Wayne Schmidt's Cooking Page

Wayne Schmidt's Cooking Page!

The following recipes are excerpts from my unpublished cookbook, An Engineer in the Kitchen: A Guide to Precision Cooking, by Wayne Schmidt.)

(Click on main site to browse 70 topics ranging from triangle looms and Knitting Nancies to the strange world of lucid dreaming.)

There are two things that bother me about virtually every cookbook I've read: they use the inaccurate method of volume measurement and the don't discuss the effects of varying ingredients.

A cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 120 grams to 180 grams depending on the type of flour and how it was scooped. Use a combination yielding a 180-gram cup when you need a 120-gram cup and your recipe will come out too dry and probably fail. The answer is to get a good digital scale (one accurate to at least two grams -- they run about $50.00 but last forever) and measure your ingredients by weight. This eliminates the problem of compaction varying the amount of ingredient scooped. The one exception to this is when very small ingredients are involved such at salt, baking powder, or vanilla. Kitchen scales aren't accurate at small weights so it's best to use a good set of measuring spoons for them.

Now consider a recipe you like but want to change it to suit your own taste preferences. What modifications produce what effects? Cookbooks never mention these sorts of things. They'll tell you how to change blueberry muffins into cranberry muffins by switching the can labeled "blueberries" for one labeled "cranberries" but that's about it. What people need to know is how changing the amounts and types of the fundamental ingredients effects the finished product. The following recipes try to address some of those questions. In so doing they give someone reading them a feel for what corrections to make to modify the recipes to achieve the desired result.

A third, and lesser, complaint is that I don't believe cookbooks give enough discussion of technique. Many times how a recipe is made can be as important as what goes into it. For this reason the following recipes present the details of technique in what at times may seem to excruciating detail.

Baking temperatures are critical. Readers are strongly encouraged to get an oven thermometer, or two, and check the actual temperature their oven runs at.

To prevent burning the bottom surface of many things baked in an oven, I use a technique that I have never heard of before. I lay one, two or three layers of paper toweling on the baking sheet and cover them with parchment paper prior to placing the item to be baked on the sheet. The paper slows the transfer of heat from the metal sheet and prevents burning. The number of sheets is varied to control the amount of heat applied to the bottom of the food. Using this technique, it is easy to bake cookies so that the bottoms and tops are both done at the same time. It's also useful for preventing the formation of the hard, burnt layer on the bottom of meatloaf.

I followed the same procedure for developing all of these recipes: first, make test batches of every recipe I can find for whatever I'm working on; second, select the one result from the first step that's closest to what I'm looking for; third, make a series of test recipes to optimize the texture and flavor. This is a lengthy process (it took over 50 batches to perfect my sugar cookie recipe) but yields recipes that are so delectable that they are almost irresistible.

Most of the recipes posted here will be sweets or desserts because they are most people's favorites.

I hope readers will enjoy and experiment with the following recipes. More recipes will be added from time to time so please check back regularly. If anyone has a question or suggestion please contact me.

Please note, some of these recipes are recently developed and haven't been converted to gram measurements. I promise to do so as soon as time permits.

NEW!!!

Buttercream frosting (Please see Odds and Ends.)

CONTENTS

COOKIES:

Kris Kringle Christmas cookies (photo)
Tuile Twist Cookies (photo)
Lemon Cookies for Grown-Ups (photo)
Jeff's Sugar Cookies (photo)
Cinnamon Puffs (photo)
Pecan Fingers (photo)
Viennese Crescents (photo)
Rice Krispie Squares (photo)
Coconut Macaroons
Peanut Butter Cookies
Chewy Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Oatmeal cookies (photo)
June's Butterhorn Cookies (photo)
Chocolate Chip Cookies! (photo)
White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies (photo)
Shortbread
Butter cookies

CAKES: (Jump to cakes)

Glendale Community College Memorial Apple Turnover (photo)
Blueberry Upside Down Cobbler (photo)
Pineapple Upside-Down cake (photo)
Pound Cake
Brownies
Peanut Squares (photo)
Individual Apple Pies (photo)
Industrial Strength Apple Pie
Chocolate Lasagna (photo)

DESSERT BREADS: (Jump to Dessert Breads)
Date-nut Bread (photo)
Banana-nut Bread (photo)
Zucchini Bread
Pumpkin Bread
Apple Spice Bread
Cinnamon Rolls (photo)
Jenny's Raisin Scones (photo)
Blueberry muffin test

ODDS AND ENDS: (Jump to odds and ends)

Buttercream frosting
Cake Batter Ice Cream (photo)
Lime Rickie (photo)
Spoon candy rediscovered! (photo)
Steak Fanatic Pizza (photo)
Picture perfect fried eggs (photo)
Lasagna for manly-men
Cheesebread! (photos)
Green Muck!
Four-pound hamburger (photo)
Faux Lasagna (photo)
Perfect boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Baked Apples (With a picture of the strangest, and best, baked apple ever.)
Apple stuff
Corn Bread
Gail's Super Trail Mix
Light & Crunchy Waffles
Fried Oatmeal (photo)
Buttermilk Biscuits (photo)
Chile Dogs
Sourdough French Toast (photo)
Homemade Syrup

COOKIES

NEW!!! Kris Kringle Christmas cookies!

These are my son Jeff's favorite Christmas cookie. The cookie itself is very light with a delicate crunch. The nuts and cherry add interesting textures. This recipe makes 16 two-inch cookies.

1/4 cup soft butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Beat these ingredients on high until light.

Add:

1 egg yoke
1 teaspoon real vanilla

Beat until fluffy, about two minutes.

Mix in one cup of cake flour until smooth. Refrigerate two hours then form into 16 balls. Dip one half of each ball in slightly beaten egg white then roll the dipped half in chopped walnuts. Place on a cookie sheet insulated with two sheets of paper toweling under a sheet on Teflon coated foil, or use regular foil that has been very lightly greased. Press a maraschino cherry that's been dried with paper toweling into the center of each cookie and bake at 325 degrees fro 28 minutes or until the cookie is very lightly browned. Cool five minutes then transfer to a cake rack to finish cooling.

TUILE TWIST COOKIES

This recipe makes three dozen spiral-shaped cookies that are more delicate than the finest potato chips. Mounded high on a white china plate, they make an eye catching display.

Don't let their appearance fool you, these aren't potato chips but sweet, buttery, delectably fragile cookies that will surprise everyone!

1/2 cup soft salted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Beat until light and fluffy.

add 2 egg whites and beat until very light.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Mix in until smooth.

Place the batter in a pastry bag fitted with a Wilton #48, or equivalent, tip. This tip produces a 1/2-inch by 1/8-inch flat bead. Pipe even, straight beads onto a lightly sprayed and wiped heavy cookie sheet 3-inches apart. (Criso or regular oil sticks too much, only non-stick spray oils keep the cookies from sticking), Bake at 400-degrees for six minutes or until the edges are a light golden brown. While the cookies are still hot, use a pizza cutter to cut the strips into 4-inch pieces, grab both ends of each cookie, give it a gentle twist, and set it on a towel to cool. In five minutes the cookies will be cool and shatteringly delicate. Pile them high on a plate and watch them disappear!

