Maple Cornmeal Biscuits

Some months I make all of the Tuesdays with Dorie recipes for the month within a week of when they're announced, giving me the luxury of time to write my posts, comment on my friends blogs and generally enjoy the process.

These days, not so much. I've been working a ton (lots of 8 and 9 PM nights) and generally feeling like I'm living one of those nightmares where you run faster and faster but seemingly run in place, unable to escape the monster. It's not even my "busy" time of year yet, that time when we're closing the books for the year and getting ready for the audit, and getting through the audit, and the year-end reporting, yadda yadda.

When things are a pressure cooker get busy at work, I bake. My coworkers call it stress baking and while they are simpatico about my palpable stress, they've started tremulously asking the question "So, you're working a ton. When does the stress baking start?" For while they wouldn't wish my year-end (that's June 30th for us) workload on anyone, they don't mind that I blow off steam by getting out the flour, butter, sugar, eggs and frequently chocolate.

Let me say I am extraordinarily lucky to work with a great group of people who whole-heartedly embrace my baking. I never hear complaints. In my last job, I was confronted in the elevator by a woman who found baked goods irresistible and really wanted me to stop. So I appreciate having an audience who eats it all, without complaint, and gives me good feedback to boot.

So when the stress baking question started surfacing, I resolved to bake more (hard to do when you're getting home at 9:30 and going back to work at 8-ish). Fortunately, the May TWD recipes had been announced and they were almost all easy, portable and suitable for breakfast.

I'm dubious about recipes that call for cornmeal if it's a departure from the norm, so I was a little wary about this one. In my pre-coffee stupor, I messed up measuring the wet ingredients and added too much maple syrup. My batter was much wetter than normal, but I went with it. It turned out just fine as the biscuits were moist, tender, flakey and delicious. I made a little maple butter to serve with them and that made the butter lovers happy.

I can't say how these keep since they disappeared in the blink of an eye. Like any biscuit, I think they should be consumed while still warm from the oven, and they taste extra yummy when shared with people you love.

Lindsay from A Little Something...Sweet is our host this week. I can't thank Lindsay enough for picking something easy and delicious to get this year's stress baking off on the right foot. If you're looking for a foolproof spin on the classic biscuit, Lindsay will have the recipe for you here.

Browniepalooza Day 5 - Sweet and Salty Brownies

Sorry to say, we've reached the last day of Browniepalooza, delayed a bit due to the Blogger outage, but I'm not sad. Nope, not sad at all because I have one of these

Yes, it's the sweet and salty brownie that won my personal tasting. I bought the Baked Explorations cookbook so I could have this recipe, and you should too. In fact, I'm not going to give you the recipe so you'll go out and buy this cookbook. Unless that's not in your budget. In that case, you can find the recipe here.

For all of us who love the sweet and salty flavor profile, these are a revelation. There is a layer of salty caramel, but it mostly melts into the brownie, making it moist, fudgy, sweet, caramelly. Then there is the coarse sugar and fleur de sel sprinkled on the top right after they come out of the oven.

A few observations:

• If your brownie audience isn't in love with sweet and salty desserts, reduce the salt on top to just a light sprinkling, or none at all. The saltiness of the caramel won't be enough to make them wrinkle their noses.
• The recipe counsels not spreading the caramel all the way to the side for fear it will burn. Au contraire. The caramel along the edge of the pan gets a little crispy/chewy and my tasters LOVED that part. Just make sure you line your pan with parchment (and I love that with parchment, there's no need to butter and flour the pan).
• You can make the caramel several days in advance. Keep it in the fridge and let it sit out for an hour or so before using it.
• I use my favorite Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips to make these. No chopping chocolate and I don't think a premium imported chocolate would add anything.
• After making these several times, I think it's best to sprinkle on the coarse sugar right when they come out of the oven but the fleur de sel after slicing. The knife cuts can cause the salt to bunch up along the edges and that can be a little too much salt for some of us.

I know I can be prone to hyperbole, but these really are the best brownies I've had. Please try them, and give some of the others a chance, too. They are:

Palm Beach Brownies

Triple Chocolate Brownies

Best Cocoa Brownies

Browned Butter Brownies with Walnuts

Browniepalooza was so much fun (really!) that I think I'll do it next year. Maybe you'll join me. I already have my eye on a couple of recipes that I missed on this go round, plus someone is always coming up with a new spin on our old favorite. So many brownies, so worthy, that one week hardly seems enough!

