"Twigs" Bars and a Mushroom Bake Sale

Make them yourself or come taste next Saturday!

Next Saturday is my Mushroom Desserts Bake Sale at Archestratus in Greenpoint! Starting at noon, I’ll be selling some of the finest mushroom-forward sweets I’ve come up with over the past year. All profits from the bake sale will go to Good Bread, an inclusive bakery in Kyiv giving away bread in Ukraine's front-line territories.

In preparation, I’ve been going back through my old recipes to make sure they’re perfect, as well as developing new recipes. I’ve updated the Caramelized Shiitake Cookie recipe here; the new version is even more chewy and crinkly and keeps a great texture for days. (That link is for paid subscribers, but I’ll also be giving away the recipe on bookmarks at the bake sale.)

Here’s the full menu:

- Shiitake cookies (vegan)

- "Twigs" bars with porcini shortbread and mushroom caramel 

- Porcini + black sesame tiramisu cups

- Horishky filled with mushroom dulce de leche buttercream

Hope to see you there!

Recipe: Mushroom Twigs Bars

These “Twigs” bars are one of my favorite new creations. I’ve always been a Twix girl (the ice cream bars in the summer, Twix minis in the winter), and after tasting some porcini shortbread at Mycoboutique in Montreal, it seemed obvious to me that a mushroom shortbread-caramel-chocolate situation was in order.

This recipe has many steps, but if you don’t want to make everything, you can easily just do a portion. The porcini shortbread is great on its own (if serving by itself, sprinkle crunchy sugar on top just before baking), or you can buy some shortbread-like cookies and spread the caramel and chocolate on top.

Yield: 1 quarter sheet (30 small bars)

Layer One: Porcini Shortbread

Ingredients

• 20 grams dried porcini (not a powder)

• 2 cups (240 grams) AP flour

• ½ cup (99 grams) sugar

• 12 tablespoons (170 grams) nice salted European-style butter*

• 1 tablespoon water

*Shortbread is one of those foods where you can really taste the butter, so it’s worth it to get the nicer stuff. Kerrygold is my favorite brand available at most supermarkets.

Method

1. Preheat oven to 300°F.

2. Prepare a quarter sheet tray with a parchment sling: Cut a piece of parchment so that it’s just as long but wider than the sheet tray. Butter the bottom of the tray, and press the parchment down so that it covers the whole bottom and hangs off either end. (Check out King Arthur’s pictures if this doesn’t make sense.)

3. Blend the dried porcini in a food processor until it’s broken up into tiny bits, but not ground all the way down to a powder. (If the bits are too big it’ll be difficult to cut the shortbread cleanly, so go for about sesame seed size.)

4. Add the flour and sugar and pulse to combine.

5. Add the butter and and water and pulse until it comes together.

6. Dump the dough onto the prepared sheet tray and use your fingers to press it as flat as you can. Pierce the top several times with a fork.

7. Bake the shortbread for about 40-45 minutes, until the top is lightly browned.

Layer Two: Mushroom Caramel

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons (55 grams) unsalted butter

• ~12 (250 grams) fresh shiitake caps, sliced thinly

• 1 cup (227 grams) heavy cream

• 2 cups (400 grams) sugar

• 2 tablespoons (40 grams) light corn syrup

• 1 ½ teaspoons salt

• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar

• 15 grams dried porcini powder

Method

1. Heat the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the sliced shiitake caps and sauté until browned.

2. Add the cream, then the sugar, corn syrup, salt, and rice vinegar.

3. Cook over medium-low heat for about 40 minutes, or until the temperature registers 240°F (the “soft ball” stage).

4. Once the caramel is cooked, pour it through a strainer set over a bowl to separate out the shiitake pieces. Mix the porcini powder into the caramel. Spread out the candied shiitake pieces on a cooling rack to let them dry out.

5. While the caramel is still warm, pour it over the shortbread and use a mini offset spatula (or butter knife) to spread it as evenly as you can. Put the whole sheet tray in the fridge to let it firm up.

Layer Three: Chocolate

Ingredients

3 bars (9.51 oz) dark chocolate

Method

1. Melt the chocolate using a microwave (microwave on high in 30-second bursts, stirring between) or with a double boiler.

2. Pour the chocolate over the cooled caramel layer of the shortbread and spread as evenly as you can.

3. While the chocolate is still warm, lay the candied shiitake pieces in 10 evenly-spaced lines down the length of the sheet tray.

4. Return to the fridge until the chocolate is set.

To Finish

Ingredients

• ½ bar (~1.5 oz) dark chocolate

Method

1. Once all the layers of the bars are well-set, carefully remove it from the sheet tray using the parchment sling.

2. Use a sharp knife to cut the bars. You can cut into thirds (lengthwise) first and then use the shiitake lines to cut 10 bars across the width.

3. Finally, melt the last bit of dark chocolate to create a decorative drizzle. Put the chocolate into a parchment cornet to draw a zigzag pattern over each bar, or just use a spoon to chaotically drizzle the chocolate across all the bars.

Storage

The Twigs bars can be kept in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 4-5 days. Freeze for longer storage.

What (else) I’m Cooking

Mushroom Kimbap (v, gf)

Last week’s recipe was a maitake and oyster kimbap, which I made for a recent New York Mycological Society Event. It’s easy to carry, easy to scale, I think it’s your perfect snack for this summer. My weekly recipes are for paid subscribers: