Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

We were shopping–the Mr. and I–for Christmas, and beside the register was a brochure pushing anything Martha.  I picked it up because she had a recipe for these cookies.  I’d been thinking about trying to find a recipe like this ever since Dave and I had chewy gingerbread cookies at the Cheese Board Collective in Berkeley.  That day we’d driven down across the Delta, got stuck in horrid traffic, our tempers frayed and flared, but we made it to the Collective about 45 minutes before they closed down.  Our pizza was delicious, the salad was crisp, but the cookies–oh my–the cookies!  After we visited the Berkeley Rose Garden we went back for two more, but alas!  They’d sold out.  So they remain in my memory.  These resemble those from the Cheese Board, but I can’t remember now if the Berkeley variety had chocolate chunks in it. Oh well–these are delicious, too.

Chewy Gingerbread Cookies—yield: 30

originally from Martha Stewart, amended by me

Ingredients
14 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate chips
3 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated, peeled fresh ginger
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses (I use the green label molasses)
2 teaspoons baking soda, dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water

2/3 cup granulated sugar, in bag (for coating)

Directions

1. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, and spices into a medium bowl. Put butter, brown sugar, and grated ginger into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in molasses.

2. Beat in flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the baking soda mixture. Mix in chocolate chips. Shape dough into a disk, and wrap in plastic (or place in gallon-sized Ziploc bag). Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours (up to overnight).

3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Shape dough into 1 and 1/2-inch balls, and drop them into a bag filled with some granulated sugar, tossing to coat. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets, pressing down on each cookie slightly to flatten. (I used the bottom of a glass, dipped in sugar.)

4. Bake until surfaces crack slightly, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets, 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks, and let cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 3 days.

Cook’s Confessions: I left mine in the fridge for 3 days–just couldn’t get the time to bake them up.  They were fine.

Note: you can store fresh ginger in the freezer.  When needed, peel with a paring knife, then grate on the fine section of your cheese grater.

These cookies are best when warm–so set them in the sun for a few minutes to soften.

Dipped Pretzel Rods

This is no rocket science.

Buy chocolate blobs at Michaels (I think they have three different flavors), or melting chocolate bricks (Stater’s Brothers), or melting chocolate cups (grocery store).

Buy pretzel rods (I found Snyders at Walmart and at Stater’s).  Look at bags and buy the bag with the least broken sticks–but after being dipped, they’re good too. Notice the mess–you can always clean up later.

Buy sprinkley things.  Buy skinny bags for pretzels (Michaels).  Follow the pictures below.


First, dip them in the melted chocolate of your choice–white or dark. We kind of hold the pretzel over the bowl and goop it on.

My daughter likes to use a tall cup.  Before laying them down, take a spoon and stroke the chocolate off one side, then lay the pretzel down on that side.  If you don’t stroke some off–it makes a gigantic puddle.  Sometimes I throw the cake sprinkles on right now.

Take a fork, dip it into the contrasting chocolate and wiggle it over the pretzel rods.  A thinner (warmer) chocolate consistency is better.  My mother just ate her last two from Christmas, so obviously they keep a long time.

The ONLY tricky thing here is not over-microwaving the chocolate.  Then you have sludge.  If this happens, stir in a spoonful of plain shortening into the chocolate, stirring well.  You may have to add a couple of spoonfuls if you’ve really nuked the chocolate too long.  But that should fix it.

Then after they’re set (doesn’t take too long), load them up into their little bags and tie the top with a ribbon.

Hoppin’ John

A million years and another life ago, I lived in Texas and across the street from me lived Margaret Hall, a “live one” as my Dad might say.  She lived life at full throttle, including cooking.  Because she had lived so many places with her husband, she had recipes from all over, but for some reason this one stands out–maybe it was her favorite?  She gave it to me with the admonition that I MUST eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s day–for good luck in the coming year.  (It didn’t work that year–her husband left her for another woman.  Talk about a woman scorned!  It was instructive.)

I have never made this recipe the same way twice.  I give you Margaret’s basic Hoppin’ John recipe, then directly after that, how I made this year’s version.

Hoppin’ John (to serve at New Year’s for Good Luck)

Prepare each ingredient separately:

1/2 cup brown rice (prepare according to package directions)
1/2 package Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage
1/2 lb. bacon, cut into 1/2″ pieces, cooked and drained
1/2 onion, chopped
3-4 celery stalks, chopped (I saute these last two ingredients in a small amount of the bacon grease)
1 to 1  1/2 cans black-eyes peas, undrained.

