Cookies Cookies Everywhere!

 This is the time of year that home chefs start looking at cookie and treat recipes . There are so many? what to choose. Do you go with a variation of one recipe?Or go across the board with a wide array of different ones.

That's the dilemma I'm facing right now. My plan is gifting family and friends with tins of homemade treats. The question is what to put in them.I  am planning on baking two or three sugar free versions of such classics as shortbread and brownies for diabetic friends. Baking such is going to require sugar substitutes like Splenda which I'm not happy with using. I'd rather go for the all natural Stevia and I have  been looking into recipes for cookies requiring it.From there  its on to the traditional ones. I know I want to make the rolled out sugar cookie ones that require royal icing. As for the royal icing, the traditonal recipe calls for egg white as the binder however I'll be using chickpea brine or aquafaba for that. Of course I'd like to make regular shortbread.It's a Scottish holiday tradition where the family initials are fork printed into the dough. Am I going to dip some of the shortbread triangles in chocolate to create my family's classic devil ears (so named by my Mom noticing how our cats' ears flattened and turned into "devil ears " when they hissed at each other). Yes! Shortbread and dark chocolate are the perfect couple so that recipe is a go! Another idea I've been flirting with is savory shortbread. I love this idea of taking the sugar out and putting in  Parmesan and rosemary for flavor. These would be great topped  with a dab of tapanade or cold cuts.

Other cookie ideas that are tempting to try are homemade Oreos.I'm looking at the recipe and thinking it coulbe an easy bake and bake. The filling is a no brainer.It's a vanilla butter cream. The idea of adding a pinch of espresso powder  to it for a different spin sounds good too. Of course my cookie tins will have chocolate chip cookies Again I may change it up by using dark chocolate M&M's instead of the usual chips. This gives the cookies a festive holiday look. Will I try a big chunky chip too? It would be different and there are some friends who love a cookie that's more candy than dough .Oatmeal cookies are always a welcome treat in any cookie tin. I plan on using my Mom's Fannie Farmer Cookbook recipe for lacy oatmeal cookies. They were one of my childhood favorites with the cookies having  a crisp, delicate edge and a warm buttery flavor. Another recipe which I want to try is a moon or whoopie pie. This is more of a cake than a cookie with a dense marshmallow buttercream filling. I think it's a fun change up from the traditional and it would be a different way to end Christmas dinner.

There are cookie recipes everywhere. The question is which to try  -what's in your comfort zone? Pick three or four and stick with them, The result will be a tasty array of holiday treats,

A Tray Of Pretty Cookies

 It's holiday time and that means a tray of cookies. Why not make them eye catching and pretty. They can be delicious and exquisite, perfect for any Instagram or Pinterest picture. There are many different types to choose from.

One of the most popular and often made is a simple sugar cookie jazzed up with royal icing. The icing by itself is pretty bland but how you use it can be creative and lovely. One of the prettiest is creating simple straight piping on snowflake cookies. You can dye the icing a light powder blue and then pipe white icing using a round cake decorating tip number 2 (buy Wilton's for the best result). You can also first ice the cookie with royal icing and then use silver dragees and silver sanding sugar. Keep in mind that the dragees do have silver and really aren't meant to eat.One way of making snowflake cookies pop is just placing one dragee in the center and let the icing be the star. You can also color royal icing with either bought or homemade natural icing . Keep in mind that if you use natural colorants like spinach or onion, you will wind up with some of their taste. Again start off with a simple royal icing base which is usually powdered meringue or egg whites mixed with vanilla extract and confectioner's sugar. You can use aquafaba or chickpea water for a vegan version. 

Homemade Linzer tortes are beautiful gems on any cookie platter. These Austrian classics have a cookie base of almond flour and confectioner's sugar. This is what gives the base its' tenderness. The jam filling can be any kind of jam from apricot to raspberry. Use raspberry for a Christmas cookie platter. The middle of the top cookie is cut out to reveal the glistening jewel like jam. You could easily do an intricate snowflake or snowman cut out using a smaller cookie cutter or hand drawn template. Dust the cookies with a fine coating of confectioners sugar or for more prettiness use silver or gold sanding sugars.Oatmeal lace cookies are another exquisite addition to the holiday platter. This incredibly complex looking snap is just a simple mix of butter, dark brown sugar, flour, salt, and eggs with a dash of vanilla. The batter is very thin which produces a delicate candy like texture. They can be dipped in dark chocolate and then become florentines. Stained glass cookies are pretty too and the idea can be carried over to make stained glass windows for gingerbread houses and gingerbread churches. Use any brightly colored hard candy and then smash them in a plastic bag. Make an outline whether a circle or a star and fill the inside with the candy, The cookie is typical butter cookie which makes for a solid frame. 

These are the prettiest cookies to bake for a holiday treat platter. Bake them to impress , but also bake them to admire their beauty. They are true gems

Bake Elaborate This Holiday Season

 The Christmas and Hannukkah parties are cancelled. Kwanzaa and tree trimming parties are a thing of a past. What to do? Bake like a contestant from The Great British Baking Show. You have the time to create something wildly elaborate. Go for it. The result is not only a following on Pinterest and Instagram but also a yummy treat afterwards.

One of the most complex yet fun creations to make is the gingerbread house.If you're a beginner , you can always buy the kits which has everything from the actual gingerbread pieces to the icing and decorative candies. There are a lot of styles to choose from. However you can easily build your own. You do need to download or draw templates. It usually is the four walls and two squares for the roof.  If you're especially creative you can also add a chimney and movable front door.  As for the actual building materials, you can use a packaged cookie mix or make your own, the last having a richer and more robust taste. Keep in mind that your dough should have a smaller amount of baking soda for less puff  and less butter so that the pieces keep their shape. Also decrease the molasses for a less sticky dough and  add more water for a smoother one. As for the icing , use royal. This is a mix of egg whites and confectioners sugar however a safer version is using chickpea brine or aquafaba instead. Keep in mind that royal icing is also perfect for icing cookies too. Decorate with Starlight peppermints and gumdrops for a more traditional look or add fun candies like KitKat  Bars and M&M's for a hipper vibe.  Ambitious bakers may try baking a whole village plus people, pets and cars.

Another labor intensive treat is sufganiyot, the Israeli jelly doughnut eaten at Hanukkah. The dough is a mix of the usual doughnut dough, spiked with cinnamon and enriched with butter or pareve  or kosher margarine. Apricot, raspberry or strawberry preserves are placed in the middle and then the dough balls are fried in vegetable oil for two minutes. They can then be dredged in granulated sugar or confectioner's. If you want to fancy them up a bit , think about filling them with dulce de leche or thick caramel sauce. For  really lush doughnuts, fill them with  a rich dark cocoa filling that's more like a pudding. Kwanzaa also comes with a variety of delicious desserts like banana cake. This is fine on its own but think about serving it with a homemade side of homemade Bananas Foster ice cream  for extra indulgence. One of the best holiday desserts for any holiday is the Spanisches Windtorte, This was featured on  The Great British Baking Show  and it is a decadent Austrian meringue cake with a decadent filling of whipped cream laced with brandy and cognac along with confectioner's sugar for body. Each layer is then topped of with fruit. You can use strawberries but for more bite use blackberries or raspberries. It's then finished off with more whipped cream and fruit followed by a dusting of shaved dark chocolate.

Bake big.  Bake  elaborate this holiday. Create something amazing and complicated  - not just for your family but for yourself. It;s the best give you can give.

That Easter Tradition A Good Meaty Ham

Ham has always been the meat of choice on almost every Easter table. This centuries old tradition has given ham lovers and home chefs good memories of a delicate salty flavor and an easy cook. It is the perfect dish for the holiday , each slice bringing joy.

Kim Severson wrote about this classic in today's New York Times Food section. Ms. Severson, a southerner herself, is no stranger to this cut of pork. Ham is also served at Christmastime, usually as the main course at the holiday dinner , along with being at baptisms, graduations and funerals. Right now sales are up because of the Easter season. The ham that we're used to is the  spiralized kind, one that is precooked and precut. It's different from fresh ham which is an uncooked part of a pig's rear leg.It's rubbed in  salt and a little spice, then smoked over wood and hung for several months to age. A spiralized ham is is soaked or injected with brine, spice and sugar. There are also curing agents added and then it's smoked a little.It's a quick process that only take four days which makes a tad more popular than the country style.Sales of them have been going up since 2017, even though their prices have also gone up. The price increase is due to American companies sending a lot of hams to Canada and Mexico.

