karen's birthday

It's Karen's birthday. She calls the shots most days, but she calls all of them on her birthday, especially food-wise. Breakfast was a poached egg with oven-roasted bacon and sourdough toast. Dinner is filet with blue cheese, crab cakes, and roasted tomatoes. And pie. Tuscaloosa Tollhouse Pie. 


She's the best.

tuscaloosa tollhouse pie (from the Baked cookbook)

Let's cut to the chase.

Make this pie. Now.

If you were planning to go to bed... Or say loving things to someone... Or do your job... Put. It. On. Hold. You can sleep/love/work later.

You need this pie.

You know how much we love Alice's Chocolate Chunk Cookies? Right. This is a pie full of oozing chocolate cookie.

And it has whiskey in it. So that should pretty much sell it.

The recipe comes from the Baked cookbook. The recipes are the ones used in their bakery. We love that book. Our friend, Tod, bought it after we made him pumpkin whoopie pies from it. He loved them that much. I think he had a desire to have whoopie pies on demand. Now he can't stop baking from it. It's like The Red Shoes but with flour-based goodness.

Karen and I took the kids to Brooklyn this weekend to see the cherry blossoms. We stopped at the Baked shop in Red Hook before we saw the flowers. The kids ate monster cookies. I ate scones. Karen ate brownies. Pretty much the best breakfast ever. When we got home, we started looking at Red Hook real estate. That's how much we love them.

The recipe follows. Fair warning - we will feature a couple of more recipes from Baked in the next few weeks. I'd suggest you buy a copy and bake along.

baked’s tuscaloosa tollhouse pie

• Pie dough (you live a life full of choices. Pie crust is another one. Decide for yourself what crust you want to make. I'm not the boss of you.)
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cubed
• 1 T whiskey (or not)
• 3/4 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped fine (You can buy them chopped fine. Move on.)
• 8 oz. semisweet chocolate chips. Or chop some chunks.

Do your pie crust. You know I have issues making them. Karen does not. Do what makes you happy. Once you've got it in the pan, freeze it while you make the filling.

Get the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk the flour and sugars together. Put them in the corner and give them a pep talk. They're going to make something awesome.

With a whisk attachment, beat eggs on high speed until foamy. Maybe three minutes. Eject the whisk. Put the paddle attachment on the mixer. Turn it on low. Slowly, add the flour and sugars. Mixer on high for two minutes. Scrape down and throw in the butter. Beat on high until combined. Add the whiskey if you want it. Beat on high for one minute.

Use a spatula and fold in the walnuts and half of the chocolate. Note that you're not putting in all the chocolate. Yet.

Pour the filling into the pie shell. Throw on the rest of the chocolate. Bake for 25 minutes. The edges are going to be done before the filling, so fold up some foil so it looks like a belt, and then cover the edges of crust. You want to shield the crust from the heat, but don't shield the filling. Bake for another 25 minutes or so. It's done when a knife stuck in it comes out clean.

Cool completely on a rack (who are we kidding? You should wait a couple of minutes and then dig in) before serving. Reheat for a few seconds in the microwave if it cools completely before you get a chance to devour it.


Recipe from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking (Stewart, Tabori & Chang)