smitten kitchen » Bars

salted brown butter crispy treats

deb — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:52:13 +0000

As it turns out, the last days of October don’t awaken in me a desire to fly around on my broom, don a “sexy” nurse/maid/fireman outfit or even gorge myself on candy. Nope, according to a quick glance at my archives, apparently when Halloween approaches all I can think about is reinterpreting Rice Krispie Treats.

Unfortunately, I don’t seem to choose my recipes very well. Last year’s Peanut Butter Crispy Bars were delicious, but had structural issues that irked me. And two years ago, I fell prey to a Caramelized Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treat that was all sorts of a styrofoam-textured disaster. Nevertheless, I haven’t been able to get them out of my head, so this year I decided I would conquer them once and for all. It helped that I knew exactly what went wrong the original dud of a clearly-untested recipe (hm, do I sound bitter?): the cereal to marshmallow ratio was unfeasibly high, more than double that of the original recipe and — small detail — marshmallows don’t caramelize very well, and should you succeed in getting them to, they don’t cool back down to anything gooey or soft. What a travesty.

... Read the rest of salted brown butter crispy treats on smittenkitchen.com

granola bars

deb — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:24:48 +0000

Some of you have asked me to share what kind of cooking I’ve been doing to stash in the freezer and hopefully tide us over for the coming storm (T-minus 22 days, not that anyone is counting). I know it’s common, in a fit of impatient nesting, for soon-to-be mamas to tuck away pans of enchiladas and lasagnas and meatballs and other hearty, freezable fare so that they don’t starve in those early weeks when the baby demands constant surveillance (okay, cooing), but despite understanding the logic behind this, I should confess: I’m prepping nothing.

At least one of the reasons I’ve decided to ignore sound advice to cook and stash while I can is that food could not be easier to come by around here. Hummus platter with fava bean stews, pirogis and borscht and/or Tom Collichio-crafted sandwiches arrive so quickly after you call, we’ve become convinced that they’re actually preparing in our building’s basement and you don’t even want to know how many Thai and sushi restaurants there are per block around here (at least two). Plus, both of our families live within an hour of the city and (Hi Mom! Hi Alex’s Mom!) our moms are not only good cooks, but have vowed to keep us from starving. Wasn’t that sweet of them?

... Read the rest of granola bars on smittenkitchen.com

cherry brown butter bars + new video project

deb — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:07:57 +0000

I don’t know what’s happening to me — maybe it’s third trimester dwindling energy levels and an accompanying desire to get the most bang from my feeble bursts of productivity — but all of a sudden, I find myself saying that I don’t want to cook this thing or that because it’s not practical. Practical! Who am I? Certainly not the girl who baked a wedding cake last summer in her tiny, overheated kitchen. Certainly not a person who has [shh, can't tell you]-making and a 12-layer cake on her summer cooking agenda.

Take this recipe, for example. It was originally a delicious-looking raspberry brown butter tart from this month’s Bon Appetit magazine. And although I usually associate brown butter with winter cooking — hazelnut brown butter cakes, brown butter shorties, pear crisps and brown butter with chestnuts and brussels sprouts, yes please. — and although I’ve never met a dessert tart I didn’t like, all I could think was “these would be so much more practical as a bar cookie!” Practical, there’s that word again. It’s all over for me, isn’t it?

... Read the rest of cherry brown butter bars + new video project on smittenkitchen.com

peanut butter crispy bars

deb — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:39:11 +0000

People, these things are nothing but trouble, so whatever you do, don’t do this:

Do not start with a bowl of vaguely healthful and intensely fortified bowl of Snap, Crackle and Pop.

Do not boil some sugar, because obviously unsweetened cereal will not do.

(Try not to do this to your lens, either, when you take a picture.)

... Read the rest of peanut butter crispy bars on smittenkitchen.com

the baked brownie, spiced up

deb — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:11:42 +0000

If you’ve made as many brownies as I have in my life–and that’s a lot. I mean A LOT. Just ask my hips.–you come to realize a couple things: There are no bad from-scratch brownies.* Seriously, not even the batch that I forgot to add the flour to when I was in middle school, that I am pretty sure my mother still brings up whenever someone mentions what a great cook her daughter is, was destroyed. A little charred at the edges, perhaps, but they still quite tasty in the middle. Because you know we totally ate them anyway.

And if you’re me, the other thing you will likely realize is that it is impossible to have any brownie loyalty in this world. I can’t tell you how many times I have made a brownie and declared it the best one yet, and the one that would end all brownie-making experiments going forward. “Fat chance,” smirk the not-yet-auditioned brownie recipes, though I can never tell if they mocking my aforementioned hips, or simply my insistence that I will never have to look any further for Brownie Nirvana.

... Read the rest of the baked brownie, spiced up on smittenkitchen.com

raspberry breakfast bars

deb — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:50:41 +0000

We had a decadent weekend in the North Carolina mountains, and I never wanted to come home. The air up there is so delicious and clean, I never realized how cautiously I inhale in New York City, not that you can blame me if you’ve ever gotten a curbside whiff on a humid summer day after a long holiday weekend with no trash pickup.

