Red Fire Brownies

Ever since Valentine's day, when D got me those spectacular Vosges truffles, I've been itching to bake with some of their specialty chocolate. They make all sorts of flavors: Red Fire, a kicking combination of Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers with Ceylon cinnamon; d'Oliva, Venezuelan white chocolate spiked with dried kalamata olives; Calindia, a rich, dark chocolate bar infused with green cardamom, organic walnuts, and flecked with dried bits of plum. They're expensive -- $7.00 a bar -- but the price is worth it. The second we walked into the store, we were greeted by the only saleswoman, who then proceeded to bring out plates filled with chocolate nibs, trays of chocolate matzos, and crumbly bits of spicy cookies. Every time we glanced at something on the shelf, we were offered a taste -- which meant that we ate about $5.00 worth of chocolate during our short stay.
We settled on one bar and one bag of chocolate chips, which contains an extra ounce of chocolate for a mere $1.50 more. I wanted to make some ultra decadent, fiery brownies, and three ounces of chocolate just wasn't going to be enough. Obviously, we chose the Red Fire chips: a compact white bag of chocolate discs that smelled hot before the bag was even opened. The bar that we bought is Black Pearl (an intensely dark, spicy brick of chocolate, ginger, wasabi, and sesame seeds) which I'll be using on another batch of banana nut muffins with chocolate chips and candied ginger -- stay tuned for that delicious post. I've never made more successful muffins. Ever. And I'm extremely excited to notch up their flavor even more with the black pearl chocolate.
As I mentioned, the Red Fire chocolate is a rich, dark chocolate -- vegan and gluten free, by the way -- that contains flecks of both ancho and chipotle chili peppers. The moderate cacao content of this particular chocolate (55%) makes it less intensely bitter than, say, their Oaxaca chocolate, which is also made with chili peppers but contains a much lower percentage of sugar. I find their Oaxaca flavor a bit bland, as a matter of fact -- the amount of sugar really contrasts with the chilies in the Red Fire, heightening the sensation that one is eating something simultaneously sweet and hot. In the Oaxaca blend, the lower ratio of sugar to spice kind of dulls that sensation. The texture, too, of the Red Fire bar is superior to any other chocolate I've tasted. The chilies are carefully crushed, and they bring a layer of roughness to the smooth chocolate. This roughness didn't translate into the brownies, exactly, but the spiciness certainly did. I would have liked to have added some more chili peppers directly into the batter -- the chips come with a recipe for BB Brooklyn Red Fire Brownies that includes freshly ground Guajillo chilies (along with 10 whole ounces of the Red Fire chocolate, a huge amount compared to my recipe, which contains a paltry 4 oz.) -- but I didn't have those peppers on hand, and I wasn't going to make a separate trip for one teaspoon of chili peppers. Besides, I was trying my hand at creating my own brownie recipe, a task that I believe was extremely successful. While I do love experimenting in the kitchen, I'm often afraid to deviate too far from any given recipe, especially when I'm baking. This weekend, though, was a nice break from that standard: I hauled out eight or ten cookbooks and compared all the brownie recipes (as well as all the muffin recipes, for those aforementioned banana muffins) and was able to concoct a recipe of my very own. It was quite simple, actually: especially for something like brownies or muffins, the recipes are all going to be about the same. There are slight differences in the amount of eggs and sugar, sure, and the temperatures and cooking times are bound to be different, but it's not too difficult to pull apart the pieces and end up with something that works. So, without further ado: Red Fire Brownies. And as a quick aside: if you can't find Vosges Chocolate in your area (it's a Chicago-based brand, with few stores outside of the Chicago area: there's one in New York City, London, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Las Vegas) it's available to purchase online at their website: http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/. They recommend using 2-day air shipping, however, because the chocolates may melt in transit, so be ready to pay a good deal for shipping. Or! You could always ask me to pick some up for you and send it out: I'm more than happy for an excuse to go back to their store. If you're in the Chicago area, I urge you to stop by: they have a Michigan Ave. location at 520 North, which is small but has everything edible that they sell in stock, and the staff is both knowledgeable and extremely friendly. There's also a larger store at 951 W. Armitage in Lincoln Park, which stocks clothing and yoga gear in addition to the chocolates.

