cookies – Page 3 – will garden for cake

cross this off my list; x cookies, a tuesdays with dorie post

Published on October 1, 2013November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsman8 Comments

a glimpse at my week; a full time job, classes three nights a week, a house to keep, a garden to tend to at home and another for the master gardeners and a list of things to do as long as my arm. can you tell i am a little stressed? needless to say, this probably was not the best recipe for me to work on today, my only real day off.

to sum it all up in one word; tedious. irritating is another word that comes to mind. while the end results were reasonably good (more on that in a moment), this is one recipe that i probably will not make again.

the dough is easy to make. it is definitely a recipe to keep in mind when you are making tarts and bars with a crust.

the filling was the tricky part. now, it wasn’t all the recipe; some of it was my pantry or perhaps i should say my poorly stocked pantry. i only had half the figs needed so i substituted the only other fruit i had, a bag of prunes. now wait-prunes get a bad rap. i have always liked prunes and this sounded like a reasonable solution. to make sure all was soft, i plumped it all in hot water; figs, prunes and currants-i didn’t have raisins. i also did not have candied orange peel-it isn’t quite fruit cake season so it is hard to find. did i mention that i am not an orange fan? i added lemon zest instead. there wasn’t any apricot jam in the pantry either, i used fig jam in the hope of punching up the fig flavor. my filling just ended up being a sticky mess that was a pain the *** to work with.

because the filling was so sticky, i could only shape one log at a time and it required that i wash my hands twice in the process. this irritated me quickly.

after shaping 4 logs, i quit! the rest of the dough was divided in two. one half was pressed into a pan, the filling was spread over it and i rolled out the rest of the dough to cover the filling. i made holes with a fork, egg washed it and gave it a sprinkle of sanding sugar. forty minutes later, voila!

now, this i might make again-but first, i will go to the grocery store for the figs and the apricot jam. and if i do make these, i think i will also add a little sugar to the filling. oh, remind me to hoard some candied lemon rind or citron, they would be nice in this too! to see what the rest of the bakers came up with, visit the tuesdays with dorie page.

linzer cookies with fig jam

Published on September 25, 2013November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsman2 Comments

the whole repurposing craze has caught me. i just love it-the idea of turning useless stuff into a money maker; i’m all about that. honestly, i do like the idea of using things in a new or unusual way. we hung a wire window planter box up on our kitchen wall. ok, not exciting. except we hung it upside down and use hooks to hang pots from it. fascinating stuff, i know! what does it have to do with cookies? nothing. it was the repurposing thing, i went off track here…

so, back to the story, as a tuesdays with dorie baker, i often make things i would not generally make for just the two of us. it is often way more than we can eat. sometimes i cut the recipe in half or freeze half. for a recent baking challenge, we made a crostata. it called for a rich, short crust that was loaded with almonds and sesame seeds. since i wanted to make a smaller tart, i had a big ball of dough leftover and i froze it for another day. a recent get together of local food bloggers seemed like a good time to use it since it would make wonderful bite sized linzer cookies. read all about the tart and see the recipes by clicking here.

cookie cutters are something i collect; i have hundreds of them. literally, hundreds. this is an inexpensive set that i found while wandering through a local tjmaxx/homegoods store. they are double sided so you can use the straight side or the fluted side-10 cutters for the price of 5!

to roll out little bite sized sandwich cookies, i used a pair of thin wooden dowels. that is my secret for a consistent thickness and by choosing different sized dowels, i get the dough rolled out to the necessary thickness every time.

to cut the window of the top cookie in the sandwich, i pulled out a different set of cutters. this is a larger set of straight circles made of metal.

a quick sprinkle of sanding sugar gave the cookies a nice sparkle.

a small dollop of homemade fig jam was the perfect choice of filling for a dough studded with almonds and sesame seeds.

