October Birthdays...Celebrated Via Courier!

"Via courier" sounds so much more romantic and exciting than "by the mail carrier," don't you think? This is just my way of saying I shipped a few things made of flour and sugar across the country this month. My little sister's second-oldest daughter, two friends in Seattle, and my big sister all made October quite the month of celebrations! And how better to celebrate birthdays than with cake?

There was just one problem: I really suck at cakes! That is to say, my cake technique isn't as refined or developed as my pie technique. There are many things about my cake skills that makes me cringe – from mixing to frosting. But cringe or not, I really do want to be a halfway decent cake maker. I'll probably take a class or something at some point but until then I insist on stumbling along on my own.

This time I stumbled into the need to make my own fondant. Why? The reason is pasta. I've been making my own pasta lately and using my hand-crank pasta machine to do so. I bought it twenty-three years ago to make the fondant (I didn't know it was called that back then) for my three-tiered cake for my thirtieth birthday.

So happy not to be twenty-anything!

A Word About Reusing Photos:

I know I've posted this image before but I'm still very proud of this cake!

A Word About Reusing Photos Ends.

At any rate, I've finally started using the pasta machine for it's intended purpose, which got me to thinking about fondant for cakes again. But before that, I needed to find a way to make a way to convert a recipe for a nine-inch diameter cake into a recipe for a six-inc cake. I've done this before, just winging it, and ended up with a royal mess, so I figured I'd find some good advice this time.

I happened upon the CakeOmeter on Cakebaker.co.uk. It was helpful but it didn't quite work for the orange cake recipe; that cake turned out a little short so I only got two layers out of it instead of three. Next time perhaps I'll find another source but this worked well enough for my current needs.

I used this fondant recipe, which was very different from the recipe I used for my birthday cake. Still it was pretty easy and did the trick. It was too fragile to run through the pasta machine, though, so I ended up rolling it by hand. I turned to the Cake Boss on Youtube for hints on that. (Gotta love the New York accent! Also? Gotta bookmark that channel!) 

My results:

Lemon...

...and orange.

Not bad but I really do need to learn to cut even, smooth layers. 

But how to decorate them? I knew I'd be shipping them and whatever I did to make them the look special would have to survive that. My first thought was to use one of my silicone molds and make something out of fondant. Roses! Yes, roses would do nicely!

Orange roses?

But I didn't have the time it would take for them to dry properly. I had to get these cakes in the mail fairly soon. I needed something else. Roses! Yes, roses would do nicely! But roses made from sugar using a technique that I think will come in handy when I get back to candy making. 

Sugar-sweet roses.

I opted not to flavor the roses because I didn't want to add one more level of complexity with this monstrous endeavor. 

The final results:

Headed to Seattle.

Cibolo, TX bound.

Oh, I know there are many more ways I could have solved all the problems this project presented but I'm pretty happy with how these turned out. Heavy. Imperfect. Probably lacking a certain sublime taste. But as first attempts at this kind of project go, I'm happy to have these as a jumping-off point. Hold onto your serving platters boys and girls; it only gets better, and crazier from here!

• • • • •

The last bit of birthday baking I needed to do was for my big sister, Karla. I decided to keep things simple and send her part of my first batch of apple hand pies of the season. 

First of the season.

What wasn't simple was the fact that I decided to mix and match a very different bunch of apple varieties – most of which I'd never seen before. I usually mix three types of apples in my pies; this time I went with five:

I've had a couple of the pies and I must say this batch is among the best I've ever made.

Five apples are better than three?

• • • • •

My curiosity has gotten the best of me regarding how my shipping techniques fare against the vagaries and whims of the U.S. Postal Service pipeline, so I asked my Seattle friends and my sisters MonY and Karla to send me pictures of the baked goods after they opened the boxes. For the most part, everything arrived in pretty good shape, with pretty much the amount of "shipping subsidence" I expected – four days for the cakes (which were only supposed to be in transit for a maximum of three days) and two days for the pies.

Subsidence in Seattle.

