Monday, December 21, 2009
Aren’t these cookies pretty? Don’t they just look like cookies baked by someone who can do no wrong in the kitchen? Well my friends, let me tell you, everyone has their successes and failures. Unfortunately, I failed more than I succeeded here. I don’t think I rolled the cookies out evenly, and I baked them a little too long, and out of all the cookies that had the cutouts, only FOUR did not burn. Yes. That’s right, I said four. You don’t believe me? Just look at this.
So, what did I do? Did I cry? Nope, I just laughed. And I learned my lesson, keep an eye on the oven!
Personally, I love cookies of all kind. These buttery, delicious, slightly crisp cookies are were a fun & yummy cookie in my opinion. The Boy on the other hand, only wants a cookie if it’s soft and chewy, so he wasn’t a fan of these. Especially if he was given the option between these and the Espresso Snowcaps! But that’s fine with me, because after giving the 4 away to my good friends, I had just enough of the solid, non-cutout cookies that did NOT burn to enjoy for myself!
Linzer Sables
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups finely ground almonds, hazelnuts, or walnuts
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
scant 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 large egg
2 teaspoons water
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup raspberry jam or strained apricot jam plus 1 teaspoon water
Directions:
Whisk together the ground nuts, flour, cinnamon, salt, and cloves. Using a fork, stir the egg and water together in a small bowl.
Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add the egg mixture and beat for 1 minute more. Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear into the dough. Don’t work the dough too much once the flour is incorporated. If the dough comes together but some dry crumbs remain in the bottom of the bowl, stop the mixer and finish blending the ingredients with a rubber spatula or your hands.
Divide the dough in half. Working with one half at a time, put the dough between two large sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap. Using your hands, flatten the dough into a disk, then grab a rolling pin and roll out the dough, turning it over frequently so that the paper doesn’t cut into it, until it is about 1/4-inch thick. Leave the dough in the paper and repeat with the second piece of dough. Transfer the wrapped dough to a baking sheet or cutting board (to keep it flat) and refrigerate or freeze it until it is very firm, about 2 hours in the refrigerator or 45 minutes in the freezer. The rolled-out dough can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or the freezer for up to 2 months. Just thaw the dough enough to cut and go from there.
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375° F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
Peel off the top sheet of waxed paper from one piece of dough and, using a 2-inch round cookie cutter—a scalloped cutter is nice for these—cut out as many cookies as you can. If you want to have a peekaboo cutout, use the end of a piping tip to cut out a very small circle from the centers of half the cookies. Transfer the rounds to the baking sheets, leaving a little space between the cookies. Set the scraps aside—you can combine them with the scraps of the second disk and roll out and cut more cookies.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 11 to 13 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden, dry, and just firm to the touch. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to room temperature.
Repeat with the second disk of dough, making sure to cool the baking sheets between batches. Gather the scraps of dough together, press them into a disk, roll them between sheets of waxed paper and refrigerate until firm, then cut and bake.
Place the jam in a small saucepan or in a microwaveable bowl and stir in the 1 teaspoon water. Bring to a boil over low heat or in the microwave. Let the jam cool slightly, then turn half of the cookies flat side up and place about 1/2 teaspoon jam in the center of each cookie; sandwich with the remaining cookies.
Just before serving, dust with confectioner’s sugar.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
It’s amazing how much my life has changed since I began food blogging. (And I’m not talking about the extra poundage around my middle…) When I first began blogging, I wasn’t all that much into baking, I never knew you could make your own marshmallows, and I wasn’t very experimental in the kitchen (and if I was, it was rarely a success). Once I realized it was possible to make your own marshmallows, I tried it, killed my cheap hand mixer, bought a stand mixer, and have just continued to expand my culinary horizons from there!
