Devil’s Cut Brownies

Mike is a Freemason. According to various conspiracy theorists, Masons run the world. And while I suspect that Mike and the other brothers of Dallas Lodge 231 don’t run the world, even if they did, he’d never be able to tell me. All that secret handshake business? It’s top secret, and for real.

The Masons meet on several Thursdays throughout the month, and these brownies accompanied Mike to this past week’s lodge meeting. Dinner that evening was corned beef and cabbage, and I thought that a good complement to an Irish dinner would be brownies with whiskey cream cheese frosting. Apparently they were delicious; even Mike didn’t get to eat one because they disappeared so fast.

Brownies

Ingredients

1 cup butter, melted
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 13 x 9 pan with cooking spray.

In a mixing bowl, combine melted butter, sugar, and vanilla and stir until well combined.

Add eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each.

Stir in cocoa powder until well combined.

Add flour, baking powder, and salt; stir until well combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes, until the edges pull away from the pan slightly.

Cool completely before frosting.

Devil’s Cut Frosting

Ingredients

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
4 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1 tablespoon Jim Beam Devil’s Cut whiskey

Preparation

In a mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and butter; cream together until very well combined and smooth.

Add powdered sugar, about one-half cup at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add cocoa powder and beat well.

Add whiskey and beat.

Frost brownies with a small offset spatula.

Store in the refrigerator; let stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes before serving.

Nut Bread

Food historians speculate that quick breads originated in the United States during the Civil War, when food demands were high and bakers had neither the time nor the patience to wait for dough to rise in the traditional, yeast-based method. Yeast converts sugar into carbon dioxide and ethanol and causes the dough to rise, but quick breads rely on chemical leavening agents like baking soda and baking powder for rising purposes. Baking soda requires an acid, like lemon juice or buttermilk, while baking powder simply needs any liquid to begin its reaction.

Quick breads are versatile, welcoming creativity. This nut bread recipe uses both walnuts and almonds, but you could easily use pecans or hazelnuts. I’ve chosen not to identify nut bread as a “sweet,” since I have another six weeks to go in my mission not to eat treats; I’m thinking of nut bread as more muffin-like, since muffins are essentially quick breads baking in muffin tins.

Ingredients

3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 2/3 cup milk
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chopped almonds

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place five miniature loaf pans on a cookie sheet; spray each with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Make a well in the center.

In a medium bowl, combine milk, egg, and oil; stir together and add all at once to the well in the center of the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Fold in nuts.

Divide batter evenly among loaf pans.

Bake for 35 minutes, until tops are just golden and a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack.

Zella’s Homemade Chicken Soup

Medication does nothing for my colds. While Nyquil usually helps me sleep, there is one thing, and one thing alone, that truly makes me feel better when I am sick: my grandma Zella’s homemade chicken soup. And while soup isn’t baked, of course, this recipe is one I’ve wanted to share for a while.

“Grandma’s making soup on Saturday,” my father would say, upon returning from his parents’ house down the street on any given weeknight. Immediately, my eyes would widen and my mouth would water. Zella’s soup is a two-course affair, the first involving golden broth and homemade egg noodles, the second, flavor-rich chicken, potatoes, and carrots, not diced or chopped so they blend into the broth, but left whole for the second course, a bowl of shredded chicken, mashed potatoes, and carrots, all drizzled with broth. This might sound strange, but to me, it was food heaven.

Growing up I’d sit in Zella’s tidy yellow kitchen and watch, transfixed, as she stirred in the ingredients; I got to help make the noodles, adding egg after egg into her noodle maker, standing at the ready to catch the fine strands from its extruder. At the age of 26, while living in DC, I traveled home to Pittsburgh one weekend to be taught how to make the soup. There was no actual recipe that Zella could send me, of course. It was all in her head, as much about how you make it as what you put in it.

Yesterday, while I made this, my mom stopped by. “It smells like Grandma’s house,” she said. This rich aroma is distinctly tied with my grandparents, and when I smell it now, I marvel at the power of scent connected to memory. This time, I made her soup in the same pot she used, stirring with her wooden spoon. I’d like to believe she, my grandpap, and my dad were all in the kitchen with me.

