Rugelach: Baking With Julia

The first pick of March for the Baking with Julia group turned out to be Rugelach.  I had made Rugelach before, just once, and loved them, so I was excited to try this recipe.  Traditional rugelach are made in the shape of a crescent with the filling being rolled up in little triangles of dough.  This is how I made them before, and it would've been easier to just deviate from the recipe and form the rugelach the traditional way, but then I wouldn't be trying something new, so my husband and I rolled our Rugelach jelly roll fashion as the recipe instructed.

Our hosts for this recipe are Margaret of The Urban Hiker and Jessica of My Baking Heart.  If you'd like to try making these Rugelach yourself, you can find the recipe on their blog post today, and you can also see how their Rugelach turned out as well!

The first component of the filling for these Rugelach was Lekvar.  I know, what a strange, kind of gross sounding word for something that supposedly tastes good.  An easier short-cut would've been to just use jam or something in the recipe, but I wanted to know what lekvar tasted like.  My husband and I chose to make the prune lekvar, since he is not too fond of apricots.  I made our lekvar up several days ahead of when we made the cookies.

It doesn't look appetizing, but it didn't taste bad.  The dried plums by themselves are rather bland and of course very chewy, but the lekvar was pleasantly sweet from the sugar that was added in making it.  The lekvar is just prunes, a smidgen of lemon juice, sugar and some finely chopped walnuts.

The actual rugelach cookies were a joint project that both hubby and I participated in.  I thought it was so sweet of him to offer to help me.  He is the best hubby in the whole wide world in my opinion!

First off we had to make our cream cheese pastry for the rugelach.  This was just cream cheese, butter, salt, sugar and flour mixed together in our stand mixer.  This finished, the dough went into the refridgerator for several hours.  While the dough was chilling we got together the rest of our filling 'stuff'.
For the nuts, I let him choose, and he wanted just hazelnuts and almonds.  Here's my trusty partner peeling the skins off the toasted hazelnuts:

Now we were ready for assembly.  The dried fruit we chose to use was blueberries, cranberries and a few currants.  The bowl in the far right corner is our cinnamon/brown sugar/sugar mixture.

First layer going onto our pastry dough is the prune lekvar,

then the cinnamon/sugar mix, next the dried fruit and lastly the chopped toasted nuts.

Now comes the tricky part,

...rolling the whole thing up jelly-roll fashion starting with the long side.  Did we do this right?  It seemed that a five inch width did not provide enough dough to roll up into a log and we had terrible trouble pinching the whole thing shut.  We didn't put on all the nuts and fruit called for, because we could see it was going to be difficult to roll.  All the topping tends to dam up at the end where you're trying to roll to.  I think next time we agreed that we would probably make a much wider and shorter rectangular piece of dough to spread our filing out on so that we'd get more 'spiral' effect to our cookies:)

After spending the evening in the refrigerator our log was nice and firm and we were able to egg wash it, slice it, and roll it around in our cinnamon/sugar/chopped nuts mixture.  Hubby did a thorough job of covering ours in the sugar mixture so that we'd have nice caramelization.

Oh, they smelled so good while they baked.  We made them first thing in the morning, so they were reminescent of cinnamon rolls in the oven.  The sugar made a beautiful little pool of golden goodness under each of the rugelach.  Normally I would break off crusty appendages like this, thinking they were unsightly, but not this time.  These were awesome little cookies.  We sampled them while still warm and gooey inside.  

The pastry part was light with a slight crunch and the whole thing did kind of resemble the flavors of a cinnamon bun, especially when eaten warm.  The filling was full of nice contrast, with the creamy lekvar, the crunchy nuts, chewy fruit all surrounded by a cinnamon-ey sweetness.  Very satisfying!

We still have more dough in the freezer so we'll be experimenting next weekend with modifying our rectangular shape for easier rolling, but other than that issue, we thought these were easy to make and a delight to eat as a husband and wife team.

Do check out how the Rugelach turned out for others in the group by going here.

Cappuccino Thumbprint Cookies: Modern Baker Challenge

The Cappuccino Thumbprint Cookies were my first pick from the Cookies, Bars, & Biscotti section of Nick Malgieri's book The Modern Baker.  They reminded me of the peanut butter blossom cookies my mom made us when we were kids, that had the Hershey's Chocolate Kiss in the center.  As as adult I've also grown to love thumbprint cookies with jam in the center, so I couldn't wait to try these.

The dough was easy to mix together and to get it into the 8-inch square shape before chilling, I opted to just dump the dough into my 8X8 pan.  It seemed to make the most sense to try it that way.  I smoothed out the dough, wrapped it good in seran wrap and dashed off to the grocery store, while the dough chilled for a an hour or so in the fridge.  Since the pan that I shaped my dough in didn't have perfectly round corners, and because my measuring wasn't exact, I had some pieces of dough that were definitely smaller than others.  So I stole bits and pieces of dough from larger squares as I was forming my little spheres.  