Browniepalooza Day 4 - Browned Butter Brownies with Walnuts

We're celebrating Browniepalooza this week at Lethally Delicious. Yes, it's a made up holiday, but I believe brownies deserve their own week in the spotlight.

Today, I give you the brown butter brownie from the February 2011 cover of Bon Appetit. If you've done the rounds in the blogiverse you've probably seen them, and the feedback is wildly positive. The recipe is from Alice Medrich, whom I love love love, and the brownies have the taste of a classic brownie, but with a tiny, subtle twist. You can't figure out what it is, so you eat another, and another and another... Brownie bliss. No shame. No remorse. Make another batch and do it again. I won't judge.

These had several things to recommend them. Browned butter, chocolate and nuts, specifically walnuts. Walnuts aren't my favorite but I went with it.

Ever since I read the Cook's Illustrated tip for putting nuts ON the brownie batter (they toast in the oven and get crunchy rather than getting wet in the batter), that's how I've done it. But I made these exactly as the recipe stated, including the nuts, and was pleasantly surprised that the nuts retained their crunch.

Brown Butter Brownies with Walnuts (adapted from Bon Appetit)

Printer friendly recipe

20 tablespoons unsalted butter, in chunks (it's faster with room temperature butter)
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder (spooned into cup to measure, then leveled)

4 teaspoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, chilled
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons unbleached all purpose flour
2 cups walnut pieces

Position rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 325°F. Lightly spray a 13x9" metal baking pan with cooking spray then line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang if possible. Melt butter in a deep medium saucepan over medium heat. Continue cooking, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula until butter stops foaming, browned bits form at bottom of pan, and butter smells nutty, about 8 minutes. Remove pan from the heat; immediately add the sugar, cocoa, 4 teaspoons water, the vanilla, and salt. Stir with your spatula until blended. Let cool for 5 minutes (mixture will still be hot). Add eggs to hot mixture 1 at a time, beating vigorously to blend after each addition. When mixture looks thick and shiny, add flour and stir until blended. Beat vigorously 60 strokes. Stir in nuts. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake brownies until a toothpick inserted into center comes out almost clean (with a few moist crumbs attached), about 25 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack. Using the parchment sling handle, lift brownies from pan and cut as desired.

Browniepalooza Day 3 - Cocoa Brownies

All this week we're having Browniepalooza at Lethally Delicious. Each day features a different brownie recipe, culminating with my favorite on Friday. The brownie that won the popular vote was featured yesterday. But I had a different favorite so stay tuned for the rest of the week to find out which one I loved best.

Today's brownie comes from an Alice Medrich recipe that I found on Smitten Kitchen. I could have found it in one of the many cookbooks of hers that I have, but I was at work when I was doing my brownie research (while eating my lunch...really!) Seeing the photos reminded me of the brownies she served at a demonstration she did back in March at Draeger's.

These brownies were delicious, very deeply chocolate, very unusual. The quality of your cocoa matters here as that is where your chocolate flavor is coming from. You could add nuts, but I think that would detract from the flavor and texture of the brownie. I second Deb's advice to refrigerate them after cooling in order to make them easily sliceable.

Best Cocoa Brownies (adapted from an Alice Medrich recipe spotted on Smitten Kitchen)

Printer friendly recipe

20 tablespoons (10 ounces or 280 grams) unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups (1 pound, 3 3/4 ounces/560 grams) sugar
1 3/4 cup (5 3/4 ounces/165 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Valrhona)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, cold
1 cup (130 grams/4 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a 13x9" (I used a quarter sheet pan and it was perfect) baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside until the mixture is only warm, not hot. It will look fairly dodgy but it will even out once the rest of the ingredients are added.

Stir in the vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Spread evenly in the lined pan.

Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack. (Deb refrigerates the brownies to ensure clean cuts.)

Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into squares.

Browniepalooza Day 2 - Triple Chocolate Brownies

It's Browniepalooza this week at Lethally Delicious. I'm trying a different brownie recipe each day, building up to my very favorite one on Friday. Wonder what it could be?

Today is a bit of a rerun. I've made these brownies hundreds of times, and this has been my go-to brownie recipe for years. In the five way tasting, this beat out all the other brownies on M's tasting sheet and it narrowly topped my favorite in a tasting at work. Maybe it's the toasty pecans on top, or the chocolate chips inside. Whatever it was, this brownie has its fans.

