Batter-Splattered

Nordy bars

I stumbled upon this recipe recently in the recipe swap section of Oregon Live, which I've been reading every morning because I have a trip to Portland coming up soon. I like to get a feel for a place before I go there -- and what better way than through the local paper. And then of course, I'm always drawn to a food and recipe section when I see one.

I'd never heard of these bars or seen them sold at my local Nordstrom but they were spoken of with such religious devotion, you know I had to make them. Further research showed that these were originally made and sold at the Nordstrom Café (where you can get a mighty fine salad) but are no longer offered on the menu there.

Pity, because they're really good. You melt butter and butterscotch chips in a saucepan, add some dry ingredients, then stir in chocolate chips, marshmallows, and walnuts. A little something for everyone!

I cut mine up into bite-sized morsels for a party and put them in little paper cups so guests wouldn't get all that ooey-gooey goodness all over their fingers, although I doubt anyone would have complained.

 

Nordy Bars

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 (11-ounce) package butterscotch chips
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1 cup chopped pecans

In medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat; add butterscotch chips and brown sugar, stirring until they're melted.

Remove pan from heat and stir in eggs; add flour, baking powder and salt, mixing thoroughly. Stir in vanilla; set aside until cool.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

When cooked mixture is cool, stir in chocolate chips, marshmallows and pecans; spread in greased 9-by-13-inch pan.

Bake 25 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool, cut in bars.

Giant Chocolate Toffee Cookies

These cookies were featured prominently this week on the main page of Epicurious. Their photo -- it called to me. And then I read that this is the site's most popular cookie recipe. And then I read that the ingredients include five chopped-up Heath bars.

How could I not make them?

I thought the other ingredients were really interesting compared to your average cookie recipe -- this has only half a cup of flour, four eggs, and a whole lot of brown sugar which translates to moist, moist, moist. Mine flattened out alot more than the ones in the official photo -- probably because I didn't let the dough chill for a full 45 minutes as instructed.

But who can wait that long?? I set the bowl of dough out on the back porch, willing Mother Nature to cool it off lickety-split because I had a bee in my bonnet over getting these cookies into the oven, or more specifically, taking them out of the oven.

They turned out really nice all the same. Chewy yet soft and a little crispy. And, it goes without saying, very very chocolate-y.

Giant Chocolate Toffee Cookies

Makes about 18 cookies

1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1 3/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 1.4-ounce chocolate-covered English toffee bars (such as Heath), coarsely chopped
1 cup walnuts, toasted, chopped 

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl; whisk to blend. Stir chocolate and butter in top of double boiler set over simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Cool mixture to lukewarm.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and eggs in bowl until thick, about 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, then toffee and nuts. Chill batter until firm, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment or waxed paper. Drop batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto sheets, spacing 2 1/2 inches apart. Bake just until tops are dry and cracked but cookies are still soft to touch, about 15 minutes. Cool on sheets. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)   

Chocolate stout cupcakes

My friend Angie was kind enough to bring over a bunch of clams and halibut -- dug and caught, respectively, in Homer and we had some people over to my place for a great big clambake, complete with mimosas and baked corn and asparagus and white wine and strong coffee served in fancy cups and saucers.

The clams simmered in a big pot of white wine with butter, shallots, and garlic. The halibut was coated with blackening spices and then roasted in the oven.

I should have taken photos but you know how it is at feasts like this. Time flies and the mimosa (er, mimosas in my case) goes straight to your head and the food has a way of disappearing just like that.

I contributed some sloppy gloppy chocolate stout cakes made with Guinness:

The cake part is rich and chocolate-y and begins with a bottle of Guinness and some butter simmering in a copper pot on the stovetop. As you stir, the Guinness fizzes and puts off the loveliest yeasty bread smell. The glaze is drizzled on top of the warm cupcakes.

These are so sloppy that everyone ate them with forks.

