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[BakerAunt]

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Espresso and Cinnamon

This recipe originally appeared in Bon Appetit (August 2002), p. 87. I substituted in some white whole wheat flour. I also find that espresso powder incorporates better if mixed in with dry ingredients. The original recipe used half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half milk chocolate chips. I've re-worked the directions to make them more baker friendly.

Makes about 4 dozen

1 3/4 cups AP flour (I used Gold Medal)
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 Tbs. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
4 tsp. instant espresso powder (I used King Arthur's)

1 1/2 cups golden brown sugar, packed
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter
1 large egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 (12 oz.) package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted

Oven: 350F
Large baking sheets lined with parchment

Whisk together, in a small bowl, the first six ingredients.

In a large bowl, cream brown sugar and butter. Add egg and vanilla, and beat until well blended. At low speed, beat in flour mixture, then add chips and walnuts.

Use a Zeroll #40 scoop (or 1 Tbs. scoop) to drop cookies onto baking sheet. (12-15 per sheet, depending on sheet size), spacing 2-inches apart. Do NOT flatten dough.

Bake until brown on top but still slightly soft to touch, about 14 minutes. (On my heavy baking sheets, they needed 15 minutes.) Let cookies cool 5-7 minutes on cookie sheet on rack before transferring cookies to rack to finish cooling.

These are excellent with milk or with coffee.

[cwcdesign]

Joan, you stay safe. We had to evacuate but currently glad it's going further west. We're still expecting problems from storm site and wind and rain but hope that we'll be able to come home sooner than later. We ended up in PA cuz we had reservations in Milledgeville for Tuesday and when they called an earlier evacuation, we couldn't get rooms - the entire state of Georgia is booked! So, friends said to go west - glad we went North instead (free rooms at a friend's) I guess the storm is over the island now.

Today I made the mac and cheese that I was going to make to sustain us if we stayed.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by cwcdesign.

[BakerAunt]

This morning I baked bran muffins with dried cranberries. The recipe came from a jar of Kretschner wheat bran (back in the dark ages when you had to buy it in a glass jar in the supermarket). I've made a few changes by reducing the sugar a bit, as well as the baking soda and salt. I made them as six jumbo muffins, and I'll freeze some.

[Mike Nolan]

I've never understood what makes a pumpkin a 'pie' pumpkin, but the Cinderella pumpkin has been grown in France for centuries and is said to be quite good for eating purposes. (I don't really care for pumpkin pie, so it makes no difference to me, I've had some pumpkin soups that were OK, but I don't eat much squash of any kind, except for ratatouille.)

[BakerAunt]

Hello, Cass. The recipe said 1/4 cup butter and 1/3 cup milk, so I didn't transpose it. However, that means I had even more liquid in it.

I'm wondering if part of the problem is that I used 1% milk. (The recipe merely states "milk.") I almost used buttermilk. When I try the recipe again, I'll hold back on the milk, and I may try buttermilk.

I don't think it was the flour measurement, since I tried another recipe from the magazine, and the proportions were fine, even with my substituting in whole wheat pastry flour.

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday, I made a big pot of soup (yes, it is cool enough for soup here!), using 2 quarts of turkey stock from the freezer, ground turkey, onion, red and yellow bell peppers (from today's farmers' market), celery, carrots, the last of the Baby Bella mushrooms, a zucchini (from a previous farmers' market), and 2 cups of Bob's Red Mill Vegi-Soup blend. I used 2 Tbs. of Penzey's Bouquet Garni. Freshly ground pepper gets added at the end.

[BakerAunt]

I've not yet been blessed with a lot of tomatoes, so I've not used them for salsa. I will give you my canned tomato version, and maybe you can adjust it.

When I make salsa, I use the Walmart brand Great Value, no salt added, petite diced tomatoes. I chop some onion, dice 2-3 cloves of garlic, then add 1/3 of a 12-oz. jar of Southwestern 505 (medium heat) flame roasted green chile. (I brought two with me from Texas. I have not looked to see if it is available in our Indiana locations.) I mix it all together, then grab the On the Border tortilla chips, which are currently our favorites, as they are less salty than the Tostitos. In addition to coming in jars, I think this brand of chiles is available frozen. There are also canned ones of various brands. I've used Ortega and El Paso.

