In case you missed the 24 hour news coverage, New York got a little bit of snow for the first time this year. At some point during yesterday’s shift at my pastry internship, the pastry chef, sous chef, and I poked out heads out of the bulkhead from the basement kitchen and watched with delight as the first flakes fell down onto the sidewalk above. I spent the rest of the shift fantasizing about an evening holed up at home in my PJs, drinking red wine and watching the storm from the comfort of my couch.

After a long week, it feels really nice to be forced to hit the pause button and seal yourself away inside to hibernate and wait out the storm. I used this time to try out this pretty recipe, since neither rain nor snow is going to keep Christmas from coming, and I’ve got sweet (chewy, coco-nutty, fruity) promises to keep.

These cookies may look a little complex, but I promise that after you shape the first one or two you’ll get the hang of the folding coordination, and the rest will be a cinch. The addition of cream cheese in the dough makes them a little fussy to work with, so be sure that you keep the dough squares cold whenever you are not working with them. The pinwheels will hold their fun, ninja star look best if you allow them to chill right up to baking.

I chose to sacrifice a little of the beauty for flavor by applying the coconut layer on top of the pinwheel, rather than tucked under the points in the center, as the original directions say to do. Indeed, they look a bit more sloppy on top with the coconut and jam piled high, but doing it this way allows the outer coconut to toast in the oven, a flavor that I find irresistible.

You can make a very colorful plate with just these cookies alone when you use several kinds of jam, but they also are a welcome addition to a collection of cookies, delighting those who love the combination of coconut and fruit on your cookie tray.

Coconut Cream Cheese Pinwheels
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookies

For dough:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 stick unsalted butter
3 ounces cream cheese
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

For filling:

3 ounces cream cheese
3 Tblsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 cup white chocolate chips

For finishing:

Egg wash (one egg + one yolk + pinch of salt)
Raw or sanding ugar for sprinkling
1/3 cup fruit jam

Whisk together flour, sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Cream butter and cream cheese on medium-high until fluffy and very light in color. Add egg and vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low, then add flour mixture. Mix until just combined, taking care not to over-mix.

Divide the dough into half, then pat into disks. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Mix cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Fold in coconut and white chocolate.

Remove dough from refrigerator. Roll out about 1/4 inch thick on lightly floured surface. This dough is very fragile and fussy. I found it most effective to make only a few at a time, returning the unused dough to the fridge each time to firm up. Cut dough into squares using square cookie cutter (preferably fluted cutter) or a knife. Place the squares on a parchment-lined baking sheet and chill for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Cut four diagonal slits, one at each corner of the square, leaving a circle of dough in the center of the square with no cuts. Fold alternating points of these cuts into the middle of the square, forming a pinwheel. Place the shaped pinwheels on parchment -lined baking sheets. Spoon a small amount of the coconut filling on top of the center of the cookies and flatten it out with a spoon.

Lightly brush tops of pinwheels with egg wash. Sprinkle with sugar and bake for 6 minutes.Remove the trays from the oven and use the back of a spoon to create small wells in the coconut filling. Spoon a small amount of the jam into each well. Return to oven and bake for another 6 minutes until edges are golden and cookies are slightly puffed.

Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature for up to 3 days.

There are cookie recipes everywhere I turn, a sure hallmark of the holiday season. They’re on the blogs, they’re in my email, and they’re are all over my food mags. They’re at my internship too. It’s the holidays and everyone loves the excuse to bake, including yours truly. I love setting aside whole days devoted to baking, then turning up the music in my apartment, plotting my recipes, and then stocking the fridge with a dozen different doughs that I turn out, one after another.

I’ve been in pastry school for three months now and I’ve been a pastry intern for two. When I come calling with my cookie plates this year, people rightly have high expectations for the treats that I bring and I don’t want to let them down. So I’m pulling out the stops. I’m assembling all of my favorites together on one festive silver platter, and that platter could never, ever be complete without meringue mushrooms.

Meringue mushrooms are the signature item on every dessert tray that Brian’s Aunt Karen has ever presented. She is the original culinary talent in the family, having owned and operated a very successful catering business on Long Island for many years. When I first saw these mushrooms, I was impressed and I couldn’t wait to add them to my own party rotation. They’re delicious for sure, with their light,melt-in-your-mouth exterior coupled with just a taste of solid dark chocolate, but their real appeal to me is that they look so real that they still cause me to do a double take.

