Chocolate Meringue Cookies

These are superb, quick and easy chocolate cookies.  It’s a great recipe for when you have leftover egg whites but not a lot of energy to do anything with them. It’s drop-dead simple, quick, and the results are spectacular.  Plus they’re safe for someone who can’t tolerate gluten.

Yields about 18 cookies

INGREDIENTS

• 2 egg whites (2 fluid ounces or ¼ cup)
• ½ cup sugar
• 6 ounces chocolate, melted and cooled for a couple minutes. (Semi-sweet chips are yummy, but Callebaut or Valrhona bittersweet or semi-sweet are fantastic.)
• ½ tsp vanilla (see in notes about peppermint extract)
• ¼-½ cup ground (not even minced, but ground in a blender) almonds, pecans, or hazelnuts. (Go light if you’re using hazelnuts: ¼ cup.)

PREPARATION

• Melt the chocolate and let cool for a few minutes.
• While the chocolate cools, beat the egg whites, slowly adding in the sugar, until the mixture forms soft peaks.
• Fold in the melted, now-cooled chocolate, vanilla, and nuts. Stir just until blended.
• Drop spoonfuls, 2” apart, onto a greased baking sheet (a silicone pad works well, too).
• Bake no more than 10 minutes in a 350° oven.
• They’ll come out gooey, so cool them for 10 minutes before CAREFULLY transferring the warm, fragile cookies to a cooling rack. Try to wait another 5 or 10 minutes before consuming them.

NOTE that you can skip the nuts, add chocolate chips, and/or substitute peppermint extract for the vanilla.  The results are always great.

Dave’s Fave Chocolate Brownies (even better with a little tahini)

The base recipe comes from Cooks Illustrated.  I added the tahini.  The brownies are a just a bit crusty on the outside, and gooey on the inside but with a bit of sugary granularity, too.  A touch of tahini (don’t use too much) balances the sweetness and, to me, makes them even better. They are as close to perfect as I’ve experienced in a brownie.

This recipe is really quick, and quite easy to make, too.  You don’t need a sifter or a mixer!

Ingredients:

• 8 Tbs unsalted butter
• 2 oz unsweetened chocolate (the better the chocolate, the better the brownie…)
• 2/3 cup cake flour (all-purpose can work, but cake flour is a bit better)
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• About 1 Tbs tahini (optional)

Preparation:

• Heat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease an 8×8 inch baking pan.

• Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler.  Pour into a large glass bowl and set aside to cool for a few minutes.
• Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

• When the chocolate mixture is no longer really hot (it takes only la few minutes in the bowl) , whisk in the sugar. 
• Then whisk in the eggs and vanilla.
• Fold in the flour mixture until just combined evenly and pour into the greased pan.

• OPTIONAL: Pour a few (3 or 4) very thin lines of tahini on top of the brownies (warm it to make it flow easily).  Then create a design by swirling with a knife.

• Bake at 350 for 20-24 minutes.  The brownies should be set in the middle (not too wiggly when shaken gently), and a toothpick inserted halfway from the center to the edge should come out with only a few fudgy crumbs.  If it’s wet, give it another two minutes.  No matter what, don’t cook them more than 24 minutes.
• Here’s the only tough part: Let them cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting them.  60 is better if you want them to cut cleanly.

No Compromise Pecan Cookies

These cookies involve no compromises whatsoever; they’re delicious, drop-dead simple, quick to make, gluten- and dairy-free so almost anyone can enjoy them, and maybe even healthy.

They’re also a bit old-fashioned and exotic, as though the recipe comes from the old country (as long as that’s somewhere in/near the middle-east). Some might say they are distantly related to macaroons; but they use pecans rather than almonds, have more texture, and are spiced.

This recipe is a variation on one from the Cooking with Virginia blog (www.virginiawillis.com), adjusted to simplify it, make it a bit more exotic, and remove any unnecessary sugar.

My approach is so quick, you can make the dough while the oven is heating. If you hustle, it doesn’t take much more than 30 minutes from idea to first bite.

Ingredients

• About 2 cups pecan halves (You can toast them if you want, and doing so produces a slightly different cookie. Both ways are great, however, so I usually skip the toasting to keep things simple and quick.)
• ½ cup sugar
• About 1 tsp of spices per your taste (I use something like ½ teaspoon cardamon, ¼ teaspoon allspice, and ¼ teaspoon cloves)
• Pinch of salt
• 1 large egg (The original recipe calls for just the white. Making them with the whole egg is simpler and faster with no compromise in the end result. But if you want to use the yolk for something else, you can do that, too, and the cookies won’t suffer.)
• Optional: 1 tsp rose water (I highly recommend this)

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
• In a food processor, grind the pecans, sugar, spices, and salt. You don’t have to grind it as fine as flour; the cookies are great if the mixture is about like sand.
• Add the egg (and rosewater) and pulse a few times until the dough comes together.
• Form the dough into small balls (ping-pong ball or smaller) and place on the baking sheet. They can be placed close to each other because they hold their shape. You can flatten them or leave them as balls, and push a pecan half into them as decoration if you want.
• Bake 17-20 minutes until they start to brown. (Don’t cook them more than 20 minutes; they don’t brown well and look undercooked when they come out. They’ll crisp up as they cool.)
• Let them cool for 5-10 minutes then gently transfer them to a rack to cool more.
• The cookies are still pretty good after 48 hours if stored in a sealed container.

Adrienne’s Hot Fudge
This is my mom’s recipe, adapted from the Joy of Cooking.  When cooked properly (which involves boiling just the right amount of time, it will thicken to an almost-firm, caramel consistency on ice cream. It’s a little tricky when it comes to the timing (and if you mess it up, the texture will be wrong), but it produces unique and delicious hot fudge sauce unlike anything you’ll find in a store.

Ingredients:

• 2 oz unsweetened chocolate (even plain old Baker’s chocolate yields a good sauce)
• 1 Tbs butter
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 Tbs light corn syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla

Preparation:

• Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler (I just do it carefully in a saucepan)
• Add 1/3 cup boiling water and stir briefly.
• As soon as the water is mostly integrated and the mixture starts to thicken (it takes on a weird consistency but don’t worry), add the sugar and stir it in. That’ll smooth everything out.
• Add the corn syrup.
• Gently heat to a boil, stirring once or twice each minute. The sauce is smoothest if you heat it fairly slowly particularly as it approaches a boil.
• As soon as it starts to boil, turn the heat down bit, stop stirring, and wait until you see bubbles just covering the entire surface.
• At that point, turn the heat down a bit more (but keep it bubbling) and let it boil for 1-1½ minutes. DEFINITELY no more. The boiling determines how hard the sauce will get as it cools on the ice cream.  The timing is critical: try 75 seconds your first time.
• Remove it from the heat, give it a stir, and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.
• Stir in the vanilla.

If it’ll be gone in two or three days, just keep it on the stove. If you want to save it for a longer time, then store in the fridge. Reheat the sauce slowly. It’ll get thicker with time; when reheating, you can stir in small amounts of water (a teaspoon or two) to get the consistency right again.

This recipe is quick and easy to make. It produces a terrific sauce, much like you’d get at any of the good ice cream shops here in MA (like JP Lick’s, Toscannini’s or, back in the day, Steve’s). The recipe comes from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts.  Unlike my mom’s recipe, there’s no tricky timing involved, and no opportunity to mess up the texture.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup heavy cream
• 3 Tbs butter
• 1/3 cup granular white sugar
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• Pinch of salt
• ½ cup powdered cocoa (Dutch process is supposedly preferred; I find it just fine with the other stuff)

Preparation:

• Heat the cream and the butter, bringing them just to a boil
• Lower the heat a bit, whisk in the sugars, and cook for a few minutes (not boiling) until smooth.
• Add the salt and the cocoa, and continue to heat, stirring with a whisk until smooth.
• I’ll often stir in ½ ounce of water at the end; I prefer it just a teeny bit thinner.

If it’ll be gone in a few days, just keep it on the stove.  If you want to save it for a longer time, then store it in the fridge. Reheat the sauce slowly. If it’s too thick, stir in small amounts (a teaspoon or two) of water.

