Basic Needs and Birthdays

I find it much easier to justify my need to buy one of everything in the baking aisle at the supermarket because 9 times out of 10 (I haven’t done an exact survey of local grocery stores, but I sure have been to a lot of them and spent a sizeable percentage of my semi-weekly paycheck at them) the aisle has the heading, “Baking Needs.” As a good friend once told me, “It’s okay. They’re NEEDS, not just wants.” It would not be an overstatement to say that I routinely “need” enough floor, sugar, vanilla, and chocolate from that aisle to provide all of the yearly calories for a starving child in a war-torn country. There may be some guilt associated with these purchases.

I often find myself standing in said aisle, thinking to myself, “What do I NEED today?” and as I was gazing at the array of baking dishes of all shapes and sizes this evening I came to the realization that I couldn’t possibly need any of them, because I do in fact own at least one of each already. This is not to say that certain special pots and pans don’t exist that I don’t own, but apparently I’ve got the cake/pie/tart/muffin arena covered. I will no doubt find an excuse to purchase some ridiculous pan in the future, but not from that grocery store. Because, as I said, I already own all the ones they sell.

And now that I’ve confessed my addiction to purchasing baking-related goods, I would like to pretend, at least for a second, that it is sometimes for a good cause. I asked each of my advisees at the beginning of the year what their favorite dessert was, and promised to make it (or a close approximation of it) and bring it on their birthday (I am a strong believer in feeling special on and around birthdays, which works out well with the desire to make every dessert in each of the 7 cookbooks I own). This week’s challenge: a cheesecake (other desserts so far this year include brownies and an ice cream cake). When pressed to be more descriptive, the student said, “I don’t know, like with fruit or something?” (This immediately gets me thinking, “WOOO!!! the possibilities are endless! Think of all the things I could do!” And then eventually I have to restrain myself and actually pick something so I decided to go with strawberry cheeecake).

I love cheesecake and find it to be one of those desserts that I can eat obscenely large amounts of without breaking a sweat or slowing down at any point (I personally do not buy into the whole “It’s too rich” argument, as this has never seemed to be a problem for me). It’s therefore probably best to make it for large gatherings because then there really is no way for me to eat too much. This recipe is even more dangerous because thanks to the addition of a liberal dose of lemon juice, the sweetness of the condensed milk and the richness of the cream cheese are not as aggressive as some people claim they are in other cheesecake recipes (not that this has ever bothered me, as I said. . .)

Spoiler alert: you need a springform pan for this, and if you, unlike me, have not seen fit to buy everything in the “baking needs” aisle, you will certainly need to acquire this to make a cheesecake without encountering almost certain disaster pertaining to your crust and filling.

Crust (graham cracker)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (really melted, not just soft. . .)
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs (this amounts to approximately one of the 3 sleeves that come in a typical package of graham crackers—just throw them in the food processor/blender and press, “annihilate” or whatever clever verb the company has come up with to describe what happens next)
You can also add some sugar (white or brown) or some spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, something else tasty and ridiculous, just to make everything exciting)

Making the crust:

Preheat the over to 325°F. Lightly brush the bottom and sides of your springform pan with 1 Tablespoon of the butter (and please don’t bother measuring. . . it’s just “not that serious” as they say).

Mix together the cookie crumbs and butter in a bowl (I favor using the fingers for this part of the process) until the cookie crumbs are evenly drenched in buttery goodness. (If you don’t find the process of discovering what exactly is in all of your favorite desserts, this may not be the time to start making cheesecakes).
Press the cookie crumbs evenly into the bottom of the pan (just the bottom, not the sides) and bake until the crust is firm (this is about 15 minutes, and honestly, if it isn’t exact, it won’t detract from your overall enjoyment of this product). The edges of the crust should also be a little bit darker and it may not seem “firm” until it has a chance to cool on a wire rack for a little bit.