finishing the sandwiches with the top cookie

all ready to go on my fancy vintage pressed aluminum serving tray-a treat fit for serving to food bloggers! and by the way, i came home with an empty tray…

ice box cake with homemade wafers and caramel cream

Published on August 24, 2013November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsmanLeave a comment

some time ago, while walking through midtown manhattan with a friend, we passed by magnolia bakery. in the front window of the shop, a cake decorator was assembling icebox cakes, something they are famous for. she made it look so easy. i wanted to make one at home to take to a pot luck dinner. honestly, i was too lazy to go to the store(s) to look for the chocolate wafers; i made my own.

the recipe i used is from my second book and is the cookie used to make chocolate short stacks, a series of cookies and chocolate whipped cream that is stacked and layered with raspberries. the cookies are easy to make, i made mine in the food processor.

when i roll out cookies, i use wooden dowels to keep the dough thickness consistent.

they bake up crispy but that changes when they sit with the cream.

to make the cream part, i used some homemade caramel sauce and whipped cream. the tough part is not to over whip it but to leave it a little glossy so that it spreads smoothly. also important, use a 40% cream that is not ultra pasteurized since that will have the best texture.

all dressed up and ready to go. another hint, work quickly, whipped cream does not like to sit out on a hot summer day-it gets a rough texture, just look at the top of the cake. not a problem for the group i served it to, all i got back was a dirty plate…

caramel icebox cake

serves about 12-16

chocolate wafers

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/3 cups confectioners’ sugar

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

coarse sugar

preheat the oven to 350 F. line 3-4 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.

place the flour, confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder, and cinnamon in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to blend. sprinkle the butter cubes over the mixture and pulse to cut it in. add the vanilla and process just until a smooth dough forms. add a teaspoon or two of water if the dough does not seem moist-it should be soft and pliable but not crumbly.

remove the dough from the machine and form into 2 thick disks. on a lightly-floured surface, roll out each disk about 3/8 inch thick. using a 2 1/2-inch round cutter, cut out at least 60 circles. rework the scraps once or twice and roll out a couple extra. place the wafers about 1 inch apart on the prepared pans. prick them a few times with a fork and sprinkle the tops with the coarse sugar.

bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the pans after 6 minutes, until crisp. let set on the sheet for 5 to 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before using.

caramel cream

4 cups heavy whipping cream, preferably 40% fat and NOT ultrapasteurized

1/2 cup good quality caramel sauce or dulce de leche

mix the ingredients in a bowl and whisk lightly to melt the caramel. on medium speed, whip until almost stiff peaks form, it should be a little glossy. assemble the cake and allow it to sit for at least 4 hours before serving.

to assemble the cake

make a ring of 6 cookies on a serving plate, place one in the center. dollop about 1/2 cup of the cream on top of the ring and carefully spread it out to the edge of the cake but do not let it go over the side. in the spaces between the cookies, position another ring of cookies around the layer of cream and also place one in the center. again, top the layer with a 1/2 cup dollop of cream and spread it to the edge. repeat this with the remaining cookies, alternating the placement of the cookies so that each layer is placed in the spaces between the cookies of the previous layer, you should have 9 cookie layers. use the remaining cream to make a generous layer on top. decorate with a couple crumbled cookies or some chocolate shavings. refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie

Published on July 22, 2013November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsmanLeave a comment

we all have vivid food memories. that ability to recall and reminisce a flavor or a texture or the fragrance of foods we have eaten. whether it is connected to a happy, family event or a person special to us, or maybe some other reason, the fact is, we can smell it or taste it in our memory.

one of my memories surrounds chocolate chip cookies. the kind that come from old fashioned bakeries in the north east. they were a little sandy, a little salty but crispy and were loaded with chocolate chips. at that first bite, little crumbs would rain down. i love the salty-sandy texture in a cookie. crispy but not hard; no threat to the dental work.

my yearning for that texture, that flavor had me searching for old fashioned cookies and i came across a recipe from daily delicious. i made a test batch, 1/4 of the recipe. in place of butter and oil called for in the recipe, i used only coconut oil. i also added a few extra chocolate chips (just to land at an even amount) and some walnuts because i like them in a chocolate chip cookie. they were good. not what i was hoping for, but still good. the memory persists so the search will continue…

mocha chip cookies; twd/bwj

Published on March 19, 2013November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsman11 Comments

when you join a group of bloggers dedicated to preparing every recipe in a specific book, you do not always have a say in what is made next. we put it to a vote but as votes go, the recipe with the most votes is the one chosen to be prepared next. some recipes are simple and quick, others are time consuming, stretching across several days from start to finish and the latter describes our previous challenge. after the hard work of making croissants from scratch, we were rewarded with a simple as well as easy batch of cookies. to see the full recipe, consider buying or borrowing (from a library) the book, baking with julia. and for those not so inclined, visit the website of this weeks host, peggy of galettista.

the cookies consist of an unlikely combination of chocolate pieces with coffee and dried apricots. my first reaction was not encouraging. i made the choice to use milk and white chocolate chips, instant espresso powder and half of the amount of chopped apricots called for in the recipe. as always, when i make cookies, i use a scoop to portion them out. this way, the cookies are almost identical in size which allows them to bake more evenly. the recipe called for chilling the dough first, then shaping them. with my experience in large scale baking on a daily basis, i felt they should be scooped first then chilled; that is so much easier on the scoop and my right hand!

since i planned to take these cookies to a meeting, i multiplied the recipe and made a batch and a half. with my handy purple scoop, i easily made more than 70 cookies which was plenty for everyone to sample as well as leave a few at home for my husband.

the comments some of the other bakers made was that the cookies were thinner than expected. my guess is that the oven temperature was off. my oven has the option of using convection. when using the fan, the general rule of thumb is for the temperature to be reduced by 25 degrees. with that in mind, i baked the cookies at 350 with the fan on. now wait a minute, the recipe instructions call for baking at 350-how is this a reduced temperature? the toll house cookie recipe, and these are almost identical to the toll house recipe, calls for baking the cookies at 375. with the reduced amount of flour in the recipe, the cookies spread thinner so the only way to stop that is with a higher temperature to force the dough to set and halt the spreading. another note, that time of 10-12 minutes was totally impossible for a temp of 350. as a matter of fact, i used a higher temp with convection and it took 12 minutes per pan minimum(and yes, i keep a thermometer in the oven). think about it, the dough was chilled for hours, it needed longer time in the oven to warm up, spread and set. if you used the temp of 350(regular oven) and cold dough for 10-12 minutes, your cookies most likely came out thin because of under baking which caused the structure to collapse when they were removed from the oven.

in the end, i came home from the meeting with an empty plate. a couple people hunted me down to ask me about them. having tasted them, i was surprised. never would i have thought that dried apricots would blend with espresso. would i make these again? maybe, but i would add a couple extra tablespoons of flour. be sure to visit tuesdays with dorie page to see what the other bakers came up with.

macarons: how to relax and reload…

Published on February 18, 2013November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsmanLeave a comment

if you live in nashville, then you know where i have been. last week, a few of my coworkers and i made a 17 hour bus trip to new york city to prepare a special valentine’s day dinner at the james beard house. don’t worry, at some point this week, i will post pictures and links to all of the clips and coverage. but after a three day whirlwind trip and another 17 hour bus ride home, i needed to recharge and reload. and since more than a couple hours of sleep was not an option, i decided to do what comes naturally-bake cookies.

in december, i participated in a book release event for the bouchon bakery book. and on friday morning, in a half hungover-half adrenaline overloaded state, i went for a walk on the streets of new york city. in my wanderings, i passed bouchon bakery and then later in the day, found myself on the bus watching my coworkers sample macarons from bouchon. so many pretty colors and enticing flavors. it dawned on me that i had never tried making that type of macaron. i had to reconcile that…

well it was close to valentine’s day

my technique needs work…

i need to get some red color-fuschia didn’t cut it, they look like i flavored them with pepto bismal…

all filled and ready for a close-up. i plan to make these again. this time, i used the recipe from the bouchon bakery book. the recipe is out there on the internet but as a cookbook author, i suggest you buy the book or at least borrow it from a library or friend. and if not, i found it on the making of a foodie blog, but beware, sebastien rouxel works his recipes in grams and ounce conversions are tricky so your best bet is to work from his recipe in the book using the gram amounts rather than the ounce conversions on the blog page i linked to. good luck and may the force be with you…now, i’m off to catch up on some sleep.

feeding the monster: chocolate chip cookies

Published on September 24, 2012November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsman1 Comment

life is getting a little complicated for me. it seems that i am reaching that age many women dread; you know, that age where you reluctantly reveal the ages of your children. that age where your joints will ache when you simply think about doing something strenuous or catch the part of the forecast that calls for a drop in temperature. yup, that’s the one, the one leading to the change, yes, that change.

what does that mean, you ask. it means that i can gain weight through osmosis and that you better think twice about cutting off my chocolate supply. to add the proverbial insult to injury, i also feel a cold coming on, lucky me. needless to say, i spent the day in the house not venturing any further than the recycling bin in the carport. a call for comfort food led me to chocolate chip cookies-they were easier to make than a pot of matzoh ball soup.

in my quest for healthier eating habits, i have amassed a small collection of vegan cookbooks by isa chandra moskowitz. my need of a chocolate fix had me perusing the index of vegan with a vengeance in search of a chocolate chip cookie recipe. it seems that they have been on my mind for weeks and i needed to get them out of my system. what better way to do this than to simply eat way too many warm from the oven cookies.

as a cookbook author, i love reading isa’s books. she lets her personality show and she doesn’t hold back. the first sentence of the head note for her chocolate chip cookies reads: “there’s nothing healthy about these.” her motivation for this recipe was to simply prove that a vegan version could be as tasty as a traditional non-vegan version. it worked, she proved her point, and now i needed to prove to myself that i could make some that might be a little less unhealthy for me in my quest to keep the cholesterol level in check.

my first step was to convert the recipe over to coconut oil. while it wouldn’t have been a bad thing to use a nonhydrogenated margarine, i didn’t have any and had to use what was in my closet-a new, unopened jar of virgin coconut oil i picked up on my last trip to trader joe’s.

the recipe calls for regular granulated sugar and the addition of molasses. well, that sounds easy enough if you happen to have some which i somehow do not at the moment. even my supply of sorghum seemed to have dried up. in the closet, i found (from left to right) brown rice syrup, barley malt syrup, sugar beet syrup and honey from our bees. i went with the honey-a non vegan ingredient.

the coconut oil will not whip up the way margarine does-it will actually get a little runny if you over mix it. so take care with the length of time you cream it with the sugar.

the recipe also calls for all purpose flour. i was a little surprised by that. i decided that if i was going to eat these cookies, they definitely needed some whole grain. in place of the 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, i used a combination of all purpose flour, whole wheat flour and ground flax seeds.

i didn’t have vegan chocolate chips, and honestly, i don’t know that i would keep them on hand since i do not follow a strict vegan diet. to keep them tasting a little more like the traditional toll house recipe, i added some chopped walnuts. unfortunately, the dough came out really dry and crumbly most likely as a result of the whole wheat flour and the flax seeds. the last minute addition of some soy milk saved the day.

pressing the tops of the cookies to make more of a thick disk before baking improved their appearance.

honestly, you can’t tell by looking at them that they are (almost completely) vegan cookies. the whole wheat flour and the ground flax seeds are barely visible. i certainly didn’t taste it and i am a little nauseated now having eaten at least 3 of them while they were still warm from the oven…

almost completely vegan chocolate chip cookies

makes 3 dozen cookies

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup coconut oil-preferably virgin coconut oil and solid at room temperature

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 tablespoon molasses or sorghum(for the vegan version-honey, for the non-vegan)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips-vegan or non vegan

