Licordoodles

My Christmas cookie baking is knocking pizza off the table for a few days.

I recently found anisette sugar, the kind you would use for fancy coffee drinks, at a gourmet shop. Anisette is one of my favorite holiday flavors, giving a licorice snap to my favorite holiday bread, to my husband's favorite biscotti, and to pizzelles. But this sugar gave me another way to use it.

Snickerdoodles have always been one of my favorite cookies. My grandma's snickerdoodles were so sweet and cinnamony, they were even better than chocolate chip, and that's saying something. So this licorice-flavored sugar made me wonder if I could reproduce them with an anisette punch.

I could. I did. OMG.

I started with this light recipe for snickerdoodles from Betty Crocker's website.

All I did was add 1/2 teaspoon anise extract to the dough, and swap out the cinnamon sugar mixture at the end for 1/2 cup of my anisette sugar to roll the balls of dough.

Heaven. Crackling, sweet, licorice-flavored heaven.

This actually makes me determined to try other variations. Almond, perhaps, or citrus. Yum.

Not your Grandma's baked apples

When I was a kid, I was frequently on diets. My mother would have me on diets, and then I'd go to my grandmother for the summer, where I spent weeks following whatever the latest low-calorie miracle plan happened to be. None of them were very long-lived but while they were going on, they were followed with a fervor some people reserve for religion or military service.

No matter what they were called, they all had the same basic tenets: eat less fatty stuff, eat more vegetables, and dessert is the devil.

This translated to a lot of very boring baked apples that were only minimally sweetened or flavored before being cooked to mush and pretending to be dessert when they had much more in common with baby food. I'm here to tell you, pouring a Fresca on an apple and sticking it in the microwave does not make it taste like apple pie, no matter what the little handbook says.

But now, my husband has some heart issues and diabetes. We have some directives. Eat less fatty stuff. Eat more fiber. Dessert is the devil. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

What I also have is this kid.

Clearly, he's pretty fond of his apples. Which means we have a lot of them around our house. And despite the fact that he eats them two at a time, it's still a challenge for him to get to every apple in a bushel (yes, a bushel) before they start to see better days.

And that means...baked apples.

I approached the idea with some horror. Obviously, I have issues. Plus, I like food, and I like it to taste good, but I am also pretty fond of my husband and I'd like to keep him around for a while. My objectives, obviously, were at war.


Sweet Heat Apples

4 large apples, halved and cored
4 T. softened butter (I used a butter-canola oil blend)
1/4 c. coconut sugar (maple, demerara or brown sugar would work well, too)
3/4 c. oatmeal
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 aji panca chile, finely chopped (Any mild, fruity dried chile would work. If that's not available, use a little cayenne to taste.)
1 c. apple cider

Place apple halves in a large baking dish. Cut butter with sugar, oatmeal, vanilla caviar (bury your scraped bean in some sugar for a great treat, or save and refrigerate to steep in some hot milk for a fantastic alternative to hot chocolate), cinnamon and chile. Divide between apple halves, mounding on top. Pour cider into baking pan (not over apples). Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Serve drizzled with the baking liquid.

We interrupt this computer virus to bring you a blog post....and chocolate

This week has been just computer hell. Seriously. If there was something that could happen to my computer, it happened, then thought about it, then happened again worse. I am currently typing on my fourth-string computer because my star is down with a nasty Trojan horse virus, my back-up and its cord parted ways, and someone (I'd really like to blame my toddler, but it was me) splashed water onto my back-up's back-up and it's making a weird sizzling sound that alarms me.

Basically, my computers are the quarterback lineup of the Steelers. If my old Sony, a.k.a. Charlie Batch, doesn't pull through for me until at least one of the other issues is resolved, I'll be going to need grief counseling.

Or, perhaps I will need Smooth Road Brownies.

Let me give you some background. See...I love chocolate. I also love rocky road, with all the chunks of chocolate and nuts and chewy marshmallows giving you little pockets (or, I guess, in keeping with the metaphor, potholes) of flavor. Really, what's bad about that?

Well, according to my siblings, everything. When they were kids, they looked at any kind of lump in a brownie as a personal betrayal. Nuts were a hanging offense.

Look at this kid. Honestly, she ate three things when she was this age. French toast, cheese, and Lucky Charms. (Nice pic, huh? I snitched it off her Facebook page. Why? Well, all my pictures are stuck on the computer with the Trojan horse virus, so I'm making do with what I can get, and yet still fulfilling my commitment to give you people things to look at while you read. I'm dedicated that way.)

But even when I was in high school, I was unwilling to give in to culinary terrorists. I would, however, engage in some minor diplomatic compromise. And so, my rocky road smoothed out.

Here goes a super-simple equation for deliciousness:

Start with brownies. I like the scratch kind that are really dense and fudgy, but I would be lying if I said there were never boxes of brownie mix in my cupboard. There are. And they are good.

Mix up your batter the way you always do, whether you are melting chocolate and sifting cake flour or just adding some water and an egg. Pour in your greased up pan. NOW STOP.

It's so smooth and white and puffy. I mean, it's MARSHMALLOW. How can anyone have a problem with that? Grab a spoon. Dollop some over the batter. Eat a big spoonful when no one's looking.

Yeah, that's hot fudge. In brownies. Is it overkill? Maybe. Do I care? No. More dollops of goodness, please.

Oh, and that? That's the peanut butter. Because peanut butter is good with chocolate. And it's good with marshmallow creme. And it's good on radial tires. Put some on there! (I find it easier to melt it slightly first in the microwave. Just a few seconds.)

Now take a knife and swirl them all slightly. And then bake.

And then eat.

And then you might want to ask your doctor about some insulin.

 

Chocolate: the Wonder Drug

I am pretty sure that there is nothing that cannot be solved with chocolate. I think the Cold War could have ended decades earlier if there was hot and cold running fudge at the UN. I think Bush and Gore could have resolved hanging chads over good brownies. I think peace in the Middle East would be a hell of a lot easier if everybody's mouths were full of Hershey bars.

The endorphins, the brain chemistry, the antioxidants...there's just no downside. And that's before you even get to the taste.

When my friends and I were pregnant, and in those early days of being a mom, when colic made you question reality and sleep-starved brains warred with hormones that flucuated like the Dow Jones, chocolate was a necessary tool of our lives. We circulated a desperation treat for those late-night cocoa calls, a chocolate cake that mixed in a mug and baked in the microwave. It filled a hole, but it wasn't really...satisfying.

But chocolate doesn't have to be as complicated as the chemistry of cakes and cookies. A chocolate pizza is ridiculously easy, with just four (or five) ingredients that are probably in your kitchen right now.

This last-minute dessert is as elegant as French pastry because, well, that's kind of what it is. It's really a variation on pain au chocolate, or chocolate bread. You've probably seen it in a snooty bakery as chocolate croissants, with buttery dough rolled  around semisweet chocolate.

My version starts with something that is almost always in my refrigerator. Crescent roll dough. I've made it with pizza crust, bread dough, puff pastry, pie crust, pate a choux, etc., but crescent roll is really my favorite. First, it's buttery, and second, it's crazy convenient. Just unroll, press out in your pan, and you're ready to go.

Pretty? Oh, it's just dough, people. It's not art. Yet. That's why we spread on a little butter and sprinkle on a couple tablespoons of sugar. Throw it in the oven at 400 degrees until it's golden brown. Kind of like this.

Better already, isnt' it? Just wait. Next, you take some chocolate chips. I use about 6 ounces. Unless it's been a bad day. Or it's a day that ends in Y. Have the chips ready to go when you pull the crust out of the oven. Dump them on. Let them melt. (You can turn off the oven and just set the baking pan back in to hasten melting if you wnat. Just make sure you only do it for a few minutes. Good chocolate is a terrible thing to burn.)

Holy melted chocolate. Now, you can let this sit just the way it is. Or you can spread it. I prefer to let it retain its organic chippiness, but that's up to you. This is also a good time to point out that you can go with milk chips. Or white chips. Or any kind of chips, mixed and matched.

And that's it. You're done. It's delicious. It's simple. There's no way to make it better.

Unless you go one more step. With melted chocolate, you can throw on all kinds of fantasticness. My personal preference? Peanut butter. Melt a couple tablespoons in the microwave and drizzle over the whole thing. But you can also do chopped nuts, or crushed toffee, or raisins, or marshmallows, or leftover candy canes beaten within an inch of their lives, or...well, you get the idea.

Isn't that the best thing you've ever seen?

What? You don't have crescent roll dough...or any of the other options I mentioned? I've got a secret. A delcious secret. A friend makes the absolute most sought after treat at our local Chocolate Festival every year. People beat down the doors for his grilled pain au chocolate. Doesn't that sounds fancy? It's not. It is, pure and simple, a grilled chocolate sandwich. White bread, filled with chocolate (he uses Hershey bars), buttered and griddled like every grilled cheese sandwich you've ever had. Do NOT tell your children. They'll never eat a normal lunch again.

Vampire B-Gone

For some people, the best part of an Italian meal is the pasta. Or the sauce. Or the antipasto. Or the salad.

For me, it is garlic bread. The kind that is absolutely saturated with butter and smells like a can of vampire repellent. Covered with a melted blanket of gooey cheese? Even better.

My husband is unnatural and wrong. He doesn't like garlic bread. He's a very bad Italian, in my opinion, but I'm willing to go with it because he is content, even happy, to eat naked slices of plain bread while I retain possession of all the butter-soaked goodness.

In my opinion, there is no better example of garlic bread the way God intended it than Schwan's Five Cheese Garlic French Bread.

Isn't it lovely? Sigh. The crust is basically just a vessel to contain the butter, and a platform for the cheese. It should come with a vial of nitroglycerin, and I just can't bring myself to care.

It's hard to get exactly the right effect at home. Too much butter and it gets soggy. Too little and it's light on flavor. Not the perfect bread and it falls apart. I've tried it a dozen different ways, and it's always paled beside my ideal. Until now.

My recent forays into the doctoring of store-bought pizza have had an unforeseen benefit. I may have made the best garlic bread ever.

I started with a plain cheese pizza. I used a store-brand rising crust. A DiGiorno knock-off. I followed the package directions for oven temperature.

And then I got out the butter. I melted 2 ounces in a small saucepan, and added the same amount of olive oil. Before it was too hot, I threw in two cloves of chopped garlic, and cooked over low heat. I threw in a tablespoon of fresh parsley from my garden, and a half-teaspoon each of dried basil and oregano. I added a dash of pepper. (I might throw in some crushed red pepper next time, just for kicks.) And most important, I watched it carefully and pulled it off the flame before the garlic turned brown. Burned garlic makes for nasty garlic bread.

When I heard Dracula pass out cold on the porch, I drizzled the fragrant mix all over the frozen pizza. Then I popped it in and...

Yeah, don't be ridiculous. Like I'd stop there. That's when I broke out more cheese. A cup of mozzarella, and a few tablespoons of parmesan. The shredded kind, not the grated stuff in a can. I'm not usually a big ingredient snob, but everybody has the hill they choose to die on, and decent parmesan is mine. At least in this instance.

Then in the oven it goes. No pizza pan. Just straight on the rack, or if you are lucky enough, on a blistering hot pizza stone, like this one.
                                                                














I've actually got a professional restaurant kitchen pizza oven, a souvenir from the days when my husband actually offered some of the finest pizzas in the greater Pittsburgh area. I love it. But I find it easier to just use my regular oven with a pizza stone most of the time, and a good stone gives you almost exactly the same quality. If you can get the effect of a $1000 oven with a $36 stone, go for it.

When you're done, you get something that looks like this:

It's got everything my favorite garlic bread does, with the added punch of extra herbs and pepper, and the slight background tang of the smattering of pizza sauce, which is reduced to a condiment instead of a starring player by the garlicky butter.

There's also another perk. Eating garlic bread for dinner can get you some side-eyeing. But pizza is clearly a meal, even if it's one that will keep the Twilight crew at bay.

The building blocks of childhood

They aren't Legos or Lincoln Logs.

If you were to build a child from scratch, you wouldn't need plastic or silicone or wood or joint compound. You need peanut butter and jelly, the hydrogen and oxygen of kid-dom, the substances that make up the majority of all rugrats, the way water covers most of the Earth. (And in my experience, peanut butter and jelly covers most of the children I know, so that's a good analogy in more ways than one.)

If you can’t get a kid to eat PB&J, you’ve got a kid that won’t eat anything. A kid that will sneer at macaroni and cheese, tacos, hot dogs, hamburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches will still gratefully gobble up peanut butter and jelly.

