a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Mulled Wine Jammers

Baking with TWD, I’ve made Dorie’s jammers every which way over the years, once even as a galette. No matter the variation in flavor or shape, the formula is the same: a sweet and sandy sablé base is topped with jam and ringed with sweet streusel. Mulled Wine Jammers are the winter holiday edition of the classic fave. A semi-homemade mulled wine filling, made by jazzing up shop-bought cherry jam with red wine, spices and dried fruit, is the star of the show here.

Dorie forms these jammers in the usual round fashion, as cookies baked in a muffin tin…but I remembered seeing Joy the Baker make her own version of the recipe baked as bar cookies a couple of years ago, and I never got that good idea out of my head. I knew I wanted to give it a shot when the recipe finally rolled around for us. (Shall I say I’d been “mulling” it over for some time?) I only wanted to make half a recipe, so I pressed the crust into a 6-inch square pan, and proceeded like normal. Baking them off as bars took out a bit of the fiddly work needed to form them individually, but they are delicious, however you make them!

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Honey-and-Tea Jammers

These Honey-and-Tea Jammers are pretty close to Dorie’s famous Classic Jammers, but with tea leaves rubbed into the sugar in the shortbread cookie base. I used a loose leaf spiced chai here– which, to tell the truth, was not that noticeable– with cherry jam in the cookies’ centers. I don’t make many pies or tarts, as I’m squarely on team cake and cookies, but I like that these give the effect of a crumb-topped pie in cookie-form. Just like with pies and tarts, à la mode is a encouraged with these Jammers.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. It’s also here. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Spiced Pumpkin Jammers

I’ve made a larger galette version and the classic cookie version of Dorie’s jammers before, and these Spiced Pumpkin Jammers are a take on those. Here, a sweet and sandy spiced sablé base is topped with a pumpkin-cream cheese mix and ringed with sweet pumpkin seed streusel. Don’t expect immediate gratification…this is a recipe for when you have some time to spend and want a project.

These can be formed in either rings or muffin tins to get a crisp, round shape. I went with my muffin pan. Rather than roll, chill and cut the sablé dough to fit the tins, I used a little cookie scoop to portion it out right after I made it, and then just pressed it in. Be sure to grease the cavities of the molds well, as these are delicate. You’ll notice these’s one missing in the picture, and that’s because I destroyed it trying to get it out. I ate it anyway and shared a half dozen of the rest with the trainers at my gym (who all have a secret sweet tooth)…we all gave them glowing reviews! They’re like pumpkin pie bites, and, fyi, a little blob of whipped cream on top certainly doesn’t hurt anything.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll. 

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Classic Jammers

Happy Fourth of July! Classic Jammers may be one of Dorie’s best known cookie concoctions, and with good reason. I’ve made a larger galette version of these before, so I knew what I’d be in for…a sweet and sandy sablé base, topped with jam and ringed with sweet streusel. Yes, there are a few steps, some chill time and a little fiddling with muffin tins to get a uniform shape, but the work yields excellent cookies. They’re like little three-bite tarts. In fact, I may have put a little spoonful of ice cream on top of a couple, and it may have been a really good idea.

I admit to having a jam-hoarding problem, so I like that the recipe helps use up some of the random jam jars sitting in the fridge. I tried to get a little patriotic for the holiday and topped some jammers with a dark blue huckleberry jam and others with a deep red cherry jam. After they were baked, though, I honestly couldn’t visually tell the difference between them.  Both jams baked equally dark (as you can see), and it was a crapshoot as to which was which. D’oh! But both were great, so I didn’t mind.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll. 

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Popcorn Streusel Tops

These Popcorn Streusel Tops are corny little cookies. Actually they are really fun and tasty. A cornmeal-corn kernel shortbread that’s topped with streusel and popcorn makes a cookie dressed for a party. Baked in rings or muffin tins, these reminded me a lot of Dorie’s famous Jammer cookies, but with corn and without jam. I liked them very much, but the wheels in my dessert brain are always spinning, and after tasting them, I am convinced that they can be tweaked very well into the Jammer format. I am imagining making the corn cookie base, adding a bloop of either strawberry or blueberry jam on top of each cookie and then ringing the jam with the popcorn-streusel mix. Sounds good, right? I’ll try this one day and report back.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll.

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Maple-Star Anise Cookies, Sandwiched

We’re definitely moving into fall here in the US, and our cookie choices this month reflect that. Maple-Star Anise Cookies are flavored with, you guessed it, maple syrup and star anise (a spice I don’t often use, but have at home as part of a mulling spice blend someone gave me), as well as cinnamon, ginger and orange zest. These are soft and spicy cookies, on the cakey side, and while I suppose you could eat them as is, they are a natural match for maple and spice cream cheese frosting. You can schmear just one side with frosting and have them open-faced, or you can schmear and then sandwich them, which is what i did here. They remind me of whoopee pies, but a bit more delicate. The cookies spread a lot in the oven and need plenty of space on the sheet tray…I found that freezing the dough balls for just the amount of time it took to preheat the oven helped control things a bit and keep them round.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Coffee Malteds

I love the flavor of malt and I also love coffee, so needless to say, these Coffee Malteds were a hit with me. But while I do love malt, I usually can’t seem to get through an entire container of malted milk powder, so I decided not to go out and buy it just for one recipe. I do happen to have a jar of malt syrup in my fridge, so I added a bit of that instead. I used way less than the 1/4 cup of powder in the recipe– just a spoonful since the flavor is so much more powerful, and since it’s a liquid ingredient instead of a dry. I didn’t get the crumbly dough that the recipe indicated, and I’m guessing it was because of the malt syrup. My dough was a little sticky, so I just gave it a good chill before baking it off. I didn’t worry about it too much…I’ve found that if I am confident that my dough will become cookies or my batter will become cake, then it almost always does (and if it doesn’t, it’s because I’ve really screwed up.)

Dorie makes a special note in the recipe that the cookies won’t look completely done when it’s time to take them out of the oven…this is to keep their chewy texture. One of my favorite things about these cookies is that, because they are chewy, they make fabulous ice cream sandwiches. Try it out with a scoop of coffee ice cream if you make them.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. It was also Dorie’s #cookiesandkindness selection for the month of July, so you can find the coffee malteds recipe on her site, too. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll.