Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies and Apologies

For those of you who occasionally glance at my blog, I apologize for my apparent lack of commitment to posting. But, in my defense, I've been busy graduating from college. As 2010 begins I promise to try to post at least once a week and hopefully I can stick with this. So as for a recipe I have an interesting twist on a recipe I think is best done by Nestle Tollhouse - Chocolate Chip Cookies...made with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter.
I have to admit, these cookies were pretty darn good and I was amazed that I couldn't taste the olive oil. The cookies were best fresh out of the oven or dipped in milk the next day. I'm sitting in the Portland Airport right now and I have to say, I'd really like one of these fresh out of the oven.

Olive Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from The Crepes of Wrath

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 or 2 tablespoons of milk
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

2. Combine sugars, vanilla, and olive oil. Stir in the eggs one a time. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, then add in a tablespoon of milk to make the dough a bit firmer, maybe another tablespoon if you need it/if you feel the dough is too sticky/dry.

3. Roll the dough into balls with your hands and place on a greased and/or lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly golden and set. Mine took about 10 minutes. These get overdone quickly, so take them out a bit early if you’re unsure. Allow to cool for a bit on the baking sheet, then move to another surface to finish cooling.

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Buttermilk Icing

This is perhaps the most delicious cake I've ever made and I don't even really like pumpkin all that much. I encourage you to make it. The best thing about this cake is that it keeps really well - like for days and days. I made this cake on Tuesday night and it was just perfect for Thanksgiving and lasted (barely) until Monday when it was still awesome and moist.

When I went to make this cake I discovered, much to my dismay, that my buttermilk had gone bad. This was really quite irritating because I'd bought it on Sunday and the expiration date was the 25th of November, also known as tomorrow. I was very annoyed. Looking back on it though I think if it hadn't had the orange fuzzy dots in it (gross) I probably would have thrown out perfectly good buttermilk - because it is supposed to be very chunky. My advice: give it a good shake to distribute everything and try to ignore the sound it makes as it splats into the measuring cup.


Pumpkin Spice Cake with Buttermilk Icing
Adopted from Gourmet (via Epicurious)

For cake
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for greasing pan
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting pan
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon (Mine was a heaping teaspoon...I love cinnamon)
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups canned solid-pack pumpkin (a 15-ounce can is more than enough; not pie filling)
3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs

For icing
(I think you could probably get away with making half of this recipe - I had a ton of extra)

2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons well-shaken buttermilk
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Make cake:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Butter pan* generously, then dust with flour, knocking out excess.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together pumpkin, buttermilk, and vanilla in another bowl.

Beat butter (1 1/2 sticks) and granulated sugar with a fork in a large bowl until pale and fluffy, then add eggs one at a time and stir to incorporate after each egg. Add flour and pumpkin mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture and mixing until batter is just smooth.

Spoon batter into pan, smoothing top, then bake until a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 15 minutes, then invert rack over cake and reinvert cake onto rack. Cool 10 minutes more.

Make icing:
While cake is cooling, whisk together buttermilk and confectioners sugar until smooth. Drizzle icing over warm cake, then cool cake completely. Icing will harden slightly. (I actually didn't drizzle until the next day, I heated up the cake a bit and drizzled and it was just fine - it wasn't a hard icing but it was still delicious.)

*The original recipe is made in a bundt pan but I don't have one (and Brad so kindly talked me out of buying a $12 pan I clearly don't need) so I used a springform pan and it worked great. I think these would also make excellent muffins.

As soon as this tryptophan wears off...

I have a whopper of a blog post. I'll hopefully post throughout the week so that anyone who is reading this (ha) can see the results of my Thanksgiving cooking.

Thanksgiving Test Run: Apple Pie!!!

I love apple pie. I love Thanksgiving. There is a lot of pressure to get Thanksgiving right when you're cooking for friends who are obviously very classy - i.e. Brad and his roommate, Phil, and my lovely friends Laura and Lisa - so I thought I would do a little test run with the apple pie and I'm pretty pleased to say that it turned out really well - I wouldn't change anything, I mean it's not gorgeous but I'll work on it, you know, for next time.

I've been looking into buying a pastry board for rolling out pie dough, cookie dough and any other pastry type items. My wonderful mother was in town last week and she bestowed upon me an early Christmas gift in the form of, you guessed it, a pastry board. In combination with my lovely rolling pin and my dough scraper rolling out the dough for the pie crust was a snap. I love apple pie, or did I already mention that?

Perfect, Flaky Pie Crust
Adapted from Smittenkitchen

Makes enough for one double-crust pie

1 cup cold water (drop in a few ice cubes; set it aside)

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (or 8 ounces or 1 cup) of very cold unsalted butter, cubed into 1/2-inch pieces.

In a large bowl mix flour, sugar and salt together. Sprinkle the butter cubes over the flour and begin working them in with a pastry blender (seriously, invest in one if you're going to be making pies - a fork won't work - they are only $10 at Crate and Barrel) using it to scoop and redistribute the mixture as need so all the parts are worked together evenly. When all of the butter pieces are about the size of peas and then stop - even if it looks uneven.

Start by drizzling 1/2 cup of the ice-cold water (take out the cubes if there are any left!) over the butter and flour mixture. Use a spatula to gather the dough together - you might need up to an additional 1/4 of a cup of cold water to bring it together, add it a tablespoon at a time. Once you are gathering large clumps with the spatula, get your hands in there! Gather the damp clumps together into one mound, patting it together.

Divide the dough in half, and place each half on a large piece of plastic wrap. I like to use the sides to pull in the dough and shape it into a disk. Let the dough chill in the fridge for one hour, but preferably at least two, before rolling it out. For tips on rolling out the dough (which I followed very closely) check out this tutorial on Smittenkitchen (can you tell I'm obsessed??)

Apple Pie Filling
Also from Smittenkitchen

1 1/2 pounds Granny Smith apples (about 3 medium)
2 pounds McIntosh apples (about 4 large)
3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 egg white, beaten lightly

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat rimmed baking sheet and oven to 500°F. Remove one piece of dough from refrigerator (if refrigerated longer than 1 hour, let stand at room temperature until malleable).

2. Roll dough on lightly floured work surface or between two large sheets of plastic wrap to 12-inch disk. Transfer dough to pie plate by folding dough in quarters, then placing dough point in center of pie plate and unfolding. Working around circumference of pie plate, ease dough into pan corners by gently lifting dough edges with one hand while pressing around pan bottom with other hand. Leave dough that overhangs lip of plate in place; refrigerate dough-lined pie plate.

3. Peel, core and cut apples in half, and in half again width-wise; cut quarters into 1/4-inch slices. In a medium bowl, mix 3/4 cup sugar, flour, salt and spices. Toss dry ingredients with apples. Turn fruit mixture, including juices, into chilled pie shell and mound slightly in center.

4. Roll out second piece of dough to 12-inch disk and place over filling. Trim top and bottom edges to 1/2-inch beyond pan lip. Tuck this rim of dough underneath itself so that folded edge is flush with pan lip. Flute edging or press with fork tines to seal. Cut four slits on dough top. If pie dough is very soft, place in freezer for 10 minutes. Brush egg white onto top of crust and sprinkle evenly with remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. If you want to top your pie with a lattice (like the larger of my two pies) try this tutorial!

5. Place pie on baking sheet and lower oven temperature to 425°F. Bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Rotate pie and reduce oven temperature to 375°F; continue baking until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, 30-35 minutes longer.

6. Transfer pie to wire rack; cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours... if you can wait that long. Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. It's delicious.