(Caramel) Dreams Can Come True

Some might say it was a bad sign that it was raining.  I had to take a cab through the city to get to the airport, and as luck would have it, the cab I was in had a flat tire.  The cabby pulled into the parking lot of an office building to ask for help, and to my delight, the office building was dry and warm and (best of all) had cookies.  An unattended plate of home-made caramel chocolate chip cookies.  Without hesitation or permission, I reached out and chose one--the best one--just for me.  It was the most incredible cookie I've ever tasted.  Then I woke up.  

It was the best bad dream ever, and it sent me straight to the kitchen.  Before long, I had come up with my Caramel Dream cookie.  They take a little more prep time than the average chocolate chip cookie, but I promise they are worth it!

Caramel Dream

Prepare ahead:

1/2 cup chocolate caramels and 1/2 cup vanilla caramels, all cut into quarters

Make sure the caramels are room temperature when you quarter them.  There are many flavors of caramel, but I like chocolate and vanilla the best.  Use what you prefer.  When the chocolate caramels are quartered, they're going to make a mess:

You have a choice:  eat the crumbs or toss them into the mixing bowl. Big decisions, folks.  Big decisions.

Despite my best efforts, I've become addicted to Riesen chocolate caramels.  I am sure there are other brands, but Riesen is all I can seem to think about.  They will be my downfall.  Once you have quartered the chocolates and measured them, they need to be frozen for at least 30 minutes.  (You can skip this step, but you will be awash in a sea of melted caramel when you are done.)

I know the recipe only calls for 1/2 cup of vanilla caramels, but a little more can't hurt, can it?

Once your caramels are in the fridge, fire up your oven to 350 degrees and get those cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.  Seriously.  If you don’t, the melted caramel will be a killer to clean up after baking and even worse if you skip the freezing step.  I can prove it:

Best case scenario: the caramels were frozen for 30 minutes before baking.

The vanilla caramels tend to behave better than the chocolate when baking. Regardless, the caramels that end up on the edge of the cookie will melt away from it.  You can try to make sure the caramels are somewhat hidden within the dough before baking, but as the cookie spreads during baking, some of the caramels inevitably end up on the edge and seep out onto the pan.  (What can I say? If you want tidy baking, go visit with Martha.)

Speaking of Martha, I have issues with parchment paper.  I love it, but it drives me nuts.  It's too stiff and never fits the pan right, etc.  One day when I have free time (two weeks after never), I will go to a specialty store and buy parchment paper sheets, instead of rolls.  Yes, I know silicone baking sheets are an option, but those have to be cleaned.  I love crumpling and  tossing the parchment paper when I'm done.

Those 30 minutes are ticking by....time to get going on the dough:

Cream:

 1 stick unsalted butter

½ cup packed brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

Add:

2 eggs (one at a time)

2 ¾ c. flour

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. vanilla

Slowly add:

1 to 1 ½ cups dark chocolate chips

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

your quartered and frozen caramels

Once everything thing is mixed well, ferret out your sea salt.

Drop cookies onto your lined cookie sheet by the teaspoonful, placing them about two inches apart.  Salt lightly with sea salt before baking.  Bake 10-12 minutes until lightly brown on top.  As soon as the cookies are done, salt the tops lightly again with sea salt. Don’t even think about removing them from the pan until they’ve cooled for at least 5 minutes;  they’ll fall apart if you do.

Once the cookies have cooled for at least 5 minutes, pick them up one at a time and trim the mess with kitchen scissors:

A bit of a mess?  Maybe...

...but we can fix that.

If you're lucky enough to have a cooling rack, place the trimmed cookies on them to finish cooling.  If not, wing it.  I just got my first cooling racks last week (thanks Mom!), so I promise they will not make or break the recipe.  However, I do love them now that I have them.  

Collect all the caramel trimmings and feed them to people who will love you for it (or yourself). Or toss them.  When all is said and done, you'll have these beauties waiting for you:

Where's the milk?  Do not tell me you forgot the milk!?

So, that's it.  Except for one thing:  How will you make your dream come true? 

Just a Smackerel of Something

It was the kind of day—with a crisp fall breeze and cloudless sky—that demands a particular type of appreciation.  A sit still and remember kind of day, and (to take a phrase from A. A. Milne) I needed "just a smackerel of something" to help me get the remembering right.  Something rich and satisfying was in order, and I knew just the thing: The Bumper Book.

Edited by "Watty Piper" (who is apparently not a real person, but that's another story), The Bumper Book is full of fair-to-middling 20th century children's literature.  What makes it great, however, is the art, by a woman known simply as Eulalie.  As children, we all have those things—a book or a letter; a trinket or photo—that make us feel magical. For me, it was this book, and I poured over the pages again and again hoping to somehow make it real. 


And so it was, on this particular sit still and remember day, that I found myself remembering how badly I wanted the book's world to be real.  I slowly turned the pages until I came to  "Animal Crackers" by Christopher Morley.  Suddenly I was dreaming of the kitchen Christopher and Eulalie imagined for me:

Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.

What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love the most!

The kitchen's the coziest place that I know:
The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me.

Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!
_________________________________________

I have a black cat like the one on the photo, and there's a kettle on my stove.  The kitchen is the coziest place that I know, and I love having tea.  But one line had me panicked:  What do you choose when you're offered a treat?

Suddenly tea time had become an existential crisis.  What do I choose!?  With that, I shut the book and headed straight to the kitchen.  Faster than you can say "Eulalie" I was preheating the oven, fishing out cookie cutters, and searching for my best animal cracker recipe.

In truth, there aren't that many good animal cracker recipes.  Oprah has one, but I don't trust it.  (It included frosting and sprinkles.  Too fussy.)  I found another that listed allspice, mace, and ginger in the ingredients, which all sound completely unnecessary.  William and Sonoma's recipe...well...I just refuse to believe their recipes are real.  In the end, King Arthur Flour has the best animal cookie recipe.  (King Arthur's Flour is my one and only;  I don't bake with anything else.) 

And yes, the recipe is important, but let's be honest:  What you really need are stellar cookie cutters.  Though I don't have an entire zoo, I do have a few animals to choose from:

Lions and elephants and giraffes...oh my!

The list of ingredients is brief:

• 3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) soft butter
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon Princess Cake and Cookie Flavor, or flavor of your choice
• 1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 cup oat flour or finely ground rolled oats   

A few caveats: I hope to never cook with anything that has the word "Princess" in it.  I am assuming this is a play on the whole "King Arthur" thing.  I skipped the special "Princess Cake and Cookie Flavor" and just used vanilla extract.  The results were terrific.  Next time I will use 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, just because I am crazy like that.  Also, I did not have any oat flour.  I did have plain oats, though.  I ground it up and used it instead.  

Last but not least, I added my own special touch:  I sprinkled a very small amount of vanilla sugar on top of each cookie before I baked them.  Last spring I bought a jar of vanilla sugar at the world-famous Demel café...

As far as I am concerned, this jar is worth more than all the gold in Fort Knox.  I use it very sparingly on special occasions like sit still and remember days and mornings when my sister, Sharen, is visiting from Texas and doesn't have her special Coffee Mate for her coffee. 

The verdict?  Absolutely delicious animal crackers, with or without the vanilla sugar.  You'll need to line the pan with parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes.  Do all that, and you'll have these:

See the crystals of vanilla delight?

Like the plate?  Check out Miss Blackbirdy

Go ahead, bite me!

If you want to get wacky and super size it, go ahead:

Whether you have vanilla sugar, appreciate the day for what it is--it's only 24 hours.  Make it real.  Sit still and remember:  life's what you bake it.