Pantry Collective

John’s new job is giving me a lot of opportunities to bake things I wouldn’t normally make for just the two of us. Last night we attended the first BBQ of the season with a bunch of his coworkers. It’s been gorgeous in Chicago - over 80 degrees some days - so of course on the day of the first BBQ of the season it was freezing. Beautifully sunny but COLD. Thanks, Mother Nature! Oh well, at least there was a bonfire (in the city! Yes!).

Anyway, I was tasked with bringing dessert since my baked goods have been quite popular at the office. I made Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, and Pecan cookies for his first day, Nanaimo Bars for an Oscar Party, Coconut Banana Bread that I brought to the weekly happy hour… I’ve been busy cooking, but not posting, apparently. Anyway, I was actually asked for a repeat of the Nanaimo Bars but I decided to make these amazing little oatmeal cream pie cookies instead. I found the cream part of the Nanaimo bars to be too sweet, but now that I’ve made this recipe, I think I might try them again with this buttercream instead of the filling the recipe originally called for. LOTS of butter but hey, that’s what desserts are all about! Right? Right!

The cookies are uncomplicated. Oats, a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, and a touch of salt. The buttercream is amazing. Not too sweet, amazingly silky and buttery and delicious. I’ve never made buttercream frosting before, and have long considered it to be something I didn’t really love, but this - this isn’t the overly sweet, slightly gritty stuff of supermarket sheet cakes. This is heavenly. It’s thick and glossy and, well, full of butter. But you don’t need much to sandwich the cookies together, and hey, if you make them for a party, you’ll probably only eat one anyway. And you will be revered for making decadent, crowd-pleasing desserts. Which is always nice.

:)

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I have to be honest. I made this cake in December. I apparently came and wrote up the recipe right away, saved the draft, and waited for the photos. Four months later, here they are - lost to the archives and rediscovered this morning when I had a free moment and a touch of motivation to post something, anything.

The cake itself I remember as being delightfully firm and moist, a simple tower of chocolate with a light powdered sugar dusting on top. I used dark chocolate cocoa powder and the cake was so dark it was almost black. It wasn’t overly sweet or overpowered by too many competing flavors - if you like chocolate cake, this is CHOCOLATE CAKE. And nothing more. The coffee doesn’t add a coffee flavor so much as a deepening of the chocolate flavor. It’s a nice anytime cake, which, let’s face it, are the best kind. Cake anytime? Yes please.

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Around Thanksgiving, when cranberries were readily available and inexpensive, I bought an extra bag and froze it so I’d have some around once they were gone for another year. For some reason supermarkets think we don’t want to eat cranberries any time of the year except late fall. While it’s true that they happen to be in season then, it’s not like seasonality has ever concerned the grocery store before (see: tomatoes RIGHT NOW).

These muffins are delightful. Have I ever made muffins from scratch before? Nope. Were these super easy? Yep. Tart cranberries, fresh orange zest, and yummy toasted walnuts, with a crunchy muffin top thanks to the sugar sprinkles. You could make blueberry muffins with the same recipe, although I would use lemon zest in that case. I might increase the amount of fruit, too - 1 1/2 cups is fine, but I think they could have handled two cups and would have been all the more full of cranberry flavor.

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I know that’s a strange name, but these cookies are so full of butter (and therefore amazingly good) we could only make them once per year in my house growing up. I guess since Christmas and Thanksgiving were already full of bad-for-you treats, Valentine’s Day got these cookies. The original recipe, from a set of recipe cards from 1984, calls them “Chocolate Nut Logs”, but for whatever reason we stopped making them with nuts long ago. To make them seem more appropriate for Valentine’s Day my mom would sometimes shape the cookies into hearts. Now that I live in Chicago I’m rarely home for Valentine’s Day and I miss these cookies like crazy, so I convinced my mom to make them with me over the Christmas holiday.

They’re amazing straight from the refrigerator - something about them works best when they’re nice and cold, although you can certainly eat them at room temperature.

For about 4 dozen small cookies or 1 1/2 dozen large cookies

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 pkgs (12 oz) semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
1 tbsp shortening
(2 cups finely chopped nuts, optional - not used in the cookies we made this time)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg until light and fluffy.
2. Mix flour and salt. Add to first mixture. Using hands (or a wooden spoon and a lot of muscle) mix until well blended.
3. Stir in 1/2 bag of mini chocolate chips.
4. Use 1 level tablespoonful of the mixture for each cookie (for small cookies). Ours are probably closer to 2 tablespoonfuls each. Shape into logs, rounds, hearts, whatever. Arrange on ungreased baking sheets.
5. Bake at 350˚ for 12-15 minutes or until the bottoms of the cookies are just turning golden brown. Remove from oven and let sit on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer cookies to wire rack.
6. Melt remaining chocolate with the shortening (we do this in short bursts in the microwave, stirring frequently).
7. When cookies are cool enough to handle, dip into chocolate. If using nuts, sprinkle or coat with nuts at this time. Let stand on wax paper until cool, then pop them in the fridge to firm up. We leave them in the fridge and eat them cold.

This pie was the winner of the Best Fruit Pie award at Piefest 10! You may recall last year’s entry, Poached Pear Pie. Well, this year I knew I had to up the ante, because all the pies last year were over the top. The pies at Piefest are hardcore, people. This year there were some amazing entries (Johnny Cashew Chicken Pot Pie, Coffee Talk with Linda Richmond Pie, Wishlist Pie - based on the Skee-Lo classic from 1995, Ted Kennedy Would Have Voted For This Blueberry Pie, and many other pies that did not have clever names but were delicious nonetheless).

Best in Show went to an amazing NPR Tomato Pie which I admit had me going back for seconds (that is saying A LOT when there are 25 pies to sample). There was a “hurry up and eat it” ice cream pie, a dirt pie that came in a huge vase with ornamental paper flowers, a late-entry stawberry-peach cream cheese pie that wowed me with super fresh, sweet strawberries, and of course, many more. You can see a video of me and John going through the line, sampling each pie one last time before voting (I should not be the cameraperson ever again, sorry!). There’s also an awards ceremony video! Piefest 10 was a lot of fun, and I’m already thinking up an entry for next year’s event. I think I’ll break away from fruit pies and go for either Miscellaneous or Savory.

Notes on this year’s pie:
I originally made this pie a month or so ago, using fresh blueberries, a store-bought traditional crust, and almonds instead of walnuts in the topping. We took photos of that pie; they’re below the cut. Happily, Evan (host of Piefest) took a photo of the improved version I made for the event. The Piefest version, with a shortbread crust, frozen (thawed and drained) blueberries, and walnuts in the topping was a lot better, in my opinion. Frozen blueberries are actually really good, especially when fresh ones aren’t in season. In my experience they are a bit sweeter than fresh, and at this time of year, a lot cheaper. In this application they turn the sour cream filling a beautiful bright purple color that we didn’t get as much of in the fresh-blueberry version. You can also see the mostly-eaten Piefest Version in the first video - don’t worry, we’re pretty close to the beginning.

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