So I’m getting back in the game with a delicious little cookie that’s perfect with some tea or coffee.  The recipe originally calls for wheat germ, but I read a post by another blogger who substituted oat bran instead. Since I had oat bran on hand, I figured it was worth a shot. The result is a delightful, light cookie.

Note that the dough needs to be made at least 2 hours beforehand to allow chilling time. Plan accordingly!

Thanks to Flourchild for the recipe – I’ve basically copied her instructions below.

Ingredients

Whisk together the flour, 1/2 cup of the oat bran, baking powder and salt. Working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl,run the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingers until the sugar is moist. Add the butter and, using the paddle or whisk attachment of a hand mixer, beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes, until creamy or smooth. Add the honey and beat for another minute or two. Add the egg and beat for about 2 minutes more, until you have a smooth, light , fluffy mixture. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 2 portions, mixing only until each addition disappears. Scrape the dough out onto a large piece of plastic wrap and wrap well. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours, or for up to 2 days.

Getting ready to Bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. Put the remaining 1/2 cup oat bran into a bowl. Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and, working with a spoonful of it at a time, roll the dough between your palms into 1-inch balls. Drop each ball into the wheat germ and turn to coat, then place the balls on one of the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch of space between them(these don’t spread much). Use your palm or the bottom of a glass to gently flatten each cookie. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time, for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are just firm to the touch. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to room temperature. Repeat with remaining dough. Storing: The cookies will keep at room temperature for about 3 days or wrapped airtight in the freezer for up to 2 months.

Modified from this Allrecipes version.

• 3/4 cup milk
• 3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh lavender, or 3 tsp dried lavender flowers
• 8 Tbsp butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• If, like me, you are a tool who has self-rising flour lying around, you can use that instead of the last three ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease two smallish loaf pans thoroughly–this bread likes to stick.

Combine the milk and lavender in a small saucepan over medium heat. Raise to just barely a simmer–you are looking for tiny bubbles around the edges, but not a full boil–then remove from heat, and allow to cool some.

Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs until the mixture is light and fluffy (I did this first with a spoon and did not achieve fluffiness, and it was sub-par. Use a mixer!)

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; alternate adding the dry ingredients and the lavender-milk to the creamed things until just blended. Pour/scrape into the prepared pans.

Bake for 35 minutes, or until a testing thing comes out clean. Cool pretty thoroughly in the pan before attempting to turn out onto a wire rack. When it’s cool, you can add a citrus glaze if you like. My last one was 1/4 cup powdered sugar / juice of about a third of a lemon / splash of vanilla, but this did not quite seem ideal.

• They are delicious! While they steam they emit this stunningly tasty broth. Look into it.
• They are cheap, esp. for seafood! $5/lb is the price for Manila clams down at the Berkeley Bowl, and that is definitely enough to feed two people.
• When you buy them… they are STILL ALIVE. Creepy, eh?

This is a very simple and traditional way to prepare them, and the most expensive part is the bottle of wine, of which only about 1/2 cup goes into the cooking… so you get to drink the remainder with dinner! Serves you + 1 fly honey.

Linguini with clams (basic)

• 1 lb small clams, such as Manilla or Littleneck (this should be about 2 dozen and a bit)
• fat (butter or oil), about 3-4 tablespoons
• 3 large cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small shallot (or 1/4 of a mild-tasting onion), minced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (Kendall Jackson’s sauvignon blanc is a very good choice here and it’s inexpensive too)
• 2 tomatoes, peeled, cored, seeded, and diced
• 1/2 lb linguini

Melt the fat in a large pot on medium, add the minced garlic and shallot and sauté until fragrant and beginning to soften (about 2 minutes). Add the clams to the pot, the wine, and about half the diced tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then cover and let steam until the clams open (about 5-8 minutes). Meanwhile, cook the linguini to your desired specifications. Remove clams to a bowl (discarding any that do not open… that means they were dead when you got them :/) and cover with foil. Drain the linguini and throw it in the pot, which should have a nice thin layer of broth at the bottom. Throw in the remaining tomato and toss it all together over medium heat for a few beats. Serve the linguini with clams on top (either you can remove them from their shells or the diner can… your choice!) immediately.

