Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Almond Crackle Cookies
April 19, 2022 at 3:01 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, nuts
Since nobody seems to mind the cookie tin, here it is again, this time filled (partially) with Almond Crackle Cookies. This recipe is an easy little three-ingredient number to stir together– just sliced almonds, sugar and some egg. Make it five ingredients and add a pinch of salt and a dash of vanilla if you want to.
I used Dorie’s muffin tin baking method for these, because those who made them free-form last time reported much spreading. Baked in the tin, they kept a nice hockey puck shape. Most of them did anyway. I lost three that fused to the tin and then shot around the kitchen in an exploded mess while trying to pry them out with a baby offset. Lesson learned to grease the tins well. Slightly caramelized around the outside, these are crispy-crunchy and good! I tried sprinkles on a couple of them, but they didn’t look as cute as I thought they would.
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: Peanut Brownie Sablés
March 16, 2021 at 2:11 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 CommentsTags: baking, chocolate, cookies, nuts
Peanut Brownie Sablés…when two become one. You do actually need to make two different doughs to make this recipe, something that initially sounded very annoying to my lazy self but is actually no biggie. First mix up a peanut butter sablé dough then get cracking on a brownie batter. The brownie just uses cocoa, so there’s no messing with a water bath (also, I followed Mardi’s lead and used room temp butter for that batter). The two separate mixes get paddled together to become the final hybrid dough.
This cookie mash-up was a hit for me. Chocolate and PB is a most winning combo, and these cookies are nice and soft in the middle. I have some more dough in the freezer that I’ll bake off this weekend.
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: Ms. Corbitt’s Pecan Cake Fingers
March 2, 2021 at 3:35 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: baking, nuts
Ms. Corbitt’s Pecan Cake Fingers has a name that makes me giggle and is a vintage recipe straight out of the late 50s. A pecan-loaded brown sugar meringue bakes up into something that I guess could be called cake-like, although still recognizable to me as a chewy meringue, and is topped with a thick brown sugar and vanilla-speckled icing.
When I took my baked meringue out of the oven, it had formed a shell that was a bit souffléd with a hollow gap above the rest of the base. This maybe…probably…had to with my mixing, but I knew that wouldn’t cut or ice easily. I decided to dampen the raised shell slightly, press it down onto the rest of the base and pop it back into the low oven for ten minutes to dry and fuse. Success! It seemed fine.
Dorie and Ms. Corbitt make a stiff, moldable icing that is hand-formed onto the tops of the individually sliced cookies. Boy, that sounds time-consuming, even for the 1/3 sized batch I made. I also didn’t want to handle my cookies quite so much (after I’d already had to squash them into submission once), so I altered the icing a bit to be a spreadable frosting that I could more gently apply to the whole slab before cutting. I let my browned butter set to a soft room temp before stirring in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Then I added just a few drops of milk to get it moving. I frosted the slab, let it set up in the fridge for a few and it was good to slice.
These are sweet, for sure, and it’s no wonder our friend Ms. Corbitt cuts them into slim “fingers,” but they are excellent with a cup of strong coffee. The browned butter icing, whichever way you choose to get it on top, is not to be skipped.
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!
TWD DC Rewind: Puffed Grain and Peanut Butter Cookies
March 31, 2020 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 5 CommentsTags: cookies, nuts
I have a few “harder” recipes to make up for TWD, like Rum Babas and Cannelés, that perhaps I should be tackling with my new found free time, but I still have half a box of puffed mixed grain cereal from when we made Puffed Grain and Miso Cookies back in January (don’t judge) and I want it outta here! Back when we made those miso cookies, I couldn’t help but think that the recipe could be fiddled with and that a sweeter version might be good, too. Now’s the time to revisit that recipe and try my idea out.
I basically just one-for-one swapped out the savory ingredients for sweeter ones. I kept the puffed grains, chopped nuts and dried fruit (I used cherries here), but used a combo of cocoa nibs and shredded coconut for the sesame seeds. For the binding syrup mixture, I kept the brown rice syrup, but used peanut butter for the miso paste, coconut oil for the olive oil, and vanilla for the sesame oil. I turned the oven temperature down to 300° and baked them for 15 minutes, because I thought the original time and temp were a bit too much for the miso cookies. There isn’t anything that really needs to cook here, the baking step is just to glue the ingredients together. I like this lightly sweet version…they remind me of little trail mix pucks.
For the base recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of this week’s rewind on the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Chunky Chocolate Fruit-and-Nut Bars
January 14, 2020 at 1:59 pm | Posted in BCM, candy, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 7 CommentsTags: candy, chocolate, nuts
Dorie describes these Chunky Chocolate Fruit-and-Nut bars as both nougat’s crunchy cousin (a very timely comparison, since we made her Honey-Nut Nougat just last month) and as a homemade version of a Chunky candy bar. The raisin-hating child version of me would not have touched a Chunky with a ten foot pole, but the adult version of me has more evolved tastes and would now gladly consume this mass-produced packaged product. Haha.
This is an easy recipe– it really is. You just need some toasted nuts, some chopped dried fruit and some melted chocolate to make it. It’s totally customizable to your tastes and to the contents of your cabinet. It’s not even really a recipe, it’s just stuff mixed together. And yet, I managed to screw a few things up and fumble my way through it. Ironic, since my day job is actually making chocolate candy.
