My loss, your gain

I’ve been dithering for years about entering the Scharffen Berger annual chocolate adventure contest, never quite pulling the trigger until finally, this winter, I got myself together enough to do some testing and submit something.  I have to admit I didn’t love this year’s theme of sandwich cookies, but I went for it anyway, never really expecting I had a chance.  And, of course, I didn’t, because I didn’t even get an honorable mention.

But my loss, as the title says, is your gain, because I already have the pictures taken and the recipe written up, and since Scharffen Berger has no further claim on it, you all can have it instead.  The point of the contest, besides using their chocolate, is to incorporate at least one “adventure ingredient”, which this year included coconut milk or coconut cream, sweet potato, tapioca or tapioca flour, tequila, banana, chili pepper, pine nuts, corn meal, Sumatra coffee, fresh ginger, yerba mate tea, and cacao nibs.

I ended up using coffee and coconut milk in a sandwich of coffee-flavored shortbread rounds, rolled in coconut and pressed around a coconut milk and milk chocolate ganache spiked with coconut rum.  They’re good, but apparently not good enough. Oh, well. Maybe next year.

Coconut Mocha Buttons
Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies

For coffee shortbread:

2 tablespoons coffee liqueur
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons finely ground Sumatra coffee
1 tablespoon instant coffee
8 ounces (16 tablespoons) cold, unsalted European-style butter, cut into tablespoon-sized cubes
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons cornstarch
Unsweetened, finely shredded coconut for rolling

For coconut milk chocolate ganache:

8 ounces Scharffen Berger Extra Rich Milk Chocolate, finely chopped
4 ounces (1/2 cup) coconut milk (not low-fat)
1 tablespoon unsalted European-style butter
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons coconut rum

Combine the coffee liqueur, vanilla extract, Sumatra coffee and instant coffee in a small bowl.  Allow to sit for 5 minutes.

In a food processor, blend the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and salt until a fluffy paste forms.  Scrape down the bowl and add the coffee mixture, processing again until fully incorporated.  Whisk the flour and cornstarch together in a medium bowl and add to the creamed butter, pulsing just until a ball of dough begins to form around the blade.

Divide the dough in half and shape the first half into a roll 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter on a sheet of parchment paper.  Sprinkle several tablespoons of coconut along the edge of the cookie dough and roll it through the coconut until fully coated.  Tightly wrap the roll in the parchment paper, repeat the process with the second half of the dough, and chill the wrapped rolls until very firm, 2 hours to overnight.  (The dough can also be further wrapped in plastic or a zip-top freezer bag and frozen up to a month.)

While the dough is resting, prepare and chill the ganache filling.  Place the chopped chocolate in a medium mixing bowl.  Combine the coconut milk, butter and salt in a liquid measuring cup and microwave just until simmering.  Pour the hot coconut milk over the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate is fully melted and the ganache is glossy, then whisk in the coconut rum.  Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate until ready to assemble the cookies.

Preheat oven to 325 F and line several baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.  Remove one roll from the refrigerator and, using a sharp knife, slice off rounds 1/8 inch thick, rotating the roll a quarter turn between slices to preserve its round shape.  Place cookies 2 inches apart on the baking sheets and bake until the coconut is golden and the bottoms of the cookies are just beginning to darken, 12-15 minutes.  Remove cookies to a wire rack to cool completely, and repeat with the second roll.

When the cookies have cooled and the ganache has firmed up, place 2 teaspoons of ganache on the bottom of one cookie and place a second cookie right-side up over the filling, gently pressing down just until the filling reaches the edges.  Repeat with remaining cookies.  If not serving immediately, store cookies in refrigerator for up to a week.  Leftover unfilled shortbread keeps very well in an airtight container at room temperature for several weeks.

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Resolved

Don’t worry, lentil fans. This year’s recipe will be along shortly, but in the meantime I wanted to put up this recipe, since I had it ready to go.

In keeping with my custom of not sabotaging my coworker’s New Year’s resolutions no matter how fervently I personally reject the practice, my Sunday baking in January always focuses on whole grains, less sugar, and lower fat than the other 10 months of the year. (I repeat the process in May in case of pre-summer beach dieting.). These digestive biscuits are my first such offering for 2013, but they’re also one of my favorites year-round, thanks to their lovely crunchy-crumbly texture and not-too-sweet full-bodied wheatiness, to say nothing of how hard they ping my lifelong Anglophilia.

