Orange Olive Oil Madeleines

Today, something horribly wonderful happened.

Joss Whedon (yes, the actual Joss Whedon, Avengers-Buffy-Firefly-Toy Story wait- I didn't know he wrote the screenplay for Toy Story! That makes me love him even more than I thought I possibly could!) tweeted my string ensemble's arrangement and video of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog:

How much do I love this? The most much. #cornell #culture https://t.co/hP3LNFp2Wd”
— Joss Whedon (@josswhedon) June 25, 2013

ahsdjfklaskjdhfjkadlskjdhfjdalskjdhfjkla WHAT IS AIR.

HOLY HAMMER FREEZE-RAY.

I suddenly had over 50 Youtube notifications in my inbox from within a single hour. We went from just over 4,000 views (and that was after a few "tumblr-famous" people had already reblogged our video) to over 15,000 views in less than a day. CRAZY.

And still, though the numbers seem impressive, my mind is still boggling over the fact that the venerable Joss Whedon, master of all things horrible and/or shiny in the 'verse, has seen our video, let alone that he liked it. Scratch that, loved it! A video with me in it! My quartet! Joss Whedon! Me!

Donna Noble: spirit animal

Yeah... so what does this have to do with food? Absolutely nothing.

But I did make more madeleines yesterday!

taken with my iPhone

I adapted the recipe I used previously for these lemon madeleines and came up with these orange olive oil madeleines! I actually think these are moister and fluffier than the previous ones, and now I don't have to smell that awful raw butter stench anymore! (I seriously don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't stand that smell.) Plus, I'm willing to bet that these are healthier!

Since most of the steps are identical to those of the lemon madeleine post, I won't spam you with the requisite amount of photos I usually include, and will just give you the instructions instead!

(Still freaking out about Joss Whedon.)

INGREDIENTS

- 2 eggs
- ¾ tsp vanilla extract
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ cup AP flour
- 1 Tbsp orange zest
- ¼ cup olive oil
- (optional) powdered sugar for decoration

NOTE: The batter using olive oil instead of melted butter is a little more liquid-y, so it makes 28 mini madeleines (which probably translates to 14 regular-sized madeleines).

• Preheat oven to 375°F. (You may choose to turn on the oven a couple of steps later, after having beat the eggs/sugar mixture and grated/zested the orange peel, but it won't hurt to preheat early so that you don't forget.)

• In a medium to large-sized mixing bowl, beat the eggs, salt, and vanilla extract at high speed until light and slightly frothy, using an electric mixer or hand mixer.

• Beating constantly, gradually add the sugar, and continue to beat the mixture on high speed until it is thick and pale, and ribbons form when you lift the beaters. (Beating for 3 to 5 minutes was sufficient time in my case.)

• Sift the flour into the rest of the mixture a third at a time, gently folding in the flour after each addition.

• Add the orange zest.

• Now, measure out ¼ cup of olive oil. This is the point at which I prepared the madeleine molds, rather than right after preheating the oven. You can use some of the ¼ cup olive oil to grease the molds, using the very tips of a basting brush. Then lightly flour each mold.

• Now, use the rest of the ¼ cup olive oil, pouring it around the edges of the batter. Quickly but gently fold the olive oil into the batter.

• Spoon your batter into the molds; the batter should slightly mound above the tops. Again, the olive oil version is more liquidy, so the mounds won't be as prominent as they would be with a butter recipe.

• Bake for 14 to 17 minutes, or until the madeleines are golden and the tops spring back when gently prodded by your fingertip. (Mine baked in 15 minutes.)

• Let the madeleines cool in the molds, for at least 15 minutes. Pop them out of the molds carefully, and let cool on a plate.

I made these late at night, so the lighting is very different from usual!

I personally think these taste best when still warm - go ahead and test "a few" after they cool off a bit :P - but they can keep for a few days, and are even good beyond that when dunked in coffee or tea! Because the olive oil ones are moister, you may want to lay them shell-side down on a dry paper towel in a container.

(Another note: the grooves/shell patterning are more noticeable when using nonstick molds, rather than silicon. Nonstick pans also give a more golden coloring to the madeleines. However, nonstick cooking ware have chemicals, or so my mom tells me, and in any case, silicon is so easy to clean up at the very end!)

I brought these to work and also gave a few to friends (shoutout to Maddie and Marza!), and they all loved them! (And then Maddie told me that one of her summer course professors was raving about our video in class.)

Brilliant end to the day! (Or should I say... horrible?) <3

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies (gluten free!)

If I could only eat one type of cookie for the rest of my life, these would be it.

Flourless peanut butter cookies. That's right. No hands flour, ma!

I first made these when one of my friends found out she had Celiac disease. I think these were the cookies that launched my recent obsession with baking.

They are definitely that good. Since then, I've made them two more times within the past couple of months. And somehow, I've managed to make things harder for myself each time. The second time I thought- wow, how good would these be with bananas? Only to find out quite vividly the next day that fresh bananas turn brown (not shown... heh) when in contact with warm surfaces.

Doh. This time, I tried to make these in 85+ °F weather. I probably would have made it unscathed (well, the cookies would have- no Amy's were harmed in the making of these cookies!) if not for the fact that I stopped every other minute to take photographs.

By then, so much moisture from the humid air had seeped into the batter that it effectively messed up the ratio of wet to dry ingredients... resulting in cookies that spread way too much in the oven.

These cookies do spread out, but the humidity doesn't help. This could probably be solved by sticking the dough into the fridge for a couple of minutes before shaping them into balls, but even the thin cookies are very delicious! And it's a great excuse to keep all the cookies to yourself. Or, you could salvage them by forming them into smaller cookies using any type of cookie cutter (or even a bottlecap could do the job)!

