Checkerboard Cookies

Today's recipe is a time sink. It's the perfect diversion to fill a the Sunday afternoon, when you're stuck inside because of the drippy, windy weather that was supposed to be a category 2 hurricane.

Checkerboard Cookies
(adapted in parts from Baking Obsession, Joy of Baking and Martha Stewart)

I adapted this from a couple recipes on the internet, using a bit less sugar than Baking Obsession, keeping the dutch processed cocoa and baking powder (these don't rise much, at any rate) and adding in lemon zest, so that the white squares have a citrus-y gusto that competes with the deep dark valrhona cocoa that I used.

You could vary the flavors and colors of your batch. (See the notes in the recipe.)

2.5 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder
1 tsp lemon zest

To start, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

In another bowl, combine the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix by hand or machine until the batter is light and fluffy. Once you've achieved a cloud-like texture that pleases you, drop in the egg and vanilla, beating well.

Add in the flour mixture, and stir until homogeneous.

Here's where the fun begins: Divide your dough in two. If you want to make the traditional black and white checkerboards you'll be adding lemon to one half, and cocoa to the other. You could also do this cookie with a few drops of different food coloring in each half, or different flavorings. (Coconut and lime might be a great choice.) The dough is a basic sugar dough, and it'll take almost any mix-in, from ground hazelnuts to instant coffee.

Knead the flavoring (in my case, lemon and cocoa, respectively) into your dough halves. Subdivide those portions (now you have four mounds of dough--two of each flavor) and wrap in plastic and chill for at least 2 hours.



















After the dough has chilled, take one portion of each flavor, and use parchment paper or wax paper to roll it out to a rectangle. You may have to play with the dimensions of your rectangle. Each of my rectangles was 9cm wide by 17cm long by 1cm thick. You're going to need to cut each of the two dough portions into 9 rectangular strips (1cm by 1cm by the length).


















I recommend chilling again after this step, to avoid breaking the delicate strips. Once the dough is firm again, start laying out your checkerboard. You'll be making two checkerboard logs.

Here's what the log will look like:
xox
oxo
xox

For log 1, use vanilla in place of x, and chocolate in place of o.
For log 2, use chocolate in place of x and vanilla in place of o.















Refrigerate the logs. While you have the fridge open, pull out the two remaining dough portions. Roll each portion out into a 17cm by 13cm rectangle. You'll be using this dough to wrap around each log and give it the nice uniform edge. 17cm is the length of each of my logs, and 13cm is the circumference of each log (12), plus 1cm to account for an inexact fit around the edges.

Once your dough is rolled out, pull out the log, and gently wrap the rectangles around their respective doughs.

Because each log is made up of an odd number of strips, there's a dominant flavor in the log. For example, log 1 has 5 vanilla/lemon strips and 4 chocolate strips. That log needs to be wrapped in the chocolate rectangle. Log 2 should be wrapped in the vanilla/lemon rectangle.

Refrigerate yet again. In fact, if you want, you can freeze this dough for up to 2 months before baking. Once the dough is very firm, and you're ready to go, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Use a sharp knife to cut the bar into 1.25cm-thick cookies. Bake about 12 minutes, until the bottoms of the cookies just start to turn golden.

raspberry poppy seed tart

Well, after the purim failure, I was left with a mess of poppyseed filling. I thought about trying the same recipe again, armed with egg wash and new knowledge (the internet says you have tofold the edges of the cookies, not crimp) but ended up going with something else.

This is a raspberry poppy rustic tart.

The incredibly high seed-to-any-other-ingredient-ratio means that this tart is crunchy and nutty--like eating the tiniest tastiest gravel bits in a flaky pastry crust.

with raspberries.

Raspberry Poppy Tart
(adapted in parts from Smitten Kitchen)
Crust
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons ice water
1 large egg yolk mixed with 2 tablespoons of water

Combine flour, 2 tbsp sugar, baking powder, and salt, in a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter, and cut with two knives or a pastry cutter, until you have pea sized pieces.

Sprinkle the dough with ice water and mix briefly. (Don't overmix, This is pastry.) Knead the dough once or twice to get it together. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about a half hour.

In the meantime, prepare your filling.

Filling
Combine 1/2 recipe of poppy seed filling with 1 cup of frozen raspberries and two tablespoons raspberry jam. Mix well.

Roll out the chilled dough into an 11-inch round.

Spread the filling in the center of the dough and gently fold the edges up over the top, covering the outer edge of the filling. Brush the top of the tart with the egg wash, and sprinkle the remaining sugar on top. For best results, freeze the tart before baking. It should take 3-4 hours to freeze solid.

Bake directly from the freezer, at 375 F for about 75 minutes. The crust will be golden brown.

Try to avoid drug tests, and don't forget to floss.

Tiny 'tashen Fail

From what I've read, it seems like hamantashen--the three cornered hat of a purim cookie--are often ornery. Either the dough is too stiff and dry, or too delicate to hold shape. If I did these again, I'd try folding the dough, and sealing it with a bit of egg wash. These tasted great, sweet and flaky, but I ran into trouble every step of the way.

The recipe I used, from Smitten Kitchen, asks the baker to grind the poppy seeds. In her recipe, Deb gave the seeds a whir in her coffee grinder, since she didn't have a spice grinder. I don't even have a coffee grinder. So I had a go with a mortar and pestle. After a few minutes of grinding and spilling seeds all over the counter and floor, I gave up and dumped the whole seeds in the simmering pan of syrup for the filling.

Then there's the dough. This dough took so long to come together that I'm sure I overworked it before I had the sense to simply bundle it in plastic wrap and let time and refrigeration pull the ingredients together.

