Coconut Tuile Cones, because Lady Writers Deserve Fancy Desserts

You heard me right--being a Lady Writer confers certain privileges, and all I can say is if you're a Lady Writer and you're NOT getting a fancy dessert every once in a while, agitate for change. Even if all you have to do is change your mind.

Coconut Tuile Cones is the second to last recipe in the Cookies, Bars and Confections chapter of The Gourmet Cookbook, but I won't be closing it out any time soon since the LAST recipe is Gingerbread Snowflakes. Can't really rush that one, sorry!

Tuiles (French for "tiles"--meant to resemble curved roof tiles) are fun to bake and shape--if you have the right equipment. I'm not sure this recipe gives enough guidance to the uninitiated, so allow me to say a few things: these cookies can be sticky (so use a Sil-Pat--forget buttering your baking sheet) and it's almost impossible to quickly shape two cookies right out of the oven so you might as well resign yourself to baking these one at a time. Come on, you can check FB compulsively in between, like you know you do anyway.

Another modification I made--I didn't wait for the batter to cool--it was much easier to shape when warm. And I flattened it with a measuring cup sprayed w/ non-stick cooking spray (any light layer of oil would do).

These are minor points though--the batter spreads and melts so it really flattens itself during baking.

You'll have to fiddle around with the timing, because the grace period of Perfectly Cooked is really short and speeds towards Burnt with every 5 second interval beyond. I settled on 5:40 minutes, and let my tuiles cool for 1:40 instead of 2 mins for slightly more pliability. Your oven will be different--the first tuile out will tell you how to proceed (kind of like the First Pancake Off the Griddle).

And then there's the shaping part! Don't worry, this is fun and you'll screw at least one up but you can eat it so really it's a win-win. You drape them around a crumpled foil cone. Yes, you'll feel like an elementary school student. Yes, you'll get the hang of it.

And then! The eating with ice cream part! These are not cones you can walk down the street with, admiring the shrubbery, licking your ice cream with confidence you won't drip any on your shirt. Nope, these are filled with holes, totally leaky and best eaten with your favorite ice cream on a plate. I take NO RESPONSIBILITY for your dry cleaning bills.

Lady Writers seem to love these! At least mine did--try them out on yours.

Melissa Atones by Writing a List

Hey folks, remember when I said my life was sort of kind of a little busy and kind of crazy? Nothing has changed! The bad news is, less time for blogging. The good news is, I'm still cooking.

That's right--these past few months I've been cooking one or two recipes a week out of Gourmet Today, and here they are.

Moscow Mule

Vodka, ginger beer and lime juice. What could go wrong? Nothing! The big revelation here was finding Goya Jamaican Style Ginger Beer, which is ten thousand times better than Cap't Eli's. I had a taste-test (of two) and declare this the winner.

Gumbo Z'Herbes

Friend with overflowing garden + craving soup = thinking this is a pretty good recipe to try. Tons-o-greens in this--we're talking turnip, cabbage, beet, mustard, spinach, parsley...all made much less healthy by a few ham hocks.

And hey, guess what? 1 pound Salt pork DOES NOT EQUAL two pounds of meaty ham hocks! A) I curse Stop n Shop for being so White and b) sadly, I ruined this soup because I was too lazy to drive to Market Basket and get the effing ham hocks.

That doesn't mean I didn't give it a shot. But salty--holy jesus.

Turkish-Style Lamb Burgers with Walnut Sauce

I have a friend, Burak. He's from Turkey, and he not only loves food in general, he loves food from his homeland. We are constantly talking about having a dinner party featuring Turkish food, or going to this or that restaurant that serves Turkish food, so it was with NO SMALL AMOUNT OF GUILT that I whipped up this recipe and didn't alert Burak (who lives two hours away in Portland) to come help us eat it.

I did tell him about it the next time I saw him, though, and carefully described the ingredients of the burgers, and the walnut sauce (which, btw, is just walnuts ground w/ a little water, lemon juice and spices).

When I mentioned cayenne, though, Burak brought me up short.

"That is not Turkish."

