On New Year’s Eve we celebrated Mini SGCC’s 18th birthday.  That’s right.  My baby is now legally an adult.

Of course, that means nothing to me. In my mind, she will always be my little curly-haired cherub.

One would think that Mr. SGCC and I can now sit back, relax and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done.  But, I have a feeling that our headaches aren’t over yet!  Mini SGCC is a good kid, but she is fiercely independent and knows her own mind.  That is how we raised her to be.  Hopefully it won’t come back to bite us in the butt, now that we can’t really tell her what to do anymore.

I find it ironic that we parents spend all those years worrying and fretting over our kids, only to worry and fret even more when they grow up!  I now understand what my parents were talking about all those times they said that “A son is a son till he takes him a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for all of her life.”

In honor of the occasion, I decided to bake Mini SGCC’s favorite cake: a Black Forest Cake. I’d never baked a Black Forest cake before, and frankly, the prospect made me a little nervous. It’s a fancy schmancy German confection consisting of several layers of chocolate cake, with whipped cream and brandied cherries between each layer. Originally called Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, the entire cake is decorated with additional whipped cream, maraschino cherries, and chocolate shavings. When made well, it is a masterpiece. When made by me – I wasn’t so sure!  

The base of a Black Forest cake is a rich chocolate cake. Most of the recipes I found used a Devil’s food cake, so that is what I decided to do.  I used the Devil’s food cake recipe from Baked Explorations, by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Everything I’ve ever made from that book has turned out great, so I was confident that this cake would as well.

Although traditional Black Forest cakes are made with sour cherries, I went with sweet Bings.  The canned sour cherries I found in the market were just sad, little grayish blobs that tasted like crap.  Very unappetizing!  Besides, we like big, fat Bing cherries better.  Plus, they are easier to find around here.

Since I would be serving the cake to children, I soaked the cake in a syrup that I made by reducing the cherry liquid and Kirschwasser, a cherry liqueur, instead of just using the liqueur alone.  I think it tasted better that way.

A Black Forest cake usually has several layers.  However, in the interest of time (and my sanity), I opted to only make a two layer cake.  It was fine, though.  This cake was plenty rich just as it was.

I frosted the whole cake with freshly whipped cream and decorated it with some Maraschino cherries and shaved dark chocolate.  I think it turned out very pretty, if I do say so myself.

Mini SGCC’s boyfriend’s birthday is just a few days after hers, so the cake was kinda for him too.  Here are Mini SGCC and The Boy blowing out their candles, as Mr. SGCC looks on with a grumpy look on his face.  All together now:  AWWW!

I have to say, I don’t know what I was so worried about with this cake.  It was really quite easy to make, and it was amazing.   The cake layers were wonderfully dense and moist, and the cherry filling was absolutely to die for!  Everyone who tried it was wowed.

If you’re looking for a fancy cake for a special occasion, I highly recommend this Black Forest cake.  While it looks like it took all day to make, it actually can be pulled off in just a few hours.

Ever since Mini SGCC’s accident, it has been a crazy, hectic time around here!  Most of my time has been filled up with driving her back and forth to school, taking her to doctor’s appointments, physical therapy and everywhere else she needs to go.  In the midst of all that, Mr. SGCC had the audacity to develop pneumonia.  Can you imagine?  What nerve!  And, let’s not forget that we also had to get through the Holidays, which managed to pop up at the most inconvenient time.  Just between you and me, I feel like I’m living in a house of cards.

Cooking these days has consisted of throwing things together and dropping them on the table.  Trust me, there hasn’t been much I’ve wanted to share with you.   Those leisurely days of simmering, braising and roasting as I snapped photos along the way seem like a distant memory.  I know that eventually I’ll be able to get back into my normal routine, but it ain’t happening anytime soon.   And, boy is it frustrating!  

One interesting thing that I did manage to make are these healthy and delicious breakfast cookies.  They’re made with whole wheat flour, and are chock full of great breakfast-type ingredients like rolled oats, Cheerios, peanut butter and bananas.  To keep them a little healthier, I only used a minimal amount of butter, adding moisture with mashed bananas and applesauce.  Of course, the benefit of that was probably canceled out when I decided to add chocolate chips.  Oh well.  It’s the thought that counts… isn’t it?

Breakfast cookies are a great alternative to packaged granola bars.  They’re self-contained and portable, so you can grab one on the go.  They’re also full of wholesome, all natural ingredients, which you can customize according to your own tastes.   Plus, who doesn’t love the idea of having cookies for breakfast?

