Meringue...Brownies?

Aaaaaand we're back! Back to the Cake Boss cookbook. I'm just powering through this thing. Next on the list was Chocolate Brownie Clusters. I was pretty excited about these because I wanted to try something that was less cookie and more brownie for a change. And, even more fun, this recipe only has five ingredients! Exciting, right?

The other exciting thing about this recipe is that I actually get to use some real techniques other than creaming or stirring. In fact, I had the opportunity to use the whisk attachment on my brand new, totally awesome KitchenAid Mixer. The reason for that is because the bulk of the body of this "dough" is whipped egg whites. That was step one. Whip egg whites and a bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice (yes, I did buy a lemon and yes, I did get lemon juice in a cut on my finger) until the egg whites form stiff peaks. I actually have some experience in this area. Fun fact: don't try whipping refrigerated egg whites from a carton if trying to form stiff peaks. I didn't do that this time but I've tried before and it just doesn't work. Just a note for anyone out there who reads this and feels inspired to bake. Anyone? Anyone?

While the egg whites were being whipped into a frenzy, I was instructed to sift powdered sugar and cocoa into a bowl together. For once, I actually did this. Let me explain why. At this point, I realized that these were going to be more meringue than brownie so I decided that everything had to be rather delicately done so as to not ruin my lovely whipped egg whites. So I sifted. And that went fine, although I'm not sure I know how to properly clean my sifter. After that, I had to fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites. My mommy taught me how to fold ingredients many, many years ago and has reinforced the idea many times since so I was a pro at folding the ingredients. Then I just had to fold in a bunch of walnuts and voila! Done! I was actually supposed to use walnut halves but all I had were chopped walnuts so hopefully that won't make too big a difference.

At this point, the batter looked...well, for lack of a better term, weird. It was all combined but it was kind of loose and thin and I started to worry that I did something wrong. After consulting the book, I found this passage "The batter looks like an unholy, goopy-gooey mess." Hmm. Well, I guess that means I'm on the right track? I continued reading to find "When you make these, you might even think you did something wrong." It's like Buddy knows me! However, then he goes on to talk about these cookies turning from ugly ducklings to perfect swans and he lost me a little bit there by sounding slightly crazy.

Sorry this is so uneventful and boring. Maybe I'm actually getting good at this sort of stuff! (Don't worry, some crazy looking recipes are coming up soon in this book.) Anyway, I had to drop "heaping tablespoons" of batter onto the pan, making sure to include about the same number of walnuts in each one. I didn't check the number of walnuts in each cookie at all. I am just not that meticulous. From there, I just had to bake until the outside had crisped and the bottom started to pull away from the parchment paper. Straightforward. And for once, the cooking time seemed right. Maybe it's because this time I just baked one pan at a time instead of two. Perhaps that makes a difference.

Anyway, when the cookies came out, they were in fact crispy on the top. One of the ones that I poked to test actually sort of collapsed in on itself. But the description is correct; these cookies really are more meringue than brownie but they still have the distinct taste of brownie. It's a very odd cookie. Good though. I would probably use fewer walnuts in the future but without the walnuts, I'm not sure if the cookies would have much flavor. Overall, success! Take a look:

By the way, YEAH GIANTS! SUPER BOWL CHAMPS!

A Disney Moment: Jungle Book
Ah, Jungle Book. A classic for sure. I was really looking forward to watching this one because I remember loving it as a kid. I mean, you've got "Bare Necessities", Baloo, the quartet of vultures! But sadly, it didn't hold up to my expectations. I find myself talking a lot about flow when it comes to these movies (and that is honestly unplanned but apparently is crucial to a good film) and Jungle Book had bad flow. Nothing really dragged you into the plot or the characters and the whole movie seemed to meander a bit. Considering the movie is based on a collection of short stories, I suppose this shouldn't surprise me but I would have liked more of a driving force in the film.

There are some scenes I love. The aforementioned "Bare Necessities", for one. I also love the idea of King Louie and his scat-inspired song "I Wanna Be Like You". I adore Phil Harris's voice as Baloo (and then later as Thomas O'Malley and as Little John). But overall, the film didn't hold my attention well. I thought Sher Khan (the tiger) was a really interesting character that I wanted to see develop more but alas, it was not to be. As a result, a 3/5. Which, by the way, should probably tell you something about this group of five that this one was good enough for a three.

