Every Last Cookie

2011-09-24T10:11:00.002-04:00

AWwoowowooowWWWOOOowowoOOOooooOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

GHOST OF A LONG DEAD BLOG COMIN' BACK TO HAUNT YOU!!!!! I SHALL RETURN!!!!!

AND I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE, IT IS EXACTLY SIX MONTHS TO THE DAY SINCE MY LAST POST! SPOOOOOOOOOKY!!!!!!!!

[Cookie 102] Raisin Bars

2011-03-24T21:29:00.004-04:00

I hate blogging. I like baking, I like baking all these cookies, I like sharing them, I like you readers (most of you), and I like taking pictures, but I don't like updating this thing. I mean seriously, does anyone actually like to do that? Okay, I guess a lot of people.

Forgive me. And you will, once you make these Raisin Bars.

Some notes: The filling is really rad, but would be even radder if you used figs or prunes. Or a combination. Remember these fig bars? They had the most amazing filling, with red wine, honey, and (duh) figs. That would taste pretty damn good in this oatmeal crust. Probz better than the fig bar pastry crust, which was mediocre.

Hope you are having a nice spring! More posts, more often, I promise. I make no promise on the quality or attitude of them.

P.S. Just read over some old posts. Not sure if I should feel hideously embarrassed about this whole blog and my writing, or proud of my sharp tongue and slick wit. I'm going to go with the former.

Raisin Bars

Makes 16 wimpy, or 9 fatty squares

Ingredients

Unsalted butter, softened, for baking sheet
2 cups raisins (about 13 ounces)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1/2 cup apple cider
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
1 1/4 cups vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-by-15-inch rimmed baking sheet. Line bottom with parchment paper, and butter parchment; set sheet aside.
Make filling: Pulse raisins and sugar in a food processor until almost pureed. Transfer to a saucepan. Whisk cornstarch into 1 cup cold water; whisk into raisin mixture. Stir in cider. Simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens and sugar has dissolved, about 6 minutes.
Let cool completely.
Make dough: Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Put shortening in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until smooth. Add brown sugar, and mix until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla, and mix until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Mix in oats.
Press half the dough into prepared baking sheet. Spread raisin filling evenly over top of dough. Crumble remaining dough on top of filling using your fingers, gently pressing down so that topping covers filling. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until top is golden brown, about 35 minutes. Let cool completely in sheet on a wire rack. Cut into 2-inch
squares. Bars can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 2.5/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah bro

{Pairings}
Drink: Apple cider
Song: Friday -- Rebecca Black (no link, I'm not that mean--just trying to keep up with pop culture here!)
Activity: Write my blog 4 me cuz i am lazee

[Cookie 101] Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies

2011-03-06T13:39:00.004-05:00

So, I don't know if anyone noticed or cared, but I'm not doing the roundup of the past 10 recipes and reviewing them all. I barely have enough time (read: I barely have enough willpower) to write the regular blog posts here, so I'm getting rid of the excess baggage. I don't think I'm letting anyone down. Right? Yeah, I doubt anyone even knows what I'm talking about. Good.

Aaaanyways, let's get on to the first cookie of the new centennial! Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies are probably not one of the recipes you've been itching to make. Me neither--they definitely weren't one of the recipes I've had my eye on for a while. They just sort of slipped under my radar and I always figured I'd make them some time, just not now. Well, I finally made them on a whim one afternoon, and they totally warranted my indifference. They were bland, boring looking, and pretty drab. I mean seriously--look at them! Totally lame.

I guess this is the part where I generally try to convince you to make these cookies because they are actually better than they look or something, but I'm not going to try and deceive you. If you want blondies, make these (even though I screwed up that recipe royally, I think that they are probably supposed to be delicious). But these guys, these guys here...they taste more like a quick bread, like banana bread without the bananas. And who would want that? Nobody! And the cream cheese? Well, at least they had that, but it wasn't enough to keep me interested.

Now, maybe you're not convinced not to make these, and you still want to. Well, maybe you could spice them up a bit--literally, add a little nutmeg or cinnamon. Or maybe stir in some chocolate swirls, or even add some nuts. Something. Anything. Oh, or try adding a streusel topping! That always makes things better.

Well, I guess I don't have much to say other than that. The recipe is super simple and it's always mildly entertaining getting to swirl two batters together like this. But other than that, I'd pass this guy up.

I'm starting to realize that all the recipes I have left to bake are either: A) Totally time consuming and tedious; B) Way too fatty to make just for 3 people; C) Or both. Hm. Well, my obsessive-compulsive desire to finish the project still prevails, so I guess you'll see how this all turns out.

c u l8r

Cream Cheese Swirl Blondies

Makes 9 large or 16 small squares

Ingredients

11 tablespoons (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
1 2/3 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a buttered 8-inch square baking pan with parchment, allowing a 2-inch overhang. Butter lining (excluding overhang); set pan aside.
Whisk together 1 2/3 cups flour, the baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl, and set aside.
Put 9 tablespoons butter and the brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla; mix until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, mix, scraping down sides of bowl, until well combined. Transfer to a large bowl.
Put cream cheese, granulated sugar, remaining 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 egg, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla into the clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat on medium speed until just smooth.
Pour half the blondie batter into prepared pan, and spread evenly with an offset spatula. Spoon two-thirds of cream-cheese mixture on top, and spread evenly. Drop dollops of remaining batter on top (spacing about 1 inch apart), and spread. Top with dollops of remaining cream-cheese mixture, about 1 inch apart.
Gently swirl cream cheese mixture into batter with a butter knife, running the knife lengthwise and crosswise through layers. Bake until golden brown and a cake tester inserted into center comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet, 45 to 47 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into squares. Blondies can be stored between layers of parchment in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 2/5
Attractiveness: 2/5
Is it worth it?: To put it plainly, no. But then again, they require zero effort.

{Pairings}
Drink: Nothing. Seltzer?
Song: Saw the Smith Westerns play last night, and now I am even more in love with them than before. Their single Weekend is adorable x 100000 and has a great music video.
Activity: Skip making these, and just listen to them ^

[Cookie 100] Ginger Cheesecake Bars

2011-02-25T09:43:00.003-05:00

OHHHHHHHHHHHHH

MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

GODDDDDDDDDDDDD!

100 cookies. I am now realizing that this makes me certifiably insane and totally nerdy, this whole endeavor that is. Sometimes it takes some sort of monumental event or milestone to really wake you up, and this is it. What the hell have I been doing for the past 2 years? Speaking of which, I think this is exactly my two year mark! Holy shit DOUBLE CELEBRATION OVER HERE! Two years ago, it was recipe number 001: Pfeffernussen! Whack! Seems like forever ago!! I am so excited right now even though it's raining outside, I just bought an umbrella that already broke, and I had to commute to school on my day off at 8:30 in the morning to return a (really sexy) camera and now I'm scanning negatives for hours. I am still, despite these banalities, living life ON THE EDGE with this super cool and respectable blog.

Enough of that. I wish I had baked something really beautiful and celebratory and covered in sprinkles and on fire or something in order to really celebrate this day, but I didn't realize I was baking my 100th recipe when I picked out this one. Actually, to be fair, my ol' pal/roommate picked this one out for her birthday, so really it makes this cookie a TRIPLE CELEBRATION. I really should have set off some fireworks or something.

But it's okay that I didn't, because the cookies (or shall I say, bars) are awesome anyways. Like, real good. Really really good, even if you're not really a cheesecake fan, like me. They are light as far as cheesecakes go, and the gingersnap crust combined with the candied ginger in the cheesecake is a perfect balance to the creamy and rich flavor of the cheesecake itself. Perfect. I would make these again, I'm telling you right now. They were gone very very fast.

Now, if you're like me and you like to leave your kitchen appliances at your friends' apartments and forget about them until you actually need them, you probably know all about getting around without a food processor. This recipe really needs one in order to grind up the gingersnap cookies, but when you gotta make do, you gotta make do. Enter: empty liquor bottles! Pullin' out the old Nancy Drew card, yeah!

See, it totally works. You don't even need the food processor now! Well, it's not that simple, especially if you buy the gingersnaps sold at Met which are actually made out of cement. You really gotta use force with that bottle, and make sure to wrap the cookies up in several bags so you don't make a mess. And then use a grater/zester lid to sift through the crumbs and weed out the bigger chunks. Repeat. It's like panning for gold, but with more aggression!

After all that work, the rest is easy. Mix a little here, bake a little there. The hardest part is having to wait for it to cool, and THEN having to wait another hour while it chills in the fridge. We didn't really wait that long. No regrets. But do make sure to bake it fully if you really want that cheesecake consistency. We also didn't do that. It was a little soupy and too soft. It was damn good. No regrets there either.

Alright, so, in conclusion: these taste downright delicious and you should make them. Sooner rather than later, because trust me, as soon as you try one you'll be kicking yourself as to why you hadn't made them yesterday. Sure, they ain't much to look at, but they got it where it counts. That felt weird to type. I need a nice concluding witticism for this post. I'll just end it here.

Ginger Cheesecake Bars

Makes about 4 dozen

Ingredients

Vegetable-oil cooking spray
12 ounces store-bought gingersnaps (about 45 cookies)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons sour cream
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons finely chopped crystallized ginger

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9-by-13-inch rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray; set aside. Place gingersnaps in a food processor; pulse to a powder. Transfer to a small bowl, and stir in butter until well combined. Press gingersnap mixture evenly into bottom of prepared baking sheet. Bake crust until firm, about 12 minutes. Let cool completely.
Meanwhile, put cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until softened. Mix in sugar, egg, egg yolk, sour cream, and vanilla until well combined. Mix in crystallized ginger.
Pour the cream cheese mixture onto crust, and spread evenly with a rubber spatula. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until filling has puffed and feels slightly firm to the touch (do not let brown), 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap, until set, about 1 hour. To serve, cut into bars. Bars can be refrigerated in single layers in airtight containers up to 2 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 5/5
Attractiveness: 2/5
Is it worth it?: Worth going to the gym for, or skipping the gym for that matter.

{Pairings}
Drink: Water. Bacardi? Ew no.
Song: This was really awesome too!
Activity: Lighting fireworks--someone please do it.

[Cookie 099] Coconut Swirl Brownies

2011-02-17T20:56:00.002-05:00

So now that I'm back in America, I'm eatin' all the foods I really missed while in Ghana and trying to get over my obsession with Waakye. When it comes to baking, I'm really glad to be back because it was impossible to find the right ingredients without paying an arm and a leg, but more importantly, baking in 95º weather isn't really so hot (pun intended! see what i did there?). But the longer I'm here in NYC and the more I get readjusted, the more I miss the little things that I had every day while in Accra. For one, plantains. And coconut. Good god, getting a fresh, young coconut on the side of the street from a guy who would chop it open for less than 35 cents was pretty unbeatable. Also, condensed milk. Strange, I know, but they aren't really all that into fresh milk there (I think this is pretty common in most non-Western cultures actually...I think us Westerners are the weird ones drinking another animal's baby food). Anyway, I got really into putting condensed milk in my morning coffee. So of course when I came across this recipe for Coconut Swirl Brownies with condensed milk, I knew I had to make it for our first Ghana reunion!

Now, if I was able to buy chocolate more easily and cheaply while in Ghana, I most definitely would have made these in an instant. I had the strongest craving for brownies while I was there (and I wasn't the only one, fyi), but I think West Africa exports most their cocoa products, so the only chocolate you could get was super expensive imported Western brands like Cadbury and I just couldn't afford that ish!

But these brownies would have been so worth it. They are super fudgy, dense, and chocolatey--not dry at all. And the swirls of coconut/condensed-milk goodness are just awesome. Everyone liked them at the little reunion we had. They made me so popular. I am happier now having made these. Soooooo....I'm not trying to suggest anything about your own popularity....but......ya know, if you're feeling a little lonely, these brownies could keep you warm at night. Happy belated Valentines Day.

P.S. Thanks so much to all of you who gave me such great recommendations, tips, and recipes regarding biscotti! I'll be sure to use them for the next biscotti recipe.

Coconut Swirl Brownies

Makes 9 large or 16 small brownies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for pan
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
2/3 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 large egg white
2 1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
3 large eggs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a buttered 8-inch square baking pan with parchment, allowing a 2-inch overhang. Butter lining (not overhang).
Stir together 1 tablespoon of sugar, the condensed milk, coconut, egg white, and 1/4 teaspoon of the vanilla in a bowl.
Put butter and both chocolates in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water; stir until melted. Let cool slightly.
Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
Whisk remaining 3/4 cup sugar into chocolate mixture. Add eggs; whisk until mixture is smooth. Stir in remaining 2 teaspoons vanilla. Add flour mixture; stir until well combined.
Pour 1/3 of chocolate batter into prepared pan. Spread evenly with an offset spatula. Drop dollops of coconut mixture (about 1 tablespoon each) on top of batter, spacing about 1 inch apart. Drizzle remaining batter on top, and gently spread to fill pan. Drop dollops of remaining coconut mixture on top.
Gently swirl coconut mixture into batter with a butter knife, running the knife lengthwise and crosswise through layers. Bake until a cake tester inserted into brownies (avoid center and edges) comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool slightly in pan, about 15 minutes. Lift out; let cool completely on a wire rack before cutting into squares. Brownies can be stored between layers of parchment in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 3.5/5
Tastiness: 4.5/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah. Seriously, this is a brownie's brownie!

{Pairings}
Drink: Milk, duh. Whaddya some kinda idiot?
Song: Aben wo aha -- Daddy Lumba (this one is worth watching/hearing!)
Activity: Uh, I dunno, figure it out.

