Please Sir, May I have S’more

I know, I know, s’mores were so last summer. All summer I just kept thinking I should make one of the many s’mores cookies or s’mores bars out there but I never got to it. This was a good one to flex my baking muscle though! They were a shortbread cookie with a layer of chocolate and a layer of marshmallow. They were topped with a little cookie crumble.
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I made these for my bookclub ladies when I also served them calzones and I knew my colleague Ms. K deserved one after breaking some hearts at work for the youth program.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2  cups chocolate chips
3 cups miniature marshmallows

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degree F. Spray an 8 inch square baking pan.
Beat butter and sugar until well blended in large bowl. Add egg and vanilla; beat well.
Slowly add flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder, and salt, beating until blended.
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Press half of dough in prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes.
smores_baked_590_390Sprinkle chocolate chips over baked layer then sprinkle with marshmallows.
Scatter bits of remaining dough over marshmallows, forming top layer.
Bake 10 to 15 minutes or just until lightly browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. 16 bars.
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I liked that these weren’t overly sweet but the gooeyness of the marshmallows made these a fun treat. They’re also a great cookie bar I think everyone would like.

Swappin’ Cookies

I think this is the last of my holiday items to catch you up on. Do you have today off? Great! Make some of these cookies! If you’re working today then just stay tuned this week for a guest blog recipe post and a calzone!

I love all the cookies that come along with the holidays. Growing up I don’t think I realized how lucky I was that Mum made so many cookies, from scratch. I thought everyone was so lucky.

Normally when cookie swaps are mentioned everyone groans and isn’t into consuming more calories this time of year so I think I haven’t been to one since 2008? Wow.
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Ms. L invited me to one at Flour that is also a fundraiser for Cradles to Crayons. I’m so glad I took on the challenge but brining cookies to Flour Bakery? Talk about pressure! Let’s also talk about the recipe I chose considering I don’t bake very often: Apple Oatmeal Toffee Drop Cookies. Go ahead, you can laugh.

I made a sugar cookie base thinking I’d make some more cookies soon afterwards…what was I thinking? During packing, buying the house, and preparing to move all during the holidays, I had no time.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar (I used granulated brown sugar)
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup quick oats
1 green apple, chopped
1/2 cup toffee bits

Directions

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
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Cut in butter and sugars together.  Add egg and vanilla, and mix until well incorporated.
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Add oatmeal and apple and stir by hand until combined.
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Form dough into ping-pong sized balls. Form an indent on the top and fill with toffee bits (see the top row). Cover the toffee with the dough from the sides of the well (see the bottom row).
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Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges start to turn golden brown. Then transfer to a cooling rack.

I made a double batch since we were asked to bring 2-4 dozen. These suckers had lots of butter, brown sugar, and oatmeal. I mixed in granny smith apples but filled them with toffee bits. I think the apple did a lot to keep them soft and the toffee melts so much faster and might leave these with burn toffee oozes if it isn’t stuck in the middle.

Baking a double batch and filling each cookie was a test of my patience. I tried to just go slow and make them all perfect. They came out awesome but baking cookies is hard work! I had 2 trays going and my apt oven was terribly uneven. Two timers, fifty million cookies, and creative cooling racks I was done and ready for the swap. (Mine are in the middle in the back).
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There were some awesome cookies at the swap. I had to admit there were a few I thought were below par. I’d never bring chocolate chip cookies to a swap unless they were perfectly cooked and the best ever…these weren’t.
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I was hoping Joanne Chang would talk more about baking, about Flour, about holiday cookies, etc. She talked about why they hosted this event again but I would have liked to hear about her cookbook or her favorite goodies. She had made Butter Breton Cakes that she was testing for her next cookbook.  They were reallllly good.
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Foolproof Black Forest Bread Pudding

As you know, I’m not really a baker. This is a fool-proof dessert that will really wow everyone. It’s really rich and chocolaty. The cherries add a nice touch without too much of a chocolate and fruit combo.
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Ingredients

8 slices of pumpernickel rye bread (without seeds)
3 tsp butter, melted
1 cup dark cherries, pitted
1 ½ cups chocolate chips
½ tsp cinnamon
¾ cup sugar
6 eggs, beaten
3 cups heavy whipping cream

Directions

Cut bread into 2” cubes
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Mix bread chunks with with melted butter in a 9×9 baking pan.
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In a double boiler, melt 1 cup of the chocolate chips with sugar and whipping cream.
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Sprinkle the remaining chips and the cherries in with the bread chunks.
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Remove chocolate from heat and slowly mix eggs into the chocolate/cream mixture.
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Pour over bread and cheeries in the baking dish.
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Let sit in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight.
Bake 60 minutes at 350-degrees until the center has set.
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Serve warm.