My mom taught me this recipe but I have no idea where she got it.  There are many recipes for this type of brownie, but I think this one is about perfect.  It produces a relatively thin, dense, fudgy brownie with a thin layer of mint butter cream topped with a very thin layer of unsweetened chocolate.  The top layer keeps it from being too sweet.  It’s delicious.

Brownie:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Melt and cool:
  • ½ lb. (2 sticks) butter*
  • 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
• Mix with:
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup flour
• Bake for 15-20 minutes in a well-buttered jelly roll pan (11”x17”).
• Let it cool.

Mint frosting:

• Mix together:
  • 4 Tbs butter
  • 2 cups confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
  • 2 Tbs milk
  • Peppermint extract to taste (about 1/8 tsp)
• Spread on top of the (cooled) brownies.
• Chill the frosted brownies before attempting the glaze.

Glaze:

• Melt:
  • 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
  • 4 Tbs butter
• Pour over the frosted brownies, tilting the pan (steeply!) to allow the mixture to flow over and evenly coat the entire surface of the brownies.
• Chill a final time to solidify the glaze.

*The recipe doesn’t specify whether to use salted or unsalted butter.  Since there’s no added salt, I’ve used salted butter with good results.  If using unsalted butter, add a bit of salt (maybe try ¼ or ½ tsp) in the brownie recipe; you’re probably fine with no salt elsewhere.

This recipe from the NY Times doesn’t use corn syrup, and in theory it’s not quite so sweet.  Let’s be clear: it’s pretty darned sweet. But it’s a different kind of sweet without corn syrup, and it’s definitely the best pecan pie I’ve ever had.  I make my own pie crust using Best Recipe’s [pretty easy] recipe; I include an even simpler (and just as satisfying) variant below.

Ingredients (for the filling)

• ½ cup/115g unsalted butter (2 sticks)
• ¼ cup/85g maple syrup
• ¼ cup/85g honey
• 3 large eggs (at room temp)
• 1 cup (or a little less) of dark brown sugar (I’ve used light, which isn’t as good, and the recipe recommend a mix of brown and maple sugar, which I have not tried).
• 1½ tsp bourbon
• 1½ tsp vanilla
• ¾ tsp kosher salt
• 2 cups/240g (or a little more) pecan halves (chopped just a bit)

Preparation

• Form the crust in a pan and put in the freezer for 30 minutes.
• When ready to bake, place a rimmed baking sheet on the middle rack and pre-heat to 425°F

• Melt the butter over medium heat. Cook, swirling occasionally, until the milk solids turn golden brown and the butter starts smelling nutty, about 5 minutes.
• Add the maple syrup and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens and reduces slightly, 2 to 3 minutes.
• Remove from heat, and whisk honey into the warm syrup mixture. Let cool at least 10 minutes.

• Whisk together the sugars, eggs, bourbon, vanilla and salt in a large mixing bowl.
• Pour syrup mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Use a rubber spatula to scrape in all the brown bits at the bottom.
• Place pecans in the pie crust and pour the filling over the pecans.

• Place pie on the hot sheet pan and bake for 10 minutes at 425°F. Reduce heat to 350° for another 35 to 45 minutes until the center of the pie has puffed up a bit, set, and turned golden brown.
• Transfer to cooling rack and sprinkle with flaky sea salt if you like. Allow to cool for at least 2 hours before serving. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Pecan Pie Crust

This adaptation of Best Recipe’s fantastic pie dough recipe uses all butter instead of a mix of butter and shortening.  It’s even easier to make and you’re that much more likely to have all the ingredients on hand.

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups (150gm) all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• ¼ tsp salt
• 8 Tbs cold unsalted butter in pieces
• 6 Tbs ice water (give or take)

Preparation

• In a food processor, pulse the flour, sugar and salt.
• Add the butter pieces and pulse until it resembles coarse meal with a clump or two.
• Transfer to a bowl and add the water. Stirring and folding the dough as you go, add the water, 1 Tbs at a time, until it’s clumping but still seems pretty dry and barely holds together.
• Knead the dough just a little bit, which will bring it together more firmly, wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out.