Chocolate soufflé

A story unto itself.

A satisfying end to a Sunday family dinner.

I made this chocolate soufflé from a recipe in my old, tattered copy of Fannie Farmers.

I added more chocolate. Of course.

It's not as difficult as it sounds.

Search for the Julia Child within you. You can make soufflé, too!

Ingredients
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions
Melt the chocolate and 2 tablespoons of the sugar in the microwave for 3 minutes at 50% power until it's melted. Stir together and set aside.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Whisk in the flour and cook for 2 to 3 minutes over low heat. Gradually stir in the milk. Cook until the mixture is just ready to boil. It will be thick. Add the chocolate and the vanilla.

Beat the egg yolks well. Add a little of the warm chocolate mixture to the egg yolks and stir well. Add the eggs to the rest of the chocolate mixture and beat well. Set aside.

In a mixer beat the egg whites until foamy. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, beating until the egg whites are stiff but not dry. This the key to an amazing soufflé. Don't overbeat!

Fold 1/4 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Add this mixture to the egg whites. Gently fold into the whites. It's okay if there are white streaks in the mixture. Don't over fold!

Butter a soufflé dish (I used a 2 quart dish, but you can use a 1 1/2 quart dish). Sprinkle the dish with sugar. Gently spoon the mixture into the dish.

Bake at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes (depending on your oven). Don't open the oven during the first 15 minutes!

Watch the soufflé closely. It can take it 15 minutes to start rising, so don't panic if it doesn't start to rise right away.

Serve immediately with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

When life gives you lemons: Lemon Cake

Life has taken some interesting twists and turns over the last six months. So I'm trying to adopt a when life gives you lemons, make lemonade attitude.

As it happens, we have three lemon trees. Here's one of them:

It's full of fruit that smells of lemony fresh spring.

The lemons come in all shapes. This one was my favorite pick today:

Its gently gnarled, mature form reminds me of a wise grandmother. As it happens, my wise mother-in-law is visiting from Tennessee right now to help me get our house ready for sale. She brought Southern Living magazine with her and, as it happens, it contains a recipe for lemon-coconut pound cake.

Katie loves the lemon loaf at Starbucks. So when she asked if I would try to replicate it, everything came together: Lemon tree, lemons, mother-in-law, Southern Living, Katie, baking.

I based my recipe loosely on Southern Living's recipe. I omitted the coconut and made it more breakfast friendly because that's when Katie likes to eat it. I added wheat germ, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, replaced the butter with olive oil, and the sour cream with fat-free Greek yogurt.

Here's what we got:

Moist, tender, slightly crunchy (thanks to wheat germ), and full of zesty lemon freshness. Katie declared this the best lemon loaf ever. Way better than the Starbucks version.

Here's how you make it:

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons wheat germ

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
3 eggs (replace with egg whites if you're going for lower cholesterol!)
2 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup fat free Greek yogurt

Directions
Mix the olive oil and sugars together. Add the eggs one at a time.

Stir together the flour, the wheat germ, the salt, and the baking soda.

Add 1/2 the flour mixture to the oil mixture. Stir in the lemon juice. Add the rest of the flour mixture and then add the yogurt.

Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.

Bake at 325 degrees for 50 - 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes before removing.

Spoon the lemon glaze over the cake.

If you can, wait to eat the cake until the following day, giving the lemon flavor time to soak through.

Lemon Glaze:
Mix together 2 cups powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of milk.

Enjoy!

Breakfast cookies: Best school day breakfast

School day breakfasts are tough. As a child I used to mix my own glass of chocolate milk with Nestle Quick and off I'd go. I've never liked cereal. That made sleepovers difficult because my friends' parents always wanted me to eat cereal. Or worse, hot cereal. There's nothing worse than porridge for breakfast. So I'm somewhat sympathetic to my girls who suffer from the same school day breakfast aversion I do.

I like to play it straight when it comes to food. Sneaking spinach into brownies isn't going to make your kids spinach lovers. But, a few years ago Tim discovered this recipe for breakfast cookies in Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef. (Some people argue Jessica Seinfeld stole the idea for Deceptively Delicious from this book.)