"It was just a little bit! Just, like, a tiny little pinch."

"No. There really is no cayenne in Turkish food."

"So putting cayenne in something makes it not Turkish?"

"That's right."

So there you go. That must be why this recipe is called Turkish-STYLE. And the bonus was I didn't have to feel guilty any more.

Lamb Chili with Masa Harina Dumplings

Hey, it's turning cold and what better to take the chill off than a little spicy chili? This is a southwestern-style lamb chili and it's not for the faint of heart what with all the New Mexico chiles and canned chipotle in adobo. Don't make this one for your granny.

How did I screw this one up? By not being able to find masa harina (not even in Market Basket) and just guessing that coarse cornmeal might be pretty much the same thing. Guess what--it's not. So the dumpling batter didn't hold together at all, and really what it ended up being was a flavorful thickener to this already pretty thick chili.

But--delicious! Plain Greek-style yogurt was awesome on top. Oh I forgot the other pain-in-the-ass moment, which was that I could only find lamb shoulder chops (bone-in). Ugh, so tedious to trim those. I hear that meat markets are coming back into style--I have to go find a few that I like because this supermarket stuff is for the birds.

Chockfull Blondies

THESE ARE THE BEST EFFING BAR COOKIES I HAVE EVER EATEN, EVER.

That's all you need to know, really. Go make them.

Chocolate Souffle Cake with Orange Caramel Sauce

Happy 17th birthday to O'Malley! As I do every year, I asked my son what he wanted for a cake. And as is his way, he was far more concerned with the tastes of his guests than what he desired for himself. It went like this:

"Zack doesn't like chocolate."

"Well, it's not Zack's birthday. It's your birthday. What do you want?"

"Aedan LOVES chocolate."

"And I'm guessing Brittany does too. What about Ben?"

"He'll eat anything."

Since O'Malley also likes chocolate, then we went through the chocolate cake options in Gourmet Today--Devil's Food Cake with Marshmallow Frosting, Double Chocolate Layer Cake, Chocolate Sour Cream Layer Cake, and so on. And O'Malley (as is his way) wanted the one that sounded the most sophisticated, which was this one.

This recipe involves making caramel (which I've done a gazillion times now, thanks to The Gourmet Cookbook)--but really the surprise in this recipe is that the orange caramel sauce is not really caramely in the way that you're thinking (like a kind of gooey ice cream topping). It's actually caramel-flavored orange juice, which you pour over the cake.

Not what I was expecting, but very good nevertheless. The kids loved it--ate it up with ice cream while they watched Harold and Maude. Isn't that a cool birthday?

Chai-Poached Apricots and Plums

It's nice to remember every once in a while that dessert doesn't have to involve flour and chocolate. This is a nice poached fruit recipe that calls for chai in the poaching liquid--this is great with vanilla ice cream or just on its own.

And that's my repentant wrap-up! Big thanks to the photographers of Epicurious-all the photos you see here are pulled from that site. I guess it's kind of a symbiotic relationship.

Happy fall, people! Go apple-picking.

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Gluten-free recipes in this post: Chai-Poached Apricots and Plums, Gumbo Z'Herbes, Moscow Mule

Low-carb recipe in this post: Gumbo Z'Herbes

Low-fat recipes in this post: Chai-Poached Apricots and Plums, Gumbo Z'Herbes, Moscow Mule

Recipe WIN in this post: Chockfull Blondies

5 1/2 Christmas Confections

Readers, this was an unusual Christmas for me. Why? Because for the first time in over a decade, I wasn't working on Christmas Day! When I had my estate cooking job, that was just part of the gig--Christmas Dinner--and before that, at the Emerson Inn, I offered to cook because our family always celebrated on Christmas Eve.

And all of these years I've also been applying my considerable cooking skill and energy to Christmas cookies, fruitcakes, and confections--all on the job, to be consumed or given as gifts by my employers. Nothing wrong with that--it's what I do!

But this year, I found myself primed at the beginning of December, ready to go--and hey, guess what? This year all of that skill and energy could be channeled to making yummies for my own friends and family. Even more exciting? I had the new Gourmet cookbook in hand, Gourmet Today, to mine for new Christmas confection ideas. Woo hoo! Line up those candy boxes!