The filling settled into caramel colored strata in the fridge, raisins at the bottom, butter just above that, poppyseeds in a thick thick layer at the top.

I folded the dough into strong points, and chilled the cookies before baking, but several of them exploded out into puffy pastry circles with small poppyseed pyramids, fused into sugary mounds, hot from the oven.

(Barely) Irish Soda Bread

The irish soda bread that showed up at a staff meeting last week was a pale and dense crumbly sort of thing. It easily lasted through the meeting, and through the next day, and the next, sitting out on the conference room table.

This bastardized version of soda bread, made buttermilk and citrus zest and (well, why not) cranberries when I ran out of raisins, suffered no such sad fate.

Skillet Irish Soda Bread

adapted from the NYTimes, by way of Smitten Kitchen

1/4 cup salted butter, melted

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup wheat flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 3/4 cup buttermilk

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup cranberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a(n at least 10 inch diameter) skillet with parchment paper. This skillet needs to go in the oven, so make sure the handle can take the temperature. Cast iron is best.

Combine flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, mix buttermilk, eggs, and half the melted butter (1/8 cup). Pour wet into dry and mix just until wet. Don't overmix. Add the raisins and cranberries, and stir to distribute the dried fruit.

Turn the batter into the lined skillet, and brush the top with the remaining melted butter. Bake for about 1 hour, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean, the top is golden brown and hard to the touch.

Cranberry Ginger Oatmeal Cookies

I've been reading about how to develop recipes for baking. Dianne Jacob suggests pulling up a number of trusted recipes for the basic type of good that you're trying to develop (bread, quick bread, cookie, cake, etc.) and then filling out a grid with the ingredients for each recipe. That way, you'll have the right ratios--leavening to acid, for example.

I tried that out this past week with a new recipe for Cranberry Ginger Oatmeal cookies, using recipes from Martha Stewart, Smitten Kitchen, and the Food Network.

Hot and crisp from the oven, cranberries and lemon dominate this cookie. A day after baking, the ginger peeks through. If I made these again, I'd kick in a bit more ginger and maybe some cloves.


Cranberry Ginger Oatmeal Cookies
wet
1 stick butter
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 tbsp vanilla
zest of 1 lemon

dry
1/2 cup white flour
1/4 cup white wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger

finish
1.5 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup dried cranberries



Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and lemon. In a smaller bowl, mix the dry ingredients well. Add the dry to the wet, beating until incorporated.

Finish by adding rolled oats and cranberries (or any dried fruit bits. Apricot springs to mind as an interesting variation.) Mix until it looks vaguely homogeneous.

For the best results, refrigerate the dough for about 20 minutes before picking up and rolling out shooter marble sized spheres. Place the dough balls on parchment or foil-lined baking sheets and bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on how cold the dough is when you put it in the oven.

The cookies are done when the edges are golden brown. Don't be concerned if the middle still looks a bit less than firm. It'll solidify as they cool.

As with many cookies, if you store these in a closed container, the humidity will soften those perfect crisp edges. So these are best eaten the day of baking.

Brown Butter Banana Bread

If you come across some enfeebled, spotty bananas, but you don't have time to throw down a quickbread then and there it's simple enough to toss them into a freezer. But always, always peel them first.

I haven't made banana bread in a while in part because the last time I did, I tried to use bananas that had been frozen in their skins. I made a valiant effort at separating the stringy black mess from the pale yellow mess, but in the end the whole thing smelled (and tasted) sadly of rot.

Happily, today was unlike that day.

Brown Butter Banana Bread
adapted from Simply Recipes

4 ripe bananas
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp ground flax seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a saucepan or skillet. Once everything is liquid, reduce the heat and begin to stir, gently at first, and then with an increasing sense of urgency. The butter will lighten, and then darken, turning a nutty brown color.

Once it's brown, pour the butter out of the pan into a small bowl where it can cool until needed.

Mash the bananas in a large mixing bowl. Add the warm (but not hot) brown butter. Mix in sugar, vanilla and flax. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt on of the mixture and stir a few times. Add the flour, stirring just until incorporated.

Pour the thick batter into a baking pan (this will do a short bundt, 9 inch round, or a 4 x 8 inch loaf pan) and bake for about an hour. The cake is done when a knife inserted in the center pulls out clean.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti

I am strangely lazy when it comes to twice-baked goods. Give me fiddly little dough shapes to make, or chocolate dipped whathaveyou, and I'm happy to work away at it for a couple of unreasonably focused hours. But biscotti and shortbread both require a discomfiting combination of sporadic attention and accurate timing.



This biscotti isn't particularly traditional--I used both baking powder and soda, and the recipe doesn't have any ground nuts in it. What it does have is a deep chocolate flavor. (You can taste the peanut butter on the inhale of a bite, but it's not overpowering) And, importantly, this recipe withstood my haphazard baking rhythm.



Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup chocolate peanut butter (or nutella, or regular peanut butter)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat eggs until frothy. Add sugar. Add peanut butter in by hand mixing. Combine (sift together) flour, baking soda and powder and salt. Mix. Add chocolate chips.


Form the dough into two or three logs, and place them on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, then pull the sheet from the oven, and reduce the temperature to 200. Using a serrated knife, slice the logs into biscotti shaped pieces. This may be difficult. I got through it by pretending I was a jigsaw machine. Lay each piece on its side.

Bake again (at 300 now) for 10-15 minutes. Stay on the short end of the baking time on this and the next step to create biscotti that retains a softer center.

Pull the sheet from the oven, flip all the pieces and bake again for 10-15 minutes.

Done. These are best enjoyed with a hot beverage and a long dunk.