Baking – Page 2 – UrbanMonique

A Paean to Popovers

When I was growing up in New England, Christmas dinner was often an eye of the round roast and Yorkshire pudding. To this day, I like that pudding a lot. Problem is, Yorkshire doesn’t lend itself to sudden inspiration – Doing it right requires several beating and chilling cycles, so it takes hours, not minutes. Thank the Gods of Batter Puddings that popovers are around – they deliver that crisp crust, delicate eggy body and buttery deliciousness, and you can whip them up in no time.

Baked batter puddings are mostly savory, with Yorkshire pudding arguably the most famous one. They came into their own in 17th century England, when cooks began to combine wheat flour with fat and milk. Initially more of a pancake-like thing, the advent of whipping air into a starchy matrix combined with the higher heat generated by coal fires gave rise to the Yorkshire version, (pun intended). The relatively cheap pudding became a mainstay first course, designed to fill folks up and thereby reduce the intake of the pricier meat course that followed.

Popovers are a New England invention, made from a crepe-like batter and fat, usually beef drippings back then. Typically roll sized, they’re baked in straight-walled muffin or popover pans – then and now, the best ones are made from cast iron.

Cast iron popover pans produce superior results

The popover name derives from their habit when baked – that delightful tendency to pop up well over the top of the pan. They can be savory or sweet, stuffed with cheese and herbs, or topped with fruit and whipped cream. Popovers are really easy to make, but there are some rules of order to assure great results –

1. Have all ingredients at room temperature before you incorporate them; this promotes better mixing and faster baking.

2. Scald the milk – gently heating the milk helps integrate it with the other batter constituents, promoting a faster rise and lighter final product.

3. Well blended batter – as with a quiche or frittata, thorough mixing generates a wealth of minute air bubbles into the glutinous batter matrix, delivering a lighter, taller popover. An immersion blender does the best job, though a hand blender will do fine too.

4. Preheat the pan and the fat – having everything as hot as possible when the batter goes in is critical to successful popovers. The fat coated hot pan causes the surface of the batter to set almost immediately, sealing off the air bubbles within. This allows those bubbles to coalesce and expand as baking commences, forming one large bubble that causes the namesake pop to occur.

5. Don’t open the oven door while they’re baking, period.

Here are our three favorite version, plain, cheese, and Portland.

Plain Popovers

2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Cups Whole Milk
4 Large Eggs
4 Tablespoons unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon Salt

Have all ingredients at room temperature, (Butter doesn’t matter, since you’ll melt it shortly).

Preheat the oven to 450° F and set a rack in the center slot.

Add the milk to a heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium-low heat.

Heat milk gently until it scalds – forms small bubbles along the top edge of the pan.

Remove milk from heat and set aside.

Crack eggs into a small mixing bowl; whisk until well blended.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour and salt well.

Add eggs to dry mix and whisk to incorporate.

Slowly add the hot milk to the mix, whisking steadily.

When the ingredients are fully incorporated, use the stick blender to blend them thoroughly, until small air bubbles form and the batter looks frothy, about 2-4 minutes.

Divide butter, and add a pat to 8 cups of a muffin tin.

Slide the muffin tin into the hot oven for about 2-3 minutes.

Carefully remove tin from oven and swirl the browned butter around to coat the sides of the cups.

Fill each roughly half way with batter.

Bake for 15 minutes, then drop temp to 350° F and continue baking until popovers pop and are golden brown.

Cheese Popovers are great, offering whole lot of flavor options. Our preference is extra sharp cheddar, but anything from tangy jack or smoked gouda to brie or blue will rock.

Cheese Popovers

2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Cups Whole Milk
4 large Eggs
1/4 Packed Cup Cheese
1 teaspoon Salt
5-6 twists fresh ground Pepper
3 Tablespoons Butter

Prep and bake as per directions above – add the cheese when you add the eggs.

The Portland Popover, or Portland Popover Pudding, is a garlic and herb version, often attributed online to Portland, Oregon. That would be a totally erroneous attribution, by the way. The Portland in question is Portland, Maine, where legend has it that the American popover originated.

While garlic is a mainstay of a Portland popover, what herbs you use are a matter of personal choice. Back in the colonial days, you’d be very likely to find parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, mint, and lavender in the average herb garden, so those are great choices to play with.

