De Baking Psychopath

I want to make more brownies...they're that good.

Tuesday was our last class of the 4-week Ethics course I was taking, which turned out better than I thought it would be. I baked for the once-weekly class, at first because we didn't get dinner (budget downsizing), but later we got some pizza, so it was just for fun after that... The first week, I went back to my beloved Cooks Illustrated choco chip cookies, and I also threw in some Mayan Chocolate Cookies from Robin Hood (a flour company) that I had frozen dough from awhile ago. The second week, I made the Samoa copycat cookies from Oatmeal Cookie Guy, which got rave reviews from my classmates and some requested it again for the next week, so I obliged. And for the last week, I decided to try some new things from those famous bakeries I blathered on about in my last entry (have you watched that SNL rap about macking on Magnolia cupcakes yet? if not, you really should...). The first item was brownies from scratch! Despite years of making cookies and cakes now, this was the first t...

I've lately noticed that many of the most popular recipes in the baking blog world have revolved around a limited number of currently-popular baking cookbooks. A large subset of these come from famous bakeries, such as the Magnolia Bakery and Baked in NYC. Certainly there is also a fair amount of literature (blogs and news articles) dedicated to copycats or individually-requested recipes from other famous, unpublished bakeries. Although I've never been one to follow fads, I'm also always one of the first to say "Ooh, let's go there, this place is famous for ____!" So in this case, I'm happy to jump on the bandwagon of collecting recipes from famous bakeries to see why they inspire real-life and baking blog cult followings...and SNL rap tributes : So the next several installments will primarily be focused on such recipes--I'm hoping to expand my repertoire out to include brownies/blondies and other types of bar cookies, and maybe some pastries and ...

Today I made some more Cook's Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies, but instead of regular Domino's Dark Brown Sugar, I used the dark brown sugar I got from the Korean grocery H-Mart in Washington, DC awhile back. The shade of brown of that brown sugar is akin to the color of coffee grounds, which is very very much darker than the Domino's version. I really love the flavor and the larger grain of this sugar, and so I am eagerly awaiting another opportunity to stock up. However, despite my great appreciation for the different qualities between the two brands, the decision to use the Korean brown sugar instead of Domino's was a spur-of-the-moment one, or in other words, not thought out. So I was very surprised halfway through making the cookies to find that I ended up with a deep, chocolate-colored batter instead of the normal all-American chocolate chip cookie color, as seen below in the finished products (normal cookie from last batch on left, Korean dark brow...

Mmm, Girl Scout Cookies. I don't know about you, but I love Samoas. The cookie base is crumbly-crunchy, the caramel is chewy, the toasted coconut has a wonderful aroma, and the chocolate just rounds everything out. The Oatmeal Cookie Guy made his recipe debut back in February 2008 with this recipe , a Samoa copycat. Gosh, did I have to buy a whole bunch of things for this recipe: caramel sauce, cream of coconut, coconut extract, Rollos...and it's a messy process, with the dough full of toasted bits of things but at the same time wet, so it tends to stick to one's hands rather than itself. My advice in making this cookie is to wash your hands every once in awhile, keeping your hands wet makes the dough easier to roll into balls. But oh, the result! These cookies don't taste exactly like Samoas-- some said they were better.... The cookie is extremely chewy from the 4 cups of toasted oatmeal and 2 1/2 cups of toasted coconut in the batter, and the Rollo candy in the ...

This is another Bake or Break inspired recipe. We stopped by the grocery store yesterday, and the sight of pears reminded me that this recipe was burning a hole on my to-do list. So, three little pears came home with me. I have undying love for cinnamon. Nine times out of ten, I will add more than what the recipe calls for to amplify the cinnamon profile in the end product. This recipe has a full tablespoon , plenty to suppress my cinnamon-supplementing tendencies. The recipe itself is quite simple...too simple to be a safe recipe to have on hand. You start by mixing together all the wet ingredients: 3/4 cup butter or oil (I used Smart Balance, which is non-trans fat), 3 eggs, 2 cups of sugar (I reduced this down to about 1 2/3 cup, eyeballing it), 2 cups of grated pears, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Then you just mix in the pre-combined dry ingredients: 3 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt (I reduced this to 1/4 tsp since I used salted margarine), 1...

If I lost all my recipe books in a natural disaster, as long as I could access the Internet, I could probably find all my staple baking recipes. And part of the reason is that I get most of my "to try" recipe material from following my favorite baking blogs, such as Bake or Break (see "My favorite blogs" for the link), the inspiration to today's recipe. Jennifer (author of Bake or Break) says of this recipe from Buttercup Bake Shop in NYC, "If you never believe another one of my recipe endorsements, believe this one. These little treats are so, so good." It's hard to resist such a statement, especially when it's accompanied by mouth-watering, gastric juice inducing photographs of aforementioned treats... So this recipe made the shortlist. This week was positively awful in the amount of non-research related work I had to take care of. Part of it was all those student committee things I do for my program, added to homework made for a hectic we...