[Cookie 098] Chocolate-Pistachio Biscotti

2011-02-04T10:04:00.003-05:00

Oh, Biscotti, bane of my existence. I just can't get you! You look so good, and have so much potential to be a cookie far better than its Starbuck's facsimile, but alas! You quiver at my very touch, collapse when I even look at you, and fail to be anything more than a broken pile of bones.

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY AT ITS FINEST!!!!

Our relationship is a failed one. I have tried to make your kind before, and had the same qualms. Maybe it is Martha's directing that keeps getting in the way of our friendship, or maybe it's my lack of any Italian blood in me, but regardless, we just don't understand each other too well. I feel like a failed Professor Frankenstein (bare with me...): I have put the body together, it's laying on my operating table, and all I have to do now is give it some life. Put you into the oven and hope that when I take you out, you'll be walkin' and talkin' and puttin' on the ritz just like I had hoped. But no! I take you out of the oven after your first bake, and I try to slice ya up, and you COLLAPSE! LIKE A BUNCH OF BROCCOLI! (Anyone still getting the Young Frankenstein references, besides my dad?)

But seriously, what the hell, Biscotti? Maybe I'm just a slow learner, since I had these same issues with you last time, but whenever I try to slice you after par-baking you, you fall apart. I should have just learned to bake you longer than the recipe says for the first time, but noooo, I had to follow the directions and ignore my better judgment.

Biscotti and Young Frankenstein aside, I also didn't really like the chocolate and pistachio flavor combination. To me, they just don't taste good together! Something about the hearty, savory nature of a pistachio, paired with another intense, dark flavor like chocolate, didn't really work for me. Pistachio and citrus, yes; chocolate and almond, DUH; but pistachio and chocolate, not so much...Am I crazy here, or do you guys agree too?

All in all, this recipe ended up producing a heavy chocolate cookie that was more like a hybrid between an almost-biscotti, and a brownie. They are very intense and chocolaty, and could be a really nice cookie if you didn't think of them like biscotti, and maybe substituted a different nut for the pistachio. So, when it comes down to it, I didn't like this recipe. Fortunately, there is still one more biscotti recipe in The Book, so maybe the third times a charm...

Chocolate-Pistachio Biscotti

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for baking sheet
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for baking sheet
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup shelled pistachio nuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a baking sheet; set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs; beat until well combined, scraping down sides of bowl if necessary. Add flour mixture, and stir to form a stiff dough. Stir in pistachios and chocolate chips.
Transfer dough to prepared baking sheet; form into a slightly flattened log, about 12 by 4 inches. Bake until slightly firm, about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for about 5 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees.
On a cutting board, using a sharp serrated knife, cut biscotti diagonally into 1-inch-thick slices. Arrange biscotti, cut sides down, on baking sheet, and bake until crisp but still slightly soft in the center, about 8 minutes.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 4/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 2/5
Attractiveness: 2.5/5
Is it worth it?: If it tasted good, I'd say yeah, but since I didn't even like the flavor, the effort was not worth it. Boo.

{Pairings}
Drink: They are super chocolatey, so milk would be good. Or coffee/cappuccino, according to traditional biscotti makers.
Song: I Should Have Known Better -- The Beatles (this clip gets me every time...to be on that train! Swoon!)
Activity: Watch Young Frankenstein instead of making these.

[Cookie 097] Cream Cheese-Lemon Bows

2011-01-27T15:48:00.005-05:00

THERE IS SO MUCH GODDAMN SNOW EVERYWHERE I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! Oh my God!! The Mayans were right--they are sending us signals by burying the entirety of New York City under 85 feet of snow. I walked home last night, late, and there was so much snow I couldn't actually see any of the cars parked on the streets, and couldn't see where the sidewalks ended and the streets began! White blanket of snow everywhere, nothing is spared! Armageddon is here! It's all going to be over by 2012! But at least school was cancelled today :)

Thanks, New York Times, for capturing our misery.

During trying times like these, I like to hark back to the days of yore, when I was passing my winter days in 70-80º weather in the land of Southern California. Those times were easy, carefree, and the sun was always kind to us. I never wore more than 1 sweater at a time and didn't fall down on my ass nearly as much. And during those warm winter days, we reaped the benefits of having a Meyer Lemon tree that produced such an excessive number of lemons that we didn't even know what to do with them all. And the thought of making lemon sorbet wasn't appalling, but enticing!

So, those pictures are half of the total number of lemons we harvested from our 1 solitary tree a few weeks ago. As you can see, we had quite a number of these citrus fruits. So, obviously I cracked open The Book and looked up all the lemon cookie recipes I had yet to make: Cream Cheese-Lemon Bows. Unfortunately, the recipe only calls for about 1 lemon, so that really didn't make much of a dent in our supply, but you do what you can! You juice the rest and make lemon juice ice cubes, and you peel the skin and freeze that too so you have lemon zest ready 2 go year round! Harvest the harvest forever!

But back to the cookies. These were really tasty! I have really come to love cream cheese based cookies because it gives the dough a little bit of a tangy bite, as well as a creamy buttery taste. And then with the lemon juice you get a really wonderful flavor, something a little out of the ordinary and just plain delicious. Piping the dough into bows can be a little bit of a pain in the ass, and most of mine ended up looking pretty shitty, but the ones that work out are indeed quite adorable. You could just as easily use a big fluted piping tip and make flower dots or whatever else you can manage. (Or use one of these? Never tried one, but maybe this would be a good recipe to try with one...)

So, being that it is winter and therefore A) lemon season, and B) cold and snowy outside, you really have no excuse not to make these. I want one right now. I want you to make some for me, because I'm too lazy to get out of my snuggie and go into the kitchen and bake something. Thankz.

Cream Cheese-Lemon Bows

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
3 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons lemon zest, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
Confectioners' sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

Put butter and cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until creamy. Mix in granulated sugar. Add egg, lemon zest, and lemon juice; mix well. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl; mix into butter mixture on low speed.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place a small amount of the dough in a pastry bag fitted with a large French tip (such as Ateco #865). Holding tip very close to the surface, pipe 3 1/2-inch bows onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper; space 1 inch apart. Refill pastry bag as needed with remaining dough. Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom, about 12 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks, and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3/5 (Making the dough is simple, it's just the pastry bag part that's a little tricky)
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5 (Right, and if you have a lemon tree, this would be a 5/5)
Tastiness: 4.5/5
Attractiveness: 4.5/5
Is it worth it?: Definitely. Even if you don't do the bows, they just taste really yummy.

{Pairings}
Drink: I think a hot toddy would go well with this, but then again I'm just trying to find any excuse to have one of those.
Song: Lemonworld -- The National
Activity: Shoveling your car out from under 30 tons of snow! Yay!

[Cookie 096] Homemade Graham Crackers

2011-01-21T18:58:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I went to the Mojave Desert with my parents, just to get my dose of the wild west before I had to go back to the tame east. It was insanely beautiful, as usual, with its vast expanses of beautiful muted colors and variations of textures everywhere. I really love the landscape in California--it really has everything, from mountains to oceans to deserts to woods. And it's all pretty spectacular. This was no exception!

Since we had to spend the night out there, we decided to car camp. Definitely felt luxurious compared to backpacking, since we got to bring as much snacks and frivolities as we wanted. So that, of course, included marshmallows to roast over the fire. However, we had no graham crackers, and no chocolate, so no s'mores. Sad! Should have made these Homemade Graham Crackers before we went on the trip!

I've been waiting to try out this recipe for quite some time now. I love store bought graham crackers anyways, so the thought of making my own and knowing exactly what was going into them really appealed to me. They have both whole wheat flour as well as wheat germ, which makes for a hearty, wheaty flavor with a nice crunch to it. Perfect!

For the honey, I used some of this super expensive stuff my mom picked up on a whim at the farmer's market (did I get that right, Mom?). Anyways, it's the kind that has an almost waxy texture, not clear and runny at all. You scoop it with a spoon and it even has granules of honey comb inside it. The flavor is much more complex than your regular old honey bear squirt tube kind that you buy at the supermarket, and this flavor really added to the cookie. I would recommend splurging on a fancy honey with a nice flavor (have you heard of Caramelized Honey? Got some from this guy--amazing!), because it really does make a difference.

The recipe itself is pretty much your standard cookie-cutter recipe, except you divide the dough with a fluted device (which I didn't have--used a knife, not as purdy); but you could totally use cookie cutters if you want! But if you're looking for that traditional 4 rectangle graham cracker that you can split in half, follow the directions. And make sure to bake them fully, or else they won't be crisp and crackery. What could be worse than a slightly soft graham cracker? Well, a lot of things, but don't mess with something that's so classic!

So, obviously the next logical step, after letting your graham crackers cool, is to make s'mores. I don't know about you guys, but I've always been a little irritated with the whole Hershey's bar thing. I know s'mores are supposed to be messy, but it's just impossible to bit into one and get an adequate amount of chocolate per bite. So, my dad had the brilliant idea to melt some chocolate chips and spread them on the graham crackers. Seems really obvious, but it's so much better! I'd try Nutella next time...

Now get to makin' these so you can whip up some s'mores for the cold cold weekend ahead!

Homemade Graham Crackers

Makes 20

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for working
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup untoasted wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter, softened (2 sticks)
3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
2 tablespoons high-quality honey

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flours, wheat germ, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium bowl; set aside.
Put butter, brown sugar, and honey into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture, and mix until combined.
Turn out dough onto a floured surface, and divide into quarters. Roll out each piece between 2 sheets of floured parchment paper into rectangles a bit larger than 9 by 6 inches, about 1/8 inch thick.
Using a fluted pastry wheel, trip the outermost edges or each rectangle, and divide into three 6 by 3-inch rectangles. Pressing lightly, so as not to cut all the way through, score each piece in half lengthwise and crosswise, to form four 3 by 1 1/2-inch crackers. Stack parchment and dough on a baking sheet and chill in freezer until firm, about 20 minutes.
Remove two sheets of dough from freezer. Pierce crackers using the tines of a fork. Transfer to large baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake, rotating halfway through, until dark golden brown, 8 to 9 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough. Let cool on sheet 5 minutes; transfer crackers to wire racks to cool completely.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 4.5/5
Attractiveness: 3.5/5
Is it worth it?: Yes! A must try...

{Pairings}
Drink: Have you heard of this Marshmallow Milkshake? I'm a bit wary...
Song: Ecstasy -- jj
Activity: Camping, duh! Or making s'mores by the stove, if you're lazy.

[Cookie 095] Chocolate Waffle Cookies

2011-01-05T18:51:00.003-05:00

Hey team. Happy New Years!! Oh-ten is so last week; oh-leven is here to stay! 2011! Twenty-in-heaven! Two-thousand-agendum! I smell good things for this year, and a lot of those things have chocolate in them, so get ready.

But first: Remember those Gingersnap Palmiers? You better, because it was only last week. Well get this: I made the second batch of dough on New Year's Eve, intending to take them to a party I was going to. And I decided that they might taste better if I didn't brush them with more of that molasses-ginger syrup (since that made them a little soggy), but instead sprinkle some turbinado sugar on them and bake them as is. Well, that worked out brilliantly and the cookies came out light, crispy, and delicious. I let them sit on the counter to cool and went about my business. I come downstairs, and half the batch is gone. Thanks Mom and Dad! They were very sorry and apparently had no idea I wanted to bring them to a NYE party (we won't get into my skepticism on that matter). Anyways, I leave for the party without cookies--am I really going to bring 10 cookies to a party? No!--have a nice time, ring in oh-leven with McDonald's fries (weird, I know), and then come home exhausted the next day only to find that....THEY ATE THE REST OF THE BATCH. Seriously, what the hell?? You can give a mouse/parents a cookie, and then something something something....end result: no cookies for you! Sad baker.

Ranting. Sorry, bad way to start off my first post of the new year. Well, here's a better way to start off the new year: Chocolate Waffle Cookies! Yeah, fuck that new year's resolution diet thing! Eat these and you'll be happier anyways, and that should be everyones biggest resolution for oh-leven right? Happier, sappier, dapper! No waffling; just pick this recipe and go for it!

Okay, but resolutions aside, how could you even turn down a cookie as cute as this? It looks like a baby waffle, but tastier!! I would have to admit, however, that these probably shouldn't be called cookies, since they are essentially just cake. But I'm not complaining! They are really fun to make and have a lovely flavor. There is a hefty amount of cinnamon in the dough, which really deepens the taste of the cookie when it is a day old. The glaze is nice too, but you could totally skip it or just glaze half the batch (that's what I did, since I ran out of glaze); with the unglazed ones, just pop them in the toaster oven and they get all warm and slightly crisped on the outside. Perfection. Add hot chocolate, or maybe just a glass of milk, and you're on your way to being Happiest Baker 2011 edition.

So you're convinced now? You've dug up that old waffle maker hiding in the depths of that hard-to-reach pantry and you've turned your regular cocoa powder into Dutch-processed (do it, save yourself a lot of money!). Great! Here are a few pointers: Once you've made the batter, make sure your waffle iron has really gotten to its proper heat. I have a pretty ancient one and turns out it takes it about 3 days to preheat, so make sure you get it fully hot before you start making the cookies. If it isn't preheated, it will continue to rise in temperature and burn your cookies, or just make it so you're never quite sure when they'll be done. If you see smoke, it's too hot/finished!

Another tip: Use a cookie scoop to drop the batter onto the waffle iron. It makes your "waffles" perfectly shaped and helps the whole process be a lot easier/less messy.

