Nora's Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 770), Applesauce Cake (p. 732), and Quick Butterscotch (Penuche) Icing (p. 799)

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies?  I have to admit, I don't turn to The Joy of Cooking for cookie recipes at all.   Do you?  I tend to go to dedicated cookie cookbooks and I have historically not loved the TJOC chocolate chip cookie recipes but I was hopeful for this one because it's new to the  2019 Edition.  Readers, I didn't love it.  It was certainly easy enough (but not nearly as easy--or as good--as the recipe on the Crisco container).

I love my house and I love my kitchen but I do not love the lighting.  It's absolutely terrible and it will be improved at some point.  Fortunately, terrible pictures have always been a hallmark of TJOTJOC. 

Dry ingredients were mixed:

Ugh, these shadows

Butter was creamed with white and brown sugar (if you don't know what that means, google is your friend). Vanilla, an egg, and an egg yolk were added:

OMG I did not make this in complete darkness

The flour mixture was added in and then the chocolate chips.  We had two different types of chocolate chips left over from Christmas Eve Eve (otherwise known as "cookie baking day") so I just used those.  I got out the cookie scoop.  We have a lot of cookie scoops and they are all terrible except the one my bestie Rachel gave me.  I picked out "Amazon Choice" scoops.  I read a story online right after that about a terrible lady who takes money from companies that make garbage that they pay people to "review" on Amazon and that regularly become "Amazon Choice" and that really irritates me because I formerly trusted the rating.  It explains why I have had so many terrible purchases recently.  Scoops that don't scoop fall into that.  Rant over.  I had to scoop them twice because I used the wrong size.

I never know how much they are going to spread so I always put them too far apart.

After:

Toooooo crispy.  I don't like my chocolate chip cookies that crispy which is why I tend to use Crisco.  I love Crisco.  I could work for Crisco.  The recipe lies.  It calls these chewy, thick cookies--they were not.These will not be made in the future.

The Joy of Cooking Applesauce Cake came next.  The other day I looked in the refrigerator to find a freaking enormous jar of applesauce.  To the best of my knowledge nobody in this house is a big applesauce fan so it was odd.  Jeff said that it was really cheap so obviously he bought it.  Obviously (eye roll).  So I looked in TJOC for a recipe that would use some applesauce and found Applesauce cake (p. 732).

Gwen helped me mix sifted flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, salt, allspice, and nutmeg.  Two points here:

1.  EDUCATION!  If it's "sifted flour" you measure after sifting.  If it's "flour, sifted" you measure and then sift.  I'm not sure everyone knows that and it's super important.

2.  I have Gwen taste all the ingredients as we are cooking including all the spices.  I'll be damned if she's one of those people on a cooking show who fail the tasting challenge--they should all be ashamed of themselves.  Let your kids taste things when they cook with you!

Butter is beaten and sugar is added.  I used brown sugar but you can use white or a combination.  An egg is cracked in and then the flour mixture and the applesauce are alternately added.  I was optimistic about this recipe.  It smelled good and wasn't too sweet.  You can add nuts or dried fruit.  I'm always going to opt in to nuts and dried fruit so I added walnuts and dried cranberries.

The whole thing as cooked for about a half hour.  I decided to use the square pan rather than the loaf pan option.

After cooking:

It popped out extremely easily, which makes sense, as I used about a stick of butter on the pan.

I'm always going to opt in to icing.  I lllloooovvvveeee penuche so I was happy to see Quick Butterscotch (Penuche) Icing (p. 799).  It was easy because all icing is easy.  Butter, brown sugar, evaporated milk, and salt were mixed over heat until they were combined and let cool in a bowl:

Powdered sugar and vanilla were added:

Tell me you don't want to reach into this picture for a taste...

I liked both these recipes!  The applesauce cake was not very sweet and reminded me of the zucchini cake we made every summer to get rid of the huge excess of zucchini.  The icing was absolutely amazing--smooth, brown sugary, fantastic.  Next time I will make the cake in a loaf but I will make it again.  Possibly with the same giant jar of applesauce.  Fast and good.

But I had extra icing so what to do with it...

Sandwich it between cookies!!!  It was amazing.  Penuche icing belongs between cookies.  

Even though I didn't like these cookies I do think they would make fantastic ice cream sandwiches.  For Gwen's second birthday we made homemade ice cream sandwiches and they were really popular.  You have to be careful with the cookie that you pick because they can get way too hard and I think these would have been sturdy enough while soaking up some of the moisture from the ice cream to soften.

What kind of chocolate chip cookies do you like?  Does the rest of your household agree or is it an argument every time? Tell me below!

Note: All three recipes are vegetarian, the icing is GF. 

November party post 9: Liquor-soaked pound cake (p. 716) and Gingerbread (p. 724)

Final party post!  My final thoughts on this party--I cooked sooooo much!  It was really fun, I had a great time, and it was a great last (and only) party in Fort Collins.  The best part is that I knocked out probably a solid 25 recipes!  I'll try to get the opinions of the people who were at the party--if they remember what the food tasted like, considering it was 9 months ago!  

