Torchsongs Glassworks

This recipe is for chocolate-raspberry brownies.  Recently, however, the owner of our favorite Italian restaurant (Enzo’s in Armonk) gave me a jar of fabulous Italian wild cherries in heavy syrup.  I am going to try this week to see whether I can make up some chocolate-cherry brownies instead of chocolate-raspberry.

¾ cup butter, unsalted
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 large eggs
2 cups sugar
⅓ cup raspberry jam
3 tablespoons chambord or raspberry liqueur
1 cup flour, all-purpose white
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray brownie pan with nonstick spray (or Baker’s Joy nonstick with flour). Melt butter and chocolate in large saucepan over low
heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk in eggs, 2 cups sugar, jam and liqueur. Stir in flour and salt, then chocolate chips. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake brownie until tester inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 35-40 minutes. Cool in pan on rack until *entirely* cool. Run small knife around edges of pan and cut into pieces.

I like to make this in an “all edge” brownie pan.  This is for my oven and the “all edge” brownie pan.  I also like to use mini bundt cake pans.  If you’re going to make this in a standard brownie pan or in a springform pan, you will probably want to go for a longer baking time in order for the center to get cooked through.

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To make with cherries:

Drain syrup off 1/2 cup of cherries.  Chop finely (in small food processor, preferably, so they’re almost pureed) and substitute this for jam.  Substitute cherry syrup for the liqueur.

The cherry version is almost too sweet for me.  I would not serve it without vanilla ice cream or similar.

This recipe came from my friend Bradley, and I am posting it for Chuck.

½ cup crystallized ginger, chopped
¾ cup sugar, divided
6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
¼ cup molasses
1 large egg
2 cups flour, all-purpose white
2 teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350°

In a food processor or blender, cut ginger into 1/3 cup sugar until ginger is finely ground.  Pour from container and set aside.

Put butter and 1/3 cup sugar in mixer and beat until fluffy.  Add ginger mixture, molasses (or cane syrup), and egg, continue beating to mix.

Mix flour, soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a separate bowl.  Add to butter mixture; beat to blend well.

Cover dough and chill until firm to the touch, about one hour.  (Dough may also be frozen into a sliceable log at this point.)

Shape dough into 1-inch balls and coat in remaining sugar.  Place balls 2 to 3 inches apart in lined or non-stick baking sheets.

Bake in a 350° oven until slightly darker brown, 11 to 14 minutes total (if using 1 oven, switch pan positions after about 6 minutes).  Transfer cookies to racks to cool.  Serve, or store airtight up to 1 week; freeze to store longer.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

My notes:  These are extraordinarily gingery, and even baking to the 14-minute point did not overbake these, nor make them “snappy”.  These are slightly on the chewy side rather than a hard cookie, but retain that crackly gingersnap look.  I’d probably use a larger grain sugar like demerara or Sugar in the Raw to roll them in, rather than regular granulated sugar as the recipe suggests.  Steen’s Cane Syrup worked extremely well in place of the molasses, avoiding that sulphury aftertaste molasses can add.

Further notes: if you want to add chocolate chips to these, that is a very good combo.  It does make for a crisper cookie, I have found, and you don’t want to bake more than 12 minutes.

I am *still* waiting for my new torch from GTT, and getting more irritated by the minute.  But in the meantime, I decided to try my hand at finding an onion soup recipe I could make that wouldn’t lose the flavor because of a lack of meat.  This one definitely fills the bill.  It begins with a recipe from Cooks Illustrated, then moves on from there.

This adds great flavor.

Ingredients:

• cooking spray
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 7 yellow onions
• 2 leeks
• 1 cup water, plus extra for deglazing
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 1/4 cup red wine (Burgundy or Pinot Noir work well)
• 4 cups Pacific organic vegetable broth
• 3 cups “Better than Bouillon” vegetable base (3 tbs of the concentrate + 3 cups water)
• 1 tsp herbs de Provence
• salt and pepper to taste
• baguette or other home-style bread (we make our own using the recipe from Jim Lahey’s My Bread) cut into 1/2 inch thick slices that will fit atop the soup crocks.
• Gruyère–grate it fresh before you use it.

You will need a Dutch Oven (5 qt or thereabouts) and individual oven-safe soup crocks.  You will want to start cooking the onions at least three hours before the soup will be served.  This is not a quick cooking recipe!

You can also refrigerate the soup overnight, then put it in crocks and add the bread and cheese the next day, which is my preference.  (I find any soup tastes better if you wait.)

Preheat oven to 400, and place oven rack so that the Dutch oven is as centered as it can be.  While oven is preheating, cut onions as follows:

onion cut pole to pole

• first, cut ends off onion and peel.
• set onion on one flat, cut end, and slice in half  from the top down (you are cutting the onion from pole to pole)
• take the half onion, lay it flat on the side you’ve just cut so the domed side is up, and slice it into 1/4-inch slices starting at the cut off end, not the side.

Spray inside of Dutch oven with cooking spray, then place butter and onions inside.  Cover, and place in oven to cook for one hour.

After one hour, remove pot from oven and stir onions, scraping sides and bottom of pot.  They will be moist, reduced in size, and browning.  Return pot to oven, with lid slightly ajar, and cook for another hour.  Remove pot from oven and stir onions, scraping sides and bottom of pot.  You’ll notice some blackening along the sides of the pot, but just scrape it down into the onions.  It’s fine.  Replace lid, leaving it slightly ajar, and cook for another half an hour.

Remove pot from oven and place on stove over medium-high heat.  Remember, the pot is hot, so handle carefully for this next step!  Cook onions on stove for about 15 minutes, stirring and scraping frequently, until liquid evaporates and onions brown.  Continue about another five minutes until a dark crust forms on the bottom of the pan.  Stir in 1/4 cup of water, scraping bottom of pan so the crust dissolves into the water, then continue to cook another five minutes or so until the crust forms again.  Repeat the 1/4 cup deglazing twice more.

The onions will be so dark they are almost black, but don’t worry.  Add the sherry and the red wine.  Cook, stirring frequently, for about ten more minutes while sherry and wine reduce.

Stir in both broths (Pacific and Bouillon), water, herbs.  Scrape sides and bottom of pot to incorporate any last bits of crust that might be stuck to the pot.  Bring to full simmer, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for half an hour.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

That’s the point at which I let it cool and refrigerate it.  (Actually, since there are only two of us, I freeze half of the soup and refrigerate the other half.)  If you do refrigerate, be sure to reheat the soup before you broil–broiling alone won’t heat up the soup.

Cut your bread to fit the top of your crock, if you haven’t already.  Then lay the bread in a single layer on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven.  (You should do several extra croutons as they are delicious for dipping in the soup once you’ve eaten the one on top!)  Cook until dry and golden brown around the edges, 5-10 minutes.

Turn on broiler and set oven rack to about six inches below broiler.  Fill crocks 1 3/4 way with soup, lay a crouton on top and cover with a layer of Gruyère.  Broil until cheese is brown and bubbly, approximately 3-5 minutes.  Let cool a few minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

tonight's onion soup, with bread the wrong shape