December decompression

December has barely started, and I'm already stressed.  I have too much that I want to do, and no idea how I'm going to find time to do it all.  Thank goodness I have vacation time later in the month, though that adds to the stress a bit, since I have so much to do at work before then.  But somehow or other, it will all get done--probably with the aid of not enough sleep and lots of caffeine.

Since I don't drink coffee, the caffeine comes from Coke or tea.  I bring a big mug of tea from home in the morning, but sometimes I want more during the day.  A walk to Starbucks gives me the chance to get out of the branch for a bit and decompress.  Unfortunately, our weather right now isn't always conducive to hot drinks, so I'm still drinking a lot of ice tea.  However, I've also discovered that you can get them to make a Gingerbread Latte with tea rather than espresso, and it's quite tasty.  (Ask for an Awake Tea Latte with gingerbread syrup.)

And sometimes I forego the caffeine in favor of chocolate.  During the fall, the seasonal hot chocolate drink is Salted Caramel.  I'm not sure if it's actually still available in the shops, but I've discovered that I can buy boxes of Starbucks hot chocolate in various flavors at Target.  For the salted caramel one, the caramel flavor seems to come from little chips of some sort.  That gave me the idea to add butterscotch chips and some extra salt to my homemade hot chocolate to see if I could duplicate the flavor.  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, so I can make it whenever I want.


Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate

45 grams (about 1/4 cup) chocolate chips
15 grams (about 1 tablespoon) butterscotch chips (I used Guittard)
60 grams (1/4 cup) boiling water
225 grams (1 cup) milk
1/8 - 1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 - 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
whipped cream or marshmallows (optional)

Place the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips in a small saucepan and pour the boiling water over them.  Let sit for about 5 minutes, until the chips melt.  Whisk the mixture until smooth.  Place the saucepan over medium low heat and bring to a simmer, whisking occasionally.  Whisk in the milk, and bring the mixture to a simmer again.  Whisk in kosher salt and sugar to taste.  (The amount of sugar needed will depend on the sweetness of the chocolate chips used.)  Pour into mugs and top with whipped cream or marshmallows if desired.  Makes 2 servings.

Sundae Sunday - Nuts about caramel

So what do you think makes a sundae a sundae?  Is it just having sauce on ice cream?  Is it adding whipped cream?  Is it the cherry on top?  Well, I have all of those today, so there's no doubt in my mind that this is a sundae. =)  I don't eat sundaes much.  I usually eat a single scoop of ice cream, plain, in a small bowl or ramekin.  Eating a small amount means I can get away with eating ice cream more often.  Occasionally I'll put some chocolate or caramel sauce on top.  But whipped cream?  Never.  And cherries?  I don't even like them. Jamie got to eat the one on this sundae; he's the one who bought the cherries in the first place, so I can make him some ice cream with roasted cherries.

But since this is Sundae Sunday, I went all out.  At the base is a waffle bowl, made from the same recipe as my cones, but sandwiched between a couple small bowls to give it shape.  The ice cream is salty caramel with pecan pralines.  (You can also find the salty caramel ice cream recipe in this Bon Appetit blog post. Thanks, Mike!)  It's topped with a sinfully sweet butterscotch sauce and topped with softly whipped cream and a cherry.

I added the pralines to the ice cream because I wanted something that wasn't too plain, and I thought they would be good with the caramel ice cream.  Initially, I was thinking of using hot fudge or some other chocolate sauce for the topping, but then I decided that I wanted to stick with the caramel theme.  Regular caramel sauce seemed too obvious; I wanted something with a little more character.  I consulted my bookshelf on Eat Your Books, looking for butterscotch sauce.  I was a bit surprised when it pointed me to my copy of Ratio, by Michael Ruhlman.  But sure enough, there was a butterscotch recipe in there.  Butter, dark brown sugar, cream, salt, vanilla, and the intriguing ingredient of cider vinegar were fairly quickly combined into a delicious topping.  As for the whipped cream, I made it by hand--I've finally learned that the best way to do that is to use a large bowl and my big balloon whisk, even for a relatively small amount of cream.  The whipping goes fast that way, and I can easily stop before the cream gets over-whipped.

