A Few of My Favourite Things !

Is there to be no end to my culinary disasters? Actually, as much as this one did not work out, it actually did work out in the end.

Have you tried those Greek almond cookies that are shaped like a crescent? Well, A. has been telling me how much he loves these. One of his friend’s mum used to make this and they would have it warm from the oven – mmmmm, heavenly. I really wanted to recreate this memory for him so I googled a few recipes and set about making the dough. I really can’t remember which recipe I ended up using now, but the dough was so soft that it could not actually be shaped into crescents and I ended up forming quenelles. Into the oven they went and, boy, did they smell fantastic! One look through the window though would have shown you that they melted into puddles so flat that you would have mistaken them for brandy snaps instead of the almond crescents they were meant to be. One bite into the cookies though and we were the ones melting! They actually tasted a lot like brandy snaps and were heavenly served either alone or with a great vanilla icecream, a dessert that A. has named ‘Shards of Delight’:

Oooooo, I feel so bad! But yes, I am going to, um, sorta cheat but I’ll call it taking a little shortcut! I’m combining my entry for Sugar High Friday and Donna Hay Day with this little contribution. I present the Chocolate Ginger Checkerboard Cookie!

The theme for this SHF, which is being hosted by Ruth, is ginger – an ingredient that I use to absolutely loath. I could not understand why mum would want to cook with it all the time. I’d find it in soups, chicken dishes, vegetable dishes and I’d insist that she fish out all the pieces so that I would not accidentally encounter it during my meal. I didn’t understand how mum could enjoy eating the bits of ginger that she had removed from my plate but, y’know what, some tastes can be and are worth acquiring. I love ginger now, although I tend to use it more in savoury dishes than sweet.

I’ve been thinking about making the Chez Panisse Gingersnaps that Clotilde blogged about some time back but after reading that this Donna Hay Day’s challenge was Checkerboard Snap Cookies, I got thinking. More specifically, I got thinking about crystallised ginger pieces coated with dark chocolate. Translate this to the checkerboard cookies – how about dark chocolate squares matched with ginger-flavoured squares. And why not add some small ginger pieces to the ginger squares? Hey, why not go all the way and add ginger to the dark chocolate squares too?

So, I amended the basic recipe to include 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cloves and 2 tbs cinnamon and 1 tbs stem ginger pieces in half of the dough and cocoa and Green & Black’s organic dark chocolate with crystallised ginger pieces in the other half.

These cookies smell like gingerbread but for me, the dark chocolate parts were the best bit about these cookies – intensely chocolately with a hint of ginger. I would add even more ginger next time so there’s a real zing to each bite.

Chocolate-Ginger Checkerboard Snap Cookies

185 gms butter, 1 cup of caster sugar, 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 2 1/2 cups flour, 2 eggs

1. Beat buter, sugar and vanilla until smooth
2. Add flour and eggs, beating until smooth
3. Halve the dough and add 1/2 cup cocoa powder and 1 tbs Green&Black’s dark chocolate with crystallised ginger pieces to one lot. Add 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1/2 tsp ground cloves and 2 tbs cinnamon and 1 tbs stem ginger pieces to the other half.
4. Divide each half into 2 lots and shape into logs. Place a ginger log next to a chocolate log, then top ginger log with the other chocolate log and top the chocolate log with the other ginger log.
5. Slice into 4-5mm thickness with sharp knife and bake 10-12 min at 180C.

SHF, Donna Hay Day, ginger,

Vanilla Babies

donna hay ‘Modern Classics Book 2‘

185g softened butter, 1 cup caster sugar, 1.5 tsp vanilla extract, 2.5 cups plain flour, 1 egg, 1 egg yolk

1. Beat butter, sugar & vanilla until smooth, then add flour, egg & yolk to form smooth dough
2. Knead dough lightly, wrap in clingwrap and refridgerate for 30 min until firm.
3. Roll out between 2 sheets of baking paper to a thickness of 5mm
4. Cut shapes with cookie cutter and bake for 10-12 min until golden.

I bought the December issue of Bon Appetit before leaving for my Europe trip, with the idea of baking some Christmas cookies for family & friends. I read through the magazine and only ended up ear-marking a single page. This recipe drew my eye each time I flicked through the magazine, the full-page picture showing off the bright green pistachios and ruby red dried raspberries against a pale biscuit, but I just didn’t get the chance to bake before jetting off.

When I finally managed to turn my oven on last weekend, this was the first batch of cookies that went in. Although you need to bake it twice, these are some of the easiest cookies that I’ve ever made. The dough takes all of 5 min to combine before being shaped into 2 logs. The logs are cooled after baking, then sliced and baked again. I used some Pariya semi-dried sour cherries that were a little too alcoholic-tasting to just snack on in place of dried raspberries. These tasted wonderful in the biscotti but they lacked that brightness of colour that would have contrasted so well against the base. Oh yes, I also substituted the coconut extract for the almond extract because I really dislike the flavour of almod extract.

I cannot commend these biscotti highly enough! Definitely my favourite out of the 3 types of cookies that I made this weekend – although the vanilla salted peanut cookies come pretty close. What made them even more incredible was the chocolate that I used to coat them – Callebaut 54% Dark and Valrhona Ivory White. Expensive? Yes, but I think it’s well worth it!

1. Beat sugar, eggs, oil and coconut extract until well blended.
2. Add flour/baking powder/salt mixture and beat until smooth.
3. Stir in pistachios, dried fruit and white chocolate
4. Drpo dough by heaping teaspoonfuls into 2 12-inch long strips on baking sheet and shape with wet fingers into 3-inch wiode log.
5. Bake at 175C for 30 min until lightly browned and firm to touch.
6. Cool logs for 30 min then cut each into 1/2-inch thick slices. Stand upright onto baking sheet, spacking about 1/4-inch apart, and bake for 20 min at 170C.
7. When cool, dip into melted chocolate and chill 30 min until chocolate is set.

After a long work week, I was finaly able to indulge in some baking: vanilla salted-peanut cookies from the special ‘Christmas Cookies’ edition of Better Homes & Gardens and melting moments fromThe Best of Singapore’s Recipes, Tea Time Delights.

I used my cookie press to shape the melting moments instead of just forming little hazelnut-sized balls of dough as suggested and I have to say that it’s easier to press dough out of some of the stencils than others. My wrist and forearm is still sore two days later from forcing the dough out of the stencil with the many small holes! After presing about a dozen cookies, I swapped over to make the ones you can see above.

I sandwiched some of the melting moments with Christine Ferber’s Confiture au Petales de Roses, one of three jars of her jams that we picked up in France. I heated the jam, add some gelatine powder and then cool before smearing it onto the flat of one cookie and gently pressing the flat side of another against it.The exquisite rose flavour in this confiture not only complemented the butteriness of the melting moments, but lifted them to another level altogether. I may be tempted to sandwich more of the melting moments together…

1. Beat shortening with eloectric mixer until soft before adding brown sugar, baking soda and salt and beating until combined.
2. Beat in eggs and vanilla, then flour.
3. Stir in oats, followed by peanuts, raisins and coconut.
4. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls ontocookie sheet and bake at 190C for 7-9 min until lightly browned. Makes ~60.

 

Melting Moments
455 g SR flour, 225g sugar, 225g butter, 2 eggs

1. Mix flour, sugar, butter and eggs in large bowl to form soft dough
2. Place into cookie press and push dough out onto cookie sheet
3. Bake at 150C for 20-30 min until golden.