In addition to being perfect both for healthier eating plans and Doctor Who marathons, these are wonderfully low-effort, since the dough comes together beautifully in the food processor and is so easy to work with that the rolling and cutting process is quick and painless. If you want to be a bit more indulgent, you have the option of spreading them with a very thin coating of melted chocolate, but they’re pretty addictive plain with a cup of tea. Since they’re technically a cookie but really fall somewhere between a cookie and a whole wheat cracker, they also work quite well on a cheese plate, if you want to be a bit more sophisticated.

Digestive Biscuits
(Adapted from King Arthur Flour, The Baking Sheet Newsletter, Dec 1991)
Makes 4-5 dozen cookies

½ cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup white whole wheat flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¾ teaspoon sea salt
¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature but not soft, in half-tablespoon-sized pieces
¼ cup low-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4-6 ounces milk or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped and melted (optional)

In a food processor, grind the oats until fine but not completely powdered, leaving some small bits of oat. Add the flours, baking powder, salt and sugar, and pulse a few times to combine. Scatter the butter pieces over the dry ingredients and pulse again until the mixture resembles rough cornmeal, with no large bits of butter visible. Mix the milk and vanilla together and pour through the processor’s feed tube while pulsing again, continuing to process until a homogenous dough forms and starts clumping around the blade.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured silicone mat or piece of parchment and roll to a thickness of approximately 1/8 inch, but no less (thinner cookies will burn too easily). Chill the dough for about 10 minutes to firm it back up before cutting.

Preheat oven to 350F and line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cut the rolled dough with 1 ½ to 2 inch round cookie cutters, transferring the rounds to the lined sheets. Re-roll as many times as necessary to use up the dough, chilling the dough again between rollings if the cookies become too soft to pick up easily.

Prick the cookies well with a fork and bake until pale gold all over but not too dark around the edges, 15-20 minutes. Cool completely on racks. If desired, the bottom of the cooled cookies can be spread with a thin layer of melted chocolate and marked decoratively, then left until the chocolate sets back up.

Unfrosted biscuits keep very well in airtight containers for a couple of weeks, while chocolate-covered cookies should be eaten within a few days, before the chocolate blooms.

Notes:

There’s no reason you couldn’t make these vegan with the use of vegan margarine or vegetarian shortening and a non-dairy milk, although in that case you’ll probably need to chill longer and more often, since the dough will be quicker to soften too much.

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You Can Keep Your Oreos

Well, hello there, strangers.  Long time no see!

While I was off in my start-of-the-year teaching crunch, which left me no evenings or weekends free to blog, I understand we had the 100th anniversary of America’s favorite sandwich cookie.  I can appreciate the basic charms of the Oreo as much as anybody, and when I was a teenager in Mexico I was obsessed with them, because this everyday All-American snack couldn’t be had by anyone not affiliated with the US Embassy and thus, they were the perfect symbol for my expatriate adolescent angst. I would insist on my father bringing as many packages as he could from his business trips back to the home office, just so I could feel “normal” for the few days they lasted.

But that phase is mercifully in my past now, and as a grown-up I can also look critically at the little hockey pucks and acknowledge the fact that they’re not really all they’re cracked up to be, which is why I’m going to make up for my latest intermittent silence with a recipe for what I think is the best sandwich cookie in the world.

Alfajores are to Argentina what the chocolate chip cookie is to the U.S.  They’re ubiquitous and can be found in iterations from the mass-produced, individually-wrapped Hostess-equivalent kinds purchasable at the convenience store to the high-end boutique variety in beribboned boxes. When I was growing up and into my adulthood, every relative who visited was expected to bring us at least one box of my personal favorite brand. (Are we sensing a theme about international cookie commissioning by me as a kid?  I was way ahead of the curve on free trade.)

So what are alfajores?  Well, besides being sadly unknown in this hemisphere, confusing to pronounce (all-fah-hor-es) and what I think should replace the macaron as the next fad, they’re shortbready disks faintly hinting at lemon pressed around a layer of dulce de leche, although you can also find fruit-filled ones.  The commercial kind are generally enrobed in either a crackly, powdery sugar glaze or a smooth semisweet chocolate one, which is wonderful but way too much bother for home baking.  Home bakers instead make an easier but no less delicious version in which the cookies, made with cornstarch (the maizena of the name below) for a perfectly delicate crumb, are filled and rolled in coconut to keep the dulce de leche from sticking to your fingers.

Like the Oreo, this is one of those things that sounds too basic to be all that great, but is actually dangerously addictive instead.  The cookies are buttery and tender and neither too oily nor too soft, the dulce de leche adds just the right amount of sweetness to the not-very-sweet cookies, the hint of citrus makes everything sparkle just the tiniest bit, and it all just really, really works.

