baby rambutan

finally we are home again.

after 11 some hours on the road, with stops for food and ga$oline and stretching here and there, and lots of traffic from New Jersey upwards…we are back in our little nest, giving our kitty cat a lot of extra hugs and kisses (he’s acting like we abandoned him you see: demanding our company while he eats, jumping into our laps which is so very unlike him, purring extra loud).

lots of sightseeing under our belts, lots of fast food calories imbibed (when kids are hungry, bellies just need to be filled, instantly!), lots of pictures taken. also tons of laundry to wash! so for now, a recipe of the other one of our “baon” take along snacks for the long journey.
i baked the cream puffs and these cookies to take on the road. i had to ration them! or else the kids would have been all chocolate beards and moustaches…good thing i have an abundant supply of towels and wipes in the minivan.
these are from the New York Times Dining section…the addition of coarse sea salt (as suggested by none other than Dorie Greenspan) is a stroke of genius. and with a pound and a quarter of dark chocolate, it’s most intoxicating.

yeah good question.
there’s just not enough hours in the day.
i pause to catch my breath. i stare at this photo of us in the year two-thousand-kopong kopong ….
that’s the blue ribbon cake

i keep on cooking of course.
just not blogging.
in return, i get to have a “cleaner” house and my garden is starting to get spruced up just a bit.
for mother’s day my kids planted a honeysuckle vine (we want to test if we’ll attract some more butterflies or even fireflies! hummingbirds?!) and herbs to replenish those that didn’t make it through the winter.

meanwhile on the day i set out to make the famous Baltimore Berger cookies my oven died which is quite ironic since it was the day i was determined to blog again. could this be a seismic cosmic message? a wakey-wakey smell-the-coffee, quit-the-bloggy moment?
hmmmm.

we’d been using our oven to warm up our home on this cold and depressing month of May (it’s supposed to be warm now for heaven’s sake!!!). it gave up the ghost and i ended up baking these in the toaster oven, tedious and time-consuming but i didn’t want to have to 1) knock on neighbors’ doors to see who’d let me bake in their oven and use up their fuel or 2)toss out the butter-rich cookie-cake dough and have nightmares about the starving children all over the world…

i opted for the teeny toaster oven.

after all i badly needed some distraction. i saw these Baltimore Berger cookies featured in a recent issue of Saveur. my chocolate seized up and turned gritty in the process of whipping, per instructions, so obviously needs a bit more practice and/or tweaking. the cakey-cookie is divine though.

cakey vanilla cookie with an overdose of dark chocolate fudgey icing. my kids requested a sweeter milk chocolate for next time. (it was too intense even for the chocoholic kids).

…led us to a sweet and cozy get-together with our new “neighbor”!

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i’m beginning to think Valentine’s day is getting so cheesy.
maybe it has something to do with the baking and cooking disasters i had that day.
it got so bad that i quit in the middle of the “best ever butter cookies” from Land O’Lakes and went out and…egad! bought a tray of cookie hearts from the supermarket….yikes! and brought them to my #2son’s class party. crikey.
oh well anyway. at least they were edible.

another Bundt cake calamity, i really have to try something more than buttering the pan. i always forget! i ought to PAM it maybe. or maybe i should just be obedient and use a tube pan like it says i should.
i made this chocolate chunk coffee cake (from the Domino’s granulated sugar bag) as a gift of gratitude for a friend who gave us, and installed, “the best seat in the house” *wink wink* !
instead my kids are very grateful that they got the calamitous cake for themselves. sigh. wonder if they cast a spell on it?

then in escalating exasperation i made these chocolate cherry brownies from the Green & Black’s cookbook given to me by my dear sweet celiaK of english patis… sweet success na sana but i forgot to pour in the sweet-tart dried cherries! aaargggghhh. so i just studded them in, pressing the pieces into the batter before putting them in the oven.
turned out great anyway, and this time i made sure i had enough for two pans one for my friends and one for my kids (so they won’t bewitch my baking anymore…. )
all this baking was conducted under severe time pressure, in between driving the kids and running errands and chores (hehe that’s my classic excuse).

recipe for the brownies later!

