Month: July 2017

Peanut Brittle

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I’m certain you are wondering why I’m making another post about a winter treat in the middle of summer, but I promise you there is a good reason. Remember how I mentioned in my previous post that I got my hands on some molasses? Well, at the same moment, I got hold of some corn syrup, another item that is very difficult to find in the Netherlands, and of course that was going to be the next ingredient I was going to try out.

I went and looked online for several recipes, and the peanut brittle recipe that I found was the one Maarten (my husband) agreed I should make.

So, here I am, writing about a winter thing in Summer. I promise you next time, I’ll have something barbecue-themed to make up for this post, ok?

But before I drift off too far, let’s go back to the recipe at hand. Thhe recipe I used is one I found on allrecipes.com . It was written bij Amanda and is called “Mom’s Best Peanut Brittle” and if you click the name it will bring you to the original recipe.

As I promised last time, I’m going to put the ingredients in grams and mls as well as cups and teaspoons, so that anyone can make this.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup (201 grams) white sugar
  • 1/2 cup (170 grams) light corn syrup
  • 1/4 teaspoon (1,25 grams) salt
  • 1/4 cup (59 ml) water
  • 1 cup (125 grams) peanuts
  • 2 tablespoons (28 grams) butter, softened
  • 1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda

Directions

“This is a wonderful peanut brittle that is easy to make and wows everyone! Have all the ingredients for this recipe measured out and ready. This recipe requires that you react quickly. You do not have time to measure ingredients in between steps.”

  1. Grease a large cookie sheet. Set aside.
  2. In a heavy 2 quart saucepan, over medium heat, bring to a boil sugar, corn syrup, salt, and water. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Stir in peanuts. Set candy thermometer in place, and continue cooking. Stir frequently until temperature reaches 300 degrees F (150 degrees C), or until a small amount of mixture dropped into very cold water separates into hard and brittle threads.
  3. Remove from heat; immediately stir in butter and baking soda; pour at once onto cookie sheet. With 2 forks, lift and pull peanut mixture into rectangle about 14×12 inches; cool. Snap candy into pieces.

I did exactly what the recipe said and I’m glad I did, because the results were fantastic. The smells wafting from the pan were so delicious I wanted to sweep my finger through the boiling sugary peanutty mixture and lick it. Of course I didn’t do that, I’m not a complete novice and I know that boiling sugar is not a good thing on fingers, but I sure enjoyed the scents.

IMG_4121

The end result was something I’ll never forget: wonderfully crunchy, sweet but not overly so, and living up to its name. I had great fun breaking the slab into smaller pieces and couldn’t stop eating the smaller bits (and some of the larger ones too).

Maarten also loved it, although he mentioned he would like to see more peanuts the next time I make this (and yes, there is absolutely going to be a next time!). I’ll probably listen to his advice, even though it was already a great result. Don’t believe me? Take a look at these pictures below and see for yourself:

Oh, and one top tip for you: whatever you do, do NOT put the brittle on tissue paper or napkins like I did. As wonderful as the brittle looks on top of napkins, it will stick and you’ll have a horrible time taking it off. Don’t try that at home, kids!

Chewy molasses cookies

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Because my husband and I like to cook new things, we are always looking for interesting recipes and new ingredients (well, new for us). The newest thing that we got was a jar of molasses. I’m not sure if any of you know this, but in the Netherlands, molasses really isn’t a thing. We have syrups for on sandwiches or on pancakes, but molasses has never been a part of my life until about a week ago.

My first thoughts on opening the jar and giving it a sniff weren’t favourable, I’m sorry to say. It smelled kind of yeasty and musty and reminded me more of damp cellars than anything edible.

So, what to do with it? After some consideration, and some searching on the world wide web, I decided to make chewy molasses cookies. I figured that if anything could make me like molasses, it would be my favourite thing in the world: baked goods.

Below I will write down the recipe that I used. I found it on a site called “bon appétit” and if you want to check out the site, you can find it here.

A friend of mine told me the other day that she liked the blog, but that she couldn’t make any of the recipes. She lives in the US and told me that all my grams were nice, but unusable for US kitchens. We can’t have that of course, so from here on in, I will put different measurements in the recipes (and during the summer I will go back to older posts and adjust them as well), so that hopefully everyone can try them out for themselves. I will use the conversion tables that I found here and here.

