Tag: swedish

SWEDISH CHOCOLATE ORANGE RAISIN COOKIES, An 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!

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!