cooking

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.

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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

/ femkesfavouritefoodstuffs / 2 Comments

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!

Lemon curd and lemon and blueberry muffins

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A little while ago, I had a hankering for muffins. I wanted something fruity and zesty and went in search of an appropriate recipe. It wasn’t long before I found a delicious recipe for lemon and blueberry muffins, but there was a tiny problem: I didn’t have the required lemon curd.

 

Of course a problem like that is never truly a problem when you have ingredients and recipes, so the search went on to lemon curd. Well, I found a wonderful recipe that didn’t seem too difficult (I had never made lemon curd before, so I wasn’t entirely certain I could succeed at making it myself). All the ingredients were already in my home, so I quickly got started.

 

Because both recipes are to be found online and in English, I’ll simply put up links to them. The recipe for the here and the recipe for the lemon and blueberry muffins is here.

 

I started with the lemon curd recipe, because I figured it would need some time to cool before I could actually use it in the other recipe.The instructions were fairly simple and were absolutely right. I just got a little bit impatient at one point and turned the heat a little higher. In hindside, that was a mistake. While the lemon curd tasted absolutely wonderful and had a great consistency, a very small part of the egg whites cooked too quickly, so there were some small white flecks in the curd. They didn’t bother me, because the flecks were only very small and there weren’t very many, but I’d prefer it if they weren’t there of course.

 

The verdict for the lemon curd is: I’m DEFINITELY making this again, and apart from keeping the heat a little lower, not becoming so impatient, and maybe not adding the lemon zest (I used my finest zester, but the peel ended up in little strings and they would stay behind in my moouth, which I don’t like) I wouldn’t change a thing. The curd was very tart, very lemony, and absolutely delicious! I did have a picture of the curd, but somehow, that picture looks unappetizing. I must put that down to my “skills” in photography, because in real life it looked amazing and tasted even better. I’ll show it here because I’m all about the good as well as the bad, but please keep in mind that reality was so much better than this one not so great picture.

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My ugly picture of utterly fantastic lemon curd

You can’t say I didn’t warn you…

Anyway, on to the next bit!

Once the lemon curd had been made, I started on the muffins. I’m not sure if you know the Hairy Bikers, but my husband and I like to watch their shows. They’re funny, they love their food and they have no fear of the good things in life. Yes, I’m talking about fat and sugar.

 

Again, the instructions were fairly simple, but in hindsight I was glad that I ended up with more than I could get into the oven in one go. The first batch, I did everything exactly as it was said in the recipe, but because the sugar on top of the lemon curd started to burn, the first batch came out looking rather dark. Those muffins also had a few edges that tastd a little….burnt.

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The first batch is at the back, the second batch is at the front in this picture.

 

 

So, for the second batch, I decided to just skip the sprinkling of sugar that the Bikers recommend, and those muffins actually turned out amazing! The muffins came out very soft and they smelled absolutely fantastic. The lemon curd on the top gave them that extra zing and also helped the muffins stay moist. If I had to say one negative thing about these muffins (which in my opinion really isn’t a negative at all, but some people might nont like it) it would have to be that they ended up a little bit sticky.

 

All in all, I would love to make these lemon and blueberry muffins again, but now I know that I prefer them without the sugar on top of the curd.

 

What are your favourite muffin-recipes? Please let me know in the comments and who knows, they might feature in a future post!

 

lemon and blueberry muffins closeup
lemon and blueberry muffins cooling

 

Caramel and sea salt cookie dough bonbons

/ femkesfavouritefoodstuffs / 3 Comments

For this blog post, I have a bit of a story to write before I get to the actual recipe part. You see, today’s recipe came to me in a rather special way. Let me tell you what happened (you may want to get some tea, this might become a lengthy post).

 

Last january, my husband started to become very secretive. He’d taken a notepad and at the bottom had written “KEEP OFF!”. I’d never see him write in it, but everytime I saw the pad, it would have the message at the top. He also started spending rather a lot of time working with his laptop, heaving sighs and giving the screen some looks of disgust. When I asked him what was going on, he just mumbled something unintelligible and would continue his working and sighing. Every time I tried to take a peek, he would tell me to get to the other side of the table or the other side of the room, so I had no idea what he was working on.