Oh so good. I had every intention of making these a few days ago for entering in this month's Cupcake Hero mingle calling for cupcakes made with liquor. My mocha cupcakes with walnuts were crowned the queen last month, thank you very much, but I just didn't make the deadline this time around.

The original cake recipe is here, concocted by the Barrington Brewery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Rather than a layer cake (three layers!) I really liked the idea of chocolate-drizzled cupcakes. I cut the recipe in half and it yielded 16 cupcakes. Perfect for a crowd and, lucky me, I still have five bottles of Guinness gracing my refrigerator door.

Here's my version:

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Yields 16 cupcakes

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sour cream

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with paper cups.

Bring stout and butter to simmer in saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter equally among cupcakes cups. Bake until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack and cool completely.

Meanwhile, make icing. Bring cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until icing is spreadable, stirring frequently, about 2 hours. Drizzle over cupcakes and enjoy.

Jiffy Cake

This cake recipe has been around all my life. I think my grandmother may have found it originally and she passed it on to everyone else. It's a chocolate cake recipe that's ready in a jiffy -- the name says it all -- and it can be mixed up in one bowl. It's number 25 of my collection of favorites recipes for this 25th day of November and Nablopomo.

I still remember the day way back in high school when I whipped up a jiffy cake while a friend watched from a tall stool across the kitchen counter. Her rarely-there mom wasn't much of a cook and so they'd been eating out of boxes and cans and restaurants all her life. I only spent the night at her house once in high school. Only once. Because that night she and I had the house to ourselves and we were jonesing for dessert and she thought there might be some ice cream in the chest freezer they kept out in the communal garage of their apartment building. That carton of ice cream had been in there so long it was hard as a rock and mostly crystallized, and what wasn't crystallized was gummy. I politely demured when she offered me a bowl then watched with a shudder as she ate a heaping helping.

Later when I asked her where she kept the bath towels, she looked in the linen closet (no clean towels), under the bathroom sink (still no clean towels), and then bent over and picked a slightly damp one up off the bathroom floor, sniffed it, and handed it to me.

And don't even get me started on the ONE time we went to her house to get something to eat on our school lunch break and she tried to serve me butter and sugar sandwiches on somewhat moldy Wonder bread.

That's no way to live.

Well, her eyes were wide as saucers as she saw that chocolate cake emerge from the oven.

"I can't believe you just put that together totally from scratch JUST LIKE THAT," she cried out. "It's like a miracle!"

I think she may have even clasped her hands over her heart. Oh yeah. It was a defining moment for me.

This recipe should really be scrawled in messy handwriting on the back of a receipt - that's what everyone's copy looks like in my family -- but I'll type it out for you here. As for a frosting recipe, I think we always just use the one on the back of the Hershey's chocolate baking powder container.

Jiffy Cake

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

3 T cocoa powder

1 t baking soda

1 c sugar

1/2 t salt

5 T vegetable oil

1 T vinegar

1 t vanilla

1 c cold water

Combine dry ingredients in a big bowl. Make a hole in the center. Pour in the remaining ingredients. Mix well. Pour into a greased square baking pan and bake in a 350 degree oven until it passes the toothpick test. I don't have a baking time noted. Just eyeball it and stab it with a toothpick when it's looking good and smelling even better.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

I was scurrying through Costco the other day hoping, hoping, hoping, please let them have it, God I'll say my prayers every single night if only it's here!, will they have it? Please let it be here! Is it here?

YES.

It was there. The pallet stacked high with the boxes of the fancy Belgian chocolates.

They make an appearance every year at this time. Autumn all the way through Christmas-time. Wrapped in pretty paper and a fancy gold ribbon. This year, the box is the color of dark chocolate; the paper lining the color of milk chocolate (these details are not lost on me). 

Allow me to quote from the interpretive brochure enclosed in each box: dark chocolate with a center of smooth coffee ganache, light caramel ganache enrobed in milk chocolate, dark chocolate filled with a luscious center of dark raspberry ganache, white chocolate with a mocha buttercream filling and a dark praline base, creamy tiramisu centers finished with cookie bits, dark chocolate with a hint of champagne essence, oostendes, lieges, Antwerpens, Leuvens, Dinants, Brugges, Chimays, Namurs...

