TWD: Honey-Wheat Cookies

This week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was Honey-Wheat Cookies, chosen by Michelle of Flourchild. You can find the recipe on her blog or on page 81 of Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From My Home to Yours."


These remind me that the word "cookie" comes from a Dutch word for "little cakes." They are soft, puffy, and very cake-like when they come out of oven. After a day or two, they are still soft but more chewy, and the honey flavor comes to the fore. At first bite they are home-style, unassuming cookies -- very nice, but nothing to scream and moan about. Watch out, though, because they sneak up on you. Next thing you know you are coming back for another one...and then another...


Here are my unbaked cookies, about to be frozen and then stored in freezer bags. It's a great way to have cookies on hand when you want them! You can bake them right out of the freezer.

I didn't make any changes to this recipe at all -- unusual for me. Since we usually have only raw wheat germ (stored in the refrigerator so it doesn't get rancid), I toasted the wheat germ lightly in a pan before using it. That was a good idea and next time I might toast it even a bit more. Also I might reduce the sugar slightly and experiment with different flavors of honey.

I do like cookies with more "crunch," though, which led to the following idea for an adaptation -- honey-almond. Substitute the wheat germ in the dough with toasted almond meal or finely ground almonds. Roll the cookies in chopped toasted almonds, or for a deluxe version, chopped honey-glazed Marcona almonds. Maybe flavor with a combination of orange and lemon zest, or some Fiori di Sicilia flavoring. What do you think?

TWD: Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

For the February 3rd "Tuesdays with Dorie," the recipe was "Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia," chosen by Tanya of Chocolatechic.


Fudgey, gooey brownies -- who can resist? After reading the comments on the Problems and Questions, I decided to bake these in a 9x13 pan rather than a 9x9 pan. I'm glad I did. Even in the larger pan, they took about 30 minutes to bake, and were quite fudgey.

Also thanks to Nancy who reminded us all about the "divot test" from King Arthur Flour's Web site. Definitely the best way to test brownies for done-ness!

I lined my pan with a "sling" of non-stick aluminum foil, which made it a snap to take them out.

The picture above is of the very last ones. Many of them went into a bake sale at work. The ones left at home disappeared fast!

It's interesting to compare this recipe to Nick Malgieri's "Supernatural Brownies," which are also favorites of mine. Both recipes use the same amount of eggs, flour, butter, and sugar, although Dorie uses all white sugar and Nick uses a mixture of white and brown (nice idea). The amounts of salt and vanilla are slightly different. For chocolate, Dorie uses 4 oz. unsweetened and 2 oz. bittersweet, while Nick uses 8 oz. bittersweet. How to compare? Well, let's assume we're using 60% bittersweet -- then Dorie's chocolate is pretty much equivalent to 5.2 oz. unsweetened plus 0.8 oz. sugar, while Nick's is 4.8 oz. unsweetened plus 3.2 oz. sugar. On the other hand, if we went for a 70% bittersweet chocolate, Dorie's is 5.4 oz. unsweetened plus 0.6 oz. sugar, and Nick's is 5.6 oz. unsweetened plus 2.4 oz. sugar. Either way, Nick's recipe is sweeter. The chocolate amounts are close -- the exact comparison would depend on the chocolate you use.

So, what did we think of Dorie's brownies? They were not too sweet, quite chocolate-y and almost too gooey. My notes for next time say to decrease the butter by 2-4 tablespoons and increase the flour by 2 tablespoons. I may try using a bit of brown sugar. I'm not sure the whole business of whipping up the eggs and sugar really makes a difference. It would be interesting to make two half-batches and compare. Definitely, for a whole batch, bake in the larger 9x13 pan!

TWD 2-in-1: Pecan Pie and Café Volcano Cookies

Wow, has it really been more than a month since I last posted? Yikes!

I've been baking, just not posting. So, let's get caught up with my Tuesdays with Dorie baking. Here's what I did in December -- Dorie's Café Volcano Cookies and My Favorite Pecan Pie.

The "Café Volcano Cookies" were chosen for the TWD recipe of December 15, 2009, by MacDuff of Lonely Sidecar. They were a great way to use up some of the egg whites left over from the Sablés of the week before.


These were crunchy little things! I've heard this style of cookie called a "rocher" in French -- which translates as "rock" or "boulder." Well, they weren't that hard, but I can see where the name comes from. And in Italy there's a similar cookie called "Brutti ma Buoni" ("ugly but good") -- also apt.


I added a little cocoa powder, but next time I'd leave that out. I think they'd be better just espresso-flavored. I liked them a lot. Jim didn't like them at all. Oh well.

On to the next recipe -- Dorie's "My Favorite Pecan Pie" was chosen for December 22, 2009, by Beth of Someone's in the Kitchen with Brina. This was a hit with both of us! The addition of espresso powder and chopped chocolate cuts the usual sweetness of pecan pie and makes it really good. I made a half-recipe in a half-size pie pan.


Next time, though, I think I'd cut the espresso and chocolate in half and add a few more pecans. We both thought it would have been better that way, at least for our tastes. But it was still really, really good.


OK, on to catch-up for January! See you soon!

TWD Follow-Up: Sablé Science Experiments

This week's TWD recipe inspired me to try some variations.

Since I studied science in college, and have a number of scientists and engineers in my ancestry, I decided to do some science experiments with these sablés. What would happen if I varied just one ingredient? Such as the type of flour, or sugar, or egg?

First experiment: type of flour. What happens if you use flour with a different protein content? I made one half-batch with unbleached all-purpose flour and one with unbleached pastry flour, measuring the flour by weight. Both were lemon-flavored and shaped into logs.