Hurray! Your first cookies of the new year are beautiful and tasty! You are happier, I am happier knowing that you liked this recipe. On our way to being better people. Awesome.

Chocolate Waffle Cookies

Makes about 4 dozen (mine made only 3 dozen)

Ingredients

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
18 tablespoons (2 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder, plus 2 tablespoons for icing
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
Vegetable oil cooking spray

Directions

Melt chocolate with 1 cup butter (2 sticks) in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Let cool slightly.
Put eggs, vanilla, and granulated sugar in bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale, 4 to 5 minutes. Mix in chocolate mixture, salt, cinnamon, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, and the flour.
Heat a waffle iron until hot. Lightly coat grids with cooking spray. Spoon about 1 tablespoon batter onto center of each waffle-iron square to make 1 1/2-inch rounds. Close cover; cook until set, about 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, bottom sides up. Let cool completely. Repeat with remaining batter, coating grids with cooking spray after each batch.
Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Add confectioners' sugar and remaining 2 tablespoons cocoa powder; stir until smooth. Stir in milk.
Gently dip 1 surface of each cookie in icing so that just the waffle lines (not gaps) are coated. Repeat with remaining cookies and icing. Transfer to wire racks; let stand until set, about 10 minutes. Dust iced surfaces of cookies with confectioner's sugar. Cookies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 2 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 5/5
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 4.5/5
Is it worth it?: Yes

{Pairings}
Drink: Hot chocolate, or coffee. Or milk. You know the "flavor palette" I'm goin' for here...
Song: In the New Year -- The Walkmen
Activity: Waffle waffle waffle. Saying the word waffle a lot. Good activity.

[Cookie 094] Gingersnap Palmiers

2010-12-23T19:21:00.002-05:00

Hi! It's just like old times, ain't it? I'm back to posting like normal, or even better than normal considering that this is my second post this week. Who needs New Year's Resolutions when you're already kicking ass? Okay, that was obnoxious and totally inaccurate, but I am hoping to keep up this rapid-fire method of churning out cookies and blog posts into 2011. Anyways, it should be easy at least for the next few weeks since I'll be at home in California, with a great kitchen, a great pantry, and a house with no heat--perfect conditions for cookie baking. Of course, being winter, all things spicy and gingery and molassesy are first on the list. Gingersnap Palmiers? Hell yes!

Now, although these cookies look pretty nice, and sound pretty tasty, I'm just going to put it out there that the recipe is a little fussy as far as Martha's recipes go. I liked it; it was more interesting than 95% of her other recipes in this book. I'm usually really bored by these recipes, even the ones that produce great cookies. But this one required multiple steps and produced cookies that look pretty and different. So if you've got a good chunk of time to set aside, I'd recommend these!

But, be forewarned: you will make a giant mess of your kitchen. This delicious gingery molasses syrup will get everywhere. Oh, and here's an important tip: Even though the recipe says to first sprinkle the puff pastry with a sugar-spice mixture and then brush the dough with the syrup, you should do these steps in reverse! First, brush the dough with syrup, and then sprinkle sugar on it! And then roll the dough up by each side and freeze the logs. Another note: make sure to wrap the logs really well in plastic wrap, because the syrup leaks out of the ends of the logs and gets all over your freezer!

So, I don't know bout you guys, but I'm pretty sure I'm one of the only self-professed bakers who has never used frozen puff pastry before. And, I'm just going to put it out there: not so great. I'm sure homemade puff pastry is far better because this stuff is just kinda greasy and artificial tasting. I guess that's why Martha tells you to use a "high quality" frozen puff pastry. I guess if you're a fancy pants baker and you make your own puff pastry, by all means use it; otherwise, maybe splurge for the expensive brand of puff pastry. Or, if you're down with the regular kind, go for it anyway!

When you take the logs out of the freezer, be sure to let them soften up a bit before you try to slice them. This might seem obvious to all you who have used frozen puff pastry before, but I had no idea. The result was that the first few cookies I sliced off cracked and crumbled pretty bad. So....basically they looked like this:

...but then baked up to look like this:

Oh, and ANOTHER tip: After the first 10 minutes of baking, you are supposed to flip the cookies over and brush them with more syrup. First of all, I don't think this is really necessary, but more importantly make sure you let the cookies sit for a few minutes, because right out of the oven they are saggy and floppy and impossible to flip over. After a minute or two, they crisp up a bit and you can go right ahead.

Yeah, so as you can see I had a lot to learn on the fly with this recipe. But I still had fun making them! And they are perfect cookies for holiday parties, amirite?? I am right. So go ahead and get messy because it's worth it. Sure, they aren't the tastiest cookies I've ever made, but they are fun and pretty and make you feel like a professional pastry chef...a little bit.

Gingersnap Palmiers

Makes about 3 1/2 dozen

Ingredients

1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup dark unsulfured molasses
2 teaspoons finely grated fresh ginger
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
14 ounces good-quality thawed frozen puff pastry, such as Dufour

Directions

Bring brown sugar, molasses, ginger, and 1/4 cup water to a simmer in a saucepan, whisking until sugar has dissolved. Simmer until slightly thickened, 1 to 2 minutes. Pour syrup into a bowl; let cool.
Whisk granulated sugar, salt, and spices in a bowl. Lightly sprinkle sugar mixture over a clean work surface; place puff pastry on top. Cut into two 10 1/2-by-7-inch pieces. Sprinkle generously with sugar mixture; press into pastry with a rolling pin. Brush generously with syrup.
Working with 1 piece of dough at a time, roll in from both long sides, meeting in the center; brush with syrup to seal. Sprinkle generously with sugar mixture. Wrap in plastic, and freeze until firm, at least 3 hours (up to overnight).
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Cut dough crosswise into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Dip slices in sugar mixture. Space 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Flatten with your palm. Freeze 30 minutes.
Bake 10 minutes. Flip, and brush with syrup. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees. Bake until darkened, 10 minutes more. Transfer palmiers to a wire rack; let cool completely. Palmiers can be stored in an airtight container up to 3 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 4/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 3.5/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah!

{Pairings}
Drink: Hot cider, or a hot toddy!
Song: Keep it Rollin' -- A Tribe Called Quest
Activity: Baking these cookies while listening to the new Kanye album...yeah?

[Cookie 093] Italian Polenta Cookies

2010-12-19T23:08:00.005-05:00

JUST IN TIME FOR HOLIDAY COOKIE CRUNCH TIME......I AM BACK!!!! Sound the airhorns, stop the presses, release the carrier pigeons, send the fair eyed virgins a-dancing! This boat is real!

Seriously now, how has it been so long? Oh yeah, I remember now: I was in Ghana with a gas stove which had no temperature gauge, could only be set to "inferno" (...more commonly known as "broil" I think), no measuring spoons, no chocolate that costed less than 1 arm and 1 leg, and oh yeah, baking in 90º+ weather...yeah right. But now I'm sitting in my cozy new apartment in Brooklyn and it is cold cold cold! And I've already baked up a new batch of cookies to cut the ribbon, so to speak, of my new life in BK. (Did I mention I live above a Polish Bakery?!)

Some shots of my new place! Kitchen, fridge, window to the fire escape.

Yeah, lot's to say in this post, that's for sure! I am just so glad to be back in America, and able to cuddle up with my roommates, make hot tea, watch 30 Rock and Arrested Development, and celebrate my 21st birthday by drinking some hot, boozy apple cider. It's so great. Oh, but you're here to get a cookie recipe right? You're in dire need of a new recipe for that cookie exchange right? Or something new and special to bring to that nondenominational holiday party at your workplace right?

Well, this recipe might be it. I say "might" only because I found the cookies to be only so-so. But they are still really tasty and definitely unusual; plus, when you tell people they have polenta in them, they'll think you're such a hotsy totsy food snob, which is always a good thing!

I was technically supposed to make these cookies LAST YEAR for my good friend/roommate/"I-only-eat-Italian-food" Long Islander, but I failed her. And she never let me live it down, until two days ago when I made them. Unfortunately, they didn't look remotely like the photos in the book because a) I used whole wheat flour which gave the dough that lovely beige/sand color (yuck), and b) the dough was way too dry and crumbly for me to squeeze it out of a pastry tube into cute little S shapes. I have no clue why this happened, and I really should have just added more liquid to thedough, but I'm a moron, so I just decided to make drop cookies. The result: THE UGLIEST COOKIES I HAVE EVER MADE, EVER!

Plus, they tasted a tad bland, so we decided to dip them in chocolate. This did not help their looks, but did make them taste real nice. But the chocolate isn't 100% necessary if you intend to eat the cookies a day or two after you make them, because they do taste better with a little bit of aging. Also, I would recommend using a high quality chocolate if you take that route, because Toll House chocolate morsels are pure shit.

But hey! What's with all this negativity? What I liked about this recipe was the inclusion of a hefty amount of lemon zest, which you could actually taste. Plus, polenta (I used cornmeal, same diff) is a great texture for a cookie, and definitely different than your usual Christmas gingerbread/peppermint/who-cares cookies. Seriously, no one wants to eat another gingerbread snowflake, OKAY? Well, I'd eat it, but that's because I have to eat at least one of every edible thing within my sight.

So, now that I'm back fer reeeeal, get ready for major cookie updates. I miss baking so so so0o0o0o0o0o much and cannot wait to really dig my teeth in and bake up a storm. Storm o' flour and butter, watch out! This is only the beginning. I have 1 month and 5 days until classes start, so I'm goin' crazy. Get ready. To get fat. j/k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxo--missed you all, fair readers. (thanks for the emails by the way, they light up my day!)

Italian Polenta Cookies

Makes about 2 1/2 dozen

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Italian polenta, or yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest, (1 lemon)
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, polenta, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Put butter, sugar, and lemon zest in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; beat on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add egg and egg yolk, one at a time, beating after each addition to combine. Mix in vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch star tip (such as Ateco No. 826).
Pipe S shapes about 3 inches long and 1 inch wide, spaced 1 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake cookies until edges are golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer cookies on parchment to wire racks; let cool about 10 minutes. Remove cookies from parchment, and transfer to racks to cool completely.

****
{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 3.5/5
Tastiness: 3/5
Attractiveness: 1/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah, I guess so.

{Pairings}
Drink: A 7-and-7. Don't ask why.
Song: An oldy, but goody!!!!!!!!
Activity: LOVING AMER-CUH!!

[Cookie 092] Sand Tarts

2010-10-21T04:41:00.002-04:00

I tried. You know, I really did. I gave it the ol' yeoman's effort, as my high school math teacher would say. But when I put a bunch of hours worth of effort into producing a cookie that is sad, soft, and definitely NOT baked to golden perfection, I get a little disheartened.

It's become quite obvious by now that I've not been baking nearly as many cookies as I should be this semester. Living in Ghana means that chocolate is ridiculously expensive (despite the fact that this country exports some of the finest cocoa and chocolate products out there! But why sell it domestically when you can make more money abroad?), and nuts other than cashews and groundnuts (read: peanuts) are nearly impossible to find. And then there's the crazy oven with no temperature reading, and then there's the fact that I only have a 1/2 cup and 1 cup measure, no teaspoon measures, and no baking sheet, and no cookie cutters. I promise to stop whining about all of this, but I just gotta give some context/cover my ass, because these cookies are pretty shameful.

So let's have a run-through of how the baking of these Sand Tarts went. I got out the butter, and seeing as I'm living in AFRICA near the EQUATOR, it came to room temperature in about 20 seconds. Whip that up, add sugar and all that shit.

Measure out the flour in a measuring cup that of course doesn't fit inside the flour bag. So instead of doing something logical and pouring a bunch into a bowl and then measuring it, I pour the flour directly into the measuring cup and try to get it exactly right. And spill a bunch, DUH. Ugh. Okay, moving on…

Mix wet and dry ingredients and make: the most boring dough in the world. Oh, did I mention that I just didn't even add the lemon zest? Lemons are not really abundant here, so I was just like "EH! Who cares!" My tastebuds care, that's who. Oh well--punishment for ignorance, I suppose.

After refrigerating the dough for a while, it's time to roll it out. Oh wait! Guess who doesn't have a rolling pin! Never mind that, we just used a glass bottle (one that used to hold a bunch of delicious, delicious groundnuts…). Okay, so that works out decently. Now time to cut out circles with…a cup. Because I don't have a cookie cutter. Whatever! It still works! Awesome! Stick those babies on the "cookie sheet" which is really a roasting pan, which I'm pretty sure is one of the main factors that is fucking up the baking time of my cookies…

And then you have to get a hand print on your ass and pose for a picture looking like a complete...ass. I still can't figure out how that got there, considering it was my own hand. Awkward…I'll post a small picture to retain some shred of dignity.

Alright, so thus far nothing bad has really happened. It has just been an exercise in makin' in work! We bake up the first batch, and of course the oven burns the bottoms and doesn't toast the tops. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to fix this? Should I put a bain-marie underneath the tray in order to circulate heat? Ideas??

Here's the best part of this baking experience: about 2 minutes into the second batch WE RUN OUT OF GAS. Welcome to Africa. Arrggggasdflkajh! So I scrape off the warm blobs of uncooked dough, put them into a tupperware container, and then…voila, we have gas again. By this point I'm pissed off, so I quit. The cookies taste okay, but definitely not how they should.

Obviously, the main reasons that my cookies came out so poorly were because of my own situation, but I still think that the recipe itself is pretty boring. There's not really a dominant flavor, other than "sweet" and maybe a little bit "vanilla-y." I bet if they came out crisp and crunchy like they were supposed to, I might have liked them better, but alas. They did not. I ate them anyways. They were good with coffee. I mean Nescafe. No coffee here.

