Carrot Cake

Ingredients

Cake
12 1/2 oz all-purpose flour (2 1/2 cups)
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
3 eggs
7 oz granulated sugar (1 cup)
7 oz brown sugar (1 cup, packed)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup oil
1 lb carrots, peeled and shredded (preferably by hand on a box grater)
1 cup raisins, soaked in hot water and squeezed

Frosting
8 oz. 1/3-fat cream cheese (Neufchâtel), softened
5 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
2 tbsp sour cream
pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar (add more if you like it sweeter - I don't)

1 cup toasted pecans, chopped

Steps

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease a 9 x 13" cake pan with butter.
2. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices, and salt in a medium bowl with a whisk or fork. Set aside.
3. Beat the eggs and sugars with an electic mixer on high until light and fluffy (about three minutes). Add the vanilla and beat to incorporate.
4. With the beaters on low, slowly drizzle the oil into the egg mixture to emulsify.
5. Add half the flour mixture to the egg mixture and fold in with a rubber scraper. Repeat with the rest of the flour. Be gentle with the batter.
6. Gently stir in the carrots and raisins.
7. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan and bake 45-50 minutes (until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs attached), turning half-way through.
8. Remove cake from oven and rest in the pan on a wire rack until completely cool.

Frosting

1. Put the Neufchâtel, butter, sour cream, and salt in a food processor and whiz to combine.
2. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar and whiz to combine.
3. Refrigerate until cake is cool enough to frost.
4. Frost the cake and sprinkle the toasted pecans over the top.

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies
by Jessica Louise

Makes 30 cookies.

Ingredients

6 oz. butter (or 3/4 cup or 1 1/2 sticks)
3.5 oz. granulated sugar (or 1/2 cup)
5.25 oz. brown sugar (or approx. 3/4 cup)
10 oz. all-purpose flour (or approx. 2 cups)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt*
1 egg
1 egg yolk**
1 tbsp. vanilla
6 oz. chocolate chips (half a bag)***

*I use non-iodized, fine sea salt.
**Approximately 2.35 oz. of egg, total.
***Quality matters. A lot. I use Ghirardelli semi-sweet or 60%.

Steps

1. Put the butter in a pan to brown. For tips, try this or this. 
2. Keeping an eye on the butter, combine the sugars in a large mixing bowl. Once the butter is browned, pour it into the sugars and stir to combine.
3. In a separate, medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
4. Once the sugar and butter mixture is no longer hot to the touch (warm is OK), add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Stir well to combine.
5. Add the flour mixture to the sugar-butter-egg mixture and stir well to incorporate all the flour. 
6. Add the chocolate chips and knead with your hands in the bowl to evenly distribute the chips throughout the batter. It will seem like the chocolate chips don't want to stick in the batter, but that's OK.
7. Heat the oven to 350° F. Put the dough in the freezer while the oven heats up. Now is a good time to clean up. 
8. Once the oven is heated, portion the dough (using a #40 portioner, or a tablespoon, generously rounded) onto parchment-lined baking sheets. You should be able to fit 15 cookies on a standard half-sheet pan. 
9. Bake for 12 minutes, turning the baking sheet half-way through. Remove from the oven when the edges have just started to brown, let them rest on the sheet for a minute, and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
10. Once cool, store in an open plastic zip bag or in a glass or plastic container with the lid only resting lightly on top. You don't want to leave them completely exposed to the air, but having them in an air-tight container ruins the texture, too. 

Working on chocolate chip cookies

Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle. And this was not right out of the oven. Almost perfect.

I figured out snickerdoodles. Now it's time for chocolate chip cookies.

The photo above is of my second attempt. The first attempt turned out weird (see the problems listed below) but pretty. The second attempt is very nearly perfect. They'd be better with a better chocolate, but I couldn't find Ghirardelli 60% at the co-op.

I'll gather feedback tonight at a party. And make them again in the middle of the week when I have my co-workers over for a Wii party. But they're pretty close to perfect.

Peanut butter-filled chocolate cookies

Yep. Yum.

I made these for Karly's housewarming party tonight. They're kind of a lot of work, especially compared to the drop cookies I normally make, but they're worth it for a special occasion.

Peanut butter-filled chocolate cookies
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies

Makes 32 cookies. But 30 fit perfectly onto two half sheet pans, so you'll eat two raw ones. Beware of salmonella!

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter (I used Maranatha, creamy with salt)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter

Cream the butter, sugars, and peanut butter until light. You'll actually see the color lighten as more air is incorporated. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and then mix that into the butter-sugar mixture. The dough will be really stiff, so finish with a wooden spoon if your hand mixer can't handle it.

Mix together the powdered sugar and 1/2 cup peanut butter. It's not a big deal if you get proportion of sugar to peanut butter exactly right; I had to add more peanut butter to get it to combine.

Preheat oven to 350°. Divide the cookie dough into 32 balls, about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Do the same with the peanut butter mixture, about 3/4 inches in diameter. Flatten a dough ball in the palm of your hand, place a peanut butter ball on top, and fold the cookie dough over the peanut butter to enclose. Roll the mixture into a ball, and set on a non-greased cookie sheet. Parchment paper isn't necessary, as these release easily. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Flatten each ball by pressing on it with a drinking glass dipped in sugar (press the cookie first to get the sugar to stick to the glass).

Bake for eight minutes, rotating the tray half way through. Leave on the cookie sheet for about a minute to set more, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

White chocolate macadamia nut cookies: recipe challenge

I made white chocolate macadamia nut cookies a couple years ago for a co-worker's birthday, but I have no recollection of what recipe I used. I have a vague memory of being adamantly opposed to just using a chocolate chip cookie recipe and swapping white for semi-sweet chocolate and macadamia nuts for walnuts. For some reason, I felt strongly that white chocolate macadamia nut cookies must be a jumble cookie.

But I'm fairly certain that the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies I ate recently and almost died from did contain brown sugar.

So: a challenge. I shall make one version in a jumble and one in a traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe.