I love my mixer

Having moved around the world a lot, I've had to leave my old mixer behind more time than I care to think about.

The first serious mixer I owned all to myself was a Kenwood Chef, my parents gave it to me for my 21st birthday. Now, before you start to think that's not a very exciting birthday present, I begged for one. Begged.

I had spent my childhood using the Kenwood Chef that my mother was given when I was born (which still works - win one for good craftsmanship and longevity) and could think of nothing I wanted more than one of my own.

The first time I moved overseas I loaned my Kenwood Chef to a friend. When I moved back she was so distraught at the prospect of not having it anymore that my mother helped find her a second hand one at a garage sale.

In the year I was back living in Australia I used that mixer constantly, gearing up for what I knew was coming, culinary school. And again moving to the other side of the world where my mixer could not go.

Going back to being a student meant that I could not afford anything more than a set of hand beaters at home, but thankfully I had access to rooms full of mixers at school.

Except, suddenly, having access to all those mixers at school made me miss having one at home even more. What about those moment when I wanted to bake something that wasn't being graded? I only have so many hands and juggling hand beaters, bowls and flour is a recipe for clumsy girl disaster.

So when Christmas was approaching and my mother called to ask me what I would like, while I could name a list of things, right at the top was a mixer. I wanted a Kitchenaid and I wanted one in a fun color. Baking is fun, my mixer should reflect that (no offense to my trusty old white Kenwood that is sitting at my dad's house).

There was some debate about color, I liked the tangerine and the hot pink and red is always fun but green won the day. Green is my favorite color, how could I look past it?

So here she is, in all her glory, my Kitchenaid, who wonderfully helps me create all kinds of masterpieces leaving me both hands to work with.

Ready to Mix

Action Shot!

Do you have a mixer that you love? Or are you stuck in the horror that is hand beaters?

Cheers,
Joo

Choc It To Me

I have several 'go-to' cookie recipes that I have collected from different places, favorite cookbooks, classes at school, websites friends have emailed me with the subject line - make me this next time.

Not all of them include chocolate.

Sometimes I think they should.

I mean, doesn't chocolate make everything just a little bit better?

Well, not everything, but seriously who doesn't think adding choc chips to your favorite cookie is a good idea?

With this in mind, I baked two batches of cookies to test my theory, my favorite Peanut Butter Cookie recipe and a new recipe I recently discovered for Nutella Cookies.

Adding choc chips to a cookie recipe is the simplest thing ever. Wait until you have the dough combined, add the choc chips (I made a visual guesstimation on how much to add) and mix slowly until they are worked in. If you are worried about over-working the dough, once they have started to work in, stop your mixer and finish mixing it with your hands.

The Nutella Cookies are deliciously simple and almost end up at the consistency of brownies. I made them for the first time earlier this week at a friends house, I assume there are none left based on the reaction they got.

Mixed and shaped Nutella Choc Chip Cookie Dough
Sprinkled with Sea Salt

 My verdict on the Nutella Cookies with Choc Chips was that indeed chocolate makes a good thing better. Chocolate and hazelnut go so well together and the brownie like texture makes you feel like you could be eating a double choc brownie while the sea salt balances and enhances the flavors.

Finished Product.

Unaltered Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

The Peanut Butter Cookies are ones I make often, and have always gotten a great reception from friends I send them too. Like whoever the genius was that suggested mixing peanut butter and chocolate in the first place, I knew this could never be a bad idea.

In the interest of science (or eating, ok, so it was totally eating) I decided to make a batch of the dough and split it in half, adding choc chips to one half and baking the rest off as a normally would.

Choc'ed Up Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

And of course, since chocolate and peanut butter are almost as intertwined as peas and carrots or apple and pie the outcome was freaking delicious. DELICIOUS.

I'll still show you the control sample plain cookie because, well, those are delicious too but odds are the choc chips are making it into the recipe on a permanent basis now.

Control Sample - Sprinkled with Sugar Crystals

My NEW Peanut Butter Choc Chip Cookies

Of course, you can't add choc chips to every cookie recipe, I know some (my ANZAC Cookies for example) where it just would not work at all. But adding them to certain recipes can make all the difference between

"oh hey, a cookie, yum"

and 

Cheers, 

Joo

If you would like any of the recipes mentioned here, please let me know and I will email them to you.

Why Are We Here?

I guess the done thing is to maybe explain who I am and what I plan to talk about on here.

I can't really say I've blogged before, I have friends who do it but I'm shy in most circumstances (unless faced with my favorite musicians, and then suddenly, it's sociable Joo) so I sat quietly by. That is until I realized I like talking about food, and with my shiny new culinary degree I might just have things to say that people would want to listen to. So here I am.

For a personal background, I am an Australian living in America - although I can assure you I rarely utter words like g'day or crikey - I've traveled to various parts of the world and can't seem to sit still. Cooking may not have been my first profession, I worked in politics before I decided making people happy through baked goods was a more noble pursuit. I love music and the written word and nothing relaxes me more than standing in a kitchen, mixing something together. The rest of the world just slips away when I am baking, time ceases to move and I just know that if I mix the right things together, the right way, the end result will be perfect.

I am constantly baking and mailing cookies to my friends all around America, something one or two of them have suggested I should charge for and sell online, right now I just use them to bribe people.

So here I plan to talk about things I bake, and other culinary related things that inspire me, like amazing cookbooks or perhaps something I ate that was noteworthy. I can probably even answer questions if you have baked something that maybe didn't turn out right, or you need to know how to make something work properly. I might accidentally mention music or books a time too many, bear with me, they're the other things that relax me. And let's not forget the foodporn.

Cheers,
Joo

P.S. If I am talking about things I have made and don't post the recipe, just ask me for it and I will email it to you. I'm not hoarding them, I just don't want to bulk up posts with the technicalities!