Peanuuuuuts...(I'm Quoting Duck Soup Here)

Ok, well, not really peanuts. Peanut butter. I was just thinking about the scene with the peanut vendor in Duck Soup (that's the Marx Brothers for anyone who has not yet experienced the glory of that film). That's right, I've returned to the Cake Boss cookbook and resumed baking with Peanut Butter cookies. Recall, I have made peanut butter cookies in the past. They were good. They even had chocolate drizzle on them. These cookies, however, do not have a million tiny Reese's cups that I have to unwrap and chop up. These have milk chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's backtrack.

We start the baking with some peanut butter and Crisco. Last time that I worked with sticky stuff, I lined the measuring cup with wax paper. Now, while this was effective, I was too lazy to do that this time. Instead, I just used two spoons: one to scoop and one to scrape. This worked pretty well, with one exception. I almost ran out of peanut butter! Who runs out of peanut butter? It's a staple in every household! And I certainly was not going to go out to the store and buy more. Ludicrous. So, it took a good deal of scraping the sides of the jar but I ended up getting juuuuuuust enough peanut butter. Next, I had to scoop in some Crisco using the same method. Not a problem. Here we run into another small problem though. I had been using the 1/4 cup measure for the peanut butter and the Crisco. The third ingredient to be mixed in was 1/4 cup of brown sugar. I didn't want to clean the 1/4 cup. I know, I know, I'm super lazy. You're right. So what did I do? Why, I filled a 1/2 cup halfway, of course! Specific measurements be damned, I was not cleaning that 1/4 cup.

After that, I had to add in one [extra large] egg. Easy. The book recommends periodically scraping the sides of the bowl during mixing and even specifies when scraping should be performed. And it's good advice. Scraping the bowl revealed all sorts of non-combined stuff. Good call, Cake Boss. My praise of the Cake Boss ends there though. You'll see why in a minute.

But first, a story about opening a can of sweetened, condensed milk. I got out my church key can opener and poked two holes into the can. This caused the condensed milk to ooze aggressively out of those two holes in the process. Ok, not the end of the world. But then I tried pouring. It's like trying to pour honey. It's slow and I'm impatient. So, I got out the real can opener. After carving off the top of the can (and of course, making a mess), I poured the contents into the bowl and scraped it with my spatula. And made a mess. Why am I always making messes out of simple tasks?

After adding the rest of the ingredients (flour, baking powder, chocolate chips and peanut butter chips), I had to divide the dough into cookies. Hmm, I just noticed that there wasn't any salt in this recipe. How unusual. Anyway, I was instructed to flour a work surface (which is never a good sign), divide the dough in half, and roll half the dough into a 20 inch long cylinder with a 1 inch diameter. Sure. Because I'm so good at that. Oh, and did I mention that the dough is sticky? Because, you know, it's peanut butter? Good stuff. To make things even more complicated, these cookies have a very high chip to dough ratio. Meaning, once I started to roll the dough, it would break apart and chocolate or peanut butter chips would come tumbling out of the middle of the cylinder. I legitimately don't know how I could have avoided this. There were just too many chips. I shudder to think what would have happened if I added the optional 1/2 cup of peanuts!

Anyway, eventually, I got a cylinder-like shape that may or may not have been the dimensions specified. As we know, I am not a good judge of lengths. From there, I had to slice the cylinder into 1 inch slices (like slice and bake cookies). Then I had to roll the slices in my hands to make a ball, press down to flatten to half inch thickness and put on the baking pans that had been previously prepared with parchment paper. Wow, tongue twister. Say it three times fast: previously prepared with parchment paper. I wonder if any of you just tried.

Bake cookies for approximately 8 minutes until edges are a light golden brown. I'm sorry but I think the cooktimes in this cookbook are way off. I ended up baking the cookies for 12 minutes and not only did the edges never brown but the bottoms were only slightly brown. Recall, I ran into this same problem with the double chocolate chip cookies. I know that the Cake Boss is used to baking in bulk but I'm starting to suspect that the conversions are not quite working out for home baking. I'll stick with it a little while longer but be it known: I'm wary of these recipes.