A little squished in Cibolo...

...but niece MoRanda doesn't seem to mind! Happy birthday, darlin'!

And...

Just a little saggy in San Antonio.

Karla said she wasn't sharing. Don't blame her one bit!

Self Portrait With Apple Hand Pie!
(I love making my big sister happy!)

So, I only have one niece to bake for next month. Then it's December, with birthdays and holidays galore! I'd better rest up.

Currently Listening to: Gemini - The Fire Inside (Mr. FijiWiji Remix)

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California Baking...On Such An Autumn Day (With Apologies to The Mamas and The Papas) - Part The Second

Once we finished devouring the biscuits Denise and I made, I had several hours to contemplate my second San Diego baking adventure: teaching my nephew, Robbie, something about baking bread. I'd chosen this recipe from King Arthur Flour, which is turning out to be quite the resource for me. Again, this was a recipe I'd never made before, so I was taking a chance using it to teach Robbie about bread baking. 

Truth be told, though, all I really wanted to do was give him a good first experience, and regardless of how the bread turned out, I'd be successful in that goal. Because even when you turn out a bad loaf of bread, you learn something and grow as a baker. At least that's how it's been for me...and I've made a lot of bad loaves of bread. I just wanted us to get our hands covered in flour, and inhale the smell of the yeast, and fill the kitchen and the house with the aroma of sugars caramelizing in the oven as the bread baked. That experience I knew I could give him.

Sidebar On My Nephew's Baking:

My brother an I are sci-fi nerds in general and Star Wars nerds in particular. His first child is no different, which usually made shopping for him pretty easy. One year for his birthday, which falls right between mine and my father's, I bought him a Star Wars cookbook because it was cute...and included a recipe for "Wookie Cookies". He actually made some and said they were pretty good. My brother told me that he's been interested in baking since then. So, I guess you could say that it's a little bit my fault that my nephew enjoys baking. 

Sidebar On My Nephew's Baking Ends.

Of course, I had to wait until after he got home from band practice before we could start. This was a good thing because it gave me time to prepare myself for the lesson. A teacher should never stop learning as far as I'm concerned and I figured I would learn a thing or two by the time we were finished. More on that later.

Once Robbie got home and washed up, we started with a quick tour of our work space, set up everything mise en place, and give him a brief lesson on the type of yeast, Saf Instant, we'd be using to bake the bread. Then we got into mixing...

Mix masters!

...and kneading. 

Prep the hands. Prep the table. And prep the mind.

I had to smile as I showed him how to knead bread dough. I don't think he realized how much work it would be – how much arm and upper-body strength he'd have to use. It was a kick watching this young man, whom I used to be able to toss into the air with one arm, get his hands covered in flour and wet dough.

Gathering it all together...

...and press, roll, fold, press, turn, fold-fold-fold, press, turn...

Although he's tall, almost as tall as I am, he hasn't filled out yet, so he had to really throw himself into working the dough. Trooper that he was, though, he stuck with it for the full eight minutes. (Nice little workout, yes?) I'm not sure he got the more subtle techniques of using the heels of your hands and rolling the dough while pressing down. Or how to gently lift and turn as you knead. Heck, I'm only just now getting the hang of it, but I'll be able to help him figure it out. It's really a shame that we're on opposite sides of the country; I'd love to have more time to teach him all these nuances I'm beginning to learn for myself.

That's something I really wanted to impart to him was that even though it seemed difficult, he'd get better at it the more he did it. I know that I felt a lot of discouragement at his age when things I wanted to do didn't come easily. I also wanted to get teach him to appreciate some of the unexpected elements of baking, such how amazing the dough begins to smell as it's coming together...and later how the kitchen fills with the aroma of the dough rising as the yeast does its thing. It's not all about the smell of baking (although, yeah, it kind of is).

The results of our kneading were different, as I expected.

Checking on the rise...

And again...

I had to hold myself back from laughing when I called him in to check on how things were progressing. He kind of couldn't believe how big the dough in our bowls had gotten. He'd never seen yeast bread rising before.