If you absolutely insist on chocolate in your sandwich cookies, I still have you covered, because not having enough regular dulce de leche on hand, I made part of the batch with chocolate dulce de leche I picked up on sale at the local Whole Paycheck.  Personally, I remain unconvinced by the chocolate kind, which tastes generically fudgy to me and lacks the lovely milky, caramely flavor I think dulce de leche really ought to put front and center in order to live up to the name.  Man, did my coworkers disagree with me, though, because the chocolate ones were by far the favorites and were gone in a blink.

I also filled some with the hurricane plum jam I previously posted about, which worked so splendidly that I hoarded them at home and took none to work. If you use jam, be sure to use a very firm one so that the cookies don’t ooze apart.  You may need to cook it down a bit if what you have is too runny.

However you fill them, seriously, you have to try these.  The minute you do, I know you too will recognize their undeniable awesomeness.

Alfajores de Maizena
Makes about five dozen small cookies, or 2-3 dozen larger ones

For cookies:
1 ½ cups (200 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 ½ cups (300 grams) cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon sea salt
14 tablespoons (200 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon brandy
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of one medium lemon

For assembly:
One 16-ounce jar dulce de leche or very thick jam
1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

Preheat oven to 350 F and line three baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt through a fine sieve twice, the second time onto a large sheet of parchment or wax paper for easy transfer, and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar.  Add the yolks one at a time, scraping down between additions. Beat in the brandy, vanilla and lemon zest.

Add the dry ingredients in three batches at low speed, mixing until just combined.  Turn onto a Silpat or the reserved parchment sheet that held the dry ingredients, and gently roll to a thickness of about a quarter of an inch or half a centimeter for thinner cookies, and double that for slightly puffier ones.  (Dust the rolling pin with cornstarch if sticking starts to occur.)

Cut the dough with 1½ to 2-inch diameter round cutters, being as careful as you can to minimize the waste.  Use a bench scraper or spatula to transfer the cookies to the baking sheets, spacing about an inch apart.  Gently pull the scraps together and re-roll to use up all the dough.

Bake the cookies just until firm and barely gold on the bottom.  Do not allow to brown on the top or sides.  Remove to a cooling rack immediately and cool completely.

Once the cookies have cooled, form sandwiches by spreading a teaspoonful of dulce de leche or jam onto the bottom of one cookie, and covering with a second. Squeeze gently, just enough to push the filling out to the edges of the cookies.  Place the coconut in a small, shallow container and roll the edges of the cookies in the coconut to evenly coat the exposed filling.

Store the filled cookies in an airtight container, and consume within the next day or two.

Notes:

Because of the very high proportion of cornstarch to flour, the dough is much more resilient on re-rolling than standard dough, but it’s still a good idea to treat it gently to ensure tender cookies.

This is my mom’s recipe, by the way.  I just did the conversions from metric and put back the coconut, which she hates.  Thanks, Mom!

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A Balm for Writer’s Block

Blogging is going to be light this month, because I have more pressing matters to attend to. I’m still baking for the coworkers every Sunday because they’ve made it clear it’s no longer optional to bring in treats on Monday morning, so there will be things to blog, but it’s bound to be more hit-and-run in nature than I’d normally like.

So, since I have a daily word quota hanging over my head, here’s a very quick write-up of the perfect cookie for the November insanity. Not only are they the kind of yummy calories your brain needs for heavy thinking, but they are practically instantaneous to make because there’s no creaming of butter and they go straight from bowl to oven.

Interestingly, making these cookies last night for a lunch with students today also kicked me out of what had been a pretty weak start to this year’s NaNoWriMo. I was really organized about preparing for it last week, but I was also still pretty tired from a very busy October so the words weren’t coming as fast as they should have. Having fixed fifteen-minute windows between batches actually made me more productive than I had been with unstructured evenings on Monday and Tuesday, and since then I’ve been much more enthusiastic about the whole thing.

These cookies are adapted from the recipe for chewy sugar cookies in this month’s Cook’s Illustrated. Normally, I am no fan of sugar cookies, because almost every one I’ve ever had has been the equivalent of a white canvas — not in a stripped-down-to-essentials, purity of ingredients way like a good shortbread, but in a bland, bland, boring, nothing but flavorless-fat-and-sugar way. I gave this recipe a try, though, because His Lordship loves a chewy cookie, and the recipe relied on the same liquid-fat-ratio math that recently produced the first batch of brownies to really meet his chewiness requirement. I made changes to inject some interest, though, because I still wasn’t buying the whole plain sugar cookie idea.

The texture of these cookies was everything that was promised: crackly on the outside and beautifully chewy on the inside. With my additions of toasted coconut and macadamia nuts, they also have rich coconutty flavor and tender crunch, enough to inspire at least a couple of hundred words.