I make these with Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips. It's my favorite every day chocolate, and not even I dip into the expensive French chocolate when I make brownies.

Triple Chocolate Brownies
Printer friendly recipe

6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I use Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips)

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups (10.2 ounces) sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 cup (5 oz) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup (3 1/2 ounces) chopped walnuts, pecans or almonds (optional)

Butter and flour a 13" x 9" pan and set aside. In a metal bowl, combine the butter, bittersweet and unsweetened chocolates and set it over a pan of simmering water. Stir until the chocolates and butter are melted and combined, then remove from the heat. Let the mixture cool until it is lukewarm, then stir in the sugar and the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring until incorporated. Add the flour and the salt, stirring until just combined (a few flecks of flour are OK), then mix in the semi-sweet chips. Spread in the prepared pan, smooth the top and scatter the nuts over the top, pressing very lightly.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes, until a tester comes out with crumbs adhering to it. Cool completely before cutting.

Brown Sugar Hazelnut Bundt Cake

A perfect bundt recipe is a good friend when one needs an easy dessert that looks a lot more special than the combination of butter, sugar, flour and eggs would seem.

I chose to leave out the fruit (pears and prunes) and go the nut route, so I used a stash of hazelnuts languishing in my pantry and hazelnut flour from the freezer. I swore "never again' as I was skinning the hazelnuts and chopping them (oh how they do love to roll around), but as soon as I tasted the finished cake, I forgot my oath. Moist, nutty, luxuriously tasty, this is one perfect bundt cake. It was perfect in spite of my efforts to screw it up...I forgot to add the chopped hazelnuts until I had put the cake in the oven. I immediately grabbed it, dumped the nuts on top, and swirled them in with a knife. I think I'll do it that way every time I make this cake as I didn't have any nuts sticking out to mar the beautiful crust.

The recipe comes from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, and was selected as this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe by my blogging buddy Peggy from Pantry Revisited. Peggy and I have several groups in common. She has a wonderful sense of humor and is a dear person besides. She'll have the recipe for you here. You can find out what the other bakers thought (many of whom made the original recipe with dried fruit) by checking them out here. Thanks, Peggy, this one was a home run!

Browniepalooza Day 1 - Palm Beach Brownies

It's Browniepalooza this week at Lethally Delicious. I'll have five different brownies for you to try, so plan to stop back every day to see what treat is in store. My favorite brownie will be on Friday. Hmm...wonder what it could be???

Palm Beach Brownies are from a Maida Heater recipe. I first learned of this recipe when my Twitter buddies were making Nick Malgieri's Florida Brownies from Bake! I didn't have Bake! so I looked for the recipe online. I didn't find it, but I did find the recipe it was based on, Maida Heater's Palm Beach Brownies.

This recipe uses unsweetened chocolate and a LOT of sugar, but it yields a brownie that is fall apart fudgy when warm but is transformed to a dense fudgy brownie when chilled. We liked the crunchy outer shell that encased the fudgy middle. This one had many fans (especially lovers of milk chocolate), but it was too sweet and not chocolaty enough for me so I forged on in my search for the quintessential brownie.

Palm Beach Brownies (adapted from Flora's Recipe Hideout, originally from Maida Heater)
Printer friendly recipe

8 ounces unsweetened chocolate
2 sticks unsalted butter
5 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

3 3/4 cups sugar
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

Adjust an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9x13" pan with parchment paper. Melt the chocolate and butter in heat proof bowl set over a saucepan with an inch or so of simmering water, stirring occasionally. When combined, remove from heat and set aside.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the eggs and the vanilla extract, salt, expresso powder and sugar at high speed for 10 minutes. On low speed, add the chocolate mixture and beat only until combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, turning the pan halfway through to insure even baking. When done the cake will have a firm crust but will appear underbaked when tested with a toothpick.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool completely on a rack. Remove the brownies from the pan and remove the parchment. Wrap well and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight before cutting into bars. Makes 32 brownies.

Chocolate Orange Marbled Loaf Cake

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie pick comes to us from Carol of The Bake More. This one was on my short list when it was my turn to pick the recipe, and I was eager to make it. Dorie gives us a basic marbled loaf cake recipe with multiple variations, and since we love chocolate and orange together, I knew which one I would make.

Not surprisingly, I used 70% cacao chocolate to get the biggest chocolate flavor, and it actually made the chocolate part of the dough quite stiff, so my swirling left a lot to be desired. I baked my loaf in my Nancy pan (click here to read the story behind my Nancy pan) and it was done in an hour. I loved the more slender shape of the loaf, and especially loved the dramatic crowning of the loaf.

I find many marbled loaf cakes to be dry, but this one was moist and delicious. The orange was the perfect foil to the chocolate. I served this one on its own, but it could be dressed up with a chocolate ganache, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream or sliced berries. It was an easy yet impressive cake to whip up. Dorie's other flavor combinations sound delicious, too, and the other TWD bakers loved the white chocolate mint combo (you can find out what they thought here).

Thanks to Carol for choosing this recipe for us to discover this week. It's a winner that I will make again and again. If you'd like to add it to your short list, Carol has the recipe for you here.

Lemony Cornmeal Shortbread

One thing I've learned as a member of Tuesdays with Dorie is to expect the unexpected. Even if I think I know how a recipe will taste, this isn't always the case. Take this week's pick, cornmeal shortbread cookies, picked by Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine. My last experience with cornmeal in cookies was with these biscotti, which I made when I first joined the group. I was still pretty clueless, I just didn't know it.

The crunchiness of the cornmeal in the biscotti was texturally challenging for me, and this time I wanted to overcome that issue. So I made the dough two days ago and let it rest - and hydrate - in the fridge. I rolled it a little too thin, and baked the cookies a little too long, but they were delicious. The lemon zest lent a lovely floral back note. The cornmeal added a pleasant crunch without being distractingly hard, a real win-win.

If you'd like to make these unusual cookies, Valerie has the recipe (and cookies look the way Dorie intended!) for you here. And you can see what the other TWD bakers thought by checking them out here.

Maple Oatmeal Wheat Bread

Not to overstate it but this recipe underscores the beauty of the recipe sharing that happens among bloggers.

I first saw this bread on my buddy Margaret's blog Tea and Scones (recipe here). I made it and my coworkers flipped for it. Mags saw my post, and she reworked the recipe to use whole wheat flour (you can see her post here). When I saw her version, I wanted to make it but I wanted to make it even better.

In this case, better means easier. I am in love with Dan Lepard's kneading technique, which involves three 10 second kneads, each followed by a rest period. I wanted to revise this recipe so it would be easy for yeast phobics (I used to be one of you!) to make a flavorful, healthy bread without a stand mixer or big muscles. Although I think this version is just about perfect, I hope you'll make the recipe your own just as Mags and I did.

This bread is wonderful while still warm from the oven, great dipped in a little maple syrup or with maple butter, and makes a spectacular turkey sandwich.

Maple Oatmeal Bread
Printer friendly recipe
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup (80 g) rolled oats
2 1/4 cups (300 g) whole wheat flour
2 3/4 cups (415 g) unbleached bread flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
1/3 cup (50 g) dried milk powder
3/4 cup maple syrup, at room temperature
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Maple syrup for brushing (optional)

Oatmeal for sprinkling (optional)

In bowl of stand mixer, combine boiling water and oats. Cover and let sit for one hour. It's OK if you leave it a bit longer.

In a medium sized bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the whole wheat flour, the bread flour, yeast, salt, wheat gluten and dried milk powder. Set aside.

When the oats have cooled for one hour, add the flour mixture and mix in with a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour in the maple syrup and stir together with your wooden spoon or spatula then with your hands to bring together as a soft, sticky dough. Pour the warm melted butter over the dough and mix into the dough with your hands. Cover the bowl and let stand for 10 minutes.

Grease a flat clean surface with olive oil (or, use a Silpat as I do). Remove the dough from the bowl (it will be a bit damp and very sticky) and knead for ten seconds, then form the dough into a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and grease with olive oil, then return the dough ball to the bowl and leave for 10 minutes. It's OK if you leave it a few minutes longer.