Remember when I said I learned a valuable lesson or two myself? Well, Here's where one of those lessons comes in: be a bit more aggressive with punching down my dough. Why? Because:

Second rise looks good but we're not even halfway through it...

Halfway through the second rise, my dough was still doing some powerful rising (and Robbie's wasn't rising quite enough). And...

She's gonna blow!

 ...*foom!* Too much carbon dioxide production! I supposed I could have taken the dough out of my pan, punched it down and then shaped it again, but I didn't want to overwork it. I think I'm conditioned to chilly things are in my kitchen at home; that makes the yeast have to work harder to get dough to rise. Not so in San Diego at the tail-end of summer. I just let my dough do what it was going to do; we'd just see how it baked up.

And this led me to another lesson: never leave home without an instant-read thermometer! After the biscuit experience of that morning, I knew we'd have to bake the bread a little longer than the recipe called for. So, after what I thought was an appropriate time, we pulled the loaves out of the oven.

Looks good!

Oh. Did I mention that my brother and his wife don't have a cooling rack? We ended up using a cooking rack for their grill. I love doing the MacGyver in the kitchen! Everything looked good...

Prepare for the first incision, Mr. Baker!

Nice cut!

...but both loaves weren't fully cooked. By this time my Rob, Wynter, and I had to leave to pick up Michele at the airport, so I put the bread back in the pans and left Robbie with instructions to check on them at ten minute intervals and they should be done within a half-hour. I pinged him via text twenty-five minutes later and he told me the bread was done and quite tasty! I knew he was right because I had a couple of slices toasted the next day. Mmmmm!

And thus ended my San Diego bread baking adventure. I hope I get to bake with my nephew again soon because this was way too much fun!

Currently listening to: Pockets - Come Go With Me

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A Brief Morning Encounter

I got off the subway this morning and instead of going straight to the office, I veered down the sidewalk, skimming the edges of the Thursday Farmers Market to get to my favorite orchard stand. The object of my search? Italian Prune Plums for another zwetschgendatschi. I sent one with Michele to work last week and it got rave reviews. 

Said Rave Reviews:

"Very Good!" "Amazing!" "Thrilled!" All kinds of thumbs up and an offer to support my "art form" whenever the need arises. And one broken gluten-free fast.

Said Rave Reviews End

Said plum tart:

Spell it with me: "zwetschgendatschi"!

Obviously, I never got to taste this one, so I was hoping to nab one more batch to bake another for myself, now that I'm getting the hang of making this so that it tastes much more like what I had in Munich thirty-one years ago. I was in luck! There was one bin of plums (down from two last week, so we're definitely at the end of the season) and they were mostly squishy firm, as opposed to rock-hard firm. 

That's a good thing because I've determined that the secret to my success with this tart is to ripen the plums within an inch of their lives. That seem to release the best taste when they bake. Also, I now prefer to bake it in my square tart pan, since I don't remember ever getting a slice of this in Munich that was wedge-shaped. Oh, and use about half as many plums as the recipe calls for, and twice the raw sugar for topping.  

I was in the process of snagging a bagful when a woman with lovely gray hair and a sweet smile, got my attention. I had to unplug myself from my shopping play list, though. Don't laugh. My whole life has soundtracks. I'm still cognizant of my surroundings, which is why I knew she was talking to me, instead of thin air.

At any rate, she said I seemed to be a fan of the plums (I was rather focused and engaged in choosing good ones) and asked if they were good, even though they aren't usually very sweet. I told her about making the zwetschgendatschi instead of just eating them. She was intrigued and said I was inspiring with the idea of baking with them. I don't know so much about inspiring; I was just talking about making my favorite tart of all time. 

After I showed her a picture on my phone, and failed miserably at helping her spell and pronounce it (one more time: zwetschgendatschi - ts-vetch-kin-dah-chee), we talked about the crust and how what I used to top the tart. I gave her my card and that I've written about this, and posted a link to the recipe.