The ones with the yellow dot on top were the pastry flour ones. (The dot was made with egg, water and food coloring beaten together).

Results: unfortunately I underbaked the all-purpose flour batch a bit. This made comparing the two more difficult. Drat. Next time, I must remember to bake some of each batch at once. Because of the underbaking, the all-purpose flour ones were a bit doughy in the center. But by tasting just around the edges, I could make a pretty good comparison. The pastry flour ones were just a tiny bit more tender, the all-purpose flour ones were just a tad more chewy. But the difference was very slight and both were good. I also noticed that the pastry flour ones spread a bit more. This might be because lower-protein flour absorbs a bit less water, making the dough slightly more moist.

Second experiment: type of egg. I made two half-batches, one using an egg yolk (19 grams), one using one-half a whole egg (25 grams). Both were lime-flavored and used my standard "pastry and tender cookie" mixture of half all-purpose flour and half pastry flour. (I used the zest of one small lime for each half-batch.)


Results: The ones with the green dot were the whole-egg batch. There was a definite visual difference here -- the whole-egg ones were a stickier dough, spread more, and had a more open texture. The little rectangles were actually the same size and shape before baking. Part of this difference might have been because of the extra 6 grams of liquid egg; some was probably due to the difference in fat and emulsifier content. (Egg yolks have more fat and more natural emulsifiers.) Taste tests showed the whole-egg cookies were more crisp and light, while the egg-yolk ones were more smooth, rich and suave, but still "sandy". The taste difference was small but the texture difference was quite noticeable.

Third experiment: type of sugar. I made one half-batch with the mixture of granulated sugar and confectioners' sugar that Dorie recommends, and another using an equal weight of all superfine sugar. These were unflavored. Both batches were made with blended all-purpose/pastry flour, and with 20 grams of whole egg.


Results: Well, I forgot to label the rolls! I guess I was running out of energy at that point. So I don't know if the green cookies or the red cookies have the original sugar mixture. Sigh. Reducing the whole egg to 20 grams did solve the problem of the really sticky dough, but both batches still spread more and had a more crisp, open texture than the egg yolk ones. But the good news was, I couldn't tell any difference between the red and green ones. The textures were the same.

Overall Conclusions:

1) Unbleached all-purpose flour vs. unbleached pastry-flour -- the difference is barely noticeable.

2) Egg yolks vs. whole eggs -- the difference is noticeable. Just egg yolks give a cookie that spreads less with a more firm, even, but still "sandy" texture. The egg whites in the whole egg make for a crisper, more open-textured dough that spreads more. These things are always a matter of taste, and I liked them both. I have a feeling the egg yolk ones are more authentic, but personally I liked the crisp texture of the whole-egg ones. Just be sure to use the same amount of egg by weight or volume - about 38-40 grams for a whole recipe.

3) I couldn't tell the difference between the mixed-sugar batch and the superfine sugar batch. So, take your pick. It's easy to make your own superfine sugar by grinding regular sugar in a food processor. It would be interesting to compare a batch with all granulated sugar and all confectioners' sugar -- I'm sure that would make a difference.

And hey, what about comparing different regular butter to cultured butter to high-fat Euro-style butter? These cookies are so simple that they really reveal the differences in ingredients.

Other thoughts -- I would like these a just bit less sweet. I'm going to reduce the total amount of sugar down to about half the weight of the butter -- say, 100-110 grams for a whole batch. That's just a matter of my personal preference. I've made shortbread this way and the sweetness level was just right for my taste.

Also, the lemon and lime flavors were pretty subtle. I might increase the amount of zest next time -- I like my citrus cookies zingy!

TWD: Sablés

This week's recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie is for the French shortbread-style cookies known as Sablés, chosen by -- me! (For the recipe, scroll down to the bottom of this post.)


When I joined TWD in June of 2008, I wasn't really concerned about when I would get to choose a recipe. I figured I'd just try these blogging and bake-along activities for a while and see if I liked them. And the rest is history...

Thank you to our founder Laurie and all the TWD bakers for such a great time! I hope you enjoyed these cookies and look forward to seeing all your variations. I made three batches -- plain sablés rolled in colored sugar, lemon sablés, and lime sablés shaped as rectangles. (I used whole beaten egg rather than egg yolk to brush the outsides of the sugared ones. I have too many left-over egg whites already!)

Why do some of them have yellow or green dots on top, you may ask? Good question! Come back Tuesday evening for my post on the results of the Sablé Scientific Experiments. (Sorry, it took until Wednesday but the results are up now.)

Meanwhile, here are three hints for shaping cookie dough logs. This first one is from one of Nick Malgieri's cookbooks -- put the dough on wax paper, wrap the paper around and leave a "tail" (see picture), and use something thin and firm to push/pull the roll into shape. (I used a thin plastic cutting mat.) Push your mat (or whatever) into the fold of the wax paper and gently pull the bottom layer of wax paper towards you. Don't be too vigorous or you'll tear the wax paper (parchment is stronger, but more expensive).

Tightening the roll

Second, here's a nice way to make sure your logs don't flatten out when you chill them -- cut open the cardboard tube from the center of a paper towel roll, and use it to hold the wrapped dough until it is firm.

And when you slice the rolls, rotate them a bit after every one or two cuts. It keeps them from flattening too much on one side.

Edited to add: thanks to the folks who noticed that these last two hints are also in Dorie's book, on page 137.

For the rectangular lime sablés, I used Dorie's trick from the Pecan Shortbreads on page 127, and put the dough into two small plastic bags to chill. I ended up with two rectangles, each about 6 inches by 6 1/2 inches. Then I used a ruler and a long knife to cut them into smaller rectangles.

