Bolo Bao is a DELICIOUS soft Hong Kong bun with a crumbly, sweet, cookie-like topping that you can find at any Cantonese bakery. While “Bolo” means pineapple, and “Bao” means bread, there’s not actually any pineapple in this bread. Its name comes from the criss-cross pattern atop the bread, which looks like the pattern on a pineapple. This bread can more accurately be described as a marriage between a soft, lightly sweetened bun + a crumbly soft cookie on top. It was one of my childhood favorites, and I love that this recipe allows me to make a small little bun at home anytime!
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A gorgeous chewy chocolate cookie with crisp edges, that beautiful crackle, deep toffee flavor, generous blobs of chocolate wafers throughout, and the perfect sprinkle of Maldon sea salt: My new all time favorite chocolate chip cookie!
I know, I said I had a different all time favorite in 2014… and yet another different one in 2017. But I guess my cookie tastes grow and change with me. Who knows what 2024 will bring! Also, I still make the Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread all the time (SO GOOD have you tried it yet??). There is always a stash in the freezer ready to save me and Ben when we have that specific craving, which happens more often than is good for us. But that shortbread and these drop cookies are two totally different categories to me, so I don’t feel like I’m giving those cookies the shaft by sharing these.
I got this recipe from one of the youth at church, and was kind of skeptical at first. I mean, Tasty recipes were fun to watch, but would this cookie actually taste good?
Yes. It did.
Alvin Zhou, the recipe author, made a fun video comparing three favorite cookie recipes: The 2-minute vs. 2-hour vs. 2-day cookie. I actually tried making the 2-day cookie, toffee and all, and even though those are “the ultimate” chocolate chip cookie, I have to be honest: I like this one (which happens to be the 2-hour one) even better! Seriously, these cookies are amazing. They’re everything you want from a nice bakery chocolate chip cookie: chewy with a toffee taste, nearly the size of your face, cracks running across the top with big oodly pools of chocolate looking you deep in the eyes… and that hint of salt splashed across the top. They have earned a permanent residence in our freezer drawer, so when I have a deep craving for one (like… right now), I can pop one in the toaster oven any time.
They’re easy to make and the video on the Tasty website gives you a good idea of the consistency you should have at each step. You don’t even need a mixer, so if you’ve been craving chocolate chip cookies, you definitely need to give these a try!
Notes about ingredients:
I’ve been miffed by comments online like, “This recipe was the worst! I substituted A for B and cut the sugar in half, and the whole thing was hard as a rock! Horrible! Don’t try this recipe!” But c’mon now, that’s not the recipe’s fault! Some substitutions work well, but many can change the final texture or taste significantly. So I wanted to make some notes about ingredients to help you get the best results!
- Dark brown sugar is the secret to the chewiest and most toffee-like cookie flavor. For years, I ignored the “dark” part of the “dark brown sugar” ingredient in a list, and just used whatever brown sugar I had on hand (that is, whatever Costco had in stock). I think this is a huge part of why super chewy cookies eluded me for so long, but now I know better. Try this recipe at least once with actual dark brown sugar and taste the difference! Also, I know some people like to cut the sugar to make it less sweet or more healthy, but it will probably change the texture of the cookie significantly if you do that.
- Use some good quality chocolate wafers. These Guittard wafers are my current favorite (though I’ve got my eye on these Valrhona feves to try someday)! I use half chocolate chips and half wafers. Saves some $ but you still get those yummy pools of chocolate in your cookie!
- Don’t add your butter if it’s hot. I read some of the comments on the Tasty website, and decided that it was worth mentioning my specific butter melting method. Because I’m looking at the cookie photos people have posted, and while everybody seems happy with their cookies (yay!), some of these cookies look like they came from a totally different recipe. So maybe details on a good butter method will help:
You want your butter to be liquid, but not too hot. I’ve made these cookies with totally melted, hot butter, and it seemed to dissolve my sugar in the first step more than make a paste with it. The final result wasn’t as chewy. This time, I melted 3/4 of the butter in the microwave partway. I took it out when it was still a little chunky, and stirred until it was all melted (so, it was never SUPER hot). Then I added the last fourth of the solid butter in, in small pieces, and stirred until everything was liquid, but still relatively cool. So the butter was melted, but not hot… and definitely on the thicker side. I know this is finicky, so I’m not saying you have to, but maybe it will help increase the chewiness? I want you to succeed! 😀 - Sprinkle with Maldon sea salt afterward! Not Kosher salt, and definitely not table salt. Maldon sea salt is the flaky salt that comes in squares and adds a delectable little crunch and the perfect touch of salt to balance the sweetness.
