Minty fudge 10.31.12

This attempt was adapted from Never-Fail-Fudge.  Minty leaves were infused with half the evaporated milk and added after the sugar was cooked.  I used 25 g (slightly damp) mint leaves.

Minty fudge
25 g mint leaves
17.5 oz sugar
3/4 t salt
2 oz butter
5 oz evap milk
7.5 oz fluff
3/4 t vanilla
12 oz semi sweet chocolate
1/2 c chopped walnuts

I infused the mint in half the evaporated milk.  I combined sugar, salt, butter, remaining milk, and fluff in a saucepan and heated slowly until the butter melted (I should have melted the butter first to aid in making a smooth mixture.) There was sugar in the bottom of the pan that turned into caramel rather fast, so my mixture never boiled, but it became a very lumpy mixture with little caramel bits floating around, so I had to stop cooking.  I decided to continue, although obviously I'm just wasting ingredients at this point.  I added the chocoalte, vanilla, and minty milk.  I piped the fudge into molds, although it's difficult because it set super fast.  I tasted one of the candies and it was awful.  It tasted like the sugar never evaporated. It was so gritty. Over cooked, or undercooked?

I also could not taste any minty.

The milk did not taste very minty, so I should check back to this point for taste.

I wanted to use the heart mold, but here's a picture of more of that white, powdery residue on the molds after sitting in storage for a bit.

Even after freezing the fudge, the candy was still soft and didn't come out of the molds well.  Also, the fudge was super sweet and gritty.  I'm not sure if it was undissolved sugar or over cooked sugar. fail.

Minty Chocolate Brownies 10.25.12

Minty Chocolate Brownies

2 oz unsweet chocolate
3 oz butter
13 g minty ( a good amount - infused in the butter)
0.5 oz water (since we lose some during the infusion)
3 oz eggs
6 oz sugar
0.25/8 oz salt (or and eighth of  1 1/2 t) - scant 1/4 t?
3/8 t vanilla
1.23 oz sorghum
0.615 oz chia
0.154 oz potato starch

I baked these for at least 50 mins at 325.  I garnished them with a small mint leaf attached using some melted chocolate.

Chocolate Roulade 10.20.12

Jacques Pepin's chocolate roulade from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home

Chocolate cake
1 c heavy cream
8 oz bittersweet chocolate
7 egg whites
2 T sugar

Whipped Cream
1 c heavy cream
1 1/2 T sugar
1 T cognac
1/2 t vanilla

I thought the whipped cream had a too strong cognac flavor. I actually used a brandy, and it's possible I put in twice the amount.  Anyway, it was too strong, although less noticeable combined with the cake. It was pretty delicious, although it looks smooshed when I sliced it. Perhaps trying some gelatin in the cream would make it retain it's layers better.

Pumpkin Cheesecake 10.18.12

I tried the pumpkin cheesecake recipe from Baking Illustrated.  It was not as scrumptious as Quebrada Baking Co's pumpkin cheesecake.

Crust
5 oz graham crackers
3 T sugar
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t cloves
3 oz butter, melted

Filling
10 1/3 oz Sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t allspice
1/4 t cloves
1/2 t salt
15 oz pumpkin puree
24 oz cream cheese
1 T vanilla
1 T lemon juice
8.75 oz eggs
1 c heavy cream

These were underbaked a bit.

Looks good, but wasn't my favorite. It seemed overly complicated with too many ingredients.

GF Chocolate Brownies II 10.14.12

I tried to go for a more fudgy brownie here, so I omitted half of the egg whites in the recipe.  I didn't want to throw off the hydration, so I added some milk.  I also used more chia flour than sorghum flour this time.


Chocolate Brownies
16 oz unsweetened chocolate
24 oz butter
8.8 oz egg yolks
9.6 oz egg whites
48 oz sugar
4 oz (1/2 c) milk
0.25 oz (1 1/2 t) salt
1 oz vanilla
9.846 oz chia flour
4.923 oz sorghum flour
1.231 oz potato starch
16 oz chopped nuts (optional)

I cut the baked brownies after I chilled them, so that they were easier to cut.  They look much nicer this time.

