Today I (Max) wanted to make one of my favorite cookies: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies.  The recipe is a simple cookie batter (butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, milk, flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda) with the two very important additional ingredients: oatmeal and chocolate chips.

The first step is to cream the butter into the white and brown sugar.  This is a quick and simple process so long as your butter is soft.  If it’s not soft, then you should just want 1/2 hour to do this.  Then you add an egg, vanilla and a little milk.  Combine that, and while that’s mixing, combine your dry ingredients:  flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and then add that into the butter/sugar mix.  I asked my mom why we added both baking powder and baking soda, and what the difference was between the two and in her typical annoying mom fashion she said to look it up.  So I did and here’s the answer:

Baking powder and baking soda have a lot in common in that they are both chemical leaveners (they both generate gas during mixing/baking that raises the dough or batter). The big difference between baking soda and baking powder is that baking soda only has ONE ingredient: sodium bicarbonate. Whenever it comes into contact with both a liquid and an acid (buttermilk,  yogurt or vinegar for example) it produces gas which creates the lift (or rising) of a batter.  The important thing to remember about baking soda is that the reaction starts immediately (think about when you add vinegar to baking soda to make a volcano model) so you need to get that batter in the oven fast.

Baking powder on the other hand contains sodium bicarbonate with another powdered acid mixed in.  That means all you need is moisture to activate it. And most baking powder is double acting, meaning there is a two part reaction: one immediately when moisture is added and a second reacton when the batter/dough is heated.  So baking powder allows a little more flexibility (you don’t have to put the batter in the oven right away)  So why not just use baking powder?? Because every recipe has different acidity levels and sometimes you need to balance them out. Baking soda neutralizes the acid when it reacts with it so often you need both baking soda and baking powder to have a balanced recipe….so that’s my science lesson for the day. PS: And don’t ever substitute one for the other.

The next step is to add the oatmeal and chocolate chips.  I usually do this by hand (easier to taste test).  Then you drop teaspoons of cookie dough on a baking tray and cook for 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Finally, you enjoy!

You know when you are stuck at the airport because your flight is delayed…and you’re bored and miserable? The one thing that always makes us feel better is Auntie Annie’s Pretzels, especially the cinnamon sugar ones. So we decided to try to recreate those pretzels at home.  We like ours better! And we didn’t have to sit in the airport waiting for a flight to get them!

First we made a quick yeast bread. It only has to rise for an hour.  We combined yeast and milk, along with a little sugar, flour, salt and softened butter and kneaded it for about 5 minutes. Then we let it rise for an hour while we did homework.

After the dough had doubled in shape, we cut it in half and made half into little pretzel shapes and half into four pretzels.  To make the pretzels we rolled a piece of dough into about a 15 inch strip, then we shaped it into a pretzel. The next step was an interesting one…we dipped each pretzel bite and pretzel into a mix of baking soda and water. We think this added the hard shiny texture to the pretzel as well as little saltiness. Then into the oven till golden brown.

Final step: dip the pretzels into cinnamon sugar and enjoy. YUM!!

We didn’t have a chance to cook much this weekend  (we both had soccer games and exams to study for), but we did celebrate Three Kings’ Day with our good friends, the Coronas. They provided this amazing Rosca de Reyes.

Rosca de Reyes is a traditional sweet yeast based cake with a baby Jesus figurine hidden inside. Whoever finds the baby Jesus figurine is king (or queen) for the day and is supposed to bring the tamales to a party on February 2 (Candlemas Day).  We have changed that tradition slightly so that the family who finds the baby Jesus has to provide tamales for (and host) the Super Bowl party!!

This year there were four baby Jesus figures in the cake and both the Kosters and the Coronas found them. So we struck a compromise on the Super Bowl party. Kosters will host and be in charge of Enchiladas Suiza and the Coronas will bring the tamales.  We are still negotiating on who is bringing the guacamole and chips. 

