Posts Tagged ‘alice medrich’

I’ve picked up snowboarding now that I live so close to the mountains. Being a beginner means a lot of falling and unfortunately I took a particularly bad fall the most embarrassing way possible…

I hurt myself falling off of the chairlift.

With 3 out of 4 tendons of my rotator cuff injured, I was given the bad news of not snowboarding again until I healed up.

This disappointing information required a hefty dose of chocolate. I chose Robert’s Brownies My Way by Alice Medrich
because she uses the phrase “densely creamy and intensely bittersweet”. I didn’t find them intensely bittersweet, but these brownies are lightly sweetened and they are fudgy to a point where you think they haven’t been baked long enough. As long as the toothpick comes out mostly clean, you’re in the clear.

Recipe here.

This is one heck of a cookie. It’s an intense chocolate, crisp exterior and when your teeth sink down into it, it turns into a rich fudge. Magical.

I made these during my true Nervous Chef days when I was setting off the smoke alarms. Somehow I didn’t screw these up. Surprising, as meringues have been failing me as of late.

You need good chocolate (aim for something you would eat on its own, quality matters here), sugar, pecans and egg whites. Everything comes together quickly, so when the oven is done preheating your cookies are ready to go in.

Most of my cookies look a little more rough than the ones I’ve seen on the web. I’m not sure the reason why. Maybe not enough mixing?

These are from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet, but you can also find them in Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies.

Melting Chocolate Meringues (makes about 30 2-inch cookies) From Bittersweet

Ingredients:
4 1/2 ounces 70% chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large egg whites (1/4 cup), room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, I think toasted hazelnuts would work well too)

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Melt chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. I make a make-shift double boiler by placing the bowl on top of a saucepan filled with simmering water. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and vanilla. When soft peaks form, slowly add the sugar until you get stiff peaks. Be careful not to beat too long or they’ll be dry.
4. Mix up the chocolate and nuts into the egg whites and fold with a rubber spatula until the colour is uniform.
5. Drop tablespoons of batter 1 inch apart onto the cookie sheet.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cookies should look dry and have a bit of give to them when pressed on. They’ll still be gooey inside. Cool completely.

You don’t need to have a camp fire to make these s’mores-like bars.

It’s all pretty simple, making it a perfect recipe for the trepidatious baker. You mix up a few ingredients and bake until the marshmallows are a wonderful gooey mess. These have been described as “crack” by a few people, so use at your own risk.

Recipe from Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies

You can find the recipe here

I collect cookie cutters. I love the different shapes and the way they can make an ordinary cookie look fantastic. The weird part about my cookie cutter collection? I don’t like using them. They’re generally too fussy to make: letting the dough chill, rolling it out, chilling it again…I’m more of a drop cookie kind of girl.

When it’s a special occasion, I will reach for the cookie cutters. I thought these cute Message-in-a-Cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma.

I turned to Alice Medrich’s Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy for a recipe. The recipe makes a huge batch, but the cookie cutters are huge so it produced about 18 cookies. I used vanilla paste instead of vanilla extract. It’s worth the splurge if you’re looking to wow others.

To prevent the dough from sticking to the cutter, lightly dip the cookie cutter in flour first. You want to press firm, but not too deeply to get a good impression onto the cookie. Usually I like to roll my dough thicker than called for to make soft cookies, but if you do that here, the wording gets all marred. It should be rolled out to 1/8″.

Along with the cookies I decided to try my hand at a red velvet cake from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes. People rave about red velvet. I find it a bit scary with all that red food colouring. What used to be a natural chemical reaction with an acid reacting to the cocoa powder has turned into how much red dye #47 we can shove into a cake. Despite the scary almost neon colour, it received rave reviews. Scary colour aside, it was moist and the cream cheese frosting didn’t feel heavy.

Recipe for red velvet cake from Heavenly Cakes can be found here.

Sugar cookie recipe can be found here.

No, this cake does not have tiger blood in it and is not related to Charlie Sheen (or any of his cooking methods).

I can’t get enough of Alice Medrich lately and I’ve had this cake in my head for years. It’s from her book Bittersweet, a cook book that I’m fond of as it was the catalyst for my love of baking.

I’ve wanted to try this recipe since I bought the book, but I think I was too intimidated by the ingredients white pepper and olive oil (at the time I was used to things that you heat in a microwave and called it a meal).

