Can you say Scrumptiliumptious?

Oh oh – can you say Scrumptiliumptious?  I’m starting to think the image of a pufferfish might be too dainty for me if I can’t stop baking and indulging in luscious treats warm from the oven. Perhaps I should paste a photo of a big, bloated multi chinned manatee in the kitchen?

For those of you not in the know, I signed up for the Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies blog hop where some fabulous food bloggers are posting positively scrumptiliumptious cookie recipes right up until mid December.  Luckily no one had to commit to posting in all 12 weeks or the fact that I don’t have the requisite will power to deny myself tasty treats when the aromas of said treats baking perfume the entire house would demand an entirely upsized wardrobe prior to the holiday season. You can tell I’m not trying to be the next Food Network Star – food writers don’t open their posts with big “Warning”, “Might be too luscious”, large ugly animal photos. But I feel it is only right to alert you to the fact that these cookies are addictive.

There’s no such word as scrumptiliumptious you say?  Well, first try this MAHVELOUS cookieand then tell me there’s no such word.

Short break for a history lesson. Once upon a time there was no internet for home users (gasp, horror, but t’is true). Surfing for recipes wasn’t an option.  Manufacturers of all sorts of food and beverages would make offers – send us a letter and we’ll send you a recipe book. As a munchkin, I liked to help out in the kitchen and I loved getting my own mail. Off these offers for little treasures would go.  I still have some, plus assorted cookware, tourist and other recipe pamphlets. That Seafood one you can see is even from a Boston bank. Been browsing the stash for recipes others may not be posting and found this one.  It’s a keeper.

This week’s recipe is brought to you by Pillsbury, Holiday Classics.

I made only 2 minor changes to the recipe.  I replaced the cherry pie filling with seedless red raspberry jam (I like jam cookies) and, as this sharing was with only other adults not wanting to do the pufferfish/manatee thing (the neighbor munchkins had rampant success in Halloween candy gathering) omitted the icing.  You can see from Pillsbury’s photo above, the icing does make them look just a tad more festive.

The jam was placed in a pan of boiling water and removed from the burner to warm and become more easily spreadable over the dough.  Modern mixer conveniences make creaming the butter, sugar and vanilla until light a simple process.

The resulting dough is a bit stiff and should hold its shape. I wet my hand to more easily press the dough into the pan – you can see my fingerprints, but that’s ok as it will be covered. I had considered making a half recipe, but had a few adults to share with and just went “whole pan”.  It would be very easy to halve this recipe and cook in a 9X9 pan.

I used an offset icing spatula to spread the jam – added a bit more after this photo but not so much that you’d get pockets that would drip on unsuspecting souls. Wet my hands again and pulled bits of dough to drop over the top, then tapped down a bit once I was done.

The kitchen was filled with the heady fragrance of raspberry plus cookie dough.  The cookies were screaming their presence before they were even out of the oven.

These are faster than jam thumbprints and the dough is moist with a wonderful texture.  Next time I might try half the pan jam and half lemon pie filling – two cookies from one baking effort. Recipients of this batch have let me know they’ll happily assist with the dispersal of future batches .

I’d like to give a special call out to Barbara of Barbara Bakes, who, in addition to posting scrumptiliumptious recipes herself, lends a helpful hand to many of us in maneuvering the blog hop.  I’ve mentioned before that for security reasons, WordPress doesn’t allow the script/Javascript commands that allow these to work (and that’s ok with me). 

Special thanks to Krystal over at http://recipesofacheapskate.blogspot.com/ for highlighting this post on her blog.

This post is also participating in the linky parties noted below.

Pure Temptation in an 8 x 8 pan

 Well, I’d said I was participating in 12 weeks of Christmas Cookies, but after making my absolute favorite cookie, the hermit, I needed to take a few weeks off baking so I don’t blow up like a startled pufferfish J.

Seeing the first few week entries in the blog hop I was getting concerned. I only have so many favored cookie recipes and they were starting to show up before I baked and blogged about them.  I thought about publishing my list – a sort of blogosphere dibs – neener, neener, neener, I dibbed shortbread on week 5.  But, I decided that was more childish than the person I like to be.  Besides, blogging is about my experience with a recipe and if there are 15 others of the same, so be it.  Once I got past my hissy hurdle I considered a list for me would be useful. I’ll have some plan of which cookies/candies to write about when. For instance, since I’m pawning them off, generously sharing the delicious treats with neighbors, I won’t do Christmas decorated cookies until December.

I dragged out favored cookbooks, bunches of Americas Test Kitchen (they’re by year), Martha, Julia, Jacques and a few specifically for tea time that would be heavy on cookies and browsed through them.  The notes also give me shopping lists, a smart move on my part as might otherwise hit a “rainy great baking day” and not have all the ingredients on hand.