This recipe of course begs for additions and variation. I was planning on tossing some arugula in as well, but my stock had gone extra-bitter so I decided against it. I also added some grated chestnuts as an experiment, but I do not recommend this, as chestnuts are a pain in the ass to prepare and they didn’t add much to the dish.

The recipe is from Café Zuni, which is just over the bay, but it’s a pretty expensive joint, and doing it yourself is not too hard. Smitten Kitchen’s summary (which is what I linked above) suffices here, except I will make the following notes: (1) I only had 10 hours to salt the chicken, though 1-3 days is the recommended salting time (it still turned out quite good and I’ll do it right when I inevitably repeat this recipe someday). (2) It was very difficult to find a chicken quite small enough. To be fair, I only had time to look in one store (see the first note) but I went to Andronico’s which has fairly good meat selection. I managed to find a 3.68 pound free-range chicken, so that’s what I used. (3) Once in the oven (which you start at a whopping 475˚F) the chicken was very good at hissing and spitting and getting chicken fat all over the oven’s heating coil (oh how I wish we had a gas range) which led to a lot of smoke; long story short I ended up removing the batteries from our smoke detector.

As you can see, I served it with the bread salad (recipe also in the above link). For dessert, Brandon (my guinea pig for this dinner) and I had poached pears, also a first!

Pears poached in spiced vin santo

• 2 small pears (pref. d’Anjou) peeled, but not cored or stemmed
• 1 750 mL bottle of Italian dessert wine such as vin santo or marsala
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick, broken in two (this is harder than it sounds to do)
• 1 tbsp vanilla bean paste (or a real vanilla bean)
• 1/2 inch ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
• for serving: whipped cream or 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, honey and powdered cinnamon to taste

Combine the wine, water, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and ginger in the smallest (but still deep) saucepan you can find. Bring to a boil on medium, then reduce to right below a simmer and add the pears (position them so that the liquid covers as much of the pear as possible). Cook for 20-30 minutes or until tender (so that it yields to a fork), rotating them occasionally so that they pears poach evenly. Once they are soft, remove the pears to a serving dish and reduce the remaining poaching liquid by half. Serve the pears standing up (you might have to slice off the bottom to make them stand) covered with the poaching liquid/syrup (strained, of course), and with a small dollop of whipped cream or honeyed mascarpone.

Anyway, now I have a leftover chicken carcass and poaching liquid. Probably I will turn the chicken into chicken stock and also chicken-and-barley stew. The poaching liquid will probably get added to hot apple cider to create INSTANT HOLIDAY CHEER. Science!

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup shortening
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cups honey
• 2 tsp. lemon flavoring
• 5 ¼ cups flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. salt

Directions

1. Mix shortening, sugar, egg, honey and flavoring thoroughly. Measure flour and stir together with baking soda and salt. Blend in. Chill dough.
2. Heat oven to 375o. Roll dough out ¼” thick. Cut into desired shapes.
3. Place 1″ apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until no imprint remains when touched lightly.
4. When cool, ice and decorate as desired.

You can’t really see under the Santas here, but this year I debuted some new Hanukkah shapes as well: a menorah and a dreidel. We’ve also been making Stars of David for a while. Cookies for everyone!

You can make a ginger bread version by substituting brown sugar for granulated, molasses for honey, and 2 tsp. cinnamon plus 1 tsp. ginger for lemon flavoring.

I stole this tin from my mom because I thought it was pretty.

Next up: THE DECORATENING.

Hazelnut macaroons

• 2 3/4 cups hazelnuts, shelled and skinned (see below)
• 2 plus 1 egg whites, room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1/2 cup less, and it was still very sweet, so use your discretion)

To skin hazelnuts, place on a foiled baking sheet in an even layer and roast in the oven at 375˚F for about 8-10 minutes. Pour the toasty nuts out onto a kitchen towel, then fold the towel over the nuts and rub the towel against your nuts (??) vigorously to remove as much of the outer skin as possible. The skin is not really bad or anything, and it won’t all come off anyway, so this is really kind of optional. Also optional: toasting the nuts anyway… the taste of toasted hazelnuts is better than raw, in my opinion, but it’s up to you!

