Valentine's Peanut Butter Cups

Confession: I don't like chocolate with peanut butter.  To which my friend Jacob would always respond, "I don't understand you, and I don't think I want to."  I don't even like PB&Js.  Give me a PB or give me a J, but not together.

But these chocolate peanut butter cups aren't for me, they're my Valentine's treat to Joe.  He likes Reese's peanut butter cups, but he loved these far more.  (I promise not to make any sickening Valentine's lovey-dovey talk.)  They're hand-made with quality ingredients, see, not some cheap factory-plunked creation.  They'd also make a great gluten-free treat.

These confections are easy to make but require a bit of care.  I combined two recipes I had found.  Melted bittersweet chocolate is brushed on the inside of paper mini-muffin cups, refrigerated, a second layer is brushed on, and they are refrigerated again.  At this point one recipe says to peel off the paper, but this resulted in breakage because the unfilled cups are too fragile.  So I piped the peanut butter mixture into them and froze them briefly, and then removing the paper was easier.

Be quick (the chocolate melts on your fingers), but very gentle when removing the papers.  Expect some breakage and plan on making extras.  Normally I'd console myself over breakage by eating the pieces, but like I said this isn't my kind of treat.  Then hide the broken pieces somewhere and present the prettiest cups to your lucky Valentine.

Pains aux Raisins

I was torn over whether to make these or the pains au chocolat.  Did I want a luscious pastry cream with raisins, or intense bittersweet chocolate?  Turns out I didn't have to choose because each recipe required a half-batch of the same kind of dough!

I brought these along with the pain au chocolat to my last book club meeting, and it wasn't a surprise that everybody chose the chocolate variety.  But Isabelle, our organizer who comes from southern France, took the untouched pains aux raisins with her and said she ate them before she got to the highway.  "The  pains au chocolat were delicious,'' she said, ''but the pains aux raisins were out of this world!"  She added that they were very authentic, and that she doesn't dole out undeserved flattery.  Which is appreciated!  The consensus was the same at home.  Joe found a few I had squirreled away in the freezer to bring to my mother and sister in New York: "Hey, there are more pains aux raisins in here!!"  I forbade him from touching them.  Trust me, he more than ate his share!

Clockwise from top-left: The pastry cream is easy to make and dotted with plenty of vanilla seeds; the dough is then rolled up and sliced (don't forget to add your raisins, or you'll have to unroll like I did); the pains are proofed on a sheet pan; they tend to fall on their sides after rising, so I lay them flat.

The many layers bake up golden and flaky, and the pains are brushed with an apricot glaze.  The pastry cream becomes not so much a filling as an element of moisture and flavor.

Pains au Chocolat

Pains au Chocolat are my kind of treat: flaky, buttery dough concealing a piece of chocolate in the center.  They went over extremely well at my book club, especially with our leader, Isabelle, who hails from the Languedoc region of France.  She said they and the Pains aux Raisins (next post) were very authentic, and that the chocolate was perfect and not too sweet -- I used Valrhona Le Noir 61%.  Having no authenticity gauge myself and this being my first croissant, I was pleased to get such a ringing endorsement.  Plus, chocolate and buttery bread... what's not to like?

The recipe instructions may be long, but don't fret.  The dough-making was the laborious part, and all that's left is to roll it out and roll up the chocolate in it.  The proofing method is kind of bizarre, but was easy enough.  Updated note: I'm glad everyone likes the green cups, but they're espresso cups, not teacups -- just to give you an idea of how small the cups and pains actually are.

If your dough refuses to roll out and springs right back into place, let it rest in the refrigerator for 10 minutes or so.  I hate doing that because I want to be done with a task pronto, but it won't behave otherwise.  In the end, my rectangle was still an inch short because of the springy dough, but what the hey.  The pains still looked good to me!

I got Sarabeth's Bakery as a Christmas gift, and these and the Pains aux Raisins are the first recipes I have tried from it.  I'm looking forward to trying more!

Croissant Dough

Look at all the thin layers on this baby.  This croissant dough will be used in my next two posts.  I thought this was going to be a real project, and I psyched myself up for it.  It wasn't so difficult after making puff pastry, which is very similar.  If you can just set aside a block of time -- there are resting periods (both for the dough and yourself) -- it's very doable.  The timing was an intimidation factor.  The recipe from Sarabeth's Bakery says the dough must be frozen for a minimum of 24 hours and thawed for at least 8 hours, but cannot be frozen for more than 4 days.  So you'll have to choose two days: one in which you have time to make the dough, and another to bake it that comes at least 36 hours later but not more than 4 days.