Fortunately, they make the deplorable Nescafe taste better, and the Nescafe makes the cookies taste better. And if you have a kitten mug, EVERYTHING TASTES BETTER ALL THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

See the kitten cup in the background?!!? My favorite purchase I've made in Ghana. But still, the end result of the cookies is a little disappointing. I miss my oven.

Xoxo

Sand Tarts

Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients

1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large whole egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 large egg white
1 teaspoon water
Sliced almonds, for decoration
Cinnamon sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually add sugar, and beat until light-colored.
Beat in egg, egg yolk, vanilla, and lemon zest. Sift flour with salt, and add to butter mixture. Mix on low speed just until dough comes together. Wrap and chill for several hours.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk egg white and the water in a small bowl. Set aside. Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with a 3-inch round cutter, and place on ungreased baking sheet. Brush with egg-white mixture, decorate with 3 sliced almonds, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating halfway through. Remove from oven; allow to cool.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 2.5/5
Attractiveness: 3.5/5
Is it worth it?: I dunno...they are easy, but you could find a more interesting, tastier cookie that is just as simple to make.

{Pairings}
Drink: Nescafe (if you want to cry yourself to sleep)--otherwise, real coffee please.
Song: Remember (Walkin' in the Sand) -- The Shangri-Las
Activity: Eat these while at the beach, because they look like sand dollars...??

Oh hey

2010-10-06T05:53:00.002-04:00

Hi. So basically, I'm going to be making cookies tomorrow, so I'll be posting soon. That being said, I realize it has been more than a little quiet round these parts, but the truth of the matter is: baking supplies are ridiculously expensive here!!! A quart of heavy/whipping cream is 10 dollars. And a chocolate bar of good quality is at least 6 dollars (for a 3 oz bar of Green & Black's, for example). And those are the ingredients I can actually find...half the stuff I need I can't even find in stores here, like butterscotch. Oh woe, it is so difficult. And then there is the whole oven issue.

Yeah, yeah, bitch bitch bitch. I'm whining. I'm just sad that I'm missing autumn and can't bake pumpkin bread, let alone cookies. Hopefully things will be lookin' up one of these days. We'll see Until then, if you are bored you can read my other blog which I update more often and has absolutely nothing to do with cookies: Zziee

Thanks biddies.

[Cookie 091] Sesame Seed Cookies

2010-09-23T04:47:00.004-04:00

Hello folks, I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is Marjorie. She is my hero/tailor.

I am forcing her to be my friend.

And obviously, my first step towards achieving this goal was to make her cookies. Specifically, these Sesame Seed Cookies.

Okay, I think I should do some 'splaining. First off, I am taking a Projects in Photography class this semester, and it focuses primarily on portrait photography. Which is pretty rad, in my opinion, since I never get around to actually shooting posed portraits and I have really wanted to give it a try. For our most recent assignment we had to pick a Ghanaian that we were relatively chummy with (or not--just depends on how confident you are with potentially awkward situations) and photograph this subject over an 8-12 hour block of time. So, I chose Marjorie, who is the go-to seamstress for most of the students in my program. She always came off like somewhat of an enigma to me, in part because of her no bullshit attitude and somewhat stony countenance. Plus, she can sew a pretty 1960s cocktail dress in about 6 minutes, from raw fabric to ironed lapels.

So I set up a date to come in and shoot some pictures of her, and in preparation I make a batch of these Sesame Seed Cookies (mainly to get on her good side before I would proceed to bug the hell out of her with my camera). Another example of how baking cookies has helped me where my social skills are lacking! I hand her the tupperware containing the cookies, and she takes a bite, and says "You did good" and then continues her cutting and measuring. I felt like I was in a detective movie and had just returned to my boss with a particularly juicy bit of info, and the P.I. gruffly patted me on the shoulder and told me "Ya did good, kid." Yay!

Anyway, I shot a million pictures, only got a few that I like, and none that I love. Oh well, c'est la vie. At least the cookies were a hit, and that's what I should be talking about anyway! So I'll hop to it.

These cookies are really good. You must excuse their appearance, because once again my crazy oven situation messed them up pretty badly. But the dough is delicious and the flavor of the actual baked cookie is pretty awesome. The sesames get all toasty and pack a bunch of flavor as well as crunch. I would most definitely make these again, because not only are they easy to make, but they are unusual, so you can impress your friends (and friend-crushes) without breaking a sweat.

Sesame Seed Cookies

Makes about 4 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup hulled sesame seeds, toasted

Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line four baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda, and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add reserved flour mixture, and beat until combined. Add toasted sesame seeds, and beat until incorporated.
Using a spoon, drop cookie batter, about 1 tablespoon at a time, onto prepared baking sheets, allowing at least 2 inches between cookies for spreading.
Bake until golden, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from oven, and cool on a wire rack.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 1/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 3/5
Is it worth it?: Yes! Especially those of you who are fans of sesame flavor...you know who you are.

{Pairings}
Drink: No drink. Nothing.
Song: Side with the Seeds -- Wilco
Activity: These would be good served at a nice little tea party or to give as a gift. See above anecdote.

Favorite Cookie [081-090]

2010-09-19T11:31:00.003-04:00

Another round come and gone. Actually, it's the 9th round, and 9 is my lucky number, so I would have to say that I'm a little disappointed that this set of ten cookies weren't better. These were my summer cookies, so I really have no excuse for not going all out! We had some really nice ones, that's for sure, but nothing that really blew my socks off. Is that even an expression? Blowing socks off? What?

Anyway, it's definitely going to be a rough 10th round, that's for SURE SURE. This whole gas oven with no temperature gauge is killing me! I am literally baking completely blindly. Oh, and there is a nation-wide gas shortage, so that also doesn't really help me out. And to top it off, I don't have a cookie sheet, so I've been using a roasting pan. Aaaaand, I only have a 1-cup measure and 1/2-cup measure. No teaspoon measures. Yep. And the butter they sell here is sold by the 200g block, with no tablespoon/cup measurements on it, and I have no scale. Sooooooooooo…yeah.

But let's cut the crap and get on with it. Here's the 9th round, in all its mediocre glory!

1st place (Blue Ribbon!): Maple-Pecan Shortbread

Alright, these were really nice. Besides the fact that they are very easy to make look nice (you just cut out a perfect circle of dough with a cookie cutter and squish a pecan onto it! simple!), the cookies have a surprisingly deep flavor--even if you don't add the maple extract, like I didn't. The maple syrup lends enough rich flavor alone, and the toasted pecans in the dough work fantastic with it. Highly recommend this one!

2nd place (Honorable Mention!): Wholemeal Almond Biscuits

These also have a really nice flavor that's a little unexpected. The cookie itself is a lot like a Hobnob (OMAHGAH HAVE YOU HAD THESE?!!? LOVE), but a lot less sweet. In fact, they are hardly sweet at all, but have a great cinnamon undertone, along with the toasty almond flavor of the biscuit. Great for tea, or really any fancy, fruity dessert. Pile on the clotted cream plz.

3rd place: Almond Horns

So almondy, so good. And they are majorly adorable, right? Am I the only one that gets all warm and fuzzy inside when she sees an adorable cookie? Is it bad that I look at cute cookies like normal people look at cute puppies?

4th place: ANZAC Biscuits

Okay, I ranked these highly because they basically introduced me to the nectar of the gods: Lyle's Golden Syrup. Holy shit, I can't even begin to tell you how many cans of this I'm bringing back to the US--customs or not! As for the cookie itself, I could eat the dough for hours/years/eternity.

5th place: Oatmeal Bars with Dates and Walnuts

I was partial to these because I really love whole-wheaty, nutty, oatsy, hippie-dippie snacks, and these really fit the bill. But I have to say, they are more like a cake than bar, and hardly could be considered a cookie…just sayin', Martha.

6th place: Spiced Almond Wafers

These definitely look very elegant and nice, but they didn't end up being as flavorful and spicy as the uncooked dough was. They tasted a little boring and bland once baked, but they are fun to make, so that's a plus.

7th place: Fig Bars

These took a lot of work. Yep. Making the fig filling is fun and it is very aromatic and delicious, but for some reason once the cookie is all assembled and baked, the fig filling isn't all that special tasting anymore. The assembly of the bars (ie. the rolling of dough, spreading of filling, and sandwiching of the two layers of dough) is a little tricky and tedious. They're good, but not worth all the effort.

8th place: Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies

These taste exactly like you'd expect, and I think that the only reason Martha made the recipe "GIANT" was because the dough itself isn't all that special. The use of vegetable shortening does, however, lend a pleasantly different taste and texture to the cookie. You could add stuff to this recipe and easily spice it up, if you're interested. Add white chocolate chips, dip the bottoms in ganache, somehow incorporate peanut butter...

9th place: Baci di Dama

Ugh, what a serious pain in the ass. "Piping" the filling onto these little poops was a disaster, since the filling absolutely didn't hold its own and spilled all over the place. And the cookies, once I managed to actually get them to set and solidify, were hard and chewy and not so fab. Meh.

10th place (Brown Ribbon!): Chocolate-Ginger Leaves and Acorns

BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG.

Alright, great. Got those done and behind me, and I'm ready for the new! But maybe that's just the Rosh Hashanah speaking. To all of you enjoying the first signs of autumn, I am whole-heartedly jealous of you. Eat lots of pumpkin and spice for me, because right now I'm looking at nothing but pineapples and plantains for another 3 straight months. Until my next post, soon...

[Cookie 090] ANZAC Biscuits

2010-09-06T04:58:00.002-04:00

Damn, the big 9-0. So close to one hundred. But more importantly, this cookie should be acknowledged as the very first cookie I baked here in Ghana! And the very first cookie I ever baked using a gas oven! So many milestones, so many feats! I exaggerate, yes, but still I think the fact that I was able to produce mildly edible cookies using an oven that has no temperature knob and is essentially just a sealed box with a blazing fire inside of it deserves a little pat on the back. Well, when I say mildly edible I mean that the first batch I made I burned the hell out of the bottoms of (it was only thanks to my friend Ayden's nose that we realized something was going wrong in the kitchen), and the second batch baked for way too long and got overcooked and hard, though beautifully golden brown. But the cookie itself, let me just say, YES.

ANZAC Biscuits I suppose were a funny first choice cookie to make during my stay here in Africa, considering that they are a cookie that got its name from the Australian New Zealand Army Corps during WWI. Apparently, they were a popular cookie to mail to soldiers, and I can see why since they are pretty sturdy and probably won't taste bad after a few days (though mine didn't last that long). They have oats, coconut, and Lyle's Golden Syrup in them--the latter two were readily available at my local supermarket, and for a cheap price too. And let me just say: Lyle's Golden Syrup. Holy shit. This is the stuff that God drinks, I swear to you. Oh mah gaaaaaaah! I want to put this on everything I eat, from now on. Done.

The other ingredients, like flour and butter, were super expensive at the market here because I couldn't find any that weren't imported. Oh well, I guess I'll make do somehow. At least the baking soda is in the cutest container EVER!

Anyway, the recipe is pretty simple and requires that you melt your butter with the Lyle's Golden Syrup, so you don't have to set your butter out on the counter an hour early to soften up! Whipping up the dough is easy peasy, and perfect if you don't have an electric mixer on hand. Then you just scoop out balls of dough with your cookie scoop, if you have one. If not, you just roll balls of dough between your hands, and make sure to pack them tightly so that the cookie doesn't fall apart too much.

(Oh and by the way, check out the mega-kitchen that we have in my dorm here! That's only half of it, too! We have 3 oven/stoves, but only 1 has gas! I feel like I'm on a cooking show...or not at all) The next step, or actually the step before all the dough-making actually, should be to preheat your oven. Yeah no big deal, whatever, just turn the knob to 350º. Okay, I know I'm a totally newbie to this whole gas oven thing--BUT WHAT THE HELL?! You have to literally aim a flaming match underneath the bottom of your oven and pray to god that it catches fire?! And then you can't really adjust the flame (at least on ours you can't)?! And we don't have an oven thermometer yet! Blind baking!! Ahhh!! So of course, the first batch we decide that it's fine to stick our cookie sheet/roasting pan on the lowest rack, so it burns the cookies' tushies to a blackened crisp and leaves their tummies all doughy and undercooked. Then, thinking we had outsmarted the oven, we raise the sheet to the top level and the cookies bake for almost twice as long and looked perfect, but were so cooked through that they hardened up into rocks. Siiiiigh. At least it was a learning experience. Next time, the middle rack should be just right--the third bowl of porridge, if you're into metaphors or some shit.

So, these cookies are pretty delicious and easy and great and you should make them if you have a sane-person's oven. But hey, gas ovens ain't so bad. They get hot in like 3 seconds and...yeah, that's it. Okay, I'm over it! No one said it would be easy cooking on an entirely different continent, worlds away. Imma make this happen! Go go go! Welcome to a new semester of cookie baking--Awkwaaba.

ANZAC Biscuits

Makes about 3 dozen

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups sugar
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 tablespoons Lyles Golden Syrup
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup boiling water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. In a large bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, and coconut. Set aside.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter with syrup. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water, and add to butter mixture. Stir to combine. (Be careful; if the butter is hot, it will bubble up considerably.)
Add butter mixture to dry ingredients, and stir to combine. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice-cream scoop, drop onto prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart (be sure to pack the scoop tightly so the mixture doesn't crumble). Flatten cookies slightly with the heel of your hand.
Bake until golden brown and firm but not hard, about 15 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 1/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 2.5/5 (Depends on where you live, I guess)
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 2/5
Is it worth it?: Yes! Oh man, and the dough...I could eat it for. ev. er.

