Dulce De Leche Brownies

It's been a rough moth, as you can probably tell by the slowdown of posts.  But I have spring break in Key West to look forward to and its the breather I'm desperately in need of.

Keep a lookout for my food reporting from the Sunshine State.

Until then, here is an overdue recipe for Dulce De Leche Brownies from the Valentines' Day Bake Sale.  Yep, law schools still have bake sales.  Some things never change.  If you're lucky I might also post my recipe for Red Velvet Madeleines!

- Darin

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Dulce De Leche Brownies

(adapted from Fine Cooking's Chewy Brownie recipe)

1 can Condensed Milk 

4 oz. (8 Tbs.) unsalted butter
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
4-1/2 oz. (1 cup) flour
2 Tbs. natural cocoa (not Dutch-processed)

1/2 cup Dulce De Leche
 

Fleur de sel (optional)

For the Dulce De Leche:

1) Put the can of condensed milk in a pot and fill it wil water so it is completely submerged.  There should be an inch of water above the can at all times.

2) Turn the heat to medium high and let it simmer for 3.5 hours.  Make sure to check every 10 mins to make sure the water level has not gotten below the top of the can.  That baby will explode if you neglect it...much like women.

3) Use tongs to lift the can out and let it cool for an hour before using.

For the Dulce De Leche Brownies:

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter and line an 8-inch square pan.

2) Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave in 30sec. increments until most, but not all, of the chocolate hass melted.

3) Let it cool for a couple minutes and add to the sugar, salt, and vanilla.  Mix in the eggs, one at a time, and then the flour and cocoa.  Don't over mix the batter; stop just when all the ingredients are combined.  

4) Pour batter into the pan and swirl in the dulce de leche.  I used a spoon to put dollops all over and swirled with a knife.  Sprinkle with the fleur de sel if you are using.

5) Bake on the middle rack for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out almost clean, with a few moist crumbs clinging to it.  If no crumbs cling, you've overbaked.  Sorry dude.

6) Let the brownies COMPLETELY cool, at least an hour, before cutting.  Trust me.  Otherwise you're gonna get some ugly brownies.  If you're transporting not in its original pan, I recommend wrapping each brownie with some parchment paper otherwise the dulce de leche will get messy.

Plum and Blue Cheese Gallette

This recipe has blue cheese in it so you know it's definitely not from my mom.  Most Thais do not like cheese and even less a stinky blue cheese like the one I'm using in this recipe.  My father and I are one of the few exceptions and as far as we're concerned, the stinkier, the better!

Cheese is something he and I really bond over while my mother, older brother and little sister look away in disgust.  It just really isn't their thing.  Some of the best memories I have with my father is when he takes the entire family out for brunch at the famous Cafe Lalo in the Upper West Side.  Yep, the very same one that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan filmed in for You've Got Mail.  It's the scene where they were supposed to meet for the first time and Tom Hanks' character realizes that he's been anonymously corresponding with the woman whose life he just ruined.  Queue the dramatic background music!

Anyways, whenever my dad takes us there for brunch, the two of us would pour over the cheese menu and pick a couple to try.  And the fact that the cheese plate comes with quince paste, fresh olive oil and rosemary toast and a tiny glass of fruit wine (raspberry was always my favorite) made it THAT much more awesome.  It was here that my dad taught me that fruit and cheese is a match made in heaven.

So this Plum and Blue Cheese Gallette goes out to you, Dad!

- Darin

Photo courtesy of Alan Hsu, who really needs to do all of our food photography from now, seeing as how my mom and I completely SUCK compared to him!  Thanks Alan!

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Plum and Blue Cheese Gallette

1 Pate Brisee (the best recipe I've tried is Elise's from Simply Recipes with one slight change.  I substitute the water with vodka, a neat trick from America's Test Kitchen!)
5-10 Plums (depending on the size of the plums and how thinly you manage to slice them.  I'd try for 1/2" but you can go up to 1" if you're feeling lazy but I wouldn't recommend any bigger than that)
2 tsp. Lemon Juice (if your Plums are tart/not very ripe like mine were, you can feel free to skip this)
1/3 cup Sugar
1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
1/4 cup Blue Cheese (you can go cheap for this)

1) Preheat the oven to 400F.  Take the pate brisee out of the fridge and let it sit for 5 mins to get to room temp.

2) In a large bowl, combine the plum slices and sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon.  GENTLY toss and let it macerate while you roll out your dough.

3) Roll out the dough into a 10" circle.  Feel free to be liberal with the flour as it will thicken the plum juice up into a nice sauce.

4) Starting from at least 1" in from the edge, arrange the plum slices in a circle, working from the outside in.