When I was a kid, I went to summer camp near Acadia National Park, and had amazing popovers at the Jordan Pond House – they’ve been made there since the 1870’s and still are – they’ve even got their own section of the menu.

Portland Popovers

2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Cups Whole Milk
4 large Eggs
2 fat cloves fresh Garlic
4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
1 teaspoon Lemon Thyme
1 teaspoon Salt
5-6 twists fresh ground Pepper

Smash, peel, end trim and mince garlic.

Add the milk, garlic and lemon thyme to a heavy bottomed sauce pan over medium-low heat and scald.

The rest of the prep and baking is the same as plain popovers above.

Boston Brown Bread

If you’re from New England, and specifically Boston, you know all about Boston Brown Bread – Pared with Boston baked beans and fresh cole slaw, it’s graced many a Saturday night supper throughout New England.

The B&M company, not to be confused with the huge British food conglomerate, has been making baked beans and brown bread for over 150 years, and there’s a reason they’re still around doing just that .

A lot of folks, even locals, think that B&M is a Massachusetts based enterprise, but it ain’t so. Way back in 1867, George Burnham started a canning business and was joined by Charles Morrill – and Burnham & Morrill was born. B&M has been a fixture in Portland, Maine at One Bean Pot Circle, ever since.

Their rightfully famous beans are still slow cooked in brick ovens, and their brown bread is The One, as far as I’m concerned. Brown bread cans are filled with batter and the product is baked therein – and that’s just how you can do it at home.

In the 19th Century, Brown Bread was poverty food throughout the British Empire, although it eventually gained cache for the health benefits of the mixed flour used to make it. It eventually crossed the big pond and became a staple for the colonists, then a sentimental favorite. Keeping in mind that lobster was also once considered ‘poverty food,’ I don’t think there’s a stigma attached to liking brown bread.

Boston Brown Bread is a great recipe for folks who are nervous about bread baking – It’s easy, fast, and almost foolproof – Brown Bread is steamed, rather than baked, and requires very little prep time.

If you’ve never tried it, do. Served hot with fresh butter, ham, baked beans, and cole slaw, you got that legendary Saturday Night Suppah – And it’s great the next morning, too.

Boston Brown Bread

1 Cup Whole Milk

1/2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 Cup Rye Flour

1/2 Cup Corn Meal

1/3 Cup Dark Molasses

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon Allspice

1/2 teaspoon Orange Zest

1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

1 Tablespoon Butter for greasing cans

NOTE: there are folks, (even B&M), who make this with raisins or currants within – I’m not one of them, but if you are, you can add a quarter cup to this recipe.

there are also purists who pull eschew the addition of flavorings such as vanilla, allspice, and orange zest – I’m not one of those, either.

Rinse and dry two 28 Ounce metal cans with one end of each cut off.

Move a rack to the bottom third of the oven and heat the oven to 325° F.

Choose an oven safe pot or dish deep enough so that you can fill it with water to about halfway up the sides of the cans. Boil enough water on the stove top to fill that pot or dish.

Lightly coat the insides of the cans with vegetable oil.

In a mixing bowl, combine wheat flour, rye flour, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, allspice, and salt.

Add the molasses, milk, vanilla and zest to the dry ingredients and thoroughly combine.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cans. Cover the top of each can with a double thickness of aluminum foil and tie securely with kitchen string. Place the cans in your deep pan and slide that into the preheated oven.

Carefully fill the pan with boiling water to about halfway up the sides of the cans.

Bake for 70 to 75 minutes. At seventy minutes, remove the foil tops. When the edges of the bread begin to pull away from the sides of the cans, you’re there.

Remove the cans from the oven, place on a wire rack to cool for 1 hour before sliding the bread out of the cans. If the bread is a bit sticky, a thin bladed knife run around the can will free it up.

Don’t forget to have plenty of fresh, local butter on hand…

Edited with BlogPad Pro

Cornbread, Old & New

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Recipes aren’t really meant to be repeated exactly, time and time again – Even when you’re the one who wrote them. They’re a springboard to further exploration, and nothing more. After thanksgiving, there must be turkey soup with home made stock, and that begs for accompaniment by something delightful – like cornbread, for instance.

Let us pause to consider from whence this stuff came. Cornbread is largely seen as a southern culinary thing, but its roots go far beyond those boundaries. Our modern versions harken back in the 1600’s, when European interlopers adapted some bread making techniques to the new cereal the natives had introduced them to, (and had been cultivating, starting down in Mexico, for something around 10,000 years).

Nowadays there are regional variances in style, and it’s interesting that those are almost diametrically opposed to what we see with biscuits – The farther south you go, the cornbread gets more rustic and less cakey, often with little or no added sugar and very little flour, (in fact, sometimes none at all). Meanwhile, while up north and out west, while not exactly flaky, you find a sweeter, more floury version. White cornmeal, closely akin to masa, is more popular in the south, yellow up north. Those southern differences may have to do with the prevalence of Mexican regional cooking, and the proximity to the origin point of the cereal itself, while up north, European influences speak loudest. That jibes with my personal experience as well – Growing up in Massachusetts, I remember cornbread as overly sweet and therefore, not much to my liking. When M and I moved to Texas, I found what I was looking for – Something that’s a bit more savory, and highlights the natural sweetness of corn without adding sugar or other sweeteners to the mix.

In any event, cornbread isn’t something we make super often, so when we do, it can fairly be considered a treat. In that light, one should consider what it is you most want out of the stuff. For me, that means as moist as I can get it, while still being firm and grainy with genuine cornmeal flavor.

For a good few years now, I’d landed on a cheddar version that we like a lot. I’ve taken to soaking the corn meal in milk or cream as a critical step, and in fact, doing that does make notably moister bread. Grinding my own cornmeal fresh, from local, organic corn was even better.

Then, as fate would have it, a measuring malfunction lead to a new twist, or at least, new to me – I’d put too much cornmeal in the mix. Once I realized it, I balanced everything back out, but found I was out of the heavy cream I’d used for the dairy, so I thought – what the hell, why not throw in some sour cream?

The second part of this tiny epiphany had to do with the chosen fat for the batch. I’ve used, and advocated here, leaf lard and/or butter, but all of a sudden, I thought about biscuits, and realized that what has really made my current version sing is avocado oil. If you haven’t tried that yet, it’s not really avocado-y in taste at all, just very subtle and buttery – Perfect for cornbread. Since I’d putzed around so long, I didn’t bother with the dairy rest for the cornmeal, (and it turns out that, with this version, I didn’t need it.) And as fate would have it, what resulted was what M happily anointed as ‘far and away, the best cornbread you’ve every made’ – High praise, that, believe you me.

So I made a second batch, to make sure the recipe worked, then made one the old way, for comparison. What that does is give y’all a couple of options. In the picture below, the old recipe is the batch to the left, the new one to the right. First off, I assure you, both are fully cooked, and neither has had anything done to it other than being sliced. You can see how dense, moist, and almost muffinish the new recipe is, while the old one is lighter and airier. I like them both a lot, but M was right – The new stuff is heavenly.

Urban’s Old Standby Cheddar Cornbread
1 1/2 Cups Corn Meal, (yellow or white)
1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
1 Cup Whole Milk
4 Tablespoons Leaf Lard (or Unsalted Butter)
1 Egg
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

Optional: 1-2 seeded and cored Jalapeño chiles

Preheat oven to 400° F

Pour cornmeal into a bowl and add the milk; mix well and allow to sit for 15 minutes.

Mix remaining dry ingredients, (Including the cheese), in a large bowl.

Melt shortening, then combine all ingredients and mix by hand to a nice, even batter consistency.

Place the pan(s) you’ll do the bread in into a 400 F oven, with a small dot of shortening in each pan, (Or a tablespoon full if using a single pan).

When the shortening is melted and sizzling, remove the pan, pour in the batter and return to the oven.

Bake at 400° F for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown.

What Monica calls the best cornbread I’ve ever made

Urban’s New Deal Cornbread
1 1/2 Cups Cornmeal
1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
4 Tablespoons Avocado Oil
1 large Egg
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 400° F and set a rack in the middle position, with the pan your going to bake in thereupon.

Combine all dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Add the cheese, egg, dairy, and oil, and whisk into a uniform batter.

Carefully remove the hot baking pan and rub a little avocado oil around the inside, without burning yourself.

Pour the batter into the baking pan and return it to the hot oven.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown.