More tips for success:
- Let the dough rest overnight before baking them to allow a more complex, toffee-like flavor to develop.
- Make sure the cookies are all the same size before baking, otherwise some will be too crisp or others not quite cooked enough. I use a scale to measure out 3 oz chunks, but if cookies the size of your toddler’s face are too much, just use an ice cream scoop for uniformity. I think the bigger cookie also lends itself to a more craggly surface when it cools, which I like.
There is so much I love about Melissa Clark’s Chocolate Babka recipe: The fudge filling, simple syrup, and most of all, the chocolate streusel! I could eat that streusel every day.
Fudge filled swirls topped with chocolate streusel and finished with simple syrup. YUM.
But as often as I would love to toast up a thick slice of chocolate babka, I don’t always have it in me to make it. It can take 6-27 hours to finish, depending on how long you let it rise for, so I set out to find a way to adapt my favorite elements of her babka and turn it into a roll. After going through and trying various recipes online, I found a combination I LOVE: pillowy, soft bread dough (the same one used for the copycat Cinnabon rolls I make) and the three elements of Melissa Clark’s 26 hour babka that I love best: the fudge filling, the syrup, and the streusel! These last three can all be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge until you’re ready to make the bread dough.
The other thing I love about having this in roll form is that I can easily wrap and freeze each roll individually to enjoy weeks later for a midnight snack or a treat-breakfast. If you’re looking for your next pandemic baking project, give these a try! They’re so delicious!
We had a quiet thanksgiving at home this year, and as much as I missed hugging my grandparents and seeing my relatives, the day turned out to be really lovely. Since we didn’t have any place to go, or anyone else to cook for, I felt truly free to do whatever I wanted and spend relaxed time with my family. So after a quiet day of pom pom animals, Legos, and Sleeping Queens (affiliate link to our current family game obsession), we sat down to a delicious meal of hot pot and apple pie. Does it get any more Chinese American than that?
One of the best things about hot pot is that other than a well-timed grocery run, there isn’t much prep. All the cooking happens at the dinner table, which left me even more time to tinker freely in the kitchen all day. So I decided to make an apple pie. A simple but fancy-looking one with a pretty braided lattice pattern a la Chrissy Tiegen. I had three goals for my pie: make something easy but delicious, make it not too sweet, and try the pretty braided lattice design.
I used store bought crusts from Trader Joe’s, fresh Golden Delicious apples from our CSA box, and tweaked a recipe I had found on allrecipes.com for the filling, hoping to avoid the overly sweet filling that I usually associate with apple pie.
It may look tedious, but it’s 2020, and this braided lattice design turned out to be really fun and satisfying to do! I’m not sure if JoEllen in 2021 will have the time or patience to cut and braid strips of dough for a beautiful pie, but if my daughter’s in, then I’ll try make time for it! Seeing her delighted smile at her unhurried, relaxed Mama as we stood side by side making pie made me realize, for the upteenth time, how much I need to slow down and enjoy these small moments. My full presence and unhurried enjoyment of hers leaves the biggest impression on her, and I think it’s these little things that she’ll remember the most someday.
After filling our bellies with hot pot, we all managed to find some space to enjoy pie together. The story of actually eating the highly anticipated pie turned into a saga and memorable moment that deserves its own post (filed under “parenting”)… but I’ll have to save that story for another time. Suffice it to say, the pie was delicious and we just might have started a new family tradition with it!
