FLUFFY LUV PATTIES...

...or the greatest chocolate chip cookies known to mankind. How many people can honestly say that they themselves created the best chocolate chip cookie they've ever tasted? I am a lucky girl indeed. Jenna and I make these whenever we're together. They are so called because, well, they are chewy and perfectly fluffy (which is to say, not dense in the least bit), so full of love that one can even misspell the word, with a flavor vaguely redolent of tollhouse cookies but infinitely better because, duh, they're fresh. Mmmmm the butter. There's just enough salt in there that you get that very subtle aftertaste that prevents the cookie from being cloying. Here we are with the cookies; obviously, we hadn't stirred in the chocolate chips during the photo shoot, since they looked so much prettier in that freshly-poured puddle:





Okay, yeah, we were too hyper to scrape that little clump of flour off the side of the bowl (honestly, we didn't even notice it was there; I'm just now noticing it), but the cookies didn't suffer for it, I promise. The patch of white on my cheek is thanks to the flour that Jenna hurled at me vindictively.

I am preparing myself

for a deluge of baking in epic proportions. I've felt it coming for a while now, and as the suspense builds, so does my mental list of things to bake. Somehow I got suckered into baking snacks for the entire Upper School during exam week, so at least my cooking will be put to good use. I'm planning on doing some roll-and-cut sugar cookies with this delicious icing, chocolate-mint thumbprint cookies, my famous oatmeal-craisin-white-chocolate-chip cookies, vanilla cupcakes, shortbread, and hopefully some peppermint bark as well. All from scratch. More to come. It's too bad I actually have ambition, because I'd make a kickass stay-home-and-bake housewife.

The best authentic rootsy French food I've ever had outside of France.

Eleanor mentioned today that she's having dinner with her parents tonight at Crepe Nanou. Could I be more jealous? Probably not. Crepe Nanou is this adorable little joint with a cozy bar up front and small, candlelit tables. The lighting is dark and moody. They take no reservations, but it is such a well-loved little place that you usually see groups of people huddled outside a few minutes before opening time in hopes of snagging seats before the dinner rush.

Anyway... now I am sitting here pining for a bowl of their perfectly herbed and delectably warm mussels, or one of their many tasty and creative crepes, or a fantastic dessert crepe that is positively oozing chocolate fudginess. Save me now.

carbs>!?!

This is a photo of that Cuban beef sandwich I had at Surrey's about a million years ago. By the way, I was there again this morning and had some phenomenal shrimp and grits... next up on the Surrey's lineup is their huge banana pancake. You can get it with peanut butter (!!!). How much better does breakfast get?

I was so hungry on Friday that I ended up researching cheeseburgers on the Internet and this is what I came up with. It is allegedly the biggest cheeseburger ever made. Don't you just love it?

Today was a good eating day. I had yet another baking flurry and made some delicious lemon pound cake with sour cream. The sour cream made the inside really moist and soft, but the top baked perfectly golden and crispy, almost caramelized. It's perfect when it's reheated in the toaster oven and drizzled with some glaze I made just by mixing two cups of powdered sugar with about five tablespoons of fresh lemon juice. SO delectable. We also had spaghetti bolognese for dinner that was just sumptuous and will make just perfect leftovers...

Hope everyone's weekend was grand and restful.

National Cupcake Day and other baking sprees...

I realized today that I completely forgot to mention National Cupcake Day, which happened several weeks back on October 18! That was a Saturday, so the night before school on Friday, I slaved away at a triple batch of bittersweet, dense chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese icing so that all my classmates and teachers could celebrate. Imagine a giant Tupperware of about 40 or 50 cupcakes, accompanied by two smaller Tupperwares filled with cream cheese icing to be added accordingly. It was quite an absurd scene, but it did earn me a round of applause in senior study...

Anyway, this realization occurred to me because today, I had a similar such experience with a baking tantrum. It would appear that I am becoming increasingly and unknowingly domesticated. In the middle of poetry class, it dawned on me that I wanted to have chocolate soup. Stream of consciousness: chocolate soup --> chocolate soup for the class --> announcing this thought out loud --> this thought being met by a few dubious glances --> me reevaluating my plan for socialized desserts --> me settling on the idea of creating variations on the brownie theme. I ended up with the following:

First, a batch of a chocolate brownie-cake -- less chewy and melty than usual brownies, but equivalently glorious in its novelty -- with white chocolate peppermint icing and a preposterous amount of dark chocolate ganache that has since solidified in the fridge. Imagine: a glorified peppermint patty. It really doesn't get much better.

Second, a batch of my more famous fudgy brownies smeared with some really delectable homemade peanut butter frosting -- PB and powdered sugar and butter, oh my! -- as well as a thinner, sweeter bittersweet chocolate glaze. These are ideal because they're baked in a 13x9x2 pan, so the batter spreads pretty thin = easy nibbles. Okay, so they wouldn't make the most impressive birthday cake, but still...