I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
Baking books can be dangerous for me. Dangerous in that I’m tempted to bake my way through them, marking more pages than I leave unmarked and wanting to start multiple recipes at the same time. Little Flower Baking was definitely in this category. It’s the latest from Christine Moore of LA’s Little Flower Cafe, and I received a review copy. The style of baking here is familiar and comforting with a few surprising flavors and twists. The scones include versions like Peach Ricotta, Plum Ginger, Strawberry Basil, and Curry Pineapple. I was dizzy from the pies, fruit-filled tarts, layer cakes and simpler cakes, muffins, vegan and gluten-free options, and then came the cookies chapter. I absolutely have to try the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies made with two different types of dough that get smooshed together to form each cookie. And, the Chai Sugar Cookies and White Chocolate Chai Cookies have my complete attention as well. I actually went straight to the kitchen when I saw the Pink Peppercorn Hibiscus Shortbread and made these lovely wedges cut from a round that was topped with a mix of sanding sugar and ground dried hibiscus flowers. They were so pretty with the sparkling, red-pink sugar on top. I haven’t even started telling you about the Savories chapter yet. The Savory Muffins each have a whole egg baked into them and cheddar melted on top, and the Potato Tart looks delicious with the slices circling the top and baked until golden. But my weakness for all things pretzel could not be overcome when I saw the Buttermilk Pretzel Rolls.
This was the puffiest, funnest dough to work with, quite possibly, that I’ve ever encountered. At first, I worried that the amount of yeast in the recipe was a typo because two tablespoons for this quantity of dough seemed like a lot, but the result was just as it should be. The dough was made with the yeast, buttermilk, vegetable oil, water, bread flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and salt. There’s not enough sugar for the dough to be truly sweet, but there is a hint of sweetness and the sugar adds to the browning of the rolls. The dough was mixed in a stand mixer for almost 20 minutes until smooth. It is a sticky dough that requires a bowl scraper to transfer it to an oiled bowl to rise. It was left to rest for about an hour. Now, in addition to the pretzel roll recipe in the book, there’s also a pretzel dog recipe. It’s kind of like a pig in blanket with pretzel dough criss-crossed around a hot dog. I had to try a few of those too. I divided the dough to make several plain rolls, and then I used some remaining dough to blanket little chicken breakfast sausages for mini chicks in blankets. There’s one of those in the photo below. For the rolls, the dough was portioned, rolled into six-inch long pieces, and then knotted into a round shape. Both the rolls and chicks in blankets were then poached in boiling water mixed with baking soda and brown sugar. After a few seconds of poaching, the rolls were placed on baking sheets, brushed with vegetable oil, and sprinkled with extra coarse salt. They were baked for about 24 minutes total.
The rolls emerged from the oven a deep, golden, pretzel-brown, and the texture was delightfully tender. And, the chicks in blankets? They couldn’t have been more fun to dip into grainy mustard before biting into the salt-topped blankets. I may need to step away from the kitchen before every surface is covered with scones and cookies, but I’ll be back to bake more from this book soon.
Buttermilk Pretzel Rolls Recipe reprinted with publisher's permission from Little Flower Baking. The aroma of soft pretzels and roasting chestnuts from a street cart in New York City meant a great day at Central Park or a museum visit. Memories from childhood are so powerful and comforting. Making these pretzel rolls every day in the cafe keeps those memories alive.
Makes 16
Dough 2 tablespoons (18g) active dry yeast 1 1⁄2 cups (333g) warm water, 95 to 110 degrees F 1⁄2 cup + 2 tablespoons (140g) buttermilk 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon grapeseed oil 5 cups (600g) bread flour, plus more for dusting 1⁄3 cup (71g) golden brown sugar, packed 2 teaspoons granulated sugar 1 tablespoon sea salt 1⁄2 cup (100g) grapeseed oil, plus more to coat bowl 3 tablespoons pretzel salt or coarse sea salt
Poaching Liquid 6 tablespoons (108g) baking soda 1 cup (213g) golden brown sugar, packed 3 cups (666g) water
Place yeast and warm water in a small bowl and whisk until yeast dissolves. Set aside until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add buttermilk and oil. Set wet mixture aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine flour, sugars, and salt on lowest speed for 15 seconds. Add wet mixture all at once and mix on lowest speed until dough is smooth and tacky, 15 to 20 minutes.
