Sweet and Salty Days (and cookies)

Hello, August. What happened to July? 

These are the dog days of summer for sure. There is no escaping the heat and no escaping my preschoolers. It's not that I don't enjoy their company. It's just that occasional absence makes the heart grow fonder, and we have had not a single break from each other for quite a while.

Thankfully, we've had some diversions, like learning to ride a pony...

(she was much less nervous than her brother)

And of course some salty mornings on the beach, which never get old...

 I have loved watching them playing together. The older they get, the more they like to hang out. And lately they've been snuggling up together like puppies on the couch. 

We have several friends who've had new babies lately, so this weekend we made these salty sweet cookies to share with them. They turned out so good they didn't last long at all.

Salty Sweet Pretzel Cookies

makes 24

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup butter at room temperature

1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

1/2 cup broken up pretzel pieces

Sea Salt

First:

Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.

Next:

In a larger bowl, beat the butter and sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). On low speed, slowly add the beaten egg and vanilla extract. Beat to combine, scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture in batches and beat just until there are no more streaks of flour. Stir in the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and preztels. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

Last:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop out well rounded tablespoonfuls of dough and sprinkle with pretzel salt. Mash the cookies down a little on the pan to help them spread, leaving about 2 inches between each ball. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe adapted from here.

Rustic Strawberry Tart

Two things about this tart should totally embarrass me. One is how unbelievably easy it is. The other is how quickly we ate it. And by we I mean Andy and I; we didn't even share with our children.

Boone Hall Farms in Charleston grows the most beautiful strawberries, and in April and May we like to go and pick them right off the vine. It is dirty and buggy, but the big juicy berries are worth it. That and teaching our children that food actually grows in the ground. So I was very excited to find this recipe on  A Toast to Taste.

I served this straight from the oven and topped it with vanilla ice cream, but you could also use homemade whipped cream. This would be the perfect dessert for summertime entertaining. It's elegant and will make your guests feel like you went to way more trouble than you actually did.

Rustic Strawberry Tart

1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed
1 lb organic strawberries, washed, destemmed, and quartered
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp cornstarch
juice from half a lemon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

Wash, destem, and quarter your strawberries. Add them to a large bowl along with the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Stir and set aside.

While the strawberries are marinating, roll out the puff pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface until it's about 1/8" thick. Transfer to lined baking sheet. Spoon strawberry mixture into the middle of the pastry sheet, leaving about an inch and a half border. Fold up the sides of the sheet, free form. Brush folded sides lightly with water. Bake for 30-35 minutes until crust is golden and strawberries are bubbling.

Let sit for 5-10 minutes before cutting. 

Cinnamon Brownies

There are pictures of apples and sweaters all over the internet, but it is hard for me to get excited about fall just yet. All the coffee shops are advertising pumpkin lattes. My son's Halloween costume sits in a box, ready to go. I even have out my fall cocktail napkins, courtesy of my mom. It is 88 degrees in the lowcountry today. The mosquitoes are still out.

Nonetheless, I've been getting ideas for fall and winter and a little excitement is stirring. I can't wait to have a house to decorate. I plan to make this advent calendar with my preschooler this year. And today I made some very wintry tasting brownies.

Let me say that I've never jumped at brownie recipes that call for using unsweetened cocoa powder. That doesn't seem like real chocolate to me, and it seems too easy to use something I always keep on hand. But that was before I learned that the taste of cocoa really stands out when all it shares the pan with is butter, sugar, flour, and a little cinnamon. The only fat comes straight from the butter instead of from the fat and binding agents used to make a chocolate bar. The only sugar is real sugar. The taste of these brownies is amazing, gooey, rich, delicious. The cinnamon cuts through it all just perfectly. They are just what I needed on this late summer day, when I am happy to be soon saying goodbye to September. It may not be fall yet in Charleston, but at least it is fall in my kitchen.

Cinnamon Brownies

10 tablespoons butter

1 1/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons  unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

1 teaspoon mexican vanilla

2 large eggs, cold

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.

Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and place in the microwave, cooking in 30 second increments as not to over cook. Stir after each 30 seconds. Cook until butter is melted, and ingredients are well combined--it looks fairly gritty at this point, but it smooths out once the eggs and flour are added. If you don't have a microwave, a double boiler will work just the same.

Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Spread evenly in the lined pan.

Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter. The recipe says 20 to 25 minutes, but I found I had to bake them for about 30. Let cool completely on a rack and then lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into squares.

This recipe comes from this gorgeous blog.

Little Baileys Cheesecakes

I happened upon these little beauties on thestonesoup.com, which is rich with quick and easy recipes. In fact, the whole premise is 5 ingredients in 10 minutes or less. I find that when I'm hosting a dinner and preparing every course myself, sometimes I run out of steam by the time dessert comes around and I end up buying something from a bakery. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but these little cheesecakes are impressive and elegant and take even less time than a stop off at the bakery. I made these this weekend when my parents were in town, and everyone thought they were delicious.

Little Baileys Cheesecakes

6 shortbread or butternut snap type cookies (I used Walker's shortbread rounds)
1/3 cup Baileys
7 oz. ricotta
9 oz. cream cheese
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Line a muffin tin with 6 muffin papers.

Place cookies upside down in the bottom of each. You may need to trim them a little with a knife to get them to sit flat. Drizzle each cookie with 1 teaspoon Baileys.

Combine remaining ingredients, including remaining Baileys, in a food processor until smooth and creamy. Divide mixture evenly among muffin papers and refrigerate for at least an hour until ricotta firms up.

Both images via thestonesoup.com. My appologies for using borrowed images, but my pictures did not turn out.