5) Gently fold over the edge of the dough over the first row of plums to create a nice rustic crust.

6)  Drizzle the macerated plum juice over the pie, just enough so that it will stay moist while baking, but not make the gallette soggy.  I know that is a really vague instruction but it will really depend on how ripe your plums are as the more ripe they are, the more juice there will be from macerating.

7)  Crumble the blue cheese over top followed by a sprinkle of sugar to finish.

8) Bake for 20 minutes (but start checking at 15).  Let it cool and enjoy!

Oreo Whoopie Pies

Oreo Whoopie Pies

A couple of days ago our extended family in Queens asked us to their summer BBQ.  Of course, this being Queens, it was less of a let's sit in our lawn chairs, grill lots of meat and enjoy the summer in our great backyard and more of a let's sit on the chairs from the kitchen, grill some meat and enjoy the summer on the driveway.  It was fun and delicious all the same though.

My mom and I elected to take care of dessert and we couldn't agree on what we wanted to make, so in true Daisy and Darin tradition, we each made our own. 

Now this is the one thing about me that makes my mom convinced I was supposed to be born either Italian or Mexican (my two other favorite cuisines after Thai) instead of Thai--I really dislike any dessert made with coconut milk.  I love fresh coconuts and coconut water and I love coconut milk based curries (now if I didn't like that, I REALLY wouldn't be able to call myself Thai), but something about desserts with coconut milk just rub me the wrong way.  Kind of like when people try to convince me that milk and alcohol could work (sorry the Dude).  Now you might be thinking, "Big deal!  Just eat other desserts that aren't made with coconut milk."  But you don't understand.  Literally 99% of Thai desserts include coconut milk, which basically leaves me with maybe 2 Thai desserts I can enjoy.  My mother, of course, loves all of these desserts, in particular the Pumpkin Custard, which is what she decided to make for the barbeque.  I would have nothing to do with it so I decided to make Oreo Whoopie Pies.

My Oreo Whoopie Pies are basically the homemade version of Oreo Cakesters, which I find completely brilliant aside from the fact that I feel they taste so artificial.   This batter puffs up so beautifully right after you add the buttermilk, I haven't been so excited to see anything bake!  It is also the buttermilk that keeps the pies so moist and fluffy that it's like biting into a puff of cloud.  Yes, these are so good, it makes me poetic.

One thing to note is that I am not a big icing person.  I pretty much stick to the 4:1 ratio of cake to icing.  Anymore and I my teeth hurt and I swear I get dizzy.  You can always figure out which piece of cake was mine because I will always leave an icing skeleton behind (you know, with all the cake gone and most the icing left in an "E" shape).  So feel free to double the recipe for the filling if you are a lover of icing.

Anyway, both my Oreo Whoopie Pies and Mom's Pumpkin Custard were huge hits at the barbeque, which of course made us both smile like complete idiots all the way home.  I managed to save some of my Oreo Whoopie Pies for my boss and intern for Monday.  Yum!

Here is my recipe for the Oreo Whoopie Pies adapted from the blog food is luv.  The mother has been busy packing as she's leaving for Bangkok tomorrow morning so she hasn't had time to sit down and write her post but the Pumpkin Custard recipe is coming!

- Darin

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OREO WHOOPIE PIES

HOMEMADE OREO CAKESTERS

For Oreo Whoopie Pie Batter:
3 1/2 cups Flour
1 cup Cocoa Powder
2 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Salt
2 cups Buttermilk
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 cups Butter at Room Temperature
2 cups Brown Sugar
2 Eggs

For the Vanilla Filling:
1/2 cup Butter
2 cups Powdered Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tbs Milk (Whole is best but Skim will also suffice)

1) Preheat oven to 350F.

2) Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl and set aside.

3) In a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk and vanilla. Set aside

4) Beat together the butter and brown sugar until creamy then add the eggs until combined. Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Be careful not over mix.

5) Use a 2" ice cream scoop to scoop out the batter onto a cookie sheet lined with either wax paper or silpat. Leave at least 1" between each mound.

6) Get a small bowl of room temperature water to wet your finger and smooth out each cake mound into a nice round top.

7) Bake in a 350F oven for 12mins. Let cool at least 15 minutes before frosting.

8) Cream the butter and sugar together until very well combined and fluffy.

9) Add the vanilla extract and milk and beat until the filling has loosen a bit.

10) Assemble. I used a 1" ice cream scoop to scoop in the filling which is the perfect amount for me. If you prefer more filling, I would double the filling recipe and use a 1.5" ice cream scoop.

Note: Be careful about stacking the pies together as they will stick. This is why wax paper is your best friend and is absolutely necessary if you need to stack these awesome little things for transportation.

Makes 30 Oreo Whoopie Pies.