Another discovery I’ve made while food blogging, is french macarons. For a while there it seemed they were all over the place, just like marshmallows had been a couple months before. It seemed they were a little difficult to make. Plus the recipes were often in grams, and I don’t have a food scale (Santa can you hear me?). So, one day when I was at a local bakery, in queue to buy a loaf of sweet potato pecan bread, I noticed the macarons eyeing me. As luck would have it, once I made it up to the cashier I discovered they were out of the bread I wanted. So, to not make my wait in vain, I ordered a french macaron. I honestly don’t even remember which one it was. All I know is that is was my first, and it was AMAZING! Wow… it melted in my mouth, with some richness & sweetness. I tweeted about it.
My friend, and amazing food blogger/graphic designer/small business owner extraordinaire, Lindsay of Love and Olive Oil, saw my tweet and asked if I wanted to make macarons with her! So we had a little macaron Sunday session, and ummm… We tried! We didn’t know what we were doing too much, but we made a mess and we ate some yummy, albeit messy cookies.
As with many things I make/bake on here, everything is a learning process. Here’s what we learned:
Almond moisture may have something to do with our success. We were more successful with almond meal/flour than we were with blanched, shelled almonds ground in the food processor.
Slow & low tends to work better. Especially because these can appear to be done, even if they are not.
Ganache can basically make anything better.
Ugly can still be mighty tasty.
So stay tuned… We think there’s a round 2 in our future, and we’ll take what we learned, and hopefully have a little more success. Because, the cookies at the top of the post, yeah, those 4 were the only pretty ones! But we had fun, and most often that’s the most important thing, right?
Be sure to head over to Lindsay’s blog to check out her post about our experience!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Apparently I promised The Boy I would make a dessert for his work potluck. (I claim it was a promise I made in my sleep, under the influence of a sleeping pill) Normally I would be really excited to figure out some new, fun dessert to make. But the glitch here was, his party was on a Friday, at noon. And… If you read this blog at all, you should know that I work an incredibly erratic work schedule that ends on Thursday night, technically the wee hours of Friday. I do ALL my baking between late Friday night and Sunday. The LAST thing I wanted to do was come home at 2am and wait for eggs & butter to come to room temp, and then beat this, whisk that, and wait for it to bake. So I climbed up on my counter, scoured the cabinets, and realized I had some sweetened condensed milk. I found a recipe on Eagle Brand’s website for fudge that seemed really easy, so fudge it was!
Of course, I couldn’t just make fudge. I mean, I’m ERIN, I have to try some kinda twist on it! So I crushed 5 candy canes in my Magic Bullet Blender, and mixed 1/2 into the fudge, and the other half sprinkled on top. I think it made for some very pretty & festive fudge! I also subbed 1 tsp peppermint extract for the vanilla. In the past I have tried to exchange vanilla for peppermint equally, and wasn’t a fan of the overpowering flavor. In this fudge, the peppermint flavor came from both the candy canes, and the extract. It was the perfect balance for my tastes. And one last optional tip, I added 2 tsp of instant espresso powder, because my original plan was peppermint mocha flavor. It wasn’t quite enough espresso to give the fudge that specific mocha flavor (perhaps I should experiment a little more for that one), but as I learned Friday morning (well after the fudge was set) from TheKitchn, espresso helps give the chocolate an extra kick to get the best flavor. I love it when I have a little serendipity in the kitchen!
Oh, and one more thing… I was sort of hoping for some leftovers, but apparently, this fudge went over pretty well. Not a single piece was left!
Candy Cane Fudge
Ingredients:
3 cups (18 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli)
1 (14 oz.) can fat free sweetened condensed milk
Dash salt
2 tsp instant espresso powder, or instant coffee *optional* (I do a quick swirl in the Magic Bullet Blender, to be sure this is as finely ground as possible)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
5 peppermint candy canes, crushed
Directions:
Line 8- or 9-inch pan with wax paper.
Melt chocolate with sweetened condensed milk, salt, and espresso powder in a heavy saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and peppermint extracts, and half the crushed candy canes. Spread evenly in prepared pan. Top with the rest of the candy cane crumbs.
Chill 2 hours or until firm. (Mine set at room temperature for about 6 hours while I slept) Remove from pan by lifting edges of wax paper; peel off paper. Cut into squares.