Sablé shaping tools

How do they taste? Well, they've only been out of the oven an hour or so. They're good now, but I know from previous experience that Dorie is right -- they are much better the next day. It's so hard to wait...

Recipe

from "Baking: From My Home to Yours," pages 131-133
by Dorie Greenspan
(Note: weights added by Bungalow Barbara)

Sablés, rich, tender shortbread cookies, are as popular in France as chocolate chip cookies are in America. And for several good reasons: the pure flavor of butter, the cookie's key player; a paradoxical but paradisical texture -- the cookie is both crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth tender; and it has an anytime rightness that makes it as perfect with a tall glass of milk, a bowl of ice cream or a basket of berries as it is on a petits fours tray in France's grandest restaurants. I learned to make sablés in Paris working with some of the city's best pâtissiers, and this master recipe is based on what they taught me -- the Playing Around variations are my American riffs on their standard.

The dough for sablés is shaped into logs and then sprinkled with sugar before it is sliced and baked. During the year, I coat the logs with sparkly white decorating sugar. When the holidays come around, I double the recipe and go mad with color, sprinkling some of the logs with brilliant red sugar, some with green and some with a rainbow mix. Trimmed in color and packed in festive tins, these make terrific Christmas cookies.

If you're new to sablés, take a look at the pointers (below) before you set to work.

2 sticks (1 cup / 8 ounces / 227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar (3.5 oz. / 100 gm.)
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted (1.0 oz. / 28 gm.)
1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks (7 teaspoons / 35 ml. / 1.3 oz. / 37 gm.), at room temperature, plus 1 large egg yolk, for brushing the logs
2 cups all-purpose flour (9.6 oz. / 272 gm.)
Decorating (coarse) sugar

Makes about 50 cookies

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars and salt and beat until well blended, about 1 minute. The mixture should be smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 2 of the egg yolks, again beating until the mixture is homogeneous.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and the counter from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek -- if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. (If most of the flour is incorporated but you've still got some in the bottom of the bowl, use a rubber spatula to work the rest of the flour into the dough.) The dough will not clean the sides of the bowl, nor will it come together in a ball -- and it shouldn't. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you're aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy (rather than smooth) dough. Pinch it, and it will feel a little like Play-Doh.

This is how you want your dough to look. (This is a half-batch.)

Scrape the dough out onto a smooth work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long: it's easiest to work on a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to help form the log. Wrap the logs well and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours, preferably longer. (The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.)

GETTING READY TO BAKE: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Remove a log of dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it and place it on a piece of parchment or wax paper. Whisk the remaining egg yolk until it is smooth, and brush some of the yolk all over the sides of the dough -- this is the glue -- then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with decorating sugar.

Trim the ends of the roll if they're ragged, and slice the log into 1/3-inch-thick cookies. (You can make these as thick as 1/2 inch or as thin as -- but no thinner than -- 1/4 inch.) Place the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving an inch of space between them.

Bake one sheet at a time for 17 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the midway point. When properly baked, the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top; they may feel tender when you touch the top gently, and that's fine. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest a minute or two before carefully lifting them onto a rack with a wide metal spatula to cool to room temperature.
(Note from Barbara: mine only took about 14-15 minutes to bake. I did slice them fairly thin.)

Repeat with the remaining log of dough, making sure the baking sheets are cool before you bake the second batch.

SERVING: Serve these with anything from lemonade to espresso.

STORING: The cookies will keep in a tin at room temperature for about 5 days. If you do not sprinkle the sablés with sugar, they can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months. Because the sugar will melt in the freezer, the decorated cookies are not suitable for freezing.

Playing Around

LEMON SABLÉS: Working in a small bowl, using your fingers, rub the grated zest of 1 to 1 1/2 lemons (depending on your taste) into the granulated sugar until the sugar is moist and very aromatic, then add this and the confectioners' sugar to the beaten butter. (Sablés can also be made with orange or lime zest; vary the amount of zest as you please.)

PECAN SABLÉS: Reduce the amount of flour to 1 1/2 cups, and add 1/2 cup very finely ground pecans to the mixture after you have added the sugars. (In place of pecans, you can use ground almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts.) If you'd like, instead of sprinkling the dough logs with sugar, sprinkle them with very finely chopped pecans or a mixture of pecans and sugar.

SPICE SABLÉS: Whisk 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg into the flour.

PARMESAN SABLÉS: For savory sablés that are ideal with aperitifs, omit both the granulated and confectioners' sugar and add 3/4 cup (2 1/4 ounces) very finely grated Parmesan to the beaten butter. These are fine plain, but the logs can also be brushed with beaten egg yolk and sprinkled with finely chopped almonds. If you love salt, press a few grains of fleur de sel gently into the top of each sablé before slipping the baking sheet into the oven.

Tips for Shortbreads and Sablés, from p. 124 of "Baking: From My Home to Yours"

What you call the fabulously buttery, slightly gritty, tender, sandy-textured cookies that are so right with tea or coffee may depend on where you live. In France, the cookies are known as sablés, galettes or palets; in Scotland, they're shortbread; and here, at home, they are shortbread, sand tarts or simply butter cookies.

At their most elemental and traditional, shortbreads and their kin are made of butter, sugar -- either granulated or confectioners', or a combination of the two -- and flour. And, although some recipes have an egg or two, or maybe just yolks, it's not the eggs that define the cookies, it's the other ingredients and, most important, how you handle them.

Here's all you need to know to get perfectly crumbly shortbread or sablés every time.

• Use fresh butter that is soft, but not at all greasy -- if your butter is sitting in an oily puddle, it's gone too soft and your sablés won't have their characteristic sandiness.

