a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie: Rugelach

We have made it back to New York, safe and sound.  Thanks so much for all the well-wishes in the past few posts!  Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to a more regular blog-checking schedule now.  We’re staying in a temporary furnished apartment all the way downtown in the Financial District.  Strange place to live, but hopefully we’ll find a “real” apartment of our own soon.  At least this place has a big oven, so I was able to crank out the Rugelach that Grace of Piggy’s Cooking Journal chose for TWD this week.

I don’t have any fond childhood memories or stories of rugelach.  In fact, I’d never had them before I moved to New York, and I’d never made them myself till the other day.  If you’re not too familiar with rugelach either, it’s basically a cream cheese pastry that’s rolled out, schmeared with a sweet filling, and rolled up. They kinda look like mini croissants, no?

Dorie suggests using the food processor to bring the dough together.  I won’t see my Cuisinart anytime soon (it’s been living in a storage facility, along with all my plug-in kitchen appliances, in New Jersey for the past couple of years), so I made it by hand…just a half recipe.  It was super-easy, too.  Rather than using cold butter and cream cheese, I brought them to cool room temperature, then just used my right hand to squish them together with the dry ingredients.  No utensils needed, and very little chance of overworking the dough.

You can be really flexible with rugelach filling.  I used apricot jam, cinnamon sugar, walnuts and dried cherries.  You can use whatever jam you like (or no jam at all), different nuts, different dried fruits…Dorie even adds chocolate.  I left that out of mine because I don’t like fruit and chocolate combos.  I made a bit too much cinnamon sugar, so I sprinkled a little extra on top before baking.  It’s important to chop up the chunky ingredients, like nuts and fruit, pretty well, because big bits can make the cookies hard to roll up neatly.

I think they came out quite cute, if I do say so myself.  After rolling the cookies into crescents, I stuck them in the fridge for a couple hours.  That way, they were nice and firm, and held together well in the oven.  There was a little jam leakage out the sides, but nothing major, and I was able to pick it off when I lifted them off the sheet tray.  These cookies are just lighty sweet from the filling (the dough has no sugar at all), and really good with the warm beverage of your choice.  I think I’m gonna put a few of these in a baggie and munch on them while I wait in line to VOTE today!!

The recipe, of course, is in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, but she also has it here on NPR’s site.  And for some extra rugelach tips and flavor suggestions, read this post on Dorie’s site.  Don’t forget to read Grace’s write-up and check out the TWD Blogroll to see what a zillion-trillion other people had to say!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Lenox Almond Biscotti

Is this picture ridiculous?  Of course I did not store the Lenox Almond Biscotti I made for TWD in this jar.  I couldn’t close the lid without destroying them.  That would be dumb, possibly even self-defeating.  I just need better props. 

Anyway, we have Gretchen of Canela & Comino to thank for this week’s recipe choice.  I knew before baking these biscotti that they would go over well.  R, being the good half-Sicilian that he is, loves crunchy, almondy Italian bakery cookies. 

You probably know that biscotti are sturdy, crunchy and “twice baked”…they first go into the oven as large log to set the dough, and then again when that dough is sliced into individual cookies.  During the first bake, my biscotti log certainly spread, as I knew it should, but it didn’t poof.  The finished product was much flatter than I expected or hoped.  I decided to cut them a little wider to compensate for their sad, deflated look.  I must have done something screwy, because I’ve seen others make this recipe with picture-perfect results.  I was kind of pissed at myself, but they tasted *fantastic*, so I got over it soon enough.

I definitely had to increase the times for both the the first and second bakes…I can’t really tell you how much extra time I added, but for the first bake, I left the log in the oven until it no longer had visible raw spots.  For the second bake, I made sure the slices were crisped through before taking them out of the oven.

I followed Dorie’s cue to add a couple extras to the dough…a big pinch of cinnamon (that was for Gretchen, although I chickened out on the cumin!) and a handful of white chocolate chunks (there is still a tiny bit left in the bag).  The full amount of almond extract sounded quite overpowering, and too much can be a little artificial-tasting, I think, so I did choose to go skimpy on that.  Also, I used slivered almonds instead of sliced, because that’s what’s I had.

The finished cookies were crunchy and craggy– perfect with coffee, or with ice cream!  Quite sweet, too, but then again I did add white chocolate.  The cornmeal in the recipe gives a golden boost to the color of the cookie dough, and a rustic, gritty crunch (which I like, but I know some aren’t crazy about).

For the recipe, look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan (she also has it here on NPR’s website) or read Gretchen’s post.  Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Chocolate Chunkers

Just reading the recipe for this cookie is enough to make you grab a tube of Clearasil and apply a proactive smear all over your face.  You may initially feel relief upon only seeing 3 tablespoons of butter, but look a little closer, and you’ll see 1+(6×3)=19…19 ounces of chocolate!  This cookie is basically bits of chocolate held together with a smidge of brownie batter.  Before you think I’m poo-pooing the Chocolate Chunkers (did someone say poo-poo? hmmm…I won’t go any further, but I think you know what I mean), let me make it clear that they are insanely good!  Thanks to Claudia of Fool for Food for picking it for TWD this week!  And a special shout-out to Mari…I did totally copycat you with the cooling rack thing (although yours is cuter!).  What can I say?  I am out of ideas for cookie photography at this point.

This recipe is easily divides in half, but I toughed out the math to cut it down to just a third.  I didn’t want to blow my whole chocolate stash in one swoop.  Dorie notes that good chocolate is a must here, and she ain’t kidding.  For the label-curious, I used cocoa powder by Valrhona, bittersweet by Scharffen Berger, unsweetened (well, really 85%) by Lindt, milk by Green & Black’s and white by Belcolade.  Semisweet was also in the recipe, but I don’t have any, so I used a bittersweet/milk combo instead.  It’s not all chocolate in here, though…there are nuts and dried fruit going on, too.  I decided to toss in coconut flakes rather than raisins, which I don’t like, and toasted almonds.  The whole thing was deliciuosly Almond Joy-esq.

A couple of observations…if you chill this dough, it becomes rock-hard!  For easier shaping, and the well-being of your cookie scoop, you may want to let it come to room temp before digging into it.  Also, my cookies didn’t want to flatten at all in the oven, so at the half-way point I helped them out by giving them a gentle smoosh with a silicone spatula.

Look in Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or read Claudia’s post to find the recipe.  Don’t forget to check out the TWD Blogroll to see what over 250 other people had to say! 

P.S.:  This week I’m Port Douglas, Queensland.  I know, I know…I’ve been travelling a lot lately.  Back over the weekend!