Ingredients (makes about 36)

2 cups (256 grams) all purpose flour

2 teaspoons (10 grams) baking soda

1.5 teaspoon (7.5 grams) ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon (5 grams) ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon (3.75 grams) ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon (2.5 grams) kosher salt

1 large egg

1/2 cup/1 stick (113 grams) unslated butter (melted)

1/3 cup (67 grams) granulated sugar

1/3 cup (113 grams) dark molasses (I used the dark one, so that’s the one I’m naming here)

1/4 cup (55 grams) pcked dark brown sugar

coarse sugar for rolling (I used granulated)

 

Method (taken directly from bon appétit):

Place racks in lower and upper thirds of oven; preheat to 375° F (190° C). Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk egg, butter, granulated sugar, molasses, and brown sugar in a medium bowl. Mix in dry ingredients just to combine.

Place sanding sugar in a shallow bowl. Scoop out dough by the tablespoonful and roll into balls (if dough is sticky, chill 20 minutes). Roll in sugar and place on 2 parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 2” (about 5 cm) apart.

Bake cookies, rotating baking sheets halfway through, until cookies are puffed, cracked, and just set around edges (overbaked cookies won’t be chewy), 8–10 minutes. Transfer to wire racks and let cool.

As I was making the recipe, I was amazed at how good it was. The instructions and amounts were exactly right and while I was doubtful it would work out (mostly because I was afraid I’d end up hating the flavour), these worked really well. The only thing I felt I needed to change was the rolling of the dough balls. Even after chilling the dough was very sticky, so I put blobs of dough in the sugar and then, once they were coated in sugar, I rolled them into balls. This way worked fine for me, so that may be a tip for you if you encounter the same problem.

Here is what the end result looked like:

chewy molasses cookies
chewy molasses cookies close up 1
chewy molasses cookies close up 2

 

So, my verdict: I had not expected to like them at all but I am very happy to be able to report that I was dead wrong. To me, the flavour and texture of these cookies reminds me somewhat of gingerbread and that makes it more of a wintery thing for me. Next december, when we’re about to celebrate Sinterklaas (our version of saint Nick, we exchange gifts and make a fun evening with the family), I think these will be an absolutely fantastic addition to our usual spread.

Would I make this recipe again? Yes, absolutely!

What would I change? Apart from the aforementioned change in method, not a thing. Great recipe, fantastic cookies that are chewy and soft and absolutely wonderful in every way. What’s not to like?

If there is a recipe or an ingredient you would like me to try out, do let me know! Put it in a comment or send me an email (femkesvafouritefoodstuffs@gmail.com) and maybe I will feature your recipe next!

Battle of the cookies

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Whenever I want to bake something small but nice, I bake cookies. The other day, I made one batch of a standard cookie dough, devided it into two and made two different kinds of cookies. One batch were with milk chocolate chunks, sea salt and caramel and the other batch were with dark chocolate chips and cadied orange peel.

The base recipe is my favourite recipe for simple cookies and it comes from Laura’s Bakery (a wonderful website with lots of great recipes. be warned: the website is in Dutch).

I’ll put Laura’s recipe here in English so you can all see how wonderful it is:

 

Basic recipe for cookies

Ingredients (for 15-20 cookies)

225 grams of butter

150 grams of white caster sugar

8 grams of vanilla sugar

1 egg yolk

280 grams of plain flour

pinch of salt

Method:

Cream together butter, sugar and vanilla sugar. Add the egg yolk and mix it through. Add flour and salt and mix them in, forming a firm dough.

(At this point I split the dough into 2 portions and added the chocolate and candied peel to one batch and caramel and seasalt flavoured chocolate to the other).

Wrap the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge. Let the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour before you work with it again. I made two long sausage-shapes before wrapping them in clingfilm.

After an hour, take the dough out of the fridge. Here, you have different options. You can form little balls of dough and flatten them with the back of a spoon or a fork. Alternatively, you can do what I did and make the sausage shapes before refridgerating them. Once cool, all you need to do is unwrap them and cut them into discs.

dark chocolate and candied orange peel cookies
caramel and sea salt flavoured chocolate chunk cookies

The baking time for these cookies is about 16 minutes in an oven that’s been preheated to 190 degrees Celcius  (374 degrees Farenheit). Depending on what you add to the cookies, the cooking time can be a little bit different. The cookies are done when the edges are golden brown. Remove the cookies from the over and let them cool for a few minutes. Then move them onto a wire rack and let them cool completely. Whatever you do, do NOT be tempted to transfer the cookies immediately after baking. They are very soft when they come out of the oven and will break as soon as you try to lift them. They will firm up during those first few minutes out of the oven and will be far easier to move to the rack then.

 

The results of my baking you will be able to see down below. I personally can’t really choose a winner, because both batches were equally wonderful in my opinion. I guess it really depends on your personal preference and I just like cookies, all cookies. So, I’ll leave it to you to decide which batch is the winner. Do put your votes and thoughts in the comments, I’d love to read your opinions!