Red Fire Brownies
This is a fairly simple brownie recipe that requires little beyond melting some chocolate and butter, stirring it into a few eggs and sugar, and adding just a bit of flour and a few handfuls of nuts to round everything out. The results, though, are far from mundane: using the red fire chocolate and adding an additional swig of cinnamon and cayenne pepper makes these brownies deliciously complex, with a crunchy outer shell and a gooey, fudge-like center. The addition of two eggs makes the batter even gooier than a standard brownie, which creates a pool of spicy chocolate that quite literally melts in your mouth. Eating them warm only enhances the sensation that you're doing something terribly, terribly naughty, but they're just as good chilled -- and they stay together much better after they've cooled completely. I imagine the perfect dessert would be one of these brownies topped with a heaping scoop of cinnamon ice cream, drowned in extra melted chocolate, and garnished with a single dried red pepper.
Before you begin working with the ingredients, remove two eggs from the fridge and preheat the oven to 350º. You want the eggs to be at about 70º before you begin baking; otherwise, they'll begin to cook when you add the warm chocolate to the egg mixture. You will cool down the chocolate a bit before adding it to the batter, so this isn't too dire; however, if you forget to remove the eggs from the fridge in time, simply bathe them in a bowl of warm water for about 5 to 10 minutes until they're no longer chilly to the touch.
Begin by melting 4 ounces of Vosges Red Fire chocolate chips with 1/2 a cup of butter cut into squares. Do this over a double boiler. If you don't own a double boiler, make your own by placing a glass or metal bowl on top of a saucepan filled halfway with water. Just be sure that your homemade double boiler works properly by not allowing the bottom of the bowl to touch the top of the water. Another good double-boiler tip is to make sure that the water doesn't actually boil: you don't want to make your chocolate hotter than about 115º, so be careful when you heat the pot. Good chocolate melts at about 93º -- just below body temperature -- so it's not essential to heat it up that much to get it to melt properly. Melting chocolate isn't as easy as it seems: you can't get it too hot, as I mentioned, because that will begin to separate the cocoa solids from the cocoa butter, streaking the chocolate gray and making it grainy and unappetizing. Also, you must take great care to never allow any moisture to touch the chocolate as it melts: this is one reason that you shouldn't boil the water in the double-boiler: steam will rise and hit the chocolate, causing it to seize up and behave as if it was overheated.
Once most of the chocolate pieces have melted, remove the bowl from the hot saucepan and discard the water so that any remaining steam won't permeate the chocolate. It will continue to melt even after it has been removed from the heat source, so don't be alarmed if there are some small chunks of chocolate swimming about: like I mentioned before, you want to err on the side of cool chocolate rather than chocolate that's been overheated. Allow the mixture to cool -- if you add it to the eggs and sugar while it's still hot, your brownies will turn out heavy and dry rather than rich and gooey.
While the chocolate cools, rapidly beat two eggs and a pinch (less than 1/4 teaspoon) of salt in a large bowl with a whisk, until the mixture is light and foamy. At this point, I also added two shakes of cinnamon and two shakes of cayenne pepper. To the foamy eggs, gradually add 1 cup of white sugar -- I like to use superfine sugar. In baking, sugar is technically a liquid ingredient, and the finer it is, the less likely you are to end up with grainy bits in your brownies. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and continue to whisk until the mixture is smooth.
With just a few quick strokes of the spoon, mix in the melted chocolate. Even if you use an electric mixer for everything, this recipe is best mixed by hand -- not literally, of course, but by using a spoon or spatula -- because using a mixer can easily lead to over-beating. Before the mixture is entirely combined and becomes a uniform color, fold in 1/2 a cup of sifted flour. Folding the mixture carefully is a key to creating the right texture brownie. Before the mixture is entirely combined again, add 1/2 a cup of chopped nuts -- walnuts are a wonderful addition to any brownie, and in this recipe they add a wholesome flavor and welcome texture to an otherwise bold kick of fudge-like chocolate. You could also add 1 to 2 teaspoons of chopped dried red chili pepper at this point, which I will certainly do the next time I make these.
Bake at 350º for 25 to 30 minutes -- mine needed the entire time -- in a 9-inch round pan or an 8x8 inch square pan. Check out this handy pan size conversion chart for more pan sizes you could use at baking911.
Pan size, by the way, is very important when baking: using a smaller pan will result in brownies that are over or under cooked, too flat or too puffy, and can create a disaster out of a perfectly great recipe. When they're cooked, remove from the oven (they should still yield to pressure, however -- you want a soft brownie, not a brick) and allow them to cool for 10 to 20 minutes in the pan, then remove and allow to cool completely on a wire rack, if possible -- my brownies were much too gooey when warm, even after 20 minutes cooling, but I was impatient and they were certainly cooked through. I love eating brownies straight from the oven. These brownies in particular are a treat to eat while hot because it adds another layer to the spice and heat. And the chili peppers? Wonderful. Addictive, even. They really make the chocolate taste richer and sweeter than you could imagine. I only wish they had even more of a kick -- perhaps next time I'll throw in a few more shakes of cayenne pepper and a few minuscule squares of chili to really spice things up.

Blonde Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I've been fantasizing about these this squeeky-looking tart from Orangette -- can't you just feel your teeth biting down on that beauty? The texture just looks amazing -- dry, spongy, with some resistance in the mouth... and without consulting my brain, I ran home to make it after work yesterday. Unfortunate news: there's a severe chocolate drought in my apartment. Sure, we have a package of frozen thin mints, and the requisite container of Ghirardelli's hot chocolate mix, but that's about it. Certainly no chocolate bars, dutch cocoa powder, or chocolate wafers -- all key ingredients in this delicious tart. So I had to revise. Dramatically.
I couldn't have picked a more drastically different dessert to bake: oatmeal raisin cookies. It's a standard recipe -- you can find it on the underside of any container-top for Quaker Quick Oats. They call it a "vanishing" cookie, and I see why: they're perfectly bite-sized rounds, have a roughly pleasing texture, and can be eaten straight from the oven. Next-day, they're still soft in the center and not a bit crumbly. In fact, I just ate one right now, in two quick bites. They've got a slightly smoky flavor, which comes from the cinnamon and large amount of brown sugar. I could eat these for every meal, especially breakfast. They're perfect with a cup of coffee or hot tea. And they take no time: in less than a half hour after my flash of cookie-baking genius, I was eating them. The tart, while easy, would have taken much more effort. I will bake it, though, as I can't stop thinking about the texture that I'm sure it must have. It seems to be the perfect chocolate tart.

Blonde Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Let me begin by explaining the "blonde" part. I'm a big raisin fan: I like juicy and plumply dark rounds from California especially, but there's a soft spot in my heart for golden raisins. They're tangier and more complex than an ordinary dark raisin, and I try to keep some around. They're excellent in couscous, divine in salads, and can be used in sweeter dishes as well -- like oatmeal cookies. In addition, they match the oatmeal well, creating a cookie that looks much plainer than it tastes. It's such a surprise to bite down on a cookie and be greeted by this delicious fruit.
Begin by preheating the oven to 350º. In a large bowl, beat together 1/2 a cup of softened butter, 1/2 a cup of brown sugar (I used light brown sugar, which is more delicate-tasting than dark) and 1/4 cup of white sugar. I always use extra-fine sugar for baking. Since sugar is technically a liquid ingredient, I want to help it melt as best I can by using smaller grains.
