A Pastel Chip on My Shoulder

The blank canvas is a vastly exciting thing; it is frozen in meaninglessness until we mark it. Poised before a plain white sheet, we wield an extraordinary and uniquely human power of creation. Few other life forms (a) have imaginings which (b) they can transcribe into physical reality. Elephants with paintbrushes don't count.

Musicians start with silence and sculptors with a slab of marble, but from what point does the chef begin?

Because they resembled in shade and texture a pale and empty page, I chose Tartelette's White Chocolate Brownies as my alphas. I was pursuing a vision of pastel-chipped blondies, a bar whose cross-section would glitter with a rainbow of... these things:

It occurred to me as I tried to hunt down these candies that we - bakers as a genus - do not have a name for them. Until now. I am calling them "pastel chips." Forever so shall they be. Pastel chips were the only substitution I made in Tartelette's recipe.

Recall, if you will, the ignoramus of the classroom who habitually mismatched markers and their caps. He probably had a permanent Kool-Aid mustache and a rattail. Thanks to him, your sun would be blue and your mom's hair green. This little punk now makes pastel chips.

I was expecting creamy, Easter-hued bits of mint in my blondies. Instead, the pastel chips melted into flecks of primary colors. Where a chip should be, only smudgy crumbs dyed red, green, and yellow remained. The white chocolate blondies were neither white nor chocolatey. And curiously, the pastel chips' sugar beads did not dissolve. They lent an odd, almost imperceptible crunch to the bar.

Minty and buttery though they were, these bars were the result of an artistic endeavor that ended ingloriously. Clue me in on your secrets if you've baked with pastel chips in such a way that preserves their shape and color. To me, these chips are barely worthy of a name.

It's Your Thaang

Oxymorons:

Easy run.
Holy crap.
Asian dessert.

My professional role model, Jeffrey Steingarten, once compared Indian desserts to face creams. Indians aren't the only Asians whose sweets stink. Japanese mochi - gelatinous wads of rice paste filled with red beans - are retired wrist rests. Taiwanese bubble tea is not even bubbly; it's watered-down tapioca pudding. You could argue that most Asian cultures, living as they do on lands fertile with fruit, have little incentive to develop desserts. But I wouldn't listen.

The world's largest continent needs bar desserts like Africa needs foreign investment. Because I am good and because I am American, I will bestow unsolicited brownie and blondie recipes upon the populous nations of Asian. Thank me later guys.

This one's for you, Thailand: ginger-spiked blondies studded with dried papaya and pineapple and drizzled with a lime-coconut glaze. You can call the blondies Phom See Thwaangs, which may or may not mean "blonde hair color." I'm calling them Thai Thaangs. Since yours is a wet country, I've made these bars a little dry; use stale Thai Thaangs to wipe up monsoon messes! Finding ingredients for this recipe should pose no problem: ginger, pineapple, lime, and coconut all grow in Thai soil.

You know what else grows in Thai soil? Athletic shoes. Just kidding.

Trashy Blondes

In 2007 we watched a parade of classless women dress themselves to the nines, drink themselves to fame, and then hit their heads on cop car roofs. Why didn't we turn away? Because incidences offered by Paris, Lindsay, Britney, et al. give us the chance to say - free of irony - "What was she thinking?!" We are safe from snappy comebacks because most of us have never taken Jell-O shots during custody battles.

Since I want this blog to be just as difficult to turn away from as an inebriated Olsen twin, I added crushed pretzels and powdered graham crackers (both generic-brand) to an innocent blondie recipe. The resulting bars I called Trashy Blondes. What was I thinking, right?

The graham crackers added a not-unpleasant sandy texture to the bar, but their contribution to the blondie's flavor was unidentifiable. The pretzels' snap must have staled in the oven. White, chunky, and sweet though both white chocolate chips and Dr. Phil may be, neither could offer enough support to save these Trashy Blondes.

So why share this recipe at all? Three reasons.

1. I need a second post, stat.
2. Trashy Blondes, even in subprime states, photograph gloriously well. Sober brownies would be green for envy if they were not inherently, you know, brown.
3. The blondie recipe that I violated in the process of making Trashy Blondes is worth its weight is gold. It's from the Joy of Cooking, a book on which I swear in court whenever a Bible is absent.

You can decide how to accessorize your blondes. Remember, police tracking ankle bracelets are mandatory.

Trashy Blondes















1/3 c. crushed graham crackers
1/3 c. crushed pretzel sticks
4 oz. white chocolate baking bar, broken into little shards
1 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 stick unsalted butter
2/3 c. packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 tbl. light corn syrup
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with greased aluminum foil, leaving a little overhang on the sides to later facilitate removing the Trashy Blondes later (if only it were so simple in real life).

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large, heavy saucepan, melt and then boil the butter until it is light golden brown, stirring continuously. This happens rather quickly after about 4 minutes.

4. Remove butter from heat; stir in the brown sugar and white sugar. Let cool until "barely warm." Then stir the egg, egg yolk, corn syrup, and vanilla into the butter-sugar mixture.

5. Next stir in the flour mixture, graham cracker crumbs, white chocolate chunks, and pretzel bits. Pour the batter into the pan, spread to the edges, and bake for 30 minutes. Let cool before lifting Trashy Blondes from the pan and cutting in cute little squares. Or just make a wreck of it in the pan.