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Posted By: Anne | July 4th, 2011
I have not been posting, but I have been baking. And eating. Lots of eating. I’ve been experimenting with cupcakes. I think I have finally achieved the perfect fluffy white cupcake. Then I found a way to may it even better, assuming you like coconut, which I do, but if you don’t then I’ve made them much worse. Sorry. Just leave out the coconut and it’s all good.
I made these over Memorial Day. They are White Coconut Cupcakes with a Ginger Mango Butter filling and Key Lime frosting.
I made the Mango Butter fresh using a case of Champagne Mangoes from Whole Foods. You can use the Mango Butter Recipe I posted last year and add a tablespoon of Ginger Liqueur. Or you can just buy some Mango Butter or Mango Preserves from the store, whatever you like – you won’t need more than one jar.
The Recipe:
2 2/3 cup Cake Flour
2 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
4 Egg Whites (room temp)
3/4 cup Butter (softened)
1 1/4 cup Sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste (or pure Vanilla Extract)
1/2 tsp Almond Extract
1 cup Whole Milk (room temp)
1 cup Sweetened Flaked Coconut
The Method:
The secret I have learned for really fluffy cupcakes is to whip the egg whites first until just stiff (curly peaks is fine). Sprinkle in a tablespoon of the sugar and/or half a tsp of Cream of Tartar if you have it and whip again until combined. This will keep the egg whites stiff while you prepare the rest of the batter. (What I do not recommend is dropping the entire cream of tartar container into the eggs with the mixer on. Unless you are looking for a creative way to destroy your expensive whip attachment in which case I can say from experience that this works really well.)
In one bowl, combine the Cake Flour, Baking Soda and Salt and set aside. In a larger bowl (or mixer) cream the butter and sugar together and add the Vanilla and Almond flavoring when smooth. Add in the Milk and Flour mixture alternately to keep the batter from getting too dry or too soupy. This should achieve a relatively thick batter. Now sprinkle in the Sweetened Coconut. The batter can probably support more than a cup of coconut if you really like coconut, but don’t go too crazy with it. Finally, fold in the egg whites as gently as possible but until thoroughly combined, it’s ok if they break down a bit at this point.
Divide the batter evenly into paper-lined cupcakes tins – should make 24 cupcakes. Bake in a 400 degree oven for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove carefully from tins and allow to cool completely before filling and frosting.
The Filling:
1/2-3/4 cup of Mango Butter.
If you have not filled cupcakes before, I discuss it more thoroughly in the Anniversary Cupcakes Recipe, but the basic technique is to use a paring knife and cut out a cone shape from the middle of each cupcake – like you would stem a strawberry or cut the top off a pumpkin. Scoop out a little bit of cake from the middle so there’s room for about a tsp of filling. I usually cut the point off the “cone”, add the filling, and then replace the flat top of cupcake to make it easier to frost.
The Frosting:
1 cup Butter (softened)
3 cups Confectioners Sugar
1 Tablespoon Key Lime Juice
(1 drop green and yellow food coloring – optional)
This will make enough frosting to cover 24 cupcakes, unless you plan to get all sugar freaky and pile on the frosting in which case you might want to double it. I did not experience any shortage of lime flavor, but for more intensity you can also add a tsp of key lime zest to the recipe. I find that zest makes frosting a bit gritty though.
I decorated them with Paper Umbrellas like little cocktails and they were a big hit. If you want to make them more like little cocktails, you could try adding a teaspoon of rum to the Mango Butter before filling. Another optional addition is to sprinkle some toasted coconut on top.
View this and other tasty treats:
Posted By: Anne | May 5th, 2011
Whilst perusing the internet for information on my favorite former Top Chef-testants, I decided to check out the Alchemy site to see what Carla is up to. I last saw Carla a couple months ago at the Washington Food & Wine Festival. Turns out she is now offering a line of gourmet cookies. I like gourmet cookies and I like Carla so I was instantly intrigued. Also, I could order them and pick them up in Silver Spring because it’s close to my work. Well, sort of – probably closer than for most of you.
Carla offers two lines of cookies, Sweet and Savory. I went with a large tin of the sweet cookies so I could try all the varieties. They are marketed as “petite” cookies, and man, they were not kidding. I was under the impression from the website that I would be getting 25-30 cookies in my tin with a few of each variety. For $30 this seemed a little pricey, but they sounded so good. I was expecting small cookies, but this was a little ridiculous.
