world peace cookies

I've been on a baking spree lately (well, it FEELS like a spree!)--it's still pretty cold here in NYC (that one 70 degree day was such a tease) so it's nice to have the extra warmth generated by the oven. Fortunately most of the baking I'm doing is for other people, or else I would soon not be able to fit out of my door....


I'm always looking out for new packaging ideas (you should see my enormous collection of ribbons, thanks to my designer-friend) and I spotted these paper baking pans when I was at Daiso in February. They're meant to be single-use bakers, and they work very well for that purpose, but they're also great to use for packaging, and these cookies happened to fit perfectly. I just wrapped them with parchment and tied it off with some hot pink ribbon--prettier than plastic wrap, but still very simple.


But enough about the packaging, let's talk about the cookies! This is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking , and according to the note that accompanies the recipe, they were renamed World Peace Cookies because Dorie's neighbor was convinced that these cookies are all you need to ensure peace. Well, I actually disagree--if there was one cookie left and you and I were both staring at it...well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure things would end badly.


Fortunately, this time there are plenty to go around. Maybe that's the real secret--always keep a supply of cookies on hand.

If you don't have a copy of Baking (gasp! go get one! you need it!), the recipe can also be found here.

CookieBar NYC (in which I meet Dorie Greenspan!!!)

Okay, I know I said I was going to start posting about my trip but oh my gosh I got to meet Dorie Greenspan!!! Regular readers know of my love for her books so imagine how excited I was when I found out she was going to be running a pop-up cookie shop near my office!!!! (Very excited, obviously!) So, my brother and I made our way over to the Cookie Bar on Tuesday, right around 1:30, and imagine to our dismay, they were sold out for the day! Gah! However, we did have a few minutes to chat with Dorie and The Kid (as she refers to him on her blog) and they were both extremely nice. The next day, bro and I braved the blizzard and got to the Cookie Bar basically right at 11:00 and SCORE, COOKIES.

Because I am a nerd, and this is my equivalent of meeting a movie star, I had brought my camera along, thinking I would just ask if I could have a photo, which they were more than happy to do, but I FORGOT MY MEMORY CARD. ARGH! But do you know how nice they are? So nice that Josh offered up the use of his iPhone for the photo, which I received by email later that day. Gosh. Totally made my day! (And please ignore the fact that I look like crap--it was snowing out!) Anyway, enough gabbling, I know you want to see the cookies:


The teaser shot! My box of "one of everything" (plus an extra chocolate chip that Dorie threw in for coming back).


And here they all are! You know I took these home so I could take photos of them before I ate them, right? (Actually I haven't finished them--I'm eating them like a quarter of a cookie at a time, lest I defeat my gym-going.) I recognized a couple of these as cookies I've made from Baking (espresso-chocolate shortbread, molasses spice, and sable), but I was really keen to try the World Peace Cookies, more so because they (and all the chocolate ones) were made with Valrhona chocolate. Swank!


And here it is--this is for serious chocolate lovers. It is super rich. Maybe a little too rich for me, actually, and I found myself preferring..


the Chocolate Chunkers! Again, very rich and chocolatey, but here cherries and salted cashews provide some contrast. Yum.


These are my second favorite cookies--I love the combination of coconut and lime, which is very refreshing. No small feat for something that most likely contains an ungodly amount of butter!


I am not generally a big fan of chocolate chip cookies (can't remember the last time I made them, actually) so I was surprised that these turned out to be my favorite of the bunch! Maybe it's the hand chopped Valrhona chocolate. Whatever it is, there's a slight salty edge to the dough that's just delicious. I'm glad I got an extra of these.


Don't you love the way molasses cookies look? I love the crackliness. I love the chewiness but can't help wishing there was some ginger in here. I do love me some chewy ginger cookies.


Sables! So intensely buttery. Barely sweet. Mmmmm. No more words left to describe.


Good old peanut butter cookies! I haven't eaten these in ages either, and I like the fact that there are actual chopped peanuts in these. Crunchy!


And last, but definitely not least, espresso-chocolate shortbread! I actually made these for my Christmas cookie boxes, and mine were rolled out thinner so that they baked up darker and crunchier. I also put a lot more espresso in mine because I love coffee.

So, isn't it totally an honor to eat cookies made by my very favorite cookbook author? I am still excited, even more so because they hinted that perhaps a permanent cookie store might be in the works. How great would that be??

Chocolate-chocolate Cupcakes

Birthday baking is the best kind of baking, in my opinion. But maybe I like it because it gives me an excuse to make something? At any rate--yay birthdays!


Sugar star sprinkles may not be as elegant as silver dragees or sugar pearls, but they are undeniably festive looking and colorful! I feel a bit more cheerful just looking at this photo. This was my first time making the chocolate-chocolate cupcakes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours (my go-to!). I'm on a bit of a hunt for the perfect chocolate cupcake recipe, and the problem lies in the fact that I want something that is light but not spongy. Most recipes I've tried either fall into the very airy or the dense (like poundcake) camps. So far, the frontrunner is still the Old Fashioned Chocolate Cupcake recipe from Chockylit's Cupcake Bakeshop. But I have to give these a second try. Do you want to see what the frosting is hiding?


Is weird looking, right? Kind of like an all chocolate version of the popular self-frosting nutella cupcake? That is because I am a dummy! The recipe calls for both cocoa and melted chocolate in the batter, so I dutifully melted some nice 70% chocolate and left it on the counter to cool...where it stayed until I had already put the tray of cupcakes in the oven. Frickinfrackin!#$!!#$!#%!# So I tried to stir the chocolate into the already portioned cupcakes--unsuccessfully as you can see. But actually the cupcakes were pretty good, even with the screw up, and I bet they would be even better if I had made them right. So, next time. The glaze is definitely a keeper, though!

