Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Success at Last! Well, the final throes of this episode of Holiday Baking are wrapping up.   I still want to make “Snowballs” (aka Russian Teacakes, but everyone grew up with them as snowballs. . .) . . . except that at the moment I have SO MANY cookies lying around that I really have to get rid of some before making more.   Two recipes that worked really well, and for which I am eternally grateful are these:   “Butter Snow Flakes” (again, I find Allrecipes to be a pretty good source, if annoying to load). . . I don’t have a cookie press, but I piped them out into little peaky snails with a pastry bag then sprinkled them with Christmas-colored sugar.  I used fresh grated nutmeg and lemon peel instead of cinnamon and orange peel, to great effect.  They look just like typical bland sugar Christmas Cookies. . . until you take a bite – and they are surprisingly spicy and lemony.  Good!!  (And, I used my wonder-Cuisinart to mix up the dough, which worked wonders, as you'd expect.)   Then, secondly, many many props to Clotilde, whose sweet-tooth stood me in good stead via the recipe for “Rochers a la Noix de Coco.”  What an easy recipe. . . with such good results!  This is my kind of baking – the only finicky parts are forming the sticky dough into balls for baking and then drizzling the finished macaroons with chocolate (which I did.)  It’s not that I don’t like doing finicky baking moves. . . just that I can’t stand doughs which are tricky to mix up or work with.  For us Americans who might be making her recipe, I adapted the Metric measurements more or less like so – about two cups of unsweetened coconut flakes, ¾ cup of sugar, and then three eggs whites.  I actually used too much coconut, or maybe my egg whites were too small. . . anyhow, the batter seemed a bit dry when I mixed it up so I ended up adding another egg white.  Now that I look at her picture, again, I think maybe less coconut.  Mine look more spiky in comparison.  So hard switching between a measurement system that goes by weight and one that goes by volume.  (And you don’t know what it was like once, when following a French recipe for a gelled terrine, trying to figure out how to convert from French gelatine (which comes in translucent sheets) and the American powdery kind.  We managed, after much wrangling and a couple of long-distance calls (to my sister, who is an AMAZING baker, and my stepmother, who ditto and has lots more experience to boot).  Then Philippe’s Maman sent us some leaves of French gelatine, so at least that cultural problem was resolved.)   Anyhow, those little macaroons look great!  I was careful to watch them like  a hawk so as not to burn them (this is key when making cookies, isn’t it?)  And they look funky drizzled in chocolate. . . .   Side note:  now I have three egg yolks in a bowl in my fridge – and since yesterday I found “doppio Zero” Durum flour for pasta-making at the Italian food store in Chelsea Market, I guess I’ll have to make pasta!! Yippeee!   The only cookies that I was not so happy with (well, besides the darned biscotti, which incidentally my downstairs neighbor preferred to “regular” biscotti since they were not as hard, so I guess people will like them even though they are not authentic. . .and he declared them deliciously “full of exotic spice,” so I feel okay about putting them in boxes after all) were the chocolate ones I made from the recipe in this month’s Gourmet.  Even in the recipe, they said the dough was apt to be “very dry, crumbly, difficult to slice.”  I mean, isn’t this a problem?  Shouldn’t someone have tweaked the recipe?  I don’t know, but doofus that I am I went ahead and made them – and sure enough, the dough was crumbly. Not only that, I burned the living bejesus out of the first batch because I cooked it at the recommended temperature for (less than, mind you, than) the recommended time.   Now, I get Gourmet every month, and I sure love their food pictures, but I have found that (like this one) many of their recipes either don't work well or are so fussy that I don't want to try them.  That, and <oof> all that butter.  I don't know -- I think that their recipes serve more as a deterrent than an invitation to novice cooks, who (face it) are the ones these "lifestyle" oriented food magazines are really appealing to.    Fortunately for tonight's baking exploits I had made this dough several weeks ago (froze most of it) and was aware of its inherent problems.  And those who know me know I wasn't going to give up on all that chocolate and butter without another go! I let the dough come to room temperature, sliced it very carefully and patiently with a serrated knife, and then baked it at a lower temperature (325) checking like mad after 7 minutes.  This time I think we have success, although the apartment is full of the sickening smell of baking chocolate and I can’t stand to try one.  I think I would be very happy working in a bakery, except for that chocolate smell.  This is a smell that everyone in the world loves, I’m sure, (even Philippe, who objects on principle to all sweets) EXCEPT ME. Not to mention that I snuck a couple of macaroons earlier. . . ) <ugh>  Enough sugar for this girl; I'm ready for a couple of days of nothing but salad!   Anyhow, there are too many cookies in my life right now.  I better get these things packed up and Outta Here!  Not least so I can go back to writing about wine, since the Loire 2002’s are coming in and they are Divine.   Oh, and Happy Birthday to Charlotte at Living Small.  I’m sending warm wishes from my cookie-filled little New York universe.   10:53:32 PM    comment []