Baking For The Holidays

(CBS)  Filling your house with the smell of baking is wonderful any time of year, but especially during the holidays.

Baking is a passion for award-winning cookbook author Dorie Greenspan.

Her ninth cookbook, "Baking: From My Home to Yours," is filled with delicious and easy recipes.

Greenspan shared many, along with helpful pointers, on The Early Show Monday.

To watch the video of the segment, click here.

RECIPES

Brownies, Blondies, Whities, and Other Bar cookies

Bar cookies are a baker's blessing: You get bunches of cookies from a minimum of work. Unlike cookies that are individually shaped, bar cookies are baked in a pan, the way you'd bake a cake, and shaped simply by cutting them.

Without a doubt, the most popular bar cookies are brownies. Greenspan is non-partisan: She loves both the gooey, fudgy kind and the chewy, cakey kind, so she gives recipes for brownies of just about every variety, from those made with one type of chocolate to those made with five.

The fun extends to blondies: bar cookies with nuts, coconut, butterscotch drops and chocolate chips; to whities: elegant meringue-topped white chocolate brownies studded with raspberries; and to a few multi-storied bars, such as Snickery Squares, layered with dulce de leche and candied peanuts, and Caramel Crunch Bars, with a brown-sugar shortbread base and a chocolate-toffee top.

For the majority of the recipes, particularly those for the moistest, fudgiest brownies or the most delicate bar cookies, you should line the pan with foil and butter the foil. The liner gives you an easy way to remove the cookie block from the pan. Once it's removed, you can cut it into bars without fear of nicking and scratching your favorite baking pan.

The most efficient way to line the pan is to tear off a large piece of aluminum foil, turn the pan over, mold the foil against the pan, and square the corners (think hospital corners on a bed), then lift the foil against the pan, and carefully slip it into the pan. It won't fit perfectly — it never does — but you can quickly press it into shape. Once it's coaxed into place, butter the foil, a job best done with a pastry brush slathered with softened butter.

Ginger Jazzed Brownies

Makes 16 Brownies

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons finely minced peeled fresh ginger
1 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line a 9-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil and place the pan on a baking sheet. Whisk the flour, salt and ground ginger together. Put the minced fresh ginger and 1 1/2 tablespoons of the sugar in a small bowl, stir and set aside. (If you do this a day ahead, cover the bowl with plastic wrap; if you do it several days ahead, cover and refrigerate.) Melt the chocolates in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, or melt them in a microwave oven; keep the heat low so the chocolates do not get very hot. Set aside to cool.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until it is smooth and creamy. Beat in the corn syrup, then the remaining 1 cup sugar, and continue to beat for another 2 minutes or so, until the butter is smooth again and the sugar incorporated. Add the vanilla. On medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each one goes in and scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat for 1 minute more, then reduce the mixer speed to low and add the macerated ginger (and any liquid), then the dry ingredients, mixing only until the flour disappears. Remove the bowl from the mixer and, using a rubber spatula, gently and thoroughly stir in the melted chocolate. Scrape the batter into the pan.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the top forms an even sugar crust; a thin knife inserted into the center of the brownies should have streaks of moist, fudgy chocolate on it. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature.

When the brownies are completely cool, turn out onto a rack, peel away the foil and invert onto a cutting board. Cut into 16 squares, each roughly 2 1/4 inches on a side.

For more recipes, go to Page 2.

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