Notes: Avoid using a thick layer of grease to keep the cookies from sticking, it makes them taste greasy. A very light coating of spray oil rubbed smooth with a hand works best. Use a small, sharp, offset spatula or frosting knife to slice under the cookies to release them from the cookie sheet. As you work your way toward the last cookie, the sheet may cool enough so that the cookies are hard to twist. Apply gentle pressure and give them an extra second and they'll give. If they get hard, return the sheet to the oven for one minute and they'll soften again. A better technique is to reduce the number of cookies made at a time so that the last one is still pliable when you get to it.

An even better shape for the cookies is a small round circle. Use a 1/4-inch round tip to pipe the dough out in 1-teaspoon mounts. They melt to form 2-inch diameter circles which, when bent into an arc, cool to attractive bite-sized pieces.

LEMON COOKIES FOR GROWN-UPS

This cookie packs a powerful lemon punch with enough kick to satisfy an adult's palate. The recipe makes 16 tender, chewy cookies two inches in diameter and a quarter of an inch thick. (I wish to thank Ann Meyer for all the valuable suggestions she provided to help me develop this recipe. Thanks Ann!) (Eat with caution! These things grab your taste buds in a judo hold and don't let go!)

1/2 cup of softened butter
1 cup of sugar

Beat these together until light and fluffy.

1 egg
1/8 teaspoon salt

Add to the butter-sugar mix and beat until very light.

Zest from two lemons
four tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Cut the zest from two lemons directly into the mix. (Don't cut the zest unto a board and chop before adding. This makes finer pieces but much of the lemon oil is squashed out onto the board and is wasted. I prefer using the type of zester with five holes that is dragged over the lemon and cuts off thin strips of zest. These strips do not make the cookie stringy or fibrous.) Add two tablespoons of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and beat again.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix the two dry ingredients together first, then beat into the wet ingredients. This dough is very soft. At this point the dough can be put into a cookie gun and extruded onto the cookie sheet or rolled in plastic and frozen so that it can be easily cut. I prefer the freezing technique because it allows me to roll the cylinder of dough in yellow sugar before cutting. This gives the cookies a perky look that hints at the lemon flavor to come.

Place the cookies 1 inch apart on a heavy cookie sheet covered with one layer of paper toweling under a sheet of parchment paper. This slows the cooking of the cookie bottoms so that they don't burn. Make the cookies, either by rolling and slicing or by using a cookie gun, so that they are 3/16 inch thick and two inches in diameter. These cookies do not expand much during baking. If they were frozen, let the cookies thaw under a layer of plastic wrap for twenty minutes before baking. If not, the middle of the cookies will be doughy. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 minutes. The edges should not be turning brown, you just want to cook the eggs enough to set the cookies. Immediately place the cookies one layer deep in plastic bags so that they don't dry out while cooling.

If you want to kick the lemon punch up even more, try topping the cookies with lemon curd.

I tried several experiments while developing these cookies. I found that lemon zest provides flavor mainly during the first few chews of a bite of cookie. The lemon juice took over after that and carried mostly into the aftertaste. Adding more lemon zest than in the recipe starts to make the cookies taste bitter. Adding more lemon juice makes them too acidic and the dough so soft it's hard to work. Baking the cookies longer and letting them cool on a rack so that they are crunchy cuts the lemon flavor by over half. Boiling lemon juice to concentrate it makes cookies that taste more acidic than lemony. Lemon extract makes cookies that had almost no lemon taste. Bottled lemon juice made cookies that tasted more acidic than lemony. Fresh juice and zest are by far the best way to go. One batch got a few drops of yellow food coloring to see if the yellow would make them look more lemony. It didn't work. The beige dough color dulled the yellow to the point where it didn't look lemony. As one last experiment to boost the lemon flavor, I tried replacing some of the sugar with Country Time lemonade mix. The resulting cookies tasted too acidic and only mildly lemony.

I tried making these cookies using orange zest and juice, but the flavor was too weak. However, the frozen dough was delicious!

JEFF'S SUGAR COOKIES

These cookies are perfect four and one-half inch diameter circles, golden brown at the edges, and delicately crunchy. I named them for my son who loved them as a kid. This recipe makes 15 cookies.

1/2 cup (114 grams) salted butter
1/2 cup (90 grams) butter flavored Crisco
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
1 (50 grams) large beaten egg
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
2 tablespoons (30 grams) milk
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2 & 1/2 cups (350 grams) all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cream butter, Crisco, and sugar together until very light. Add egg, vanilla extract, and milk to the sugar mixture and beat on high until fluffy. Blend the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and beat into the sugar mixture. The resulting dough is very soft and moist. Roll about one-sixth of the dough between two pieces of plastic bag material. The roller should roll on two shims .15 inches high (20 pieces of construction paper) to insure the dough is the perfect thickness. Carefully peel off the top layer of plastic and push a four inch diameter cookie cutter down on the dough. Use a knife to scrape away the extra dough outside the cutter then lift the cutter. Pick the cookie up by sliding a hand under the remaining plastic sheet and gently flip it over onto the other hand. Peel the plastic off and carefully drop the cookie dough onto a plate filled with sugar. Using a wide, many-tined fork (like those designed to fit between the slots of a grill) lift the dough and flip the other side onto the sugar. Transfer the cookie to a cookie sheet lined with two layers of paper towel (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and covered with aluminum foil. Repeat seven more times. With careful spacing eight cookies will just fit onto a standard cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 oven for ten minutes, turn the sheet for even baking and cook another three minutes. The cookies should just be turning a light golden brown at the edges but still be blond in the middle. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and cool ten minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and leave them to rest one hour before eating. These cookies are in prime eating condition after one hour of cooling and before two hours have passed. Eaten sooner they won't have dried out enough to develop the proper delicate crunchiness. After two hours they start picking up moisture from the air and begin going stale. This is not to say the cookies aren't good all day long or even frozen for long term storage. It's just that they are at their prime during the second hour of their life.

CINNAMON PUFFS

This cookie is hemispherical, delicately crumbly, and has a fragile outer shell that evaporates when eaten. The finished cookie is one and one-half inches across.

(45 grams) granulated sugar
(50 grams) soft serve margarine (the type sold in tubs)
(30 grams) beaten egg
(110 grams) all purpose flour
one-half teaspoon (2 grams) cream of tartar
one-quarter teaspoon (1 gram) baking soda

Topping

1 & 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar
1 & 3/4 teaspoons of (7 grams) cinnamon

(mix these two ingredients together)

Beat room temperature margarine and (45 grams) of the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until even lighter and fluffier. Mix in the remaining ingredients. Divide the dough into 23 tablespoon-sized portions and shape into balls. Shake or roll the dough balls in the cinnamon-sugar mixture until they are coated. Place on a cookie sheet insulated with two layers of paper (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and covered with aluminum foil. Bake in a preheated 400-degree oven for nine minutes. The tops should still be blonde, only the bottom edges of the cookies, where they touch the cookie sheet, should be showing any browning, and that should be light. Cool on the cookie sheet 10 minutes without bumping or the cookies may fall. The cookies should not look browned except for perhaps the outer bottom edge where they touch the cookie sheet. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool 45 minutes before eating. These cookies are best if eaten after one hour of cooling but before two hours have passed.