• Don't beat the butter (or the butter, sugar and eggs) so enthusiastically that the mixture is light and fluffy. You don't want to beat air into this dough, because it would cause the cookies to puff as they bake in the oven and sink as they cool on the counter.

• Be soft and gentle when you blend in the flour. This is the make-or-break step in the process. With the word "sandy" singing in your head, add the flour all at once and mix it only until it disappears into the dough. To guard against overmixing, you can mix in the last of the flour by hand.

• Shape the dough as the recipe directs and then make sure to give it a good, long chill; it will improve the flavor of the cookies and help them keep their shape under the oven's heat. Try to refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours, but know that longer is better.

• Cool the cookies completely before you serve them. As seductive as the smell of warm butter, sugar and flour is, the cookies taste better when they reach room temperature.

You can also find the recipe at this link on the NPR web site (scroll down a bit). And for tips on cookie-baking in general, see this link. Edited to add: thanks for the folks who spotted the recipe at this link as well -- and see the article, too!

TWD on Sunday: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

This month, we're allowed to bake out of order for "Tuesdays with Dorie." So I chose the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies, chosen by Pamela of Cookies with Boys for November 17. You will be able to find the recipe over on her blog soon.


Other than using part whole wheat flour, I followed the recipe. Love the addition of ground black pepper! The dough was very sticky. Instead of making 24 cookies, I divided the dough into smaller pieces and made 36 cookies. Good thing I did, as they wouldn't have fit into my cookie jar otherwise! And even though they were smaller, I could only fit 9 per baking sheet. They spread a whole lot.

Here's my first attempt, with 12 per sheet.

Next try, 9 per sheet. Better.

I'm still looking for my ultimate ginger cookie recipe. It should be thicker than this recipe, less sweet, and more gingery. Crunchy on the edges and chewy on the inside.

Until then, these were mighty good!

Using up egg whites: Amaretti made with almond paste

Three out of four of this month's Tuesdays with Dorie recipes leave you with left-over egg whites. Argh! I already have three one-cup containers of frozen egg whites in storage! It's time to start using up the egg whites.



For my first try, I decided to make some home-made Amaretti cookies. As they were going to be part of the Chocolate Amaretti Torte for Tuesdays with Dorie, I wanted to make them dry and crunchy, so I put them back into the warm oven to dry out after baking them. This worked very well. They ended up like dry, crunchy rocks with just a faint trace of "chew" at the center. My husband was disappointed -- he wanted to eat some of them! Next time I will save some for eating and only dry out part of the batch.

There are a lot of Amaretti recipes out there on the Web. I based my version on these three, but reduced the sugar a lot.
From Joy of Baking: http://www.joyofbaking.com/AmarettiCookies.html
From MyRecipes: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1545760
From Solo Foods: http://solofoods.com/Almond_Macaroons.aspx

Recipe and directions:

1 8-ounce can (227 gm) almond paste (I used Solo brand)
1/2 cup (100 gm) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large egg whites (60 gm)
more granulated sugar for sprinkling

Place almond paste into food processor fitted with metal blade. Pulse to break up the paste until it looks like coarse crumbs. Add sugar and salt and pulse until it looks like fine crumbs. With processor running, add egg whites in 4 additions. The mixture may form a ball at first, but once you've added all the egg whites, it should become softer. Process another minute or two. It should be a smooth, soft paste.

Scrape into a pastry bag fitted with 1/2-inch round tip (or smaller for minis) or with a coupler. Put some plastic wrap over the open tip of the bag, fold down the top of the bag, and refrigerate for 2 hours or so to let the sugar finish dissolving.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone sheets. Preheat oven to 325 F. Pipe into small balls about 1 inch across. (I ended up with 27 of them. Your results may vary.) Moisten your fingers with cool water and gently flatten the pointed tops. Sprinkle generously with granulated sugar.

Bake for about 20-22 minutes, until cracked and dry on the tops, golden brown around edges, and beginning to be golden on top. Let cool for about 10 minutes, still on pans. Keep oven door closed but turn off heat.

If you want to save some soft, chewy cookies for eating, remove as many as you want and place on racks. Place the remainder back in oven and prop oven door slightly open. Let sit for about 30 minutes or more in warm oven to finish drying out.

Peel them off the silicone sheet. If you used parchment and they don't want to come off, dampen back of parchment slightly and wait a minute or two.

TWD: Coconut Butter Thins

Mmmm, I *love* shortbread cookies! Many thanks to Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch for choosing the Coconut Butter Thins from page 145 of "Baking: from My Home to Yours" for this week's "Tuesday with Dorie" project.


These delicious little cookies are a shortbread flavored with lime zest, shredded coconut, chopped nuts and a pinch of coriander. For the recipe, please visit Jayne's blog. (Take a look at some of her other recipes, too, not to mention her extremely photogenic--and entertaining--children and pets. Jayne has a real gift for finding and conveying the funny, touching, fascinating moments in everyday life.)

Back to the cookies--I substituted roasted, salted cashews for the macadamia nuts. (Macadamia nuts are so pricey!) Also I used unsweetened coconut and reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup. (We're not fans of really sweet things.) Other than that, I stayed with the recipe.

Dorie's suggestion for rolling and chilling the dough in a gallon zip-top bag is a great one! Of course, being the ultra-recycling type, I used a bag that had already been used several times, so I wouldn't have to feel quite so bad about cutting it up and throwing it away.(I am not quite as frugal as my grandmothers were, though. They saved used string. I just cut it up and compost it!)