When she asked if I sold what I baked, and if the blog was about that, I had to shake my head, and tell her it's more about my process of becoming a better baker than it is about recipes. And I don't sell my baking. This brought another smile to her face and she thanked me for sharing the idea of the tart with her. And I have to thank her for giving me an amazing morning!

Currently listening to:  Venemy - New Life (Part 2) (Feat. Notelle)

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California Baking...On Such An Autumn Day (With Apologies to The Mamas and The Papas) - Part The First

Last month I got to spend a bit of time in San Diego visiting with my brother and his family. It was short but very, very sweet – filled with great food, lots of hugs, laughter aplenty, and more than a few surprises.  For instance, I didn't know my nephew, Robbie, was taking German and that my nieces, Jeanine and Denise, sang songs in Japanese. What wasn't a surprise was that my sister-in-law, Wynter, looked at my brother, Rob, and me like we were crazy when we finished each others' sentences and movie quotes. That much I happily expected.

Rob, told me that the kids were excited I was coming because they figured I'd probably be doing some baking. In fact, my nephew, who has baking aspirations himself, was hoping I'd teach him something. I guess my reputation preceded me. (Actually, many boxes of shipped baked goodies preceded me, since I've been sending them gifts from my oven for a little while now.)

So, it was a forgone conclusion that I'd be using their oven for at least a couple of baking projects. I was prepared with two very good recipes. I was prepared to have to pick up some ingredients. What I wasn't prepared for was the need to also procure some very basic baking implements and pans and such. Many excellent meals come out of that kitchen, and from the grill in the back yard, but my brother and his wife don't do a lot of baking. We made lots of jokes about this and I was all too happy to leave behind a lot of "house warming gifts".  

After a few trips to the store, I was ready for my first baking project, which turned out to be a Saturday morning biscuit banquet. I used what I thought would be a good recipe from Food52.com, even though I've never made it before. (There I go again, breaking my rule of never serving a meal from a first-time recipe. I'm starting to think that I made that rule just so I could laugh at myself.) I thought I'd get up in the morning, bake the biscuits, and sit down with my family and devour them.

The blank slate. So clean...for now.

Mise en place. Please notice the iPod with my baking soundtrack queued up.

That plan went off without a hitch...with one major addition: my youngest niece, Denise, wanted to help me bake. And that changed the whole experience for me because it went from making something for breakfast to teaching my niece about baking biscuits. With a recipe I'd never made before. In a kitchen and oven I'd never used before. No pressure. Really.

As you should know by now, I'm always game for a challenge, even one as daunting as this. Still, teaching a thing is different from just doing a thing. With teaching you have to create a structure for imparting information in a way that the student will understand and readily assimilate. You have to give them the basics but at the same time take care to keep it interesting. And you've got to make it fun! Because if it's not fun, then why do it in the first place?

A Quick Sidebar:

Can you tell I'm the offspring of two teachers, with family on both sides with deep roots in Education? Guess I might have picked up a thing or two.

A Quick Sidebar Ends

With Denise (6 years old), I started off very simple: making sure she knew the measurements we'd be using, and identifying all the ingredients. After she donned her cute little apron, that is.

Please to observe these measuring spoons!

I told her about the importance of having everything you'll need right, mise en place, to make it easier to mix, add, stir, and (Got to add a little French to her go along with the Japanese she sings.)

"Mise en place" is French for "Don't run around the
kitchen like an idiot, trying to find stuff!" I think.

Now, I was a kid and I remember how overly excited I got when grownups let me do things with them. I caused more than a couple of...incidents because of my enthusiasm. Kids haven't changed that much over the years, so I made sure to watch out for this when I let Denise stir the dry ingredients. I only had to caution her about flinging everything out of the bowl once.

Carefully adding ingredients.

I had to use two knives to cut in the butter because I couldn't find a pastry blender at the store. It was just as well, since I got to refine my technique.

Using the old double-knife technique.

