Recipe stuff - help needed

[jekni]

So, the book is "Cherry Cheesecake Murder" but Joanne Fluke. Subtitled "A Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes".

A recipe titled All-Nighter Cookies calls for 'peanut butter chips' - I have no idea what these are and would welcome some enlightenment.

Another titled Angel Kisses uses something called "Hershey's Kisses" put into the middle of what sounds like an Italian meringue stiffened with flour - also no idea what she's talking about there.

Finally, in one titled "ooey-Gooey Chewy Cookie Bars" she specifies unsweetened baking cocoa and goes on to say "Make sure you get an American brand - some of the others are Dutch process and they won't work in this recipe." I have Cadbury's cocoa powder (Australian) and Schmidt's Dunkle Kakao (German) both are unsweetened pure cocoa powder but neither mention this 'Dutch process' on the boxes. Can anyone tell me what she's talking about?

Thanking responders in advance and returning you to your regular programming.


PS - I had my first recipe accepted by Best Recipes last week. Go to

www.bestrecipes.com.au

and search under Easy Sultana Loaf

Comments

[windtear.livejournal.com]

This is an American author, right?

Okay, as one foodie to another...

American peanut butter is different to the type we get here in Australia in that it isn't always 100% peanuts. It can be sweetened, baked and otherwise processed. Peanut butter chips are a product where sweetened peanut butter is made and solidified and then the sheet broken - think peanut brittle but less sugar.

Americans also have a type of chocolate called a 'Hershey's Kiss' - think a Lindt ball shaped like a swirly cone. It's called that because the squirter thingie looks like it's 'kissing' the conveyer belt when it squirts out the chocolate onto the foil wrapper. Personally I think the taste is comparable to Cadbury's and that Lindt is much better.

There are different laws in different countries for the minimum amount of raw cacao there must be in different chocolate products. In Europe, the laws generally state that it needs to be between 70%-80%, but the American laws set their minimum at 60%. I'm not sure what the British or Australian law levels are but given the UK's proximity to Europe and the fact that I can taste a much higher concentration in Australian hot chocolate to American hot chocolate, I'd say we're up there with Europe.

Does that help?

[jekni.livejournal.com]

I think so. I get so confused by the USian cookery terms, they seem to make things unnecessarily complicated sometimes. There's a shop in Manuka that carries a lot of USian chocolates and stuff so I might go there for the Kisses, otherwise maybe just bits of chocolate broken up, do you think? I'm a Lindt 85% fan, myself.

Not sure what to substitute for the PB chips, tho'.

Thanks for the tips.

[windtear.livejournal.com]

I'd read over the recipe and try to work out what the bits are for. If they're for peanut flavour, I'd use crunchy peanut butter. If they're for sweetness, I'd use smashed peanut brittle. Or you can check that shop in Manuka and see if they carry them.

Actually, I think I'd just go with the peanut brittle straight off the bat. The Americans have a lolly they call 'Reese's peanut butter cups', I tried it once. Low quality chocolate and the peanut butter centre was so sweet it totally wrecked the flavour of peanuts, not to mention it was solid enough that you had to bite down on it to separate it into pieces. And this is supposedly really good! Poor Americans, they apparently have no really good lollies.

[jekni.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the peanut brittle (I had some from a shop in Harbourside in Sydney - just made - which was the best I've ever had) even Darryl Lea's isn't bad although I'm still trying to find a recipe to make it myself.

Actually I remember trying some of the Reese's PBCs - agree on the result, far too sweet and not nice at all.

[windtear.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, CONGRATULATIONS!! on the acceptance of the sultana bread recipe. I can't believe I didn't see that first...

[jekni.livejournal.com]

I'm really getting attached to BestRecipes. The Custard Cake is one that I picked up there (and what tempted me to submit a recipe of my own) and it's very easy, quick and delicious. I've made it three times already and it never lasts long at all.

[msss.livejournal.com]

Hey! I need to know too. Dutch process is apparently processed with an alkali to reduce bitterness, but none of the cocoa in the supermarket says anything about it!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Do you have chocolate chips in Australia? (I certainly hope so [g]). Peanut butter chips are basically the same size and shape, and react the same way in baking as chocolate chips do (melting when baked, but not blending into the dough). They actually don't taste all that peanut-buttery to me, I suspect because of whatever they use to make them firm and unsticky. They're not *anything* like peanut brittle, though. I would seriously not substitute peanut brittle (which is a candy with peanuts in it in the US, not made out of peanuts, and melts in an entirely different way when you're baking with it) or regular peanut butter (creamy or crunchy -- you're going to mess up your moisture ratio because peanut butter is much moister than peanut butter chips) for them. I'm not sure what you *could* substitute, actually. Baking chips in the US come in a lot of different flavors these days -- peanut butter, white chocolate, mint chocolate, dark and/or milk chocolate, butterscotch, etc., as well as the standard semisweet chocolate.

Hershey's kisses (http://www.hersheys.com/kisses/ -- the page loads really slow) are basically large milk chocolate chips (not semisweet, like regular-sized chocolate chips) about an inch across at the base. They come in lots of flavors -- caramel or cherry cordial filled, or covered in white chocolate, and even a dark chocolate version, I think, as well as the plain milk chocolate. You really don't have chocolate kisses down there??? For some reason I find that quite amazing.

As for Dutch process cocoa, I don't know much about it. Here's a Wikipedia article on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_process_chocolate. I suspect that if the container does not say "Dutch process," it probably isn't Dutch process, but for all I know the standard cocoa powder in Australia is, and so they don't label the default [g]. I'm afraid you're on your own on that one, at least so far as I'm concerned...

Congratulations on the recipe being accepted (whatever that means [g]).

P.S. I like Reese's peanut butter cups, although they don't like me (give me an upset stomach, as most peanutty things do). To each hir own, I guess.

[jekni.livejournal.com]

Chocolate chips we have in abundance. Mostly they are white, milk or dark and about 1/4 inch across at the base. We can also buy chocolate melts which come in white, milk, dark, caramel and mint flavours and are used to melt and mould your own chocolate shapes - they are about 1/2 inch across. No peanut butter flavoured ones though. I wonder if I melted some white ones and mixed in peanut butter and then set it again would that do the job - or I guess I could just use chocolate chips. The recipe already has 1 cup chopped peanuts in it.

We don't get Hersheys anything unless it is in an import shop. The closest thing I could think of would be Lindor balls or Perugina Baci

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Chocolate chips we have in abundance. Mostly they are white, milk or dark and about 1/4 inch across at the base. We can also buy chocolate melts which come in white, milk, dark, caramel and mint flavours and are used to melt and mould your own chocolate shapes - they are about 1/2 inch across. No peanut butter flavoured ones though. I wonder if I melted some white ones and mixed in peanut butter and then set it again would that do the job - or I guess I could just use chocolate chips. The recipe already has 1 cup chopped peanuts in it.

We don't get Hersheys anything unless it is in an import shop. The closest thing I could think of would be Lindor balls or Perugina Baci <www.baciperugina.it> (baci being Italian for kiss!) but either of those would be much too expensive to put into cookies (as would imported Hersheys)!!

I'm guessing I'll just have to experiment with the cocoa and see what happens - she doesn't say WHY the Dutch process doesn't work - just that it doesn't.

The recipe acceptance thing was just me angling for my 15 minutes of 'fame'. BestRecipes.com.au is a favourite of mine for finding new things to cook - and lots of people ask for that cake recipe when they have it.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the Dutch process cocoa isn't as strongly-flavored, but that's just a guess based on watching Alton Brown's Food Network program episode on cocoa too long ago [g]. Alton Brown is a fellow who does a half-hour program on, I guess you could say the science of cooking, why foods and cooking methods do what they do and so forth. I liked his show back when I had expanded cable.

I think if I were you I'd just use chocolate chips. Unless there's something else in the recipe that counterindicates using chocolate (in which case the recipe is probably suspect to begin with [g]).

And congratulations on your fifteen minutes of fame. Here's hoping this isn't your only one!

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

Dutch-processed cocoa is treated with alkali to reduce its acidity. It doesn't react with baking soda and thus can't be used in recipes that use baking soda unless there are other acidic ingredients to make the baking soda work.

[jekni.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the very cogent explanation, makes sense to me.

What's weirding me out about it in this recipe is that the ingredients are:

sugar, flour, cocoa, salt and butter for the crust (combined in a food processor and pressed into a pan)
chocolate chips, marshmallows, nuts, coconut and condensed milk for the topping (dry ingredients sprinkled over base then condensed milk poured over the top then baked)

Do you have any idea why the type of cocoa would make any difference whatsoever? There is no indicatioon if the flour is plain or self-raising so I'm assuming plain (an Australian recipe would always distinguish between the two).

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I don't see any obvious reason why the type of cocoa would mattter in that recipe. If the recipe called for self-rising flour, it should say so.