Something about Dorie's math is a bit off when it comes to her instructions for cutting out the cookies, though. She says you have a 9-by-10 1/2 inch rectangle of dough and you cut it into 1 1/2 inch squares to get 32 squares. By my calculations, you have to cut into 6 pieces along the 9-inch side, and 7 pieces along the 10 1/2 inch side in order to get 1 1/2 inch squares. That's 42 cookies. Yes, I know, picky picky. Maybe I should be a proofreader. Anyway, I ended up with an 8-by-10 inch rectangle and cut it into 6 pieces by 8 pieces. There wasn't room on my baking sheets to place them the full 2 inches apart, so I froze them for about 30 minutes before baking. It seemed to work -- they spread a little, but not enough to run into each other.

I wasn't quite sure how to tell when they were done. I took them out after 20 minutes, but a test nibble revealed the centers were still pretty soft. A few more minutes firmed them up nicely, without browning them. For next time, I'd bake them until they are firm on the edges and almost completely firm in the center, but still pale. If they "give" in the center, they're not quite done.

I thought the lime flavor was just a little more subtle than I'd like, and I couldn't taste the coriander at all. The sweetness level was just right for our tastes. The coconut and nuts were also subtle flavors but just right -- and gave the cookies a nice texture. Yum, yum!

Like most shortbread cookies, these improve with a few days of aging--though you may have trouble keeping them around long enough to tell. Ours are vanishing fast!

TWD: World Peace Cookies

This week, the "Tuesdays with Dorie" crowd made the world-famous "World Peace Cookies." Thanks so much to Jessica of cookbookhabit for choosing this recipe! Head on over to her blog for the recipe -- you can also find it here, here, or here (scroll down to the bottom).


This is a simple but wonderful cookie -- a French sablé (or shortbread cookie) with the addition of cocoa, chopped chocolate and flakes of sea salt. They're easy to make, easy to form (roll up, freeze, slice-and-bake) and fabulous to eat!

Now, I actually made the dough for these cookies back before Christmas, and then never got around to baking it up. (The dough keeps well in the freezer!) So I don't remember all the details of making them. I do recall that I weighed my flour and cocoa, using that 1 cup of flour = 4.8 oz and 1 cup of cocoa = 3.0 oz. But as to what chocolate and cocoa I used -- sorry, I can't recall. I know I wouldn't have gone for the "cheap stuff" with these fabulous cookies! For salt, I used French "sel gris" (the lower-budget version of French fleur de sel) that I'd picked up on sale. I do think using a flake salt rather than a finely ground salt adds a certain flair to these cookies.

I sliced 'em thick, as Dorie specifies, and that was perfect. They spread and flatten as they bake. And yes, trust Dorie when she says to take them out before they look done. Mine had cracked a bit and turned dull on the surface, but were still extremely soft. Once they cooled they were perfect!

Will these bring about world peace? Well, Jim and I have been feeling quite mellow since I baked these...but...we don't want to share them with anyone else! (So much for world peace, I guess...)

Take a look at all the other TWD bakers' blogs for more of these delicious cookies -- and don't forget to visit Dorie Greenspan's blog to see what the recipe author herself has to say!

TWD catch-up #3: Buttery Jam Cookies

For the third and final installment in our "Tuesdays with Dorie" cookie streak -- here are the Buttery Jam Cookies, chosen by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl as our recipe for December 16th. Now, I've heard of cookies with jam fillings, like Linzer cookies, thumbprints, and even rugelach...but cookies with jam mixed right into the batter? Interesting....


My Christmas cookie assortment already included cookies with apricot jam (rugelach) and cookies with ginger (lemon-ginger biscotti), but the apricot jam / ginger combination Dorie suggests sounded so delicious I just had to make it anyway. I increased the jam to about 5 Tablespoons, and reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup. To boost the apricot flavor, I added 2 ounces of chopped moist dried apricots.

After refrigerating overnight, I formed the cookies with a small portion scoop, rolled them in granulated sugar, and flattened them out with my hand. They spread only a small amount when baking, and ended up very soft and puffy. These cookies are great when still warm!

After they cooled down, I didn't think I liked them as much. The flavor was kind of subtle. But then I discovered I was going back for another one...and another... Watch out for these cookies, they sneak up on you! They are soft, almost like a rich scone, and great for nibbling. A few seconds in the microwave will warm them up nicely.

I ended up making another batch! The second time, I added even more jam (6 tablespoons) and chopped dried apricots (3 ounces), reduced the sugar to 1/3 cup, and increased the ground ginger to 3/4 teaspoon. Yum! Just about perfect! Maybe some some coarsely chopped almonds on top would be nice for next time...

These cookies need a strong-flavored, fairly tart jam. I would love to try orange or lime or ginger marmalade--perhaps with some candied peel or ginger added in. I have a feeling that these cookies are going to become a favorite at our house! They're easy, tasty and just a little different.

For the recipe, see this link.

TWD catch-up #2: Grandma's Sugar Cookies

Continuing with the cookie theme for "Tuesdays with Dorie," the recipe for December 9th was Grandma's All-Occasion Sugar Cookies, chosen by Ulrike of Küchenlatein.

Now, I must confess that plain sugar cookies have always seemed a little boring to me, so I took Dorie at her word when she said we could play around with these! I added the zest of 1 1/2 small navel oranges and 1/4 teaspoon of orange extract, plus 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground cardamom. I reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup and the vanilla extract to 1/2 teaspoon.


For shaping, I rolled the dough up into two logs, each about 7 1/2 inches long and 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and froze them for later baking. At baking time, I sliced them 1/4 inch thick, brushed the top lightly with beaten egg mixed with some home-made orange-peel-flavored brandy, and sprinkled with Swedish pearl sugar.

