Tag: snickerdoodles

Christmas Cookies: Insta-dition

CarmenLeave a comment

     Happy New Year! I hope dieting was not on your list of resolutions this year, because there are cookies coming your way. Many cookies! They’re all excellent. Since I was running around with flour hands for two days, I thought it best to stick to my phone for the majority of Christmas’s photo-documentation. As a result, I have created a fun photo/recipe link post à la Instagram. Though none of these photos has seen Instagram as of this moment, I edited these 12 photos on my phone as if they were going to be grammed. With minimal staging, and no further ado, I present the 2k14 Christmas cookies, in square format.

      First up: ginger molasses cookies! Or molasses spice, or gingersnaps. I go with the first because I make sure these come out nice and soft so they fall apart in your mouth/hand if you’re not careful. These are particularly great in the getting cold/freezing seasons, but make what you want, when you want. Recipe from Smitten Kitchen here.

      Round two: chocolate chunk cookies! Folks, I’ve been working hard at the next best recipe for these things. So many variables, so many tests, so many possibilities! I’ll give you a hint while I finalize the next post: brown butter, light folding. Vanilla beans don’t hurt, either. In the meantime, find out about all things chocolate in your chocolate chunk cookie here.

     This year’s MVC: the Citrus Snickerdoodle. Introduced to me by my friend Adriel, these cookies throw you for a loop, then make you question your relationship with snickerdoodles altogether. I asked for the recipe he used, but he geniusly made it himself – here’s what he wrote out for me:

Faux Citrus Snickerdoodles
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 c. butter, softened
2 eggs, room temperature
2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
1 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)
1 T. freshly squeezed orange juice (optional)

1/4 c. sugar, set aside
approx. 1 T. ground cinnamon, set aside

1) Preheat oven to 400°F.
2) Cream sugar, butter, eggs, & juices if using. Add flour, baking powder, salt, & zests.
3) Shape dough by scant tablespoonfuls into balls; roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture.
4) Place 2 in. apart on ungreased (dark) cookie sheet.
5) Bake until set, golden & slightly crisp, about 8 minutes. Cool cookies immediately on wire rack.

Yield: 3-4 dozen cookies

Do make sure to chill this dough for a bit; it will make it a lot easier to work with.

     Winner of best wrap-up to 2014 goes to the lavender shortbread. You see, I brought back the lavender from my stay in France for the first half of the year (memories/mishaps found here), and tried my first lavender shortbread in San Francisco, where I spent the middle of the year. But I still have a whole bag of the stuff (taking suggestions now). Here’s the recipe that I doubled, with too much butter here. Will most likely have an updated recipe later because these were frachement excellents.

     No I did not arrange the sink like this, nor did I plan on taking a photo of it, but I thought it looked kinda cool so, here you go. Dishes.

Here’s to finding the mathematical equation for eating many baked goods while staying extremely fit, right? Happy New Year!

Very Merry Cookies

CarmenLeave a comment

Dear cookie chops,
     Come back to me! I’ve been out of practice, and it showed in my annual Christmas cookie production. I usually do chocolate chip cookies and always gingerbread cookies. Of the four cookie recipes I executed this week, only one turned out to my satisfaction. First, there were these petits fours from my huge cookie bible; I really should be more skeptical of the thing; it gave me a recipe for sugar cookies without sugar. These petits fours had no flour, though the photo looked suspiciously like coconut macaroons. Needless to say, I did not get very far. Poor powdered sugar…
     Next came the chocolate hazelnut oatmeal cookies. Sounds like a mouthful, feels like a mouthful. Seeing as the only ingredients were butter, oatmeal, hazelnuts and nutella, the ratios are very important. Less than a cup of nutella, hazelnuts and butter each, with two whole cups of oatmeal? The texture didn’t particularly tickle my fancy, but the nutella melted with the butter made for a nice, dare I say, umami factor. Will definitely be reproduced at some point, with varying proportions.
     Then came the snickerdoodles. I’ve definitely made snickerdoodles before, so I’m trying to figure out just what choice it was that made the cookies sad and flat. It may have been the substitution of two egg yolks for a second egg, or the brief hour in the fridge, but these snickerdoodles weren’t quite ready for the oven. I put them in the first time, and after five or so minutes, the dough started melting off the cookie sheet and onto the bottom of the oven. No one was concerned, until five more minutes when the smell of smoke started to fill the living room. The cookie side effects included a new smoky flavor that was…not completely unwelcome, though probably dispensable.
     It’s a good thing for tradition, because I don’t think I could possibly mess up the gingerbread things. Every year I make gingerbread cookies with my cello, camel, palm tree and moon cutters. And every year I make icing with whatever additions I feel like at the time – orange zest, cinnamon, vanilla. Fills your mouth with all the spices!
     Next year I’ll go back to the cookie press and the chocolate chips. And by next year, I mean next week. Hoping your new year is full of good times and better food!

Step 2: Combine
Step 1: Melt
Step 3: Roll

After smoking
Before smoking
Taking over the kitchen
What pretty colors