dinner. We try to make it a nice affair:

(Note the weird toppings that he insists on, like maple syrup over canned pears. He SWEARS by it!)

My crepes usually look something like this: Nutella or chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and berries. What's not to love?
This year, though, he got shook up our time-honored crepe routine. I sent him out to get berries and cream, and he comes back with Kit-Kat bars. Kit-Kat bars! I think he's been reading Katrina's blog...I kept waiting for him to bust out the Rolos and make Turtle crepes or something.


Not wanting to stifle his budding culinary creativity, I chopped them up and added them to the buffet of crepe toppings. Holy Cupid, they were actually GOOD! Seriously. The bits added a really light, fun crunch to the crepes.

So there you have it. 8 years in and he's still delighting and surprising me in new ways every day. It must be love.

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Valentine's Day Candies

If the garlands of red roses and stacks of heart-shaped chocolate boxes and giant inflatable Cupids in stores haven't tipped you off already, allow me to warn you: Valentine's Day is nearly here. If you're looking for fun V-day sweets, here are some cute things I've recently been featuring on the candy website:

Homemade Conversation Hearts (link is to a photo tutorial)

Now you'll never be stuck passing out lame messages like "Tweet Me" and "UR A 10." With a set of food-safe markers, you can make the sassiest, funniest, in-jokiest candies to put Necco to shame.

Tuxedo Strawberries (link is to a photo tutorial)

Love, love, LOVE the look of these. The only downside is that it made me talk to my food more often and made me slightly more reluctant to eat them. I would pick one up and say, "Aren't you a handsome devil today?!" and then feel guilty about biting his head (or would that be feet?) off.

Love Pops

Aka, brownie pops with a Valentine's twist. These can also be made with regular cake, banana bread, pound cake, etc. I used a cutter for the hearts, but cut the tulips and lips out freehand, and the recipe includes tips for how to do this.

Happy Valentine's Day! What are YOU making to celebrate?

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Me + Rick Katz's Brownies = True Love

It is fitting that we made these brownies the week of Valentine's day, because I am in love with them.
Yes, I said it.
And I'll say it again: LOVE.
Inanimate objects, you say? Psh. Details.

Now I know my husband reads this blog, so it might get a little awkward around the house, but that's a small price to pay for a brownie this good.


In the eternal debate of cakey vs fudgy brownies, I have always fallen on the side of the fudgy folks. The gooier, the better. And you can't get much gooier than this:

These were really, truly, outrageously good if you're a fudgy brownie fanatic like myself. I don't know how they held their shape so well when cut, because they seemed to melt into pure chocolate bliss as soon as I bit into them.

I added some hazelnut paste and chopped hazelnuts, which turned out to be a good call. I think the brownies needed some kind of crunch to break up the gooey texture a bit. I couldn't really taste the hazelnut paste in the brownie part, though, so next time I'll double it so it has a chance against all of that chocolate. (Really, though, I can't believe it's only 6 ounces. Tastes like 60!)

My husband has taking to having a nightly bowl of vanilla ice cream, topped with a warm hazelnut brownie, and I have taken to stealing bites of it every night. People, I swear to you, this is the closest thing to heaven on earth you will find.

In fact, this might be more than plain love. This might be Princess Bride-style twu wuv, which as we all know, will fowow you foweveh. So tweasure your wuv! I know I'm treasuring mine several times a day.

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Edible Superbowl Footballs

[I posted this recipe last year, but these candies are just too cute to not share again!]

"All right, gang, huddle up!"
"This is the Superbowl, so ya gotta bring your A-game. Johnson, go long for the pass from Brown. Franklin, don't let their guys get within 10 yards of Burton. Smith, stand around and look delectable."

"25, 31, 14....hut, hut, hike!"
"They've got the ball! Go in for the tackle!"
That's right, what's better than watching the Superbowl this Sunday? (Um, everything?) How about eating footballs instead? These adorable and delicious candies have a fudgy peanut butter and chocolate filling, covered in chocolate candy coating and decorated to look like mini footballs.

Apologies to any fans who are appalled at my faux-football terminology and dialogue above. It should be obvious that I know nothing about football--I had to google a picture of a football to know how to decorate them!--but I do know I love eating them.
Recipe under the cut!


Chocolate Footballs
Recipe first appeared on my candy site

4 tablespoons (2 ounces) butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup peanut butter, smooth or chunky (not natural)
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp + 1 tsp milk
8 ounces chocolate candy coating
2 ounces white candy coating

1. Prepare a baking sheet by lining it with aluminum foil and set aside for now.

2. Place the peanut butter and softened butter in the bowl of a large stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. (Alternately, you can place them in a large bowl and use a hand mixer.) Mix on medium speed until creamy and well-combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times.

3. Stop the mixer and add the powdered sugar, cocoa, salt, and vanilla. Turn the mixer to low and mix until the peanut butter is well-distributed. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides very well, and mix again on low. At this point the mixture will look very dry and crumbly.

4. Add the milk and mix on low, continuing to mix until the candy moistens and comes together, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. (This may take a few minutes.) Once it has come together, squeeze some of it into a ball in your hands to check the texture. It should hold together smoothly, without cracking or crumbling, but not be too moist. If necessary, add a little more milk, a half-teaspoon at a time, to get a consistency that you can comfortably work with and mold.

5. Using a teaspoon or a small candy scoop, form the candy into 26 balls and place them on the foil baking sheet. Elongate each ball and pinch the ends into points, so that they are football-shaped. The footballs should be approximately 1.5 inches long and 1 inch wide. (You can vary the size to get fewer or more footballs out of the recipe.) Continue until all the candy is formed into footballs. Refrigerate while you prepare the chocolate candy coating.

6. Place the chocolate candy coating into a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Stir until completely fluid and free of lumps.

7. Using a fork or dipping tools, dip a football into the melted candy coating, submerging it completely. Remove it from the coating and allow excess to drip back into the bowl. Replace the dipped football on the foil-lined baking sheet, and repeat with remaining footballs and candy coating. Return the footballs to the refrigerator to set while you prepare the white candy coating.

8. Place the white candy coating into a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Stir until completely fluid and free of lumps. Scrape it into a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip, or a Ziploc bag. Cut a tiny hole in the corner of the bag to pipe the chocolate.

9. Decorate the footballs by drawing white circles around the edges, and laces in the middle of the balls. Allow to set completely. If desired, you can cut the excess pooled chocolate from the base of the footballs to make them look neater. Footballs can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. Bring to room temperature before serving.

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Q: What is the Opposite of a Bundt Cake?

Q: What is the opposite of a bundt cake?

A: How about...waffles?

I'm not sure if "waffles" is the exact opposite of a bundt cake (maybe doughnut holes would be a better answer?) but they do seem pretty far apart on the Baking Spectrum. Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes were the TWD choice this week, and as much as I tried, I just could not get excited about making them. Something is wrong when you have to give yourself a pep talk and force yourself into the kitchen to make a dessert.

So, I decided to take a pass this week and instead got my sweet tooth on by making nutritionally suspect but oh-so-delicious Breakfast for Dinner (or Brinner, if you will.) For this Brinner installment, we had banana waffles with amazingly, insanely, unbelievably good Banana Butter Pecan Topping.



Yes, it looks a bit unsavory, but trust me: this topping is so good you'll be sucking it out of the waffle holes and licking your chops for more. It has a rich caramel taste from brown sugar, with sweet banana chunks melted in and crunchy toasted pecans. I can also verify that it makes a killer addition to an otherwise virtuous bowl of oatmeal. We suspect it's also a delicious ice cream topping, but further research is needed in this area, just to be sure.

Epic Banana Butter Pecan Topping

1/4 cup (2 oz) butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 ripe bananas, halved and chopped
1 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
1.5 tsp vanilla extract

1. Melt the butter in a small skillet.
2. Add the brown sugar and allow it to melt, stirring occasionally. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture is bubbly, thick, and gives off a lovely caramel smell.
3. Add the cinnamon, bananas, pecans, and vanilla, and cook for 3 minutes more, stirring frequently. Serve warm on waffles, pancakes, yogurt, ice cream, spoons, fingers, etc...

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TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

This week's Cocoa-Nana bread had me all excited. I like the chocolate-banana combo (although I was surprised to hear how many people hate it), I loooove adding chocolate chips to banana bread or banana muffins, and we all know banana cake is best when topped with chocolate-sour cream frosting. And my very first TWD recipe was for her chocolate marbled banana loaf, which is still one of my very favorites. So basically, all this bread had to do was wink at me from the corner and I was prepared to love it forever.
However, this bread was the rarest of all specimens: the baked good that looks better than it tastes. Charlatan.
I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either, and I was so ready to love it. Mostly I guess my taste buds were confused. The banana flavor wasn't very prominent, so I mostly just tasted the chocolate. And the texture was more like a cake than a quick bread, but because of all the cocoa it wasn't sweet enough to be chocolate cake. What...who...how...huh?

[How cute are sea otters?! That is all.]

The one thing this bread did have going for it was big chunks of chocolate. The nice folks at Dove sent me a Valentine's package with their milk and dark chocolate hearts, so I chopped up a bunch of those (a wee bit more than the recipe calls for, perhaps. Ahem.) and they added some nice pockets of melted chocolate for my tasting pleasure.