You make your batter and then you take a portion of it and add the cocoa mixture so you can do your layers. This is supposed to be self-marbleizing, but mine came out more as a gentle wave, but I didn’t split my layers as evenly as I would have liked to.

The cake comes out moist and the chocolate is deep and rich. Because this cake is olive oil based, you need to use a flavourful one (and probably a somewhat expensive one). It doesn’t help that the recipe calls for a cup of this liquid gold. I ran out of my good stuff and substituted half with some EVOO from Whole Foods. You can taste the olive oil flavour, so try to use something decent. There’s only a hint of white pepper in this and I was wasn’t too sure if I’d add 1/4 teaspoon more next time, but I think that the 1/2 teaspoon gives just the right amount of heat and doesn’t overpower. It’s like a little tickle instead of a slap in the face.

If you do make this cake, please please please try it toasted the next day. It was Medrich’s recommendation and I’m glad I followed it. It gives the cake a much different character. I will pretty much be eating this cake for breakfast until it runs out.

Recipe here. (Note: Medrich specifically states natural cocoa powder, not dutch-processed. I’m guessing this was omitted as it’s hard to come by in Canada. I bought mine from King Arthur Flour.)

Have you ever been drawn to a recipe and you just had to make it? This recipe pulled me in from just the title. Again, from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich. I love hazelnuts and I love chocolate. It was an easy decision to make this.

There’s no milk or eggs that are used as binders, just a lot of glorious butter. It’s a butter cookie so it does have that grainy texture, but that didn’t bother me at all.

I’m certain because I mixed it by hand (see iPhone photo here) it fell apart.

It is a more rustic looking cookie, but there is just so much going on in this cookie — smooth chocolate, crunchy hazelnuts and a melt in your mouth texture that this is a recipe I’ll be making time and again for myself. I can’t find a recipe for this online, but if you buy the book I can guarantee you won’t regret it.

The busy holiday season has passed and I am no longer elbow deep in cookie dough.

Here’s a summary of my holiday baking:
6 pounds butter + 1 kg of flour + Slightly over 1 kg of chocolate = Resulting in a little over 26 dozen cookies

Every year I like to mix it up a bit and try a new cookie recipe. This year I tried Alice Medrich’s Gooey Turtle Bars from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich. True to the name, these are so-gooey-it’s-messy. But messy messy heaven. The only description I could give for these cookies were, “They’re really friggen awesome.” The combination of a shortbread crust (I’ve decided I only like shortbread as a vehicle for other much tastier things), pecans, caramel and chocolate is a winner. Turtles are one of my favourite holiday chocolates so it’s no surprise that I love these cookies.

Back to the book.

Medrich has divided her book by textures: crispy, crunchy, chunky, gooey, flaky and melt-in-your mouth. Sound familiar? Martha Stewart did something similar in 2008 with Martha Stewart’s Cookies. I like that Martha Stewart has photographed each cookie with the table of contents so you get a nice visual. I wish there were more pictures in Medrich’s book, there’s about 1/4 of photos which seems so little with most cookbooks providing many more photos now. That being said, it’s not a deal breaker for me. I have plenty of cookbooks sans pictures that I reach for all the time. I like the addition of a “smart search” in the back of the book where you can quickly find recipes that are wheat-free, dairy-free, quick and easy and low-calories treats. The low-calorie treats section (named Less Fat and 2-point Treats) tells you exactly how many cookies you can have that equals 2 points. Medrich makes sure that the cookies listed packs serious satisfaction so you get the most bang for your buck.

I’m also happy to say to say that several of her cookie recipes from her previous books are in here. My absolute favourite is her Bittersweet Decadence Cookie. Absolutely sinful and rich, this was the cookie that was the catalyst for all my baking. I saw the recipe online and instead of making the recipe from the online source, I purchased the book not knowing a thing about baking. Several years later and I’m regularly baking up a storm.

Since my 2011 food resolution is to bake more cookies, expect to see more of this book.

Gooey Turtle Bars Note: I found the cookies easier to slice when put in the fridge for a bit.

For the sweet tooth: salty and sweet, crunchy and creamy all together in one decadent bar. Divine-but-easy-to-make soft vanilla caramel atop a buttery shortbread crust with loads of toasted pecan halves and chocolate shards. Sinful but celebratory. Might as well make a big batch. This shortcut caramel with sweetened condensed milk is fairly foolproof if you follow the directions and use a silicone spatula to keep the sides of the pot clean. Salt fans will want to top these with extra tiny pinches of flaky salt. Be my guest.