i call these “instant replay” cookies; also known as, “don’t tell Kuya[big bro] we have cookies or else he’ll come home from college and eat them all up” cookies.
use any combination for the chocolate chips. quadruple? well, Droste cocoa + white chocolate chip + semi sweet chocolate chip + milk chocolate chip=sticky kisses from your kiddies, i guarantee it!

based on double rich chocolate chip cookies from Mrs. Fields.
(and yes i did call Kuya and he did almost eat them all up so i had to bake them all over again .)
2 & 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup dutch-processed (unsweetened) cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter (i used Land O’Lakes), room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
2 tsps. vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips (i used 1 cup white chocolate, 1/2 cup dark, and 1/2 cup milk)

preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt and whisk well. in a large mixer bowl, combine white and dark brown sugars and butter and mix well over medium speed until grainy and homogenized.
add eggs one at a time, scraping bowl after each egg. add vanilla and beat well.
on low speed add the cocoa-flour mixture and the chocolate chips, then mix just until blended. do not overbeat.

chill cookie dough for at least 15 minutes.

scoop out tablespoonfuls (use a small ice cream scoop or two tablespoons) into parchment-lined cookie sheets then bake about 22-24 minutes (depending on your oven! be vigilant! or else they’ll be too crispy and bitter or burnt! arrrghhh!)

note: on my oven, i use the convection setting and so am able to bake two cookie sheets at a time. it might be different for your oven; conventional ovens may need only 18 minutes, one cookie sheet at a time.

from Martha Stewart (yes i have two or three of her mags. i admit it!) Holiday cookies, 2001.


it was all done with good intentions. i bought packs and packs of dried coconut (i found an unsweetened brand without preservatives) and had everything i needed. i was going to put this into my cookie gift tins. but the days before Christmas things just got so hectic that i ran out of time. anyway. more for my kids.
(i just HAD to make spumoni cookies though…required daw ito sabi ng panganay ko.)

recipe follows…

* 1 3/4 cups sugar
* 5 1/4 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
* 7 large egg whites
* 1 pinch salt
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
* 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 4 ounces semisweet chocolate
* 1/2 teaspoon pure vegetable shortening
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment. In a large bowl, using your hands, mix together sugar, coconut, egg whites, and salt. Add butter and extracts, and combine well. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
2. Moisten palms of hands with cold water. Roll 1 tablespoon of the coconut mixture in palms, squeezing tightly together 2 or 3 times to form a compact ball. Place ball on a clean surface, and using a spatula, flatten one side at a time to form a pyramid shape.
3. Place pyramids on the prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart, and bake until edges are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Leave on baking sheet on a wire rack to cool completely.
4. Place chocolate and shortening in a small heat-proof bowl, and set over a pan of simmering water; stir occasionally until melted. Dip top 1/2 inch of each pyramid in the melted chocolate. Set each dipped macaroon on cooled baking sheet to allow chocolate to harden.

mom you haven’t made cookies in a long time. said with puppy dog mournful eyes alternately by the three beloved children at different times, at the most heart-tugging moments in the busy days gone by.

so i hastily googled for something new, something different, with the vague idea that it should have dried cherries. not sure why, perhaps i was remembering a fondness i had for this ice cream flavor which i first hankered for when i was expecting my first child.

it’s been in the top ten most popular of this ice cream company way up north ever since it was introduced.

funny really how almost every mommy you encounter, no matter what the age, will remember in very vivid, sometimes graphic detail, their pregnancies and childbirth experiences. what food they craved (paglilihi or lihi in Tagalog) and what food they despised.

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from Gourmet, October 2006, a jazzed-up oatmeal chocolate chip cookie with orange zest and this Swiss “intense orange dark chocolate” bar. (you can also use semi-sweet chocolate chips, the recipe calls for orange zest to give it that heady fragrance).

i had to double the recipe. my three cookie monsters would never get by on just twelve .

the intense orange dark chocolate fragrance wafted up from the kitchen and brought them all down from their homework.

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the order plea was for double chocolate cookies…”or can you please buy me a bag MAMAAAA!!!!”

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