Category: Butter Cookies

WORLD’S BEST CHEWY PUMPKIN COOKIES

Browned butter, pumpkin, and the child of their love

Pumpkins aren’t just for Halloween!

Pumpkin cookies have become an American classic. European readers who wonder why need do so no longer. The pumpkin flesh inside the dough ensures the cookies hold their texture for a very long time, and also adds a surprisingly elegant flavor with character and depth that play against a gentle spice mix. They are just plain good.

Pumpkin cookies come in two kinds: there is a cakey product similar to many Italian cookies. That recipe will follow in a week or two. We like to add some maple icing to make it extra unique. And then there’s this version: a soft, somewhat chewy drop cookie with a deeper flavor that stands on its own. Both cookies are wonderful for eating out of hand, as well as for coffee and tea. This one you can also dunk!

NOTE FROM KATE: This might be my favorite casual cookie, especially in the fall! But I do have something to add about my new hobby horse: different kinds of flour. A high-gluten bread flour would yield a very different cookie in this case. For comparison, I tried our recipe with a lower-and-weaker-gluten Einkorn flour. They came out flatter, which is not a surprise, but they also had a maltier, more complex taste that complemented the flavor profile. You might not think it, but this is a case where the flour’s actual flavor can make a big difference.

I have now set out to test several of our favorite holiday cookies with Einkorn, sometimes with the addition of rice flour, for those of us who do better on a more low-key gluten approach. Stay tuned.

Hats Off To King Arthur Flour.

King Arthur Flour is one of the oldest continuing millers in the U.S. Some sources say it’s the oldest. But the company really came into prominence for us in the 1980s when it led the nation toward new, higher quality flours and production methods. The company website includes some very good recipes too; including the inspiration for our approach to Chewy Pumpkin Cookies. We’ve tweaked their recipe a bit, but credit should go where credit is due. Here’s a tip of the hat and a courtly bow to Ms. Sarah Jampel. Well done.

The Big Trick To Pumpkin Cookies.

Pumpkin in the dough will keep a cookies moist, but it can also make them downright wet. Even unpleasant. Thus every good recipe for pumpkin cookies starts with an all-important first step: drive off as much water as you can. Wet pumpkin in your dough is B.A.D.

Honor thy father and thy mother. Love thy country. And get the [ahem]ed water out of thy pumpkin before turning it into a dough! Thou hast been warned.

Cakey Pumpkin Cookies start with creamed (beaten until white and fluffy) butter. So that recipe starts by putting a can of pumpkin in a fine sieve and then blotting it with paper towels top and bottom. Stir and repeat until basically dry.

Ms. Jampel found a way to skip that for Chewy Pumpkin Cookies. Dense, chewy cookies often start from melted butter anyway. That was going to be our initial plan. She went one step further and asked, “If water’s the problem, why not brown the butter instead of just melting it?”

Full pause. Execute face palm maneuver. “Doh!”

So we tested it, and here’s your answer: “Brown the butter and your cookies will improve in every way.” Hence recipe instruction #1: Cook enough butter to give you ¾ cup (6 oz = 17t ml) of liquid ambrosia, and then cook the pumpkin in that heavenly substance to drive off all the extra water. Simple.

NOTE FROM KATE: Oh, I totally agree. Especially with Einkorn flour! This approach gives you a nice browned edge and a cookie that’s fabulously rich and yet kind of wholesome at the same time.

NOTE FROM SCOTT: “Kind of wholesome?!” It’s a cookie! Virtue points and cookies are not a good match… [Ow!]… Of course dear. Yes dear. Never yuck the yum.

A Note On Substituting For The Pumpkin

We happened to make both acorn squash and butternut squash over the weeks when this cookie was on the development schedule. Scott claimed all leftovers to test as supplements/substitutes for canned pumpkin.

  • Cookies From Leftovers, Lesson #1: What you make for dinner has FAR too much moisture to ever blot dry like you’d need to do for the Cakey Pumpkin Cookies. But it will dry out if you toss the leftover squash into browned butter and cook it until the extra water is gone. Leftovers work in the chewy version.
  • Cookies From Leftovers, Lesson #2: The flavor was exquisite. Better than canned pumpkin by far, at least in my opinion. But the texture was a bit problematic, and required a quick blitz in the food processor or blender. Problem solved. Yes, that creates an extra thing to clean, but c’est la vie.

SNARK FROM SCOTT: Kate thinks the extra flavor wasn’t worth the effort, but she did no complaining about the cookies. You know: the “kind of wholesome” cookies now made extra virtuous by recycling food from an older meal.

NOTE FROM KATE: Make that “very wholesome, and practically a health food.”

  • Cookies From Leftovers, Lesson 3: It’s a little hard to calculate the volume of pureed squash you’ll end up with, and this is a recipe where volume matters more than weight. It’s smart to have a can of pumpkin ready on the side in case you need to add some in.
  • Cookies From Leftovers, Lesson 4: I worried about whether the butter in our initial dinner squash would throw off the ingredient ratios for the cookie. It wasn’t a problem.

Add The Spices In Two Parts

The first part of the spice mix goes into the dough during either the cook-the-pumpkin-down stage. If you forget, the mix it all together stage works almost as well. The difference between the two was extremely subtle.

The rest of the spice mix works best as a spiced sugar coating on top of the dough, though again: adding it before baking did not change the result in a really noticeable way. Take your pick of method.

Just Dump And Stir; But Avoid That Egg You’re Thinking About

Step 1: Cook the squash/pumpkin in browned butter. Step 2: Cool enough so your baking soda won’t trigger, and then mix everything together. Simple drop cookie 101.

The only question came with whether to add some egg into that dough. A clear majority of online recipes include at least one and often two egg yolks. We tested both so you won’t have to. The conclusion? Don’t bother.

Whole eggs turn out to be essential for cakey cookies because they help to create the right texture. General baking principles say that egg yolks fit well in denser baked goods. So the idea of using egg yolks for this recipe makes sense. But tests proved that the pumpkin itself adds all the structure you needs. If anything, the egg yolks got in the way.

Working On The Spice Mix

Obsessively compulsive bakers, like a certain husband in a certain house that produces an excessive number of cookies, will insist on making every spice mix from scratch. And long suffering wives in such households learn quickly that rolling ones eyes does nothing to make the process smoother. [The foregoing speaks in generalities only. We, of course, have no direct experience in this regard.]

NOTE FROM KATE: Just go with it, friends. When dealings with husbands who describe commercial spice mixes with words like ‘heresy’, one quickly learns that helpful efforts to streamline a process will only prolong it. If the cookie will be the same anyway, why wait longer than you have to? 🙂

Ahem. But it is only fair to note that this particular mix is a standard pumpkin pie formula downsized to preserve the buttery, caramely, pumpkin notes at the heart of the flavor profile. The actual spices you choose matter less than using the right amount to achieve that balance.

Einkhorn flour (half-spiced) on the lower left.
All purpose flour (unspiced) on the upper right

Conclusion

Every person in our household, and our extended group of tasters, had the same reaction to this cookie. It’s homey; it’s comfortable; it couldn’t go better with a cup of coffee; and the presence of an actual, real life vegetable means you can enjoy them for breakfast without any guilt. Or at least maintain a straight face when you say that to a third party. It’s a cookie everyone will like, no one will dislike, and lovers of the genre will view as a masterpiece.

The only drawback comes down to faint praise. Make these for your kids. Make these for the cookie raffle. Make these to share with all and sundry. And make these to keep in the freezer for times when you’ve earned that limited-guilt treat to go along with your coffee. There isn’t a cookie out there that defrosts better.

The only place they might not fit? An elegant holiday tray. Chewy Pumpkin Cookies are folk music played on a fiddle. December Extravaganzas involve fancy violins and string quartets. At least in our house.

Enjoy!

SWEDISH CHOCOLATE ORANGE RAISIN COOKIES, A Recipe Box Essential

American bakers may view this as something fascinating and unique. Our Swedish friends would be stunned at the idea, because this is one of their most normal, halfway-to-boring bakes. Both are right. These are emphatically not another version of the famous Tollhouse recipe. What they are is simple, easy, and so very good that every baker in Sweden has them front in center in the recipe card box. They’re also a recipe you can and should tweak in whatever little ways you want to make a unique version belonging to you and you alone.

Click Here For Just The Recipe

The Overview

NOTE FROM KATE: I would call this cookie a halfway house between sugar and shortbread cookies, except they are leaner than shortbread, and they are leavened. I added a bit of cardamom to ours, it brings out the best out of both butter and candied orange peel. It’s fair to disclose that I baked three or four times the usual number of batches of this one, because we kept eating it! And our kids liked it (I baked a batch with einkorn flour for them, it works well but spreads a bit flatter.) Then we had some give-aways, and these are so easy, it was a natural go-to recipe that’s different enough to get our usual audience excited. I hope you love it as much as we do!

Do you make Chocolate Chip Cookies? If so, you can make these just as easily. It’s the same exact method with slightly different proportions.