Croissant dough is made much like puff pastry dough.  I was surprised not to see weight measurements for a bread recipe from a bakery book, but it worked out fine with volume measurements.  Clockwise from top left: The yeasted dough is made and then slashed with an X to represent four sections later; butter and flour are beat together and them formed into a square; the dough with the X is rolled out into four sections, and the butter is placed on the raised square in the middle; the dough flaps are wrapped all around the butter and flipped over.

Clockwise from top left: The second "book" turn of dough is folded slightly to the right, and then the left is brought over; then the entire piece of dough is folded in half; the third and final turn of dough is done (both the first and third turns are simply folded into thirds like a letter); and the dough is sliced in half before being wrapped in the freezer.

There are lots of steps, but don't be intimidated.  I wish I could include the illustrations that came with the book as a guide, but you can refer to some of mine.

Brisket Melt

I had this sandwich with my sister at a restaurant last month.  It was a bitterly cold day, and we were starving.  I couldn't decide what to order, and asked Sis what she was getting.  "The brisket melt," she said, and I decided I had to have it too.  The brisket was juicy and fall-apart tender, and served on challah with melted cheese, onions, and peppers.  And I've been thinking of it ever since.

This version proved to be real easy.  Instead of placing the brisket and vegetables in a roasting pan covered with foil like the recipe said, I used my cast iron braiser and its lid.  Stick it all in the braiser, then in the oven, and come back in a few hours.  Toast a roll, melt some cheese on it, top it with some sliced brisket and onions, and you're done.  And really full.

I used Ina Garten's Brisket recipe, but downsized it for a 2½-pound brisket instead of the 6 or 7 pounds the recipe calls for.  If you can't find brisket at your supermarket, ask the butcher.  My only other deviation from the recipe was to use a can of tomato puree with some water instead of the tomato juice the recipe calls for, since I thought that was a weird choice of braising liquid and I didn't have any.

At Last... Madeleines!

I have finally made a worthy madeleine, and it is a thing of beauty.  They are cakey and tender in the middle, crisp at the edges, shell-shaped with well-defined ridges, and lemony in an understated, floral kind of way.

I got some inspiration recently at my most favorite afternoon tea place in the world, the Taj Boston.  They have harpists and violinists, for cryin' out loud, and I love the beautiful china.  I hate it when tea is served in stainless steel pots.  But look at these amazing desserts.  There are (working from the top down) chocolate-covered strawberries, lavender sables, cornmeal scones, currant scones, lemon curd and Devonshire cream, macarons, citrus tarts, pistachio financiers, opera tortes, and, of course, little madeleines.  Sugar rush, anybody??

What obstacle lay in my madeleine path?  For years I had this beautiful mini-madeleine pan, because I love all things bite-sized.  But though they were tasty and developed that hump the madeleine is known for, they never took on those beautiful ridges. So, in my opinion, it wasn't a proper madeleine. I wondered if it was some error of mine or a bad recipe.  Finally, I got a full-sized madeleine pan, one that produced beautiful ridges on the cookies.  Only they came out burnt brown, even though I opted for the lower end of the baking time in the recipe.  But determination won out, and I think these madeleines are perfect. Maybe some lavender or Earl Grey varieties are up next?

After the madeleine batter rested overnight, it became thick and developed air bubbles, like a yeasted dough. The batter is then scooped into the pan.  The first batch came out burnt, even though I followed the recipe!  I shaved off a couple of minutes the next time, and they came out to golden perfection.

Mixing Up the Chicken Pot Pie

This idea was born out of Thanksgiving leftovers.  After a few days of eating the same-old, I made a pot pie filling and threw in the turkey with the roasted butternut squash and spinach I had served on the holiday table, then topped it with pie dough and baked.  Sounds weird, I know, but it's incredibly good.  So good that I've roasted whole chickens and butternut squashes a few times since just to have the pie all over again.

The squash is a nice change from the carrots that often feature in pot pies.  And the idea of spinach in the filling may wrinkle noses, but it's a nice contrast for the richness, and the taste and texture are surprisingly mild.  Joe really loved it.  After this, I'm not sure we'll ever go back to ol' peas-and-carrots chicken pot pie again.

Flour is stirred into the cooked onions, carrot, and celery, and then chicken stock is added to make the creamy sauce.  The chicken, butternut squash, and spinach are added.  Rounds of dough are cut for the pie tops, and holes are made in the top to let steam escape.

This thrown-together recipe makes a lot.  As in a 10-inch deep-dish pie plus two individual pies.  You can eat them for days, freeze them, or halve the recipe.  It's nice to be able to pull a homemade pot pie out of the freezer on a hectic day, far better than anything you can buy from the frozen section.