The Seattle Chocolate Scene: I am SO there

We all know that there's a pretty happening music scene in Seattle. There's also a huge following for green and natural living. And some of the best seafood in the country can be found in this region. What I was unaware of, until recently, was just how big chocolate is becoming out here. And not just fancy creations at top restaurants and bakeries, but the entire process of making delicious artisan confections, many times from bean to chocolate box.

Speaking of chocolate boxes, one particular epicenter of Northwest chocolates is the Chocolate Box, located on Pine Street just across the street from the famed Pike Place Market. It is here that one can find the entire range of local chocolates from a selection of both renowned and up-and-coming chocolatiers.

To me, the shop is slightly Willy Wonka-esque in the variety of chocolate products to sample: there is everything from the elegant truffle to Aztec spicy hot chocolate to the grand red velvet cake. Even those in need of a gluten-free sugar fix can find something for their fancy here, and the crowd at any given moment ranges from delighted children who, incidentally, are excited to be in a candy shop, to curious tourists interested in picking up a piece of Seattle to bring back to their hometowns, to the local businessperson whom the baristas recognize and greet with a familiar smile and their regular mocha espresso order ready at the counter.

Once the initial overload of chocolatey sensation passes (first there is the smell, then the sight, then – inevitably – the taste), one is able to calm salivation and bring focus to what each local chocolatier has to offer. And that selection is vast.

Here's a brief rundown of some of the Chocolate Box mainstays.

Theo Chocolate: the first roaster of Fair Trade Certified cocoa beans and the only roaster of organic cocoa beans in the United States, conveniently located in the Fremont section of Seattle.

Fiori Chocolatiers: Specializing in the truffle chocolates, they create unique Italian-style confections in small, carefully tended batches.

Chocolate Vitale: Using old family recipes, they manufacture startlingly decadent chocolate drinks like European sipping chocolate and Chocolate crème tea.

Oh! Chocolate: Beautifully made artisan chocolate pieces made with premium chocolate, in the French tradition.

In browsing the shelves, one will find a variety of other local chocolates in bar form, nib form, powder form...nearly every form imaginable. There are sea-salt caramels and actual sugar plums and white chocolate made from San Francisco goat's milk. Novelty chocolate box sets sport Barack Obama's face, and one can sample chocolates with names like “burnt brown sugar” and “Sri Lanka Curry.” Of course, there is also a veritable mountain of plain, old-fashioned chocolate, in nearly any cacao percentage one can dream of, all the way to Theo's incredibly earthy 91% cacao chocolate bar.

It's not simply that I love chocolate or that I might as well build a shrine to sugar in my apartment; a place like the Chocolate Box goes beyond offering rain-dampened customers with a warm drink or satisfying chocolate bar. This chocolate shop is a celebration of a very local, very fine market of chocolates that oozes the character of the Pacific Northwest. Sampling a confection here is not merely eating a piece of chocolate, but it truly is partaking in a piece of Seattle.

Wait, one more cookie recipe!

Okay, so I lied a little. I presumed that I would be so wrapped up in preparing for my move that I would have no time to put aside to do any baking whatsoever. Well, given my tendency to over-plan, I should have realized early on that I would, in fact, have a few minutes between the packing and organizing and cleaning to relax in the company of a warm oven. More than a few minutes, of course. So after looking through Better Homes and Gardens' selection of all-time favorite cookie recipes, I found one that sounded both delicious and slightly familiar: Peanut Butter Munchies. What these are, are chocolate cookies with a creamy peanut butter filling, and they reminded me of the Tagalongs that I sold as a girl scout, and later consumed as a layperson.
I had always been slightly hesitant to try baking filled cookies, because similar to pie or cheesecake recipes, I have been burdened with the preconceived notion that they are difficult, complicated, and take much too much time to put together. Of course, I'm very wrong in that assumption, and I'm glad that I had this recipe around to set me straight.

The cookies and the filling are pretty straightforward to create and assemble. The recipe also has the added benefit of getting my hands dirty with dough in order to put together the final product. If I can stick my hands in it, and work with the dough myself without the aid of a spoon or mixer, then I know I've given a little bit extra to my cookies, and likely that I enjoyed the preparation even more. And it was fun to put together these cookies. It helped, of course, that they yielded scrumptious results. I refrained from over stuffing the cookies with peanut butter filling, but I used just enough so that every bite would deliver at least a tiny amount of peanut butter, which is what really makes the cookies stand out. Though the chocolate part is also delicious, it is a basic dough, and really benefits from a little something extra. The granulated sugar added at the very end, on the bottom of a glass or spoon, also gives the cookies an air of holiday festivity, which makes them a perfect addition to the Christmas Cookie Lexicon.