  • Cream some softened butter and sugar (“Beat until light and fluffy”);
  • beat in two eggs, one at a time; fold in the solids (chocolate chips, plus orange peel and raisins for this one);
  • beat in the flour and baking powder, with due care to avoid an eruption;
  • chill to let it all combine and set up; and then
  • form into balls and bake.

NOTE FROM KATE: You will have to cut the orange peel with a chef knife. I tried both raisin-sized pieces and finely chopped pieces. They do provide a different experience. The small, chopped orange peel permeates the cookie better, the larger bits are like finding a piece of candy in a cookie. See what vibes with you, you may find a preference.

Bing, bang, boom, and you’re done. You know how to do this.

The Swedish cookie has a bit less sugar and a little more flour, but that only shows up in the final texture. The only other difference is in the flavor. Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies are all about the chocolate, with some extra texture from chewy nuts if you so choose. These are about balancing the chocolate chips with chocolate-loving flavors like candied orange peel and raisins.

As noted above, it all comes together into a cookie that no human being can dislike, and every human child will vibrate in delight to see.

The Complications, Lessons, And Tricks

None. As in, “not a single one.” This is Cookie Baking 101.

NOTE FROM KATE: Normally I would obsessively wet my hands to form perfect balls of dough. These cookies don’t require it at all. They are virtually self-rounding and self-leveling. Once you find the perfect size, a two-spoon method is perfectly functional!

Please Do Customize

Tollhouse Cookies invite a literally endless series of variations. Lighter or darker chips; different additions, ranging from varies candies, to pretzel bits, marshmallows, caramel, etc.; and so forth, so on, and continuing out to the limits of the baker’s creativity.

This recipe is every bit as much of a blank slate. Maybe even moreso. We suggest a few ideas for variations, such as cocoa powder in the dough or a spice to accent the fruits, but those don’t even begin to explore how far you can go in customizing these results. And every version you come up with really, honestly will deserve its own name in your recipe box. One of those will become that cookie; the one that others describe as your special creation.

Start with the basic recipe, as written, for your first batch. Get a feel for the canvas. All bets are off after that!

Conclusion

You want this cookie in your recipe box. Trust us on this. It’s just plain good. Kate calls them “undemanding and delicious.” A 102-year old family friend, and daughter of a professional baker, called them one of her new all-time favorites.

It’s so basic, so good, and so easy to customize that we’re a little embarrassed to say we hadn’t dreamed it up all on our own.

Enjoy!

HÁLFMÁNNAR (ICELANDIC HALF-MOONS)

Fruit filled, cardamom spiced cookies from Iceland

Behold the annual Christmas dilemma! We have more than 400 well tested cookie recipes to chose from. We typically end up with somewhere around 20 by the end of the Holiday baking spree. Five or ten of those are all but mandatory because the family would mourn if we “forgot” them. New recipes that “must” be tested raise that to a solid ten. We usually ends up with something like 20 in all. Thus there’s room for no more than 10-12 “others” from that enormous list of possibilities.

Icelandic Hálfmánar are going to make that final cut at least 75% of the time from now on. This, ladies and gents, is an extraordinary treat. One of the best you’ll ever make, and sure to be loved by all ages. Wow. Wow. And wow again.

Click Here For The Recipe Alone

The Summary

Hálfmánar are somewhat soft, well leavened, delicately crisped (see below) butter cookies with a perfect amount of cardamom in the dough. That dough gets wrapped around your choice of filling and then baked into a 3-bite cookie. Plum butter (povidla a/k/a lekvar) is the classic, but we have now tried fillings made from apple butter, strawberries, peaches, rhubarb, and Kate’s old favorite poppy seed. Every one was eye popping. Apricot, cherry, sweet cheese, and others will follow in turn. No stone unturned, right?

But that simple description doesn’t do this cookie justice, because the whole is exponentially better than the sum of those very delicious parts. Consider: We have a Czech friend named Barbora who bakes an array of holiday cookies that puts even our efforts to shame. We hold our own on variety and flavor. Heck, we may even win on those fronts. But appearance? Not a chance. Barbora and her mom are sensational decorators as well as great bakers, and Barbora could earn a good living on her photography alone.

The point being, she’s as tough an audience as you could ever find.

Barbora happened to be in town when I finished up our final Hálfmánar test batches, so I brought a pair over (plum and rhubarb) and asked her to test the cookies out. She rolled her eyes a bit, and promised that she’d get to them later. But I insisted on seeing her reaction, so she sighed and took a small bite.

Her eyes got wide, and a second bite followed immediately. Both samples were gone within a minute, and she was literally licking her fingers at the end – a thing that Czechs simply do not do.

Her verdict? “My mom will say they’re too big for Christmas cookies, but I want that recipe! Vánoce isn’t the only time we’re allowed to bake. Wow. I mean, like, WOW. Those were g.o.o.d.”

A Perfect Balance Of Flavors.

There’s a lot of cookies that gild the lily in an effort to be special. Most of the time that’s a mistake. And to be honest, we thought the cardamom in Hálfmánar dough would be yet another example. Think about it. You’re starting with a soft, buttery dough wrapped around densely flavored fruit butter! Why mess around in a search for something “extra?”

Man, were we ever wrong.

Freshly ground cardamom has a historic love affair with fruit of all kinds. This recipe includes the perfect amount to add some Scandinavian culture to the cookie, while simultaneously elevating the whole into something that glitters as much as it glows.

Do Not Overfill.

You’ll be tempted, but this is a case where balance adds more than you’d get from the extra filling. Trust us on this. Scott graduated summa cum laude from the school of More-Is-Better, and even he agrees. We call for a rounded teaspoon inside a 3″ diameter circle. You could fit in more, but don’t.

Kate’s homemade rhubarb filling on a plate she made herself.

Any Filling Will Do.

Prune butter (povidla a/k/a lekvar) is the most traditional filling across the recipes we researched. We adore it, and we happen to have several jars in the pantry. So we tried that first, and… wow.

But we couldn’t stop there! A friend hooked us up with a rhubarb farmer this spring, which led to jars of strawberry/rhubarb pie filling for the pantry. That went into test batch #2. Wow and wow again. Finger licking fabulous. (Just ask Barbora, lol).

Scott: “We’ve got to try this with apple butter!”

Kate: “Go ahead. But I’m going to test out poppy seed filling!”

Check. And check. And so it went. Take your fruit filling, cook it down to a dense fruit butter, and proceed.

NOTE FROM KATE: This was my first time putting up rhubarb strawberry pie filling for the winter. We used a half-pint jar for half of the dough. If you’re working with a pie filling, blend it first (I used an immersion blender in a Pyrex cup), and then cook it down. Adjust with a small amount of starch or ClearJel as needed. Then put a bit on a plate and quick-cool to test. If it’s too thick, add extra fruit. If it’s still too loose, simmer it down a bit more. This adjustment can be done while your dough is resting in the fridge. (The poppy seed was canned, and it worked out great!)

ANOTHER NOTE FROM KATE: We brought these cookies to a camping trip and shared them out. One of the lucky recipients had been to Iceland, and said that bakeries sell them in a variety of flavors. Thus, let your imagination take flight! Personally, I just might make extra cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving and cook down the leftovers for Hálfmánar.

About The Size.

This is a full, three-bite cookie because making them smaller would multiply the effort. 3″ circles – a standard biscuit cutter – already seems fussy for someone with full-sized fingers. Feel free to shrink them if you can, but for us, the extra cookies weren’t worth the extra effort. It’s up to you.

NOTE FROM KATE: Scott also tried the Asian dumpling crimper, which usually leaves a decorative edge. These cookies baked up into little football shapes, and their edge decorations didn’t hold up with this dough. It was, however, a lot faster.

[ADMISSION FROM SCOTT. I might have overfilled. Slavish instinct and long training being a thing.]

[KATE CONTINUING] The advantage of filling the cookies by hand is being able to shape them to a true half-moon, as their name indicates. The fork-tine edges aren’t much different from the dumpling crimper. We found that it helped to squeeze the middle of the circle first, and work toward the edges. The elasticity of the dough allowed us to make moon-shapes with better curves. It also made extra space for the filling. FYI, it’s faster in a team of two.

We do note that this particular size also fits the Icelandic tradition. We care about that kind of thing. Your mileage may vary.

Shouldn’t I Cream The Butter?

Confession time. Scott made a big deal about this being an ancient, ‘just mix it all together’ recipe in the initial test version… and then promptly forgot about that instruction when the butter came out of the fridge. That first batch used the standard creaming method by force of habit. Batch #2 followed the actual rules. [Sigh]. But at least this gave us a chance to compare!

The creamed-butter batch spread a bit more and might have been a tiny bit lighter, but no one would have noticed if they weren’t looking to find a problem. Dump-and-stir works every bit as well so long as your butter is soft enough to mix in without lumps.

Texture is the Persian flaw. Refresh Before Serving.

Legend says that ancient carpet weavers deliberately put small flaws in all their products because only God should make something perfect. Half-moons are darned close to perfect, but they do have that Persian flaw. The crust has a faint, utterly delightful crispiness on baking day, but humidity will kill that in a day or two. Three days at the very most.

Make no mistake. Softened Hálfmánar are still delicious, and no one would even dream of complaining. But this is one of those cases where “delicious” amounts to faint praise compared to what they’re like on the first day.

