Baking For The Holidays
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,
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.World Peace Cookies
Makes about 36 cookies
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de set or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips
Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.
Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)
Getting ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you're cutting them — don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.
All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake
Name your favorite thanksgiving and holiday flavors — cranberry, pumpkin, apples, etc. Well, you can get all those flavors in this recipe.
Greenspan loves this for the same reason she loves all bundt cake recipes — basically, easy assembly!
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons unsalted butter at room temperature (1o tablespoons)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups canned unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 large apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped
1 cup cranberries halved or coarsely chopped
1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350-degrees f. Butter a 9- to 10-inch (12 cups) bundt pan. If you've got a silicone bundt pan there's no need to butter it. Don't place the pan on a baking sheet — you want the oven's heat to circulate freely through the bundt's inner tube.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and ground ginger, if you're using it (not the grated ginger).
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and both sugars together at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat for one minute after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the pumpkin, chopped apple and grated ginger, if you're using it — don't be concerned if the mixture looks curdled. Still on low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. With a rubber spatula, stir in the cranberries and pecans. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with the rubber spatula.
Bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding, then cool to room temperature on the rack.
Just before bringing the cake to the table, dust it with confectioners' sugar.