Citrus Macaroons

The extra-egg whites problem has been around for a long time, and its not surprise that macaroons have a long history. The Penguin Companion to Food tells us that they're found in cookbooks from the late 1600's! Incidentally, the word "Macaroon" is also the name of teh finest grade of grated coconut.
For those who enjoy lime or lemon and coconut, these pretty cookies are as good as it gets. Fresh with a hint of citrus, sweet but not cloyingly so.

2 egg whites
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/4 dessicated coconut, unsweetened.
2 T. pastry or cake flour
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla essence
1/4 t. lemon essence, 1/4 t. almond essence
grated zest of 1 or 2 lemons, or limes.

Preheat the oven to 300F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium saucepan, combine the egg whites, sugar, coconut and flour. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture balls up and pulls away from the sides of the pot while mixing. (about 6 - 10 minutes).
Remove from heat and stir in the salt, essences and zest.
Immediately begin shaping the cookies. Using two teaspoons, scoop up a spoonful and drop onto the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 10 - 12 minutes, until the coconut shreds have turned opaque and the cookies are very lightly browned on the bottom.
Lift the cookies, still on the parchment, onto a rack to let cool and firm. Peel them off the paper when they are cool. Store, once cooled, in an airtight container.
These cookies keep beautifully!



(as you can see, I let them cook for a wee bit too long...but I like them to have a little more crunch.)
(I used lemon.)

I Have Mastered the Sugar Cookie

Okay, so I don't talk about it much but cookies have always defeated me. Rolled cookies of pretty much any kind. Drop cookies are fine, it's kind of hard to screw those up but rolled sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, what have you, have always been a problem. They've always been way too crumbly to roll. Not a bad thing if you're doing shortbread and you're going to be pushing it into a press but not so great for snowflakes, stars and butterflies, or, in this case, shamrocks.

I did them for the Comhaltas fundraiser that's coming up and I used the Rolled Cookie recipe from Wilton with the thought that they try really hard to make this stuff accessible for the general public (not that Betty and Fannie haven't). It was crumbly. It was giving my dough hook a serious run for its money. So rather than try to bull my way through I started to play with the recipe (you know, I've always been a little afraid to do that with baked goods because everyone always talks about the chemistry of baking but damnit, I've got my bones in chemistry and I have the student loan to prove it so I started tweaking the recipe and it was wicked easy). I ended up reducing the flour by a half cup and adding 2 more eggs (technically one egg and 1/4 cup flour because I had doubled the recipe. It made for a really resilient dough that cut like a dream, was easy to transfer with minimal breakage and they taste lovely, not uber-dense. I used too much vanilla (per usual) and some almond extract, I would totally use other flavours for this though. So this is my final version:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla
1/2 t almond extract
2 1/2 cup flour
2 t baking powder
1 t salt

Preheat 400 (Oh yeah, I reduced this to 375) Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla. Add first cup of flour with salt and baking powder. Add remaining flour a cup at a time. Bake 6-7 minutes.

I started out using my regular pizza pans with the thought that I could cycle them in and out of the oven, I'd have one ready to go by the time the last one was done but the baking time is so fussy with them that I eventually just switched to my baking stone and things went a lot more smoothly. I don't know why I never start with that right away.

I read in an old Wilton magazine about rolling the dough right onto the baking sheet and then just removing what's left after you've used the cutters but I tried it and things really didn't start clicking along until I stopped doing that and just rolled them on the counter. It's easier to separate them from the scrap and your scrap dough doesn't have crumbs stuck into it from the pan. It's also a little finicky to remove tiny bits of dough from between the cookies without moving the cookies, they ended up more damaged than if I had moved them from the counter AND they have a tendency to grow together while they're cooking when you do them this way, it's just too tempting to cut them close to each other. With the stone, it took closer to 10 minutes for the first batch but 7 minutes on the nose for the rest of them.

I used full test royal icing to outline the cookies and thinned royal icing almost as a glaze to fill in. Tasty tasty. I have to get them out of my house.

Greek Almond Cookies

This one is from the VE cook book Greek with Gusto,

1/2 LB butter, at room temp
3/4 cup sifted icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 c all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c ground almonds
icing sugar, sifted

1)preheat oven to 350

2)Beat the butter and icing sugar until fluffy. Stir in vanila and almond extract

3) combine flour, salt and ground almonds in bowl. add to butter mixture and combine until well blended.