 

Finally, in March, he told me he was working on a surprise for my birthday. He was getting a “little bit stressed out” (read: A LOT stressed out) about it, but he was determined to get it all done. He just wasn’t sure if he would be able to get it all done in time for my birthday. I told him it didn’t matter, that it was fine if it was a bit later, and that surely I would like whatever it was what he was working on and it would well be worth the wait.

 

My birthday came and went and even though he did give me some gifts, he made it clear that the thing he had been working on wasn’t there yet.

 

Cue about a week after my birthday party. That day, the gift was finally there and I found out what it was that he had been working on for so long. When I saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. He had made me a cookbook. Not just that, but he’d made me a cookbook filled with recipes that incorporate my favourite bar of chocolate: Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate in milk chocolate, sea salt and caramel. And to make sure that I would make something from the book, he also gave me seven (yes, SEVEN!) bars of that particular chocolate and some Maldon sea salt for good measure.

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He made the lettering himself, changing the letters of the chocolate bar to make the title of the book. He designed every page, spending hours online for stock photos and images and recipes he could use. He went through dozens of recipes, changing words, trying to find the best way of putting everything on a page. And then he had it printed on glossy photopaper, the good quality stuff and made sure even the spine was looking perfect.

 

I’ll admit it: I am completely in awe of what he did for me. And of course I was going to make something from the book!

 

So here it is, the first recipe from my own cookbook. It’s a recipe for cookie dough bonbons that are covered with caramel and sea-salt sprinkled milk chocolate. Before I started this post, I did a quick internet search and discovered the recipe is actually Wolferien’s. The link to the original recipe is here. Just so you know: it’s in Dutch.

 

Here’s the recipe in English (directly translated from my cookbook):

Ingredients:

130 grams of full fat butter

80 grams of icing sugar

100 grams of light brown caster sugar

2 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

225 grams of plain flour

1 teaspoon of sea salt

2 bars of Tony’s Chocolonely caramel and sea salt chocolate (I used only one because I had soms chocolate chips and wanted to use them up)

 

Method:

Cream the butter and sugars together. Add vanilla and cream and mix until well combined. Add the flour and sea salt and mix to a crumbly dough. Cut up one bar of chocolate and mix this in (I used chocolate chips instead). Form the dough into a ball.

Line a tin with baking parchment (I used a tin that was 20×18 cm, which is about 8×7 inches) and push the dough into the tin, making sure to get an even layer. Put the tin into the fridge to cool. Melt the other bar of chocolate au bain marie and pour the melted chocolate over the cookie dough. Sprinkle a few sea salt flakes over the top for decoration (I didn’t do that). Put back into the fridge to cool for at least another hour.

Once the chocolate has hardened, use a sharp knife to cut the dough into squares and your bonbons are done!

 

I completely forgot to take pictures while I was making these bonbons, but I did take pictures of the end result:

 

The bonbons were really yummy and I loved the contrast between the sweet vanilla cookie dough and the caramelly salty flavour of the chocolate topping. I handed out some of these bonbons to some relatives and everyone loved them.

 

This brings us to the question: Would I make them again and what would I change?

I don’t think anyone will be remotely surprised when I say that YES, I  WILL be making these again. If I had to change anything I might use a little less sugar in the dough if I felt like having a slightly less sweet bonbon. I might use smaller chocolate chips, because the ones I used were a little bit big for the size of the bonbons. But really, the recipe works perfectly, so any changes are optional and not necessary at all.

 

If you end up making these bonbons, do send me the result! I love seeing what you make of these recipes and maybe your personal changes will give me some new idea for other recipes. Alternatively, if you have a recipe you’d like me to try, do let me know as well! Please email me at femkesfavouritefoodstuffs@gmail.com or fill out the form on my contact page.