Add all to crock pot. It is ready when hot, about 2-3 hours. Rice can be white, brown or wild (I use brown rice). This is mild, add dashes of Tobasco until spicy enough or use spicy sausaage. I serve with blue corn chips or Fritos or hefty corn chips.

This Year

This year I sauteed up a yellow bell pepper with the onion, and used fresh black-eyed peas, found in the produce section of my grocery store. Instead of the sage sausage, I used some cooked chicken-apple sausage that we had left over from our holiday party.  I also sauteed crimini and shiitake mushrooms, and added them to the mix.

I gave it four-to-five shakes of Tobasco, added some salt and pepper and wrapped it up and put it in the fridge to mellow the flavors, while I started to take down Christmas.  I wasn’t happy with the flavor, though–too bland.  Then I remembered Bayou Blast–a comglomeration of spices that I use when I make dishes for Mardi Gras (scroll down the the bottom of the linked page for the recipe).  I added in 3/4 teaspoon of those spices–a little a time, stirring well after each–and that did the trick.

Serve it with your choice of bubbly (mine’s Martinelli’s) and an Everything Green Salad.  This one has chopped leafy green lettuce, chopped napa cabbage, mandarin oranges from my friend’s tree, pine nuts, chopped tomato, palm hearts and (soon) avocado.  A light dressing of oil, vinegar, salt and pepper will complement the ingredients.

Happy New Year!

Butternut Crunch Toffee

I found this in our local newspaper, back in the day when newspapers had full-fledged cooking sections.  In the olden days, back when newspapers were read every day around the breakfast/dinner table, there were many pages devoted to Christmas cookies, delectable sweets, ways to manage the Big Day’s meal, and lots of other columns imported from other news services.  I cut it out and tried it.  My husband, whose favorite candy at the time was Almond Roca, declared this recipe A Hit.  I’ve made it just about every Christmas since.  According to the article, it came from Ann Hodgman’s Beat This! Cookbook, published in 1993.  Now you know really how old this clipping is.  I’ve made some changes: the recipe as listed below includes these changes.

1 cup (2 sticks) lightly salted butter
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup, dissolved in 2 tablespoons warm water
1 cup whole almonds
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Scatter the whole almonds over a cookie sheet and place under the broiler until lightly toasted–don’t burn!  Let cool, then chop them up in a food processor.  Scatter half of the almonds over a cookie sheet; reserve the rest for later.  [Note: I’ve always used a cookie sheet, but the recipe calls for a 9 x 13 inch pan.  Pick your poison.]

In a medium heavy saucepan, over medium to medium-low heat, melt the butter.  With a spatula kind of scoot some up on the sides so as to “butter the pan.”  As soon as the butter is melted, stir in the sugar. Continue to stir constantly until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture comes to a rolling boil (a boil that can not be stirred away).  Add the corn-syrup-water mixture and stir well; the mixture will hiss for a few seconds, but that’s all right.

With the pan still on the heat, cover the saucepan and leave it covered for 3 minutes (use a timer).  Then uncover it and stick in a candy thermometer.  Keeping the heat at medium-low, and stirring once in a while, heat the mixture to 300 degrees.  (My sister Christine also uses the paper bag test: she holds up a brown paper sack and when the toffee is that color, it’s time to yank it. *Note: for higher altitudes, for every 1000 feet above sea level, subtract 2 degrees.*)

When the candy finally reaches 300 degrees (it seems to get stuck at 220 and stays there for a long time), remove the candy from the heat immediately and pour it onto the chopped nuts, tilting the pan back and forth to cover it evenly.  The recipe says not to scrape the pan or the candy might crystallize, but I’ve been known to help down the last little ribbon of toffee mixture from the side with my spatula.  Other than that, I obey, and generally don’t scrape the pan.

Let it cool for a few minutes, then scatter chocolate chips over the surface (another trick from my sister).  The heat from the cooling toffee will melt the chips.

When they are melted, take a spatula and smooth out the chocolate.

Then scatter the remaining chopped almonds over the surface.

Let it really cool down.  A lot.  When the chocolate is set (about 2 hours or so), break up the toffee into pieces by “stabbing” straight down into the toffee with a paring knife until you hear it break. More stabs equals smaller pieces.  I put it into a dish, then pour the extra bits of nuts and toffee over that.  Makes about 1 pound of candy.

Christmas Caramels

When I was nineteen several young women in my acquaintance were married and at each of their weddings was  large basket of wrapped, homemade caramels.  More than a few found their way into my purse for the drive home.  A older woman in our church, Mrs. Woodruff, made them.  She was our orthodontist’s mother, interestingly.

Right after Thanksgiving one year I called her up and asked her if she would teach me to make them.  I drove up to her house, bringing the butter, whipping cream and other ingredients with me.  The first thing she did was open up the cream and dump it all over the sugar. “Whoops,” she said.  She shook her head.  “That’s not right.”  She put the pan in her pantry and said, “That’ll be for something else later on,” and we started again.  I think of that now as I’m approaching her age.  Just say “Whoops,” when a kitchen mistake is made, and move on.

The trickiest thing about these caramels is finding the correct pan.  You need those cheapy pans from your local store–nothing fancy.  They’re a little smaller than the typical baker’s half-sheet that I normally use.  Known as a jelly-roll pan, it’s nice and shiny, and when it gets old, rusty and too full of cutting lines, toss it and start again.

Here’s the recipe, step by step.  The version without pictures is at the bottom of this post.

Caramels

2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 pint whipping cream
1/2 cup evaporated milk (1 small –5 oz.–can)
1 small bottle clear Karo corn syrup (2 cups)
1 cube of real butter
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1 buttered jelly roll pan
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
 

First step: butter the pan.  With real butter.

Combine the sugar and corn syrup. Cook until full boil and it turns a creamy color.

Add cream and evaporated milk (it will foam up; be careful, but keep stirring).

Bring to a boil, then add butter.  Normally most people would know what adding butter looks like, but this picture is for my friend Judy, who loves lots of photos in her recipe steps.

Is it done yet?  No.  If you yank them too early, they’ll be mushy-too-soft caramels. Like your neighbor’s.

Now it’s done.  Color is a good cue, but really it’s the caramel-into-the-glass-of-water test that really is the determinant.

Cook until caramel hardness (3/4 to 1 hour) keeping it at a low boil the whole time, and stirring occasionally.  We test our caramel with the old-fashioned water-in-a-glass method.    Drizzle a bit of the caramel into the water, feeling it into a ball, and seeing if it’s the texture of a caramel.  (It doesn’t hurt to pop this sample into your mouth to see.)  Don’t get the water ice cold, or you can’t figure it out. With practice, you’ll know exactly when its ready.

Remove from heat, then stir in nuts and vanilla and pour into the pan.  I always pour a little bit out on one end to give to those who don’t like nuts (I place a spoon underneath the opposite edge of the pan to keep it tilted), then after adding the nuts to the main caramel batch, I pour the rest in (and remove the spoon from underneath).  Let sit 24 hours, covered with a sheet of wax paper.

Cut pieces of wax paper, by ripping a three-inch strip off of the roll, then slicing into into half, then half again.

I do about 6 little strips at a time, making 24 little squares of wax paper.

Cut across the short end of the pan making a long strip about 3/8″ wide.  No wider.

Cut this into about 7 equal pieces and wrap in squares of wax paper.  (Mine are usually longer and skinnier than this photo shows.)

They keep for a season, if they last that long.

Merry Christmas!

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Caramels  Yield: 2 1/2 pounds

2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 pint whipping cream
1/2 cup evaporated milk (1 small –5 oz.–can)
1 small bottle clear Karo corn syrup (2 cups)
1 cube of real butter
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1 buttered jelly roll pan
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the sugar and corn syrup.  Cook until full boil and it turns a creamy color.  Add cream and evaporated milk (it will foam up; be careful, but keep stirring). Bring to a boil, then add butter.  Cook until caramel hardness (3/4 to 1 hour) keeping it at a low boil the whole time, and stirring occasionally.  We test our caramel with the old-fashioned water-in-a-glass method.  Don’t get the water too cold, or you can’t figure it out.  Drizzle a bit of the caramel into the water, feeling it into a ball, and seeing if it’s the texture of a caramel.  (It doesn’t hurt to pop this sample into your mouth to see.)  With practice, you’ll know exactly when its ready.  Remove from stir in nuts and vanilla and pout into the pan.  I always pour a little bit on one end to give to those who don’t like nuts, then after adding the nuts, I pour the rest in.  Let sit 24 hours, covered with a sheet of wax paper.

Cut across the short end of the pan making a long strip about 3/8″ wide.  No wider.  Cut this into about 7 equal pieces and wrap in squares of wax paper.  It keeps for a season, if it lasts that long.