Ingredients

About 2 gallons water
4 bone-in chicken breasts (or one pick-of-the-chicken package)
1 soup bone
5 stalks celery, leaves removed
1 green pepper, cut in half, seeds and stalk removed
1-2 yellow onions (depending on size), cut in half
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut in half length-wise
About 2 tablespoons paprika
About 1 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
5-6 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled
1 bunch Italian (flat-leaf) parsley, bound with a kitchen band or twine
Salt to taste
1 12-ounce package fine egg noodles

Preparation

Place chicken breasts and soup bone in the bottom of a large, 2-gallon stockpot. Cover with 1 3/4 gallons water and place over high heat on the stove with the lid tilted open.

Bring to a boil, watching carefully. When foam begins to form on the top, skim off with a small sieve; you will need to do this at least a few times. Continue boiling for one hour.

Add celery, green pepper, onion(s), carrots, paprika, and peppercorns. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for one hour.

Add potatoes, parsley, and salt (to taste-don’t overdo it); simmer for one hour. Once soup is finished, begin boiling water for egg noodles and prepare according to the package directions.

Remove soup from heat and extract the meat, bone, and vegetables; reserve the chicken, carrots, and potatoes (and other vegetables if you want to eat them); discard the bone.

Strain broth through a fine sieve and discard peppercorns.

Serve soup with noodles as a first course, then follow with chicken, potatoes, and carrots. Drizzle some broth over the chicken, potatoes, and carrots for extra flavor.

Hamantashen (Raspberry and Apricot)

Today marks the Jewish festival of Purim, as well as Mike’s 36^th birthday, and I couldn’t let my Jewish husband’s birthday pass without baking this traditional Purim treat.

For our Purim celebration last year, I made poppy seed hamantashen, and that dough, while not as pliable as this recipe, stayed together much better during baking. Mike liked the taste of that dough better as well, so I think I’ll go back to my original recipe next time. It’s amazing how many recipes exist for the same treat; you can scour cookbooks, online recipe hubs, and blogs and probably find dozens of varieties. This is another thing that I love about baking; there are so many possibilities.

Ingredients

1/3cup sugar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 ounces cream cheese, cut into chunks
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups flour
About 3 tablespoons each raspberry jam and apricot preserves

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, cream together sugar, vegetable oil, orange juice, egg, and vanilla.

Add cream cheese and beat until combined.

Add baking powder, salt, and flour; beat until the dough forms a ball.

Tape a sheet of parchment paper to your counter top and sprinkle very lightly with flour.

Turn dough out onto the parchment and roll to 1/8 inch thick.

Cut into circles and transfer to the baking sheet.

Place about 1/4 teaspoon of filling in the center of each circle—be careful not to over-fill.

Fold each circle into a triangle, sealing the edges well.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until edges are golden.

Cool on a wire rack.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bars

Something has gone awry in my homemade vanilla extract. For the past three months I’ve been steeping a vanilla bean in vodka in a well-sealed glass bottle in the dark recesses of one of my kitchen cabinets, a process I learned after buying a few vanilla beans on our honeymoon at Colonial Williamsburg 13 years ago. I’ve made countless batches of homemade extract since then, and they’ve all turned out well. Alas, this bottle had unpleasant globs of some unidentifiable substance floating in the otherwise lovely amber liquid, rendering it unusable.

Finding myself completely out of commercial vanilla (how that happened, I will never know), I resorted to the vanilla beans in my pantry. This is one of the many things I love about baking—that you can improvise. Although most cooks believe baking to be too restrictive, requiring precise measurements of this and that, I find it liberating to substitute vanilla extract with the scraped seeds of a vanilla bean, or to use up my miniature semisweet chocolate chips and mix them in with milk chocolate ones for this recipe. While I intend to scour the internet for various troubleshooting tips for making homemade vanilla, it seems that the bean did just fine.

