Beetle Newtons

THE OLD SCHOOL BAKING KICK CONTINUES

After the Beetle-O's of two weeks ago, I'm trying to think of what else I ate in potentially lethal amounts as a kid that I could reimagine as a relatively less-unhealthy, mature, poised, adult baked good.

Problem is that I wasn't allowed that much junk food. Or, any, really. I was the kid who had Soy Milk juiceboxes. I was the kid who had organic crunchy peanut butter on crusty french bread. I was the kid who begged for Fruit Rollups because all the cool kids would punch out and share the little shapey things (remember those?), and you were only cool if you could trade shapey things with the other cool kids at your lunch table (though let's face it, I definitely wasn't sitting at the cool kids lunch table). I begged for them. I got Fruit Leathers instead. Organic, leathery, ugly, definitely not capable of holding shapes of skateboarders or Snoopy or whatever it was at the time. Nobody wanted to trade with me. I ate them alone.

Once there was a school bake sale and you were supposed to bring money in and buy cookies for a quarter or whatever, and Mum gave me money folded in a napkin in my lunchbox (I DID have a Batman lunchbox, that was her nod to popular culture. Barbie = The Devil. Batman = Cool.) Except when I opened it I realised it was British money because she'd grabbed it from the wrong change jar and instead of quarters and dimes I had pounds and a 50 pence piece. And they wouldn't take it at the bake sale. I think eventually someone gave me a pity cookie after everything else had been sold.

Really, it's remarkable I survived past the sixth grade.

ANYWAY. Fig Newtons are definitely on the "comfort food from Beetle's childhood" list. And Mum likes Figs. So. Long story short.

BEETLE NEWTONS

I found this one on the webs after a surprisingly exhaustive search. For real, I expected the internet to be a FONT of Fig Newton recipes. I figured the mommy blogs would have completely cornered the Newton market. You know: whole grain, gluten free, nut free, dairy free, sugar/preservative/animal byproduct/you-name-it free, fair trade figs, locally grown in your rooftop garden figs, fig alternatives because DID YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS FIGS CAN BE FOR A DEVELOPING CHILD'S BRAIN??? etc etc etc. But google turned up more Date-Newtons than Fig, and even Martha Stewart didn't have one, which seemed like it would be straight up her alley. I eventually found this one at food52.com and it seemed relatively healthy and normal and devised by someone who wanted something tasty and fig based but who still had one food firmly planted in culinary reality.

BEETLE NEWTONS

INGREDIENTS
(I doubled the below and came up with about 40 Newtons)

• 1 1/2cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 10 tbs (1 1/4 sticks) butter, softened
• 2/3 cups brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Zest of one orange (or 1 tsp orange extract, which I used) 
• 1 pound dried figs, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 cup water

Beat the butter and brown sugar together in a mixmaster until fluffy. Add the eggs, vanilla, and orange zest/extract and beat on high a few minutes more. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl, and slowly add to the batter.

Put the chopped figs and water in a saucepan and bring it to a boil, stirring frequently, until the water is absorbed and the figs are very soft. Transfer to a food processor and (god, it's LOUD) pulse until you have a really thick, figgy paste. 

Pre insanely loud food processor. (for real, the cats HATE ME RIGHT NOW.)

The aforementioned "thick, figgy paste."

Divide the dough into 4 sections. Rolling out one at a time, shape each section into a rectangle about 4 inches wide by 12 inches long. Try to keep the edges as squared off as possible, smoosh it around with your fingers if you have to.

Using two spoons (or whatever makes your life easiest) spread 1/4 of the fig filling down the length of the rectangle, leaving a small margin of dough clear.

This is so that when you fold the dough over to pinch it you can pinch dough-on-dough. (see pictures)

At the end, you'll have a log of uncut Newtons with sort of a teardrop shape.

Like so. 

Transfer the log to a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough and the filling.

Bake the logs at 325 degrees for 15 minutes, give or take, until the edge of the end pieces are starting to go brown. When you take them out, slice them whilst they are still warm on the baking sheet. 

AND NOW FOR THE RANDOM PART OF THE DIRECTIONS. Immediately put the sliced Newtons into large Ziploc freezer bags, seal them, and let the bags rest and cool on wire racks. This, apparently, is so that the dough does not dry out as they cool. Let them cool completely before removing. 

I swear, this looks like something out of a crime show.
Or maybe that's just me and my TV habits.
I can't see anything through plastic without thinking of meat lockers and corpses . . . ?

NB: they are doing this as I type. I may have ruined them all. However, the reviews of the recipe seemed positive and not in any way to indicate that this was a really bad idea. For once in my life, I followed the instructions. We'll see. 

BEETLE NOTES

I have notes. I HAVE NOTES, YOU GUYS.

1. The whole "steaming" thing did not seem to have any adverse effects. So. That happened.

Stealth Raisins.
Also the name of a future cat.

2. These should be called "Fig and Raisin Newtons" because I only had 1/2 a pound of Figs I KNOW WHAT KIND OF A HUMAN BEING AM I THAT I ONLY HAVE 1/2 A POUND OF DRIED FIGS IN MY PANTRY ON A DAILY BASIS and so I made up the difference with raisins. I could have used dates, but in my brain raisins are closer to figs, so I went with those.

3. The biscuit dough has issues. It rolls and folds over fig paste and cuts like a DREAM but there are issues nonetheless. Taste issues. Specifically, a lack thereof. According to Mum, my long suffering taster, the dough is pretty firmly on the "bland" side of the field. I would very much like to make these again because they are easy and oh-so-pretty to look at it, but it's going to require some fiddling first.

There are 4 tsp of vanilla extract and 2 tsp of orange extract in there already. Maybe Cinnamon? Nutmeg? Ginger? Lemon or Almond extract? I don't think adding more sugar to the dough is the answer, making it sweeter won't solve the issue. But they definitely need "something" more. So. I will turn it over to the LL's for their input and take it back to the pastry board (ha! I'm funny) for deliberation.

In the meantime, to offset the blah, I've dusted them with powdered sugar. I think that everything, really, should be dusted with powdered sugar. It's pretty, it's fun to do, and I've yet to encounter a situation where a liberal sprinkling did NOT enhance the taste. So I thought maybe until I figure out the answer to the above dough question, it would serve as a stopgap.

A sugary, snowy stopgap.

There are worse things, I suppose. 

Cold Weather Emergency Brownies*

*name TBD

So. It's really cold. I know we had that whole Polar Vortex of Death thing last week, but honestly I wasn't that impressed (even though Channel 7 STORM FORCE COVERAGE was incessant and thorough, complete with bar graphs, gifs, and poor weathermen [excuse me, "meteorologists"] who'd drawn the short straw huddled in front of the camera in a down parka and yelling into their microphones: "Yes. I can report that it's COLD."). Yeah, it was freezing, but after all the hype and the stupid youtube trend of people throwing hot water into the air and more often than not burning themselves, it really just seemed like a lot of unnecessary fuss.

This week, after the storm-that-wasn't, the temperature isn't anywhere near PV category, but for some reason it feels worse. Perhaps it is the lack of snow that has the pretty-factor to detract from bone-chilling temperatures? Perhaps I have mysteriously gotten less hardy and Yankee-y in the last 14 days? Perhaps it is, as the, ahem, meteorologists, are so fond of saying, due to the wind chill? My grandfather thought wind chill was the biggest crock ever. Every time the news mentioned freezing weather he would drop whatever he was doing, turn to the television, and yell "OH. PLEASE. TELL US WHAT THE WIND CHILL IS. I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR WHAT THE WIND CHILL IS. HEY, EVERYONE COME GATHER ROUND WE'RE GETTING A WIND CHILL UPDATE." (etc. etc. etc.)

Well, Gramps, I love you, but I gotta say:

Wind Chill is real. And it HURTS.

It hurts just LISTENING to the wind. Honestly, yesterday I was sitting in my fleece and Forever Lazy, on a heating pad, with a blanket and a cat wrapped around me, and I swear I got a chill just from the noise outside. It's terrifying.

Driving from the gym this morning I was rendered completely deaf by the presence of not one but TWO hoods pulled over my head, which, incidentally, also reduces your peripheral vision to that of a myopic shrew. You actually have to turn your ENTIRE body to see and/or hear and wearing a seat belt that's kind of impossible. Mum asked me the same question four times, but I couldn't turn far enough in the passenger seat to look at her and after the fifth "What?" shouted at the dashboard straight ahead of me she gave up in disgust. (I think it was something about the Geneva 2 talks, but honestly it could have been that we need to buy kitty litter, I have no idea.)

DON'T WORRY, DUDE. YOU'RE GONNA BE FINE.
JUST HAVE A BITE OF BROWNIE AND
 LET'S GET THE HELL OFF THIS MOUNTAIN.

I don't know what to call these yet. On the one hand, I'd like to call them "Dinosaur Brownies" or "T-Rex Brownies" because they are what I imagine dinosaurs or T-Rexes would eat were such a thing hypothetically and temporally possible. They're stuffed with nuts and unsweetened chips and therefore giant mouthfuls of crunchy, chewy, fudge. You know, the brownies they would eat to finish off a light supper of Triceratops.

On the other hand, seeing as how a large impetus behind baking them was an excuse to turn the oven on for a bit, and seeing as how, were you rendered immobile by the wind chill, this is what I think the EMT's would bring you along with your shiny aluminum blanket. Or, you know, the St. Bernard dog would have these in that little barrel around his neck instead of brandy. So there's a part of me that wants to call them "Emergency Brownies", or "Rescue Brownies" or something silly like that.


I DON'T KNOW, YOU GUYS. I NEED HELP WITH THIS, CLEARLY.

Regardless.

COLD WEATHER EMERGENCY T-REX DINOSAUR RESCUE BROWNIES

These are my basic go-to brownie recipe enhanced with things I consider to be essential to sustaining life and/or will to live in sub arctic temperatures. And when I want a basic go-to brownie, to whom do I turn? Why Nigella Lawson of course. I've yet to find a gooier, fudgier, more decadent one, and until I do, this is my default. The below is with the additions I made yesterday and according adjustments. But the basic recipe is that of the Domestic Goddess herself.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 2/3 cups soft unsalted butter
• 13 ounces bittersweet chocolate (or, if you are my pantry, 12 oz bittersweet and 1 oz semisweet) 
• 6 eggs
• 1 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• scant 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups mixed nuts (I did walnuts, peanuts, almonds, hazelnuts, cashews)
• 4 oz roughly chopped unsweetened chocolate

Melt the butter and bittersweet chocolate together in a large bowl (microwaves make everything easier here, plus the heating happens evenly, plus the bowl is easier to clean than a saucepan), stirring until everything is just melted and nice and combined. It should look really satiny and have a nice reflection.

You know when this is the beginning of your recipe that it's going to be a good day.

Beat the eggs and sugar together in a mixmaster until fluffy. Measure out the flour and salt in a separate bowl.

When the chocolate mixture isn't crazy hot anymore, beat it into the egg/sugar mixture, then the flour mixture. I ended up using probably 1 1/4 cup flour because I was going nut and chocolate chip heavy and I didn't want to make them too chewy.

After first flour addition.

And, slightly paler, after second.

Stir in the nuts, followed by the unsweetened chips. Mix until everything is evenly distributed. This is the part where if you have someone in the kitchen with you they get to lick the spatula and love you forever.

Butter a rectangular tin (brownie or similar) and pour the batter in. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes until they are dark at the edges but still bubbly in the centre. A toothpick stuck into the middle should just come out clean because you want these to be squishy and glorious. Let them cool in the pan before slicing and packaging up for the LL's in your life.

BEETLE NOTES

So far, the reports from the LL's have been favourable. I have yet to get the full debrief from them so I'll let you know. Mum said they were good but since she's not a massive chocolate/brownie person her opinion is naturally going to be fairly blasé and completely unhelpful. ("Mum, "they're fine" is a spectacularly useless response." "Well, ok then, they're good! I don't know. Stop harassing me you make me nervous.")

The batter was essentially chocolate mousse, much thicker than normal, which, considering I cut back on the flour makes no sense, and I'm trying to think why. Maybe it was the heating of the chocolate, maybe I did it better this time so it was creamier? Or maybe the eggs were smaller? Huh. The below is what the pan looked like before I had to physically spread it out with a spatula. 

Huh. Mystery. 

The unsweetened chips were an idea I stole from the Dark Chocolate Espresso Cookies I made a while ago. I wanted to give these a little bit of a bite, and I couldn't think of a better way to do it. The nuts were because I felt like if you were going to eat a brownie right now, you'd probably want it to be packed full of crunchy-slightly-salty bits that would balance out the pitch-dark-chocolateness. Also, nuts make you live longer. So really, I'm just helping everyone here.

One delicious handful at a time.

I baked them in a slightly larger brownie tin than normal, which means they are slightly thinner than they would be. But, given the wallop they pack, it's probably not a bad thing. 

Slightly thinner. No less decadent.

From what I could tell slicing and packing, these are definitely high on the fudge scale. They cut like a dream, without being too crumbly or flaky. The tops of them have those gorgeous little bubbles that only appear when what is just below the surface is squishy and gooey and oh-so-good.

Bubbles of awesome.

I did get to stand next to the oven for a while, which made my life considerably better. And then I did end up disinfecting the microwave. Which led to a reorganisation of the silverware drawers, the knife drawer, the kitchen tool drawer, and the kitchen-tools-we-don't-use-everyday drawer, which, at the end of it all, I was still insanely cold, but the kitchen smelled like brownies and everything was in its proper place and I felt much better about life in general.

So perhaps these brownies were Cold Weather Emergency Brownies after all. 

I'M NOT READY TO NAME THEM OFFICIALLY YET. I'M JUST SAYING. 

Buns for a Quiet January Afternoon*

*By "quiet January afternoon" I mean as quiet as one can be when one has to break off kneading dough to repeatedly yell the cat off the dining room table, answer and respond to ALL CAPS TEXTS furiously discussing Tuesday's episode of Pretty Little Liars, listen first to the washing machine spin cycle on the crooked laundry room floor (bangbangbangbang) and then the dryer with zippers and buckles smacking the inside at every revolution (clankclankclankclank), and also watch an episode of Top Gear one has seen fourteen times already but still wants to watch, at a volume loud enough to hear over the mixmaster.

So. Right.

Quiet January Afternoon.

The first time I ever had Cardamom Buns was in Stockholm, in the basement cafe of NK (Nordiska Kompaniet), the beyond wonderful department store in the heart of the city. Imagine Bendels, Saks, Bergdorf, Crabtree & Evelyn, Balthazar, and your favourite bookstore rolled into one gorgeous turn-of-the-century-Swedish-architecture building, and that's what you'd get. It's pretty much one of the best places on earth.

The life changing buns in question are, at NK and in Sweden in general, served larger than the ones I made, and stuffed with whipped cream.

You read that right. I'll give you a moment to process.

I brought a box back to my aunt and uncle's house that night, and my cousin Will and I sat at the kitchen table and ate our way through the entire thing. Bun by glorious bun. You know in Harry Potter when it's said that one of things that bonds you for life is "knocking out a 12-foot mountain troll"? This was kind of the same thing. After systematically demolishing all of them, we were pretty much BFFs.

But back to the buns.

CARDAMOM BUNS
or
BUNS FOR A (RELATIVELY) QUIET JANUARY AFTERNOON

This is a half portion of Trina Hahnemann's recipe in The Scandinavian Cookbook, which is an utterly drool-inducing trip through 12 months of Scandinavian cooking. Cardamom Buns are technically in the February chapter, but I figured Trina would forgive me just this once.

 INGREDIENTS

• 1 oz (4 packets) yeast
• 1 1/2 cups milk, heated and cooled to room temperature
• 2 tbs butter, melted
• roughly 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1 egg, beaten

Dissolve the yeast into the milk in a mixing bowl, and add the melted butter. Sift the flour, sugar, salt, and cardamom together and stir the dry ingredients into the milk mixture.

Either with your hands or with a dough hook, knead the dough, adding more flour as necessary until it comes cleanly from the edges of the bowl.

*a note on the flour measurement: Trina uses pounds as a flour measurement here, which freaked me out a little bit. Especially since Google and Wikipedia, usually so helpful, seemed to have differing opinions on just how many cups were in a pound. An average of 10 different consensi (plural of consensus? I'm going with it) told me it was somewhere in the range of 3 3/4 cups. So with that in mind, be prepared to add flour if the dough is too sticky, and add it slowly so that you don't go overboard. As I said above, I started with 3 cups, and slowly added another cup until the dough was a good consistency.

Pounds. Huh. I suppose that's what you get for Scandinavian Winter Farmhouse Comfort Baking.

Put the dough into a large bowl, cover, and let it rise for an hour. Turn it out onto the counter and knead it again.

This is where you make a decision about what shape buns you want. I decided to make small pull-aparts, since they were going to the LL's and since the sight of dough buns stuffed up against each other in a baking tin makes me inexplicably content.

See? Contentedness Achieved.

If you want bigger buns, go right ahead and shape larger circular ones. I put them in a buttered 9 x 13 pan, but Trina says "on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper" so it's every man, woman, and Beetle for themselves, really.

Let them rise again for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, turn the oven to 400 degrees, and brush each bun with a bit of the beaten egg. Bake them for 20 - 25 minutes until golden and shiny.

BEETLE NOTES

These are what you make when it's foggy and cold, quiet and clear, and there is still snow on the ground. If you can swing it, as I did last night, having a full moon rising overhead doesn't hurt either. I imagine Cardamom Buns are made in Scandinavia in February because it's still dark almost all the time, really really cold, and you've probably just shoveled your front walk for the 80 millionth time since New Year and could really use a warm and spicy pick-me-up.

And now I have to make a cardamom-based confession. I mentioned above that I halved the recipe. In my excitement about baking with cardamom (I can't help it! I love it!), and because I normally double the spices, I used 2 teaspoons instead of 1. This might have been overkill. [hangs horns in shame]

The LL-Jury has yet to report back, but according to Mum it's a bit too much. Oops. I can tell you that with the addition of jam the flavour is somewhat muted, but with only butter, it's a wee bit overpowering. I contemplated telling Mum she was just a wimp and clearly not make of strong enough stock, and that any proper Scandinavian woman worth her salt would have robust enough taste buds to handle an additional teaspoon of cardamom (for REAL) but decided that she was probably right. Sigh.

Which, really, is just proof that a) Trina Hahnemann knows what she's doing, which I totally figured out already, the woman is a Norse goddess and b) if you're going to half a recipe, Beetle, make sure you half the whole thing and not half selectively.

On the plus side, the dough itself is fluffy and moist. The buns pull apart from their neighbours quite cleanly, and they toast without going all rock-cake-like or burny.

So barring the cardamom over-enthusiasm, these are scheduled for a repeat. Mum had them with coffee this morning (because morning = coffee or death), but I have a feeling that when afternoon rolls around she's going to break into the hot chocolate. Because why not. I mean, if Trina says so . . .

It's probably a good thing we don't have any whipping cream in the house, actually, now I come to think of it.

Probably a very good thing indeed.