Lightly coat a medium bowl with grapeseed oil. Transfer dough to the oiled bowl. Flip the dough so it is coated with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
Line 2 sheet pans with parchment paper and brush paper with oil. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface.
Divide dough into 16 even portions, each about the size of a tennis ball. Roll each portion into a 6- to 7-inch rope. Tie each rope into a simple knot. Set pretzel rolls onto the sheet pans.
Preheat oven to 375°. To make poaching liquid, combine baking soda, brown sugar, and water in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.
Set up a small bowl with 1⁄2 cup grapeseed oil, a pastry brush, and a small bowl of pretzel salt.
Once poaching liquid foams, begin poaching. Use a slotted or perforated spoon to submerge 3 pretzel rolls for 8 seconds. Remove from saucepan and place onto sheet pan, leaving at least 1 1⁄2 inches of space between each roll. Brush each roll with oil and sprinkle with a pinch of pretzel salt. Continue to poach the remaining pretzel rolls in same manner.
Bake poached pretzel rolls until golden, about 12 minutes. Rotate pan and continue baking until darker golden brown, about 12 more minutes.
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I’ve mentioned my to-try stack of recipes, but there’s actually more than one stack. There’s the physical stack of pages cut from magazines, there’s also a list of links I keep in Evernote, and there’s a board of recipes to try on Pinterest. It’s a little crazy to have to look in three places for ideas I know I put somewhere as a reminder to myself, but I usually eventually find what I’m looking for. A couple of weeks ago, I was searching for new-to-me brownie ideas. We were getting ready to attend an annual party, and more often than not, I take brownies to this party. This time, I wanted to change it up and take brownies with a twist of some kind. I wasn’t finding anything earth-shatteringly unique in my books. That’s when I remembered I had stored the link last year for this Guinness Brownies with Butterscotch Fudge recipe from The Little Epicurean. I admit, it’s the butterscotch fudge that grabbed my attention as butterscotch always does, and the pretzels on top just made me more intrigued. The recipe makes a lot of brownies in a nine- by thirteen-inch pan as opposed to the typical brownie recipe size of baking in an eight- or nine-inch square pan. So, this was perfect for a party.
Making the brownies is an easy process that starts with melting chocolate with butter and then adding granulated and dark brown sugar. That mixture is then transferred to the bowl of a stand mixer, and eggs are added and mixed in one at a time. Flour, cocoa powder, and salt were sifted together and then added to the batter alternating with Guinness. Last, chocolate chips were folded in before pouring the batter into a parchment-lined baking pan. After the brownies baked for about 30 minutes and cooled, the butterscotch fudge frosting was made. Butter was melted with dark brown sugar in a saucepan. It was left to simmer for a couple of minutes, and then salt was added off the heat. With a stand mixer, confectioners’ sugar, cream, and vanilla were mixed, and then the butter and sugar mixture was incorporated and mixed until smooth. The fudge frosting was spread over the cooled brownies, and pretzels were added on top.
Explaining that these brownies were Guinness brownies was all most people needed to hear before grabbing one or two. And, the addition of Guinness did bring about a lovely, tender, cakey brownie. The sweet butterscotch fudge frosting and the salty, crunchy pretzels on top were ideal embellishments. The tray of brownies was empty long before the party ended.
Show me a cookie or type of candy with a crunchy, salty ingredient, like pretzels for instance, and I'm sold. When sweet and salty are together in a recipe, I almost always have to try it. These shortbread bars make use of the pretzels in two ways. Rather than just topping the cookie bars with broken pieces of pretzels, ground pretzel crumbs also make up part of the dry ingredients in the dough. I found this recipe in last October's issue of Living magazine, and then I had to take it a step or two further. After making the cookie dough and pressing the broken pretzel pieces into it, I thought some dry roasted, salted peanuts would be at home there as well. Then, after baking, I felt the need to gild the bars with a drizzle of melted chocolate. The salty-sweet flavor thing is a success here, but there's a bonus with the pretzel flavor that was worked into the shortbread with the crumbs. Whether you keep these simple or start adding the extras like I did, these are very worth trying.