That is not to say that there aren’t concessions to be made. I have one nephew who demands strawberry jam for his sandwiches. The other wants “the purple stuff,” but then again, sometimes he slaps on cheese and ketchup, too, the little freak. My niece wants whatever I can convince her Hannah Montana would eat on a peanut butter sandwich. None of them have any interest in my chunky peanut butter and apple jelly on wheat toast, but that’s just fine with me. I can still get my son to indulge in interesting jams, as long as there is plenty of peanut butter that he can ultimately rub in his hair. What can I say? He's a connoisseur.

1 pizza crust

1 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. cream cheese

¼ c. brown sugar

¾ c. strawberry jam

1 c. sweetened whipped cream

Optional: Teddy Grahams and gummy bears

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pizza crust on baking sheet. Bake 10-15 minutes, until just starting to brown. Cool.

Beat peanut butter with cream cheese and brown sugar until smooth. Spread over crust. In a microwave-safe bowl, heat jam in microwave for 10 seconds, until just slightly loosened. Spread evenly over peanut butter layer. Chill.

Place whipped cream in a piping bag, or just a plastic zipper bag with a corner cut. Pipe cream in a decorative pattern around the edge. Garnish with Teddy Grahams and gummy bears. Slice and serve.

Variation: Super-easy PB&J – After toasting crust, spread with ¾ c. peanut butter. Cool. Using a squeeze-top bottle of grape jelly, let the kids squirt on a funky jelly pattern. Slice and serve.


Sidebar box: Shell Game – Peanuts aren’t actually nuts. They’re legumes, like beans or lentils. According to leading peanut butter producer Skippy, three jars of the tasty spread are sold every single second, totaling about 90 million jars a year. It takes 850 peanuts to make one 18-ounce jar of peanut butter, and most of those come from Georgia, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma.

Grandma's Old Red Devil

Welcome to Saturday, the first in The Pizza Principle's "Special Request" series.

I got a lot of great feedback after yesterday's post on the day-by-day reformatting of the blog. So thanks so much for that.

The girls at the NestBump (Hi, Nesties! Hi, Bumpies!) have asked to see some of my non-pizza recipes. With Joseph's birthday (The Big 2) coming up next weekend, I mentioned the chocolate cake he'll be having for his special birthday dinner, and it's going to be our first "request."

My grandma made this cake ALL the time when I was a kid. And when my dad was a kid. And probably when she was a kid. It's a really old recipe, and as far as I'm concerned, it's absolutely perfect.

Grandma's Red Devil's Food is plain and simple, a moist, chocolaty cake that isn't too rich or too heavy, and is utterly perfect with a simple white icing. Grandma usually made hers with melted New York vanilla ice cream instead of butter and milk, just thickening it to a spreading consistency with powdered sugar. Absolutely divine.


Grandma's Red Devil's Food Cake

1/2 c. cocoa
1/2 c. boiling water
1 c. butter
2 c. sugar
1 T. vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. sour milk (I've also used sour cream. It's good, but a little richer. Not a bad thing, but not Grandma's. If you don't have sour milk, add a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice to a cup of milk.)

Just mix together, a step at a time. The batter will be a little thinner than your typical box of Betty Crocker. That's okay. Butter a 9x13 cake pan, pour it in, bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until the center is springy.

Frost how you like. I've had it with Grandma's frosting, cream cheese frosting, 7- minute frosting, canned Pillsbury frosting...there's really no bad way to go. But give Grandma's ice cream icing a shot. It really is worth it. (And flexible. Whatever you've got in the freezer will be fine.)

Hey there, pumpkin!

Do you have people who are squeamish about squash? Not up for a savory, salt-and-peppered spaghetti squash, or a steamy mashed butternut? Don't worry. There's always the fallback gourd, the perennial staple of autumn. It's probably sitting on your front porch this morning, sad and withered with the stump of a candle inside.

Pumpkin is perfect for pizza. After all, it may be indigenous to the New World, but it has definitely been embraced by Italian cooks. In fact, it probably ranks right behind tomatoes and corn as one of the Mediterranean nation’s favorite American imports.

Italians enjoy suash in gnocchi, as a sauce for pasta, as a filling in ravioli, layered in lasagna. (A quick tour of Foodnetwork.com will yield plenty of pumpkin-rich recipes from Italian celeb chefs like Mario Batali, Giada DiLaurentiis and Rachael Ray.) Some baked or steamed squash chunks on a classic cheese pizza are actually a delicious addition. A smear of pureed pumpkin instead of tomato sauce, with a layer of mozzarella and a drizzle of olive oil with a smattering of sage is also delicious.