Very tasty! These are more of a crisp sugar cookie. I think I may prefer a softer sugar cookie. But these were a great addition to my holiday gift packages for family and friends. So pretty!

For the recipe, visit this link.

TWD catch-up #1: Linzer Sablés

Thank you, Laurie of Quirky Cupcake and founder of "Tuesdays with Dorie," for allowing us a lot of leeway with baking and posting our recipes during this month! I work in retail and this time of year is always busy. So, here come three posts about the recipes for December 2, 9, and 16. All cookies! Great idea -- I get to try new recipes from Dorie's book and have cookies to send to my family, too!

Let's start with the recipe for December 2nd, Linzer Sablés, as chosen by Dennis aka noskos of Living the Life. I love Linzer cookies and Linzer tarts. But I decided not to make the "jam sandwich" style of cookie. I thought I would be sending these off to my family, and I was afraid they'd get soggy. So, I went for chocolate-coated sablés in the style of Dorie's recipe on Serious Eats. I liked them so much I didn't send any away! But I'm sorry, I got busy and disorganized and did not take any pictures of the finished project. Here's what they looked like as I was cutting them out.



Since I had some skinned, toasted hazelnuts stashed in the freezer from a past project, I used 1/2 cup of those and 1 cup of raw, unblanched almonds to make the dough. After pulsing in the food processor I ended up with rather more than 1 1/2 cups of ground nuts. Apparently nuts fluff up when ground. Note to self -- 1 1/2 cups of ground almonds/hazelnuts weighs about 180 grams -- weigh them next time. I tossed in just a little ground allspice and ground nutmeg because what could be bad about a touch more spice? And I substituted 2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar for part of the white sugar. After mixing up a couple of other cookie doughs too, they all got wrapped up and put into the fridge to roll out later.

Here's where I got a little crazy. I rolled the dough out roughly into two rectangles, then cut and pieced them back together to make two huge, thin diamonds. After some chilling, I cut them out with my wavy pastry cutter into pretty diamond shapes. Jim came into the kitchen while I was carefully marking, measuring and cutting, shook his head, and said, "Don't you think you're getting a bit compulsive there, dear?" Well, yes...but I was enjoying it! Into the freezer they went for a few days, until I had time to bake them up.

I baked some of them too long, until they were brown all over. They don't taste nearly as good that way. You want them to just barely be turning brown at the edges. When properly baked, they were nicely crisp, but I didn't think there was enough spice flavor. And they were a little too firm and crisp for my taste, and not quite "crumbly" enough. I was looking for more of a balance between the two textures. Picky, picky, though...they were still very good!

I had been planning to dip them in plain chocolate, but the kitchen Fates intervened in the form of a bad batch of toffee. Actually it wasn't that the toffee itself was bad -- but the coating of chocolate and chopped nuts detached from the toffee and fell off, leaving me with naked toffee and lots of small pieces of chocolate with nuts. Plainly the Fates intended that this chocolate/nut mix should go on the Linzer cookies instead. So, I melted it in the microwave with just a touch of vegetable shortening and hazelnut oil, and mixed in a generous amount of cinnamon. (It's amazing how much cinnamon you have to add to chocolate before you can even begin to taste it. Chocolate is a very dominant flavor!)

The chocolate/nut-sandwiched Linzers were much better! (But then, what wouldn't be better with chocolate?)

I'm not sure I'd make this recipe again -- it was good, but not superb. Still, I had fun making them -- and eating them!

For the recipe, visit this link, or this one.

TWD: Rugelach!

Drat. Once again I'm a member of the "Thursdays" with Dorie group.

So, this week's Tuesdays with Dorie project was Rugelach, chosen by Grace of Piggy’s Cooking Journal. For the recipe, check out the book or see this post. You can also find more information here, here, and here.


I love rugelach! They are one of the treats that destroy my self control. I can't stop eating them! I ate half-a-dozen pinwheels right out of the oven and the rest have vanished within a few days. These are dangerous cookies -- I have to ration how often I make them.

A confession -- I did not make Dorie's rugelach dough recipe because I already had dough stashed in the freezer down in the basement. I can't quite remember which recipe I used -- probably either Cooks' Illustrated or Rose Levy Beranbaum's from "Roses's Christmas Cookies." At any rate, both recipes are quite similar to Dorie's, although they make twice as much.

I'd formed the dough into small rectangles before freezing it, because I wanted to try "pinwheels" instead of crescents. So, I rolled out the dough into a rectangle about 9 by 12 inches, or a little smaller. I started with Dorie's filling proportions, using apricot preserves, walnuts, golden raisins, and no chocolate. I like Dorie's amount of jam, but ended up doubling the amounts of the nuts, raisins, and cinnamon sugar. Let's hear it for more filling!

One roll got rolled up along the long, 12-inch edge for a longer, thinner roll, and the other along the shorter, 9-inch edge for a shorter, fatter roll. I froze the rolled-up dough overnight, then sliced it to various thicknesses, rolled in Demerara sugar, and laid down on one of the cut sides to bake.


My conclusions -- I preferred the longer thinner rolls cut to 3/8 inch slices (they flatten out and spread as they bake). The half inch slices were too thick for my taste. The 1/4 inch slices of the fatter rolls would be my second choice -- they came out quite thin and wide, which was pretty. However, they tended to split around the outer edges.

I like the pinwheel shape for two reasons: first, you can store the filled roll of dough in the freezer easily, and bake up as needed. Shaped crescents take a lot more room in the freezer. Second, they avoid the "underbaked dough in the center" problem you sometimes get with crescents.


With the remaining dough I made a batch of crescents and another roll. Into the freezer they go, ready for my next rugelach binge!

