Pie Society

For the Pocketful of Chocolate girl, ending the year with a bang means ending the year with something delicious. And there's nothing better than a warm apple pie, hot out of the oven, topped with cream, and shared around the family table. This is my go-to, fail-safe, drool-inducing apple pie, with a secret ingredient in the crust: gruyere.

Anytime Brioche

It's the end of the semester, which means it's the time when the essays are piling up, tests are looming, and students are experiencing nervous breakdowns. So what do I do? I make brioche. I've made brioche several times, using La Tartine Gourmande and Tartelette's recipes, but the results have never quite compared to the wonderful, golden cloud of butter and eggs that I tasted in Paris - that is, until I discovered Dorie Greenspan, whom I place aside David Lebovitz, Alice Waters, and Julia Child in the pantheon of my culinary heroes.

Greenspan's philosophy is pretty much the same as Tartelette's (let the stand mixer do all the work), but the ratio of butter and eggs and flour is just right for me. And it doesn't get much better than delicious bread that doesn't need any kneading. That's right. Pun very much intended. It's a great weekday bread too: simply leave the butter and eggs out overnight or in the morning before you leave for school, work, Antarctica, what have you, make the dough that evening, chill overnight, and bake the next morning. Slather on some jam or Nutella, or savor its simple goodness on its own. Easy peasy.

You can find my step-by-step photo-illustrated recipe at Food for Thought, my other food blog for Austin's TRIBEZA Magazine. Until then, I leave you with yet another terrible baking pun:

Why did the baker rob the bank? Because he kneaded the dough.

What's Black and White and Red All Over?

From what you see on this blog, I don't think you'd realize just how often I make tartlets. I'm not talking pies or quiches or tarts but tartlets, just large enough to showcase all the fabulous ingredients you put inside it, and just small enough to inhibit feelings of guilt. I'm not going to pretend that tartlets taste any better than full-size tarts. Small food is simply adorable.

Incidentally, my signature dessert (I aspire to coin the term, coup de cuisine), is my Nutella Tartlet. It has appeared only once on this blog, in the early days of my blogging, which certainly does not do justice to the frequency with which I am devouring slice after slice of Nutella Tartlet. But I shall save my coup de cuisine for another day. Instead, I present to you another tartlet, which my boyfriend, Daniel, has taken to calling "The Strawberry Delight." It lives up to its name.

But isn't it an ordinary strawberry tart? you ask. Oh no, my friends - you are mistaken. This is the empress of strawberry tartlets, the tartlet to which all other fruit tartlets bow. On the bottom is a shell of dark chocolate, fulfilling the double duty of deliciousness and crispness. It was a tip I dug out from an old Food & Wine issue to help prevent the bottoms of tarts from getting soggy. Absolute genius. Nobody ever complains about extra chocolate at the bottom. And on top? Not just any old pastry cream but caramelized white chocolate mascarpone cream. Try saying that five times fast. I've sung the praises of caramelized white chocolate before, but mascarpone takes it to another level. It's a breeze to make (and requires only three ingredients!) and can be used as tart fillings, in mille feuilles, on crepes, as a dollop of whipped cream on apple pie...wherever your culinary imagination takes you. And finally, the bright, juicy flavors of the last strawberries of summer make for a one-of-a-kind, stuff-of-dreams dessert. 

Why Are the Cookies Always Gone?

I thought I had perfected my recipe. I thought I couldn't ask for much more from the cookie gods. Then, I had one of Clementine's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, shipped across the United States to my friend, Olivia, from her mother. The recipe's origins are quite unassuming, taken and lovingly preserved from the back of a long-discarded Quaker Oats box. But don't let its humble pedigree dissuade you, because this cookie is as good as any your David Lebovitz-sanctioned, Jacques Torres-approved, or New York Times-acclaimed cookie. This, my friends, is the best chocolate chip cookie ever to cross a mortal baker's oven. 

What makes it so finger-licking, milk-dipping good? It has everything that could possibly taste good in a chocolate chip cookie: walnuts, oats, cinnamon, and - an addition from Olivia's mother - coconut flakes. Perfection. Oddly enough, I enjoy these best once frozen, after only a few minutes of thawing. It's crispy, delicious, and filled with decadent goodness. Which goes to show that even after you think you've found the greatest recipe, the quest for culinary perfection is neverending. 

