Kitchen Sink Cookies

Some people do yoga to relax but I like to bake; it is my tasty form of meditation. I’ve seen a recipe floating around the internet for “Compost Cookies”, basically chocolate chip cookies into which you add whatever sweet and salty ingredients that you happen to have on hand (i.e. chocolate chip cookies and potato chips). Since I’m not a big fan of sweet and salty mixed together I made this all sugary, gooey version. I based my version on this Martha Stewart recipe. 

I wanted to add toffee chips to my cookies. Since I couldn’t find any, I improvised.

I unwrapped a bag of toffee candies.

Chucked them into the food processor.

And voila! They weren’t all perfectly uniform in size but close enough.

In addition I decided to use white chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips and marshmallows. Because clearly, I believe in moderate amounts of sugar.

White sugar, brown sugar, butter. My brown sugar decided to turn into a brick so I had to microwave it to try to soften it up. I beat all of this really well, until it was super fluffy, since I’ve read that it helps the cookie texture.

The eggs. Oops, forgot to take a step of the flour stage.

Adding in all the glorious mix-ins.

I had a taste of the raw cookie dough. For quality assurance purposes, of course.

I tried to make sure that I got a nice mixture in each cookie.

These cookies were absolutely glorious. The toffee bits and the marshmallows became really gooey and added a really great texture. They spread more than I wanted them to but they were so good. I gave away a lot of them and everyone loved them. You cannot go wrong with toffee chips, white chocolate, milk chocolate and marshmallows.

del.icio.us Tags: Cookies

Afternoon Tea Pudding

I am pretty good at “reading” recipes. Meaning I can usually tell by looking at the ingredients and the proportions if the recipe will work out or not. Last week however, I made a recipe for Southern biscuits that didn’t turn out that well. They were too flat and not fluffy enough, so while I am still looking for a good biscuit recipe I decided to hunt around for something to do with the leftovers. I found a recipe for “Afternoon Tea Pudding” which is basically bread pudding made with jam and scones. While biscuits aren’t scones, they’re fairly close so I decided to make it.

Leftover biscuits.

I cut them in half in order to make more layers.

I buttered a dish and spread strawberry jam on each of them and stacked them with the jam side facing up.

For the custard I started off with 3 whole eggs and 1/3 cup of sugar.

Vanilla extract.

Whisked together.

To that I added 1 and 1/4 cup of heavy cream and 3/4 cup of regular milk mixed together and heated up in the microwave.

I added it gradually to the eggs while whisking to make sure that I didn’t end up with scrambled eggs.

I slowly added the milk/egg mixture to the biscuits and let them soak for 10 minutes to allow them to soak up some liquid.

To cook the pudding I put it in my largest lasagne pan and added in boiling water around it. It went into the oven for 35-40 minutes at 350 (or it might have been 375, sorry, I can’t remember).

When the top was golden and the custard was cooked thoroughly I took it out of the oven and let it cool down.

This was really good. The custard was sweet but not overly so and the biscuits were soft but not mushy. The jam was a nice touch as well, adding and extra layer of flavour and texture. I had some Devonshire cream so I added a dollop on the side. Surprisingly enough this tasted even better the next day and it was even good cold. This is a really great way to use up leftover scones or biscuits which are going stale that you might have laying around the kitchen.

del.icio.us Tags: Scones,Biscuits,Bread Pudding

Chicken Liver Pate

 

Let me start off by saying that even though I will eat pretty much everything I will not eat liver. I love trying pretty much anything but I would have to be on Survivor and have to eat some to have immunity and even then I would choke it down. Why then did I make chicken liver pate? Because the husband requested it. So without any further ado, here is my no recipe version of chicken liver pate loosely based off of a version from Gordon Ramsey.

After trimming the chicken livers I left them soaking milk overnight. Why do this? I have no clue, but since I don’t know anything about cooking liver I followed instructions.

Before cooking them I let them drain thoroughly for a few minutes. I think that it would take a whole passel of photographers to make damp chicken livers look good.

When in doubt, start off with bacon.

I crisped it in the pan and saved the fat.

For a change and for the flavour I decided to use French shallots instead of plain onions.

As Martha would say, “frying onions in bacon fat; it’s a good thing”. Hmmm I think I just unleashed my inner Paul Deen with that sentence.

Once the onions were browned I chucked in the chicken livers.

I also added in salt, pepper and thyme.

Once all the liquid had evaporated and the chicken livers were cooked thoroughly I pureed them in the food processor until the mixture was smooth. This is completely random but in French a food processor is called “un robot culinaire”. “Culinary robot” sounds much more interesting than “food processor” don’t you think?

All done.

The Husband enjoyed his pate although it made a lot more than I was expecting. Poor guy, he’ll have to finish it off on his own because this time, since it involves liver, I’m not taking one for the team!

del.icio.us Tags: Pate