(Also, did you know that they're currently partnering with Martha Stewart, and inside each wrapper is a Martha-approved tip for making your Valentine's picture-perfect? Some are rather smurfy, but some are going to be used as weapons of husband hypnosis to ensure that I'm spoiled this holiday. Red roses in bud vases arranged in the shape of a heart, here I come!)

So yes. This week was a reluctant thumbs down for me, but it did remind me of how much I loved the marbled banana bread, so I may go ahead and make that and call it a success after all.

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TWD: Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

It's only January 19th and already my New Year's Resolutions are a sad crumpled heap kicked into the corner. I resolved to be a better blogger and ESPECIALLY a better blog commentor--I know I have the worst commenting karma ever and anyone who comments on this blog deserves major props and cupcakes and also apologies, because I am a loser--and not only have I not done better about commenting--sorry, sorry! Cupcakes are in the mail--but I'm also falling behind on blogging. Deep breath.

But at least this time, I have a 2 Legit excuse. I spent the long weekend up in the Bay Area, getting drenched in serious monsoon weather and eating Burmese food (where have you been all my life?) and walking around with my snooty nose in the air and my pinky out at the Fancy Food Show. You guys, food trade shows are so fun. It's a blast to be able to talk to people who are passionate about their products and sample so many squizillion delicious foods. There were trillions of truffles...

[These are from Norman Love and are hand-painted by art majors. Yes, really!]

and millions of macarons...
and beautiful brownie pops...


and cakes of both giant marshmallow...

and brie cheese.

Given the week's extracurriculars, it's only fitting that this week's TWD recipe is an "almost-candy bar," since I'm apparently on an all-candy diet. I can't quite see these as a candy bar, since they seemed more like a REALLY HEFTY bar cookie to me, but they were pretty face-rocking good.

I omitted the raisins (of course) and cut them into small bar shapes, which I later cut even smaller since these bad boys seemed to expand in the stomach. My only change for next time would be to not use all of the crust/topping, since I thought it was a little too thick in comparison to the fudge layer. But overall these were awesome and they're a definite make-again for me.

P.S. If anyone's interested, here are some of the candy/chocolate trends I noticed:

• Antioxidant/superfruits are still big: goji berries, pomegranates, acai, etc.
• Vegan/raw chocolate and truffles and other "good-for-you" chocolates
• Yuzu and other exotic citrus fruits
• Passionfruit! I'm really excited about this one.
• Fun texture additions like popping candy, chips, etc. I saw panko used several times
• Bacon everything. Vosges should rename their company Bacon R Us. There was even a bacon-maple marshmallow.

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TWD:Scherben, Shmerben

Looking back on it now, it seems clear that I was destined to not like these "scherbens," IF that's their real name, from the start.

Exhibit A: their name, which I cannot say without developing a ridiculous German accent.

Exhibit B: the fact that they are, actually, German, and it is a documented fact that I do not like German desserts. See also kugelhopf, or as I like to call it, "frustratinghopf."

Exhibit C: I don't generally like fried foods. The last time I fried something was two years ago, when I made these deep-fried candy bars. (Nothing says "I hate you, heart" like a deep-fried candy bar.) And it's taken me this long to recover from the experience of using all that oil to cook something.


Well, I guess I'm a slow learner, because I fried my little heart out this weekend, and all I have to show for it are these sugar-dusted cardboard shards.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I didn't roll the dough thin enough, or have the oil at the right temperature, or maybe it's my subconscious prejudice against the German people and their fine, fine baked goods. But these...these were not gut.

Immediately after frying, once they'd gotten their initial sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon, they were okay. A bit bland, but crispy and fairly sugary. However, after sitting out for an hour or two, they were stale. Like, I did a spit-take into the trash can stale. Like, I couldn't believe that our mild-mannered apartment air could have such a horrible, near-instant effect on a dessert. Blech! At least they looked good:

In the interest of trying to at least pretend to be healthy, I baked some of of these scherbens (is that the plural?) instead of frying them, at the suggestion of the brilliant Caitlin. Well, it worked for her, but I was underwhelmed with the results. These bowls have the exact same number of scherben in them:

Yeah, I guess the oil is a necessary evil in this case. Ah well. I have had some medicinal chocolate to help me recover, and have bid a final auf wiedersehen to these scherben. Please remind me of this experience next time I want to make deep-fried Bavarian dessert pretzels or something.

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Faaaaaaaabulous Birthday Cake for TWD!

This week is the second anniversary of Tuesdays with Dorie, the wonderful baking group that bakes each week out of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours. I do believe that this group is the primary engine that keeps me blogging, since I am a chronic blog neglector and would probably let this blog wither and die without a weekly "date" with my fellow TWDers. So thank you, LW, for starting the group, thanks to everyone who has become my blogging buddies, and thanks especially to Dorie for writing such an awesome cookbook!