The verdict?  Wow.  This sundae was totally decadent, and completely delicious.  I let the caramel for the ice cream get a little too dark, so the ice cream wasn't very sweet.  But that was okay with the pralines and sauce, both of which were quite sweet.  I don't usually go for nuts in my ice cream, but I like how the pecans were crunchy, while the praline coating melted into the ice cream.  The butterscotch sauce was wonderful--the additions of vinegar and salt really gave it an excellent flavor.

Butterscotch Sauce
(adapted from Ratio by Michael Ruhlman)


55 grams (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter
115 grams (4 ounces, or a packed half cup) dark brown sugar
115 grams (4 ounces, or half a cup) heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Place the butter and brown sugar in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Cook for 5 to 10 minutes over medium heat until the sugar has completed melted into the butter and the mixture is thick and bubbly.  Remove the pan from the head and whisk in the cream.  Let the mixture cool slightly--about 5 minutes--then whisk in the vanilla, vinegar and salt.  Makes about a cup.

For more info on making the butterscotch sauce, check out this article from Shuna Fish Lydon, with great how-to photos.

And be sure to check back later this week for my Sundae Sunday round-up!

Happy blogiversary to me!

Wow!  I can hardly believe I've been blogging for an entire year!  And what a year it's been...  It's totally appropriate that I hit such a big milestone on a Tuesday, since Tuesdays with Dorie has been such a big part of the past year.  Almost half of my posts have been related to this wonderful baking group.  43 weekly Dorie recipes for me so far (I joined for week 7 and have missed only 2 or 3 weeks since), plus a few others from the book that I've made on my own.  9 official Daring Bakers challenges completed, plus a couple of rewinds there, as well.  Lots of new things learned.  Lots of ingredients consumed (don't think too hard about all the butter and sugar...)  And of course, many wonderful new friends made out there in blogland!

I don't have as much free time as I'd like right now, what with all the last-minute holiday stuff to do.  But as soon as I have a few more minutes to myself, I'm going to steal Erin's great anniversary idea and highlight some of my favorite recipes from the past year.  So look for a post on that later this week.  In the meantime, let's get back to this week's TWD recipe...

Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews and Suitcases chose Real Butterscotch Pudding for us to make this week.  Unlike last week, I didn't mess around with this recipe at all.  Okay, that's not entirely true.  I didn't mess around with the ingredients at all.  The method is another story.  Until I was reading this week's P&Q, I'd forgotten all about the mess I made when making Dorie's chocolate pudding back in July.  The recipe calls for using a food processor.  I have a large one, but it can't handle the amount of liquid in this recipe.  I thought about using my regular blender or immersion blender, but was feeling lazy and didn't want to clean much of anything.  So I went totally low-tech and just used my heavy duty whisk for the whole thing.  It worked just fine.

I did get to add one new thing to my pantry this week.  Up until now, I didn't have any scotch.  And real butterscotch pudding calls for real scotch.  So I headed over to my favorite source of wines and spirits to acquire some.  A very nice person there helped me find a relatively small (200 ml) and not too expensive ($9) bottle of scotch that would work fine for any cooking needs I might have.  It's a blended scotch (Dewar's), rather than a single malt.  It's now residing next to my small bottle of bourbon that I also only use for baking (nice with pumpkin things...).  

And the verdict?  I normally don't go for butterscotch desserts because I find them overly sweet, but I really liked this!  The scotch actually made a huge difference.  I tasted the pudding before I added it, and it was pretty good.  But the scotch made it so much better!  It reminds me of when I add rum to chocolate desserts.  You don't really taste the rum itself that much, but it enhances the overall flavor of the dessert.  Jamie really enjoyed this one as well.  But the biggest fans had to be Brianna and Gillian.  I shouldn't be surprised--I think they love all pudding (okay, except maybe rice pudding).  

