Daring Bakers Numero Dos

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

So let me start off by saying that I was really excited for this challenge!! We had to make Tuiles. These are crispy, thin cookies that you bend into really cool shapes while they’re still warm. These ladies managed to make beautiful butterfly cookies, but mine, didn’t work out that way. Not even close haha But they were VERY delicious and highly addictive… as most baked goodies are.

I made these before my RAW escapade so I definitely indulged on these ones. I used this recipe, but I replaced the butter with Earth Balance and eggs with flax meal.

Tuiles
65 grams / ¼ cup / 2.3 ounces softened butter (not melted but soft)
60 grams / ½ cup / 2.1 ounces sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar (7 grams or substitute with a dash of vanilla extract)
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
65 grams / 1/2 cup / 2.3 ounces sifted all purpose flour
1 table spoon cocoa powder/or food coloring of choice
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet

Oven: 180C / 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not overmix.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the bakingsheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Mix a small part of the batter with the cocoa and a few drops of warm water until evenly colored. Use this colored batter in a paper piping bag and proceed to pipe decorations on the wings and body of the butterfly. Bake butterflies in a preheated oven (350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from bakingsheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time or maybe put them in the oven to warm them up again. (Haven’t tried that). Or: place a bakingsheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.

If you don’t want to do stencil shapes, you might want to transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a small plain tip. Pipe the desired shapes and bake. Shape immediately after baking using for instance a rolling pin, a broom handle, cups, cones….
Before they went in the oven, they looked beautiful!! I made tons of different shapes and let my imagine run wild. I tie-dyed some of them for a psychedelic feel and put sprinkles on them so they’d be sparkly.

When I opened the oven, I wanted to cry!! They spread out everywhere!! I think it might have been because my baking sheets weren’t cold and they recommended refrigerating them before baking. I couldn’t get mine to fit in the fridge, so I just skipped that step. Probably not the best idea since none of my cookies remained in their shape!!
I was still able to shape some of them while they were still warm, but I ate a lot because I was angry haha They were really good and I just couldn’t help myself!! You know how that is, I’m sure. I want to try this again someday with really cold baking sheets.

The next part of the challenge was pairing the cookies with a fruit puree. I made a berry soup out of raspberries, cranberries, blueberries, pure maple syrup (more like pure sex), and coconut water. It was really tasty with the cookies, but I was too lazy to put it in a fancy bowl. I don’t do that kind of stuff when I’m hungry haha

But hey, all in all, they tasted awesome so I’m not gonna complain. After all, which is more important: taste or presentation??

And last but not least, who watched Top Chef?!?! How good was it??? I about died when Stefan said he was in love with Andrea. I laughed even harder when she creamed his ass in the challenge and got all the points. He’s such a cocky hornball, but I still love him. I wouldn’t say he’s my favorite because I honestly love everyone this season! They are all so likeable although Stefan’s probably the least likeable. Haha He’s just really flirty/seductive/has a hot accent and you know how I love guys with accents ; ) I do really like Jeff, though, and I'm sad he went home. He reminds me of the sexy, British doctor on House. So I guess today is like an ode to the sexy Top Chef contestants!!

Pour Some Sugar On Me

Yesterday was my first day of class, and I am already overwhelmed with stuff to do. I have a lot of reading to do, but I guess I should've known that. I stayed up really late last night to take a Biology quiz online. Yes, a quiz on my first day. Go figure. I think that's what caused me to have another weirdly, vivid dream. It was about this one boy from high school who played hockey. I see him at the gym and Giant Eagle a lot. He's really corky, but totally bangin! In the dream, we met up at a swimming pool and wanted to surprise my one friend, Mitchel. We dressed up in eighties clothes and hid under the pool cover. It was at 3 am, so I have no idea how we got in the pool. This one girl that I really dislike was there and she wouldn't leave us alone. She said she had to clean the area and we couldn't be there. Oh well. I know it doesn't make any sense haha I think my mind is just too damn complex for these dreams. That reminds me... there's this quote in "Loving Frank" about dreams that I just have to put on here. Frank says, "To fare on-fusing the self that wakes and the self that dreams." Such a deep and beautiful quote!!!

So onto the delicious recipe. This is an old-fashioned vegan chocolate chip cookie- the best kind! It is honestly one of the best cookies I've ever had. I got about 2 weeks worth of ice cream sandwiches out of these puppies, and I had one every day. I was surprised how chewy they stayed in the freezer. I didn't even need to nuke them in the microwave from them to be soft again. It was like freakin magic. And of course, they are one of Dreena Burton's delectable creations from "Vive le Vegan."