The dough got soft rather quickly, since it takes awhile to shape 20 little spheres of dough, so while I was working on the first sheet pan of cookies, I put the remaining dough back in the fridge until I was ready for it.

Coating the spheres in the egg white, before covering in the finely ground almonds, gave me some trouble.  I assumed you were to coat the whole sphere in egg white, so I lowered each sphere into the egg white and then carefully flipped it to cover both sides.  Some of the spheres did not want to come out of their egg white bath.  They'd jump off the fork and flop back in.  Urrghh!  Maybe it would've been easier to just use a pastry brush to apply the egg whites to the spheres?  

I debated about what to use to make the cavity in the tops of the cookies.  In the end, I used my pinky for the first sheet pan, and for the second sheet pan, I used my old plastic 1/4 tsp measuring spoon.  It seemed though, like the cavities in the picture in the book are bigger than mine. 

Cookies in the oven, it was time for a coffee break :)  

Whenever a recipe calls for strong brewed coffee or espresso now, I whip out a packet of my Starbucks Italian Roast Via coffee.  Instead of adding 8 oz of water to the packet contents, I add 6 oz to ensure it's nice and strong.

The cookies baked up fine and the browning almonds smelled quite nice, but my little cavities started disappearing as they got near being done :(   

I grabbed my little 1/4 tsp measuring spoon and as soon as they came out of the oven, while still soft, I gently used the spoon to press out the little cavities.  Don't push too hard though, as the cookies will crack.

The #1 mistake I made was to add cool vanilla to my melted white chocolate.  My melted chocolate seized up and no matter how much I stirred, even after adding my hot espresso, I couldn't do anything with the chocolate filling.  It was a grainy, lumpy mess.  I had to throw it out and try again.

For my second attempt, I only used 4 oz of white chocolate and some semi-sweet regular chocolate (to give the filling a darker color).  I added my vanilla to my espresso, then poured the espresso over the chocolate.  I then placed the bowl over my barely simmering water and melted the chocolate.    

I let the filling cool a bit, then poured it into a disposable decorating bag and filled all my cookies.  I'm not sure how Nick got such glossy smooth tops on his cookies.  My filling wasn't thin enough to ooze down into each cavity and smooth itself out.  I tried smoothing the tops with an offset spatula, but that didn't work.

The finished cookies were still very attractive.  We thought the flavor of these cookies was just OK, though. We like the toasted ground almonds on the outside of the cookie, but the flavor of the cookie is kind of plain, and they are a little dry.  Hubby says they taste 'floury'.  The flavor of the filling is good, but there is just not enough of it to make up for the flavor/texture lacking in the cookie itself.  Maybe this cookie is just not right for us, since we tend to like moist, chewy cookies.  Anyway, I'm glad I tried this recipe and I'm off to try another.   So far the Cocoa Nib Brownies are still my favorite!

Melting Moments:Modern Baker Challenge

Yesterday seemed like the perfect day to bake cookies.  It was sunny with a few big puffy clouds outside and not too cold.  All the gingerbread men were gone, and since I missed out on most of my holiday cookie baking due to our move, I was not all baked out.

When I was at Whole Foods this week I picked up a plump, organic navel orange.  I love this time of year when the citrus fruit from Florida begins filling the supermarket bins.  I was searching for a cookie recipe to try & noticed that the recipe for Melting Moments from Nick Malgieri's book The Modern Baker, called for lots of orange zest.  This was one of my picks for The Modern Baker Challenge,  so I zipped back over to Whole Foods yesterday and got me another orange so I could try out this recipe.

The first step in the recipe calls to beat together 1 cup confectioners' sugar and one stick of unsalted butter.  I was already a bit hungry and craving something sweet, so when I saw the sugar and butter coming together in the mixer bowl, all I could think of was buttercream frosting, and had a strong urge to stick my finger down in the bowl to sample some of it.   I was good though, and resisted.

This recipe is kind of unusual in that it calls for lots of cornstarch, 3/4 cup worth.  I have made another cookie recipe before and it calls for a lot of cornstarch too, and sometimes it seems like I can taste the cornstarch and I don't like that, so I wondered if these cookies would be the same.

For the first sheet of cookies, I slid a small amount of dough off of a spoon with my finger onto the parchment sheet (since I don't have a tiny cookies scoop).  The first finished batch of cookies came out sort of irregular in shape, though, so on the remaining sheets of cookies,  I rolled balls of dough between my hands to make my rounded teaspoons.  The finished cookies came out much rounder that way.  I baked my cookies for 19 minutes and only one sheet at a time and I got exactly 48 cookies.

