Cookie sale

Thank you to all of those that have ordered my cookies! I hope you enjoy them!

Baked cookies are unfortunately not for sale anymore because my oven door broke this evening! My kitchen faucet broke last week (though I could still turn on the water from below the sink, and it's now been replaced) and now the oven goes!! I've been needing to get my kitchen remodeled anyway, so these problems are really kick-starting the project. Although, I did NOT plan on buying new appliances!

(Knocking on wood) My refrigerator and freezer still work, so I can still produce frozen cookie dough. Please place your order by 4:00pm on Monday, December 15th. The earlier the better, please, so I can plan for the ingredients and time in the kitchen. Luckily most of my orders have been for frozen dough, so that's what is most popular anyway.

To show you the quantities of some varieties, this is a full batch of Rosemary Butter Cookies:
Full batch of Cream Cheese Walnut:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip (plus 4 that are still cooling on the rack):

CHRISTMAS COOKIES FOR SALE

Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Walnuts or Pecans, optional (about 35 cookies)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (about 35 cookies)

Rosemary Butter Cookies (about 50 cookies)

Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies (about 40 cookies)

1 batch for $18.00

1 batch frozen dough for $15.00

10% off each additional batch purchased (rounded) (ie. 2 batches=$34.00; 2 frozen=$28; 1 batch and 1 frozen=$31)

The frozen dough will be balls or slices of dough ready to be placed on a baking sheet and popped in the oven.

I can't guarantee the exact number of cookies your batch will make, but I will give you the entire batch. The amounts above are what the original recipes indicate.

I can make deliveries in the Loudoun County area this weekend, December 13 & 14, and Wednesday, December 17. That is the latest date before Christmas that I'll be able to deliver.

Please comment or email me (jamiehak@gmail.com) to place your order!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread

You KNOW you want to bite into this bread right now! I had to slice it while it was still warm; I couldn't take it any longer. Although I just read in my Cooks Illustrated cookbook that technically bread is not finished baking until it's cooled. Hmm. Sometimes a loaf's gotta take one for the team I guess.

The texture of the bread part is dense but not too heavy, and overall the loaf is breadlike rather than cinnamon-roll like; it's actually not very sweet. It would make a mean French toast and in fact if there's any left in a few days it just might! The cinnamon I use, Penzey's Extra Fancy Vietnamese Cinnamon, is particularly strong and spicy, like Big Red gum. Ceylon cinnamon would be very good in this recipe since it is more mellow, and of course the regular cinnamon from the grocery store has the most traditional flavor that everyone loves.

There are a few reasons why I decided to make this bread. First, I wanted to make a treat for our good friends the Decker/Dawson family (and all the cookies and pies in the house are just not good enough, it's gotta be FOR them). Second, I promised myself that I'd try my hand at more yeast doughs since I have the big jar of yeast. And lastly, because I was flipping through one of my favorite huge baking cookbooks and this was on the page I landed on.

Cinnamon Swirl Bread
recipe from Baking Illustrated; also found online here.

Makes 1 loaf.

If you like, the dough can be made one day, refrigerated overnight, then shaped, proofed, and baked the next day. This recipe also doubles easily.

Ingredients
Enriched Bread Dough:
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 package dry active yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees)
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
3 1/4 - 3 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Filling:
1/4 cup sugar
5 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Milk for brushing

Glaze:
1 large egg
2 teaspoons milk

Instructions
1. For the dough: Heat milk and butter in small saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Cool to lukewarm (about 110 degrees).

2. Meanwhile, sprinkle yeast over warm water in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle. Beat in sugar and eggs and mix at low speed to blend. Add salt, lukewarm milk mixture, 2 cups of flour; mix at medium speed until thoroughly blended, about 1 minute. Switch to dough hook attachment. Add 1 1/4 cups flour, and knead at medium-low speed, adding additional flour sparingly if dough sticks to sides of bowl, until dough is smooth and comes away from sides of bowl, about 10 minutes.

3. Turn dough onto work surface. Squeeze dough with a clean dry hand. If dough is sticky, knead in up to 1/2 additional cup flour to form a smooth, soft, elastic dough. Transfer dough to a very lightly oiled large plastic container or bowl. Cover top of container with plastic wrap and let rise until double in size, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. (Ideal rising temperature is 75 degrees.) After rise, punch down center of dough once (can be refrigerated, covered, up to 18 hours). Making sure not to fold or misshape dough, turn it onto unfloured work surface; let dough rest, to relax, about 10 minutes.

4. Grease sides and bottom of a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. Mix sugar and cinnamon in small bowl.

5. Press dough neatly into an evenly shaped 6-by-8-inch rectangle. With short side of dough facing you, roll dough with rolling pin into evenly shaped 8-by-18-inch rectangle (flour counter lightly if dough sticks). After rolling out dough, brush liberally with milk. Sprinkle filling evenly over dough, leaving 1/2-inch border on far end. Roll up dough, pinching gently with fingertips. To keep loaf from stretching beyond 9 inches, use hands to occasionally push ends in as dough is rolled. Use fingertips to pinch the dough ends together very tightly to form a secure seam. With seam side facing up, push in center of ends. Firmly pinch outside dough edges together to seal.

6. Place loaf, seam side down, into prepared pan; press lightly to flatten. Cover top of pan loosely with plastic wrap and set aside to proof. Let rise until dough is 1 inch above top of pan, about 1 1/2 hours, or about 1 hour longer if dough has been refrigerated. As dough nears top of pan, adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 350 degrees.

7. Meanwhile, in small bowl, whisk together egg and milk. Gently brush loaf top with egg mixture; bake until loaf is golden brown and instant-read thermometer pushed through top side into center of loaf registers 185 to 190 degrees, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove bread from pan and cool on its side on wire rack until room temperature, at least 45 minutes. (Can be double-wrapped in plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for four days or frozen up to three months.)

For mixing by hand: Beginning with step 2, sprinkle yeast over water in large bowl. Follow instructions in step 2, using hand mixer or wooden spoon, thoroughly blending ingredients with 2 cups flour. Using wooden spoon, mix in 1 1/4 cups flour. Knead by hand until dough is smooth and elastic, 12 to15 minutes, adding additional flour if necessary. Transfer dough to lightly oiled container and follow rising instructions.

I doubled the recipe, and here's all the dough in step #3 after being punched down:Here's step #5:These are the loaves just before going in the oven. I have one silicon loaf pan and one non-stick one. I prefer.... neither. But as you'll see, the non-stick made a perfect loaf (for the first time in it's life! It usually burns things), and the silicon one doesn't hold it's own shape very well so the bread swells and billows out, which isn't preferable in this recipe because we're trying to keep the cinnamon-sugar filling rolled up and the edges pinched and sealed together. I was a proud baker when I pulled this out of the oven! I've never made anything that looked like that before:Here are the loaves cooling on their sides. They started out with the exact same weight of dough, and you can see how the silicon pan allowed the dough to spread out.

Thanksgiving

Sorry I've been so neglectful of my blogs! I have not been spending much time on the computer in the last few weeks, but I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen.

My family spends every Thansgiving together at a cabin at Algonkian Park, which is within walking distance from my condo. I have a full house, and all the out of towners stay in the four bedrooms at the cabin. It's nice that it's no one's home base, and everyone pitches in with the food for four days, including the BIG meal. We've got it down to a science! We do send around a long email list of who's bringing what, but by the 8th or 9th year it's pretty much in stone. Here's a peek into our list:

ANYTIME SNACKS
Chex Mix - Jamie
Cookies - Jamie
Artichoke Dip - Carroll
Fruit - Henry & Lauren
Pimento Cheese - Hank

WEDNESDAY DINNER
Taco Soup - Patti
Corn Bread - Jamie

Jessi's Chocolate Cake - Jessi

THURSDAY BREAKFAST
Breakfast Before - Jessi
French Toast Casserole - Carroll

THANKSGIVING MEAL
Turkey + Turkey Breast - Patti
Gravy - Patti
Broccoli Bake - Patti
Stove Top - Patti
Rolls - Patti
Potatoes - Carroll
Sweet Potatoes - Jessi
Creamed Spinach - Jamie
Mac & Cheese - Jessi&Jamie
Henry's Cranberries - Legard
Canned Cranberry Sauce - Carroll
Legard salad - Legard

Pumpkin Pie - Jamie
Chess Pie - Hank
Pecan Pie - Jamie

FRIDAY BREAKFAST
Buttermilk Biscuits - Jamie
Apple Butter & Pumpkin Butter - Andy

FRIDAY DAY
Turkey & Dumplings - Patti
Leftover King - Erol

FRIDAY DINNER
If we need dinner Friday, we can all pitch in to make a spaghetti and meatball dinner?

