Archive for the 'cookies & squares' Category
Help! I’m housebound with access to the remnants of two Christmas cookie exchanges covering my dining room table. Oh the catching up I have to do.
I managed to get all this weekend photos up onto my computer. I started at the end of the images, as in most recent, and didn’t make it past this bacon shortbread topped with salted ale caramel and chocolate. Looks like I’ll be doling out a cookie at a time here. As for the photos, I gingerly held the camera close to my waist, aimed at the finished product and hoped for the best. I kind of like them.
Mike made these last night for my CBC segment this morning, which I did from bed, by phone. Last night I hobbled downstairs and sat on a stool (I know, bad idea) and walked Mike through these babies, getting him to cook the bacon and chill the drippings, beat it with butter, add flour and crumbled crispy bacon and pat it into a pan to bake. Then he cooked down the ale and made caramel, at which point I couldn’t stick around any longer and left it in his charge, candy thermometer in hand. He did good. The caramel gets poured over the baked shortbread, and once it cools, topped with melted chocolate. It all isn’t as big a deal as it sounds – and you wind up with a sort of homemade Twix bar, with bacon in the base. (Or not – you can totally leave it out and replace the drippings with more butter.)
And hey, if Mike can make them, so can you.
Bacon Shortbread with Salted Ale (or Stout) Caramel
adapted from Ole & Shaina Olmanson
1 batch bacon shortbread (above)
Caramel:
about half a bottle of ale or stout, divided
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup corn syrup or Roger’s golden syrup
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 cup chocolate chips or chopped dark or semisweet chocolate
Pat the bacon shortbread dough into an 8×8-inch pan and bake at 325F for 30 minutes, until very pale golden around the edges and set. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, simmer 1/2 cup of the ale for about 20 minutes, until it’s reduced by more than half.
In a largish pot (it will bubble up) combine 1/4 cup more of the ale (from the bottle), sugars, butter, cream, syrup and salt over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture reaches 244F on a candy thermometer. Stir in the reduced ale and pour over the shortbread base. Let stand or chill until firm.
Melt the chocolate chips in a small bowl in the microwave, stirring until melted. Spread over the set caramel and let stand or refrigerate for 10 minutes, until set. Run a thin knife around the edge of the pan and invert the squares onto a cutting board, then cut into squares or bars with a sharp, heavy knife. Makes about 24 bars.
December 13 2011 | cookies & squares | 15 Comments »
Hello from the land of the drugged and living, but barely standing.
We had a completely fantastic cookie swap yesterday. Enough people came (plus a set of 5 month old twins!) to perfectly fill the house and use up exactly all the glasses and mugs, without having to struggle to find spare surfaces for more cookies. It was perfect. Except that at some point yesterday morning my back decided it had had enough, perhaps rebelling against all this baking – for the Upscale Bake Sale, and the Swerve Christmas party Friday night, then the 14 dozen I was making for another swap last night in unison with about five varieties I wanted to try for yesterday’s party – and deteriorated quickly over the course of the afternoon. As a result I hobbled slowly from room to room, periodically moaning for no particular reason, which probably made other cookie revellers wonder what was up in my brain.
I missed last night’s party, unable to sit, stand, lie down, curl up in the fetal position, or breathe, really. I sent Mike over with the jarred cookies I had yet to decorate and label. I’m now in a weird position in bed, propped up with pillows and heating pads and loaded with painkillers, but Mike still had to rescue me from the bathroom this morning, and brought me coffee in W’s old sippy cup.
Which is all to say I haven’t made it to my desktop yet to upload all the photos. So I’ll tide you over with one recipe – these chewy, chocolate chip cookie-like bars topped with bashed pretzels glued on top with chocolate and peanut butter. That’s my favourite part, the topping – the last version I saw had chocolate and peanut butter splattered overtop separately, but if you zap equal amounts of chocolate and peanut butter together it keeps the chocolate from seizing, and stirs into this smooth mixture you could likely do all sorts of things with. Like glob it in heavy spatters over other cookies. Or into your mouth. If you’re into that sort of thing.