{Pairings}
Drink: These would be good with milk, or nothing at all.
Song: How Hard -- James Apollo
Activity: Mastering the art of gas oven baking in a third world country!

[Cookie 089] Spiced Almond Wafers

2010-08-31T06:14:00.003-04:00

Hey there. I'm still in Ghana. Very much so. It's really starting to set in that I'll be living here for 3.5 more months, which is so strange, but also pretty awesome! You know what goes down after my classes?? Everyone goes to this awesome cafe (if I can even call it that) that is essentially just a few tables and plastic chairs set on the side of the quiet road leading to the NYU Academic Center, and we all get a Star beer (Ghanaian!) and chill out. Uh, YES. Yeah yeah, I can hear my mom and dad groaning all the way across the Atlantic ocean; "Lizzie, do you even do any work there?! What are we paying for!?" Well, I do do work, thank you very much--it's just that Ghanaians really know how to relax. When in Rome/Accra…

Anyway, this is a cookie blog, and not a travel blog! I haven't yet made any cookies here yet, but this weekend it is SO happening, I promise. It has somehow spread around amongst the other students here that I bake cookies often, which is a bad sign because I think there might be a hype that I can't live up to! The pressure!! Anyway, there are a couple recipes that call for ingredients that are super pricy in the states--like Lyle's Golden Syrup--which are very cheap here, but other things are really expensive here, like chocolate. Basically anything imported has a huge price tag, even for American standards, which makes things a little difficult. Nah, actually, I'll just treat grocery shopping like a treasure hunt or something. Eventually I'll find all the cheap flour and sugar! Do you know they have COCONUT FLOUR here?! Awesome!! How do I use it/what do I use it in??

Okay, well this post is actually about another old cookie recipe that I baked right before I flew off to this other side of the globe. Spiced Almond Wafers! Thin, crisp, and spicy--and pretty too. The dough, surprisingly, tasted more spicy before it was baked, which is pretty odd since usually the flavors get enhanced after baking, and after having a day to set in. These cookies ended up tasting nice, but nothing shockingly flavorful or anything. I also wished they were a little thinner, like the pictures, but maybe I just didn't slice the dough thin enough. Oh hey! Idea! Maybe you could use a cooking mandolin to slice the dough evenly! Would that work??

The recipe itself, however, is a little more interesting than most of her recipes. Whipping up the dough is the same as usual, but once you've made it you stick it into some mini bread loaf tins so that the dough freezes into a brick shape. I didn't have any mini loaf pans, so I just used regular sized ones and didn't fill them up bigger than I wanted the dimensions of the cookies to be.

Once you freeze the dough for a while, you slice off cookies and decorate them with almond slices. It can get a little tedious, but if you've got some jams playin' it shouldn't take you too long. And the end result is pretty dang adorable, and I can't deny an adorable cookie. Some people can't deny adorable children--I can! But an adorable cookie, that's another matter.

As you can see, the cookie travels well and is perfect for picnics too! A good snacking cookie, nothing all that heavy or dense, so you can bring them to a party and people won't complain that you're trying to fatten them up (a problem, I must admit, I have encountered a couple of times).

So, in conclusion, these cookies are cute and people will like the way they look and most will like the way they taste. They will probably fall in the middle of my rankings of best cookies, but they ain't bad!

Ciao puppies

Spiced Almond Wafers

Makes about 6 dozen (it's true!!)

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups packed dark-brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 cup sliced blanched almonds

Directions

Line 2 mini loaf pans with plastic wrap.
Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Beat butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed for 4 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add eggs and spices. Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions.
Press cookie dough into pans, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Freeze for 1 1/2 hours (or up to 1 month).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove dough from 1 pan. Let soften slightly. Cut eight 1/8-inch-thick slices with a sharp knife. Cover remaining dough, and freeze in pan until ready to slice and bake.
Place slices 1 1/2 inches apart on a cookie sheet lined with a nonstick baking mat. Top each with 2 to 3 almond slices. Freeze until firm, 5 minutes. Bake until dark golden brown, 10 minutes. Let cool on sheet on a wire rack. Repeat.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3.5/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 3/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah sure, why not

{Pairings}
Drink: Aw, a nice light wine, if you wanna get fancy romantic.
Song: Skinny Love -- Bon Iver
Activity: A picnic, complete with cherries, a baguette, and kettle corn. And that wine. Trust me when I say that can't be beat...

[Cookie 088] Wholemeal Almond Biscuits

2010-08-23T09:53:00.005-04:00

HELLO! Wo ho te sen? I am writing from Accra, Ghana right this instant! I can't believe I've only been here 1 week, because it feels like 1 month. The past week was more than hectic, being that it was orientation week, so we didn't have a moment to breathe. I've gone to lectures, learned a little bit of Twi (the language spoken here), gone shopping (I've only just begun...), watched some traditional African drumming and dancing, went to an afrobeat concert, went to the beach, seen the local universities, and just had my first class (African Philosophical Thought) today. It's hot and humid, but not too bad. And the food...

The food.

Is so.

Good.

I think I can get used to this. Jollof rice, yum yum, banku, yum yum, fufu (haven't had it yet, but I can't wait), and plantains!! And get this: they sell shots of alcohol in packets like ketchup. Uh, yes. I got some/a lot. Cane Spirit! Coffee-flavored Whiskey! Gin! Haven't tried that coffee or cane stuff yet, but you just wait. I'll report back. Oh, and listen to this great idea that one of my esteemed colleagues came up with: buy a coconut on the street, pour a packet of gin into the coconut water, and then stick in a straw and DONE. After-school special. Ah, yes, I could so get used to this.

One thing that will make this whole blog thing a little difficult is the fact that the internet connection here is hardly adequate. Whatever--I'll do something else, like READ. Whoa. Or maybe draw. I think it will be good for me, build character. I'm too dependent on this computer here. Maybe I'll start basket weaving, which I'm going to be learning in one of my art classes (!!!!).

This huge culture shock and overwhelming week of change makes writing this post a little weird. Thinking about these cookies, and what I was doing during the time I made them, seems like eons (and miles) ago. I'd usually try to make my initial anecdote somehow relate to the cookie in question, but I don't think I can do it this time. These Wholemeal Almond Biscuits just don't scream Ghana at all. Well, they are sort of like Hobnobs, which are these amazing cookies that probably aren't from Ghana only, but still--SO good. But more than that, to me they scream English tea time, so maybe you could make the whole British colonization connection, but I really don't feel like getting into that....at all.

So let's just talk straight about these cookies. They are very subtle in flavor, not sweet at all really. They do have a really nice cinnamon undertone, though, along with the flavor of almonds and whole wheat flavor, which I really loved. Their name is a really accurate description of what kind of cookie you get--a biscuit, wheaty and nutty. They are hearty and great with tea, or maybe with a bit of whipped cream/clotted cream and some berries for a fancy tea-time treat.

Once again, the recipe has you make your own almond meal, and this time I actually did that instead of substituting store bought almond meal. Good choice! The recipe worked perfectly and the toasted almonds gave a great flavor to the dough. If you want, you could probably add nutmeg or some other spice, but I thought the cinnamon was just perfect.

Okay, so a great tea cookie. I think I can make a feeble connection to Ghana with this one: THEY DON'T DRINK REAL COFFEE HERE. Or at least, I've had trouble ordering anything other than Nescafe instant coffee. This makes me majorly sad. I bought some ground coffee that's made in Togo, which is awesome in theory, but doesn't taste really that great. But I'm a bit of a snob about coffee, so don't listen to me.

Aaanyway, I think that's all I've got to say about these. You should make them. Serve them with iced tea, since it's way too hot to think about boiling water in the northern hemisphere. Or hey, you could maybe make ice cream sandwiches with these--might get a bit messy though.

I actually ate mine with a cup of Tazo Honeybush tea and a small cup of cold Tapioca pudding that my dad made the night before, and it was a perfect afternoon dessert (new meal! new meal!). The tapioca might have been a little heavy to have with an already heavy cookie, but the Honeybush tea was just right--nice and light, but with a strong enough floral flavor to really be quite refreshing.

Okay, I'm going to go now. I have class soon. Aight. Bye bye. Until next time (soon I hope!)

Wholemeal Almond Biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup blanched whole almonds, toasted
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons ice water, plus more if needed

Directions

Pulse almonds in a food processor until coarsely ground. Add flours, sugar, salt, and cinnamon, and pulse to combine. Add butter, and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. With machine running, pour in enough water until dough just starts to come together on the sides of the bowl. Shape dough into a ball, and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until cold and slightly firm, no longer than 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough on a lightly floured work surface to an 11-inch round just more than 1/4 inch thick. Cut out 3-inch circles. Carefully gather scraps of dough, reroll, and cut out remaining biscuits. Space 1 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake cookies until edges are golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 3/5
Is it worth it?: Yes!

{Pairings}
Drink: Tazo Honeybush tea, or any other Rooibos/Redbush tea
Song: That's Where It's At -- Sam Cookie (!)
Activity: Afternoon tea, whatever country you live in. I think that activity should really transcend geography and country borders. Teatime for all!

[Cookie 087] Chocolate-Ginger Leaves and Acorns

2010-08-14T16:34:00.003-04:00

Well, well, I ain't gone yet. Technically I am, but at the very moment I'm enjoying a relaxing, peaceful stay at the JFK airport...for eight hours. Eight hour layover. I love traveling. Turns out that the student-discount website that I bought my tickets from neglected to inform me that my flight number was changed to a flight leaving an hour later than I had expected, thus giving me eight hours to hang out in the airport. If I had known sooner, I would have taken a later flight to JFK from LAX, and not had to wake up at 3:30 in the morning, but that wouldn't have been any fun now would it?

Okay, okay, it's not so bad. It could be going the other way--me missing my flight by eight hours. And hell, I'm going to AFRICA so I guess I shouldn't really be complaining. I'm doing what I can to pass the time (I bought wifi access for the day, which is how I'm writing this duhhh), and I ate at one of those ridiculous sit-down "restaurants" in the airport, the food at which was thoroughly mediocre. Maybe after this I'll watch some episodes of The Daily Show or Community, or work on my portfolio website. Oh the things I can get done! All while sitting in this vomit-colored leather chair by a window overlooking a massive jumbo British Airways jet. Productivity AND ambiance!

So let's talk about these cookies that I made like 6 weeks ago (whoops, lazy blogging--I couldn't care less). These Chocolate-Ginger Leaves and Acorns really didn't seem like the right cookie to make in July, but I had the ingredients hangin' around--minus the molasses, which warranted a quick trip to Pavilions. The recipe is very simple, even for this cookbook, and satisfied my urge to bake something. However, the resultant cookie wasn't really anything to write home about. It tastes nice, but nothing unusual. And as you can see, I didn't really feel like going out and buying leaf- and acorn-shaped cookie cutters, so I made cats, hearts, and misshapen free-form circle things!

I bet I'm not alone when I say I hate rerolling scraps of dough a million times for cookie-cutter recipes, right? So after a while I either just give up and eat the rest of the dough (NO SHAME!!!) or I roll the dough into balls and flatten them with a fork. Yeah, yeah, they don't cook the same way as the thin cookie-cutter cookies, but this way I get a few under-baked ones, which I love. Everyone's happy, especially me.

So, I guess that's all I have to say about these. I wish I had some epic, hilarious, and tragic story to tell that's related to making these, just so I could pass some more time here at Gate 6 in Terminal 7, but I don't. I guess it's time for me to start playing Farmville again...kidding!! Sort of.

Chocolate-Ginger Acorns

Makes 4 dozen

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
1 tablespoon peeled, grated fresh ginger
Fine sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, spices, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in medium bowl.
Put butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg, molasses, and grated ginger; mix until combined. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined.
Halve dough; shape into disks. Wrap each disk in plastic; refrigerate until cold, about 1 hour. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thick. (If dough becomes too soft at any time, freeze until firm.) Cut out shapes with 3-inch acorn- or leaf-shaped cookie cutters; space 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes.
Score designs with a paring knife; sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until firm, 11 to 13 minutes. Cool on sheets on wire racks. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 3.5/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah, I guess. I am thoroughly indifferent about these.

{Pairings}
Drink: Because they are pretty subtle in flavor, I wouldn't drink anything with these, per se.
Song: Who Knows Who Cares -- Local Natives
Activity: I could see serving these at an autumn party--a Harvest Party!! Ooh someone please do that! I'm so sad I'm going to miss fall, my favorite season...but I just don't think the leaves are going to change in Ghana all that much.

[Cookie 086] Baci di Dama

2010-08-12T12:37:00.002-04:00

Oh guys, it's taking every ounce of strength in me to not turn this post into a sob story about the best summer ever coming to a close, but I will keep my strength. It is difficult and a little painful. Same goes for these cookies--Baci di Dama. Baci di Dama is italian for "lady's kisses," how apt. Though, let's get real: they look a little bit like poops. Haha sorry, sorry...is anyone still reading this? Whatever, let's just think of them as the cookie sisters to Hershey's kisses. Unfortunately, the baked incarnation of this phrase is far more tedious and frustrating than actual lady's kisses, but what can you do.

Traditionally, Baci di Dama are made with hazelnuts I believe, but this recipe uses almonds. Once again I used almond meal instead of almonds that I ground up myself, and this time I think I should have ground them myself. The dough was a little too thick, which in part might have been because of how I whipped the egg whites, but also because the almond meal I was using is rather coarse.

