Pop Rocks Cookies

Last week our nation celebrated its 234th birthday. I wanted to show my patriotism, so I decided to harness the power of food fireworks.

Pop Rocks Cookies
Adapted from Alton Brown. Makes approximately 3 dozen

Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
3 cups flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp milk
2 packets Pop Rocks (strawberry)
Decoration
Egg whites, pasteurized
Powdered sugar
4 packets Pop Rocks (assorted red and blue flavors)

Directions
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg and milk, beating to combine. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until all the flour is just incorporated. Fold in the pop rocks. Divide dough in half and place between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll dough into a large disc, then place discs in the fridge for at least one hour.


Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment or silicone mat. Remove one disk from the fridge and let it warm for a couple minutes on the counter. Roll the dough on a floured surface until approximately 1/4" thick. Cut out desired shapes with cookie cutter (I opted for stars). Place cookies one inch apart on prepared cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough until cookie sheet is full, then place the sheet in the fridge for five minutes. When not using the cookie dough, put it back in the fridge too. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes until the edges star to turn golden brown. Cool cookies on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.


I used a very simple royal icing on the cookies to allow the Pop Rocks to stick. I would recommend that you do this right before you are about to serve the cookies as Pop Rocks become less powerful as they are exposed to the moisture in the air. For the royal icing, I used about a tablespoon of pasteurized egg whites (forgive me because I did not measure) and whisked in to this about a cup of powdered sugar. Pretty much start with 1 tbsp of egg whites and add as much powdered sugar as you need to get a spreadable or pipable consistency that won't go everywhere. If you want, you can add vanilla to the icing, but I liked to keep it as pale white as I could. Sprinkle cookies with Pop Rocks.


These cookies were a real hit at the barbecue I attended. The cookies themselves have a very mild pop. You can see that some of them sustained some damage from the Pop Rocks during baking, leaving pock marks (sunspots? solar flares?). But the candies strewn on top of the cookies provided the real punch. I specifically chose a plainer cookie so that the Pop Rocks could shine through. Nothing makes adults grin like surprising them with a dessert featuring one of their childhood favorite candies. Hope everyone had as great a Fourth of July as I did.

Star-Spangled Cake & Mad Hatter - 7/12/2009

This week had some preparation for a weekend trip (see next post), so this post is a little shorter than some of the other epic entries, but it's still delicious nonetheless.


Early in the week, I had the chance to go to Mad Hatter for brunch. I opted for their Cuban, seen above. It is a very non-traditional take on the usual pressed sandwich. Instead of a relatively thin compilation, the Mad Hatter take is piled high with thickly sliced pork and a slightly spicy sauce on top, all on a thick, chewy bread (not Cuban bread, but still very good). On the side is a cold pasta with bell peppers and tomatoes. Not pictured is a "Mostess cupcake" in the style of the Hostess chocolate cupcakes with the curly-cue of white frosting and white cream filling. I was surprised to find the cupcake very dry, making the whole experience a little disappointing. I've had their cake before, and it was pretty good, especially after an overnight chill in the fridge. I will definitely go back to Mad Hatter, but I will be a little more wary of the desserts.


The cake theme of the week was Fourth of July, despite the fact that the holiday has passed. I decided on some All-American flavors - vanilla spice cake with an apple butter filling - similar to what you find in apple pie. I will admit to save time I used a box cake mix, but I did throw pretty much every spice I could think of into the batter (including, but not limited to, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves). The cake was moist and a little more airy than is good for frosting, but luckily this week we were also working with fondant. Fondant is like a frosting dough. You can buy it from stores like Michael's and roll it out on a cornstarched surface. Then you drape it on top of your cake, smooth it out and cut away the excess. I can easily see fondant being a great way to save a cake that does not look like it will be presentation-worthy by itself. Most people liked the slightly chewy quality it brought to the cake. As a final note, the stars on top are made of gum paste, which when set to dry turns almost inedibly solid after a couple days (but they sure look good).