Here's the recipe:
The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cups spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1⁄2 tsp baking soda
1⁄4 cup unrefined sugar
1⁄4 tsp sea salt
1⁄3 cup pure maple syrup
1⁄4 tsp blackstrap molasses
1 - 1 1⁄2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1⁄4 cup organic canola oil (a little generous 1/4 cup)
1⁄3 cup non-dairy chocolate chips (or carob)

Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). In a bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the sugar and salt, and stir until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the maple syrup with the molasses and vanilla, then stir in the oil until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the dry, along with the chocolate chips, and stir through until just well combined (do not overmix). Place large spoonfuls of the batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten a little. Bake for 11 minutes, until just golden (if you bake for much longer, they will dry out). Let cool on the sheet for no more than 1 minute (again, to prevent drying), then transfer to a cooling rack. Makes 8-10 large cookies.

Work absolutely sucked

I try not to complain a lot, but this is just absurd. Last night at work, Sears was falling apart. The escalator was broken, my stapler was broken, the gift cards and credit cards wouldn't work, customers were flipping out, and to top it off, the air conditioner has never worked in the first place. I almost walked out of the store because I was just so stressed. I don't know what held me down and made me stay. It was probably the Hannah Montana wig that I tried on. I loved it.

But back to food, I made these cookies to send to my friends in Iraq. They are very massive, but not wide. They just look like big mounds of brownie when they bake up. I see NO problem with that at all because they are delicious cookies! They are much denser and cakey than regular cookies. I found them on the Cookie Madness blog where Anna has perfected these babies. It's a small batch of cookies- I made 6 gigantic ones, but it can be doubled if needed. And these are NOT vegan like my last posts because I like making real butter and eggs foods once in a while, too.

Here's the recipe:

Giant Dark Chocolate Cookies

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut up
1/2 cup plus 3 tbsp granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp dark cocoa powder
1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips or handful of chilled Reese's miniatures

Directions:

Preheat over to 375 degrees F. In an electric mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar until well-blended. Add egg and vanilla and beat just until incorporated, then scrape sides of bowl and beat in cocoa powder. In a separate bowl, thoroughly stir together flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. When flour is mixed in, fold in chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. Divide into 6 equal portions. Put 3 portions in refrigerator and bake the other three. On a non-stick ungreased cookie sheet, place the 3 mounds. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes, then without opening oven, reduce heat to 325 and bake for another 8-10 minutes. Mine took 10 minutes to set. Let cookies cool on rack for 5 minutes than transfer them to cool. Bake the other 3 mounds.

Note: The cookies won't spread like normal cookies and you may think that they aren't done for that reason. After the 10 minutes at the end, check them with a tooth pick and see if they look crisp. They will harden as they cool.

Can we say weird dreams?

I had the strangest dreams last night. The first one, I saw one of my friends from a different state. He was trying to get me to come shopping with him. The second dream, my ex-boyfriend's friend was creeping around. He got a job where I worked and wouldn't quit following me around the store. I wish I knew someone who could interrupt dreams because I am just plain confused. haha.

Well, anyway, here's today's recipe. I baked these cookies to send to the U.S. Military in Iraq. I'm an angel baker, and each month we ship a box of goodies to the men and women who are fighting. These cookies are absolutely delicious!!! They are thin and flaky, and very chewy. I made the rest of them into ice cream sandwiches. And let me tell you that these cookies spread a lot while baking! The recipe is from "Vive le Vegan," but I used almonds instead of pecans.

Vegan Carob-Coconut-Almond Cookies
1 cup spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup unrefined sugar
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp coconut extract
1/4 cup canola oil
1/3 - 1/2 cup carob chips
1/3- 1/2 cup blanched almonds

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a bowl, combine flour, but sift in baking powder and baking soda. Add the coconut, sugar, and salt, and stir until combined. In a separate bowl, combine the maple syrup with the vanilla and coconut extracts, then stir in the oil, carob chips, and almonds and stir through. Add the wet mixture to the dry, and stir through until just combined (don't overmix). Place large spoonfuls of batter on baking sheet lined with parchment paper, or on a non stick cookie sheet. Flatten the cookies a little bit with a fork. Bake for 11 minutes, until lightly golden (if you baker for much longer, they will get dry). Let cool for no more than 1 minute on the sheet, then remove and transfer to cooling rack.

I really hope you guys try these suckers. They have become one of my favorite cookies. I ended up having an ice cream sandwich every morning for breakfast when I made them.