Filling:
2 packages frozen strawberries (10-12 ounces)
1 tablespoon cornstarch (or if you fail to plan ahead, 2 Tbsp flour)
¼ cup light brown sugar (unless your strawberries are pre-sweetened)
3 packages cream cheese (8 ounces each, softened by sitting on the preheated stove)
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
¼ cup lemon juice (I used fresh squeezed from cute little lemons, much to the detriment of my hangnails; I imagine that bottled juice would work just fine)
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon water

Making the filling:
Get out your food processor. Combine the strawberries, cornstarch, and sugar, and blend until smooth. (You may exceed the “max liquid fill line” on certain models, but it should be okay). Pour into a sauce pan and heat until it comes to a boil (Don’t expect to see it boil like water. It mostly just looks like goopy bubbles popping gently). Let it boil for two minutes and make sure you stir. Set aside about 1/3 of this (to go in the body of the cheesecake) and put the rest in the refrigerator and save for serving.
Clean out your food processor (oh the tedium. . . sometimes the thought of doing the dishes almost stops me from baking, but it’s never quite enough, surprisingly). Put cream cheese in the processor and process until light and fluffy (never thought you’d see “fluffy” cream cheese that wasn’t “reduced-fat-we’ve-taken-out-all-the-tasty-bits-and-replaced-them-with-chemicals”? Well, here’s your chance). Gradually add the milk (and get ready to wash your hands or revisit your childhood years of walking around with sticky fingers and getting everything in your path coated in a light sticky mess). Add the lemon juice and keep on mixing. Add eggs and mix just until they are blended (no need to over do it: you don’t want air bubbles in your cheesecake).

Bring it all together!
Pour half the cream cheese mixture over the somewhat cooled crust. Take a teaspoon and drop bits of the strawberry mixture all over (about half of the reserved portion). Pour over the other half of the cream cheese mixture (I got a little confused at this step because it seemed to push all the strawberry stuff aside, but I think that is part of the point, and if not, well I screwed up and I don’t particularly care—it turns out that upon closer reading, something I tend to avoid when baking, the recipe says, “spoon carefully” vs. pour. Oh, well. Do what you like). Drop the remaining strawberry mixture by teaspoon-ful all over the top (if it doesn’t look pretty yet, don’t panic! That part comes next).
Now for the fun part! Get out a knife and cut back and forth through the top layer so that you create nice little strawberry stripes that look remarkably like the fancy cheesecake you buy at the store. . .
Bake at 300°F for 45-50 minutes until the center is almost set (this part is especially confusing, because it doesn’t really look “set” but if you jiggle the pan back and forth a bit, it should move a little bit but not create waves like a swimming pool). You don’t want to overbake it because it gets this weird cooked cream cheese flavor that is not completely aligned with your actual end goal.
Once it’s done baking, let it cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes then run a knife along the outside edge so as it cools and shrinks a bit the inside doesn’t get stuck to the pan. Refrigerate “overnight” (if you are making this for immediate consumption, refrigerate for as long as possible before serving). Cheesecake keeps really well in the refrigerator if you cover it, so if you are one of the lucky few who is baking for yourself exclusively AND has self control, don’t worry about eating it right away). Use the rest of the strawberry sauce to pour over the cheesecake when you serve it.
Don’t forget to congratulate yourself on making a pretty pattern in your cheesecake. Guaranteed to blow everyone’s mind.

Mole Day, Molasses

Happy Mole Day! For those of you who do not dwell in the realm of nerd-dom and science teaching, where any excuse to get excited about something excessively nerdy is glommed onto and celebrated to an unnecessary extent is welcome, Mole Day is October 23, which relates to 6.0 x 1023, the number of molecules/atoms in the unit of measurement “one mole”. If this fact zipped by your head now (and also back in high school), you are in the overwhelming majority of all people who have ever lived, including most of my students. (It’s bad enough when you’re talking about “atoms”, which can’t be seen with the naked eye, but it gets that much worse when you talk about them in such vast numbers that they can no longer be discussed with numbers we like such as 1, 10, or even 100, and must now be represented using a number that is so far beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend that it loses all meaning, and we make it even more meaningless by using scientific notation. . . and then eventually fractions get involved. . . you can see why all of this might get confusing for students. All of which is funny, since the unceasingly confusing concept of the mole is what allows us to go back to numbers like 1. Which are nice.) Perhaps I like this unit because it is strikingly similar to the idea of a dozen, and that always reminds me of baking.

