Buttermilk Pancakes and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Sorry for the hella late post, you guys (all three of you who read this). There was this thing, and then another thing, and then I forgot the camera at my other house and oh god you don't even want to know. But now the pictures are up and the cookies are made so here's the post! :)

I was only planning on making cookies this weekend, but then Felder got hungry. REALLY hungry. One thing led to another, and BAM! All of a sudden, I'm making cookies AND pancakes.

I started on the pancakes first, due to Felder's insistence that he was about to die of starvation. He claims that these pancakes take at least two hours to make, but I think they really only took about 45 minutes (15 of which consisted of me treating a burn wound). Possibly less, if you aren't making cookies at the same time.

OKAY. SO. Recipes are from my mom's old copy of The Joy Of Cooking.


Buttermilk Pancakes: Recipe says it makes 10 4-inch pancakes. I ended up making 5 6-inch pancakes, one of which collapsed like the Soviet Union in 1991.


The rest of them ended up looking a lot like internal organs/UFOs.


I'm not so good with the circle-making, I guess. But I don't think I could have made 10 pancakes out of that much batter.

You will need:


Dry Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
(Microwave works well for this, assuming your microwave works at all. Unlike mine. So I improvised, stuck my butter in a glass bowl and stuck the glass bowl in my toaster oven.

Incidentally, glass retains heat really well. Hence, the burn wounds.)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

So vhat ve gonna do is:
In the book, it says sift the dry ingredients all together, which was hella messy, but made super fluffy pancakes, but I guess whisking works too. If you don't have a sifter, btw, you can use a strainer and shake it through into a bowl. Just beware: if your bowl is too small, the dry ingredients go everywhere. Like a dusty, fluffy cloud of pure evil.


Get another bowl, combine the wet ingredients.

Ewww.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Give just enough quick strokes with a whisk to barely moisten the dry ingredients. If you do too much beating, the pancakes will be tough. Tough like Mr. T. Ignore the lumps (there will be lumps).


Cook on a griddle/in a pan/on a rock. You know the pan is hot enough when you flick a few drops of water on it and they jump around and sizzle. Watch your pancake - when it bubbles a bunch all over and starts to look kind of fluffy and odd, it's ready to flip. Check the underside with a spatula to make sure it's brownish first, though.


If you can't serve them immediately, stick them on a plate in the oven at 200 degrees. It keeps 'em warm. :)

They were delicious, and as The Brother pointed out, they tasted kind of like biscuits. The Mother taste-tested several, purely in the interest of science, and pronounced them a success. She wanted to continue her testing, but I took the plate away, because if she taste-tested any more of them, Felder would not have gotten any breakfast. Unfortunately, there was no syrup in the house, so we smothered them in butter and devoured them.


I love that word. It's so much fun to say. I always think of this when I say devour:


(By the Amazing Eeeeeeeve)


...Anyway, the cookies! You know that you've done it right when you taste a little bit of the cookie dough and then you taste just a little bit more and pretty soon you're on your way to cookie-rehab because you cannot stop eating.

I made a double batch of these, because I finished one batch and was like, "That's it?" Seriously, this recipe should be at LEAST doubled for your full cookie-scromphing satisfaction.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup & 2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 bag flavored chips (chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter... whatever you want)
nuts (but only if you are DANGEROUSLY INSANE want nuts)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. DO NOT FORGET THIS OR YOU WILL FEEL DUMB WHILE YOU WAIT FOR IT TO HEAT UP.

Take the butter and cream it. I use a potato masher, but I think maybe there's a thing you use specifically for creaming butter? Meh. Anyway, make sure you leave the butter out for a while because trying to cream frozen butter is like a full on workout. Like, I'm surprised that I don't have bulging biceps now.


Then you take the sugars and you play with them while you wait for the butter to get soft enough to cream.


Okay, you've creamed the butter now, right?


Good. Stir the butter and sugar together hardcore, til you can't discern the sugar from the butter - basically, til it's a creamy, sugary mass.


Once you've got that, you add the egg and vanilla. Stir those in really well. The consistency at this point will be, bluntly, super gross. Totes slimy.

Now, mix the dry ingredients. Once again, the book says sift them together. I don't know how much it matters, really. Take your dry ingredients and mix them into the wet ingredients. This is the part where the cookie dough really becomes cookie dough. You'll def. be able to tell when the cookie dough is ready for chocolate chips, because the flour is all mixed in and the cookie dough no longer looks like the Ghost of Cookie Dough Past, all white and flour-y.


At this point, you can sample the dough, if you want.


NOT THAT MUCH. Seriously, do you want to actually bake these things? No? Yeah, me neither. Buuuut, I promised the guys at work they'd have cookies. So now you can add the chocolate chips now, or the alternative chips, or the (shudder) nuts. Ew.

Bake for 10 min, until golden-brown and, you know, cookie-looking.

OR do what I did, and save them for later: Take a cookie dough lump and some tinfoil.


Form the cookie dough into a longish rectangley thing, like so:


Now roll it up like a tinfoil cookie salami.


Store in fridge til you're ready to bake. Tip: Put a note on your cookie-salamis so nobody eats them (cough cough MOM). My note says, "DO NOT TOUCH, LEST YE FALL PREY TO THE CURSE OF THE SEVEN BLIND BASTARDS."

Another Tip: If you chill your cookie dough before baking it, the cookies will be all smooshy and nice. This is a tip I have yet to test, but I read it on the Intar-webs, so it must be true. Right, guys?

Yet Another Tip, from the Amazing McK: Store your done cookies in a ziplock bag with a piece of bread. This will ensure that your cookies stay squooshy and nummy, while the bread will get hella, HELLA stale. He says this will work for about a week.

I'll update ya'll when I make the cookies, let you know how they come out.

<3, TWC
UPDATE: I wrote this post on Sunday night, but had problems with pictures. I made the cookies last night, so here is the rest of the post. Okay, so The Mother ate one of my cookie-dough salamis. I hope she likes her new curse. The remaining two were in the freezer. Here's what I did with them: 1. Unwrap, because who wants tinfoil in their cookies? (If anyone out there raises their hand, I will find you and I will smite you.)


2. Cut into pepperoni-like slices, but thickish. Like maybe 1/4" thick? Ish? I hate measurements.


3. Lay on a well-greased cookie sheet, spaced fairly evenly. Give the cookies room to expand in the oven. (Or not, if you want a giant lumpy cookie mass.)


4. Bake at 375 degrees for about 10 min (as gone over in the above post).


5. Remove cookies from oven, using TWO oven mitts, not one and almost dropping the damn thing and catching it and LOOK ANOTHER BURN HOW DELIGHTFUL.

6. Wonder what the eff happened and why do you have tye-dye cookies?!


7. Oh yeah, two different batches of dough. One had melted butter because you stuck it on top of the toaster oven. Mystery solved!

8. DEVOUR.

9. (Optional) Store in fridge with aforementioned bread.


The Brother enjoyed these so much he was all like OMG I WILL PAY YOU TO MAKE THESE FOR ME SERIOUSLY NAME YOUR PRICE. Felder was like NOM NOM NOM PUT THE COOKIES IN MY MOUTH. WHY HAS THE FLOW OF COOKIES STOPPED??

We're gonna call this one a success, I think. ;)

<3,
TWC

OMG! Marshmallow Buttermilk Mini-Brownies

A few months ago, my friend McKendrick brought in these *amazing* brownies. I asked him for the recipe (which he got from his mom). Here is my attempt to follow this recipe and the delicious results.

"First the Grocery list! I may tell you to get more than you actually will need because it's better to have more than enough than not enough.

2 cups Sugar and Flour
6 Tablespoons of Cocoa (roughly a cup and a half)
2 sticks of butter (1 cup total)
1/2 Cup vegetable oil.
1 cup buttermilk (RECIPE WILL NOT WORK WITHOUT. DANGER WILL ROBINSON)
1 Teaspoon baking soda.
2 eggs.
Some form of baking non-stick spray. Mom uses Baker's Choice.
Bag of Mini Marshmallows.
1 pound powdered sugar (MUST BE POWDERED UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR FROSTING TO HAVE THE CONSISTENCY OF A ROCKY BEACH)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.
2-3 big bowls.
Jellyroll pan. "


(This is a jellyroll pan. I went to the store and bought some cheap tinfoil-esque pans that looked similar to this, and it turned out fine. So nobody has to panic like I did at first. -_- )


"...So I asked my mom about the size of the oven and she said she made these in her old oven, which had two small ovens, so unless your stove is comically tiny like mine she didn't think you'd have a problem.

RECIPE AND INSTRUCTIONS!

My mom's been making this for 31 years. Nuts, huh?"

Totally nuts. Speaking of which, I suppose you could add nuts to this recipe if you wanted to, but I am not a fan of nuts. Just so you know.

"Get a biggish bowl out and gather 2 cups flour and sugar (regular sugar) and 4 tablespoons of cocoa."



"Sift together. I dunno if you've done this before but you basically get one over those things with metal mesh and shake it, making the flour/sugar/cocoa mix together in a fine mixture. I might be telling you something you already know but I want to be sure I cover everything."


Thanks, McK. I totally didn't know how to do that before. :D Oh, and what I did was dump them in a medium-size bowl and then pour them through the strainer into the big bowl.


"Now that it's sifted and in a bowl, put it aside.

Grab a sauce-pan (medium sized should do) and pour in:
1 cup water
1/2 cup butter (half a stick)
1/2 cup vegetable oil.
BOIL THE MOFO. (but not too fast, don't want to burn the butter)"

I have a gas stove (which I love), and I heated this on 2 until the butter melted, then turned it to 4. Took about 8 minutes total to boil.

"When boiling, pour it into the flour mix and stir it up until there's no point in stirring it anymore (meaning it's as smooth as can be)."



"New Bowl!
1/2 Cup Buttermilk
1 Teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs (without shells, preferably)"


"Mix it up. MIX IT UP HARD."


"Add to flour mix. STIIIIRRRR."

I have to say, this is a really weird consistency. But, whatevs. I trust your recipe, McK.

"Get out your jellypan!
Baking Spray!
Pour in mixture!"


"Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes in the middle rack. It's done when it's light and springy to the touch."


"POUR ON THE MARSHMALLOWS! One layer."


"Stick it back in the oven (I keep typing over and it's irritating) for 3-5 minutes, until the mallows are squishy and slightly brown on top."


"Take it out and let it cool COMPLETELY. If you can fit it in your fridge that'd be a good idea. The reason is if you don't let it cool completely and then pour on the icing, the mallows migrate and make a mess."

A note here: I did *not* have near enough frosting for this amount of brownies. It turned out alright, though, the brownies taste just as good without the icing.

"ONLY START THIS PART ONCE THE BROWNIES HAVE COOLED.

Frosting.
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter (half a stick)
1/4 cup cocoa.
Medium-sized saucepan. Bring to boil (again not to fast, the buttermilk and legit butter will burn)"


"Once it's all a bubbling add:
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 POUND of powdered sugar (MUST BE POWDERED)"


"Mommy McK uses a whisk to beat it at this point until smooth. "


"Grab the pan and pour the icing over the mallow/browning lengthwise, back and forth, covering as much as you can. Then grab a butter knife or spatula to spread and even it out. Let cool."

Like I said, I ran out of icing, sue to having made two batches. No worries if you only make one, though.

"To cut, get a steak knife (not joking) and run it under hot water (or have a glass of boiling water nearby) before cutting it into 1 inch squares. These brownies are SOFT and MOIST and most other methods make a mess of them. Do not dry the knife after getting it hot."

Yum Yum Yum.

"Feeds 3 McKendrick men for a day or an army for a week (like, seriously, there will be a lot)."

Yeah, he isn't joking. These things are maybe one square inch and they are SO. RICH. OMG. They're more cakelike than brownielike but they are fabulous. I brought one pan to work with me and the consensus was that they are amazingly good (the other consensus was that they couldn't be eaten due to breaking every diet ever).

It took me about 4 hours to make these, including cooldown time in between steps and also because I was watching Buffy.

<3,
TWC