Perfecting the Chocolate Chip Cookie

When I tell people that I am working on the perfect chocolate chip cookie, most of them laugh and say, "But chocolate chip cookies are foolproof!" This, my friends, is false. Not all chocolate chip cookies are created equal, and I have a suspicion that those who believe they are have not had a truly spectacular one. And how tragic would it be if a majority of cookie eaters had never tasted a perfect chocolate chip cookie? While it is true that they are rare - I can count the number of perfect cookies eaten on one hand - they are, in fact, within the reach of a mortal cook's culinary powers. In this post, I will not be giving you a recipe but rather some tips to aid you on your quest for the dessert divinity. Some of them are commonsensical, others a little more innovative, but all of them have in mind the acquisition of that elusive, melt-in-your-mouth, chocolatey decadence.

1. Use good chocolate. For a long time, I refused to splurge on good chocolate chips, but a good rule of thumb is to never bake with chocolate you wouldn't eat alone. I am particularly fond of Callebaut, which is not too pricy.
2. Rotate your cookie sheets halfway through baking.
3. For chewy cookies: when you transfer your cookies to the cooling rack, they should still be a little liquid, almost to the point where you can't lift them up from the sheet without them falling apart.
4. For exceptionally chewy cookies: In his class at Central Market, David Lebovitz mentioned that tapping the tops of cookies with a spatula halfway through baking makes for extra chewiness.
5. If you like nuts in your cookies, try toasted hazelnuts.
6. Most importantly: refrigerate your dough overnight. This allows the flavors to marry and increases chewiness. In Ready for Dessert, David Lebovitz recommends dividing the dough, rolling it into logs of 9 inches long, and wrapping them in saran wrap.

Also, I know it's trendy to put brown butter in everything these days, but I made a batch of cookies with and without brown butter and couldn't tell the difference. I think I might just save myself some time and stick with regular butter. But just look at that gooey goodness. It doesn't get much better than that.  

Pains au Chocolat (or How to Ruin Your Diet in One Bite)

A very long time ago, in Pocketful of Chocolate's infancy, I posted a short list of culinary challenges I wanted to take on. When I first drafted the list, each item seemed daunting, the stuff of a home cook's nightmares. But slowly - very slowly - I have begun crossing out challenges: it started with the pistachio eclairs and brioche almost exactly a year ago and continued with a trip to Avignon, where I worked up the courage to make lavender panna cotta. I completed one more challenge this week: pains au chocolat, or chocolate croissants.

A perfect pain au chocolat is magical. You take a bite - even just a small one - and instantly, fifty flaky layers unfold in your mouth in an explosion of buttery goodness. It is extraordinary. And then the chocolate in the center! You would think that I would have taken on the pain au chocolat sooner. But I'm a coward. Since I drafted that list, I have been reading blogger after blogger's chronicle about the epic battle with croissants - the turns! The folds! Then I read a recipe, which called for almost a pound of butter, and felt my arteries clogging at the mere thought. Nevertheless, if I say I am going to make something, I will make it, though it might be a while before I get around to it. So, almost a year later, I took on the challenge and survived. 

As it turns out, croissant dough is not as difficult as some would have you believe. It will take you several hours over the course of two days and you will roll dough until your arms feel ready to fall off, but it will be worth it. These pains au chocolat are among my favorite desserts I have made - so flaky! so buttery! - but be sure you have company to eat them for you. It is difficult to halve the recipe, which produces almost 3 lbs of dough, most of which will end up at your waistline unless you are careful. 

Recipe and step-by-step photos after the jump. 

The College Cookbook: Grilled Asparagus, Prosciutto, and a Poached Egg

It's about this time of year that I become an academic hermit. As the dearth of posts suggests, I become less and less inclined to spend time cooking when I should be boring myself to tears with Kant, and those frozen ziti marinara dinners begin to look increasingly appetizing. At the same time, when stress begins to pile up, so does my itching to cook, and this week has certainly been a bundle of anxiety. Cooking is a great stress-relief, but this doesn't always means hours and hours of slaving away in the kitchen. As a college student, I know that a quick meal is often a must, though acquiring a delicious and healthy one is a bit of a challenge. Here's one go-to recipe when I find myself longing for the sound of sizzling pans but don't have time to prepare an elaborate meal: grilled asparagus with crisp prosciutto and a poached egg. It's inexpensive and virtually foolproof. If you can turn the stove on and boil water, you should be fine. This is a light meal to take you away to the banks of the Arno river, even if you - like me - are drowning in Aristotle.