Best of all, they are actually quite simple to make. A little more time consuming than the rest of my cookies maybe, but now that I’m becoming a pastry chef I’m all about aesthetics and making things memorable, and this cookie pays off in spades on both counts.

Meringue Mushrooms
Adapted from Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts

1/2 cup egg whites (this is from 3-4 large eggs) at room temperature
Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
cocoa
High-quality (Callebeut is my brand of choice) dark chocolate (61-70% is best)

Adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with aluminum foil.

In the bowl of a mixer at med-low speed, beat the whites for about half an minute, until they start to get foamy. Add the salt and the cream of tartar. Increase the speed to moderate and beat for another minute until the whites hold a soft shape. Continue to beat on medium and start adding the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, beating 1/2 minute between additions. When half the sugar has been added, add the vanilla, continue beating, and resume adding the sugar as you were before. When all the sugar has been added, increase the speed to high and beat for 7 to 8 minutes or until the meringue is very stiff and the sugar is dissolved (rub some between two fingers to feel for grittiness). Depending on the power of your mixer, the total beating time will be between 15 and 18 minutes.

To hold the foil in place, pipe a little of the meringue onto each of the corners of the baking sheets and press the foil flat on to to adhere.

Do not allow the meringue to stand. Fit a large pastry bag (or gallon ziploc bag with the corner clipped) with a plain round tip (1/2 to 3/4 inch works best) and fill the bag with meringue. Pipe the stems onto one of the foil-lined baking sheets, by holding the bag at a right angle close to the foil and pressing the meringue out gently while slowly raising the bag straight up.  The base of the stem should be a bit wider for support. Hold the bag with one hand and use a knife to cut away the stream of meringue with the other. If you get little points on top do not worry, you can shape them away after baking using a microplane. The stems should be 1 – 1 1/2 inches tall. Be sure to make a few extras, just in case (of hunger, while assembing, which tends to happen).

Strain the cocoa through a fine strainer lightly over the stems to imitate soil and natural mushroom coloring.  Place in the oven on the high rack.

On the other piece of foil, shape the mushroom caps. Holding the bag straight up and close to the foil, press out flat, even rounds of meringue. The caps should average 1 1/2 – 2 inches in diameter. Sharply twist the bag away when finishing to avoid leaving a bump on the top (smooth over with a knife if you do).

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes or even longer, until the meringues may be lifted easily from the foil and the bottoms are firm to the touch. The longer they bake, the drier they are (and the better they are too) but they should not be allowed to brown at all as it will affect the taste. Turn the heat off, prop the oven door open slightly, and allow the meringues to dry out even more as the oven comes down to completely cool, approximately one hour.

Remove the meringues from the foil. They may be placed on a clean piece of foil, or parchment. Immediately, while the meringues are very crisp, use a microplane to shave away any points on the tops of the stems, making small, flat surfaces on top for easy gluing to the tops.

Weigh out one oz. of chocolate for every five mushroom caps that you have. Chop the chocolate coarsely and warm it over a double boiler until it is completely melted and smooth(not over 115 degrees). Turn off the heat to avoid burning. Allow the chocolate to come down to 91 degrees before using. (you can do this by adding additional room temp chocolate)

Hold a mushroom cap upside down and use a spoon to spread a thin layer of chocolate around the flat side of the cap. Adhere the stem to the center of the cap in the chocolate. Place the mushroom, stem side up in an empty egg carton to stabilize it. Freeze in the carton, only until the chocolate is completely set (it will go from shiny to matte) but no longer (the moisture will kill the meringues). Remove and store at room temperature.

Do NOT store the mushrooms in an airtight container. They should be stored under layers of parchment, in a very cool, dry place.

Last week I asked my friend Jeff what I should bring to the 30 birthday celebration that he was planning for our friend Devon. His response, “chocolate chip cookies”, came without hesitation. 