The brownies were much denser and did not taste as good.  I'm hoping it's just the egg, so I'll put everything back to normal next time.

GF Chocolate Brownies I 10.10.12

Ready to tackle chocolate brownies, I'm pretty relieved to have such good results on the first try.  With cookies, there is a large proportion of flour in the dough, so replacing the wheat flour and losing all that gluten really takes a toll on the cookies.  However, brownies have a much smaller proportion of flour in the mix.  The first batch tasted excellent, only slightly crumbly.

Chocolate Brownies
16 oz unsweetened chocolate
24 oz butter
24 oz eggs
48 oz sugar
0.25 oz (1 1/2 t) salt
1 oz vanilla
9.846 oz sorghum flour
4.923 oz chia flour
1.231 oz potato starch
16 oz chopped nuts (optional)

Delicious, just hard to cut out of the pan without them breaking everywhere.

I love that crispy top you get on brownies.

Pumpkin Spice Chewies 10.10.12

Pumpkin Spice Chewies from NouveauRaw.com

http://nouveauraw.com/raw-recipies/cookies-nugget-balls/pumpkin-spice-chewies/


Ingredients:
2 cups almond meal (ground almonds)
3/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup raw agave nectar
1/4 cup raw honey
2 cups dried shredded coconut (unsweetened)
3 Tbsp pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp pumpkin spice
1/4 tsp sea salt

I omitted the coconut and the raisins.  I used 1/8 c agave nectar (but the full amount of honey).   I dried these out in my oven overnight (150-200 degrees), but I think it was still too high because they dried out too much.    Although they had a strange taste to me.  Perhaps I'm not used to honey and agave nectar sweeteners.

I topped these chewies with a pair of slivered almonds.

CCCVIII 10.9.12

Reprise!  Here I tried less sugar and more butter.  The cookie came out crispier, but I prefer the chewy, if the cookie was baked a little differently.


Chia Chocolate Chip Cookies

10 oz butter, melted
8 oz sorghum flour
4 oz chia seeds, ground
0.5 oz potato starch
1 t kosher salt
2 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
8 oz brown sugar
1 oz sugar
1.75 oz eggs (1 whole egg)
0.55 oz yolks (1 egg yolk)
2 T milk
1 1/2 t vanilla
10 oz chocolate chips

I baked the cookies at 350 for 15 mins, then turned the oven to 250 for 10 more minutes.

The cookies did not spread as much, so you can see, a thick cookie!

CCCVII 10.8.12

Okay, here's the final batch of cookies.Then I'll be moving on to a new medium.

Chia Chocolate Chip Cookies

8 oz butter, melted
8 oz sorghum flour
4 oz chia seeds, ground
0.5 oz potato starch
1 t kosher salt
2 t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
10 oz brown sugar
2 oz sugar
1.75 oz eggs (1 whole egg)
0.55 oz yolks (1 egg yolk)
2 T milk
1 1/2 t vanilla
10 oz chocolate chips


Method: Melt butter and set aside to cool.  Whisk together flours, baking powder and spices.  Whisk separately the eggs, yolks, milk, salt and vanilla.  Blend sugars into the melted butter, then add the egg mixture and mix well.  Add the dry ingredients and stir until all the flour is hydrated.  The batter should have the consistency of a soft cookie dough.  Stir in the chocolate chips.  Let the batter sit overnight in the fridge. This will help hydrate the chia, but keep in the fridge as the dough contains raw eggs.

Next day: scoop dough into balls on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 275 for 25 minutes.  This should dry out the cookies enough so they are chewy, but not wet in the middle. Let cool on the pan until completely cool, so cookies don't break when you move them.

Yields 20 cookies

These cookies have the perfect texture and taste great. There is enough chia seed that you can actually taste chia, but it blends in so well with the cookie taste, it's quite marvelous.

I also experimented with the shaping before baking.  The cookies on the left are torn in half and rotated.  The middle cookie is flattened by hand.  The cookie on the right is a cookie ball.

Notes: 
1. For baking times, you could also try baking at 350 for 10 minutes (for color) then reducing the oven temp to 250 for the last 10-15 minutes. (In CCCVIII I bake at 350 for 15 mins and then 250 for 10 mins, but that was too much and the cookies came out too dark.)
2. These cookies are very sweet.  I'd like to reduce the sweetness, but keep the moist and chewy texture.   Next time I may try reducing the sugars.  The next step would be to remove the white sugar completely.  (In CCCVIII I try increasing butter while decreasing sugars, but the cookies lost too much of the chewiness I love.)
3. I can still feel some unhydrated chia seeds in the texture.  Perhaps hydrating the chia with the other wet ingredients first, could help.
4. Next time I'd like to cut the dough into bars and bake in a rectangular shape.  Then I could call them Chia Chocolate Chip Bars (or cookie bars) and they would not force a comparison with chocolate chip cookies.
5.  If the cookies seem too cakey, I could also try removing the baking powder completely and seeing what happens.  Maybe that would make the cookie a little more doughy and dense.

CCC VI 10.7.12

I've reinstated chia seeds to my recipes.  Here's a chocolate chip cookie recipe with ground chia seeds as the main flour. I've replaced baking soda with baking powder since I'm going to leave this batter in the fridge overnight to "thicken".

4 oz butter, melted
4 oz chia seeds, ground
2 oz sorghum flour
0.25 oz potato starch
1/2 t kosher salt
1 t baking powder
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
5 oz brown sugar
1 oz sugar
0.875 oz eggs (1/2 whole egg)
0.275 oz yolks (1/2 egg yolk)
1 T milk
3/4 t vanilla
5 oz chocolate chips

Here's a pretty shot of the dry ingredients. Can you believe they just happened to land like that. Oh, I threw in some ground flax seeds (I didn't want to have to toss them, but they were getting a little old.)  They are on the left side of the bowl.  Dark chia seeds are on the bottom, sorghum flour (clumpy) is above that.  The other powdery white ingredients include potato starch and baking powder.  The cinnamon is on the top right, with the nutmeg on top (which is coarser than the fine ground cinnamon).

The batter is very dark from the chia seeds.  Looks like the color of a nicely browned cookie.  Actually, it's even a little darker than that.

The dough was thick, but not too solid to form into balls to bake the next day.  I baked these cookies for 15 minutes at 350, but they were still very wet inside, so I turned down the oven to 200 and baked another 10  minutes.  I over did it a bit, as these cookies were pretty crisp.  But I was impressed that I thought they were very chewy.

They are very dark, but I thought they tasted good.  Nothing artificial and very yummy.  Next time I'll bake them on a lower temp for a longer time. 

CCC V 10.5.12

Now adapted using less sugar and less flour (to increase hydration)


8 oz Butter, melted
6 oz sweet rice flour
1.25 oz cornstarch
0.5 oz tapioca starch
1 t xanthan gum
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1.75 oz egg
0.55 oz yolks
2 T whole milk
1 1/2 t vanilla
1 t kosher salt
8 oz brown sugar
2 oz white sugar
8 oz chocolate chips (less chocolate chips, but only because I ran out)

I used three shaping methods
1. cookie ball
2. flattened cookie ball
3.  cookie ball torn in half, rotated and put back together

1. cookie ball: The dough still did not spread much.

2. flattened cookie ball: This had a nice shape and was smooth on the top.

 3.  cookie ball torn in half, rotated and put back together: This third method gave a very nice shaped cookie with an irregular surface which is charming and homy.

Here's a comparison of all 3.

Here's the texture of 1 and 2.  They were similar, just the thickness of the cookie was different.

