C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!

 

After finally giving up on Thanksgiving leftovers, I have decided that it's time for me to start work on the long list of Christmas cookies for this year.  These lovely jam sandwich cookies have been on my list every year that I've been on my own and were made every year that I can remember either by my mother or my Oma when I was growing up.  Surprisingly, I don't have their recipe for these and quite frankly can't remember ever seeing one.  Instead I use a recipe from The Best of Baking which is absolutely amazing and tastes just like theirs.

Austrian Jam Rings
2 2/3 cups flour
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla sugar
grated peel of one lemon
1/2 cup finely ground hazelnuts
1/3 to 1/2 cup jam (red currant, seedless raspberry, or the like)
powdered sugar

Put flour in a large bowl and cut in butter.  Make a well in the center of flour mixture and add in egg yolks, sugars, lemon peel and hazelnuts.  Knead all together until dough sticks together and can be formed into a disk (if the dough is not coming together gently knead in another egg yolk).  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  Roll out dough 1/4 inch thick on a floured surface.  Using a round, fluted cookie cutter approximately 2 1/2 inches in diameter, cut dough into rounds.  Using the the clean top of a round lipstick tube (hey, don't laugh, it's the best thing ever), cut a hole in the center of an even number of those rounds.  Use a spatula to move the rounds and rings to the baking sheets.  Bake for 10 minutes, or until browned.  Remove from sheet and place on a wire rack to cool completely.  Repeat with remaining dough.

Using the tip of a butter knife, place about 1/2 teaspoon of jam in the center of a round.  Top it with a ring and press slightly together.  Repeat with remaining rounds and rings, lining them up on a wire rack.  Heavily sift powdered sugar over the tops of the cookies.  Let sit until powdered sugar is absorbed by the jam in the middle of the cookies.  Store in an airtight container.

a note on filling:  If you use red currant, don't use jelly.  You really need the jam to get the correct flavour and texture.  If you can't find red currant then I would suggest seedless raspberry or if you have homemade jams, any tangy red jam will work beautifully. 

Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

Best friends are awesome.  My best friend, April, is more awesome than most in my opinion.  No matter what, and I really do mean "no matter what", she has been and always will be there for me.

We try to get together once a week to sit around, talk and on occasion write on our perpetually changing book.  More often than not we meet up at my place which means that I get to cook up a storm for the two of us and we eat such things as red curry chicken and spaghetti bolognese at 9 o'clock in the morning.  If I can swing it, I really like to make something desserty to go with the meal.  Because how could that possibly be a bad thing?

Last week I made the beauties you see above.  In Serbian/Bosnian (Yugoslavian for me) they're called oblatne.  My oma, who was German by way of Hungary, called them oblaten, though strictly speaking oblaten in German are exceptionally thin edible wafers that go under cookies such as lebkuchen so that they don't stick to the pan when baking.  The treats above are wafer cookies that are very simple to make.  The wafers themselves come in packets of five and just about any filling that is spreadable can be put between them.  That's the only "hard" part, figuring out what you want to put in between; Nutella, pastry cream, peanut butter and jelly, marshmallow creme, et al.  The fillings that I know are the ones that my oma and mom made to put inside, chocolate with nuts and lemon with nuts.  I opted for the chocolate because Karina isn't chuffed with lemon and I knew April would not have any objection to anything with chocolate.

I got the recipe from my mother when we were up at her place for Christmas, she also gave me the packet of wafers, which she bought when she was in Germany.  They can be bought here in the states in stores specializing in Eastern European or German foods, or on the internet.  The internet option may be more viable if your local specialty store runs out of them as fast as they get them in, like mine.

Chocolate filled Oblaten
1 packet 18" x 11" (47cm x 29cm) wafers

filling:
6 eggs
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups nuts, finely ground (I use pistachios this time)

In the top of a double boiler whisk together eggs and powdered sugar until thick and pale yellow, and mixture reaches 160 degrees.  Remove from heat, add in butter and chocolate, and stir until completely incorporated.  Stir in ground nuts.  Mixture should be room temperature by this point, if not allow to cool to room temperature.  On the first wafer, smooth side down, spread 1/4 of the mixture evenly and thinly.  Place a second wafer on top with the smooth side down.  Spread 1/4 of the mixture over the second wafer and repeat two more times with remaining mixture and wafers.  Put plastic wrap on the top wafer and then lightly weigh down finished oblaten with a board.  Let oblaten sit for approximately 8 hours or over night.  Using a sharp knife trim ends from oblaten, cut into 2 inch strips using the wafer pattern as a guide, and then cut strips into diamonds or rectangles.

