Chocolate Chip Dream Bars

Before we start today's post take a look at this article on Kongunadu cuisine by Ranjitha that appeared in Mighty 8, the Coimbatore special anniversary edition of The Times of India, dated February 23.

When we first moved into the farm couple of years ago, we had visitors who came bearing welcome gifts. It is one of those probably quaint customs to invite new neighbors into the area. It is small town living in a predominantly farming community and we did feel welcome.

Anyway one of the welcome gifts we got was these 'Chocolate Chip Dream Bars' and they were extremely tasty. DD2 was sick at that time, DD was off at college so most of them were shamelessly devoured by me. In my defense though when DD2 tasted one she said that she was not that crazy about them. DH as usual probably ate one or two. I have confessed several times that I am the sugar addict so none of this should be surprising. Finally when I ended up baking this DD2 devoured all of them. She did not know why she did not like it the first time.



I got the recipe from the neighbor while she was still our friend. Oh! why us and her are no longer our friends? That was a silly matter to do with our dog and how petty some people really are. It is a story for another day. We learnt quite a bit with the incident though about people, about appearances and how fear of different people (code word for racism) rears its ugliness in bucolic places.

It does not matter but these Bars are terrific and very easy to make if you have grape nuts cereal or flakes. I did not find grape nut flakes in my regular grocery store. So just picked up the Grape Nuts cereal box I found. The texture of the cookies I made were probably slightly denser than the ones she brought home. I used a 8 1/2 * 8 1/2 square pan. Ideal would have been a 13 * 9 pan which meant thicker than it should have been bars.


Here is the recipe in pictures,

Take the Grape Nuts cereal and blend to a slightly coarse powder.
Whisk the eggs. Heat the butter and let it melt.
Take all the dry ingredients and add the melted butter.
Add the chopped nuts. Add in the whisked eggs and mix it in.
Transfer the mixture to a greased pan and smooth out.
Spread the chocolate chops on top and bake in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes.
Cool and cut into desired size bars.

These bars are delicious. I did not realize how tasty grape nuts cereal was. If you have seen the long ingredient list on cereal boxes you will be kind of surprised to see the short list on this one.

The crunch in these cereal also adds to the texture and the slightly crunchy texture of these bars. Leave out the chocolate chips or just use a third of it, these could very well be good enough for breakfast bars.

Chocolate Chip Dream Bars
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients

1. 1 cup White Whole Wheat Flour
2. 1 1/2 Cups of Grape Nuts Cereal / Grape Nuts Flakes
3. 1/2 tsp baking powder
4. 3/4 cup melted butter (I used salted)
5. 1/2 tsp salt (if using unsalted butter)
6. 1 tsp vanilla
7. 1 cup raw sugar
8. 1 cup chopped nuts (I used roasted Pecans)
9. 1 cup chocolate chips - I used milk chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. If using grape nut flakes, crush them with your hands, if using grape nuts cereal and use a blender to get a coarse powder.
3. In a sauce pan melt the butter and set it aside to cool a little bit.
4. Whisk the eggs and keep them ready.
5. In a mixing bowl add the whole wheat flour, raw sugar, baking salt,powdered Grape Nuts cereal and whisk them together.
6. Add the vanilla and melted butter and mix it into the flour.
7. Add the chopped nuts and mix, add the whisked eggs and mix them all together to form a texture like wet sand.
8. Transfer mix to a greased 13 x 9 pan(I used a 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 pan)and spread the chocolate chips on top.
9. Bake in a preheated oven for 30 - 35 minutes. Cool and cut into desired sized shapes.

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Bourbon Biscuits (using Whole Wheat flour)

Christmas is around the corner means cookies and cakes. Baking requires accuracy and that is not one of my strengths. So the next best thing is to keep away from baking. But with cookies appearing everywhere - in blogs, in newspaper food supplements, in cooking books distributed by grocery stores, I got into the mood to try some of course after being asked everyday for cookies to be baked helps too. I settled on these Bourbon cookies which were in the Washington Post Christmas Cookies supplement - had a very few ingredients and I had all of them on hand.

If you think I accomplished this cookie baking session without any drama you are mistaken. The recipe called for a stick of butter. You'd think that would be an easy proposition. Nope! While the regular stick of butter is 8 tbsp, the fat stick of butter that I had was 16 tbsp. :(. Should have known this but I blissfully proceeded with the recipe which resulted in a sticky mess which could not be rolled. I assumed that the recipe writer had made some mistakes and decided to stick the dough in the fridge to harden a little bit. It is butter after all - it will harden after some time in the fridge certainly! While that was happening I decided to recheck the wrapper to count the number of tbsps in my big stick! Duh! of course it was lot more than a normal American stick of butter.