When the sugars and butter are combined into a creamy, slightly crumbly mixture, add one egg and 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla. I know that I should be using real vanilla beans when I bake, but I can't bring myself to pay for the darn things. I'm sure the cost is worth it, but... like Deb over at Smitten Kitchen says, I'm afraid to turn over to the dark side of vanilla. Once I use the real thing, I'm sure I'll never be able to turn back. Besides, I just bought a new container of extract last week! Shame on me.
After beating the mixture to a fine batter, add 3/4 a cup all-purpose flour (I sifted mine, but that's optional. I think it makes the cookie airier) with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon. The recipe also says to add 1/4 teaspoon salt, but I skipped it. It would probably add more depth and flavor, but I just didn't feel like adding it. After mixing well, stir in 1-1/2 cups of oats (not instant! quick or old-fashioned oats are what you need here) and 1/2 a cup of golden raisins. Stir until combined.
The batter at this point is fairly rough and pliable, thanks to the oats. This makes it easy to drop onto the cookie sheet in standard-looking rounds. I do this with a tablespoon, but I've seen people do it with a small ice-cream scoop. With the tablespoon full of batter in one hand, I wedge a second spoon along the edge of the batter to drop the round onto an ungreased cookie sheet. They can be fairly close together, as they don't tend to spread very much.
Bake for 11 minutes until just slightly golden on top. I mentioned this the last time I spoke about cookies, but I'll say it again: your cookies will not look done when they're ready to come out of the oven. They continue to cook after being removed, so take them out right when they start to brown on top. Be sure that they're all one solid piece, though -- the bottom shouldn't stick to the cookie sheet. If it does, they need more time.
Cool for about 2 minutes while they're still on the cookie sheet, then remove and place on a wire rack to finish cooling. After those two minutes, though, they're ready to eat. They might be hot, but the centers will be deliciously gooey. Try it: hot cookies never hurt anyone. You could also make bar cookies out of this by spreading the batter in an ungreased 13x9 baking pan and baking for 30 to 35 minutes. The recipe makes about 24 cookies, but they're small.

Saturday Night Apple Cake

I have this darling little cookbook (I've mentioned it before) that we picked up at a local book fair last summer, and it's been... well, collecting dust ever since I traded over a dollar for it. Why? It's weird. It's the Congressional Club Cookbook from 1970 -- the eighth edition -- and while it's an entertaining jaunt into the past, it's full of jello molds, tuna casseroles, and ingredients like Oleo (from what I can gather, a particular brand of margarine.) It's a great treasure trove of the odd stuff our elected officials used to eat, supposedly, and includes some nifty tidbits: charts outlining the chain of command and where to seat specific members of the house, senate, and their wives (senate wives outrank house members) and what to do when the President invites you to dine at the White House. Never decline the invitation, even if you had other plans: just write the people you're brushing off a letter explaining that you've been invited to dine with the President, and naturally, that is more important than anything else you may have committed to.
It's a neat cookbook, but like I said -- hard to find something I'd actually want to eat in its pages. So when we decided, once and for all, to just use the darn thing this past Saturday, I was thrilled to find a recipe for Saturday Night Apple Cake. Perfect! We had a busy and full day -- complete with a ridiculously delicious lunch and a milkshake at the Eleven City Diner (I hadn't had a milkshake in years, people, and it was fabulous: supposedly one of the best shakes in Chicago, and I agree) and I was in no mood for a heavy dinner. So we settled on this apple cake -- which I imagined would turn out much like a zucchini or banana bread, but it is much sticker -- and some matzo ball soup. And the best part? The apple cake was perfect for Sunday morning breakfast. Can I just brag, for a second, about how wonderful yesterday was? The sleet mushed about outside, and we were so cozy with our two newspapers and our apple cake and an Oscar-nominated movie that there was no need to go out. By the way: Last King of Scotland? Great movie, but... I covered my eyes at the end, there. Also, I cried -- not tears of sadness, but tears of ohmygod no one would ever actually do that to another human, right? (wrong, by the way.) I recommend it -- although the plot was too predictable (I kept calling out what was going to happen, which is an annoying habit of mine) it was very well done and Forrest Whitaker totally deserved that Oscar. What an actor.
