Ferret Food, Recipe Swapping and discussion Options

[evlpez]

My all time favorite chocolate chip cookie is still the ever famous $250 cookie recipe.

Jan's Edit: I got this off the net the day I posted it, and later found that it's different from the recipe I actually use. I don't endores this recipe, so try it at your own risk. My original $250 cookie recipe is below in a later post.
Ingredients:

2 cups butter or margarine
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 cups flour
3 cups Ground (fine powder) oatmeal
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
24 ounces chocolate chips
1 8 oz grated HERSHEY'S milk chocolate bar
3 cups Chopped nuts

Directions:

Cream butter with white and brown sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Blend together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add chocolate chips, candy and nuts. Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 6 minutes in 375 degree oven. Recipe can be halved. Makes 100-150 cookies.


(I don't use nuts though, and I use light margarine with a higher water content; the cookies end up chewy and moist.)

[McGonagall's Cat]

You guys are evil... now I'm sitting here eating chocolate chips. Grrr ~


The best Choc Chip one I have is:

First and foremost - This MUST only be stirred with a spoon by hand. If you try to do any of the mixing with a machine it wrecks 'em and they come out flat and crispy and blah.


2 1/4 to 2 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. (or less, depends on what you like) Salt
1 C. butter or shortning
1 C. sugar (can be half and half brown & white if you like)
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 C. Peanutbutter chips
1/2 C. Butterscotch chips
1/2 C. Chocolate chips
1/2 C. nuts (optional)

Set oven on 350 F

In a large mixing bowl cream the sugars and butter/shortning, mix in the vanilla, then the eggs. Once it's smooth and creamy, dump in the flour, soda, salt and stir them together and into the creamy stuff. Once it's combined, stir in the assorted chips and nuts if you want them.

Form into golfball sized lumps, place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake approx. 15 mins or until golden. Let cool on sheets for 5 mins, then cool completely on racks.

[agrippa]

Some interesting ideas... maybe we should start a forum for recipe swapping. I'm after a "pure" chocolate chip cookie - no nuts, butterscotch, etc. How do the Hershey Bar Shaving end up? Do the melt into the batter, or do they retain their shredded shape in the cookie?

I'm also wondering about the ground oatmeal. I'm guessing it would add some chewiness to the cookies. Does it give the cookie an oatmeal flavor?

[evlpez]

^I'm with you. I'll start a new topic for recipes right now. If it gets too big to handle, we can make a subforum for it inthe Lounge.

The grated chocolate melts in and you can barely tell it's there. I add more chocolate chips to make up for that. I plan on grating most of a chocolate easter bunny next time and seeing if that makes it better. (Besides, my freezer is full of solid chocolate 1lb easter bunnies just for baking with.)

The oatmeal acts much like flour. They aren't chewier because of it, but it adds an oat-y flavor. Don't use butter, by the way. Every cookie I've tried that used butter in this recipe was hard. If you want chewy, you need to add more moisture. That's why I use light margarine. Less fat, more moisture.

Now I'm looking at that recipe I posted. I got it off the net when I saw your post about cookies. It's not the same as the one I got years ago and keep in my recipe box. I'll copy that out and post it in here.

edit: If you must use butter, try adding a bit of applesauce for extra moisture. That's what I do with all my muffins to cut down the oil and reduce fat. It adds moisture and you can't taste it.

[evlpez]

My original $250 Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

2 cups butter or margarine (I use LIGHT margarine with high water content)
2 tsp baking soda
5 cups blended oatmeal (blend or process to consistency of flour)
2 cups brown sugar
1 Hershy Bar (8oz.), grated
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour (sift it if you live in the USA, Canadian Flour is different)
2 cups white sugar
24 oz. Chocolate Chips
1 tsp salt
4 eggs
3 cups chopped nuts (optional; I've never put nuts in this)

• Cream butter/margarine and sugars
• Add eggs and vanilla.
• Gradually add combined dry ingredients
• Add grated chocolate and chips (and nuts, if desired)
• Roll into balls, flouring your hands between to prevent them sticking to your hands.
• Bake at 375 F for 12 minutes

Makes about 112 cookies. Recipe can be halved easily.

[zymurgy]

Little Zym tip:
Coffee grinders make excelent oatmeal blenders.


evlpez's edit: I'll bet it makes the next batch of 'beanage' taste interesting, too.

Zym's reply to Pez's edit: Well, be sure to brush it out afterwards. Actually, it once happened that somebody (read: Zym) absentmindedly emptied what remained in the machine into the cookie batter without looking at it, before grinding the requisite oats, and ended up with interesting coffee oatmeal rasin cookies, that were marvelous, but which she is unfortunately unable to reproduce exactly.

This post has been edited by zymurgy: Mar 12 2005, 10:48 AM

[agrippa]

I think I've gotten closer to my ultimate choc chip by switching to light butter from unsalted. (Thanks for the tip, Evlpez.)

[zymurgy]

I'm going to admit I don't use a recipe for my chocolate chip cookies, (I'm a cook of the 'hm... needs more X' variety. Snape hates me.) but sometimes, I do this:
Grind a mega ammount of walnuts. (preferably in a nut grinder, because other machines tend to make them very oily instead of fine)
Add powdered sugar enough to compliment them. (add until it tastes good to you)
Now, slice a stick of unsalted butter into this. The actualy ammount will vary, but you want a pile of butter slices that's about a third or less of the ammount of nuts you've got.
This is the wierd part: Take both hands, and pinch the butter into the flour mix, (like you were making a pie crust) until it's thoughouly blended. What you get is a bowl full of individual lumpish bits.
If it's too wet, (read: melts on your fingers) add some plane flour.
If it's too dry, add a dash of vanilla.

Now, get out your chocolate chips, and while you roll the mixture into balls the size of the hollow of your hand, add a few to each.

Place them on an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake in a 355 oven. (the oven must be very hot when you put them in, or they melt before they bake)

In about ten minutes, they'll be done. They will still be slightly soft to the touch, but will have brown undersides.

Remove from the oven, and let cool before you try to move them at all, since they'll crumble to bits otherwise.

Enjoy.

Not a conventional chocolate chip, but still very entertaining.

[McGonagall's Cat]

Off Topic, in that it's peanutbutter:
Impossible Cookies

1 egg
1 C sugar
1 C peanutbutter



Mix together and drop by teaspoon-fulls onto an ungreased cookie sheet a couple inches apart as they spread out. Bake at 350 F for about 10-12 minutes, don't bake any longer (they will be too soft to move until they cool).

These work well for people who are allergic to wheat, as there is no flour at all.



Zym - Those sound REALLY good!

[ronsmyman]

My favorite Chocolate Chip cookie recipe is as follows:

First mix:
1 lb of butter of margerine (yes it is a lot, but it makes a lot of cookies)
1 and 1/2 cup of white sugar
2 cups of brown sugar

Then mix in:
3 large eggs
2tsp Vanilla
1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 and 1/2 tsp of salt
6 cups of flour

Then you add the chocolate chips. The recipe says one bag, but I usually like to put in two. I like to have just enough dough to hold the chocolate chips together. You put them in the oven at 350 degrees F. And cook them for exactly 14 minutes. When you take them out, they should still look a very little bit gooey, but they'll harden while they cool and give you the best chewy chocolate chip cookie that I have ever tasted (I made some yesterday in fact.)

[pinkpanther]

I love that chocolate chip cookie recipe! Thank you ever so much for posting it! Now I won't have to call my poor friend at odd hours of the day, begging to know how much sugar to put in because I never can remember (and writing it down would only result in me losing it). Spiffing!

[timeturner]

Butterbeer Recipe: (Haven't tried it yet- Just found it today.)

Hot and Frothy Butterbeer


2 1/2 cups of milk
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 level teaspoon of butter
1 teaspoon white sugar


Heat milk in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the rest of the ingredients after the milk is warm-hot. Use a small hand mixer to make it frothy. Bring the mixture almost to boiling, but not quite.

Pour into mugs and serve hot!

Update- Tried this last night it was quite good!

[McGonagall's Cat]

At last I can understand why Harry would want to finish the rest of Dudley's!