My first confection was actually a tried-and-true favorite from the Gourmet Cookbook--one that has proven wildly popular over the past three or four years--Candied Citrus Rind.

When I first made this I quickly realized that the paltry 2 grapefruit they mention (in the book, not the online recipe) would never be enough, and further, that one couldn't stop at just tossing these with sugar--they should properly also be dipped in bittersweet chocolate. So it kind of grew into a candy-making monster. Imagine a soup pot filled to the brim with grapefruit, pomelo, orange, lemon and lime peels (bring to a boil and drain off water FIVE TIMES to draw off bitterness)...make a simple syrup using a whole bag of sugar...what I end up with is many racks of candied peel drying over trays and taking up a lot of room!

This photo is pre-sugar coating/chocolate dip stage, but aren't they beautiful? Oh readers, these are so tasty. It's a very good thing I only make them once a year.

My second confection was the Truffle Fudge from Gourmet Today (the rest are all from that book). Sadly, this is not online, but happily it's so easy I can tell you in two seconds how to make it--melt a bag of bittersweet chocolate chips, 1/2 stick butter, a pinch of salt and a can of sweetened condensed milk together somehow (I used a microwave), pour into an 8" pan lined with parchment paper, and cool in the fridge.

That's it. Super easy!

The third confection was Chocolate Earl Gray Truffles. Here I had a little supermarket quandry, trying to find just the right form of Earl Grey tea. The cook's notes point out that "loose tea leaves have a fresher, more distinctive flavor than the leaves in tea bags", and though I couldn't find loose tea, I did find whole leaf tea in tea bags which seemed like an OK compromise.

If you've ever made a flavored creme brulee this is the same idea--you let the tea leaves steep in hot cream, and then use that cream to go forward and make a ganache. The recipe asks you to roll ganache balls in your hands and then dip those in cocoa powder, but since I have an aversion to goopy hands I used a mini-scoop with a release bar.

The bergamot flavor is very subtle in these truffles and although I liked them (a lot), I couldn't help comparing them with Robert Linxe's truffle recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook, which has you smear a thin layer of melted chocolate on the ganache balls before you toss them in cocoa powder--this fussy little extra step adds a thin snap when you bite into the truffle.

Speaking of Robert Linxe, Don and I visited La Maison du Chocolat while we were in NYC! I got a big box of dark chocolate just for us and I will never tell you how much I paid for it! Here's some history on this fellow for your reading pleasure.

My fourth confection was Toasted-Coconut Marshmallow Squares. My shopping quandry here was finding coconut extract--I could find only artificial extract at Market Basket, but then found real (organic) coconut extract hours later at Common Crow. Of course I went with the latter, only to find out that the 1/2 tsp. didn't add any noticable coconut flavor to the marshmallows--oh well!

I'd never made marshmallows but it's pretty easy if you have a stand mixer--they are essentially meringue + unflavored gelatin. I suppose standard marshmallows are tossed in corn or potato starch so they don't stick--here they are tossed in toasted coconut. Pretty!

The fifth confection was Pumpkin Seed Brittle. On the surface this looks like a simple recipe, requiring only sugar, water, sea salt and green, raw pepitas. But the technique is so odd I'm going to show you action photos--I was quite sure the whole thing was a wash at least twice but they came out beautifully. You start off with sugar, salt and water and bring it to a boil:

When it reaches 238 you take it off the heat and add the pepitas, stirring until the sugar recrystallizes:

Then you put it back on the heat, stirring until it becomes grainy. This is one of the places where I was sure I'd be pitching it because I stirred for a lifetime without it getting to the next stage, where the sugar "turns a deep caramel color" and at the same time, the seeds get all brown and toasty:

Finally...

Then you pour it onto parchment paper you've got taped down, throw another piece on top and roll it out super thin. I burned my hands here in my enthusiasm to work quickly.

I was in love with this gorgeous candy. Look at it!

Also so good. I think for adventure + flavor this one was my favorite.

And now we come to confection 5 1/2, which was a twice-failed recipe--Fleur de Sel Caramels. On the surface, this seems like another easy one--basically caramelized sugar plus cream. What could go wrong?

A lot, it turns out. The first batch (made by O'Malley, with my supervision) although it cooked to the proper temperature (248) set up far too hard and was essentially a lot like the middle of a Heath bar (not a bad thing, but not caramel!) The second batch, cooked to a temp I found online (236) came out too runny and turned into apple dip.

I'm not sure what exactly went wrong here but I'll try it again next Christmas and see if I can't get it right.

And fyi now-nonexistant Gourmet staffers, where the heck am I supposed to find unsweetened passion fruit puree? I had planned to also make Passion Fruit Gelees but never could find any and since I've never had passion fruit I didn't even know what to sub in. Another confection for next year!

Stained Glass Teardrops & Melissa Gets Wounded in the Line of Duty

OK, so they're more like circles, not teardrops, but aren't those hearts pretty? I baked these on the same day that I baked the below-mentioned Swedish Ginger Thins, and if you're thinking I was doing a lot of rolling, cutting and baking for a single 12-hour shift, you're right. But I'm almost at the end of the cookies chapter, and I get kind of task-oriented in these moments. I'm just trying to figure out how on earth I can justify baking Gingerbread Snowflakes this time of year. Can I? I don't think so.

Stained Glass Teardrops are basically a sugar cookie with crushed candy sprinkled in the middle, which melts during the baking process. If you're a gingerbread house baker, you will recognize this technique--I've used it for the past three years with lemon drops to create windows with a warm glow (if you put a light inside your gingerbread house).



How does they taste? Well, like a sugar cookie + hard, fruit-flavored candy, but that's not the point. The point is that they're purty, and will make people ooh and aah. Isn't that all you need sometimes?

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Think this cooking business is all fun and games, do you? All nibbling on cookies, eating challah slathered with butter, and licking out the batter bowl?

Well, it is, but cooking has its hazards too--you've got hot things, and sharp things, and you work with all this stuff on a daily basis.

So last Sunday (early in the morning) I was making French Pea Soup, and wrestling with the very sturdily packaged Cascadian Farms Frozen Organic Peas and when I tried to slice the bag open I damn near sliced off the tip of my finger.



I only mention this because it's such a pain in the tukus to TYPE and I've been making a gazillion spelling errors because I'm typing with only four fingers on my left hand. See how much I love you? I'd like my Martyr Badge now.

Oat Lace Cookies & Swedish Ginger Thins

Oat Lace Cookies are another cookie that my counterpart at work would make from time to time, that didn't turn out so well from my point of view. When Miranda made them they seemed excessively brittle, and very sticky--impossible to serve on a humid day or with any cookies that contained moisture.

So it took me awhile to get around to them, because they just didn't seem that appealing.

It was only after I made them that I had my Aha! troubleshooting moment.

This recipe calls, very specifically, for quick-cooking rolled oats. But Miranda must have thought they weren't healthy, or maybe high-toned enough, and she substituted old-fashioned rolled oats. What she didn't realize is that quick-cooking oats (which are merely oats that have been roughed up a bit in a grinder) have a much greater binding capacity, and in this very thin cookie are the only thing that can help it maintain its integrity without falling apart. And because the oats have absorbed the moisture they're supposed to, the cookie also doesn't get sticky. Hooray for quick-cooking rolled oats!

This is one of those cookies that spreads out a lot.



A silpat pan liner is a necessity. And just to be on the safe side for the stickiness factor, I sandwiched these between little squares of wax paper.

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Got time to kill? Want to make a thousand or so cookies? Swedish Ginger Thins are the cookies for you.

And folks, I'm almost done (2 more recipes left!) with the Cookies chapter, and I've made a lot of cookies in my life aside from this little venture, and I'm here to tell you this recipe surprised me.

Why? Because you beat heavy cream until it has stiff peaks, and then beat the whipped cream gently into your butter/sugar along with some corn syrup.

