Friday Favorites 1/23/15

Happy Friday everyone! Here are some of my favorite things from the internet that I've discovered in the past week, or have been shared with me by friends. 

Ever wonder what NFL players are really saying on the sidelines?  

The woman/food critic I aspire to be in my 80s 

Gosh I just love Kyle Mooney on SNL  

Dr. Steve Brule is getting his own show...for yer health  

Throwback to the Will Ferrell school of puppy training  

Some delicious dinners I want to make 

Anyone else still have an iPhone 4? Here's how to keep your battery alive if you're like me and it's down to 30% by the time you get to work.

Celebrating 40 years of the Puddle Jump at Bates College!

Coffee you can drink before bed?? YES PLEASE! 

calendar wisdom du jour

Have a wonderful day, everyone! Here are some tunes to get stuck in your head this weekend.

The best chocolate chip cookies- ever

My parents have subscribed to Cook's Illustrated Magazine for as long as I can remember. The editors develop recipes in what is called America's Test Kitchen- they honestly tweak and tamper with recipes 40, 50, 60 times in order to get the desired end result. In addition to publishing Consumer Reports style rankings of various cooking gadgets and ingredients, they are famous for developing recipes with "about 97 steps" (my dad's words, not mine.) While their recipes may be tedious and at first glance, overwrought with silly cadence (more on that later), they simply know how to do their job over at America's Test Kitchen- the recipe I want to share is their painstakingly developed recipe for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies. This recipe lives up to it's name- I was a Tollhouse girl through and through until I met this recipe, and I haven't looked back since. The thing that really sets them apart from other chocolate chip cookies is the fact that they incorporate browned butter. The beautiful geniuses at ATK know what's up. My roommate and I have made these cookies several times, and this time we subbed m&m's and coconut for chocolate chips and nuts- I think any combination of mix-ins would be great as long as you make the base batter the same way and keep the same proportions for the mix-ins. And how could we not use these fun m&m's we found at Target in honor of the NFC and AFC championship games this weekend! 

Perfect for us- Packers colors, Patriots colors...and Browns colors?

Cook's Illustrated Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

simply the best

You will need:

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 14 tablespoons butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (they suggest dark brown but I think light brown is fine too)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg plus 1 yolk
• 1 1/4 chocolate chips (we used m&m's)
• 3/4 cup nuts (optional) (we used unsweetened flaked coconut)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and adjust the racks so you can use the one in the middle. 

2. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. 

3. Divide your butter into two portions- 10 tablespoons and 4 tablespoons. Cut up the 10 tablespoons into smaller pieces so they melt easier. In a medium non-stick saute pan, melt 10 tablespoons of butter. Stir constantly with a wooden spatula or spoon until melted butter starts to bubble. At this point, it will start to froth. Keep stirring. I think that it starts to smell like Parmesan cheese at this stage, which I know is weird, but it really does. Soon the bubbles will go down and it will clarify. Keep your eye on the butter and keep stirring until it starts to brown and smell caramel-y. Shut the heat off immediately and pour the butter out of the pan and into a glass liquid measuring cup or bowl. You don't want to take your eyes off the butter during this whole process- it takes a few tries to get it down but once you've browned butter a few times you will know what to look for and know once you've gone too far (you've gone too far if too much brown/black sediment starts to accumulate in the pan and it smells burnt). 

4. Add the remaining four tablespoons of butter to the browned butter and allow to melt. 

5. In a larger mixing bowl, add both sugars, salt and vanilla. Add the completely melted butter to this mixture and stir/whisk until combined. 

6. Separate your egg yolk and white, and add the separated yolk along with one whole egg to the sugar and butter mixture. Stir for about 30 seconds. Now here is where the 97 steps come in. Let this mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk for another 30 seconds. Repeat this process of resting and mixing twice more until the mixture has thickened up, but is smooth and shiny. 

7. Mix in the mix-ins- chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, candy, whatever! with a rubber spatula. Make sure that there are no flour pockets. 

8. Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out three tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. 

ready for their close up

 9.  Arrange six dough balls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 9 to 11 minutes. 10 minutes seems to work well for my oven. Shout out- these Reynolds parchment paper sheets are fantastic. Highly recommended!

tick tock tick tock almost ready!

11. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. They will be soft in the middle when they come out of the oven, but golden brown on top and bottom.

LL cool cookies (ladies love cool cookies...duh)

12. Hang up your apron and clean up.

every baker's kitchen should have an apron hook

 13. Enjoy!!

nom nom nom

What mix ins do you think we should try next? Leave a comment to let us know! 

And last but not least, some tunes! 

guess who's back...back again...amy's back...tell a friend

It's been a while! I'm hoping to bring this blog back from time to time, and now have a much more well equipped kitchen and much less temperamental oven at my disposal. Raising my glass (of almond milk) to this blog and diving in head first for 2015. 

In the meantime, here's some pretty things I've made in the recent past, mostly with my trusty baking partner and roommate. We're like two peas in a pod...or two halves of a bagel? The peanut butter to my chocolate? (She says she wants to be the chocolate.)

white chocolate covered honey pretzels

smitten kitchen chocolate pretzel cookies with sanding sugar

margarita cheesecake (baked with tequila)

apple pie with mom's signature apple cutout

spicy gingerbread cookies

christmas gingerbread- cows, whales, squirrels, dinosaurs

mom's peanut butter mousse cake

   

carrot cake baked donuts

my new pillow- her name is cocoa

See you back here soon for some treats and tunes. I want to incorporate more music into this blog. For now, here are some of my current songs I have stuck in my head.