These cookies baked up firm with a very assertive orange flavor from the orange zest and orange extract.  I don't know that they melt in your mouth, like I thought the name implied, but they are very good.  I think these would be a good cookie to make at Christmas time to complement all the other goodies.

Before you bake the cookies you're supposed to make a crisscross design on top with a fork, but the pattern didn't show up very well on my finished cookies.  I tried flattening the cookies more, but the pattern still wasn't very visible.  I wanted to add a bit of pizzazz to the cookies, so since chocolate goes well with orange, I decided to melt some semi-sweet chocolate chips and drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies.

There, that's much better!  You couldn't taste the chocolate much since the drizzle is so thin, but they sure looked prettier.  I think I'll have to drizzle more chocolate on next time.  Hubby and I are really enjoying these cookies.  Since they're small, its kind of hard to eat just one, and they are wonderful with milk or hot tea.

We are enjoying the cookies, bars and biscotti section of NM's book, so I'll definitely be on to the next recipe as soon as we're finished with our Melting Moments:)

Multigrain Snickerdoodles

Finally, after a couple of days of so-so whole-grain recipes, I hit on one that is excellent.  I had bookmarked this recipe last fall, but since I didn't have barley flour, I had to wait until my desire for these cookies, supplanted my resistance to stash yet another type of flour in my pantry.  When growing up, snickerdoodles were my favorite of all my mom's homemade cookies.  I have made whole-wheat snickerdoodles before from this recipe, and they are good, but they do contain some all-purpose flour, and my goal has been to find recipes that use none.

The Multigrain Snickerdoodles recipe I tried yesterday contains no all-purpose flour, but includes barley flour, ground oats, and traditional whole wheat flour.  I found barley flour at Whole Foods in the bulk foods section, which I was grateful for so that I didn't have to commit to buying a whole bag.  According to the book, Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce, barley flour was the main bread grain in Europe ~ 500 yrs ago, before the great rise of wheat.  It also says barley flour works really well in doughs and batters (as a secondary flour) with a scent strangely reminiscent of ripe apricots.

I did not alter the recipe this time, except for cutting in half the ingredients for the cinnamon-sugar coating that the balls of dough are coated with.  To coat my dough balls, I followed the procedure my mom taught us as kids, and that was to combine the cinnamon-sugar in a cereal bowl, drop a ball or two in at a time and roll it around before placing on the cookie sheet.

Multigrain Snickerdoodles

from King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking

Dough

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks, 6 oz) unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz) sugar

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 Tbsp orange juice

2 large eggs

1 1/3 cups (4 5/8 oz) old fashioned rolled oats, ground for 30 seconds in food processor

1 cup (4 oz) whole barley flour

3/4 cup (3 oz) traditional whole wheat flour

Coating

1/3 cup (2 3/8 oz) sugar

1 Tbsp ground cinnamon

(I cut the coating ingredients in half and had just enough to coat all 38 dough balls.)

Cream the butter, sugar, baking powder, salt and vanilla in a large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer.  Beat in the orange juice and eggs, scraping the bowl, then add the oats, barley flour and whole wheat flour, beating until well combined.  Refrigerate the dough, covered, overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to 350°.  Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.  To prepare the coating, combine the sugar and cinnamon in a large plastic bag.  Drop the dough by the tablespoonful, 6 pieces or so at a time, into the bag.  Gather the bag closed at the top, trapping some air inside.  Shake gently to coat the balls with sugar mixture.  Place them on prepared baking sheets and flatten to about 1/2 in. thick, using the flat bottom of a measuring cup or drinking glass.

Bake the cookies, reversing the pans midway through (top to bottom, bottom to top), until they're beginning to brown around the edges, 12 to 14 minutes.  (I baked only 1 sheet of cookies at a time and all of my batches were closer to the 14 minute mark.)

Remove cookies from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.  Store in an air-tight container.  The book also says the cookies will stay soft and chewy unless you leave the cookies out over-night to harden and then store them.  I prefer mine to stay soft and chewy so mine were stored after cooling.

It's hard for me to convey the deliciousness of the food without alot of photographic talent or eye-catching props, but believe me these cookies are good and well worth the effort if you are searching for whole-grain cookie recipes to try.

Gingersnaps (AB version)

This Saturday was a productive day, with over 4 dozen gingersnaps coming out of my kitchen.  I've had Alton Brown's gingersnap recipe sitting on the landing above the living room for ages.  I'm not a gingersnap fanatic or anything, in fact I can't even remember having one before, due to the fact that if I don't make it, I don't eat it, if it's a cookie.  I cannot bring myself to buy store boxed cookies.  I have seen gingersnaps called for in numerous recipes before and I've heard many people exclaim that gingersnaps are one of their favorite cookie, although they've only had store-bought gingersnaps.

