a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Gozinaki

I have sort of a Christmas in July thing going on here with these Gozinaki. Made simply of chopped, toasted walnuts bound together in a honey syrup, these are traditional holiday cookies from the country of Georgia. I didn’t have enough walnuts on hand for the recipe, so I added what pecans I had in the fridge, but I didn’t have enough pecans either, so I added flax and sunflower seeds, too. I guess I made a mash-up of both the mixed-nut and multi-seed Playing Around variations. Since I was playing around already, I added a pinch each of fine sea salt and cinnamon. The sticky nut mix is rolled out and typically cut into diamond shapes, but I just did squares for summertime ease (I guess you can rotate them a turn and they are diamond-ish??). I liked these a lot. Even though these cookies were sticky to the touch (as in, I had to pick bits of stuck-on parchment off their backsides), my birdseed blend stayed really crunchy for several days.

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: Chocolate-Pecan Cookies

We’ve made Dorie’s “Do-Almost-Anything” Chocolate Dough a few times now, and here it is again, making its final (!!) TWD appearance in these Chocolate-Pecan Cookies. This time we’re working chopped toasted pecans into the dough, and then before baking, we’re topping our cookies with a little mound of chopped nuts tossed in a sugar-egg white coating. Not only does this act like a glue, but it candies the top pecans nicely, too. These are good, simple cookies, and they’ve stayed crisp in the tin for a few days now, despite my sauna-like summer kitchen. I cut my dough into squares as to avoid fiddling with re-roll, and got 12 of them out of a 1/4 batch.

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: Zan’s Birthday Cookies

Some baking book authors are into streamlined desserts…one bowl, one whisk and into the oven it goes. Others make you use every bowl you have, a stand mixer, two sets of measuring spoons, two sieves, multiple cookie scoops, who even knows how many whisks and spatulas, and want you to fire up the oven two separate times. Dorie often falls into the second camp, but at least you can trust you’ll get something delicious in exchange for dish duty. Zan’s Birthday Cookies involve making and chilling three different components: a chewy brownie cookie base, a coconut pastry cream and a cocoa streusel topping. Dorie says these layered treats have German chocolate cake vibes (my favorite!) and, minus the pecans, I happily agree.

Making these three components is actually not difficult. You can make them a day (or more) in advance, but I did them all this morning…I like a challenge, plus I had the extra daylight of summer solstice on my side for late afternoon photos. I made a quarter of the recipe and had enough base and crust for nine cookies. I only had enough coconut pastry cream for eight, though, so I gave the ninth one Black Forest vibes instead with a spoonful of cherry jam. Dorie says in the recipe headnote that you’ll wind up with extra streusel to use for something else, but I didn’t want to deal with that kicking around in my freezer so I just loaded up my cookies. More is more. And and extra is extra, so I also added sprinkles (which I saw Mardi do and then I couldn’t not).

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: French Vanilla Sablés

Never met a Dorie sablé I didn’t like (and by now, I’ve met a lot of them). Actually, I’m particularly well-acquainted with these French Vanilla Sablés, as they form the base for many of Dorie’s jammer variations, but here they get to shine all on their own. They are buttery and sandy and lovely, with slightly caramelized edges from baking them in a muffin tin. Since I scaled back the recipe to just a quarter, I skipped the step of rolling out the dough and instead portioned and pressed it directly into the tin. I don’t have any sanding sugar that isn’t bright red or hot pink, so I just sprinkled these with some regular sugar for a crispy-sweet topping.

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