Here's a question for all you meringue pros: after whipping the egg whites to stiff, glossy peaks, whenever I add the sugar, the mixture gets very sticky, heavy, and gunky. And as a result, I think my cookies aren't as light and airy as they could be. Remember the Hazelnut Cookies of yore? Same problem. I'd love any advice you guys have to give! Granted, this recipe does specifically state that the batter should be thick and sticky, but I still think I could get the cookies to be a tad lighter in the end.

Alright, so after you make the dough, you pipe it out into a bunch of kisses onto your cookie sheet and baked them. Tedious tedious tedious. But not so bad. Here's the bigger issue: Martha tells you to make the kisses have a little mound, or peak, at the top (like a Hershey's kiss, sorta), but that makes the whole procedure that follows quite difficult. You see, you make this ganache and are supposed to sandwich it between two cookies, but with the peaks--kisses, if you will--it becomes nearly impossible to stand them up in a way that will let the ganache set. If you lay them sideways, the top cookie slides off and the ganache oozes everywhere into a mess. So I tried to wedge the peaks of the cookies between the grates on my cooling rack, but it still sucked. And plus, the ganache really refuses to set unless you refrigerate the cookies, which doesn't really help their texture much in the long run. Not impressed, Martha.

So I managed to make a million or so of these cookies and only had three mental breakdowns in the process. I wouldn't really mind though if the cookies were totally delicious in the end, but they weren't. They just tasted "meh." I'm sure you can buy some really fantastic Baci di Dama in Little Italy or at some Italian bakery somewhere, but this recipe isn't worth all the effort it requires.

I'll just tell it to you straight: I wouldn't recommend making these cookies. They don't really look that gorgeous when complete (even in the picture in the book), they don't really taste that great, and therefore they aren't really worth spending an entire afternoon swearing and sweating. Just hand out some real kisses instead--they'll be appreciated more, by both the receiver and the giver.

xoxo

Baci di Dama

Makes about 1 1/2 dozen (but I got way way more)

Ingredients
Cookies
2 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder, sifted
6 1/4 ounces (1 1/2 cups) medium-finely ground blanched almonds

Filling
1/2 teaspoon solid vegetable shortening
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.
Make cookies: Place egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on high until egg whites form stiff peaks. Add the sugar slowly; continue beating until egg whites are very thick, 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in cocoa until combined. Stir in almonds; mix until completely blended. Batter should be quite thick and sticky.
Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip (such as Ateco #806). Pipe teaspoon-size, peaked mounds onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart.
Bake until slightly cracked, 15 to 17 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Let cool on sheets several minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
Making filling: In a small bowl, combine shortening and melted chocolate. Spoon about 1/2 teaspoon of chocolate onto flat side of cookie; place another cookie on top. Press together gently so chocolate oozes out slightly. Return cookie to wire rack to set; repeat with remaining cookies. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

****
{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 4.5/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 4/5
Tastiness: 2/5
Attractiveness: 3/5
Is it worth it?: No.

{Pairings}
Drink: I think these would go nicely with an espresso, something small to go with their size.
Song: I Learned the Hard Way -- Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings Probably the best song that's come out this year.
Activity: Skip baking these and go give out some of your own lady kisses.

[Cookies 085] Almond Horns

2010-08-07T23:36:00.003-04:00

Good day, folks. Long time no see. I went on a bit of a vacation, if you can call sleeping in a tent for 5 consecutive nights without any showers or toilets or fresh coffee (God Forbid!!) a vacation. I was backpacking in the Sequoias for a week, trekking upwards of 20 miles in between the spindly pines and fields of wildflowers. Like last year! It was beautiful, duhhhhhhh, and I loved it. Extremely tiring and hard, hard work, but how else am I supposed to work off all the cookies I've been eating this summer?

So now I'm back in the comfort of my own home, equipped with all the "necessities" that supposedly I can't live without: internet, cars, TV, whatever. Hmph. And here I am updating my blog--how 21st century of me. Well, whatever, enough musings on modernity, I'll save it for another day. Maybe for the day when I finally buy a 1950s camping trailer and drive across the United States; or maybe for the day when I finally move into an old run-down Victorian estate out in the cornfields of Nebraska or the grasslands of Montana. Oh, yes, that will be the life.

Until then, I'm here. And in only 1 weeks time, I'll be.....IN GHANA! I'm studying abroad for 4 months in Accra! Ahhh!!! I make no promises about what the cooking situation will be once I'm there--I will have a kitchen, but I don't know what ingredients I'll be able to get (I'm hoping I'll be able to get some KICKASS chocolate though!). Yep, it's a big question mark over my cookie career, but I'll try my best.

But, hey, I haven't left yet. So I shall update on these last few recipes I've made before I head on out. Today: Almond Horns. Cute, right? And even though they sound a little on the simple side, they are really really delicious. Full of almond flavor, and though they are crunchy like shortbread, they don't taste as buttery. They aren't overly sweet either, so the sprinkling of powdered sugar on top of them really adds a nice touch. The cookie itself has a kind of toasted flavor, rich and nutty, and the sugar on top is just enough to heighten the slight saltiness of the cookie. Really, quite nice!

As for the ease of the recipe, you shouldn't have any problems making them. The recipe calls for 1 cup of almonds which you essentially grind up into almond meal, but I used my own pre-made almond meal that I had bought for some other recipes and it worked just find. However, 1 cup of almonds is not the same as 1 cup of almond meal (duh), so I added about 1/2 cup of almond meal at first, and then added a little more until the dough formed a workable shape. You're going to be shaping the dough into horns, so you don't want it too wet and sticky, but it should be able to hold it's shape and not be too dry either. Just use your best judgement, or follow the recipe and make your own almond meal--it's probably better anyways.

So if you're looking for a recipe that's perhaps more for your friends with rather sophisticated palates that can appreciate subtle flavorings (ah, yes, quite fancy and refined I dare say), then I'd absolutely suggest this cookie. Cute looking, has a nice warm and nutty flavor, and great with tea or coffee. I could eat them for a long time. Maybe for the entire plane ride to Ghana. Or not...even I have my limits.

Until later this week, my summery friends...

P.S. Have any of you been to Ghana? Are any of you from Ghana? If so, I'd love to hear about it! Advice? Things to see/do/eat? Anything! Everything! Tell me, tell me, I'm so excited!! Send me an email, or comment on this entry, whichever's your fancy.

Almond Horns

Makes 3 dozen

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted, plus more for dusting
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup whole raw almonds, toasted and finely ground in a food processor

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg and extracts. Reduce speed to low. Mix in flour mixture and almonds until just combined. Wrap dough in plastic; refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
Roll 1 tablespoon of dough into a 4-inch log; gently shape into a horseshoe. Repeat with remaining dough. Transfer to baking sheets lined with parchment.
Bake cookies (rotating sheets halfway through) until pale golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks using a spatula; let cool completely. Transfer to waxed paper. Sift sugar over cookies. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature 2 to 3 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 5/5
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Yes yes! Nothing that exciting or snazzy, but more of a cookie you can bring home to your parents. Is that weird? Did I totally mess up that figure of speech?

{Pairings}

Drink: A subtle tea, maybe an English Breakfast with milk.
Song: Horn -- Nick Drake (Not only does the title match, but the music pairs well with the cookie. I am a big nerd.)
Activity: These would be good at a craft party! Don't ask why, I just think they would. Knitting party, yeah? They don't get chocolate all over your fingers and are great to munch on. Yes. Yes, I paired this one well, pat on the back.

[Cookie 084] Oatmeal Bars with Dates and Walnuts

2010-07-24T11:42:00.002-04:00

Eighty-four. 84. Feels good. Nice number. Still powering on, though--no stopping! I will finish this project! Eighty-four isn't even half (AH!!!!!), but 87.5 is, so let's just hold off the enormous celebrations and parades until then, okay? Great.

Now on to something more related: Dates. Do you like them? I had my first date (fruit! I'm referring to the fruit) just when making these Oatmeal Bars with Dates and Walnuts, though I have had date-flavored and date-filled sweets before. This was just my first time eating one whole and unfettered. And pitting one.

Does anyone else get totally grossed out by them!? Something about them really really grosses me out. I don't want to get into the specifics for fear of ruining this recipe for you (or even dates entirely), so I'll just let this picture do the talking.

It's just...icky. I'm not a huge fan. And the thing is, if it was just the pitting that bothered me, it wouldn't be so much an issue--but I'm not the biggest fan of how they taste either. I dunno, I suppose they just aren't my cup of tea. That being said, these bars would go great with a cup of tea as part of an afternoon snack! Maybe it will all just work out in the end!

These bars have a few bits of chopped up dates in them, but they work really well in tandem with the walnuts. It's a crunchy-savory and chewy-sweet combination at work. I also really like how Martha has you grind up some oats to make oatflour, which is used in addition to whole wheat flour--very wheaty indeed. These are super hearty, soft, sweet, and tasty bars; they actually seem more like a cake to me, though. Not a bad thing! I liked them. But then again, I could eat only granola for my entire life and be pretty happy.

The only issue I had with these was that my dad didn't like them (he's not so much a fan of the whole-wheaty, grainy, oatsy, hippie stuff. This meant that the entire batch rested on the shoulders of my mom and I, which is just too much to handle! I ate more than my fair share, but after sitting on the counter at room temperature for nearly a week, my mom kindly suggested that they might not be...safe...to eat. I thought they still tasted good! Maybe mold is just a natural flavor pairing with dates! Whatever. I retired the rest of the batch to the trash can. Moral of the story: make these bars for bake sales, parties, and for large gatherings of people. They are hard to eat a lot of in a short amount of time.

Yep, that's it. My foray into the world of dates was a little disturbing, but yielded tasty results! (Haha, remember that Simpson's episode where Marge is watching soap operas on TV and keeps writing down "with Sexy Results!" Ah memories...)

[ Oh, and a little bit of shameless self-promotion: I just started another blog solely for my photos and other little bits of nonsense. It's a Wordpress blog, because I figured WHY KEEP IT SIMPLE AND EASY, when you can make your life slightly more convoluted by using multiple websites for the same purpose?! Oh, well whatever, this is the URL: zziee.wordpress.com Drop by and say herro! ]

Oatmeal Bars with Dates and Walnuts

Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup finely ground old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
2 cups packed light-brown sugar
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups walnuts (5 1/2 ounces), toasted and chopped
1 cup dates (5 ounces), pitted and chopped
Vegetable-oil cooking spray

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together ground oats, flour, 1 cup whole oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and allspice in a large bowl; set aside.
Put brown sugar and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Mix in eggs and vanilla, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
Reduce speed to low. Add oat mixture, and mix until just combined. Mix in walnuts and dates.
Coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Spread batter evenly in dish. Scatter remaining 1/2 cup whole oats over top. Bake until golden and a cake tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.Cool completely in pan on a wire rack; cut into bars.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 3/5
Tastiness: 3.5/5
Attractiveness: 2/5
Is it worth it?: Yeah, for an afternoon snack, bake sale, road trip, whatever. They ain't dainty though, so don't say I didn't warn you (?)

{Pairings}
Drink: Irish Breakfast tea or Apple Cider (despite the time I year I chose to make these, I think they are an autumn cookie for sure!)
Song: I Wanna Be Sedated -- The Ramones (SORRY bad pun, great song)
Activity: You come home from school, it's October, the leaves are changing, wind is blowing a little, breezy and cool. You've got your lil' JanSport backpack filled with brand new Lisa Frank folders and jelly pens. You throw your stuff on to the floor in your bedroom and run downstairs to tell your mom/dad how your day went, and SURPRISE, kick-ass oatmeal bars waiting for you on a tray, complete with a cup of apple juice and some carrots or celery. You take the snack over to the TV, turn on some late afternoon cartoons and zone out before you have to go do homework. Ah, yes, that would have been great...

[Cookie 083] Maple-Pecan Shortbread

2010-07-19T23:58:00.005-04:00

Stroke of genius. How did I not think of this before. Oh man oh man.

Okay, let me back up. Backstory first. Well, there's no really backstory per se, but more of a source of inspiration. Barbecues; grills; charcoal. Fire! This is how we cook foods during the hottest days of the summer in order to avoid heating up our kitchen to hellish temperatures, right? Oven-roasting is out, as is loading up all 4 burners with huge pots of boiling water and simmering stews, and obviously baking seems completely out of the question. Thus the spareness of posts on this blog (or at least, that's the excuse du jour). So how to get around this issue without confining all baking to the wee hours of the night, if we are to do it at all?

Here's my great, albeit hair-brained, idea: BBQ'd cookies!!!!!!!!

Okay, okay, I can feel your collective eye-rolling coming at me from all over cyberspace--it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. You make sure to make a cookie dough that doesn't spread hardly at all, so as to avoid it dripping in between the grill bars. And the dough will have nuts it in, because fire roasted nuts are next to godliness. And then, once grilled, you serve these cookies with grilled fruits (grilled peaches anyone??). Dollop with ice cream. Dessert. Done.

Alright, so maybe that won't work. But here's a more rational idea: what about putting your cookie sheet (or other metal heat-enduring surface) on top of your grill and then closing the lid, essentially using your BBQ like an outdoor oven. Does that work? Has anyone tried that?