Peanut Butter Munchies

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. In a large mixing bowl beat together butter, the 1/2 cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, and the 1/4 cup peanut butter with an electric mixer until combined. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; beat well. Beat in dry ingredients with mixer. Form chocolate dough into 32 balls about 1-1/4 inches in diameter. Set aside.
2. For peanut butter filling, in a medium mixing bowl combine powdered sugar and the remaining 1/2 cup peanut butter until smooth. Shape mixture into 32 (3/4-inch) balls.
3. On a work surface, slightly flatten a chocolate dough ball and top with a peanut butter ball. Shape the chocolate dough over the peanut butter filling, completely covering the filling. Roll dough into a ball. Repeat with the remaining chocolate dough and peanut butter filling balls.
4. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Lightly flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in the 2 tablespoons granulated sugar.
5. Bake cookies in preheated oven for 8 minutes or until they're just set and surface is slightly cracked. Let cookies stand for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to wire racks; cool.

On hiatus for the big move

December is normally my favorite baking month, for all the obvious reasons: Christmas tortes, Christmas fudge, Christmas cakes, Christmas candy, Christmas cheesecake...and of course, Christmas cookies. Every year, I spread my own variety of buttery, chocolatey holiday cheer with an assortment of confections, many of which are old favorites that have already built a following amongst my friends. I make Chocolate Crinkles, Peanut Butter Blossoms, Coconut Meringues, Gingerbread People, Russian Tea Cookies: so many of the standard holiday favorites. And naturally, I love to try one or two new recipes to try out.
This year, however, there is a significant change in plans. Instead of cheerfully cloistering myself in my kitchen, I'm packing up my belongings and moving to Seattle. In just a little more than a week, I'll officially give up my identity as a Brooklynite and begin the transformation into a Seattlite, a change for which I'm thoroughly thrilled. But, because a cross-country move is quite...involved, I won't be able to bake my treasured array of Christmas cookies, and therefore, will not be able to blog about them.
Once everything comes together, I'm hoping to have a fully stocked kitchen and a new assortment of taste-testers for my recipes, but in the meantime, the best I can do is report on the Seattle bakeries that I fully intend on patronizing. That, and offer some links to the cookie collections that I would be creating if not for this change of scenery.

Happy baking!

The Food Network's 12 Days of Cookies

Martha Stewart's Cookie of the Day

Betty Crocker's Cookie Exchange

Epicurious' 25 Days of Christmas Cookies

Better Homes and Gardens' Cookie Exchange Favorites

Chocolate Chip Cookies like the Bakeries Do Them

There’s something extra special about walking into a bakery or a café and seeing an array of clear plastic jars lining the counter, all filled with different varieties of extra-large cookies: the kind that one’s mother seldom, if ever, would bake in her kitchen. These are exceptional, in their size and in their taste, and no matter the quality of other homemade chocolate chip cookies, the glass-jar kind are of a seemingly unusual breed.

In reality, though, this is not entirely the case. Yes, there are singularities to these behemoth cookies, but once the secret is known they are exceedingly simple to make at home. The only thing that really needs to be done is a small adjustment of ingredients.

That’s what I did with these extra-large chocolate chip cookies, slightly modified from a recipe on Baking Bites. The secret is in the extra helping of brown sugar and vanilla extract, with a decrease in granulated sugar making them richer than the average cookie. The cooking time is also increased, in order to thoroughly bake through, and I allowed the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes longer than I would normally allow before transferring them to wire sheets. For my trial recipe, though, I used one part applesauce to one part butter, as I sometimes experiment with when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, in order to see how the consistency would be affected. As a result, my cookies did not spread as wide, but they still had a wonderful chunkiness and chewiness that I find very appealing in the bakery style cookies, but without so much of a buttery taste.

