Better with company

I'm a big fan of cookies. I love splitting all-American, big, honking, saucer-sized cookies, studded with chocolate chips, any variety of nuts, butterscotch, or held together with old-fashioned oats, ideally crisp on the outside and softer towards the middle. Since baking with Tuesdays With Dorie, I've grown fond of the slice-and-bake sable -- dainty, sandy, melt-in-your-mouth, buttery goodness where one is never enough. And, really -- I've grown up with Walker's all-butter shortbread with the familiar red plaid packaging.

But, these... These Sour Cream Chocolate Cake Cookies, Spike's choice for this weekend's assignment... I'm not so versed in the spongey cake cookie, and I don't know quite how I feel about them. The ingredients came together quite easily, though the actual scooping of the dough was a bit of a nuisance. Once baked, they were indeed as described in the book, so there wasn't a problem in execution. And though I can throw them back (at least three in one sitting), there is still something lacking for me. And my co-workers must agree, because I have never brought in anything that disappeared so slowly.

The thing is, I think the cakey nature of these cookies begs for one thing, and upon reading the feedback from other bakers, my instinct is correct -- these cookies are like the base for whoopie pies, and they need FILLING! So, this morning, I'm going to make peanut butter filling, and I'll report back! All is not yet lost...



...and they're nearly gone. Whew.

It all began in bulk...

My first biscotti was not enjoyed at the edge of a piazza in Italy, accompanied by a shot of dark espresso, nor did I have it at a cafe along Columbus in North Beach where the waiters get their kicks by showering patrons with compliments and exaggerated Italian charm. It wasn't made by a classmate's mother either, with technique taught by his/her nonna. My first biscotti was from the gourmet foods powerhouse that we all know and love -- Costco.

As a family of six, the only way to make anything last in the house was by buying in bulk, and we took full advantage of the super store. We bought pallets of Yoplait yogurt, boxes of pre-apportioned Quaker oatmeal pouches, jugs of orange juice, packs of contact lenses, and biscotti. They came in clear jars, individually wrapped but "Not to be resold." My mother loved them with International Foods Cafe Francais instant coffee, and so we bought these jumbo containers of cookies, sometimes dipped in chocolate, sometimes not.

I, on the other hand, was never a the biggest biscotti fan. I probably didn't like crunchy cookies at all when I was younger. Why work so hard for sweet little treat, when you could have a perfectly flaky croissant or melt-in-your-mouth dark chocolate?? This recipe from Dorie for Chocolate Biscotti was inevitable, however, and I just decided to go for it this morning.

Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes made this week's Tuesday's With Dorie selection and as with so many recipes of late, my initial ambivalence toward the key ingredient or type of pastry even, is replaced with genuine enthusiasm for the baked good. Crunchy, but not too crunchy; sweet, but nowhere near too sweet. These dipping cookies were so easy to demolish and then follow with another.

My dad arrives tomorrow from Taiwan for a little visit to check up on the kids. My mom isn't coming as the flight is a bit too long to bear for her, but with that canister of Cafe Francais, my dad will definitely be toting a bag of Dorie's biscotti.

Butter love.

My family grew up with margarine. Imperial margarine to be specific. No -- there was one memory I have of Australian butter from a round, yellow, vintage-looking tin, but that was a very rare instance and more often than not it was a large, plastic tub with the crown emblem in the fridge. My parents were convinced that butter was devil spread (like so many other families in the 80s), so I adopted the same belief and was none the wiser probably until I started baking. Sure, there were pats of real butter wrapped in metallic foil when we went out to dinner, or at the continental breakfasts during our family trip to Europe in 4th grade, but still used sparingly lest we drop dead.

When I started this baking hobby, so many cookbooks and recipes would emphasize the importance of using real butter instead of margarine, and being such a new hand at baking, I had to get it right and pressured my parents into springing for the forbidden nectar of dairy cows. Having it around the house now, I would steal a swipe of butter for my toast instead of Imperial (and even Brummel & Brown for awhile) -- that was the beginning of the end.
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Butter enthusiasm grew exponentially and arrived at its current level during my last trip to Paris. Of course, Paris, right?? There are few populations that take their butter more seriously than the French, and if we had Pascal Beillevaire or Bordier stateside, I'm sure we'd be fanatical too.

Shortbread has always been a favorite of mine because of the gloriously pronounced flavor of butter. There may be no better way to showcase a butter than with shortbread, in fact, and this recipe that Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine chose for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment, did just that. Along with the zest of a lemon and especially with the addition of cornmeal, these cookies had an amazing texture and very addictive quality. I had included rosemary polenta cookies from Frances (one of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco) in my holiday assortment so I was already familiar with the magic that ground corn can work and knew that though such a simple recipe, it had amazing possibilities. Incorporating just a handful of ingredients, make sure you use a good quality butter (I used Plugra) and it will effortlessly render the shortbread astounding -- you won't be disappointed

To each their own.

