Baking Style: Art, Craft, Recipes

Recipe

Bundles Of Joy
On my memory board of fragrances, deep within my baking consciousness, nothing is more firmly embedded than the scent of chocolate chip (or chunk) cookies while they are baking.

Biting into a warm cookie that highlights the demure seepage of chocolate, the light taste of caramel, and the echoing flavor of butter returns me to my childhood, when I presided over a baking sheet filled with chunks of dough. (Is anything new? I still hover over baking sheets of chocolate chip cookie dough.)
The triumph of the ingredients, melding as they do into one parcel of dough, is what good baking is all about. When life hands me the inevitable dilemma, I head into the kitchen and mix up a few dozen of any one of these charmers—their presence does not change the course of an event (would that a cookie had such power), but it does lighten the way.
The potency of a chocolate chip cookie is all encompassing. Hand over a cookie to a cranky person and it weakens his or her ornery resolve. Scent your kitchen with the alluring aroma of dough baking into golden, crisp-and-chewy rounds, and anyone nearby will become an instant friend.
I am terribly particular about chocolate chip cookie dough. Emotional even. The constant tweaking of the melting for chocolate chip cookies recipe has made it dearer to me, more sensory-involving, more of an intellectual tangle to be reckoned with. The current recipe for CCC (as it is known in my private shorthand) has a different complexion from other cookies in my life, unveiling a slightly altered ratio of flours and sugars and a little more salt. Chocolate chips dominate. The aroma is pure. And the baking? Both simple and sublime.
But...
When you are a dogged baker, there is always a "but." Just when a nipped-and-tucked recipe for CCC is put together and baked, another concept comes to mind—a little more caramel-y, a little more butterscotch-y—and the fiddle results in this spin: when chocolate chip cookies go butterscotch.
No sooner is the second play-on-the-traditional over than along comes melty, lush: empowered-with bittersweet-chocolate, a third incarnation of the CCC. As these cookies bake, they puddle into relaxed saucers. With globs of bittersweet chocolate poking through, and crisply tender edges. Loosely based on the preceding two recipes, this cookie dough contains a little more butter and sugar for the amount of flour used and places bittersweet chocolate at the forefront. When baked at a higher temperature, the less-structured dough mounds collapse gently, giving the baked cookies a tenderly snappy edge and chewy middle. As the dough pools around the irregular pieces of chocolate while baking, the butter and sugar caramelize—not in a brilliantly dark way, but in a dusky and shadowy fashion. A batch is of-the-moment, to be eaten—preferably depleted—within hours of baking, though the dough does hold up well in the refrigerator for two days. In a butter frenzy, the CCC odyssey finishes with wild ones, a fairly profound version of a chocolate chip cookie dough.
So much for all the talk-y descriptions. The pleasure is in the baking (and in the eating). And, well, one day a batch of cookies might, in fact, change the course of events.

a snazzy bittersweet chocolate tea bread

Vanilla and Chocolate Chunk Dough
2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
6 tablespoons (D/e stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size chunks
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
7 ounces bittersweet chocolate (in the cacao range of 60% to 70%), chopped into small nuggets
about 2 tablespoons sparkling sugar, for sprinkling on the unbaked round of dough

serving: one tea bread, creating about 10 slices ahead: best on baking day

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Line a heavy rimmed sheet pan or cookie sheet with a length of ovenproof parchment paper. (The baking pan must be heavy or the bottom of the bread will darken considerably before the interior is entirely baked.)
For the dough, sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and granulated sugar into a medium-size mixing bowl. Drop in the chunks of butter and, using a pastry blender or two round-bladed table knives, cut the fat into the flour mixture until reduced to small bits.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk the heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract.
Pour the heavy cream-egg-vanilla extract mixture over the flour mixture, sprinkle over the chopped chocolate, and stir to form a crumbly dough, using a wooden spoon or flat wooden paddle. With your fingertips, bring the mixture together until a cohesive dough is formed. The mixing and forming of the dough should not take longer than about 1 minute. Note that the dough is mixed only to shape and form, as light kneading frequently results in a dense-textured crumb.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and form into a well-domed ball measuring about 5 inches in diameter, keeping the dough ball as plump as possible. Place the dough ball in the center of the baking pan. With a small sharp knife, cut a cross on the surface of the bread (about ¼ inch deep). Sprinkle the sparkling sugar over the surface of the bread.
Bake the bread in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until set and golden. Let the bread stand on the baking pan for 2 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack, using two wide offset metal spatulas. Serve at room temperature.

notes
• the amount of heavy cream needed to bring the dough together depends on the density of the cream (thicker is better), the absorption quality of the flour, and the atmospheric conditions of the day; you can safely add 1 to 2 tablespoons heavy cream in order to create a cohesive dough, but realize that a too-slack dough may bake out of shape—in other words, aim for a dough ball that holds its shape, but is not too moist (if you are unsure, begin with ½ cup and go from there), keeping in mind, however, that the overall moistness of the dough contributes to the bread's rich, silky quality and enticing crumb.
• use a finely serrated knife to cut the bread

brown sugar toffee cake

Toffee Butter Batter
3 cups unsifted bleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
2 cups chopped toffee (such as Heath bars)
½ pound (16 tablespoons or 2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
4 large eggs
2 ¾ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
confectioners' sugar, for sifting over the baked cake (optional)

serving: one 10-inch cake, creating about 16 slices
ahead: 2 day

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Film the inside of a 10-inch Bundt pan (4½ inches deep, with a capacity of 15 cups) with nonstick flour-and-oil spray. The preparation of the pan must be thorough or the pieces of chopped toffee that land against the sides and central rise of the pan will stick, making unmolding tricky.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt onto a sheet of waxed paper.
Toss the toffee with 2 tablespoons of the sifted mixture in a medium-size mixing bowl.
Cream the butter in the large bowl of a freestanding electric mixer on moderate speed for 4 minutes. Add the granulated sugar in 2 additions, beating for 1 minute after each portion is added. Add the dark brown sugar and beat for 1 minute longer. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing for about 20 seconds after each addition to combine. Blend in the vanilla extract. On low speed, alternately add the sifted mixture in 3 additions with the buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the sifted mixture. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl thoroughly with a rubber spatula after each addition. Stir in the toffee, making sure to fully incorporate the candy.
Spoon the batter into the prepared baking pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula.
Bake the cake in the preheated oven for 55 minutes to 1 hour, or until risen, set, and a wooden pick inserted into the cake withdraws clean or with a few moist crumbs attached. The baked cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the baking pan.
Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Invert the cake onto another cooling rack. Lift off the pan. Cool completely. Store in an airtight cake keeper. Just before slicing and serving, sift confectioners' sugar over the top of the cake, if you wish.

notes
• Heath bars (Heath Milk Chocolate English Toffee Bar) make the best-tasting candy addition to the cake batter; hand-chop the bars into rough-cut ¼-inch pieces
• Use a finely serrated knife to cut the cake, doing so in a slightly exaggerated sawing motion