I've always had success with Alton Brown recipes and when I saw his recipe for gingersnaps, I was intrigued.  His recipe calls for three forms of ginger: ground, candied and fresh grated.  I knew these cookies would have flavor, but would I like them?  Another reason I was hesitant to make these at first was because they call for molasses and hubby does not like molasses.  On Saturday though, I asked him if he would like me to substitute honey for the molasses, but he said 'no, its ok, go ahead and make them with molasses'.  (He likes the gingerbread men I make at Christmas and they do have molasses in them)

I had also considered making Nick Malgieri's Three-Way Gingersnaps from The Modern Baker, but Alton's recipe was way more interesting spice wise.  AB's recipe calls for ground cardamom and ground cloves as well as the ground ginger.  For the ground cardamom I used:

This past year I had skipped making several recipes because they called for ground cardamom and I didn't have any.  When I checked the price at the grocery stores, I thought no way am I spending that for a spice I will use only occasionally.  Well, it just so happens that Penzeys carries cardamom, the white kind, in the whole pods.  They also carry green cardamom, which I believe is usually used in savory dishes, whereas white cardamom is usually used in desserts & breads.  I've been told that the cardamom will last quite some time in the pods, without being ground yet.  This is one pungent spice!!  I snip off the tip of a pod and dump the teeny black seeds into my coffee grinder (used only for spices).  I'm sure the fact that I ground my own cardamom gave these cookies even better flavor.

The verdict, after Saturday's baking, was that these little gems are exceptionally good.  I don't know this for certain, but I would bet that the cookies I made do not even compare with ones you buy in a box, not even the ones I've heard they sell at Trader Joe's.  However, I will be trying Nick Malgieri's recipe in the near future just to see how they compare.  If you would like to give AB's recipe a try it can be found here.

 Thank you for visiting my blog and feel free to leave a comment and/or let me know if you have a favorite gingersnap recipe!

Chocolate Chip-Hazelnut Cookies (w/Spelt Flour)

Our first "spelt cookie"

Whenever I go to the library I always end up browsing in the cookbook section.  Recently I came across a book called Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass.  I am always looking for recipes that will incorporate healthier foods into our meals and snacks and I was particularly drawn to the back part of this book where there were recipes for muffins, cookies, scones and biscotti.  These are some of my favorite things to make and none of these recipes used refined white flour.  Wooohooooo!!  The first cookie recipe that caught my eye was the one for Chocolate Chip-Hazelnut Cookies.  My husband and I love hazelnuts and even more so when they are roasted in the oven.  The cookie recipes in this book use whole grain spelt flour.  I had used spelt before in the roasted garlic bread I made, and we liked the nutty quality it gave to the bread, although that recipe was not made with 100% spelt flour.

So on Friday I labored over making my first spelt cookies.  These cookies turned out to be probably one of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had.  I think the roasted, chopped hazelnuts and the use of spelt flour put these chocolate chip cookies over the top.  We think these are awesome cookies and I feel better about eating them and putting them in my husband's lunch knowing that they aren't made with all purpose flour. 

I hope you will try these too!

Chocolate Chip-Hazelnut Cookies

adapted from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way

by Lorna Sass

2 cups spelt flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 baking powder

1 tsp instant espresso powder

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, then coursely

    chopped

1 large egg

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted

    butter, melted and cooled to room

    temperature

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Place a rack in the upper third of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350.  Place a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugars, salt, baking soda, baking powder, espresso powder and cinnamon.  Stir in the chocolate chips and the chopped toasted hazelnuts.  (My hazelnuts came from Whole Foods Market bulk bins and still had the skins/paper on them.  I put the nuts in a shallow pan and roasted them for 10 minutes at about 365-370.  Then I was able to peel the skins off before I chopped them up.)

In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg. Whisk in the melted butter and the vanilla.  Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until a soft dough has formed. 

I used my tablespoon cookie scoop that I got for Christmas to place 9  mounds of dough onto the parchment paper lined baking sheet.  Just make sure to leave a generous 1 inch between each mound of cookie dough.  Gently flatten each ball slightly.  I did this with the palm of my hand.

Bake 1 sheet of cookies at a time for about 10 to 12 minutes for soft cookies and 13 to 15 minutes for crisper cookies.  I rotated my cookie sheets about every 4 minutes, especially towards the end of baking,  to get even browning.  When the cookies are done, slide the parchment (with cookies and all) onto a cooling rack.  Cool cookies to room temp.  Store in an airtight container for 5 days or freeze for longer storage.

Makes approximately 3 dozen 2 1/2 inch cookies.