Relative to some of the other birthday desserts I’ve undertaken in recent months, you’re probably thinking that this request was letting me off easy, but au contraire. The subject of chocolate chip cookies was was on my mind whenever I had idle time this week –  while scrubbing my bathroom, for many long miles on the treadmill, on conference calls…

Because it’s not as simple as saying, “make a pound cake”, or “make a fruit tart” – in those cases you can pretty much expect what the outcome will be. Eskimos feel it is necessary to have one hundred words to capture all of the subtle variations of one single thing, and I believe that we’d be well-served to take this approach with the chocolate chip cookie.

Chewy, crispy, multi-textured, New York Times, Toll House, buttery, complex and hinted with notes of toffee or coffee, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, super-dark chocolate, warm and melted, stand-in for bread in an ice cream sandwich, frosted, oversized, average-sized, bite-sized, sweet, savory, gooey-centered, peanut butter flavored, vanilla flavored, bacon-enhanced, sea salt sprinkled… and don’t even get me started on nuts, if you’re into that kind of thing. I could literally bake chocolate chip cookies every single day (oh, to dream) and never bake the same cookie twice.

In the end, I based my decision upon the situation. The party was cocktail, past dinner hour, at a private Irish bar in Hell’s Kitchen with generous pours and a decent beer selection. The cookies, chewy and just big enough for two bites, were sweetened only with light brown sugar for quick caramelization. I upped the salt to add some complexity and balance the sweetness of the dreamy milk chocolate chips. They went well with beer or whiskey, and that’s what I was going for.

Devon turning 30 prompted me to reflect on how we’ve grown up together over the past 6 years. We were 24 when we met, each new to the city and clinging to each other for life support in the sea of uncontrollable chaos that was Intermediate School 184 in the Bronx. When trying to express how Devon helped me during that surreal first year, well, I’ll just sum it up this way: When the spitters were coming, Devon devised a warning system to keep us, and the students, dry. And at the end of the especially hard days, when things that were unthinkable to anyone outside the school were happening to us, we’d go have a drink and laugh (or cry) about it, which gave me enough strength to go back and do it again the next day. Together, we did all the silly, crazy things that single girls do when they arrive in New York City, and (thankfully), we lived to laugh about it all.  

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Chewy Mini Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Adapted from Gourmet, February 2002

1 1/4 sticks (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips (7 1/2 oz)

There are a lot of really good things coming out of my kitchen this weekend, and I just can’t wait to tell you about each and every one. Some of them even prompted an after work trip in Soho to hit Broadway Panhandler (yeah, yeah, I know, that’s NOHO not Soho, but who can keep up?), Crate and Barrel, and Sur La Table for special equipment. 

Some women lust after shoes or clothes, or bags or makeup – heck, some teachers I know practically orgasm when they walk into the back-to-school sale at Staples. We all jonze for one type of retail therapy or another, and for me it is kitchen stores. I wander into one and drool all over the beautiful All-Clad. I make meaningful eye-contact with glorious Global knives. 

And today, I hit the jackpot at Sur La Table, after striking out at the first two, as they had just received a new shipment of the exact item that I was seeking (to be revealed in a future post). And after I had that item in my hot little hands, I rationalized how I needed oh, 8 other things. When the saleswoman asked me if she could take some things off the pile I was balancing precariously, I told her that the rule is that I am not allowed to buy more than I can carry to the register (yeah, I have issues).

Yadda yadda yadda, I bought a Madeleine pan, something that I’ve wanted for a while and had been waiting for just this sort of impulse to buy. 

I took the madeleine pan home, and I swear, I put it on the rack in the kitchen for another day and began working on one of the other exciting things for the weekend. But I had a little downtime as that project was baking, and I went right for Dorie Greenspan’s book, which inspired the purchase in the first place.

The madeleines are fairly straightforward, or at least, so I thought at the time. You melt some butter and wait for it to cool. You use Ms. Greenspan’s awesome technique for infusing sugar with the scent and flavor of fresh lemon zest (same as in the recipe for Blueberry Crumb Cake). You beat eggs at room temperature and the lemony-sugar together until the mixture becomes light and airy, then carefully fold in the dry ingredients, and finally, the melted butter. Then the batter goes to the fridge for a while, where it firms up to be scooped into the madeleine pan.