These breakfast cookies are very easy to make.  All you do is mix together your wet ingredients, mix together your dry ingredients, then put them all together and bake.  The cookies are dense and chewy, with a little crunch from the cereal.  I’m not saying that they’ll ever edge out a gooey glazed doughnut as my breakfast of choice, but they’re a satisfying alternative.  And honestly, at 6:00 in the morning, I could chew on a cardboard box and not really know the difference!

When Mini SGCC was a little girl, there was one Christmas Eve ritual that we never missed.  We would always bake one special kind of cookie for Santa Claus to enjoy as a snack when he stopped by our house during the night.   We had a special plate designated just for him and would leave the cookies on it, along with a glass of milk, under our tree before we went to bed.   We figured that with all of that racing around on his sleigh and heavy lifting all night long, he could probably use a little sugar rush by the time he got to our house.  After all, Santa is no spring chicken anymore!

On Christmas morning,  Mini SGCC would rush out to see if the cookies were gone, thus verifying that Santa had indeed been there.  I remember one year we forgot to take the cookies off of the plate.  Mini SGCC was a little upset.  She assumed that Santa didn’t “eat” them because he didn’t like them.  After that, we were never allowed to make that same cookie for Santa again.

I’m not sure where the tradition of baking Christmas cookies began.  Some say that their history can be traced back to medieval times in Europe.  Whenever and wherever the practice originated,  baking Christmas cookies has become a cherished holiday tradition for families in just about every corner of the world.  It’s a lucky thing for Santa too.  He must make out like a bandit!   

In the aftermath of Mini SGCC’s accident, there hasn’t been much opportunity for cookie baking.  Too many doctor appointments, physical therapy sessions and other running around have gotten in the way.  I have been able to make a few bathes of cookies, here and there, but not nearly what I usually do.  I’ve also had to pack up most of my makeshift photography studio for the time being.  Bella has been banished to my bedroom so that she doesn’t accidentally knock Mini SGCC down.  So, the cameras, lights and fragile props had to be moved to higher ground.   It’s definitely not an ideal situation for a food blogger!

Fortunately, I have some great Christmas cookie ideas from the SGCC archives to share.  I hope that you enjoy them and are inspired to go forth and bake!   I also hope that I’ll be back soon with some new recipes to share.

One of the more annoying things about living with a food blogger is that they rarely make the same recipe twice.  This is especially irksome when a dish is particularly fabulous, because the blogger’s poor family knows that the chances of enjoying it again are virtually nil.   But hey,  I’m not heartless.   I realize that there are certain dishes that are favorites and beg to be made again – like these killer candied sweet potatoes.  They are absolutely to die for!  That’s why I always include them on my Thanksgiving menu -  and you should too. 

The original recipe for this dish was given to me by my mother.  It was one of her Thanksgiving specialties when I was growing up.   She only made them once a year, and believe me, they were worth the wait!  Earthy sweet potatoes are bathed in a pool of rich, gooey brown sugar syrup and baked until meltingly soft and caramelized.   Then, they’re topped with marshmallows and popped back in the oven just long enough for the marshmallows to puff up like crazy and get all browned and toasty.   It’s like eating candy for dinner.  Oooooh!   I get verklempt just thinking about it!

I’ve tried making this dish a couple of different ways, and I’ve found that it is best to partially cook the sweet potatoes before adding the syrup.  You can either boil, steam or bake them for about fifteen minutes or so.  I prefer baking the potatoes first because that leaves one less pot for me to wash, and I’m all about efficiency.   Also,  there’s less risk of the potatoes falling apart that way.   It doesn’t matter which way you choose.  You really just want to reduce the “candying” time so that the syrup doesn’t burn.

While I almost always use both light and dark corn syrup to make this dish, I have tried it with maple syrup instead of the dark corn syrup. It is really delicious that way too. In my experience, the syrup doesn’t get quite as thick, but the maple flavor is really wonderful.   One year, I also added some chopped pecans to the syrup, for a little crunch.   I liked it and would definitely do it again.

Woo Hoo!  Look at those marshmallows puff!   My salivary glands are in overdrive right now just looking at them!

I have to tell you that while I love sweet potatoes in any way, shape or form, these are something special.  Maybe it’s because they conjure up lots of sweet memories of Thanksgivings past for me.   Or maybe, it’s from the anticipation of waiting a whole year to eat them.  Whatever the reason, Thanksgiving at my house just wouldn’t be the same without my mom’s  candied sweet potatoes.

While cupcakes will always hold a special place in my heart, the newest trend in sweet treats these days is whoopee pies.  Yessiree folks, whoopie pies are hot, hot, hot!  And, it’s no surprise either.  What’s not to love about a creamy, cloud-like filling sandwiched between two moist and tender disks of cake?