The bars were baked in a rectangular tart pan with a removable bottom, and that shape was very easy to cut straight across into pieces. First, some pretzels were pulsed in a food processor until powdery. One half cup of the pretzel powder was added to flour and baking powder for the dry ingredient mix. Then, more pretzels were coarsely chopped in the food processor. Butter and sugar were combined in a mixer, and then an egg yolk was added followed by the dry ingredients and then some of the coarsely chopped pretzels. The dough was pressed into the tart pan and topped with the remaining chopped pretzels which were pressed into the surface. At this point, I added a handful or two of dry roasted peanuts and pressed them into the dough as well. The shortbread baked for about 30 minutes and was left to cool. I melted some bittersweet chocolate and drizzled it over the cooled cookie tart.
Caramel, peanut butter, and cookies all work for me in this arena of mixing salty and sweet. And, I'm sure I'll repeat this topic sooner or later because there's a tart with a pretzel crust I've been meaning to try for years. I might have to start a sub-section in my recipe file just for sweets with pretzels.
I have a hard time wrapping my brain around this, but my spin instructor actually complains about losing weight in the heat of the summer. Personally, I can’t imagine ever being unhappy about shedding an extra pound or two, but apparently for him, when it’s hot outside and he’s teaching several spin classes a week and can’t maintain his normal weight, it’s annoying. He dropped a hint about how since I do a lot of baking, some cookies might help with his weight loss issue. That sounded like a perfect trade-off to me. I go to him to burn calories, and he comes to me to consume calories. I used this opportunity to try the cowboy cookies from Baked Explorations, and I’m so glad to have gotten to know these particular cookies. After baking a batch and taking them to the gym, just a few days later, I was pulling out the book to bake them again for a birthday. It could have been the hint of espresso in the cookies that works wonders with the chocolate chunks, but really it was probably the salty pretzels that are stirred into the dough that made me like these cookies so much.
This is a cookie dough that needs to rest and firm up in the refrigerator, so you do have to plan ahead. The dry ingredients were whisked together, and those included flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Oats were then added to that mix. Butter was creamed with granulated sugar and dark brown sugar, and an egg, egg yolk, and then vanilla were added. Espresso powder was dissolved in hot water, and that was mixed into the butter mixture. The dry ingredients were stirred into the dough, and last, chocolate chunks and broken pretzel pieces were added. The dough was left in the refrigerator for about four hours. After scooping balls of dough onto the cookie sheets, more broken pretzel pieces were pressed into the top of each dough ball. The cookies baked for twelve or so minutes, and then I wanted to eat them all.
Crunchy, chewy, chocolaty, and slightly salty cookies work for me. Now, I’ll be looking for just about any excuse to bake these again. But, since I’m not in need of increasing my calorie intake, I guess I’ll have to find a way to attend some extra spin classes.
This looked a sure-fire idea when I saw it in the January issue of Living magazine. There’s no way a mix of salty pretzels, creamy, fresh peanut butter, and rich, melted chocolate could go wrong. The one-page article was about fresh hard pretzels sold at farmers’ markets. I’d never seen pretzels at our local markets, but I definitely would have bought them if I had. I checked with my friend Kristi, from Austin Farm to Table, who visited several farmers’ markets in different parts of the country last year, and she had only seen pretzels at a market in New York. I’m curious if anyone else gets to buy locally made pretzels at farmers’ markets, or if it’s just the lucky people of New York? Well, regardless of where you get the pretzels, and I found some very good ones at the grocery store, these candies are still going to be outstanding. They’re simple to make and highly addictive.
