October is National Cookie Month, National Cookie Day is December 4th, and today, October 1st, is National Homemade Cookie Day.

According to OnePoll.com, the average American eats 18,928 cookies in their lifetime.

According to Huffington Post, America’s top 10 favorite cookies are:

1. Chocolate chip cookie
2. Brownie (a brownie is classified as a bar cookie)
3. Peanut butter cookie
4. Oreo
5. Oatmeal raisin cookie
6. White chocolate macadamia cookie
7. Sugar cookie
8. Shortbread
9. Butter cookie
10. M&M cookie

You can bake any of them today, including homemade Oreos, with this recipe. Here’s a comparison:

 
According to Eat This, Not That, the “secret formula” Oreo center that fans love so much is made from sugar, palm and/or canola oil, high fructose corn syrup, soy lecithin, and artificial flavor. Oh, yum!

But the story gets even better: Originally the center was made with pig lard! Here’s more about what’s in Oreos.
See the different types of cookies in our Cookie Glossary.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

[2] One of Lodge Manufacturing’s three cookbooks devoted to cast-iron cooking (photo courtesy Lodge Manufacturing).

[3] A kitchen’s worth of Lodge cast-iron cookware. Photo courtesy Williams-Sonoma.

One of our family’s favorite Sunday brunch recipes was corned beef hash with poached eggs. Mom always made her hash in a large cast-iron skillet (and the corned beef in a pressure cooker). A hot cast-iron skillet adds a crispy crust to the hash.

We never heard the words “beef hash,” much less “beef-bacon hash.”

So when we received the recipe below from Lodge Manufacturing, a Tennessee-based producer of cast-iron cookware, we pulled the skillet out of the cupboard.
 
 
THE BENEFITS OF CAST-IRON COOKING

 
If you don’t have a cast-iron skillet, put it on your wish list and use it to give a great crust to:

 
You’ll also enjoy using it to for:

 
Lodge has issued three books on cast-iron cooking. This recipe comes from My Lodge Cast Iron Skillet Cookbook: 101 Popular & Delicious Cast Iron Skillet Recipes.

 
RECIPE: BEEF-BACON HASH

This is a delicious way to use leftover beef or other meat. Use a cast-iron skillet preferably 10 inches in diameter or larger.

 
Plus

 
Preparation

1. FRY the bacon until crisp. Drain on a paper towel, and pour off all but a thin layer of fat. Save the bacon fat in a jar for cooking eggs, potatoes, etc. (25+ uses for bacon fat).

2. ADD the onion to the skillet and cook for 2 to 3 minutes over medium heat, stirring. Turn the heat up under the skillet and add the potatoes in a single layer. You might need to brown the potatoes in two batches, depending on the size of the skillet.

3. COOK until the potatoes are browned on both sides, about 5 minutes. Add the beef and lower the heat slightly. Add the garlic and thyme, season with salt and pepper to taste, mix well, and heat thoroughly.

4. REMOVE the pan from the heat and add the parsley. Crumble the bacon (or cut it into small pieces) and add to the hash. Mix well, and serve hot or at room temperature.
  

Yesterday we wrote about LoveTheWild, a line of frozen fish entrées with pats of flavored butter (compound butter) that melt into a sauce.

The concept of compound butter comes from French cuisine, but French butter sauces don’t stop there.

Today, we take on three butter preparations that are used as sauces—sauces that you can easily make to spruce up your evening meal. You don’t need a lot of it to add richness to your dish.

There are other French butter-based sauces, of course: Check them out in our Butter Glossary.
 
 
BEURRE BLANC & BEURRE ROUGE (WHITE AND RED BUTTER SAUCES)

French for white butter, beurre blanc is a hot emulsified butter sauce made popular in Loire Valley cuisine. There it is made with Muscadet, the region’s best-selling white wine, which has been made since the late 16th or early 17th century.

The ingredients of beurre blanc—and the other sauces in this article—are simple:

 
It is a popular sauce for fish and shellfish, including poached fish and Coquilles Saint-Jacques; as well as vegetables, such as asparagus. With the latter, a splash of tarragon vinegar or a bit of fresh tarragon is added——not part of the original recipe, nor are any fresh herbs. Nor are the bay leaf and peppercorns added by some cooks (photo #1).

To make the emulsion, cold, whole butter is blended into the hot reduction of wine and vinegar. It is similar to the mother sauce hollandaise in concept, but is considered neither a mother sauce nor a compound butter.

Beurre rouge, a variant of beurre blanc sauce, is made by substituting a dry red wine for the white wine and red wine vinegar for the white wine vinegar. The red wine supplies color and more of a tang.

Here’s a recipe for beurre blanc.
 
Some beurre blanc history: The chef Clémence Prau Lefeuvre of the Loire restaurant La Buvette de la Marine, is credited with the invention of beurre blanc. Cooking at the beginning of the 20th century, she developed the recipe by accident.

The story is that she intended to prepare a béarnaise sauce for a pike dish, but forgot to add the tarragon and egg yolks.
 
 
BEURRE NOISETTE (BROWN BUTTER SAUCE)

For more depth of flavor, the butter is cooked longer. A step up from beurre blanc is beurre noisette (photo #2).

Literally meaning hazelnut butter, but commonly referred to as brown butter, it is melted butter that’s cooked until the milk solids turn the light golden brown color of hazelnuts and the butter gives off a nutty aroma.

Beurre noisette is popular for sautéeing and saucing meat, poultry, fish and fruit; as a sauce for pasta and vegetables; and in baking biscuits, cakes and cookies. We like it with polenta and grains.

Here’s a recipe for beurre noisette.

[1] Oysters in beurre blanc (photo courtesy Oyster Club | CT).

[2] Ravioli in beurre noisette, brown butter (photo courtesy David Venable | QVC).

[3] Beurre noir is butter cooked until it turns a very dark brown (photo courtesy Alchetron).

French for black butter, the butter is cooked over low heat until it turns dark brown (not literal black—photo #3).

When the sauce turns brown, a few drops of red wine vinegar or lemon juice are added. Some recipes add capers and parsley or thyme. Modern cooks have amended the recipe to include balsamic vinegar, garlic, even minced hot chiles (essentially, sauces that should be called balsamic beurre noir, garlic beurre noir, etc.).

Two famous classic dishes are calves brains in black butter (a dish, alas, that is not served much these days since the spread of Mad Cow Disease) and skate in black butter. Here’s a recipe for skate in black butter.

Beurre noir is not to be confused with Jersey black sutter, an English speciality made by slowly cooking apples with cider, licorice and spices. It’s generally eaten on toast.
 
 
BONUS: BEURRE MONTÉ, A COOKING TECHNIQUE

Beurre monté is not a sauce, but a method of infusing meats and fish with the flavor of butter. Solid butter is an emulsification of butter fat, water and milk solids; beurre monté is a way to manipulate the emulsification into liquid form.

A few drops of water and chunks of butter are whisked over a moderate heat to melt the butter and keep it emulsified—a solid, creamy sauce. Foods are cooked in it, meats are rested in it, sauces are made with with it. “It’s an extraordinary vehicle for both heat and flavor.” says chef Thomas Keller.

Here’s his recipe.
  

[2] and [3] Coffeecake Mug Cake from Ava’s Bakery.

[4] While the cake bakes, make a cup of coffee (photo Sxpng | Canstock ).

Mug cakes have been around for a while. They’re a handy solution when you’re jonesing for a piece of cake. Simply combine some basic ingredients in a coffee mug and microwave for 2 or 3 minutes.

Yet, a survey among our cake-loving friends and colleagues indicates that few of us make mug cakes. So today, National Coffee Day, we’re encouraging the practice with the Mug Coffee Cake recipe below.

If you like mug cakes as much as we do, there are several mug cake cookbooks. Start with Mug Cakes: 100 Speedy Microwave Treats to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth (photo #1).
 
 
THE HISTORY OF MUG CAKES

While unleavened cakes date back to ancient Egypt, most were savory cakes, some garnished with honey. Without leavening, they did not rise.

It took another few millennia, until the 18th century, for bakers to discover the technique of whipping eggs to make cakes rise. While it required many hours of beating, the wealthy had enough labor in the kitchen. These unsung bakers heralded the dawn of modern baking.

