Molasses Cookies

Here’s another perfect-for-fall cookie. These molasses cookies taste like gingersnaps, and they are rolled in white sugar to make them crispy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. They’re full of fall spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice—and are incredibly easy to make. This recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies. You’ll want to start a pot of hot tea or apple cider to have with these!

Molasses Cookies:

¾ cup shortening

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup molasses

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon allspice

White sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream the shortening and brown sugar. Mix in the molasses, egg, and vanilla.

2. In a medium-size bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice. Stir to combine.  Add the dry ingredients to the shortening mixture, and mix until dry ingredients are incorporated.

3. Use a cookie scoop or teaspoon to form equal sized scoops of cookie dough. Roll each ball of cookie dough in white sugar.  

4. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes (the center of the cookies will still look soft but will firm as they set up). Cool on the cookie sheet for two minutes and then remove to baking racks.

Wuthering Heights: Steak and Potato Soup and Beer Bread

This week I finished reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, and even though my initial reaction was that I did not love the novel (so much darker than her sister’s Jane Eyre), I couldn’t get the book out of my mind. Whatever else that may mean, I think it means it’s a good book.

The plot of Wuthering Heights is somewhat convoluted, but the basic narrative surrounds the love affair between Cathy (Catherine) Earnshaw and Heathcliff. When Cathy and her brother Hindley are children, their father arrives home with an orphan child, the “gypsy” Heathcliff (whether Heathcliff is actually a gypsy is debatable). Hindley never ceases to resent Heathcliff, but Cathy and Heathcliff become fast friends, and the two share the same wild, passionate nature. As the children grow older, however, Cathy decides to marry the wealthy Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff (even though by her own admission she loves Heathcliff), since Heathcliff’s standing is so decidedly below Cathy’s. When Heathcliff reappears after their marriage, Edgar insists that Cathy choose between the two men, and Cathy becomes so ill that she never fully recovers and dies in childbirth. Her daughter, also named Cathy, survives. As Heathcliff gazes at the dead Catherine, he begs her to haunt and torment him rather than leave him alone, and he plans how he can torment the living.  

By this point, the novel is already more a tale of elaborate revenge than a love story (think The Count of Monte Cristo), and out of spite, Heathcliff marries Edgar’s sister, who bears him a sickly son named Linton. Heathcliff manages to wrest the Earnshaw estate away from Cathy’s brother Hindley, and he allows Hindley’s son Hareton to grow up savage and uneducated (as he himself did). Heathcliff’s final act of revenge is to force a marriage between Catherine’s daughter, Cathy, and his own son Linton—a marriage which transfers Catherine’s portion of the Earnshaw estate to Heathcliff once Linton dies.  (Which, fortunately, is soon—he’s a petulant and annoying character.) By the end of the novel, Heathcliff has set himself up to have everything (except, of course, Catherine—the only thing he wanted). But once Linton is dead, the young Cathy and Hareton (doubles of Catherine and Heathcliff as children) fall in love, and Heathcliff cannot bring himself to sever their connection, even though it would be the final act of his revenge. Heathcliff becomes listless and seems haunted; he refuses to eat and simply wastes away, and the novel ends with his death and the implication that he and Catherine continue to haunt the moors.

One of the most powerful aspects of Wuthering Heights, for me, is its emphasis on double characters. Never, outside of Dostoevsky, have I seen a novel in which characters seem to share souls and selves in such spiritually profound ways. These characters can literally die and yet it makes only a small impact in their existence—in all the important ways, they are still functional in the novel.  In one of the most poignant and famous passages, Cathy explains that she loves Heathcliff because they are essentially the same person:  “I love him . . . because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”  Moments later, she explains that Heathcliff is so much an extension of herself that she lives through him and because of him: 

I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger; I should not seem a part of it. . . . I am Heathcliff!

Through Heathcliff, Cathy transcends death—she not only haunts him, she lives through him. And many of the other characters also transcend death in a way, through their double characters. By the end of the novel, Heathcliff has become Hareton and Catherine has become her daughter. The novel is haunted by ghosts—not just Catherine’s, but everyone’s.  In some ways this is comforting—it gives the novel a chance to right wrongs—but in some ways it is terrifying, because it implies that the tragedies of the novel (which, we cannot ignore, are brought about largely through disparities between social classes) will also continue to occur.

It might be a chilling thought, but Wuthering Heights is a chilling book. It’s a novel that makes you feel cold, because it’s filled with images of wind-swept moors, and rain-lashed window panes, and ghosts with icy fingers who nevertheless bleed real blood. 

After such a weighty discussion of the novel, it might seem strange to launch into a recipe, but I assure you they were connected in my mind, simply because of the novel’s pervasive coldness. So, even though it hasn’t been extremely cold this week, I still felt like making something warming—and thus, this creamy steak and potato soup and hearty beer bread. Something to take the chill off. . .

This beer bread is incredibly simple to make, because it uses beer instead of yeast, and so it doesn’t need time to rise. You can use any variety of beer you’d like—I used Boulevard Wheat and was pretty happy with the results. Some recipes state that if you use a more “hoppy” beer, the bread could have more of a bitter taste. 