This discussion of mind-blowing concepts seems particularly appropriate now that we have entered the part of the school year where the warm and fuzzy getting-to-know each other gentle introduction to new classes is over and we are into the serious business of learning. And when I say learning, I mean the kind of mind-twisting, headache-inducing struggle that in my mind denotes a genuine intellectual revelation. Perhaps my students wish this was not my attitude towards learning, but the results that come of this are so interesting, and I often think that a student can pay me no higher a compliment than saying, “Your class is so hard! I actually have to think!”

Recently, I have been so wound up and unable to stop thinking myself and actually concentrate on business matters that I have found myself in need of some active relaxation (that might sound like an oxymoron, but relaxation has never been my strong suit). Therefore, I once again turned to baking. In anticipation of a weekend workshop with some near and dear fellow teachers and the coincidence with the aforementioned Mole Day, one of my colleagues suggested that I brighten everyone’s fall by baking. . . Mole-asses cookies. It was too funny to pass up and I needed the excuse to get into the kitchen and whip something into shape, even if it was just eggs and butter. At least with baking, I can usually control the outcome (and with students, sometimes there is no telling).

This recipe reminds me a lot of gingersnaps, except that there is a lot less ginger and a lot more molasses. These seem like the perfect cookies for the crisp sunny fall weather: chewy, spicy, and a little bit sweet, but also not the kind of thing that puts you into an immediate food coma remarkably similar to hibernation. I had to look on-line for a recipe because my plentiful supply of cookbooks didn’t have anything that fit the Mole Day joke, but of course being the opinionated baker I am, I made my own modifications. I don’t actually know what the original recipe would taste like, but this one was pretty good.

Wet ingredients:
¾ cup butter, melted (the recipe said margarine, but I staunchly and probably irrationally refuse to bake with margarine. To get the butter nice and soft, I just put it on the stove top where the hot air from the stove vents—it reaches a nice consistency very quickly without fully melting)
½ cup white sugar (I split the sugar between the types. Original recipe only had white sugar)
½ cup light brown sugar (a very nice flavor with the molasses and spices)
¼ cup molasses

Dry ingredients:
2 cups all-purpse flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger

(I would like to take a time out to mention that it is probably a fair statement about my obsessive buying of baking ingredients to say that I am rarely in any doubt as to whether I have the last three ingredients above. The answer is unequivocally yes).

Flourishes:
½ cup white sugar

Part 0: Pre-heat
I have a funny joke from a student about this, but I’m saving it for a future post. At this point, you want your oven at 375°F. You will also need a couple of baking sheets, but you don’t need to grease them (the vast quantities of butter in the recipe are quite sufficient to prevent any cookie-glued-to-the-sheet action).

Part 1: Warm up
Mix together the melted/soft butter, the sugar from the “wet” ingredients (1 cup total), and the egg. Put some elbow grease into it. Make a nice smooth mixture, and if you used brown sugar and have any lumps, try to get rid of them. Stir in the molasses (feel free to spend a few seconds making fun marbled patterns before you fully mix it)
Separately, combine all of the dry ingredients (not the extra half cup of sugar from the “flourishes”). I find it immensely satisfying to make a tower of dry ingredients with different colors and consistencies in my bowl and stare at them for a while before mixing, but the eventual goal is to mix them.
Mix the two mixtures together (nerdy science question: what kind of mixture do you have? If you’ve memorized the ninth grade physical science textbook, you may be tempted by such words as “colloid” and “suspension”. I wouldn’t want to inhibit your creativity by confining you to such limited words, though). As the wet and dry get more integrated, it can be a little difficult to get all of the dry ingredients incorporated, but you don’t want anything left out so make sure you get all the pockets of dry ingredients stirred in. Dig deep.

Part 2: Chill out
Cover the dough and let it chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour (give or take the timing that fits your busy schedule—I rarely actually time these things and move onto the next step whenever I get bored or run out of other things to do).