Preheat the oven to 300˚F and line a cookie sheet with butter-greased parchment paper. Grind the nuts fine in a food processor and place in a large mixing bowl. Whisk two of the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the nuts in smallish batches. Fold the remaining egg white in, and then add the sugar and mix until fairly homogeneous. Roll into 1-1 1/2 inch diameter balls and place on the cookie sheet slightly flattened. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned. [I had to do it in two batches because our bakeware sucks, and each batch was around 20 cookies.]

Whatever you do, don’t let any water or milk touch the chocolate as that causes it to “seize” and do weird things to the texture. Use chocolate and nothing else (maybe sugar is okay, but there’s already two cups in the cookies for god’s sake).

After receiving the CakeLove book, I thought to myself, “okay, now you HAVE to give baking a real chance”.  Unfortunately, my first attempt at making meringue buttercream frosting was miserable!  The butter wasn’t well-enough incorporated, and the meringue component wasn’t stiff enough to give the frosting any structure. Added to the fact that I had never used a whole pound of butter in anything before, it became a traumatic experience. It took me a while before I cared to try again.  Finally, I gave it another try this past Friday, with much better results.

Ta-da! Unfortunately we were pressed for time (see the small kitten trying to bury his face in the frosting), so I didn’t get any better pictures of the cake.

Chocolate Butter Cake (from the CakeLove book) – yields 2 9-in. diameter round cakes

Dry ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups + 2 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Liquid ingredients

• 1 cup half-and-half
• 2 tbsp brandy (I subbed this with dark rum)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Creaming ingredients

• 6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp.
• 1 3/4 cup extra-fine granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs

** full-fat, unsweetened, Dutch-processed cocoa powder with 22% to 24% cocoa butter is recommended in the book

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift the flour into a big mixing bowl. Measure out the other dry ingredients and add to the bowl. Whisk them together.

Combine the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl and set aside.

Measure the butter and sugar into separate bowls and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar together (note that the butter must be room temp). Use an electric mixer at low speed. After it looks well incorporated, start adding the eggs one at a time, keeping the mixer at the same speed.  Remember to scrape the sides down to mix everything evenly.

Alternate between adding the dry and liquid mixtures, starting and ending with the dry mixture. Keep the mixer going, and don’t wait for the added ingredients to get fully incorporated before adding more.

Stop and scrape the sides down, making sure that you get any possible pockets of unmixed batter.  Turn the mixer back on medium speed and mix for another 15 to 20 seconds.

Prepare the pans – for 9-in. round pans, line the bottom with parchment paper (I cut it roughly into circles and folded the edges under so it fit exactly along the bottom).  You don’t need to spray the sides of the pan.

Pour the batter into the pan, using a rubber spatula to smooth it out evenly in the pan. Fill the pan about 3/4 deep.

Bake for about 28 minutes.

When the cakes are done, let cool to room temperature and then remove from the pans by loosening the edges with a spatula or knife and then inverting onto a flat surface.  You can wrap the cakes in plastic wrap andore in the fridge up to 5 days before frosting.

Italian Meringue Buttercream

• 5 egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups extra-fine granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1 lb (4 sticks) unsalted butter
• candy thermometer

Separate the egg whites into a bowl.

Measure 1 cup of sugar and the water into a heavy-bottomed, 1 qt saucepan. Gently stir to combine before you put it on the heat.

Measure the remaining 1/4 cup sugar into a small bowl and set aside.

Cut the butter into tablespoon-sized pieces and set aside.

Put the thermometer in the saucepan. Place the saucepan on the stove and heat on medium-high heat. Partially cover the saucepan with a lid to capture the evaporating water – this helps prevent sugar crystals from forming. Heat until the mixture reaches 245 degrees F. This will give you enough time to continue with the steps below.

As this is going, whip the egg whites with a whisk attachment on high speed. Whip until stiff peaks form – that is when you have a meringue.

Keep the mixer going while pouring the 1/4 cup of sugar into the meringue.

Set aside the meringue and check the sugar. If it is not yet at 245 degrees, turn up the heat to get it there. Once it reaches 245, promptly remove it from the heat and slowly pour into the meringue. ** Note: It is VERY important to make sure the syrup is at 245 degrees. Baking is hard that way

Continue mixing the meringue at high speed for a minute or so. Reduce the speed to medium for another 3 to 4 minutes, or until the meringue is mostly cooled. Start adding the butter 1 tbsp at a time. This is the time to add any flavorings – I added about 1/2 cup of raspberry puree.  Below are some more flavoring ideas.

