Grandmother's Oatmeal Cookies

I have few memories of my great-grandmother.  But among them, I can most vividly recall the smell of her kitchen and the taste of these oatmeal cookies. They're chewy and slightly cake-y. It's a texture that-- from familiarity, association or aesthetic-- I think is perfect.

Ingredients

• 2 c. uncooked oats
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 c. cooking oil
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1 c. chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 c. raisins
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1 1/3 c. plain flour
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbsp butter, cold and cut into pieces
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground clove
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Combine dry ingredients except for the raisins--making sure that the butter has been broken up and spread evenly throughout. 
2. Mix in wet ingredients with a spoon and fold in the raisins.
3. Drop from a tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350ºF/180ºC for 12 minutes. Makes about 20 cookies.

If you want the quick way out, simply combine the first seven ingredients (oats, eggs, oil, milk, nuts, raisins and brown sugar) with a package of spice cake mix.

Fondant à la châtaigne (Chestnut Fondant) Nº1

The location: A square off the Cours Napoleon in the late afternoon, Porto Vecchio, Corsica.

The actors: Two weary, famished hikers coming off two weeks on the GR20, sitting in the shade of Église St. Jean-Baptiste.

The discovery: le fondant à la châtaigne

Here's our first attempt at recreating the experience...


Ingredients:

• 1 can (435g) chestnut purée, unsweetened
• 200g caster sugar
• 3 eggs, separated yolks and whites
• 30g butter, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC (170ºC fan-assisted)
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the chestnut purée with the caster sugar until well blended. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract, and finally the yolks. Mix until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
4. Combine egg whites with chestnut mixture until fully incorporated.
5. Pour into baking tins either with baking cups or well-floured.
6. Bake for approximately 25 mins until a skewer comes out almost clean but not entirely.
7. When cooled, remove from tin and place in refrigerator or leave to reach room temperature.

So Michel Roux jr may not like the air bubbles or some of the colours. But he hasn't tasted it. Just as decadent and delicious as the original of Corse. The texture was quite as sticky as the first one, and I don't think that the purée was as smooth. Any suggestions on tweaking the recipe are much appreciated.

Ben's Birthday Brownies

[I did not take this photo... ours is below. But, like stew, all brownies look the same.]

Ingredients
200 g dark chocolate
100 g butter
200 g cream cheese
360 g sugar
4 large eggs
60 g self-rising flour
Mixed spices (cinnamon and nutmeg in particular), about 1 t

Method
Preheat oven to 350˚
1. Melt chocolate, butter, and cream cheese in a bain marie.
2. Beat eggs with sugar.
3. When chocolate mixture is melted, incorporate by spoonful into the eggs. Whisk.
4. Add flour and spices, and mix just to incorporate.
5. Pour into a 10x12 baking pan, and bake for 20-25 minutes. (I made a half recipe, used a pan about half the size of this, and cooked them for 15 minutes. I am guessing at the cooking time here. The final texture should be like that of a fondant.)
6. While still warm, dust with confectioners' sugar.

Hughenden Manor Apple Cheesecake

This weekend, some friends of ours took us to Hughenden Manor, the country home of Benjamin Disraeli. The house was gorgeous, with portraits of family and friends (including a large one of Lord Byron) and a lot of the original decoration. The best part, though, was the walled garden. Full of just-ripening apples, pumpkins, chard, kale, pears, and even figs (!), it was the perfect place to take a break in the middle of the afternoon.

On the way out, I stopped to buy some apples. Fifteen for £1 meant that I went home with enough to make dessert--and more! I picked up some cream cheese, sour cream, lemon, and digestive biscuits at Sainsbury's, and that was that:



The base recipe for the cheesecake is an old one my mom gave me a couple years ago.

Crust Ingredients
1.5 cup digestive biscuit crumbs
about half a cup of sugar, more or less
4 T melted butter
Nutmeg

Crust Directions
Preheat the oven to 350˚
1. Mix the crumbs, butter, and sugar together and pat onto the bottom of a springform pan.
2. Bake at 350˚ for 10 minutes.
3. Sprinkle with nutmeg and chill.

Cake Ingredients
1 lb cream cheese
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1-2 T lemon juice
1 T vanilla
1/2 cup self-rising flour
1 T mixed spice (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, etc)
1 cup sour cream

Cake directions
Preheat oven to 325˚
1. Cream together cream cheese, sugar, and eggs.
2. In a separate bowl, mix lemon, lemon juice, vanilla, and flour.
3. Mix dry ingredients with wet.
4. Add the spice.
5. Fold in the sour cream.
6. Pour into springform pan and bake for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
7. After baking for 45 minutes, turn off oven and let sit in closed oven for another 20 minutes to half an hour.
8. After this, take the cake out of the oven and let cool on counter.

