Novelty microwave mug cakes, in these mini-Bundt pans designed for just that. My first attempts last week were tasty but did not release well from the pans. These came out perfectly. I think the keys were 1) using LESS flour spray - the NordicWare video showed just 3 short dots sprayed then spread with a brush, and that worked well. I had been using much more.
2) using LESS batter in each pan - I split a single recipe between the 2 mini-pans.
3) perhaps simply a different recipe - unlikely since the 2 I tried last week were provided with the pans. This one was the Land O Lakes Birthday Party Mug Cake.
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Those pans might make nice molds for panna cotta and the like.
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Angel Biscuits, from Erika Council’s Still We Rise.
Described as a cross between a traditional biscuit and a Parker House roll, leavening agents include yeast, baking powder and baking soda. Fats include shortening and butter. The recipe calls for buttermilk, which you are supposed to warm before proofing the yeast in it. I didn’t care for the sound of warm buttermilk here, so left it cold and used instant yeast.
I made other changes. After the initial mix, you’re supposed to rest the batter at room temp for 30 minutes, followed by three sets of back-to-back letter folds. Then the biscuits are punched and baked straight away. I did the initial rest, then included two additional 30 minute rests – chilled - between folds. After punching the biscuits, I chilled them again while the oven preheated.
These came out better than I had even hoped. They retained their inherent biscuit qualities - tall and flaky - but were lighter and less greasy than many of the biscuit recipes I’ve tried recently. Certainly will make again.
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If you haven’t tried it, Stella Parks’ version of angel biscuits is my favorite of all I’ve tried. I absolutely love those things.
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Stella Parks’ recipe is on my list. 
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Here is the free King Arthur Baking conversion link.
I switched to weighing long ago, so I have no direct experience in conversions.
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Brown Butter
Financiers. These have been on my bucket list forever. We once stayed in a Paris hotel where they would leave them for us every day. I finally bought a pan. Recipe is from David Lebovitz . He makes them in mini muffin tins so i am trying to find how long i should bake them. My weaving guild is having a 50th anniversary tea in july and i would like to make these plus coquettes and bouchons.
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I was on vacation this week, and had grand intentions of lots of cooking and baking. The flu had other plans for me, unfortunately, but I was finally well enough by yesterday to pull together some Detroit pizzas,, chocolate chip cookies, and orange and olive oil cake.
I had never made the pizza or the cake before, but will surely make both again! The chocolate chip cookies are our house cookie, and everyone was fighting over who got to take some home. We loved the texture of the olive oil cake, and looked forward to having some with coffee this morning. I forgot to snap a pic of it!
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I made half a recipe of ATK’s brown butter chocolate chunk muffins, which are really just mini cakes with 8 oz of butter and 2 cups of sour cream for a full recipe.
They also have more sugar than I consider appropriate for a quick bread (as opposed to cake). I cut the sugar to 100 g when I made my half recipe.
I used half kefir cream and half kefir for the sour cream because I didn’t have quite enough sour cream.
I added a tablespoon of toasted milk powder to get more brown butter flavor and I still wished I had added another tbsp.
I added salt using the 1/2 tsp called for but added a bit more when I tasted the batter. I’d weigh out 3 g if making again.
I only had 90 g bittersweet chocolate and I added milk chocolate for the remaining 25 g or so called for. I would do half and half next time as I like the milk chocolate here. I also wished for less chocolate than called for, so I’d reduce the amount. I want more of the brown butter muffin to enjoy. I similarly don’t like chocolate chip cookies that go very heavy on the chocolate and don’t give me enough of the delicious buttery, brown sugar dough.
Frankly I think these are too moist and delicate. The sour cream amount being 160% plus butter being 80% is a lot.
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Day 2. Outside crispness is gone but now its like biting into marzipan. You have to love it, which we do.
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NYT’s chocolate chip skillet cookie (gift link here).
The on-line photo has been haunting me, so today I was compelled to make it. This is a half-recipe in an 8” cast-iron skillet which, referring to the comments, I greased with bacon fat before lining with parchment. With DH in mind as the primary recipient, I used milk chocolate, reducing the granulated sugar by 30% and the vanilla by 50%. If it were for me, I would have gone with dark chocolate and salted the top. I mixed it by hand, which is a little tedious, but the pay-off is not having to haul out or clean the mixer for a relatively small and fast treat.
Quick to make and very cute, for my taste this is an “OK” cookie. I don’t think it’s as good as other choco-chip cookies I’ve had, but sometimes you just want a warm and gooey treat with little effort or thought, and without making a dozen of them. DH is happy with it, which is what counts.
FYI and for blondie lovers, KAF has a version here.
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I like Stella Parks’ addition of malted milk powder to her skillet cookie, though when I made it, it definitely over-baked, and lots of people had the same issue. The malted milk powder definitely adds some oomph to the flavor.
My favorite skillet cookie is still the pineapple and white chocolate one I made from Jesse Szewczyk‘s book, though.
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Having read the reviews for both the NYT and KAF versions, I was afraid to over-bake it. I pulled it at 18 minutes/200 degrees.
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She provides a temperature of 180-185°, which is helpful, but she calls for a 45 minute baking time, and as you point out, you took your particular cookie out much sooner. Even with standard practice of checking before something is ready, that’s a big difference from the 30 minutes that most people who made Stella’s recipe seemed to average (some less, some as much as 35).
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Those CCCs are now my standard: they are really the best!
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A recipe from this quarter’s baking cookbook: https://www.purewow.com/recipes/malted-sugar-cookies
While I should have sifted my malted milk powder ( it’s a bit long in the tooth), it was still excellent! I wonder how it would be with browned butter, or the freeze dried fruit variation…
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is it on Serious Eats or in her book?
Serious Eats:
I usually cut the chocolate in Stella’s chocolate chip cookies, including this skillet one. She likes more chocolate in them than I do.
Baked a full batch of Eric Kayser’s cheese bread as I’d been craving it once again. Made three larger loaves and six rolls. I made the loaves roughly 400 grams and the rolls around 150 grams.
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