What should a home chef look for in a ham? Check the amount of water listed on the can.Brine,a salty water mix is injected into the meat and can affect its' taste and texture. Top of the line ones are simply labelled "ham" and have to be 20.5 per cent protein by weight. Another classification is one  with "natural juices" listed. It's a good bet that around seven to nine percent of the cut is water. Most supermarket hams are labelled "hams with water added" which means that it has up to ten percent more water. Keep in mind that hams like this can turn spongy and don't do well on a spiralizing machine. Another point is that all spiralized hams have some kind of sweet glaze. The marriage of the meat and sugar is over a century old. Early recipes such as the one from the 1898 Delmonico Cookbook features a scored ham with powdered sugar. Another recipe from around 1940, found in The Boston Cooking - School Cookbook has a ham recipe that calls for frosting it with royal icing! Then there's the classic pineapple and cherry held by cloves stuck in the ham. This first started in 1931 with Irma Rombauer's first edition of "The Joy Of Cooking". The best bet is a rub with ginger ale and brown sugar. You can use pineapple too which breaks down the meat's collagen, making it easier to digest.

A good Easter dinner starts with a good ham. There's is nothing quite like a slice of silky pink meat, perfectly seasoned with spices and sweet. What a wonderful way to celebrate a Spring holiday.

The Holiday Issue Of NYT Food

Christmas season is cookie season. It can make home bakers  jump for joy  while novice ones may cringe at the magnitude of work ahead.Luckily the New York Times Food section today comes to the rescue. (is there ever a time when it doesn't?) with their holiday issue. It will inspire and ease whatever qualms may arise.

Most of the pieces are about baking and one article about edible gifts (more on those tomorrow). The baking articles are keepers. There are some seriously good recipes that can be made not just for the holidays but all year round. Kim Severson interviewed top cookie bakers or "cookiers" as they named themselves in the "Tao Of Dough". Top cookier, Georganne Bell lent her chocolate sugar cookies.This is a nice change up from the average vanilla ones. With it comes Ms Bell's recipe for the fluffiest royal icing.Usually it's made with egg whites however her recipe calls for meringue powder  which will give it a lighter consistency.  The chocolate sugar cookie recipe could also be used in making homemade Oreos.with a peppermint or vanilla buttercream filling Ms Severson also has a sidebar on how to decorate like a professional.One of the most important musts is getting the right consitency. Ms. Bell bangs the bowl five times against  a counter to get a smooth surface. Two other musts - don't go crazy with icing gadgets and a slew of cookie cutters. Keep it simple with one holiday set.Also find a recipe that works for you and that you're comfortable with  mixing and baking. Other points include switch to gel food colors and rolling out the dough to a quarter inch.

Allison Roman also contributes to the holiday issue with an article chock full of all sorts of spins on classic cookies. She has one recipe on toasted coconut shortbread, It has crunch and more butteriness thanks to the addition of unsweetened , shredded coconut. They're also finished with sanding sugar that gives a nice crunch when eating them. The end result is like one of those pure butter Danish holiday cookies that  come in that blue tin this time of year. She also reconfigures this classic Scottish treat with salted pistachios, however walnuts,pecans or hazelnuts can also be swapped in.It is a bit harder than the average cookie dough.  It does require a food processor however  if that doesn't work, then old fashioned hand kneading to thoroughly mix the dough. It's baked in a traditional tart pan, similar to the original recipes.It's then sliced in wedges.  She also has a chocolate molasses snap, that are slightly different than Georgeanne Bell's.Hers are spiked with freshly grated ginger mixed with butter for heat and spiced up with cinnamon. Simple granulated sugar is the only decoration this cookie needs. The issue also highlights cookie- centric cookbooks, reviewed by Margeaux Laskey. There is Sister Pie: The Recipes and Stories of a Big Hearted Bakery  and Rose's Baking Basics to name a few.

Holiday cookie baking and decorating should be fun. Follow the recipes in The New York Times Food section. It'll make for easy  and tasty Christmas time memories.

A Cookie For Every Occasion

Cookies make any event or party even more special. They add fun and color, especially if they are themed.. What's best is that you can make them in your kitchen, thanks to a new cookie cookbook, You can create professional themed cookies like the pro bakers.

A Cookie To Celebrate (Mango Publishing 2018) was written by Jana Douglass, founder of Jana Lee's Bake Shop in Columbus Ohio.,Ms. Douglass has a famed cookie shop featuring baskets of themed sugar cookies. To buy a basket is a whopping sixty dollars, however  thanks to her new book, a home baker can create a festive basket of cookies, whether for a birthday, holiday , event or shower. They'll be perfect for this Instagram age, in which Ms. Douglass is a star.She has designed all sorts of cookies, from a salute of the famed children's literature heroine Eloise, to a nod to Meghan and Harry's Royal Wedding. Her Christmas cookies are whimsical, . There's one decorated as a baking sheet with little dots of unbaked cookies. The book features the basics and gives good advice. along what brands of dye and cutters to use. There is also a basic sugar cookie recipe that is easy to follow and perfect for cutting into shapes.Ms. Douglass even recommends variations with flavor, such as subbing in almond extract for vanilla. What's surprising is that she doesn't include a chocolate cookie recipe for those who want to bake a variety of treats.