I didn't like the taste of these cookies.  Although most people say they cannot detect any added flavor from xanthan gum, I detect a plasticy, maybe waxy flavor.  There is some artificial taste to these that I also detected in the angel food cakes I made with xanthan gum.  I think I've decided it's just too artificial for me, and I'd like to not use it in my recipes, except to offer comparison to other recipes which use it.

Back to the drawing board.

CCC IV 10.4.12

Adapted from the Alton Brown Gluten Free Cookie

I tried half the batch with sweet rice flour and half with white rice flour

8 oz Butter, melted
11 oz rice flour
1.25 oz cornstarch
0.5 oz tapioca starch
1 t xanthan gum
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1.75 oz egg
0.55 oz yolks
2 T whole milk
1 1/2 t vanilla
1 t kosher salt
10 oz brown sugar
2 oz white sugar
10 oz chocolate chips

Cookies with sweet rice flour

There was a big difference in hydration between the doughs.  The fine sweet rice flour (which had much more volume for the same weight of the white rice flour) really absorbed the liquids in the butter/sugar mixture and the dough became very thick very fast.  The final dough was the usual consistence of cookie dough.  The cookies did not spread much in the oven; they are almost the same shape as the cookie ball I scooped (perhaps a little puffy). The cookies did not take on much color at all either.


Cookies with white rice flour

The dough was wet and the cookies spread a lot in the oven.  I don't like that the cookies were so thin after baked.

The taste of these cookies was okay.  They tasted very sweet to me, and the cookie itself was nothing spectacular.  I like the semi sweet chips, which are the Ghirardelli ones.  But I'm still looking for more.

CCC III 10.3.12

Here I took out the spices, went back to evaporated butter, changed the flour proportions and included sweet rice flour.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Version 5.3

8 oz butter, evaporated
4.125 oz sweet white rice flour
0.5 oz tapioca starch
0.5 oz cornstarch
3 sorghum flour
6 oz oat flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
7 oz brown sugar
3.5 oz sugar
3.5 oz eggs
1 t vanilla
7 oz choco chips
1 c chopped pecans (optional)
1 c shredded coconut (optional)

I'd still like the texture to be more doughy/chewy.  I also feel like these cookies taste too sweet, but perhaps fixing the texture problem will fix the sweetness problem.

Chocolate Chip Cookies II 10.2.12

I took out the spices, reduced the sugar and used melted butter instead of browned butter.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Version 5.2
8 oz butter, melted
2.125 oz white rice flour
1.5 oz tapioca starch
0.25 oz cornstarch
2.25 sorghum flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
7 oz brown sugar
3.5 oz sugar
3.5 oz eggs
1 t vanilla
7 oz choco chips
1 c chopped pecans (optional)
1 c shredded coconut (optional)

These cookies spread a bit more than I wanted them too.  Next time I will evaporate the butter more to reduce the moisture.

Chocolate Chip Cookies I 10.1.12

Version 4 is ready.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Version 5.0
8 oz butter
6.125 oz AP flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
8 oz brown sugar
3.5 oz sugar
3.5 oz eggs
1 t vanilla
2T water
7 oz choco chips
1 c chopped pecans (optional)
1 c shredded coconut (optional)
9 oz rolled oats

A very interesting cookie with spices and browned butter.  The browned butter not only gives a distinctive taste, but reduces the moisture in the butter.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Version 5.1
8 oz butter
2.62 oz white rice flour
1.5 oz tapioca starch
1.5 oz potato starch
0.25 oz cornstarch
0.25 chia seeds, ground
0.25 flax seeds, ground
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
8 oz brown sugar
3.5 oz sugar
3.5 oz eggs
1 t vanilla
7 oz choco chips
1 c chopped pecans (optional)
1 c shredded coconut (optional)
8 oz oat flour


These are made with gluten free flours.  I really liked the look of these cookies.  Flavor and texture can still be improved.