Category Archives: Dessert
Galloping through the inferno
I’ve been awfully busy of late, folks, but I wanted to let you know you are much on my mind. As soon as the Slattern’s Test Kitchen is back up and running and my eyebrows have filled in a bit more*, I’ll be right back to sending out middling recipes especially suited for the lazy, the untalented and the indifferent. Until then, here’s a quick peek at my culinary role model, the one and only Galloping Gourmet, Graham Kerr, in his heyday — that is, before he went all vegan and stopped drinking and became uninteresting. A cautionary tale if ever I’ve heard one.
* Important safety tip: Save that sixth glass of wine until AFTER you’ve flamed the Crepes Suzette.
The Science of The Chocolate Chip Cookie
There is no doubt in my mind that Chocolate Chip Cookies are the ultimate classic baked good and comfort food. There is just nothing that compares to a warm gooey cookie right out of the oven. And a few years ago I set out on a mission to develop the most perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. But this led to the question: What is my idea of the perfect chocolate chip cookie? Well, I am all about contrasts. So in my mind it needs lots of contrasts of textures and flavors. And I created that for myself. A thick, chewy on the inside crunchy on the outside cookie that has hints of caramel and salt with dark chocolate chips and toasted pecans. (Sorry, but I will most likely not share this recipe. I worked for a long time on it!!) But anyway, that was the start of my cookie business. READ MORE.
The Slattern says:
Biscuits 101
courtesy LizMarie_AK on Flickr
To my way of thinking there’s not much that compares to the smell and taste of homemade biscuits hot from the oven. A simpler bread there never was, nor a more adaptable one. You can fill them or roll them up with sugar and cinnamon. You can serve them at any meal of the day, accompanied by butter, jam, honey or just bear naked; they never fail to please.
If you’ve got a big Kitchen Aid mixer or the like, it does the work for you, and if you’ve followed my advice and bought yourself a pastry mat, clean up is a breeze. So this is why it surprises me that those nasty baking mixes continue to line the supermarket shelves and can readily be found in homes across America. No one would make ’em if they didn’t sell.
And don’t even get me started on this abomination. He has creeped me out ever since I learned to spin the dial on the big Motorola floor model in Grammie Sue’s living room. That giggle, the fetal dough face, the neck scarf with no pants. Gives me a shudder just thinking about it. Always has. And if you’ve never taken a squint at the nutritional content (and I’m slinging the term nutritional around here with what can only be called reckless abandon) of Bisquick or the dough boy’s demon offspring, you really should. Nasty fats and sodium levels at least double what you find in scratch made biscuits.
Recipe follows
No Pudge my fat white a**s
Mystifying
I think by now we have all dispensed with the notion that “fat free” foods have any value at all as a weight control vehicle. They don’t taste good, inevitably fail to satisfy, lead to over eating, and when purchased as processed foods contain substances better suited to house cleaning than eating. And you know how I feel about cleaning.
Still, there are times when we want a little something, so we whip up a batch of brownies, or cookies, or a full size jelly roll with whipped cream, chocolate ganache and sour cherry jam, then proceed to consume not one portion, but the lion’s share, if not the entire thing. A la mode. Admit it. It’s the first step to recovery, or so I am told.
This is why there’s a place for the single serving sweet, if only we could find one that satisfies. Imagine: you nuke it up, consume it standing over the sink, throw the dish in dishwasher and are able to immediately back away from the kitchen, smug in your self-control and secure in the knowledge that this will be worked off as soon as you start using that very expensive gym membership you bought last year. (Some say that just having the membership burns the odd calorie, but I have so far been unable to prove that, try as I might.)
Pumpkin Roll: Check it out!
Check out the Spatula Goddess’s recipe for pumpkin roll. I grew up on jelly roll, and this is a fabulous tweak on it. For those of you who aren’t entirely comfortable with baking, the directions are really clear and the photos will be a big help. What a great company dessert! Roll it up! Nicely done, Goddess.
Kitchen Slattern 