My only taste of madeleines is the ones you buy at Starbucks, so perhaps my expectations were fueled by fake fat and preservatives. The madeleines were delicious, light, pretty, with just the right kiss of lemon and vanilla. They were also a little too crispy on the outside, not the delicate sponges I was hoping to get, but I have a few theories about how to fix that.  I’m marking these as a work in progress, which means you can expect to see future attempts back here.

Traditional Madeleines 
From Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

I’ve been a little down in the dumps about my job lately because things are moving across my desk at a dizzying speed and I’m feeling sort of powerless about quality control, bound to each successive deadline. I’m not proud of my work and there have definitely been mistakes. In this situation, with no opportunity for do-overs, I’m feeling pretty blue.

In the spirit of fixing something within my control, I did a do-over of a recipe that I recently botched and with which I never felt I had closure. You may recall the disaster that was the coffee crunch biscotti bars,  which were the result of my total inability to follow clear instructions. 

Molly Wizenberg’s story about her first experience with these was burned in my brain. There was one particularly salient part for me, for whatever reason, the part about how they smelled as they baked was something that I needed to experience for myself.

Molly writes about the “successive waves of scents: now melting butter, now freshly brewed coffee, now old-fashioned toffee”. 

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The air in the apartment was literally making me drool.  

As Molly also recounts, and I concur,  that waiting for these things to cool is a masochistic exercise of self-restraint.

When they finally (finally!) finished cooling, they were buttery and crisp with intense coffee-toffee flavor. I hadn’t been able to decide on just one kind of chocolate, so I did half milk, half dark, which I recommend if you happen to have them both around. I brought them to a housewarming party this weekend and I was delighted when a woman there asked me if these were the bars from the Bon Appetit article. Apparently it had left a strong impression on someone else as well.

Coffee Crunch Bars Recipe
Adapted from the recipe in Molly Wizenberg’s article Bon Appetit, January 2009 

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cups (firmly packed) dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons instant espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon almond extract (I used vanilla)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used 1/2 cup dark chocolate, 1/2 cup milk chocolate)

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk first 3 ingredients in medium bowl to blend.

Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in another medium bowl until blended, about 2 minutes. Add espresso powder and almond extract; beat 1 minute. Stir in flour mixture in 3 additions, mixing until just absorbed after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and almonds (dough will be thick).

Turn dough out onto ungreased rimmed baking sheet. Using hands, press dough into 12-inch square. Pierce all over with fork at 1-inch intervals.

Bake until edges are lightly browned and beginning to crisp, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool on sheet 1 minute. Cut into 48 bars. Immediately transfer to rack; cool (bars will crisp as they cool). DO AHEAD Can be made 5 days ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

I took some really beautiful pictures of this recipe that you will never see because my camera has EATEN them. To compensate (a little) I did take a few shots of the finished product, so let’s get right to that, because Jamie Oliver was not exaggerating when he named these the best in the World.  This is ridiculously good, buttery, crumbly, addictive, flaky, tender, easy-to-make shortbread. 

I don’t mean to be bossy or anything, but you really must try these. When you make them, use the highest quality butter that you can get your hands on, since it is the key ingredient. I also recommend using semolina instead of cornstarch (JO give you the option of using one or the other). The semolina lends a bit of a grainy texture to the shortbread and makes it more crumbly. 

Oh man, I wish you could have seen the pictures I took of this shortbread before my camera destroyed them forever. I also wish you could taste it. Let’s just say, I didn’t send as many pieces off with Brian this morning as I could have. I’ll be making this again soon!

The Best Shortbread In the World
Perfect as intended by Jamie Oliver in Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar (powdered sugar)

2 scant cups all-purpose flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting

2/3 cup semolina or 1 scant cup cornstarch

(blogger note: for the “scant cups”, use just a bit less than the full amount, such as a leveled cup minus a few tablespoons)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Butter a 9 inch square pan. Cream butter and sugar together with a whisk or wooden spoon until pale, light, and fluffy. Add the flour and semolina or cornstarch. Mix very lightly with a wooden spoon and then with your hands until you have a smooth dough.

Transfer the dough to a floured surface and roll it out until it’s and even 1 inch thick all over. Pressed the rolled-out dough into your pan, poking it into the corners with your fingers – don’t worry about it having to look perfect. Prick the dough all over with a fork and bake in the preheated oven until slightly golden – about 50 minutes.