Kate discovered an easy fix. Pop the cookies back in a 250° F (120° C) oven for 5 minutes before putting them on the table. The gentle crispiness will return, and all will be scrumdiddlyumptious. That isn’t enough time to get the filling hot or to cause more browning. It merely refreshes the crust.

CONCLUSION

This is the best cooked-fruit cookie that either of us has ever had. Full stop. And that includes traditional favorites like filled gingerbreads, hamentaschen, and other famous cookies.

It’s described as the great Christmas cookie of Iceland. And it deserves to be. But Barbora is probably right for cookie arrays the size of ours. Three biters are definitely on the large size for a holiday tray that emphasizes variety as well as quality. That said, something this delicious is worth some extra space on the tray!

It should also be said that Hálfmánar are so very, truly awesome that it’s a shame to limit their use to the holiday season alone. These cookies are down in our family code as a year-round, fall back dessert for any season with an excess amount of fruit. Considering a pie? Keep Hálfmánar in mind as an elegant, just-as-easy alternative.

Wow.

Enjoy!

SOUTHERN TEA CAKES, The Most Genteel Of Cookies

The great cookie of the antebellum south

Kate and I recently put out a call to food writers and bloggers around the country for information about any cookie tied to the soul of their city or region. This was the first cookie we heard about, courtesy of Mr. Stacey Little of Southernbite.com. And a worthy cookie it proved to be!

Click Here For The Recipe without the discussion.

The Tea Cakes tradition goes back to the antebellum south, entrenched so deeply that even today it can be hard to find a church social, teatime, or other gathering that lacks some plates for guests to enjoy. The flavor matches up to that history. Kate and I agreed on “genteel” as the right adjective to describe how these feel when you eat them. They’re at the heart of that tradition called genteel Southern hospitality.

I am a northerner and Kate an immigrant, so neither of us had ever heard of or experienced this cookie. That sent me to Dr. Internet for second-hand experience to start the process.

Recipes abound, with virtually every one describing their version as “just like Grandma’s.” As in 90-95%. Anyone who hasn’t done such research may not appreciate how amazing that consistency is. I found 20 recipes to start with, all of them written independently by people striving to be different while caring enough to honor their heritage as well as they could. What does it take for 20 different people to end up focused on that single image of Grandma proudly presenting the treat she’d learned from her own? It shows how deep the cultural roots really are.

Me being me, I compiled a table of ingredients normalized to two sticks of butter. Then I stepped back to look for an underlying formula.

Choices to Make: Drop or Roll-and-Cut?

A few patterns leapt right off the page. First, the writers split more or less evenly on whether to do a drop cookie or a cut out. We chose the roll-and-cut method for our initial version, driven by two reasons. First, most of the recipes call for extra large cookies, as do the array of photos that popped up in my search. Cookies of that size either spread uncontrollably – which conflicted with the possibility of cutting the dough out – or else need some help to stay under control. Second, the idea of large, buttery dough in the American South immediately sent my imagination spinning toward the famous tradition of southern biscuits. How much more “heritage” could you get? And wouldn’t a cookie version of biscuits make sense?

I couldn’t say yes or no either way, but it was a good place to start.

Then I went back to fill in details. Did you know that typical drinking glasses have a diameter of 3″, which not coincidentally pairs exactly to a standard biscuit cutter? Many of the roll-and-cut writers said to use “a round cutter or drinking glass” for the job. The same instruction appears in biscuit recipes. Fair enough. That would be our starting point.

NOTE: Testing proved that I agonized far too much over this choice. Tea Cake dough will ball-and-squish just as well as it rolls-and-cuts. That’s what I did with the leftover scraps, and we found it hard to distinguish the two outside of size and regularity.

Choices to Make: Buttermilk?

Second question: Many writers add in buttermilk. It’s a readily available ingredient, if one we don’t keep in the house as a staple. Was it worth a trip to the market? You bet it was! Remember that analogy to southern biscuits? Southern buttermilk biscuits? This was a gimme. Besides, some buttermilk tang would help to distinguish this recipe from all the other butter cookies we’ve researched over the years.

It proved to be the right choice. That flavor really does matter.

Catching the Vibe: Variations That Really Aren’t

Everyone agrees that Southern Tea Cakes are, first and foremost, all about the texture. They’re supposed to straddle the line between cake and cookie. The universal instruction to bake until the edges start to brown supports that. It shows there’s also a required contrast between the cookie rim and center. So that was a mandatory target. But what about the flavor?

How many variations are there? Buttermilk, which I’d already decided to try. Then there’s lemon; brown sugar instead of white; nutmeg (but no other spices); and… Wait a second! Those aren’t true variations!

You can make faux buttermilk by mixing lemon into whole milk or half-and-half, often with a fleeting hint of nutmeg. (Nutmeg and dairy love each other, as shown by classic examples such as béchamel sauce). For that matter, many dairy-centric baking recipes also use brown sugar, because a very gentle molasses flavor helps to enhance the base flavor. These recipes weren’t showing different targets. They were just different methods to home in on the same target: a cookie with a profound taste of old fashioned, intensely flavored, aged or mildly fermented butter.

Suddenly it all made perfect sense. And the simple fact that everything aims to the same goal shows yet again how much the culture cares about getting this particular cookie right. We tested all of those tricks and came to the following conclusions:

  • Buttermilk: Oh my, yes. It helps in endless ways, and makes the cookie different. We settled on ⅓ cup, right in between the ¼ cup of many examples, and the ½ cup of many more. Modify at will, making up for the extra (or missing) liquid by adjusting the amount of flour.
  • Brown Sugar: An extremely subtle difference in flavor. Someone who cared could argue us into liking it better. Someone who cared the other way could argue us back.
  • Lemon Zest: Disappointing if you use enough to taste it, because it comes across as a failure from both directions. You could convert this to a proper lemon cookie by using 2-3 lemons worth of zest with a sharp glaze made from the juice. Anything short of that left us feeling cheated, until the level drops down low enough to satisfy the anchovy rule: anchovies make food taste better until you can taste them. Then they work in reverse.
  • Nutmeg: See the anchovy rule yet again. A barely discernible hint – no more than ⅛ teaspoon – kicks the whole thing up. Any more than that yields a nutmeg cookie. Really good nutmeg cookies, yes; but a different product when all is said and done. We’ve included the larger amount as a true variation worth trying on its own merits.
  • Other Extract: Do as you like. We prefer to stay true to the original target and intent.
Lemon Molasses
Nutmeg Plain

Vanilla Is Mandatory

Go back and look at that table. Every recipe – 100 % – includes an extremely generous amount of vanilla. We settled on three teaspoons of extract (a/k/a one tablespoon), but this is a case where your taste matters more. Try the recipe as written, take notes, and then adapt it as you wish. Or not.

Roll With Flour, Which Can Be Plain All Purpose

Liquid buttermilk makes this a sticky dough. Like biscuits yet again! Rolling the cookies out on a floured board solved the problem. Just don’t work it over and over, because that could make the cookies tough. Remember: good Tea Cakes have that on-the-line texture, and bad Tea Cakes got too tough.

DIGRESSION: We worried needlessly about whether the texture challenge would require a different flour. It’s a big deal for buttermilk biscuits. Would it matter for Tea Cakes too? I hit the e-books again and found that some people actually tested this. The answer is “No, the flour doesn’t make a difference.” We can also tell you that our cookies came out with the perfect texture using King Arthur all-purpose flour; a brand notorious for its high protein content.

Testing The Cookie: We Have a Winner!

So… I baked the cookies in four batches to cover all the variations. They had a nice flavor. They weren’t just another butter cookie. The texture fit all those descriptions. So they were capital-g Good. But were they capital-r Right?

I took a tin of samples and headed for a soul food restaurant on the North Side. Those owners would know for sure!

Closed. And not just for the day. Grr.

But I wasn’t going to give up! I stopped a pair of local street people on my way back to the car, and asked if they could direct me to some other local spot where I could find someone who grew up in the south. “Somewhere like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, or the like.”

Instant suspicion! “Why do you want to know?”

After all these years I’ve got that answer down to an art form. You wouldn’t believe how many people think I’m peddling hash brownies or the like. Free cookies = ulterior motives. So I come prepared with both evidence and explanations. Show book; explain that I’m the author; explain about research; explain about the cookie; show the recipe; and then explain that “I can tell if it’s good. That’s easy. But I need native testers to tell me if I’ve got it Right.”

They reacted the same as everyone else, with that head cocked, ‘I guess that makes sense’ look. The one in heavy dreadlocks mumbled something. His friend translated. “He wants you to know that he’s from Alabama.”

I looked at the man and asked, “Do you know Tea Cakes? The cookie? That’s what I’m working on.”

His eyes lit up before he turned to look at the street. He mumbled something to acknowledge a small experience or two.

“Would you mind tasting one of these, and telling me if I’ve got it Right?”

He took the cookie, gave it a good nibble, and got a bit misty eyed. Then he turned his back. Nibble. Grab with both hands instead of one. Nibble more. Munch. Followed by munch, munch, and more munch, grabbing up crumbs until the cookie was gone. Then he gave me a thumbs-up, still turned away.