But up there, everything is a delight. We hiked, we played with the sweetest Schnauzer there ever has been, we ate proper vinegar barbecue, the best peaches in the world (from South Carolina!) and even hit some stores and a craft fair. And oh, how we cooked. Alex and I get a little hog-wild when we see a kitchen bigger than 60-square feet with not one, not two but three large counters and a grill that resides outside. Like, on a giant porch and everything! It took a mighty amount of restraint to not take a tour of the entire smittenkitchen.com archive, but we did make a good dent in just 72 hours, with the kefta kebabs, dimply plum cake, napa salad with buttermilk dressing, pork tenderloin and noodle salad, grilled eggplant with caponata salsa and even the big crumb coffee cake, updated for late summer with a blueberry filling, made a showing.

Actually, it stole the show. I am currently angling an excuse to make it again. Like the fact that it’s Tuesday and I haven’t had lunch yet.

... Read the rest of raspberry breakfast bars on smittenkitchen.com

blueberry crumb bars

deb — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:25:26 +0000

I uploaded pictures of this recipe yesterday onto Flickr, but didn’t get to telling you all about it because I was feeling a little lackadaisical after that whole seven days in a row of posting thing. Three hours later, I received this comment: “Omg, post the recipe already!”

Hmmph! I thought. The natives are getting restless.

But who could blame them? Just look at these things! And, oh, to taste them. (As I just did. Because the memory of their deliciousness was vague and I had to. For the sake of clarification.) They’re tart and buttery and fruity and tangy and crumbly… And well, I understand why anyone would get impatient. Can you imagine how much people would revolt if they knew that I had baked these a whole five days ago and have kept them from you since?

It could get ugly.

... Read the rest of blueberry crumb bars on smittenkitchen.com

dulce de leche cheesecake squares

deb — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:08:40 +0000

Dulce de leche, where have you been my whole life? Oh, sure, I knew what you were and I understood implicitly that you were a good thing. I knew that you were practically the national dish of Argentina and I knew I wanted to be the national dish of, well, anywhere, one day but I hadn’t yet taken you into my arms and my belly. I hadn’t yet really tasted you. I am sooo going to have to make up for lost time.

The thing is, and I know this sounds a little funny, but I love dairy products–like milk and cream, especially when they’re full fat and super-fresh and hormone free. I love the little smell that wafts off freshly steamed milk. I can absolutely taste the difference between skim and two percent, and simply cannot abide the former and only occasionally the latter. And I would rather have one tablespoon of cream over anything–baked apples, swirled into oatmeal–than 14 of something so-called good for me. And yes, I have digressed, but I just wanted to set this up:

Dulce de leche is the embodiment of everything I love about dairy products and everything everyone loves about caramel together. Like one or the other weren’t good enough, let’s just mash this up and die happy. Minus the dying part.

... Read the rest of dulce de leche cheesecake squares on smittenkitchen.com

lemon bars

deb — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:12:57 +0000

January is always the time of year when most of us get caught up in the winter produce doldrums, fueled by the dearth of flavorful fruit and the overabundance of hard, starchy vegetables. But I find if I set my mind on citrus, I can carefully sidestep most bouts of Farmer’s Market Mourning. There are few things teeming with more promise of a sunnier tomorrow than sour-sweet piercing members of the rutaceae family, and I’ve got an archive full of margarita cookies, lemon bundts, orange chocolate chunks, grapefruit loaves and key lime tartlets that should assure you that you need not feel that you are missing out just because the peaches and berries have gone into hibernation.

But I haven’t had a lemon bar in there before now, despite repeated requests and, heck, even pleading for one by various people inside my computer. You’d think it is because I’m stubborn but it actually that my bar (ha) for lemon bars has been set very high by my mother, who has an award-winning recipe somewhere in her files. Upon request, she sent it to me a couple years ago, but when they didn’t come out the way I had remembered, her response was “oh, I must have sent you the wrong one.” Tell me, if you had a recipe for lemon bars that you had won you a cooking contest, why would you have a second version in your box that wasn’t as good? Perhaps if you ask her, you’ll get further than I did.

... Read the rest of lemon bars on smittenkitchen.com

austrian raspberry shortbread

deb — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:00:32 +0000

If there is anything I am always on the prowl for–besides artichokes, cookie cutters and green anything–it is variations on classic recipes. It’s a sticky thing, of course, because the originals earned their prized state for being blissful the way they are. But I can’t help it–I see a twist, a curve, a departure, or in this case, once again, a grater and I can’t resist.

In my mind, there are few cookie combinations as satisfying as a butter cookie with raspberry, and whether you make them into bars, sandwiches or thumbprints.

But all varieties have a certain density that attracts shortbread-junkies like me, but repels those who want a less weighty cookie experience. This recipe magically ingratiates itself to both parties with the help of a food processor.

... Read the rest of austrian raspberry shortbread on smittenkitchen.com