Food Highlights: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Part 1: The Sweet Stuff)

I am starting with food as I found it the easiest for collecting my thoughts and getting back into the rhythm of writing. I am going to break it down into separate blogs to keep it from being too lengthy.

These days, I tend to find most of my recipe inspirations through the gazillion of food blogs I follow (yes, I know I have a problem!). In fact, I have been feeling a little guilty about neglecting my gazillion of cook books (yes, I know… problem… let’s move on now). Anyways! We have had some great finds along the way and some not so great successes. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to turn out exactly how we thought, and sometimes, especially with baking, it seems to be the curse of the high altitude. And, I really don’t have many pictures cuz we suck and don’t think about it at the time. Hopefully my descriptions and amazing word crafting will make up for the lack of visuals… And if you really need pictures, most of the links have pictures for ya!

Brownies and Bars Goodness, Sort of…

One summer find and success was this Grain Free Brownie recipe, and I just recommend the Food Renegade website for some interesting reading in general. My mother-in-law was recently diagnosed with Coeliac’s disease, so I was excited to share my find with her while they were staying in Flagstaff this summer. I have made them with and without the cream cheese swirl, and think they are yummy both ways. More and more people are gluten free either by choice or necessity, so these are great baked good solution that will be a crowd pleaser. I promise you, no one is going to miss the gluten!

A recent attempt at Bourbon Pecan Pie Brownies (what is there not to love in that mix, eh?) has great potential, I think… The flavors were there, but they did suffer from some underdoneness despite cooking both layers past the recommended temperature times. I am starting to wonder if it was a high altitude thing. If I can figure out the baking times, I envision these being the PERFECT dessert to recommend for Kentucky Derby parties. Oh, and Jessica is pretty darn hilarious. I recommend subscribing to her How Sweet It Is blog.

I impulsively bought some Meyer lemons at the CSA store as I have often read rave reviews about this type of lemon and its flavor differences. I decided I really wanted to embrace the lemonyness (according to spell check, I just made this word up), so I determined lemon bars would be the way to go. I have made them before, but it has been a while, and of course I tried a new recipe. Again, I ended up with an underdone custard despite leaving it in the oven for quite a bit longer than the instructed baking time… so I am thinking there just must be something to custardy type desserts at this altitude. However, I struggled to find any good insight in my high altitude baking cookbook, so this is just speculation on my part. They were tasty, but I was not particularly over enthusiastic with the results and there was no Meyer lemon flavor epiphany for me.

Caramel Conundrums

Anything of a caramel type attempt seems to always be a crapshoot… as you may recall from my attempt for Robert’s birthday (link) last year. My friend R asked for caramel cupcakes for her birthday this summer, so I went with a triple caramel cupcake: caramel cupcake with a caramel filling and caramel frosting. They were not a complete failure, but the idea for a caramel filling didn’t work out so well as it just sort of absorbed into the cake instead of being a gooey center surprise. I splurged and bought icing tips and pastry bags. I figured perhaps I should try making my frosting look fancier. Kind of a hot mess (literally and figuratively). It is harder than it looks! I also decided to ix-nay the sugar sculptures.

This winter we decided we wanted to make caramel candies. You know, the almost gooshy, perfectly chewy ones that you wrap in wax paper. Robert diligently cut out 60 squares and helped me stir the caramel to the correct temperature. So, you would think smooth sailing, right? Nope. We ended up with this weird texture that was crunchy when you bit into it and then turned into this pull your fillings out, chewy glob in your mouth. They tasted good, but the texture just sucked. So, fail number 1. I did get creative and mix bits of it into a chocolate cookie batch.

Onto fail number 2. Many years ago, my friend introduced me to this candy/cookie that I call Victoria’s Addictive Cookies and she calls “Crack.” It is always a crowd favorite at parties and potlucks, and ridiculously easy to make except, apparently, at 7000 feet. Although, I swear I made it once this summer with no trouble. However, this winter, we had two complete fails, which was frustrating since I was making it to send home to my family as part of my Christmas package. However, I have since conducted some online research and learned a little more about candy making at high altitude, so at least now I know I am not completely crazy or inept. Many people mentioned they are unable to successfully make caramel or toffee without the use of corn syrup. It also has to do with the fact that water evaporates out at a lower boiling point at higher altitudes.

Here is a pretty helpful chart I found for those who are also trying to make candy at high altitude:

Sugar cookery
For sea level:
215-230 degrees: thread stage
240 degrees: soft ball
245 degrees: firm ball
250-260 degrees: hard ball
265-270 degrees: soft crack
295-310 degrees: hard crack
320-360 degrees: caramel
For every 500 feet. of altitude over sea level, the temperatures drop 1 degree..
For 5000 feet elevation:
205-220 degrees: thread
230 degrees: soft ball
235 degrees: firm ball
240-250 degrees: hard ball
255-260 degrees: soft crack
285-300 degrees: hard crack
310-350 degrees: caramel
Source: Amy DeWitt, Culinary School of the Rockies

The other important detail I learned is that several people recommend calibrating your candy thermometer by identifying at what temperature your water boils and then adjusting cooking times accordingly. Oh. Of course. Lower boiling points. I knew about that. Sooo, I am not giving up!

Here is an cool sounding blog that I may have to add to my list that also explains this: Handmade in High Places

So you are probably wanting the recipe now, right? Here you go!