“That means you got it right,” his friend said.

“Do you want one? Take your pick. There’s another for him too if he’d like.” Another turned-away thumbs up. Then they vanished up an alley to who knows where or what, heads together and talking.

But I still had some cookies to dispose of. Kate would not approve if I returned to the house with dietary sin still in hand. Besides, one tester – however enthusiastic – is still just one.

We’d been standing outside the local public library, so why not? I made my way in, found the young man at the desk, and went through the story again. “Did anyone here grow up in the south? Somewhere like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I grew up in North Carolina, and that’s as close as you’re going to get.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s too bad. But… would you happen to know a cookie called Tea Cakes?” His face lit up.

“Of course I do!”

“Care to test one for me?” Book up; recipe shown; explanation made; etc.

“Sure, I’d love to.” One bite and he came close to misting up too. “Y’know, it’s weird how tasting something from your childhood can bring up so many emotions. I didn’t expect that.”

What could I say except to agree? Cookies have a magic, and that’s a big part.

The last cookie went to his fellow librarian at the end of the counter. She was from somewhere just outside the city. “These are really good! I never heard of them before.”

I left as he began to enthuse about growing up in Tea Cake Land. That’s another part of the magic.

Conclusion

Southern Tea Cakes fit every category of “heritage” you could ever imagine. Right down to embodying a proud part of the culture itself. They really are genteel Southern hospitality incarnate. Homey and a little sweet, with nothing strange except an oddly familiar tang to the dairy flavor, and a remarkable texture right on the line between cake and cookie.

We wholeheartedly approve.

And now I’m off to confirm those findings. Again. I am a loyal husband, after all, and protecting my wife from regret comes with the job. If that means I must throw myself on the fork, so be it.

Enjoy!

NOTE FROM KATE: I agree that Southern Tea Cakes came as a happy surprise. They are pleasantly soft on the day of baking, but harden a bit on the second day. I expressed my mild disappointment with the lemon zest ones, so we talked it over. Yes, it’s there for butter support. No, this is not meant to be a lemon cookie. We have plenty of lemon cookie recipes, and this one isn’t one of them. Scott pretty much said what needed to be said. As for his valiant defense of my waistline, all I can say is, there are risks that come with being around cookies – especially when photographing them. Even though I enjoy some as part of the creative process, it really helps to get them out of the house!

SCANDINAVIAN JAM SNIPS (“MARMELADSNITTAR”), A Class One Addictive Substance

An utterly delicious cookie from Scandinavia suitable for bakers of all skill levels.

There’s a cookie-baker archetype that goes like this: People are always popping in and out, and every time they do s/he whips up a quick batch of cookies and… And a secondary archetype for the young baker: S/he will get an urge, and vanish into the kitchen on his/her own to whip of a quick batch of…

In America those are almost always Chocolate Chip Cookies. In Australia and New Zealand it’s Anzac Cookies. In Scandinavia it’s these utterly addictive, 30 minute start-to-snarf treats that vary in infinite ways according to the jam in your fridge. I defy any human to see a plate and fail to take one on the way past.

Click Here To Skip To The Recipe

Scandinavian bakers have a trick they use for a whole series of homey cookies: form the dough into long logs, bake until done, and then snip the slump logs into elegant strips. The word “snittar” means pieces that have been snipped, cut, or sliced out. The cookie names vary according to the flavor. Kolasnittar for caramel snips; Chokladsnittar for cocoa snips; Jordgubbsnittar for strawberry snips; Kardemummasnittar for cardamom snips; etc. Marmeladsnittar would mean any cookie of this type made with jam. The online translations almost always use “cuts” or “slices,” but we thought “snips” captured the image best in colloquial English.

Strawberry is the most traditional jam in Scandinavia. Americans tend toward raspberry. We loved apricot. Anything will do. And best of all? Every variation earns its own name! So you can fill a book with “different” recipes simply by changing from one jam to another, or by adding an ingredient to the dough. Or you could in Sweden. We’re stuck with English. Drat.

This is the most basic recipe for all the “snittar” group; a light, vaguely crispy, addictively perfect butter cookie from which you can create all those thousands of variations.

Tricks Of The Trade

There really aren’t any, more’s the shame. I would feel much safer if there were. But here are a few observations to help explain the big picture.

  • Speaking Bakerese, this is a simple creaming method cookie. Cream the butter and sugar, beat in the egg, flavor, and then work in the flour and baking powder.
  • The recipe calls for slightly less flour than roll-and-cut cookies because it’s designed to slump and spread a bit in the oven. Which, of course, makes them taste extra light and buttery.
  • One recipe makes four logs the length of a standard baking tray. It’s hard to divide because of the single egg, but the dough can be wrapped and frozen for another day.
  • Do not press in a deep channel, or your cookies will be so thin in the middle that they’ll break in that spot. You want a nice, lengthwise dent to keep the jam oriented. No more.
  • Don’t use too much jam. Scott usually argues that more jam in cookie is that much more delicious. Kate prefers scarcity. In this case she’s right. The butter cookie is the star, and the jam is an accent.
  • Let the cookies set on the baking tray for a few minutes in order to set up, and then slice while warm. A bench scraper works every bit as well as a knife for this, and maybe better.
  • Diagonal slices look a little more elegant.

NOTE FROM KATE: regarding the jam amount, I applied the apricot jam using a piping bag, whilst Scott used a spoonfor the strawberry jam. [FROM SCOTT: My apologies. We’ve been watching too many British mysteries] You can see them both in the photo above. Honestly? I like his better. That thin line doesn’t spread as wildly, and makes it look like I tried too hard. Which I did. Go wild!

(The bowl below isn’t precision pottery, either. I made it, a beginner’s effort, and I allowed it to slump on the wheel to see what happens. If I can get away with making pottery that has “character,” the same goes for these cookies! ) And now I want to try them with a poppyseed filling. Poor Scott, that’s so not his thing.

Enjoy!

ONE FINAL NOTE: Please don’t blame us for what happens as these cookies migrate from house to hips, and platter to paunch. These are a Class One Addictive Substance! You have been warned!

HAZELNUT DROP COOKIES, Simple, Sleek, Elegant, and Awesome

Simple, sleek, hazelnutty perfection

Imagine the esthetic behind Danish Modern furniture: minimal, sleek, efficient, elegant, useful, classically beautiful, and easy to customize. Now take that esthetic and design a cookie to match. We’ve got you covered.

Click here for the recipe without the discussion

Minimalist: Six ingredients: nuts, butter, sugar, salt, an egg, and baking powder. No more, no less.

Sleek and Efficient: Beat it all together, divide into balls, and bake. There’s no flour to hydrate, and thus no actual need to chill in advance (though I will admit it makes the dough less sticky).

Elegant: How about we kick up the baking temperature to ensure a golden brown, extra-toasty bottom that enhances the basic nut flavor? Clever! And let’s add just enough baking powder to keep the cookie from ever feeling dense or pasty.

Useful: Unexpected guests? Need a moment of self-reward? I’ve yet to meet a cookie that freezes better, and they’re delicious right out of the chill chest.

Classically Beautiful: This is the girl next door of Cookieville, and you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t love the type.

Easy to Customize: Want your cookie textured and noshable? Done. Use ground nuts, and remember to bar your door against the likes of my wife. Want something firm but soft, like a shoulder to rest on? Grate the nuts to meal, and do not bar your door because I may be dropping by for a surprise inspection. Want to go all out, and make something that melts on the tongue like almost-liquid flavor? Pulse the grated meal all the way down to flour. Or play with a different nut. Or a mix of nuts. Or… You get the idea.

(A NOTE FROM KATE: I would like to point out that aside from being naturally gluten-free, this cookie is, with the exception of sugar, a “whole food.” Nuts are good for you, eggs are good for you… and why say no to just a bit of sugar? In fact, I predict that cookies such as these will become a new health food trend!)

NOTES ON PROCESS AND PROCEDURE

There isn’t much to say. This really is as simple as it sounds.

(NOTE FROM KATE: To be fair, I did find that the pre-roasted hazelnuts were just a bit too hard for the rotary grinder. Husband + food processor = easy solution.

Do I really need to roast the nuts…? For heaven’s sake, most stores sell them pre-roasted! But if you bought fresh, unroasted nuts, the answer is yes. Roasting develops the hazelnut flavor, which is what you’re after in the first place. Cookies made with raw nuts will work just fine, but the same can be said of furniture no one’s bothered to varnish.

“I’m so confused? Where do I get ground nuts? Or hazelnut meal? Or hazelnut flour? Who carries that?” [Sigh] Start with whole nuts. Then:

  • For ground, put them in a food processor and pulse until you arrive at rough, finely pebbled, ground-nut sand; i.e., the stage right before they start to turn into nut butter. Remember to scrape the sides of the food processor bowl as you go in order to (a) release any fine particles, and (b) check see if you are getting too close to the nut-butter stage.
  • For nut meal, pull out a rotary grater with a middle-fine wheel. Put the nuts in and proceed until you have a light and fluffy meal. Food process coarsely if you need to break down the whole nuts first.
  • For nut flour, pulse the grated nut-meal a few times in the food processor.