SATURDAY BREAKFAST
Fried egg sandwiches - Patti

BEVERAGES
Coffee -
2% Milk -
Half & Half -
Apple cider and/or mulled cider - Hank
Beer - Erol & RT
Wine - Joel
Punch - Jessi&Jamie

NON-FOOD OTHER
Table cloths - Patti
Paper plates - Legard
Turkey time paper plates - Legard
Napkins - Legard
Paper towels - Jamie
Dish washing soap/sponge/gloves - Jamie
Hand soap for bathrooms - Jamie
General merriment - Andrew

Next year we probably won't even need a list. The only thing that changes is who's making Wednesday dinner and the breakfasts, for which we usually don't stick to the list anyway!

I just love Thanksgiving time. The food, the family, the games, the predictability, the everything. My recipes will be listed soon, and some pictures too, but I wanted to let you know that I'm still here in my messy kitchen!

Christmas Cookies....

Would anyone out there be interested in purchasing homemade cookies from me this holiday season? (Only in the Loudoun County area; I don't want to ship them.)

I'm just thinking about this idea and would like to see what kind of response I get before I decide if I want to really offer this. If you are interested, please leave a comment on this post for me. I assume that only friends and friends of friends read this blog, so that's who I'm thinking of. Even if I don't know you personally, I'd like to hear from you! Lots of my friends say they know people who check this, and I love hearing that and I'm very happy to share my Messy Kitchen with you.

Here's how it may work: I'd offer several varieties of cookies to purchase by the dozen (maybe Rosemary Butter Cookies, Cream Cheese Walnut, Chocolate Chunk, Shortbread, Chocolate-Dipped Walnut Biscotti). Some, like the first three mentioned, I could also sell as frozen dough logs or balls for you to bake at home. I could do deliveries on perhaps the three Fridays in December before Christmas. I won't do fancy packaging so if you want to give my cookies as gifts, that's up to you. You can take 100% credit for the baking!

Now, I'm not a natural sales person and I'd rather just give everything away for free, that's just my personality. But I will have to go against my instincts and charge for my services and my products. Small bakeries in Loudoun sell their cookies for $2 each or more. I'm thinking of charging $15-$20 per dozen, depending on the cookie, with discounts for buying more. Maybe $12 for the frozen dough. I use the best ingredients and can't buy them in large quantities like bakeries, and I will home/office deliver in the area. Plus you have my recipes!

I'm not looking to do this as a business, I just love baking and think it would be fun to offer this service to my friends (and friends of friends!) this holiday season.

Easy Sticky Buns

This recipe is from Ina Garten's newest cookbook Back to Basics, and is also on her website (lucky for me, I didn't have to re-type the recipe :o)

This picture speaks for it's self: YUM! And it was extremely easy.
I am not afraid of butter at ALL but I felt that these had an exhorbanent amount of butter. Next time I make this recipe I will use about half of the butter called for in the first step (in the muffin tins). I was impatient and in trying to soften my butter in the microwave, I accidentally (surprise, surprise) melted it completely. Maybe this contributed to the over butteryness bordering on greasyness?? Probably yes, but still it was a heck of a lot of butter.
I halved the recipe, and don't have a 6-cup muffin tin. I only have an (eeeeehhhhhhhh) nonstick 12 cup one. You should never bake a muffin tin with empty cups, so pour water into them by pulling out the oven rack, placing the pan on it, and then pouring in the water with a liquid measuring cup. You'll be very unhappy if you accidentally slosh water into the wrong cups so use care!
(By the way, are you thinking that I halved the recipe but maybe didn't half the amount of butter I used? I checked and re-checked. I did half the butter.)

If you also half this recipe, remember that the tin needs to be flipped 5 minutes after it comes out of the oven, so DON'T forget to remove the water! Roll up a kitchen washcloth and dip it in to soak up the water. The pan will be hot so the residual drops of water dry up immediately.

Sticky goodness!

Easy Sticky Buns
12 tablespoons (1 & 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1/2 cup pecans, chopped in very large pieces

1 package (17.3 ounces/ 2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted

FOR THE FILLING:

2 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2/3 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup raisins (I didn't add the raisins today)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place a 12-cup standard muffin tin on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the 12 tablespoons butter and 1/3 cup brown sugar. Place 1 rounded tablespoon of the mixture in each of the 12 muffin cups. Distribute the pecans evenly among the 12 muffin cups on top of the butter and sugar mixture.