Did I say ridiculous? Because I meant: delicious. Every single flavor was fantastic, and packed quite a punch for such little things. And I didn’t get 25-30 total, I got 25-30 cookies of EACH VARIETY. Which, after going back and re-reading the description, I now understand, but I guess my brain was simply unable to grasp the concept of how small these cookies actually are. Maybe this will help:
There were six flavors included in my variety pack:
Hawaiian Wedding Cookie – These were my hands down favorite. I’m already partial to wedding cookies, and making them with coconut, macadamia nut and lime zest – heaven! Seriously feeling the love. I can only imagine how annoying these are to make though – they are so small. They did a good job making sure they did not disintegrate into undistinguishable cookie crumbs, but after awhile you had to dig through the powdered sugar dust searching for more cookies. There was a lot of powdered sugar leftover – my husband ate it anyway, you know, just to make sure we didn’t miss any cookies. I almost went into diabetic shock just watching him.
Almond, Ginger, Cherry Shortbread with Vanilla Salt – I liked both of the shortbread varieties which stayed fresher longer. There was a good distribution of cherry bits. You could really taste the ginger, but it wasn’t over powering and the salt gave it a little extra zing. I couldn’t really taste the almond, but in this sort of cookie you really want the cherry and the ginger to be the star and they definitely were. This was a cookie that was well designed for its petite stature – shortbread is very rich in general and with the extra ginger punch I was more than happy to eat 3-4 mini cookies and not feel like I needed something bigger.
Oatmeal, Cranberry and White Chocolate – These were yummy, but they did not stand out for me. I liked the chewy oatmeal texture, but while most of the cookies had cranberries – many were noticeably lacking in the white chocolate – or the bits were too small to really taste. In this case the mini-cookie concept just didn’t hold up for me. If it had been a bigger cookie, the flavors would have evened out better and the overall cookie experience would have been more satisfying. As it was, the cookie drops were sort of a tease – hinting at a really tasty cookie that never quite materialized.
Pecan Shortbread with Vanilla Salt – I’m not a big fan of traditional shortbread because it’s usually too much of one buttery flavor. I enjoy the texture to a certain point, but then it just sort of feels like sticky paste in my mouth. So, much like Carla’s Cherry Ginger cookies, these quite appealed to me being small enough to enjoy without getting bored halfway through a bigger cookie. The cookies were crisp, delicate and crumbly as shortbread should be and I really enjoyed the simple taste of the pecan and the vanilla salt.
Mexican Chocolate Chip – Having recently discovered “Abuelita” Nestle’s brand of Mexican hot chocolate which my kids adore, I can safely say that the cookies met all my expectations. They were small, but each cookie had lots of little chips and the bright cinnamon accent of the Mexican chocolate really came through. They were delightfully crisp and still fantastic after more than a week; and while you may need tweezers to dunk them in milk, still worth it. These worked well as chocolate chip cookie chips, but I wouldn’t turn down a plate of full size cookies either.
Black Forest Crinkle – Chocolate cookies, dusted with powdered sugar. I ate 3 or 4 cookies and they were soft, despite their size, and really delicious but it seemed like something was missing. And then I got one with a big piece of cherry in it and it all made sense. I really wish these had had more cherry because it made a huge difference. After a few days they became a bit crispy as one might expect, still good, but not as luxurious as eating them fresh. The actual cookie size ranged quite a bit from penny to quarter sized cookies, but like the oatmeal cranberry, I think these suffered due to their small stature and the difficulty of ensuring cherries in every bite. That being said, if I were going to order a couple more bags, these would definitely be on the list.
Posted By: Anne | April 19th, 2011
I had prepared a long diatribe over how I used to hate walnuts and now I like them again. But the stupid walnuts ate my post so I am once again irrationally embittered by them. But don’t let that dissuade you from trying this recipe.
Long story (which I already wrote once, sorry you missed it – it was pretty awesome) short: I was at Trader Joes, Demo Dude was hawking these potatoes – advertising them as having been made with nutmeg, Plump Granny kept wandering around the store grumbling how she’d actually made them using pumpkin pie spice. After great indecision I decided I must make these potatoes immediately.
The spice must flow.