Nothing to worry about though! Ended up with a few more biscuits than planned but then again when is that a bad thing? I will give you the original recipe because my measurements were reverse calculated to accommodate the excess butter. These were the crispiest, freshest and tastiest cookies we have ever tasted. If you are procrastinating you should give these a try for sure. Be assured if I can bake them you can too.

DH2 had bought cookie cutters and wanted to use those. Who said bourbon cookies can't be any shape you want it to be? The dough is perfectly conducive to making shapes. I did not have super fine sugar to dust on the cookies which would have made them look pretty and festive. I was not going to postpone cooking making for that, then it will never get done. One other thing, I did not have the namesake bourbon at home either. A dash of Vanilla would work just fine

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Now on to the recipe in pictures first,

Combine the butter and sugar and beat with a mixer for about 3 minutes till light and fluffy.
Combine cocoa powder, flour and salt and add to the creamed butter. Beat on slow speed or use a spatula to mix to form a evenly chocolate dough.
Place the dough on to a slightly dusted with flour board and with a rolling pin roll it to about 1/8 inch thickness more or less. Cut into rectangular strips. Use a bamboo skewer to make a line of 3 holes. Dust with sugar.
Transfer to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper as you are cutting them, and bake in a preheated 350F oven for 5-15 minutes till the cookies are just firm.
Cool the biscuits on wire racks. Prepare the filling. Apply filling for half the number of cookies and make sandwiches by placing the other half on top.

Recipe Source: Washington Post - Christmas Cookies - Bourbon Biscuits
Bourbon Biscuits
Preparation Time:20-25 minutes
Baking Time:15 minutes
Ingredients

1. 11 tbsps of unsalted butter (at room temperature)
2. 1 heaping tbsp of cocoa powder
3. 1/2 cup of turbinado sugar
4. 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour, plus more for the rolling board
5. a pinch of kosher salt
6. super fine sugar for dusting (optional)
For the filling
7. 8 tbsp of unsalted butter at room temperature
8. 1 3/4 cups of confectioner's sugar
9. 1/2 cup of cocoa powder (unsweetened)
10. 2 tsp of milk
11. 2 tsp of bourbon
12. Note:I used salted butter so skipped the salt. I used white whole wheat flour, feel free to use any flour of choice.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
2. Take the butter and sugar and beat with an electric beater or standing mixer till it nice and fluffy.
3. Combine together flour, cocoa powder and whisk them together so it is well mixed.
4. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and in a lower speed combine to form a stiff dough. I used a hand held electric mixture for beating the butter so used a spatula to mix the butter and the flour to form a evenly chocolate dough.
5. Dust a cutting board or a work surface and transfer the dough and using a rolling pin gently roll out the dough so it is even thickness of about 1/8 inches or so. You should be able to make 24 rectangles of even size of about 1 1/4 by 2 inches. Using a skewer make holes in a line on the cut cookie.
6. Transfer the cut cookies to the cookie sheet and dust with the super fine sugar or the same turbinado sugar.
7. Bring the excess dough back together and roll and cut as many pieces.
8. Bake for 5-15 minutes till it becomes firm. Transfer to a wire rack for cooling.
For the Filling
9. Combine the butter and confectioner's sugar in a standing mixer bowl or using an electric beater. Beat till nice and fluffy.
10. Add in the cocoa powder, milk and bourbon if using and in a slow speed combine them to make a smooth filling.
Fix the cookies
11. Turn over half the number of the baked, cooled cookies and apply the filling. Place the other half on top.

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Lemon Cookies

I was not entirely surprised or shocked to see this news couple of days ago, Early exposure to peanuts helps prevent allergies in kids. Duh! It seems half the world already knew this before the so called developed countries.

When DD was about couple of weeks or may be it was a couple of months old we took her to the pediatrician and when we were talking about gas and stuff, she asked me about my diet. For all this the doctor was South Asian - either from India or SriLanka. To avoid flatulence in the baby, she asked me to stay off dal, any cruciferous vegetables - cabbages, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cauliflower and also root vegetables. Left me wondering what exactly I was supposed to eat and my mother scratching her head as what to cook. How are you supposed to eat well when everything was in the avoid list?

Mom mentioned that back home they encourage mothers to introduce all kinds of foods to the babies when they are ready to eat solid food. I am not particularly certain about peanuts but I know for sure eggs, milk and nuts are not off limits. This is so the babies' intestines learn to adapt to all kinds of foods. Makes sense. Probably also explains why peanut, milk and nut allergies are mostly uncommon over there. There might be a few exceptions of course.