Topping Ingredients
Apples
Juice of half a lemon
A bit of sugar
Allspice

Topping Directions
I wasn't measuring anything at this point--just playing around--so the proportions are going to be vague.
1. Make applesauce with the above ingredients, keeping the skins on if you want the color, but taking them off before topping the cheesecake. Basically, boil the apples for about 25 minutes on medium with a bit of water, stirring frequently. Reduce to a thick sauce.
2. With two apples, cut into very thin slices, and place on a tin-foil covered baking sheet. Grill in the oven until slightly shriveled and browning.
3. Spread applesauce on top of the cheesecake, then some caramel sauce (see below).
4. Sprinkle apple pieces on top of the sauce, and drizzle more sauce on top.

Caramel/ization

Today I was in a cheesecake kind of mood. More on that later. I was also in a mood to eat inexpensively, though.
Trying to cut down on costs and still cooking a delicious dessert are not mutually exclusive activities, though, especially when the topping drizzled over the cake is a creamy, homemade caramel sauce!
Ever since reading On Food and Cooking--during my brief, brief life as a scientist--I've been fascinated by the chemical reactions that take place during candy making, and caramelization are so complex that they aren't completely understood. But, really, there's no need to understand the science behind candy-making to create a good caramel, even though it's the reason I find baking and candy-making so interesting!

The only thing you really need to know is this: when the sugar melts and gets that deep brown color, it's well over 300˚F. Keep your head well away from the pot and your hands covered with oven mitts while you pour in the cream, or you will end up with nasty burns. And the burning sugar will stick to you. It will be bad.

Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup double cream (whipping cream)
4-6 T butter
dash of vanilla or other flavoring (if desired)

Method
1. Pour the sugar into a heavy-bottomed sauce pan and turn the stove on to med-med/high
2. Stir occasionally until the sugar begins to melt. It will look like this:

3. The sugar will quickly get darker as it cooks. Make sure the butter and cream are nearby, and, stirring constantly, pour the cream into the sugar when it reaches a deep, amber brown color.
4. Take the cream/sugar off the heat, stirring constantly, and when the mixture has stopped bubbling furiously, add the butter.
5. Incorporate the butter, and then add any flavorings you'd like.
6. Pour into a mason jar for storage. Reheat to serve if desired.

Wine-braised pears

Because Thanksgiving dinner is full of stodgy main courses, sides, and desserts (ahem, see below), I wanted to make something that would contrast with the usual--in a good way. Whether these pears are a side dish or a dessert is up to you.

Ingredients
6 Bosc firm bosc pears
5-inch stick of cinnamon, cut into about five pieces
1 t whole cloves
1 T vanilla
Almost an entire bottle of dry red wine (I used Merlot)
1 c white sugar
3-4 T lemon juice

Preparation
1. Pour wine, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla into a large stockpot (preferably one that is tall but not too large in diameter).
2. While you are bringing the mixture to a boil (making sure the sugar is dissolved and doesn't burn), peel the pears. I didn't peel mine completely, but the more skin you get off, the prettier the jewel-tone will be at the end.
3. As soon as the liquid is boiling, turn the heat down.

Now, at this point you have a choice. I cut the bottoms off of the pears--just enough so that they would stand up straight--and placed them in the pot. Unfortunately, the liquid didn't reach all the way up to the stem and after half an hour of braising, only about 3/4 of each pear had that nice, purple tone. I ended up having to flip them over for the last fifteen minutes just to get the color even, negating the whole point of the bottom-removal and straight-uppedness.

I recommend instead that you:

4. Cut the pears in half, lengthwise, and de-seed them with a melon-baller or a spoon.
5. Place them in the liquid in whatever orientation allows as many of them as possible to be covered with the spiced wine.

Then:
6. Cover the pot and bring everything to a very gentle boil.
7. Allow the pears to cook, covered, for about an hour.

What you're watching for is tenderness and that deep, royal color, but you don't want to cook anything so long that you end up with pearsauce.

8. Remove the pears and put them on a serving dish.
9. Take excess liquid and reduce it to approximately 1 cup of liquid, until a syrup forms.
10. Pour the syrup over your pears.

I added some of the extra toasted hazelnuts from the Gratin to the top of my pears, but there's no real need for that. In fact, if I could sprinkle anything on top it would probably be a gentle dusting of toasted pecans and a very, very small amount of gorgonzola or sharp cheddar cheese. The point of this recipe though, is to be as cheeseless and fruity as possible, so... well, if I ever add the cheese, I will do it in secret.