**This time last year, I sent off these DELICIOUS Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies to The Boy’s Christmas party. Man oh MAN were those good!**
Friday, December 18, 2009
One of the reasons I blog is to save recipes. Often it’s recipes from a publication, such as Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, Gourmet; or from another blog source, such as TheKitchn, Serious Eats, or a blogger like Smitten Kitchen. Not nearly as often as I’d like, it could be from a family member. This recipe is very special to me. I received this recipe handwritten. It came in the mail, not an EMAIL, but in a real envelope with a stamp. And it included a note on stationary that said “From the desk of…”
Growing up, I always looked forward to my Grandma’s boiled custard on Christmas Eve. It was an after-dinner ritual to get out the chocolate pie, the sugar cookies, and best of all, the boiled custard. It was always accompanied by these little plastic Christmas cups. If you’ve never had boiled custard, I’m not quite sure how to describe it. I’ve been told it’s like eggnog without the spices and alcohol. One thing is for sure… it’s really rich! I would pour a tiny bit, and sip it slowly. Then I would turn the cup completely upside down and try to get gravity on my side to help get the last remaining bit out. I would let that sweetness settle, then without fail, 20 minutes later I’d do it all again. There’s no telling how much custard I ended up drinking, because lots of little portions add up!
I’m so thankful my Grandma wrote down the recipe and mailed it to me, because now this is a tradition I can carry on. This is truly a recipe I plan on saving forever.
Boiled Custard
Ingredients:
1/2 gallon whole milk
2 cups sugar
5 eggs (my mother instructed me to remove the chalaza from the eggs)
2 tsp vanilla
Directions:
In a double boiler warm milk over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Separately, in medium bowl beat eggs. Add sugar to eggs and beat until fluffy.
When milk is hot and steamy (approx 115 degrees on a candy thermometer), slowly add a little to the eggs. Stir well, and continue to slowly add enough milk until eggs are warm. Add back to the milk mixture. Stir constantly while cooking, until mixture coats the back of a spoon (it should be approx 180 degrees, this took around 25-30 minutes for me).
Remove from heat add vanilla, and stir occasionally as it cools. (I just went back in the kitchen ever 5-10 minutes to stir) Store in the milk container (this is how my grandma always store it!). If mixture is lumpy, strain it before putting it in container.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
There are cookies, and there are CHRISTMAS COOKIES . I love baking treats during the holiday season that I wouldn’t get the chance to otherwise, like my Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies, Buttered Rum Meltaways, and Gingerbread White Chocolate Blondies. Snowcaps, now, that sure doesn’t sound like a cookie you’d bake in June! From the moment I saw these cookies, I knew I’d be baking them this Christmas. The only problem was, that gave me a lot of time to think about how badly I wanted one.
I’m happy to report that these cookies are actually better than I’d hoped! The end result is a cookie that is so soft and chewy, it’s almost brownie-like. The espresso adds a definite complexity that really pushes these cookies a step beyond your average chocolate crinkle cookies. One of the great things about this cookie is, you can make the dough a couple days in advance and then just roll out and bake them when you need them.
As a warning, these get a little bit messy in the rolling process. I would scoop the dough with my medium cookie scoop, then roll it into a ball, and roll the ball around in the powdered sugar. I ended up licking and then washing my hands every 3-4 cookies. Other than slight mess, these were a fun cookie to make, and I can’t wait to make them again next year. Hurry up, your window of opportunity to make these this year is running out!
Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps
Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 teaspoons instant espresso
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 cup confectioners sugar, for coating
Directions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, espresso, baking powder, and salt. With an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg until well combined; mix in cooled chocolate. With mixer on low speed, gradually add dry ingredients; beat in milk just until combined. Flatten dough into a disk; wrap in plastic. Freeze until firm, about 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl; working in batches, roll balls in sugar twice.
Place balls on prepared baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies have spread and coating is cracked, 12 to 14 minutes; cookies will still be soft to the touch. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
**This time last year I posted my sister’s Graham Cracker Candy. Wonder what that is? Go check it out, but I’m warning you, it’s addictive, LIKE CRACK!**
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