Chocolate Croissant, take 2.

I have been having a hard time finding a decent chocolate croissant around here. And maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough, because I know that there are plenty of good bakeries around. Instead of venturing out and risking disappointment yet again, I decided to take the matter into my own hands. If you are the most truly dedicated reader, you might be saying… “hey, you already did this post back in March 2007..” But, when I look back on photos of my earlier attempt at making the chocolate croissant, (well, I cheated and used puff pastry instead) I have to laugh since my ‘croissant’ was pretty much like the ones that I find I am complaining about…not enough chocolate for my pregnant cravings of today. This is going to change.

Making croissants is a lengthy process, so the dough that I am starting this morning, will have to wait to be devoured in the form of a tasty croissant, tomorrow morning. Yes, it is a labor of love, but I am willing to wait 24 hours. Now, I have all the time in the world, time in which I am determined to perfect these things, if nothing else. I may not have the nursery up and ready in time for baby, but I will have myself a damn good chocolate croissant. Hey, since I am officially not working, I gotta keep my hands in the dough, right?

--24 hours later---

Ah, ha. Mission accomplished. I am pretty happy with this attempt. I even had some willing friends test them out.. I think that if I did anything different, I would use bittersweet chocolate instead of the milk chocolate…next time.

And, just so you know, there will be a next time.

Not to change the gist of my blog entries, but I couldnt resist. The other day on my way to work, I saw the most ridiculous thing, or shall I say, things. These were dangling off of one of those mini subaru trucks. Obviously, the guy driving had some inferiority issues about having a mini truck, and not one of those MAXI S-1000050 Fords.

what next?

Another Sweet Craving.

I have really been craving the breakfast pastries lately, and this morning I just had to have a scone.

Every once in a while, I try to bake a scone that is reminiscent of a ginger biscuit from one of my favorite Seattle bakeries, Café Besalu. Numerous times over the holidays, I have made them, and now, while transitioning out of my job, I find that I have some extra time on my hands to make them every once in a while for my co-workers. There is something special about Café Besalu’s biscuit, a melt in your mouth quality that I am convinced may come from the flour that they use, not just the butter, or the barely touched dough.

This morning, instead of trying once again to recreate the ginger goodness, I went in a different direction with some ingredients I had on hand. The recipe I had been eyeing called for buttermilk, but I used a cream top whole milk yogurt instead, which worked out quite lovely. I threw in some plumped cranberries, raisins and a dash of cinnamon. If only I had an orange, I would have zested it to add a little brightness. The result was quite a handsome looking scone, so handsome that it trumps my less perky looking, yet supertender ginger scones.

..hmmm, looks like ginger might need a new look.

Bread of Chocolate.

I am craving a chocolate roll from my old bakery days, when we would pull them fresh from the oven, studded with chocolate chips, lightly sweetened and perfumed with cocoa. It was a nice treat, when you were feeling a little indulgent, but it wasn’t such a guilty indulgence. The dough was somewhat lean, with only a few eggs to fatten her up..along with a little chocolate. Of my arsenal of bakery recipes, this one failed to make it out alive, when the bakery doors shut forever back in 2001. And since then, for some reason, I never really thought twice about it.

(so many things to bake, so little time I guess..)

I think that my bread and chocolate craving began a week ago, when I went to seek out my favorite pastry of all time, the chocolate croissant. I was envisioning the chocolate croissant of my youth, one I have surely mentioned in the past. You know, the flaky one, brimming with chocolate on the inside, and then dipped in chocolate on the outside? Well, I was heavily disappointed when I went to bite into my bready croissant, and I found about one chocolate chip’s worth of chocolate on the inside. Come again? (I have since made my gripe clear to the bakery in question on Yelp.com) How dare you call it a chocolate croissant? If I wanted a chocolate chip, I would eaten one, AND I would have saved myself $4.00….not to mention the heartache.

Back to my bread...This one isn't quite what I remember, but with a shmear of peanut butter, anything tastes divine..

By gosh, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I think Spring is in the air, sort of.

For over a week now in Seattle, it has actually been sunny. Today, on my walk, I actually could see Spring bulbs bursting through the soil, and I could smell the flowers. There were even some buds on the cherry trees, my favorite sign that Spring has sprung.



In my kitchen, I am feeling happy and springlike too, although I still don't have much fruit to work with at this time of year. I am over pears and apples... So, I decided to take a turn with Lemons. Bright. Yellow. Sunny. Lemons.



I have been eyeing a recipe for a Shaker Lemon Tart....

A Shaker Lemon Tart is one in which the whole lemon is used, minus the ends and seeds. I was intrugued by this, since one of my favorite things to make at work in the Winter months is Marmalade. I figured that this tart would end up being like gooey sweet Lemon Marmalade, nestled in a flaky pastry. A little sunshine. and it was.

Update:

I baked off the cookie dough from my previous post and the result wasn't half bad. Not my favorite cookies in the world, but, still tasty enough for a pregnant lady to consume one or two or three... and, to my delight, the banana flavor was a little less pronouned. (I, of course, have nothing against bananas, but there is a time and place for them, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies ain't one of them...)

Give the lady her dough.

I love chocolate chip cookies. And, what I almost love more is chocolate chip cookie dough. So, it pained me greatly last week when I whipped up a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip raisin cookies, and I couldn’t even take a bite of the sweet buttery, vanilla and cinnamon scented batter. It was a little bit of torture, since I am the type who usually sets out to make cookies and am already sick from dough-overdose by the time they come hot out of the oven.

Tonight, I really wanted some cookie dough so I decided to make a one that even I could enjoy.
In the past, I have played around with Vegan recipes, so I decided to come up with a cookie dough recipe in which I use a banana to substitute for the eggs. This works pretty well in cookies, the only downfall being that your chocolate chip dough is now heavily perfumed with banana…making it not quite the same…but, still edible by my standards.

Here is what I came up with:

Chocolate Chunk and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

4 oz butter
¾ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 small banana
¾ cup flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
¾ cup oats
4 oz dark chocolate, in chunks
2 oz raisins

Cream the butter and sugar, add the banana and vanilla and cream till fluffy. Add the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder(just in case you decide to bake them after all) and mix to combine. Add the raisins and chocolate and mix. Devour.

* note: I have yet to bake these so, no promises there. Maybe tomorrow.

**** Update! I have been a chocolate chip cookie fiend lately and so I made some cookie dough at work to turn into Cookie Dough Gelato. This time, I just took out the eggs from a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, and added just a touch of milk instead. the dough was pretty much identical in taste to a normal batch with eggs, and better yet, I was able to indulge :) I didnt attempt to bake these, but instead, I just folded chunks of the dough into my finished gelato. yum.