Gastroanthropology

Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

There's a long list of things that I know I can easily make at home, but these ease of getting it at the store often trumps certain homemade treats. Pasta and peanut butter come to mind. With baby due to arrive in a few weeks I've been trying to declutter - donating books and clothes, and cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. I've had hazelnuts that I've been trying to use for a few weeks and a can of condensed milk from a forgotten Christmas project so I decided to make some chocolate-hazelnut spread. Yes, it's easy to pick up a jar of Nutella, but it's also pretty simple to make at home. My version has more texture and is a bit more hazelnutty.

CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT SPREAD

• 105 grams whole hazelnuts toasted
• 85 grams dark chocolate (I use Valrhona Guanaja 70%)
• 230 grams sweetened condensed milk 
• pinch salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

METHOD

Toast hazelnuts for about 8-10 minutes in a 350F oven. If your hazelnuts are skin-on once they are out of the oven rub between a clean kitchen towel to remove the skin. Put in food processor till finely ground. If you want your spread smoother, let it go longer. You will need to scrape down the sides occasionally so everything is uniform.

In a double boiler melt the chocolate. Once it has started to melt add the sweetened condensed milk and warm until all the chocolate is melted. Add pinch salt and vanilla extract. Pour the mixture into the food processor and mix till everything is combined. 

You can spread this immediately on bread, crepes, fruit...whatever you want. Once it cools put in a jar for up to a week in a cool spot in the kitchen. I love to dip pretzels or strawberries in the spread. Put in the microwave for a few seconds if you want to spread it easily. This recipe makes a about a heaping cup of spread.

Flat + Chewy Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies

I test cookie recipes all the time, all sorts of recipes for all sorts of people for all sorts of occasions. It is always the chocolate chip cookie I most enjoy testing. I like them small (3-4 bites), flat and chewy. I like them with really good quality chocolate, sea salt and with fresh walnuts.

This recipe has quickly leap-frogged to nearly the top of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, of which there are over 20. I say "nearly" because it hasn't dethroned the gold standard of chocolate chip cookie recipes. 

Bits of the dough were baked on the day, the day after, and the day after that. All samples were consumed - some right out of the oven, some warm, some room temp, some the day after or longer. The best samples came from the cookies baked the day after, and consumed warm or at room temp. A few remaining samples lasted about 4 days in a sealed container and none seemed to lose their initial charm. 

FLAT + CHEWY CHOCOLATE WALNUT COOKIES adapted from Saveur and NY Times

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 scant Tbsp sea salt, rub between hands to crush up a bit (use less salt if using table salt)
• 1 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 8 oz unsalted butter, soft
• 2 eggs, room temp
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 12 oz ground bittersweet chocolate
• 8 oz ground walnuts

METHOD

Grind walnuts and chocolate in a food processor. Start with walnuts, pulse till you get small lentil sized pieces. Remove from food processor and do the same with the chocolate and set aside. Combine dries with a whisk, set aside.

Beat sugars and butter until fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, then vanilla. Add flour mixture. Then add chocolate and walnuts until just combined. Chill. (This recipe makes 60 cookies so divide dough if you don't want to bake that many. Freeze excess dough for up to 4 weeks.)

Heat oven to 325°F / 160°C. Scoop dough with a small ice cream scoop, or into tablespoon-sized balls. Put on a lined cookie sheet and gently press to flatten a bit. Bake until just set, about 12-15 minutes. I bake them till the edges brown a bit, but the middles looked barely cooked. This ensures a chewy cookie...cook longer for a more crispy cookie. Another tip for chewy cookies is when you take them out of the oven tap the cookie sheet against the counter so the cookies "fall". Let cool a bit and enjoy.

Remember to use good quality chocolate - Valhrona Guanaja is my recommendation, and fresh walnuts.

I must warn you - I ate six cookies the first time I tried these. One right after the other.

S'mores Brownies

This will be my third Fourth of July away from the States. So like every holiday in my life - well, not just every holiday, its more like every outing, every meal, every thought - it's all about the food. So even though I'll be 6,000 miles away from home, I'm still making my list of what I would serve at my Fourth of July BBQ. Burgers, brisket, brats, coleslaw, corn-on-the-cob, flag cake, followed by s'mores. 

Unfortunately there will be no Fourth of July BBQ or bonfire on this side of the Atlantic as I will be traveling but I can make a portable treat to enjoy on the day...S'mores Brownies.