Trader Joe’s did not provide a recipe, merely a 2 lb bag of sweet potatoes and a bag of chopped walnuts. I took Plump Granny’s advice and went with the more efficient pumkin pie spice.
The Recipe:
1 1/2 lbs of Sweet Potato (about 3 small yams, cubed)
1 cup Chopped Walnuts
1/2 cup Olive Oil
2 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 Tbl Brown Sugar
What to do next:
Preheat oven to 400°. Put your cubed potatoes and walnuts in a gallon-sized ziplock bag (or big mixing bowl). Mix the remaining ingredients together in a measuring cup and por them over the potatoes. Close the bag and shake it up (or combine in bowl) until the potatoes and walnuts are thoroughly sloshed in sugary goodness.
Spread them out evenly on a roasting pan or cookie sheet (lined with aluminum and/or PAM depending on whose doing the dishes), and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Take them out half way through and stir them up a bit to make sure they are cooking evenly.
That’s it. Take them out when they’re tender and sprinkle with a pinch of salt to taste.
Serving Suggestion:
Obviously these are just a fancified variety of “candied yam”, and as such could earn a place at any traditional American holiday table. Since I couldn’t wait until Easter to try these, I served them with a sweet and spicey rubbed Roasted Salmon, and spring greens tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette.
Posted By: Anne | March 25th, 2011
After my spring roll exploits, I decided to try something a little more straight forward. The delicate, unassuming shumai. It was not just an excuse to purchase a bamboo steamer basket I assure you. Generally I’ve always been a little “ehn” on the whole concept of shumai. They always seem to have just a bit too much fishy/seafood taste, and more importantly, in the wide realm of Dim Sum, I gravitate to the pan-fried dumpling varieties. As such, gyoza are more versatile as you can fry or steam, plus I love me some Happy Terriyaki – one of my fondest food memories. Nothing like fast food terriyaki with a side of deep fried gyoza. Shumai never really stood a chance against that, so I admit that my experience with it is not vast.
However, there is a delightful Thai restaurant near my house that makes really incredible shumai and it has completely opened my eyes to the possibilities. I investigated a number of shumai recipes looking for similarities and tips. Most were relatively the same with some combination of protein (pork and shrimp being the most common), and the basic spices and herbs one might expect. One recipe suggested adding potato starch, though it didn’t explain why. I looked for it in the store but came up empty. Ultimately I did add a bit of corn starch as a substitute but I’m not sure it contributed in any significant way.
My biggest concern was what to use for the wrapper. Again with the wrappers! It really amazes me how many different ways you can combine flour and water. Of course I could not find anything actually labeled as a Shumai wrapper or skin, but one recipe had suggested it should be round and others had said to use gyoza or other generic dumpling wrappers, so OK. I found round gyoza wrappers, 2.5″ in diameter, I’d say. They were easy to work with, but they seemed a bit thicker than what I remember shumai to have. Also, shumai skins in my experience tend to look a little eggy so I was pretty sure there was going to be some issues.
And there were. I’m sorry to say that the wrapper seemed to separate from the filling during the cooking process and they were quite juicy as well – boiling hot liquid spurting into your mouth sort of juicy. We pretty much had to drain them before eating. That aside, they tasted fantastic. I’m not sure why the wrapper did not adhere to the filling. I thought back to that pesky potato starch and wonder whether it might reduce the excessive juices? I don’t know. Perhaps the wrappers were just too big – they were already near twice the size of standard shumai.
What I ended up with was Shumai in Baggy Pants:
So I would certainly recommend trying a smaller, thinner wrapper. I went with a pretty standard concoction of ingredients:
1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound shrimp, chopped, deveined
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon minced spring onion
1 tablespoon minced chinese chive
1 teaspoon grated ginger
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 egg, beaten, for egg wash
1/3 of a carrot, finely chopped for garnish
Basically you just combine everything together in a bowl. You don’t want to overwork the pork, but you do want to have the ingredients rather evenly distributed – it’s essentially chinese sausage filling after all.
Make sure the wrappers are thawed and fill each one with a large Tablespoon of the filling, crimping the sides up and pushing the filling down. The edges of the wrapper should just come up to the edge of the filling, and you want a flat bottom so it can sit in the steamer basket without rolling around. Sprinkle the top with a few pieces of carrot and repeat.
