Before I go any further, I have to profess my love for Deb at Smitten Kitchen. I mean really, what's not to love about a woman to wants to bake scones and brownies in the middle of August? Personally, I'm all for it and I find her website really inspiring. There's nothing like seeing a beautiful baked good appear on her blog and knowing that's exactly what I will be cooking tonight.

And I admire that Deb cooks from a variety of sources and so you can't really blame her if there is a stinker every now and then. I had big plans for the North Fork Scones, but they just didn't live up my expectations. I mixed the dough in my Cuisinart and everything seemed to be going great until I added the milk and fresh fruit at the very end, just like I was instructed. Suddenly the dough turned all mushy and way too wet. I kept mixing in the food processor hoping in vain to achieve a better texture but all I got was pink dough now that the fruit had been over-processed. Despite the fact that the fruit got mixed through, the rest of the ingredients did not. I ended up with pink muffin that had a bizarrely uneven texture. Not quite what I was looking for.

Here's the issue for me: I need to start following my own rules. I am proud that I have moved beyond blindly adhering to recipes when I have plenty of available ingredients for substitution. Now I think that I have gone too far to the other side and especially in the realm of baking. As my Mother says, "Cooking is an art, but Baking is a science." If one follows the directions or ingredients list a bit too loosely than all you end up with is.... pink muffins.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies (According to the New York Times)

When the New York Times published an article entitled "Perfection? Hint: It's Warm and Has a Secret," I could not resist the siren song of the Best. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. Ever.

After undertaking a lot of research into the realms of Chocolate Chip Cookies everywhere, the article makes a number of recommendations. First off was the idea to use chocolate discs, not chips, to create many different layers of chocolate through out the cookie. Secondly the article proposes that by making very large cookies, the cookies are able to achieve a wonderful texture that incorporates multiple levels of chewiness. I, however, used the semi sweet chocolate chips that I already had on hand and made normal sized cookies. Naturally I ended up with about 45 cookies out of a batch for only 18 giant cookies. However I think that might be a good thing because when only 18 cookies are made from the recipe, each cookie is nearly 500 calories!

The final suggestion from the Times was to refrigerate the dough for at least 12 hours, but ideally 36 hours. Since I had already ignored the first two suggestions, I did manage to fit all of the dough in my refrigerator. After 36 hours of refrigeration, I sprinkled sea salt on top before baking and the (normal sized) cookies turned out fabulous. The sea salt really does add a lot to the flavor of the final product and might be what I take away from the recipe.

Given the immense amount of research that the Times actually put into the art of chocolate chip cookies, I think that is a reason in itself to try out this recipe. And once you try it, I'm sure your friends and family will appreciate all of the cookies that you will be giving away!

Perfection? Hint: It's Warm and Has a Secret

Where to start?

As I intend to chronicle my foibles and successes in the kitchen, I suppose that the best place to start is with some Zen.  And in this case that would be the Zen Bars I made last night.  

Now most people would call these Seven Layer Bars, Magic Bars, or even (as I noticed in Cooking Light recently) Hello Dolly Bars, but the recipe I choose from CHOW called them Zen Bars.  From the start I was intrigued by the name as well as the Asian flavor that the combination of ginger and white sesame seeds added to the bars.  The cooking was pretty simple as far as achieving a Zen-like state of mind goes.  Mix graham cracker crumbs with butter for a nice crust.  Add a mix of ginger, coconut and almonds.  Then sprinkle with chocolate chips and sesame seeds and drizzle with sweetened condensed milk.  

Overall, these were delicious but a little tricky to get out of the pan.  Next time I would use a bit more butter to keep the crust solid and be sure to coat the wax paper I lined in the pan with some cooking spray.  

Here is the link!

As I get more comfortable with the blog format, I intend to start adding photos from the recipes as well.  Stay tuned and in the meantime let me know if you have all suggestions!