Anyway, these cookies here, these Maple-Pecan Shortbread don't exactly seem like a super summery cookie (more of an autumnal one, in my opinion, what with the maple and the pecans and the everything), but I made them for both a summer picnic, as well as a 4th of July BBQ at my brother and sister-in-law's house, and they were a hit at both events. These cookies are really good. Surprisingly so. In fact, they might have been even more of a hit at the 4th of July BBQ since by then they were a day old, and these guys improve with age FOR SURE.

So you got ya dough, which has ground up pecans in it as well as a hefty amount of maple syrup, and after the baked cookies have sat around for a day, the maple flavor really deepens. Actually, the recipe also calls for Maple Extract, which I couldn't find anywhere so I omitted it--and no problem! The cookies were still extremely mapley, but I bet they would be really incredible if you have maple extract on hand as well.

Lastly, because you roll out the dough and cut it with a cookie cutter, and then decorate each cookie with a pecan half and some turbinado sugar, you WITHOUT A DOUBT produce a beautiful set of cookies. You can't really screw up the look of these, unless you don't know how to use a cookie cutter (and if that's your situation, you probably shouldn't be reading my blog, juss sayin'). So, they are perfect to bring to a party if you want to impress people but not do anything too elaborate. Simplicity is highly underrated in baking!

And very very lastly, if you are just crazy enough to try either of my BBQ cookie ideas--LET ME KNOW SO WE CAN BE FRIENDS FOREVER!! If you send pictures, I will love you even more/think you are even crazier/admire you a lot. And even if you bake these in the normal way, I will admire you for enduring the oppressive heat of your kitchen in the name of tastiness!

P.S. AWSHIT this is genius!!

P.P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos! I was too busy eating cookie dough/pecans to grab my camera during the baking process -_-

Maple-Pecan Shortbread

Makes about 2 dozen

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/2 cup cake flour (not self-rising)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup pecan halves (about 2 1/4 ounces), finely chopped
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon pure maple extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Directions

Into a medium bowl, sift flours and salt. Whisk in 1/2 cup chopped pecans, set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until smooth and light, about one minute. Add the maple syrup, egg yolk, and extract; beat on medium speed until well combined. On low speed, gradually add flour mixture, beating until just combined. Dough should be smooth and pliable. Flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic; chill until firm, 1 1/2 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured work surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out rounds using a two-inch cookie cutter; place one inch apart on prepared baking sheet. Brush tops with beaten egg; sprinkle centers with remaining 1/4 cup pecans. Sprinkle the entire surface with turbinado sugar.
Bake cookies, rotating baking sheet halfway through, until golden around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Store in airtight containers at room temperature up to four days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 2/5 (Maple extract, where y'at?!)
Tastiness: 4.5/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Hell yeah! Worth firing up the ol' oven in July...maybe...

{Pairings}
Drink: I'd wash these guys down with some iced tea, perhaps with a sprig or two of sage thrown in? (That's how my ma makes hers, and it's da bomb diggity!)
Song: The Grove (Is Hotter than an Ocean's Oven When the Rays of Light Do Boil) -- Big Blood
Activity: BBQ some cookies, plz

[Cookie 082] Fig Bars

2010-07-11T12:21:00.006-04:00

Fig Newton's: remember those? I always find myself thinking about those cookies--the few times I do--in the past tense, as if they have since been discontinued or simply have become a relic of the past. But in reality, they're still alive and well, right? I guess. Maybe they were never that popular, but when I was a kid I think they were kind of a big deal to be, albeit probably in a subconscious way. All I know is that my dad liked them, I liked them, and I remember eating them a lot while watching The Three Stooges. Kick ass childhood memory, I'd say! Slapstick violence and chewy fig cookies! None of this Disney and Oreo bullshit you hear about so often.

Aaaanyways, I digress. Or, actually, I think I'm still on track here. The point is, ever since the tender young age of about 10 or 12 or so, we stopped buying Fig Newtons. Stopped talking about them too. It was subtle, a gentle erasure of something that once it was removed, I didn't really miss that much. I went on with life, stopped watching The Three Stooges as our VHS tapes began to disintegrate, and moved on to bigger and better cookies (Vienna Fingers: He-lloooo!!! Don't get me started). Didn't pay much mind to the lack of F.N.'s around the house, I'll tell you that.

Until this recipe. Hmm, Fig Bars. Yeah, they aren't exactly Fig Newton's (and there is another recipe in the book that seems a lot closer to their Nabsico counterparts), but still--a soft sandwich-bar cookie with a fig filling comprised of not only figs, but honey, spices, and red wine!

It was Father's Day (yeah yeah...ages ago) and these seemed like the perfect cookie to make for my dad. He adored the Prune Rugelach, and so I was going to make the fig Rugelach Fingers, but decided on these instead. And so it was. I made the filling, and it smelled like heaven on earth it was so good. I made the dough, and it smelled like dough, nothin' special.

Ladiez in da kitchen

As for the assembly, it was pretty simple except for one part. You roll out half the dough into a thin, big rectangle--NO PROBZ. Then you roll out the other half likewise--NO PROBZ, pt II. Then you spread the fig filling on one sheet of dough (easy also), but then you have to transfer the other rectangle of dough ON TOP OF the other one, and let's just say that they are a tad delicate. I'm sure all you readers (?) know a bunch of trixy little methods of doing this, and don't worry, I succeeded, but it was a little scary for a minute. But once completed the big flip, I felt like a master chef.

But if only my pride were over creating a tasty cookie, instead of completing a tricky task. You see, the end result...lacked. It was just okay. And it took a lot of work to make these guys! Time and energy that could have been spent trying to download Larry-Moe-Curly episodes from the interwebs! Precious time baby! That's not to say that the cookie didn't taste good--it did--it just wasn't as spectacular as it smelled while I was concocting it. Was it better than a regular old Fig Newton? Yeahhhhh, but it lacked the nostalgia. And high-fructose corn syrup. (Or are those one and the same?)

Aiight, so that's that. Disappointed yet? I am. But I've moved on! And you should learn to do the same, jeez. Don't get so hung up on all the time I wasted--it's not a big deal, alright?? Am I projecting my dismay onto you? Yes? Yes. Whatever, bigger and better next time. Here that Martha? Yeah. You better make a killer Vienna Fingers recipe, or you best check yourself.

Fig Bars

Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
3 cups dried Calimyrna figs
1/4 cup honey
1 cup red wine
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon finely ground pepper

Directions

Cream butter and sugar with the paddle attachment of an electric mixer. Add egg, 1 egg yolk, vanilla, and lemon zest; mix well. Add flour and salt; mix on low speed until dough just comes together. Wrap dough in plastic, and chill until firm, about 1 hour.
To make the filling, combine figs, honey, wine, 1 cup water, cinnamon, and pepper in a small saucepan, and cook over low heat, stirring often, until reduced to a thick paste, about 10 to 15 minutes. Spread filling on a baking sheet to cool.
Divide dough in half. Roll out one half to fit a 10-by-15-inch baking sheet. Pick up dough by wrapping it around a rolling pin, and unroll it onto baking sheet.
Spread fig filling evenly over pastry. Roll out remaining half of dough, and cover filling. Trim excess pastry to make a perfect rectangle. Chill for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Use a paring knife to score dough lightly into 1-by-3-inch bars. Use a fork to prick holes in each bar. Make an egg wash by combining remaining egg yolk with 1 teaspoon water. Lightly brush bars with egg wash. Bake until golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Cut into bars, and let cool.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 4/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 3/5 (I used both Calimyrna figs and Mission figs, whatever)
Tastiness: 3/5
Attractiveness: 2/5
Is it worth it?: Sadly, I don't think so. Takes a lot of time...

{Pairings}
Drink: Apple Juice!
Song: Wild Honey -- The Beach Boys
Activity: Go out and buy some real Fig Newton's

[Cookie 081] Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies

2010-07-07T12:59:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I just want to spontaneously bake something, without any planning. I bet I'm not alone on that one--sometimes you just get the sudden urge to mix together a bunch of butter and sugar and make the kitchen smell delicious, but you don't really have any specific or fancy ingredients on hand. It's times like those that I wish I lived in the storage kitchen on the Martha Stewart show (does that even exist? storage kitchen?). So, when this overpowering desire to bake springs up, you've got to make do with whatever you have and make it work. Sometimes this does not pan out so well (see: Pine Nut Cookies), but other times, like this one, it works out just swell.

The evening that my dad and I made these Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies, we wanted to bake something, but didn't have any dried fruits, nuts, or even baking chocolate for that matter. We did have cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed, however), and we had the basics like sugar, flour, butter, eggs. So we settled on this recipe and got to work. We compromised the Dutch-processed cocoa powder by adding an extra pinch of baking soda to the regular cocoa powder we had on hand. And fortunately we had some vegetable shortening on hand too.

The vegetable shortening I think is the one ingredient that makes these cookies a little different than your average chocolate sugar cookie. It makes the batter taste different (in a good way), and makes the cookies a little richer in a way. It's hard to describe, but I liked it. In some of the extra research on cookie-baking that I occupy my free time with (don't laugh at me, it's not funny), I learned that shortenings have far less water in them compared to butters, so they can be used as a type of fat for cookies that you don't want to spread out too thin. On the other side of the coin, if you want your cookies flat and thin and spread out, you should use a fat with a lot of water in it, such as vegetable oils, etc. Now you know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So it all worked out well considering it was a last minute cookie. It was a super easy recipe that baked up quickly and satisfied our craving for freshly baked cookies in no time. I'd recommend you try the recipe out if you're in the same boat as we were, but if you're looking for a truly outstanding chocolate cookie that will blow people away, I'd suggest something more like the Milk Chocolate Cookies, Grammy's Chocolate Cookies, or Dark Chocolate Cookies with Sour Cherries (those are the best, by farrrr).

Alright, hop to it! I'll see you all soon!

Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Makes 8 (I made smaller ones, and more of them...)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup good-quality unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, substitute 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in shortening (or additional butter). Add egg and vanilla; mix until creamy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until just combined.
Using a 2 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 4 inches apart. Bake until edges are firm, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container up to 2 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 1/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 5/5 (That was the point, wasn't it!)
Tastiness: 3.5/5
Attractiveness: 3/5
Is it worth it?: If you are desperate for a quick, easy, tasty cookie--do it!

{Pairings}
Drink: Milk, it would seem. Or coffee. Nothing like dipping a chocolate cookie into a strong cup o' jo.
Song: Wagon Wheel -- Old Crow Medicine Show (stupid video, douchey-looking singer, amazing song)
Activity: Movie. Sleepover. Something adorable and comforting and slightly nostalgic, like these cookies.

Favorite Cookie [071-080]

2010-06-27T19:36:00.002-04:00

Howdy there! I sure don't got much to say right about now, so let's just get started here. Favorite's of spring/summer oh-ten!

1st place (Blue Ribbon!): Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

These guys were a shoe-in. The only thing I didn't like about them was how they turned me into an absolute monster with an insatiable appetite. Had to get them out of my kitchen if I wanted to ever be able to wear a bikini again. What I'm trying to say is, they're really fucking delicious. That is all.

2nd place (Honorable Mention!): Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies

What I loved about these was how humble they are--unlike the PB&J bars, they don't look over the top, or even that remarkable in any sense. But once you take a bite, they have this really fantastic flavor and perfect snappy crunch to them. The cream cheese really gives the cookies a nice after taste that's almost a little bit sour (in a really good way). I couldn't stop eating these either. I think I'm noticing a pattern in my behavior.

3rd place: Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread

Another subtle cookie that surprised me with its flavors. Not only are these super simple to make (and to make a lot of!), the cornmeal really adds a nice texture to both the outer edge of the cookie as well as the crunchiness on the inside. The flecks of orange zest also give the otherwise plain cookie a nice little decoration.

4th place: Lemon-Apricot Sandwiches

These took a lot of time, but the end result was really pretty and tasty, and perfect for the bridal shower I brought them to. They're definitely a cookie to bring to some sort of party, because people will think you are very talented and sophisticated and fascinating and charming if you do (...or just that you have too much time on your hands, whatever).

5th place: Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

Okay, so the peanut butter filling in these will KILL you, it is just so good. Has that same addictiveness as the PB&J bars. But the chocolate cookies that sandwich this filling are a little too big, fluffy, and dry. I think it's just the ratio of filling to cookie that needs changing: thinner cookies, more filling, and you've got a winning whoopie.

6th place: Lemon Poppyseed Crisps

Mine definitely were not crisps at all, but I can't deny anything that is lemon and poppyseed flavored! These cookies couldn't be easier--seriously, a baby baby could do it. A baby's baby. HAhaha, I'm sorry...

7th place: Chocolate Chip Cookies for Passover

Once again, mine did NOT look like the picture in the book--they spread out thin, instead of forming hearty chunks of cookie dough. Regardless, I really loved how they tasted, and enjoyed feeling super Jew-y in the kitchen with my matzo meal and farfel. The use of oil instead of butter gave the dough a different flavor too, which I liked a lot. As for finding dairy-free chocolate chip cookies, gimme a break. I might be Jewish, but it's more "Jew-ish."

8th place: Buttered Rum Meltaways

These were a bit of a let-down, to be honest. They sounded really great on paper, but once again the rum flavor was all but lost by the time they came out of the oven. Obviously the rum burns off, but there was literally no leftover rum flavor--let alone any flavor for that matter. Needed more spice! More taste!

9th place: Stained Glass Trees

In all honesty, these were very good...for what they are. Maybe it's because I think that candy inside cookies is criminal, but besides my bias, they are actually quite beautiful and unique. So maybe I should have put them before the last cookie. Yeah. Whatever.