???????

I have NO IDEA what this accomplishes, since then you beat in the flour, baking soda and spices, form the whole thing into a disc, and stick it in the fridge for two hours. Obviously there's no mousse-like activity going on here--nothing fluffy about it. The only thing I can come up with is that some Swedish grandma wanted to keep her grandkids out of trouble and made them beat the cream until it was whipped, which takes a long time by hand, and thus a tradition was born.

So you roll out the dough and use cookie cutters to make shapes, and if you like press a little almond in the middle.

The cookies get baked in a 400 oven for about six minutes. Don't forget to set the timer--they burn faster than you can say "where's MY bonus?".



This is more of what you're going for:



And I seriously was not exaggerating when I said this recipe makes a thousand or so cookies--I was rolling and cutting and rolling and cutting and saying MY GOD WILL THIS NEVER END? Not even counting the cookies I (accidentally) burned this is how many I came up with:



And still, I had more dough--about a fist-sized lump! I threw it in the trash. Shhhhhh.

Cinnamon Chocolate Cigarettes

Before I launch into Cinnamon Chocolate Cigarettes, I have to show you a picture of my kitchen windowsill.



Isn't that pretty? I've been spending a lot of time cooking for private clients out of my own kitchen lately, and it's so lovely, listening to Paris Combo or Pearl Django, and looking at these beautiful flowers. Good for the soul.

Anyway, this recipe has beckoned to me since Day One, but alas, my counterpart at work was equally enamoured and made these cookies week after week after week. So it's taken me two and a half years to finally get around to it, and one of the challenges I had set for myself was to see if I could make them better because whenever Miranda made them they seemed strangely (and offputtingly) spongy.

It's possible I have a gustatory memory of some boxed cookies of the same general parameters from my teen years in Belgium (very possible) and these just weren't living up to what I thought should be their crispiness.

Beginner bakers take note: this is probably not the recipe for you. Not to be discouraging, but it requires the type of heat-desensitivity on the fingertips that comes from years of handling hot stuff, since you have to get these suckers up off the sil-pat and roll them while they are essentially still 350 degrees.

Not daunted? OK, let's go.

The batter, which is made of egg whites, confectioner's sugar, flour, melted butter, salt and cinnamon is very, very loose.



You only want to do a few at a time, since you have to roll them while they're hot. I found four per pan about right.



The ones on the right have been spread out with a spoon, which you do to get the cookies as thin as possible.

After they bake (and it takes a few batches to find the perfect balance between done and too done, you roll them up. They harden unbelievably quickly.



This was where I ran into trouble. Easy to roll = spongy. Crispy = impossible to roll. What to do?

My solution: I rolled them and put them back into the oven to bake until I deemed them sufficiently crispy. As you might be guessing, after all of this testing of crispiness, I didn't exactly have an overflowing batch of cookies. But I had enough to make a pretty good showing. Here are some just after the chocolate dipping stage:



I'm happy with my final technique, so I hope you'll benefit (Adam, I'm looking at you) from my experimentation. It took maybe another 10 minutes back in the oven in their rolled state. My only other thought is that, to my taste, not enough cinnamon! I love cinnamon and chocolate, and the 1/4 teaspoon here could have been bumped way up. Next time.

Six Cookies

Oh, you think I've been languishing, do you? Waiting by the phone for Ms. Reichl to call? Listlessly dusting my cookbook collection?

That's what cell phones are for. You don't have to sit by them. And I haven't been languishing, I've been cooking my butt off. Or baking, I should say, because people, I am almost done with the Cookies, Bars and Confections chapter.

Can you believe it? I can't.

It's not like I went crazy for some bake sale--we were so low on cookies at work post-Christmas that we were down to just one or two varieties (we try to keep about 10-12 different kinds in the freezer).

Chef hat on. Melissa gets down to it.

First up, Madeleines.

Now, here's the problem with madeleines: they require a special pan. The whole POINT of these things seems to be the shape, because the cookie is nothing more than a little tiny shell-shaped cake. Did I have this pan? No.