Apple Pie
Adapted from this recipe
Ingredients
- Two pie crusts (I use the 2-pack from Trader Joe’s)
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 6 Golden Delicious* apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Melt the 1/2 c butter in a saucepan. Whisk in 3 tbsp flour to form a paste. Add 1/4 c water, 1/3 c sugar, and 1/3 c brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Stir in 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Reduce temperature and let cool slightly, then pour over your sliced apples and mix so that slices are coated.
- Place the bottom crust in your pan. Fill with apple mixture, mounded slightly. Cover with a lattice work crust.
Note: If you’re worried about your outer edges burning, wrap with a strip of foil for the first 30 minutes of baking. - Bake 15 minutes in the middle of preheated oven. After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350°F. Continue baking for 35-50 minutes, until apples are soft and the lattice design is golden brown.
Note: If your pie pan is on the small side, place a baking sheet on the rack underneath to catch any dripping.
Enjoy!!
*I used to think Granny Smith apples were the ideal apples for pie, but Kenji at Serious Eats recommends Golden Delicious, and I’m glad I went with it! If you do go with Granny Smith, you might want to increase your sugars up to 1/2 cup since they’re a bit more sour.
Thanks for sharing your comments and thoughts on my last post as I reflected on ways I’ve been thinking about and trying to grow in my understanding of race-related issues in America today. I’m still learning, discussing with friends, and reading like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes I literally don’t have until tomorrow to finish my reading, as my library app constantly reminds me with the many books I have checked out.
I get that commenting is less common in today’s blogging culture, but if there were any posts I really wanted to hear back from you all on, it was that one! My family and I are continuing in our learning journey and would love to hear from you how you are engaging and learning, too. In the meantime, I wanted to share a recipe with you that has been on repeat this last month: Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread. I’ve already gotten friends hooked on Chocolate Shortbread, and while that is still my #1, this one is an excellent cookie that is different enough to feel like variety, but similar in all the right ways. I first heard about the recipe from my friend Wendy.
Wendy and I have been besties since high school. She is special to me in so many ways. I remember walking the hallways of our high school together, early in the mornings before school started, to pray for our classmates, teachers, and staff. And that’s saying something, because five years later in college, we were the roommates who could easily sleep in until noon if we didn’t have class. While the early morning walks didn’t last very long (we were high schoolers after all), we still had plenty of chances to bond. We had classes together, were in clubs together, went to church and youth group together, ran in cross country and played badminton together. But one of my favorite things to do with her was to bake!
One Christmas, we decided to make a variety of cookies for our friends. We had a whole bunch of cookies we were planning to bake up and package to deliver to our friends at school. There were simpler ones, like chocolate crescents, and more complicated and time-consuming ones, like the almond lace cookies, which had to be baked in multiple batches and kept us up late into the night. Being the relatively inexperienced bakers we were, we ended up staying up until 3am on a school night finishing things up! I still can’t believe we did that, and I would be surprised if any of our friends even remembered the cookies today.
But it was so worth it. We made a lifelong memory and can look back on those carefree high school days fondly. So when she sent me this message last month, it wasn’t just someone suggesting something for me to try. It was Wendy! And COOKIES!!
I made it that very week.
And readers, let me tell you, it just added another layer of cement to our already-solidified friendship. In the past, we have texted about chocolate shortbread in a way that made me feel like I had discovered a new love language, and from my very first bite of this chocolate chunk shortbread, I felt like she was hugging me all the way from the East Bay.
I used my very best chocolate on these, and it was totally worth it. My favorite way to enjoy them is not fresh out of the oven, but about 10 minutes after I take them out of the oven. Actually, my favorite FAVORITE way to enjoy them is to wait til they’ve completely cooled, then toast them for 6-8 minutes in the toaster oven (just like a slice of bread toasted to medium darkness), and then I wait another 5 minutes before taking that first heavenly bite.
This is actually how I enjoy most cookies (especially chocolate shortbread and chocolate chip cookies): toasted for 6-8 minutes, left to cool for another 5-8 minutes, and then savored: one crisp-chewy warm oozy chocolatey bite at a time. YES.
Sigh… I already ate a chocolate chunk shortbread heated this way at 4pm today, and now I have just tempted myself into another. Brb.
