Hazelnut Almond Cookies

I had rather a lot of egg whites to turn into almond cookies. Rather more in fact than I had almond meal on hand in the fridge. So I experimented with replacing 1/3 of the almond meal with hazelnut meal. I like the look and texture that resulted. Gave the cookies a little more depth.

For 3 egg whites, use 1 1/3 cups almond meal 2/3 cup hazelnut meal, 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and a pinch of salt.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees -- low and slow.

Whip the egg whites with a little cream of tartar to stiff peaks. Whip in sugar and vanilla. Fold in nut meals.

Scoop batter onto lined baking sheets. I like to use an scoop. You could spoon them on for a more irregular surface.

Bake at 300 degrees until set and just starting to brown. About 30 minutes, but times vary.

I have noticed a lot of variation from batch to batch depending on the ratios of eggs to meal to sugar. You can get something more like a meringue or more like a cookie.

Thumbprint cookies

After making some wonderful strawberry apricot jam, I wanted to broaden my repertoire of JDV (Jam Delivery Vehicles). In particular I have never made thumbprint cookies before.

The very idea of a thumbprint cookie makes me think of the 1950s. I'm not sure why.

Creamed butter, sugar, and eggs.

So when I posted about the chocolate chip cookie fail, one thing I didn't get a picture of was how strange the caramel + brown sugar + butter + eggs looked. The butter clarified and didn't fully incorporate into the caramel.

This is what creamed butter, sugar, and eggs is supposed to look like ...

I wish I better understood the chemistry of what is going on with this magical concoction when making cookies.

Update: I got a great comment from donaleen about a Baking 911 blog post that goes into great detail about creaming butter and sugar and the considerations of the temperatures involved. Well worth a read.

Chocolate chip cookie FAIL

I am perhaps overly enamored by caramelization.

It just seems so magical. So why not caramelize sugar every time you use it? What could happen?

I'll tell you what could happen, you could pre-ruin your cookies. That's what could happen.

Chocolate Shortbread

While we have a number of cookie recipes we like, we were in the mood to try something new: Chocolate shortbread.

It was fine for what it was. But it basically seemed like brownies for people without chickens (or some other access to eggs).

If you get a hankering for chewy-free brownies, give the Bob's Red Mill recipe a try. But why not make some nice chewy brownies instead?

They were a little better with some peach caramel sauce over them.

Almond Cookies Gluten Free

In the interest of experimenting with Gluten Free baking, for my GF friends, I hunted for an almond cookie recipe. This is the one I came up with for today's experiment from http://www.gluten-free-around-the-world.com:

I thought they turned out pretty nice. A little chewy, a little nutty.

Snickerdoodle smack down

I looked up four recipes for Snickerdoodles. Two called for vanilla, the other two called for cream of tartar, one used whole wheat pastry flour and all butter, the others had butter and shortening. I grew up on the Betty Crocker recipe which was almost identical to the Cooks Illustrated.

Christmas feast

We had some folks over for a Christmas feast -- a good day for cooking. In advance we made pumpkin pie and cookies: lemon cloud, chocolate crinkles, and oatmeal chocolate chip.

Experimented making orange jello from scratch for a spiced peach mold (recipe from Betty Crocker).

Probably rosemary oven roasted red potatoes.
On the day we baked Fresh yams baked in orange sauce which were well received, roasted red potatoes with garlic and rosemary, sourdough rolls, and a peach pie.

Better than Store Bought Cookies

Here is a rather detailed account of my adaptation of the "Good as Store Bought Cookie" recipe from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion cookbook that Sharon calls "Better than Store Bought Cookies".

Chocolate Crinkles

From The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

I've had pretty good responses from tasters of my Chocolate Crinkles. I mostly follow the recipe (gasp) except I use 1 cup of white whole wheat flower and 1/2 cup of whole wheat pastry flour rather than all purpose.
The last time I made them I made a double batch which worked ok, except I ended up with a lot of left over powdered sugar. Making these makes me want to get some of those little ice cream scoops that you can use for cookie dough.
I bake them on a half sheet with a Silpat mat that I have become quite fond of. It makes cleanup easy and the cookies release nicely. The one hitch is that we haven't figured out how to dry them since they are so floppy.
I tend to cook them on the short end of the time range so they end up almost like individual chewy brownies. If you cook them longer they allegedly crisp up. This might make for a better dunking cookie, though these do fine with a side of milk.