These cookies are chock full of morning goodness: protein; whole grain; fiber; and because I'm me, a few chocolate chips. There's nothing sneaky about these cookies. Sometimes the girls help make them. They know what's in them.

Cereal never looked this good, people.

Ingredients
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup multi grain cereal
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon unsweetened, natural cocoa
1 egg
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup chocolate chips (dried cherries or raisins also work)

Directions:
Pulse the oatmeal and the multi grain cereal in the blender until it resembles flour.

Mix the refined oatmeal and cereal with the wheat germ, the two flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

At this point, I must confess, I made a mistake. I added cocoa instead of cinnamon. Can you see why?

It turned out to be a fortuitous mistake. The cocoa added to the flavor.

Mix the egg, sugar, oil, vanilla, and ricotta cheese together.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Place on parchment paper on a cookie sheet by the tablespoon. Flatten cookies slightly.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Strawberry crisp: A taste of summer in winter

I bought a three pack of fresh strawberries at the farmer's market. I was yearning for a bite of summer in winter and these strawberries tasted of warm sun.

After I brought them home I realized we wouldn't be able to eat them all before they started getting mushy. Given my obsession with all things chocolate, dipping them in chocolate was an obvious choice. But a boring choice.

I remembered a simple recipe for strawberry rhubarb crisp in Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. (If you're not a vegetarian you may become one after reading this book). I adapted the recipe so it's not quite as sweet and only has strawberries.

I'm not a fruit pie kind of gal, but give me this crisp with its crunchy topping and bubbling hot strawberries and I'll eat it instead of chocolate.

Now that is quite a feat.

Ingredients
3-4 cups strawberries, halved
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup butter, cut up in small pieces

Directions
Lightly butter a 9 inch pie dish. Mix the strawberries with the honey in the pie dish.

Mix the oats, flour, sugar, cinnamon, and butter together with a fork until crumbly.

Pour onto the strawberries.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the topping is lightly browned and the strawberries are bubbling

Serve warm with a dollop of ice cream. Divine.

Enjoy!

Chocolate chip and M&M cookies in a heart

I'm a little Valentined out today. I spent five hours making Valentine cards with the girls. They each had to make twenty-seven homemade cards. I cut out a zillion hearts. Okay, maybe more like two hundred.

Every year around the end of January I start saying to the girls: "Let's get started on the Valentine cards." Never happens.

But I'm not sure we've ever left every single homemade card until the day before. Not a good idea.

Luckily, I made these M&M and chocolate chip cookies a few days ago, before I was Valentined out. This is My Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe from Alice Medrich's Chewy, Gooey, Crispy cookie cookbook (again).

When she bit into her first cookie, Caroline said it was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. And she hadn't even looked at the title of the cookbook.

The crunch of pink, red and white M&Ms throughout make these the ultimate Valentine cookie.

Get the recipe here.

And please let me know how they turn out if you try them. I love hearing back from my readers!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I heart brownies

Baking is a ritual for me. I do it every week. It's relaxing. It's satisfying. It yields results. So I was intrigued with a brownie recipe in Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Cookie book called The Steve Ritual Brownies. The ritual part of the recipe involves immersing the pan in an ice bath as soon as it come out of the oven. This ritual stops the baking process, making the brownies gooier.

I was skeptical. I'm pretty much married to my own Best Ever Chocolate Brownie recipe. The Steve Ritual Brownies only calls for 2 eggs and they bake at 400 degrees. A hot oven. Wouldn't these come out flat and hard? Not exactly. But they weren't gooey or chewy. Not bad. But not great.

But I liked the idea of the ice bath ritual. So I made my own Best Ever Chocolate Brownies and dunked them in a cold ice bath to make them extra gooey. Complete mouth-watering, divine goodness.

My mother-in-law had just sent the girls a valentine's package with baking decorations - perfect for brownies with a little frosting.

To make the brownies follow The Best Ever Chocolate Brownies recipe. As soon as the brownies come out of the oven dunk the pan in an ice bath, like this:

Chocolate Frosting
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/3 cup confectioner sugar
2 tablespoons natural cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Heat the butter and milk together in a saucepan over low heat or in the microwave.

Mix the cocoa powder with the sugar in a mixing bowl.

Add the butter and milk slowly and beat until smooth. Stir in the vanilla.