Ok. So while my chocolate chunk shortbread cookie is toasting, I’ll add a couple other notes:
- You really do need to roll it in the crunchy sugar. The original recipe calls for demerara sugar, but I had turbinado sugar on hand and it turns out they’re similar enough for this recipe. I would not substitute with regular white or brown sugar, though. The large sugar crystals add a wonderful crunch.
- These freeze well. I keep logs of them in the freezer next to my rolls of chocolate shortbread dough :]
- I’ve doubled the original recipe below. I see no reason to make only one batch, so I did the math for us. You’re welcome.
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April 2, 2020: I originally wrote this post in February, before COVID-19 really turned our world upside down. Let’s pretend it’s February, and that we might actually be celebrating a friend’s birthday soon and have a reason to make a whole cake.
(Or, we can just be like me and make yet another chocolate cake (or two…) to eat at home JUST CUZ. Because boy, if there were ever a time to treat yourself, this is it. I’m already wondering when the next okayest time to make another one of these is…)
February 2020
My phone lit up and I saw the happy message from my mom:
"I'm enjoying the birthday chocolate cake right now. So yummy Jo. This is the kind I want every year for my birthday until I die, :) hehe"
That’s what my mom just texted me about this cake that I just made her a few days ago. And I have to agree–it’s a pretty bomb cake. The bottom is made of a dense, fudgy, flourless dark chocolate layer that hits all those deep dark chocolate cravings. The top layer is essentially a whipped dark chocolate ganache, which means it is a huge quantity of rich, dark chocolate truffle spread out in a thick layer and called “cake.” No objections here.
Dorie Greenspan created this elegantly simple and decadent cake, and I’ve been eating multiple slices a day since Thursday, when I first delivered the cake to my mom. I ate two at her birthday dinner, and then I made a whole new cake that very night after putting the kids down. My college friend had invited us over for dinner the next evening, and I wanted to bring something delicious because she’s the kind of person who does everything with excellence and I wanted to bring something excellent for her! This cake did not disappoint.
Having made it twice in 24 hours, I naturally started to look for some shortcuts. Nothing that would compromise the amazing texture and flavor of the cake, but time-saving (and dish-saving) shortcuts to make it easier to make this heavenly concoction even more accessible in the busyness of life. So, grab your favorite springform pan and give this cake a go. If you love chocolate, you will not regret it!
P.S. If you want to go the extra mile, I’d recommend serving it with a simple raspberry sauce like this one.
Earlier this month, we threw my daughter an epic unicorn birthday party! I love having an excuse to get super creative, and my little girly girl has brought out a pastel, sparkly side of me I never knew I had until I became her mommy. It was super fun trying to brainstorm fun, yummy, pretty things for her! I had started planning it months ahead of time, and the week leading up to it was definitely crunch time. I prepped or completed some food item every day until the big day, and of all the things I made, this might have been my very favorite. I called them Magical Unicorn Horns:
It’s a yummy s’mores snack mix served in rainbow-decorated cone treat bags! These are EXTRA special because I think I might have come up with something ORIGINAL to contribute to the beautiful unicorn world of Pinterest!!! That’s a pretty big blogger accomplishment! At first, I was just looking for an excuse to use those colorful pastel marshmallows since they looked pretty. I was searching along the “Unicorn Poop” theme, but nothing really stood out to me as something pretty and yummy-looking. I guess it doesn’t help that I don’t actually like these fruit-flavored marshmallows.
Then I gave up on making “unicorn poop” and decided to just make some yummy snack mix with marshmallows and Chex in it. I mean, you can’t really go wrong mixing marshmallows and Chex, right? So I searched and searched for the perfect looking recipe, and eventually threw together my own combination of s’moresy snacks inspired by this snack mix recipe that I found:
They were a hit! Not only did they look great in the “horns” that I displayed them in, but the kids could not stop snacking on them all throughout the party. In addition to the unicorn horn display, I had set out an open bowl of the same snack mix with little snack cups for easier access. Even with a unicorn cake, chocolate-dipped marshmallow wands, banana cream pie and Pirate’s Booty on the table, they kept coming back for more of the s’mores snack mix.