Beer Bread

3 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons sugar

12 ounces of beer

3 tablespoons melted butter

1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add beer and stir until dry ingredients are incorporated. Do not overmix.

2. Pour batter into a greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Pour melted butter over the loaf.

3. Bake at 375 for 45-60 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. (Different varieties of beer may affect the baking time. Add more time as needed.)

Recipe adapted from Honest Fare

Steak and Potato Soup

1 pound steak, cubed

1 onion, chopped

3 carrots, sliced

3 stalks celery

3 cloves garlic

2 tomatoes, chopped

1 package of fresh mushrooms, sliced

6 medium sized potatoes

3 tablespoons butter

¼ cup flour, plus extra flour for dredging

4 cups beef broth

1 cup half and half (I use fat free!)

2 bay leaves

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

1.  Poke holes in potatoes with a fork. Boil potatoes in a large pot of water for about 15 minutes. Remove from the water to cool.

2. Dredge the steak pieces in flour and ground pepper. Cook in a skillet until browned. Reserve any juices.

3. In a large stockpot, melt butter and add steak juices. Add onions, garlic, and flour. Cook until the onions are translucent.

4. Add the onions, celery, tomatoes, and beef broth. Stir in potatoes and steak pieces. Add bay leaves and nutmeg. Bring to a boil.

5. Once the soup begins to thicken, add half and half. Taste the soup and add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for an hour before serving.

Mint Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

I'm pretty convinced that there can't be a dessert better than cheesecake, but these cookies have the taste of cheesecake in the form of a chocolate chip cookie. As if that couldn't be enough, they're also coated in cookies--crushed Oreos! When I first tried this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker, I loved it (enough to make it twice in one week!). If the speed with which the first batch disappeared is any indication, everyone at work loved them too. But this week I had a craving for mint, so I decided to try the cookies with the mint double-stuff Oreos. The result was amazing--a soft, cheesecake cookie with a hint of mint!

Mint Oreo Cheesecake Cookies

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

2 cups sugar

1( 8 ounce) package of cream cheese

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

1 ½ cups chocolate chips

2 cups oreo cookie crumbs (traditional OR mint!)

Directions:

1.       Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Crumble oreo cookies and place the crumbs in a bowl.

2.       In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream the butter, cream cheese, and sugar. Mix in the vanilla until combined.

3.       Mix in the salt and flour until incorporated.  Mix in the chocolate chips.

4.       Scoop the dough into balls and roll each ball in the cookie crumbs. The dough balls should be completely covered.

5.       Place cookie balls on a greased baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, until the edges begin to brown.

Recipe adapted from Multiply Delicious and Brown Eyed Baker

Chicken Pesto Pizza

I was never an enormous fan of pizza, because I don't really care for tomato-based sauces. That is, until I discovered pizza like this one, that uses a sauce other than a tomato base. This pizza starts with a homemade crust and a basil pesto sauce and is loaded with spinach, tomatoes, artichokes, and sauteed peppers and onions. I use chicken on this pizza, but it could be just as delicious meatless, and you could always innovate on the recipe by adding mushrooms, olives, or bacon (if you can find room on the pizza!)

Chicken Pesto Pizza

Pizza Crust:

1 cup warm water

2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 ½ cups flour (more if needed)

Toppings:

½ cup pesto

1 onion, sliced

1 green (or red or yellow) pepper, sliced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup fresh spinach

3 roma tomatoes, sliced

1 ½ cups cooked chicken breast, chopped

1 can quartered artichoke hearts, drained

1 ½ cups shredded Italian blend cheese

Parsley flakes

Ground pepper

Directions:

       1.  Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add salt, sugar, and olive oil. Mix in flour. If using a stand mixer, switch to dough hook and knead until smooth; if kneading by hand, turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Incorporate more flour if needed. 

      2.  Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

      3. While the dough rises, assemble the toppings: slice onions, peppers, and tomatoes. Drain artichokes and set aside.

       4. Sautee the onions and peppers in olive oil. Set aside.

       5. Once the dough has risen, turn the dough onto a floured surface and punch down.  Roll the dough to fit a baking stone, and poke holes in the crust with a fork. Parbake the crust for 8 minutes at 425 degrees.

      6. Spread the crust with pesto. Top with the spinach, tomatoes and chicken. Layer on the artichokes and the pepper/onion mixture. Top with shredded cheese. Garnish with parsley flakes and ground pepper.

     7. Bake the pizza at 425 for 15-20 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is fully melted. 

Snickerdoodles

For the past four years that I've worked in a restaurant, I've had a "Friday tradition" of bringing some sort of treats to work. It started out with cookies--easy to pick up and eat quickly--but it's branched out to include brownies, cheesecake, cupcakes, and muffins. But cookies are still the staple, and I've been waiting for a day that feels like fall to make one of my favorite fall cookies, snickerdoodles.