One of the reasons I chose this particular recipe was that I was curious about the lack of rolling pin use. I really wanted to see how it worked. I think both of us agreed that it was fun to gather and smush and gather and smush the dough (also known as "kneading"). I taught myself a little something about the right handling dough like that: easy-does-it. Press hard enough to combine and create the layers, but not hard enough to overwork the dough.

Rolling pin? We don't need no stinkin' rolling pin...
even though I bought one for the house.

We laughed about there not being a lot of baking tools in the house but I was actually glad to improvise the way I did; using knives to work in the butter, and small-rimmed glasses to cut the biscuits, is very traditional and connected me with my Granma (my father's mother) who made biscuits from scratch in a similar fashion. So, in a way, this direct line through four generations of Bakers baking.

A couple of shot glasses will do in a pinch.

"Press hard!"

Loading up the baking sheets.

One other thing I tried to teach Denise was to try to keep the mess to a minimum, and confined to the table (something I'm not always so successful with at home). Fortunately for me, I was quick with the bowl to catch most of the flour she shook off her hands.

Aaaand...there goes the flour all over the floor.

Once we had the biscuits in the oven, I had to do some internal wrestling with the oven. It's probably about five or ten degrees off because the biscuits took about fifteen minutes longer than they should have. Hmmm. It's a good thing I have experience with recalcitrant ovens, isn't it? 

A little pale but still very well baked.

In the end, we pulled out two trays of utterly delicious and flaky biscuits! 

Delicious with honey!

I couldn't have done it without my able assistant, though! And thanks to my other niece assistant, Jeanine, for helping us butter the tops of the biscuits before we popped them in the oven.

Thus ends Part The First (the easy part).

Currently listening to: Brenda Russell - A Little Bit Of Love

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Zwetschgendatschi, ein Mal noch ("Long German word for 'plum tart', one more time")

With what I'm sure will be the last of the plums for the summer, I attempted my third zwetschgendatschi, the German plum tart I fell in love with when I was in München in1984. My first two attempts really didn't meet with my personal approval, although other folks enjoyed them. There was something off about the crust, as well as the taste and consistency of the plums for me: too gummy, not tart enough, and too runny, in that order. I really wanted to get this one right, as per my memory, since one of the reasons I bake is to recreate my pastry past. Having some folks over for a little afternoon chin wag and nosh, gave me the perfect opportunity to give this a go.

Once again, I referred to the recipe I found on NPR, trying to pay attention to subtleties I might have missed before. The plums, this time, came from my favorite farmers market apple vendor. None of them were firm, which told me I was right on the edge of not being able to make this attempt. I didn't buy the amount required by the recipe because if these weren't going to be any good, I didn't want to waste so much money if I was forced to 86 the dessert.

A Word For Those Not In The Know:

The term, "86" is something I learned when I was a room service waiter at a Marriott hotel the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. When something is "86" that means the kitchen is out of it and some customer is going to be sorely disappointed to have to change his or her order. It works both ways, too. For example, I will order a burger but tell the waitperson to "86 the onions". More times than not, they know exactly what I mean.

A Word For Those Not In The Know Ends.

Another decision I made on the fly was to use my square tart pan instead of my round one. I remembered that I never got a slice of this dessert that was wedge-shaped when I was in Germany. (Not that I thought that had anything to do with the taste, mind you, but it sure couldn't hurt.) Besides, I just like using that pan; I've had it for about twenty-five years.

I made the crust by the numbers, as I did the last time, but I looked at the process with two years additional years of experience with crusts, plus a more recent experience of making my own pasta, to back me up. The dough felt better as intuition I didn't even know I'd cultivated helped it come together. 

My intuition about the amount of plums turned out to be spot-on, too. I picked just enough to cover the crust in the size and shape of pan I was using. The plums were a little watery but I figured that wouldn't be a problem because of my plan for baking time.

The recipe called for forty-five minutes at 350º and my experience with my oven told me that it would probably have to go longer. I actually ended up baking this for about fifty-five minutes, using not only my eyes but also my nose as guides to when it was done. I'm finally beginning to trust my sense of smell when it comes to telling when baking fruit has reached its peak in the oven. 

