Gastroanthropology

Maple Syrup Madeleines

With just two weeks to go for my 9-month baking project, I'm making everything baby. With not much else to do but rest my feet which have started to swell a bit, I've taught myself how to crochet baby booties. I'm on my fourth pair and have even started crocheting baby boots (think Uggs - which btw I have never owned or care to, but when so tiny and homemade they are pretty darn cute and irresistible, just like these tiny madeleines).

I'm not sure why everyone feels it necessary to tell me their pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding horror stories. While I'm not so naive to think everything will go perfectly for me I do believe anxious parents make anxious kids. And, I've learned that offering treats to people to keep their mouths full prohibits them from spewing a lot of unwanted pregnancy and parenting advice. These baby maple syrup madeleines are perfect for keeping unasked for advice at bay - they are small, tasty and have just a touch of maple sweetness. Nobody can resist from popping them in their mouths one by one.  

MAPLE SYRUP MADELEINES

• 100 grams butter, melted
• extra butter (soft) to brush madeleine pans
• 2 eggs
• 100 grams maple syrup
• 15 grams dark brown sugar
• 3 grams baking powder
• 100 grams cake flour (NOT self-rising)
• pinch salt
• powdered or a mixture of powdered and ground maple sugar for garnish

METHOD

This recipe makes 48 baby madeleines. 

Preheat oven to 325ºF/160ºC. Use a pastry brush and brush soft butter onto your madeleine pan.

Melt measured butter. Set aside.

Put maple syrup and brown sugar in a small pot over medium-low heat and reduce by half, so the maple syrup becomes thicker, to a more honey-like consistency. Meanwhile in a blender whizz eggs for a minute till frothy. Pour the reduced, warm maple syrup into the eggs while the blender is going (you need to do this to temper the eggs and not curdle them). Blend for 30 seconds.

Add baking powder, cake flour, and salt to the blender and blend till combined, another 30 seconds.

Add melted butter to the blender and blend till combined, a final 30 seconds. Strain the mixture. Chill the mixture for at least 30 minutes or up to a day. This will ensure a puffed rounded madeleine belly.

Scoop into the buttered madeleine pans. I prefer to use the baby madeleine pans (always metal, never the silicone pans!). Using a small ice cream scoop makes it easy. Bake the baby madeleines for about 7-9 minutes. Larger madeleines will take a few minutes more, 10-13 minutes. Their bellies should be puffed and the edges slightly golden in color. Enjoy warm or let cool completely before sprinkling with powdered sugar and enjoy later.

After all the sampling I've done I just hope I can bounce back into shape like my Mom did...

From the family vault...

Walnut + Prune Oat Cookies

So I've been eating oatmeal for breakfast nearly every morning for weeks, so much so that I've been buying oats by bulk. Nuts, cinnamon, dried or fresh fruit usually accompany. Since I'm eating multiple meals a day (hey, I'm eating for two!) I even had oatmeal for a pre-dinner dinner today. The oats have even made their way into my sweet indulgence. To recreate one of my favorite breakfast oatmeals in a cookie I've added walnuts, chopped prunes, and lots of cinnamon to my oat cookie. These have just enough sweetness to stop a more indulgent craving. If your not a fan of prunes, dried cherries or blueberries would work just as well.

WALNUT + PRUNE OAT COOKIE

• 4 1/2 oz unsalted butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped prunes
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

METHOD

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream together butter and sugars for about 1 minute. Add egg and vanilla extract, beat in till combined. Add dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in oats, prunes, and walnuts. Form into balls (makes about 2 dozen 1-inch balls) and bake for about 10 minutes. The edges should be golden brown, but don't overbake unless you prefer a crisper cookie. 

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.

Cinnamon Mexican Wedding Cakes

When Christmas time comes around, I could really care less about the presents (my husband and I don't exchange gifts anymore) or trimming the tree, or caroling, but I do absolutely love being with family and of course, the exchange of holiday cookies. 

I love giving and getting the cheap holiday paper plate loaded with all sorts of delicious baked cookies, fudges, nut clusters - whatever. With all the friends Lori from Fake Food Free and I have made over our food blogging lifetimes we thought that we'd love to exchange holiday cookies with whomever wanted to. But, shipping cookies all over the world isn't the most practical, so we decided to exchange recipes instead.

Every participant received a cookie recipe to try, photograph, and post. Later this week, after everyone has posted on their given recipes, Lori and I will do a round up off all the cookies to inspire you for your holiday cookie plate this year.

I had the wonderful fortune of receiving a recipe from Kristin of Dinner du Jour. Dinner du Jour is written by best friends Kristin and Kelly. They are separated by the vast Atlantic Ocean, with Kristin in the Irish countryside and Kelly in Milwaukee. They share their recipes with each other and the rest of us by through their blog and often post a series of recipes so you have inspiration for an entire meal, rather than just a side or main dish.

