Baked Brownies

I think it is every baker's goal to find the ultimate brownie recipe. I know it was mine. For a time, I thought I had found them in KAF's On the Fence Brownies. But that was only until I bought the Baked cookbook and tried out their famous brownies. I will never go back to any other brownie. This recipe is all you'll ever need. I could go on and on, but it really just isn't necessary. In my next baking of this recipe, I think I'll try to decrease the flour a bit and add some more cocoa to up the chocolate flavor, but even that is not necessary. Be sure to cool completely before cutting them. Your patience will be rewarded. These brownies rock. And they're even better cold.

Baked Brownies

1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup margarine or butter
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
5 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to350 degrees. Grease the sides of a 9x13 inch baking pan.In a large bowl, place the flour, salt, and cocoa. Whisk well to combine.

Place the margarine, chocolate and espresso powder in a bowl and microwave until almost melted.Stir until completely melted and smooth. Add the sugars, and stir thoroughly to combine.

Add three eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk well to combine.
Add the remaining two eggs and whisk. Add vanilla . Do not overbeat at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the top of the chocolate batter.
Gently fold the mixtures together. Take care not to overmix.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan at the halfway point.

Cool completely; cut and serve. Serve with ice cream and hot fudge sauce for a decadent dessert or enjoy cold with a glass of milk.

Semolina Sandwich Bread

I am so glad to be finally posting a non challah, bread related post. I've been baking lots of goodies, that you'll hear about shortly, but have been neglecting the dear namesake of this blog. I'm glad that I'll be making this a special one too. You see, I could never find semolina flour in America let alone dream about finding it in Israel. So sadly, I've been skipping over all the semolina recipes in my bread books that called for it. Until... That's right! In the land of the unfamiliar flours, I found real Italian Semolina Flour.... This past Sunday, my close friend S and I spent the afternoon at the beach in Tel Aviv and enjoyed dinner on the pier. Walking back to the busstop we stopped at this huge and beautiful health food store and of course, I had to stop in. There's something about health food stores and supermarkets that call my name. That's right. I must stop into every supermarket I see to see what they have. Do they carry my favorite yeast? Are there any potential baking ingredients hiding on the shelves. You get the point. So I'm browsing the flours and there it was. To my complete and utter shock. Semolina. Flour. I bought two bags. I know. I should have bought more. But I want to be able to actually justify the purchase and use it all before it goes back. I can always get more, after all. This will hopefully be the first of a few experiments with this major find of mine. You'll be hearing about them, so bear with me! I started off with a simple Semolina Sandwich Loaf that can be found here. I actually own the book that it comes from, Leader's Local Breads, but of course, it's in America. I made this bread at night after coming home from a date-- I needed to relieve the stress so I kneaded some dough. Always makes me feel better, let me tell you. I let it rise a bit in the fridge and then stayed up and watched He's Just Not That Into You, again, until the dough had risen. I shaped it and then let it proof all night in the fridge and baked it fresh in the morning. Oh the smell. Like no other. The flavor of semolina is delicate and it yielded a tight crumb that was a beautiful pale yellow, chewy and soft. I really liked this and have been eating it here and there every day. I suspect it would be yummy with jam. I would change the olive oil that I used as I think the flavor is a bit too intense. But otherwise, seriously good. Next time, I'd really like to try extended fermention or some sort of Semolina soaker (say that ten times fast) to really coax the flavor from the wheat. Sending this post to Yeastspotting. It's been too long since I've joined in!What a find!All the dry ingredients.Whisked together. Adding the oil...and the water... mixed to form a shaggy dough.

I turned it out for its autolyse..then kneaded it until a smooth ball was formed, about ten minutes. The dough has risen in the fridge. I turned it out..

patted it into a rectangle..formed a logtucked the edges under,and placed it in its pan.The loaf has proofed in the fridge-- although it hasnt quite crowned over the pan.The oven spring was still lovely as was the crust. Here's the crumb-- nice and yellow.

Mmmmmm!