Strawberry Knickerbocker Glory
Serves 4

Ingredients
450g / 1lb strawberries, hulls removed
50g/ 2oz castor sugar
250ml/ 8fl oz low fat Greek yogurt
300 mls / 1/2 pint whipped/ light cream or low fat Vanilla Ice Cream
150mls / 1/4 pint red wine
50g flaked almonds
4 sprigs fresh mint

Method
Place the sugar and red wine in a saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. (You could add a cinnamon stick and split a vanilla pod to the wine if you want some really intense flavours in the strawberries. You’ll find both in spice racks in most supermarkets).
Add the strawberries to the saucepan and poach in the liquid for 5 minutes. then remove the saucepan from the heat and set aside to cool. (While the liquid is cooking you could ‘toast’ the flaked almonds to make them crunchier. All you do is put them on a hot dry frying pan for 4-5 minutes and toss around the pan until they brown).

To assemble the dessert
Place some poached strawberries in the bottom of a tall-stemmed glass. Place a spoonful of Greek yogurt on top and another layer of strawberries. next, place a layer of whipped cream (or low fat ice cream). Repeat this process until you have another four layers completed.
Finally, sprinkle the flaked almonds on top and garnish with a sprig of mint and a strawberry.

Serve immediately.

[zymurgy]

Pumpkin Mania!

Ok – it’s just after Halloween, and pretty much everybody has a jack-o-lantern sitting on their shelf. Don’t let it rot! Use it! Make pumpkin pie! Pumpkin juice! Pumpkin cookies!

Here’s how:

Take that jack-o-lantern and cut it up into chunks. Cut off the soft part of the inside (especially if you used a lit candle and it’s sooty) and cut off the peel. Please be very careful doing this – cut fingers are not fun at all. Take your time, and don’t do this sort of things without your parents about.

These chunks, put them into a pot of water, and boil them. Cook them until their nice and soft, (can be skewered with a fork) and the color changes. Strain the pieces, and let them cool for a bit.

Now, pull out your blender and follow its directions to purée that pumpkin into a gorgeous yellow soupy mix. Of course, as you’re dropping these chunks into the blender, you’ll notice they’ve a good deal of fluid. Give them a slight squeeze to get rid of the excess. KEEP it.

So, now you’ve got a large amount of purred pumpkin and juice. (Not to mention pumpkin peals and nasty bits you’ve hopefully already been neat enough to get rid of.)

There are a million and a half recipes for pies, cookies, bread, soup and so on that you can follow. I’ll share my favorites in a bit, but in the meantime, let me tell you how to prepare some Perfect Pumpkin Juice.

Look at the fluid you’ve got. It’s got icky bits of stringy pumpkin and such floating in it, right? Strain it.

Now, pour it in a pot which holds twice the amount. Add sugar according to your taste, a few cinnamon sticks, some cloves, and nutmeg. Let it boil heavily for a minute. (Remember how I said the pot should hold TWICE the amount? This is why.) Strain it again, to rid it of the cloves and cinnamon sticks. Drink hot, or cool, or even carbonated.

(Since all amounts are variable due to there being no knowing how big your particular pumpkin is, or how many you’re using, go sparingly until things taste right to you.)

Above all, watch that you don’t burn yourself!

You’ve now got a (variable amount of) slightly cloudy brownish/orange liquid, which tastes amazing. Actually, it tastes like spiced pumpkin. It’s great stuff, and you can be a HP fan with pride!

[McGonagall's Cat]

Thanks to Walls Cheat Sheet!

You should really go to this site and see the pictures.

12 Harry Potter-Inspired Recipes Every Muggle Must Make
Kirsten Klahn More Articles
December 27, 2014

This year, J.K. Rowling gave Harry Potter fans an early Christmas present by releasing 12 new short stories on Pottermore, an interactive website for Harry Potter fans, on the days leading up to the holiday. Sadly, the short stories have come to an end, leaving fans with no way to get their updates on Harry, Ron, Hermione, and the rest of the wizardry world. Fortunately, there’s another way for muggles to get their magic fix — by making Harry Potter-inspired recipes. Whether you’re in the mood to prepare your own batch of Butterbeer or want to enjoy a few of Honeyduke’s Peppermint Toads, these 12 recipes will make you feel as though you’re about to head to Hogwarts.