So, I just looked at my calendar and realized how close we are to Christmas--eep! Where did the time go! I'm going to have to start making batches of dough and freezing them this weekend!

Baking on command: Plum Cake

A hazard of being known as an avid baker? Sometimes you go home and you're met with a bowl of sub-par plums and the gentle command suggestion that you do something with them. Aye, aye, Captain!

No, no, I kid. But I did head home for a little family time this weekend and since there were some plums which weren't quite juicy enough to be satisfying eaten alone, I decided that they would be perfectly fine for baking a plum cake. And, as usual, Dorie Greenspan to the rescue! I've made plum cakes before using mostly German recipes, which usually have you cutting the butter in to the flour, but this one just has you cream the butter and sugar together and it comes together in literally 5 minutes. Slicing the plums is probably the most time consuming part of this cake.


For something that takes so little time to put together, this is definitely a gorgeous looking cake, in that rustic kind of way. Although, as it turns out, plums that aren't juicy enough for eating...aren't really juicy enough for baking in this cake, either. That's my only complaint--these plums didn't really get "jammy" enough. Still, the cake base is delicious (flavored with cinnamon rather than cardamom) and I will definitely be making this again.


Oh hey, and this recipe only used 5 tablespoons of butter. In my world, that qualifies as health food. Now why did I leave the rest of the cake behind?!

(The recipe used is the Dimply Plum Cake from Dorie Greenspan's brilliant book Baking: From My Home To Yours. Go buy it! You can also find the recipe reproduced online in many, many different places.)

happy birthday...to me!

How self-centered of me, right? Well, what can I say--when you hit the age I just hit (like I'm going to publish THAT on the internet), birthdays are not as exciting as they used to be. There's just not as much (if anything, hah) to look forward to. So it was really nice to take the day off, sleep in, read everyone's Facebook and SMS birthday greetings (thanks everyone!!), have lunch with some friends (thanks guys! you're awesome!), and shop leisurely. And then I came home and it was still early so I decided to make myself a little bit of birthday cake...because darn it, even though I've been eating way too much lately, a birthday is not a birthday without some cake!!


I wanted something light, specifically, something that reminded me of those birthday cakes we used to get in Taiwan, all cream and fruit and sponge. I remember really loving the cream and having to peel the jellied glaze off the fruit; actually, now I'm not sure if that was real cream, or some kind of shortening based whipped topping. Anyway, I made a half recipe of Dorie Greenspan's French yogurt cake, which is kind of a compromise between a sponge cake and a pound cake in texture; I baked it in an 8" cake pan so that I ended up with a cake about 3/4" high. I just want to point out how lovely and flat it came out--this is a first! Usually my cakes rise and then crack in the center. Of course, I did manage to make a giant hole in it while testing it for doneness, but that's okay.


Assembly is really easy--I cut two 3" rounds of cake and sandwiched them together with softly whipped cream and a chopped fruit salad (I suppose you could call it a fruit salsa) of mango, strawberries, and kiwi. It is mango season in Chinatown and we have been gorging ourselves on them. I think I am actually hitting a point where I'm starting to get tired of them...at least, plain. Shhh, don't tell anyone--I know that's blasphemous.


It was just what I wanted. Light, creamy, tart, fruity and easy! Now I'm going to ignore the mess in my kitchen for a while and enjoy this.

(Recipe for the yogurt cake has been reproduced many times online, so go bake one yourself!)

The Easiest Apple Tartlet

Seriously--the easiest, ever!

Step 1: Thaw frozen puff pastry sheet (bought mine at Trader Joe's, because they have all butter pastry sheets).
Step 2: Peel, core, and halve an apple. Cut each half into quarters.
Step 3: Cut 2 4" circles out of the puff pastry sheet. Arrange 4 quarters of apple on each.
Step 4: Dot with a bit of butter, a sprinkle of brown sugar, and some cinnamon if you are so inclined. I was not, mainly because I couldn't find the cinnamon.
Step 5: Bake in a 375 oven until the apples are tender and pastry is risen and browned.


Mine could have used another 5 minutes in the oven, but they just smelled so freaking good. And as long as you keep some puff pastry in your freezer, you can whip this up pretty much anytime, in under 30 minutes.

Next time, I'll try a drizzle of maple syrup on top before baking.

Cottage Cheese Pufflets

Have I mentioned that I love Dorie Greenspan? Oh, I have? And so has everyone else in the world? Oh well, one more time won't hurt. My latest project from her fabulous Baking book is the Cottage Cheese Pufflets. From googling I found that some people had had issues with the dough being too soft, but I found it to be fairly easy to handle once it had been chilled. (You can also find the recipe online so I won't reproduce it here; besides, you NEED a copy of this book.)


The dough is super quick to whip up in a food processor; then it's off to the fridge for a couple of hours (during which time you can eat the leftover cottage cheese and remind yourself that cottage cheese is actually kind of tasty). Shaping is also easy, and if you find assembly line work soothing like I do, pretty relaxing! I used 2" round cutters which gave me pufflets that were exactly one bite large and filled them with raspberry jam.


Moisten the edges, fold over, and seal! I'm only showing you this picture to prove that I did in fact actually seal my pufflets, because after baking....


...this is what I got. I don't know why I didn't expect it (they are called PUFFlets, right?) but I really didn't think they would puff up this much! It's almost like puff pastry (which gives me all kinds of ideas for using this dough).


These are best eaten the day they are made, but that should be no problem because they are totally addictive. And since this one looks like a mouth...you better eat it before it eats you!