You can cook these a number of ways. I acquired a bamboo steamer basic which has two slotted trays that stack like a bento box and a lid. You use this by boiling water in the bottom of a wok and placing the steamer basket in the wok above the water. You don’t want the water to be too high above the bottom of the basket or the steam can’t escape so you might want to practice with the right amount of water before it’s boiling hot. Cut a circle of parchment paper to line the trays and place the shumai in the baskets with room between each.
Another option if you are wok and/or steamer basket deprived is to steam them with a 1/4 inch of water in a covered suatee pan, or something similar.If you have any advice for Shumai in skinny jeans, I’m up for another go round.
Posted By: Anne | March 17th, 2011
I mean me! Get your grubby hands off my naan! But I suppose it’s OK if you want to make your own. I have not tried making naan before mostly because I was concerned that it could not be properly cooked without a clay oven and therefore would not be worth the trouble.
Now, I’m not saying it’s not better cooked over a fire, but still totally worth if you have a couple extra hours and an extra packet of yeast lying around.
I actually had several packets of yeast lying around which turned out to be a good thing because the first couple packets seemed to lack enthusiasm – even though they were not expired. The recipe I chose said to empty one packet into 1 cup of warm water and wait for it to get frothy. All I got was drowned yeast. The proofing instructions on one packet suggested using only 1/4 cup of water and a tsp of sugar to get it started and this worked out much better. I don’t know if it was the yeast or the method, but I’ll be sticking with option two from now on.
So, here’s what you need for some tasty naan:
1 packet active yeast (1/4 oz)
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tbl milk
1 egg (beaten)
2 tsp salt
3-4 cups bread flour
2 tsp garlic (minced)
1/4 cup butter (melted)
Before you get started you want to decide how you intend to cook your naan. I did not feel like starting up the charcoal grill (though I think this would be closest to the best way to do it), so I used a cast iron grill pan on the stove top. I also considered using a clay pizza cooker (round slab of clay you heat in the oven). I will try that next time and let you know how it goes. My naan certainly got pleasantly charred using the grill pan – but it did not get that toasty baked bubbliness which I think the pizza cooker might help with.
Anyway – I recommend starting by proofing your yeast in a small bowl as suggested above (1/4 warm water and 1tsp of sugar). Let it sit 5-10 minutes until “frothy”. While your yeast is gettin’ busy, get a large bowl, beat your egg and add the milk, sugar, salt and rest of the water (3/4 cup). When the yeast is ready, stir it into the mix.
At this point, you can use a mixer with a dough hook if you want, I just used a fork and kneaded by hand, but you want to start adding flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is soft and kneadable, not too sticky. I used closer to 3 cups of flour than 4 to achieve this. Could probably also handle this using the dough cycle of a bread machine – I might try that next time, but it was easy enough by hand.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface (enough to keep it from sticking) for about 6 minutes (until smooth). Grease a bowl or spray with Pam, and set the dough in the bowl to rise for an hour or doubled in size. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and it should sit in a relatively warm area 80 degrees or so. To accomplish this I pre-heated my oven to about 1 50 degrees, then turned it off and put the bowl inside to rise.
When its doubled in size, remove the dough back to your floured surface and punch it down. The recipe I used said you can incorporate the minced garlic at the this time, kneading it into the dough. I made mine plain and just added the garlic to my melted butter and that was tasty too.
Other ingredients you could add instead of or in addition to garlic would be onions, chives, shallots – grated cheese might be interesting, or even minced olives for a more Mediterranean flavor. Whatever flavor combination you go with, you should probably stick to the 2-3 tsp range to start so it doesn’t over power the dough.
This recipe makes approximately 12 small naan breads and you can be more or less precise as you divide your dough. Also keep in mind your cooking method – larger naan circles would not have fit on my grill pan, but the clay cooker or the charcoal grill could accommodate a much larger size if desired. If you care about keeping them as even as possible follow these steps:
- Divide dough in half
- Divide each half into three equal pieces (for a total of 6)
- Divide each piece in half again for 12 equal portions of dough
Roll each piece into a ball and place on a greased tray to rise for another 30 minutes. They should double in size (make sure you leave enough room between each one on the tray) and at that point you can roll them out one at a time (like pizza dough) and you’re ready to cook. Brush one side with melted butter and place it butter side down on the grill/cooking surface. Brush the other side with butter before flipping.