Part 3: Into the oven!
When you remove the dough from the refrigerator, you will need a small bowl or something with the remaining white sugar in it. Roll the dough into small balls (“walnut” sized says the recipe, or something approximately a large marble. If you make the first batch an inconvenient size, you will realize this when you remove them from the oven, and you can join the time honored tradition of hoping no one ever knows about the first batch). Roll each ball of dough in the sugar to create a light dusting.
Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet (this seemed excessive to me at first, as it always does when I make cookies, but they really flatten out a tremendous amount).
Bake for about 8-10 minutes in your preheated oven. You want to take them out when the tops are cracked and you can just barely see a slightly darker brown on the bottom. It is really important not to bake them too long because you will then end up with hockey pucks or dog treats rather than the nice chewy cookie that we are aiming for. (How do I know if they are ready to come out or not? you may ask. . . look for the signs above, I say)

Part 4: Cool down
Cool on wire racks or paper towel or whatever you want. Try to let them cool enough that you don’t immediately burn your entire mouth. They cool down quite fast, and store well in an airtight container, in the fridge, or in the freezer.

The recipe claimed they are good for shipping. I haven’t tried this yet, although I can think of a few friends who might be in line for the next batch. However, they seem to have survived being manhandled through airport security in a Ziploc bag with minimal crushing or flaking (unusual for many cookies, which turn instantly to a crumby mess). The absurdity of carrying a large Ziploc full of cookies across the country just for a funny science joke didn’t really hit me until I was on my seat in the airplane getting some very bizarre looks from the people around me.

Nec' and Neck

Nectarine-Blackberry Jam Muffins

I have a love hate relationship with muffins, because they can either end up being cakey goodness that is not far removed from a cupcake (but with slightly less appalling nutritional value, depending how you make them) or they can end up resembling a hard, tasteless mess that would barely pass for food on a 17th century sailing vessel. As much as I would surely like to pretend that they are delicious every time I make them, I will be the first to confess that sometimes, frankly, they are nasty.

However, not one to let past defeat predict future success, I like to try again. Sometimes I learn from my mistakes (when I remember to write down what happened), and sometimes it’s like slowly going insane: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results (thank you, Einstein). This time I learned though, because I tried one version Saturday (just jam, no fruit) and one version Monday (jam and fruit) and I think the modifications were well worth the outcome.

This particularly recipe was inspired by the outfit I was wearing on my 18-mile solo run yesterday (in between planning lessons and grading projects): a fancy long sleeved purple tech shirt with orange highlights. That and the fact that the nectarines I bought recently were (a) not very good to begin with and (b) getting mushy at an alarming rate (nothing like rotting fruit to inspire a baking adventure). Hence the orange (nectarine) and purple (blackberry jam).


I originally got this recipe from a friend in college and generally modify it to meet the pantry at hand (i.e. what’s rotting on my counter-top):

“Dry” ingredients (I think the spices enhance the flavor of an otherwise somewhat bland recipe. . .):
2 cups all purpose flour (or a mix of white and whole wheat pastry floor)
1 Tbsp baking powder
dash of nutmeg (optional)
slightly larger dash of cinnamon (option)

“Wet” ingredients (not all wet, but they all get mixed together)
2 large eggs (room temp)
1 cup milk or cream (room temp: milk is fine, but cream is richer. Yogurt also works, as does fruit puree or soy milk)
4-8 Tbsp unsalted butter (soft; the amount is really up to you, but I always think more butter is better, which might explain the quantity of running in my life. You can also use vegetable oil)
2/3 cup sugar (for this, I used half granulated and half light brown, but you can change the ratios, or even experiment with honey if you like that flavoring better)
1 tsp vanilla

Add-ins
2 nectarines, diced into small pieces
Blackberry jam (homemade is obviously best, but not everyone enjoys boiling water and bubbling fruit-sugar)

Part 0: Preparation
Preheat your oven to 400° F (try to hit the temperature right on. . . nothing like muffins burnt on the outside and gooey on the inside to ruin a good morning). Grease or line with paper cups a 12-cup muffin tin (actually, with the amount of extra ingredients in this particular version, I used a 12-cup and a 6 cup. The regular recipe makes about 12 muffins, but the more you add, the more you get).

