Dinner at Laundromat – Garlic, Rosemary, and Thyme Bread; and Brownies! Recipe
Dinner at Laundromat – Garlic, Rosemary, and Thyme Bread; and Brownies!
- umi
Last weekend we had a dinner party at Laundromat put together by their house-guest Tami, a spunky photographer from Japan my mother’s age. She’s so adorable in large funky glasses with a red frame and her signature leggings. She put together a feast with chirashi sushi (sushi rice with various toppings), sashimi, yakisoba (by Kevin), onion and carrot tempura (by Rob), ground seasoned meat for wrapping in lettuce, and various cooked vegetables. The day before there was a gallery showing of Takayuki’s (second photo to the right) works. He was in the States for a few more days and this dinner was in his honor.
They asked me to bring a dish, so I baked some rosemary, thyme, and garlic bread (with a sprinkling of whole wheat), creamed butter and roasted garlic for a spread, and made sun-dried tomato tapenade with shallots, garlic (see a pattern), and chevre. The spreads were both very easy. For the garlic butter, just cream some butter, roast garlic for an hour, and mash them together. The garlic will be soft and should come together with the butter easily. If you can’t refrigerate this immediately, squeeze some lemon juice to keep the garlic. Otherwise, gather the mixture into plastic wrap and freeze for an hour. For the tapenade, I just threw some sun-dried tomatoes, chopped shallots, and 2-3 cloves of garlic into the food processor. I mixed in some chopped black olives, lime juice, a teaspoon of honey, and crumbled some goat cheese to taste. Mix thoroughly and serve.
The bread was kneaded in the bread maker the night before (easy easy) and left to rise overnight in the fridge. I punched it down in the morning/noon, shaped it, and left it out to rise again. (it was cold in the apartment) I left it for couple of hours where it rose again to twice it’s size. I just popped it in the oven around 4pm-5pm, 450 degrees for 10 minutes and 350 degrees until it looked done, about 30-40 minutes.
What took some time was the brownies. Now, I haven’t made brownies in a while. There was a great recipe that I found in some cookbook in Undergrad. I think it was in the Cake Bible. I tried to google it online and found Lisa Yockelson’s recipe. It sounded good! I made some substitutions, but it came out GREAT. It took a while to cook to the consistency I wanted. I think I left it in for an additional 10 minutes. If you like they gooier, than I would take them out at the time she specified. I like my brownies to be a consistency that’s fluffy and in one piece. These babies were received REALLY well. I am a little bad at following recipe’s exactly, so I will detail what I did, however, you probably can’t go wrong following her recipe to a T.
*I didn’t know what to do with a bar of Chili Lindt chocolate I received, but it was great in this treat. It was really subtle and added some depth to the chocolate. Bourbon might have improved things. (Instead of espresso) It was an adult treat.*
- 1 cup white flour
- 1/3 cup cake flour
- 1/4 + a little more of Hersey’s cocoa powder (the only thing I could find in the apt – there was nothing in Associated)
- Eyeballed 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder, although I suspect it was a pinch or so more
- 1/3 bag of bittersweet baker’s chocolate chunks
- 1/2 bar of Lindt Chili Pepper Chocolate (broken up)*
- 2 bars 70% cocoa Lindt Chocolate (broken up)
- 2 sticks of butter left out to soften
2 cups of fine sugar (I had fine brown sugar I tried to use, but it was hard and hard to work with. I abandoned that project and used white sugar instead.
5 large eggs (wowza, right?)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
A splash of espresso / heavy coffee
One thing about me is that I am neurotic about certain baking tenets I picked up. Like, I always cream the butter and mix with sugar together until everything is white. I try to keep everything room temperature so that the butter doesn’t seperate. I don’t like to microwave butter, since it won’t get fluffy and it might make the eggs separate. I sift things like 10 times. I always beat egg whites separately until foamy and hard to use them as a leavener. I do all these things even if the recipe doesn’t call for it… For fun I will try to include all my oddities in the directions. (Cause… this is baking with Umi!)
Preheat oven to 325
Sift all the dry ingredients (except for sugar) initially, whisk lightly to mix ingredients and sift 2-3 times again. (Or like 10 times)
Mix a tablespoon of this powder into the bittersweet chocolate chunks
Cream 2 sticks of butter and slowly 2 cups of sugar, creaming both until the mixture is white and fluffy
Microwave bar chocolate (not the chunks meant to go in the batter) with a splash of espresso, mix.
Seperate the 5 eggs, beat whites until foamy and peaks stand (2-3 minutes), whisk in yolk, whisk in vanilla extract, and whisk in the butter/chocolate mixture.
Sift dry ingredients in the wet mixture, slowly, mixing sparingly, but until everything is blended.
Stir in chocolate chunks and fill baking pan, smoothing out the top.
Cook until it’s the desired consistency. I kept it in there until 40-45 minutes. Take out and let cook on a rack.
Umi
"There is very little that I cannot / wouldn't eat. However, Ryan was able to get a good laugh out of a panicked look I had on my face while drowning back raw baby squid with beer."
Ryan
Ryan needs to write a blurb here about himself. Like the time he almost lost his shit over the greatness that is Japanese Bento and set lunches. Needless to say, we both like to eat very much.
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