Ingredients

12 tablespoons butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup mashed very ripe bananas
1 vanilla bean
2 cups flour
1/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 10 x 15 x 1 jelly roll pan; set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat butter on medium speed for 30 seconds.

Add white and brown sugars, baking powder, and salt; cream together until fluffy.

Split vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds; discard the pod.

Add egg, mashed bananas, and vanilla bean seeds; beat until well-blended.

Add flour and beat until combined.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour batter into pan and smooth with an offset spatula to even out the top.

Bake for 25 minutes, until the top is totally set and begins to turn golden.

Cool completely in the pan; cut into squares and store in an airtight container between sheets of waxed paper.

Bacon Cheddar Scones

On Route 108 in Highland, Maryland, sits Boarman’s Meat Market. In times past, every community had a market like Boarman’s; a place where the cashiers knew your name (and likely, your business), the butcher wrapped your freshly-cut meats in thick brown paper, the vegetables were grown in your neighbor’s fields, and the fruits arrived from a nearby orchard.

There is no bacon in the world finer than Boarman’s, which cooks and tastes better than any bacon I’ve ever had. During Clarksville Picnic weekends, Aunt Liz has been known to dispatch Mike or Robb with a crisp $20 and instructions to “run and pick up another pound…or two.” Since last summer’s Clarksville Picnic, which was unfortunately canceled due to the biggest thunderstorm in years, I’ve wanted to bring back some Boarman’s bacon and use it in a scone. Last weekend Mike went to Maryland and returned with a cooler, in which two pounds of Boarman’s bacon sat waiting, wrapped in thick brown paper.

Next time, I’d increase the amount of cheddar in this scone, perhaps by as much as another cup.

Ingredients

4 strips bacon, cooked crispy and cooled, crumbled into pieces
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cups plus about 3 tablespoons heavy cream

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

Add butter, cheddar cheese, and salt and cut in with a pastry blender, then blend with your hands until lumps form. You want the mixture to be similar to the coarse-crumb stage of pie crust.

Add bacon and 1/2 cup heavy cream and blend with a spoon. Add 1 tablespoon of additional cream at a time, blending the dough with your hands, until a sticky dough forms.

Dust counter top with flour and turn dough out, patting into an 8-inch circle that is about one inch thick.

Cut into wedges and place on baking sheet, at least one inch apart; brush tops with additional heavy cream.

Bake for 23-25 minutes, until golden brown.

Remove from oven and cool for a few minutes before serving.

Shortbread Bars

You’d think that someone who isn’t eating sweets for four months wouldn’t torture herself by baking flaky, buttery shortbread studded with miniature semisweet chocolate chips. And yet.

This recipe is an adaptation, in both ingredients and process. The original recipe called for dried cranberries instead of chocolate chips, mixing the dough with a spoon, and then, to my great shock, cutting the finished product into heart shapes and discarding the remaining scraps. Since I had some miniature chocolate chips on hand, I easily substituted those for the cranberries, and I found that rubbing the butter into the dry ingredients with my hands was far easier than using a spoon. As for discarding the remaining scraps, well, only someone who isn’t in their right mind would waste perfectly good shortbread.

Just a few tips for this recipe: you want your butter to be at room temperature, but not too soft. The flour and powdered sugar should be sifted before measuring, which is why this isn’t written “3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted.” And while using your hands will be messy, it will also be infinitely easier than trying to stir the dough together with a spoon.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
2 cups sifted flour
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine butter, powdered sugar, flour, vanilla, and salt.

Using your hands, rub the butter into the dry ingredients until a well-combined and soft dough forms.

Add chocolate chips and, again using your hands, incorporate them into the dough.

Press the dough evenly into an 8 x 8 baking dish.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until firm and pale golden.

Let cool on a wire rack for about 20 minutes.

Invert pan onto a cutting board and cut into squares.

Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Baltimore’s Best

There are two conditions under which I, an avid Steeler fan, can cheer for the Baltimore Ravens: any time they play the New England Patriots, and when they play any team other than the Steelers in the playoffs. You may wonder how a Steeler fan could ever cheer for the Ravens, even one who attended college and lived for some time in the Great State of Maryland. There is a single driving force behind my ability to support our arch nemesis, and his name is Robb Mowery.

Robb is my cousin by marriage; he and my cousin Barb are parents to the adorable Maureen, my goddaughter (who, for her first Halloween, dressed as a Ravens cheerleader). Robb is one of my favorite people ever, even if he has sketchy taste in sports teams. He’s genuine, has a great sense of humor, and would do anything for his family. We enjoy taunting one another throughout football season, and today, I’m happy for him because the Ravens have made it to the Super Bowl for the second time. Robb is an extraordinarily devoted fan, so I hope that, for his sake, they win tonight.

The recipe below is an adaptation of the classic Berger cookie, a Baltimore favorite.

Ingredients

Rich Chocolate Icing

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

5 1/3 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup milk

Preparation

Begin by making the icing, so it can cool to a warm room temperature as the cookies bake.

Place sifted powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine chocolate chips, corn syrup, vanilla, and heavy cream.

Heat until very hot and the cream begins to bubble; remove from heat and stir until smooth.

Pour mixture over powdered sugar and beat with a hand mixer until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly while you prepare the cookies.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl, cream together butter, salt, vanilla, and baking powder.

Beat in sugar, followed by the egg.

Add flour and milk alternatively, starting and ending with the flour. Do not over-mix; the lowest mixer setting or a spoon work well.

Using a one-inch cookie scoop, drop dough onto prepared baking sheets, leaving about 2 1/2 inches between each cookie. Lightly wet your fingers and press the cookies into circles.

Bake for 11 minutes, until bottoms are just brown. The tops should not have any color; these cookies are cake-like and should not be over-baked.

Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then cool completely on a wire rack.

When cookies are cool, gently beat the icing to restore a smooth, even texture. Dip the flat bottom of each cookie into the icing, swirling to generously coat. I admit that I dipped half of the cookies on the wrong side, but I’m sure they’ll taste just fine. Once dipped, top the cookies with the remainder of the icing – while it seems like a lot, that’s the point!

Allow icing to set and store cookies in a single layer.

ANZAC Biscuits

Baking and history are two of my favorite things, so when I find a recipe with a great story behind it, I have to give it a try.

ANZAC biscuits originated in World War I, when the families of troops in the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) needed a sturdy treat that could make a successful trip from the kitchens of Sydney or Wellington to the Mediterranean, where ANZAC troops were stationed. This is a hearty cookie, and the finished product is definitely one that could stand up to the tests of shipping halfway around the world. I like to imagine the delight of the men who received packages from home, with letters from their wives and tins of these cookies to give them a smile and the smallest sense of normalcy amid chaos.

ANZAC biscuits are baked with Lyle’s Golden Syrup, which would have been a common pantry staple in the British Commonwealth during World War I. Scottish businessman Abram Lyle discovered that after sugar cane was refined it produced a syrup that could be further refined and used as a sweetener in cooking and baking. The syrup became wildly popular and by 1922 was even used by the British royal family. I bought my golden syrup at Soergel Orchards, but for those outside of the Pittsburgh area, it is also available online from King Arthur Flour.

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup shredded coconut
12 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons Lyle’s Golden Syrup
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons boiling water

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line three baking sheets with foil or parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, and coconut.

In a small saucepan, melt butter and syrup together.

Place baking soda in a small glass measuring cup and carefully add the boiling water, one tablespoon at a time; stir to combine.

Add the baking soda water to the melted butter and syrup, stirring to combine.

Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine; you may need to use your hands to fully incorporate the ingredients.

Using a two-inch cookie scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets and flatten with your hand.

Bake for about 15 minutes, until cookies are golden brown and firm, but not hard.

Note: the dough begins to harden once the butter cools, so it is best to scoop and place on baking sheets immediately after mixing.

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