Caroline and Claire of Bake With Us chose this week's Tuesday's With Dorie selection of Chocolate Oatmeal Drops. This was one of those no-appliance-necessary recipes that we can all appreciate, and minimal bowl usage used too! It brought me back to those early baking days when the only recipes I would attempt required a bowl and a wooden spoon or whisk, sometimes they were from a box, and they more often than not turned out well! Techniques have gotten a little more complicated since then, and bowls, spatulas, measuring cups, sieves, cutting boards, and serrated knives really add to the dish load, so every once in awhile it's a breath of fresh air to throw everything in a bowl and stir.

This recipe was so simple and straightforward, and Dorie's warning that the butter would separate from the other melted ingredients when the mixture got too hot was absolutely necessary. I simply took the bowl off the heat for a little bit, continued stirring, and the parts became one once more.

The final batter was quite soft after just being mixed, but when scooping each subsequent batch, the batter got firmer and firmer. I feel like the firmer batter made for a cookie that held its shape better in the oven even if the actual composition of the cookie was no different from the softer batter. My drops didn't spread in the oven like those of other bakers in the P&Q link, and though delicate, the individual cookies were actually pretty easy to transfer to a rack straight out of the oven. I can only assume this was due to having the batter sit out longer before baking.

The finished product was not as thrilling as I had hoped. Normally, I love the addition of rolled oats to cookies, but the oats just seemed to make for an undesirable texture this time. Too much chewing for a crumbly, brownie-type cookie. I enjoyed the deep chocolate flavor and hint of cinnamon though. The cookies do taste better with age. It's been two days and I think it's a tastier cookie than when I first took it out of the oven (which is often the case with chocolate desserts, don't you think??) Other people are loving this cookie, so I'm not quite sure why it doesn't have the same allure for me, but to each their own. I'll go hang out with Dorie's rugelach!

A pleasant surprise.

Once again, I love being apart of the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group because I'm forced - nay, politely encouraged by a set of very, very reasonable stipulations - to try recipes I wouldn't normally consider. Honey Wheat Cookies. The name alone doesn't illicit any excitement from me and I've overlooked this page every time I've ever thumbed through the book, but this week, Michelle of Flourchild had the pick of the litter, and as I haven't been able to participate in TWD as often as I would have liked earlier in the month, the honey wheat cookies would have to be baked.

Still unenthused by this week's assignment, I went out to get myself some wheat germ. I had my choice of raw or toasted wheat germ, but after deliberating about the prices and differences in taste, I went with the raw wheat germ. For an ingredient I figured I would rarely use, I decided it made more sense just to go with the cheaper option!

The dough, though easy to throw together, seemed too soft before being sent to the fridge to chill, but it ended up being fine to work with when rolling into balls before their coating of wheat germ. I tried to stick to the 10-12 minute baking window, but the cookies seemed far too soft and I ended up baking them for closer to 18 minutes, or until they were a deep golden color. I let them set up on the baking sheet for several minutes as they appeared to be too soft to transfer after just one or two, but the timing still yielded a soft, chewy cookie as intended.

The honey was a very apparent flavor, but the wheat germ added an aroma that neither I nor my friends could identify. It reminded us all of something, but we couldn't exactly place it. And with its light flavor, soft texture, and diminutive size, one cookie quickly became five, especially among my coworkers. It's definitely the kind of cookie that you have and think, "Well, that was alright..." but before you know it, you've polished off ten. Clearly, it was much better than "alright".

My fridge is happily stocked with wheat germ now, and I have every intention of using it regularly. It can be familiar bedfellows with the flax seeds, oat bran, and amaranth I've been incorporating regularly into my baking, yielding breadstuffs with allure I would have never imagined. It feels so good to be wrong.

A formidable opponent.

Last week, the public had the rare opportunity of purchasing and enjoying Dorie Greenspan's own baked goods at a pop-up cookie boutique, CookieBar, temporarily opened by Dorie and her son, Josh, at an Upper East Side hair salon. As a Tuesday's With Dorie baker, as soon as I heard this news, I was already plotting ways I'd be able to get a hold of these cookies. Week after week (and in between too), our kitchens turn out cookies, cakes, and pies that were a product of her vision, not sure if they were accurately executed or not -- an opportunity to try these recipes as they were meant to be tasted was not to be missed and I wasn't about to let a span of 3,000 miles stand in my way. Luckily, Cousin Albert decided he'd be coming back out West for Chinese New Year and I easily convinced him to leave his East Village bubble to procure some of Dorie's cookies for me (after all, we are a family of food lovers). After reports via Twitter of selling out of the cookies on days one and two, Albert was able to get uptown early enough (and on a blizzardy day enough) to secure the full assortment of the cookie shop's offerings for the end of our Lunar New Year meal.