While it’s still warm, sprinkle with a generous dusting of sugar. Allow the shortbread to cool slightly, then cut into chunky fingers.

For the version of this recipe that worked, click here.

I will begin by saying that this post was doomed from the start. It was plagued by senior moments, camera issues, and kitchen disorganization. And even with all that, these coffee biscotti bars, as I have decided to call them, still came out pretty darn good – although one might beg the question, if you are combining espresso, dark chocolate, and roasted almonds, how can you really go wrong? Good point.

The main issue with this post is that what came out was a completely different beast than what I had set out to make, which was a recipe for coffee crunch bars that appeared in the column When Coffee Goes Crunch by Molly Wizenberg from the February 2009 issue of Bon Appétit. I have no doubt that those would have been great (and I plan to try again soon), except I did something very silly. After years of successful baking endeavors that took for granted that I had committed to memory that 1 stick of butter = 1/2 cup, I somehow managed to forget in this recipe. Even more dumb – the recipe specifically instructs you to use 2 sticks. What a mess.

This is a pretty fatal flaw, especially for a recipe that depends on butter as its only source of moisture. (Note that this was also the recipe that killed the four pound bag of Jacques Torres 60% chocolate that fueled my holiday baking and then some – RIP giant bag of chocolate).

I only discovered the problem when the mixture was not turning into a dough the way it was supposed to in the mixer. I panicked. It looked like sand! And I still didn’t figure out what I had done wrong, because well – duh. So, with the oven preheat alarm beeping and the mixer running, I made the snap decision to beat 2 eggs and throw them in. It was the culinary equivalent of a “hail Mary”.

The eggs achieved the desired effect by providing the moisture that was so desperately needed, (keep in mind that I still had not discovered the error of my ways) but I knew that I had veered dangerously off course.

I searched my kitchen up and down but could not find my small, walled baking sheet, the one that the recipe demanded. Argh. I used a large one instead, pressing the dough into one end of the sheet, and stopping in the middle, where I tried to carefully build a wall of cookie dough that hopefully would hold up during baking.

It was at this point that my camera became unresponsive and refused to save pictures to its memory card. While the bars baked, I messed with the camera, downloading the contents of the memory card before reformatting it, but all to no avail. The final shots for this recipe, and all of my next post, were lost and I finished the job with a simple point and shoot camera, which is great for vacation shots but just doesn’t get down to the level of detail that this blog usually provides. These last two shots were taken with the second camera.

It was while the bars were in the oven and I was moving on to the next item on the baking agenda (an extension of my feed the computer programmers campaign, by the way) that I solved the mystery of the missing butter by way of taking inventory of my remaining butter supply. What came out was still very delicious, but it was very different than what the author had intended. The bars, especially after cooling, had the texture of biscotti, and were born to be dunked into a steaming cappuccino. If I could have predicted this, I would have shaped them into a flat loaf and cut them into slices and nobody would have been the wiser. Next time I am making biscotti, I will keep this new recipe in mind. 

Coffee Crunch Biscotti
Adapted from Molly Wizenberg’s recipe, from Bon Appètit, February 2009

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 1/4 cups (firmly packed) dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons instant espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup sliced almonds

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk first 3 ingredients in medium bowl to blend.Using electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, and eggs in another medium bowl until blended, about 2 minutes. Add espresso powder and almond extract; beat 1 minute. Stir in flour mixture in 3 additions, mixing until just absorbed after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and almonds (dough will be thick).

Turn dough out onto a large ungreased, rimmed baking sheet. Using hands, press dough into (and here is what I would recommend, not what I did when I thought I was making the original recipe) a flat loaf, no higher than an inch tall at the center, with edges that taper down to no smaller than 1/4 inch thick, ensuring that the loaf does not touch the edges of the pan. Pierce all over with fork at 1-inch intervals.

