salted caramel brownies

Caramel is my nemesis, and I get it right only about 50% of the time. Yet, I keep at it, hoping to perfect it and also because sometimes I have a hankering for caramel brownies and just can't bring myself to make them with store bought caramels or caramel sauce (though I will confess that I had a moment of weakness and desperation and almost caved and bought the Ghirardelli caramel turtle brownie mix). 

Anyway, I made salted caramel brownies, from the Smitten Kitchen blog. As expected, I messed up the caramel before getting it right. Turns out that it needs your undivided attention and you can't multitask and make granola at the same time. 

I'm so glad I didn't cave and buy the mix. These brownies are super good, and while I kind of wish I could share them with you, I kind of like having them (almost) all to myself (I do have to share with Drew).

pumpkin pie bars

The other day, I made pumpkin pie bars, also known as The Last Thing I Will Ever Bake in California. 

We are slowly cleaning out our cupboards, and I found a can of pumpkin that I intended to use last fall. But then the job market happened, so I put these pumpkin pie bars on hold. But then the dissertation happened. And then packing happened. But in spite of it all, the pumpkin pie bars finally happened. 

The recipe is from Joy the Baker. The crust is excellent and could be eaten on its own (I think that's the only reason Drew tolerated the pumpkin part). Next time, I'm going to use Joy's crust recipe and try out the filling recipe from Food and Wine (which is probably what I had intended to do last fall judging by the can of evaporated milk in the cupboard). And the best thing about the next time is that I will enjoy these bars as pumpkin was intended to be enjoyed: in cool, crisp fall weather.  

rum raisin bars and cranberry-orange-walnut scones

My general pattern with baking with alcohol is as follows: buy liquor for a specific recipe, use a couple tablespoons, shove the remaining liquor to the back of one of my baking shelves (yes, I have so many baking ingredients that they take up 3 shelves), and promptly forget about said liquor.

Lately though, my baking motto around here is "add booze." About a month ago, I took inventory of my kitchen, making mental notes of everything that needs to be used up by the end of July. I found near-full bottles of bourbon, rum, amaretto, and frangelico. Since then, I've been frantically trying to use up the liquor, which is tough to do without simply drinking it. 

So, I made a chocolate amaretto cake from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook . I also added rum to pumpkin bread and pineapple upside-down cake. I've added bourbon to blondies and banana bread. And sometimes, I just pour frangelico into a shot glass and just sip it (it's the only one of the four that I'll drink). I'm doing my best to bake with the booze, and I'm waiting for Drew to come home so I can make him this Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Cake (he doesn't read my blog, so I'm not worried that he'll find out).

Last weekend, I made rum raisin bars from the Fat Witch Brownies cookbook. Not at all too heavy and not overpowering, these were quite good. 

Okay, I'm not adding booze to everything around here. I also made cranberry-orange-walnut scones, from Vegan with a Vengeance. I think Drew would be proud of me for taking some liberties in baking these. I added dried cranberries and toasted walnuts, and I substituted oats for half of the flour in an effort to make the scones healthy and appropriate for breakfast.

I broke the "add booze" rule because they were for my breakfasts this week and I thought it would be wrong to eat something with alcohol in it at 7 in the morning. 

triple chocolate brownies

Last weekend, Drew and I went to Surfas, this restaurant supply store. To us, it was like being kids in a candy store. We walked up and down every aisle, and we even ate lunch in the café. In addition to selling merchandise such as dishes, pots, and pans, Surfas also sold gourmet food products that aren't found in normal grocery stores. We found fancy pastas, cheeses, spices, and chocolate. Lots of chocolate.

 

We splurged on Vahlrona cocoa powder and Callebaut semi sweet chocolate. All the different brands and types of chocolate are sold as cocoa powder, discs, chips, and blocks. Even 10 pound blocks.

We were sensible and did not purchase 10 pounds of chocolate, and instead we got the more reasonable one pound block.

 

When we got home, I immediately made brownies. The recipe is from Baking Illustrated (from the geniuses behind the magazine Cooks Illustrated), and it calls for 3 kinds of chocolate: unsweetened, semi sweet, and cocoa powder.

These are quite possibly the best brownies ever. They're nice and fudgy, and they have a perfectly crackly top. Drew and I decided that splurging on good quality chocolate was totally worth it. Though we could not detect an appreciable difference between the Callebaut chocolate and the blocks we get from Trader Joe's, we could easily tell that the Vahlrona cocoa powder, which smelled almost smoky when I opened it, not surprisingly proved to be much better than Hershey's or Trader Joe's (which is probably the same thing anyway).

 

In 10 days, Drew is leaving tp spend a year in China. Until then, I will be baking with chocolate. Lots of it. 

chocolate chip bars

For as long as I can remember, my mom has made chocolate chip bars. Whether it's a potluck or a road trip, my mom can be counted on to make a pan of bars. They begin with a cake mix, and she used to add walnuts, but I believe she eventually stopped at my request. 

It was not until fairly recently that I learned that the concept of bars was not widespread in the United States. I don't know if they are a Minnesota thing, or a Midwestern thing, but they are certainly not a California thing. In the summer of 2006, at a family reunion in Minnesota, an announcement inviting people to a potluck caused a bit of confusion. Among other information, there were suggestions for dishes for people to bring, such as bars. The California contingent of our family was perplexed. Bars? Like a drinking establishment? Or prison? This led to a lot of laughs and a long running joke that continues to this day. In fact, for a period of time, every time I visited the Oceanside family, I would bring a pan of bars.  

I've made my mom's version of chocolate chip bars here and there, but I stopped a few years ago because I prefer to bake from scratch. I hadn't thought much about them, until I stumbled across a recipe in the Fat Witch Brownie cookbook. The author, who owns the Fat Witch Bakery, calls them blondies, but to me, they are chocolate chip bars and nothing else.

After nearly a month long hiatus, bars were the perfect way to ease back into baking. They are quick and easy, and the results are always satisfying. I've made lots of things from the Fat Witch cookbook, and it's my go-to cookbook when I want to make brownies or bars.   

coconut caramel clusters

Caramel is my achilles heel. I manage to pull it off only about half the time. In fact, whenever I attempt it, I always make sure I have extra ingredients on hand in case I need a redo. I've tried to make caramel many times, and when I mess up, it's obvious that I've done so. But even when I think I get it right, I'm never certain that I have. 

I made caramel for the first time a few years ago, using a recipe from Simply Recipes. It's the only time I've managed to pull it off successfully- and know it. I guess it was beginner's luck, because caramel has been my nemesis ever since.

Without meaning to, I continued to make homemade versions of Girl Scout cookies last week. This time, I made Coconut Caramel Clusters, a recipe from Baked Elements. I have three Baked cookbooks, and while I'm drawn to the glossy pictures and the creative recipes, I'm not sure how I feel about the cookbooks. Some of the recipes seem hit or miss, but maybe that's just me. And they're pretty high maintenance, so when there's a miss, it's really annoying. 

These bars look really good, and they are, but they are strange. For one, the caramel making process was quite time consuming and a little unorthodox (this is true of some of their other techniques). But perhaps more importantly, the caramel hardens so much that the only way we can eat these is to first heat them up in the microwave for a few seconds. It is impossible to eat them otherwise. Aside from that peculiarity, they are quite good, but very rich. And without a doubt, better than the Girl Scout cookies, Caramel Delites (previously known as Samoas). 

oatmeal fudge bars

There is a coffee shop on the Virginia Tech campus called Bollo's, and I make sure to patronize it every time Drew and I go to Blacksburg.  I don't think Drew is as enchanted with Bollo's as I am, because I have the feeling he didn't really go there when he was a student at Virginia Tech.  

Maybe I love Bollo's because the only coffee shops within walking distance of UCI are Peet's and Starbucks, which are serviceable, but lack personality.  Maybe I love it because it reminds me of my favorite coffee shops I frequented as a student at the University of Minnesota: Espresso Expose and the Purple Onion.  Maybe I love Bollo's because I adore the oatmeal fudge bars.  They're simple, but really quite good.  And they're not a muffin or a danish, which is usually what you find at coffee shops.  And they're homemade, or if they're not, Bollo's has me fooled.

I never actively searched for an oatmeal fudge bar recipe so that I could make my own, but I stumbled upon one last spring.  I made them for a friend's dissertation defense, and they were a big hit.  The other day, I found myself thinking about them, but after spending an embarrassing amount of time searching for the recipe (which I think came from Bon Appetit or Food & Wine), I could not locate it.  

And so I had to resort to something I don't like doing, which is taking my chances and using a recipe from a random food blog.  It's not that I dislike food blogs or trying new recipes from the internet.  The problem is that since anyone can post a recipe or have a blog, I don't know which ones are good and which ones are bad.  I have my trusty food blogs and am hesitant to try recipes from other sources, but after some sleuthing, I found one to try, from the Beantown Baker.   

I made these bars for a different friend's dissertation defense, which means that these might become the "dissertation defense bars."  And fortunately, they were a big hit, just like the last time I made them.