Soft serve margarine works best. Crisco gives the cookies a fatty taste and butter makes them heavy.

These cookies are best if eaten with a glass of milk.

PECAN FINGERS

These finger-shaped and sized cookies are a Christmas staple at our house.

1/2 cup soft butter
1/8 cup powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of water
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup of coarsely-ground pecans (You want a mealy texture, not a paste.)

Cream the butter, salt, sugar, vanilla extract, and water. Combine the flour and nuts and mix these into the moist ingredients. The dough will be dry, crumbly, and difficult to shape. Form into fingers by squashing small handfulls of dough in yout hands and place on a cookie sheet covered with two layers of paper towel (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and one layer of parchment paper. Bake at 250 degrees for one hour. Roll immediately in powdered sugar and let cool. This makes 15 to 20 cookies.

VIENNESE CRESCENTS

These are pleasant tasting, mildly sweet cookies that go great with tea.

1/4 cup (52 grams) walnut paste
5 tablespoons (62 grams) granulated white sugar
one stick (114 grams) of room-temperature salted butter
1 & 1/2 cups (180 grams) cake flour

Beat the walnut paste (made by processing walnuts in a food processor until a smooth thick paste forms), butter, and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour. Divide the dough into 24 equal pieces and roll each piece between the hand and a cutting board to form half-inch diameter rods three inches long. Form these rods into crescents on a cookie sheet insulated with two sheets of paper (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and covered with a layer of aluminum foil. Bake for 55 minutes in a preheated 250 degree oven. The tips of the crescents should just be turning a golden brown. Cool at least one hour before eating.

RICE KRISPIE SQUARES

Properly made these are outstanding cookies that keep for several days. The trick to getting the optimal chewy/crunchy texture is to use the proper ratio of ingredients and not over-cook the marshmallows. The honey adds very little flavor but prevents the cookies from drying into rock hard bricks.

8 cups rice krispies
one-quarter cup soft margarine (the type sold in plastic tubs)
4 cups miniature marshmallows
one tablespoon honey

Melt the honey and margarine then add the marshmallows. Mix continuously over a low flame to gently melt the marshmallows. The mixture must not boil. When there are six or so unmelted marshmallows left, add the rice krispies, remove from the heat, and fold them in thoroughly. Firmly press the resulting mixture onto a lightly buttered 9 by 9-inch pan. Cool, cut, and eat!

I found the quality of the ingredients makes or breaks these cookies so please use only the best name-brand varieties available. A word of warning: although these are touted as cookies for children, they are not at all sweet and many adults enjoy them.

COCONUT MACAROONS

These macaroons are moist, sweet, and have a strong coconut flavor.

one-quarter cup (55 grams) salted butter
one-third cup (60 grams) granulated sugar
two and one-third cups (200 grams) angel flake coconut (A 7-ounce package)
one-half cup plus one tablespoon (80 grams) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of water

Beat the sugar, water, and butter together until very light. Add the flour and mix until blended. Combine with the coconut and mix until uniform. Divide into 14 parts and form into balls. Place on a cookie sheet covered with eight layers of typing paper (to insulate the cookies and absorb the extra butter melted during baking) and place in a 325 oven for 12 minutes. Turn for uniform baking and cook another four minutes or until the tips of the coconut look golden brown. Transfer immediately to a plastic bag to cool ten minutes. Eat warm or let cool.

Don't compress the cookies before baking to smooth them out. Their texture will be better if left alone. Leaving the cookies in a hemispherical shape yields the moistest texture.

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

These one and one-quarter inch diameter flat cookies are bit sized, have a very strong peanut butter taste, and although they are dry still melt in the mouth.

1/2 cup packed golden brown sugar (120 grams)
1/2 cup soft serve margarine (the type sold in tubs, 104 grams)
1 cup creamy JIF peanut butter (275 grams)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
1 & 2/3 cups all purpose flour (240 grams)

Beat the margarine, peanut butter, baking soda, vanilla extract, and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the flour until smooth. The dough should be soft and moist but not sticky. Divide the dough into 36 portions, form them into balls, and place on a cookie sheet covered with two layers of kitchen towel (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and covered with aluminum foil. Use a fork to flatten the cookies by making an "X" of parallel lines. Sprinkle a pinch of granulated sugar on each cookie. Bake for 11 minutes at 375 degrees. The cookies should bake just until they are set, not browned except for a few of the highest tips created by the "X" pattern. Cool on the cookie sheet 15 minutes then transfer to a plastic container with a tight lid. Let them sit overnight before eating to develop a delicate texture.

NEW!!! I was working on thumbprint cookies using a prepackaged Betty Crocker Peanut Butter cookie mix when I got wondering if using peanut oil instead of vegetable oil would help boost the peanut flavor in the cookies. I made a batch of each to test this hypothesis. Although it sounded like a good idea, the tests results were disappointing. To my untrained palate, both batches tasted the same.

CHEWY PEANUT BUTTER CHIP COOKIES

After many experiments trying to make a chewy peanut butter cookie, I found that the proteins in peanut butter tend to cook into a dry texture. Chewy peanut butter cookies are available but they lack to peanut butter impact I wanted. The solution was to prevent the peanut butter from effecting the texture of the cookie by using peanut butter chips. This recipe makes 14 chewy cookies with an intense peanut butter flavor.

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon firmly packed golden brown sugar (140 grams)
1/4 cup soft margarine (50 grams)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 medium beaten egg (37 grams)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all purpose flour (112 grams)
1 bag (283 grams) Reeses peanut butter chips

Cream the sugar, salt, and margarine. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until light. Mix the flour and baking powder together and blend into the moist ingredients. Fold in the chips. Divide the dough into 14 rounded mounds and place on a cookie sheet covered with three layers of paper towels (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and a layer of parchment paper. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. Cool in a plastic bag.

Using butter instead of margarine doesn't change the taste and is harder to work with.

OATMEAL COOKIES

(The cookies on the left are oatmeal, those on the right are oatmeal-raisin-coconut.)

This recipe makes 12 chewy cookies one-half inch thick and two and one-quarter inches in diameter. Unfortunately only eight cookies ever come out of the oven. The cookie dough is so delicious much of it gets eaten before the cookies ever get baked.

one-half cup (120 grams) golden brown sugar
one-quarter cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
three-sixteenths teaspoon (.75 grams) baking soda
three-eighths teaspoon (1.5 grams) salt
three-eighths cup (72 grams) butter flavored Crisco
one medium (40 grams) egg
one-half teaspoon (2 grams) real vanilla extract
one and one-half cups (150 grams) quick or instant oats
five-eighths(70 grams) cake flour

Mix the flour and oats together in a separate bowl. Beat the sugars, salt, baking soda, and Crisco on high until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat again until the batter almost look whipped. Add the oat and flour mixture and mix on low until smooth. Use an two inch diameter ice cream scoop with ejector to make 12 hemispheres of dough on a cookie sheet covered with three layers of paper towel (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and one layer of aluminum foil. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes, turn, and bake an additional 5 minutes. The highest points of the cookies should just be turning a very light brown. Transfer immediately to a plastic bag and cool for ten minutes. Eat warm or let cool.

An option to this cookie is to add two tablespoons of water to the batter before adding the flour and oats. Follow this with three-quarters cup (112 grams) of raisins and a six ounce package (167 grams) of angel flake coconut. The flour and oats mixture is then added and the cookies are baked as before. Some people prefer these oatmeal-raisin-coconut cookies to the original recipe. In fact, using ten teachers to taste test them, oatmeal-raisin-coconut cookies disappeared twice as fast as regular oatmeal or oatmeal raisin cookies.

June's Butterhorn Cookies

Who's June and why are these called butterhorns when there's no butter in them? These are question's that may never be answered. The one certainty is that these are the most delectable cookies imaginable. They have a perfect balance of sweetness and richness combined with beautiful appearance and a unique, interesting texture. They are three-inch long crescents filled with meringue, covered in vanilla extract frosting and walnuts and are more like a pastry than a traditional cookie. (The dark specks in the photograph are artifacts from the scanning/pasting process used to cut the photo into this page.)

1 tablespoon yeast
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup shortening
2 eggs (separated
chopped walnuts
cinnamon in a fine shaker
Pillsbury French vanilla extract frosting
1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup sugar

Mix the yeast, warm water, and 1 tablespoon of sugar and set aside. Make a stiff meringue out of the egg whites and 1/2 cup of sugar. Make a crumble out of flour, salt. shortening. Mix egg yokes with yeast and add the mixture to the crumble. Form into a pie dough. Divide dough into four pieces. Roll each piece out into an eight-inch diameter circle. Spread with 1/4 of the meringue, sprinkle with some nuts and cinnamon, and cut into eight wedges. Roll up loosely and transfer to a cookie sheet covered with two layers of kitchen paper towels (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and one layer aluminum foil or parchment paper. Bake in a 325 oven for 20-30 minutes until edges are a light golden brown and the meringue is set. Cool, frost the tops lightly and roll in the remaining nuts.

These are good to eat for 6-12 hours. Past that the dough starts to get stale.

Pecans can be used but walnuts are lighter in color and look better. I don't notice any significant taste difference. Using butter flavored Crisco doesn't help the flavor and gives the cookies a sickly yellow look. Leaving out the yeast prevents the cookies from browning and weaken the taste. Using butter instead of Crisco doesn't add anything to the flavor or texture and makes the dough much trickier to make. Sprinkling the meringue with cinnamon sugar instead of just cinnamon makes the cookies too sweet.

If you're going to freeze the cookies, do so before they are frosted or the moisture from the frosting will slowly eat into the dough and spoil the texture of the dough.

My mother got this recipe from someone named June who lived on 19th street in Milwaukee in 1953. If anyone knows anything about June or where she got this recipe, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thank you.

NEW! I wrote several authors of cookie cook books and asked them about the possible source of butterhorns. The consensus is that they started off as rugala or rugalach cookies. Crisco replaced butter because butter was in short supply during the war, which answers the question of why they are called butterhorns when there is no butter in them. The meringue and nut filling reminded on chef of the filling for one type of potica bread. Both rugala and potica are middle European and strongly influenced by Jewish cooking. The best guess is that a Jewish German cook got creative with rugala cookies and butterhorns were born.

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!

The two greatest debates in the history of mankind are: which was the better television show, the Addams Family or the Munsters?; and should or shouldn't chocolate chip cookies have nuts? The answers are: obviously the Addams Family and by all means nuts!

These cookies are so rich just two of them will satisfy even the most ardent chocolate addict. They have a delicate, crunchy shell and a very moist inside and retain this condition for hours if left uncovered. These cookies are two and one-quarter inches in diameter and slightly rounded in shape.

one-half stick (57 grams) of soft but not melted, salted butter
one-half cup lightly packed (90 grams) golden brown sugar
one-quarter cup (60 grams) granulated sugar
one medium (45 grams) beaten egg
one-half teaspoon real vanilla extract
one-eighth teaspoon salt
one cup (135 grams) all purpose flour (stir flour before scooping)
three-eighths teaspoon baking soda
one cup (100 grams) walnut pieces
one cup (160 grams) of chocolate chunks

Whip the butter, baking soda, salt, and sugars until they are fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until light. (Take a small taste of the batter at this point if you're sure the egg is safe, the batter's a sweet rich cream that's delicious.) Mix in the flour. (Taste again!) Add the nuts and chocolate and mix one more time. The dough is so stiff by this time that it's better to put the mixer aside and fold the nuts and chocolate into the dough either with a dull knife or by hand. The mixing at this stage is like kneading stiff bread. Use a 1 & 13/16 inch diameter ice cream scoop to make 14 hemispheres (about 1/5 cup each) and place them on a cookie sheet that has two layers of paper towels on it (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) covered with a layer of parchment paper. The paper slows the cooking of the bottom of the cookies so that the tops and bottoms bake at the same rate. Cover each cookie with a piece of plastic wrap and press it drown slightly with the palm of your hand so it makes a dome 5/8ths of an inch high. The plastic wrap prevents the cookie from sticking to your hand. The 5/8-inch thickness insures the insides cook completely yet remain moist. Remove the plastic and bake for ten minutes in a preheated, 375 degree oven. The cookies should just be starting to turn golden brown. Cool on the cookie sheet ten minutes then transfer to a cake rack to cool completely. If the bottom of the cookies tear when you try sliding a spatula under them, try inverting the entire sheet of cookies onto a cake rack then gently peel the parchment paper off the bottoms of the cookies.

(If the cookies are left hemispherical as the come out of the ice cream scoop the centers don't get done. If they are flattened too much, the inside will bake dry. I found the perfect shape by cutting the bottom off a sorbet cup so that it held three tablespoons - the same amount as the ice cream scoop.)

The choice of chocolate chips is important to the flavor of the cookie. Many people prefer semisweet morsels. However, this gives the cookie a sharp edge that overpowers the flavor of the cookie dough. Milk chocolate chips yield a milder flavor that's so mild the chocolate is hard to taste. The perfect balance between chocolate impact and the sweetness of the dough can be achieved by making a special formula chocolate chip consisting of three parts milk chocolate chips and one part semisweet chips. To do this, melt all the chips in a double boiler and spread the mixture out one-quarter inch thick on a large piece of aluminum foil. Cool and cut into pieces sized to your preference. I prefer chunks about three-eighths of an inch square. Sift the chips in a large-holed colander to remove any small bits of chocolate. Making your own chips is a lot of work but it's worth it and enables you to vary the ratio of chocolates to get the flavor you prefer. I've recently discovered that Dove brand milk chocolate is halfway between milk and semisweet chocolate and can be used instead of blending your own. Get a bag of individually wrapped pieces (Dove Promises) and cut each piece into three pieces if you prefer chunk cookies or six pieces for chip cookies. Cooking shows sometimes tout the importance of using a quality chocolate like Callebaut, El Rey, or Valrona. Dove is equal in quality (as far as cookies are concerned) and a lot easier to find.

I've found walnuts provide more aroma and taste than pecans. Nuts give structure to the cookies so they don't fall when cooled. Chocolate chunks increase interest over small morsels. Black walnuts impart a sharp flavor that masks the sweetness of the dough. Vary the size of the nuts and chocolate pieces to create the texture that's perfect for you. Butter gives better flavor and texture than either butter-flavored Crisco or margarine. Increasing the amount of butter, or decreasing the amount of flour, makes for a greasy cookie. Increasing the amount of baking soda causes the cookies to over-rise, spread, then collapse into thin pancakes that may bake crisp. Increasing the amount of egg can give the cookies a rubbery texture.

Increasing the amount of brown sugar by the same amount the white sugar is decreased gives a chewier cookie but also one where carmel tastes start competing with the other flavors. Increasing the total sugar makes the cookies so sweet the chocolate inpact is weakened.

Using a collection of ten teachers as guinea pigs, I found that chocolate chip cookies with walnuts were consumed twice as fast as cookies without nuts.

While we're on the subject of chocolate chip cookies...

WHITE CHOCOLATE CHIP MACADAMIA NUT COOKIES

This recipe makes twenty-eight, rich, delicately crunchy cookies that are three inches in diameter and half an inch thick. The secret in making them taste good enough to tempt chocolate lovers away from the chocolate chip cookies is the use of the very best white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.

1 cup or two sticks (228 grams) very soft butter
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg (56 grams)
1/2 tsp real vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup (350 grams) unbleached flour
3 cup Callebaut brand white chocolate chips
1 cup Mauna Loa brand macadamia nuts cut into halves

Mix the butter, sugar, baking powder, and salt with an electric mixer on high until they are very light. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat until fluffy. Add the flour and mix until it's just incorporated. Use a table knife to knead the chips and nuts into the dough until it is uniform. Divide the dough into twenty-eight equal parts, roughly one-quarter cup portions, and place them on a cookie sheet covered with a layer of parchment paper on top of two layers of paper towels (to prevent the bottoms of the cookies from baking faster than the tops - no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright). Squash the cookies flat so that they are one quarter of an inch thick. This is easy because the nuts and chips prevent you from making the cookies too thin. Placing a plastic bag between the cookie dough and whatever you use to flatten the dough will prevent the cookies from sticking to the flattener. Bake in a preheated, 300 degree oven for 22 minutes. Remove the cookies to a cake rack and let them cool. These cookies need at least half an hour of cooling to reach their optimum crunchiness. They should be eaten within six hours after that. If it's going to be longer than that before they're eaten, place them in a plastic bag one hour after they come out of the oven. They should retain their delicate crunch twelve to fourteen hours that way.

The Caullebaut white chocolate chips have the best flavor of any white chip and are perfectly sized for these cookies. They used to be available from the Williams-Sonoma chain of gourmet stores located in most large shopping malls. A more readily available white chocolate is Baker's. This is the same company that markets Baker's Chocolates for cooking, which are sold in the baking section of most grocery stores. This white chocolate is a poor substitute for the Caullebaut and has to be cut into chips (which should be one-half inch cubes). At all costs avoid plain white chips. These seldom have any white chocolate in them and have a vile, milky flavor. I regret to say that all of the big-name white chocolate chips that I have tested are also pretty horrible. Link to the chocolate testing web page for a rating of white chocolates. Chocolate

I found the Mauna Loa brand macadamia nuts to be consistently the best. They have a deep, buttery flavor and a light crunch. Wash and dry them to get the salt off.

While developing this recipe I experimented with both chewy and crunchy variations. While in general I prefer chewy cookies, these were more satisfying when they were crunchy. If you want to try the chewy version just mound the cookie dough into slightly flattened hemispheres and bake for eight minutes in a 400-degree oven. Like the chocolate chip cookie recipe in this book, this method of cooking creates a delicately crunchy shell with a moist and chewy inside. They won't be as chewy as the chocolate chip cookies because they don't have any brown sugar in them. Place these cookies in a plastic bag immediately after they come out of the oven to give them the maximum amount of chewiness or let them cool on a cake rack to retain the crunchy shell.

All of the variations in the recipe and their effects were mentioned in the chocolate chip cookie recipe apply to this recipe.

Now for a confession. As much as I enjoy these cookies I have to admit that the white chocolate chip and macadamia cookies sold in groceries stores by Pepperage Farms under the TAHOE name are better. I don't know what they add to these cookies but since tasting them I don't go through the hassle and expense of making my own. I just wish I owned stock in the company.

SHORTBREAD

Shortbread is one of the simplest and most satisfying of all cookies. Although it's flavor is more subtle than most cookies, good shortbread with an optimum balance between deep buttery flavor, sugar, and saltiness can still hold its own against the richest chocolate chip or peanut butter cookie. This recipe makes sixteen, three-inch-long, half-inch-thick shortbread fingers with a rich, buttery flavor.

one cup (135 grams) all purpose flour
six tablespoons (80 grams) granulated sugar
one stick plus one tablespoon (128 grams) very soft butter
one-eighth teaspoon salt
one-eighth teaspoon baking powder
six tablespoons (52 grams) rice flour

Cream the butter, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the flours and mix until very small crumbs are formed. Roll the dough out into a one-half inch thick layer and cut into rectangular fingers. Space these one inch apart on a cookie sheet covered with four layers of paper towels (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) under one layer of parchment paper. Bake in a preheated, 300-degree oven for fifty minutes or until very light golden brown. Cool on a cake rack before eating.

The thick layer of insulating paper is necessary to prevent the sugar in the fingers from caramelizing into a bubbly, hard texture. Adding more sugar to the dough results in excessive, brittle, caramelization, which makes the texture of the cookie too coarse. If you want a sweeter cookie, roll the fingers in sugar before baking. Adding vanilla extract doesn't do anything for the flavor and gives the cookie an unpleasant gray color. Reducing the baking temperature doesn't prevent caramelization if the sugar content of the dough is increased.

Butter softness plays a major roll in determining how easily the dough can be formed into cookies. Cold or cool butter isn't sticky enough to make a dough that will hold together. Adding water makes the dough manageable but the cookies become tough. Very soft butter (butter that holds its stick shape but you can push a finger through it and not feel any resistance) makes a dough that forms easily. Melting the butter makes it so thin that the individual flour grains absorb it resulting in dough that's too dry. The reason for this is that the butter that's absorbed isn't available on the surface of the flour to help stick the dough together. Using melted butter also tends to make the cookies' grain finer. Increasing the amount of butter or decreasing the amount of flour makes the cookies greasy. Using butter flavored Crisco yields a more tender cookie but the flavor and texture are inferior to all-butter shortbread. I've read that shortbread tastes better if it's aged in a closed container for several weeks. I have tried this and not been able to notice any improvement.