Quite a sight!

It looked right and smelled right. And the slice?

Rectangle slice, not wedge.

Yep. A nice rectangle that was easily cut. 

The first bite told me that my patience had been rewarded. The plums were tart but with an underlying, offsetting sweetness. The crust wasn't gummy and had the right mouth feel. Memories of late summer afternoons in München came flooding back with that bite. And all the bites that followed. 

I don't think I'll have time to make another before decent plums totally disappear from the farmers market. I'll be headed to San Diego this week to visit with my brother and his family, so I won't get to do any tart baking until the following week. We'll see what the future holds. For now? I'm going make myself a nice cuppa and enjoy my zwetschgendatschi to my heart's content. After all, I've only been waiting thirty-one years for this.

Currently listening to: Juventa - Superhuman (Feat. Kelly Sweet) (Culture Code Remix)

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Transatlantica – A New Direction in Shipping

I've shipped baked goods and ice cream to friends and family across the country. From East to West and Northeast to South, boxes from me have covered a lot of ground. I've even sent cookies and cakes to a friend in Hawaii. I always use the USPS because I've got a soft spot in my heart for the Post Office. They gets a bad rap, and in some cases that's deservedly so, but for the most part, I've had great experiences them. 

I think some of that comes from the fact that I use to have an extensive correspondence and dropping letters in the mailbox was one of my joys. The other was receiving something other than bills in return. I'm so old school! (And I'm more than willing to restart that correspondence, should anyone out there want to join me in putting pen to paper.)

Oh. Wait. Back to the point of this blog entry. I've never shipped anything The Continent. And by "The Continent" I mean, Europe. (See? Old school!), mainly because I didn't have anyone there to ship to. That changed earlier this year when my friend Grace and her husband (who is from the Netherlands) moved from Dallas to Paris. They were here for a wedding in July (I believe I posted something about that). I meant to give them a box of my lemon-ginger cream cookies to take back with them but they were so jet lagged, and I was more than a little exhausted from a week of the 9-5, that I clean forgot to give it to them! 

Don't worry. I was able to find a local home for the orphans. Still, that oversight made me determined to get something tasty to them anyway. And since I had a stash of Michele-o-mars handy, I thought, "Why not a transatlantic shipment?" Why not? Because, my goodness, who can figure out the customs forms and the shipment requirements and the timing and the...! Stop. Chill out. Take a deep breath and do one thing at a time. 

I boxed the cookies in such a way that I thought they'd shift as little as possible. I'm finding that this is key to anything I send through the post; the less room the goods have for moving around as the box gets assaulted by man and machine from here to there, the better. But you also have to leave enough room inside so that the goods don't get squished when the box inevitably gets compressed. 

Once I got that done, I weighed it and settled in to figure out the forms. Nothing I've shipped has ever had to make it through customs before, so I paid close attention to the "Keep this crap out of our country" section. It seems that "chocolate cookies" isn't on that list. *phew*. I selected the shortest time between two points postage option (that I could comfortably afford), slapped the label on the box, and set off to the Post Office to consult with a clerk to make sure I filled everything out right.

A Word About Postal Clerks:

I know a lot of people have had horrendous interactions with postal clerks. I've seen the videos, heard the stories, seen the tantrums on both sides of the desk. Heck, I've had one or two less than satisfactory experiences myself. However, by-and-large, I prefer dealing with them when I've got something tricky to send. I always approach them with a smile and a "good morning", and never fail to get the same back. We acknowledge each other's humanity and establish a little rapport. Most everything from that point on goes smoothly; they're always helpful, efficient, and pleasant with me.
 
A Word About Postal Clerks Ends.

The sweet clerk took me through the form, point by point, double-checked the weight and amount of postage, and assured me that everything was in order. She took the box into her charge. Off it went and off I went back to work, and to tell Grace, via FaceBook, that I'd sent her a box of something. I wouldn't tell her what was in the box because I'm evil that way. I made her promise to take pictures of the box and the contents, though, because I really wanted to see the shape in which everything arrived. 

Days later, after numerous checks on the tracking number, the package arrived at her mailbox in Paris. Via Facebook (again) I told her she might want to check her mail. She disappeared and soon after I was greeted with these images:

Seems intact! And look at all the check boxes to choose from on that form!

First bite of a cookie sent across the Atlantic!

 Our Facebook message exchange when thus:

Grace: Already being devoured! I can not believe you did this. You are so amazing. I love you so much!

Me: Cool! I'm glad they got there in one piece. :) And save some for Leon!

Grace: I'm afraid I can not make that promise.

Me: My first transatlantic delivery is a success!

Grace: A ripping, tripping, light dimming success! But as much as I love them, you can never do this again...It's ridiculously expensive.

(I laughed using my inside voice)

Me: Oh, no, honey. Shipping ice cream overnight is ridiculously expensive. This? I could do this a couple of times a year.

And who knows. I just might!

I wasn't surprised that the marshmallow had started coming through the chocolate a little. The coating was fairly thin, as per Michele's specs. Next time I decide to ship these somewhere, I might put a double coating on them. We'll see. 

Currently listening to: Tori Amos - Baker Baker

 

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My Oh My Oh Mallowmars! (Part III)

Leaving the cookie dilemma behind for just a moment, I had to turn my attention to the next big hurdle for this custom designed treat. 

Briefly, A Note About The Cookie Dilemma

In a word, I was exhausted! I made so many cookies, which were good but not right, in such a short time, that I was all cookied-out. The chocolate had to be easier, right? Right?

Briefly, A Note About The Cookie Dilemma Ends 

Yeah. Right. Easier. I had three (3) challenges to overcome with the chocolate: 1) sweetness, 2) thickness of the coating, and 3) hardness of the chocolate coating. One thing at a time. To address the sweetness, I figured I'd need to test different kinds of chocolate. Please to observe:

Come on! I had to use Baker's brand, right?

I needed to establish where Michele's tastes fell when combining chocolate and marshmallow. So, I sacrificed some of the marshmallows I'd given her for toasting (another post, for sure) to test the above three.

The line-up.

Suspect number 1.

Suspect number 2.

Suspect number 3.

After sampling the line-up, the witness...I mean Michele...determine that none of them had the means to achieve the proper balance. Simultaneously, though, both of us concluded that a mixture of the unsweetened and the bittersweet would probably do the trick. And it did. Number one out of the way. Two to go.

I kind of had to tackle number three out of sequence because it was more important to get the right formulation to make the chocolate hard at room temperature. I've been reading on-and-off about tempering chocolate for just such a purpose but have had little luck in recreating the results of others, no matter what recipe I used – and I used two or three different ones for this cookie. All the attempts yielded a tacky, sticky coating at best, and a gooey mess that defied being handled at worse. (Well, that's not quite the worst case, but we'll leave that alone.) 

There are recipes that call for using vegetable oil, butter, or melted shortening. These did not do the trick for me. There are techniques which require a marble slab (which I no longer own), chilled, and lots of spatula work. No way was I going to go down that road. I am crazy but I won't be that crazy until I am working out of my dream kitchen.

After all these attempts completely failed to yield the right chocolate consistency/hardness, I told Michele that it might be impossible for me to design this cookie for her. If I couldn't get this one element right, with my current skill set and equipment, then it really didn't make sense to continue working on it. I'd have to wait until I grew up a little more as a confectioner. She understood but hated to see all the work I'd done up to this point go to waste.

That made me smile because, as I told her, none of this was a waste because I'd taught myself a lot of valuable lessons, even in my failures. Nope. Even if I couldn't make her the cookie she wanted, I'd have to consider this a win. A qualified win but a win nonetheless. 