I have no idea what I just typed and I don't care. All I know is that I love these chocolates:

There may be better boxes of chocolates out there... but not for $10.49.

I've been buying these for the past 5 years or so. Two years ago was a dark year, a blight on my chocolate memories. I bought my first box (of many... so so many, or so I thought) but the next time I stopped in to buy a second box, the pallet was gone. All that was left was a xeroxed flyer apologizing for any inconvenience but they had to pull the chocolate boxes because of an unfortunate shipping disaster. Apparently, some pallets got a little too warm in shipment and some chocolates had melted, then hardened again... disappointing to the person who opened the box, as you can imagine.

They weren't sure exactly how many boxes were ruined, but rather than risk selling defective chocolates to any one of their valued customers, they made the executive decision to pull every box. I offered, begged, pleaded to open each and every box to salvage any perfectly good chocolates (I am nothing if not a giver) but no. The boxes were gone. Destroyed.

Is that not one of the saddest stories you've ever heard?

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a Brussels Bouchee calling my name. That's the big one in the center.

White Chocolate Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Sauce

This bread pudding made an appearance on my table the other night, following up the braised pheasant and wild rice and cabbage dish I was so very fond of. Ordinarily, I would lump all the recipes together into one post, but this pudding was so good I couldn't just tack it onto the end of the post about the pheasant. This pudding needed its own moment in the spotlight.

The simplicity of the ingredients -- French bread, eggs, cream, sugar and white chocolate -- belies the unbelievably rich taste of the results. Epicurious got the recipe from the Palace Cafe in New Orleans so I was sure it was going to be delicious. I was not disappointed. By the way, check out the Palace Cafe's website -- they have a Temperature Lunch! If the temperature the day before was 95 degrees, the lunch special of turtle soup, werlein salad (romaine, garlic anchovy dressing, pecorino romano, and croutons), or soup du jour is $9.50. Kind of reminds me of the cafe across the street from my office except for in reverse -- on the first day of heavy snowfall here each winter, coffee is free. I like the idea of the cost of your eats and drinks being determined by the wayward weather.

My loaf of French bread, cubed:

I halved the original recipe for six, and even when it's cut in half this made way more than two people could eat in one sitting which means you can stretch it for two nights for two people or you can make it for a party of four. And it's just as good the next day (and the next!) warmed up in the microwave.

White Chocolate Bread Pudding with White Chocolate Sauce

Serves 4

4 oz. French bread, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 3/4 c whipping cream

1/2 c milk

1/4 c sugar

9  oz good-quality white chocolate (the original recipe recommends using Lindt or Baker's, I used Ghirardelli)

3 egg yolks

1 large egg

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Arrange bread cubes on a baking sheet and bake until golden and dry. Transfer baking sheet to rack and cool completely. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Combine 1 1/2 cups whipping cream and the milk and sugar in a heavy large saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat. Add 5 ounces or so of white chocolate and stir until melted and smooth. Whisk yolks and egg in large bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in warm chocolate mixture.

Place bread cubes in 1-quart glass baking dish. Pour in half of the chocolate mixture. Press bread cubes into chocolate mixture as bread soaks up chocolate sauce. Let stand for 15 minutes. Gently mix in remaining chocolate sauce. Cover dish with foil.

Bake pudding 40 - 45 minutes. Uncover and bake until top is golden brown, about 15 minutes more. Transfer pudding to rack and cool slightly. Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover with foil and refrigerate. Rewarm covered pudding in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, if you're patient. Or you can do as I did and rewarm individual bowls of it fast in the microwave. It's probably crispier if you use the oven.

Bring remaining cream to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add remaining white chocolate and stir until melted smooth.

Serve warm with white chocolate sauce.

If you have leftovers, pour remaining sauce over pudding and refrigerate covered.