But about a month ago my husband and I were in a kitchen supply store in Concord and I spotted some--and not just the madeleine pans, but mini-madeleines. Perfect for work, where the ideal size for a brownie is about the size of an international stamp. My husband got me the pan, because he's awesome.

Here's the pan. It doesn't look mini cuz I took a close-up shot.



Now, here's the problem with this recipe. Or maybe it's the problem with me. OK, it's definitely the problem with me, and here it is: if you don't get the amount of cake batter EXACTLY right, the batter overflows the mold a little bit and then you get this kind of crusty fin that sticks out all around the cookie. For somebody with a sculpture degree (me) who is obsessive (me) that means HOURS practically sitting there cutting the little fins off to get the right little shell shape.



And see how I rolled the edges of those in powdered sugar? All the while I was thinking how stupid they were in the cookbook to direct us to "dust scalloped sides with confectioner's sugar". Obviously you can't dust just the SIDES--you're going to get some on the top too. Well, this is what they meant. Der.




Next up: Date and Oat Bars.

These are very agreeable, nice bars. They are like the pleasant boys in class that your mother wants you to date, who get good grades, and stay out of trouble. But oh, you're thinking, if only they were more like CHOCOLATE!



These were very tasty for cookies that don't have chocolate, though it must be said that if you hate Fig Newtons for texture reasons you will probably hate these. I happened to be baking in the company of a young lady who hates Fig Newtons, so I can confirm this.


Number Three on the list: New Orleans Praline.

This was actually the final Confections recipe for me--I've done them all now (not THAT hard a task since there were only six). And I must confess, in the take-it-or-leave-it dept, I think I could leave this one. It's not really fudge, it's not really candy, it's kind of a weird hybrid. Maybe you just can't make it correctly unless you're in New Orleans. Here's what mine looked like:




Cookie #4: Shortbread.

What? you're thinking--This is the First Time you've made shortbread?

Nojeezumgivemeabreak! I've made it about ten gazillion times but never This Particular Recipe. So many times that I forgot to take a picture of this one, even though I jazzed it up with hazelnuts on top, much to the dismay of the above-mentioned young lady who hates Fig Newtons and who used to live in Scotland. Or maybe it was England, but anyway someplace where they bake and eat a lot of shortbread and have STANDARDS, for chrissakes. And those standards don't include putting hazelnuts on top.

But for people who like pictures, here is a picture of somebody else's shortbread. Just envision hazelnuts on top:



The fifth cookie was Langues de Chat, or Cat's Tongues for those of you who like to name your cookies after body parts.

This was one of those recipes that required an Exotic Ingredient, in this case Orange Flower Water, which unbelievably is a beverage in some parts of the world where drinking perfume is yummy.



You think I'm being a jerk, but you've got to smell this stuff. I guess it would be great for chronic bad breath, though.

The idea of this cookie is that it's a long, thin, sugared wafer that is ideal as a complement for ice cream (for example). You shape it by piping lengths of batter on a silpat-lined baking sheet. You can see my idea of what a six-inch strip is changed just a little bit while I was piping:



Good thing I'm not a carpenter.

My problem with these cookies is that the difference between almost done and burnt was the blink of an eye. It was driving me nuts! Here's where about half of them ended up:



By the way, it was just sheer coincidence that I had thrown away some wilted flowers, lest you think I was decorating the trash can for this shot.

So batch after batch were just on the edge of burning, and I was so pissed, and I finished the batter and the last batch and went to turn off the effing oven, and what was it set to? Not 325, as the recipe directs--352.

Yes, good thing I'm not a carpenter and also good thing I'm not a....some other job that requires numbers. Like an air traffic controller.



I'm actually planning on remaking these at some point, just to prove I can program the oven correctly.

The LAST ONE (for today, not the chapter): Almond-Apricot Biscotti.

I love biscotti! They are so crunchy and yummy, and they're the perfect shape, somehow. We make tiny ones at work, not longer than three inches, and slice them very thinly--less than half an inch. This particular recipe hits MY buttons because it involves toasted almonds, one of my favorite flavors. I'm a fool for almonds, I tell ya. And even though I was working with freeze-dried apricots (???) instead of normal dried ones, they turned out to be those California apricots Gourmet writers go on and on about (as opposed to the Turkish ones, which are less tangy and interesting).