Since I now have cookies and an awesome new caffeine delivery vehicle, I have no excuses. Back to work!

Coconut-Macadamia Sugar Cookies
(Adapted from Chewy Sugar Cookies, Cook’s Illustrated, November/December 2010)
Makes 4 dozen cookies

1/2 cup finely shredded unsweetened coconut
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 ounces cream cheese, in 8 pieces
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tablespoon coconut milk (or regular milk)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted roasted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
Additional sugar for rolling

In a small nonstick skillet, toast the coconut on medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 F and line multiple baking sheets with parchment paper.

Place the sugar in a large bowl and scatter the cream cheese cubes over the surface. Melt the butter and pour it over the sugar and cream cheese while still warm, stirring and folding with a spatula until most of the cream cheese has melted (streaks and a few small lumps are OK). Switch to a whisk and mix in the oil, then the egg, coconut milk and vanilla until smooth.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and powder, and salt, and add to the wet ingredients. Whisk until almost incorporated, then stir in the toasted coconut and macadamia nuts.

Fill a shallow bowl with about half a cup of sugar. Scoop up heaping tablespoon-sized bits of dough and roll into balls, dropping them into the sugar and rolling to coat. Set the balls on the baking sheets, two inches apart.

Bake on the middle rack for 12-13 minutes, until turning golden at the edges. Allow to cool to room temperature on the sheets. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.

Notes:

This makes a very soft, oily, weird-looking dough, but it will come out fine, I promise!

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Better Than Pie

A couple of months back, His Lordship and I checked out the newest upscale barbecue joint. I was pleasantly surprised by the vegetarian chili, which was pleasantly spicy and full of chewy seitan pieces and chunks of vegetables in a not-too-thick tomato base. I was equally impressed by their pecan pie, which nimbly sidestepped all the usual dangers of the genre. It was sweet but not tooth-destroying, had quite a decently flaky crust, and was bursting with nicely-sized pecan pieces.

Good though it was, the pie reminded me of an even-better bar cookie I’d previously made. The cookies poured a decadent honey and brown sugar caramel over a buttery base and covered it with a blanket of chopped toasted nuts, taking all the charms of a really good pecan pie and ramping them up to dazzling. A week or so later, I made the bars again, and was wowed all over again.

The price to be paid for this degree of wonderfulness is getting out the dreaded candy thermometer, but I promise it’s absolutely worth it. The bourbon-infused caramel offers all the symphonic roundness the standard one-note corn syrup substrate can’t. Since the cookie base holds up much better than pie crust, I’d even venture to suggest that these bars, cut into more pie-sized slices, would make the perfect make-ahead dessert for Thanksgiving.

Honey Caramel Pecan Bars
(Adapted from Nancy Baggett, The All-American Cookie Book)
Makes 36-48 small bars

For cookie layer:
9 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

For caramel pecan layer:
2 cups whole pecans
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
1/2 cup mild honey
6 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons bourbon

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a 9 x 13 baking pan with nonstick aluminum foil, leaving several inches of overhang all around.

In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar and egg and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Whisk together the dry ingredients and add to the butter mixture, beating just until smooth. Spread the cookie dough in a thin, even layer in the lined pan. Bake on the center oven rack for 12-15 minutes, until golden in the center and a bit darker at the edges. Set on a wire rack while preparing the caramel layer.

Lower the oven temperature to 350 F. Spread the pecans on a baking sheet and toast just until they darken slightly and release a nutty aroma. Chop the pecans moderately fine and set aside.

Bring the butter, honey, brown sugar, and cream to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Insert a candy thermometer and continue to cook at a low boil until the caramel reaches 250 F. Remove from the heat and stir in the bourbon and half the chopped pecans.

Pour the caramel over the crust, spreading all the way to the edges, and sprinkle the remaining cup of pecans over the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until bubbling and browned. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack, then refrigerate until well chilled, at least 1 1/2 hours.

Use the overhang to lift the cookie slab out of the pan and onto a cutting board. Pull the foil away, then use a sharp knife to cut the slab into narrow bars, cleaning the sticky residue off the blade between cuts for a clean slice.

Notes:

The original recipe was made with hazelnuts, which are wonderful but obviously more work. It also had a chocolate garnish on top, formed by sprinkling the still-warm bars with very finely chopped chocolate and leaving it to melt. Uncharacteristically, I found it to be a wee bit overkill, since the chocolate distracted from the clean flavor of the hazelnuts and definitely would have overwhelmed the pecans, but feel free to add that back in if you disagree.