Of course this book is all about the icing and decorating. She gives the recipe for royal icing which is a mix of powdered sugar, meringue powder, water and vanilla, This creates the best "paint" for the job. Another use for it? Homemade sprinkles!! Yes! They are very easy to whip up and you can make them in matching colors to the cookie designs. Home bakers will enjoy the how to chapters.. She'll teach you about outlining the cookies and flooding spaces with icing. There are recommendations on when to use decorating tips and when to graduate from them. It's then onto different and fun designs, that also involve sanding sugars and edible gold dust. Another plus is that Ms. Douglass gives a lot of tips. She believes in practice makes perfect, especially when writing on the cookies. There is the recommendation of practicing on parchment paper first. Since these cookies would be perfect for bake sales, there is a chapter on how to package  them. - wait eight to twelve hours -  before putting them in sandwich bags. Ms. Douglass encourages fellow bakers to put their creations on Instagram and a few proud bakers will.

A Cookie To Celebrate is the perfect how to book in this Instagram age. Create a phenomenal batch of  iced treats , celebrating everything from a new baby to a holiday cookie party.It's  easy and best of all, it's fun!

Your Perfect Gingerbread House

One of the staples of the holiday is a gingerbread house. It is as ubiquitous as Santa, and cookies. It is also the dream of every home baker to create the perfect one. Unfortunately, it's one of the hardest baking projects any baker can tackle . However, there's a guide to help build that perfect house.

Luckily Julia Moskin becomes our Property Brothers in today's holiday issue of the New York Times Food section. She has got the former White House pastry chef, Bill Yosses, to give some tips as well as a cut out pattern to create the perfect house. (Keep in mind that the recipe is printed on the pattern for the house's front and back while the decorating tips are printed on the pattern that will make up both the house's sides and roof). Guests and especially the baker will want to nibble on the creation so the gingerbread itself has to be tasty. Chef Yosses suggests adding orange and lemon zest to cut the spiciness. Also a pound of butter also helps,giving it more of a butter cookie vibe. The spices are there - in heaping teaspoons, mostly ginger and cinnamon  which ,along, with molasses , give the cookie its' rich deep tan color.The pieces are baked in batches. The dough has to be refrigerated overnight before baking and it needs three days to a week to dry out for construction.. The walls will have to be rebaked for fifteen minutes when the candy windows are added.This is done by cutting out a circle and placing crushed hard candy in the middle. Again the suggestion is using one color for the window although you can use two ot three colors for a festive stained glass look.

The hardest part is the decorating and assembling. The icing will also act as the glue that holds the whole thing together. It is royal icing, made with a pound (!) of confectioner's sugar , two egg whites and one teaspoon of lemon juice. The egg whites will give the icing the stiffness it needs to hold everything together. The lemon juice gives it that crisp whiteness that makes lovely snowflakes and and snow dusted tiles. Putting it together will be the hardest part. Have help at the ready. Chef Yosses recommends using thick sealable one gallon plastic bags for the icing instead of the traditional pastry bags..Luckily you won't need any special tips, Just snip off a corner and use your dominant hand to guide the lines. Two bags are needed for construction and decoration. For constructing snip a hole measuring 3/8 ths of an inch while the decorating bag get's a 1/8 th of an inch opening. rest the bag in your palm and manipulate the opening with your thumb and forefinger. Decorating can be done in the traditional manner or with brightly colored candy like Gumballs and gum drops.. Assembling will be the hardest part . It starts with a steady wooden board or even an inexpensive cutting board. You can also go to an art store for a canvas painting panel. Use a can, mug or jar to prop this up. Make sure that the front wall sits inside the side walls. When the four walls are in place, then carefully (what else?) place one roof slab. This may slip so  add more icing and prop it up with a  ramekin or small glass. Wait until the icing dries before placing the other side.

A gingerbread house is a real thing of beauty not   home chef's unicorn. Do it properly and it will be the highlight of your holiday and baking career/It is easier than you think so go bake that house!.