10th place (Brown Ribbon!): Double Chocolate Coconut Cookies

Yo, these pissed me off! Whassup Martha, these tasted like AIR. Not really, but still, the ingredients must have worked in reverse and taken flavor away from the cookie instead of adding to it. Dunno what happened here, but it was a big let-down. I'm crying, Martha. Look at what you've done to me!!

****

WHOOP WHOOP!! Look who's more than halfway through the book now! Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Boy-oy-boyo-bobo! Wabba dabababdababdaaaaaaaaokay see you next week.

Cheers.

[Cookie 080] Stained Glass Trees

2010-06-21T14:51:00.005-04:00

Happy Solstice! Happy first day of summer! Are you celebrating? I absolutely am! I'm sitting here in my living room, windows and doors open to the backyard, with The Beach Boy's "Endless Summer" on the turntable. While it's not my favorite Beach Boy's album, it seemed like the thing to do--songs of surfing, sun, summer, sand, and other sibilant synonyms. But, as those of you who live in California can attest, June is never that hot and summery; it's actually a little on the cool side, temperatures staying in the mid-70s with the occasional overcast sky. Weird. But, in my opinion, nothing beats a nice cool breeze as the sun beats down through the smoggy air. None of that nasty humidity that those east-coasters have to suffer through, oh no. Just dry, arid days ahead of me. But until those truly Californian oppressive heat waves really begin to set in, I'll be able to rev up my oven without worrying about dying of heat stroke in my kitchen. Good! Good! That's very promising, don't you agree?

So what's a nice summer cookie? Something colorful? Yeah! Something sweet, like popsicles and snow cones! Something a little childish, because summer is really a season owned by children and childhood memories, right? Something fun to make, definitely not boring or too sophisticated for that matter. Okay, okay, I've got it. Although these Stained Glass Trees might seem like a Christmas cookie, screw it--make them into stars, and you've got an instant 4th of July cookie.

Okay, so I'll admit, these cookies were literally at the bottom of my list. I did not want to make them. Nope, they looked pretty gross in my opinion. Jolly Ranchers in my cookie?! No!! Sounded entirely blasphemous and contrary to all my beliefs regarding the noble baked good that is the Cookie. You don't mix candy and cookies. One or the other, choose. So, I decided to make these and give them away so I wouldn't have to eat them.

So I did just that--I gave them away. But, truth be told, they were actually pretty tasty! Besides being quite beautiful in their own right, the super thin layer of melted Jolly Rancher in the cookie's "window" provides just the right amount of sweetness and delicacy. If the layer of candy was any thicker it would probably be gross and hard to eat, but as it is, the thin glass-like layer melts in your mouth without getting all stuck in your molars. And it shatters in such a fun way when you bite into it--really, just like glass, except totally NOT deadly to eat!! Awesome!! No trips to the hospital! Ok, what I'm trying to say is that these guys were a pleasant surprise and far better than I had expected.

And they are really fun to make: You get to unleash your inner fury and smash the hell out of these candies! I used a big ol' hammer to crush the candies (which are actually a little difficult to break), but that was only after I had tried to break them with the bottom of a can of sardines, which got badly dented. Could have had a really disgusting disaster on my hands if I broke that can. Sardines and Jolly Ranchers. Let's not talk about that.

So, use a hammer. Or rolling pin. Or your BARE HANDS, which I think is what Martha probably did (great mental image, amirite?!). Wouldn't want to mess with her, no no no. Once you've broken them up, you roll out the dough, use your favorite cookie cutter and then take a paring knife or small round cookie cutter to cut out the windows in the center of each cookie. Sprinkle a few chunks of Jolly Rancher into the middles and bake. Use just the blue and red candies inside star-shaped cookies and you are ready for your Independence Day picnic! Or use yellow and purple candies and you can go ape-shit over the Lakers like everyone else in Los Angeles, except myself. Am I really the only person who doesn't give a shit about sports?? Sorry, tangent--back to cookies.

Anyway, I hope you give these cookies a try and not be as judgmental of them as I was when I first laid eyes on the recipe. If you're looking for a good cookie to give to kids, or to make with them, I'd definitely recommend these. But I think grown-ups would like them too--especially grandparents! Aren't grandparents the patron saints of hard candies?

Stay cool, folks...

Stained Glass Trees (or Stars)

Makes about 3 dozen

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
7 ounces assorted clear colored hard candies, such as Jolly Rancher, colors separated and finely chopped (about 30)

Directions

Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder into a large bowl; set aside.
Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg; mix until smooth, 1 minute. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, and mix until combined. Stir in vanilla.Wrap dough in plastic, and refrigerate until cold, about 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.with racks in upper and lower thirds. Roll out chilled dough on a well-floured surface to a little more than 1/8 inch thick. Cut out shapes using a 5-inch tree-shape cookie cutter. Using a metal spatula, space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Using the tip of a paring knife, make a triangular cutout in center of each cookie for candy filling. Reroll scraps, and cut.
Sprinkle candy in a single layer in hole of each cookie, avoiding edges of triangle. Refrigerate until dough is firm, about 15 minutes.
Bake cookies until candy has melted and completely filled cutout and cookie edges are just starting to turn pale golden brown, 11 to 12 minutes. Do not let the cookies brown, or the candy centers may become bubbly. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks. Use a metal spatula to remove cookies from parchment. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3.5/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 5/5
Tastiness: 2.5/5 (The cookie itself has no flavor, a little disappointing)
Attractiveness: 4.5/5
Is it worth it?: Maybe. Not for the taste of the cookie, but worth it for the uniqueness of the end result, I guess.

{Pairings}
Drink: Iced tea! Something cold and refreshing and summery. Maybe this delicious fizzy cucumber drink?
Song: Good Vibrations -- The Beach Boys
Activity: It's time to relax on the back porch, I say. Or don you best bikini and head to the shores!

[Cookie 079] Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread

2010-06-16T15:20:00.007-04:00

Hellloooooooo world!! Risen from the grave, brought back to life, reincarnated into a zombie Cookie Monster, whatever you want to say, I'm really ready to get back in the swing of things (and apparently I don't have a choice, anonymous! You know who you are.). The wedding is over--isn't it weird when you're preparing so long for something so huge, and then it's over in a flash?--and it was amazing and beautiful and really really incredible (click the link for pictures, because those vague adjectives definitely don't do the whole event any justice!). The backyard looked amazing with it's overabundance of sunflowers and other potted blossoms, and the tables were set with centerpieces compiled of a potted sunflower, utensils tied together with twine, chalkboard table numbers, a bottle of cucumber-infused vodka for the wedding toasts, and a bottle of Sriracha! Why the Sriracha? Because......

...THERE WAS A TACO TRUCK IN MY VERY OWN DRIVEWAY! And it was the Kogi Taco Truck no less. I can't begin to describe the feeling that came over me when I witnessed it pull up. My dream come true.

Overall it was an incredible wedding, worth all the stressin' and wigging out that we all did...I think. The after-party was...good, I think. I don't remember a lot of it, so that's either a sign of a good party, or my own bad choices, or both. It was a good choice to drink that cucumber vodka, and I like whiskey too, but I think the Tequila can be labeled as the start of my own bad choices. Post-wedding hangover was a given, but totally worth it. The subsequent mortifying hazy memories that will plague my brain for months to come, maybe not.

But enough about my family's crazy antics (?). I made cookies for this big ol' event--no, no, I did not cater to the entire 120 guests! Just the visiting relatives who received little traveler's goody-bags complete with a bag of 6 Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread cookies.

Were they good? Well, I'll let my 6 year-old cousin (second cousin?) do the talkin': He said that these cookies were the best cookies he had ever had...in his entire LIFE! And that he, not his mom, wanted the recipe. He wanted it. Excellent. Commence baker's-brainwashing!

They were really delicious, it's true. Subtle, with a nice cornmeal texture, and a hint of citrus sweetness. For the first batch, I used lemon zest instead of orange zest, and it definitely wasn't as good as the orange zest ones, which had a much more citrusy flavor. Plus, the orange flecks stand out more than the lemon-yellow ones. Other than that, the recipe is fun to make, and you can keep the dough in the freezer for a while so you can bake them whenever you want. Also, the cookies themselves hold for up to a week, so they're perfect for wrapping up and giving to other people, if that's your thing. Not really my thing, but when called upon I might engage in an act of kindness.

So, in conclusion, make these cookies, and I'll post more often. Deal? Great.

Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread

Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons orange zest
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
1 teaspoon coarse salt

Directions

Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until creamy and smooth, about 2 minutes. Add vanilla and zest. Mix until combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour, 2 tablespoons cornmeal, and salt; mix until well combined, about 3 minutes. Halve dough; shape each into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Place remaining 1/4 cup cornmeal on a sheet of parchment paper. Roll in cornmeal to coat. Cut into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, and space them 1 inch apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake until pale golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool on sheet on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 2/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 3.5/5 (just the almond flour and proper jam!)
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 4/5
Is it worth it?: Yep!

{Pairings}
Drink: A shot of that delicious cucumber vodka--try it!
Song: Surprise! Opinions?
Activity: It's marryin' season, right? Right?? Yeah!

[Cookie 078] Lemon-Apricot Sandwiches

2010-06-05T17:03:00.003-04:00

So, things have been a little hectic round these parts, which I'll use as my excuse for lack of posting (I'll always have an excuse...always). My brother is getting married next weekend, and in our very own backyard no less, so we've been going crazy prepping and setting up for a party of 120+ guests, which will all be catered by Kogi Korean BBQ (taco) Truck. Which will be parked in our driveway. Can't wait for the entire block to smell like kimchi!!!!! But really, as any other LA eater will attest, this taco truck is off the hook.

Right, anyway, last weekend was the bridal shower, so I of course jumped at the idea to make a batch of cookies for the party. I think and I think--what would be the perfect bridal shower/girly brunch cookie? Something not too intense and decadent, something easy to eat and pick at, dainty, pretty, girly, tasty. Oh, I've got it! Lemon-Apricot Sandwiches: they are light and fluted, dusted with powdered sugar, and have the perfect summery flavors.

I turn to the page, and what do you know, the description even suggests making these for bridal and baby showers! Martha, girl, you and me are two peas in a pod baby! I think I am finally starting to channel her twisted wisdom. I smell a collab project!! I'll have my people your people, aiight Big M? Good.

The recipe for the dough is simple and straightforward. You need to have almond flour (which is the same as almond meal, which is what I used), but that can be a little bit pricey depending on where you shop. You can always grind up raw almonds in a food processor to get the same product, but that's probably even more expensive. But don't substitute it with regular flour: the almond flour gives the cookie a great flavor that without it would leave the cookies really bland.

Okay, so the dough's chillin' in the fridge, and now you're ready to make the filling. One thing: I bought Apricot PRESERVE which is most definitely not the same thing as jam. Not advisable. Preserves are way more syrupy and, at least with the kind I got from Trader Joe's, will drip out of the sandwiched cookies and get all over your hands and be disgusting. At this point, after I had strained the preserves and added the lemon, I realized I had a major problem on my hands, and elbows and forearms and mouth (heehee). My mom and I tried everything: boiling and reducing it down; adding cornstarch; refrigeration. Nothing worked. So we pitched it and used some straight up marmalade from the jar, and added the lemon juice. This worked perfectly, but we had to avoid scooping up too much orange rinds because it made the cookies hard to sandwich. Other than that, it made a really tasty cookie and was the perfect consistency for sandwiching!

By this point all that needs to be done is the final dusting of powdered sugar on top. Tres jolie. Oui. And off we went to the bridal shower. Cookies were a hit. Alongside some divine coconut cupcakes. Perfect combination. Perfect little party. Good good good! Now I gots to make some more cookies for the visiting guest's gift bags. Busy lady, I am.

Oh, and one last thing! Once you fill the cookies, they really should be eaten that day. That being said, you can store the dough (before baking) in the freezer for a good long while, and even keep the baked cookie rounds in an airtight container for up to 3 days without the filling in them. They store/stack adorably too:

In conclusion, as long as you use a good hearty jam for the filling, you'll end up with some really lovely cookies to snack on. I suggest you give it a try. I do I do. But now I shall leave you in peace, Tu es vraiment dégueulasse.

Lemon-Apricot Sandwiches

Makes 20

Ingredients

1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, plus more for dusting
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons, plus 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup apricot jam

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flours, cornstarch, and salt in a medium bowl.
Put butter, sugars, lemon zest, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, mixing well after each addition.Cover dough with plastic wrap; refrigerate 30 minutes.
Place cold dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper, and roll out to 1/8 inch thick. Transfer dough on parchment to a baking sheet; freeze 10 minutes.
Using a fluted 1 7/8-inch round cutter, cut out dough; transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets. Reroll scraps, and cut out (you should have 40 rounds). Bake until pale golden, 10 to 11 minutes. Let cool slightly on sheets on wire racks. Transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.
Using a rubber spatula, press the jam through a fine sieve into a small bowl. Stir in remaining tablespoon lemon juice. Spread 1 teaspoon jam mixture on flat side of half of the cookies, and sandwich with the remaining cookies. Dust with confectioners' sugar.

****

{End Results}
Baking Difficultly: 3/5
Ingredient Accessibility: 2.5/5 (just the almond flour and proper jam!)
Tastiness: 4/5
Attractiveness: 4.5/5
Is it worth it?: I'm sure you'll have an event that these are just perfect for, but even if you don't, they're worth it!

{Pairings}
Drink: A Mimosa! Or maybe just some light tea...
Song: Dracula's Wedding -- Outkast (cool video!)
Activity: Definitely an outdoor brunch, with quiches. Something painfully girly...