Here they are:




What could possibly be left, I hear you cry? I can practically list them on one hand:

Oat Lace Cookies
Coconut Tuile Cones (these are actually a vehicle for ice cream)
Cinnamon Chocolate Cigarettes (the surgeon general LIKES these)
Swedish Ginger Thins
Gingerbread Snowflakes (tree decoration)
and
Stained Glass Teardrops (more tree decorations)

Watch this space. When I'm done with the chapter, I'll announce My Favorites.

Parisian Passover Coconut Macaroons and a Shameless Plug for Another Cookbook

Are you even slightly compulsive? Got a sweet tooth? Like coconut?

Then whatever you do, don't make these cookies.

They are utterly irresistible. And they're simple enough--syrup-sweetened meringue folded with unsweetened coconut and baked until just firm, which yields you a cookie that is both crispy and chewy. God, are they good.

OK, this is not the perfect recipe. The seriously un-perfect part of it is the silly direction to shape the meringues into pyramids with wet fingertips. A waste of time, and for the perfectionists in the crowd (that would be me) trying to create a pyramid out of something that refuses straight lines or angles is a maddening venture best abandoned. I settled for pulling the tops up into kind of a twisted pointy top. A far easier solution would be to put the stuff in a pastry bag--quicker too.



You might also be thrown off by the direction to dust the baking pans with matzo cake meal. I just sprayed my sheets with Baking Pam (I have a growing affection for that stuff) but you could also use sil-pat liners or parchment paper if you'd like to dispense with fat/flour altogether.

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Shameless Plug for Another Cookbook:

I've been hearing about this book for years and finally bought it.



If you're a baker and you're trying to get whole grains into the picture, run don't walk to the nearest bookstore and get this book.

OK, I've only made three cookie recipes so far, but fans on the Gourmet staff of Katherine Hepburn's Brownies, I'm sorry, the Double Fudge Brownies made with 100% whole wheat has you beaten hands down.

Seriously, they are the best brownies I've ever made or eaten, and that's saying something.

Now, please note that I'm not suggesting that this book could ever replace my one and only true love, The Gourmet Cookbook. I am suggesting cookbook polyamory. And if I had no day job, family or life I would start a second cook-through blog with this book as my subject.

One of the things I am most gratified about is that baking with whole grains has been mysterious territory for me. Baked goods made with whole wheat flour have been, in my experience, dense, sort of metallic tasting, and kind of grainy. (please don't get me started on whole wheat pasta, either)

Here are some of the things I've learned in three recipes:

1. Letting cookie dough made with WW flour rest overnight in the fridge makes that metallic taste disappear somehow.

2. Letting brownies made with WW flour rest overnight before cutting allows the bran? germ? whatever that gritty stuff is absorb moisture, which makes for a smoooooooth texture.

3. You can grind oats in a food processor for 30 seconds to make oat flour for cookies.

4. New experience!!! I sprinkled oat-cashew cookies with SALT before baking. Mmmmm.

This is not whole-grain baking from the 70's, folks. Grab it and bake along with me.

Snowballs

Quick. Mounds or Almond Joy?

If you said Mounds, you're gonna love Snowballs.

An unnamed food editor at Gourmet took a childhood devotion to Mounds bars and applied it to a coconut macaroon by hiding a little nugget of bittersweet chocolate inside. Mounds bar, inside-out!



This recipe is pretty easy to make if you have a food processor, although you do have to procure some unsweetened, flaked coconut which is not generally found in a supermarket. I went to our local health food store where they bag their own from bulk.

Essential to the final product is the quality of chocolate you use. I had some Valrhona chocolate hanging around so I cut that into chunks. Can't go wrong with Valrhona.

It is a tiny bit fussy to measure exact tablespoons and shape the coconut around the chocolate, and you can't do much with your hands while you're shaping the cookies (like answer the phone or mute the television) because your hands get all sticky from the coconut.