Continue to mix at the highest speed possible until the buttercream looks very uniform and smooth. It will have to pass through a weird, curdled-looking stage first.  The one mistake I made in my first attempt was my choice of electric mixer – mine simply wasn’t strong enough at its highest speed to incorporate the butter appropriately.

Flavor Variations

Vanilla: 1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate: 1/2 cup melted bittersweet chocolate

Rum: 2-4 tbsp dark rum

Amaretto: 2-4 tbsp amaretto

Lemon: 2 tbsp limoncello

Orange: 1 tsp orange oil

Lime: 1 tsp lime oil

The Pioneer Woman’s pictures are much better than mine so you should go look at them, but here are some Things I Learned, or changed when I made it, or WOULD change were I to make it again (sadly, the rest of the apples are fated for apple butter so that cannot be just yet):

• It says 9-10″ cast-iron skillet. I used a 10″. It overflowed while baking, and the cake came out thicker, compared to the apple layer, than I would have liked. I should’ve used the 12″ skillet!
• Cut down the initial butter melting in the skillet to 10 Tbs (4 Tbs less) and this was PLENTY – although don’t get me wrong, the butter/caramelized sugar/apples slow-cooked in same are still the point of this thing.
• Also sliced the apples thinner, into twelfths not sixths. This was preferable, I think, as thin apples = fitting more in the pan = yes. Also, better distribution of apple-to-cake.
• The spices were a little blah even though I threw in more cinnamon. Could probably take some allspice, cloves, etc. – it’s super sweet and I think a little more of a kick would compliment that.
• My fatal error: put this on a baking sheet when you stick it in the oven! Slightly over-crowded 10″ skillet + bubbling-over caramelizing sugar and butter + floor of gas oven = smoke-filled kitchen.

In conclusion, you should probably be smarter than me when it comes to setting sugar on fire, but this cake is still delicious.

Joy the Baker’s recipe for Super Soft Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies showed up on the blog of someone else I read (can’t remember who), and I couldn’t stop staring at them until I made them.

You guys, these cookies are amazing. I am a fan of chewy and soft cookies and never seem to get mine to come out that way, but these are like little pumpkin cakes in cookie sizes.

Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup canola or corn oil
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips

I actually made a double recipe, since I have several events in the next few days to which I’d like to take cookies, especially if they turned out well, which they did. I actually ended up with not quite enough pumpkin, because the can I bought held only 1 3/4 cups, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

Kitty wants to help.

Directions

1. Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices together in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color, about 1 minute.
3. Mix the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture. Mix in the chips. The dough is very soft. I had to restrain myself from adding more flour, and it’s good that I was successful.
4. Bake at 325 degrees for 16-20 minutes (I found that it took longer than Joy’s recipe says, but maybe it’s just my oven), until the top is firm.
5. Just try to keep your roommates away.

0. Take a cup of raisins, or a little less because they’ll expand. Soak them in some water. Dark spiced rum would be better. I used water spiked with vanilla but it wasn’t ultimately noticeable. Mine were sort of acceptable around 1 hour and deliciously gushy around 10 hours (I started baking in the morning but then there was Cream Fail and I couldn’t come back till much later – probably overkill though.) This is to prevent the raisins from soaking up lots of the scones’ moisture as they bake. Alternately, you could use golden raisins or special “baking raisins,” which are less dehydrated.

0b. No really, preheat the oven well in advance. I never remember but it is KEY, I’m increasingly sure, for baking.

1. Scone recipe, as per usual, but doubled, AND ALSO:

2. To the dry ingredients, add “some” cinnamon (maybe 1/2 tsp? I would try a full tsp though.)

3. After adding the cream , just as the dough is starting to come together, add the raisins, which you will have appropriately drained.

4. After scones are thoroughly cool, glaze lightly and let dry.

For the glaze: about 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, maybe half a teaspoon of lemon zest, a teaspoon or two of lemon juice. Whisk furiously! It’s better if you start up with less lemon juice and add more slowly so as not to make it too runny. Also be sure not to use too much glaze because the stuff is really sweet. Enjoy!