Go through all the past posts and comment!  

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Post 4

Post 5

Post 6

Post 7

Post 8

Even though the guests were warned that the whole point of this particular party was to make a bunch of the strange TJOC recipes and get them knocked out, I wanted to make a couple desserts that I was confident would turn out well and reward them for showing up.  I know I make a great pound cake, so I decided to make Liquor-soaked pound cake (p. 716).

The recipe was simple.  First, I made pound cake and poured the batter into loaf pans and cooked it like that.  I combined sugar, water, and corn syrup over heat until the sugar was dissolved.  Once that had occurred, I added some good quality brandy (although you could use almost any type of liquor):

I used a skewer and poked holes in the pound cakes:

The sugar mixture was poured over the cake:

The liquid slowly soaked in to the pound cake.  Believe it or not, over a few hours, all of it soaked in.  This pound cake was DELICIOUS.  The extra liquid meant that the pound cake was ultra-moist and lasted forever--it essentially didn't stale.  And, remember, the alcohol doesn't cook out in recipes like this, so...be careful!  And use good quality alcohol--the flavor is really important.  

I also decided to make Gingerbread (p. 724).  Everybody thinks they like gingerbread, even though most people have never actually eaten it.  Or am I wrong about that?  

I mixed melted butter, egg, and sugar:

I whisked together flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon:

In a third container I whisked hot water, molasses, and honey together:

Eventually, added the dry and liquid ingredients alternately to the butter mixture and poured it in to a pan:

 Sadly, I have no final picture of this one either but it looked like gingerbread, nice and dark.  It was delicious.  Moist, spicy, delicious.  And the absolute perfect dessert for a holiday party.  If you haven't made gingerbread before, do it.

And with that, I will tell one of my favorite stories about my father.  One year, my dad decided that we would make gingerbread houses together.  I was probably 7 years old or so.  He made a bunch of gingerbread.  We cut it into pieces and tried building a house.  After about an hour of no progress at all no matter how hard we tried, we gave up and just ate the gingerbread.  Turns out, you make gingerbread houses with a totally different type of gingerbread--not this type, a more cardboardy type.  But nobody got mad that it was failing and it was so much fun.  It was one of my first lessons in the concept that sometimes even if your plan turns in to a disaster, it can still be a fun amazing memory.

November party post 8: Ricotta cheesecake (p. 745)

Almost done with these November party posts!  Wow, I really did cook a ton for that party!

I made the pat in the pan crust, which I've made a million times in the past--it's my favorite crust recipe because it's really easy and I don't have to roll it out (my least favorite part).  I don't know if you all own pie weights but they really are nice for keeping crusts from bubbling--I know you can just use rice but the weights are easy to wash and it seems less wasteful.

Pie weights

I decided to make Ricotta cheesecake (p. 745) for some reason.  I can't really explain why that recipe jumped out at me.

I mixed toasted pine nuts, chopped almonds, chocolate chips, and flour:

I thought that was a promising start, I really like all those ingredients.  In another bowl I beat egg with sugar and vanilla for a couple minutes, finally stirring in ricotta cheese:

The crust pre-cooking:

The nut mixture was mixed into the egg mixture:

The crust post-cooking:

The cheesecake mixture was poured into the baked crust:

And it was baked.  You will have to imagine the "after", I didn't get a picture of this one either, but it looked pretty much exactly the same.  I didn't like this recipe.  I don't like savory cheesecakes.  The pesto cheesecake that I made a couple New Year's Eves ago was much better than this recipe and this one was actually in the "cakes and cupcakes" section.  I love ricotta, I don't have a sweet tooth, and this recipe wasn't sweet enough for even me.  It wasn't popular.  

German chocolate cake (p. 719) and Coconut pecan filling (p. 759)

Fans, I know a lot of you are a bit hard-hearted and particularly like stories of TJOTJOC related disaster. You will be in for a real treat with this post.

I went to my father's house with the express intent of learning how to can and to do some canning, since that is a portion of the book in which I'm spectacularly behind. Dad took the day off of work for this endeavor, since my puppy was used to being left alone for that time, my mom wouldn't have to watch him, and he wouldn't be hassling us or causing destruction in dad's house. Unfortunately, he had to pick up my stepmother around 5 pm, so we started the day with a deadline.

And dad surprised me with a request. Since it was my brother's birthday, we should make him a cake! Of course, the cake had to be made with stuff that he either had on hand or could be easily bought in the tiny grocery store of his town. We settled (rather hilariously without asking the birthday boy) on German chocolate cake (p. 719). The decision to make a cake stressed me out because it limited our timeline even more. I was trying to fly through making the cake.

