Testing Chocolate Chip Cookies with honey

Cook's Illustrated The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie (made more perfect by me, Mark)

Recipe makes 24 cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

14 tablespoons unsalted butter - softened

1/3 cup honey
1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 cup mini-semisweet chocolate chips 

1.  Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in bowl.
2.  In separate bowl, add butter, honey, and sugar in a bowl and mix.
3.  Add vanilla, egg and egg yolk and stir.
4.  Slowly stir the flour mix into the sugar mix.
5.  Add chocolate chip cookies and stir.
6.  Bake cookies of 10 minutes.

Instructions:

1.  Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper, then set aside.

2.  Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

3.  Whisk flour and baking soda in medium bowl, then set aside.

4.  Melt 10 tablespoons butter in 10 inch skillet over medium-high heat.

5.  Continue cooking and swirling butter constantly until butter is dark golden brown with nutty aroma (1 to 3 minutes).

6.  Transfer browned butter to large heatproof container.

7.  Add remaining 4 tablespoons butter and stir until completely melted.

8.  Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, salt, and vanilla extract to melted butter.

9.  Whisk until fully incorporated.

10.  Add egg and egg yolk.

11.  Whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining - about 30 seconds.

12.  Let sit for 3 minutes.

13.  Repeat steps 11 and 12 two more times - (whisk for 30 seconds, sit for 3 minutes, whisk for 30 seconds, and sit for 3 minutes).

14.  Mixture should now be thick, smooth, and shiny.

15.  Using a rubber spatula, stir in flour mixture (from step 3) until just combined - about 1 minute.

16.  Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts)

17.  Give dough final stir to ensure there are no flour pockets remaining and ingredients are evenly distributed.

18.  Working with 3 tablespoons of dough at a time, roll into balls and space them about two inches apart on prepared sheets.

19.  Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until golden brown, still puffy, and centers are soft - 10 to 14 minutes.  Rotate sheet halfway through.

20.  Let cookies sit on sheet for five minutes, then transfer to wire rack.

21.  Let cookies cool completely before serving.

22.  Enjoy!

Mark's Notes

1.  I did not use brown sugar.  I used all granulated sugar (Trish is allergic to molasses which is in brown sugar).

2.  I used dark chocolate chips rather than semi-sweet chocolate chips.

3.  I did not use the optional pecans or walnuts.
4.  For a "fluffier" cookie, try this recipe with 2 cups bread flour.

Mark's Story

This turned out to be an exercise in teamwork.  I asked Abby if she wanted to help me and she said yes.  Then Miriam said she wanted to help too and I told her yes as well.  Then Abby tried to back out of it so she wouldn't have to be around the "annoying younger sister".  I made both of them wash their hands and gave both different assignments for stirring and mixing.  So, both kids helped out and the cookies were really really good.

The only mishap that I have to report on this recipe is that I spilled vanilla extract on my Cook's Illustrated magazine recipe.  I go to clean it up and it took some of the ink with it - still readable though. So, now I have their wonderful recipe for Perfect Chocolate Chips posted here and I made it more perfect with the dark chocolate chips.

I highly recommend looking up the actual article "The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" by Charles Kelsey to read about why this particular process he developed makes the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie.  

Kelsey, Charles. “The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie”
Cook's Illustrated Revolutionary Recipes

http://www.handletheheat.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Upside Down Pineapple Muffins

Upside Down Pineapple Muffins

Ingredients:

Upside Down Part:
4 tablespoons reduced fat margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar (see Mark's Notes)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 pineapple slices

Cake Part:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 tablespoons reduced fat margarine
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup pineapple juice (reserved from can)
1/2 cup low-fat milk

Instructions:

Topping part:
1.  Melt margarine over medium heat.
2.  Add brown sugar and cinnamon
3.  Stir until sugar has melted.
4.  Remove from heat.
5.  Grease muffin pan  - especially the bottom really well.
6.  Cut the pineapple slices into quarters
7.  Place two pineapple quarters at the bottom of each muffin cup.
8.  Pour a tablespoon of brown sugar mix over the pineapples in the muffin cups.