On the grill pan it took 1-2 minutes on each side to cook and get a nice char, and the outside grill might be a bit faster – just make sure you don’t burn each side. The dough is thin enough when rolled that I don’t think you have to worry about not cooking it all the way through. If you’re going to try baking them in the oven on a clay round then I do not have tested instructions for you – I’d heat the oven quite hot (500 degrees?) – and keep a close eye on them, flipping them at least once. The broiler might also work but I’d stick to the 1-2 minutes per side for that one.
Posted By: Anne | March 14th, 2011
It is that time of year again when it is no longer safe to go to the grocery store without being accosted by ridiculously cute little girls hawking overpriced baked goods. They even came to my door this year and what could I do? They have a monopoly on the one cookie I can’t say no to – the Samoa. OK, if I’m honest there are others I can’t say no to, but the samoa is extra special because it is rare… OR IS IT?!!
Could Samoas made with Elves instead of girl scouts really taste better – or are these just some cheap knock offs? The answer is Yes and Yes. I did a side-by-side comparison and taste test.
All the visual evidence pointed toward the true Samoa to have the advantage: Dark Chocolate vs. Milk Chocolate, distictly more Caramel in the Samoa (which I believe accounts for the equal weight of 1/2 oz, despite the Samoa being slightly smaller in width).
(Not the best picture but you get the idea). The issue is that for some reason the Coconut Dreams actually taste better. Blind taste tests showed that 2 out of 3 children actually preferred the taste of the Coconut Dreams, and 2 out of 2 adults concurred despite being largely biased toward dark chocolate.
Perhaps it is the value and accessibility that makes them so delicious? One box of Samoas will run you $4 and a guilt trip and they’re available for limited time each year, making them even harder to resist cause you can’t get them that often. The Coconut Dreams are now available in the grocery store, you get 18 cookies instead of 15 and they are subject to regular store sales such as 2/$5 which is what I purchased mine at. Also – I don’t feel like I need to buy 5 boxes to stock up, cause I know they’ll be there when I need them. Somehow just knowing that I can have them makes me want them less. I don’t know if that’s good for keebler or not, but it’s probably better for my waist line.
Now… if I can just get Keebler to make a cheap knock off of those Lemon Pastry Creme cookies the Girl Scouts used to sell – those were my all time favorites. I miss them so.
Posted By: Anne | March 4th, 2011
And by “tomorrow” I meant “in a month or so when I get around to it”. Le sigh. I blame technology. My fancy new camera takes pictures so big I can’t post them directly to the site. I’m sure there’s a way to change that setting. Feh. Anyway – that was my first excuse. I converted all the pictures a couple weeks ago, then it was downright laziness, which morphed into obstinate resistance. The laptop kept staring at me, and whispering “posssst…possst…” so I turned up the TV. But here I am, with a significant backlog of pictures and postings. We’ll start with the Crispy Pork Spring Rolls I promised you.
One of my strongest food-related childhood memories is eating Vietnamese spring rolls at Super Saturday. All the wondrous, greasy, barbecue, grilled meat, fried dough aromas of fair-food vendors filling my head and the best things on earth were those tiny fried bites of bliss. Of course, every year they seemed to get smaller, filled with a higher and higher ratio of carrot, got more expensive… until they didn’t even have them anymore. They were nothing like the fat doughy, cabbagey egg rolls you get at Chinese restaurants, and it wasn’t until I discovered Thai food that I was reunited with that delicate crispy shell that I will shamelessly clean every last crumb off the plate to make sure none is lost.
I’ve tried making spring rolls before. They’ve never ever come out how I wanted (i.e. remembered). I’ve never been able to find the right wrappers, the centers always come out just a bit off and not exactly tasty and nothing close to the spring rolls that I could sit and eat forever. And it’s not just that. I realized that half the reason for eating spring rolls was for the sauce you dip them in. If my attempt to make spring rolls was missing the mark by a hair (more than one hair actually), my attempts at dipping sauce were failing by a mile. OK, many miles.