4th of July & Buttercream Flowers - 7/5/2009

Happy Independence Day, everyone! I hope everyone had a filling and safe 4th of July. I realized this year it's strange that on one of the days near the peak of the summer heat, we spend the day cooking in front of a grill and lighting fireworks. It seems we like to celebrate the birth of our nation by sweating all day long. Anyways, here's what I whipped up for a small gathering of my classmates.


As a simple appetizer, I made Muhammara. Instead of a perennial dip like spinach-artichoke or hummus, I chose the road less travelled which happens to run through Syria, the birthplace of this dip. It's primary constituents are roasted red peppers and walnuts with some cumin as the primary spice. The overall consistency is more like a thick paste, but it can be thinned down if need be. Not only is the dip easy, it's just different flavors that I think take your taste buds by surprise. So ditch the old dips and slip your chip into this tip and you'll be licking your lips.


I did not manage to take individual pictures of the main course and side items, but everything worth mentioning is on my plate (go figure). I like to run my parties as potlucks so I'm not left doing all of the cooking. This also prevents me from going overboard and preparing too much food for the occasion. So the main items to focus on are the burger and the cornbread. The pork burgers feature an apricot-chipotle mayonnaise that really livened up its flavor. The mayo has a sweetness balanced by a subtle, smokey heat that helps to counter the fattiness of the mayonnaise. If you prefer your pork well-done, be sure to not overcook it so that it becomes to dry. Not even mayonnaise can save it then.

These burgers met with critical acclaim, but the biggest smash of the main course was the cornbread. A little birdie gave me the idea, which I thought was absolutely genius: corn dog bread. Who doesn't love a corn dog? But who needs to go through the hassle of skewering and frying all those wieners when you can merely slip them into your favorite cornbread recipe? I love to keep everything a surprise, and this side item pretends to be normal cornbread until you cut into it. Then it's Crouching Hot Dog, Hidden Deliciousness comes to the forefront. I had to stop myself from eating the entire pan's-worth because it had all of my favorite elements of corn dogs, only in smaller pieces. I would definitely recommend this very simple twist on a fair food classic for pretty much any excuse you can find to make it. July 4th? Yes. Birthday? Sure. Monday? Why not?


Since the grill was already heated up, why not a grilled dessert. The great thing about fibrous fruits like pineapple and stonefruit is that they hold up well on a grill. Grill marks look great on almost everything, and they help to caramelize the sugars in the fruit. Plus warm pineapple puts cold pineapple to shame. On top of this great base is drizzled a diluted Nutella sauce, then dollops of a vanilla-infused mascarpone. You can also throw on some toasted hazelnuts to really finish it all off. Giada may not look it, but she knows her way around a dessert.


My favorite dessert, though, is this watermelon sorbet. I took Alton Brown's recipe and infused it with some Martha Stewart inspiration. While making the sorbet, I remembered some flavors she used on some fresh watermelon a few years back, so I dropped the vodka (I don't know why you'd really need it anyways since it would drop the melting temperature) and added some honey and a healthy dose of freshly grated ginger. The ginger kick helped give the watermelon a surprising bite so that it wasn't just sweet melon with more sugar then frozen. I attempted a nice display in a watermelon rind, but my scooping does need a little work. Presentation not withstanding, this sorbet was the runaway hit for our desserts without being too overbearing.


On a different note, cake class this week was how to make frosting flowers. Pictured above are a plain, simple swirl, a daffodil (my best was still not very realistic), a rose, a sunflower, and a hyacinth with leaves. My favorite were the hyacinth since they were the easiest to make, yet the most amazing to look at. The lesson learned for this class was you really need the right equipment (i.e. piping tips) to make just the right shapes for each of the flowers. The wrong size tip can make the difference of making a flower that looks like a nice representation of nature using frosting versus one that could be a flower placed on top of the cupcake. For those, like me, who care almost equally about flavor as about decoration, the cupcakes this week were from Shelly Kaldunski's book, Cupcakes. Half were gingerbread (with fresh ginger) and half were mocha, and all were topped with a vanilla-white chocolate buttercream. I thought they tasted good, and apparently my lab did too because they disappeared in less than 24 hours. Sweet.