1. If you’ve got children who are fans of the wizardry world, Alison Golden’s Harry Potter Christmas Pudding for Kids will make their day. Filled with zesty spices, dried fruit, lemons, oranges, and apple juice, this rich and gooey dish is a must-make for any muggle.

2. Thanks to Chew Out Loud, muggles can now enjoy “pumpkin pasties", which are like hand pies. They are flaky, buttery, toothsome little turnovers with a warmly spiced pumpkin filling. My first thought upon taking a bite? Miniature pumpkin pies. That is exactly what they reminded me of. Except these are way more flaky and buttery, with the double crust encasing the sweet pumpkin filling.”

3. Just because we can’t visit Honeydukes doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the candy shop’s sweets and treats. You can make your own Peppermint Toads by following Instructables’ recipe, which calls for peppermint, white chocolate, marshmallow creme, honey, shortening, food coloring, and a toad-shaped candy mold.

4. Thankfully, Pastry Affair’s recipe for Acid Pops, which was adapted from The Leaky Cauldron, isn’t nearly as potent as Honeydukes’ version. “These acid pops make a sweet and unexpected treat for adults and children alike. Sour lollipops are coated in a thin layer of honey and covered in pop rocks. While these won’t burn a hole through your tongue, the pop rocks provide an unexpected twist on the traditional lollipop making them twice as fun to eat. The popping and crackling inside your mouth is really something to be experienced.”

5. Please your palate by preparing Harry Potter Recipes’ Pumpkin Juice, a spicy beverage that all muggles must experience at least once.

6. All aboard the Hogwarts Express; it’s time to prepare Licorice Wands, which are sold on the train’s food trolley. In addition, Babble also provides a recipe for Honeydukes’ Cockroach Clusters. “All you need are some candies and nuts, a bit of melting chocolate and you’re well on your way. Soon your own cloaked and bespectacled Potters will be casting spells and learning how to defend against the dark arts.”

7. The Disney Diner delivers a recipe for Cauldron Cakes, which “are chocolate cupcakes that have been dipped in chocolate, filled with chocolate mousse, topped with chocolate fudge frosting, and then garnished with white chocolate. They are the perfect treat for both Harry Potter fans and chocolate lovers alike!”

8. We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Bakingdom’s recipe for Treacle Tarts, which consist of a zesty syrup filling and a light and flaky crust. There’s a reason these tarts are one of Harry Potter’s favorite foods — they’re delicious!

9. If you’ve been wanting a sorting hat of your own, you can now prepare an edible version. To prepare this Sorting Hat Pita Bread, Diamonds for Dessert “made the dough, shaped it, and baked it. It was a success! I chose to serve it along with a spinach and artichoke dip I made right before the party. The Sorting Hat bread turned out to be quite an interesting but delicious dish at my Harry Potter feast.” This recipe was adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook, Baking with Julia.

10. Using brown sugar, butter, salt, cider vinegar, rum extract, heavy cream, and cream soda, you can create your very own Butterbeer. Harry Potter fans will relish Tablespoon’s recipe, which creates a frothy and rich butterscotch-flavored beverage.

11. This Polyjuice Potion won’t allow you to transform into someone else, but it certainly does taste delicious! Pepper explains that “the Polyjuice Potion first appears in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Hermione concocts a batch for herself, Ron, and Harry, to copy the features of Millicent, Crabbe, and Goyle. According to the recipe from Moste Potente Potions, a crucial ingredient to the mix is the hair of the person you want to transform into.” Don’t worry; this recipe doesn’t call for hair!

12. Rather than drink your Butterbeer, why not enjoy it in cupcake form? Amy Bites’ Butterbeer Cupcakes consist of frosting and butterscotch ganache, which “are sweet and rich — but it’s balanced out by the cake, which is light, fluffy, and has a lovely, buttery, savory-sweet balance.”

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/life/12-harry-...must-make.html/