Thanks to Donna for picking this week's recipe.  You can find it on her blog, along with lots of neat posts about how she bakes while living on a sailboat.  And to see what the other TWD folks did this week, check out the blogroll.   

Turn of the century

Everyone has heard of pregnant women having cravings for or aversions to certain foods.  I fortunately didn't have too many problems with that in either of my pregnancies.  The only aversion I really had was to most meat when I was pregnant with Brianna.  It wasn't a problem with Gillian.  And with Gillian, I had a thing for mint chocolate chip ice cream (HEB Creamy Creations, for those of you in Texas).  I had a scoop of it just about every day for several months.  We're talking quite a few gallons all together (I don't really want to think too hard about the total).  And now, while I do like it once in a while, I can definitely live without it.  

When I was grocery shopping at Central Market Friday night, I was reminded of a craving I had during the last month of my pregnancy with Brianna.  I don't normally like really sweet things.  I'd rather eat chocolate. =)  But I ate Nestle butterscotch chips by the handful.  I went through several bags.  Most of the time, I can hardly stand to look at them, since they're so sweet.  Well, what I found was a display of several flavors of Guittard chips that I hadn't seen before.  Butterscotch, Green Mint, and Cappucino.  I don't really like coffee-flavored things, so I wasn't tempted by the cappucino ones.  I did think about grabbing a bag of the mint ones, to put in something chocolate.  But a bag of the butterscotch ones immediately jumped into my cart.  =)  Honestly, I think I'm going back for more, maybe tomorrow--they are full 12-ounce bags, for $1.69 each!

As soon as I got home, I opened the bag for a taste.  Wow.  Very smooth and creamy.  Sweet, but not overpoweringly so.  I started trying to figure out what to make with them, so I wouldn't just eat them all out of the bag.  My first thought was Oatmeal Scotchies.  I haven't had them in forever.  I was all set to make the dough last night, when I discovered a problem--I only had about a cup of oatmeal.  Oops.  So I thought some more.  I had pecans, which I thought would be good with the chips.  And I've been playing around with my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding whole wheat flour to it.  So here's what I came up with:

Butterscotch Pecan Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 1/2 cups (6 3/4 ounces) all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur)

3/4 cup (3 3/8 ounces) white whole wheat flour (King Arthur here, too)

1/2 teaspoon table salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans, toasted

1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips

You can mix the dough in a stand mixer, but I usually just use a large mixing bowl and a wooden spoon.  Cream together the sugars and butter.  Beat in the vanilla and egg.  Mix in the flours, salt and baking soda.  The dough will be stiff.  Stir in the nuts and butterscotch chips.  You can use the dough right away, but I prefer to refrigerate it at least overnight.  

If the dough is chilled, take it out of the fridge so that it can soften a bit while you preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Line a heavy baking sheet with parchment paper.  I use a #70 disher (which holds about 2 teaspoons) to scoop the dough onto the baking sheet.  Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.  Let the cookies rest on the pan for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.  Yields 5 dozen cookies (about 2 1/2 inches in diameter).  

The verdict?  Delicious!  Not too sweet.  The toasted pecans add a really nice touch.  Jamie really liked them; not surprising, since he loves butterscotch.  Both girls ate them as well, although Brianna had to complain about the pecans first.  =)  I think most of these are heading out the door to other people so I don't eat them all.  

Oh, and the post title?  This is my 100th post!  I'm amazed at how much my blog has evolved since I started.  My pictures are a lot better, for one thing. =)  And next month is my blogiversary, so I'm trying to come up with a good way to celebrate.  I don't know what I was thinking, starting it two days before Christmas.  Like people with birthdays on or near Christmas, I don't want it to get overlooked because of the timing. =)  We'll see...