I ate so many of these yesterday (quality control) that I'll have to make more today just to have a reasonable supply on hand.

By the way, obviously I was a Mounds girl. The only thing I just couldn't understand as a candy bar-eating youngster was why they couldn't make the best of both worlds and put an almond in the middle of the Mounds bar.

Hey, that gives me an idea....

Molasses Sponge Candy and Brown Sugar Fudge

One of the things I've inherited from my father is his devil-may-care attitude in the face of inclement weather.

Snowstorm predicted, but you need to drive into Boston? No problem. He's fearless on the road.

Raining? He loves to run in the rain.

When I started my walking tour business, I used to tell my prospective customers, "There's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing."

I'll run in both the rain AND snow and only a few bad skids have tempered my carelessness about driving in snowstorms.

So is it any wonder that I looked at the the recipe for Molasses Sponge Candy while the rain was drumming on the roof, and said, "I'll just try it anyway"?

For those of you who don't know, humidity + candy-making = bad idea.

Why? For the same reason that your book covers curl and your cookies get soft and soggy. Water in the air gets absorbed. By everything that can possibly absorb it.

This is a pretty straightforward candy recipe up until the "add baking soda" part, after which the molasses syrup bubbles dramatically and then you pour it tout suite into a buttered foil-lined cake pan. Where it hardens up. Theoretically.

Actually, mine seemed like it might harden up--it seemed pretty firm and as if it was on the right track. At one point I put it in the oven, hoping to protect it from the humidity. But when I tried to break it up, it was still kind of warm and bendy. Please note I did not turn the oven on, though I considered it for a very brief second--wondering if dry, slightly warm oven air might have a beneficial effect. Doesn't this look somewhat promising?



At the end of my shift I just put it on the counter in the cold room, expecting it to have recovered from any ill-effects from the humidity by the next day, which was supposed to be drier.

When I came in the next day, this is what I found--a surface goopy enough to write on:



I couldn't think of any way to salvage it. This did not prevent me from tasting it, and I have two things to say--1) great flavor, especially if you love molasses and 2) be careful, it's a filling-yanker.

The baking soda makes little bubbles in the candy. They look kind of cool. I probably would have had thicker candy if I had been faster pouring it out of the pot.



I pitched it in the trash. I had to. If I had been surrounded by hordes of teenagers they probably would have eaten it, but I wasn't. Too bad!

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Making Brown Sugar Fudge was a happier experience.

And, guess what? This was the first time that I've ever made fudge!

Now if when you hear fudge you're thinking, mmmmmmm.....chocolate....., think again. There is not one speck of chocolate in this recipe--it's technically penuche, which I always thought had something to do with peanuts, but is instead a mispronunciation of the Mexican sugar panocha.

If you too have never made fudge, it's like making candy but with milk instead of water and then you whip confectioner's sugar in at the end. You can also stir in nuts.

As always with making candy (or anything that requires a precise temperature reading), I love love love my remote thermometer with the alarm setting. It means that I can actually turn away from the stove.



Actually, see that gray unit on the very end? I can cart that all over the house if I want and it will show me exactly what temperature the candy is by mysterious remote...air waves (or something). Of course, I have to run like a maniac when the alarm goes off. So I don't wander far.

It cools in a mere 30 minutes in the fridge, then you cut it up into cute little squares, which seem too small but are just right because it's so sweet and rich:



How does it taste? Well, it's not chocolate, but it's awesome because it's the first fudge I ever made and also it tastes great.

By the way, fudge seems to be one of those infinitely flexible recipes. At one of our local stores, The Fudgery, here are the year-round flavors they offer. Just the year-round ones! Seasonal ones available too!

Chocolate
Chocolate Nut
Triple Chocolate
Triple Chocolate Almond
Peanut Butter
Chocolate Peanut Butter
Rocky Road
Maple Walnut
Chocolate Chip
Penuche
Penuche Nut
Vanilla
Vanilla Nut

Jeez, makes me hungry. I wonder what Rocky Road Fudge tastes like?