This is how we spent last Saturday afternoon. W invited his two besties, and we rolled and cut and sprinkled cookies, and loaded hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and even more sprinkles.
Although I love rolled cookies, particularly those that give me an excuse to use the bag of vintage metal cutters I scored at Value Village for $2.99, sugar cookies can be a little dull, and gingerbread isn’t my favourite. I love the warm, heady, better-than-pot-pourri spices of gingerbread, but find molasses too hard-core for someone who really really dislikes black licorice.
But flipping through Anna Olson’s latest book, Back to Baking, I came across pale golden maple gingerbread cutout cookies that totally fit the bill. (Aside: I just spent 10 days with her in Jasper, and she’s every bit as awesome in person as on TV.)
These cookies are paler golden and mildly spiced; I left out the lemon zest and ginger and cut down on the allspice (from 3/4 tsp. to 1/4 tsp.) because I thought it would overwhelm the maple flavour, which tends to get lost once baked anyway. I found the dough to be a bit sticky – likely on account of the syrup – and so upped the flour a bit. You’ll need to generously flour your work area, especially if you have little hands squishing the dough as flat as they can on the table. Use a thin spatula to lift them off, or roll the dough between two sheets of parchment instead.
There are a great deal more cookies in my immediate future, with our cookie exchange this Saturday afternoon! (Want to come? Say so here and I’ll email you!) A few of you requested a virtual cookie exchange – let’s do it. I’ll of course post all about the exchange and as many recipes as I can gather. If you’d like to be a part of it, post your recipes – or links to your own sites – on Saturday’s post! Does that work?
Maple Gingerbread Cutout Cookies
Adapted from Back to Baking, by Anna Olson
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 large egg
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar and maple syrup with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg and ginger.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, cinnamon, allspice, baking soda and salt; add to the butter mixture and beat on low speed or stir by hand until you have a soft dough. Divide the dough into 3 pieces, wrap each in plastic and refrigerate for 2-3 hours, or up to a day.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. On a well-floured surface, roll the dough out 1/4-inch thick. Cut into shapes and bake on a parchment-lined sheet for 10 minutes, or until pale golden. Cool completely before decorating. Makes lots.
December 08 2011 | cookies & squares | 11 Comments »
Yesterday was our annual Upscale Bake Sale as part of the CBC Suncor Energy Food Bank Drive.
Aviv Fried was back this year with enormous quantities of bread and three kinds of scones from his Sidewalk Citizen Bakery, and Brûlée Patisserie brought dozens of mini cranberry loaves.
Decadent Desserts brought fancy cakes and a gluten-free Yule log Buttercream Bakeshoppe brought cupcakes. Joining us for the first time this year, Yann Haute Patisserie with pain au chocolat, croissants and other flaky pastries, Wild Grainz with freshly baked loaves and shortbread, Sweet Provocateur
with festively packaged cookies, loaves and buttercrunch, and the folks from Cruffs were going fast and furious custom-filling cream puffs with chocolate-hazelnut, vanilla and strawberry pastry cream.
Each bakery donated their time and baked goods, and many came down to help and chat with folks coming to buy their wares, with 100% of the proceeds going to the Calgary Inter-faith Food Bank. The numbers aren’t in yet, but when I left they had already tallied up $3500.
An enormous THANK YOU to all the bakers, volunteers, Suncor Energy and everyone who came down, creating a lineup that snaked under the escalator and past the Starbucks, to buy some baking. It was perfect. I had goosebumps for a full hour.
I baked too – jars of homemade Christmas Granola, bags of Molasses Crinkles, and bowls of Vanilla Bean Shortbread and Skibo Castle Ginger Crunch.
The shortbread felt like a bit of a copout, but running low on time and wanting to make lots of batches of something delicious, I settled on the simplest, most delicious shortbread, made with Madagascar vanilla bean paste, which is far more inexpensive than vanilla beans, but you still get those little seeds you can see speckled throughout the shortbread. I used my grandma’s cookie stamp, which someone made out of clay. I used to roll balls of dough and squish it down with the stamp; now I slice off a log of dough, then imprint with the stamp and the dough doesn’t crack around the edges. You don’t need a stamp – this dough could be chilled, then rolled and cut into little stars, or sliced and baked as is, or rolled into balls, indented with your thumb and filled with jam, or patted into 9-inch pans and baked, then cut into wedges. It’s shortbread – there are so many things to be done with it.
Shortbread is perfect for cookie exchanges – tuck into small bowls lined with tissue, then slide into cellophane bags and tie with a ribbon; or fill small glass jars.
Vanilla Bean Shortbread
3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg yolk
1-2 tsp. vanilla bean paste, or 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugar and salt with an electric mixer for 2 minutes, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla.
Add the flour and stir just until you have a soft dough. Shape it into two or three logs, wrap and refrigerate for an hour (or up to a few days) or freeze for up to 6 months.
When ready to bake, let sit on the countertop until it softens a bit, then slice 1/4″ thick, press with a cookie stamp (if you like) and bake on a parchment-lined sheet at 350F for 12-14 minutes, or until pale golden around the edges. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Makes 3-4 dozen cookies.
December 08 2011 | cookies & squares and eating out | 3 Comments »
