TWD: Caramel Crunch Bar

This is a keeper! If I'm not careful, I'll finish the entire pan by myself. Luckily, I have very willing taste testers who are willing to taste anything. They also LOVED these bars. I couldn't find any toffee bits, so I made some from scratch. Scroll down for the recipe I used - just skip the pecan bit.

The first few pictures below show the toffee mixture at various stages. You need to stay by the stove and stir constantly. Once it reaches 300 degrees, it takes only a blink of an eye to reach 310 degrees.

I'll update this post with more coherent narration when I'm back home in next week. I'm in New Orleans on a trip and trying to post this using my iPhone, and it's not the easiest thing to do. I can't fix the font and such. Good thing that started the post before I left home with the pictures and the toffee recipe. Anyway, I wanted to make sure this posted today but will update it as promised...I'll also include one of the ten thousand pictures I took of beignets.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Pecan Toffee

Yield: Makes About 2 1⁄2 Pounds

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp. plus 2 cups butter
  
• 2 cups sugar
  
• 2 tbsp. light corn syrup
  
• 2 tsp. kosher salt
  
• 2 cups chopped toasted pecans
  

Directions:

1. Grease the bottom and sides of a 10"×15" jelly roll pan with 2 tsp. butter and set aside. Put remaining butter, sugar, corn syrup, salt, and 1⁄2 cup water into a medium pot and bring to a boil over medium high heat while stirring constantly. Attach a candy thermometer to inside edge of pot and cook, continuing to stir constantly, until sugar mixture is deep golden brown and registers 310° (the hardcrack stage), about 20 minutes.
   
2. Pour the hot toffee onto the prepared pan and, using oven mitts, tilt and turn the pan to fill it evenly.  Sprinkle the pecans over the top. (If you'd like to coat the toffee with chocolate before adding the nuts, let the toffee cool for 5 minutes, then sprinkle 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips over the top. Let sit for 1 minute, then use a rubber spatula to gently spread the melted chocolate evenly over the top. Sprinkle the pecans over the chocolate and gently press them down.)
   
3. Refrigerate toffee until it hardens, about 1 hour, then break into bite-size pieces. Serve toffee immediately or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
   

This recipe was first published in Saveur in Issue #107

TWD: World Peace Cookies

Couple of years ago, when I was traveling around the Yucatan with some friends, we stopped overnight at a sleepy little town.  The place we stayed at served us these chocolate cookies that were to die for.  The lady who made it for us, an American who was spending the summer there, ignored all our not-so-subtle hints to share the recipe with us.  The cookie was served warm and was chewy with a soft but crumbly texture.  My friends and I still talk about, and all my attempts at trying to recreate it failed.

That is, until now.  

My jaw just about dropped when I took my first bite of the World Peace cookie.  Woohoo!  This was it! I feeling like shouting and singing from the rooftops!  Woohoo!  Thanks to Dorie (and to Jessica of cookbookhabit), I now have my Yucatan chocolate cookie!  

I'm off to make another batch.  This time, I'm going to add some chili powder to the mix. Oh, happy day.  :-)

TWD: Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread

YUMMY!

Love ginger.  Loooove chocolate.  Loooooooooove the combo.

Mine came out a bit dry, but the bits of chocolate gave it a nice texture of fudgy-ness here and there.  It was a HUGE success at the office.

Contrary to Dorie's footnote, I used an 8x8 pan and the entire batter filled up less than two-thirds of the pan.  

Thank you to Heather of Sherry Trifle for this week's selection.

(I apologize for the short and curt entry this week.  I'm falling apart at the seams due to the stress caused by the mountain of work waiting for me.  It's glaring at me even as I type this. I'll be more eloquent next week...well, maybe not eloquent, but I promise I'll be more wordy.)

TWD: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

I love cornbread and have made it, I’m sure, hundreds of times…well, maybe not hundreds but close enough. The point is that I’ve made repeatedly and never once did I even think to add cilantro or chili pepper. I’ve usually made it plain adding just corn kernels. As I was making this week’s TWD recipe (selected by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake), I realized that while I am an adventuresome diner, I am not as adventuresome as a cook. Strange, that.

It isn’t a conscious choice. I guess it just doesn’t occur to me to go wild with a recipe. Oh, I’ve tweaked recipes here and there but overall, I think I’m pretty traditional and tend to color within the lines when cooking. This realization is rather a sad one. I mean, think about all the wonderful accidental discoveries I am missing. Even the not-so-wonderful accidents would be a shame to miss.

So, while I vowed not to make a new year’s resolution, I find I must make an exception…my new year’s resolution is to color outside the lines with one recipe out of every five I make. As Dories suggests in her book, I will “play around” when cooking.

BTW, these corn muffins were DEE-licious! It became one of my favorites at the first bite. And, they were very quick and so easy to make.

TWD: Tall and Creamy Cheesecake

It isn't the prettiest cheesecake I've made but it is one of the most tastiest, crrreeeeaaamiest I have ever devoured.  I love, LOVE, love cheesecake, and this recipe has instantly become a favorite.

Despite the bain marie, it cracked on the top as well as the edges.  The way it ballooned up, I would have been very surprised if it turned out with a pristine surface.  Makes me laugh whenever I see this picture of the lopsided cake.

I don't particularly like graham cracker crusts so I usually add ground pecans (like I did to this one) to the crumbs which comes out tasting like pralines.  Yum! 

Thank you to Anne of Anne Strawberry for this selection.