Pecan ice box cookies

Pecan ice box cookies were added to the menu this week.  

When I was a kid, part of our typical Christmas was a very large black speckled roasting pan that was filled with cookies and brownies.  The pan was pulled out from the cabinet.  And cookie doughs were made one by one.  Cookies were baked tray by tray.  Cookies were stacked in the roasting pan stack by stack.  And brownies, too.

One of the cookies was something we called ice box cookies.  The dough was made and then frozen before cooking.  The dough wasn't hard from the freeze because it's made with vegetable shortening instead of butter.  It was easy to pull out the block or roll of dough and slice off whatever number of cookies you wanted to make even though it came straight from the freezer.  And there was no need to defrost them before baking.  

I've tweaked this recipe a little bit and added "pecan" to the name.  But these cookies are substantially the same as they were when I was a kid.  I roll these out and pre-cut them.  Then I stack the pre-cut cookies and place them in the freezer wrapped in a plastic freezer bag.  They are all a fairly uniform thickness and they come out of the oven a bit crispy.  And I love the flavor created by the vegetable shortening, the dark brown sugar and the roasted chopped pecans.  

This is one of those really good things from childhood that I'm happy to share with everyone now.

Watch for them on a upcoming weekly menu.  I hope you will like them.  

Cookie mixing tips

For almost every cookie batch, there a few things I try to do as part of the mixing process.  Are there exceptions?  Of course, there are, but most of the time a cookie batch will be served well by utilizing these tips.

First of all, it's a good idea to get all the ingredients measured and set out before you start.  When I say "measured", I mean with a scale if you have one.  In baking, precision and consistency are very important.  I measure everything in grams.  If a recipe does not have weight measurements, then as part of testing it out I make sure I weigh everything and write those measurements in next to the volume measurements so that I can use them for every subsequent bake.

For most cookies, butter is warmed up to room temperature.  I often cut my butter into slabs and separate the slabs in order to quicken the warm-up.  I also let the eggs warm up.  And after the eggs are warmed up and cracked and set in a small bowl, I add the flavorings and extracts to the same bowl so that they are added to the mixing bowl at the same time as the eggs.  

Flour is measured out and, almost always, baking soda, powder powder, salt, and any other small-quantity dry ingredients are whisked into it.  If cocoa powder is part of the recipe, this is whisked into the flour as well.  If oats or chocolate chips are part of the recipe, these remain separate.

Butter (or other shortening) and sugars are creamed together at medium speed first.  Then eggs, and any flavorings, go in next and are added one egg at a time.  This is done at a slower speed.  Then the flour mixture is added in portions and is done at the lowest mixer speed.  I like to add it in 2 or 3 additions depending on the amount.  Doing this in multiple additions allows the flour to be incorporated more easily.  And mixing it on the lowest speed means the flour is worked over as little as possible (plus it ensures that the flour doesn't go flying into the air from a mixing paddle spinning too quickly).

Any nuts and chips are added last.  And there is something really nice about adding these last.  If you have an issue with a little of the material sticking to the sides of the bowl or on the bottom of the bowl and not getting incorporated easily, the nuts and chips will eliminate that issue since they collect all the material as the mixing paddle spins.  And then you have an evenly mixed cookie dough.

I have saved the most important tip for last.  You must, absolutely must, eat all the dough that is sticking to the beater or mixing paddle.  I believe it's the law in most places.  If it isn't, it should be.  Really.

OK.  Go make some cookies and have a great week.

Food for movies

Baseball season is coming to a close very soon.  I've been a baseball fan all my life.  So one spring many years ago when one of my brothers suggested we have a baseball movie day with baseball food, it seemed like a perfect idea.

We selected a few favorite baseball movies -- I think they were Field of Dreams, Major League, and A League of Their Own -- for this very first spring training baseball movie-thon.  And then we set about trying to decide on appropriate baseball food.  We chose popcorn, of course, and peanuts, since these have been staples at ballparks for decades.  We also had to choose hot dogs, and with them a variety of toppings.  We decided on nachos as well.  We thought about cotton candy, but we didn't know where we could get that easily.  We found a grocer that carried old-fashioned chocolate malts.   And then we got a big bag of cheese puffs since I remember having those at Dodger Stadium and the Big A in Anaheim in southern California as a kid.  We had some other foods as well, but I can't recall what they were.

Anyway, it turned out to be a great fun thing to do.  Eating foods that one would find at the ballpark while watching these great baseball movies was an excellent way to spend a day in the spring.

Later we did a few other movie and food days with some other movie themes besides baseball, but I can't recall the details of those.  For a few years we were able to do the baseball day every spring.  

Food is a great celebration of life itself as well as a celebration of some of our favorite things we do in our lives.

Anyone have any ideas on other great movie and food days?  Please leave your comments.

Have a great week!

Chocolate chip snacking

 

Often at the end of a day, I sit at my desk at my PC, scrolling through news of the day, checking emails, reviewing sports scores, etc.  And frequently I have a snack just inches away from my computer keyboard.  Sometimes it will be a small sandwich, or a bowl of cold breakfast cereal and milk, or maybe some slices of cheese.  But when I don't have those things around, and sometimes even when I do, I often have a bowl of chocolate chips or chunks on the desk.

For my baking needs, I get bags of chocolate as chips, chunks, and also feves which are oval discs.   My favorite thing to do is get a small bowl of various kinds, some semisweet, some dark, etc.  Then every time I grab one or two, I'm not certain which one I will get.  Variety makes it a bit more fun.

Sometimes I will mix them with some chopped up pretzel sticks.  And often I have a few slices of cheese there as well.  I have found that cheese eaten after chocolate is a wonderful taste experience.  And very often I will also have a glass of apple juice.  I'm not a wine drinker.  I just never developed a taste for it.  But I find that drinking apple juice after eating chocolate is another wonderful taste experience.

So tonight when I'm done with all my day's work, if you dropped by to see me, you might find me with my bowl of chocolate chips.  And I'll be happy to share them with you.

Cream scones

As the autumn season moves along, so many beautiful plants will hibernate for the long winter.  This hosta, shown here in early summer, is already fading and will soon be asleep until spring.  I love hostas because they're easy to grow, there are so many varieties, and they come back every spring without an issue.  Some foods have the same qualities:  easy to make, so many varieties, and every time you make them, they come out just about perfect.  Scone are one such food.  Someone recently asked me to write a short post on how I make my cream scones.  So here we go.

My cream scones take very little time and very few ingredients.  Flour, sugar, baking powder, and a little salt are whisked together in a large mixing bowl.  The more thoroughly they are whisked, the better.  Then cream is added. Yes, this is the only liquid ingredient -- no milk, no eggs, no butter, no oil, just cream.  This is mixed into the dry ingredients by hand.  I use a large serving fork which makes it very easy.  I try not to work the dough too much, but it has be thoroughly mixed.  

I prepare a 9-inch cake pan with a cut round sheet of parchment on the bottom.  I empty the dough into the pan and spread it to the edges.  Then another cut round sheet of parchment is placed over it.  I then level the whole pan of dough with the bottom of a mug, swirling it around pressed down on the parchment.  I don't bother with making it perfectly level.  I just want it to be roughly even across the disk.  The pan is then put into the freezer overnight.  

After the dough has frozen, I remove it from the pan and cut it into 10 portions.  I place these on a baking sheet with a Silpat underneath them.  I've learned from experience that simply putting them on parchment on the pan browns the bottoms too much for my taste.  Then I brush the tops of the scones with milk and sprinkle large-crystal sugar on top of each one.  They go into the oven still frozen.  There's no need to thaw them first.

30 minutes later they come out.  They are warm, a little sugary on top, and have a wonderful texture inside.  I never wrap these in plastic.  They stay open or stored in a bakery box or a bread bag.  However, I never have to store them for long because they're gone very quickly.

That's all there is to it.  The cream, the mixing and the freezing are the key things that make these scones so scrumptious.  

Have a great autumn week!    

A week off

Good morning and Happy Sunday to everyone.

Fall is about ready to make it's presence known with cooler temperatures beginning tomorrow.  I love the change of seasons and the colors that go with it as well as the daily hope for snow in the forecast.  Yes, as you all know, I love the snow.

I've been tweaking my eggnog recipes this past week.  And that has definitely got me thinking about the upcoming winter holidays.  

After doing a lot of cooking over the last several weeks, I'm going to take a week and relax a little bit.  A menu is posted for this next weekend, October 15-17.  But the weekend after that I will not be sending any food out the door.  Rest assured that I will be back for the final weekend of October and then all all the weeks ahead through the holidays.

Have a great week, everyone!

Waffle cone bowls

Not long ago, I added waffle cone bowls to the menu.  I had been wanting to add these for a long time.  However, my list of new foods I want to add is quite extensive, and so it has taken a while to get around to this one.  Maybe I need an assistant.  Hmmmmm.......

Anyway..... these are now on the menu and I'm delighted, because who can't enjoy a nice waffle cone.  Actually, I don't offer these in a cone shape, only in the shapes shown above.  Why?  Well, I simply like these shapes more, but it's also because the cone shape is more problematic than one would think when it comes to consistency.  In a factory setting, shaping is done by machine, but in a small kitchen, it's all by hand.  Sometimes the cone comes out just right.  Other times it doesn't, and you have a bigger open hole at the bottom than is ideal, or the size of the top is not consistent, and of course there's the ever-present issue of heat.  These things are hot when they come off the waffle iron and holding them in place, even with disposable gloves, is not enjoyable.  But I like the shapes shown in the photo better anyway.  A cone is really limited in how it can be used:  it's filled, and that's about it.  But these other shapes can be used in a variety of desserts, both ice cream and non-ice cream, in different ways.

When I was first learning how to make these, I tried so many different recipes.  However, most of them came out with a lot of inconsistent browning.  Sometimes they would brown all the way across the disk. Other times, there would be large pale spots.  They were all still quite tasty, but they didn't have a consistent look.  I tinkered a lot with ratios of the ingredients, and finally when I had a recipe that turned out a fairly consistent color, I was happy.  They are made on a waffle iron that is specifically for waffle cones which is definitely helpful, too.  With this iron, I can trust that the same amount of batter cooked at the same numerical setting for the same amount of time will produce disk after disk with consistent uniformity.  

These are lightly sweet and have a mild flavor.  And they are just as good eaten by themselves as in a dessert.  Sometimes I'll make a batch and just pop them into a plastic bag to be eaten throughout the day when I feel like a snack.  I find them to be immensely satisfying.

And isn't that what we should be looking for:  foods that are immensely satisfying?