On the Back Burner #1
Sweet, sweet weekend plans.
APÉRITIF:
Welcome to the first installment of On the Back Burner, our weekend edition of Sifted. Like the weekend, On the Back Burner will feel more laidback, indulgent, and maybe like a little bit of a mess. This will be where we discuss more time-intensive recipes, cooking projects, ridiculously rich desserts, and other things on our mind going into the weekend (but mostly rich desserts).
If we wrote a memoir it’d be called Sugar and Other Drugs. Our desert island food is actually misspelled because it’s supposed to be dessert island. You get it, we like sweets. This week, with weather cooling down and the dumpster fire that is this country being stoked yet again, we’re going for comfort. On the docket we’ve got cozy desserts to warm up your weekend, so preheat your oven to 350, queue up the Great British Bake Off, and read on for three of our favorite *Paul Hollywood voice* signature bakes.
ON THE BACK BURNER THIS WEEKEND:
Salted Caramel (maybe also Sourdough) Cinnamon Buns: Tapping through Instagram Stories typically makes my brain hurt, but sometimes I see things like these caramel sourdough cinnamon buns, and they remind me that the dozens of hours I spend on that app is time well spent. The thing is, I do not have a sourdough starter, and after googling the word “leaven” for fifteen minutes, I’m still not sure if those two things have anything to do with each other. If you know about that stuff, you should make these as is, but if you’re like me, you can use this lovely (and easy and quick) dough recipe, then fill and frost them using the first recipe. I used a little less cream than the caramel recipe calls for because American heavy cream is tragically less fatty than double cream. -GS
Caramel Apple Tart: File this apple tart under desserts that look like they took a lot more effort than they actually do. Especially if you own a mandolin. (Side note: I recommend this Japanese one. Even if I only use it twice in a year, it takes up minimal space and it is so, so worth it for those 2 times.) I like to keep puff pastry in my freezer at all times and use this method for any seasonal fruit. Thaw your pastry, slice the fruit thin, and arrange delicately, or not-so delicately, depending on your patience. Then drizzle with salty caramel, or if making that feels like a stretch effort-wise (or if you burn your caramel — look, nobody needs to know) use a bakery secret: zap apple or apricot jelly in the microwave for 15 seconds to melt, then use that as a glaze. Easy as... tart. -CK
Chewy Chocolate-Chip Cookies: Had a capital-s Shit Week? Sometimes all we need is a quick win to remind us that all hope is not lost in the world. For me, it’s these chocolate-chip cookies that are 1. fool-proof 2. do not require an electric mixer(!) 3. best when made in big batches, refrigerated or frozen, then baked off in small quantities depending on my mood. They also double as a signaling tool to my roommates/S.O.; give me some space if I’m in a 3-cookie mood. Sub dark for light brown sugar for an even deeper, caramel-y flavor. Take the butter one step further when melting and brown it to add nutty complexity. Add toffee chips for pockets of buttery goodness. Feeling freaky? Add a tablespoon of miso paste to add a salty, umami undertone. Whatever you do, don’t skip the refrigeration step (the key to thick-and-chewy not flat-and-crispy). Top each cookie with huge flakes of salt and extra chocolate chips before baking for a photo finish. -CK
What we’re really looking forward to this weekend.
TAKEOUT:
An Oreo Story
My sister is a Packaged Foods Princess. She loves ripping into fresh bags of Cocoa Puffs and peeling open packages of Oreos. What she hates is when I make homemade versions of the foods she loves. She doesn’t want my brownies, she wants a bag of Little Bites. I put a tray of warm cookies filled with disks of dark, delicious chocolate down, she walks past them and over to the still-hot oven to bake Toll House cookie dough for herself. She would simply hate the homemade Oreos I made this week.
My sister’s favorite foods. I hope she frames this.
I, on the other hand, love them a lot. Instead of cutting out Oreo shapes, I rolled the chocolate dough between two pieces of parchment paper until it was really thin, baked that for twenty-ish minutes, and ran a knife through the warm cookie to divide it in half. Once the pieces cooled into crispy cookies, I slathered both sides (Double Stuf!) with filling, and smashed them together. I sliced them into squares and rectangles and triangles, and piled them into my favorite (because they make me feel like I work in a restaurant kitchen) plastic containers. Now my messy, homemade Oreos live in the freezer for me to snack on all day, dunk in coffee for breakfast, and mix into homemade cookies-and-cream ice cream.
Homemade Oreos on their own, and in over-churned, kind of icy homemade coconut-chocolate ice cream.
We talked a lot about packaged foods while writing and editing this weekend’s Sifted, and want to leave you with an untitled poem about what is possibly our favorite packaged food of all time, Little Bites muffins.
So soft.
So wet?
They remind me of how
Rocks get
So smooth
From the ocean tide churning.
I wonder if they’re bumpy
Coming out of the factory,
And all the travel
Just rounds them out.