Finally I found an article that explained where I was going wrong, at least on the wrapper side. I knew I couldn’t use regular egg roll wrappers that you can get at the store cause they’re just too thick. I thought I was supposed to be using the rice paper wrappers, but those never cooked right. They never stayed crispy and always turned weird and chewy. So I headed off again to the Asian market to find something else. The article I read said even the rice wrappers you can get here are too think and you’re better off with a super thin egg wrapper. Zokay. I found these:
Laaaaa! (that’s the angel’s singing because these are awesome). I ditched all the recipes and just started throwing Asian flavors in a bowl. My plan was something akin to “Get her!”
I went with a ground pork base. Could not (still cannot) find dried bean-thread noodles to save my life, so I hydrated some rice vermicelli, (which is more typically found in a summer roll, but it was all I got), and some dried wood ear mushroom I had lying around from my last attempt at spring rolls.
I threw in some ginger, some onion, grated carrot, glop of hoisin sauce and a bit of brown sugar. A dash of rice wine vinegar and some fish sauce. I’m pretty sure I tossed in some Asian 5-spice as well, oh and a pinch of Cambodian chili powder. I also decided to cook it gently prior to filling – I’ve read conflicting views on this but I wanted the pork to be cooked and not to have to leave them in the oil too long.
I made way too many noodles, so I ended up adding extra to the roll and just layering the meet on top. The wrappers were surprisingly easy to use – no water basting required – which made the whole process so much more tolerable.
Whipped up a little egg wash for the outside and heated up some peanut oil in a deep sautee pan. I was pretty happy with the end result. I mean, they’re not exactly how they should be, but they were tasty in their own way. The kids actually loved them.
I fried up a dozen or so, then threw the rest into freezer bags. Fried them a couple weeks later for the kids for lunch and they still tasted great.
The real victory here though, was breaking through the dipping sauce barrier. If the secret to a good spring roll is using the right wrapper, the secret to good dipping sauce is having the right fish sauce. I’ve tried many varieties of bottled dipping sauce, sweet red chili sauce, even from quite reputable sources, and they always have that too sweet, too sticky wrongness about them. (And don’t even discuss duck sauce – I won’t even put that on egg rolls).
I knew I had to make my own, but that nasty oily slime they call fish sauce in the Asian aisle of the regular grocery store simply doesn’t cut it. I thought it was just that I wasn’t using it properly, but it turns out, no, it’s just a gross waste of money. I am always alert to talk about nuac chom (the Vietnamese style dipping sauce I preference), and I heard tales of a mysterious “three crab” fish sauce. Armed with nothing but the knowledge that the packageshould have three blue crabs on it – I headed to the international market. And I found it – it only came in one gargantuan size, but I bought it anyway. I combined it with one part fish sauce to 3 parts mirin, crushed red chili to taste and a little bit of sugar for that sweet and sour effect. So delicious. The only difference from what I’ve tried to make before was the fish sauce. I’m still not convinced its perfect – something is still missing but I was not disappointed.
I was going to post a picture of the bottle, but that would ruin the fun. Just look for the bottle with three blue crabs.
Posted By: Anne | January 19th, 2011
I know, already back to my non-posting ways. Maybe this will make up for it:
Mango Spring Rolls – A little cream cheese, diced mango and a pinch of brown sugar wrapped in a spring roll wrapper (the super thin kind from asian grocery stores). Deep fried, dusted with powdered sugar – need I say more?
These were so gloriously delicious that I was actually quite annoyed at having squandered all but two spring roll wrappers on making actual spring rolls (I’ll tell you about those tomorrow) which were good, but not this good. Of course you can’t just eat these for dinner, or can you?
Posted By: Anne | January 8th, 2011
OK, so I realize that right after Christmas is not the best time to be hawking cookie recipes – but these are good all year round. Plus I got to use my fancy new camera to take pictures of them, so there you go. You’re stuck with more post Christmas cookie temptation.
Luckily for you I have not yet learned to harness the full power of my camera. These glorious bastards will hook you faster than crystal meth and your only hope of escape is to turn away now. Believe me, I ate two dozen at least and I think I got off easy. Actually, if I’m honest it was probably closer to three dozen and if my oven hadn’t decided to crap out I probably would have made more. I even packaged some up to give away as gifts:
But I ate them.