Bake until edges are lightly browned and beginning to crisp, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool on sheet 1 minute. Cut into 48 bars. Immediately transfer to rack; cool (bars will crisp as they cool). DO AHEAD Can be made 5 days ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

I’ve been on a baking binge for the holidays and I can’t seem to stop. It may be the four pounds of dark chocolate I bought at Jacques Torres that is giving me the choco-pneumonia and the coco-loco flu. These decadent macaroons are another installment in the parade of chocolate creations (see: Chocolate Salted Caramels, THE New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie, and Coconut Oatmeal Lace Cookies) for this holiday season. Making macaroons for yesterday’s Hanukkah dinner with Brian’s family seemed like a no-brainer, as Brian insisted that they are his mother’s favorite. I had not originally intended for them to be chocolate, but after a little goof on my part, it became necessary. With that said, these were really very good.

With macaroons, the egg whites are the glue that hold everything together. The eggs will go from the foamy liquid that you see above to…

…a stiffer foam that holds medium peaks in the bowl. You’ve beaten them too much if they resemble cotton balls that a light breeze could carry away.

No yolks in this recipe, but do try to do all of your baking together, as you may have an opportunity to use them for something else. I save mine covered in tupperware in the fridge.

Add sweetened condensed milk to sweetened coconut flakes and mix well. The mixture will get very heavy and sticky.

Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.

Drop the raw macaroons onto parchment or silicone-lined baking sheets. Note the ring of liquid around the base of mine – this is more liquid than you want in your macaroons. The reason that this is happening here is that I was about a cup shy on the coconut and tried to compensate by using complimentary ratios of the other ingredients. I was slightly off, which caused some egg and condensed milk to cook around the edges. I decided to try to salvage the batch by baking these almost all the way, then cutting the edges off and returning them to the oven to bake. This worked perfectly and the macaroons came out moist and just right. (sorry, it was an emergency situation that I didn’t photograph).

Unfortunately, the end result looked less than pretty around the base. And so, when faced with ugly macaroon bases, the answer became clear.

What’s good for stress, PMS, and pairs perfectly with Cabernet also does wonders for ugly macaroons.

Be sure to put these on a parchment lined baking sheet in the freezer to set the chocolate. They were delicious and a huge hit at dessert time.

Chocolate-Dipped Coconut Macaroons
Adapted from Ina Garten’s recipe for Coconut Macaroons in Barefoot Contessa Family Style

Ingredients

14 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

14 ounces sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon pure almond extract (original recipe uses vanilla)

2 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

6 oz 60% cacao chocolate

Like every kid, I loved decorating cookies at Christmas. The only problem was, mine were cookies that only a mother could love. Pastry decorating has never really been my forte (even though I began my illustrious foodservice career at Mrs. Fields: the famous purveyor of giant, custom-decorated chocolate chip cookies), and yet in my old age, I still can’t resist a recipe that requires piped icing. That this one also requires rich chocolate, toasted hazelnuts, and rum justifies my childish urges, since this is clearly a cookie for a more refined palate.

This was the first recipe I had ever tried that involved toasting my own hazelnuts. If you are not familiar with what these taste like, they are milk chocolate’s counterpart in Nutella. Sooo delish.

Since this was my first time and I only had enough for one attempt, I watched them obsessively, waiting for the meat of the nuts to turn a golden brown.

Mine took 13 minutes. 

Once they come out of the oven, wrap them in a cotton cloth and let them cool. Be careful – they will be extremely hot! Wrapping them in the towel makes most of the skin come off the hazelnuts. Try to shake them around in the cloth to help with the process and rub off any remaining skin. The hazelnuts make a really cool noise while they cool – it reminds me of what you hear when you stand very quietly in a forest and it is just starting to rain.

While the hazelnuts cool, assemble the rest of your ingredients.

Begin to cream the butter and sugar together. Then work on whisking your flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa in a separate bowl.

When the butter and sugar are fluffy, add the eggs and rum. The recipe calls for dark rum (Gosslings is a brand that I know) but we didn’t have any dark. I used Pyrate rum instead and I think it worked fine. Add the dry ingredients once the wet ones are fully integrated.

The batter will soon take on a rich color. It smells amazing!

Chop the hazelnuts once they are cool enough to work with. Be sure that you have removed as much skin as possible. Add them to the batter and mix just until they are fully incorporated.

Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Chill for at least 1 hour. I waited a day before baking.

Besides the frosting, another great part of this recipe is the use of cookie cutters. I hope yours are more fun than mine.

