Dorie Greenspan's Jammers (slightly reimagined)

I have a weak spot for jam. And butter. And anything Dorie Greenspan. So when I first heard about Dorie's pop-up cookie bar and her delectable jammers, I knew that I'd either have to fly out to New York myself (unrealistic, but would be phenomenal) or attempt to make them as best as I could (not as awesome, but still great.) So, after many attempts at starting, many excuses for pausing, and a few deleted drafts, I introduce you to Dorie Inspired Jammers. Sorry it's late, but believe me, they are worth the wait. And thank you to Jen for opening up your place and snapping pictures and N for baking with me. Baking with friends is more fun, isn't it?

And before you think I am crazy for even thinking of flying all the way out to NY to get a taste of these, you should hear Dorie gush about them. "This is the cookie that came to me in a dream. These are the jammers. A sable - french butter short bread - with jam and streusal on top... Break it open... show the inside! I love the way the jam gets a shine and gets a little firm." And mmm. mmm. mmm. Boy, is she right. These things are BEAUTIFUL and DELICIOUS. Granted, I made a few changes and modifications, but I really hope that Dorie would approve anyways. :)

I call them Dorie inspired jammers for a number of reasons. First, we took the sable base, and we tweaked it to add almonds since N really, really loves almonds. We also used different jam (blenheim apricot and rose strawberry) in part because they are local and I like to support my local community, but more so because as I've mentioned before, this apricot jam is the most delicious jam I have ever had in my life. Since I couldn't find Dories streusal recipe anywhere, we took this one, and made it slightly different and added almonds of course. And lastly, since we didn't have ring mold or a whoppie pie pan, we used my mini loaf pan, which worked wonderfully by baking a lovely crispy edge for the cookie. (I've also found that if you don't have any of these, these cookies taste just as great baked on a flat cookie sheet, though the base will be much thinner.)

And the result? Exceptionally perfect, baked jam atop a wonderfully almond crumbly cookie that melts in your mouth with an innovative stresual topping. And what's really great about these cookies is that they are so versatile! You can put virtually anything on them like jam or nutella, and you can also do infinite things with the base as well, add coconut, lemon or lime zest, or wherever your mind might take you! I cannot stress enough how wonderful these cookies are, and I encourage you to make them, right now! Sadly, mine are already gone (even the second batch of batter), so if you make some, please holler!

And Dorie: If you ever come across this post, please know, I am a huge, huge fan. I love how you are so masterful at your craft, but you still choose to make it so accessible to even the lowliest of us cooks. Thank you for your fabulous personality, work and love. :)

Dorie Inspired Jammers by J and N

* In order to make these, they are best if you can use a pan with sides so that the cookie is forced to retain shape rather than flatten. Dorie used ring molds. L+D used a whoppie pie pan. I used a mini loaf pan. And I imagine you can use a number of other pans with the same outcome (albeit different shapes and sizes) - muffin pan, cupcake pan, souffle cups, individual-sized tart tins, etc. If you don't have any of these, you can also just use a regular old cookie sheet. Even though the base of the jammers will flatten and the sides won't crisp up, they are still delicious this way too!

Sable Cookies (Via NYTimes)

• 1 stick and 6 tablespoons butter, softened at room temp.
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or salt
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup ground almonds (I measured 1/2 cup toasted almonds the grounded it in a food processor)
• 2 cups all purpose flour

Jam: use whatever jar of jam you prefer!

Streusal Topping (L+D Dorie's Jammers w/ a few changes)

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• pinch of cinnamon
• 1/4 slice almonds
• 4 tablespoons butter (cubed)

Working in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed until it is smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars and salt and continue to beat until smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy, about 1 minute. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 2 egg yolks, vanilla extract, almond extract and ground almonds, again beating until well blended.

Turn off the mixer, pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the mixer and pulse the mixer about 5 times at low speed for 1 or 2 seconds each time. Take a peek; if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, stir for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. If you still have some flour on the bottom of the bowl, stop mixing and use a rubber spatula to work the rest of it into the dough. (The dough will not come together in a ball -- and it shouldn't. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you're aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy dough. When pinched, it should feel a little like Play-Doh.)

Scrape the dough onto a work surface, gather it into a ball. Form the dough into a flattened disk. Wrap the disk well and chill them for at least 2 hours. The dough may be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

When ready to bake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease whatever pan you are using to make your jammer. Line your pan with parchment paper or grease really well. If you are using a loaf, muffin, or something similar pan, take bits of the chilled dough and press it into the base of whatever pan you are using. Try to make sure that you are putting about the same amount of dough into each individual pan so that the cookies will all bake evenly. As you are doing this, also make sure to build the sides of your cookie higher than the middle so that the jam has somewhere to go and won't get all over your lovely pan. If you are using a cookie sheet, ring molds, etc. Roll out your dough so that it is about 1/2 inch tall. Then cut whatever shapes you'd like your cookies to be. Create an indentation in the middle of your cookies so that the edges are slightly higher than th middle of the cookie. (As a reference, I used about 3/4 of a batch of dough for 8 mini-loaf sized cookies. According to Dorie's recipe, half a batch of dough should make about 20 small-ish cookies.

