Milk & Cookies

I did end up making those brownies I mentioned after I finally picked up some eggs. I made them from scratch, using Baker’s chocolate (100% cacao). This is the way we made brownies when I was a kid, and I always was kind of a snob about it! I didn’t like brownies from a mix as they were usually too cakey. Now, I have to say… the mixes are getting pretty good. Everyone who used mixes thought I was crazy for making brownies from scratch instead of the easy way. Actually, making them from scratch is incredibly easy but you don’t have to tell people that…

I just followed the recipe on the Baker’s chocolate box (“One Bowl Brownies”):

• 4 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
• 3/4 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt chocolate and butter – the recipe says to microwave it and that’s what I always did as a kid, but our only large microwaveable bowl is currently full of cat food. So I used a double boiler instead which is just as easy. Then stir in sugar. Then eggs and vanilla. And finally the flour.

Grease a 13″x9″ pan. If you’re smart, line it with aluminum foil so you don’t have to wash the pan! Even so, you have to grease the foil. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake 30-35 minutes.

These came out pretty good, nice and fudgy, but I think I have been spoiled by great chocolate. I actually think the brownies from the Ghirardelli mix may be better than these from scratch! Heresy! I think it just comes down to the quality of the chocolate. All 100% cacao is not created equal…

Dry ingredients

For the past few years, my friends Sarah and Harley have had completely opposing winter schedules from Jason and I. They live on the east coast and this year flew to the west coast for Christmas. Meanwhile, we’re living on the west coast and flew to the east coast for Christmas. Various combinations of travel schedules have foiled Christmas hanging-out for the past few years. Fortunately this year we overlapped for a full day, which we spent making rum balls and gingerbread cookies, eating thai food, listening to Christmas music, and playing Apples to Apples. Fun!

Gosling's

There’s a special place in my heart for my own family’s Christmas traditions of course, but having spent a large part of my teenage years at Sarah’s house, there is a special place in my heart for her family’s traditions too. In particular, I have Christmasey memories of caroling parties and rum balls, my first experience with delicious yet alcoholic desserts.

This recipe comes from Sarah’s father, who recommends not driving after consuming a few of these.

All mixed together. It looks delicious in person but the camera is not too flattering.

Recipe:

• 2 cups of Vanilla wafers – crumbed real fine.
• 1 cup of walnuts if you like ‘em (we did!)
• 1 cup confectionary sugar (1.5 cups if you leave out the nuts – we didn’t)
• 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder (4 if you leave out the nuts or if you want a real chocolate flavor – okay… you know I want a real chocolate flavor)
• 2 tablespoons of corn syrup
• 1/2 cup of dark rum or brandy (we used Gosling’s dark rum)

Zoe and Sarah making batter into balls

The best thing about these cookies, according to Sarah, is that they are made out of other cookies! Here’s how you make them: In a food processor, process the Nilla wafers into fine crumbles. Then process the nuts. Add the confectioner’s sugar and cocoa powder. Add the corn syrup and rum and stir together until homogeneous. Finally, form the batter into balls and roll in confectioner’s sugar. Refrigerate overnight, then enjoy! We didn’t have time to refrigerate them overnight, but a couple hours seemed to be enough.

Then, don’t drive! Ride a reindeer instead!

Completed rum balls, and one of Santa's reindeer

This recipe comes to us from Heide (Jason’s mom) who got it from Wilma, a family friend. I’ve never made fudge before so of course I did a quick literature search first and found that a very similar recipe is also attributed to Paula Deen here. (And of course we all trust Paula Deen after we’ve seen what she can do with macaroni and cheese wrapped in bacon, breaded, and fried… well, use your own judgement here.)

I love getting rid of leftovers so I was very happy to include the marshmallows which we had left over from the Icebox Smores rather than leaving them in the pantry to turn into one giant stale marshmallow. Of course, later I remembered that I don’t love the flavor of marshmallows that much. I think some people love the flavor, some people don’t, and some people don’t notice it. For me, I like marshmallows in small doses or cooked over a fire, but I’ve never liked them mixed into things like my ice cream or granola bars. Some people (like my husband) LOVE marshmallows in things. He would probably put them in his macaroni and cheese if he weren’t already in a very committed relationship with his current secret mac ‘n cheese recipe. Well, even with my non-favorite marshmallow flavor, I think these turned out very good.

The recipe and instructions are very easy!

• 2/3 cup evaporated milk (or 5 oz. can)
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 1/2 teasp salt
• 2 cups mini marshmallows
• 12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup walnuts optional – I didn’t include this

Directions:

Mix and heat on the stove: sugar, salt, evaporated milk, and butter. Bring to a gentle boil and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add chocolate chips and stir until melted. Finally, add the vanilla and marshmallows and stir some more until you have a consistent texture.

I had a hard time stirring in the marshmallows because it looked so beautiful and swirly while they were only halfway mixed! Maybe next time I’ll leave them swirly but for my first attempt I wanted to follow the recipe.

You learn something new every day. Yesterday I learned several new things. For example, Jason doesn’t like popcorn. Here’s how that went:

Jason: “I don’t like popcorn.”

Me: “What? I didn’t know that.”

Jason: “How did you not know that? We’ve been together 9 years.”

Me: “I guess it never came up because we never eat popcorn together.”

Jason: “… And why do you think that is?”

Oops. I thought we never ate popcorn because I don’t like it. Not that I really dislike it, I just see no reason to eat it unless it’s coated with sugar or massive amounts of butter.

So if you also don’t like popcorn unless it’s coated with sugar, these popcorn balls are for you! I was looking for recipes for popcorn balls because of a house I used to go trick or treating at in my friend Alicia’s neighborhood circa 1995. At this one house, when you knocked on their door they would invite you inside, feed you popcorn balls, and take a picture of your costume. On their wall were pictures of the previous year’s trick or treaters. It was always fun to try to find your own picture.

I found one recipe online that was from someone whose mother did the same thing! I wonder if it is the same person? Anyways, here’s the recipe (from here):

• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 Tbsp margarine
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 gallons air popped popcorn

Here’s something else I learned: How to air pop popcorn in a microwave. It’s really easy… Put 3 Tbsp. popcorn kernels in a paper bag, tape it shut with some room to expand of course, and stick it in the microwave. Press the “popcorn” button (on my microwave it was 3 1/2 minutes which was perfect). Ta-da! This makes about a quart of popped popcorn so you need to do this several times to get to 2 gallons.

The next step is the coating. Put the sugar, syrup, molasses, margarine, and salt in a pan and cook on your stove on medium for 3 1/2 minutes, basically until it is warm and all mixed together.

Third thing I learned yesterday: Molasses is denser than corn syrup. I probably could have guessed that, but seeing it for yourself is much cooler!

Now take off any rings, watches, or bracelets that you don’t want to be completely destroyed. Pour the mixture over the popped popcorn and stir with a spoon. Use your hands to form balls and set them somewhere to cool. If the popcorn sticks to your hands instead of itself, rinse your hands in cold water. The popcorn will not stick to wet hands.

Finally, for a halloween flavor I tried to add M&M eyeballs to some of mine so they look like little monsters. It turned out okay, but many of them didn’t stick. I’m not sure if I’d recommend this.

I had never made popcorn balls before, so this was a new experience. I now have some tips for next time. First, make sure you remove all the unpopped popcorn kernels BEFORE pouring the syrup on. It will be much easier, I promise. Speaking of unpopped kernels, be careful eating these. I thought I got them all but there may be a few hiding in there. Second, use a HUGE bowl for mixing! (I used a wok). Third, these were amazingly delicious last night when I was making them, but by this morning already tasted stale and not crunchy! I’m not sure if they are just intended to be eaten right away, or if you need to pack them immediately in saran wrap to keep them fresh. Or maybe I shouldn’t have been using water to keep them from sticking to my hands. Maybe I should have tried olive oil. (To be fair, the recipe said water). Anyways, I am pretty bummed that they are not nearly as good as last night. And Jason didn’t try any so I am the only witness. But I promise, they were good! They tasted like cracker jacks.

You may have noticed a distinct lack of cookies in the last few weeks. Two weeks ago I made blueberry jam cookies based on this previous post. Last week I made two birthday cakes (one for work, one for Zoe). This week we are heading off to Switzerland!

I hope you can still get your fill of cookies elsewhere. In the mean time go read Joy the Baker. We’ll see you on the flip side.