It just so happened that Kaitlin of Kait's Plate chose Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookie for this week's assignment, which was among the selections that Albert hauled across the country. It was all working out to be the perfect opportunity to see if my interpretations of her recipes bore any resemblance to the real thing.

...and they did!! Visually, they were definitely kin. Dark edges, paler center, mottled with tiny bittersweet chocolate specks in addition to larger chunks. They were an absolute hit at work and though I've relied on the now infamous NY Times chocolate chip cookie for some time now, I think there's room for more than one on my go-to pedestal. In all honestly, I actually preferred my cookies to the CookieBar chocolate chip cookie, but it wasn't really a fair fight. There's something about three-day old cookies that can't quite measure up to the crisp exterior, yielding center, and buttery goodness of nearly fresh cookies -- imagine that! I did also have the sables and coconut lime cookies though, which were so good that I am now going to have to replicate them this weekend. Dorie and son are actually looking for a permanent space in Manhattan, and when it does, I'll be back for My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies vs. My Best Chocolate Chip cookies, round 2!

...by any other name...

I am a faulted human being, but if nothing else, I try to be a woman of my word. Albeit, I have my slip-ups too, but more often than not, if I commit to something, I'll make it happen. Whether I'm having dinner with a friend but dead tired, or being dragged to an event that I have even less desire to attend than when I first reluctantly said I would, if I said, "Yes", you can trust that I'll come through.

Last week, when Teanna of Spork and Foon tweeted an apology to all the Tuesdays With Dorie bakers for this week's choice of Mrs. Vogel's Scherben, I immediately decided I would definitely participate and responded so. There it was. Written in stone.

And then I found out it required deep-frying.

My heart sank. I have avoided deep-frying for as long as I have been cooking. Even if the recipe sounds like heaven realized, I will mentally drool about it and then file it away until...never. That Ad Hoc fried chicken recipe that I've dreamed of having ever since I heard about their Fried Chicken Mondays nearly two years ago -- that will never be made. Taiwanese breakfast crullers that are a crazy weakness of mine -- I'll have to keep driving to the San Gabriel Valley for them, because they're sure as hell not going to be fried up in my home! I've imagined oil sputtering all over the place, getting multiple burns, and then having to dispose that glut of oil!! Not excited.

But, like I said, it was written in stone, so I sucked up all my qualms and started making the dough. The preparation is terribly simple and uses only one bowl!! (That little detail almost made up for the deep-frying.) This morning, I heated up the canola oil as instructed and dropped in the strips of dough. Amazingly, this recipe is not only simple to assemble, but cooks so quickly as well! The strips emerged in every which shape, but that was to be expected and soon, the job was done.

The scherben were a hit in the office, but it wasn't received as such. To my Guatemalan right-hand man, they were corbatas -- a taste of his youth and the reason behind a wistful, adolescent grin. To my Armenian co-worker who spent several years of her childhood in Italy, they were chiacchiere. It brought back memories of her mother in the kitchen, warm pastry puffs at the ready week after week. Though traditionally, both confections incorporate different ingredients in their composition than these scherben, the scherben were close enough to their recollections that making them was worth even oil-disposal inconvenience.

Aside from the frying smell permeating through the kitchen and living room and uncertainty in how I would get rid of the used oil, the process was incredibly painless. I can't believe I have avoided frying for so long! I'm not in any hurry to fire up another pot of canola oil, but suddenly, those recipes that I've filed away for "never" have been re-filed for "sometime".

I love butter, part 1.

I had ten pounds of butter in my refrigerator not too long ago -- let's say, three weeks ago. I now have my last pound of butter sitting on the counter "coming to room temperature", even though my kitchen is so cold that it will barely yield to a poke when I wake up in 7 hours. It's been cakes and pies and cookies and buttercreams since Halloween, and there's no sign of it letting up until after Christmas. And even for a few days after, I'm sure that, even despite my complete exhaustion from baking, I'll feel possessed to unload all combinations of fat-sugar-flour on my siblings because how often do I really see them, right?? And how often do I have a house of people at the ready to dig into whatever comes out of the oven? Not so often. I cherish these opportunities.

So I'll be back at the market soon, with five bricks of butter cradled in the crook of my left arm, and probably holding a quart of heavy cream in the other hand. I think about what other shoppers must think, watching me juggle a glut of fat down the aisles. I'd probably want to throw up at the sight of this as an outsider, but so go the holidays. This marathon baking impedes my life in every which way, but I wouldn't want it any different. This time of year demands baked goods and I am happy to provide even when I have to wake up at 5:30am for the fifth day in a row to do so.

Luckily this week's Tuesday's With Dorie selection by Bungalow Barbara of sables is not just a deliciously buttery cookie, but a perfect addition to my holiday cookie assortment as well. I only baked off a dozen of these (and probably coated it a little too generously with egg yolk) so the rest of them will make an appearance in a couple weeks.

As a shortbread-style cookie, the butter really shines so it is important to use good butter. When you take a bite, you'll notice it has the perfect amount of salt to enhance the flavor of the butter and a not-quite-crumbly, but not-quite-soft texture that make eating just one cookie a major test in self-control and leaps and bounds more appealing than those crunchy Danish butter cookies in the blue tins (which I actually love -- memories, you know). I painted a bit too much egg yolk around the perimenter and perhaps left them in the oven a hair too long, but they were still sublimely delicious and melted on the tongue.

A log and a half sit in my freezer, eagerly waiting to be baked off and soon, two more batches of this dough will join them. It's hard to resist getting up every five minutes to shave a sliver off the log, but if I can hold off and wait for the cookies to bake and cool, the payoff will be worth it for me as well as everyone else in my life.

Regret averted.

And I almost wasn't going to make this week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe!!

My Sunday started off unimaginably slow yesterday -- I didn't wake up in my own bed at the normal 7 o'clock hour and didn't make it to the farmers' market by 8 and didn't finish all of my errands by 11. Productivity didn't really start until 1:15 as I briskly did my walk through of the market while most vendors were packing up and then ambled through Pavilions with 4 pounds of butter in my arms. I'm sure everyone thought that maybe I was Paula Deen's long lost Asian daughter, but Land o' Lakes for $3?! You would stock up too.

I finally took a look at this week's selection of Coconut Butter Thins by Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch when I got home, and upon reading "macadamia nuts", "lime", "coriander", I was turned off. I had no desire to run out to the store for more ingredients, so I decided nope! Not this week! And then I read the P&Qs. The reviews are pretty difficult to tune out. "Perfect." "Amazing." "Top 5 Dorie recipes." With a groan, I headed to the kitchen.

Sweetened coconut was on hand, and I could have substituted pistachios or pecans for the macadamias, but Dorie's comment that nuts were not at all necessary was encouraging so I omitted them entirely. Lemon it would have to be as lime wasn't readily available. I was a little wary about the pinch of coriander, but with a deep breath, made myself do it.



The finished cookie was (as everyone said it would be) absolutely delicious. Definitely not the most attractive cookie because of the strange way they spread, but the proof is in the taste. I have a soft spot for Danish butter cookies, and these reminded me of them a bit, especially the kind you find in Solvang -- a little bit coconutty, adding more texture than the variety in the blue tins, and lot of butter. The lemon was a nice touch and not overwhelming at all, and I really couldn't taste the coriander at all. I pride myself on my self-control of late, but these cookies were testing every ounce of restraint. They're unassuming, little ugly things, but when you bite into one...

They are greater than the sum of their parts.

A busy December

Last year, I decided to start a tradition that many of you in the blogosphere participate in, and one that I will hopefully continue for many, many years to come -- holiday cookie gifts. The decision was a result of a limited budget, the desire to offer something that someone else might not, and an itch to bake, and after many, many hours of labor in the kitchen, a pretty impressive assortment was created. I could not have predicted the enthusiasm with which these cookie jars/bags/baskets were received, but it was clear that they were much appreciated and I have every intention of doing them year after year now.

The varieties from last year included both crispy and chewy chocolate chip cookies, cocoa chocolate chip cookies, World Peace Korovas, shortbread, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, rugelach, molasses spice, brownie bites, Mexican wedding, pecan squares, and I think I'm missing two others. Although, I was happy with most of them (save for the crispy chocolate chips -- too strong a taste of olive oil), I tried to improve the mix this year with mostly new recipes. The final list included: The Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe molasses spice, the beloved NY Times chocolate chip recipe, snickerdoodles and mini black-bottom brownie cups from The All-American Cookie Book, The Frog Comissary oatmeal chocolate chip, Vanilla Garlic's lemon mascarpone blondies, pecan tassies, cut-out sugar cookies, and a whole slew of Dorie recipes including peanut butter crisscrosses, rugelach (apricot pecan and chocolate walnut), Korovas (again), Punitions, pecan powder puffs, and Linzer sables. These were the Tuesdays with Dorie recipe hosted by Dennis of Living the Life earlier this month, and though that was a hectic week and I wasn't able to complete the recipe then, I thought it would definitely be a starlet in a holiday line-up.

The dough came together so easily (again, I pray at the altar of the Cuisinart), was amazingly easy to roll out and cut out, and baked up beautifully as well. I'm a huge fan of the D'arbo strawberry jam ever since having a tiny jar of it with my toast at Comme Ca, so I searched out their raspberry jam for this recipe and I have no doubt that it was the perfect filling to the cookie.

Spiced sandwich cookies with fruit filling don't immediately make my mouth water, and I didn't even love it at first bite, but the next day, perhaps once the flavors mellowed, or melded together, I was a fan. A British-by-way-of-Germany-but-born-American friend (and lucky cookie tin recipient) said it"tasted German" (not sure if that's a positive or negative statement), but I also sent a giant round tin to my sisters and the older of the two commented on its tastiness out of all the other varieties, so I'm taking it as a good thing. She described it as "the Pepperidge Farm looking one", but it tastes far better than anything prepackaged, in my opinion, and, clearly, was the visual standout in the sea of different shades of brown (yet delicious) cookies.

The best chocolate chip cookies that have ever come from my kitchen

I take pride in disseminating information that I think the recipient will find interesting or useful. I think sometimes people mistake it as favoritism – special treatment with a wink – and maybe it is, to an extent (I mean, I don’t bother with people I don’t like), but the truth of the matter is I just want to be helpful. I have a very reliable circle of friends and family who do the same for me, so when I was linked to David Leite’s article in the New York Times for the best-ever chocolate chip cookies a couple Wednesdays ago, I immediately perked up and mentally shelved this recipe for near-future use. (I would have found this article on my own later that day, but there’s a certain satisfaction when someone knows you well enough to recognize information that you will find fascinating.) I’ve enjoyed the City Bakery chocolate chip cookie on both coasts, witnessed the glory of a Levain Bakery cookie on Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and became enlightened about the powers of a little extra salt in or on a cookie from Dorie Greenspan with those addictive little Korovas, so a recipe taking bits and pieces from all those solid creations was completely enticing. What occasion can I make these for??? Lucky for him (and me), the friend that sent me the link also had the birthday coming up soonest so what better way to salute such a generous friend than with such amazing-sounding treats?
I decided I would try to follow the recipe to a T, if just once, to accurately evaluate the recipe. I bought the bread flour and knew where to get the feves, but unfortunately, I didn’t have time to get them. Time was counting down as I had to send the cookies by a certain day in order for the cookies not to arrive ridiculously late so I ended up making the dough early enough for it to rest for 36 hours. After a looooong internal dilemma about whether or not to just chop up good bittersweet chocolate, I said “NO! I am going to do this right!” and proceeded to call the stores in West Hollywood that could potentially carry couverture quality chocolate. Bristol Farms only had White and Milk Chocolate discs, Cost Plus World Market had no idea what I was talking about (although I saw that they do, indeed, carry Guittard 61% couverture a few days later), and I didn’t even think of Sur La Table at the time (you can get it there as well).
On baking morning on my way to work, I was able to stop by Surfas where I knew they had what I was looking for, and was even overwhelmed with their selection. Valrhona 62%? 74%? 87%? Cacao-Barry 66%? 72? Mahogany flavors or vanilla notes? Madagascar or the Dominican Republic?? In the end I settled on Cacao-Barry from Africa for $17 for 2 lbs. Eeek. My main concern though, was that the chocolate flavors hadn’t also been flavoring the dough for the last 36 hours. I wasn’t able to mix the couverture in until right before baking, so I hope that didn’t affect the overall taste of the product. I really don’t think it did, because it was absolutely the best chocolate chip cookie I have ever made. This variety isn’t really my favorite kind, but certain self-proclaimed chocolate chip cookie connoisseurs have declared this the best they’ve had as well. The recipe yielded a gorgeous caramel brown specimen with crispy edges that had the most delicious buttery quality to them and I found myself craving those edge pieces, though I usually prefer soft chocolate chip cookies. The 36 hour respite in the fridge definitely produced a more flavorful dough and this practice is soooooo worth it.
Could it be that any dough's awesomeness would increase exponentially when refrigerated? I'll have to try it with other recipes, but for now, this is IT.