Brown Butter & Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

BBToffe ChocChipCookies

I was cleaning out the drawers in my kitchen today, a task I hate and do only when I notice crumbs in the silverware divider (HOW IN THE WORLD DO CRUMBS GET INTO THE SILVERWARE DIVIDER WHEN THE SILVERWARE IS CLEAN?), and found a recipe I’d printed out last year but never made.  Truth be told, there were dozens of recipe print-outs, torn out magazine pages, a few cooking magazines, some torn off box tops with recipes and a few odd labels with the same.

After washing out the divider and putting everything, except all of the recipes, back into the drawers I was drawn back to this recipe and put it squarely on top of the pile to be made next.  #ThisGirlLovesToEat

There are a lot of things to like about these cookies, but one or two that could be cons for some:

  • They don’t pretend to skimp on calories or fat
  • They aren’t your run-of-the-mill chocolate chip cookies
  • They have buttery toffee in them
  • They call for chocolate discs instead of normal chips
  • Salt is a featured flavor
  • Con 1: They require extra time to prepare
  • Con 2: The ingredients cost more than everyday chocolate chip cookies
  • Con 3: The recipe makes fewer than 2 dozen cookies – cost per cookie is definitely special occasion or want to impress someone level

It’s really important you know how to make brown butter, so I went to America’s Test Kitchen to get a video to help us all out:

Brown Butter & Toffee Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
  • ⅓ cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 chocolate toffee bars (Heath or Skor), chopped into ¼-inch pieces
  • 1½ cups chocolate wafers (disks, pistoles, fèves; preferably 72% cacao)
  • Flaky sea salt
    Cook butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, until it foams, then browns, 5–8 minutes. Scrape into a large bowl and let cool slightly.

    Meanwhile, whisk flour, baking soda, and kosher salt in a medium bowl.

    Add brown sugar and granulated sugar to browned butter. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat until incorporated, about 1 minute. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until mixture lightens and begins to thicken, about 30 seconds. Reduce mixer speed to low; add dry ingredients and beat just to combine. Mix in toffee pieces and chocolate wafers with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Let dough sit at room temperature at least 30 minutes to allow the flour to hydrate. Dough will look very loose at first, but will thicken as it sits.

    Place a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 375°. Using a 1½-oz. ice cream scoop, portion out 10 balls of dough and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing about 3″ apart (you can also form dough into ping pong–sized balls with your hands). Do not flatten; cookies will spread as they bake. Sprinkle with sea salt.

    Bake cookies until edges are golden brown and firm but centers are still soft, 9–11 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough and a fresh parchment-lined baking sheet to make 10 more cookies.

    Do Ahead: Cookie dough can be made 3 days ahead; cover and chill. Let dough come to room temperature before baking.

Keep the Protein in Cooked Salmon

albuminWe’ve all noticed it, the white stuff that oozes out of our salmon no matter how long or short we cook it, whether poached, baked or grilled.  It really ruins the presentation. I have always wondered if it’s normal, and what I did wrong to make my salmon not look as pretty as it is when served to me at a restaurant.

What is that white stuff?

It’s called albumin, which is coagulated protein that is escaping the salmon filet because you (ok I) didn’t take 10 minutes to prep the fish properly to minimize this loss of protein.

What’s the 10 minute fix?

America’s Test Kitchen came up with a simple solution for keeping more if the protein inside the fish you are preparing:

  • 10 minutes in a basic brine solution (about 1 tablespoon of salt per cup of water) before cooking.  “The salt partially dissolves the muscle fibers near the surface of the flesh, so that when cooked they congeal without contracting and squeezing out albumin.”

It’s that easy to preserve your dinner’s nutrients and keep the salmon looking pretty.

Once you’ve brined your salmon, you can finish prepping your filets for the oven or grill and/or stuff them then poach, grill, or bake as you choose.

I’m making salmon for dinner tonight and am definitely going to let my filets spend a few minutes swimming in a zip bag filled with salt water.  Sounds painless to me.

Are you on Facebook?  You might be interested in the things I may not devote an entire blog post to: recipes, food facts, nutritional information, photos and other things that make my mouth water. I may not write a blog post every day, but there are daily updates to my This Girl Loves To Eat community at: https://www.facebook.com/ThisGirlLovesHerFood

 

The Fridge Isn’t the Best Place to Keep Bacon

This article comes courtesy of Business Insider .

My motto is, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”  Well, that and, “If the Baby/Puppy/Parent (lol) is sleeping, DON’T WAKE IT!” Rebecca Harrington of Tech Insider got this one exactly right, so enjoy this great little piece on how to preserve that delicacy which makes just about everyone (sorry to those who don’t eat swine) happy, bacon!

baconrollsI’ve always stored bacon in the fridge. It’s what my mom and dad did.

But by the time I get to the end of the package, that bacon isn’t very fresh anymore.

Turns out there’s a better way.

America’s Test Kitchen chef and food science expert Dan Souza told Tech Insider that the freezer is actually a better place to keep bacon.

“It can help it last longer without going rancid,” Souza says.

Rancidity is what happens when fats start to break down, giving foods an unpleasant taste or smell.

That’s why the freezer is a great place for all kinds of fatty foods, Souza says, from butter to chicken stock.

“It’s dark and cold in there,” he told Tech Insider. “So it slows down rancidity, which is a problem with really fatty things.”

To keep your glorious bacon from going rancid before you can eat it all, it’s best to stick it in the freezer.

But if you freeze it as one big chunk, you’ll never be able to tear a single slice off. Souza says to roll it up and bag it so it doesn’t get stuck together.

Read the original article on Tech Insider. Copyright 2016.

Are you on Facebook?  You might be interested in the things I may not devote an entire blog post to: recipes, food facts, nutritional information, photos and other things that make my mouth water. I may not write a blog post every day, but there are daily updates to my This Girl Loves To Eat community at: https://www.facebook.com/ThisGirlLovesHerFood