These cookies taste like soft sugar cookies but are rolled in a cinnamon-sugar mixture, and they puff up so that they are soft in the center and crisp around the edges. Most snickerdoodle recipes call for cream of tartar, which I don't normally have on hand, but I found out you can substitute lemon juice or vinegar for cream of tartar. I went with lemon juice, but the cookies still have a traditional flavor and don't taste at all lemony.

Cookies at work make things so much less . . . stressful. And snickerdoodles definitely make a rainy, cool day much better.

Snickerdoodles:

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup shortening
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ¾ cups flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice (or cream of tartar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ tsp salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place eggs in a bowl of warm water to bring them up to room temperature. Cream butter, shortening, and sugar.
3. Add eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice. Mix well.
4. Beat in the flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
6. Shape dough into small balls and roll each ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture.
7. Place balls of dough on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for about 8 minutes.

Recipe adapted from All Recipes

A Moveable Feast: Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,” Ernest Hemingway wrote in a 1950 letter, “then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”  Hemingway’s autobiography, A Moveable Feast, to which the title of this blog pays tribute, captures his life as an expatriate in Paris, struggling to be a writer. Hemingway’s experiences revolve around writing, but because he so often writes in Paris cafes, they revolve around food too, and the autobiography is filled with coffee, wine, oysters, and cherry tarts, with pockets stuffed with mandarin oranges and sandwiches eaten at the racetracks.

Hemingway is right—some experiences stay with you. Places are like this, but so are books, and so is food; they are all experiences we carry and relive, and Hemingway’s autobiography captures perfectly the way in which atmosphere, writing, and food all shape our lives. 

This blog is obviously still in its infancy, but the idea of it is to combine the experiences of reading and writing with the experiences of food, cooking, and baking.  I’ll be sharing recipes and discussing what I’m reading, because they’re probably connected. Not every recipe will have a literary inspiration—many recipes will be posted simply because I love them—but some will.

For this first post on Hemingway’s poignant autobiography, I’ve chosen my favorite pastry, Cream Cheese Coffee Cake.  Hemingway writes that in Paris you can make a meal out of bread, especially if you are poor, and on one occasion berates himself for not doing so, thinking hungrily, “I should have bought a large piece of bread and eaten it instead of skipping a meal. I could taste the brown lovely crust.” 

This coffee cake is not by any means a French pastry, but it is a delicious breakfast bread, and pairs so nicely with a cup of coffee that you can make a meal of it while reading or writing—even if you aren’t in a café in Paris.

This coffee cake is a little time-consuming (because the dough must be made a day in advance and rises in the refrigerator) and has several steps, so I have included step-by-step pictures. I’m just getting started with the photography aspect of this, so I hope picture quality will improve as I go. I hope, as Hemingway says, “Hunger is healthy and the pictures do look better when you are hungry.” 

For more excerpts from A Moveable Feast, see after the recipe.

Cream Cheese Coffee Cake:

Dough:

1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream

½ cup sugar

½ cup butter

1 teaspoon salt

2 packages (4 ½ teaspoons) active dry yeast

½ cup warm water

2 eggs, beaten

4 cups flour

Filling:

2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened

¾ cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Glaze:

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

¼ cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sliced almonds

Making the Dough

1. Combine the butter, sour cream, sugar, and salt in a saucepan. Cook over low heat until combined, stirring until combined. Set the mixture aside to cool to room temperature.

2. In a large bowl (or stand mixer), dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Add the sour cream mixture and eggs. Mix well. Stir in flour one cup at a time. The dough will be very soft. Transfer the dough to a large, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.

Assembling the Loaves

3. Punch dough down and place on floured surface (I use a silicon baking mat, but a floured cutting board also works). Knead 5-6 times (if the dough is too sticky to work with, incorporate a little more flour as you knead). Divide the dough into fourths. Roll each piece into a 12 X 8 in rectangle (approximately the size of a sheet of paper). 

4. To make the filling, mix the cream cheese and sugar together until well blended. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and salt.

5. Spread approximately ½ cup of filling on each rectangle of dough, to within 1 inch of the edges.

6. Roll each loaf up, starting at the long side, and pinch the seam and edges to seal. Place the loaves seam side down on greased baking sheets.  With a sharp knife, cut X’s in the top of the loaves. Cover the loaves and let them rise about 1 hour (until close to doubled).

7. Bake the loaves at 375 for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.  Cool on wire racks.

Glaze:

8. Combine the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. Once the loaves are completely cool, drizzle the glaze on top of the rolls. Sprinkle with sliced almonds.

Store any leftovers in the refrigerator; slices can be easily reheated in the microwave.

Recipe adapted from Taste of Home Baking Book.

*                  *                      *                            *

More from Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast:

What does it mean to be poor?

 It was all part of the fight against poverty that you never win except by not spending. Especially if you buy pictures instead of clothes. But then we did not think ever of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it. We thought we were superior people and other people that we looked down on and rightly mistrusted were rich. . . . We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.

How does one become a writer?

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. 

Paris: A Moveable Feast

There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it.