Fun fact: pumpernickel bread has cocoa in it! Who knew? I didn’t for awhile but when you think about it, cocoa isn’t sweet on it’s own. If you are serving extremely picky eaters I would leave that fun fact until after they’ve tried it.
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This is an easy make-ahead dessert. I don’t even think you can over cook it! You can definitely add more bread and more eggs/cream in proportion. There should be enough liquid that the bread only peeks out but everything is covered.

Watch Out Now: Food Truck Critique

If you’re not too fooded out from the holiday, here’s a wordy nugget about a fun fall activity. On a whirlwind weekend I managed to fit in my first ever Food Truck Festival. I’m an avid watcher of the Great Food Truck Raceand I enjoy food trucks whenever I can. I was SUPER excited about this festival. It was $5 to get in and I thought it was totally worth it.foodtruck_sign_590_390
Once inside the Suffolk Downs racetrack we saw a swarm of people because it also was a race day. I wonder if they throngs of people would have been there if there weren’t races? It was a beautiful day and so fun.

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I scoped out all the trucks before deciding. I’m not picky but I wanted my choice to be a good one.

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I ended up enduring the line at Lobsta Love. This food truck is normally near Harvard. I was 100% NOT impressed and wouldn’t do it again.

I expected a line. I didn’t expect to wait 25 minutes AFTER ordering for my food. Literally. I timed it. I ordered the lobster mac & cheese but unfortunately I didn’t realize it was going to be instant mac & cheese (minus the instant).

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It’s my own fault that I cheaped out. The sliders were $6 each and seemed very small. While spending some quality time in line (15 min or so)  I couldn’t see the menu and didn’t realize till afterwards that if I had chosen a slider I could have gotten the bisque shot for $1 which would have helped a tiny slider seem like enough.

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Mr. J waited in a line, got a crazy hot dog, ate it, and waited some more with me.

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While we waited and waited and waited, bisque came out of the truck, sliders, rolls, etc all came out. No mac & cheese. I was pretty disappointed when I saw the Annie’s Mac & Cheese powder go in. Bummer. I could have done that myself.

A bunch of us all waiting for mac & cheese asked if it was really coming or what. The owner said yes, but we were told it would take awhile when we ordered. I said no, I’d ordered from him and didn’t hear that. He’d give us our money back. I said I’d already put in 20 minutes of waiting after my order so I’d stick it out. I definitely gave him some ‘tude but he didn’t seem to care that we were waiting a pretty exorbitant amount of time. Watch out now sir, The Three Bite Rule was here!

I think he really could have thrown a few bisque shots our way, or opened the baggies of cookies they were selling to appease us. I’ve always felt really well taken care of when eating at Clover…not so much at Lobsta no-Love.

When I finally got my mac & cheese I was disappointed. There was about 1 normal fork-full of lobster split into about 3 bites. They dump some bisque on top of instant mac & cheese. Bahh. Sorry Lobsta no-Love, you weren’t impressive. Did I think you were cooking and cracking lobsters to order? Nope. Doubt it. How could it have taken so long? I still can’t figure it out.

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Now I’m going below the belt: why do they have a facebook page and a twitter account if they don’t use them? I get it you’re busy, but don’t have them if you a) don’t know how to use them or b) don’t bother to use them.

Anywho, the festival got a lot more fun when Mr. J and I discovered a FAST moving line for cookie ice cream sandwiches! Check ‘em out! Also, they know all about using their facebook and twitter accounts.

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We chose a gingerbread cookie with pumpkin ice cream. AMAZING! We split it and it was plenty. The cookie was perfect. It was strong enough to hold the ice cream but soft enough to bite into. The ice cream? Woah. So good.

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What a great idea…and more importanly, they know how to move their line though. Follow them on twitter or facebook (they know how to use ‘em).

Bottom line for food trucks: don’t run with the big dogs if you can’t keep up!

Better Than Ice Cream

Happy almost weekend. Don’t ya just need some ice cream? I could probably go for some ice cream any day, anytime. BUT there’s ice cream, and then there’s gelato. One of my favorite things in Italy is all the gelato. It’s so amazing. I also just looks so much nicer than American ice cream too. I remember how much I loved it the first time I had some in 2011 in Rome.

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It was just as delicious this time. I was also psyched to introduce Mr. J to it. Of course he loved it! He imagined it to be more icy and less creamy than it is.

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Gelato was our “meal” during our six hours exploring in Florence. In Spain we spotted this stick place that had it coated in a hard shell. Mr. J had to try one. Afterwards we kind of felt like just experienced a European tourist trap.

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It wasn’t as good as regular gelato. It also was quite pricey…darn those euros.
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Gelato is so pretty piled high overflowing from the metal containers. I scooped ice cream for a good portion of my high school & college life so I feel qualified to attest that 3 gallon tubs we hung over to scoop from never look this nice.

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The crisp stuck in is the perfect touch for gelato in a bowl. Love it!