On the bright side of life, the cookies ended up tasting pretty good (for peanut butter cookies, which I'm not overly fond of) but they weren't as good as the other peanut butter cookies I made. Also, for once, the recipe made cookies that were not gigantic! Admittedly, I made them a little smaller than the recipe suggested but they're very cute bite-size cookies. See for yourself:

A Disney Moment: Sword in the Stone
Ugh. 5/5, 5/5, 5/5. I wish I could rate it lower. It was awful. I honestly can't find any redeeming qualities. People talk about the battle being a triumph in animation and maybe it was, but by then I felt like I was trapped in some sort of animation torture chamber. Every time the kid turned into another animal, my sister and I audibly groaned. We started inventing new directions the story could have gone in. I think it would've been better if he pulled the sword out of the stone about halfway through the movie and we got to see his attempt to rule a kingdom as a child with Merlin's help. But he didn't. Instead we got an hour of "education is important! You should be educated!" which was a lesson that had sunk in for the kid after the first iteration. This movie is actually in the running for my least favorite Disney film of all time (though, I'm sure that title will be challenged when we get to the more recent stuff). Awful.

Double Chocolate Chip Showdown

Welcome back! Today I continued powering through the Baking with the Cake Boss cookbook. The second recipe in the book is for Double Chocolate Chip cookies. I was excited to try these and compare them to the Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge cookies in the Death By Chocolate cookbook. Those cookies were basically magic so I was having trouble imagining a cookie being any better than those. So let's begin and find out, shall we? 

Step one was the usual creaming of butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the smell of brown sugar? Seriously, the second I open the bag, I start to smile. It's pretty much like crack to me. Happy happy brown sugar. Yes, I know I'm crazy, moving on. Step two was adding the cocoa, extra-large egg, and vanilla extract. Buddy mentions the importance of using good cocoa in recipes. He specifies a couple brands I've never heard of but said that it's really where you should spend your money to get good quality. So, I decided to splurge and get Ghirardelli cocoa (which was the only option in the store besides Hershey's). I also now have extra-large eggs so I didn't even need to substitute for those. So far so good.  There was a slight glitch with the vanilla today. I used up the last of one of those tiny bottles of vanilla extract so I had to open up the big bottle that I have. I'm not sure why but it didn't pour nicely. I was holding it upside down and it was barely drizzling out. It was very odd. And yes, I did remove the protective paper stuff from the top of the bottle. This may continue to be a mystery to be explored further at a later date. 

Oh! I totally forgot to mention something super important! Santa brought me a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas!!! So this was my first chance to use my brand new, super shiny, totally awesome KitchenAid mixer. The MixMaster has been retired to the basement. It served me admirably these past few months but it was time for something more advanced for some more advanced baking. I was especially excited that the KitchenAid has a big whisk for whipping egg whites and a dough hook. The possibilities are endless! 

Ok, geekout over. The next step was to add two tablespoons of whole milk. Yeah, I definitely don't have whole milk. I'm more of a skim milk sort of person. However, here is what Buddy has to say on the subject: "If you have a preference for low- or reduced-fat milk, I respect that, but I encourage you to use whole milk in your baking if at all possible. The final product will taste better, and that fat helps bind the ingredients." Duly noted. That does make some sense so maybe in the future I'll consider buying some whole milk for my baking. Any thoughts from my readers on that one? Is it like the difference between salted and unsalted butter where I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter? 

Next step was adding the flour and baking powder which was uneventful. Finally, just added some semisweet chocolate chips and was ready to go with the baking. I was instructed to break the dough into small pieces and roll them in my hands to make meatball-size balls. Really? Meatball size? Big meatballs or little meatballs? What are non-Italians supposed to do with such a direction? Additionally, is it really necessary to roll them into balls so that my hands are a mess? Couldn't I have just used a spoon to measure out the cookies? So many questions! Now, the recipe was supposed to yield 24 cookies. I strongly disagreed with that assessment. I made 37 cookies instead. If I had made 24 cookies, they would have been gigantic and that would have been silly. 