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped small

1/4 cup plain, unsweetened soy milk

preheat the oven to 350. in a small bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, flax seeds and the baking soda and set it aside. in a large mixing bowl, cream the coconut oil with the sugar, molasses, vanilla and salt for 2-3 minutes taking care not to let it get to warm. add the whisked dry ingredients and mix on low speed to combine. add the chocolate chips, walnuts and soy milk and mix to form a slightly crumbly dough. using a #40 scoop or a fully filled and rounded teaspoon of dough, form the cookies by gently pressing the top of the dough to flatten it into an even disk. bake for 9 minutes (if you are using a convection fan, you may have to adjust the time) or until they are slightly browned around the edges. allow the cookies to cool on the pans for 5 minutes and then remove them to a rack to finish cooling.

and now, it is time for me to step away from the rack…i may never go back to the traditional version; thanks isa!!!

knee deep in cookies

Published on May 6, 2010November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsmanLeave a comment

the “flood of 2010” (the new marketing moniker for our weather event), is being upstaged by a renegade band of cookies and cookie monsters at my house. it all started with a song. no it didn’t or, oh never mind-it all has begun to blend…so far, this has been my favorite group of recipes to work on. i am sure that i could eat my weight in cookies. this said, it was easy to concoct cookie recipes for the cafe and my sweet tooth. the hard part was not stuffing myself full of them.

from the top left on the dark plate, going clockwise: blondies, strawberry jam bars, magic bars,

oatmeal peach, chocolate cherry cha chas, snickerdoodles, wicked brownies and in the center-lemon bars.

my version of the seven layer bars, also known as hello dollies. coconut, walnuts, chocolate chips and white chocolate chips mixed into sweetened condensed milk and slathered on top of a cookie crumb crust. in this case, the crumbs are home made biscotti crumbs. why, cause that’s how we do it at the cafe!

jesse gave me his mama’s wicked brownie recipe and i tweeked it a bit, sorry mama…these didn’t last long at the house

strawberry jam bars are so easy to make that even carol fay would make them at home to give as gifts. (i say that because she did not like to bake at all-except the biscuits!) oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans in a crumbly crust with our home made strawberry preserves. these make frequent appearances at the cafe

what do you do when someone has a baking mishap with 10# of granola? you make peanut butter cookies then add granola and chocolate chips-what more could you possibly need?

and if cookies weren’t enough, i made some dr. pepper cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

my kitchen table and all of the various boxes, tins and containers holding the cookies and cupcakes. i don’t mind being knee deep in cookies, at least i can’t drown.

this li’l piggie is rollin’ in dough

Published on April 30, 2010November 18, 2014 by alisahuntsman1 Comment

if betty ford has a clinic for bakers addicted to pans and cutters, i probably should take a vacation there. my collection of bundt pans is growing and so is my collection of cookie cutters. lately, i have limited myself to large copper cutters but even so, i have way too many if you ask my husband.

they live in coke crates and i have no idea how many i have. i do know that i tend to gravitate towards unusual shapes. so if you paw through them, you will find a spider web, a ladies dress, several different fish and a selection of chanukah cutters. this week i found myself doing just that, pawing through the heap to pick out a cutter to test my sugar cookie recipe with.

and here it is, a little piggy, coming or going-you decide. in the past, i have used him at the cafe since we have a special place in our bellies, i mean hearts, for pigs. have you looked at the weather vanes on top of the barn? sometimes i give them a tail and serve pig butt cookies and other times, i give them chocolate chip eyes.

in the last 25 years, i have rolled out tons of sugar cookies, literally. as a result, i have come up with a fool proof method for rolling out dough.

here it is; dowels that are the same diameter as the desired thickness of the dough, a big rolling pin, a soft brush and flour-lots of flour.

liberally flour the rolling surface, place the dowels and dough on it and flour the dough. then start rolling. Lift the dough once or twice as you go and make sure there is plenty of flour under it.

brush off as much of the excess flour as you can and cut the cookies as close together as possible.

before baking them, dress them up a bit if you like. i didn’t have any plain pink crystals left because they had all been turned into this rainbow blend so we have blind bobtail rainbow piggies. as long as i am not too busy, hams & jams gets sugar cookies to sell and this week they are pink tulips so stop by and get some while they last!!!