I also am very excited to share the pecan pie brownies, changed a bit from Gwendolyn’s version (I ditched the bourbon and cinnamon – I’m a brownie and pecan pie purist) – I will do so just as soon as I can hold a camera. And of course all the recipes from yesterday – most everyone brought their recipes along, and no two cookies were the same. I can’t wait to show & tell.
Meanwhile, if you’re participating in the virtual cookie swap, I’d love to hear what you’re making. I’ll scare up some prizes, even. Let us know here – post recipes or links to your own blogs – let’s swap!
Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chip & Pretzel Bars
Adapted from Food & Wine and Two Peas and Their Pod via Brown Eyed Baker
3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1-2 cups chocolate chunks or chips
1 1/2 cups mini pretzel twists, coarsely broken (divided)
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350°F and butter a 9×13″ pan.
In a large bowl, beat the butter with both sugars at until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and stir until almost combined; add the chocolate chips and 1 cup of the pretzel pieces and stir just until blended.
Spread the batter evenly in the pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden. In a small bowl or saucepan, melt the peanut butter and chocolate chips in the microwave or over low heat, stirring until smooth. Sprinkle the bars with the remaining crushed pretzel pieces and drizzle with the peanut butter-chocolate mixture. Let cool until set, then cut into squares or bars. Makes about 2 dozen bars.
December 11 2011 | cookies & squares | 20 Comments »
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 »
I’ve been lured into a recipe once again because of its intriguing name. This one jumped out at me from a book – the Gourmet Cookie Book: Single Best Recipe from Each Year: 1941-2009, which I ordered last year and which arrived the week after Christmas, and so I never did look at it, and then grabbed it on the way out the door to flip through on my lap last weekend during a leisurely drive to Banff. My mission: to choose a few cookies to make for our upcoming bake sale and cookie exchanges. Yes! I’m going to have one – sorry to leave you hanging. I have deets.
I narrowed it down to a few, from this particular book at least. I made some Nutella brownies that are different, texture-wise, from every brownie I think I’ve ever made. In a good way. I added toasted, roughly chopped hazelnuts and dried cherries – the real kind, not the maraschino kind.
And although I brought both to the same place, thinking that the brownies would be the hands-down winner, everyone went a little nutso for these crisp, buttery ginger cookies, made with good powdered ginger that gave them a sort of pepperiness you wouldn’t get from fresh.
It’s Scottish; a thin, cooked-till-golden layer of shortbread (made with ginger), topped with a layer of melted butter, icing sugar and Lyle’s (or Rogers’) Golden Syrup (made with ginger), but is so much more than shortbread topped with icing. Über simple, totally inexpensive, makes lots. They kind of break into shards, but it’s kind of endearing, so you don’t really have to worry about them breaking. They’re totally unassuming – not fancy at all – but totally yummy. Everyone made a point of commenting about these. Especially the guys. They’re not greatgrandmotherly at all.
I’ll make a batch this weekend, for our cookie exchange! And most likely something else, too. So here’s the plan: want to come? comment here (or if you did last time, that works too) and I’ll email you. Don’t sweat the numbers – the most casual way to do a cookie exchange without assigning X-dozen cookies to each attendee is to just say: bring what you like, and take home as many as you brought. That way the math always works.
The Cookie Party of All Cookie Parties is next weekend, Saturday December 10, at 2pm. There will be wine! There will be nog! There will be cookies! There may even be a tree! Hope you can come!
Skibo Castle Ginger Crunch
from Gourmet, December 1999
Shortbread base:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup cold butter, cut into pieces
Topping:
1/3 cup butter
1 Tbsp. Lyle’s or Roger’s Golden Syrup (British cane sugar syrup)
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Preheat oven to 350°F and butter a 9×13″ metal baking pan.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, ginger and salt and blend in the butter, working it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Press evenly into the bottom of the pan (it will be thin) and bake until golden and crisp, 20 to 25 minutes.
Just before the shortbread is done, melt the butter in a small saucepan and whisk in the golden syrup, icing sugar, ginger and vanilla. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 seconds.
Remove shortbread from oven and pour topping over, tilting pan and using a spatula to cover it evenly. Cool in the pan, then cut into small rectangles or break into shards.
Makes about 64 pieces.
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December 02 2011 | cookies & squares | 41 Comments »
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