簾外の世界

I’ve realized something this week: I spend a ridiculous amount of time at the grocery store, especially in the baking isle. Although I know every ingredient’s location by heart, I tend to stare at the groceries for about 10 minutes, hoping a magical new ingredient will pop out from the shelves and give me creative ideas for my next new dessert. The workers there keep asking if I need any help finding something. I’m sure they think I’m weird.

You know what else I’ve realized? When it comes to ingredients I like to bake with, I’m a sucker for deals. I even go after the bad ones, like “Buy 3 and enter a competition to win a trip around the world!” or “Buy 17 bags of M&Ms and get one free!”, which is exactly what happened this week, by the way. Ok, maybe not 17 bags, but still more than I needed. Thank goodness there are cookies for just this kind of occasion! You can add ANYTHING to a good cookie batter and it will taste delicious. Even bacon.

So let’s talk about that good cookie batter recipe – this recipe. It produces soft, chewy, and ridiculously delicious cookies. These cookies are also big. They’re not giant, but they are big enough to stop my cookie craving – and this is me we’re talking about. Of course you can make them smaller, but why would you want to?

In my chocolate chips cookies post, you’ll find all the information you need about the secrets to making perfect cookies and why this recipe works – although it’s based on Baking Illustrated’s recipe, so of course it works!

If you like thick cookies, then please please please don’t skip the step of chilling the dough. This specific recipe uses melted butter, so the dough is really soft. I know it’s hard and not very fun to wait, but it’s worth it. With that being said, of course you can bake the cookies right away, but they might spread out more than if you had chilled them.

If you like soft cookies, don’t wait for the cookies to appear dry before taking them out of the oven. Even if they look extremely soft, they will firm up once cooled. The middle should appear under baked with the edges having just begun to brown. This makes all the difference in the world between a crunchy cookie and soft, chewy goodness.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself and my readers in the past couple years, it’s that we love a good chickpea salad. I don’t know if it’s the endless possibilities or the idea that chickpeas are healthy, but they’ve become some of my most popular recipes to date. Personally, I like to think I’m the healthiest eater alive when I’m devouring a bowl full of these nutritious nuggets.


This particular chickpea salad is basically a knock-off of my curry chicken salad, but I tweaked a few ingredients to bring out the slightly nutty flavor of the chickpeas. I swapped out the cashews for some peanuts (mostly because that’s what I already had). I added more celery and took out a little onion. Plus, I threw in some cider vinegar and olive oil to enhance the flavors of the ingredients a make the mayonnaise go a little further.


I’ve already tried the salad several different ways – in pita bread, on a bed of spring mix and straight out of the bowl while hovering at the open refrigerator. Of course, you can eat it anyway you want, but I would recommend skipping the fridge grazing because it can make you feel a little desperate. Trust me. If you’re going for the greens, try tossing them with the smallest amount of oil and vinegar before topping with the salad.

Have ready a greased 1-cup heatproof glass measure.

Beat the egg yolks in a stand (or hand held) mixer until light in color. Meanwhile, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and lemon juice in a medium saucepan (preferably with a nonstick lining) and heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves and the syrup comes to a rolling boil. (The entire surface will be covered with large bubbles.) Immediately transfer the syrup to the glass measure to stop the cooking.

If using an electric hand-held mixer, beat the syrup into the yolks in a steady stream. Don't allow syrup to fall on the beaters or they will spin it onto the sides of the bowl. If using a stand mixer, pour a small amount of syrup over the yolks with the mixer turned off. Immediately beat at high speed for 5 seconds. Stop the mixer and add a larger amount of syrup. Beat at high speed for 5 seconds. Continue with the remaining syrup. For the last addition, use a rubber spatula to remove the syrup clinging to the glass measure. Continue beating until completely cool Dream beauty pro hard sell
Gradually beat in the butter and lemon extract. Place in an airtight bowl. Bring to room temperature before using; rebeat to restore texture.

Once cupcakes have cooled, place a small dollop of buttercream on the top and line the top with thin slices of strawberries (ADDED: after slicing the strawberries, gently pat down with a paper towel. You want them to be as dry as possible so they won't leak juice). Lightly brush strawberries with lemon syrup. Pipe buttercream on top. Brush small slices of strawberries with lemon syrup and use for garnish Web Attack.