So, I bought some big, crunchy pretzels and proceeded to smash them which just seemed wrong even though it was necessary here. The crushed pretzel bits were combined with creamy, natural peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, and a little room-temperature butter. All of that was stirred together, and then one inch balls were formed and set on a tray. The tray was placed in the freezer for 30 minutes to let the peanut butter become firm. Then, it was chocolate dipping time. I used milk chocolate, but you could use whatever you prefer. I like El Rey milk chocolate which has a slightly higher cacao percentage than others. After dipping each candy piece and before the chocolate completely set, I sprinkled sea salt on top.
I’ve been craving peanut butter lately anyway, but still, these candies were especially delicious. The little chunks of pretzel encased in mounds of peanut butter inside a chocolate coating were snacking bliss. I should probably conduct some experiments with almond, cashew, and pecan butter just to determine if any one of those is better than peanut butter. And, if I locate any locally made hard pretzels, I’ll try those too.
When I read a cookbook, I always take mental notes of the things I really, really want to make. Admittedly, I have a messy, confused pile of notes in my head at this point, but I eventually remember them when an occasion for each arrives. Sometimes it takes a while though. I’ve had the lovely and thorough Martha Stewart's Hors D'oeuvres Handbook since 1999, and I just finally made the pretzel bites that looked so tasty when I first saw them in that book over ten years ago. There’s one less note cluttering up my brain now. I feel better. It’s nice to make room in there for new notes. I remember when I first saw these addictive, little snacks. They looked great for a party, and I thought they’d partner perfectly with ice cold beer. We had a few friends over for happy hour at our house a couple of weeks ago, and I got to try these mini pretzels at last. They’re made from an easy dough that’s cut into bite-sized pieces that are boiled and baked. You can top them however you choose, and I made two versions using grated parmesan for one and a mixture of crushed fennel seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, and salt for the other.
The yeast dough, which was very much like pizza dough, was made in a stand mixer, and then it was kneaded on a floured board until smooth. It was left to rise for about an hour and a half. The dough was divided into 16 portions which were each rolled into a rope and then cut into three-quarter inch pieces. The pieces were boiled in batches of about 15 at a time for one minute in water with baking soda added, and then they were placed on oiled baking sheets. The boiled pieces were brushed with an egg wash, topped as desired, and then baked in a 450 degree F oven for about 15 minutes.
This recipe makes a lot of pretzel bites, but they do disappear quickly. It’s impossible to stop popping them into your mouth when they’re warm from the oven. They’re soft on the inside with a little crunch on the surface, and the salty toppings keep you coming back for more. The only criticism I have is that they’re not as amazing after they’ve sat for a few hours and even less so the next day. Re-warming them in the oven for about five minutes fixes that by bringing back that nice surface crunch, so I recommend it before serving if you’ve made them in advance. Then, don’t bother counting how many you’ve eaten, just refill the tray as needed.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
was definitely in this category. It’s the latest from Christine Moore of LA’s Little Flower Cafe, and I received a review copy. The style of baking here is familiar and comforting with a few surprising flavors and twists. The scones include versions like Peach Ricotta, Plum Ginger, Strawberry Basil, and Curry Pineapple. I was dizzy from the pies, fruit-filled tarts, layer cakes and simpler cakes, muffins, vegan and gluten-free options, and then came the cookies chapter. I absolutely have to try the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies made with two different types of dough that get smooshed together to form each cookie. And, the Chai Sugar Cookies and White Chocolate Chai Cookies have my complete attention as well. I actually went straight to the kitchen when I saw the Pink Peppercorn Hibiscus Shortbread and made these lovely wedges cut from a round that was topped with a mix of sanding sugar and ground dried hibiscus flowers. They were so pretty with the sparkling, red-pink sugar on top. I haven’t even started telling you about the Savories chapter yet. The Savory Muffins each have a whole egg baked into them and cheddar melted on top, and the Potato Tart looks delicious with the slices circling the top and baked until golden. But my weakness for all things pretzel could not be overcome when I saw the Buttermilk Pretzel Rolls. 
, and I’m so glad to have gotten to know these particular cookies. After baking a batch and taking them to the gym, just a few days later, I was pulling out the book to bake them again 