In any case, apple cake is good. And it's brought to us by Mrs. Mark O. Hatfield, the wife of the senator from Oregon (in 1970, obviously.) The women don't use their real names; in fact, they don't even sign their recipes with their name, only with the name of their husbands. Because no one knows (or cares) who they are. They just make the food, behind closed kitchen doors. And after the dinner was finished, the men took out their cigars and began yammering... and the women retreated, back to the kitchen, for a Virginia Slims cigarette and coffee. Their advertisement on the cookbook's paste-down says it all:
Saturday Night Apple Cake
Begin by creaming 3 tablespoons of shortening. Add 1 cup of sugar, gradually, until the mixture is crumbly and well-combined. As usual, I used my KitchenAid for this -- any time I'm making a batter, the KitchenAid gets to play. I'm not one for mixing by hand. When I was a child (and this, I assure you, is a true story) I was instructed to make the batter for a brownie mix. Simple, right? Add the egg, the water, and mix. By hand. I was young, so I interpreted this literally. There was batter everywhere -- a photograph exists as proof. I think that was probably my dog's happiest day alive. The moral of the story? Don't trust me alone in the kitchen.
Add one large egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla to the sugar mixture and beat well. Now, mix in 3 cups of diced firm apples. We used 3 red apples which was plenty, and D diced them into small ( about 1/4 inch) chunks. We wanted some substance to the apples, so we didn't grate them, and we went with red because those looked best at the grocery store. I know most people bake with Granny Smith apples, but... I wanted something sweeter. And the Granny Smiths looked kind of sorry anyhow.
Sift in 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Another quirk of this cookbook, by the way, is that they use soda and baking soda interchangeably. So this recipe, in actuality, calls for "soda," which we (correctly) interpreted to mean "baking soda." Very strange, no? This cookbook is wild. Stir in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or brazil nuts. The recipe calls for walnuts, plain and simple, but -- shock of all shocks -- we couldn't find them in the store. We opted for the brazil nuts instead, because they were cheap and unseasoned, and I was very happy with the results. A nice nutty flavor without being overwhelming. We used our little Cuisinart Chopper, which could have turned them to butter if we weren't being careful, and the result was mostly powdery with some small chunks. I liked that -- I'm not that interested in chewy chunks in my bread.
Turn the batter into an ungreased 9-inch pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 350º. By the way: I used a springform pan, and I'm really glad I did. The resulting cake is pretty spongy and sticky, and I can't imagine the mess it would leave in a standard ungreased pan. You might just want to smear a bit of butter in there, especially along the sides, if you're not using a springform. It can be served warm (yummmmm) or cold, and be sure to save a slice or two for breakfast the next morning. And possibly lunch. As a matter of fact, I didn't eat anything but apple cake until dinner yesterday. Glorious.

Flat and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I cut this article out of the New York Times Magazine in January of 2006 and it hung on my fridge for about two months before we decided to make the plunge and actually bake some chocolate chip cookies. The reason we didn't make them right away? The author, Amanda Hesser, listed three different recipes for three different types of chocolate chip cookies, and we couldn't decide which ones we liked best: thin and crisp, flat and chewy, or thick and gooey. They all sound really good, but I'm not really sure which type of cookie I actually prefer. Could I have one that is crisp on the edges but also gooey and thick in the center? Not with these recipes, I couldn't.