I was especially excited to receive this Mexican Wedding Cake recipe, because it has the addition of cinnamon, which is not included in the Mexican Wedding Cake recipes I have made in the past. My love for cinnamon is grand and undying - so much so that I recently calculated my consumption of the spice.

Turns out I consume nearly a pound of the spice yearly. I stir a spoonful of it in the oats I eat for breakfast, and sprinkle it over the rice pudding I have after dinner, not to mention the hundreds of teaspoons I put it in to countless baked goods coming out of my kitchen.

So without further ado, here is the Cinnamon Mexican Wedding Cake Recipe, also known as the Russian Tea Cake, and most affectionately known to Kristin as Butterballs! 

CINNAMON MEXICAN WEDDING CAKE from Bon Appetit via Kristin of Dinner du Jour

• 1 cup butter, room temp (225 grams)
• 2 cups powdered sugar (240 grams icing sugar)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour (240 grams)
• 1 cup walnuts or pecans (100 grams)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup (60 grams) of the powered sugar and the vanilla and beat until well blended. Beat in the flour, then nuts. Divide the dough in half and form each half into ball. Wrap separately in cling film and chill until cold, about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Whisk the remaining icing sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl or pie dish to blend. Set the cinnamon sugar aside.

Working with half of chilled dough, roll 1 scant tablespoon of dough between your palms into balls (I used a small ice cream scoop). Arrange the balls on a large baking sheet, spacing them 1/2 inch apart. Bake for about 18 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown on the bottom and just pale golden on top. Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then gently toss or roll the warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat them completely. Transfer the coated cookies to a wire rack and allow to cool completely. Repeat this procedure with the remaining half of the dough. Sift any remaining cinnamon sugar over the cookies and serve.

The cinnamon gives these cookies a warm brown coating, a little bit different than the snow white coating these types of cookies usually get, adding another dimension of color to the cookie plate! 

Happy Baking! Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and enjoys loads of cookies of all different sorts...

International Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange

When I was growing up every Christmas my family would fly to see my Grandparents in Florida. After assurances from my parents that Santa Claus would be able to find us, even though my sister and I weren't at home, we would pack up our shorts and bathing suits and head to my Grandparent's neighborhood where everyone was, well, old. Grandpa and Grandma always had activities planned like sailing, orange picking, Busch Gardens and manatee watching. But, like most memories, it's the food I remember. I grew up in a Korean-American household so sweets often meant a plate of fruit, but Grandma's kitchen was uber-American, complete with recipe box, ice cream in the freezer, and a cookie jar on the counter.

Arriving around Christmas time meant all the ladies in the neighborhood exchanged all sorts of cookies - you know, the kind that have been passed down for generations. After dinner, when everyone would go to watch Jeopardy, I would sneak to the kitchen and gobble up cookies, trying my darndest not to eat all of the very best ones in efforts to hide the fact that I had been gorging on cookies. The love for the holiday cookie plate did not end after trips to Florida stopped. Every Christmas since high school, the girls gather and bake holiday cookies all day long. Dads (and now husbands) are shooed out of the kitchen, and we gossip all day long and have a giant plate of all sorts of cookies to take home when the day is over.

So for the International Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange...

A few weeks ago, Lori from Fake Food Free and I thought we should get our food blogging friends involved in a cookie recipe exchange. That way, come holiday time, everyone would have a great library of recipes to choose from. We'd love to get as many people involved and the exchange is simple. Either comment on this blog, or Lori's blog at Fake Food Free and let us know you are interested in participating by November 5th. Be sure to leave a valid email address when you sign in to comment.

Soon after the 5th of November we will let you know who you should send your recipe to. Each participant will create an original or an adapted, attributed-to recipe and send it to the blogger we've randomly selected for you via email by November 15th.

Once you receive a recipe we ask that you post on the recipe by December 15th. Lori and I will do a roundup of all the recipes so you know where and how all the cookies turned out.

We are aware that a few of you have dietary restrictions or allergies. When you receive a recipe you may alter it to fit your dietary needs, but please post the original as well. If you have any trouble altering a recipe feel free to contact either me at gastroanthropology AT yahoo DOT com or Lori AT fakefoodfree DOT com for advice or suggestions. The only guideline is that the recipe should be something you'd find on a holiday cookie plate, so anything from rugelach to fudge squares to gingerbread men.  

So the dates again are:

Let us know you want to participate by November 5th

Send your recipe to your matched blog by November 15th

Post the recipe you receive by December 15th 

HAPPY HOLIDAY COOKIE BAKING!