That's What Bob's Cooking: Fleur de Sel Chocolate Chip Blondies

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Fleur de Sel Chocolate Chip Blondies

As most of you know I’ve recently changed careers. In my new career as a Cheese Monger (official title is Cheese Master), I not only get to spend my day working with cheese and awesome team, but I also get to work with salts from around the world. Now I have gotten on my salt box and denounced the over use of salt, but when you have control of salt, and use some of the best from around the world, salt is an AWESOME flavor.

For this sweet treat I have used Fleur de Sel. You ask, what is that? Well, Fleur de Sel or flower of salt, in French is a hand-harvested sea salt collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks to the bottom of large salt pans. Traditional French Fleur de Sel is collected off the coast of Brittany, most notably in the town of Guérande, but also in Noirmoutier, Île de Ré and Camargue. Fleur de sel is often slightly grey due to the sand collected in the process of harvesting the salt from the pans. Fleur de sel has more mineral complexity than common table salt. Fleurs de sel are moist salts.

So I came across this recipe in my email, and it really struck me as something I needed to make. This week at work we are doing a bunch of training, and I thought I would treat my team, and co-workers to this yummy salty chocolate treat.

And you’ll notice that I found a limited edition red and chocolate chip package. Great for Valentine’s Day!

Fleur de Sel Chocolate Chip Blondies

Ingredients

2 & 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 & 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

pinch fine sea salt (optional)

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 to 1 & 1/2 tablespoons fleur de sel

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a 9″x 13″ baking pan with butter or cooking spray.

Whisk flour, baking soda, and pinch of salt. Set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. Gradually add both sugars and mix until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Spread dough into prepared pan. Sprinkle top of dough with fleur de sel.

Bake 30-35 minutes, until center is set and top is golden brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack before cutting into bars.

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My Complete Profile

I was born and raised on the East side of Portland Oregon, by two native and second generation, Oregonians, my Mom and Dad (Jack and Joan). Oregon, and the Northwest are deep in my blood. That being said, I have always had an interest in cooking. I would love to add a warm loving story here about how my Mom nurtured my love of cooking by setting me up on or near the counter top to help with whatever she was cooking. Well, that's not exactly the case.

Being a child of the 70's and 80's, I had a great exposure to classic foods like Spam, Tang, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger Helper. While many of these premade, sodium roller coaster, treats where regulars on our table, my Mom would have to hold the title as "casserole queen". Casseroles are her favorite and her specialty. Whereas, my Dad was more of a spur of the moment kind of cook. His creations included many of the items from our makeshift pantry. Sometimes, i think he was thinking, "the more ingredients, the better it'll be!". I think my first attempt at cooking would have to have been making cookies, either peanut butter (with the criss-cross fork tine print on top), or chocolate chip cookies. Over the years I have made so many of both of these recipes, I have surely lost count.

During middle school, my Mom encouraged me to take Home Economics, thinking that all kids, boy or girl, should know how to cook out in this world. This sparked a growing interest in cooking. So when I entered my junior year of High School, at David Douglas, I enrolled in the culinary arts program, we called it Food Services I. This was a class that had been offered many years before, where the students ran a restaurant, The Kilt, during the lunch periods. Unfortunately, since the class had not been offered in several years, so we didn’t have enough students to open the restaurant, that year. Within the first few weeks of this class, my instructor asked if I'd like to be involved in an outside "club" (kind of like a version of Eagle Scouts) that was mentored by local business owners. It sounded interesting so I joined (not to mention it got me out of the first 2 periods of the day).

At our first meeting I was approached by Sylvia Poesdel, the owner of the Portland landmark restaurant, Sylvia's Italian Restaurant & Dinner Theatre. She asked me if I would be interested in an afterschool job, coming to work for her to learn the cooking/chef trade on the job. I jumped at the chance and started in October of 1985. During my senior year I rejoined the culinary arts program (Food Services II) and this year we were able to reopened the restaurant, which the rest of the students voted me to manage. I just absolutely loved it! I worked at Sylvia's until after I graduated, in 1989. I learned a lot about the restaurant industry, and I would have to say it would be one of just a few life altering jobs I have had throughout my career.

After high school, while I was working at Sylvia's, I applied to culinary arts school. The Two things kept me from continuing my career in culinary arts, were financial and having worked out in the field, I saw so many negative attributes to being a chef, I decided that since I love to cook, I wanted it to be a hobby, and not a drag to go work each day.

When I left Sylvia's, I worked at a hotel, then Safeway. From there I joined Fred Meyer in the Service Deli, and was quickly promoted to a manager. During the next 8 years, I worked throughout the Portland and Southern Oregon areas. In 1998, I earned a promotion to the regional specialist position (District Manager) in Seattle. During this career move, I learned so much about the Food Service industry. I was charged to develop a new service salad case program, as well as work on a new catering program. I had the opportunity to work with manufacturers to develop these new programs.

In 2000, I met the love of my life, Craig. I also, moved from the food service program to the grocery department as an assistant manager. In the capacity I learned to develop my management skills as well as managing inventory. By being the best in my category, I earned the position of manager, where I moved from store to store cleaning up and reorganizing as I went. I also was entrusted with training future Food managers for the region. At which point I was pursued by another company to run a store for them, and enter back into the restaurant industry. During these 3 years, I learned the Restaurant Supplier side of the business. While I enjoyed the time I spent in this opportunity, I yearned to go back to the Grocery industry, and spend more time with my first love, cooking, and writing about my adventures….in the kitchen!