Quick and Easy Strawberry Rhubarb Bars

I’ll freely admit, I love strawberries and rhubarb together, and right now, t’is the season here in western Washington state. The you-pick fields are in play for the former, and the latter is fat and sassy pretty much everywhere. Seems like a good time for a quick and easy strawberry rhubarb bar.

I love the concept of dessert – something a little rich, a little sweet – just right to finish off a meal. What I don’t love is stuff that’s too sweet or too much. Dessert should put a cap on a great meal, not bury it. I think that’s why I like small bites of something with distinct tartness, as much or more than sweet – That makes dessert more like a between course palate cleanser than anything, and I guess that’s why I love the combination of strawberries and rhubarb.

Strawberries, even at their most glorious ripeness, still have that slightly sour, tangy note that makes them far more interesting than sweet alone. The problem with them is the fact that you can get them year round, which translates to the fact that they suck a lot of the time. April through June, pretty much wherever you are, is the natural peak season for them, and that’s when I get excited.

I stopped by our closest provider this morning and grabbed a quart, fresh from the field, which is right beside the sales shack. In the image below, you’ve got fresh local berries to the left and production grocery store berries to the right. Obvious differences, right? The store bought berries look spectacular – big and uniform. They also happen to not taste half as good as the worst berry in that locally picked quart, so…

Rhubarb is, culinarily, a bit mysterious. Where it first came from is basically unknown – It showed up as a vegetable crop in Europe and Scandinavia in the early 18th century – before that, it was grown medicinally, mostly for digestive issues. And it is a vegetable engaged in fruit-like activity, by the way – it’s kinda like the mirror image of tomatoes in that regard. As far as availability goes, there’s hot house grown and farm grown, and you want the latter, without question. Better yet, grow your own – both strawberries and rhubarb really like full sun, so you can plant a mixed bed of deliciousness that’ll look great to boot. Rhubarb pairs well with raspberries, marion berries, blackberries, and blueberries too, FYI.

Just as with celery, you want rhubarb stalks that are firm and maybe 1” to 1 1/2” thick, with smaller leaves, if you can find them with such. If they’re floppy, or dry and somewhat hollow in the middle, they’re no good. Rhubarb stalks can be eaten raw – They’re like celery in texture, but with a very strong, bitter-tart taste – really quite delightful in a salad. Contrary to common belief, the color doesn’t really matter – Because of variety, they may be green, red, speckled, or pink – If they’re well grown, tasty varieties, and fresh, they’ll be good to eat. We do not eat the leaves, however – they contain high concentration of oxalis acid, which will cause catastrophic liver failure in humans.

I love pie, but it doesn’t last long, and it’s not always conducive to a quick, small snack – So I really like these bars as an alternative. They’re super easy to make, and they store and transport well. This recipe will make a batch big enough for a 9” x 13” baking pan, yielding roughly 16-20 large bars. You can cut the recipe in half for a smaller run if you like.

Urban’s Strawberry Rhubarb Bars

2 Cups Steel Cut Rolled Oats

2 Cups fine diced Rhubarb

2 Cups fine diced Strawberries

1 1/2 Cups Pastry Flour (All Purpose will do)

1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar

12 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter (1 1/2 sticks)

1/4 Cup Agave Nectar (or good local Honey, as you prefer)

1 small fresh Lemon

1 small fresh Orange

2 teaspoons Arrowroot

1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste (good quality extract is fine)

1/2 teaspoon Salt

Preheat oven to 375° F and set a rack in the middle slot.

You don’t need to grease or flour the pan for these bars – There’s enough fat in the recipe to do the job just fine.

Measure the oats, the flour, the brown sugar, and the salt and toss those all into the baking pan. Mix by hand to thoroughly incorporate.

In a sauce pan over low heat, melt the butter.

Pour melted butter over the bar mixture.

Mix by hand, (or with a wooden spoon if you prefer – I like to feel what’s going on), to incorporate the butter, until the batter starts to clump. If the batter feels really soft and sticky, add a couple more tablespoons of flour to firm things up.

Reserve a one cup measure of the batter, then evenly press the remaining into the base of the baking pan.

Zest lemon and orange, cut both into quarters. Squeeze and reserve one tablespoon worth of lemon and orange juices, and reserve the zest.