You will need to pay attention to if the chile peppers are mild, medium, or hot. It should say on the can. I prefer the medium ones.

You can buy fresh chiles. If you do, then wear gloves while you are seeding them, as it can burn your hands. (I've been told this. I've never worked with fresh chiles.) The seeds are what make them hot, I was told.

I've never put in cilantro, as I rarely have it around. After a post on the former Baking Circle about how some people have a genetic disposition for it to taste to them like soap, I stopped putting it in my black bean salad. I would now only serve it as an "add it yourself" ingredient.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

Haven't made salsa, but I can tell you that the tomato relish recipe I have posted is excellent on hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, it even went very well with some fish I made last week.

A salsa is usually just tomatoes, onion, cilantro, hot peppers, lime juice, salt and pepper, chopped up and mixed together raw, though some recipes also have minced garlic. My wife is one of those who has a genetic predisposition against cilantro (it tastes like soap to her), so I never make anything that uses it.

One of the local stores sells a pineapple salsa that is pretty good.

[Mike Nolan]

My wife brought me 2 tubs (around 60 pounds) of tomatoes from the UNL test gardens yesterday, so I'm making more tomato relish, I've got a triple batch (30+ pounds of tomatoes, about 10 pounds of onions, 10 large peppers) cooking down now, I'll start a second triple batch later today or tomorrow.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't made soba noodles, but I've made lots of wheat-based pasta and some GF (rice flour) pastas.

Fresh pasta cooks very quickly, 2-4 minutes, because you don't have to rehydrate the flour. You can dry fresh pasta or freeze it, but both of those increase cooking times. Be sure to salt the water adequately. (Michael Ruhleman says the water should have enough salt in it to taste like a light broth. I have increased the amount of salt I add to pasta water, it makes a difference. This is one of those times when CIA--where Ruhlman trained--isn't over-salting things.)

[BakerAunt]

There are Mennonite/Amish communities in this area. I did go to a small store that was run by Mennonite/Amish, but it seemed to be for selling goods more to those not belonging to those groups--lots of baked pies, etc. They did have some grains, and I bought some cornmeal and some Irish oats there. However, the Dutch Jel that the sign claimed was the same as Clear Jel, was not, and it caused my blueberry pie filling disaster of last year. (That reminds me that I still have a pint jar of that to use up.) The prices did not seem much lower than in regular stores.

[Mike Nolan]

When I was in San Diego a couple of years ago, I gave some thoughts to driving to the NY Bakers warehouse, but it isn't clear whether they support over-the-counter sales or just mail order.

I bought 5 pounds of cake flour at a Mennonite store that had been rebagged from a larger bag. It wasn't labeled as to whose it was, it could have been Queen G, which they no longer sell in home-baker sized bags.

I also used to get a great pumpernickel flour at that Mennonite store, which I would hit whenever I was visiting my employer's national office, but since I retired I probably won't be going there (Crossville TN) again, and I think the nearest Mennonite/Amish community is likely to be in eastern Iowa.

[BakerAunt]

NY Bakers also sells Queen Guinevere (KAF's bleached cake flour). I'm going to have to spend some time at their website.

[BakerAunt]

I've had mostly success with flour deliveries from KAF, but I've noted that UPS has more of a tendency to crush boxes these days. I recall a Baking Circle thread in which KAF sub-rius commented on UPS not following the techniques he had used when working temporarily at the company. He always had interesting baking threads. I wish that he had joined us here. I don't think that I've had a single box lately in a KAF delivery where one side has not been crushed. Fortunately, nothing was damaged.

KAF is very good about replacing damaged goods, and they always ask about the packing to see if it was at fault. I recently bought the large 2-sheet cake sized pan from them. The first one had scratches that went through the finish, but in that case, it was not the packing. They sent a replacement with no problems (even though UPS again crushed part of the box).

[Mike Nolan]

I can probably find other GF recipes that don't use those ingredients. Arrowroot is something I always have on hand, psyllium husk powder is not.

Psyllium husk is a way of adding fiber (it's the main ingredient in Metamucil), and it probably adds structure as well, which is always a bit of a challenge with gluten-free products.