O Canada

It's an emerging tradition in our household that we celebrate the start of the Olympics with food from the host country. This officially started in 2008, with sesame noodles to kick off the Beijing Olympics. I don't remember doing anything specific for Torino in 2006, but then again, we eat a lot of pizza and pasta so it's possible.

So here it is, 2010, the Winter Games are in Vancouver, and I have no idea what would be considered Canadian food. The problem, I think, is that like the United States, Canada is a melting pot of cultures and it is as hard to identify a quintessentially Canadian dish as it is to name one that is strictly American. To make it more difficult, I wanted something from the western provinces to keep as close to the Vancouver theme as possible. This ruled out the only dishes I could think of -- tourtiere and maple syrup pie -- because they were from Quebec and too far east.

After trawling the Internet, I came to a few conclusions: our entree might have to rely on indigenous ingredients (something like bison burgers); fiddlehead ferns are probably unattainable in the Mid-Atlantic states; and if I wanted a truly Canadian dish, I needed to focus on desserts. Desserts like Nanaimo bars, a three-layer no-bake treat that not only originated in British Columbia, but made an Ontarian friend's mouth water when I mentioned I was thinking of making them. Maybe this was a quintessentially Canadian dish.



I started out crushing some graham crackers -- I needed 10 to get the required 1 1/4 c. -- and then chopping the almonds in the food processor. Chopping nuts is always tricky, because if I go too fast I end up with nut paste, but careful pulsing yielded excellent results this time.

I also added a cup of shredded coconut and set it aside.






Then I melted a stick of butter, 1/4 c. sugar, and 5 Tbsp. of cocoa powder in my makeshift double boiler. I don't own a real double boiler, so I usually stack a bowl or a small saucepan on top of another small saucepan and it does the trick. Eventually, I'll get a real one, but this works pretty well.

Next, I needed to combine the melted chocolate with a beaten egg. I followed the advice of The Eclectic Cook, who suggested adding the chocolate to the egg instead of the other way around to avoid curdling. I was still a little worried about whether the egg would be heated enough, so I added a little melted chocolate to warm the egg and then returned it to the makeshift double boiler. This was a mistake: It didn't curdle so much as it mysteriously separated, and after some cursing I scrapped it and started again. This time, I added all the mixture to the egg and used a thermometer to check it was at a safe temperature to proceed. It did make a nice custardy chocolate mix (which also tasted excellent).


Said custardy chocolate mix was then combined with the graham crackers crumbs, finely chopped almonds and coconut. This smelled great, kind of like Girl Scout Samoas.

It also turned into a nice, thick dough, which pressed so easily into an 8 x 8 baking dish. So easily, in fact, that there wasn't any left over to sample.

On to the second layer. I was at first baffled: I had it in my head that this was a custard-like layer, probably because one of the ingredients is 2 Tbsp. of vanilla custard powder (or pudding mix, in the States). But I wasn't thinking straight. Because what do you get from a stick of butter, roughly 3 Tbsp. cream, pudding mix and 2 c. icing (confectioner's) sugar? Holy buttercream, Batman!

I'm not crazy about frostings with lots of confectioner's sugar, so I had some doubts as I spread the buttercream across the base. Keith and Alex, however, were busy licking the frosting off the beaters and assuring me that it was very good.

The last step was to melt 4 oz. of semisweet chocolate with 2 Tbsp. of butter and pour that on top of the buttercream layer, then throw the whole thing in the fridge to chill. Some recipes said for an hour, others said for several. I went with several.

THE VERDICT: An excellent, tasty combination of flavors. I couldn't taste the confectioner's sugar at all. The bottom layer may have smelled like Samoas, but it tasted even better. Four thumbs up. And, when the kids weren't looking this morning, I snuck another one for breakfast. A gold medal winner, indeed.

Mmmm.... minty cookies

It happens to be that excellent time of year known as Girl Scout Cookie Time. Last week I ran into a cookie stand manned by a couple of Brownies I know, and well, a sucker for Thin Mints and her money are soon parted.

I love chocolate. I love mint. I love chocolate mint, and Thin Mints, well... I have been known to eat an entire box of Thin Mints in one sitting, and I think that was the fate I subconsciously planned for the box I bought last week. Alas for me, Alex discovered the box and it turns out he is also a sucker for Thin Mints. Sigh.