DD and DD2 for the first year of their life were taken care of by their grandmothers, which meant they were fed foods that they knew(the grandmothers knew I mean) and that turned out to be a good thing.

So folks who think that conventional thinking in the US is correct don't bet on it. It usually takes multiple studies and research to come to the conclusion about diet what the rest of the world already knows through experience and knowledge.

Well anyway that is that. On the other hand as far as baking goes, US is in the forefront of all the related gadgets and techniques. No worries there.

So why lemon cookies? Here is the story.

Lemon is the star in these cookies

We had a late morning meeting at one software company office. They had the lot of the usual breakfast pastries to munch on and gain a few calories. For people like me who cannot resist sweet stuff, this is generally a bad thing. Anyway it is not entirely appropriate to look the gift horse in the mouth. So I won't comment on the nature of the food.

Anyway the piece of cake which looked like pound cake but yellower caught my eye. It was Lemon Pound Cake and absolutely delicious and of course the yellow color was probably due to the addition of food coloring. The urge to try out lemon pound cake became strong. I picked up a few lemons from the store for the express purpose of trying out the pound cake.

When it came down to it I wanted to try something else interesting with lemon and I remembered this recipe I had seen on Martha Stewart. Whatever we think of Martha Stewart, one thing is certain her recipes are precise and they rarely fail.

If I can bake with success anybody can. The glaze on the other hand, I did not follow the recipe exactly and instead of a glaze I got a pudding like consistency and with lemon juice being in excess of the sugar a nice tart taste.

Recipe in pictures,

Mix the dry ingredients together - flour,soda, lemon zest and salt. Cream together butter and sugar using an electric egg beater till it is nice and fluffy. Add the egg and whisk it for couple more minutes.
Add in the lemon juice. Now transfer the butter mixture to the flour.
Mix the butter and flour using the egg beater till they look crumbly. Then using a spatula mix them together completely.
Place a tbsp of the dough onto cookie sheets separated by at least 1 inch and bake in the preheated 350F oven for 12-15 minutes till it starts browning at the edges.
Let the cookies cool on a wire rack. Prepare the glaze.
Apply the glaze on the cookie and cool for an hour.

With a hint of lemon and the lemony glaze make these cookies a delight to eat.

Lemon is the star in these cookies

Lemon Cookies
Preparation Time:20 minutes
Cooking Time:15 minutes
Ingredients

1. 1 cup whole wheat white flour (leveled measurement)
2. 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour (leveled measurement)
3. a little less than 1 cup of sugar, I used fine cane sugar(recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar)
4. 1/2 cup or 8 tbsp butter (mine was salted) preferably at room temperature
5. a pinch of salt(since I had used salted butter) else 1/2 tsp salt
6. 1/2 tsp baking soda
7. 1 egg (I used medium sized egg)
8. 1 tsp of lemon zest( recipe called for 1 tbsp) (see note:)
9. 1/4 cup lemon juice
10. Note:I find that lemon jest tastes bitter so I do not use too much, if you like the taste use the full 1 tbsp.

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Using an electric egg beater which works best or whisk, cream together the butter and sugar till it nice and fluffy.
3. Add the egg and beat for a minute more, followed by the lemon juice mix it in well.
4. In a wide mouthed mixing bowl take the flour, salt, lemon zest and baking soda and whisk together.
5. Transfer the contents of the butter mixture to the flour and run the egg beater a couple so it is look crumbly but more or less mixed.
6. Using a spatula, mix the dry and wet ingredients till they come together.
7. Prepare a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and drop about 1 tbsp of dough leaving an inch between them. (see note:)
8. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes till the edges start turning golden.(see note:)
9. Cool for about 5 minutes and then if desired glaze the cookies(take a spoon and drizzle the glaze on the cookies) and cool again for about an hour or more.
Note:
10. Rolling the dough between the palm of your hands into round shapes make the cookies turn out even shaped and round after baking.
11. The time more or less depends on the oven. In mine at 14 minutes they were already starting to turn golden. The recipe says 15-20 minutes. So it is good to check at 12 or 14 minutes.

For the Glaze

1. 2 cups of confectioners sugar (I used 1/4 cup)
2. 1/3 cup of lemon juice (I used 1/3 cup)
3. All the recipe requires is to mix the two together.
4. I on the other hand, heated the sugar and the lemon juice on the stove till they become a little bit thick. If you
   use this method the glaze will be sticky but extremely lemony.

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