Dessert First

Cookie Craft

I never really thought of myself as artistic - my sisters can draw and paint, but not me. Baking is where most of my creative energies find their outlet. And when people ask if I can make one of those elaborate wedding cakes, I get nervous and tell them that's not really my specialty.

But when a copy of Cookie Craft, a book on cookie decorating, arrived on my doorstep for me to review, my curiosity was piqued by beautiful cookie flowers on the cover. I started reading and found myself, yes, awed and intimidated by the flawless creations inside, but also eager to try some decorating of my own - for once!

Cookie Craft, by Valerie Peterson and Janice Fryer, is an engaging, and inspiring guide to the boundless possibilities of cookie decorating. Reading it is like taking a complete course on the art cookies - the authors cover everything from baking cookies to all the various decorating techniques, to suggested themes and ideas to fire your imagination, to templates for elaborate oversized cookie creations.

Whether you're a neophyte or experienced decorator, this book provides plenty of useful material and tips. What I really liked was how the authors have developed an efficient system for baking and decorating cookies, and shared it in a very straightforward and accessible way. Cookie decorating, just like the rest of baking, depends a great deal on planning and organization for success, and the authors show how simple creating a batch of gorgeously decorated cookies can be with just a little forethought.

Some of the useful tips I picked up from this book:

- Pick a theme and draw out your designs before you make your cookies. Having a guide to refer to makes it much easier to plan what shapes and colors you'll need, and makes it less likely that you'll make a mistake when decorating.

- Set up your decorating area before you start, as well - they have a helpful little diagram showing a table set up with piping bags neatly lined up, squeeze bottles full of flood icing, a tool tray with decorating implements, and racks for drying cookies. When I made my cookies, it really did make a difference to have everything on hand - I was able to focus on decorating and not on wondering where everything is.

- Toothpicks are extremely useful decorating tools - they smooth out any piping flaws, spread flood icing, clean off cookie edges, and a multitude of other useful tasks.

- #2 decorating tips are definitely the most versatile tip for piping - and it's best to have several of them so you can have multiple colors going at once. The tips are fairly inexpensive as well - in all, I was surprised how easily you can set up your decorating supply kit.

-It does take practice to get your decorating down - but that's what extra cookies are for! Imperfect cookies are perfect for decorating practice - and just as delicious.

The book is packed with lots more useful information - there are base recipes for cookies to decorate (I tried the sugar and they were quite tasty), royal icing recipes, and complete discussions on all the options in the decorator's arsenal, from imprinting to cutouts, flooding to fondant, sugaring to luster dust. To help the reader visualize how to use all these techniques, the authors provide dozens of gorgeously photographed examples with instructions, from holiday themes to special occasions. There are also sections on baking tips and tricks that are useful for any baker, not just for cookie making. Finally, to really challenge and inspire the reader, the last chapter includes what the authors call "showstoppers" - three-dimensional cookie houses, edible cookie containers, whimsical centerpieces made from cookies with some icing to hold them together.

This charming, comprehensive tome is a wonderful reference for any baking library - I highly recommend it. To test out some of the techniques in the book, I chose one of their themes, Winter into Spring. Using the same flower cookie cutter, I was able to practice some basic piping, floodwork, and decoration with drageés and sanding sugars. It's quite gratifying, really, how many variations you can come up with using just four colors of icing and a handful of sugars.

It's been a busy couple of weeks with me working on my own book; I'm missing the simpler days of just baking and blogging. It was nice to just bake a batch of cookies and spend a day with them and some icing, tracing out hopeful premonitions of the spring to come. Sometimes cookies fresh from the kitchen are all you need.

Tagged with: cookie craft + valerie peterson+ janice fryer + cookie decorating

Bite This!

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

To all my dear readers,

I love all Christmas songs, from the gorgeously melancholic "We Three Kings" to the wistfully optimistic "Have Yourself a Merry Christmas". Very few songs make me want to sing them out loud, but play a Christmas carol and I'll start humming the words, whether I'm in a department store elevator or in a restaurant. And believe me, I have been getting a lot of Christmas music over here in Hong Kong - it is very nearly ubiquitous, from funky synthy versions in the shopping malls to unobtrusively classical piped-in versions in the posh casinos on Macau, to loungey languorous versions played by a jazz trio in a sumptuous hotel restaurant. The last version, of course, can be the worst kind of sentimental if you're not in the mood, or the very loveliest sort of yuletide dreaminess, especially if the restaurant you're sitting in is on the mezzanine of a hotel overlooking a ceiling-scraping Christmas tree limned in white and blue and silver, with equally ceiling-scraping windows on the other side overlooking the Hong Kong skyline glowing in rainbow of lights. A setting like this; a view like that; well, you'd have to be a grinch not to succumb to the tinkling of "The Christmas Song" in the background.

So what better way to show my love for Christmas carols than through food? My last Christmas gift to you readers - a partridge in a pear tree, or a pear, at least. Alas that I didn't have time to recreate the rest of the twelve days of Christmas, but, well, it's the partridge that everyone always remembers, right?

The recipe is adapted from Kate Zuckerman's take on the classic linzer cookie in The Sweet Life, and it's a keeper: light, crisp, richly redolent of hazelnuts and just barely warmed with a hint of cardamom and cinnamon. I find many linzer cookies overly sweet, especially with the added powdered sugar; this version has a more restrained, adult flavor that sets off a filling of raspberry or apricot jam perfectly.

Although I prefer raspberry jam for the dramatic coloring it provides, it seemed apricot jam was more appropriate here since I was going for a pear shape. If you have a pear jam, by all means try it as well.  This cookie tastes wonderful regardless of what form it takes or what filling it contains, but if you do go for the partridge-and-pear shape, I hope you and your guests enjoy this most elegant of visual puns. I have to say the cookies still make me smile and sing the refrain to the song in my head every time I see them.

Well, I'm ready to finish counting down the days to Christmas...I hope all of you are enjoying your holiday baking! You'll probably hear from me again after I've returned back to the states at the end of December, so I'd like to wish all of you and your loved ones a very happy holidays, and best wishes for a sweet new year!

