Raspberry-Chocolate Crumb Bars

What's this? Two blog posts in one week? By golly, it is a Christmas miracle!

In my last post, I mentioned putting off a take-home final to bake some special shortbread cookies. Now that I'm done with school, I am back to tell you all about these special treats!

First, a short story. A few weeks ago, my good friend from school called me up on a rainy Saturday and asked if I was home. "Uh, yes." I don't leave my house when it's raining unless it's absolutely imperative. "Great. I'm coming over. I have something for you," she said. Oh my gosh, the anticipation nearly killed me. Turns out she went to Surfas, a cooking and restaurant supply store in Culver City, and had a bag of edibles just for me! It's a testament to how well CK knows me that among the goodies she picked out were a pound of Plugra butter and these milk chocolate disks.

So, when I decided to bake something earlier this week, I decided to make something that would put that butter and chocolate to good use. I found the recipe for these bar cookies in the Flour Bakery Cookbook, and although the original recipe includes just raspberry filling, I felt confident that chocolate would be a welcome addition. It's very nearly impossible to go wrong with raspberry and chocolate, don't you think?

I really loved these cookies, but I also consider shortbread my Achilles heel. When I lived in Japan, the snack kitchen stocked these Walker's Shortbread Finger Cookies, which are about as close as you can get to eating a stick of butter without people giving you a funny look. I was so addicted to these that one time I opened a packet of cookies at my desk with such vigor that a waterfall of crumbs spilled all over my laptop keyboard. I'm not sure I should have admitted that publicly, but there you go.

Anyway, back to the task at hand... I also found the recipe intriguing, because the crumble topping is achieved by freezing a portion of shortbread dough, grating it using a cheese grater, and sprinkling it on top of the filling layer. I've never seen a crumble top like this, so naturally, I had to try it. 

This whole exercise required some patience, but I think the results were worth the effort. I'm even thinking of making these again when I get home, because I think they're great holiday cookies.

Also, this recipe requires trimming the browned edges of shortbread once it is entirely baked.  You can bet that I nibbled on these bits over the course of the night. If you even try to tell me you wouldn't do the same, I don't think we can be friends anymore.

Raspberry-Chocolate Crumb Bars, adapted from the Flour Bakery Cookbook

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups cake flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/1/2 cups raspberry jam (with seeds)

3 tablespoons half-and-half

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar (for dusting)

To make shortbread: 

Cream together the butter, granulated sugar, and confectioners' sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. 

Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, or until thoroughly combined.

In a medium bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and then mix until the flour mixture is totally incorporated and the tough is evenly mixed.

Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Remove one-fourth of the dough to a separate sheet of plastic wrap. Wrap the remaining three-fourths of the dough entirely in the plastic wrap, pressing down to form a disk about 8 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick. Refrigerate the dough disk for about 30 minutes, or until the dough has firmed up but is still somewhat pliable. Pat the reserved one-fourth of the dough into a small disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and place in the freezer for at least 2 hours, or until hard.

In a small sauce pan, melt the chocolate chips and mix in the half-and-half until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly flour the 8-inch dough disk and two large sheets of parchment paper. Place the dough between the sheets of parchment, and roll it out into a rectangle about 13 by 9 inches and 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick. Carefully peel off the top sheet of parchment. Trim the edges so the rectangle has fairy neat sides. Transfer the bottom sheet of parchment with the dough to a baking sheet. Trim the parchment so that it fits the baking sheet.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the shortbread is light brown. Remove the shortbread from the oven, let cool for 10 to 15 minutes, then spread the melted chocolate on top of the warm shortbread. Add the raspberry jam on top of the chocolate layer, spreading it out evenly.

Remove the smaller dough disk from the freezer, and using the large holes on a box grater, grate it into large flakes. Evenly sprinkle the dough flakes over the jam.

Return the baking sheet to the oven and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Let cool completely on the baking sheet on a wire rack.

When cooled, sift the confectioners' sugar evenly over the top. Trim the edges again, then cut into bars.

Thankful for Dutch Apple Pie

I'm painfully close to finishing my last academic obligation of the quarter, so naturally, I am blogging instead of working on that pesky take-home final. I spent the whole day writing a paper for another class, though, so I when I finished, I felt somewhat justified in taking a short respite... 

That was several hours ago, though.  "A short respite" turned into grocery shopping and watching Glee, but then, I have never been good at self-restraint. Perhaps this explains why Fall quarter was not terribly kind to me in terms of free time for baking... But never fear, things are looking up for the Winter!

In any case, along with all the other aforementioned distractions, I decided to throw together a batch of shortbread cookies tonight. ("Just shortbread? Meh." you say? Don't worry, they are much cooler than that. The instructions called for a cheese grater, so something new and unusual is definitely afoot. More on this in my next blog post.) Then I remembered that I forgot to blog about my Thanksgiving baking adventure. 

I usually make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving (loyal OCB readers will recall the homemade kobucha version from 2011), but this year I decided to go with something that my brother might actually enjoy. Some time ago, my big bro confessed that he doesn't actually like pumpkin pie... The horror! All these years, he'd been quietly suffering, just to be polite. What a guy. All of that nonsense ended this year, however, as I decided to make... Dutch Apple Pie!

How did I arrive at this decision? Some of you may be surprised to learn that it was not until I became a young adult (in age only, of course. I have yet to reach this status in actual maturity.) that I came to understand the wonder and glory of homemade pies. I have always been a fan of buttery-flakey things, but as a kid, my only exposure was through a fellow Sara... Sara Lee, to be precise. Mom always let me pick the frozen pie we'd bake on holidays, and I always, always, always picked Dutch Apple Pie. There is something about those crispy, crumbly bits on top of spiced apples that just takes me to another place. 

I hope my family enjoyed it. They always say they do, but now that I know my brother has been putting up with pumpkin for so many years, I wonder if I can trust any of them anymore... What do you think? (Apologies in advance for the bad pictures -- they're taken from my phone, since I forgot my real camera in LA.)

The recipe I followed was somewhat piecemeal. My go-to pie crust is, as I am sure you know by now, the Flour Bakery pâte brisée. But the filling and crumble top came from this fairly generic, but universally well-rated recipe on Food.com. One small, but significant modification I made was to blind bake the pie crust before filling it with apples. I've gotten into the habit of blind baking, since I discovered that it prevents the dreaded "soggy bottom crust" syndrome. Interestingly, although I don't have any pictures to prove this, I didn't have enough pie weights, so I ended up weighing down the crust with pebbles Mom bought for the bottom of decorative flower vases. I washed them, of course... They actually held up the edges quite well, so I think I'll keep using this technique until Mom decides to dump them into a vase.

Enough rambling. Here's the recipe, for anyone who may be interested.

Dutch Apple Pie, adapted from Food.com and Flour Bakery

Ingredients

1 Pâte Brisée II, recipe here
5 1/2 cups peeled cored sliced cooking apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
3 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

For the topping
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup butter or 1/3 cup margarine, room temperature

Directions:

Prepare pâte brisée for the pie crust. When you are ready to make the pie, blind bake the crust at 375°F for about 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow the crust to cool, and continue with apple pie recipe as follows.

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Fit pie crust into pie plate.
3. In a large bowl, mix sliced apples, lemon juice, both sugars,flour, cinnamon and nutmeg.
4. Pile into crust.
5. Prepare topping:.
6. In a medium bowl, with a pastry blender or a fork, mix flour, both sugars, and butter until coarsely crumbled.
7. Sprinkle evenly over apples.
8. Bake at 375°F for 50 minutes.