use real butter

Recipe: chocolate gingerbread cookies

This post is coming to you from sunny (and hot) California. More specifically, you could call it sunny, hot, gorgeous, delightful, mouth-watering, seductive Sonoma County (and a little Napa too). It’s been looking like this:

vineyards

wine tastings

gardens

dinner at redd (those are scallops – bloody awesome scallops)

lovely grounds at wineries

the most brilliant lunch EVER

otoro sushi

Before I head into the sticks for a few days, I wanted to wish all of the wonderful moms out there a very happy Mother’s Day! The world would come to a halt without your love and dedication, so thank you for all you do. Of course, I have to give special shout outs to my two favorite moms: Mom (my mother-in-law) and Mom (my mom).

It seems fitting that today’s recipe should be something sweet, like those magical hugs that only moms can give. I recently tested a batch of these chocolate gingerbread cookies and I think they may be the new crack – but LEGAL!

butter, molasses, flour, dark brown sugar, ginger, chocolate, candied ginger, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, spices, fresh grated ginger, sugar

sift the flour, cocoa, salt, and spices together

beat the butter and fresh ginger together

add the brown sugar

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: butterscotch and milk chocolate puddings

Were any of you able to catch the full moon this past weekend? Since the moon was at perigee (closest approach to Earth) for 2012, it appeared 14% larger and 30% brighter than typical full moons. Everyone was saying it would be a “supermoon”. For us, it certainly was if only for the fact that clouds were building all day, sitting like a giant cap on top of our region. Sheer luck and strategic planning gave us a tiny window from the horizon of the Great Plains to the base of the cloud deck. For all of ten minutes we were able to witness and capture something beautiful.

supermoonrise

As the moon disappeared into the clouds, I looked up from the camera and shouted, “I love it here!” We have good skies, clean air, quiet mountain roads, and a topography of mountains, foothills, and canyons that dramatically abuts a flat, expansive plain. The storm eventually committed itself on Sunday and brought a shower of wet, heavy snow upon us. Moisture is welcome now, in any form.

kaweah wanted to check out the snow

It was most definitely a super weekend – super moon, super snow, and I recreated a lovely treat I’ve enjoyed from Pizzeria Locale in Boulder (part of the grand Frasca dominion).

call it super pudding

Last month, I was on assignment to shoot a fun annual event in downtown Boulder – Taste of Pearl. Local restaurants, Colorado wineries, and shops on Pearl Street triple up to create 15 tasting stations for attendees to sample and peruse and mingle. It’s festive and lively. People get friendlier and friendlier as the afternoon progresses, I’m guessing because of the wine! As I was working, I didn’t eat or drink until the end. The fellas at Pizzeria Locale were handing out cute little cups of their butterscotch pudding. If you said “butterscotch pudding” to me in the past, I would have politely declined. After having sampled this butterscotch pudding twice (first time at the restaurant, second time at this shoot), I was SOLD. But you know me… something this good needs to be tested at Butter Headquarters.

vanilla, bourbon, milk, eggs, brown sugar, butter, salt, cornstarch

mix melted butter with the brown sugar and salt

I don’t develop recipes. I just don’t. That kind of activity makes me crazy and cranky. I seek out good recipes from trusted sources and proceed to test them out. After searching my library and looking online, I settled on David Lebovitz’ butterscotch pudding, because he puts BOOZE in his pudding. Whiskey, to be specific. I went to my wine and booze adviser (Jason at Boulder Wine and Spirits – he is the best) and grilled him about whiskeys. What is whiskey? Can I use bourbon instead of whiskey? What the heck is scotch? Jason deserves a batch of cookies just for putting up with me. In the end, I decided to save myself $30 and use the bourbon I already had.

whisk milk and cornstarch

whisk in eggs

stir milk into the brown sugar mixture

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate mochi cake

Easter is coming. (If I were a Stark, I’d say, “Winter is coming.”) Working with artisan Robin Chocolates these past few weeks, I feel as if it has been Easter for a while. I’ve had hand-crafted marshmallow-almond butter chocolate bunnies, bunny sugar cookies, chocolate ducks, marshmallow peanut butter bears, peanut butter crisp chocolate eggs, caramel turtles, and assorted (amazing) truffles marching past my camera and into my (or rather, Jeremy’s) belly.

the cutest dark chocolate ducky

bunny filled with marshmallow fluff and almond butter (it was delicious)

If you live in the Boulder-Denver area, you are so totally in luck. You can stop by Robin’s storefront in Longmont (Monday-Saturday 12:00 pm – 6:30 pm) for a free sample while you pick out your gorgeous Easter goodies for the sweet-toothed loved ones in your life (or yourself, ahem…). Heck, go there for their incredible pastries in addition to the confections. Or try your luck with any of these locations that carry Robin Chocolates. If you aren’t fortunate enough to live in beautiful Colorado, you can always rush order for Easter. Don’t forget Mother’s Day is just around the corner!

Robin Chocolates
600 Airport Road
Building B, Suite D
Longmont, CO 80503
720.204.8003
12:00 pm – 6:00 pm, Monday – Saturday

robin makes award-winning truffles

Normal began to lose all meaning for me until this week when a storm front drifted in and dumped several inches of snow in my yard, on my house, on the trees, in the mountains – everywhere. I know a lot of people in Seattle, Washington and Ithaca, New York who become noticeably depressed or cranky when they haven’t seen the sun in a couple of weeks. I get that, I think. I’m the opposite. I need my snow and in summer, I’ll settle for rain (rain is good). As soon as Jeremy got home on Tuesday, I shoved his ski pants at him and said, “We’re taking Kaweah for a ski.” It had snowed all day and five minutes before he walked through the front door, the sun came shining through.

the storm clears out

snow, at last!!

kaweah didn’t want to stop for pictures

but she did stop for treats

Kaweah ran her little brains out, she was so happy. We were elated to be out there alone, in the still and quiet of the woods, blanketed in white. Cold air feels good when your face is flushed bright red from exercise. I don’t know if we’ll get any more snowfall. I hope we do for recreation, yes, but especially to mitigate wildfires this summer and fall. Once home, we both dug into some chocolate mochi cake I had made, to tide us over while we cooked dinner. I know I’ve said I’m not a fan of chocolate, but I do love 1) a little bit of good quality dark chocolate and now 2) chocolate mochi.

evaporated milk, glutinous rice flour, sugar, vanilla, baking soda, chocolate, butter, eggs

mix the dry ingredients together

My friend Fran, a native of Hilo, Hawai’i, sent me a link to a recipe for chocolate mochi cake last year, but I lost it. I began to google about for it recently and came upon a recipe from the Polynesian Cultural Center website. Having made complicated pastries and confections in the past, a recipe that calls for mixing everything in one bowl and dumping it into a pan to bake sounds like heaven to me. This is heaven. Now, the original recipe calls for margarine and well… you know we’re using butter instead of margarine. It’s worth stating (again): glutinous rice flour does not contain gluten. This is totally gluten-free friendly.

melted butter and chocolate

stir in the evaporated milk

**Jump for more butter**