4) if the dough is soft, chill until slightly firm

5) roll walnut sized piece of dough into a ball, space balls 1 1/2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. I used a small icecream scoop, so they were all the same size.

6) bake 1 sheet at a time for 12 - 15 minutes - I think I only cooked mine for ~ 10 minutes.

7) Remove from oven and let cookies cool on sheet until slightly firm - ~ 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack. Sprinkle heavily with icing sugar. Cool cookes completely before storing in a sealed container. - Yea, if they make it that far, I didn't sprinkle with icing sugar, didn't think they needed it.

These were REALLY GOOD COOKIES!!!!!!!!!!!

Coconut Macaroons

I love these, I love them crispy, chewy, cold, melt-y, dense or airy. I love them any way. It's also one of the few cookie recipes that I've read that actually yields as many as it says it will. It's from the KitchenAide stand mixer cookbook and it's an all day event because you bake them for a longer time at a lower temperature.

4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (what exactly is this stuff anyway)
1 1/4 c superfine sugar (I ran table sugar through the food processor for a couple of minutes before I measured it (I read that in a bourgie cookbook once))
1 tsp lemon juice or white wine vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups dessicated coconut (doesn't it sound like it's been mummified?)

Whip egg whites on Speed 4 till frothy. Add cream of tartar and whip at 10 till stiff peaks form. Whisking continuously, add the sugar 2 T at a time, beating well after each addition (I don't know why, but I follow this to the letter. I've never once even been tempted to dump the sugar in all at once and see what happens... weird.) Mixture should be very stiff and shiny.

Sprinkle lemon juice, vanilla and coconut over top and whisk in at Speed 4 for a few seconds or just mixed.

Drop heaping T onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave some room for spreading. Bake for 30 to 35 at 300F until golden and still slightly soft inside. Let stand 5 minutes on pan and then cool on rack. Store in an airtight container.

That's one thing that I do differently sometimes. I have baked them straight on a cookie sheet, no parchment and I didn't mind them. They were hell to get off the sheet though and you can't grease them because it affects the meringue.

Yummy

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know that we've all got our favourite recipe for chocolate chip cookies (or maybe that's just me) but Erin's Cake Odyssey has peaked the interest in baking by weight. Meag's got this British cookbook that I got her for Christmas a couple of years ago and she wanted to make these cookies for Graham out of it. They turned out like little puffballs and, you guessed it, a little bland. Well, subtle anyway.

150 g unsalted butter
1/4 c soft brown sugar
1/3 c caster sugar
1 egg yolk
1 t vanilla
1 1/2 c self-raising flour
1/2 c dark chocolate bits
1/2 c milk chocolate bits

Beat wet together. Add flour and 1/2 of the chocolate bits and stir until just combined. Use your hands to press the mixture together to form a soft dough.

Roll lever tablespoons of the mixture into balls. Press the remaining chocolate bits firmly onto the tops of the balls. Bake for 15 minutes or until crisp and lightly browned and then cool on the trays.

Like I said, little bubbles but they looked really cute when I put them back to back, wrapped them in cello and a twist for the bake sale table at Irish Fest. They looked like a little candy. Shame about the flavour, I expected something a little richer.

Chipit Heaven

Okay, this post sat as a draft until Joe found out about the cookies but I originally made them on April 14th.

Original Chipits Cookies
(supposed to make 4 dozen but they're lying)

1 c softened butter
1 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla
2 c flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 bag of Chipits brand chocolate chips (sorry, corporate shill)

Cream butter and sugar then add eggs and vanilla. Sift in dry ingredients and gradually blend into the butter. Stir in the whole package of chips (minus any removed for quality control purposes), you can also add a cup of chopped nuts at this point if you want but I couldn't nail Joe down on whether he's for or agin' nuts in his cookies. Slippery bastard, can't make up his damned mind.

Drop by spoonful onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake 10-12 at 375F although I actually only went for 8 minutes on the good ones.

By the way, if you go to check out the recipes at that link, maybe have a little something to eat first because there's some serious food porn happening there.