But enough chatter, let's have some birthday cake!
We had the choice of making an apple tarte tatin (love those!) or a cocoa-buttermilk birthday cake. Um, it's a birthday, how is this even a choice? Cocoa-buttermilk cake it is!

I knew I wanted to make a wild celebration cake, so I decided early on to go crazy with the colors and decorations. About halfway through decorating the top, the little voice in my head that sounds just like Tim Gunn from Project Runway started questioning that decision.

"Hmmm...Elizabeth..." Tim Gunn Head Voice said, "I'm concerned. That's a whole lot of color. It could be faaaabulous, or it could be a hot mess." TGHV was right. It WAS a whole lot of color. What to do?

After I made like Johnny from last season and cried in the corner for a few minutes while regretting giving up crystal meth, I pulled myself together, banished the Tim Gunn voice from my head, and continued to squirt my frosting streamers with abandon. The only thing worse than an over-the-top cake is a cake that's halfway there but afraid to commit. Go big or go home!

The cake was topped with a party hat made from an ice cream cone, fondant, and buttercream.

I filled the cake with the same vanilla buttercream used to decorate the outside. This decision was made by necessity more than taste--I didn't have enough chocolate for the outside and two inside layers--but it turned out brilliantly, as the vanilla nicely balanced the chocolate and kept it from being too intense.
The cake itself was awesome. For some reason, I expected it to be sort of a wussy chocolate flavor, since it didn't have "deep" or "dark" or "mega tunnel of fudge" in the title. But this was actually a really delicious chocolate cake--flavorful, and moist, but with a nice tight crumb so it held its body and layered easily.

I do still think I prefer oil-based chocolate cakes in general, since they don't dry out as quickly, but for a stable cake that will be eaten in a day or two, this is a great recipe.



I skipped the chocolate malt frosting since some people found it to be gritty and otherwise unappetizing. Instead, I used a nice fudge frosting recipe (found after the jump) that added just the right amount of chocolate flavor and structure.

This was a great way to celebrate two fun, sugar-filled years with the best bakers on the internet. Here's to another two...or three...or twenty...



Fudge Frosting

14 oz bittersweet chocolate
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 sticks (8 oz) butter, room temperature
5 cups powdered sugar
pinch salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole milk

1. Melt chocolates and butter in microwave or over double boiler, stir until smooth. Allow to cool until just warm.
2. Sift powdered sugar and salt into bowl of large mixer.
3. Add milk and vanilla, and mix with whisk attachment until thoroughly mixed and no lumps remain.
4. Add melted chocolate/butter mixture to mixing bowl, mix on medium until smooth.

At this point, you can use it as-is, or you can put it in the fridge to firm up a little--15 or 20 minutes ought to do it. It does get stiff in the refrigerator, so give the frosted cake time to come to room temperature for best taste and texture.

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Happy New Year! Happy Caramel Corn!

Happy new year! Maybe I always feel this way and don't remember, or maybe this year in particular has overstayed its welcome, but I am so ready to begin a new year, and a new decade. The slate, she is fresh and ready to be filled with only good things, good thoughts, and good actions from here on out.


How did you celebrate? We went to a friend's house for a casual potluck-style party. In addition to bringing some virtuous veggies, I brought my new favorite nibble: caramel popcorn. I know there's nothing particularly groundbreaking about caramel corn, since you can buy mediocre versions everywhere, but I recently made this particular recipe for the first time and fell in love. It gets really crunchy, so it doesn't stick in your teeth, and instead of being cloyingly sweet it has a lovely caramelized sugar and vanilla flavor.


Of course, it wouldn't be a party without some chocolate, so I drizzled some bittersweet TCHO chocolate over some of the corn. I like both versions, but I might even prefer it plain--it's just that good.


The recipe is under the cut, and I followed it faithfully, except I used cashews instead of peanuts. (It's also wonderful without any nuts at all.)

I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve--did you know there was a blue moon last night? It only happens every 2-3 years and is said to be good luck. Hopefully it's a portent of good things to come this year. Cheers!

Caramel Corn with Salted Peanuts
Adapted from DamGoodSweet, by David Guas and Raquel Pelzel
Found on Orangette

1 (3½-ounce) package plain (unbuttered natural flavor) microwave popcorn, or about 10 cups fresh popcorn popped by any method, lightly salted
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 250°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

If using microwave popcorn, pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Coat a large mixing bowl with nonstick cooking spray, and dump the popcorn into the bowl, taking care to pick out and discard any unpopped kernels.

In a medium saucepan, whisk together the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes. Immediately remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the baking soda and vanilla. Quickly pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, taking care to distribute it as evenly as you can. Stir in the peanuts, and transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn, and serve.

Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days (or thereabouts).

Yield: about 10 cups

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