Ginger Creams

Icing is the one of the best things ever invented. I think I would even eat lima beans if they were covered with a buttery, sweet, layer of icing. Most of the iced cookies I usually make are basic sugar cutout cookies with a simple icing made with softened butter, confectioners sugar, and milk. When I found a recipe for Ginger Creams in Betty Crocker's Cookie Jar Cookbook, I knew I had to try them.

A side note: my friend and former co-worker Tracey once nicknamed me Tommy Crocker which still makes me smile some fifteen years later when I think about it.

The recipe is quite easy to prepare and is the first cookie recipe I recall that includes water. The only molasses I could find in the store was extra dark. This worked fine, however, if you want the cookie to be lighter brown then use regular molasses. I found the most difficult part of making Ginger Creams to be spooning the dough onto the cookie sheets. The dough was very soft even after being refrigerated for one hour. I recommend refrigerating an hour longer or overnight if you have the time.

Ginger Creams

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup molasses (I used extra dark molasses, but regular will work fine)

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup shortening

1 egg

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 t ground ginger

1/2 t salt

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t ground nutmeg

1/2 t ground cloves

1/2 t ground cinnamon

Combine sugar, molasses, water, shortening and egg in a mixing bowl. Beat until combined. Stir in remaining ingredients. Dough will be very moist and sticky. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Drop dough, by teaspoonfuls, about 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cook sheet. Bake 8 minutes until no indentation remains when touched lightly. Remove immediately from cookie sheet; cool. Frost with vanilla icing (below).

Vanilla Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 t vanilla

2 T milk

Mix powdered sugar and butter. Stir in vanilla and milk; beat until smooth and spreadable. If icing is too think, add milk, 1 teaspoon at a time.

Cookie Press Review:

Just one bite of this cookie and I was hooked. The cookie itself is gingerbread-like. The spices are bold, but not overpowering and the icing is the perfect complement to the cakey cookie. Great alone, with a glass of milk, or with a cup of hot tea, these cookies satisfy.

Cookie press rating: four cookies (out of five)

Chocolate Sparkle Cookies

One of my dedicated blog readers suggested, no insisted, that I try Chocolate Sparkle Cookies as another option to treating the symptoms of PMS (see Black Forest Cookie blog entry to understand the reference to PMS). This is the signature cookie of noted pastry chef Thomas Haas. Haas has worked as the Executive Pastry Chef at the Four Seasons in Vancouver, and as Executive Pastry Chef at Daniel, Boulud's famous eatery in Manhattan. Haas has won tons of accolades over the years so I'm thinking this cookies have to be fantastic.

Chocolate Sparkle Cookies

1/2 lb (8 oz.) bittersweet chocolate
3 T butter, room temp.
2 eggs
1 T honey
1/3 c sugar
3/4 c ground almonds
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 pinch salt
coarse sugar for garnish

Melt chocolate on top of a double boiler, over simmering water. Make sure water does not come in contact with the chocolate. Even a drop of water will seize the chocolate and you'll have to start over. Cut butter into small pieces and mix into the melted chocolate. Beat eggs with mixer, gradually adding the sugar and honey until light and mixture falls in thick, smooth ribbons from the beater (about 10 minutes). Fold into the chocolate-butter mixture. Add the cocoa powder and salt to the ground almonds and mix. Gently add to the chocolate mixture.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a small ice cream scoop to form the dough into one inch balls. Working quickly, roll the balls in granulated sugar. Place on baking sheet about two inches apart. Bake for about 12 minutes, until the centers are moist, but not wet. Do not overbake. Cookies will be soft in the center. Cool slightly. Dust lightly with coarse sugar.

Cookie Press Review

These cookies did not impress. The texture was very odd. Soft? Yes. Chocolaty? You betcha. Sweet? No doubt. But I really couldn't get past the texture. Perhaps it was the ground up almonds which provided nice flavor but required some extra chewing and who has time for that? Be sure to have a glass of milk ready to wash 'em down. I also overcooked one batch on purpose to see if that made a difference. It didn't seem to matter all that much. Overcooking just dried them out.

My taste testers agreed and weren't begging for second or third sample as they normally do. A single cookie filled my tasters up.

I'd be interested to hear what you think of think of this cookie. For me, Sparkle Cookies were kind of lackluster.

Cookie Press rating: 2 cookies (out of five)

Reminder: Send me your cookie recipes to try! Email them to me at: tleader(@)nyc(dot)rr(dot)com.

March of the Penguins

Martha Stewart and I go way back. I send her money and she sends me magazines. It's a dysfunctional relationship that makes me feel totally inadequate. Martha's homes are beautifully decorated and she never burns anything except maybe trimmings from her garden. In short, Martha's perfect. That's why when I received my subscription renewal gift I was pleasantly surprised (and secretly vindicated) when Martha had screwed up. I was supposed to receive a snowflake cookie cutter which would enable me to create fabulous snowflake cookies each delicately and painstakingly iced and decorated. Instead I received a penguin cookie cutter with instructions on how to make penguin cookies. As I about to toss the box in the trash, I noticed a sticker on the side with an apology note stating that the snowflake cookie cutter was no longer available. Damn, she even had the forethought to apologize for running out of a free gift. She is perfect after all.