TWD: Lenox Almond Biscotti

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was Lenox Almond Biscotti. Thank you Gretchen of Canela & Comino for choosing this recipe!


When I think, "I'm going to bake cookies--what shall I make?" biscotti are not usually at the top of the list. But as soon as I saw these biscotti had cornmeal in them, I knew I'd like them. Maybe it's the Southern heritage on my Dad's side. I love baked goods with cornmeal!

Now, should I stay with the basic recipe or do one of the many variations? In the end, I made lemon-flavored almond biscotti, using the zest from two very small lemons plus 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. I added about 1/4 cup chopped dried cranberries to one-half of the dough, and 1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger to the other half.

As I was doing my usual late-night baking, I wrapped up the dough logs and put them into the refrigerator until the next day. This turned out to be a great idea, as it also made the dough much easier to handle. The next evening, I finished shaping the logs and let them warm up a bit while preheating the oven. The first baking took longer than the 15 minutes in the book -- more like 25 minutes. They spread out a fair amount. After cooling the dough for half an hour, I sliced it diagonally. Three-quarters of an inch seemed just too thick, so I went for a half-inch instead. Jim and I shared the ends of each log and agreed they were really good. (Perhaps some day I will try these as "uni-scotti." It might work to freeze the dough in a roll or log and cut into slices before baking once.)

For the first baking, I used 350 degrees on a plain bake setting. For the second one I used 325 degrees on convection bake. I came back exactly 15 minutes later and wished I'd checked on them a little earlier -- the ones from the smaller (cranberry) log were a bit too brown. The ginger ones were perfect.

They were good right out of the oven, but even better after aging for a day or two. The flavors melded and became more balanced. The lemon-ginger ones were our favorite. We could barely taste the cranberry in the other ones.


Conclusion: home-made biscotti are yummy! They will be on the cookie baking list in the future. What I'd do differently next time: reduce the sugar to 2/3 or 3/4 of the original amount. These were too sweet for our tastes. And if I'm going to divide the dough in half, I'd divide it more evenly next time. I'd definitely make the lemon-ginger again. I'd like to try cranberry-orange next time, too, using more cranberries and not chopping them up.

If you want the recipe, you can find it on page 141 of Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: from My Home to Yours." Or hop on over to Gretchen's blog. While you're there, check out some of her pictures and stories about Peru. And check out all the other wonderful variations from the other TWDers, too!

TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

For this week with Tuesdays with Dorie, we made Chocolate Chunkers, from pages 70-72 of "the book." A million thanks to Claudia of Fool for Food for choosing this recipe!

"What? Another cookie? Enough, already!" was my husband's reaction when he heard this week's pick. Boy, did he change his tune once he got a taste! I suspected as much -- Dorie says these are based on Maida Heatter's Mulattoes. I've never made those, but I've made Maida's Miami Vice cookies, which are Mulattoes with a different shaping method. So I knew these would consist of lots and lots of chocolate, nuts and dried fruit, barely held together by a scant amount of batter resembling a rich, fudgey, gooey brownie. Great for dark chocolate fiends like us!

The only remaining questions were -- what sorts of chocolate, nuts and dried fruit to use? Milk and white chocolate would provide a nice color contrast, but the problem is, neither of us likes them. OK, dark chocolate all the way! We're going for broke here (expecially considering the cost of good chocolate)!

For the chunks, I used a Chocolove 55% bar with orange peel, another Chocolove 55% with cherries and almonds, a Dagoba 74%, some Callebaut semisweet, 71% Valrhona Amer Noir, and 70% Scharffenberger. I ran out around 11 ounces, so I made up the difference with an ounce of slivered almonds. The dough got Bakers' unsweetened, Callebaut semisweet, and the "fine crumbs" from making the chunks. Pecans for the nuts (I didn't bother toasting them) and sweetened dried sour cherries for the fruit (Door County Cherry De-lite, yum yum). I cut down the sugar to 6 Tablespoons (on purpose) and accidentally left out the vanilla. Oops!

By this time it was late at night and the dough went into the fridge until the next day. It was hard as a rock and impossible to form, so I had to chop it up and let it soften for a while. Then it was very sticky. I oiled my hands and formed it into little balls, ending up with 44 dough balls (and chocolatey hands, too, but not as bad as it would have been without the oil). Once again, it was late. The little balls were crowded onto oiled waxed paper, covered with plastic wrap, and into the freezer they went. Next day, time to bake -- I baked off 20 of them and the other two dozen are still frozen for later use. Best not to have too many of these around at once!

I let the dough thaw a bit before baking, but it was still cold and it did not spread AT ALL. I had to mash down the first batch with the back of a spatula partway through baking. The second batch was flattened by hand before baking. Definitely the way to go. Because they were cold, they took the full 13 minutes even though they were smaller than Dorie's.

It was really hard to wait for these to cool enough to eat without burning my mouth -- but I did. First one -- wow! Maybe I should try another...wait a minute, how did four of them disappear? Better stop now!

Notes for next time: 6 Tablespoons of sugar is OK if using semisweet in the dough, but use more for bittersweet. Try not to forget the vanilla (although they were still good without it). Next time, use 1 1/2 cups chocolate chunks (9 ounces), 1 1/2 cups mixed chopped pecans and almonds, and 1 1/2 cups dried cherries (they were great). Try soaking cherries in cherry or orange brandy. Maybe a bit of finely chopped candied orange peel? Yowza!

These cookies didn't seem quite as good the next day, once they had cooled down. But a quick 10 seconds in the microwave took care of that problem.

These are not going in to work. They are ALL FOR US! (O.K., I'd be willing to share them with my family, but they all live too far away. Maybe at Christmas...)