Besides, this ability to customize is part of the fun! Some recipes have no room for wiggle. This recipe has wiggle room built into its bones, which is nothing but a plus if your family is anything like ours.

Kate has a strong preference for using ground nuts. She considers that the purest example of what hazelnuts really are, and a nice change from all the shortbreads of the world that melt in the mouth without thought. Yours truly is a softaholic. “Melt in the mouth” is a good thing for me, though I will grant that this cookie benefits from the rustic appeal of nut meal rather than whole scale flour.

In a pastry shop, for elegant tea time nibbles? Okay, now we’re back to proper nut flour, probably with each cookie halved in size for the sake of proper, lace linen daintiness.

You cannot lose. It’s all about how you choose to win on this particular day, for this particular situation. Asset, not hurdle.

(NOTE FROM KATE: I enjoyed the coarser texture of the machine-ground nuts for its rustic appeal. They look good, and the one hazelnut reserved for the top is very cute, albeit a bit fussy to position nose-up. I admit, however, that fine-textured hazelnut drops would be just as lovely, yet… slightly different.

Here is some good tricks to keep in mind:

  • We don’t use cookie scoops (not enough room in the drawers), so I like to weigh a few dough balls until I have the size right. It keeps a consistent result every time.
  • When forming, give each ball a gentle squish with the heel of your hand to prevent rolling, and garnish with one hazelnut each. These nuts have a pointy “nose,” which I like to aim in the same direction every time.
  • If you want a fine nut meal, start with raw nuts, then toast the flour on a cookie sheet in the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 4 minutes. Pull out, stir gently, then toast for another few minutes until its scent JUST begins to develop.
  • Unroasted nuts blanch better, so you will have tidier nut toppers. I tried blanching store-bought roasted nuts and almonds, but to my surprise, the skins wouldn’t slip off!

The big note from Scott? At some point you are going to make the dough and then wonder, “Maybe I should add in some vanilla, or spice, or a tough of extract…” You can, and it will be good, but do us a favor and try it straight up the first time. Lilies look best before they’re gilded.

In all honesty, I very seriously considered a preemptive addition of vanilla before our first test batch. After all, vanilla and hazelnut have a historic love affair, and the dough didn’t have as big a flavor hit as I imagined it would. She Who Must Be Heeded prevailed on me not to, and I’m glad to say she was right. The high temperature oven triggers a lot of browning on the bottoms, which adds the exact thing I had been missing.

CONCLUSION

These really are the Danish Modern of cookie baking. Minimal, sleek, efficient, elegant, easy to customize, and absolutely luscious. Plain old cookies just don’t get any better.

Enjoy!

CENTRAL AMERICAN CORN DONUT COOKIES (“Rosquillas de Maiz”)

A staple cookie from Nicaragua and Honduras that acts like a Central American equivalent to Italian Biscotti.

Some countries use more corn than wheat flour as their staff of life, and in those lands you have to expect corn based desserts. Enter Rosquillas de Maiz, a crunchy, mildly sweet cookie meant to accompany a cup of coffee, tea, a drink, or even a fruity dessert soup.

A word to the wise: the word “rosquillas” describes the shape, not the dish, and can include a variety of recipes that can range from our common fried donuts, through ring-shaped breads, tender shortbreads, and in this case, barely-sweet cookies. A native speaker is bound to complain if you use that word alone, just as Norteamericanos would complain if you handed over a bowl of ring shaped breads and called them donuts. Use the adjective, though, and you’re fine. Rosquillas de Maiz means “corn donuts,” and Rosquillas de Nicaragua/Honduras means “donuts from this country.”

NOTE FROM KATE: If this pattern continues, we will never be done testing cookies! What a terrible fate, right? Every time we think our short list got trimmed down to “just a few more,” this happens. Every. Single. Time. However, I have no regrets. This little cookie is easy to make, fun to shape, and expands the repertoire in an entirely unexpected direction! One note of caution: If you toast your corn flour, make sure the flour is cold before you add your leavening agents, especially if you are using hartshorn. (I poured my toasted corn flour into a steel bowl and let it cool in the freezer, for patient I am not.)

Click here if you only want the recipe without its context

An Origin Story For Cookie Sleuths Everywhere

We often get asked “Where do you find all these?!” My best answer is, “They are there waiting to be found if you just take the time to look, and to ask.” This cookie is a case in point.

Kate and I are in the final month of intensive recipe testing before attention turns to getting Volume 2 ready for publication. Sweet Wine Cookies, a ring-shaped treat common from Portugal, Spain, and Italy has been high on our list for some time now. I mean, come on: everybody cooks with wine in their soups and sauces, so it makes total sense that wine growing regions would use their excess wine in baking too. Wine based desserts aren’t exactly rare. Nor are wine based flavors in cakes. Haven’t you come across some version of Champagne Buttercream Frosting for cakes, cupcakes, Macarons, or eclairs? If you haven’t, you’re welcome; that’s good stuff!

I looked around and, sure enough, the wine growing regions in Southern Europe have just such a treat. So I worked up a test recipe, got to where we liked it, and then went searching for native Spaniards to tell me what I needed to tweak. But there I ran into a problem. Our fallback testers include several native Italians (who gave it a big thumbs up), but Spaniards are thin on the ground in Pittsburgh and our Portuguese friend has retired. Thus I wandered into Reyna Foods, a Latin-products grocery store in the Strip District that we have patronized loyally for decades. There’s a lady there who also likes to supply her friends and neighbors with holiday cookies; Latin America was part of the Spanish Empire; and so I hoped that Rosquillas de Vino might have found a sideways path into her repertoire.

No such luck. But there was a lady from Nicaragua in the back who’s reputed to be a fine baker, and her ears perked right up at the word Rosquillas. She doesn’t speak much English, but a coworker agreed to translate my request for feedback.

Her eyes crinkled up in suspicion when I opened the tin of powdered rings. She picked one up with obvious hesitation, gave it a little nibble, and made a face so universal it needs no translation. “No, no, no. No bueno.” It wasn’t quite a blecch! because she didn’t mind the flavor per se, but she was quite firm that these were not the Rosquillas she grew up with. Not even close. Mine were sweet, tender, and had a uniquely wine-tinged aroma. No bueno. Nicaraguan Rosquillas were supposed to barely sweet, very crunchy, and [ahem] untainted.

Then she pulled out her phone, did a quick search, and showed me a photo. Plain, golden rings. “Estas. Estas son Rosquillas.” I scrolled up and saw the title: Rosquillas de Maiz. Wait a second. Maiz? As in “maize?” I.e., corn?

[Pause for translation]. “Of course it is. Rosquillas are made with masa a/k/a corn flour.”

And thus the penny dropped. The basic idea of ring-shaped cookies had indeed traveled the length and breadth of Spain’s former dominion, but not the Spanish recipe. People in the Americas had taken the idea and made it their own.

I looked things up as soon as I got home, and found quite a few examples from Nicaragua and Honduras in particular. It’s a pretty straightforward recipe with a few twists.

Twist #1 – The Basic Formula and Target Result

Research for this cookie quickly ran into a problem: the details were all over the place. Some called for lard (pig fat), some called for tallow (beef fat), some called for butter. Some were leavened, others unleavened. Some had sugar added, some didn’t. Etc. Fortunately, it’s a problem we’ve faced before and we knew what it meant.

This is a peasant recipe enjoyed by the whole society, not a well defined restaurant dish. That means the overarching instruction goes like this: “Use what you have on hand, so long as you keep the basics in place, and achieve the right result.”

Here are those basics, as measured by weight:

  • 3 parts finely ground cornmeal (masa harina),
  • 3 parts hard, grated farmer’s cheese (queso seco),
  • 1 part fat,
  • an egg to bind it together, and
  • baking time at 350° F (175° C) to get them browned, followed by more baking at 200° F (93° C) to get them completely dry and crunchy.

And here is the target:

  • Nicaraguan Corn Donut Cookies serve the same function as Italian Biscotti: they’re a not-quite-a-cookie intended to accompany coffee, tea, an alcoholic beverage, or a fruity dessert soup. Make that, and you’ve made Rosquillas de Maiz.

Everything after that comes down to refining and perfecting each point.

Baking With Corn Flour And Meal – You May Want To Toast It In A Pan

Central Americans have fresh masa harina on hand, every day and everywhere, waiting to be used. If you’re like us, you probably have a bag of masa tucked away in the back of your pantry, sealed as well as possible to keep out the moths. “Fresh” it is not.

There is an easy solution. Put your somewhat stale corn product into a dry pan over medium heat, and cook it until you can smell the corn flavor rising up. Presto. Ready to go.

That trick may work for fresh masa harina too, but it isn’t in the original recipes. On the other hand, it isn’t all that outside of the recipes either. Spain and its cultural heirs make a series of cookies like Polvorones that are built on a combination of toasted wheat flour and a healthy amount of butter and/or lard. This fits right into that tradition.

The Cheese

Most cultures with a European heritage make a variety of fresh cheeses known by different names around the globe. Quark, tvorog, topfen, etc. They typically come in two basic varieties, wet and hard, and have a mild, creamy flavor. The closest American equivalents would be something like cottage cheese mixed with ricotta, and then drained in cheesecloth until you get the desired texture.

For this recipe you want the driest version of that cheese you can find, grated down to as fine as you can get it. We used tvorog from a local Polish store, drained in a sieve before weighing it out. It’s probably not ideal, but remember that basic instruction up above. It’s peasant food. Use what you have on hand, so long as you keep the basics in place, and achieve the right result.

NOTE: If you only have access to something as wet as cottage cheese, wring it out well before weighing, and then you’ll be fine. The darned cookies get dried at the end of the recipe anyway, and there’s no gluten to develop because they’re made with corn rather than wheat.

The Fat

As noted above, the authentic recipes vary from all butter through all lard, to a mix of butter, lard, and tallow. That isn’t odd for Spanish-heritage cookies. Again, see Polvorones and their U.S. relative Biscochitos. Use what you have on hand. Our favorite was a mix of butter and lard, but it doesn’t really matter from a “heritage” point of view.

This can be a dry dough. Drizzle in water (or extra fat) a teaspoon at a time as needed to make it just hold together as a dough. Remember that it will tend to moisten throughout as it rests, and the dry corn grains moisten up.

The Sugar Content

Authentic recipes varied from no added sugar at all to a small amount (from the perspective of a U.S. sweet tooth). The target is something that will taste like corn in your personal opinion. Season to taste, as they say.

Some recipes also call for obscure (to us) products like loaf sugar. Nicaragua and Honduras are major production centers for sugar cane, and such niceties probably matter to those who live there every bit as much as green peppers versus red peppers do for us, or Apple A versus Apple B. With all due respect, and subject to one exception, it doesn’t matter to you and me. U.S. brown sugar comes from sugar cane, with some of the byproducts (a/k/a molasses) mixed back in. The result should be identical once it dissolves into a cookie dough.

The exception? There is a Rosquillas variation that uses no sugar at all in the dough, but decorates the top of the cookie with sugar shavings from the aforementioned loaf. Consider that an Internet Bonus, because it isn’t in our written recipe. That’s a case where only true loaf sugar will do, because the texture simply can’t be duplicated.

To Salt Or Not To Salt?

That’s simple. Salt. No, it isn’t in the most authentic recipes. But we’ve found that every single baked good we’ve ever tried will taste a little better if you use an invisible pinch or two of salt.

The Leavening Agent

We call for baker’s ammonia if you have it, and there was one recipe I found that incorporated this antique leavening agent. Others use baking powder, with a healthy percentage calling for nothing.

So why did we specify the more obscure one? It comes down to the target. All biscotti are crunchy and dry, but we’ve eaten a lot of them over the years and have come to appreciate the distinction between (i) hard, which is unpleasant until you’re initiated into the cult, (ii) crunchy, which amounts to the introductory level for people not yet beaten into submission; and (iii) crispy, a rarely achieved state of perfection that catches the essence of hard without the dental ramifications of crunchy.

Unleavened Nicaraguan Rosquillas are hard. They’re still okay because we have molars for a reason, and you’re supposed to dip the darned things anyway, but in our opinion one ought to do better. Nicaraguan Rosquillas made with baking powder are crunchy. That’s what a native of the region will expect.

Nicaraguan Rosquillas made with hartshorn a/k/a baker’s ammonia are light and crispy, which made our native tester down at Reyna’s raise an eyebrow with delight. For what it’s worth, I also brought a version made with baking powder only, and that was considered good, but not as good as the lighter and crispier variety.

NOTE: Here’s an Internet-only tip. Hartshorn is a little stronger than baking powder. You may want to increase the amount to a full 1 teaspoon if you use the more common leavening agent.

CONCLUSION

Nicaraguan Corn Donut Cookes (Rosquillas de Maiz) fell into our life by total surprise, and have quickly earned an enduring spot in our hearts. The aren’t a “favorite” per se, because we associate cookies with sweet, tender, dessert-like baked goods such as shortbreads and nut cookies. But that’s taste, not judgment, and these would definitely be in the running if we were making recipes along the lines of Biscotti, Mandelbrot, or even our recent forays into Greek Ladokouloura and Lebanese Yansoon Cookies.

The first two are crunchy, crispy, and nutty-sweet. The next two are crispy and spiced-sweet. Rosquillas de Maiz are crunchy, crispy, and corn-sweet. They fit right in as a peer to the others, and illustrate a special heritage that most of us could stand to know a lot more about.

NOTE FROM KATE: I really enjoy these, and the cheese adds an extra tang. Also, look at the proportions: doesn’t the recipe resemble “Real Food?” The guilt factor is cut by two-thirds at least when you nosh on a barely-sweet, high-protein Rosquillas de Maiz. They are absolutely lovely. Now as you all know, I struggle with fitting into my jeans in this cookie-rich environment. This round little cookie has me all excited, though. Some online recipes cut out all sugar and add a bit of parmesan to the farmer’s cheese. Interesting… I wonder how these would go over as an almost-savory, balanced treat with my afternoon cup of coffee? Try them and decide for yourself!

Enjoy!

CHINESE RESTAURANT ALMOND COOKIES, Now More Than A Century Old

Chinese immigrants in America, from a cookie’s point of view

You may have noticed that many Chinese restaurants in the U.S. have an out of place dessert tucked away on the menu: a peculiarly tender almond cookie. Research (a/k/a the 2020 Nom Wah Cookbook) shows an interesting history.

Click Here For The Recipe Without The Discussion

The oldest Chinese restaurant in New York, Nom Wah Tea Parlor, began in 1920 as a bakery focused on standard American fare like cakes, tarts, and of course cookies. These Almond Cookies were a popular creation of the Chinese immigrant owners. Matters changed because that little bakery had a sideline operation selling tea and various traditional savory snacks from Hong Kong; small plates that sparked the NYC love affair with Dim Sum. The sideline restaurant business swallowed up the bakery, and the rest is history. But this particular cookie was too popular to die! It may have stood out like an American sore thumb against all that traditional fare, but the customers insisted. They wanted all those little dumplings, noodle dishes, skewers, soups, and meats most of all… but they wanted Almond Cookies too. It survived every challenge.

Your customers insist!

Other restaurants ran into the same issue when they began to copy the Nom Wah success story. ‘In the know’ customers simply wouldn’t go if a Dim Sum restaurant wasn’t [ahem] authentic enough to include Chinese Almond Cookies on the menu. Never mind that the recipe had no Asian roots.

The cookie itself is a simple shortbread that uses lard instead of butter, a lot of almond extract, and an exceptional number of egg yolks. The proportions are pretty standard beyond that. It’s the history, texture, and flavor that make this cookie such a different, delightful, and (to certain Pavelle family females) indispensable treat.

“Melted” Means Melted

Kate, a long time aficionado of almond cookies, handled the testing on this one. It’s a very old and very well established recipe, so she only ran into two challenges.

First, a certain husband of hers who shall remain nameless, blameless, and in all ways sacrosanct, wrote “lard at room temperature” in the first version instead “melted lard cooled to room temperature.” This made the dough extremely stiff and hard to work with.

Consider yourself warned.

NOTE FROM KATE: Now that I have tried the melted method, the dough seems less “short” and easier to handle. Before, I had to add a teaspoon of water, thinking that our flour became extra dry over the winter. Surprisingly, the end product has the same, identical texture! The only catch: I found it best to let the lard melt ¾ of the way, and then take it off the heat as I prepared the other ingredients. It finished melting in the residual heat, and then cooled just enough to start solidifying again when I was ready to use it. The food processor will handle the solid bits – just make sure you don’t inadvertently cook the egg yolks that are already waiting! (Barely melted lard is warm to touch, but not hot.)

The cookie forming goes like this:

  1. Divide dough in half.
  2. Divide each half into 18 portions (I like to square up the dough using my bench scraper, then I eyeball the sections.)
  3. Roll each portion into a ball in your hands, press the almond into the center, and then squish lightly. Don’t worry about fixing small cracks, it will bake up nicely and the texture, highlighted by the yellow egg wash, is part of cookie’s appeal.

To Soda Or Not To Soda, That Is The Question

We decided to write this up as a doubled version of the recipe in the Nom Wah Cookbook. Those authors called for 1 tsp. each of baking soda and powder; i.e. 2 tsp. each for our version.

Kate tasted distinct baking soda notes in that formula, though Scott (who is much less sensitive to bitter flavors) was willing to give it a pass. So we tried a second version, with two teaspoons of cream of tartar to react with the baking soda byproduct. Those cookies still tasted a bit soapy to her extra sensitive palate, and were a bit too puffy for Scott – a fact which proved she was correct in tasting unreacted baking soda still in the dough.

Do you know that story about the recipe testers who met up with Goldilocks?

Four teaspoons of baking powder with no soda would have eliminated the soapiness for sure, but now we had to deal with the unwanted extra rise. And so we settled 3 tsp. of baking powder. Except… A certain angelic, blameless, and nameless husband pointed out that almond extract originally came from purifying bitter almonds to remove the cyanide. So maybe that baking soda flavor was actually a feature instead of a flaw? Was it possible that a certain recipe tester was being too sensitive? [NOTE TO SELF: Married men should know better than to use the words “too” and “[you-know-what]” in close proximity. Thank goodness the nameless and blameless husband at issue would never, ever make such a rookie mistake.]

NOTE FROM KATE: Scott may be onto something with that touch of bitter almonds. The batch below (3 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda) leavened about the same (the cookies puff up and deflate a bit with cooling.) A side-by-side taste test revealed that the “soapier” cookie is more authentic! It has that certain something. I like it toned down a bit, but not all the way. But now you have options and see how “soapy” a cookie you prefer.

Suffice it to say that we leave things up to you. It’s a matter of taste. Do you want the bitter edge? Or do you find it revolting enough to point fingers at your entirely innocent spouse, who only wrote down what the original authors required? Almond, or bitter almond? Tradition, or improved?

There’s really no way to lose.

Enjoy!

HARTSHORN CRACKERS, A Beautiful and Tasty Illusion Cookie

Appeance? Cracker. Texture? Cracker. Taste? Sugar cookie. Gotcha!

We often discover something new and exciting as we experiment when odd or exotic recipes appear on the radar. We expected no less with this one. “Crackers?” It had to be a European version of those crispy, crunchy Mediterranean tea cookies. Right?

Nope. These taste like a standard sugar cookie, and earned their name by mirroring the appearance and texture of a classic saltine a/k/a soda cracker. They are eminently snackable too. Dangerously so. Each piece is so small that you will find yourself innocently popping five or ten at a sitting, which actually adds up to more than that regular sized sugar cookie you would have been able to resist.

Unique, fascinating, and familiar all at once. How cool is that?

Click here if you only want the recipe without the discussion

Saltines, right? Gotcha!

The Things You Learn When You Do The Math…

The past few months have uncovered several new recipes that rely on baker’s ammonia, including a few that feature a crisp, crackery texture achieved through the use of an antique leavening agent called baker’s ammonia a/k/a hartshorn. See, e.g., Norwegian Pretzel Cookies (Kringla), Greek Olive Oil Cookies (Ladokouloura), and Lebanese Anise (Yansoon) Cookies. So we were kind of excited to try this one, which promised to be a more classic European version.

The Mediterranean recipes both start with oil. The older versions of this recipe start with lard or shortening. Seems like an obvious connection, right? The only unusual thing was the math. All the classic Ammonia a/k/a Hartshorn Cookie recipes ended up with a really odd amount of fat when normalized to a reasonable amount of flour. A bit more than three tablespoons. At the same time, the flour measurements got weird if we tried to normalize things from the fat or sugar point of view.

Version 1.0

I decided to plan out my first test recipe by weight since the numbers weren’t that far off. 100 grams of lard, 100 grams of sugar, and 250 grams of flour. 1 to 1 to 2½, spread over two baking sheets. The result? Extraordinarily thin crackers that tasted like a cookie, but with a very distinct flavor from the fat. They were also a little greasy.

NOTE FROM KATE: They were a fun kind of greasy! Sometimes, using an animal fat you already have saved from a roast can give this kind of a cookie a very interesting character. Flaky tenderness and a hint of other flavors add to the gustatory experience. I like knowing that you’re eating a natural product and not a highly processed shortening. Scott will disparage that from time to time as “virtue points,” but they matter to me.

Fair enough. 250 grams of flour equals 1¾ cups of flour. The next batch would increase the flour to an even two cups. That would take care of the greasiness. The sugar level was about right. But what about that very lard-heavy flavor? What could I do for people who prefer something less distinctive and more common? Shortening, yes… but the flavor wasn’t loud enough to do with a totally neutral fat. So why not clarified butter?

How much butter would I need? Butter is about 16-18% water… Assume that’s been cooked that off, and account for a little more weight from the milk solids… And you end up with…

Son. Of. A. [cough]! You end up with exactly 4 ounces, dead on the nose. And what is 4 ounces? Exactly one standard stick of butter, or and even ½ cup.

And was I wasting effort and cleaning time by assuming the recipe called for two baking sheets? I had carefully rotated the pans midway through because thin dough and high heat are a bad combination. But even so we ended up with one tray browned more on the top, and the other tray more on the bottom. Annoying. And there was an awful lot of room around the dough on each tray, so…

Version 2.0

(A) Clarified butter instead of lard. (B) A little more flour. (C) Roll it all out to fit on a single sheet pan, and see if it’s still thin enough to be a “cracker.” (D) Adjust the cooking time to account for the extra thickness, and having only one pan in the oven.

This is how they come out of the oven. See the uneven break by the bottom right? That’s what happens if you merely cut the lines without giving the wheel/blade a little wiggle to add an extra hint of separation.

This experiment told us (almost) everything we needed to know.

  1. I had the proportions nailed. The dough was easy to make, easy to handle, and just plain worked.
  2. This amount of dough rolls out thin – something on the order of ⅛” when all is said and done – but that’s still a big difference from “roll until you can roll no more.” The final result ended up being just under 3/16“, which definitely gave more of a cookie vibe than a cracker.
  3. The flavor changed radically. Lard notes versus butter notes were extremely clear when we tasted them side by side.
  4. The butter version does indeed taste standard. Just like a sugar cookie. But is there anything easier to vary than a sugar cookie? Tea, chai, cinnamon, other spices, herbs… This is clearly a cookie that bakers can play with to an all but infinite extent.
  5. Those darned lines aren’t always clean enough when the cookie comes out of the oven.
    Thick indeed! These come off as more “cookie” than “cracker.” Note how the lack of docking adds to that.

This cookie was, quite honestly, good enough to publish. But we weren’t done just yet! Could we customize this into a true illusion cookie with a taste that would complement a cookie tray instead of just fitting right in with so many other tastealikes?

Digression: Revisiting The Ratio Of Ingredients

Remember how odd the ingredient list seemed at the start of this project? And how the fat didn’t work out evenly until we figured out that it equaled a 4 oz. stick of butter that’s been clarified? But the overall ratios still didn’t work out to even numbers by weight, as experience taught they should in such an old recipe?

But now, with some extra flour and a more limited amount of fat… Aha! These changes created something very close to a 1:1:3 ratio of fat:sugar:flour. Gotcha!

Version 3.0 (see below) established our preference for a little less in the way of both fat and sugar, and that is what the recipe now says, but we have no doubt how Grandma taught the recipe by that ratio back in the day.

Version 3.0

  • Use the 1:1:3 ratio of ingredients;
  • Add some bacon fat in place of butter (we ended up with 2 tablespoons after I rendered four slices in a pan);
  • Roll out two trays as thin as possible, and only bake one at a time;
  • Dock the dough to make the final product look more like a saltine; and
  • Move some of the sugar from the inside to a sprinkling on top that would mimic the salt on an actual cracker.

The result? Have a look!

[Shakes head]. I don’t know how I missed it, but this is a marvelous illusion cookie. It actually fooled our real life daughter when she stopped in to visit! That docking made a much bigger difference than I ever imagined.

We could taste the bacon, but only because we knew it was there. The bacon also added a healthy hit of extra salt that we both enjoyed – enough to bump the basic salt level in the recipe up from ¼ to ½ teaspoon (though we might revert to the reduced amount if we work with salty bacon fat again). I even enjoyed sprinkling the tops with a little bit of extra salt to enhance the effect. It now appears as an option in the recipe. Here, among friends, I will admit to recommending that option because it makes the cookie taste more distinctive. But that’s taste, not tradition.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We also learned, to our chagrin, that simply marking the lines with a fluted wheel isn’t enough. We lost several “crackers” because they baked together too firmly, and wouldn’t snap along the lines. Even more than we did with the thick cookie (see photo above).

LESSON LEARNED: Don’t just mark those lines; mark them clearly and emphatically, with a little wiggle of the wheel or blade to be on the safe side. You need the pieces to bake together in order to have that crackerish center show, but you also need the separations clean enough to be sure they will break evenly.

The only other adjustments came down to fine tuning the ratio. Hark! Can you hear your great-great Grandma speaking from the beyond? “It’s a simple ratio dear. Three parts flour, to one part sugar, and one part lard. But here’s the secret… They taste even better if you take back a spoonful of the sugar and fat.”

Grandma is great. Grandma is wise. Listen to your great-great Grandma.

Conclusion

This is one of those cookies where we started out thinking “A,” only to discover it was really a “B.” This is not one of those cracker-crisp Mediterranean tea cookies. It’s more like a good, cracker-crisp sugar cookie designed to create a convincing, extremely snackable illusion.

NOTE FROM KATE: Be careful with these – they are quite more-ish! The texture is a lot of fun. You will easily snack on five cookies when you would’ve said a “no, thank you” to a similar cookie in its one-piece form.