Repeat this ten-second kneading and resting process every 10 minutes twice (a total of three kneadings), then let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

Grease two loaf pans (you can use 8 x 4 or 9 x 5). Divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape into two loaves (which I do by dividing half the dough into two pieces and forming each into a ball, placing them side by side in the pan) and place each in a loaf tin. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about one hour, or until the dough crests about an inch over the top of the pans. If using the larger loaf pan, your dough may not crest as much. It should feel lightly springy to the touch.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If desired, brush tops of loaves with maple syrup and sprinkle with oatmeal. Place loaves in oven and bake for 40 minutes, rotating pans 180 degrees halfway through the baking time. Remove loaves from the pans and cool on a cooling rack for one hour before slicing. Warm bread is pretty irresistible, but your loaf will have the best texture if you wait until it cools completely. That said, if you cut off a few slices to try, only the cut end will be a little moist, the rest of the loaf will completely normal.

Wheat Berry Salad

When you're as big a fan of chocolate and cookies as I am, you need to eat a healthy meal that reverses the effects of too many brownies. I can always count on recipes from Ellie Krieger to be delicious in a way that "healthy" becomes an afterthought. That's what I had in mind this week when I made this because this week's Craving Ellie in My Belly recipe was chosen by me!

I love wheat berries and yet I'd never prepared them at home. The preparation is easy - cover with water and boil for about an hour.

I changed up the recipe a bit, substituting toasted pine nuts for the walnuts, cilantro instead of parsley (which I hate), and I added some chopped red bell pepper for color. This one needed a lot of tinkering, which may be a result of using 1 3/4 cups of wheat berries because that's how much I bought.

Here are a few suggestions:

• When making this recipe, you can do as I did and cook the wheat berries one day and assemble the salad the next.
• I salted the water the wheat berries cooked in. One thing I've learned from making Ellie's recipes is that they always need salt -  and I'm not a food salter.
• My dried cherries weren't old but they weren't as soft as I wanted. You could substitute chopped dried apricots, quartered grapes or diced mango for a completely different twist.
• If you have walnut oil, it would be a great substitution for the olive oil if you're using walnuts.
• Speaking of the walnuts, toast them in the oven or in a skillet. It will intensify the flavor.
• The completed salad needed a lot of seasoning. And more lemon juice. An maybe a tiny clove of garlic smashed into a paste and combined with the oil and lemon juice before adding to the salad. Or 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder or smoked Spanish paprika. 

Can you tell I found this a little lacking in flavor? Sad but true, this one was a little boring for me. I'll probably play around with it before I serve it for dinner tonight, just because it needs something else to keep from being blah. If you'd like to see what my fellow Ellie cooks thought, you can find them here.

Wheat Berry Salad - serves 6
1 1/2 cups hard wheat berries
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (I used pine nuts)
2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup tart dried cherries, chopped
1 scallion, white and green parts, chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped parsley leaves (I used cilantro)
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice, more to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

In a large pot combine the wheat berries and enough water to come 2 inches over the wheat berries. Bring to a boil and cook uncovered for 1 hour, or until tender. Drain and let cool. Toast the walnuts in a medium dry skillet over medium-high heat until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the wheat berries, walnuts, celery, dried cherries, scallions, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Per Serving:
Calories 360; Total Fat 17 g; (Sat Fat 2 g, Mono Fat 6 g, Poly Fat 8 g) ; Protein 9 g; Carb 46 g; Fiber 8 g; Cholesterol 0 mg; Sodium 15 mg

Excellent source of: Fiber, Vitamin K, Manganese

Chocolate Chip Pecan Banana Bread

As the weather gets warmer, I am often left with spotty bananas as my warmer kitchen makes them ripen faster than we can eat them. Sometimes they get cut up for smoothies, but often they get made into banana bread.

This recipe is adapted from the Flour Bakery recipe. I recently bought the Flour cookbook and I'm discovering the wonderful recipes, which include many of the measurements in grams as well as cups.

This banana bread was delicious. The chocolate played well with the banana, pecans and slight hint of cinnamon. Healthy and delicious don't always go together but this one was a winner. Here's my take on Flour's recipe.

Chocolate Chip Pecan Banana Bread (adapted from Flour Bakery)
Printer-friendly recipe
1 1/2 cups/210 grams all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons/230 grams sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup/100 grams canola oil
3 1/2 bananas, very ripe, mashed (about 1 1/3 cups/340 grams)
2 tablespoons creme fraiche or sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup/75 grams pecans, toasted and chopped

3/4 cup/125 grams semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9x5" loaf pan with cooking spray.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Beat sugar and eggs with the whisk attachment of your mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and slowly drizzle in the oil. Add the mashed bananas, sour cream, and vanilla. Fold in the flour mixture, pecans and chocolate chips. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and bake for about 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until it tests done. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out on the rack to cool completely (unless you don't mind if your banana bread looks as mangled as mine, which was cut 10 minutes out of the oven.)