This was my grandmother’s recipe for Russian Tea Cakes (also called Mexican Wedding Cakes and I say “was” not because she is dead, but because I have altered it slightly to better suite my tastes, not that there was anything actually wrong with the original. And my grandma’s not in fact dead just for the record). The primary difference is that instead of the traditional walnuts, I use a combination of pecan and almonds. These cookies aren’t that difficult to make, but as they require rolling each cookie individually in powdered sugar *twice* – it is a bit time consuming. In fact, the note handwritten on the recipe card said: “These take a long time, but they’re worth it.” Well, something to that affect. And she’s right. They are SO worth it. This year, my almost-eight-year-old daughter helped me make them – we both had fun and she was instantly addicted. Start them young I say.
The Ingredients:
1 cup butter (softened, but not melty)
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste (never leave home without it)
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 cups flour (all purpose is fine)
1/4 tsp salt (don’t skimp)
1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts are traditional, I use a 70/30 pecan to almond split, sometimes I get fancy and throw in some hazelnuts)
2 cups confectioner’s sugar (at least – for the coating)
The Method:
Cream the butter and 1/2 cup of powdered sugar together until smooth add in the vanilla and almond extract (you don’t have to use both as long as you add at least 1 tsp total but I love the almond extract even when I’m not using almonds in the recipe). Slowly add in the flour about half a cup at a time and stir in the salt as well. The mixture should be coarse but hold together easily when pressed. I recommend running the nuts through a food processor for a couple pulses even if you bought them pre-chopped. I start with whole nuts generally and pulse them down until the majority are minced up, but there’s still some chunky bits to add texture. Just throw them into the batter and stir them in as evenly as you can.
Now, you need to roll them into balls and they will rise just a bit so you want something that’s a little smaller than an inch in diameter to keep them at a good two-bite cookie size (equivilant to one viking bite). Also you absolutely need to refrigerate them for at least 20 minutes before you put them in the oven. Pre-heat to 400 degrees. Place the chilled cookies about a inch/inch-and-half apart and bake them for 9 minutes. Nine. Remove from the oven and do not disturb for 2 minutes. Two. Be patient.
Quick troubleshooting guidelines: If you really think they might be undercooked because your oven is stupid, carefully check the bottom of one cookie. If it is golden brown, they’re fine. If you touch it and it crumbles to dust like a vampire in sunlight, maybe give them another minute or two, but no more. If they melt in the oven and loose their little ball shape, then you didn’t let them chill long enough. For shame. You will have to eat that batch and make another that will be more presentable.
So now you have a sheet of extremely hot cookies that have rested for two minutes. Put two cups of confectioners sugar in a bowl and carefully roll each cookie in the sugar until it is completely coated, then set it aside on a plate (do not put it back on the cookie sheet!). Careful not to burn your fingers, I usually try to avoid touching the cookies with my fingers as much as possible (cause they’re freaking hot), I roll them and bury them gently in the sugar, pressing it lightly onto the surface all around. Once you have completed the first sugaring you must wait until they are completely cooled (about an hour) and then roll them all again.
The first layer of sugar melts with the heat of the cookie and forms a shell over the delicate insides. The second layer of sugar sticks to the melty goo and gives it a uniform snowy white complextion and makes them easier to handle and store (without sticking and glooping together). Here is the difference between one layer and two:
This recipe makes about 3 dozen, so if you want any to share, you’ll probably need to make at least two batches. Also, as with any powder-covered confection (I’m looking at you, beignet!) do not inhale as you eat them. You will choke and die. It could happen. At the very least you may cough and exhale a storm of powdered cookies bits all over the person across from you. Very embarassing, and wasteful. I don’t recommend it.
If you make this recipe and you don’t like them, send them to me. I’ll dispose of them quickly and humanely.
Posted By: Anne | January 7th, 2011
I have many excuses for not having posted in awhile, most of them centering around the holidays and having been recently possessed by a hideous snot monster for the better part of the last two weeks. Also my oven died the night before our Christmas Eve’s Eve dinner but I was too congested to do much about it. Thankfully my resident grill master took over and successfuly grilled a 12 lb glazed ham as well as a fine slab of roast beast. I managed to prepare everything else on the stove top (yay for gas!). But ultimately it was sheer shameful slackitude which delayed my postings. I even got a new camera for Christmas! And took pictures with it! Of food even! And still I did not roll my lazy ass off the couch to open the laptop with even a half-hearted attempt to post. And for that I appologize. But here we go again…
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