Simple, Salty, Peanut Butter Cookies

Posted on October 26, 2015 by thekeyofkels

I’m not really one to go out of my way to make gluten-free treats.

That’s not to say I’m against it, I just really like gluten. I like how it holds pie crusts together. I like how it forms those beautiful layers in puff pastry. I like how it makes bagels chewy and pizzas firm and crisp.

Plus, it doesn’t wreck havoc on my body. So my love affair with most things gluten continues.

But sometimes I make something truly delicious, and as I’m stuffing one more of that delicious something in my mouth I happen to think, “You know what? This here is gluten free!”

And viola! I call it healthy.

But I wouldn’t want it to be too healthy, because then I wouldn’t be sure whether or not to call it a treat.

So, I added chocolate chips! Because, well really why not.

This recipe is an ever so slight variation on smitten kitchen’s version. Initially, I just wanted something sweet and salty. I realized how easy it was to make. (5 ingredients!) And then, I added chocolate chips. (make it 6 ingredients…)

I almost didn’t post this because the lighting in my kitchen was so awful, but shoddy photos aside, I recommend making these as soon as possible. I have so far brought them to work, to my hair stylist, and to my neighbors who so generously lent me their car when ours broke down. (damn you and your tricks 2015!)

I haven’t heard one single complaint yet.

I mean they’re packed with peanut butter and they’re gluten free so… they’re basically granola bars, right?!

xoxo

kelly

Salty Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies
variation on smitten kitchen’s recipe

makes about 30 cookies with my #40 scoop

1 3/4 cups (335 grams) packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups (450 grams) smooth peanut butter
1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips
Coarse-grained sea salt, to finish

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the light brown sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then the peanut butter until smooth and completely incorporated.

Freeze the dough in its bowl for 15 minutes, stirring it once halfway through. Scoop the dough into balls — I use a 1 2/3 tablespoons or #40 scoop. Place on prepared pan. I liked mine to look like tiny cooked balls of dough, so I put them back in the freezer for another 10 minutes before baking. If you would like yours a little more spread out, they are ready to go!

Sprinkle the dough balls with coarse-grained sea salt just before baking. Bake for 14 to 15 minutes, or until golden at the edges. Let cool on hot pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before eating to get the best final texture.

Open Letter to My New Apple Peeler

Posted on October 22, 2014 by thekeyofkels

Dear Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer thingamajig that I bought yesterday,

I feel like we started out on the wrong foot. I assumed you were silly. I assumed you were one of those kitchen gadgets that would show up on a BuzzFeed list about stupid things people buy for their kitchen. I assumed you were something that no self-respecting baker would have in their cabinet. I assumed you would make not only a giant mess, but you would make my apple-pie making last at least four times longer than it should have. But something in me said to just give it a try.

Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer – I owe you an apology.

Something happened to me after the first apple. I took out my phone and couldn’t stop taking pictures. The curly leftover peels! The slinky-like peeled, cored, sliced apple! I felt like I wanted to make a hundred apple pies. Maybe some apple sauce! Heck, I wanted to make apple butter, too!

I peeled apple after apple after apple. I took pictures from every angle. I sent texts to my husband and best friend. I stuffed that pie so full of perfectly peeled apples that whoever ate it would have kept the doctor away for ages. Plus, I was done in about ten minutes. TEN MINUTES. You, my friend, are a life-saver.

Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer, I am really, truly sorry. I’d like to start again. You are wonderful. You are helpful. I could never imagine facing Apple Pie Season again without you. Please, please can we be bffs?

xoxo,

kels

Strawberry Chocolate Banana Bread

Posted on July 10, 2014 by thekeyofkels

My fridge is stuffed right now.

Not because we have a crazy amount of food. I mean, we always have sort of a crazy amount of food in our house, but this time it’s just because it’s summer.

Summer stuffs our fridge for two reasons. The first is that everything delicious is in season. Cherries and apricots are on their way out, peaches are at their peak, and tomatoes are just about ready. We’ve had to start bringing the cart to the market with us because It’s kind of impossible to carry around three Weiser Farm’s melons, a bag of peaches and a flat of tomatoes. For three hours.

Talk about a food blogger workout.

The second reason our fridge is stuffed is because we don’t have air conditioning. So if we left those tomatoes I’m in love with out on the counter for more than twelve hours, we would not only have tomato mush, but we would also have a swarm of fruit flies.

No bueno.

Somehow recently, a few bananas got left out in the fruit bowl in the summer heat. And I kept telling myself they’d be ok or that I’d finish them in the morning. But then I was having breakfast and I realized I could smell the bananas on the shelf next to me. It wasn’t a bad smell, just a “use me now or I’ll turn into a big blob of gross” smell.

One of the bananas even looked like this, so I was almost sure I’d just be throwing the whole bunch away.