So back to the pre-party prep: I was trying to think of a fun way to serve these up. Pretty cups? Bags? Ooh, maybe cone-shaped bags turned upside down to look like horns?? I ordered these cone-shaped bags, decided to experiment with some washi tape, and came up with this:
Once we got the Chex mix in, it was just a matter of getting them to stand up straight like horns. I tried righting them in muffin tins, but the sides weren’t high enough and they kept tilting. Then I remembered these cupcake wrappers I’d picked up at Home Goods a while back. They are sturdy little cups you can put baked cupcakes into after they’re all done and baked–kind of like wrapping paper for cupcakes (not to be confused with cupcake liners).
Mine were a simple yellow color, but there are some really cute ones online! Once I twisted the bags closed and pulled the cellophane back, they were very easy to put into the cupcake wrappers and stood up straight the way I wanted. Hooray!
At the party, the magical unicorn horns made for a lovely display and take-home snack, and the extra bowl of the same s’mores snack mix was the most popular snack by far. Later that week, I made some of the same snack mix for the parents in my son’s co-op (minus the marshmallows) and people came back for seconds and emptied the bowl in no time. It’s pretty addictive! So whether or not you’ve got a unicorn theme going on, this snack mix is sure to be a favorite at any event you go to. Who doesn’t like a mix of crunchy, salty, and cinnamony s’more sweetness to snack on? It’s easy and it’s yummy, give it a try!
Fun ways to involve your young children at every age!
I love to bake. I love my kids. I always daydreamed about the day I would bake with my kids. It would be perfection: We would laugh and smile and get flour in our hair and have chocolate smeared around our mouths. They would take turns cracking eggs and I’d show them how to fish the shells out using bigger shell pieces. They would sit on the counter and turn on the mixer and be amazed as liquid cream whipped up into mounds of fluffy, sweetened clouds of bliss.
It was going to be magical. I could not wait.
Baking is therapeutic to me. I love the quiet rhythm of scooping flour and sometimes sinking my hands into the flour bin and squeezing fistful of the soft powder just for fun. I didn’t know it was “sensory play” at the time, but as a kid I used to love dunking my hands into the huge bin of flour and indulging in the cool, soft, light and almost liquidy sensation it gave. I love the warm smell of cocoa powder and the stress-relieving powers of kneading a smooth dough under my palms (and the amazing smell of fresh bread baking in the house!). It calms me.
Baking with kids is not therapeutic to me. It can actually be pretty stressful. They get eggs everywhere, then lick it off their fingers (ACK! NO!!). They scoop flour, then spill it (ugh). They stir a batter, then tip over the bowl (nooo!!). They constantly beg, “MOMMY CAN I DO THAT MOMMY IT’S MY TURN MOMMY I WANT TO DO THAT!” They sneak bites of chocolate (mmMMmMMMmmm). They sniff at everything (ahhHHHhhHhhH). They squeal with delight when I let them lick freshly churned ice cream off the paddle (which also makes for the cutest chocolate-covered smiling faces!). They smile with closed eyes and then stop talking altogether when they finally get to bite into the freshly-baked cookies they’ve been smelling for the last fifteen minutes.
…Like the ones we had tonight. We used my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and somehow it came out wrong. Maybe I made a measurement error while doubling the recipe (I should not have–it already makes a generous amount!). Maybe it was baking with a 2- and 4- year old. Maybe my daughter counted the wrong number of scoops of flour. Whatever the case, the cookies rose too much and were more cakey than chewy. Even as I scooped out hunks of dough to form into logs for freezing, I realized that some logs were really thick and meaty, and some were goopy and weak. They had not been mixed evenly, and now I had seven failed logs of cookie dough (!) to go through before I could make a proper batch again.
Wah-wah.
But the kids didn’t seem to notice, and Ben didn’t mind at all. When we sat down to milk and cookies, everyone smiled their contented, closed-eyes smiles and there was a chorus of “mmMMm” and “yummMmm” and “Mm, not bad!” around the table. Because really, who’s going to complain about fresh-baked cookies on a rainy day?