But it's also traditionally delicious as dessert. Plus, it’s already familiar as one of our favorite pies. Why wait until Thanksgiving to dig into a slice of your favorite spicy squash? You can make a great pumpkin pizza any time of year.

1 pizza crust

1 c. canned pumpkin

1 c. mascarpone or cream cheese

½ c. brown sugar

1 egg

1 t. cinnamon

¼ t. nutmeg

¼ t. ginger

½ c. crushed gingersnaps

½ c. chopped pecans

1 T. butter, melted

Whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pizza crust on baking sheet.

In a bowl, beat pumpkin with cream cheese and sugar until well-combined. Add egg and spices. Spread on pizza crust. DON'T overload your crust. If you have more filling than you need, you can bake it in muffin or custard cups alongside the pizza.

In another bowl, toss gingersnaps, nuts and butter. Sprinkle over pumpkin layer. Bake 20 minutes. Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before slicing. Serve with whipped cream.


Extra Extra!!!

Fruity facts – Like tomatoes, pumpkins have suffered through years of species confusion. The orange globes are not vegetables, they are fruits. In fact, they are members of the family Cucurbitacae, the same viny clan that produces cucumbers, gourds, melons and a host of other squash. I mean, squashes. Or maybe squashi? (www.thepumpkinfarm.com)

Pizza on the dessert cart

I love a dessert tray. Seriously, it's an addiction. My measure of a truly splendiferous restaurant is one that will bring over a beautiful tray or lovely tea cart with stunning desserts arranged on it like engagement rings in a jeweler's front window. It's something spectacular to see.

That is why when I began this pizza adventure, I had to include some dessert pizzas.

Dessert pizzas at pizza places usually leave me cold. They are almost always canned apple pie filling spread on overcooked crust with some crumbs and white icing. Sometimes this gets changed up with blueberry or cherry filling.

At home, they are usually no better. What people call a "dessert pizza" is seldom a pizza at all. It's a cookie or cake baked in a pizza pan and decorated to look like a real pizza. Sorry people, I'm not interested in gummi pepperoni.

So I went back to the drawing board and worked on real dough, with good ingredients. I wanted a pizza that could feel proud on a dessert cart. Like this one.

Chocoholics Anonymous

I created this dessert for a friend who adored chocolate. Actually, I made it for her March birthday…after she gave up chocolate for Lent. It was evil, true, but the result was so good, she graciously forgave me after the first bite. And the second slice. And the last crumb. She didn’t let anyone else have any.

1 pre-baked pizza crust
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ c. heavy cream
1 3-oz. package cream cheese, softened
1 c. milk chocolate chips
1 t. vanilla
2 T. rum (or 1 t. rum flavoring or 2 T. coffee)
1 c. heavy cream
Garnish: shaved white chocolate, chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pizza crust on baking sheet. Bake 5-7 minutes, just to warm. Set aside.

Place semi-sweet chocolate in a large glass bowl. In a glass measuring cup, microwave half cup cream for 30 seconds. Pour over chocolate. Microwave 30 seconds, stirring every 10 seconds. Continue microwaving in 10-15 second intervals until melted. Whisk until smooth. Spread over pizza crust.

Place cream cheese in a large bowl. Using same microwave technique or a double boiler, melt milk chocolate with vanilla and rum. Beat with cream cheese until smooth. Whip one cup of heavy cream. Fold whipped cream into chocolate mixture about half a cup at a time. Spread over semi-sweet chocolate layer. Chill at least one hour. Garnish with shaved white chocolate and nuts. Slice and serve.

EXTRA EXTRA!!!

Divinely Delicious – How many foods are so good that they are deemed sincerely heavenly? The Greek word for chocolate is “theobroma,” literally, “food of the gods.” The name is a reference to its importance to the Aztecs that introduced it to their European conquerors. Originally a beverage, chocolate was an important part of religious ceremonies and sacred to the goddess Xochiquetzal. Theobromine, a compound found in chocolate, is thought to be a good cough suppressant. Chocolate also contains caffeine, tryptophan, magnesium and cannabanoids related to marijuana, plus it is believed to release endorphins and promote seratonin production in the brain. Just think of a candy bar as really, really good-tasting medicine. (www.chocolate.org)