In a measuring cup, combine lemon juice, orange juice, agave nectar, vanilla, and arrowroot. Stir with a fork to thoroughly incorporate – This stuff will smell absolutely incredible, by the way…

Thoroughly rinse, trim and fine dice rhubarb and strawberries. Combine these with the lemon and orange zest in a mixing bowl.

Evenly spread half the fruit blend over the batter in the baking pan.

Evenly sprinkle about half of the lemon juice/agave/vanilla/arrowroot mixture over the fruit.

Evenly crumble the reserved cup of batter over the fruit.

Evenly spread remaining fruit and remaining juice blend over that last layer of batter.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until the fruit blend is bubbling nicely and exposed crumble is golden brown.

Remove from oven and allow to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting bars – This will make sure they firm up nicely and cut well.

Store bars refrigerated, in an airtight container, for up to 5 days.

Arepas, the signature corn cake of Columbia and Venezuela

Before us anglos brought big love for wheat to the Americas, corn was the undisputed king of the cereals, (the grass family grains like wheat, corn, rice, millet, rye and a raft of others.) So it may surprise Norte Americanos to learn that corn still rules. While American wheat cultivation is less than 8% of world production, we grow slightly over 37% of the world’s corn – Far more than than all of South America. When it comes to cooking delicious things with corn however, (and despite our contributions of corn bread and hush puppies), Mexico and South America got it all over us for the tastiest goods – From tortillas and tamales to gorditas and pupusas, there’s a bunch of wonderful stuff down there. Today, we’ll take a look at arepas, the signature corn cake of Columbia and Venezuela.

Arepas are plump little corn cakes that might be baked, fried, grilled, steamed, or boiled. They’re eaten plain or loaded with various fillings, depending on which meal they’re accompanying – Anything from beans to eggs and shrimp. They’re an old food, certainly pre-Spanish invasion – Archeologists have found the tools used to make them all over Columbia and Venezuela. The name Arepa most likely derived from the Caracas word erepa, meaning maize (corn). Their antiquity and tastiness makes them vitally important to the cuisines of both countries, and there’s serious rivalry as to where they might have originated. It’s a sad fact that, for the last few years, Venezuelans have been largely denied this staple of their diet due to the country’s serious economic woes.

Ridiculously simple in ingredients and construction, arepas are nothing more than corn flour, salt, a little oil, and water, mixed by hand and then cooked – That’s it. The only caveat is the kind of corn flour used. Trust me when I tell you that corn meal or plain old masa will not work. What you need is called masarepa, (or masa de arepa, harina precocida, or masa al instante). This is precooked corn flour, meant to make a delicious handful of regional dishes like arepas, hallacas, bollos, tamales, empanadas and chicha. As such, you’ll find it predominantly from makers in Columbia and Venezuela. Think of it like Wondra flour and you get the picture.

Traditional arepa flour was prepared by lengthy soaking of dried corn. The resulting mash was then pounded to remove the germ and shell. That stuff was subsequently boiled, ground finer, and made into arepas. The one major change in arepa making in the modern age is the industrialization of that whole process, (thank the Corn Gods). Masarepa is what you absolutely need to make these guys, and it’s widely available from your local Latin food store, or online. The brands Harina PAN, Goya, and Harina Juana all come from Venezuela, and Areparina from Columbia. Arepas are freakin’ seriously delicious, and the flour is not pricy – You’ll want this stuff in your pantry.

As mentioned, there are a bunch of ways these guys are made, but I’ll steer you to a dual process of frying and baking that’ll give you delicious, consistent results with a minimum of fuss. As you’ll see, the entire construction process is done by hand, as it’s always been done, and should be.

Quite a few online recipes recommend mixing white and yellow masarepa, which folks seem to feel provides a lighter texture and a more pleasant taste profile, but frankly, I’m not buying the claims – It appears almost all that sentiment stems from one restaurant that makes great deep fried arepas and shared their recipe – I don’t deep fry, and I like yellow just fine, so that’s what I use – you do what floats your boat. Our recipe isn’t really Venezuelan or Columbian, (although it leans toward the latter, which in general has far less fat than the former), but it will make a tasty arepa simply and quickly. You can research the traditional methods of each country on your own and explore later.

Arepas de UrbanMonique – Makes 6-8

2 Cups Water (warm to the touch, about 90° F)

2 Cups Yellow Masarepa

3 Tablespoons Avocado Oil

1 packed teaspoon Salt

Preheat oven to 450° F and set a rack in the middle position. Make sure your oven is fully preheated before you load arepas into it.

Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the water, oil, and salt, and whisk to thoroughly dissolve the salt.

Add about 1/8 cup of masarepa to the salt and water and stir it in by hand – You’ll clearly feel the masarepa incorporate.

Continue gradually adding masarepa and kneading – When you get to roughly half way, the dough will morph from very liquid to something more substantial – this is when you want to slow down and allow the masarepa to fully absorb water. Continue until you’ve got almost or all the masarepa in the mix – you want a dough that feels quite moist, almost wet, but is easy to work with and will not stick to your bare hands. If your dough feels dry, add a little water and work it into the mix – And vice versa for adding more masarepa if it’s too wet. When the dough is right, it should not feel grainy, and it will ball up nicely.

Once you’ve reached that consistency, cover the bowl with a clean, dry kitchen towel and let it rest for 5 minutes.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high heat, with 2 ounces or so of avocado oil therein.

After the rest, grab a handful of dough and roll it into a ball, then use your palms to form it into a patty roughly 1/2” and about 4” in diameter. Keep forming arepas until you’re out of dough.

When the skillet and oil are heated, add two or three arepas and fry them until they form a nice, golden crust – About 3 to 4 minutes per side.

Set the fried arepas on the lined baking sheet and slide them into the oven.

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, until the arepas have risen slightly, and are a bit darker. When you think they’re done, slide the rack out and tap one in the center – If they sound kind of hollow, they’re done – I set my timer for 10 minutes to check, then let them go a bit longer as needed.

Transfer arepas to a cooling rack and let them rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing and going wild.

Almost anything is fair game for toppings, making arepas great for clearing out the fridge – Scrambled eggs, diced ham, pork, chicken, beans, cheese, tomato, onion, chiles, avocado, whatever floats your boat. For vegetarian and vegan folk, jack fruit done up with taco seasoning makes a killer meat substitute. that said, try one hot, with nothing at all, or maybe just a little butter. There’s a pure corn taste, a very satisfying chew, that really hits home.

If you have a good Latin market nearby, look for queso guayanes, paisa, or duro – If those aren’t available, queso cotija or fresco will work just fine.

If you want to prepare arepas and cook them later, they can hang in the fridge for a day or two and be OK – More than that and they’ll dry out. They can be frozen, uncooked, for up to 3 months as well.

It’s High Time for a Genuine Tin Roof Sundae Cookie

Check into who invented the ice cream sundae, and boy oh boy, are you in for a ride. Towns from New England through the Midwest claim ownership, and well, yeah… good luck with that. There is one exception, and that’s the Tin Roof Sundae. Originally called a Black & White, this legendary treat came to life in 1916, at Potter Drug in Potter Nebraska. Harold Dean ‘Pinky’ Thayer, son of the owner and Pharmacist, worked the soda counter and came up with the Tin Roof, named either for the ceiling in the drug store, or the roof on the stable across the street, depending on who’s story you buy.

The building and business are there to this day, (now called Potter Sundry), and they still make the Tin Roof Sundae. The original version was constructed from vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup, chocolate ice cream topped with marshmallow syrup, and the whole thing topped with a healthy dose of Spanish peanuts. That recipe, more or less, got quite popular, and was adopted by ice cream makers all around the country – It’s a combo I happen to love. Every version I’ve tried or researched is vanilla ice cream with chocolate fudge and Spanish peanuts. Fact is, though, it’s not easy to find up here where we live, so if I want it, I make it, which I’m totally OK with. Fresh ice cream, (from Jersey cows), with vanilla bean, good chocolate chunks, and nice crisp peanuts? Hell yes, please.

That got me thinking about a cookie by the same name. I poked around online to see what was out there, and here’s the fact – There were a few recipes – or so it appeared at first glance. But after digging in, it became glaringly obvious that what we really had was one recipe, widely copied and occasionally modified – That was a chocolate based cookie, with peanuts – but blasphemy of blasphemies, these things were made with Chex cereal, covered in chocolate, (actually, cocoa powder), topped with peanuts – FRIGGIN’ CHEX CEREAL, people! Yes, there were pretty pictures, and a bunch of folks claiming to have come up with the recipe, but ya know what? It was all the same thing, made with cereal, cocoa powder, and regular peanuts. To me, that’s simply appalling – a serious wrong that needs righting.