Slice the dough into fourths and roll each part out until it is about 1/8 inch thick (or just a touch more). Place the flattened dough in the freezer for 20 minutes (this is a critical step).

Remove from the freezer and peel off the top parchment layer. Begin cutting the dough into shapes and placing them on a parchment or silicone mat lined baking sheet. Move quickly or the dough will become sticky.

Baking only took 8 minutes for mine, be sure to watch carefully for the first sign of little cracks on the top.

I decorated the cookies with a modified version of the icing recipe provided in Gourmet. Since I could not find powdered egg whites, I used a real egg white instead and added extra cream of tartar to compensate – the result is fine for the camera but not so for the taste buds. If you do decide to go the icing route, save yourself the hassle of using a pastry bag and just use Ziploc instead.

I was alone and could not photograph the icing process. I needed two hands. In the end, the cookies are very delicious just on their own. I highly recommend them – they scratch the chocolate itch!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies
Adapted from Gourmet – December 2008 

Cookies:

1 cup hazelnuts (5 ounces)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

1 tablespoon dark rum

Equipment: decorative cookie cutters (about 3 inches)

Icing:

1 1/2 tablespoons powdered egg white (see Tip, below)

1/4 cup warm water

Pinch cream of tartar

2 cups (1/2 pound) confectioners’ sugar

Cookie Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375°F with rack in middle.

Toast nuts in a small baking pan in oven until centers are golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Wrap in a kitchen towel and cool to warm, then rub off any loose skins. Chop nuts.

Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then beat in egg and rum. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches just until a dough forms. Stir in nuts.

Divide dough in half and form each half into a 5-inch square. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F with racks in upper and lower thirds. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Roll out 1 piece of dough between 2 sheets of parchment into an 11-to 12-inch square. Freeze on a tray until firm, about 20 minutes.

Remove top sheet of parchment and cut out shapes with cookie cutters, arranging them 1/2 inch apart on baking sheets.

Bake cookies, switching position and rotating sheets halfway through, until firm and tops are slightly cracked, 8 to 12 minutes total. Transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.

Repeat with remaining dough (cool baking sheets and line with fresh parchment). Reroll scraps once for extra cookies if desired.

Cooks’ note:

•Dough can be chilled up to 1 week.
•Cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week.

Icing directions:

In electric mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat powdered egg white, water, and crème of tartar until combined. Add confectioners sugar and beat at medium speed until combined. Increase speed to high and beat until icing is thick and glossy, about 5 minutes. Add more water if needed to thin to desired consistency.

Use immediately or store icing in covered plastic container and rebeat before using.

I’m not really a holiday season enthusiast per se, but I do find that it’s a great excuse to stretch my baking wings. With that said, it is highly unusual to find me putting up any Christmas trees (or menorahs for that matter). This cookie is about as red and green as I go, luckily, it is as delicious as it is festive. 

These cookies are another installment from the December 2006 Gourmet, which I thought was a particularly awesome cookie edition, for some reason. These cookies appeal to my need for real food (i.e. they are red and green naturally) and they are super easy. 

Orange zest is the secret “something, something” in these cookies. It compliments the cranberries and the pistachio amazingly. 

The cinnamon also does it’s part, appearing in a mysterious way that is not overpowering. With the citrus it takes on a pleasant flavor that you wouldn’t expect from cinnamon.

The labor for these pretty much only lasts for 15 minutes tops.

And then, true to retro roots, these refrigerator cookies must be chilled.

Shape them into squares by wrapping them in tin foil and squeezing and lightly pushing them into form.

Wrap them tight and put them in the fridge.

I left them in for about 24 hours. They were so pretty when I unwrapped them!

Brush the four outside edges with beaten egg and then roll them in coarse sugar.

I didn’t have colorless sugar, so I used Sugar in the Raw, which worked fine, except, as would be expected, it colored the edges brown. I recommend using colorless.

Slice the cookie log into quarter inch thick pieces and bake on a parchment or silicone mat -lined baking sheet.

They will brown just slightly on top and crack a bit when they are ready – watch them closely or they will burn. These can be stored in the freezer and thawed quickly in the fridge for impromptu baking when guests “stop by”. Or if you just feel like a cookie on a rainy day.