Decided this week’s cookie will be from Boston Tea Parties, recipes from the Fine Arts Museum (side note I started collecting cookbooks when I was in Junior High).  It’s a fun little cookbook – instead of pictures of food you get pictures of museum tea sets, paintings about tea and so forth. It’s copyright ’87. Some of you may have read my food nazi post where I discussed that I was a vegetarian and healthy whole grains only kinda gal for 15 years, during which time my extended family was not enamored of my cooking (understatement).  Some recipes in this cookbook reminded me of those days –I may have a taste for such concoctions as carrot drops (only cooks for 10 minutes so the grated carrot probably still tastes like, well, grated carrot), whole wheat drops (what chocolate loving kid won’t jump for joy when presented with these?) and my favorite, hard boiled egg cookies (yep, cut up some hard boiled yolks and toss them in).  I chortled out loud thinking of the strongly negative reaction I’d get showing up at my brother’s for the holiday with a box of only these. It would be like showing up with stockings of coal and nothing else.

 

But, I LOVE cranberries. Tart homemade cranberry chutney from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, cranberry tea bread from the OceanSpray wrapper, cranberries in stuffing, in pies, in scones, dried cranberries – it’s all good.  And, this book had a recipe for Cranberry Spice Squares. Love spice cookies, love cranberries, however I remained cautious in thinking anyone but me may like these cookies given the book’s other inclusions.

 

I’m an Irish soda bread kinda gal – you know, flour, soda – toss it in the oven and if you don’t eat it in the next few hours it makes a great doorstop. My sister referred to it in our Ireland trip as akin to eating sawdust. So, I know baking soda has a rather distinct taste.  These cookies call for soda – I considered substituting it but the references I found said 3 times as much baking powder for baking soda and I knew that would throw the flavor off – I decided to bake them as instructed.

 

The long and short of it?  These things are GOOD! They’re better than good; they’re one of my new favorite spice cake recipes. Took every ounce of my willpower to not devour at least half of it warm from the oven.  Even now, the day after at room temp, I have to carefully allot myself a certain amount and wrap it up out of sight. I could just finish the darn thing for dinner. It calls to me – the marvelous heady spice (I added ¾ tsp allspice to the recipe), the perfectly tender and moist crumb, the delectable cranberries. It’s my ideal tea cake and it’s one I can share with my family – sans disdain and disappointment.

You will notice I’m calling it a tea cake. The book called it squares and listed it as a cookie.  I’d been imaging something much denser and, well, cookie like. This is a scrumptious tea cake cooked in an 8 X 8 pan that can be cut into squares. The book offers a recipe for cream cheese frosting (see recipes above) to go with it; I opted out of that one. For a dinner dessert try it, for a brunch/breakfast cake – skip it.  If you too don’t want to blow up like a pufferfish, be sure to have a few folks on hand to help you devour it. With or without assistance, it won’t be around long.

This post is participating in the following linky parties noted below.

In search of

In Search of …

De de de de    de de de de (in the highest pitch you can muster).  Okay, maybe a few of you don’t remember the TV show. But, I’d been thinking they would have better luck at finding existence of extraterrestrial beings than I would of finding the Hermit cookie of my childhood.

Believe me – I tried. I’d made recipes I could find – Epicurious.com (my always very first “go to” web recipe place), four recipes from the now-defunct Berkeley.edu’s SOAR’s (Searchable Online Archive of Recipes), Joy of Cooking’s and even Martha Stewart’s – but none were the cookie I remembered.  My memories were of a cookie deep brown from molasses, moist and chewy in bars, spicy.  They were a treat from a bakery called Laura’s. No drop cookies, no light colored cookies, certainly not dry or crispy cookies, but also not doughy or undercooked. These were made in New England – walnuts our nuts of choice.

But tonight, I’ve seen the light and am doing a little happy dance.  I’ve found what’s eluded me all these years – my perfect New England Hermit cookie. I adapted this from one by Cook’s Illustrated using a few hints from the America’s Test Kitchen folks.

 New England Hermit Bars

(adapted from Cook’s Illustrated)

8 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg (freshly grate if you can)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (less if using salted butter)
1 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. America’s test kitchen hint “Most hermit recipes involve creaming the butter, but this produced dry, biscuit-y cookies. Melting the butter instead delivered a chewier, moister cookie. We took this one step further by cooking the butter in a saucepan until light brown and fragrant, which added a nutty flavor to the hermits”. Add the spices to the butter for the light cooking to bloom their flavor. “This avoids a dusty texture from too much ground spice.” If you have any questions, better to undercook than overcook the butter. Remove from heat and add sugar, stir. Let cool.

Beat eggs and molasses into your butter and spice mix. In a separate bowl, stir together all dry ingredients. Stir dry ingredients into molasses mixture. Stir in raisins and nuts.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper (or a silpat). Divide dough into 2 sections and form two logs of about 14×2 inches. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes. Slice each log at an angle about 2 inches thick.