I figured I'd give it one last try so I scoured my cookbooks for chocolate recipes and had one more consultation with The Google. That's when I came across the Cooking For Engineers Website, and a discussion about the very problem I was having. Confectionery science to the rescue! Finally someone laid things out for me in a way I could understand, and presented a solution that made sense to me! I was already clear on the concept of "seizing" chocolate but the underlying science of seeding the melted chocolate to help form the crystal structure necessary for tempering and, thus, hard shell at room temperature, new to me. 

I set things up and decided to use a variation on the double-boiler technique that I was familiar with. I created a hot water bath using two different sized Pyrex bowls, with the chocolate in the smaller bowl. The heated water melted the chocolate perfectly, even though it did take about fifteen or more minutes of stirring. Yes, this technique was a little tricky because of the proximity of the water to the chocolate, but I just felt I could work better that way. And the test I did on the remaining rejected digestive biscuits proved me right.

Dipped and hardening.

Once these had been sitting out for a couple of hours, I touched them and absolutely no chocolate came off on my finger. The covering was still soft but I new it would harden sufficiently for me to continue my quest!

I determined that number two, thickness of the coating, wasn't nearly as important as the chocolate sweetness and the shell hardness, so I just skipped it. 

Back to the cookie, which by now I was ready to figure out. I'd had a little epiphany after the digestive biscuit didn't work. I liked the recipe, so why not use all white flour instead of mixing it with the whole wheat flour? The dough would be easier for me to work with and it wouldn't yield a graham cracker, which wasn't what Michele wanted, anyway. Et voila! The biscuit cookie.

Exactly what Michele said she wanted in the first place!

The irony of ending up with what Michele had jokingly wanted at the beginning of this whole process was not lost on me. These were delicious and easy to make. Heck, they'd even be nice to spread a little jam on and just gobble up! They were also neutral enough with regards to sweetness that they'd work perfectly with the marshmallow and the chocolate. And they were tender to the bite but substantial enough to take the other two ingredients without going mushy. Time to assemble!

Biscuit cookies laid out.

The next problem to solve was how to actually get the marshmallow onto the cookies. Last time I let the marshmallow set and then used a cookie cutter to chop out cylinders of fluff to place of the cookies. Fail. This time I used another Alton Brown idea and put the freshly made marshmallow into a pastry bag and piped it onto the cookies. That way, I'd used the stickiness of the marshmallow to my benefit. Once set, the cookies would be much easier to dip into the chocolate.

A Disclosure:

I absolutely suck at using a pastry bag and decorating tips. Absolutely. Suck. I have no feel for them and generally make a huge mess when using them. If you asked me to decorate a cake, I'd tell you to take a long walk off a short pier. Despite that, I use a pastry bag to load up my ginger lemon cream cookies and decided that it was the way to go with these as well. By the time I'm done with this project I'll either throw away all my pastry bags and decorator tips or come away with techniques that I'm happy with.

A Disclosure Ends.

Piped-in marshmallows!

I waited three or four hours for the marshmallow to set before I dipped the cookies into the chocolate.

Set and dipped.

Take a closer look, why don't you?

As I discovered, once the chocolate finally set, it maintained a hard shell but lost the glossy sheen.

Hard shell, less sheen. Wait. No sheen!

That's a trade-off I could live with. And the absolute best part of all? Michele loved them! Her only further desires were: thinner cookie, if possible, and more marshmallow. Did I mention that my girl is just mad for marshmallow?

This definitely goes into the "Win" column. Michele-o-mars are now part of my baking repertoire and I am ecstatic!

One Last Note Regarding Pastry Bags:

I won't be throwing my decorating tips away. I will, however, be looking for larger bags to use. I need to load up as much marshmallow as possible so that I can pipe it onto the cookies before it sets up too much. Oh, and I finally began to see what techniques I'd need to master in order to get better at cake decorating, too. 

One Last Note Regarding Pastry Bags Ends.

Currently listening to: Dvořák • String Quartet no. 12 in F major, op. 96 "American" - I. Allegro ma non troppo - Emerson String Quartet

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