Cookie pr0n, Take II....Chocolate Chip

Mmmmmm.....more cookies.  I made these at the same time I made the peanut butter ones from last post and they didn't last any longer than the peanut butter either.  Not sure how many people are still into the crispy chocolate chip cookie since all I see everywhere are "soft" or "chewy"...whateva.  I like them crispy and so do my kids.  These are also very customizable.  You can add just chocolate chips, or jazz them up with nuts and dried fruit.  We jazzed =)

Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
3/4 cup soft margarine
3/4 cup manteca
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon extremely finely ground coffee (optional)
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 ounces dried cranberries (optional)
1 cup toasted almonds, coarsely ground (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream margarine and manteca together with an electric mixer.  Add in brown sugar, white sugar and vanilla; cream until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until well incorporated.  Remove bowl from mixer and use a wooden spoon to mix in the chocolate chips, ground almonds and dried cranberries by hand.  Mix flour, ground coffee, baking powder, baking soda and salt together and add to the butter mixture by hand.  Using a 1 1/2 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop mixture onto a parchment covered cookie sheet.  Bake in a preheated oven for 13 to 15 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack...if you can resist eating them straight off the cookie sheet.  Makes 4 1/2 to 5 dozen.

Cookie pr0n, Peanut Butter Edition

 

You see those cookies there?  They are some of the most amazing cookies ever.  No joke.  And when you read the ingredients there will be a few that make you either scratch your head or make you think "no, no, no".  And that's fine, you can substitute for them if you'd like, but they won't have the taste OR the texture that'll make you jizz in your pants.

Peanut Butter Candy Cookies

1/2 cup soft margarine

1/2 cup manteca (that's lard, people)

1 cup smooth peanut butter

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup white sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

12 ounce package peanut butter chips

1 cup roughly crushed peanut brittle

2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup demerara sugar

1 teaspoon good quality fine sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream margarine, manteca and peanut butter with an electric mixer until well mixed.  Add in brown sugar and white sugar, and cream until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until well incorporated.  Remove bowl from mixer and use a wooden spoon to mix in the peanut butter chips and crushed peanut brittle by hand.  Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together and add to the butter mixture by hand.  The dough will be very soft.  Mix demerara sugar and sea salt together in a small bowl.  Using a 1 1/2 tablespoon cookie scoop, form dough into balls, roll in sugar-salt mixture and place on a parchment covered cookie sheet.  Bake in preheated oven for 13 to 15 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack and then eat...or eat them fresh out of the oven if you want to burn your tongue, not that I would know about that first hand or anything.  Makes 4 1/2 to 5 dozen, depending on how much of the dough you eat...again, no direct knowledge of this kind of thing myself.

Post Christmas Lazing Around aka Being Fat

We spent Christmas up at my mom's in Michigan with my sister and her beloved, my oldest and his beloved, and my mom and my dad.  Instead of presents we came together as a family and spent time together doing nothing particularly special, but having the best Christmas any of us have had in years.  There was a LOT of good food, seriously intense games of Scrabble, cribbage and Rummikub, several viewings of How to Train Your Dragon, The A-Team and Avatar, one fabulously hilarious Night of the Laptops, and many cookies and goodies made by myself, my sister and my mother.

From my end of the baking came the following:
Swedish Ginger Cookies
Cinnamon Giraffes
Aniseed Cookies
Chocolate Almond Macaroons
Coconut Macaroons
Mexican Hot Chocolate Balls
Amaretti
Mint Chocolate Elephants
Espresso Biscuits
Drommar
Buttery Pistachio Cookies
Meringues
Banana Whoopie Pies
Schiklosch


And because I had the time, I made a bunch of candy type things as well.

Rum Balls
Chocolate Dipped Fruits
Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows
Hazelnut Butter Balls
Eggnog Balls
Two-Tone Fudge
Raffaello
Peanut Brittle

All in all, better than any present that could come from under a tree.