The original recipe comes from Averie Cooks, who also has other variations of these cookies, including a chocolate chunk version! Yummy.

INGREDIENTS

- ¾ cup white sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg *
- 1 cup peanut butter
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- (optional) brown sugar and/or white sugar for sprinkling.

*I used a large egg.



Preheat your oven to 350°F, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine all the ingredients in one bowl! It may be easier to mix the sugars, egg, and vanilla extract first, and then add in the peanut butter, but you can also add everything in one go. I don't really need to provide a step-by-step process for this, but here are some photos:

(Admittedly, I did decide to replicate these cookies because I wanted to show you the neat manicure I did the other day! That, and I've received requests for the recipe from a few friends, which makes me really happy!)

Right. So, mix all the ingredients together!

Roll your dough into small spheres, about 1-inch wide. (You could just as easily make them larger or smaller, but adjust the baking time accordingly.) Optional: you could sprinkle some brown and/or white sugar on the top of the cookies. (You can tell that these particular cookies are already starting to spread too much.)

You could leave them in spheres, which is the easiest and most fool-proof option, or you could experiment!  Many peanut butter cookies have a distinctive criss-cross patterning, so you could use a fork to create that design.

(Lightly press the tines into the cookie dough, and drag it back and forth to deepen the grooves. You don't want the cookies to flatten out too much, because as I mentioned, they do tend to spread during baking.)

Or, you might try this cute button design that I randomly decided to make!

Press down lightly on the cookie to make a slightly flatter (plateau!) top.

I then used a cap from a bottle of water to create the circle.

Then use a toothpick to create four little circles!

(These looked really cute the first time I made them.)

Bake for 10 minutes, but keep an eye on the cookies. These bake very quickly, and could go from raw to burnt in a matter of a few extra minutes.

Mine usually bake quite well when I leave them in for 12 minutes, with a slight crisp to the bottom of the cookies, 10 minutes for softer, chewier cookies. I only left them in for 10 minutes this time, because by the time I stopped watching Confederations Cup coverage to check on the cookies, they had already spread out, and I decided to nip that in the bud the best I could.

I was just going to show you photos from the last time that I made these...

But I don't give up so easily! I realized that I had a nice heart-shaped cookie cutter, and since these cookies are quite soft, even after cooling for 20 minutes, they were nicely transformed into cute little hearts!

Perfect little snacks, and I just so happened to go out for dinner with a couple that work with my mom that just got engaged (that sentence had too many clauses, didn't it...), so it all worked out perfectly!

(Plus, the scraps from the cookie-cutting endeavor are great for snacking. Shh, don't tell my mom where I'm planning to hide the cookie container!)

Moroccan Orange Cake

This Moroccan Orange Cake recipe is one of the first things I ever tried when I was learning how to bake, and it still remains one of my family's favorites.

It all began when we bought too much orange juice for a dinner party, and the rest is history. Or something like that.

Most of the ingredients needed for this cake are things I'd normally have lying around the house, which is good for when I've got an itch to bake something. It means it's also good for spur-of-the-moment stress baking.

I've slightly adapted the recipe from this meskouta recipe. Mine runs on the slightly less sugary side; as I've said before, my family tends to prefer desserts that aren't cloyingly sweet. You can experiment with the amount of sugar based on your own tastes.

INGREDIENTS
- 4 eggs
- heaping 3/4 cup sugar *
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups AP flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- zest from 1-2 oranges
- 1 tsp vanilla extract

* original says 1 ½ cups

Preheat your oven to 350° F. Grease and lightly flour a cake pan (I used a 9"x1.5" round pan, but you could also use a tube pan. I've also made these into cupcakes and a small cake loaf, diminishing the baking time accordingly.)

Start by cracking open 4 eggs. (I used large brown eggs.)

Beat together the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until thick. (You can mix the entire recipe's ingredients in one bowl, if you like.)

Gradually beat in the oil.

Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. (I measured everything into one large measuring cup, but you could use smaller measuring cups as long as you don't lose count of how much of each ingredient you've added so far!)

(Add in the dry ingredients gradually, 1/4 or 1/2 cup at a time, to prevent the flour from flying out everywhere.)

Your batter should be fairly thick, enough to form ribbons when you lift your spoon/mixing utensil/hand mixer.

Now add in the orange juice.

The batter will become runnier, with faster-forming ribbons.

Add in the vanilla extract.

And now for the orange zest! (You can zest the oranges earlier on if you want.) I used zest from one orange. The time it was taking for me to use the grater was starting to grate on me (haha see what I did there?) so I eventually took to the orange with a peeler and then chopped the peels into smaller pieces using a rocking motion of the knife.

If you want extra bite, cut up some of the peel into larger pieces.

Mix well, so that the zest is evenly incorporated.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan/baking vessel of choice, and bake for approximately 40 minutes, or until the cake tests done. If your batter has bubbles in it, tap the pan gently against the tabletop.

(My cake got crispy edges when I baked it for 40 minutes, which my dad claims is the best part.)

Let the cake cool in its pan for 7 to 10 minutes, before turning it over onto a rack to finish cooling. (You could probably avoid the crack on the top of the case by using a slightly larger pan. I kind of like it though: reminds me of Doctor Who.)

Top with powdered sugar, if you'd like. I've also decorated with simple icing and orange slices before.

However, it is probably healthier and yet still unbelievably tasty without anything extra! Plus, it's fairly versatile as cakes go: makes for a great dessert and a tasty breakfast. And of course, it's good with fruit (like these fresh cherries) or fruit juice!