Except when I peeled it, just to make sure, the banana inside looked just right…

Which, of course, meant banana bread!

I started looking up recipes. I also discovered I had a pint of strawberries that were on their last days. (Strawberries and bananas take a back seat to stone fruit in this house, I guess.) I figured I’d throw them in the mix. I started making a grocery list. I almost headed out the door.

But before I did, I just happened to stumble across a recipe for chocolate banana bread. Chocolate. Banana. Bread. I had an epiphany where I realized that the combination of chocolate and banana in bread was even better than banana and walnuts. And sounded so much more like dessert than breakfast…

Plus, I was still going to add in strawberries.

Yep. I was making Strawberry Chocolate Banana Bread.

Banana bread is one of those comfort foods that just makes me happy. It’s fluffy and light and crunchy and is kind of like a cake, but can definitely be categorized as breakfast.

This banana bread was even better. Even more decedent. Even more tempting to just cut yourself off a piece every time you happened to be near the kitchen.

I truly had to give away half of this loaf because it was so rich and delicious and amazing. But mostly because I’m supposed to be on a post-vacation detox, and I just couldn’t stop eating it.

No one I gave it to seemed to mind too much. It was almost like a giant strawberry brownie. And topped with vanilla ice-cream on a hot summer day? Oh. My. Gosh.

Give it a try. I promise you’ll be tempted to always leave your bananas out a little too long when the temperature goes up…

xoxo

Strawberry Chocolate Banana Bread

ever so slightly adapted from smitten kitchen’s Double Chocolate Banana Bread

3 medium very ripe bananas
1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 cup Strawberries, chopped
3-4 Strawberries, sliced length-wise for topping

Heat your oven to 350°F. Butter a 9×5-inch loaf pan.

Mash bananas in the bottom of a large bowl. Whisk in melted butter, then brown sugar, egg, & vanilla. Use as sifter to sift baking soda, salt, cinnamon (if using), flour and cocoa powder over wet ingredients. Stir dry and wet ingredients with a spoon until just combined. Stir in chopped strawberries.

Pour into prepared pan, top in whichever design you’d like with the remaining strawberry slices, and bake 55 to 65 minutes, until a tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 to 15 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and invert it out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Lavender (or Rosemary!) Shortbread Cookies

Posted on June 3, 2014 by thekeyofkels

I bought all of that lavender. I dried it all and picked all of the buds. I made a delicious cocktail with it.

But this is what I was planning on the whole time.

I have this semi-vivid memory of being at a restaurant a long time ago and being served dessert. And whatever the dessert itself was, I remember that it was served with this amazing little rosemary shortbread cookie.

I say semi-vivid because I can still taste that cookie. I crave that cookie. But I can’t really figure out where that memory came from… I sort of remember it being a chocolate dessert. I think it was at a great restaurant in New York.

I think it was with dessert…?

All that’s important is that tiny little cookie.

After making those caramel shortbread cookies a few weeks back, I kind of got on a shortbread kick. I was noticing it everywhere. I loved it’s buttery flavor. I was fascinated with seeing bloggers garnish their versions of the caramels with lavender instead of seasalt. I had never thought to garnish something with dried flowers before.

Plus, I kept trying to place where the heck I experienced this rosemary shortbread cookie.

No use. The details of that memory are gone. I’m trying to just be thankful for the bits and pieces I have locked away to replay over and over…

Mother’s Day was coming up, and I decided that I wanted to send something sweet and little home to all the mothers that are so special in my life back on the east coast. My mother and extended mothers are always so supportive of what I do here on the blog. They are constantly commenting on the drool my recipes inspire from across the country, so I wanted to give them a little taste of what I am always working on.

I decided on toying around with that cookie obsession a little and used those gorgeous little purple buds I’d so diligently picked to make a Mother’s Day treat.

I was kind of afraid the cookies would come out tasting like soap or some other body ointment from a lotion store at the mall. Or that the buds would be dry and crunchy and weird. But if I wasn’t going to send actual flowers to all the moms, I thought cookies with flowers in them had to be just as good.

Right? Moms?

I also decided that I had to try my hand at the rosemary version since I couldn’t get it off my mind.

Once the dough was made, I split it into two parts and added lavender to one half and rosemary to the other. Even the doughs were gorgeous.

It’s not often I think how beautiful my dough is… I usually just want to eat it immediately. This one also had that effect, but not until after I had taken a billion pictures.

And after they were rolled out, cut out and baked, it was hard to decide which one was better.

I ended up sending a mix of both flavors to all of the moms back east. I’m not sure they made it there un-crumbled, but based on the couple that I saved for myself, they would have been just as amazing in tiny, little crumbly pieces.

The lemon flavor was perfect with the herbs (and flowers). And the icing was perfect and simple and sweet.