And this is always when I start again through the amnesia cycle and think to myself, “Wasn’t that fun? Let’s do it again!” And you know, it IS fun. For the kids. And I know they can’t wait to do it again. There is so much to experience even in cracking an egg. They’ve seen plenty of pictures of eggs, but to hold the cool egg in their palms and tap-tap-tap it against a bowl to crack-CRACK it is another thing. To feel the slimy egg goop on their hands and then watch it blend and disappear into the other ingredients is truly a unique experience. They are seeing, smelling, touching, hearing (and, unfortunately sometimes tasting… bleh!) all in one small little baking task. Baking is such a multi-sensory experience for kids, and one they can actually eventually EAT. There is a special satisfaction that comes with making your own food, and it is such a wonderful thing for kids to create and enjoy the work of their hands.
There is also a ton of practical learning that can take place during a baking session with kids. There are endless opportunities to weave math skills in, such as counting, measuring (fractions!), weighing (units of measure), doubling recipes (multiplication, fractions), measuring time. There is also so much opportunity to introduce rich vocabulary as you describe the smells, textures, tastes, and sounds you hear. They will understand these words in a totally different way when they are actually engaged in hands-on, multi-sensory experiences where they apply. There is plenty of social learning, from taking turns (especially when siblings are involved) to cleanliness (wash yo hands!) to kindness, thoughtfulness, and sharing (cookies for all!). They practice self-control when you tell them not to lick the brownie batter with raw eggs in it, and they have plenty of opportunity practice taking things slowly and cleaning up after themselves.
Sure, JoEllen, that all sounds good, but my kid is only one. Is there really much he can do in the kitchen right now? Why, yes! Yes! There is! And there are plenty of ways to involve toddlers and preschoolers, too. So many that I made lists for you of ways to involve your 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5- year olds in the baking fun! If you don’t bake as often or can’t think of a single task that would seem successful with your child, then start at the ideas for one-year old children and slowly work your way up as your child proves herself more capable. For example, anyone can take a ripe, browned banana and squish it up in its own skin for banana bread! Fair warning, there’s a decent chance it will burst out of its skin and make a mess, but that’s part of the fun, too (for your kid, at least).
Please note that all of the suggested activities are really just suggestions and ideas based on what has worked for me and my kids. They might not be appropriate for the child(ren) you are working with, so please use your own discretion and knowledge of the child(ren) and their abilities to decide if it is an appropriate activity and adjust the activities as needed. Parents should be nearby and supervise all tasks closely!
If the idea of bringing your young child into the kitchen to bake with you seems daunting, you are not alone. I still shy away from baking with my kids sometimes because of all the potential mess and hazards, but I ultimately choose to do it because I think it is so beneficial and fun. I make it more manageable by choosing age-appropriate tasks for them to participate through. You might be surprised at how much they can do! I know I was tinkering away in the kitchen on my own when I was nine, and I hope to give my kids the same freedom when they get older. Until then, I’ll be here to guide them through the kitchen and hope to make great memories through it!
It started with an innocent trip to Costco. In July. Which meant there were enticing summer fruits beckoning to me as I strolled with my big, empty cart, shopping alone at 8:15pm, which is the absolute best (or worst??) time to shop at Costco. I sauntered over to say hello to the sweet produce.
They seduced me.
I drove home with strawberries, blueberries, a watermelon, bananas, and white peaches. All Costco-sized, of course. White peaches are one of Ben’s favorites, and I couldn’t wait to dig in! They’re also my friend Kim’s favorite, so I justified the purchase by telling myself she’d probably take half of them. Even so, I started to feel burdened by all the ripe fruit we would have to consume in the next week. I was comforted with the knowledge that summer fruits were going to be amazing right now, so this was the time to GO BIG OR GO HOME.
When we got home, I sliced one of those soft, juicy peaches open and… it was yellow inside.
They were not white peaches.
And then the strawberries weren’t sweet.
And then the watermelon wasn’t as amazing as last time.
What a bust!
What was I going to do with two pounds of mediocre strawberries, two pounds of blueberries, a ginormous meh watermelon, pounds of bananas, and 10 juicy, ripe YELLOW peaches?!