The ubiquitous and very American combination of graham, chocolate and marshmallows without a bonfire can be recreated in a brownie version. There's a million recipes for s'mores brownies...some layered with a graham cracker crust and a gooey marshmallow top, and some with graham pieces and marshmallows mixed through. I decided to go with the layered version - a graham cracker crust that is pre-baked, then a deep, dense, dark chocolate brownie (could easily use a box version), and then sprinkled with marshmallows.

I would have used the large marshmallows, as those are the ones used for s'mores, but they aren't very easy to get in London, so I went with the mini marshmallows. Graham crackers are also difficult to source...I usually bring a few back with me every time I go home, but I used the last box for this Key Lime Pie. I did find one package of cinnamon grahams in my cupboard, so I went with that. I had to stretch my crust, but the following recipe will give you a more healthy amount of graham crust than pictured. This recipe makes 16 brownies.

S'MORES BROWNIES

For the crust:

• 1 box of graham crackers (14.4oz)
• 7 oz. unsalted butter, melted and cooled gently

Make graham cracker crumbs by pulsing in a food processor or smashing to smithereens in a heavy duty freezer bag. Pour melted butter over the crumbs and combine till it feels like wet sand. Press into 8 x 8 inch square cake pan that is lined with parchment with a lip for easy removal. Bake for about 12-15 minutes in a 350F oven till the crust is set and gently browned. Meanwhile start making the brownie mix.

For the brownie:

• 8 oz. unsalted butter
• 8 oz. dark chocolate (I use Valhrona Guanaja, 70% cocoa)
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 6 oz. granulated sugar
• 6 oz. light brown sugar
• 4 oz. all-purpose flour
• 16 large marshmallows or 30+ mini marshmallows

In a double boiler melt together butter and chocolate. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, salt, and sugars. Do this just as the chocolate and butter is melted, it is not desirable to leave eggs and sugars together for any length of time. Pour melted butter and chocolate into the egg mixture, whisking as you pour to ensure the warm chocolate does not "cook" the eggs. Fold in the flour. Pour the brownie mixture directly over the graham crust out of the oven (does not need to be cooled). Evenly space the marshmallows onto the brownie mixture, pressing in slightly. Place back into the 350F oven, baking for 25-30 minutes. A toothpick should come out clean, but take care not to over bake! I usually remove when it's the teeniest bit gooey in the middle...once cooled it sets up to be the richest brownie. If you like your marshmallows very toasted and they aren't by the time the brownie is set, toast them a bit by broiler. Do not walk away when you do this, it will only take a few seconds!

Let cool completely before cutting into squares. These brownies can be stored in the fridge for a few days - just make sure they are wrapped so they don't absorb any other smells in the fridge. Serve at room temperature.

So who's bringing these to the BBQ?

Happy Fourth of July to all my family & friends and Americans at home and abroad!  

It's It - The Real San Francisco Treat

If you've grown up in the states and haven't been to San Francisco you probably think of the Golden Gate - glorious isn't it?

And maybe that it's full of liberal, free-thinking hippies. That might not be entirely off base, but politics aside, you most certainly know its the place where Rice-A-Roni comes from - a.k.a. The San Francisco Treat. Go ahead, sing the little tune and imagine the little trolley car bell ringing at the end.

I've actually "enjoyed" a box or two of the stuff, but there is an entirely different treat, whose home is also most definitely San Francisco, that gives Rice-A-Roni a run for its money. That treat would be the It's It. It's basically ice cream sandwiched between two old-fashioned oatmeal cookies and entirely coated in dark chocolate. Known as the "official food of San Francisco", the It's It was invented by George Whitney in 1928 and for decades sold exclusively at San Francisco's Playland. Whitney, Playland, and the It's It have quite a history and one of my dearest blogging friends, OysterCulture, has written a fabulous post that will most likely teach a local San Franciscan a thing or two.

OysterCulture and I have a shared obsession with the wonders of San Francisco so when she asked if I could come up with a homemade It's It recipe I jumped at the challenge. It's It are quite San Franciscan. It's easy to get them in the San Francisco Bay Area, but as you venture further afield they are difficult to come across and usually only the true San Franciscans know about them. You can mail order them in the US from the company, which sits just by the 101 highway a few miles south of the San Francisco airport. But its quite easy to make them at home - a bit multi-step, but totally worth it.

The first step is the make or purchase one or all of the following ice cream flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Mint, or Coffee (for Cappuccino). Each It's It is one of the four aforementioned flavors. No exceptions. And NO, you can't substitute a different flavor. The beauty of the It's It is that there isn't 31+ flavors. If you need an ice cream recipe you can use my mint chip recipe. Remove chocolate chips and mint for vanilla, or make it just mint.