Part 1: Easy
Mix together the “dry” ingredients. Whisks are kind of fun for this, but not really necessary. No sifting required (this recipe would take about twice as long).

Part 2: Medium
(The order of the steps is somewhat arbitrary. This is what I tried on my highly-successful most recent attempt, so that’s why I’m using it here). Cream the butter and sugar (works best if you let the butter get super soft by sitting out at room temperature rather than melting it in the microwave, but this takes time and forethought. I am not prepared to take sides on the “microwave-destroys-the-emulsion vs. who-has-time-to-wait” argument, so I will just say that in my experience, they both work). Beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure to mix really well after each one (we do not want a mid-muffin omelet because our stirring left a little something to be desired). Add in the vanilla, stir. Add in the milk, stir. (I was somewhat unsatisfied with the milk addition step, because I got this weird globby looking watery mixture, but I decided it was probably something to do with the oil-water combination, so I didn’t worry about it too much and went on with my life.)

Part 3: Hard
This is where muffins can end up like rocks. The key is not to stir too much at this point, because when you stir too much, you kill the light fluffy potential of the muffins. It should NOT look like cake batter after you’ve combined the ingredients (you want the chemical magic to happen while it’s heating up in the oven, not right now). It should look a little lumpy.
Anyway, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients (all at once! None of this “a little bit at a time” business). Stir a few times, briskly, until everything appears combined (it is amazing, but you can actually over-stir and under-stir at the same time: too much mixing on the top layer, while leaving unmixed flour at the bottom of the bowl. The solution is to make sure you scrape your spoon along the bottom of the bowl as you give it those few brisk strokes).

Part 4: FUN!
This should happen about simultaneously to adding the wet ingredients. I literally just dumped in all of the nectarine pieces and multiple tablespoons of blackberry jam, so I didn’t have to stir extra times to mix them in (and potentially destroy the muffins). The jam works best if you “loosen” it a bit before dumping it into your batter, otherwise it tends to clump and doesn’t get well-distributed.
When the mixing meets your criteria, distribute the batter evenly among the prepared pans. The original recipe (without the FUN!) takes about 12 to 15 minutes, so with the fun stuff more like 15-20. The best way to test it to watch them puff, watch for the formation of a nice rounded top, and when the very top appears to have solidified past a goopy mess, poke a toothpick in to see if it comes out clean).
When they’re done, let them cool in the pan for a couple minutes, and then on a wire rack until they’re cool enough that you won’t singe your tongue (a particular danger with recipes involving hot jam or fruit). They’re really best as soon as possible after baking, but will keep for couple days in the fridge. Re-warming is the best way to enjoy, but room temperature isn’t too bad either.

Results:
Okay, so they sort of ended up looking like Smurfs. The level of blackberry jam integration was challenging (especially since I decided to throw it in at the same time as the nectarines). On the one hand, it kept the muffins from being too dry, but on the other hand, they look a little psychedelic. However, taste is the final determination, and I personally enjoyed them quite a lot (to the extent that I spent a lot of time thinking who I could give them to so I didn’t sit down and eat all 18 at once).

Other modifications:
If you just want jam, you can skip the step where you mix in the add-ins, pour half the batter in the cups, put a spoonful of jam in each cup, and the pour the rest of the batter on the top. This is quite delicious, although sometimes the batter can be a little dry (in which case you need to adjust your cooking time or ingredients for a moister batter or just mix in the jam as originally described).
Blueberries, raspberries, and huckleberries also make delicious muffins, and it is fun to experiment with different spices to bring out the flavor in those fruits. I’ve also made them with fruit puree instead of milk (in one of my rare ventures into vegan baking, which this clearly isn’t at first glance). For those vegan bakers, egg replacer also works just fine as does soy milk and oil (to replace the butter).
If you want to go really crazy, you can sprinkle some not-too-refined sugar on top to give it them a nice sugary crust (probably best to wait until they’ve baked a little or it will sink into the muffin) or glaze it with one of those fancy caramel drizzles. Frankly, most of the time I’m too lazy to do such things, and they taste so good without the extra sugar that I wouldn’t bother.