The Self Help Gospel

How many of us are drawn to practicing Christianity with the idea that it will make us better people? Well-adjusted, healthy, loving, forgiving, wise people that other people look at and think, "what does she have that I don't?" I'll confess, that's all me. And in this self-help culture, it's so tempting to make the the whole gospel about how to make me better, rather than how to expand the kingdom of God. And it's easy to conflate the two. But in this wedding of the church and Christ, all eyes are not on the beauty of the bride, but on her ability to reflect the groom's glory.

Hi, I'm Jennifer, and I'm an addict. A recovering self-help addict. But how to truly replace that self-love with something else? That's not easy.   

The Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie

We have been on a journey long and perilous, through recipes exotic and quaint, in our search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie: foolproof and beautiful, caramelized crisp on the edges, and a soft, chewy, "mmm"-inducing center. I've tried recipes from the Joy of Cooking, gone through the highest rates ones in AllRecipes, tried them with oatmeal (Neiman Marcus chain-mail recipe), and scientifically varied ones (Cookwise). Most recipes are pretty good, but inevitably fall short: too cakey or too thin (Tollhouse), rich (David Lebowitz) or a bit bland looking. But I have two recipes that I think, with a bit of tweaking! may be the grail of Chocolate Chip Cookies. I invite you to give them a try.

The first:
There are some very good tips from a The New York Times article "Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie." It describes the professional secret of aging the dough in the refrigerator from 24 to 36 hours, which allows the dry ingredients to absorb the liquid fully. This results in beautifully browned cookies with a complex caramel flavor. And it actually works!

These were delicious - rich, complex, and definitely gourmet. I thought that they were a bit on the rich side - you really can't have more than two - but they were Adam's favorite. I cheated and subbed all-purpose flour for the cake and bread flour, and a mix of chopped chocolate bar and chocolate chips instead of the chocolate disks. But do try the full 36 hour refrigeration. I tested them and they were good cooked immediately, great after 24 hours, but spectacular after 36 hours. A long time to wait for chocolate chip cookies - but worth it!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Jacques Torres, published in the New York Times, July 9, 2008

Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
Sea salt.

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.

Note: Disks are sold at Jacques Torres Chocolate; Valrhona fèves, oval-shaped chocolate pieces, are at Whole Foods.

and for the contender....

These are my favorite thus far: simple, chewy, beautifully craggy. The next time I make these, I want to try aging them. I didn't have the patience today, however. I've had really good results with America's Test Kitchen recipes. If anyone's looking for a present to get me, they put out some good cookbooks and Cooks Illustrated Magazine. (hint hint!)

Thick Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
from America's Test Kitchen

2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 Tbsp (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted & cooled until warm
1 c brown sugar, packed
1/2 c granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Adjust oven racks to upper & lower -middle positions & heat oven to 325. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Whisk dry ingredients together; set aside.

3. With electric mixer, or by hand, mix butter & sugars until thoroughly combined.

4. Beat in egg, yolk and vanilla until combined.

5. Add dry ingredients & beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in chips.

6. Roll scant 1/2 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull into 2 equal halves. Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, place formed dough onto cookie sheet, leaving ample room between each ball. (This step makes the surface beautifully craggy looking, like bakery cookies. This step is also included in the Neiman Marcus recipe)

7. Bake, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft & puffy (about 13-15 minutes)

8. Cool cookies on sheets until able to lift without breaking and place on wire rack to cool.

Makes about 2 dozen.

America: Land of the Eaters

Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef” or “Chopped” or “The Next Food Network Star.” What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.

Brilliant article by Michael Pollan examining the American attitude towards preparing and eating food in the New York Times Magazine: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=1



The Food Network has helped to transform cooking from something you do into something you watch

What I wonder - how much of our attraction to food and cooking shows has to do with a nostalgia for a home we don't have the time for anymore? For the comforting clang of a lid on a pot of stew, the fragrance of garlic wafting upstairs, the sizzle of meat on a hot pan. There is meaning to these motions in which our daily tasks seem lacking.

I suspect we’re drawn to the textures and rhythms of kitchen work, too, which seem so much more direct and satisfying than the more abstract and formless tasks most of us perform in our jobs nowadays. The chefs on TV get to put their hands on real stuff, not keyboards and screens but fundamental things like plants and animals and fungi; they get to work with fire and ice and perform feats of alchemy.

Fascinating stats too:

The more time a nation devotes to food preparation at home, the lower its rate of obesity. In fact, the amount of time spent cooking predicts obesity rates more reliably than female participation in the labor force or income. Other research supports the idea that cooking is a better predictor of a healthful diet than social class: a 1992 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that poor women who routinely cooked were more likely to eat a more healthful diet than well-to-do women who did not.

So the take home message: turn off the TV, put down the take-out menu, and take pleasure in the tactile and sensory pleasure of cooking your own meals!

Miriam's Chocolate Cake

Scratch the last post. Now if you are going for dense, fudgy, not too sweet, and chocolately, THIS is the cake you want. This will be, from now on, my go-to chocolate cake.

Miriam, a fellow at TFA last year, created this cake particularly for Sarah Powell, who is allergic, sadly, to all things milk. She deserves BIG applause for this recipe. I've added a couple directions to her original.

Ingredients:

3 oz semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cup hot coffee

3 cup white granulated sugar
2 1/2 cup cake flour (or substitute all-purpose flour, with one tsp cornstarch instead of the all-purpose flour)
1 1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch process)
2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup coconut milk (about 1 can)
3/4 tsp vanilla
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease 9X13 cake pan and dust with cocoa powder.

