Actual Cooking: Actual Cookies!

In my last post, I mentioned the Quiet Corner Democrats' holiday party, where I had the most delicious chocolate martinis, and I promised to post about the Chinese 5-Spice Brownie Cookies I made as my contribution to the potluck dessert reception.

I've talked here often enough about how much I love making ice cream, and I first thought I might take homemade ice cream... but the party was an hour's drive from home, and the logistics of keeping ice cream cold for the trip, and then for the several hours of the party, and making it easy to self-serve on an unattended buffet line all seemed a bit daunting. Just as I was scratching my chin about this dilemma, the local paper's Thanksgiving week food supplement came out, and on its last page was an Associated Press article headlined "Grown-up holiday cookies with fennel and anise," and my eye fell on this recipe:¹

Chinese 5-Spice Brownie Cookies

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 10-oz. packages bittersweet chocolate bits
• 6 eggs
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp 5-spice powder
• 2 cups AP flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Combine the butter and oil in a pan and heat over medium-high heat until the butter is all melted. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, stirring until all the chocolate is melted and smooth (return the pan to low heat if necessary). Set aside.
2. Whisk together (I actually used my stand mixer) all the other ingredients until smooth, then add in the chocolate, continuing to beat until smooth. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
3. Preheat the oven to 350.
4. Line 2 large baking sheets (or 4 half-sheet pans) with parchment paper and scoop out the dough by the table spoon, leaving about 2 in. space between scoops.
5. Bake until puffed and crackly on top (10 to 12 minutes per the published recipe; more like 14 minutes in my oven). Cool on racks.

I was delighted with the result: rich, fudgy, brownie-like texture, just as the recipe promised; very chocolaty and with a delicious hint of spice.

Truthfully, I was surprised it was only a hint of spice; I had expected the flavor to be a bit more exotic. I suspect the explanation may be the 5-spice powder: The traditional version (as referenced in the article) includes Sichuan peppercorns, but what I got from my local Penzeys spice store included ginger instead. In any case, the final flavor was delicious, tasting mostly like a chocolate brownie, but reminding one of my friends vaguely of gingerbread, as well.

The recipe promises a yield of 4 dozen, but I actually got 5 dozen cookies out of it, plus a couple samples for in-process quality control testing! As it happens, 5 dozen is exactly what the Rockville Public Library needs for its annual Holiday Cookie Sale, so I'll be making another batch soon.

You should try them, too!
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¹ Note that my local paper is actually the Journal Inquirer, but since its content is behind a paywall, I found the same recipe somewhere else, and linked to that. That'll show 'em, eh?

Taste Test... Success!

On Wednesday I posted about my forays into ice cream making, including my first attempt to make a sorbet, using this lemongrass ginger recipe from the web, modified to use fresh rather than prepared ingredients.

Well, as I also mentioned, the typical batch yield from the ice cream maker is 2 1/2 pints; tonight, I fished the extra half pint out of the freezer so the Lovely Bride® and I could subject it to Rigorous Quality Control Testing©, as is our wont.

I'm delighted report total mission success. I was worried about the substitutions, since I had to just guess at the right quantities of fresh lemongrass and ginger, but the flavor was spot on: Light and bright, but not too aggressively gingery. I probably should've let it soften just a bit before serving — it came out of the freezer just a bit too hard to make nice scoops — but I'm well pleased with both the taste and texture once it was in the bowl.

And I needed something light and bright tonight, to lighten my mood in the face of the news from around the world....

Frozen Delights

Last week I commented on Facebook that of all the food-related gadgets and tools I've put on my gift wish lists over the last few years, the ice cream maker is the one I've used - and enjoyed - the most. The occasion for that burst of enthusiasm was a batch of peach ice cream I had made using Connecticut-grown peaches sourced from (as folks must be tired of me mentioning) Coventry Regional Farmers' Market, using a recipe from Marilyn and Tanya Linton's The Ice Cream Bible.

Peach isn't actually one of my favorite flavors, but the Brilliant Daughter™ likes it. We'd hoped to make it together during her last visit home, but... "the best laid plans of mice and men," eh? At least now it'll be waiting in the freezer for her at Thanksgiving time. And since the typical batch yield is 2 1/2 pints, the Lovely Bride™ and I had a half pint on which to perform quality control testing. Favorite or no, it was yummy.

I've made fresh strawberry, fresh cherry, and mint chocolate chip ice creams, along with perhaps my favorite recipe, dulce de leche, also from the Linton book. When it was time for my street's annual summer block party this year, my side of the street was assigned desserts, specifically so I would bring ice cream!

Tonight, though, I tried something new: A lemongrass ginger sorbet from a recipe I just stumbled across on the web. Of course, that recipe calls for jarred (dried?) lemongrass and ground ginger... but I wanted to try it with fresh ingredients: I substituted three stalks of fresh lemongrass (my local "megamart" usually has at least a little in stock), minced, and 1/2 teaspoon of minced fresh ginger.

When I say I did this tonight, I really mean I finished it tonight; I cooked the base a couple days ago. This was my first attempt at a sorbet, and honestly, I couldn't imagine how what looked — what was, essentially — a pot of flavored sugar water would turn into anything like a frozen dessert.

O me of little faith, I suppose: It came out looking lovely, and though it's waiting in the freezer for a propitious serving occasion, the in-process testing was extremely promising.