Spread the frosting on the brownies while they are still warm.

Enjoy!



This post is participating in JDaniel4smom's Virtual Valentine Party

Chocolate bread pudding

I was knocked down with a bad cold for most of last week. So when I was finally feeling a little better and could stand on my feet for more than ten minutes I wanted to bake something simple, something comforting, something chocolate.

I turned to Real Simple for a chocolate bread pudding recipe. I usually like Real Simple but this recipe was not that simple and had a few flaws in the directions. But with a few changes in the directions and the ingredients - I used unsweetened chocolate, not semi-sweet chips - this turned out to be a rich, hearty comfort food dessert with a hint of sophistication.

Ingredients
3 cups milk
3 eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter
9 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
Trim the crusts of 12 slices of bread.

Lightly grease an 8 x 8 pan.

Whisk the milk, eggs, and sugar together in a saucepan. Add the butter and the chocolate and heat over low heat, just until the butter and the chocolate melt.

Arrange a single layer of bread in the pan and pour the sauce over it. Add the next layer of bread and pour the sauce over that. Arrange the final layer of bread slices and pour the remaining sauce over it.

Cover with plastic wrap and place another baking pan over it with something heavy on top of it (I used a heavy mug) to weigh down the bread. Set aside for one hour.

Note: if you have leftover sauce, go back after 30 minutes and pour the leftover sauce onto the bread. Sometimes it takes a while for the bread to absorb the sauce.

Remove the weight and the plastic and bake uncovered for 35 to 40 minutes until the pudding sets.

Serve with a dollop of cream whipped by hand.

Enjoy!

Find the recipe to print here.

Macadamia and white chocolate cookies

Macadamia nuts and white chocolate. A little salty, a little sweet. A perfect pairing.

Tim made these cookies from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy cookie book. If you like to bake cookies, check it out. Every recipe we've made from this book has been delicious.

Ingredients
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and still warm
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup dry-roasted salted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions
Pulverize the oats in a food processor or blender until fine. Add the flour, salt, baking soda, and salt to combine.

In a large bowl mix the butter with the sugars and the vanilla and then whisk in the egg.

Stir in the flour mixture until everything is just moistened.

Stir in the nuts and the chocolate chips.

Tim rolled his dough into a ball, covered the ball with plastic wrap and then refrigerated it for 2 hours. But you can also leave it overnight.

Remove the dough from the fridge and scoop by the tablespoon on to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 325 degrees until golden brown. About 13 to 15 minutes.

Find the easier to print recipe here.

Enjoy!

Butterscotch brownies with chocolate chips

Today I am being featured on Mama's Little Nestwork! I was so honored when Mama Hen said she wanted to feature me. Mama Hen was one of my first supporters in the blogging community. She has such a giving and positive spirit and I know I'll always feel uplifted and encouraged after I visit her blog, Mama's Little Chick and her supportive community, Mama's Little Nestwork. Please check out her blogs, if you don't know about them already. If you're visiting from The Nestwork, welcome!

Last week these butterscotch brownies pulled us out of a slump. It was one of those weeks that seemed done for by Tuesday night. Baking is one of our go-to activities when our souls need a little lifting, when we need some positive together time. So Wednesday after school Katie and I baked. She cracked an egg for the first time, sifted all the flour and "tested" far too much brown sugar and butter "just to make sure it tasted good." Our week seemed saved.

The original recipe - a staple of my childhood - comes from The Joy of Cooking. We add chocolate chips instead of walnuts and I double the recipe to make a thicker and chewier brownie.

Crunchy on top but tender and gooey in the middle, these brownies are rich with buttery butterscotch flavor. Caroline says these are "the most delicious brownies I've ever eaten!" Try a batch. I think you'll agree!

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour, sifted
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions
Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Stir in the brown sugar until it dissolves. Pour into a mixing bowl and let cool slightly.

Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add the vanilla.

Add the sifted flour, baking powder, and salt.

Beat until well blended.

Add the chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased 8 inch pan. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees, or until the brownies are golden brown on top. They will still be gooey in the middle. Do not over bake!

Cool on a rack and then place in the refrigerator for one hour before serving.

Enjoy!



Find the recipe to print here.