Finely chop chocolate, pour in hot coffee. Let sit a minute, then stir till melted.

Sift together dry ingredients, then stir in coffee mixture and rest of wet ingredients. Stir until blended, but do not over-mix.

Bake for 1 hour - 1 hr 10 minutes.

For a glaze, mix melted chocolate, coconut milk, and powdered sugar to desired consistency. Poke holes in cake and pour glaze over cake.

Ta Da!

A Recipe for Really Good Chocolate Cake

I've been looking for awhile for a really good chocolate cake recipe, and I think I may have found it! The recipes I've previously found for cake mix + pudding + sour cream have turned out invariably heavy and rubbery, and the other recipes I've tried just, well, haven't quite made it.


But I think this is it: fine textured, moist, rich, soft, and chocolatey. I'm not a chocolate cake fan in general, but this might make me a convert. I made this with a chocolate hazelnut filling (buttercream mixed with Nutella) and it was marvelous. In fact, I'm going right now to get myself another piece.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake
from The Perfect Cake, by Susan Purdy
2 c. sifted all purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking soda
.25 tsp salt
.25 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
4 oz unsweetend chocolate (1/2 c; 110 g)
1 c. unsalted butter at room temp.
1.75 c granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1.333 c. buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Prepare pans: this makes 7 cups batter, which fills one 2-layer 9 inch cake (serves 8), or one sheet cake 9X13 inches (serves 12). spread solid shortening on bottom and sides of pans, then dust with unsweetened cocoa or flour, tap out excess cocoa or flour.

1b. Position racks in lower third of oven, preheat oven to 325 F.

2. sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. set aside.
3. melt chocolate in double boiler set over hot, not boiling water. remove chocolate from heat, stir to make sure it is completely melted and smooth, and set aside to cool until comfortable to touch.
4. in the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until well blended. stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl and beaters several times. add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. with the mixer on low, add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternatively to batter, beginning and ending with flour. stir in the vanilla and cooled chocolate, blending until the color is even. (the cake darkens as it cooks.)
6. turn the mixture into the prepared pans. smooth it level, and spread it slightly from the center toward the edges of the pan so it will rise evenly. Bake in the lower third of the oven for 40-50 min for sheet cake, 35-45 min for layers, or until top is slightly springy to the touch and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. leave the cake in its pans on a wire rack for 10 min. top with second rack and invert; lift off pans (when the cake cools, there should be a whoosh! as it releases from the pan and rests on the rack.) cool the cake completely on the rack.

Soft Ginger Cookies

These cookies are the reason I keep a jar of molassas in our cupboard. These may very well be my favorite cookies: not too sweet, soft, chewy, fragrant - YUM!

I like to substitute orange juice for the 1 tbsp water; it amps up the ginger flavor.
From Allrecipes.com, courtesy of Amy Sacha


INGREDIENTS
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup margarine, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons white sugar

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and 1 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the water and molasses. Gradually stir the sifted ingredients into the molasses mixture. Shape dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar. Place the cookies 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Green Onion Cakes

Cakes is not the right descriptor. When I think cake, I think sweet, dense, dessert. Pancake doesn't work either. This isn't soft and spongy and flavorless. Bread makes you think thick and soft. No, these are savory panfried circles of goodness. My mom makes a quick version of these with tortillas. These are more time consuming, but oh, they're so good! Especially when they're just off the pan, and you pull off hot flaky pieces and try not to burn your fingers. Who knew the simple flavors of salt and green onion and sesame oil could unite to create such happiness on your tongue? Be careful though... it's really hard to stop eating these.

This dipping sauce is good, and it would taste great on potstickers and dumplings as well. The green onion cakes are just fine without the sauce as well.


From Martin Yan's Feast: The Best of Yan Can Cook
I've been on the lookout for a good uncomplicated Chinese cookbook, with the fresh flavors I like as a Californian. I bought this book used off Amazon after trying this recipe, and I haven't had a single dud from the other recipes I've tried.

Green Onion Cakes

Makes 12

These unleavened fried breads are thin and flat, crisp outside, moist and chewy inside, and bursting with onion flavor. I like to serve them the traditional way, as street vendors in Beijing do: sliced into wedges and eaten out of hand, plain or with a spicy chili-garlic dipping sauce.

3-1/3 cups flour
1-1/4 cups boiling water

Dipping Sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons soy sauc
2 teaspoons chopped green onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon chili sauce

1/4 cup solid vegetable shortening
or cooking oil
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 cup chopped green onions
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper

Cooking oil

Getting Ready

Place flour in a bowl. Add boiling water, stirring with chopsticks or a fork until dough is evenly moistened. On a lightly floured board, knead dough until smooth and satiny, about 5 minutes. Cover and let rest for 30 minutes.

Combine dipping sauce ingredients in a bowl.

On a lightly floured board, roll dough into a cylinder; cut into 12 equal portions.

Make each cake:
Roll a portion of dough into an 8-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick; keep remaining dough covered to prevent drying. Brush with a thin film of shortening. Sprinkle with a small portion of sesame oil, green onions, salt, and pepper. Roll dough into a cylinder and coil dough into a round patty; tuck end of dough underneath. Roll again to make an 8-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick.

Cooking

Place a wide frying pan over medium heat until hot. Add 2 tablespoons cooking oil, swirling to coat sides. Add 1 cake and cook, turning once, until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Remove and drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining cakes, adding more cooking oil as needed.

Cut cakes into wedges. Serve hot with dipping sauce.