Streusal Topping

While the dough is being cooled, make your stresual topping! Pour flour, brown sugar, suga, salt and cinnamon into a small bowl and mix with a fork. Add in the almonds and butter. Using a pastry cutter, two knives or a fork, blend in the butter with the dry mixture to form a stresual topping. The mixture will be crumbly and will still have bits of butter in tact.

Assembly

Once your cookies are rolle/pressed out, spoon your choice of jam into the center of the cookie. Spread it out so that the jam reaches toyour raised edges; this amount really depends on the size of your cookie. For my mini-loaf pan, I used about 1 1/2 - 2 tablespoons for each cookie. Then sprinkle however much streusal topping you'd like over the top. Bake for 17 to 20 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are lightly brown. Rotate the baking sheet at the halfway point. Let the cookies rest 1 or 2 minutes before carefully lifting them onto a cooling rack with a wide metal spatula.

birthday bliss

More to come (cupcakes, tapas, and filet mignon, to be exact. Oh my! Thank you Thomas for this picture).

lasagna

I have random cravings for lasagna all the time. I've been meaning to make it for some time, but just never got around to it. So you know how I had pizza before, I had the pizza sauce leftover, cheese leftover, and other leftovers. Do you think that they're practically the same ingredients?!

Okay, so I didn't follow a recipe exactly...but it's all right. It turned out great. No step by step pictures this time, but yes. So inside this lasagna are the same ingredients as the pizza. There was mushroom, onions, and sausage. I added spinach as well, for some green in our food.

Ingredients:
1 box of dried lasagna (fresh is good too) - cook according to instructions
1 pound sweet Italian sausage - remove casings and roughly chop (can use any kind of meat you like, even ground meat)
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 handful of sliced mushrooms
1 can cooked spinach (I wouldn't recommend using this, fresh is better or even frozen)
1 32 ounce jar of ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/2 jar of pizza sauce
1 can tomato sauce
1/2 bag of gruyere and swiss cheese

*note: you can use more or less cheese, different kind of cheese (usually mozzarella and parmesan, i just had gruyere and swiss on hand), same as the meat and other good stuff, all according to your taste.

Directions:
Cook lasagna based on the box instructions. There are some pasta that you don't need to cook before, so check.

Meanwhile, saute the sausage, mushroom, onion together until cook through. Add the rest of pizza sauce and can of tomato sauce into the mixture. Add water into the empty jar and add the water into the mixture. Simmer the meat and tomato mixture and turn off heat. Leave to side.

Mix ricotta, egg, and spinach together. Make sure all the liquid from the spinach is squeezed out. Add half of the cheese into the mixture. You can leave the cheese out and layer the cheese on the layers, rather than mixing it with the ricotta.

Now assemble! In a 9x13 baking dish, ladle a little of the meat and tomato mixture so that it covers the bottom of the pan. Layer pasta on top, it's okay to overlap. Spread half of the ricotta mixture on top of the pasta. Ladle meat and tomato mixture on top. Layer pasta on top. And continue the layering until there's none. The very last layer should be pasta, then rest of the sauce. On top of this, sprinkle your remaining cheese.

Preheat oven to 350. Cover the lasagna with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Take the foil off after 30 minutes, and put back in oven and bake for another 20 minutes (or keep an eye on it until the cheese is nice and browned)

Sounds complicated, but it's easy!

Maple Caramel Bacon Brownies with "Bacon Chips"

I love snail mail, and I'm not talking about my latest buy or the new J.Crew catalogue (though I look forward to both of those as well). I'm talking about lovely hand-written notes, holiday cards with cute animals, and best of all, homemade treats. Whether I'm sending or receiving, I get a giddy, fuzzy feeling inside. It is so easy to make someone far away feel loved and love on them through the mail, so with my sister's birthday coming up, I knew I wanted to send her a piece of love.

Growing up, Patty liked nothing more than chocolate. Brownies, cake, whatever it was, wherever we were, my family ordered it as long as it had luscious, melty chocolate. I bet by now, she is a certified chocolate connoisseur on the level of, dare I say it, Jacques Torres! Gasp! (Haha, actually, I just play. I don't think that's even possible.) In any case, I decided on brownies, but not just simple-but-still-awesomely-delicious-box brownies, I wanted something decadent with different textures and surprising notes that was simultaneously sweet, salty and chocolate-y. So I got really bold: bacon-maple caramel brownies with "bacon chips." A few days late, but Happy Birthday Patty! I love you!

