white apples . a blog

baked and swirled

For St. Patrick' Day, I made this Chocolate Stout Cake with Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting from Closet Cooking.  The cake itself was deep dark deliciousness, but the Bailey's cream cheese frosting was the real star.  And since I now happen to have a bottle of Bailey's floating around my kitchen just begging to be used, I incorporated this same Bailey's/cream cheese combo into a swirly brownie recipe.  For the brownie base, I tried the much drooled-over Baked Brownie recipe from the fantastic Baked cookbook (thus spake Oprah).  I've never tried it on its own, but in this incarnation it yielded a dense, very chocolatey, slightly fudgy brownie that was a perfect foil for the creamy cheesecake swirl. 

chocolate interlude

If you're not a serious chocoholic, you might as well skip this post.  Made with deep, dark Valrhona cocoa and bittersweet chocolate chips, these brownies are intense.  These are postpartum-mama-recovery brownies.  These are get-me-through-long-nights-of-newborn-feedings brownies.  These are the ultimate in chocolate-therapy brownies.  And to top it all off, they are also loaded with cacao nibs, or bits of roasted cacao bean.  Cacao nibs are essentially the crack of the chocolate world.  In addition to adding pure dark chocolatey intensity, they also bring a nice little crunch to the party.  Either way, don't say I didn't warn  you.  Proceed at your own, bittersweet risk. 

Cacao Nib Brownies
from Apartment Therapy

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/2 cup sugar (460 g)
1 1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
4 lg eggs
1 1/2 cup (6 1/4 oz) AP flour
2 cup (12 oz bag) chocolate chips (the darker the better! - I used Ghiradelli 60%)
1/2 cup cocoa nibs (I used Scharffen Berger)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 9" x 13" pan with parchment paper so it comes up each of the shorter sides (butter the two other sides)

Melt the butter over low heat. Add the sugar and heat up both just until it's just about to boil. This will give the brownies a crispy top crust. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

With a wooden spoon, stir in the cocoa, salt, baking powder and vanilla. Add the eggs one by one, beating until smooth and shiny. Add the flour, mix gently until it's almost completely incorporated. Add the chips and the cocoa nibs until combined.

Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 28-30 minutes. Brownies are done when the top is firm and slightly puffed and set on the edges.

And for something equally delicious, I give you yummy little baby fingers:

wake up slow

Long, slow weekend mornings are my favorite - especially in the Fall when the air is cool and the light is soft and sleepy.  Last weekend, we started off our days with Pumpkin Cranberry Scones and a huge sloppy cup of coffee (okay, in my case, it was a dainty little cup of pregnancy tea... sigh...).  If all you've had is store bought scones that are hard and dry and crumbly and chalky, then you're missing out on the tender, pillowy-deliciousness of home-made scones.  This recipe uses buttermilk instead of the traditional cream, which makes them lighter and softer and irresistible.  And pumpkin - you know how I feel about pumpkin.

This weekend there will be no cool, comfortable mornings.  The Santa Ana winds are here and it is hot, hot, hot.  I'm miserably flopping around the house, slowly melting in the heat.  This hateful weather is also ruining a lovely almond pie dough meant for some apples and cranberries as part of a dinner party tonight.  Ugh.  Soggy Cathy.  Soggy pie crust.  Southern California has strange weather.

Eat thy Bread with Joy

Have you heard?  I passed my three hour glucose tolerance test for gestational diabetes.  Yay for my ability to metabolize sugar!  To celebrate, I made that most satisfyingly carb-filled, indulgently custardy, yet disappointingly un-photogenic of desserts - bread pudding.  Chocolate bread pudding to be precise.  I'm not quite sure who I pilfered this recipe from, though I suspect it's Paula Deen (despite the obvious lack of butter as a starring ingredient).  Next time I would ease up on the almond extract a bit.  The pudding definitely has a powerful almond extracty flavor that I would temper in favor of deeper chocolatety-ness.  I also made this with semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of chocolate shavings (because I have pounds and pounds of chocolate chips littering my pantry).  This was actually a nice adjustment, since it resulted in little pockets of melty chocolate scattered throughout the dish.  Fun!  I also skipped the usual heavy cream-bourbon-vanilla sauce that I I like to make in favor of plain vanilla ice cream.  I can be a little good.  A little.

This weekend Charlie and I are taking a bit of a drive up the coast to Santa Barbara for a few days.  Hopefully there will be much rest and relaxation.  And pie.  Hopefully there will be pie.  Regardless, I will have photos and trip updates next week.

The "Metabolize This" Chocolate Bread Pudding Recipe

1 (1 lb) loaf French or Italian bread, cubed
3 cup milk
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup coffee flavored liqueur
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 eggs, lightly beaten
8 oz semisweet chocolate, grated
Preheat oven to 325° F.

Lightly grease a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and place the bread in the dish. In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, cream, and liqueur. Using another bowl, combine the sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa powder and mix well. Add the sugar mixture to the milk mixture and mix well. Add the vanilla and almond extract, and cinnamon to the beaten eggs. Combine the egg mixture to the milk mixture and mix well

Stir the grated chocolate into the mixture. Pour the mixture over the cubed bread in the pan. Let the mixture stand, stirring occasionally for approximately 20 minutes or until bread absorbs most of the milk mixture. Bake pudding for 1 hour or until set. Check pudding by inserting a knife through the middle and it should come out clean.

Serve the pudding warm, or refrigerate and serve chilled with whipped cream if desired.

Makin' Whoopie... Pies, that is.

The weather this weekend was cool and crispy and almost Fall-like.  Cool October days are my favorite kind of days.  We may not have rust-colored leaves crunching underfoot or hot apple cider around every corner, but even here in SoCal, I do get to thinkin' about all things pumpkin.  The adorable little guys above are Mini Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Maple Cream Cheese Filling, inspired by Peabody's always delectable food blog.  These tasty little pillows of pumpkiny perfection were fun to make and even more fun to assemble.  Now I have a mini-army of whoopie pies occupying my kitchen counter.  Charlie and I have launched the offensive; we pick off at least two or three with each kitchen reconnaissance.  Their numbers are dwindling rapidly.  Their cause is not helped by the fact that they are the perfect accompaniment for an afternoon coffee.

It's not all military/baked goods metaphors this weekend.  We're making progress on the baby preparation front as well.  Soon-to-be Grandpa X and Lorraine sent us this nifty little stroller.  Between batches of whoopie pies, I assembled it and played with all its attachments and gizmos.  Apparently strollers (and other gear that babies are attached to, I assume) come with some sort of NASA engineered five-point harness system that is completely baffling me.  The rig has multiple straps, buckles, D-rings, clips, adjusters, and pads all designed to somehow secure baby to said device.  I guess some things we will learn by doing.  In other baby news, Charlie is currently painting the nursery, so we'll have photos soon.