Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies or Rocky Road Cookies

Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies. Add Marshmallow and Nuts for the Rockie Road Variety.

 
What I'm about to share with you is one of the best things I've ever made.

It all started one day when my older sister came home from a pizzeria, raving about the most amazing cookies she ever had.

Cookies? The best ever? From a pizzeria? What kind of nonsense am I hearing?

Homemade Vanilla Extract

Real Vanilla Extract is super expensive. The few months ago, I paid $8 for a 4 oz bottle of Bourbon Vanilla Extract and as of today, it's halfway done. I thought about looking online to see if I could buy vanilla extract in bulk from one of those restaurant supply, but found out I could make it by myself cheaper and easily.

Making vanilla extract yourself will guarantee quality and you'll know exactly what went into it. Your vanilla will be free of the artificial colors and corn sweeteners found in even high-quality vanilla extracts. Hand crafted vanilla extract is a great gift that will last a lifetime. Like a fine wine, vanilla extract matures with age.

Bacon Onion Marmalade Redux

Bacon Onion Marmalade with Goat Cheese on Ciabatta

My friend Josephine invited me, my boyfriend, and a bunch of other wonderful people over to her place for a Bacon Extravaganza.

She challenged us to make anything we wanted, as long as bacon was a key ingredient.

I knew immediately that I needed to revisit my Onion Bacon Marmalade I made a while ago and up the bacon big time.

Hence, Bacon Onion Marmalade was born.

The Daring Baker's March 2012 Challenge: Lions, Tigers, and Bears, oh my!

Dutch Crunch Tuna Melt!

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

Technically, Dutch Crunch doesn’t refer to the type of bread, but rather the topping that is spread over the bread before baking. In Dutch it’s called Tijgerbrood or “tiger bread” after the tiger-like shell on the bread when it comes out of the oven. The final product has a delightful sweet crunch to it that makes it perfect for a sandwich roll.

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I had never heard of Dutch Crunch bread before and was excited to try making some. I was gifted a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer last Christmas and haven't used it for bread making yet. My usual go-to bread recipe is a no knead recipe that goes in the refrigerator for a few days before use.

It's a lean dough (no oil, eggs, etc), and no so appropriate for dutch crunch, so I decided to use the soft white bread recipe provided by Sara and Erica.

"Ghetto" Sous Vide

Inside shot. Perfect medium rare all the way through. The meat was like butter. Served with some homemade ciabatta.

Sous-vide is a method of cooking food sealed in airtight plastic bags in a water bath for a long time. The intention is to cook the item evenly, not overcook the outside while still keeping the inside at the same 'doneness' and to keep the food juicier.

Typically it's done in these expensive machines that circulate the water and maintain it at precise temperatures. They go for about $1000, but you can get a small home version for about $299.

Not wanting to drop so much money on a device I won't be using often, I discovered on Serious Eats a hack, if you will, to cook items sous-vide, without spending lots of money. They suggest using a large beer cooler to help maintain your desired temperature in order to cook your food of choice.

I thought it would be easier for me to just use a large pot of water on a stove and a thermometer and just adjust the heat from time to time.

Experimental Tart Dough

My very first try at making a tart!

 So I picked up these mini tart pans at Bed Bath and Beyond the other day. I don't normally make tarts. In fact, I've never made a tart!. It was an impulse buy.

What am I going to do with these mini tart pans?

Make a tart, of course.

I was fully planning on whipping up a small amount of standard pie crust dough to line one of the pans with, but while looking through various food blogs, I noticed a recipe on David Lebovitz's food blog for something he called French Tart Dough.

His French Tart Dough looked a lot like Cream Puff Dough (Pâte à Choux if you wanna be fancy) without the eggs!

His recipe calls for combining your fat, water, sugar and salt and slowly heating it in an oven for 15 minutes. This is done to slowly brown the butter and create a layer of flavor that way.

I decided to skip that and treat the recipe as if I was making a batch of Cream Puff Dough (minus adding the egg, of course). I quartered the recipe so it could fit one mini tart pan.