The origin of the whoopie pie is a subject for debate. It is claimed to have been invented in both New England and Pennsylvania Dutch country, depending upon whom you ask.  The most likely scenario is that Amish groups migrating to Maine in the early 20th century brought the whoopie pie to the area with them.  According to some food historians, Amish housewives would bake these desserts out of leftover cake batter and slip them in their husbands’ lunch pails.  When the men would find the treats in their lunch, they would shout “Whoopie!”.  Wherever they came from, whoopee pies have become a very popular and much loved snack food all over the country. 

The traditional whoopee pie consists of two round slabs of chocolate cake filled with a fluffy vanilla frosting.  Since Halloween is just around the corner,  I’m sharing this more seasonal version.  The pumpkin cakes are lightly spiced with cinnamon, ginger and clove, and the filling is made with cream cheese and jarred caramel sauce.  Trust me.  The combination is divine!

These whoopee pies are great little self-contained treats that would be perfect for hungry trick-or-treaters or just about anyone at all.

Anyone remember the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercials?  In them, two unsuspecting souls would be strolling down the street – one eating peanut butter and the other eating a chocolate bar -  and would somehow collide with each other, smushing the peanut butter and chocolate together.  Each would be outraged, but after tasting the resulting chocolate/peanut butter concoction, they would be be smitten and wander off together,  hand in hand, licking their lips.

Take a look.

Yeah, I know. Who the heck walks down the street eating a jar of peanut butter? The Hershey Company, which owns Reese’s must be doing something right, however. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are one of the top selling chocolate bars of all time, generating approximately $398.9 million in revenue last year. That’s a whole lot of peanut butter and chocolate!

The point is that peanut butter and chocolate is a wildly popular and much-loved  combination, not only in candy bars, but in all kinds of sweets.  And, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example than these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

There are tons of peanut butter cookie recipes floating around the web, and many of them are very good.  But, my all time favorite is the one from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook.  The recipe is easy to make and the cookies are divinely soft and chewy. The addition of peanut butter chips (Reese’s, of course) to the dough really amps up the peanut butter flavor.

The original recipe calls for chunky peanut butter.  I like to use the super chunky kind.  Those little peanut bits add a nice texture and extra crunch to the cookies.   Magnolia’s recipe also doesn’t include chocolate chips, but I say – why not?  Adding the chocolate chips just puts these cookies way over the top!  And, what’s not to love about that?

If you’ve never baked your own peanut butter cookies, this is a great recipe to start with. They truly are the best I’ve ever eaten.   I highly recommend having a nice icy cold glass of milk handy when you eat these cookies to help wash down all of that peanut buttery and chocolate goodness.  These cookies are rich, rich, rich!

]]> http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/2011/10/25/irresistible-peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies-recipe/feed/ 18 http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/2011/10/21/maple-pumpkin-cheesecake-bars/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=maple-pumpkin-cheesecake-bars http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/2011/10/21/maple-pumpkin-cheesecake-bars/#comments Fri, 21 Oct 2011 15:41:33 +0000 Susan http://stickygooeycreamychewy.com/?p=3947 Remember the joys of early air travel?  You know, those days where they showed you a movie that you could hear without having to pay for ear buds,  stowed your luggage without a fee and actually fed you a free meal on any flight that was longer than two …]]>

Remember the joys of early air travel?  You know, those days where they showed you a movie that you could hear without having to pay for ear buds,  stowed your luggage without a fee and actually fed you a free meal on any flight that was longer than two hours?   I’ll admit, the food wasn’t exactly fine dining, but depending on the airline, it wasn’t bad.  I remember flying to Rome on Alitalia many years ago and being served a pretty darn tasty veal cannelloni and a nice Pinot Grigio to wash it down with too.  Oh, yeah. Those were the days…

Now, all you get for free is a plastic cup filled with watered down soda or juice, and a choice of peanuts or cookies.  Seriously!  Have you seen those tiny packets of peanuts?  They’re miniscule!  The cookies are a much better bet.  At least you get two full-sized cookies.  And, they’re really, really good cookies too.  In fact, those cookies have become so popular, that the company that makes them now imports them all over the world – including my very own local supermarket. 

Biscoff Cookies are made by  Belgium-based Lotus Bakeries.  They are crispy, crunchy little spiced cookies, very similar to gingersnaps.   And, I’m telling you people, they are addictive.  They also make a very nice piecrust, which is where I was going with this story.