That was last week. Today's dilemma: I really wanted to bake something, but was feeling just enough under the weather that it had to be simple, not too hands-on, with just a few ingredients. Maybe a bar cookie, I thought, flipping through one of my binders. Maybe brownies. Maybe... hello! Chocolate mint cookies!

Not just any chocolate mint cookies.... these were billed as homemade Thin Mints. And, fancy that, we just happened to have all the ingredients in the house. And the recipe was pretty straightforward, so it was a deal.

I started by beating some vanilla and peppermint extracts into softened butter. Evidently when I first saved this recipe, I read through some online reviews that strongly recommended increasing the amount of extract given, so I went ahead and used 1 1/2 tsp. of each. Whoa, overwhelming peppermint scent. Then I creamed it with some sugar.

 

Then I beat in an egg, and added some flour, Dutch-processed cocoa and a little salt and beat until just blended. Mmmm... tasty dough.

 

 

I took the dough out, rolled it into logs and refrigerated it for four hours. While Will put the finishing touches on dinner, I sliced the dough into roughly 1/4-inch thick rounds -- well, OK, they were a little flat on one edge -- and put them on parchment-lined cookie sheets. These baked at 350 degrees for just over 12 minutes.

 

They came out looking OK, but one of them er, just happened to break a little bit while I was testing for doneness, so Will and I had to taste it. Mmmm. Pretty good, and a little soft, coming straight from the oven. 

The recipe called for cooling the cookies and then drizzling them with melted chocolate. But truthfully, the cookies were pretty darn good without the chocolate. In the end, I decided to mix things up. Some I left alone. 

Some, I haphazardly drizzled with plain melted chocolate.

And some, I smothered with mint chocolate.

THE VERDICT: Mmmm... minty cookies. They're good. They crisp up pretty quickly as they cool. They're rich enough to require a glass of milk with them. Chocolate coating is excellent, but not necessary. I think, next time I make them, that semisweet chocolate might be better than bittersweet for the topping. A definite keeper.

Fall favorites

Mmm. Molasses cookies.

One of my favorite things about fall is cooking with warmer spices, like cloves and cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. One of my favorite things to make with them is molasses cookies.

To some extent, I am on a quest for the perfect molasses cookie. My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who worked with a woman who made wonderful molasses cookies, soft and chewy with just enough spice to enhance the cookie without overwhelming it. Rumor has it said roommate has the recipe, hidden somewhere in her own overflowing recipe file. If it turns up, well, I'm hoping to get my hands on it, but in the meantime I've got plenty of recipes to test.

This recipe for Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies comes from Bon Appetit, Nov. 2006.

In a bowl, whisk together 2 1/3 c. flour, 2 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp allspice and a very small pinch of coarsely ground pepper.

Then in my trusty electric mixer, I beat 12 tablespoons room temperature butter until smooth, then creamed in 1/2 c. of molasses and 1 c. of light brown sugar. When it was blended, I beat in an egg and scraped down the sides:

Next, I gently added the flour mixture on low, low speed. Adding flour to doughs and batters always makes me yearn for my mother's mixer, or rather, the pouring shield on her mixer. It's just a big plastic ring, with a sort of funnel on one side, but it keeps all the flour from foofing out when you try to mix it in. I have a pouring shield, but sometime between the late '70s and the late  '90s, some idiot decided it would be better if the shield came in two pieces. I think the idea was to make it easier to add ingredients, but it actually means the shield doesn't fit correctly and if you're not careful, it will fall into the batter. So now I rarely use the darn thing and just add flour very, very slowly.

When the flour and spices are just mixed in, the dough will be very soft and smooth. The next step was to divide it into two pieces, wrap each with plastic wrap, and chill for at least an hour. Then I let the kids lick the dough off the beater.

After an hour (or more), I took out the smaller of the two hunks of dough. I preheat an oven to 350 degrees and lined a baking sheet with foil. Then I rolled small pieces of dough into balls and rolled those in a bowl of sugar.





Once I had a dozen balls of dough placed on the baking sheet, I flattened them with a juice glass. They didn't look very sugar-topped anymore, so I sprinkled some more sugar on them.

These were supposed to bake for 12 to 14 minutes; since I like my cookies on the chewy side I went for the minimum. They came out a little crunchy on outside and a little chewy on the inside.

THE VERDICT:  Not quite as chewy as I was hoping for, but not bad. That pinch of ground pepper adds a unexpected pfefferkuchen-like kick. Will and Keith enjoyed them, assuring me that I make a mean molasses spice cookie. These would go great with some vanilla ice cream. A keeper.