TWD: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

Yet another "Tuesday" in the Bungalow Barbara Time Warp! Which is my way of saying I'm sorry this post is late... This week's project for Tuesdays with Dorie was to make the Chocolate Malted Whopper Drop cookies, chosen by Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart.


Would you believe I didn't even know what a Whopper candy was? Somehow I missed that particular part of Americana. And as far as malted milk, I only vaguely remember that my Dad liked chocolate malts, and after trying one once I decided I didn't like malt. That was, oh, something like 45 years ago (gulp!) and the only form of malt I've ingested since then has been in beer.

So this was a new experience all around. With malted milk powder and chocolate malted-milk ball candies on my shopping list, we went into town. I was convinced I'd find the malt powder at the natural foods co-op -- wrong, they only had malt syrup. But they did have malt ball candies in bulk. Off to the supermarket where I tracked down some Carnation malted milk powder. Interesting, it lists wheat as one of the main ingredients next to malt.

I was thinking of chopping up the malt balls in my food processor, but after reading some of the P & Q, I decided to cut them by hand into quarters. I tried a few of the crumbly bits. Hmm. Not going to be one of my favorite candies. Too sweet, not chocolatey enough. Nice crunch, though.

I reduced the sugar in the dough down to 1/2 cup since we don't like things too sweet. Other than that I followed the recipe. Some left-over candies got cut in half and put on top.

Did anyone else have trouble with how sticky this dough was? I chilled it for an hour or so, but even so, there was dough all over the portion scooper, my hands, the spatula -- everything! Eventually I figured out that using my little pump oil sprayer and constantly spraying the scoop (and my hand) worked pretty well.

After shaping them, I put the cookies into the freezer for about 20 minutes, then baked. It was hard to tell when to take them out. Mine were set and dry on the outside, but still soft and a little underbaked on the inside, which was perfect! They were even better the day after.

These aren't my favorite chocolate cookie, but they were still pretty good and we enjoyed them! I shared a few with our town librarian, but mostly they were just for us! My notes for next time say: use more Whoppers (maybe 8 ounces) and cut them just in half. Try coffee-flavored Whoppers (who knew there were so many flavors?). Maybe add a few chopped almonds.


Random thought: those half-Whoppers in the center of the cookies look a bit like nipples... But jeez, these "ladies" have some issues -- nipple-slippage, cracks, lumps, oh, let's just not go there...

TWD: Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies

Our project for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie was the Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters, on page 73 of "the book." Thank you to Stefany of Proceed with Caution for choosing this recipe!


I made a few changes to the recipe, reducing the white sugar by 1/2 cup, increasing the salt to 1/2 teaspoon, reducing nutmeg to 1/8 teaspoon, and substituting some raisins and chopped peanuts for some of the chocolate chips. As I only had smooth, natural peanut butter on hand, I ended up "mixing my own" from a combination of 2/3 cup smooth natural peanut butter, about 2/3 cup chopped peanuts, and 1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening. It all worked just fine!


The verdict? We liked them but were not crazy about them. We both agreed we'd rather have either a plain peanut butter cookie or an oatmeal-raisin-spice cookie. Tomorrow the rest of them go into work and I'm sure they will be gone fast!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Granola Grabbers

Oh dear, I'm late yet again for Tuesdays with Dorie. I'm sorry, folks -- work has been busy with everyone ordering back-to-school merchandise (and then checking on when it is going to arrive). I'm glad I finally found time to make this week's recipe, Granola Grabbers, chosen by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking. They were tasty!

These called for lots of yummy ingredients, most of which I already had in the pantry. Granola, though, was not one of them. I had a good time looking at all the bins at our favorite market, the Willy Street Co-op, and settled on some nice Six Grain granola from local Nature's Bakery. When it came time to bake, though, I found I hadn't gotten quite enough. Thinking fast, I topped it off with about 1/3 of a cup of Grape-Nuts cereal. Instead of peanuts, I used salted cashews -- Jim loves them so we always have some around. They're big so I chopped them coarsely. Oops, we only had unsweetened coconut, but since we don't like things all that sweet, I just went with that. The raisins were nice and plump, but the coconut was so dry I had to sprinkle in quite a bit of water and let it sit. I added just a little cinnamon and ginger to the flour for a hint of spice, and 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder for a bit of lift.

You've probably seen lots of posts about the recent New York times recipe for chocolate cookies. One of their "secrets" is to let the dough sit in the refrigerator before baking. Well, I was busy and ending up doing that with this dough. I meant to let it sit for one day, but it ended up sitting for two. I wish I had a chance to compare my cookies with some "fresh-mixed" ones to see if it made any difference. Certainly they were still good! I had to let the dough warm up a bit as it was rock solid. After that I had no trouble scooping it out -- oh boy, a chance to use my purple portion scooper! I got it a while ago and have only used it once or twice.

For baking, I went with a 350 degrees convection bake setting for good air circulation around the cookie sheets. Despite Dorie's warning, I used double-layer air-insulated baking sheets. They worked just fine, actually. Mine are the newer design with little "dimples" all over the bottom to let a little more heat come through the bottom. They do a good job of browning without burning. My dough was still cold when it went into the oven, and it hardly spread at all. I'm glad I flattened the cookies down.

I let the cookies cool on the sheets -- a hint I read somewhere, I think it was Cook's Illustrated, for the best chewy cookies.

These were good cookies, a bit on the sweet side but not too sweet, crunchy and chewy, full of tasty nuggets. They also held up well to the humid weather--the granola kept its crunch even as the cookies got moist and chewy. Neither Jim nor I are absolutely crazy about this style of cookie, but that didn't stop us from eating quite a few of them! The rest went into work where they were devoured with great enthusiasm!