Now that we’re firmly entrenched in Autumn, I was looking to make something with pumpkin – maybe a pie or a cheesecake.  Since I had several boxes of cookies lying around, I figured that I could use some of them to make the crust.   I ended up deciding on Maple Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars with a Biscoff cookie crust.

The recipe for these bars is super easy and virtually foolproof.   I essentially took a basic pumpkin pie recipe and tweaked it by adding cream cheese and maple syrup to the filling, and of course, by using my Biscoff cookies for the crust.  I also saved a little time and minimized the clean up by mixing up both the crust and filling in my food processor.  Who wants to wash a bunch of extra dirty bowls?

I loved, loved, loved these!  The bar format worked out great.  I could cut them into any sized squares I wanted and decorate each square individually.  They were also neater and easier to eat than a pie or cheesecake because you didn’t really need a fork.  And, the taste?  My, oh my, did these taste amazing!  They were like a silky, smooth pumpkin cheesecake laced with spice and a hint of maple.  Topped with a splotch of whipped cream and candy corn, these bars are a perfect little Halloween treat!

When Ruth Graves Wakefield mixed bits of semi-sweet chocolate into a vat of cookie dough back in the 1930’s, she unwittingly created what is arguably the most popular recipe of all time – the chocolate chip cookie.  By some accounts, it was an accident.  Others claim that Wakefield intentionally added the semi-sweet chocolate when she ran out of regular baking chocolate.  Whichever version is true, cookie lovers everywhere are thankful.

Since then, professional chefs and home cooks alike have been on a quest to find the Holy Grail of chocolate chip cookie recipes.   A quick Google search turned up almost 2,500,000 entries.  That’s a lot of cookies, folks!   Of course, every chocolate chip cookie aficionado has their own criteria for what makes a cookie “the one”.  Some love them thin and crispy, while others seek out the thick and chewy.  Most people consider the ultimate chocolate cookie to be somewhere in between – thin and shatteringly crisp on the outside, while soft, gooey and chewy on the inside.    I’m an equal opportunity cookie eater.   I can definitely appreciate the joys of both the crispy and the chewy. How about you? 

To further confuse the issue are the numerous chocolate chip cookie mutations that have evolved over the years, including those containing various kinds of nuts, fruits, toffee chips and oh yes, even bacon.  It’s enough to make one’s head swim, preferably in a sea of melted chocolate!

A few years ago, on a mission for the New York Times, David Leite set out to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie.    In his search, he left no chip unturned.  One of his most interesting revelations was that letting the dough “rest” in the fridge for at least twenty-four hours before baking makes for a much better cookie.  The chilling process is said to allow the dough to “dry out”, which bakes to a better consistency.   Leite also discovered that Ruth Wakefield’s original recipe for the Toll House cookie did, in fact, call for letting the cookie dough chill in the fridge overnight.   Somewhere along the way, that little nugget of information got lost in the translation, and has never been included in the official recipe.  How do you like that?  For over seventy years, we’ve been doing it all wrong!

And apparently, size does matter when it comes to chocolate chip cookies as it does with other things in life.  On his journey to cookie enlightenment, Leite learned that  the bigger the cookie, the  greater the delineation of texture, from crisp to chewy to soft.  Among the gurus that he interviewed, the consensus was that the ideal chocolate chip cookie should bake up to a whopping five to six inches in diameter.  Now, this is where I draw the line.  If I got into the habit of eating six-inch chocolate chip cookies, or any cookie that big, I’d have to climb into my closet and dig out the “fat pants”.  And, I ain’t willing to dig them out again for anything – not even the most perfect chocolate chip cookie on the planet!  Besides, if I shoved a six-inch cookie in Mini SGCC’s face, she’d probably run screaming into the night, never to be heard from again!

What I was willing to do, however, was try this recipe making smaller cookies.  Instead of monster cookies, I made three inchers.    I still let them rest for thirty-six hours before I baked them.  I also still used a good quality bittersweet chocolate and sprinkled them with sea salt.  And, I added  some nuts, just because that’s how I roll.   I have to say, they were pretty damn fabulous!  They had a thin edge of crispy that splintered upon contact with my teeth, which then yielded to a soft, chewy, chocolatey center.  There were toffee and brown sugar undertones too -  just like there was supposed to be – that were beautifully enhanced by the little flakes of salt on top.  All in all, an amazing cookie.  Were they worthy of being dubbed the perfect chocolate chip cookie?  I don’t know. I think I’ll let you decide.

In just a few short days the kids will be heading back to school, and parents everywhere will be breathing a collective sigh of relief. Summer vacation can be tough on us moms and dads! Sure, it was great not having to get up at the brink of dawn these past few months. And, I’ve especially enjoyed not having to fight those homework wars. But I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to getting back into my own groove again.