The result was not at all expected, but still delicious. The taste was phenomenal. Think deep, rich chocolate enveloping bits of sweet and salty bacon. If I were to do it again, I think I'd make a few adjustments to have a better texture. In particular, I'd make sure my caramel set rather than sort of just seep throughout the brownie which (while good) made my brownie a little bit more fudgie than I would've liked.

Bacon-Maple Caramel Brownies with "Bacon Chips"

Inspired by Kate, but significantly edited.

Bacon-Maple Caramel and Bacon Chips

• 6 pieces of bacon
• 3/4 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (preferably light)
• 1/2 cup maple syrup (preferably 100% maple syrup, not pancake syrup)
• 6 tblsp butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Fry bacon according to package instructions in a large sauce pan making sure to keep the remaining bacon grease in the pan. Once bacon is fried crispy, remove from pan, crumble into small pieces and set aside. Pour heavy cream into into the bacon grease, stir and let cool ten minutes to incorporate flavors.

Once slightly cooled, in the same pot, combine heavy cream and bacon grease mixture with 1/2 the crumbled bacon, sugar, brown sugar, salt, maple syrup and butter. Put on medium heat until butter and sugar have melted stirring constantly and bring mixture to a boil. Once boiling, lower heat to a gentle simmer and watch your pot very carefully until it turns into a deep nutty brown. (As with all caramels, be careful to watch it carefully so that it does not burn and ruin your pot along with it.) Once it reaches your preferred depth of flavor, remove from heat and let it cool completely. Make sure you allow the caramel to cool completely, or it will not set right in the brownies.

Brownies

* Box or home made, you can go with whatever your favorite brownie recipe is. I used this one, but basically, once you batter is made carefully stir in the remainder of your bacon crumbles to give your brownies an extra brownie bite.

Assembly

To assemble, grease a 9x13 or 9x11 pan and heat oven to suggested temperature for whatever brownie recipe you chose.

Pour half the brownie batter into the bottom of the pan. Then add glops of your cooled caramel on top of the brownie batter. The caramel does not need to create a solid layer, rather it should be grouped so that patches of caramel are spread over the tops of your brownies. Then pour the remainder of your brownie batter on top. Then pour the reminder of your caramel in horizontal parallel lines over the top layer of your brownies. Use a knife to draw vertical parallel lines to create a cute pattern for the tops.

Bake in the oven for suggested amount of time according to your brownie recipe or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Enjoy!

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homemade pizza

I heart pizza. I am always in the mood to eat pizza. One night, jwoo decided that he wanted to make pizza. At Trader Joe's, they have fresh pizza dough in the refrigerated section, and I was always curious how it tasted and worked. I am used to using the Pillsbury kind, which is totally fine. But alas, the chance came to try it! I'd say our pizza was definitely Trader Joe-d out. :]
This was their pizza dough. They ran out of the normal kind so this is the whole wheat. I used a mixture of corn meal and flour to help it not stick. You need to allow the dough to rest outside of the package for 15 minutes or something.
These were our ingredients. Trader Joe's everything: sausage, pizza sauce, mushroom, cheese. For our sausage we had a mixture of the Sweet Italian pork and chicken sausage (Personally the pork tastes better, but I'm a fatty). There's no real recipe that I followed, it was kinda just winging it and according to your taste, but I will try my best have a logical and methodical way...
So this is all the onions, sausage, and mushroom (and garlic but you can't see it) that was chopped up. You can adjust the amount of stuff you want, depending on how meaty or oniony or mushroomy you like. I think I used 3 sausages, a hand full of mushrooms, a little less than half an onion, and 2-3 cloves of garlic.
Saute all that goodness together with a drizzle of olive oil, not too much because the sausage has fat in it. Cook until all are browned. Set aside.
Roll out the dough. Actually, we kinda just pushed it out very gently and tried to make it as even as possible. Since I didn't have a pizza stone, we made it rectangular which has a nice look to it, right?
We spread the canned pizza sauce on. I used about half a jar of it. Spread it so that it covers most of the pizza except about an inch from the border. Depending on how sauce-y you like your pizzas, you can put more.
Cover the pizza with the toppings that were set aside.
Sprinkle cheese on the pizza covering most of the pizza. I used a mix of Swiss and Gruyere because I like it, but you can use mostly any cheese that you like.
Your oven should be at 400°F. After preheated, put your pizza in for about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on it. When the cheese is nicely melted and the edges are browned, take the pizza out of the oven. I'd say, wait for it to cool a little, but I couldn't resist.
Mmmm, so yummy and easy! The whole wheat pizza dough made it seem healthier and is pretty good, though I still prefer normal pizza dough. Next time, I'd probably put more toppings, but this was very satisfying.

You can make pizza any way you like it, barbecue pizza, with chicken, bell peppers, anything! Even anything you have on hand, it'll be delicious.