Of course, the little store didn't have cake flour (mistake 1 or M1) so we just used all-purpose flour (which he refused to sift [M2]), which was combined with baking soda and salt. In another bowl, baking chocolate was finely chopped (chop it VERY finely since you aren't heating it) and mixed with boiling water, with vanilla added once the chocolate was melted. In a third bowl, dad was supposed to beat butter until creamy and slowly add in sugar and egg yolks, which were added one at a time:



As you can see, buttermilk was being held in a measuring cup, as TJOC specified. On low speed, the chocolate was added to the sugar/egg mixture until incorporated. The flour mixture was added in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk, which was added in two parts (so it went flour, buttermilk, flour, buttermilk, flour):



The batter was actually looking pretty good at this point.

In another bowl, with clean beaters, Dad beat the egg whites with cream of tartar until they were stiff.



A third of the egg whites were folded in to the batter:



And when that was incorporated, the rest of the egg whites were folded in:


He totally forgot to add sugar (M3), which was supposed to be mixed in to the egg whites. It had to be folded in at this point (which I don't think really worked).

Dad poured the batter into pans before I noticed what he was doing. Instead of using three pans, he used two (M4). I knew that was going to be a problem, because when the pans are the wrong size, the batter tends not to cook correctly:




Because the cakes were baked in the wrong size pan, they had a number of problems. By the time the middle was cooked, the edges were overcooked. They overflowed the pan, which caused a layering problem. And they didn't come neatly out of the pan:



I had made the frosting earlier. Obviously, we chose Coconut pecan filling (p. 759), the traditional filling of German chocolate cake.

I combined sugar, heavy cream, egg yolks, and butter in a saucepan:



I cooked it over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture was thickened:



I then mixed in coconut and chopped pecans. Dad didn't have enough pecans, so like is so common in my family, we used a mixture of pecans and walnuts (M5).



The frosting actually looked good and tasted delicious. It had the perfect combination of caramelized sugar, coconut, and pecan flavors...perfection. I will use this recipe again. Of course, it was here another problem occurred (M6). I left the pot on a burner since it was finished but not needed yet. While heating up some water, dad flipped on the wrong burner. Guess which burner got flipped on? Of course, it was the burner with the frosting. We figured it out once the overwhelming stench of burning sugar came wafting through the air. Thankfully, just the bottom was burned and the rest of the frosting was salvageable (there wasn't enough coconut for another batch).

Honestly, tell me this isn't the ugliest cake you've ever seen?



I decided not to embarrass my brother by taking a picture of him with this monstrosity.

Apparently, the sides of German chocolate cake are supposed to be left unfrosted. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty good! The cake was dry (to be expected by the mishandling of the ingredients and the cake pan problem) but had a nice flavor and the frosting was actually pretty tasty (miraculously, not burnt tasting). Frankly, if the cake could make it through all those mistakes and not be absolutely terrible, I recommend the recipe, because if you make it correctly it should be awesome! My brother was a good sport about the whole thing.

Even the candles were sad:



They melted wax all over the cake so you had to pick around the wax while eating (final mistake). You can see how crumbly it was--that's from overbaking the cake due to the wrong pan size.

I hope some of you can add stories of cakes gone wrong.

Random facts:
German chocolate cake has absolutely nothing to do with Germany. Apparently Sam German, who was an American, worked for Baker's Chocolate and developed a type of dark baking chocolate. Baker's named their sweet chocolate after him. So it was Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate. A baker developed the cake in the 50's, calling it German's Chocolate Cake. Somewhere along the line the possessive got dropped (Wikipedia). So German chocolate cake has nothing to do with Germany. A new fact for you to share at your next dinner party!


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Strawberry shortcake (p. 733) and Cream biscuits or shortcakes (p. 639)

I had strawberries and desperately wanted strawberry shortcake. I love strawberry shortcake. In fact, I think strawberry shortcake is probably in my top four favorite desserts (the others being s'mores, ice cream cake, and chocolate lava cake). Unfortunately, I didn't have the little sponge bottoms or pound cake. I decided not to let that stop me and looked up Strawberry shortcake (p. 733)

TJOC gives a lot of choices for the "shortcake" part of the recipe. I chose to make Cream biscuits or shortcakes (p. 639).

The recipe was very simple. I whisked together flour, baking powder, and salt:



I added heavy cream (all at once):



I blended until the dry ingredients were just moistened. I kneaded it a few times:





And cut it in to squares (easier than rounds):



And baked:



Super easy. I think it took less than five minutes to make these biscuits (well, without the baking time).

Once my biscuits were done, the rest of the recipe was simple. I hulled my strawberries, mashed a quarter of them with a potato masher, and sliced the rest. I added sugar to the strawberries:



I whipped some cream. I cut the biscuits down the middle, filled the biscuits with strawberries, and plopped whipped cream over the top:



This is the first time I had ever eaten a biscuit based strawberry shortcake and I was pleasantly surprised. The biscuits were tender and flaky and surprisingly sweet for not having any added sugar. Josh adored them and ate them for days (he insisted they heated up well). I was really glad to start my biscuit making this way because they were so simple I'm actually looking forward to the others.

What's your favorite base for strawberry shortcake? Biscuits, sponge cake, pound cake, or something else?

Sadly, although I thought these were good and happily ate my fill, I like my strawberry shortcake with those little sponge cakes from the grocery store and Cool Whip just as well.