Victoria’s Addictive Cookies, aka Crack, aka, Saltine Toffee Candy

Ingredients

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of unsalted butter

Saltine crackers

2 cups of chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a jelly roll pan with foil. Place a layer of saltine crackers in the pan. Break up crackers if necessary to fill in empty spaces. Combine sugar and butter in pan and bring to a boil. Stir and cook at the boiling level for about 3 minutes (although clearly, I would now increase this time at my higher altitude). Pour the butter and sugar mixture over the crackers and place in the oven for 6 minutes (again, I am thinking I will extend this time by a few minutes in the future). After you remove from the oven, sprinkle the chocolate chips on it and let sit for a few minutes. After the chocolate has softened, spread the melted chocolate over the pan. Let cool completely (I suggest putting in the refrigerator). After cooled, break into pieces. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Remember, share wisely. Crack is addictive…

Mad Scientist Cupcakes

For R’s birthday this year, I wanted to combine everything he loves: cheesecake, chocolate, and sea salt caramel. I proposed a Friday happy hour at Mia’s, which provided an additional challenge: how to transport via bike and easily serve to the masses in a public place. After many hours of research, I mad scientisted together the perfect birthday dessert.

Note the creative use of shoelaces as no bungee cords could be found

Credit for my inspiration came from the following three locations: Annie’s Eats, Bake or Break Recipes, and Brown Eyed Baker

With these, I created…. Drum roll please!

Fudge Bottomed Cheesecake Cupcakes with a Pecan and Salted Caramel Topping

Yes, this one was a wee bit complicated, and I have to admit, I got distracted just now with starting to write this and burnt my pecans… Grrrr… gonna have to redo that bit. My first attempt at making caramel, using the recipe I found, was an absolute disaster! And silly me. I left that for last and then was rushing around at the last minute to finish things up and not be late. I swear I have made caramel before and not had it be so hard. I am not sure if it was the recipe or the high altitude or both. I had to start over because it was this awful crystallized sugar mass. I found this recipe MUCH more successful and yes, don’t touch it! I kept poking at it with my whisk and ended up with rock candy on my whisk, which even with being nonstick was a horrible pain to remove.

Fasten your seatbelts, kiddos, this one, takes some time. Set aside an afternoon, put on some fun danceable music (My selections were Vampire Weekend and Caravan Palace). It is worth it, though. They were a smashing hit and got rave reviews. I am soooo proud of my new invention!

Yield is 24 cupcake sized cheesecakes (Note: the original recipe said it would make 32. I only had enough crust mixture for 24, but I did have leftover filling.)

Ingredients:

For the crust:

1 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs (or 1 ½ cups if you don’t want to use pecans)

¼ cup ground pecans

4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

3 Tbsp. granulated sugar

For Fudge Bottom:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

¼ cup cream

½ tsp. vanilla extract

For the Cheesecake Filling:

2 lbs of cream cheese, room temperature

1 ½ cups of granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

4 large eggs, room temperature

For the topping:

24 toasted whole pecans

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp of corn syrup (whoops, just realized I used 1 Tbsp, but it didn’t hurt it)

¼ cup of water

½ cup heavy cream

1 tsp of vanilla

Sea salt

Directions:

For Crust:

Preheat the oven to 325˚ F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. I ground my graham crackers and pecans separately in the food processer then processed them together to combine. In a small bowl, combine the crumb mixture, melted butter and sugar. I started by melting my butter in the microwave in the bowl and then adding the rest. Stir together with a fork until well blended and all the dry ingredients are moistened. Press 1 tablespoon of the mixture into the bottom of each cupcake liner. (I used my bottle of vanilla, but a small drinking glass would work to easily and evenly press the crumbs down). Bake until just set, 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Not pressed

Pressing the crust

Baked golden brown

Close Up!

For Fudge Bottom:

Put chopped chocolate into a bowl with the cream. Microwave in 30 second increments until the chocolate begins to melt and stir together to combine. Add vanilla and stir. I put about 1 ½ teaspoons of the fudge into the bottom of each cheesecake and used the back of the spoon to spread it out. Let set for about 15 or 20 minutes.

NOTE: You could definitely taste the chocolate, but it wasn’t quite as prominent as I hoped. I might bump up the amount next time, which would require an increase in ingredients.

For Cheesecake Filling:

To make the cheesecake, beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Blend in the sugar until smooth. Mix in the salt and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. To assemble, put about 3 tablespoons of the cheesecake batter in each liner. Bake until the filling is set, about 22 minutes. Rotate the pans about halfway through baking. They will look puffed when you remove them, but will deflate some as they cool. Set on cooling racks to cool to room temperature. Then, transfer to the refrigerator and let them chill, ideally, for about 4 hours until serving.

Ready for the oven

For Caramel and Pecan Topping:

Stir together sugar, corn syrup, and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat. Let boil until amber in color, about 3 minutes. PICTURE Don’t touch it! No, seriously, don’t. You will want to stir it and check and make sure it is not sticking. It won’t be. You will just end up with rock candy on your whisk. Remove from heat and whisk in cream. It might seem like it is going to explode, boil over, or lump together. Don’t freak – just keep whisking! After it gets to the consistency you like, whisk in the vanilla. Let cool to room temperature (or for 5 minutes if you are running super late like I was). Put about a tablespoon of caramel on each cheesecake and top with a toasted pecan and a wee sprinkle of sea salt.

What cooking caramel SHOULD look like