By the 1840s, baking soda had been invented, followed by baking powder in the 1860s (the difference). These chemical leavening agents meant that most cooks could make a cake rise.

With cakes came cupcakes. The original cupcakes were baked in coffee cups; hence the name. They were actually mini “test cakes,” to test the heat of the oven.

From the prehistoric dawn of the oven to the latter half of the 19th century, there were no thermostats to regulate the temperature of the oven, which was fueled by a wood or charcoal fire. Delicate cooking like baking required great technique (the history of ovens).

In 1851, the Bower’s Registered Gas Stove debuted at the Great Exhibition in London, featuring a revolution: a thermostat. It became the basis for the modern gas oven.

As ovens with regulated temperatures became available, and sugar became affordable to most people, more home cooks were able to bake to their hearts’ content. This resulted in more creativity in recipe development. The modern cake as we know it began to take shape in the mid-19th century.

Finally, The Microwave!

The next great leap forward, the consumer microwave oven, was launched in 1967. But it took another 50 years or so to popularize a microwaved cake-in-a-mug. Finally, in the Information Age, it quickly gained popularity via online cooking forums.

The technique uses a mug as the cooking vessel and takes just a few minutes to toss the ingredients into the mug: flour, sugar, baking powder, seasonings and fats (butter, cream, oil). The mug goes into the microwave; as the fat in the mixture heats up, it creates air pockets that cause the cake to quickly rise.

Here’s a fun idea for National Coffee Day: a coffee mug cake filled with coffee cake (photos #2 and #3).

If that sounds like too much of a tongue twister, let us explain:

Ava’s Cupcakes, a winner of Food Network’s Cupcake Wars, has created a tongue-in-cheek cake for National Coffee Day. It’s a mug cake—made in a coffee mug. And that’s a streusel-topped coffee cake in that mug.

You’ll also need a separate mug of coffee to drink with the mug cake (photo #4)…but what a memorable coffee break!

If you’re in the neighborhood, Ava’s Bakery has a retail bakery in Rockaway, New Jersey. If not, there’s a large selection of products available online at AvasCupcakes.com.
 
 
RECIPE: COFFEE CAKE IN A MUG (MUG CAKE)

Ingredients For The Cake

 
Preparation

1. SOFTEN the butter. Place the sugar in the mug, add the butter and combine. Add cream, vanilla and cinnamon, and stir.

2. MIX the flour, salt and baking powder together in a separate bowl, and add to the cup. Blend.

3. MAKE the topping: Soften the butter, add flour, cinnamon and brown sugar, and mix until crumbly. Crumble the top onto flour mixture, patting down gently.

4. MICROWAVE for 2 minutes, let cool for 1 minute. Garnish as desired and consume!
  

We love caramelized onions as a topping on so many foods: eggs, baked potatoes, burgers, sandwiches, grilled meats and fish, grains…

Our biggest problem when we make caramelized onions is what we call the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Confrontation:

We can’t stop eating the raw dough in the bowl—or the onions in the pan—such that we end up with a fraction of the finished recipe.

We never overlook an opportunity to make caramelized onions. So when we received the following recipe from Chef Ingrid Hoffmann—which tops lentil rice with caramelized onions—we leapt from computer to kitchen.

You can substitute beans for the lentils, for a caramlized onion spin on rice and beans.

RECIPE: CARAMELIZED ONIONS WITH LENTIL RICE

Prep time is 20 minutes, cook time is 35 minutes.
 
Ingredients For 4 Servings

 
Preparation

1. MELT the butter with the oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, sugar and some salt and pepper. Cook until the onions become deep brown and sticky, about 20 minutes, stirring every 4 or 5 minutes. If the onions color too quickly, reduce the heat to medium-low. While the onions caramelize…

2. MAKE the rice. Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute.

[2] We like the flavor of Eden Organic Lentils, which are cooked with onion and bay leaf (photo courtesy Eden Foods).

4. REDUCE the heat to low, cover, and cook until the rice is tender and has absorbed all of the liquid, about 20 minutes. Serve topped with the caramelized onions.