Again, every version of the ice cream I’ve ever seen or eaten is vanilla, with chocolate or fudge, and Spanish peanuts, and that’s what a namesake cookie needs to be – so that’s what I did. The cookie I ended up with has roughly three times the usual amount of vanilla used for a chocolate chip cookie – that flavor note is dominant, which is exactly what I was after – A vanilla ice cream analog. I used an organic, high end vanilla bean paste, instead of just seeds (or plain extract), and I think that’s critical in the final product – this also impacts the texture a bit, making things notable more tender.

Fresh, skin on, salted Spanish peanuts and good quality chocolate round things out. I’ll say for the record that I’ve done several batches of these now, and they are seriously good stuff. The one twist I went to for my final version requires extra work, but is absolutely worth it if you’re pulling out all the stops for a holiday cookie – I made chocolate covered Spanish peanuts.

When I decided to do that, I did some thinking about what kind of chocolate to use. In the end run, I just stayed with melted Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips – They’re made to maintain their shape and form when baked, and that’s what I wanted here – Peanuts covered in chocolate that would stay that way when baked into a cookie. I melted the chips in a double boiler, and laid out a baking pan with a silicone sheet, (parchment would work just fine too.) When the chocolate was nice and liquid, I added nuts and mixed them in until there was no obvious excess of chocolate, (as in, I didn’t exactly measure). Just a bag of chips and enough peanuts to make the mix correct – It’s not like any excess is going to survive for very long anyway, right?

I poured that mix onto the baking sheet, and then smoothed it all down to a single layer of peanuts with a pastry knife. I let the mix cool for about 15 minutes, then transferred it to the fridge so that it could get nice and hard. After an hour or so, I pulled the stuff and broke it up by hand, not being super particular about size – One of the things I didn’t like in earlier batches was seeing chocolate chips in there – I thought it should be more random and chunky, like the chocolate is in the namesake ice cream. I ended up with nice chunks of chocolaty peanuts and a great look. All that aside, you can certainly do this recipe with chip and peanuts if you’re short on time or patience, so go that road if need be.

Urban’s Genuine Tin Roof Sundae Cookies

380 grams All Purpose Flour (3 Cups)

230 grams Unsalted Butter (2 sticks)

200 grams Bakers Sugar (1 Cup)

150 Grams Spanish Peanuts (1 Cup, and probably more like 1.5 Cups if you go for the chocolate covered option)

340 grams semi-sweet Chocolate chunks (12 ounce bag)

2 large Eggs

15 grams fresh Vanilla Bean or paste (1 Tablespoon)

4 grams Baking Soda (1 teaspoon)

4 grams fine Salt (1/2 teaspoon)

Preheat oven to 350° F and set a rack in the lower middle position.

Have your eggs and butter at room temperature before proceeding.

Run flour, baking soda, and salt through a sifter or single mesh strainer, into a large mixing bowl.

For the lions share of the process, a stand mixer is preferred, but if you don’t have one, you can hand whisk – Just be forewarned, it’s going to be a bit of a workout.

In a stand mixer bowl set up with a paddle, add the butter and mix on low until it’s smooth and even – about 2 minutes.

Stop the mixer, and use a spatula to scrape the butter down from the bowl sides and paddle.

Add the sugar and mix on low until the blend is smooth, about 1-2 minutes.

Again, stop the mixer, and use a spatula to scrape the creamed mixture down from the bowl sides and paddle.

Add an egg and the vanilla paste to the creamed mixture and mix on low until fully incorporated – No more than 30 seconds. Repeat the process with the second egg, and again, 30 seconds tops – You don’t want to over-beat the eggs.

With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture, and mix until fully incorporated – Stop as soon as that’s achieved.

Remove the bowl from the mixer, add chocolate and peanuts, and incorporate with a spatula until evenly mixed.

Scoop heaping soup spoons of batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicone. Leave a couple of inched between each – You should be able to get a dozen on there, no problem.

Bake for 7 minutes, then rotate the sheet 180° and bake for 7 minutes more.

Pull from oven and carefully slide parchment onto a cooling rack.

Bake single sheets of cookies at a time.

Allow to cool for 5 minutes before attacking, and 20 minutes before putting them into an air tight storage container.