So I sat down with my fun new journal and decided on the fate of my disappointing purchases. Soon I had visions of fruit tarts, ice creams, juices, and galettes dancing in my mind. I had go-to recipes for almost all of them, so it was just a matter of remembering to run the blender before the kids went down for a nap, and sticking the ice cream bowl into the freezer so it would be ready to churn ice cream. No problem.
My first go at galettes
Except for the galette. I had never actually made a galette before, but had been itching to try since I had a slice of my friend Lauren’s nectarine galette recently. Everything I read about galettes promised me that they were the more relaxed, rustic cousin to pies. They didn’t require a pie tin and the fillings had minimal fuss. Just roll out the crust, pile fruit on top, and fold the edges over. This would be a snap to throw together, right?
Lauren happily shared her recipe with me, but as I skimmed it, I was immediately overwhelmed by the paragraphs of instructions. I like to keep my recipes short and sweet, and this didn’t feel like the more relaxed, rustic version of anything. There were ~13 ingredients on the list, which was about 8 more than I was hoping for. So I went to see what my baking hero Dorie had to say about it, and then researched a whole bunch of other recipes online, and here is what I learned:
- Your favorite go-to pie crust will do. Yayyy Trader Joe’s!
- You can go many routes on the filling, including using marmalade or jam, making a custard to pour in, creating a cornstarch/sugar mixture, or simply sprinkling some sugar on top. I went with the last one.
- If you have juicy fruits (like peaches), you need something to soak up the juiciness or it will soak through your crust. You can line the bottom with a layer of bread crumbs (unseasoned), graham cracker crumbs (as Dorie did), pulverized amaretti cookies, or a mixture of ground almonds and sugar. I went with the last one.
- You can brush the folded crust with egg wash or butter. I dislike touching raw eggs, so I used butter.
- It is nice to sprinkle some crunchy sugar (like raw turbinado sugar) on the folded edges for a little crunch. Regular white sugar will do in a pinch.
- There are a whole bunch of cooking temperatures and times (some with various times and temperatures within one recipe!), but I personally think a hotter oven will give you a crisper crust. So I went with that.
- One recipe said to preheat the pan (pizza stone, if you have one) in the lower third of the oven while the oven is getting to temperature. I am guessing this is to keep the top of the crust from burning and also keeping the bottom of the galette crisp and less soggy. I followed that advice.
- Smaller galettes can be delicious. The first time I made this recipe, I made two smaller galettes. The second time, I tried one big galette. I liked the smaller ones much more. They were easier to handle and didn’t get as soggy in the middle (though I did add more peach slices to fill it in more, so maybe that was more to blame). I also personally prefer the higher crust to fruit ratio of the smaller galettes.
One of the reasons a galette really appeals to me is the idea that it’s supposed to be very simple. Also, the fruit I was using was actually good, so I didn’t want to mask that with custards or jams or lots of sugar. So, with simplicity as my guiding principle, I started with my favorite store-bought pie dough (thank you Trader Joe’s!).
I didn’t make a fancy filling, but just sprinkled on a bit of sugar.
I generally followed the instructions from Smitten Kitchen that Lauren had sent me, with a few (simplifying) tweaks.
The final result was delicious!
It was simple but elegant and my friends each got seconds and I’m already trying to find another excuse to make it. Which means I need to write down how I made it so it will turn out good again. So here goes!
I was wasting away on Facebook yesterday when this lovely video popped up in my feed:
Mmmm… fluffy, lightly sweetened, bouncy souffle pancakes. Some people commented that they had tried them before in Taiwan and Japan and said it was like eating a cloud, and that it was airy like cotton candy. The stuff of daydreams.
I watched all the way through wondering how well the inside got cooked and how fluffy it would taste in my mouth. So I went searching for recipes and videos online. I couldn’t seem to find the right kind of recipe when I searched “Taiwanese Fluffy Pancake,” but there was a lot out there for “Japanese Fluffy Pancake” and before I knew it, I landed on the familiar pages of Nami’s blog at Just One Cookbook and was quickly convinced that her recipe held the key to a perfect fluffy pancake experience in my future. It looked very similar to the fluffy ones in this video- maybe with a little less bounce, but just as tantalizing.
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