For my nuts I used cashews, which I burned when I toasted them, so I toasted more. For my dried fruit, I used a pre-mixed blend of golden raisins, cranberries, cherries and blueberries that I buy at TJs. I also put in some crystalized ginger and some candied orange peel. For my chocolate, I used a bittersweet 72%. I decided I didn’t need to eat a full 8×8 pan of this, so I scaled everything back by a third to fit in a small loaf pan I have. Or I tried to, at least…I must have divided the chocolate incorrectly in my head, because I only had enough to coat my add-ins, not to stick them together. I just eyeballed a little more to seal my fruit and nut glob together and pressed it into the pan. Even if it looks a little rough and I needed a nap afterwards, it was all good and tasty in the end (I secretly ate up all the little bits with a spoon and they were fab!), and that’s the moral of today’s story.
Dorie recommends lining your pan with cocoa-dusted parchment paper and then dusting more cocoa on top of the finished chocolate mix and laying another piece of parchment on top as you press it in to the pan. I did line my pan with parchment, and I lined it so it acted as a sling, but I skipped all the cocoa powder and also the top parchment sheet. I’m guessing the cocoa is to help the mass release from the pan, but when chocolate gets cold it contracts, and since this is stored in the fridge, I didn’t see the need for it.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here, along with a great video). Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
TWD DC Rewind: Cocoa-Almond Uglies
December 31, 2019 at 3:21 pm | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 1 CommentTags: chocoate, cookies, nuts
Cocoa-Almond Uglies– such an unfortunate name for something so tasty! I’d say don’t judge a book by it’s cover but I really don’t think these chocolate-almond meringue blobs are that bad looking. Knobbly with chopped nuts and chocolate, they do kind of do what they want to in the oven. But they’re unique, not ugly, and they’re very, very good. They also happen to be gluten- and dairy-free. The cookies stay chewy inside but have a crispy crust and they have great chocolate flavor. They’re like the cookie version of a Ferrero Rocher. Need I say more? I’ll have one with a glass of bubbles tonight. Happy New Year!!
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan (it’s also here). Don’t forget to check out the rest of this week’s rewind on the TWD Blogroll!
Tuesdays with Dorie BCM: Honey-Nut Nougat
December 24, 2019 at 8:42 am | Posted in BCM, candy, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 8 CommentsTags: candy, holiday, nuts
Happy holidays! Is Christmas Eve too late to show you a fabulous edible, homemade gift idea? I admit that I am one of those last minute types, but I really think it isn’t too late, as this Honey-Nut Nougat can be ready to cut up in a just couple of hours (provided you have a candy thermometer and an abundance of nuts in your pantry). And anyway, we still have plenty of party-time ahead of us. This isn’t difficult to make, but the instructions are lengthy, and since you’ll be dealing with a hot sugar syrup, it’s advisable to read them all the way first. Trust me, I would almost never say that, as I would almost never do that, but here it’s important, because timing is everything in candy-making.
You can find nougat in every Italian deli/specialty shop year-round, but the nice thing about making it yourself, aside from the freshness and the fun, is getting to choose exactly what goes into it. Dorie’s recipe uses heaps of roasted nuts, so I went for a combo of hazelnuts, almonds and pistachios, along with tart dried cherries. Nougat is traditionally formed between sheets of edible rice/wafer paper to help with the stickiness, but you can use cornstarch and powdered sugar instead. I actually had the rice paper, which I bought the last time I was in Australia (now that I write that down, it seems like a weird souvenier)…you can also get it online and in decorating supply stores.
This is delicious–chewy and full of nuts and honey flavor–and it lasts for a few weeks, so if you don’t take it to a holiday party, you can just cut off little hunks as you want them. Which will probably be often.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!
TWD BCM Rewind: Basque Macarons
October 30, 2018 at 12:01 am | Posted in BCM, cookies & bars, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 3 CommentsTags: baking, cookies, nuts
Why on Earth did I skip out on Basque Macarons last month? There isn’t anything precious or fiddly about this type of macaron…this is an easy recipe to throw together. At its heart, there are just four ingredients: almond flour, egg whites, sugar and salt. Okay, you have to whisk and fold in some of the egg whites, but I made and baked these at 7:00 in the morning and managed not to screw them up, so I’d call them low stress. I did add in a bit of cinnamon and a dash of almond extract for extra flavor. And I pressed a whole almond into the tops of half of them just ‘cuz. But you don’t have to do any of that if you don’t want to.
These bake up with a sweet, crisp shell and a nice, chewy inside. If feel like I say this with every cookie, but they are so good with coffee! I could even give them to my DF/GF bestie, so they win extra points with me.
For the recipe, see Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll to see other Rewind make-ups!
TWD DC Rewind: Pistachio-Berry Slims
July 31, 2018 at 12:01 am | Posted in cookies & bars, DC, groups, sweet things, tuesdays with dorie | 2 CommentsTags: baking, berries, cookies, nuts
I’ve always thought of pistachios as “fancy” nuts. Hazelnuts and macadamias are also fancy nuts. Almonds and walnuts are regular nuts. Cashews are somewhere in between. I’m working on drawing up my nut hierarchy diagram for you…it’s actually very complex. Because for whatever reason I consider them fancy, I usually use pistachios sparingly. For Pistachio-Berry Slims, though, I had to go all out. (I admit that I briefly considered cutting the pistachios with half almonds, but then decided not to be so stingy.) These are chewy nut macaroons– no wheat flour, no dairy– just ground pistachios, sugar and egg whites, formed and baked into a log. They are further fancified with a trench of nice raspberry jam and fresh berries running through the middle. Sliced into dainty slims, these are lovely little cookies, to be eaten with pinkies up. As Dorie says in the recipe intro, no one needs to know they take 10 minutes to prepare.
For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of this week’s rewind TWD Blogroll!
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