 

P.S. The hotel with the jazz trio would be the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, that bastion of refined luxury. Last night I had the pleasure of listening to them play while indulging in the Tiffin Room's famous Dessert Buffet, a spread composed almost entirely of sweets, from petit fours to grand gateaux to ice cream to chocolates to souffles to confections. How could this pastrygirl not recommend a place where you can have dessert first, last, and all places in between?

Tiffin

Grand Hyatt Hong Kong

1 Harbour Road

Hong Kong

+852 2588 1234

Dessert buffet from 8 pm onwards

 

P.P.S. Menu for Hope has been extended through the weekend - so you have a last chance to get in your bids for the prize of your choice! My prize has been tipped as a long shot - thank you so much for all your support! You still have a chance to win it or any of the other wonderful prizes, so take a last look!

Linzer Cookies

adapted from Kate Zuckerman's The Sweet Life

makes about 12 large 3 1/2 in cookies

5 ounces hazelnuts

2 1/2 cups (350 g) flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

8 ounces (226 g) butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (156 g) sugar

1 egg, room temperature

1/2 cup apricot jam

powdered sugar for dusting

Place the hazelnuts and about half of the flour in a food processor. Process until the nuts are ground into a fine powder.

Combine the rest of the flour, the salt, cinnamon, cardamom, and baking powder in a bowl.

Pour the ground nut mixture into the bowl and whisk together to combine.

Put the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed for about a minute.

Add in the sugar and beat for several minutes until the mixture is very light colored and fluffy.

Add in the egg and beat until combined, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides as necessary.

Add in the flour mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Scrape down the sides as necessary. Continue beating for a couple minutes until the dough starts coming together into a ball.

Scrape out the dough onto a clean surface. Flatten the dough out into a rough rectangle about an inch thick, wrap in plastic, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. You can store this dough in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment or Silpats.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and let it sit for about 10 minutes to soften a bit. Do not let it get too soft, though, or it will become too sticky to work with.

Roll the dough out to about 1/16" thick. Use desired cutters to cut out shapes from the dough. Place the shapes on the baking sheets. You can reroll the scraps and cut out more shapes. Chill the dough if it becomes too soft to work with.

Chill the baking sheets for about 10 minutes in the refrigerator before baking.

Bake cookies in the oven for about 10-14 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. Rotate the cookies halfway through baking. The cookies should turn darker golden but should not become dark brown, and should smell like toasted hazelnuts.

Let the cookies cool on wire racks before removing from the sheets.

When you are ready to serve the cookies, spread half of the cookies with the apricot jam, and place the other cookies on top to make sandwiches. Sift confectioner's sugar over the sandwiches (if you are making cutout cookies, sift the sugar over the top cookies before you make the sandwiches).

Because the jam will soften the cookies, assemble them shortly before you will serve them.

Tagged with: Kate Zuckerman + The Sweet Life + linzer cookies + partridge pear cookies

Bite This!

'Tis the Season

I love December, the gentle melancholy as we tiptoe to the end of the year, juxtaposed with the swirling joyousness of the holidays. I always smile when I realize the approach of things that suffuse me with the warm, fuzzy holiday spirit: gaily colored Christmas cards in the mail; children running about in puffy, scarf and coat-plumped bundles; store windows aglitter with all things gleaming and sparkly (I love sparkly things); the murmur of Christmas songs in the air, songs I’ve never learned but somehow to which I always remember the words; and, of course, the prospect of baking batches of Christmas cookies and filling my kitchen with scents of vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, peppermint, cloves – the very perfume of yuletide.

My very first attempt at making a Christmas themed cookie was to take a chocolate chip cookie recipe and add in red and green M&M's (Coincidentally, this brainstorm occurred right when bags of only red and green M&Ms starting showing up in stores). Emboldened by the happy response, I started doing holiday riffs on my favorite cookie recipes every year - there's something about taking a familiar cookie and cutting it out in the shape of snowflakes or presents, or sprinkling it over with red and green sprinkles, that never fails to elicit a delighted reception.

This year, I'm eschewing the M&M cookies for a few bolder experiments - ones I think have turned out just as well, and that I'm happily tucking away into gift boxes, along with diplomatic suggestions to enjoy as soon as possible. (What can I say? I'm an ardent supporter of enjoying cookies while they're fresh, and I'm terrible at waiting until Christmas Day to open presents). Over the next couple weeks, I'm excited to share with you my cookie cache - starting with that most elegant and party-ready of cookies, the macaron itself.

With its infinite adaptability, the macaron is a natural for customization to the occasion at hand, be it refined or outré. I must admit I'm bedazzled by the visions of M. Hermé, who has included among his macarons de Noël this year a macaron with balsamic vinegar cream, one with black truffles, and a chocolate one with foie gras - oh, the lucky recipients of that box! I'm afraid I can't afford to be that generous and luxurious with my ingredients, but I did fancy making a chocolate macaron, since my Christmas cookie collection always includes something rich and chocolatey. And what more seasonal a touch than to add a bit of peppermint to the ganache filling?

This recipe is adapted from Tartelette's excellent macarons made via the Italian meringue method, creating perfectly smooth and shiny, crackly and chewy little discs ready to be filled and sandwiched. Do you imagine that Santa might enjoy a plate of these waiting for him by the chimney?

Next week - Menu for Hope - and caramels!

Chocolate Macarons with Peppermint Ganache

makes about 40 macarons

150 g sugar

50 g water

120 g egg whites

35 g sugar

150 g ground almonds

150 g confectioners' sugar

25 g cocoa powder

100 g bittersweet chocolate, chopped in pieces

100 g cream

3/4 tsp peppermint extract

Combine the 150 g sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let it cook until it reaches 230 degrees F.

Meanwhile, combine 60 g of the egg whites and the 35 g in a stand mixer and whip with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form.

When the syrup has reached 230 degrees F, remove from heat and pour in a slow, steady stream into the mixer bowl while the whisk is still going. Let the whisk keep going until the mixture cools down, about 10 to 15 minutes. The mixture should look shiny and fluffy.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

While the mixture is going, sift the ground almonds, confectioners' sugar, and cocoa powder together into a bowl. If you want your macarons to have the smoothest tops possible, blend the mixture in a food processor and then sift it.

Add in the remaining 60 g egg whites and mix together until it forms together into a moist ball.

Take the cooled meringue from the mixture and fold it carefully into the almond mixture. You may want to add about 1/3 of the meringue first and fold it in to lighten the almond mixture before adding the rest. Do not overfold and deflate the meringue or the batter will turn runny.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

Scrape the batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2" round tip. Pipe out 2 inches rounds about 1 1/2" apart on the sheets.

Bake the macarons for about 15 minutes in the oven. Let them cool on wire racks before trying to remove them.

To make the ganache, place the chocolate in a medium bowl.

Bring cream to a boil on the stove, then pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for a couple minutes and then stir to melt and combine the chocolate with the cream.

Add in the peppermint extract.

Let the ganache cool and firm up; when it is solid enough you can spread it on the macarons as a filling. If it becomes too firm, you can warm it carefully over a pot of simmering water.

Tagged with: chocolate macarons + Christmas cookies

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Consider the Humble Chocolate Chip Cookie

Regan Daley's Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies

After weeks of poring over new cookbooks and testing out new recipes, I suddenly felt the urge to do something simple and familiar. Maybe it's the increasingly nippy fall mornings, the grey clouds trundling across the sky like a soft cuddly blanket being unrolled, but I felt like making something warm and comforting...like chocolate chip cookies. No fancy twiddling around or exotic ingredients, just fresh, fragrant promises of happiness from the oven.

That was what I intended, anyway. Then I decided I might want to take a look at my tried-and-true cookie recipe and compare to some of the other recipes in my new cookbooks. Maybe do a taste comparison of recipes. And while I was at it, maybe I could see if I could incorporate any of the lessons I'd learned while working in a professional bakery to improve my cookies at home.

What was supposed to be a quick batch of cookies turned into a marathon bakeoff between four cookie recipes, along with a compilation of all the little cookie-making tips I'd accumulated over the years. Although I really (seriously!) wish I could share all the fruits of my oven's labor with you, I figure I could at least share what I discovered (not the least realization being that you really can eat too many cookies in one sitting, no matter how delicious they are). So following I present some of my cookie-baking tips, along with an analysis of how many ways you can make a chocolate chip cookie.

Cookie Basics:

Measure accurately - I'm sure that most home bakers by now know the importance of careful and consistent measurement of ingredients, so I won't dwell on the basics. I will note that I do just about all my measuring on a scale, foregoing the imprecision of measuring cups (I do still use measuring spoons for small amounts). With so many inexpensive digital scales available these days, I would really recommend that anyone who is even a halfway avid baker invest in one - you'll be amazed at how much easier it makes measuring ingredients and how much more confident you'll feel about getting the quantities correct. I'm trying to post all my recipes on Dessert First with both imperial and metric measurements, and I'm also planning on putting up some standard conversions as well, although there are plenty of excellent converters on the internet already if you take a look around.

Have ingredients at the right temperature: It's best for all the ingredients in a recipe to be at around the same temperature (unless otherwise specified) - usually this means having butter and eggs out of the refrigerator and at room temperature. What does room temperature mean, though? For butter, this means between 65 to 70 degrees F: soft enough for you to make an impression in the surface when you press firmly, but not melting, squishy, or oily. If it's too firm, you won't be able to cream it properly because the sugar will be unable to work into the butter and aerate it. If it's too soft, it will be unable to retain as much air and fluff up, leading to heavy, dense, greasy product. Eggs will also incorporate into batter better if they are at room temperature; if you've neglected to take them out of the refrigerator soon enough, you can place them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes to warm them up.

Sherry Yard's Quintessential Chocolate Chip Cookies

Making cookies

Cream butter and sugar together properly - How can the words "light and fluffy" strike fear into the hearts of so many? If you're practical-minded like me, finding out the science behind light and fluffy will help you figure out what to look for. When you are creaming butter and sugar together, you are cutting the sugar into the butter, creating little pockets of air in the fat - aerating it. It's this incorporation of air into butter that determines if you will get a tender, light cookie or a dense, leaden one. So how do you know if you've done it right? The creamed butter and sugar should increase in volume and lighten in color to almost white. You should not be able to see sugar particles in the butter. It is possible to overcream butter - it will become shiny and eventually break down - but hopefully you won't have neglected the mixer for that long! Also, using butter at the proper temperature as discussed above will ensure you can get your mixture light and fluffy in no time at all.

Practice uniform cookie size - Of course, the size you make your balls of cookie dough will determine how fast they bake, but it's also important to try keep the size as uniform as possible so all the cookies will bake the same. For the truly meticulous, the best method is to weigh out blobs of dough on a scale and aim for the same weight each time - this might be an interesting exercise if you're trying to figure out how much dough goes into your ideal cookie size. If that seems like too much trouble for you, using a cookie scoop works just fine as well.

Know the difference between your baking pans - Sometimes when I'm short of sheets I want to grab any flat surface in the kitchen. But it helps to know how different types of pans affect the baking of cookies. Cookie sheets, or baking sheets, are rimless on two or three sides and allow excellent circulation of air around the dough. Jelly roll pans are rimmed and work nicely for cookie baking, but you should be aware that baking time might be longer because the rim will block some of the heat from the cookie dough. I have some professional grade half-sheet pans made of heavy-gauge aluminum that are 12"x18" in size; they work wonderfully as cookie sheets. Regardless of what you use, it's best if it is as sturdy and durable as possible; flimsy lightweight cookie sheets may warp in the oven and lead to uneven baking. Also avoid dark colored surfaces as they may overcook the bottoms of your cookies before the tops are done. Aluminum sheets are ideal.

Dorie Greenspan's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Baking:

Know your oven - Every oven is different, so get to know yours and its lovable or not so lovable idiosyncrasies. Does the temperature run high or low? Where are the hot spots? In order to ensure even baking of all cookies, I usually rotate my sheets halfway through the baking time, both from back and from top to bottom rack so all the cookies get even heating.

Always check before the specified time - Even if I think I've figured out my oven's quirks, I still look in on my cookies a minute or so before they're supposed to be done. This is to account for any variances on my part in making the batter; after working in a bakery and making cookies day after day, it's surprising how you may think you're making the same recipe in exactly the same way each time, but a little change in the temperature of the ingredients, how long you beat the batter, how big you shape the cookies, can lead to very different results. It's tempting to just set the timer and forget about it, but I like to err on the side of caution and check in to see how the cookies are doing. Don't open the oven during the first few minutes of baking though, and don't open the oven too many times or you'll lower the temperature of the interior too much and prevent the cookies from baking properly.

Pull out cookies before they are completely done - This was the hardest lesson for me to learn back when I first started making cookies in the kitchen. I would pull out a sheet of golden brown cookies, nice and firm to the touch, only to have them turn into rock-hard pucks as they cooled down. Since cookies will continue to bake as they sit on the sheets, if it's that soft chewiness you're looking for, you'll need to pull them out when the edges are just turning brown at the edges and are lightly golden on top. They shouldn't look raw in the center, but if they still soft to the touch they will stay soft after cooling. If you're looking for crisp cookies, you can leave them in the oven for a few minutes longer, but I've found that some recipes work better for thin crispy cookies than others - see below.

Don't reuse hot sheets - I know it's tempting, especially because most of us only have a few cookie sheets and usually a lot of dough, but reusing hot sheets right out of the oven will melt the dough before it can bake properly. Instead, rinse the sheets off in the sink with cold water to cool them down before reusing them.

Kate Zuckerman's Crispy, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

All right, now that I've gotten past general tips on perfecting your cookie-baking technique, on to the specifics. I compared chocolate chip cookie recipes from four of my favorite cookbook authors: Kate Zuckerman, Dorie Greenspan, Sherry Yard, and Regan Daley. Since the amounts of butter, eggs, baking soda, and salt were pretty much the same, as well as the methods of making and baking the dough, I used these similarities as a baseline to see the difference varying amounts of sugar and flour would make.

Ingredients      Kate      Dorie       Sherry      Regan

Butter               4 oz      4 oz          4 oz           4 oz

                       (113g)  (113g)       (113g)        (113g)

Eggs                 1/2*      1              1               1

Flour                 7/8 cup  1 cup       3/4 cup      1 1/2 cup + 1

                                                                       Tbsp

                        (120g)    (140g)     (100g)        (222g)

Sugar                none       1/2 cup    3/8 cup     1/4 cup

                                      (100g)      (74g)         (52g)      

Brown sugar      3/4 cup    1/3 cup    1/8 cup    1/2 cup

                        (170g)     (72g)        (28g)        (110g)

Baking soda      1/2 tsp    1/2 tsp     1/4 tsp      1/2 tsp

Salt                  1/8 tsp    1/2 tsp     1/8 tsp    1/4 tsp

Vanilla              1/4 tsp     1 tsp        1/2 tsp      3/4 tsp

Choc. chips       4 oz          6 oz         4 oz           8 oz

                        (116g)     (174g)      (116g)        (232g)

* plus 1/2 egg white

How were the results? Well, the first and most noticeable difference is that Daley's recipe uses almost twice as much flour as any of the other recipes. This led to a firmer, cakey texture and a cookie that held its shape the best of all four - it hardly spread at all in the oven and retained its roundness and heft (see top photo). This is definitely for those who like to bite into a thick and substantial cookie. I've used this cookie several times before and it was always well received.

Zuckerman's recipe is the only one made with just brown sugar, and it baked up exactly as she described: flat, chewy, with strong, addictive caramelly-butterscotchy flavor. All that brown sugar also means this cookie will stay moist for a while in the cookie jar. Greenspan's cookie is pretty similar to Zuckerman's but not quite as thin or chewy - these two cookies were the most similar to each other of the four, and most like what I consider the current trend for chocolate chip cookies: flattish, craggy-surfaced with chips, crisp at the edges and chewy to very slightly underbaked at the center. In short, delicious. It was very interesting to see how varying proportions of sugar affected the texture of the cookie.

Yard's cookie is an interesting middle road between the other three: it uses the least flour and sugar, and the resulting cookie is very light and airy, almost like a madeleine. It also uses the least amount of brown sugar, so it has the least caramel flavor; compared to the other three it tasted more of vanilla cookie laced with chocolate chips. This is lovely, delicate little cookie - I don't think I've ever had a chocolate chip cookie like this one before.

Using the same ingredients for four seemingly similar recipes, it was amazing to compare how differently they came out. So what's the conclusion? That there is room out there for many fabulous chocolate chip cookies, and plenty of freedom for you to experiment in your kitchen and find your perfect recipe. I liked all four of the cookies, but I'm thinking of tweaking the proportions of flour and sugar a little more to get the cookie I'm envisioning. Fortunately for me, there appears to quite the eager audience for the also-rans; otherwise I'd be awash in all the cookies from my experiments!

Oh, I almost forgot one last cookie-making tip: chocolate chip cookie dough freezes beautifully. So if you don't think you'll be able to finish off a batch of cookies in one day, scoop the leftover dough into balls, place securely in a plastic bag, and store in the freezer. You can then enjoy fresh-baked cookies whenever you desire!

Tagged with: chocolate chip cookie + cookie making tips + Kate Zuckerman + Dorie Greenspan+ Sherry Yard+ Regan Daley

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Gingersnap Lemon Sherbet Sandwiches

We had an unexpected surge in the temperature over the weekend - a shockingly blazing sun in a shiny blue sky, making people scramble in their drawers for tank tops and causing all the green grassy parks to be suddenly carpeted with sunbathers. It's supposed to be colder in San Francisco when summer approaches, not brutally scorching.

As I opened the apartment window in the morning to the feel of already-warm air on my face, I knew this did not bode well. Far earlier than I anticipated, I needed something cool and refreshing to combat the incipient heat. I needed to make ice cream.

Of course, what better inspiration than Emily Luchetti's A Passion for Ice Cream? I zeroed in on a recipe I'd earmarked earlier, for some ice cream sandwiches made from lemon ice cream spread between gingersnaps. Icy, tart, lemon sounded just perfect to combat the heat, and gingersnaps are my sweetie's favorite cookie, so this was a no-brainer. Or so I thought.

When I told him what recipe I going to make, my boyfriend sounded a little hesitant, then admitted he wasn't so sure about the lemon ice cream. Couldn't I make it another flavor? Normally, I would have indulged him, but this time I was surprised. Who doesn't like lemon? Tall, frosty glasses of lemonade, jewelike French lemon tarts, sour lemon candies...I was going to convince him to try it!

Upon starting the recipe I decided to make a lemon sherbet instead of an ice cream as it sounded even cleaner and more refreshing. I was very pleased with this version, as it is beyond simple to make - no stovetop required, just a combining of milk, cream, sugar, and lemon - and a marvelous restorative in hot weather. Pleasantly tart, luxuriously light and creamy, it slides effortlessly down your throat, sending the sweetest of frissons down your spine. With my new ice cream machine, I didn't even have to chill the mixture beforehand - it churned perfectly in just 30 minutes!

The gingersnaps prove worthy bookends to the sherbet - comfortingly sturdy, crackling satisfying under the bite to provide a crisp contrast to the smooth filling. The spicy flavors of the cookie also work well against the clean, citrusy taste of the sherbet. Combined, these two parts form the perfect antidote to a surprise of a sweltering day.

How did the boyfriend like the lemon sherbet? I gave him a spoonful straight from the ice cream maker and awaited his verdict.

"Can I have some more?" was the reply.

"No, you've got to wait until I make the cookies and we can put the sandwiches together." I replied. A wistful look was the only response. I'll take that as an endorsement of lemon sherbet!

Lemon Sherbet

makes about 1 quart

1 cup lemon juice (about 2 lemons)

1 cup milk

1 cup cream

zest of 2 lemons

160 g sugar

Gingersnaps

adapted from Emily Luchetti's A Passion for Desserts

makes about 24 cookies

5 oz all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 ground white pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature

1 3/4 oz (1/4 cup) sugar

2 oz dark brown sugar

1 large egg

3 tablespoons molasses

For the sherbet: Put the lemon juice in a bowl. Add in the milk and cream together and stir to combine.

Add in the lemon zest.

Add in the sugar and stir to combine. Taste the mixture and add more sugar if necessary.

Freeze in an ice cream maker per manufacturer's instructions.

For the gingersnaps: Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, white pepper, allspice, and salt in a medium bowl.

In a stand mixer, combine the butter, sugar and brown sugar and beat until it is smooth and fluffy.

Add in the egg and combine.

Add in the molasses and combine.

Add in the dry ingredients in two additions, mixing until thoroughly combined. The dough will be very soft.

Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.

Divide the dough into two pieces and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for another 2 hours until very firm.

When the dough is firm, roll into two 1-in diameter logs on a lightly sugared surface.

To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line some baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats. Fill a small bowl with sugar for dipping cookies.

Cut the dough logs into 1/2 slices (They look small but will expand in size in the oven).

Coat the slices in the sugar on all sides.

Place the cookies 2 1/2 inches apart on the prepared sheets and bake for about 12 minutes until the centers no longer look wet. Cool on a wire rack.

To assemble the sandwiches: Arrange the gingersnaps in pairs, with one cookie in each pair facing up.

Use a scoop to place portions of sherbet on the gingersnaps turned bottom side up. Top with the other cookie and press together.

Serve immediately or store in the freezer until ready.

Tagged with: Emily Luchetti + lemon sherbet + gingersnaps

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Sugar High Friday #29: Nibby Cookies

Emily of the compulsively readable Chocolate in Context came up with a creative challenge for this month's Sugar High Friday: Chocolate in the Raw, a nice bookend to January's Chocolate by Brand.

While I would have dearly loved to experiment with a fresh, raw, cacao pod, there were unfortunately no trips to cacao plantations scheduled for me at this time. I decided to settle for using one of my happiest discoveries when I became more serious about baking and moved on from Nestle chocolate chips and Hershey's cocoa powder: the cacao nib.

Nibs have been described by both John Scharffenberger and Alice Medrich as "the essence of chocolate", and they literally quite are: the little fragments of cacao beans that have been roasted and winnowed to removed their outer shells. Not yet ground into chocolate liquor, nor combined with sugar and vanilla to form the familiar rectangular bars, nibs are nascent chocolate, scattered fragments of cacao's dream.

Nibs used to be nothing more than a step in the process of turning cacao into chocolate, but then someone discovered that these nibs had an intriguing allure all there own. They have a nutty, earthy flavor, undiluted by sugar or other flavors found in finished chocolate - and a crunchy tang unlike any chocolate chip.

Alice Medrich has a wonderful essay on nibs in her must-have cookbook Bittersweet; in it she describes her first experience with this unusual new ingredient and how it inspired her to create new recipes around it. She describes in precise detail how nibs are not like chocolate chips at all: the flavor of nibs are more intense yet subtle at the same time, accentuating certain flavors and clashing with others. Their not-quite-chippy texture can also be a challenge; nibs don't give under a bite like a chocolate chip and can instead be unpleasantly gritty if thrown haphazardly in a concoction.

But with proper use nibs can be a revelation, with a taste unlike any other: almost chocolate but not quite, slightly nutty, a little bitter, with fruity undertones. My one favorite recipe from Medrich's book that really made me fall in love with nibs was her cacao nib ice cream - quite simply cream and milk infused with nibs, mixed with a bit of sugar, and spun into ice cream. The result is a pale, mocha-hued ice cream that has an astonishing depth of flavor: sweet, rich, and clean, like a memory of chocolate ice cream through misty glass. I make this over and over again and will have to put the recipe on here someday!

Other recipes I've used nibs in: Emily Luchetti's Chocolate-Covered Cocoa Nib Florentines and Orange Ice Cream Sandwiches, where the nibs worked nicely with the pistachios and chocolate, and on Medrich's Bittersweet Chocolate Tartlets as a crunchy contrast to the smooth chocolate filling.

For this month's SHF, I decided to make a pair of cookies - nibs work well in buttery, not-too-sweet cookies where they can add textural interest and flavor contrast.

Nibby Pecan Cookies

The first, from Bittersweet once again, is a Nibby Pecan Cookie (top of post). This is a butter cookie that is cutting-edge yet down-home comforting at the same time, a rich golden dough studded with pecans and nibs. The crisp-tender cookie melts on your tongue, filling your mouth with the flavors of toasted nuts and deep chocolate. Medrich notes this cookies improve over time, and it doe; after a couple of days the flavors have melded and deepened into a deeply satisfying complexity. Completely different from the standard chocolate chip cookie, and you may have difficulty choosing a favorite after you try this!

Chocolate Shortbread with Cacao Nibs and Sea Salt

This cookie, contributed by Elizabeth Falkner to Scharffenberger's Essence of Chocolate (another source of interesting recipes using nibs) is a study of nibs and sea salt. Using a rich chocolate shortbread base which is appropriately tender and not too sweet, the crunch of nibs plays with the crackle of salt.

This is a perfect setup to experiment with different salts; I tried a fine-flecked fleur de sel from Camargue, the coarse-grained pink Himalayan salt, and red Alaea Hawaiian sea salt. The Himalayan salt made the most dramatic impact, as the large salt crystals gave the cookie a noticeable crunch of sharp saltiness. The fleur de sel from Camargue blended more smoothly into the dough, making for a more subtle hint of salt mixing with the chocolate. The red Hawaiian sea salt fell somewhere in between, and had a mellow, smooth taste all its own. There is certainly room for you to try other exotic salts and find which pleases you most! The shortbread is also quite toothsome on its own, with the nibs contributing their own unique dimension to the darkly chocolate flavor.

I'm glad someone decided to taste these little flecks of the cacao pod before they were turned into chocolate, and realized what potential they had on their own. Who knows what other delectable gifts we have still to discover from the noble cacao tree?

Nibby Pecan Cookies

adapted from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet

makes about 48 cookies

3 1/2 ounces pecans

2 sticks (8 ounces) butter, room temperature

5 1/4 ounces granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/3 cup cocoa nibs

10 ounces all-purpose flour

Toast the pecans on a cookie sheet in a 325 degree oven for about 8 minutes until they are fragrant and dark. Let them cool and chop into small pieces.

Beat the butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a stand mixer on medium-high speed until the mixture is smooth and creamy, about 1-2 minutes.

Add in the nibs and pecans and combine.

Add in the flour and combine carefully on low speed just until the flour is incorporated.

Turn the dough out onto a piece of parchment and roll into a log about 2 inches in diameter and about 12 inches long.

Wrap the log of dough in parchment and chill in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, preferably overnight.

When you are ready to bake, take out the log of dough and let warm slightly - it will slice easier if the dough is softer. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

Use a sharp knife to cut 1/4-inch thick slice from the log of dough. Place on the prepared sheets about 2 inches apart.

Bake in the oven for 12-14 minutes, rotating halfway. You should start to smell the cookies at the end and the edges should turn golden brown.

Remove cookies from the oven and let cool on sheets for about a minute before transferring to wire racks to finish cooling.

The cookies will keep in an airtight container for about a month. They taste best after 24 hours.

Chocolate Shortbread with Cacao Nibs and Sea Salt

adapted from Essence of Chocolate

makes about 36 cookies

5 ounces all-purpose flour

2 1/2 ounces cocoa powder

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cacao nibs, crushed with a rolling pin

1 teaspoon sea salt, any kind

6 ounces butter, room temperature

3 1/2 ounces granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the flour and cocoa powder together in a bowl.

Beat the butter and sugar together in a stand mixer on medium speed for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy.

Add in the vanilla and mix to combine.

Add in about half of the flour-chocolate mixture and combine on low speed. Add the rest of the mixture and mix to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Add in the nibs and salt and mix to combine.

At this point the dough can be wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator for up to a week.

To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper to 1/4-inch thickness.

Cut the dough into 1-in by 2 1/2-in rectangles or whatever shape you desire.

Place the shapes on the prepared sheets and bake for 15 minutes, rotating halfway. The shortbread should be slightly firm but not hard.

Let cool on wire racks.

The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up a week.

And the site of the original Sugar High Friday.

Tagged with: SHF + Sugar High Friday + SHF#29 + chocolate + cacao nibs + nibby pecan cookies + chocolate shortbread + Alice Medrich + John Scharffenberger

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A Sweet Surprise

I'm working on a post that will hopefully be up in a day or two, but in the meantime I'm finally getting around to a long overdue task, which is putting up a shot of the beautiful watercolor that Carol of Paris Breakfasts sent to me!

Back at Christmas I mailed Carol some of the gingerbread cookies I had made, along with some chocolate candy from Bittersweet. Little did I imagine that my humble baked goods would soon be immortalized in the Carol's deft brushstrokes!

It was very exciting to received a mysterious envelope from New York City in the mail a few weeks later; cutting it open, I found carefully wrapped inside a beautiful rendition of my gingerbread sitting next to a cozy cup of tea with my bag of candy in the background! I never thought my creations could look so good!

I wanted to wait until I had the watercolor properly framed and placed to take a photo, but unfortunately the shot didn't come out well, so you'll have to take my word that the picture now lives in a lovely wood frame and is hanging - where else? - in my kitchen.

If you haven't been to Carol's site, you should hop over - not only is she a fabulously talented painter (and all her watercolors are for sale on her site) but she is a Francophile and dessert lover of the first order - oftentimes her mouthwatering shots of Parisian pâtisseries and cafes are just what I need when I'm dreaming of Paris.

Merci mille fois, Carol!

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Valentine's Day: Essence of Chocolate

I recently received a copy of John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg's sumptuous new cookbook celebrating fine chocolate, Essence of Chocolate. Befitting one of the best-known artisan chocolate makers, the book provides both a concise summary of the role of chocolate in food history as well as an exuberant embrace of all the culinary possibilities of chocolate.

This book reminds me a great deal of another chocolate classic, Alice Medrich's Bittersweet. In her book, Medrich recounts how her love affair with chocolate blossomed and how it led it the opening of her Berkeley store Cocolat, interspersing her recollections with a trove of delectable and unique recipes utilizing higher-percentage chocolate. Similarly in Essence of Chocolate, Scharffenberger and Steinberg reveal how a doctor and a winemaker became obsessed with creating fine chocolate from scratch, and share many of their favorite chocolate-centric recipes.

If you love chocolate at all, it's an absorbing read - not only for understanding of how chocolate is created from cacao beans, but for discovering the intricacies in cacao production around the world and speculations on what lies in the future for growers, processors, and consumers.

The collection of recipes is first-rate, with contributions from both the authors and a veritable who's who of the culinary world, including Thomas Keller, Flo Braker, Rose Levy Beranbaum, Jacques Pepin, and Sherry Yard, among many others. There are unusual twists on the old standbys like cakes, tarts, and custards, and offbeat creations like a banana caramel cake or roasted squash with nib vinaigrette. All the recipes specify the recommended cacao percentage for the chocolate to be used, which is quite handy and not unexpected in a cookbook by chocolate makers!

Below, the first two recipes I chose to try from the cookbook, with a heart-shaped twist for Valentine's Day.

TKOs

This recipe was provided by Thomas Keller for Essence of Chocolate, and is nothing so much as a very grown-up, very addictive version of an Oreo cookie (Is this another example of Keller's penchant for reworking childhood favorites into ne plus ultra masterpieces?). Wafer-thin chocolate cookies sandwich a creamy white chocolate filling. The cookies are fantastically delicate and crisp, with an added zing from the generous helping of salt in the recipe. Paired with the subtly sweet filling, you have the perfect companion for a glass of milk on a cozy afternoon.

Chocolate Almond Cakes

Contributed by Jim Dodge, this is an elegant and versatile cake that is incredibly rich and moist from all the almond paste used in the recipe. Baked in a half sheet pan, you can cut it into any form you desire and layer with chocolate, jam, buttercream, or any other filling you like. The smooth, buttery-almond taste would work well with a number of flavors. In this recipe, the cake is layered with melted chocolate and then covered with a chocolate glaze to make a gloriously indulgent little treat.

Both recipes were surprisingly simple to execute and undeniably scrumptious. Either would be a lovely part of a sweet Valentine's Day! There are still many more recipes in the book I'm eager to try; it's certainly a fantastic addition to any baker's/foodie's/chocoholic's bookshelf!

TKOs

makes about 3 dozen cookies (or 18 sandwiches)

Filling

1/2 cup cream

8 ounces white chocolate, chopped

Cookies

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all purpose flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

7 1/2 ounces butter, room temperature, cut into small cubes

For the filling: Place the white chocolate in a bowl. Bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat on the stove.

Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and whisk together to melt the chocolate. I find this is a pretty high chocolate-to-cream ratio, so if you are unable to get all the chocolate to melt, you can place the bowl over a bain-marie and stir until the chocolate is completely melted.

Transfer the filling to another bowl and let cool until it has thickened enough to spread - it may take a few hours. You can speed up the process by putting the bowl in the refrigerator. If the filling gets too stiff, you can heat it up again in the microwave.

For the cookies: you will make this dough and bake the cookies right away - there is no chilling time needed, so plan accordingly.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper or Silpats.

Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in an electric mixer. With the mixer still running on low speed, add the butter a few pieces at a time. Let the dough continue mixing until it comes together - it should go from looking like pebbles or cornmeal to a cohesive mass.

Turn the dough out onto a floured working surface and work into a solid block. Divide the block into two pieces.

Working with one piece at a time, roll out between two sheets of parchment paper until 1/8" thick. Using a 2-in cookie cutter, cut out shapes and place on the baking sheets about 1 inch apart (cookies will spread a bit in the oven).

Bake the cookies for about 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through baking time. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks for a few minutes (cookies will be too soft to move at first), then transfer cookies to wire racks and let finish cooling.

To assemble the cookies: Place half of the cookies upside down on a work surface.

Whisk the filling lightly to fluff it up a bit and make it spreadable.

Using a small spoon, scoop a small dollop of filling onto the center of each cookie. Top with another cookie right side up. Press the cookies together until the filling spreads out to the edges.

The cookies with keep in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Chocolate Almond Cakes

makes about 24  2 1/2-in cakes

Cake

12 ounces butter, room temperature

1 pound almond paste

1 3/4 cups sugar

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

8 large eggs

Filling and Glaze

4 ounces 82% dark chocolate, melted

6 ounces butter, cut into small cubes

8 ounces 70% dark chocolate, chopped

For the cake: You will need a half-sheet pan 12 in x 17 in x 1in. Line the pan with a Silpat or parchment paper. If you use parchment paper, butter and flour it after placing it in the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In an electric mixer, beat the butter and almond paste together on medium speed for about 5 minutes until it is very light and fluffy, scraping down the sides as necessary.

Add the sugar and cocoa and continue blending together on low speed.

Increase the speed to medium and add the eggs one a time, letting each egg incorporate before adding the next.

Let the batter mixing for a couple more minutes until it has lightened in color.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the center is just set - it may feel slightly spongy but a skewer inserted into the center should come out clean. Warning: the cake will rise above the top of the pan but it should not spill over - you may want to check halfway through the baking time and once afterwards.

Remove the cake from the oven place on a cooling rack. Run a knife all around the edge of the pan. After cooling about 10 minutes, turn the cake out onto the rack and let it finish cooling.

The cake should be chilled in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes before you cut it as it will be quite soft and moist.

To fill and glaze cakes: Using a 2 1/2-in cutter of your choice, cut out shapes from the sheet of cake.

Brush or pour some of the melted 82% chocolate over half of the shapes, and top with the remaining shapes. Let the cakes sit for a few minutes for the chocolate to set. Place the cakes on a wire rack over a sheet pan, spacing them a few inches apart so you can glaze each one easily.

Place the butter and 70% chocolate in a bowl over a bain-marie and melt over low heat, whisking occasionally. When the chocolate is mostly melted, take the bowl off the heat, and whisk gently to finish combining. Transfer the glaze to a measuring cup with a spout.

Pour the glaze over the center of each cake, using an offset spatula to spread glaze over the sides. The glaze does not need to evenly cover the sides. If all the glaze is used up, scrape the fallen glaze from the sheet pan below the rack and reheat to melt.

Let the cakes sit until the glaze sets, then serve.

Tagged with: chocolate + Essence of Chocolate + Scharffen Berger + TKOs + chocolate almond cakes + Valentine's Day

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Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

It's been cold enough here that whispers of a white Christmas begin drifting in like errant snowflakes - could we really get snow in San Francisco?

But no, while the nights have made burrowing under electric blankets and comforters a delight, the skies remain an icy scrubbed blue in the diamond-clear winterlight of day. As afternoon passes and the pink and purple dusk creeps in, I find myself drawn to downtown, just blocks from my apartment. Lack of snow hasn't made it any less chilly, or thinned the thronging crowds taking up even more space than usual, covered as they are with bulky coats and innumerable packages.

I don't mind the crowds. I like seeing Union Square aglow with lights and glitter, the tourists taking pictures in front of the giant outdoor Christmas tree, the children with their noses pressed to the window displays, the couples dressed in their holiday finery going to dinner, the Christmas music drifting out of all the hotel lobbies, the sense of happiness pervading the air. It is, for me, the most wonderful time of the year.

And, when it gets too cold and my fingers are going numb, there is always the prospect of baking cookies waiting at home.

Besides a peppermint-enhanced version of the World Peace Cookies, here are a couple of the other cookies that have been keeping the kitchen fires going the last few days:

Thick and Chewy Gingerbread

Taken from Baking Illustrated, this is not the thin, crispy gingerbread you use for decorating trees. This is a soft, moist version that is delectably spicy and delightfully chewy in your mouth. The "thick" might be a little misleading: it's not chocolate chip cookie thick (otherwise any shapes you cut out will just grow into formless blobs) but it's got enough dimension to make it a pleasure to sink your teeth into.

The dough is a cinch to make in the food processor, and it comes out so sticky-soft that rolling it out between sheets of parchment paper is really the best bet. As a plus, using the parchment sheets makes it easy to stack and store the dough once you've rolled it out: just stick them in the freezer and pull out when you're ready to bake. Although gingerbread traditionally comes in the form of cute little guys with royal icing buttons, I went for a minimalist look this year with a sprinkling of sparkling sugar.

Cranberry-Cherry Icebox Ribbons

From Nancy Baggett's The All-American Cookie Book, a dazzling collection of classic American cookies, this little gem is both visually appealing and evocative of the holidays to me. Layers of a sweet, vanilla-and-almond-scented shortbread-like dough sandwich a tangy cranberry and cherry filling. This cookie is perfect for teatime and as a lovely counterpoint to all the other chocolatey and spicy holiday cookie offerings. Any number of fruit fillings could also be substituted for the cranberries and cherry jam.

Like all the best icebox cookies, most of the work is done in the assembly of the dough and filling layers, and once you pop it in the freezer it keeps extremely well and is ready to bake off at a moment's notice.

Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

from Baking Illustrated

makes about 30 cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons softened unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3/4 cup molasses

2 tablespoons milk

In a food processor, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt. Process about 10 seconds until combined.

Scatter the butter pieces over the dry mixture and process again until the mixture is fine and sandy, about 15 seconds.

With the machine still on, slowly pour in the molasses and milk and process until the dough forms a soft moist mass, about 10 seconds. It will be VERY soft and sticky. (This dough can also be made in a stand mixer).

Divide the dough into roughly two portions. Place one portion between two sheets of parchment paper, and roll out to about 1/4" thick. Repeat with the other portion of dough.

Leaving the dough between sheets of parchment, stack on a baking sheet and freeze until firm, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Take one of the dough sheets from the freezer and peel off the top parchment sheet, then replace. Flip the dough over and remove the other parchment sheet.

Use desired cutters to cut shapes out of the dough, and transfer to the baking sheets with a metal spatula. The scraps may be gathered and rerolled to be cut into more shapes.

Bake cookies until they just slightly give in the middle when pressed, about 8 to 11 minutes, rotating sheets halfway. Do not overbake or they will became hard crispy gingerbread.

Let cool on sheets for a couple of minutes, then remove and finish cooling on wire racks.

Store cookies between sheets of parchment paper in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Cranberry-Cherry Icebox Ribbons

from The All-American Cookie Book

makes about 30 cookies

About 3 ounces dried cranberries

Generous 1/3 cup sour cherry preserves

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/8 teaspoon almond extract

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg

2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

For the filling: Combine the cranberries, cherry preserves, and sugar in a food processor. Process until coarsely pureed.

Transfer the mixture to a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring to avoid burning, until the mixture comes to a boil.

Remove from heat and add almond extract. Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

For the dough: Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside.

In a mixer, combine the butter and sugar and blend together until smooth and creamy.

Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. Let the dough stand for about 10 minutes to let it firm up.

Line a 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch loaf pan with foil, letting the foil overhang the long sides so you can easily remove the dough from the pan. On top of the foil, line the pan with two sheets of plastic wrap laid crosswise and overhanging the longer sides as well.

Divide the dough into quarters. Shape one portion into roughly the size of the loaf pan and pat into the bottom. It may help to have a dough tamper to get the dough in evenly. Spread one-third of the cranberry filling over the dough with a small spatula. Repeat with the remaining three portions of dough and two portions of filling.

Fold the plastic wrap over the dough, completely covering it. Freeze the dough in the pan for at least 1 1/2 hours, until firm.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line several baking sheets with baking paper.

Take the loaf out of the freezer and unwrap the dough. You can allow it to warm up a bit for a few minutes, but don't let it get too soft or it will be difficult to cut neat slices and the filling will start squishing out.

Using a sharp knife, trim the sides so that the sides of the loaf are straight up and down. Wipe the knife off between cuts. Cut the loaf into thirds on its long side.

Cut each third into 1/4 inch slices that are about 2 3/4 inches long. Transfer the slices carefully to the baking sheets, placing them about 2 inches apart.

Bake one sheet at a time for about 9 to 14 minutes, until the edges are just starting to darken and firm up. Transfer the cookies to wire racks and let them cool completely.

Store cookies between layers of parchment paper in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Tagged with: Christmas cookies + gingerbread + cranberry cherry ribbons + Baking Illustrated + Nancy Baggett

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