Lightly flour a wooden board or stone surface. Unfold one sheet of puff pastry with the folds going left to right. Brush the whole sheet with half of the melted butter. Leaving a 1-inch border on the puff pastry, sprinkle each sheet with 1/3 cup of the brown sugar, 1½ teaspoons of the cinnamon, and ½ cup of the raisins.

Starting with the end nearest you, roll the pastry up snugly like a jelly roll around the filling, finishing the roll with the seam side down. Trim the ends of the roll about ½ inch and discard. Slice the roll in 6 equal pieces, each about 1½ inches wide. Place each piece, spiral side up, in 6 of the muffin cups.

Repeat with the second sheet of puff pastry to make 12 sticky buns.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the sticky buns are golden to dark brown on top and firm to the touch.

Allow to cool for 5 minutes only, invert the buns onto the parchment paper (ease the filling and pecans out onto the buns with a spoon) and cool completely.

Roasted Chicken and Roasted Garlic

Winner winner chicken dinner!!!!!!!! This was dinner the day I made the Challah. (I know that this was a long time ago, but I'm trying to catch up on my posting here...)
Roasted chicken with gravy, roasted garlic, and broccoli (yes, roasted). Me like roasting.

This was the wine of choice for this dinner, and I'm mentioning it because it was absolutely splendid! I pair food and wine so generally (meat = red wine, chicken = white), but a lot of the time I just go for any wine I'm in the mood for, regardless of the food. On this occasion the pairing was spot on and all flavors were enhanced to the point where it was really noticeable. In the future I plan on paying more attention to the food-wine pairing because I see what a difference it makes, even to unrefined palates such as ours.
Hahn Piesporter Michelsberg Riesling, $10 at The Wine Shop in Leesburg.Perfect Roast Chicken
recipe from the Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten

1 (5 to 6 pound) roasting chicken
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large bunch fresh thyme, plus 20 sprigs (I used rosemary instead this time)
1 lemon, halved
1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter, melted
1 large yellow onion, thickly sliced
4 carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
1 bulb of fennel, tops removed, and cut into wedges (I didn't use fennel...)
Olive oil

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the bunch of thyme, both halves of lemon, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the butter and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the onions, carrots, and fennel in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper, 20 sprigs of thyme, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top. Roast the chicken for 1 1/2 hours, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and cover with aluminum foil for about 20 minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.

Brine!
I brined my chicken, which I HIGHLY recommend. It makes the inside of the chicken meat taste very flavorful, which is especially important if, like me, you don't eat much of the skin. Wash your chicken completely inside and out with cold running water, removing and discarding the junk from the cavity. Place the chicken in a bucket or other large container that will fit the chicken and will fit in your fridge; I use the lid of my cake tupperware. Fill it with water and a cup of sugar and a cup of salt. You may also add lemons, peppercorns, herbs, all sorts of stuff, but the sugar and salt is the base and that's all I use on a normal day.

Brine the chicken overnight. When you're ready to roast, get organized because this can be a very messy process. Read the recipe again and lay out all your ingredients so that you won't have to wash your hands a million times before you get the bird in the oven. Don't for get to set aside your salt and pepper too! Dry the chicken very well with paper towels, place it in the roasting pan, then go ahead with the recipe. When you brush on the butter, it may look kinda weird and the first time I did this I was like "eww what is happening?!" As the melted butter is smeared on the cold chicken, it solidifies a bit making it look and feel funny. I may be the only one who's noticed this, I don't know, but I wanted to mention it :o)

Roasted Garlic
OK now, if you have your oven on such a high temperature for that long of a time, you simply MUST roast some garlic for that meal or for the next day. All you have to do is cut the top 1/4 of a head of garlic off, place it on a piece of foil, spash on some olive oil, salt and pepper. Bunch up the foil into a tight bundle and throw it in the oven.
Cooking time or temp isn't very important; with the roasted chicken at 425 for 1.5 hours it comes out perfectly, so you can adjust from there according to whatever else you are cooking.

You get this rich garlic smear for your chicken, bread, broccoli - everything on your plate no matter what it is pretty much. Count on one head of garlic for every 2-3 people (or if you're Erol, one per person). The flavor isn't pungent at all like raw garlic, it's roasty and toasty and mellow and delish.
Unwrap the top of the foil package, and squeeze from the bottom up and scrape the soft cloves of garlic that squirt out into a little dish. Or, unwrap the top, and then place it in the dish and let people squirt out what they want at the table.