Buttermilk Pancakes

Whoever said that pancakes had to be for breakfast? I have a healthy amount of admiration for that person who thought to combine breakfast and dinner to come up with... brinner. Why not have a plate of light, fluffly, slightly tangy buttermilk pancakes for dinner? Why not make everyone around you fall in love with you and come knocking at your door? 'Cause that's just what these pancakes do. This recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes is from Alton Brown's trusty tome, I'm Just Here for More Food-- his volume on baking. These are easy to whip together and require barely any effort at all, except for dishwashing, which if you're like me, is no effort at all. Yes, I enjoy washing dishes. Something relaxing about having your hands in warm, sudsy water. Pathetic, I know. Anyway, this recipe tastes equally as good with whole wheat flour, an identical recipe appears on the next page. I substituted oil for margarine because I was too lazy to dirty another bowl melting the margarine.... but no one was the wiser. Enjoy them.. I'm off to make another batch. ;)

Buttermilk Pancakes
adapted from Alton Brown's recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk (at room temperature)
4 tablespoons vegetable oil


Place the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl;
whisk to combine.In a separate bowl, combine all the wet ingredients.Whisk to combine.Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients...and mix just until the batter comes together. Do not overmix or your pancakes will be tough.Heat a pan and cook pancakes until they expand and develop bubbles around the sides. Flip and cook on the other side.

Transfer to a plate.

Lots of yummy pancakes!

Chocolate Mint Squares

Living as a new immigrant in Israel, it's hard to know where to find specialty baking ingredients. When I mean specialty, I mean ingredients that appear in every American supermarket but are hard to come by here. But as an American living in Israel, knowing the supermarkets that carry an array of American baking products is crucial. One of these markets is in the center of Jerusalem, where a lot of affluent Americans live. At this market I got my hands on, canned pumpkin (gasp), corn syrup, and..... Peppermint extract! This one was a real find. Of course I was going to by it to add to my ever growing collection of extracts. To justfiy its price tag, I decided that I had to use it right away and there was no better opportunity than Shabbat dinner. I was hosting so as usual I opted for a dessert. This recipe for Chocolate Mint Squares is taken from the King Arthur Flour Baking Companion but can be found here. This was an easy to put together but really yummy bar cookie. It tasted just like York Peppermint Patties! (Sorry, never had a Girl Scout Thin Mint... not kosher.) They were really light and refreshing, thanks to that peppermint flavor. The chocolate layer was dense and moist and the frosting was just perfect. The chocolate glaze really adds to the overall look of the bar as well. Now that I have the extract, I would definitely make it again.... if there weren't a million other recipes I'm waiting to try. I made the the bottom part ahead of time and frosted and glazed the next day. Take care to grease the pan well; lightly just won't cut it. It didn't stick that badly, but I had to scrape underneath thereby ruining the pan. Also, next time I would make more frosting as the amount yielded looked a bit anemic on top. For a thicker bottom, you could always use an 8x8 inch pan, and the frosting might not be as problematic.

Eggs, sugar and extract.

All mixed together. Melting chocolate and margarine..and incorporating it into the egg-sugar mixture.

Here's what it looks like..

Adding the flour and salt..

The batter in the pan ready for baking......baked with a lovely top crust.

Powdered sugar, melted margarine and extract, and some water...and we have frosting!

Spread frosting as evenly as possible over the top. An offset spatula is very helpful. More chocolate and margarine...

Drizzled over the top. Bon appetit!

Challot

Wow! It has been way too long since I've updated this blog. I can't even express how much I've missed posting pictures and my random thoughts about the things I've been baking. I still don't have internet access in my room, which still makes it inconvenient to post, but the university has been gradually setting up wireless internet in some places on campus, one of those being close to the dorm. What kind of university doesn't have wireless internet access on campus?! We students have asked the same question many times over. But hopefully by next year we'll have it all over campus and the shlep won't be such a big deal. I said hopefully. My fingers are still crossed on that one.
So what have I been up to? Oh, same old. Reading cookbooks and blogs, longing for the day I get to update mine. I've been baking here and there, for parties and Shabbat.. and I've even added to the cookbook collection. I've had my eyes on bread recipes, but as you know, nothing is dearer to my heart than Challah. So it should come as no surprise that my first post back is my latest in a string of Challah posts. Let me just tell you, that this recipe is a winner. I know that because my friends have told me they think this is the best batch I've made. And they've loved quite a many challot of mine. The texture is dense and moist but not too heavy. Sweet but not too sweet and not eggy at all. It actually struck a perfect balance for me as I don't love sweet challot or eggy ones either. This is definitely one to make over. This batch yielded two challot and a roll because I didn't need much more than that, but feel free to double it as needed.