I looked at the tiny picture of the decorated penguin cookies and thought, "hey, I can do this." The sugar cookie recipe is pretty basic and easy to make. The key is in the decoration.

Sugar Cookies
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla extract

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Beat in the eggs and vanilla.

Add flour mixture, mix on low until thoroughly combined. Wrap dough in plastic wrap, separating into two equal size pieces and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Roll dough on lightly floured surface to thickness of 1/8th inch. Using cookie cutter, cut into desired shapes. Transfer to ungreased baking sheets, refrigerate until firm, 15 minutes. Bake 8 to 10 minutes until edges brown slightly. Cool on wire racks. Decorate as desired.

Royal Icing
2 large egg whites
1 pound confectioners' sugar
food coloring and/or sanding sugar

Beat egg whites, sugar, and 2 t water on low speed for 10 minutes. For thicker icing continue to beat 2 or 3 minutes more. Transfer to smaller bowls and add food coloring as desired. If icing is too thick, add a drop or two of water to thin.

I decided to stick with standard penguin colors, black and white. I saw March of the Penguins and know they live a difficult life. Decorating them in bright colors just didn't seem right. I cheated a bit and bought a tube of black icing for creating the penguin eyes.

I filled a plastic sandwich bag with icing and cut a tiny hole in one corner of the bag. Voila, an instant disposable pastry icing bag. The royal icing piped on nicely and didn't run all over the place. I had gotten the thickness just right. I sprinkled some with black sanding sugar, some with white sanding sugar and some I just iced the whole cookie white. I then started to get creative by adding a bow tie, tuxedo buttons, and small flippers to complete the cookies. I propped them up using an empty egg carton flipped over and dusted with confectioners' sugar.

My cookies only vaguely resembled Martha's professionally decorated and photographed cookies but I didn't care. These were my own interpretation and I think they turned out rather well.

Black Forest Cookies

My favorite cake is Black Forest. Wait! This is a cookie blog. Why on earth would I be writing about cake? Well, I love chocolate and cherries together so I decided to try a recipe I found in an old issue of Martha's Everyday Food for Black Forest Cookies. The recipe was very easy to follow. The only ingredient I didn't have on hand was the 1 1/2 cups of dried cherries which I picked up at the grocery store in the bulk items area. I find it strange that in today's high tech world that I still have to write the code for the cherries (407) on a round stickie label and affix it to the outside of the bag. Can't the grocery store manager invest in a scale which prints out bar codes? I digress. Back to the cookies.

There are three kinds of chocolate in the cookies which make them oh so delicious. Two tablespoons of cocoa powder. I used Hershey's which never disappoints. Next up was the 8 ounces of bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate. I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chips (melted) which I think really make this cookie special. When I'm melting chocolate in a recipe, I generally use chips since they melt quickly and are usually cheaper than if I had bought the same amount of chocolate in bar form. We are in a recession and I'm on a budget. Finally, 12 ounces of chocolate chunks finished off the chocolate triple play. I used Hershey's semisweet chunks which worked well with the melted bittersweet chocolate.

Another thing I really liked about this recipe is that I didn't need to pull out and dirty my Kitchen Aid mixer. All of the ingredients mixed nicely in the double boiler I used to melt the chocolate and butter. The cookies baked nicely, but it was difficult to tell if they were actually browning or still in need of another minute or two in the oven. Let them cool on the sheets for at least two minutes before moving them to cooling racks since they will be brittle.

The result was chocolate perfection! Soft, luscious, and super chocolaty. The cherries provide a wonderful contrast to the rich chocolate. You could probably use dried cranberries instead, however, I recommend you stick to the recipe and use cherries. Next time, I may try to incorporate marshmallows into the batter or spoon a dab of marshmallow fluff on the top of each just before baking.

I took some into work and shared them with two of my co-workers, Sheryl and Marissa. We share an office so it's not hard to notice when either (or both, in this case) are having a bad day. I took out the cookies, shared them and immediately the tense feeling lifted like a plane rising above the clouds into a sunny sky. The cookies were deemed the "ultimate PMS solution". Watch out Pamprin, there's a new kid in town.

Happy baking!

Welcome to My Blog

I love cookies. I blame my mother. While growing up, she would bake cookies every week instead of resorting to the store-bought bags of Chips Ahoy or Nutter Butters as most busy moms do. I'd sit as she'd whip up a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies from the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag and wait patiently to lick the beaters on her harvest gold Sunbeam Mixmaster (it was the 1970's after all).

As I grew up, my taste in cookies also matured. Some of my favorites now include black and white cookies, lemon cookies with cream cheese frosting, and any cookie that involves caramel. I bake as much as I can when I'm not working, gardening (during the warm months), or sleeping (I come from a family of nappers).

I've created this blog to share, to teach, and to learn. Your comments are welcome. I'll share recipes when I can and I'll even take requests. Because when you get right down to it, everyone knows someone who loves cookies more than life itself. My guess is that person is you.