When my mom was growing up she wasn’t allowed to eat any junk food (don’t feel bad for her: her mom, my Grandma Jean, is a greak baker so Grandma Jean baked all kinds of cookies and pies and cakes for the family).  However, on New Year’s Eve my mom got to choose a packaged sweet to eat and she always chose Hostess Cupcakes.  So now every New Year’s, she has to have a Hostess Cupcake.  This year I (Alex) decided to see if I could make a homemade hostess cupcake to give to my mom.  They turned out really well.  Mom says they are better than the storebought ones.  (But they were a lot of work…)

The first step is to make a chocolate cupcake.  The batter I used (from Leite’s Culinara’s recipe) used natural cocoa powder for the chocolate flavor and seemed pretty stiff/dry.  Apparently it is supposed to be that way because the filling makes it really moist.

The second step was to make the white cream filling.  This was fun: just combine marshmallow fluff, powdered sugar and softened butter.  We waited till the cupcakes had cooled, made a little hole in the top and then piped in the filling.  The hard part was knowing if I put enough cream inside so I tried to overcompensate.  The recipe said to be careful to not put too much in in case the cupcake exploded…but I think that would have been cool if it did!  (And none did anyway)

The third step was to make the chocolate frosting.  The recipe called for using bittersweet chocolate only (mixed in with heated heavy cream and soft butter) and I was worried it would be too bitter so I did have semi-sweet and half bittersweet.  It was still slightly on the bitter side (which was ok because the rest of the cupcake is so sweet) but next time I am going to try making it with just semisweet chocolate.

Finally, after we frosted the cupcakes with the chocolate frosting we let them set for half an hour then put the white frosting on top. It was really simple… only softened butter and powdered sugar. Then the whole family experimented with making curlique (and other) designs on them.  They were really good.  NOTE: the recipe said to let the cupcakes sit for 6 hours in an airtight container before you ate them so that the cream filling made the whole cake more moist…are you kidding me??? Of course we couldn’t let them sit for 6 hours before we tried them! But to be fair, the ones we did let sit were a little more moist.

For New Year’s Eve we wanted to make something special so we decided on rack of lamb. We served it with multicolor baby potatoes and roasted cauliflower.  And in a call back to our Swiss roots, we also served melted raclette cheese to go with the potatoes.  It was a special dinner for a special night. Happy New Years!

Rack of Lamb:

For the rack of lamb you first make a lamb rub by mixing chopped rosemary, thyme and garlic with salt, and pepper. Then you marinade the lamb in the herb mix by spreading the mix on the lamb and putting in a plastic bag with olive oil. You can either let it marinate overnight in fridge or until it comes to room temperature. Before cooking score the fat of the lamb with a sharp knife, making shallow cuts about an inch apart. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and wrap the bones in foil so they don’t burn and throw it in the oven!  You start it at a high heat (450 degrees) for about 10 minutes and then you lower it to 300 degrees for another 20-30 minutes.  Then you need to let it sit for 10 minutes (this is the hard part!)

Before cooking score the fat of the lamb with a sharp knife, making shallow cuts about an inch apart. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and wrap the bones in foil so they don’t burn and throw it in the oven!  You start it at a high heat (450 degrees) for about 10 minutes and then you lower it to 300 degrees for another 20-30 minutes.  Then you need to let it sit for 10 minutes (this is the hard part!)

Potatoes and Cauliflower:

Making cauliflower is very straight forward. First you remove the cauliflower core and chop it. Then you drizzle the cauliflower with olive oil, salt and pepper then put it in the oven to cook for about 10 minutes.  We cooked it with the lamb.  For the potatoes we just boiled them for 20 minutes (they are small so they don’t take too much time.

Plated Dish:

We probably should have made a salad because the plate is a little boring but it sure tasted good.

Merry Christmas! For dinner tonight we stuck with tradition and made roast beef, yorkshire pudding, roasted brussel sprouts and a sponge cake yule log.  Everyone helped (even Dad…he carved the roast beef).

Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding

Roast beef is actually really easy to make, assuming you have a good piece of beef.  You cover it with salt and pepper and then roast in the oven at 325 degrees.  Depending on how big your roast is it takes 1- 1/2 to 3 hours for medium rare Our roast was 5 pounds so we figured it would be 2 -1/2 hours to 3 hours.  We started testing with a meat thermometer at 2- 1/2 hours. It was only 122 degrees internally so we let it cook another 30 minutes.  By 3 hours it was 142 (we like it 140-145).  We removed it from the roasting pan, covered it with foil, and poured off all but 1/4 cup of the drippings in the roasting pan.

Yorkshire Pudding

Yorkshire pudding is a simple, eggy mix (4 eggs, 2 cups flour, 2 cups milk) that you cook in either the roast’s drippings or in butter. Either way you want to pour it into a hot pan and cook at high heat.  As soon as we took the roast out of the oven, we increased the heat to 450 degrees. Then we poured our mix into the hot roasting pan with the drippings and let it cook.  It puffs up and is delicious!

Yule Log

The key to making a yule log is making a flexible sponge cake and then as soon as it is out of the oven, rolling it up in a clean towel dusted with powdered sugar.  Then when its cooled you unroll it, spread the inside with chocolate frosting, roll up again and cover with more chocolate frosting.  We used a fork to draw bark lines on it, sprinkled powder sugar on it (to look like snow) and also decorated it with plastic animals we had saved from a yule log someone gave us last year.  (Ours was better.)

Brussel Sprouts

Not much to say here (we really made these for mom).  Hardest part is coring and cleaning them.  We got a new brussel sprout cleaner for Christmas (see photo below) but honestly it was easier to use the knife because our sprouts were pretty small.  Once they were FINALLY cleaned we just tossed them in olive oil and salt and pepper and roasted them.

For the holidays, we always make sugar cookies and this year we decided to make snowflake cookies in different sizes.

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Making sugar cookies is actually a lot of work.  First you make the cookie dough (very simple ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla).  Then you shape it into discs, wrap them in plastic and let the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour.  Then you roll it out flat and cut out the shapes and bake.  You can use the scraps left over to cut out more cookies but sometimes you have to put the dough in the fridge again if it gets too sticky. Then you have to let the cookies cool and finally you get to frost them (and eat them).  We made the dough the night before we baked and frosted them.

Happy Holidays!!

Tonight I (Alex) got to cook just for myself (because mom had to go out to dinner and Max and dad were away) so I cooked one of my favorite meals: filet mignon and mashed potatoes.  Although I am half Swiss (from my dad), my mom is from Iowa so I am half mid-Western…and I love beef!  I cooked 2 filets for myself and made quick microwave mashed potatoes…this is when you microwave potatoes as if you were making  baked potatoes (unpeeled) but then you peel them while they are hot and add butter and milk.  Maybe not quite as good as the traditional way of making mashed potatoes but they are quick and tasty.  Here’s what my final plate looked like:

And here are the steps:  1. salt and pepper the filets both sides. 2. Wash potatoes and prick all over with fork. Microwave in 4 minute intervals until mashable. 3 Heat your grill pan (it will be ready when a flick of water on it sizzles).  4. Cook 4-5 minutes each side, flipping a couple times to get grill marks.  5. Test for doneness…if your filets are thick you may want to finish in a 375 degree oven for a couple of minutes. 6. Peel the cooked potatoes (careful they will be hot!). 7. Mash potatoes with butter and milk. 8. Salt to tasted.  9. Plate and enjoy!!!

PS: Since I was cooking just for me, I skipped the vegetables. Don’t tell mom…

Tonight we wanted to figure out if different colored cauliflower tasted different so we bought three types: white, purple and green.  We love the purple and green colors but weren’t sure if they would taste better (or worse) than regular white cauliflower. Our taste test was pretty easy.  We chopped all three kinds up, tossed them in olive oil and salt and pepper, and roasted them in a 400 degree oven.  Then the whole family tasted them.  (We didn’t do a blind taste test so results are not 100% scientific.)

And the winner? Purple!!! But not by much….everyone agreed that all three colors tasted pretty similar but the purple was slightly more tender and tasty.  Mom was convinced that the green cauliflower would taste different because it’s really a mix of broccoli and cauliflower (called romanesco) but it didn’t.  Next time we will add in orange cauliflower and taste with blindfolds. Then we will report back our “scientific” findings. 

Today I (Alex) wanted to experiment with decorating and make a cool cupcake for one of my best friends for her birthday so I made some delicious vanilla cupcakes (from scratch! no box).  Then I made butter cream frosting.  I had never made or worked with butter cream frosting and it’s amazing how well it holds its shape.  However, I think I like chocolate frosting better (next time I am going to make chocolate butter cream frosting).   I ran out of cupcakes to frost so I just practiced on a plate.

The recipe for butter cream frosting is really easy: butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk, but the key to making it is to make sure the butter is softened!

Anyway, happy birthday to my bestie!