Bake until flat and hot. Wait, really? Bake until HOT? That is perhaps one of the stupidest directions I've ever read in a cookbook besides "Do not overbake." Of course they're going to be hot, they're in an oven! Also, the cookies did not entirely flatten out. Which makes me wonder how they would have cooked if I had them made them the prescribed size. Plus, I was instructed to "not leave in the oven for more than 15 minutes, no matter what." Cake Boss is a little bossy. Anywho, I tried one and I think they were actually a little bit underbaked (so I left the second batch in more than 15 minutes and screw the directions!). I'm going to declare that they're not quite as good as the Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge cookies. They're a bit more cakey and are pretty sweet whereas the Deep Dark cookies were more, well, deep and dark in flavor. As far as looks go, they look like Double Chocolate Chip cookies. See for yourself: 

Critical Reception: 

I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on the butter cookies. I still think they're delicious. Not that many people ate them. One person said that these were good but the butterscotch cookies were still the best cookies he has ever had. Ever. Which I consider to be a high compliment so happy!

A Disney Moment: Sleeping Beauty

Onward to the next group of 5 films! This grouping includes Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats. In a somewhat controversial decision, I will be ranking Sleeping Beauty as a 2/5. However, I will say that Sleeping Beauty ranks a 1/5 in beauty of animation. It really is a beautiful film. Here's some of my other random thoughts: 

The fairies are not the brightest. Seriously, hide the princess through all of her birthday! Lie about when her birthday is so that you don't have to use magic to make a birthday cake! Don't let her wander off alone on her birthday! Anything! Yes, yes, I know that without these poor choices, we wouldn't have a movie but it still bugged me. My sister and I (but mostly my sister) were also bothered by the prince's disproportionate hands. Otherwise, the prince was much better animated than other princes but his hands were way too big for his tiny arms. I also didn't really care for the time that was spent on the kings of the two kingdoms chatting. Ok, those were the negatives. 

There were many positives though. I like the personalities of the faires. I think that for the brief times that we see Aurora and the prince, they are good characters. The music is awesome. I like Once Upon a Dream, the other choral pieces were kind of forgettable, and the adaptation of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty score fits well and is beautiful. Tchaikovsky is the shit. I could listen to his music all day. Let's see, what else? Oh, Maleficient is absolutely fantastic. She is terrifying to an epic proportion, and not just when she's a dragon either. I love her character design. She puts the evil queen in Snow White to shame in terms of pure evil. So overall, an excellent movie and very very close to a number one ranking but the couple of negatives brought it down just a hair. 

There's a New Boss in Town

Here I am, back again, as promised. In a fit of insanity, the day after finishing the turtle cookies, I decided that I needed to bake again. One of my Christmas gifts this year was a cookbook called Baking with the Cake Boss written by, of course, TLC's Cake Boss. Another example of bad tv I watch pretty religiously. Despite never having been to Carlo's Bakery, I've heard good things from people who have gone and watching the show is like magic to me because of the artistry that comes out of completely edible materials. I aspire to create one of those crazy looking, beautiful cakes. However, I'm not nearly there. It'll be a while.

This book is a pretty good read actually. It's written with a sense of humor and practicality and a lot of really helpful hints. Including how to tell if your eggs have gone bad! (You put them in a cup of water. If they float, they're bad.) As a result, I was really looking forward to starting through this cookbook. In the introduction, Buddy recommends cooking straight through this cookbook in order because the recipes at the beginning help you develop techniques used in the later recipes. Alright, Buddy. First stop: Butter Cookies.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I just made butter cookies very recently and made the fun shapes like Christmas trees and camels etc etc and they were delicious so what can be gained from baking this recipe? Well, you'll see. The recipe is completely different from the Joy of Cooking recipe for butter cookies. First off, some of the ingredients are very specific. For example, Buddy only uses extra-large eggs in his recipes. Hmm. Now, I wasn't about to buy extra-large eggs for one recipe so I consulted a handy dandy conversion table in the back of one of my other new cookbooks and discovered that 4 extra-large eggs=5 large eggs. In the future though, I will have extra-large eggs so as not to make that substitution. I really can't believe I'm going to buy extra-large eggs for use in recipes from only one cookbook. Cake Boss is really gonna cost me some serious money by the end. (No, seriously, he calls for a lot of ingredients and tools that I just don't have.) The second very specific ingredient is for cake flour. I wasn't inclined to substitute this one with all-purpose flour because the recipe specifically said NOT to. Ok, fine. I went out and bought cake flour. I also bought almond paste. I have no idea what almond paste is. I hear it's kind of like marzipan but marzipan is one of the other great mysteries of my life so that's not really a useful reference point.