Although it wasn’t the exact flavor I remembered from that tiny shortbread cookie all those years ago, I’m happy to keep experimenting until I figure it out.

I am also curious about using thyme… But I’m sure there will be a next time very, very soon.

xoxo

Lavender Shortbread Cookies

adapted from here and here

COOKIES
1 c unsalted butter – room temperature
3/4 c confectioner’s sugar (or more, depending on the consistency after you add the lemon juice)
2 tbsp lemon juice (or 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract)
1.5 tbsp freshly grated lemon zest (about 2 large lemons, preferably Meyer)
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 c cornstarch
2.5 c all purpose flour
1 tbsp dried lavender

Cream together the butter and confectioner’s sugar until smooth, and then mix in lemon juice and zest. In a separate bowl, sift together the salt, cornstarch and flour. Add this to the butter mixture and stir until the flour coats the butter but isn’t completely worked in. Add in lavender flowers. Using your hands, lightly rub the ingredients together until the mixture is no longer dry. You will know it’s done when it forms easily into a dough ball. Flatten the dough out into a disc and wrap with plastic warp. Refrigerate for 30 minutes (or up to three days).

Preheat the oven to 325° F. Take the fully–chilled dough and place it on top of a piece of parchment. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/3 inch. Cut with cookie cutters. Remove the scraps from between each cookie and re–form into a flat disc. (If dough has become too soft or warm, re–refrigerate it for a few minutes before attempting to roll it out.) Transfer parchment paper to a cookie sheet and bake in the top third of the oven for 15 minutes or until the edges are just golden brown. Allow to cool on cookie racks before icing.

ICING
1 c confectioner’s sugar
2-3 tbsp lemon juice

Whisk together confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Set your cookies on a baking rack on top of a cookie sheet to catch excess icing. Drizzle icing lightly over cookies and garnish with a lavender bud before while the icing is still liquid. Allow icing to set and harden for about an hour before moving or stacking cookies.

Concussions to Sugar Cravings

Posted on April 7, 2014 by thekeyofkels

So, I hit my head. Hard.

It’s a stupid story, but let’s just say that the rest of last week didn’t go as expected.

Yes, it was our third wedding anniversary on Wednesday, and I started out the day feeling pretty good. Being in the car was a little weird and I was making really spacey comments about how slow we were driving and how it made me feel like I was in a movie… but overall, we had a great day! Market, coffee, nap, and an amazing dinner planned…

We made it to dinner. We even really, really enjoyed dinner. I’ll have to tell you all about it another time.

Because as soon as I stood up from my chair to leave the restaurant, it was like I was on a boat. A boat on really rocky waters. I was dizzy and nauseous, and by the time I got home I was a total wreck.

You don’t need all the gory details. Let’s just say it all ended up with me wearing this bracelet that I never wanted to wear.

Yep, that was me the morning after our wonderful anniversary dinner. Waiting to get a CT scan at the Santa Monica ER because that bump on my head was most definitely part of a concussion and I just wanted to make sure I was alright. You know, because not being able to think clearly and mixing up words in normal conversation gets a little scary.

Don’t mess with your brain, folks.

Turns out my brain was ok and I was sent home to rest and take care of myself.

Except that chocolate craving I had the night of the fated head collision with the dog? It never went away. I’m not even kidding when I say I think Gibson knocked a sugar sensor loose. All I’ve been wanting to eat is sugar all day, every day.

So since Brad bought me a beautiful cake stand (complete with amazing dome! yay!!) for our anniversary, I couldn’t let it go empty. Plus, having a recipe to concentrate on seemed to be helping my brain heal. At least that’s what I’m going with, since everything turned out delicious.

This is what I’ve been making…

With plans for many more sugary projects.

Have you ever heard of people craving sugar after a head injury? I’ve Googled and Googled, and I can’t find anything that looks credible. One doctor even gave a one word answer on his website: No. So maybe I can’t use brain swelling as an excuse to bake anymore?

Not that I needed an excuse in the first place.

xoxo

Coleman Farm Lunch

Posted on March 28, 2014 by thekeyofkels

I don’t know if you remember, but in September Brad was auctioned off at Weiser Farms right in front of my very eyes.

After bidding hit about $200, I realized I could no longer afford my husband. I was going to have to share.

For a good cause, of course.

A lunch for 8 at Coleman Family Farms was sold to the buyer who had $1400 for Alex’s Lemonade Stand. They scheduled and planned, and then rescheduled for after the crazy holiday season – which ended up being yesterday.

With me and the Barolo Joe guys in tow, Brad put together a 5 course lunch for what turned into a group of 16.

We drove up to Carpinteria super early (for us), explored the farm a little, and then hand-picked fresh greens, flowers and herbs for lunch.

Then, it was off to the races. We set up and prepped…