The Clinton St. Baking Company Cookbook: Brownie delights

A couple of months ago, I was contacted by a kind publicist and offered a chance to check out the new cookbook of the Clinton St. Baking Company. Always a fan of a good cookbook, I eagerly assented and soon had a glossy, delicious cookbook in my hands.

Might I say, as a brief aside, that I love glossy, scrumptious, food-porn-filled cookbooks? The glossy paper, the photos that ooze calories, the chatty yet suggestive descriptions... it's the perfect relaxing read. And hey-- if you get a jolt of energy, you can even cook something! The Clinton St. Baking Company cookbook is no exception, and it's actually pretty much the pinnacle of its form. For weeks, I fell asleep reading recipes from this engaging book.

Ready to roll

Well, it took me quite a while, but I did finally cook something, and not just any something: Brownies. Mmmm, brownies. The recipe was fairly simple: melt chocolate and butter and sugar in the microwave; add some eggs and vanilla; fold in some dry ingredients. Bake and enjoy.

Bubbling cauldron

I added my own twist to these puppies, mixing some chopped heath bar into the batter and sprinkling some extra toffee bits on top.

Heath bar brownies

How did they turn out? Fan-freakin'-tastic, if I do say so myself. And I do. They were crackly on top, fudgy in the middle, with appealing little bits of crunchy toffee throughout... pretty much perfect. If you like fudgy brownies, these ones are for you; the centers are almost creamy, more like fudge itself than cake. Perfect.

Fresh from the oven

This recipe is not for the faint of heart (or those who have heart conditions...two sticks of butter, anyone?), but it is seriously, seriously delicious. A cookbook that not only looks pretty but makes good food, too? Be still my heart. If you're still looking for a holiday gift, buy one from Amazon here.

LWF&D makes cupcakes

Last week I made cupcakes. I was trying to replicate the Amy's Bread black-and-white cupcakes without buying the Amy's Bread cookbook (which does have the recipe in it, but I'm cheap). I've read the recipe before and I know it has sour cream, so I searched for another chocolate cupcake recipe with sour cream in it. This is the one I ended up using, from a cupcake cookbook AV gave me (awww). I used the Magnolia buttercream recipe, which is the standard butter-vanilla-milk-confectioner's sugar concoction. Phew, that's a lot of links in one paragraph!

So how'd they turn out? They were good, but not what I was going for. The cake was SUPER light and fluffy, chocolatey but not rich and fudgy, as we all know Amy's is. In fact, it was so light and delicate that the muffin-top-like-overhang had a hard time staying attached to the stump, and the whole thing struggled to support the weight of the frosting. The frosting itself came out a touch too runny to hold my delightfully skilled piping designs (sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm)... I found out that the Amy's recipe has some fondant in it, which is what helps it keep its stiff shape. (Careful.)

Like little presents

See? No fudginess inside

Regardless, these tasted quite good: sweet and chocolatey and bad for you. After dinner I ate a large one and then licked the frosting bowl and then almost puked, like a little kid who ate too much halloween candy. Despite my own indiscretions, however, I consider this particular baking experiment a semi-success. Next time I may just have to buy the Amy's cookbook and try out the real thing.

LWF&D makes yummy treats. And eats them.

On Tuesday afternoon, I made delicious, delicious cupcakes. They went a little something like this:

First, a thorough search of the internet for the perfect recipe. Chocolate cupcakes? Maybe. Buttermilk vanilla? Perhaps. Banana? Aha! Yes! After my love affair with Billy's banana cupcakes was sadly truncated by a return to my "real" job, I haven't had that blissful taste in months. Well, it was time to rock 'n' roll.

Following Martha Stewart's recipe (yes, cringe. I'm not a Martha fan, but I am man--well, woman--enough to recognize a good recipe when I see one), I conjured up a big bowl of cupcake batter. It was an interesting batter-- more of a muffin mixture than a traditional cake batter, using melted butter and mashed bananas. And then before I baked the little delights, I hid a secret surprise in each, my little editorial addition to the recipe. You'll see.

They came out of the oven looking beautiful:

Tiny golden beauties

The corner cupcake

And then I frosted them. Martha's recommendation is a honey-cinnamon frosting, basically a traditional American buttercream with a bit of honey and a dash of cinnamon. But, in my quest to replicate Billy's masterpiece, I wanted cream cheese all the way. So I whipped up a batch using, yes, another Martha recipe. And once my beautiful cupcake stumps were cool, I slathered those pupplies with the frosting. They looked like this:

Crowned with snow

Finally, after dinner, I chose the perfect one to be my tester cupcake. Yup:

THE one

As always, I cut it in half... revealing the surprise!

Hidden Hershey kiss!!

And then I dug in. Dear readers, forgive me for tooting my own horn, but these cupcakes were damn good. I'll admit the frosting wasn't as good as Billy's cream cheese frosting, which I suspect has a higher ratio of sugar to cream cheese (my version was tangier and softer). But the cake was delicious, and the bit of chocolate hidden inside put it absolutely over the edge. I gobbled this down in the blink of an eye.

And then I licked the frosting bowl. Oops?

Give it a try yourself. Recipes are available here:

Banana cupcakes
Cream cheese frosting

I made biscuits!

Last week I had some buttermilk in the fridge (leftover from a semi-successful black-and-white cookie project) and some extra cheddar cheese. So I made biscuits! Cheddar-buttermilk biscuits, to be exact. And they looked like this:

I didn't have a biscuit cutter so I used the rim of a glass. Still came out relatively round.

Yummm

Later that evening, I delivered them to AV, and I tried a taste. I admit I'm definitely not a biscuit connoisseur, but these were pretty good taste-wise. However, texturally, they were on the crumbly side rather than the flaky side. I used butter rather than shortening or lard, because a) that's what the recipe called for, and b) I'm much more of a fan of butter than either of the alternatives. Is it possible to make flaky butter-baked biscuits? Any tips or tricks? Maybe I'll make perfect, flaky biscuits my next recipe quest. If you have the answer, email me or leave a comment...