The second step is to make the Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies. It's almost a shame this cookie recipe makes its debut as part of an It's It post. The entire It's It package trumps anything else, but these oatmeal cookies are perfection. I'm usually quite humble, but this oatmeal cookie is damn good. I can not keep a secret, especially a good one. In this case you should be very happy that I can't keep my mouth shut.

OLD-FASHIONED OATMEAL COOKIES

These cookies don't need to be muddled with chocolate chips or my evil nemesis raisins (had to pick 20 of them out of my bulgar salad at lunch yesterday). Though, if you want, it will happily accept the addition of such things. I don't add raisins to my oatmeal cookies and refuse to test recipes that do, so I suppose a handful will do. Oh, by the way, Whitney never made an It's It with an oatmeal raisin cookie. Moving on!

• 4 1/2 oz unsalted butter, room temp
• 1/2 c light brown sugar
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 c whole-wheat flour
• 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 c old-fashioned oats

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350F. Sift together all dry ingredients. Cream together butter and sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the dries and mix until just combined. Mix in the oats. Scoop onto a cookie sheet lined with waxed parchment. Use a small ice cream scoop to make uniform cookies. I used a cookie scoop that is 1 Tbs by volume. This makes 32 cookies and or 16 It's Its. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Do not over-bake, if anything, gently under-bake. 

It's important that all the cookies are the same size and perfectly round. The moment they come out of the oven, gently shape into a perfect round with a biscuit cutter. Use one that is a little bigger than the cookie.

Set aside to cool. Once the cookies have cooled take the ice cream out of the freezer for 10 minutes to soften. Put ice cream in a piping bag with a large tip. Pipe ice cream on each under side of the cookie. You might have to do this in groups if the ice cream is melting, or place ice cream in freezer for a few minutes if too soft to pipe. 

Press two ice cream piped sides together to create the perfect height. Use a small offset spatula to make sure ice cream is flush with the cookies. Freeze the sandwiches till hard. Melt dark chocolate in a double boiler. Use good quality chocolate or couverture (has a higher cocoa butter content and will make the final It's It look and taste better). Dip the ice cream sandwiches in the chocolate. I usually dip each side and then roll on its side to coat the sides. Immediately place on a silpat lined sheet and place in freezer. When its set, eat!

Billionaire's Shortbread

So there's this thing here in Britain called Millionaire's Shortbread. It's like the triple threat of bar cookies - rich buttery shortbread base, slathered with sticky caramel, and topped with chocolate. But if your not content with millions, go for billions. And how might one do that? By adding chunky peanut butter to the mix.

Making this bar cookie is multi-step, but quite simple. The first thing to do is to make dulce de leche. This is basically a milky carmel, created by cooking milk and sugar over a low flame for hours. Chez Pim has a lovely homemade recipe or you can do the boil-a-whole-can-of-condensed-milk method. Keep in mind that this method is not recommended as the can could explode if it is not immersed in water the entire time. For me both methods work well, but either way do it a day in advance so it has time to chill. Also, if decide to do the boil-the-can method, let it sit at room temperature for a few hours before you attempt to open the can.

Once the dulce de leche is chilled, make your shortbread. My Scottish Shortbread recipe is found at the end of this post and if you double the recipe it is perfect for and 8x8 inch pan. Instead of cutting the dough into desired shapes as the recipe suggests, just roll it out between two sheets of parchment (its a bit sticky) to cover the 8x8 inch pan. Do not overbake, if anything underbake a touch - it will make cutting this bar at the end so much easier. This shortbread does not spread in the oven so I find it is easier to flip my baking tray over. Then bake the shortbread on the backside of the pan, like a tabletop. Place a cut piece of parchment that will go in between the shortbread and the pan. This keeps you from having to unearth the shortbread out of the pan or deal with any breakage. Once your shortbread is cooked, set aside to cool completely.

At this point take your chilled dulce de leche and put 3/4 cup into a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Paddle for 30 seconds. Then add 1/2 cup of peanut butter - your favorite kind. I went with chunky, but if you prefer smooth, that's fine. Paddle together for 1 minute. Then use a small offset spatula and spread the mixture evenly all over the shortbread. Put in fridge to chill while you make the chocolate top.

For the chocolate layer - melt in a double boiler 8 oz of semi-sweet chocolate with 3 Tbs of heavy cream and 1 Tbs + 1 tsp of butter. Once its smooth and melted together, spread evenly over the dulce de leche + peanut butter layer. Let chill for about an hour. Cut into squares using a hot knife.