Here’s a summary of the lessons learned:

  1. The dough follows a 1:1:3 ratio of fat to sugar to flour, with a spoonful taken back from the first two.
  2. The cookie changes in wonderful ways if you mix and match different fats in place of the clarified butter. We tried them with lard alone, butter alone, and butter mixed with bacon fat. The last was the best, partly because we liked the extra salt.
  3. The illusion part matters, so roll the dough out super thin, take the time to dock them with a fork, and sprinkle on a bit of sugar to fully recreate the saltine look. Sprinkling on some kosher salt will also help the illusion, and has the side effect of making the cookie taste more distinctive.
  4. Maintain an even thickness. Smeared edges cook faster than rolled centers.
  5. Mark the dividing lines emphatically, with a little wiggle of the wheel/blade to add some room. The helps the “crackers” to separate cleanly.
  6. Just don’t separate them too much, because those broken-open sides show off the crackerish interior, which is both pretty and useful for the illusion.
  7. Bake only one tray at a time, and spin the tray just after the estimated halfway point. Two trays won’t cook evenly, and oven hot spots really show.
  8. The bake is done when the top turns cracker-tan brown. Go by that, not the designated baking time.
  9. Hartshorn is mandatory. Baking soda/powder yield a standard cookie texture.

All in all? A very successful experiment, and a cookie we will gladly add to the repertoire. Especially if we want something more on the snackable side than a proper dessert, or there’s someone coming over who’d be fun to fool…

Enjoy!

LEMON & EXTRA-LEMON CRINKLE COOKIES, Two Pretty Ways To Do Citrus

Crunchy and soft, with either a white crinkle crust or a tart and lemony crust. Options!

Do you like citrus cookies? If so, read on because we spent a massive amount of time trying a few tricks designed to enhance the lemon intensity. So much so that we ended up with four different recipes! Two for texture, each of which can be tailored for beauty or taste.

Click here if you only want the recipe without the lessons

“Citrus Flavor” Usually Requires An Icing

Here’s an unpleasant fact about baking lemon, lime, and orange cookies: you can fill the dough with the gentle, round notes by stuffing it full of grated zest, and then fill them out by adding in some oil or extract. But you can’t get those lovely, sharp high notes without some kind of icing or other coating that’s full of fresh juice (or a trick as described below). Bright citrus flavors come from the acid in that juice, and that acid dims to nothing on the inside of a dough. Omit the coating and your cookie won’t – can’t – taste “lemony,” “limey,” or “orangey” any more than an yellow, green, or orange gummy bear really tastes like fruit.

In fact, gummy candies are a perfect way to make the point. The plain ones are nice enough, but they’re basically just sweet with some kind of flavor. The sour ones taste vastly more like actual fruit because that sour powder on the outside -usually citric acid – adds the missing high notes.

Heritage Cookies of the Old and New World (Volume 1) has a recipe for Lemon/Lime Sugar Cookies which has become all but mandatory in our annual holiday extravaganza. The cookie part is nice enough. It’s packed full of grated zest, and you can tell. But the magic part comes with the extra-tart icing that’s equally packed with fresh juice from the zested fruits.

But… does it really have to be an icing?

A Very Standard Recipe To Start

It took very little to develop a working recipe that would produce a nice crinkle effect. As you probably know already from Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, the magic trick is to (a) roll the balls of dough in granulated sugar, and then (b) roll them again in powdered sugar. The first layer insulates the second layer, which allows the cookie to expand in the oven leaving deep cracks of cookie-color surrounded by powdery white.

I initially wanted to make a lemon cookie that would imitate the ultra-gooey texture of Chocolate Crinkles, but that’s one I couldn’t figure out. The experiments did prove fruitful nevertheless, because we ended up with two variations for people to choose from. The first uses two sticks of butter and produces a fairly standard drop cookie texture with a gentle crunch. The second replaces one of those sticks of butter with an 8-ounce brick of cream cheese. These turn out soft and cakey on the inside. Not quite the ooey-gooey target, but in the same general arena.

The only hard part came from accepting the amount of yellow food dye required to make a sharp contrast between the cracks and the coating. We really wanted these to look startling and photogenic; a deep, lemony yellow that would really contrast against the bright white of the powdered sugar crust. Physics got in the way.

Are the cracks yellow? Yes. But it took a shocking amount of yellow dye to get there.

The dough is very yellow, especially with the added food dye. But it’s an inescapable fact that colors fade when you spread them out, and puffing cookies up to create a crackled exterior means the inside will end up dimmer, especially if you add in a bit of browning. C’est la vie.

Experiments With Powdered Vitamin C

We used to crush a Vitamin C pill or two in our mortar (uncoated, please) to boost the acid bite of some of our glazes. Now have one kilogram of powdered l-ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in our pantry.

NOTE FROM KATE: My younger brother and I are both children of the Cold War. Back in Czechoslovakia, we learned how to use our personal gas masks in 1st grade, knew not to throw water on napalm by 6th grade, and shot our first AK-47 machine guns by 7th grade. Once our family came to America and the talk of intercontinental cruise missiles heated up the news, my brother made it his business to learn everything he could about nuclear disaster survival.

When the war in Ukraine broke out, he surprised me with a preventive care package which included, among other things, a 1 kilo package of granulated l-ascorbic acid, i.e. Vitamin C. (A lot of us former Easter European types got “triggered” by all this. When I told my Ukrainian friend over lunch, she offered some of her iodine pill stash without blinking an eye.) So: yes, you can buy powdered acids, and they will do wonders for your cookie and candy experiments!

Our experience with the need for an icing to enhance citrus flavors, together with my love of those sour gummy bears, provoked a genius idea: Since we need to roll the balls in sugar anyway, why not mix in some vitamin C at the same time?

[NOTE: We happened to have the powdered vitamin C handy, but it’s simple to make by grinding up some supplement tablets in a mortar and pestle.]

We tried it immediately, and it worked exactly as we’d hoped. The cookies had a brightly flavored crust that transformed them from “sweet and lemony” to “that tastes like good, tart lemonade!” Not a single one of that batch made it out of the house to our normal cadre of taste testers.

But there was a problem. I’d thought it would be easy to create the white-on-yellow crinkle crust, but these cookies showed now sign of it except for a few that had vague evidence of a pattern on top. [Sigh] So my wife was a flavor genius, while I was an incompetent boob. Par for the course.

I tweaked the recipe for batch #2. Same result. Grrr.

So I went back and researched every version I could find on the Internet, only to discover that every one was pretty darned close to my working recipe. The only difference? Others use a profligate amount of yellow food dye to make the crinkles stand out.

Okay, so batch #3 would include some food dye to enhance the contrast. Same result yet again, except the cookie was slightly yellower than the first two batches. Check. “It isn’t ‘some’ food dye, it’s an ‘are you kidding?!’ amount of food dye.”

Batch #4, I added the larger amount in, and added a single drop of red on the theory that it would help with the contrast. I can recommend this if you want a pink lemonade color, but learn from my disappointment if you’re after lemon-yellow. Oh yes… and there was next to no white left after baking even though I was now producing the exact level of surface crackling and fissuring we were aiming for. Aaaaaargh!

Only then did I begin to wonder if Kate’s beautiful flavor trick might be interfering with the whole crinkle creation process. We still had half of the batch #4 dough left, so I did a formal experiment: same baking sheet, but half with vitamin C in the sugar and half without. Behold!

This batch had a single drop of red food coloring along with 8(!) drops of yellow. You can see how big an effect it had.

Kate refused to believe it.

NOTE FROM KATE: Yep, I did. I kicked hard against leaving out our doomsday Vitamin-C ! With my chemistry background, I didn’t think there was enough time for the acid to mess with the leavening agents. The acid didn’t penetrate all the way through, after all. Oh, hubris! Oh, woe! Now I have egg on my face. (And a cookie in my mouth – these are seriously good!)

Scientific method to the rescue! I whipped up a half batch and repeated the experiment two more times. Yep. The plain half came out with deep crinkles every time, while the acidulated half had almost none.

Why? It’s obviously because… because… well, I’m not exactly sure. At this point I’ve done enough research to know that ascorbic acid will decay at oven temperatures, with two big leaps at 140° F (60° C) and at 170° F (77° C), and an even bigger leap as it passes 200° F (95° C). The degradation takes some time, which is why 10 minutes in the oven isn’t enough to destroy it completely. Thus the still-sour tang to the impregnated crust. Perhaps the byproducts are enough to wet the powdered sugar, and destroy it’s snowy whiteness? That’s my working theory, but it’s still no more than that.

The straight recipe (with that drop of red food dye) on top. Cookies with Vitamin C in the sugar crust underneath.

NOTE FROM KATE: I’d like to point out that despite being a lawyer, my beloved husband instinctively baked three test batches, with three comparison samples in each. That’s your standard Quality Control Protocol – any fewer and the result would lack statistical significance. He also varied only one variable at a time, so we’re golden. (Well, he is. He could have been an excellent engineer, too.)

Frustration set in until I changed my point of view. It wasn’t a flaw; it was a variation! Two cookies for the price of one. Or four if you look at it right! The first two, crunchy or cakey, will be targeted by everyone who grabs something pretty off the tray. Then you have the lemon-lover Versions #3 and #4, which will taste better to those who prefer to eat with their tongues rather than their eyes. Not that they’re ugly. Just plain when compared to the more lovely but shallower sister.

Opinions? Me? Never.

Enjoy!

Beautiful from tip to toe.