The vote has closed, and we have a by-and-far winner: Angel Food Cupcakes! I'm surprised, I was expecting the Mint Chocolate Cupcakes to win. I should thank you all for voting though, 'cos these wouldn't have been top of my list to make otherwise - the chocolate would have been. What can I say! I'm a chocoholic.

I've read descriptions of summer recipes that always include "airy," "light," and "melts on the tongue." Well, now I'm adding one to the list. Guys, this recipe is airy, and light, and melts on the tongue, and is more than that besides. The angel food is basically foam with a gentle lemon edge to it; the buttercream is rich with a gentle sweetness, but no weight. The overall effect is a fluffy bite that whispers lemon and sugar - the strawberry is by far the most substantial part of the dessert. If I were to hold a tea party (and it is definitely on my to-do list) these would absolutely be on my menu.

Recipe, recipe! There are several parts to this one: the angel food, the buttercream, a lemon simple syrup, and the strawberries comparable to silk.

Angel Food (adapted from Fresh from the Oven):

Makes ~30 cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
12 large egg whites, at room temperature
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp juice from 1 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp grated lemon zest

Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 325F. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.

Whisk flour and 3/4 cup sugar in a small bowl, set aside. In a dry, clean electric mixer bowl, beat egg whites on low speed until foamy. Add in cream of tartar and salt, and increase speed to medium high. Continue to beat, adding the remaining 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until all the sugar is added and the whites are shiny and form soft peaks. Beat in the lemon juice, vanilla extract, lemon zest until just blended.

Sift the flour mixture over the whites, about 1/4 cup at a time, and gently fold it in using a large rubber spatula. Fill each cupcake liner almost full (a little over 3/4) and smooth the tops so they are flat and touching the liner on all sides (these cupcakes rise only a very little and tend to get malformed and oval if the tops have not been smoothed.) Bake until the tops are lightly golden and spongy to the touch, 20-25 minutes sculptra.

Sometimes the best hidden treasures are the ones that I hide from myself. While it might be fun, in theory, to stumble upon a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or, say, a wooden chest with a pirate’s cache of jewels and coins, there is a special satisfaction reserved for the finds that are familiar—the old, forgotten-about something that resurfaces, resplendent, when I least expect it cheap designer sunglasses.

Take, for example, that tube of Chanel “Vamp” lipstick, ten years old but barely used, unearthed last week from an early grave beside my bathroom sink. A color somewhere between blood and black, it made me feel daring and dangerous at seventeen, and at twenty-seven, dangerously nostalgic. Then there’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, a plain white paperback with a title scrawled in color and a coming-of-age hero—a novel I read at age sixteen, then wedged on the shelf between Wise Blood and Beloved and nearly forgot until last December, when I found it again and devoured it whole for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then, of course, there’s dessert: a slip of paper that fell not long ago from the dark, forgotten recesses of my recipe file, a sketch of ingredients for applesauce with a crunchy meringue cap.

Like a few other notable food finds, this one comes from the table of my host family in France. On the occasional lazy evening, my host mother would open a bottle of applesauce, set her beaters to a bowl of egg whites, and, in doing so, make her children very happy. She would spread the applesauce into a baking dish; smooth it with a sweet, pearly layer of meringue; and slide the whole snowy mess into the oven until its top was crisp and laced with fissures and fault lines. It cracked under the spoon like crème brulée, a crunch giving way to silken and soft Teeth whitening.

One night, after a bowlful or two, I jotted the concept on a piece of paper, folded it up for safekeeping, and promptly forgot about it.

But six years later and five thousand miles away, it fell into my lap—as all the best things do—when I was looking for something else. And once flushed from hiding, it crawled free from the bars of its Clairefontaine paper and onto my kitchen counter. With a nod of gratitude to the recipe’s Gallic origins, I politely swapped the store-bought sauce for my own homemade stuff, a simple, softly tart mash of apples with a smoothing, softening slip of vanilla. Tucked beneath a blanket of meringue and sent away for a good, long bake, it came back sweet and sour, satiny inside and shatteringly crisp on top, at once old and new, a little retro, rustic-chic. Something tells me that I might have to hide it from myself, just for safety’s sake Office Interior Design.