The baking powder fluffs the cookies slightly giving them a more tender crumble. This recipe is sensitive to the amount of salt used. Increasing it causes the dominant flavor to shift from buttery-sweet to salty. The rice flour makes the cookies' crumb more delicate. Using only wheat flour makes the cookies coarser. Increasing the amount of rice flour gives the cookies a grainy, sandy texture. Using powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar makes the cookies rock-hard. Using unbleached flour instead of all-purpose coarsens the texture slightly and, while the over-all flavor deepens, moves the flavor away from a strong buttery taste. Contrary to popular belief, I've never noticed that pricking the cookies with a fork had any effect on reducing the amount they rise because the holes allow steam to escape.

Return to Taste Tests

BUTTER COOKIES

This recipe makes ten cookies that are two and a half inches in diameter and three-sixteenths thick. They have a deep buttery flavor balanced, but not overpowered, by a sugary sweetness. These are not like Danish-style butter cookies.

1/4 cup very soft, but not melted (57 grams) , butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar (50 grams)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup (75 grams) all purpose flour.

Cream everything but the flour until light and fluffy. Beat the flour in until a smooth dough forms. Divide it into ten equal portions, place on a cookie sheet covered with four layers of paper towel (no paper towel if your sheets are mirror bright) and one of parchment paper. Use the bottom of a glass to squash each piece of dough until it's 2 and 1/2 inches in diameter. Bake in a preheated 325 oven 10 minutes, turn, and bake another seven to ten minutes or until the edges are turning a light golden brown.

If made with cold butter, the butter will move toward the center of the cookie making a chewy lump. If melted butter is used the crunch, or crumble, of the cookie will be too powdery. This knowledge can be used to modify the cookie for the texture desired. Margarine and butter flavored Crisco yield cookies with a weak butter flavor. Increasing the butter leads to greasiness. The composition of these cookies are similar enough to shortbread cookies that the variations cited in that recipe apply here.

CAKES

Glendale Community College
Memorial Apple Turnover!

My fondest memory from my days at Glendale Community College in Southern California isn't of a great teacher or victory on the athletic field, but of Gracy, who worked in the cafeteria making the best apple turnovers I've ever had. They were giants, with enough energy to fuel a freshman an entire morning. Thirty-five years later I was driving by the campus and decided to stop and see if the cafeteria still offered these baked delights. Sadly, I discovered the cafeteria is no longer there, having been replaced by a Pizza Hut, a taco stand and a McDonald's. There wasn't an apple turnover in sight.

In memory of those lost days I offer the following recipe that is close to the original turnover baked by Gracy all those years ago:

Make a pie dough out of: 3/8 cup (80 grams) butter-flavored Crisco, one and one-half tablespoon (20 grams) sugar, one-eighth teaspoon salt, one cup plus one tablespoon (150 grams) all-purpose flour and 3 tablespoons cold water following standard pie dough mixing procedures.

Make the filling from: 4 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and diced into half-inch cubes (500 grams), 120 grams sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon tapioca powder. Combine and microwave about 10 minutes stirring occasionally until the apples just start to turn translucent. (You don't want them cooked to much.)

Make a glaze from: 4 tablespoons powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon boiling water.

Divide the dough in half and roll out into two ovals, 6 inches by 8 inches. Put half of the filling in each one, fold the tops over, seal the edges, paint with egg wash, cut three slits in the tops to let steam escape, and bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or until light golden brown. Drizzle the glaze over the tops as soon as they come out of the oven, cool 10 to 20 minutes on a rack and dig in.

Blueberry Upside-down...?

I put the question mark at the end of the title for this desert because I'm not sure what to call it. The recipe started off its development as a pie, shifted to an upside-down cake, and finally to something closest to a cobbler, except the fruit and body are made separately and it's served with the blueberry sauce on top. I've leave it to visitors to create their own name for it. Personally, I just call it delicious.

Start by making a single large biscuit using my biscuit recipe, but increase all the amounts by 50-percent. Roll it out to 10-inches in diameter and push some of the center dough outward so the dough is slightly concave. This helps the biscuit form a flatter loaf.

While that bakes mix one pound of frozen blueberries (frozen actually work better than fresh for this dish. I found the Overlake brand to be best and Stator Brother's to be second) with 3/4-cup of R. W. Knudsen blueberry juice (the only brand I found that's 100-percent blueberries. All the others are mostly apple and/or grape juice), 3/4-cup of sugar and 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of tapioca powder (the best fruit thickener. Corn starch can be used but it makes the sauce cloudier and starchier.) and bring to a simmer. (This is for serving the desert warm. If it's going to be served at room temperature reduce the tapioca to 1 tablespoon. If served at refrigerator temperature only use 1/2 tablespoon. If the amounts aren't reduced to fit the cooler serving temperatures the sauce will be thick and gloppy.)

When the biscuit is done, trim the top crust off it, place it in a 12-inch diameter dish with two-inch high sides and using a slotted spoon, ladle the blueberries over the top of the biscuit. Trimming the top of the biscuit off allows the sauce to soak in a little. Pour any remaining sauce into a gravy boat and use it to top individual portions as they are served.

The reason this desert works so well is that the sweetness of the sauce contrasts nicely with the hearty, slightly salty flavor of the biscuit. I've tried many different variations of cake and pie doughs and nothing works as well as biscuit dough. This is a dish that isn't sugary sweet and leaves you with a warm glow of satisfaction. I hope you'll like it.

Pineapple Upside-Down cake

Line the bottom of a 10-inch ceramic pan with parchment paper and brush with 1/4-cup of melted butter. Sprinkle 1/2-cup of golden brown sugar evenly over the butter. Cut 20 maraschino cherries in half and blot them dry with paper toweling, then place them in a pattern of your choice. Cover this with two cups of crushed pineapple that has been drained. Carefully push everything down to form an even, smooth surface. Fill in any gaps in the pineapple.

Beat 1 cup of white sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/3 cup butter-flavored Crisco until smooth. Add two large eggs and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract a beat until light. Add 3/4 cup of pineapple juice (from straining the crushed pineapple) and 1 & 1/4 cups unbleached flour and mix until smooth. Gently pour this on top of the topping and smooth. Wrap a water-soaked Wilton Bake-Even Cake Strip (please see my product test page for an explanation of this item) around the outside of the pan and place in a preheated 350-degree oven. Bake for 40 minutes. The top, actually the bottom once it's turned over, should be golden brown.

Let the cake cool ten minutes. loosen the edge with a knife and turn out onto the serving tray. It's best eaten warm but if you wish to let it cool, wrap a strip of plastic wrap around the outside edge so that it doesn't get dried out.

POUND CAKE

Nothing has the delicate texture of a rich pound cake. This recipe makes a standard sized loaf that's rich, mildly sweet, and very tender.

two extra large (113 grams) eggs
one and one-quarter cup (170 grams) unbleached flour
one cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (114 grams or one stick) soft, salted butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp real vanilla extract

Cream butter, salt and sugar until light. Add the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until fluffy. Mix in flour until smooth. Pour into a lightly greased bread pan and bake in a 300-degree oven for one to one and one-half hours. The top will be golden brown when done. Lining two sides and the bottom of the pan with aluminum foil will help lift the loaf out.