Giant Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: 2 dozen
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups Rice Krispies/puffed rice cereal
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter, sugars and vanilla extract until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Stir the flour mixture into the sugar mixture, followed by rice krispies and chocolate chips.
Using a 1/4 cup measure as a spoon, drop 1/4 cup scoops of cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave at least 4 inches between cookies to allow for spread (I put 5 or 6 on a sheet). Cookie dough should be shaped in the 1/4 cup measure, not in a round ball (as this results in the most even baking).
Bake for 13-16 minutes, until cookies are golden at the edge. Remove from oven and let cookies set on cookie sheet for 6-10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Potato Chips and Cookies, Together at Last

When it comes to food, I try my best to be adventurous. I see nothing wrong in sampling a dish that has a strange description or a smattering of unusually paired ingredients, if for no other reason than to say that I tried it. This was the case when I bought a Vosges Bacon Chocolate Bar or when I ordered Egg Cream gelato at Grom in Greenwich Village. So maybe I'm mainly exploratory when it comes to sweets, but to be fair, I go out for dessert much more often than I go out for a regular meal. But I still spend a good amount of time in the kitchen, and I've been thinking that my confectionary open-mindedness should extend beyond what other chefs are trying and into my own repertoire. Which is why I was pleased to have found a cookie recipe that I had not seen before; I had not seen even similar types of cookies in the past. The name "Potato Chip Cookie" is, to me, not very appetizing, but only because I'm not a fan of potato chips in general. However, when I thought about it, I love chocolate covered pretzels, with the mixture of sweet and salty, and so perhaps potato chips in cookie dough would not be so far-fetched. The final product turned out quite well, in my opinion (and the opinion of my co-workers!). The potato chips gave the cookies a bit of extra fluffiness but they did not give themselves away: as unwitting tasters tested the cookies, none were able to identify the secret ingredient, but many agreed that it had a "familiar" flavor. Additionally, the dough is of the standard, buttery variety and is difficult to do much harm to. Personally, these are not my favorite cookies; I found the combination of butter and potato chips to be slightly overwhelming. However, they were a real crowd-pleaser with their crunchy mystery ingredient.

Potato Chip Cookies

Yield: About 3 dozen

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 - 1 1/4 cups crushed potato chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, then beat in the egg.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt, then stir into butter mixture. Stir in potato chips.
Drop tablespoonfuls (1-inch balls) of dough onto prepared baking sheet, leaving about 2-inches between each cookie to allow room to spread.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until light golden.
Cool completely on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

Dessert Cornucopia: A Good-bye Feast

While the rain passed through Brooklyn this weekend, I spent most of Saturday in my kitchen creating a buffet of baked goods for a party on Sunday: the three recipes below, and one of my favorites, the Chocolate Crinkle cookies which I wrote about in March. The mini cupcakes were the real winner out of all the choices; everyone enjoyed the hint of sweetness in the cakes paired with the confectioners' sugar of the icing, appreciating the flavor balance along with their cute size. My favorite were the brownies, since I used the Valrhona cocoa powder I had been saving for a special occasion, and they made me realize just how much the quality of the ingredients matter in a baked dish.

It wasn't the cloudy weather that had me pause from time to time, smiling sadly out the window; it's the fact that the countdown has begun until I leave this apartment – and this wonderful, tiny kitchen – for my cross-country move. At the end of November, I'll vacate, hand in my keys, and say goodbye to the counter top and oven that helped me to grow as a baker over the past several months.

Although I'm giving away or selling most of my things, I'm reluctant to part with the kitchen items, not because they are of any great quality, but because my bowls and wisk and measuring spoons remind me of the various new desserts I've tried, the chocolate chip cookies that I've compulsively attempted to perfect, and as always, the delighted reception of my treats. Maybe it's ridiculous, but it is, after all, my first set of baking tools and I don't believe I've worn them down sufficiently yet. So I'm keeping the pink mixing bowls and the plastic measuring cup, and even my requisite Betty Crocker cookbook (amongst a few others).

With a few weeks left, I doubt this will be my last day turning on the oven and pulling the flour from the cupboard, which is a relief. And I only hope that the brownies and the cupcakes and all that I've made have absorbed some of the nostalgia, comfort, and bliss that I've felt myself working around my kitchen this weekend.

Dessert Cornucopia: Valrhona Chocolate Brownies

Valrhona Double Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup good quality unsweetened cocoa powder, such as Valrhona
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup coarsely chopped semi-sweet chocolate

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9 x 9 inch baking dish.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave (about 45 seconds, but watch to be sure).
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt.
4. Add the eggs, melted butter, and vanilla to the dry ingredients and continue to mix until well combined (but do not overmix). Finally, stir in the chopped chocolate.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool.