Skillet Chocolate Chip Cookie

"Oooh, big cookie," Joe said as he walked past the cooling skillet.  This just looks like a fun recipe.  It's also easy to throw together, and you save a little time from the usual scooping of smaller cookies onto a baking sheet.

The drawback?  It's a bit dry.  The original recipe didn't have any such complaint in its reviews, so I hope it wasn't because I replaced a quarter of the flour with white whole wheat flour.  Or maybe other people used skillets that weren't cast iron -- which conducts more heat -- like I did?  Some people even commented that they used pie pans.  Maybe because I decided to forgo the ice cream and caramel sauce.  If you have a skillet variation you recommend, leave me a comment.  I'd like to give this another go!

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Cafe G at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has reopened with a new wing and updated restaurant.  Cafe G is in a great space with three glass walls that let you look out onto the city, and there are a bunch of small dishes to choose from, or heartier fare like this grilled comté sandwich with roasted grapes and frisée.

It was the perfect venue for our Jane Austen book club get-together because we were reading Laurie Horowitz's The Family Fortune, a modern retelling of Persuasion in which the protagonist's fictional ancestor was a rival of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Boston patroness of art.  Gardner served Champagne and doughnuts at the museum opening in 1903, and this impossibly tasty dessert I ordered -- warm doughnuts served with a Champagne crème anglaise -- was a tribute to that history.

For more on the small and elegant dishes my table sampled, head to my post at Boston Tea Party.

Black Bottom Tart

This is one heck of a tart.  The flaky pastry shell is topped with a layer of chocolate pastry cream, then a layer of rum-flavored cream, and finally piped with  whipped cream.  I will say I wish there was more chocolate filling and rum flavor, but it's still delicious.
(Update 3/12/12: I had a mini-tart made from leftover dough and filling, and tipping a tablespoon of the rum in the cream before whipping gives it the needed oomph!)

You can halve the recipe like I did, since I have only one of those tart pans.  When halving recipes, there's always a dilemma like "how do I halve 3 egg yolks?"  I went with one egg yolk and the whole tablespoon full of rum, and the recipe seems forgiving.  It takes some time to make all the components, but your reward will be sweet.  If you want to go an easier and more chocolatey route, I highly recommend this Chocolate Cream Pie.

For a primer on making chocolate curls, I like  Pioneer Woman's how-to post.  I started out with just chocolate, and it kept shattering instead of curling.  I couldn't believe it, since this wasn't my first time making them.  Maybe because my new place is so dry?  After repeated attempts, I threw my hands up and told Joe I was ready to down the airplane-sized bottle of rum I bought just for this recipe.  He told me to go for it.  Anyway, I thought there was something to the Pioneer Woman using shortening in her chocolate curls, but shortening creeps me out and I didn't have any.  So I used a pat of butter, and lo and behold the chocolate curled!

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Parmesan Thyme Twists

A few years ago I blogged about turning homemade puff pastry dough scraps into cinnamon sugar twists, and included a cheese variation as an afterthought.  This time the cheese version gets the spotlight.  I chose parmesan and thyme here, but try different cheese and herb variations.  Or use multiple cheeses and herbs, or throw in some cayenne for a kick.  The recipe is very adaptable.

Before you possibly panic about the difficulties or fussiness of making puff pastry, I'm going to add that these are made from the storebought variety!  I find making it from scratch time-consuming and messy, but the recipe I used back then is here with step-by-step photos if you want it.

And as a bonus, I'll also throw in the Cinnamon-Sugar Twists recipe, updated with a tad more sugar because in retrospect the original wasn't sweet enough.  According to my stats, the original post has been a sleeper hit, which was a surprise to me.

Parmesan Thyme Twists: The puff pastry is brushed with egg, then sprinkled with cheese and herbs.  The dough is folded over and lightly rolled to seal the edges, then strips are cut with a pastry wheel and twisted before baking.

These are also really easy to throw together for a quick party snack.  Joe loved both varieties, though parmesan isn't my favorite cheese.  But we both enjoyed the cinnamon sugar twists.

Ruby Cake with Hidden Chocolate and Raspberry Filling

I made this cake for a potluck at work, and at the end of our glutton-fest and my shift I placed the leftovers in my covered portable cake dome and left it on my desk.  I thought it would be safe there from the daytime shift, and my colleagues could eat the rest the next day.  When I returned that next day and looked at my desk, I was amused to find there was less cake than I remembered!  I put it back out on the communal table, and a few minutes later I saw a higher-up (who shall not be named) pass by and cut a piece, then shove it whole into his mouth.  Hmm ... maybe that explains the cake shrinkage.

The Ruby Cake is a buttery bundt with a dense and moist crumb, and a bit of tang from some sour cream.  It gets its name from a hidden filling of raspberry jam and chocolate.  I'm not sure whether it's the nature of this cake, or if I was too careful with keeping the filling away from the walls of the cake pan so it wouldn't burn, but the filling takes up very little of the cake.  Plus it rose up through the batter while baking.  I simply wanted more of the chocolate and raspberry.

Clockwise from top left: the cake batter; piping in circles of batter; digging a trough and adding jam to it; topping the jam with chopped chocolate.

I LOVE this beater attachment.  If you have a stand mixer, get one of these beaters that scrapes the bowl as it mixes.  No need to stop the mixer and scrape the bowl periodically.

Next, more circles of batter are piped on top, then smoothed. In the final step, a chopstick is inserted into the batter in swirling motions to distribute the chocolate and raspberry filling.

I have to say I think you can dispense with the piping bag and circles, and just scoop the batter in.  The extra steps -- scraping the batter into a bag, piping the batter, then washing the bag later -- seemed unnecessary.

Bundts also call to mind this baking pan I saw recently at the Museum of Science's exhibit on Pompeii.  This is what I would have used in Roman times!

For me this cake was good but not amazing, though that could change by doubling up on the chocolate and raspberry next time.  But that's just my opinion; you might also want to ask the person involved in the cake's disappearing act.

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Bacon Cheddar Chive Scones

I'm resurrecting this oldie but goodie from my archives.  It's cold-weather comfort food, even if the temperatures have been remarkably high for the Boston area in February.  When I last posted this a couple years ago, they were a warming treat after a bout of shoveling in some snowstorm.  This year I haven't shoveled once (yay!), but these scones are just as enjoyable.

A food processor makes quick work of blending butter into the flour.  Crispy bacon and diced cheddar are stirred in, and the chives give the scones a nice bite.

It helps to give the scones a stint in the freezer or fridge while the oven is preheating, since cold ingredients are the key to tall and flaky scones or biscuits.  Brush with cream, bake, put the kettle on to boil, and grab a good book.

Frozen Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pie

Ladies, does this situation sound familiar to you?  You've baked something for an event, a potluck, or a friend or relative, and your fella asks you where that's going or says he would have liked some?  When Joe saw the heart-shaped cookie cutters and ate some of the chocolate cutouts from the Two-tone Linzer Hearts I made for my sister, he was a bit envious.  I had something different in mind for him though.  Since he liked the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups that I made for Valentine's Day last year so much, this Frozen Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pie sounded like a winner.

People with Celiac will rejoice to hear this pie is gluten-free.  For the base, I used storebought gluten-free cookies that I had intended for a different purpose and recipient but never got around to.  But the Pamela's brand cookies were surprisingly delicious, so I used them.

I also made the recipe into four small pies, and you won't finish even one pie in a single sitting because they're so rich.  Two were made in 5-inch pie plates, and two in mini-springform pans that showcase the beautiful sides and base of the pies.

Joe was impressed with the beautiful pies, plus he went back for seconds.  I think I came out on top because my gift was a heart pendant, plus some of you might recall I'm no fan of mixing chocolate and PB.  And, I just might make those Linzer Hearts again.

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