quinn's place

this is all to say - please don’t be too hard on yourself when taking on big baking or cooking projects. i worry for people who are so scared that something won’t turn out perfectly that they won’t even make an attempt at a recipe. you must learn somehow!

i cook and bake frequently, and do not consider myself an advanced cook or baker whatsoever - there is still so so so much endless learning to be learned.

[ps. i know the title of this post is grammatically incorrect, but it rings much better than writing ‘badly’ and ‘well.’ (ok, DAD?!) 😜]

i’ve made a version of babka once before - but here’s how this loaf went down:

where i went right:

the brioche dough turned out perfectly! i followed the ‘chocolate krantz cakes’ recipe in yotam ottolenghi’s jerusalem cookbook and cut the recipe in half as to make only 1 loaf. not sure why the written recipe yields 2 separate loaves. because 2 is more than 1, i suppose.
i finished the whole process even though i knew i’d messed up a few key things along the way.
it tasted good!

where i went wrong:

i did not use high-quality chocolate, like a goon. i made this on a snow day (cozy!) and did not want to venture out to buy nice chocolate bars, so i used a combination of semi-sweet chocolate chips and cocoa powder. i do not recommend this. it looks decent after melting, but once i added the powdered sugar, it became a bit thick and crumbly. you can really tell once i started twisting my goofed up braids that the chocolate quality was not up to par.
since i halved the original recipe, i was supposed to adjust this part to roll up only ONE large dough log with chocolate spread inside (like a cinnamon roll). instead, i kept following the original recipe instructions and made 2 separate logs, sliced each of them in half vertically, yielding 4 long pieces to be braided into my desired single log loaf. do you follow? i had gone too far with the final pieces to be braided and decided that i would just braid all 4 pieces somehow into one dense loaf. i’m not sophisticated enough to maneuver a 4-stranded braid, but it came together, kinda.
keyword: dense. brioche is supposed to be fluffy and a bit airy. the tightness of the 4 pieces braided together did not allow the loaf to rise again - i think it was all too tightly compacted and twisted together. the final babka loaf should have been significantly taller after baking.

here’s where you can really see that chocolate i used was not high-quality. it should be much smoother and less chONky looking.

but - i know exactly where i went wrong, what i learned from this process, and how i would approach it differently the next time i make a babka recipe.

and that, my friends, is the beauty of failure. failures are just building blocks of knowledge.

i wouldn’t even call this a “failure,” because it still tasted very good, just dense - we ate the whole thing on a snowy weekend. how glorious is that?

plus, i didn’t wanna throw out all these photos i took!

…a real missed opportunity not taking a photo of my babka out in the snow….. add that to the list of where i went wrong. 😉

i’m not afraid of you, little babka recipe! i’m gunna get you real goooood one day.

time to eat our feelings & our nerves, folks. with the 2020 election happening this week, as in TOMORROW, i’ve got nervous energy firing on all cylinders. my back hurts! 😬

thank heavens for food & wine, ya know what i’m saying?

and cookies, of course.

and another thing - just because it is fall does not mean every baked good must be pumpkin spice apple maple butternut sweet potato cinnamon x y z, dammit.

don’t forget about chocolate chip cookies. they are always here for us, year round. let’s hear it for that little nugget of comfort.

these ones are * chocolatey * chip cookies because i simply felt like adding a bit of cocoa powder to the dough. they could certainly be much more * chocolatey, * but consider this recipe one step up on the chocolate scale from a regular chocolate chip cookie. you can add as much or as little cocoa powder as your heart desires.

and they look like cute little scoops of ice cream, so that’s nice.

you musn’t forget to press a chunk of chocolate into the top of the dough ball before baking. this is where the pools of chocolate come in.

a major key to an excellent chocolate chip cookie is room temperature ingredients. making sure all the ingredients (like the eggs) are not drastically differing temperatures when they are combined just ensures they’ll come together more gently - they aren’t all shocked & confused when they come into contact. you want everyone to jive.

additionally, chilling the dough for at least 2 hours and up to one full day before baking the cookies allows everything to co-mingle and more flavor develops. but…if you’re impatient or don’t have that kind of time to wait or you just need the cookie now, absolutely forget that chilling step.

another super important baking tip that i’ve really just starting paying attention to in the last year is either weighing the flour by grams, or scooping the flour with a spoon into the measuring cup. i feel like we were all taught to reach into the flour container with the measuring cup, jam as much flour in there as possible, and scrape the rest off the top, further shoving more flour into the cup. i’ve only recently realized that i have been way over-flouring all my baked goods, resulting in an overly dense or hard finished product. and that’s not what we’re going for at all!

so fluff that flour, scoop it from the spoon to the cup, don’t pack it down, and gently level off the top. or weigh it if you are into that, which i am now into. flour weighing, my new 2020 hobby.

also new-to-me: vanilla bean paste (in lieu of vanilla extract). oooh what a fun ingredient. ya can’t see the flecks in these particular cookies, but i know they’re in there 😉

i made this apple cider donut loaf cake and used the vanilla bean paste in there… so lovely. i can’t wait to use a ton of it in cinnamon rolls.

being able to see the little vanilla bean flecks is very pleasing to me.

not over-baking cookies is also truly one of the MAIN ingredients to a great cookie. this should probably just be the first line of the recipe - it is not an afterthought!

(remember afterthoughts, that store in the mall before claire’s? loved that shit)

you want the outside to be slightly firm, with a substantial layer of chew on the inside.

walnut haters don’t fret - just leave them out.

alright. that will be all.

chocolate chip cookies. they are good. always have been, and always will be. count all those constant comforts in your lives, my people. we need every last one of them! 💝

Browned Butter Chocolatey Chip Cookies

Makes 20-24 Cookies

Impatient Total Time: 40 minutes // Bake Time: 10 minutes

Ideal Total Time: 24 hours, 40 minutes (24-hour dough chilling period)

Ingredients:

14 TB Unsalted butter (1 stick + 1/3 cup), Browned 3-5 minutes & cooled
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 TB vanilla bean paste, or 2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (scooped & leveled, not packed), or 210 grams weighed
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 TB. unsweetened cocoa powder (optional, or 2-3 TB if prefer more chocolatey cookie)
1 tsp. fine sea salt
6 ounces dark chocolate wafers or bar, roughly chopped (about 1/2 cup - reserve several large chunks to place on tops of dough balls)
2/3 cup walnuts, well chopped (optional)
flaky sea salt, for topping

Instructions-

Brown the butter on the stove over medium-high heat in a small pot for 3-5 minutes, stirring/whisking constantly. The butter will turn bright, then bubble, then foam. As soon as you see brown flecks beginning to appear in the bottom of the pot, remove from heat and continue to stir for one more minute as the browning finishes. Transfer to a small bowl and chill in the fridge at least 10 minutes.

While the browned butter cools, chop the chocolate and walnuts, if using, and gather all ingredients.

In a stand mixer with paddle attachment or a large bowl, whisk the cooled browned butter with the brown sugar & white sugar until combined. Add the room temperature eggs, one at a time, mixing until glossy and whipped. Stir in vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract.

With a spoon, fluff the flour in its bag/container so it is not compacted. Scoop from spoon into measuring cup without packing flour down, then level off the top with a knife or your finger. Alternately, you can weigh the flour on a baking scale (210 grams).

In a small bowl, stir the measured or weighed flour, baking soda and salt until evenly incorporated. Slowly add flour mixture into the wet ingredients, mixing between additions until just combined. Do not over mix.

Use a spatula to gently fold in the chopped chocolate wafers or chunks and walnuts (if using) until just incorporated. Cover the bowl and chill the cookie dough for at least 2 hours, ideally 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Use 1 oz. cookie scoop to scoop dough balls, placing them 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Press remaining larger chunks of chocolate or wafers into the tops of the dough balls.

Bake each tray individually on the center rack for 9-11 minutes. Check at 9 minutes for doneness - if the cookie seems firm around the edge, but soft in the center, remove from oven - they will continue to cook a bit on the hot baking sheet. Do not over bake!

Transfer cookies to a cooling rack. Enjoy warm! Store in an airtight container for 2-3 days at room temperature for best results.