This school year is going to be a bittersweet one for me. In less than a week, Mini SGCC will be beginning her senior year in high school. I can hardly believe it!  It seems like only yesterday I was telling you that she was just starting high school. There have a lot of changes and challenges in our family these past three years, not the least of which has been my beautiful child’s journey to become the extraordinary young woman she was meant to be.  It’s exciting and scary at the same time. 

I’ve tried to be a good role model for her, sometimes with success, and sometimes with miserable failure.  In spite of our many similarities, we are very different people, and my choices are not always going to be her choices.  One of the hardest things for me to learn has been when to keep my  mouth shut.  I’m still working on that.

These days, our lives revolve around the SAT, the ACT and college applications, while trying to maintain some kind of balance.  My head is spinning.   So is Mr. SGCC’s.  Mini SGCC seems to be taking it all in stride as she hurtles forward a mile a minute.

Although I often feel powerless  on this e-ticket ride to my daughter’s future, one thing I do have some control over is the food goes into her body.  It’s no surprise that teenagers have the worst eating habits, especially in times of stress.  But, I’ve found that if I keep tasty, healthful and easy food choices on hand, Mini SGCC will usually indulge in them.  These Whole Grain Krispie Granola Bars are one of her favorites.

Regardless of your kids’ ages, one universal challenge that comes along with a new school year is getting them to eat something reasonably healthy for breakfast in the morning and as snacks throughout the day.  Granola bars are a popular choice.  But, the store bought kinds are often dry and dense, bearing a striking resemblance to toasted sawdust.   Most kids do love cereal bars, but many of them contain high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated palm oil, which are deal breakers for me!

My way around this dilemma is to whip up these wholesome and incredibly delicious whole grain granola bars from scratch. They’re made with rolled oats, dried fruits, nuts and crisped brown rice, glued together with honey, pure maple syrup and almond butter. Trust me. They are addictive!

The beauty of this recipe is that it takes very little time and effort to put together. Just mix the ingredients in a bowl, press into a pan and bake. Any combination of fruits and nuts will work here, as will any kind of nut butter.  I’ve made these bars many times using both almond butter and peanut butter.  I prefer them with almond butter, but Mini SGCC likes the ones with peanut butter best.  (It figures!)  Use whichever works for you.

Get your kids – and yourself – off to a good start this school year with Whole Grain Krispie Granola Bars. Served with low-fat yogurt for a nutritious breakfast or tucked into their backpacks for a mid-day snack, these bars score an A+!

My family is not very big on breakfast.  We love breakfast foods.  We just don’t like getting up in the morning any earlier than we have to.  Yeah, I know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, blah, blah, blah.  And, we usually do eat some kind of breakfast.  Except that sometimes, we eat it for dinner. Doesn’t that count? I mean, it’s still breakfast food – right?

A typical morning meal at our house usually consists of yogurt, cereal or bagels.  Not very inspired, I admit, but it gets the job done.  On Saturdays, Mr. SGCC will sometimes make us poached eggs with the special egg poaching pot I got him for Christmas a few years ago.  Buying him that pot was a brilliant move on my part.  Before that, the only thing Mr. SGCC ever cooked up was trouble!

One breakfast-y recipe that I love for both breakfast and dinner is a strata.  A strata is casserole made with bread, eggs and whatever cheese, meats or vegetables you feel like putting into it.  Think of it as a savory bread pudding.   The best thing about a strata is that it’s meant to be made in advance.  In fact, it really must be put together and allowed to sit for several hours before baking.  Overnight is even better.  This is perfect for non-morning people like me, because if I want to serve a strata for breakfast, I make it the night before and just pop it in the oven the next morning.   Likewise, if I want to serve it for dinner, I can mix it up in the morning before I start my day, and bake it when I get home.

When it comes to a strata, almost anything goes.  As I mentioned above, you can literally put whatever you want into it.  It’s a great way to use up any leftover meat, cheese or veggies lurking in your fridge.  Once, I even made one with shrimp and smoked salmon.  (Oooh!  That was a good one!  Remind me to share it with you someday.) This time, I added onions and some deli ham that had overstayed its welcome.

The process for making a strata couldn’t be simpler.  You just layer the bread and other add-ins in a casserole dish, drown them in a mix of eggs and milk and let the whole thing sit until you’re ready for it.  The bread soaks up all of the custard and gets all puffy and golden as it bakes.  Inside, the strata is a mass of cheesy, eggy goodness.  Whether served for breakfast, lunch or dinner, a strata makes a light, but satisfying and delicious meal.