Chocolate Pudding Cake

It's Wednesday. Time for some chocolate. Chocolate so deep and dark that it made a frantic workday muuuuch better. It was much easier to eat that it was to get a decent photo against the darkness of my desk.

This chocolate cake is so easy that the steps are melt, whisk, stir and bake. It came from a cookbook that has multipage recipes for grand concoctions. And this humble, moist in the center, crunchy on the outside, melting chocolate cake. Topped with a simple chocolate glaze that had as many fans as the cake did, it was a wonderful way to scratch a midweek chocolate itch.

My dear blogging buddy Peggy of Pantry Revisited chose this recipe for Chocolate with Francois last month. I'm late posting (I'm late in almost everything these days) and I was so grateful to her for choosing such a simple and delectable recipe. If you'd like to make it yourself and scratch that chocolate itch, Peggy has the recipe for you here.

Espresso Ice Cream Tart

When life gets busy, I head to the kitchen. Lots of you do rational things (like laundry), but I'm driven to bake and share the bounty of my stress.

When I saw this week's TWD recipe, I thought "This one's easy!" Naturally I had to make it harder, so I pretty much revamped the recipe to suit my whims. This didn't exactly fit in with the time I had available. Oh well!

It seemed like a good idea to make my own coffee ice cream, and when I went to buy the coffee for it, expresso seemed even better than coffee. Making hot fudge seemed like a better idea than melting chocolate over the bottom of the warm tart shell. And making a chocolate shortbread tart shell seemed like an upgrade over the crust in the recipe. The embarrassing photo at the top of this post is proof that this tart made my afternoon (and that of lots of my coworkers) much better. Although it was hard to serve, it was happily attacked and disposed of before it could melt. All of our happy tummies thanked Jessica of Domestic Deep Thought of the Day for her timely pick for Tuesday with Dorie. Jessica has the recipe for you here, and you can find what the other bakers did with this one here.

Salted Butter Break-Ups

What are salted butter break-ups? Easy, fabulously delicious butter cookies. They're also addictive. Make them and you will find it impossible to pass up breaking off a piece every time you pass through the kitchen. The recipe, which is from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan, couldn't be easier. The dry ingredients get pulsed in the food processor, then you add the butter pieces and pulse, then a little cold water to bring it all together. Pat the dough into a disk, refrigerate, then bash it into a roundish, thinish giant cookie.  Brush with egg wash and score with the back of your longest knife (I used my slicer). The scoring is optional if you're in a rush.

I've made these twice and have a few of tips to share:

• If you like the sweet/salty flavor profile, you could up the salt or even use fleur de sel. I love how these taste with fleur de sel.
• I roll mine out on a sheet of parchment on the BACK of a sheet pan. I use the plastic wrap I stored the dough in on top, and never have to clean my rolling pin. Yes, I am lazy. Using the back of the sheet pan offers a few advantages: no repositioning to roll around the lip of the pan and it's easier to score the dough when the lip isn't in your way. If I need the cookies to cool quickly, I can very easily slide the parchment and giant cookie off the back of the pan onto the cooling rack (or my granite counter top, if I'm in a big rush).
• Make sure you roll them thin enough, or the middle will be more like a bread than a cookie. Still good, but the star of these cookies is the crispy edge.
• Experiment with flavors! You could use Dorie's method of rubbing citrus zest into the sugar for lightly lemony cookies (or orange, lime or grapefruit!) Dip them in melted chocolate before serving. Finely chopped nuts or, gasp, cocoa nibs, would take these in an entirely different direction. So would finely chopped rosemary or thyme leaves.
• My blogging, Twitter and Words with Friends buddy Di suggested dividing the dough in half to make two smaller giant cookies. Her rationale is you would end up with more edge area, and the best part of these cookies is their edge. 
• Let them cool completely before eating them. The cookie needs cooling time to crisp on the edges. Are you sensing that we like the edges?

Guess I should have taken the photos before sampling the cookie. Next time.

I made these for French Fridays with Dorie. The group made them a couple weeks ago, but I am so behind I'm just getting to posting them. If you want the recipe (after all, who doesn't need an easy butter cookie??), you can find the recipe here.