I've tried making this with egg yokes but it didn't improve the flavor. I also tried an artificial butter flavoring but that gave it a annoying aromatic chemical odor.

Best eaten fresh and warm, this cake also keeps well in the refrigerator and still tastes good cold.

As much as I like this recipe, the fact is that the frozen pound cakes made by Sara Lee have better flavor and texture.

BROWNIES

This recipe makes a moist brownie that's not quite as dense as a fudge brownie but has the same massive chocolate impact. This recipe makes an eight-by-eight inch square by one-inch thick brownie.

Interesting point: I made nine different kinds of chocolate cake, everything from chocolate sponge cake to a Sacher torte to a flourless chocolate cake, to discover what the best cake was. The hands-down winner was an old-fashioned fudge brownie. It had the best sweet to chocolate balance, moistest texture without being greasy, and tasted the best. I believe any honest, unprejudiced judge would class a good brownie as one of the greatest chocolate cakes ever created.

seven tablespoons (96 grams) melted butter
one and one-eighth cups (225 grams) granulated sugar
one teaspoon real vanilla extract
two large (102 grams) eggs at room temperature
5 tablespoons (30 grams) Dutched cocoa powder
one cup (135 grams) all purpose flour
one-quarter teaspoon baking powder
one-half teaspoon salt
three tablespoons water
three-quarters cup (100 grams) pecan or walnut pieces (optional)

Because brownie batter is so moist and bakes from the outside, it is common for the middle half of the brownies to be uncooked when the outer half is done. If the brownies are baked until the middle is done, the outside half can be overcooked, dried out, and even burnt. To get the middle to cook at the same rate as the outside it is necessary to insulate the outer portions of the pan leaving the center unisulated. To do this, cut a six inch diameter hole in the center of one paper kitchen towel and a three and one-half inch hole in the center of a second paper towel. Stack the towels so they make a fat "X" with the circles concentric and push them into an eight-by-eight inch glass pan. Line the pan with aluminum foil and lightly grease and flour. Be warned, this is harder than it sounds.

Sift and mix the flour, cocoa, and baking powder in metal bowl (metal kills any static charge that can make the cocoa powder dance around in plastic bowls). Mix the butter, salt, and sugar together with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, and mix until smooth. Combine dry (including the nuts if desired) and liquid ingredients with a spoon, mixing as little as possible. Beating air into the mix results in the brownies rising too high then collapsing into a solid mass. Pour into the center of the prepared pan and bake for 28 minutes in a 350 degree oven. A toothpick will come out clean when they are done but the brownies should not be pulling away from the sides of the pan. Remove the brownies to cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before cutting and eating.

This recipe has a good strong chocolate flavor. For people who prefer semisweet chocolate to milk chocolate, increasing the cocoa to six tablespoons (36 grams) will add the extra "kick" they prefer. Similarly, the cocoa can be reduced to four tablespoons for a milder brownie.

Frosting shifts the overall flavor from chocolate to sweet but some people prefer brownies with frosting. The frosting below is light, mild, and doesn't compete with the flavor of the brownies.

six tablespoons (80 grams) butter
two tablespoons (9 grams) Dutched cocoa
two tablespoons (30 grams) light corn syrup
one teaspoon real vanilla extract
two and one-half cups (270 grams) powdered sugar
two tablespoons (24 grams) milk

Beat room temperature butter, corn syrup, vanilla extract, cocoa, and sugar until fine brown moist crumbs form. This takes about two minutes. Add the milk and beat on high until the frosting is light and fluffy. Frost cooled brownies and eat immediately. If they are left to sit the frosting starts to dry out. These brownies are also excellent frosted with French vanilla frosting.

I tried David Rosengarten's brownies and found they had an over-strong bitter-sweet chocolate flavor.

Increasing the butter of my recipe causes them to become greasy. Decreasing the water makes them tougher (especially the edges) and drier. Using un-Dutched cocoa (like Hershey's) gives the brownies a very sharp edge. I prefer Van Leer Dutch cocoa but if I have to use Hershey's I cut the amount of cocoa to four tablespoons (24 grams). Don't cover the brownies as they cool or the top won't develop a crunchy crust, which adds interest. The water reduces the crunch but the overall experience is better with it. I could not detect any flavor or textural difference between brownies made with all purpose or unbleached flour. I did not like brownies made with chunks of chocolate added to the batter. There is no significant difference in the greasiness of the bottoms of brownies cooled in the aluminum foil liner versus those cooled open-air; evidently sweating is not an issue with this recipe.

The best brownie mix I've found is Pillsury's Original Fudge Brownie mix for a 13 by 9 inch pan. Let it cool uncovered to let the crust develop. Change that! On January 5, 2001, I made another batch of these and was amazed that the flavor had changed to one that was far too sharp. When I checked the box, I noticed that a "now more moist and fudgier" sign had been added. An old box I found with the original recipe confirmed that the older version tastes better and that the list of ingredients had changed. Too bad. Pillsbury had a winner, now it's a flop.

PEANUT SQUARES

This is a non-recipe because it can be made without any baking from off-the-shelf items. It has such a unique flavor and texture that it's a hard cake to classify.

one ready-made vanilla sheet cake (Buy one or make one from a mix or favorite recipe.)
one jar of dry-roasted peanuts, lightly crushed with a rolling pin
one tub of Pillsbury's French Vanilla frosting

Cut the cake into 2-inch cubes and freeze them to make handling easier. Once the cubes are frozen, take them one at a time, frost all six sides, and roll them in the crushed peanuts. That's it!

What makes these so delicious is that the sweetness of the frosting plays against the saltiness of the peanuts. Besides that, they look so different that people find them irresistible.

INDIVIDUAL APPLE PIES

These five-inch diameter pies are packed with intense apple flavor. One is perfect for a dessert, but make extras... everyone will want seconds. This recipe makes four pies.

Crust (This is the best-tasting pie crust I've found)

3/8 cup (80 grams) butter-flavored Crisco or butter
one and one-half tablespoon (20 grams) sugar
one-eighth teaspoon salt
one cup plus one tablespoon (150 grams) all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cold water

apple filling

2 pippin apples, peeled, cored, and diced into half-inch cubes (250 grams)
five tablespoons (60 grams) sugar
one-quarter teaspoon cinnamon
one-eighth teaspoon salt
one and one-half teaspoons tapioca powder (For larger batches, use 1 &1/2 tablespoons per cup of liquid.)

glaze

four tablespoons powdered sugar
one tablespoon boiling water

Combine everything for the filling accept the tapioca and microwave on high for five minutes. Strain and add the tapioca to the liquid and microwave one minute. Mix the thickened liquid with the apples and let cool completely. This can be done in large quantities, divided into one-quarter cup portions, and frozen for later use.