We picked the flat and chewy, I think because I like the word "chewy," and they turned out quite well. The salt content is very high for a cookie -- one whole tablespoon of kosher salt -- and I'm not the only one who thinks this. Michellepedia and The Wednesday Chef have also commented on the ridiculous amount of salt (links go directly to the cookie posts.) The Wednesday Chef wisely cut the amount of salt in half, and I think it was a smart move. The problem isn't really the amount of salt, it's the fact that it calls for kosher salt. Kosher salt has big, irregular grains that don't really work well in most baked goods, in my experience. The grains don't dissolve regularly, leaving pockets of salt within the cookies after they're baked. Yuck. We chose to use table salt and corrected the amount so that it was equal to the kosher variety: one tablespoon of kosher salt is roughly equivalent to 1/2 a tablespoon of table salt. Now that I think about it, I'm fairly certain that the problem is the kosher salt itself and its too-big grains.
This article (you will need access to Times Select to view) starts off with a disclaimer: there are many types of chocolate chip cookies, and to prefer one over the other is natural. But preference can cause debates, "the kind of tense debate usually reserved for topics like religion and politics," she claims. I don't know if it's that serious, but it is an important issue: what type of chocolate chip cookie do you prefer? If we don't see eye to eye, I might have to cut off all communication with you. The silent treatment is better than the bombing treatment, in my book. I'm not about to start a war over cookies, but somebody might, so watch out.
These cookies turned out well, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they were the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever eaten in my life. I have another recipe for those -- one I might be under oath not to divulge. That one is a secret recipe and involves toffee chips and chocolate chips. Anyhow, this one makes a very good cookie, but the recipe probably needs some tweaking to be perfect. I just don't want to make that many cookies, so I'll offer the original, non-tweaked version here.

Flat-And-Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies
A side note: all those hyphens? They kind of annoy me. Are they really necessary?
Preheat your oven to 325º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Sift together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1-1/4 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon table salt.
In a mixer "fitted with a paddle" (I get to use my KitchenAid!) cream together 1 cup of softened butter, 1-1/2 cups packed light brown sugar, and 1/4 cup white sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. This should take about three minutes. Crack in two eggs -- one at a time -- and beat until combined. Add 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.
Now you should add your sifted flour mixture. Just throw it in there, all at once! That's always fun. Let mix until it forms a dough. Fold in (this part I like to do by hand; otherwise, the mixer breaks up the chocolate too much) 2 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate. You can use chocolate chips if you want, but I prefer chopping it myself. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I like chopping chocolate because you end up with irregular sized chunks, which makes for a more interesting cookie. I also might prefer this method because you get a lot of chocolate on your hands; it's tasty.
The recipe mentions something about folding in 2 cups chopped toasted walnuts in addition to the chocolate, but that makes them chocolate-nut cookies. I do not want chocolate nut cookies. I want chocolate chip cookies.
Chill the dough, and clean the kitchen while you chill. At least that's what I would do: maybe you're lucky and you have a robot that does that for you (or a super-nice friend. Sometimes D cleans as I work, lucky for me!) Or you can chill while you chill and forget about cleaning, whatever. I certainly don't get to decide.
When the dough is cold, roll balls from about 2 tablespoons of dough. Arrange on your baking sheet and flatten (I use the bottom of a glass to do this, but you can just use your palms if you're feeling crazy) so they are about 1/2 inch thick discs. They should be about 2 inches apart on the sheet after flattening. Make sure you chill the dough between batches so that it's easy to work with and it cooks properly!
Bake in the preheated oven (325º for all of you who skipped that step) until the edges are brown, about 12 to 14 minutes. There's a really important trick here and it applies to all cookies (and probably extends to the majority of baked goods.) Your cookies will not look done when it's time to take them out of the oven. The edges will be slightly browned, but the cookies themselves should appear slightly underdone. They continue to cook after you've removed them from the oven, and the last thing you want is a fresh cookie that has the texture of a stale cookie. So just watch them during the last few minutes of baking, and the moment you think that they need another minute or two? They're ready.
Allow them to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling. Or you can eat them hot, like I like to do. Hot and fresh chocolate chip cookies? How could you possibly resist?