Evil Shenanigans – Baking & Cooking Blog

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

Before we get started with the Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies a couple of fun news items ….    First, as many of you know I am participating in an event sponsored by Electrolux in New York City to help raise awareness for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.  It is a fantastic organization and you can help by donating here.  Part of [...]

Butter Croissants

Ready for something a tad more advanced?  It takes time to make, but it is SO worth it. I fell in love with croissant making a few semesters ago in my Laminated Dough class.  Bread making is among my favorite things to do in the kitchen, but making laminated doughs (doughs with butter sandwiched between [...]

Cheddar and Gruyère Gougères

When I was in my Laminated Dough class in culinary school we made gougères.  I have never been the same since.   After reading what gougères were I was certain they would be awful.  I mean, a gougère is nothing more than pâte à choux  with cheese mixed in, but I always associated pâte à [...]

Buttermilk Biscuits

Tomorrow is the 4th of July here in the US, and I can think of no better way to celebrate our nation’s independence than with a hearty breakfast of flaky and tender buttermilk biscuits.   For years I struggled with buttermilk biscuits.  Drop biscuits I had down pat.  I could make batches of those fluffy little [...]

Dark Chocolate Chip Brownies

If you do not like chocolate jam packed inside a fudgy brownie, turn back now!   This recipe is adapted from one we made in culinary school.  The brownies we made were ok, but we did not use dark chocolate or dutch processed cocoa powder.  I do and the result is superior.  There is also [...]

Spiced Dark Chocolate Pudding

When I was in culinary school we made cardamom tea cookies which we dipped in bittersweet chocolate.  I was certain it would be awful but I tried them and discovered that the pungent cardamom accented the rich dark chocolate very well.  From that day forward I have been playing around with cardamom and chocolate.  My latest [...]

Aloo Paratha

When I was taking my Breads & Rolls class last year in culinary school we made an Indian bread called Aloo Paratha. It is a wheat bread dough that is filled with a curried potato mixture, rolled flat and cooked on a hot griddle. They were, in a word, delicious!     I have thought of them fondly, [...]

Molten Chocolate Cakes

Many, many years ago, before I went to culinary school, I tried my first molten chocolate cake.  I was perplexed as to how they were able to have a perfectly firm cake on the outside while having a molten chocolate core inside.  I was sure it was done by placing some sort of frozen chocolate center into [...]

Cookie Fest 2008

Last night I began my holiday cookie fest.  I made Chocolate Chip Bars and Nigella’s Triple Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Mmmmm.  I doubled the recipes for both and I now have five containers of cookies ready to eat/give/serve in the freezer.   I will be doing Jam Thumbprints and Peanut Butter Cookies sometime this week, and this [...]

Banoffee Pie … well, sort of and other musings

11/19/08 – I served the pie from the recipe below and it was quite tasty … and runny!  So, I would not fold in the whipped cream.  I would just sort of smooth out the toffee and spread it with great care.  But, the taste … spot on.  My family, once past the initial trepadation of a [...]