Cake batter:
9.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
10.  In a large bowl, sift flour and baking soda.
11.  Set the flour/baking soda mix aside.
12.  In a medium bowl, beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy - 30 seconds to 1 minute on low speed.
13.  Stir vanilla into the margarine/sugar mix.
14.  Add the egg whites to the margarine/sugar mix and beat well - 1 minute on medium speed.
15.  In a small bowl, combine the pineapple juice and milk.
16.  At this point, you will have the large bowl with the dry ingredients, then a medium bowl with the margarine/sugar mix, and a small bowl with the pineapple juice/milk mix.
17.  Fold in 1/3 of the margarine/sugar mix into the dry ingredients.
18.  Fold in 1/3 of the pineapple juice/milk mix into the dry ingredients bowl.
19.  Repeat steps 17 and 18, folding in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
20.  Stir it all together until just combined.
21.  Pour batter into muffin tin over topping mix.
22.  Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins are done and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
23.  Let cool for 10 minutes.
24.  Using a icing knife, cut along the edges of each muffin to loosen all of them.
25.  On a large flat pan, flip the muffin tin over onto this, and the muffins should come out.
26.  The pineapples should be on top now.
27.  Enjoy.
28.  Remember that Jesus loves you!!

Here is the link to the original recipe:

http://www.food.com/recipe/pineapple-upside-down-muffins-321665

Mark's Notes - 
Abby was looking for a 4-H project.  She wanted to come up with a unique idea for muffins.  She likes Upside Down Pineapple Cake and she likes pineapples, and so we suggested Upside Down Pineapple Muffins.  I did some research and I found the above recipe.

Normally, we do not bake with brown sugar; however, these were being submitted for a formal competition and so we used the brown sugar.

Abby made a practice batch Thursday night.  The original instructions say that you only need 1 8 ounce can of pineapple slices.  I believe that that is incorrect as there were not enough pineapple slices for all 12 muffin cups in the muffin pan.  This is why in this ingredient list I stated that you need 6 pineapple slices.

So, Abby's first batch only made 8 muffins due to the lack of the pineapples.  They were delicious.  For the final batch that she made on Friday, we made sure she had enough pineapples.

The 4-H judges really liked it.  They gave her a Blue Ribbon and an Honors Ribbon.


Unfortunately, Abby was eating like one of these every morning.  Later in the day, she was complaining about a stomach ache.  We learned from this experience that Abby has Trisha's intolerance to brown sugar. 



Next time when I make these, I won't use brown sugar.  For the topping that goes over the pineapples, I was going to try using honey.  I will let everyone know how that turns out.

Also, this recipe uses margarine.  Based on everything I've read, you really shouldn't bake with margarine and use real butter for baking.  This turned out well enough.  Maybe I will try it with butter as well next time.

While working on this recipe, we got into a discussion on what was the difference between a cupcake and a muffin.  I did some quick Google searches and it appears that a cupcake uses a cake batter and a muffin uses some type of bread batter - either a quick bread batter or a yeast batter.  The cupcakes should be light and fluffy like a cake and the muffins should be more dense.  So, knowing that, honestly, this recipe reads more like a cake recipe than a muffin recipe.  The title uses the word "Muffin"; however, in the original instructions, it refers to the batter as a "Cake" batter.  Either way, it was delicious.

So, hope you enjoy reading my blog, trying these recipes, learning a few things as I am.  Most importantly, enjoy this yummy treats, and remember that Jesus loves you - always.

Ratatouille Chicken - slow cooker style

Ratatouille Chicken or Ratatouille Chicken Chili - for the slow cooker/crockpot

Ingredients (from the original recipe):

2-3 pounds of chicken breast

1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper (optional)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup minced yellow onion

2 1/4 cup crushed tomatoes

2 cups all natural chicken broth

1 tablespoon honey

1 small green pepper chopped

8 ounces of chopped carrots

2 yellow squash, sliced

2 tablespoons flour

Mark's Notes:
Over time, my family has modified the ingredients to the following:

2-3 pounds of chicken breast

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup minced yellow onion

2 large cans of crushed tomatoes

2 cups all natural chicken broth (I've used 2 cups water if I don't have chicken broth readily available).