These are what America’s Test Kitchen says they should be “old-fashioned cookies that bake up soft and chewy, with a perfect balance of sugar and spice”. My recipe has more spice than the Test Kitchen recipe called for (I still think they’re mild).  They also suggested steeping the raisins in melted butter to soften them, and pureeing them with some crystallized ginger into a rough paste. This” distributes raisin-y flavor into every bite, while the pureed ginger lends pungent sweetness and chew”. I had fresh soft raisins and I LIKE raisins in a cookie.  Much as I love crystallized ginger, my childhood cookie memories were of a hermit sans crystallized ginger, so I skipped these steps. I also did not include the Test Kitchen addition of a simple glaze of orange juice and confectioner’s sugar drizzled over the just-baked cookies. The cookies are perfect for me without the extra sugar of a glaze.<  If you prefer your cookies more sugary, go ahead and add it.

These are so good, I’ll probably double the recipe in future.  Other than that, no changes for me. Because of the amount of raisins and nuts, they break easily and would not ship well. If you must ship cookies – I’d puree the raisins with crystallized ginger as instructed and (gasp, no!) omit the nuts.

This recipe is participating the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies Blog Hop.

Best Ever Easy Chocolate Mocha Cookie

It’s been skipping about the high 90 temps for the last few weeks; we’re all hoping it’s that last great blast of summer. Thinking about getting some of the inside Halloween décor out, but before its even fall?  My mountain location gets fall and I really want it now. Feels too strange, so haven’t cracked those décor boxes open yet.

Then, as I’m marvelous at meeting deadlines and do intend to write about recipes here, I decided I’d sign up for April’s Attic Twelve Weeks of Christmas Cookies and I need to get BAKING today.  But, hey – it’s dipped to the mid 90’s and might hit the 80’s this week; my air conditioner can handle the oven warming up the house (not exactly good green thinking, but I’ve got a blog deadline   ).

Nevertheless, I have two types of recipes I create for the holidays.  There are the really fast “been way too busy with work”; “stayed up too late reading a book or finishing Christmas presents”; and “I’m just too dang tired” easy recipes.  Then there are the “messes up the entire kitchen, takes a day to make and another half day to clean up after” recipes. Guess what I’m going for in this heat?

You might find this hard to believe as my first recipe of the 12 is starting with a mix, but I do have a rather discriminating palate. I would never have believed cookies from a mix could taste this good, having relegated most mixes to the category of “you can taste the graininess of the sugar since the recipe doesn’t make you cream butter and sugar”.  If you are also a “must be completely homemade, never a mix” snob – try these cookies.  You’ll be pleasantly astounded.  I know I was.  Last Christmas this recipe became a staple of family on the other side of the country (we have a family Facebook where we consistently tempt one another off diets) and friends and family here who know of my mix snobbiness and were delighted to find I’d uncovered something they too might whip up one day.

This recipe is a variation of Betty Crocker’s Mocha Toffee Chocolate Cookies.

Best Ever Easy Chocolate Mocha Cookie

Oven 350.  Have cookie sheets and parchment paper ready.  I use a 3TBL scoop to measure as I like bigger “bakery style” cookies.  Original recipe called for “rounded teaspoons”.

In a medium bowl mix:

4 tsp instant espresso coffee (dry)

4 tsp vanilla

Until coffee is dissolved.

Add:

1/2C vegetable oil

2 eggs

Beat with fork to blend eggs.

Add one good quality chocolate cake mix (today I used Devil’s Food Moist cake mix by Betty Crocker, if Duncan Hines is on sale – that’d be the one. I just wouldn’t go for German chocolate as I like the deepness of the chocolate flavor the dark cake mix brings).

The batter should be shiny and hold together.  On occasion I’ve had to add a TBL or 2 of water.  The first time I made this I broke the spatula I was using – now I use a strong fork.

Add:

1C semisweet chocolate chips (I use regular size)

1/2C plus chopped walnuts (I don’t quite add 3/4C but do add more than 1/2C)

Mix. Use scoop to drop same size balls of dough onto parchment lined cookie sheet.

Flatten a tad.

Bake 11 to 13 minutes.  Wait 5 minutes then slide parchment paper with cookies onto cooling racks and cool at least 15 more minutes. They are very moist inside.  You can easily bake only part of this recipe and refrigerate the remaining. I wrap the dough tightly in plastic and put it in a tightly sealing plastic container (a la Tupperware) and refrigerate.  I do bring the dough to room temperature before scooping and baking.

Note that WordPress doesn’t allow javascript commands.  Clicking on our linky blog hop image below will get you to other participating blogs and let you choose to join.  The page just won’t look as nice as it does hopping in from some other blogs.