BEST BAGELS EVER.

Soooo....pretty much E and I have completely neglected our blog....but we're back!!!! With many baked goods to share!

I saw a wicked looking recipe on foodgawker for New York style bagels and had to try them. I've made bagels once before, and they turned out well, but nowhere NEAR how good these babies did. E and I tried a cinnamon sugar one, fresh from the oven, and it was definitely the best bagel that I have ever eaten. They have a chewy, delicious crust, and the inside is pillowy, soft and dreamy....sigh.

They are SUPER easy to make as well, and SO worth it.

I found this recipe on the Sophisticated Gourmet blog.

The toppings that I used were: sesame, cinnamon sugar, and cheddar/parmesan/oregano/parsley/sea salt. I made a simple egg wash, brushed that on after boiling, and sprinkled on the toppings before baking.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1 ½ tablespoons of granulated sugar
1 ¼ cups of warm water (you may need ± ¼ cup more, I know I did)
3 ½ cups (500g) of bread flour or high gluten flour(will need extra for kneading)
1 ½ teaspoons of salt

Optional Toppings:
Caraway seeds, coarse salt, minced fresh garlic, minced fresh onion, poppy seeds, or sesame seeds. (Everyone in my house prefers plain bagels, but I have no preference, so I just went with the plain, so no one could complain.)

Preparation:
1. In ½ cup of the warm water, pour in the sugar and yeast. Do not stir. Let it sit for five minutes, and then stir the yeast and sugar mixture, until it all dissolves in the water.

2. Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle and pour in the yeast and sugar mixture.

3. Pour half of the remaining warm water into the well. Mix and stir in the rest of the water as needed. Depending on where you live, you may need to add anywhere from a couple tablespoons to about ¼ cup of water. You want to result in a moist and firm dough after you have mixed it.

4. On a floured countertop, knead the dough for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Try working in as much flour as possible to form a firm and stiff dough.

5. Lightly brush a large bowl with oil and turn the dough to coat. Cover the bowl with a damp dish towel. Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in size. Punch the dough down, and let it rest for another 10 minutes.

6. Carefully divide the dough into 8 pieces (I used a scale to be extra precise, but it’s not necessary). Shape each piece into a round. Now, take a dough ball, and press it gently against the countertop (or whatever work surface you’re using) moving your hand and the ball in a circular motion pulling the dough into itself while reducing the pressure on top of the dough slightly until a perfect dough ball forms (as pictured below). Repeat with 7 other dough rounds.

7. Coat a finger in flour, and gently press your finger into the center of each dough ball to form a ring. Stretch the ring to about ⅓ the diameter of the bagel and place on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Repeat the same step with the remaining dough.

8. After shaping the dough rounds and placing them on the cookie sheet, cover with a damp kitchen towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 425ºF / 220ºC / Gas Mark 7.




9. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Reduce the heat. Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to lower the bagels into the water. Boil as many as you are comfortable with boiling. Once the bagels are in, it shouldn’t take too long for them to float to the top (a couple seconds). Let them sit there for 1 minute, and them flip them over to boil for another minute. Extend the boiling times to 2 minutes each, if you’d prefer a chewier bagel (results will give you a more New York Style bagel with this option).





10. If you want to top your bagels with stuff, do so as you take them out of the water, you may use the “optional toppings” (listed above) to top the bagels and if you’re risky like me, make a combination of the toppings to top the bagels with, but before hand, you will need to use an egg wash to get the toppings to stick before putting the bagels into the oven.




11. Once all the bagels have boiled (and have been topped with your choice of toppings), transfer them to a lightly oiled baking sheet.

12. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown.

13. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 8 medium-sized bagels
Recipe modified from Ultimate Bread by Eric Treuille & Ursula Ferrigno

Delicious Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

One night I (E) was tired of studying and was looking for something to do. I had just recently bought a large bag of old-fashioned oats to make the Stawberry Rhubarb Crisp found here - which was amazing by the way - and was looking for a way to put them to good use.

I found a great recipe for Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies. I didn't have any chocolate, and as it was 10pm on a weeknight (and nothing was open at that time), I omitted the chocolate, but I used everything else that the recipe called for.

Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters
Dorie Greenspan: Baking, From My Home to Yours

3 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter--chunky or smooth (but not natural) - I used chunky
1 cup sugar
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 1/2 cups store-bought chocolate chips or chunks (I omitted)

Divide the oven racks into thirds and preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 180 degrees Celsius). Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, spices and salt.

Using a hand mixer (or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment), beat the butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until smooth and creamy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the dry ingredients, beating only until blended. If you are using chocolate chips, blend them in at this point.

The recipe says that you can cover and refrigerate the dough for 2 hours or up to one day. This will give more evenly shaped cookies. I was too excited to eat freshly baked cookies, so I skipped this step, but if you're more patient than I am it can't hurt to refrigerate the dough a little!

If the dough is not chilled, drop rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto the baking sheets. If the dough is chilled, scoop up rounded tablespoons, roll the balls between your palms and place them 2 inches apart on the sheets. Press the chilled balls gently with the heel of your hand until they are about 1/2 inch thick.

Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back after 7 minutes. The cookies should be golden and just firm around the edges. Lift the cookies onto cooling racks with a wide metal spatula - they'll firm as they cool.

Repeat with the remaining dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.


I used Friend B's foil-based lighting contraption to take photos of the finished product.




These cookies were deliciously chewy! However, they come with a warning: they make about 40 large cookies, the size of which you can see in the above photograph. I'm not complaining, but if a gigantic amount of cookies is not what you're aiming for, you might want to halve the recipe.

Enjoy!

Cream Cheese Dreaminess

We've been baking a lot in our sweet new apartment, and this was another recipe I (C) tried out last weekend. They are Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies from the New York Times.

I found the recipe via foodgawker.

They are delicious cakey cookies, and have just a hint of cream cheese flavour. I didn't quite have enough cream cheese, so that probably made a difference, but they were still awesome.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 4 ounces butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips

Preparation:

Heat oven to 350°. Grease a cookie sheet, or spray with nonstick cooking spray, or line with silicone liner.

In a mixing bowl with electric mixer, beat cream cheese, butter, and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla until smooth. Slowly beat in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet(s), leaving about 1 inch between cookies. These cookies spread very little. Bake for 10 to 14 minutes, or until the cookies are set and lightly browned around the edges.

Makes 2 1/2 to 3 dozen cookies

Happy "It's not actually your birthday, but you never told us when it was, so Happy Pretend Birthday!"

Sad Times.

Our good friend A is moving home!!!! She got accepted as a transfer student to a Canadian Law School, so she is leaving us forever after this semester!

We decided to have a small going away/"you never told us about your birthday and it passed, so we're making you a cake" party. We had a lovely bbq at the beach, and then came back to the apartment for some chocolate cake! Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the awesome bbq food (we made a brown rice salad, Jamie Oliver burgers, fresh spring rolls, and greek lamb sausages. mmmm)

I did manage to take some pictures of the adorable cake we made though!! We used the same recipe for chocolate cake that we had used for E's birthday. Instead of doing two layers, I decided to bake off half of the batter in a muffin pan, and pile the cupcakes on top! We whipped up a quick ganache to ice it with and threw on some sprinkles to make it pretty! It was delicious once again, and the party was lovely.

For the recipe- click Here for the recipe!

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups....Muffin edition

One fine Thursday morning, I (C) decided to do a little baking while my dear roomie E was at school for a tutorial. I have possibly 1 000 000 recipes favourited on foodgawker, so decided to choose one from there. I decided on Peanut Butter Muffins with Chocolate Chips from the Catching Pennies Blog.

The muffins baked up beautifully, and were soo delish. I chopped up and used some of the rando compounded chocolate that we had bought to make the Daring Bakers mallow cookies. These muffins are soo good.

PS. I'm just so excited that I have to say it again: WE MADE IT ONTO FOODGAWKER FINALLY! We've been trying to take nicer photos lately, and Friend B even MacGyvered a reflector thingy out of some tin foil and a wooden pot rest thingy. We only have point and shoot cameras as well, so it's hard to get professional looking pictures. We try our best though! Also, our readership went up to 3! We got three lovely comments! I was pretty much convinced that no one read our blog other than myself, E and possibly Friend B at times. lol.

Here is the recipe:

Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup brown sugar
6 tbsp butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter (or smooth)
2 large eggs
1 cup milk (low fat or skim is fine)
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, peanut butter, eggs and milk until smooth. Pour into flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
Divide batter into your paper-lined muffin tin. Each cup should be filled to the top, not just half way up, to ensure you get a nice dome on the muffin.
Bake for 17-20 minutes, until a tester comes out clean and the top of the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.
Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 12.

Daring Bakers!

E and I joined the Daring Bakers this month! The challenge was to make chocolate covered marshmallow cookies and milano cookies.

We were so excited to bake them, and they turned out pretty well! We ran into a few small hitches, but it was a lot of fun. We even brought our mallow cookies out to our backyard (the BEACH! yay!) for a photoshoot. Our neighbours probably thought we were a little crazy.

Mallows(Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies)
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 10 min
Inactive Prep Time: 5 min
Cook Time: 10 min
Serves: about 2 dozen cookies

• 3 cups (375grams/13.23oz) all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (112.5grams/3.97oz) white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter
• 3 eggs, whisked together
• Homemade marshmallows, recipe follows
• Chocolate glaze, recipe follows

1. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, blend the dry ingredients.
2. On low speed, add the butter and mix until sandy.
3. Add the eggs and mix until combine.
4. Form the dough into a disk, wrap with clingfilm or parchment and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.
5. When ready to bake, grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a silicon mat.
6. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
7. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, on a lightly floured surface. Use a 1 to 1 1/2 inches cookie cutter to cut out small rounds of dough.
8. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Let cool to room temperature.
9. Pipe a “kiss” of marshmallow onto each cookie. Let set at room temperature for 2 hours.
10. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicon mat.
11. One at a time, gently drop the marshmallow-topped cookies into the hot chocolate glaze.
12. Lift out with a fork and let excess chocolate drip back into the bowl.
13. Place on the prepared pan and let set at room temperature until the coating is firm, about 1 to 2 hours.

Note: if you don’t want to make your own marshmallows, you can cut a large marshmallow in half and place on the cookie base. Heat in a preheated 350-degree oven to slump the marshmallow slightly, it will expand and brown a little. Let cool, then proceed with the chocolate dipping.

Homemade marshmallows:
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 3/4 cup (168.76 grams/5.95oz) sugar
• 1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 2 egg whites , room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In a saucepan, combine the water, corn syrup, and sugar, bring to a boil until “soft-ball” stage, or 235 degrees on a candy thermometer.
2. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water and let dissolve.
3. Remove the syrup from the heat, add the gelatin, and mix.
4. Whip the whites until soft peaks form and pour the syrup into the whites.
5. Add the vanilla and continue whipping until stiff.
6. Transfer to a pastry bag.

Chocolate glaze:
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 2 ounces cocoa butter or vegetable oil

1. Melt the 2 ingredients together in the top of a double boiler or a bowl set over barely simmering water.

yucky goopy gelatin. it didn't smell any better than it looked either!

The VERY sticky glucose syrup. We couldn't find any light corn syrup here in Australia, but the glucose syrup worked well!

after dipping the cookies in chocolate

Milan Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gale Gand, from Food Network website

Prep Time: 20 min
Inactive Prep Time: 0 min
Cook Time: 1 hr 0 min
Serves: about 3 dozen cookies

• 12 tablespoons (170grams/ 6 oz) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups (312.5 grams/ 11.02 oz) powdered sugar
• 7/8 cup egg whites (from about 6 eggs)
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons lemon extract
• 1 1/2 cups (187.5grams/ 6.61 oz) all purpose flour
• Cookie filling, recipe follows

Cookie filling:
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 orange, zested

1. In a mixer with paddle attachment cream the butter and the sugar.
2. Add the egg whites gradually and then mix in the vanilla and lemon extracts.
3. Add the flour and mix until just well mixed.
4. With a small (1/4-inch) plain tip, pipe 1-inch sections of batter onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them 2 inches apart as they spread.
5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes or until light golden brown around the edges. Let cool on the pan.
6. While waiting for the cookies to cool, in a small saucepan over medium flame, scald cream.
7. Pour hot cream over chocolate in a bowl, whisk to melt chocolate, add zest and blend well.
8. Set aside to cool (the mixture will thicken as it cools).
9. Spread a thin amount of the filling onto the flat side of a cookie while the filling is still soft and press the flat side of a second cookie on top.
10. Repeat with the remainder of the cookies.

E piping out the milanos.

it's chilly these days

We've been SOOOO busy these past few weeks, hence the lack of posting. E and I have been buried in assessments- writing memorandums of advice, and prepping for client interviews and negotiations. We finally finished this past Thursday, and it feels pretty amazing. This recipe is from a few weeks ago, but I wanted to post it as it was so delicious.

Winter is full on these days, and chili is such a warm, comforting dish. Perfect for days when you are wrapped up in layers of clothes, fuzzy slippers and mittens. (side note- our new apartment gets VERY cold at night. We just moved to a wicked place on the beach, but there is no heating, so it gets QUITE cold at night. The location is worth it though, and we just make sure there are lots of blankets around!)

Here is the recipe:
1 onion, diced
1 tsp minced garlic
1 rib of celery, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1/2 cup shredded green cabbage
1/2 bell pepper, diced
dried herbs and spices-
1 tsp chile powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp paprika
1 can of kidney beans
1/2 pound of ground turkey
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp vegetable stock powder

1. Sweat off the onion and garlic in a little bit of oil.
2. Add in turkey, and cook almost alll the way through
3. Add the chopped vegetables and the herbs and spices.
4. Cook until slightly softened and fragrant.
5. Add in the can of tomatoes and the kidney beans.
6. Sprinkle in the tsp of stock powder.
7. Simmer on low for 10-15 minutes.

serve with shredded cheese, sliced green onions and fresh cilantro.