1 tablespoon honey

1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, and 1 yellow pepper -  chopped

2 bags of frozen squash

2 tablespoons flour (I've forgotten this ingredient numerous times)

This is a very versatile recipe.  You can add in or take out whatever vegetable you like or don't like.  Ratatouille by itself is a vegetable dish that is best for a lunch and/or served with a sandwich.  Adding the chicken makes it a substantial dinner dish.

Below are the optional ingredients to give it a chili flavor to it.  I don't usually add these ingredients as I don't like it spicy.  When I've added these, I've cut the amount in half so it has some spice but not by any means overwhelming.  The original recipe with the onion, garlic, pepper adds quite a bit of flavor on its own.

Optional Ingredients for Ratatouille Chicken Chili

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon cumin

For less spicy chili, cut these ingredients in half.

Optional Toppings:

Avocado

Cheese

Crackers

Instructions:

1.  Place chicken breast in slow cooker/crockpot

2.  Optional - For the Chili - sprinkle all the optional ingredients for Ratatouille Chicken Chili over the chicken.

3.  Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat in a large frying pan.

4.  Place the minced onions and minced garlic in frying pan.

5.  Let the onion and garlic cook for three minutes.

6.  After three minutes, dump the onion and garlic over the chicken in the slow cooker.

7.  Pour the crushed tomatoes over the chicken.
8.  Pour in the 2 cups of chicken broth.

9.  Pour 1 tablespoon of honey into the chicken tomato mix.

10.  With a spatula, carefully, mix everything together.

11.  Top everything off with the peppers, squash, and carrots, and/or whatever other vegetables you may be using.

12. Leave the veggies on the top.

13.  Set the slow cooker/crockpot to low and let cook for 7-8 hours.

14.  When the 7-8 hours is done, remove the chicken and shred.

15.  Before putting the chicken back in, pour in the 2 tablespoons of flour and stir.

16.  Place the shredded chicken back into the slow cooker.

17.  You can top off the ratatouille with cheese, avocados, crackers, or just leave it as is.

Mark's Story:

For awhile, I've been making Ratatouille.  However, as a vegetable dish, it makes either a nice side or a light lunch.  To make the meal more substantial, I had been cooking turkey meat and then adding that to the Ratatouille vegetable mix.  Then one day, where I work at, we had a Chili day.  Everyone brings in their own Chili dish to share.  I wanted to make a Ratatouille Chili.  So, I started doing some Google searches and I found this Ratatouille Chicken Chili.  Everyone seemed to like it.  After I made it for work, I made another batch for dinner at home - except that batch for at home did not have any of the Chili seasonings.  My wife thought it was too bland.  I thought it was fine.  She mixed up the chili ingredients herself and sprinkled some over her bowl.  She really liked that. 

Mark's Suggestions:

You can add as much vegetables as you want to this dish.  You can easily double the amount of carrots and/or squash going into this.  You can use a red pepper instead of a green pepper or use both a red pepper and a green pepper.  For the chili spices, you can use the recommended amount, cut them in half, or not use any at all to make a very simple Ratatouille Chicken dish.  This could be really good if you want a healthy meal without a lot of spices that could upset one's stomach.  This recipe is extremely versatile.

Mark's Mistakes (very minor mistakes this time):

The second time that I made this for dinner at home, I forgot the 2 cups chicken broth.  That got added after it had been cooking for a few hours.  I also forgot the honey and the flour.  It still turned out really well.  As I just mentioned previously, extremely versatile recipe.

Enjoy.  Remember - Jesus loves you!!

Here is a link to the original recipe:
http://www.perchancetocook.com/2014/10/13/shredded-chicken-ratatouille-chili-paleo-gf/