Ok, enough of all that, let's get to the baking already! First step was (as usual) creaming. But this time, I had to cream butter, sugar, AND almond paste! I had to use 3/4 cup of almond paste. I had bought what I thought was a large tube of almond paste. It was actually rolled up kind of like a stick of butter and was exactly 3/4 cup. Happy! Also, the recipe called for 4 sticks of unsalted butter. There was a stick and slightly less than a stick of unsalted butter in my fridge and I was too lazy to look for any more. So I substituted 1 and 7/8 sticks of unsalted butter and 2 and 1/8 stick of salted butter for the 4 sticks of unsalted. I'm pretty sure that one won't matter. The combining of ingredients went fine. Nothing too exciting to report. But here comes the hard part. Buddy doesn't want me to simply spoon the cookies out of the dough. He wants me to pipe them into fun shapes with a piping bag.

Disaster. We only had a polyurethane piping bag in the house. And butter cookie dough is notoriously greasy. I think you can see where I'm going with this. The recipe suggested piping 2 and a half inch circles of dough but didn't specify the thickness. I measured out my first cookie and decided that 2 and a half inches was too big for one cookie. From there I just eyeballed it. However, piping is hard. The dough was too cold so it was only manageable by the time I got to the end of the bag. It hurt my hands. My hands kept sliding off the bag because, inevitably, my hands got covered in the dough. It was just a disheartening mess. Really, I should have been using a canvas bag with a dough that thick but live and learn, right? Anyway, after much hand cramping and cursing, I finished two trays of circle cookies. And had only used about a third of the dough.

After baking (and deciding that the future cookies should be a bit thicker), I decided to get creative with the later batches. I made some hearts, some straight line cookies, and some Christmas tree cookies. Then I discovered the most awesome shape of all to pipe: Mickey Mouse heads. It's so easy! It's just two small circles and one big circle! And, in my frustrated state, I was excited to not have to maneuver the piping bag much. I just had to point and squeeze until the circle was the right size. So, as a result, most of my cookies are Mickey Mouse and that makes me quite happy. Here they are, to bring a smile to your day:

The taste is interesting. You can definitely tell it's a butter cookie but the almond flavor is much more prevalent. I think I would probably cut the almond paste just a little bit if I ever make these again. They're definitely still yummy though and I departed from my usual tradition of just having one cookie and ate about five. The consensus in my family was that they weren't as good as the green cookie press cookies but they were better than the red and plain colored cookie press cookies. Don't look at me like that. They taste different, I swear! Next time, I'm dyeing the whole batch green. So there.

Critical Reception: 
Besides thinking that the pecan turtles were cute, people really thought they were yummy. In a head to head comparison with the white chocolate macadamia cookies, the turtles won as far as taste went. That said, I don't really think I'd make them again. Too annoying to make, even if they are cute.

A Disney Moment: Lady and the Tramp
And here we are folks, at the winner for this group of five: Lady and the Tramp. I'll be honest, this was a surprise for me. I remembered liking the movie as a kid but it never garnered the same enthusiasm as Alice or Peter. Plus, I'm not wild about the "He's a Tramp" song. But wow, here's a movie that just got it right.

The animation is beautiful. I really thought it was an animation leap from Peter Pan to Lady and the Tramp. Now, I'm not a dog person (at all) but when I saw Lady as a little puppy and their heartwarming attempts to discipline her into staying in her bed, I just melted. I know exactly what kind of dog I want now. An animated puppy. My sudden love of animated puppies aside, the movie is well paced, the characterization of all the dogs we encounter is charming, and we get to see a really delightful romance develop. For a "kid's movie", there's a lot of adult themes as far as the relationship goes, particularly when Lady hears about all the other dogs that Tramp has been with.

The horror elements were back in the film as well, particularly with the rat in the baby's bedroom. The tension really builds well to that scene. And how about when the one dog in the pound goes to take "the long walk"? Aaaaah! That was pretty messed up. But of course, it all comes back to Bella Notte. That scene affected me more than I thought it would (because it's so famous and I knew it was coming) but it still had charm and romance and it made me smile. The whole movie from start to finish was engaging to me and it really took the cake as the best movie in this group. In fact, it may even be a close tie with Dumbo. It even ended with many adorable little cartoon puppies! So cute! 1/5!