Makes thirty-five 1 3/4-inch bars

Ingredients
1 recipe Shortbread Crust (recipe below)
1 3/4 cups (12.25 ounces) packed brown sugar
1/4 cup honey or light corn syrup
3/8 teaspoon salt (1/2 teaspoon for coarse or flaky sea salt)
1/4 cup water
4 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
One 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups (7 ounces) whole pecan halves, toasted
6 ounces milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or 1 cup milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips

Equipment
A 9-by-13-inch metal baking pan, the bottom and all 4 sides lined with foil
Silicone spatula
Candy thermometer

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven.

Prepare the shortbread crust as directed.

To Make the Topping In a heavy 2- to 3-quart saucepan (about 8 inches in diameter), combine the brown sugar, honey, salt, and water. Set on medium heat and drop in the chunk of butter. Stir constantly with a heatproof spatula, scraping the corners and bottom of the pan as the butter melts. From time to time, scrape the mixture off the spatula against the top edge of the pan and scrape the sides of the pan clean. Bring the mixture to a medium boil and continue stirring and scraping the pan for about 3 minutes, dissolving the sugar. Stir in the condense milk and return to a boil, stirring constantly, scraping the sides, corners, and bottom of the pan. Adjust the heat so the mixture boils actively but not too furiously. Continue stirring and cooking until the mixture registers 235°F. Total cooking time will be close to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Scrape the hot caramel over the warm crust.

Tilt the pan to level the caramel. Scatter the toasted pecans and chopped chocolate over the surface and set aside until the caramel is cool and the chocolate is set.

Lift the ends of the foil liner and transfer to a cutting board. Peel the foil away from the edges on all 4 sides. Slide a knife or spatula under the crust to detach the foil. Holding the bars in place, slide the foil out from under it. Use a long sharp knife to cut 35 bars. May be kept in an airtight container for at least 1 week.

Shortbread Crust

Tender, buttery, crunchy; this is a great base for cheesecake bars, pudding bars, and more.

Makes one 9-by-13-inch or 8-by-12-inch crust

Ingredients
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and still warm
1/2 cup (3.5 ounces) sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups (9 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Line the pan as specified in the individual recipe with foil.

In a medium bowl, mix the melted butter with the sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add the flour and mix just until incorporated. Don’t worry if the dough seems too soft or oily. Press and smooth the dough evenly over the bottom of the pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the crust is a rich golden brown with well-browned darker edges. Let cool on a rack before proceeding as directed in the recipe.

Excerpted from CHEWY GOOEY CRISPY CRUNCHY MELT-IN-YOUR-MOUTH COOKIES by ALICE MEDRICH (Artisan Books)
Copyright 2010. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

I’ve been craving chocolate like crazy for the last while. I’ve been anxious lately and the anxiousness has been channeled into making chocolatey baked goods. I first made a self-saucing chocolate pudding which didn’t have the chocolate punch I was going for, so I turned to the book on chocolate, Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet.

The book goes into great detail about chocolate including the cocoa percentages, this site gives a good explanation. I believe cocoa percentages should be mandatory for all recipes now as there are so many different kinds of chocolate floating around. We’re not just dealing with Baker’s chocolate anymore. Using the same amount of butter and sugar for a chocolate that is 80% cocoa will yield much different results from one that is 50-60%. What I really like about this book is that she gives substitutions if you don’t have a certain percentage available. So if you have a 70% chocolate when you only need a 50%, she’ll give directions on how to work with it.

The level of difficulty varies. I would say it could be used by a beginner as this was the book that really got me into baking. This book is also suitable for the more advanced and I’ve grown with this book. The first recipe I made were bittersweet decadence cookies — powerful cookies that will make your knees weak. When my sister requested a chocolate cake for her baby shower, I turned to this book. It was my first complicated multiple layer cake complete with a ganache glaze. While it didn’t look quite as elegant as the picture in the book, it got rave reviews. I did like the extra ego boost when I overheard someone say “This is the best cake I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”

With my chocolate craving, I was looking for something deep and chocolately, something that could satisfy with a few bites. Enter classic cocoa brownies.

I’ve never been able to get a smooth consistency when mixing the batter. It’s supposed to smooth, but mine always ends up looking like this:

Grainy and gross.

But they always end up turning out like the picture up at the top. These brownies actually lasted for awhile in our household because a little goes a long way.

This is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn more about chocolate. If you’re a fan of the cocoa bean, I suggest you pick this up.

Recipe for brownies here