For the crust cut the Crisco in to the dry ingredients until the crumbs are pea-size. Mix in the water and shape into a ball. Divide into eight equal pieces (44 grams each). Roll out between layers of plastic to form four and three-quarter inch circles. Place four circles on a cookie sheet covered with two layers of paper towel and one layer of parchment paper and mound one-quarter cup portions of the filling in the center of each. Cover with the remaining four circles and press the edges to seal. Paint the tops but not the edges with a little egg-wash and bake at 425 degrees for 14 minutes or until the edges are golden-brown. Painting the edges makes them tough. Paint with the glaze and cool twenty minutes to eat warm (The filling stays burning-hot for that long. These can be frozen and thawed and the crust will stay crunchy as long as they are thawed in a plastic bag so moisture in the air doesn't condense on the pie shell.

INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH APPLE PIE

At ten inches in diameter and almost three inches tall this is a massive apple pie. The straight, vertical sides and smooth flat top make this pie look more like a monument that a piece of pastry. The crust is not as light and flaky as some pies because it needs to support the sides. However, no one has complained yet and everyone seems to enjoy the pie immensely.

crust

three-quarters cup(160 grams) Crisco
two and one-eighth cups (300 grams) all purpose flour
three tablespoons (38 grams) granulated sugar
one-quarter cup (60 grams) water

apple filling

three and one-third pounds (1500 grams) pippin apples, peeled, cored, and sliced into one-sixteenths (about four and one-quarter pounds before peeling)
one and one-half cup (300 grams) granulated sugar
one teaspoon ( 4 grams) cinnamon
five tablespoons (45 grams) cornstarch

(Even better, use an equal amount of apple filling from the Individual Apple Pie recipe.)

topping

three-quarter cup (80 grams) graham cracker crumbs (rolled and sifted into a fine powder)
four-fifths cup (120 grams) all purpose flour
three-quarters cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
one-half cup plus three tablespoons (160 grams) salted butter
one teaspoon (4 grams) real vanilla extract

The pie shell, apple filling, and topping are all made separately. They can even be prepared the day before and assembled when needed. The pie shell tends to absorb moisture from the air so the less it is stored, the better it will be.

Begin the crust by combining the flour and sugar. Cut the Crisco into this mixture with a pastry cutter until fine crumbs are formed. Add it the cold water a little at a time, stirring constantly with a two pronged fork until the dough forms a ball. (More or less water may be needed depending on the temperature, humidity, and moisture content of the flour.) Fold and roll the dough out to one-half inch thickness five times on a floured surface. Divide the dough into two pieces, one containing 60 percent of the dough and the other 40 percent. Alternate rolling out lengthwise and pushing in the sides of the larger piece to make a two and one-half inch wide by twenty-eight inch long ribbon. Roll the smaller piece into a circle one inch greater in diameter than the bottom of a ten inch spring form pan. Place the round piece of dough into the bottom of the spring form pan so the dough comes up one-half inch on the side all the way around the pan. Use the long strip of dough to line the sides of the pan. Press the ends of the ribbon and the seam where the sides cover the dough from the bottom coming up the sides firmly together to seal. Use a short length of a one to two inch diameter dowel to roll around the inside of the sides of the shell to make sure the shell is evenly thick everywhere. Use a sharp knife to cut any extra dough that extends over the top of the pan. Prick the sides and the bottom all over with a fork. Take a thirty inch long by twelve inch wide piece of aluminum foil and fold it to form a thirty inch by two inch strip. Using a paper clip to hold the ends together after it's in place, position this strip so that it presses against the inside of the crust's sides. The aluminum foil prevents the sides from falling during baking. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes until golden brown.

For the apple filling mix the sugar, cinnamon, and cornstarch together and then toss the apples in the mixture to evenly coat and separate the apple slices. Microwave at medium high for ten minutes, stir, heat ten more minutes, stir again, and heat one last time for ten minutes. Test the apples for tenderness and taste. The apples should be tender but not mushy. The flavor should have a good balance between sweetness and tartness. Unfortunately variations in apple ripeness and moisture content makes a precise formula for cooking times and the amount of sugar impossible. After achieving the proper apple doneness and flavor, dip out some of the liquid. If the pie is to be served hot this liquid should be as thick as room temperature honey. If it isn't, strain the liquid from the apples, add a water and cornstarch thickener, and cook until the viscosity is correct. Usually, one tablespoon of cornstarch dissolved in one tablespoon of water is enough. Return the thickened liquid to the apples. Trying to thicken by cooking with the apples does not work because the apples continue to release water making the filling thinner. If the apple pie is to be served cold, cool a sample of the filling, apples and liquid, to the serving temperature to check for the desired consistency. The same thickening procedure for the hot pie is followed to thicken the liquid for the cold pie. In both cases, it the liquid is too thick, add apple juice to thin.

The crumb topping is prepared by beating the sugar and butter until light. Add the vanilla extract and beat again. Add the graham cracker crumbs beat. Finally, add the flour and beat again to form a light crumbly mixture. A finer crumb can sometimes be obtained by chilling this mixture in a freezer then beating again.

Assemble the pie by pouring hot filling into the shell while the shell is still in the spring form pan and level the top. Pouring cold filling or pressing the filling into the shell can break the outside of the pie. Cover with the topping smoothed to a perfectly flat surface and serve.

Pippin apples are specified because they provide as much flavor as the more traditional Granny Smith apples but are not quite as tart.

A simpler technique which produces an even better tasting pie, although not as large or dramatic, is the go to a Baker's Square Restaurant and order one of their French Apple Pies. It will taste better and there won't be any dirty dishes to wash.

CHOCOLATE LASAGNA

This simple recipe uses butter, powdered sugar, and a store-bought cake mix to produce a rich and eligant dessert.

Cake:
1 cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix for this dessert.)

Buttercream filling:
2 & 1/2 sticks very soft salted butter
1 & 1/4 cups powdered sugar.

Mix up two-thirds of the cake mix and spread it in the bottom of an 11 by 15 by 1 inch high sheet pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. Transfer it to a rack and cool completely.

Beat the powdered sugar into the butter until light and fluffy. (Note: frosting is mostly sugar with a little butter. Buttercream is mostly butter with a little sugar.)

Once the cake is cool, transfer it to a large cutting board and frost the entire top. Cut the cake in half and stack the halves. Repeat to make a rectangle consisting of four layers of cake. Trim the edges square with a long sharp knife. When serving, this cake looks and eats better if it's cut into blocks rather than thin slices.

DESSERT BREADS

DATE-NUT BREAD

The best date-nut bread I ever had was made by the old Van de Kamp bakeries. Unfortunately, that old chain died and sold their name to a company that doesn't make the same recipe. After many trials, I came up with the following recipe that comes very close to the original. It's heavy, moist, with a mild date flavor and a shiny, sweet gloss that forms naturally as the loaf cools. I hope you like it. (I have to admit that I haven't converted the quantities in this recipe to grams yet.)

4 oz. moist, fresh, pitted dates chopped up as fine as possible.
1 cup water
1 cup packed brown sugar
4 tbsp melted butter
1 beaten egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp real vanilla extract
1/2 cup walnut peices
1 & 1/3 cup unbleached flour
1/