Dr. Cocoa Puffs

Vollidioten labern lassen verhindert Kapitalverbrechen

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Best chocolate chip cookies ever

So a couple weeks back the web was all over this article in the New York Times and people were baking up a storm. One of my favorite internet cooks, Orangette, put her stamp on the recipe and I thought, hmm, I need to see if it lives up to the hype.

Thursday afternoon I finally got around to mixing up a batch of dough. Last night (24 hours later) I baked four cookies. And they were good. Damn good. This morning (some 40 hours later) I baked the rest and we tried one for breakfast. OH MY GOD. These are the best chocolate cookies ever. The Guitar Hero agrees - he claims it was the best cookie he's ever eaten in his thirty-odd years on this planet.

This is what they look like just out of the oven:


And here's a close up of one fine specimen:


My two cents to the recipe:
- I followed Orangette's recipe and just used one type of flour (in my case, plain old all-purpose flour).
- As I am out of chocolate chips and will be till the next trip to the States or a well-meaning care package arrives, I chopped a couple of bars of dark chocolate (60% cocoa, Herrenschockolade for the German speakers). Worked just as well as chips would have.
- I should have skipped using a mixer as our cheap-ass piece of shit didn't do a great job of making the butter and sugar creamy. Had to use old-fashioned arm power. If I had a Kitchen-Aid (cough, birthday present, cough), I'm sure my poor little arms would have been spared.
- I halved the recipe as I didn't have enough flour, sugar or brown sugar (see care package above). My half recipe made 21 good-size cookies, so I'm thinking the 24 the full recipe makes must be some big-ass cookies. Like as big as my not-very-small ass.
- Follow Orangette's tip to let the dough warm up for 30 minutes before scooping. Mine was very hard just out of the fridge. Also, my dough was very crumbly, which I first thought would equal messed-up cookies, but everything turned out fine (see above pics).
- Sea salt, sea salt, sea salt, I think I love you.
- Wait the full 36 hours before baking. It is totally worth it as the cookies do indeed develop a caramelly flavor while sitting in the fridge. They honestly taste like something you would pay money for. In a good way.

In short: bake the damn cookies already. Your taste buds will thank you for it.

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Friday, August 22, 2008

Vacation pics

Will wonders never cease - I've got pics up within a month of our vacation. I rock!


This was the view from our terrace - what a view for breakfast!


Digital photography's effect on the economy - this little camera-shaped one-hour photo place has long shut down. But I thought it was worth a shot for historical purposes.


Lifeguard stand on the beach. The water was incredible - not too warm, not too cold, just right. And no algae and jellyfish!


My only pic of myself, taken at the airport just before our flight home. Notice the huge zit on my forehead. That's what I get for using children's greasy-ass sunscreen.

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Saturday, August 16, 2008

Life in the slow lane

We're back and to put it succintly, our vacation was great. We just chilled, doing tons of reading, eating and going to the beach. As I feared, snorkeling didn't work so well for me. Too complicated. Proving once again anything beyond walking is too much hand-eye-foot coordination for the Doctor. But the Guitar Hero got snorkeling time in and even learned to scuba dive. Yay, Guitar Hero! Next time we need a week or two to re-coup, we know Fuerteventura's the place.
Some things we learned while there:
- I only rock at Yahtzee every other night
- Check the map listing the gas stations BEFORE setting off on a road trip across the island.
- Salted butter and baguette make a great breakfast.
- And bread and aioli and papas arrugadas with mojo sauce make a great dinner.
- Read the label when buying orange beverages. Orange drink is NOT orange juice.
- My high school Spanish is still good enough for me to understand the Spanish InStyle. Marie Claire, on the other hand, is somewhat more difficult.

And the best lesson:
- We can spend 10 days without internet or tv and not kill each other.

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