If you don’t have a thermometer, you can test the caramel for doneness by dropping 1/2 a teaspoon of it into a glass of ice water once it thickens and starts to darken. It should form a soft ball in the water which flattens once lifted out.

The unsliced slab can supposedly be wrapped tightly and frozen for several weeks, although I have never had the necessary level of willpower to put theory to practice.

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Do I Repeat Myself?

Very well then, I repeat myself.

I just love the combination of rosemary and lemon so much that I never get sick of it. I’ve done it in shortbread, which is sublime; I’ve done it in flavored salt, which is handy; and now I’ve done it in these semolina cookies, which are humble and unassuming. They’re all different and they’re all good, so I don’t see a particular need to make apologies for a little bit of a recurring theme.

I bought the semolina some weeks back with the intention of using it in bread, since I’ve been doing more bread baking. Late last week, though, I had an urge to come up with a sweet application for semolina, and I specifically wanted a not-too-sweet, toothy cookie to make a change from the very sweet and decadent cookies I took to the office the past two Mondays. Surprisingly enough, there’s a dearth of semolina-based cookies in my ridiculous cookbook collection, and nothing I found online quite fit the bill, so I decided to adapt a recipe for a polenta-based cookie from Babbo instead.

Unlike my shortbread recipe, which has neon-bright lemon and rosemary flavor, these have just a charming hint, embedded in a tender cookie with just a bit of gritty edge. They’re perfect with an afternoon cup of tea, or if you want to be really Italian about it, with a glass of wine.

Semolina Cookies with Lemon and Rosemary
(Adapted from Polenta Shortbread in Mario Batali’s The Babbo Cookbook)
Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semolina
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 whole egg plus 1 yolk
Zest of one lemon
1 large sprig fresh rosemary, minced (around 2 teaspoons)

Additional granulated sugar for rolling

Combine the flour, semolina, sugar, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Run the mixer briefly to stir the dry ingredients together.

Sir the egg and yolk, lemon zest and rosemary into the butter. Pour the mixture over the dry ingredients and run the mixer until a crumbly dough forms. Spoon the dough into a zip-top bag and chill for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 325F and line multiple baking sheets with parchment paper. Pour a good amount of sugar into a shallow dish.

Scoop out tablespoons of the dough and roll into balls the size of unshelled hazelnuts. (You may have to squish and pinch a bit to get the dough to hold together.) Roll the balls of dough in the sugar until well-coated, place on the lined sheets, and use the bottom of a glass to press into cookies 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle the tops with additional sugar.

Bake the cookies until firm and turning golden around the edges, approximately 12-15 minutes. Cool on the sheets briefly, then move to a rack to finish cooling. Store in airtight containers to maintain crispness.

Notes:

You could leave out either the lemon or the rosemary or both if they’re not to your liking. Lime or orange zest, or a combination of the two, would be quite nice. Crushed anise seeds would also be good.

If you don’t have semolina on hand, you could substitute quick-cooking polenta, as in the original recipe, or finely ground cornmeal.

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Fruity Oaty Bars

So yeah, summer happened.

Between my baby brother’s wedding, numerous trips, out-of-town visitors, weeks of ungodly and unrelenting heat, and general life, I blinked and it was September. It was an unusually busy summer, topped only by last year’s, with the graduation and internship and job hunt and cross-country move AGAIN, but even in an average year I seem to be prone to blogging lulls during these months. Not sure why, really. Maybe the sunshine scrambles my brain.

Anyway, to make up for the lapse, here are the best oatmeal bar cookies ever. No, really. Really and truly. I know I’ve made rhubarb and oat cookies before, but as good as those were, these are a mile beyond that, and I have about a dozen testimonials to back that claim up.

The underlying cookie recipe is from my second-favorite bakery in Seattle. There’s no shame in second-favorite status either, because as good as Macrina is, there’s no way it could hope to compete with the bakery of a pastry chef who won the Coupe du Monde de Boulangerie. If you’ve never considered that the words “croissant” and “orgasmic” could belong together, you’ve either never been to Paris or never been to Bakery Nouveau. Seriously, this place is so good that I’m actually a little glad I didn’t visit it until just weeks before we moved away, because there is no way my student budget could have sustained the number of trips I would have wanted to make there, and there would have been much heartbreak.

So my point is that the basic oat bar recipe is, if not Bakery Nouveau good, still really freaking good, because the Macrina people know what they’re doing. The bottom layer is a fantastically buttery and almondy shortbread, and the oat streusel on top is just generous and crumbly enough without being ridiculously chunky or going pasty. The watermelon-pink middle layer is all my doing, a tangy-perfumy blend of rhubarb and quince jam which — I realized when making it — ends up being almost tropical and rather reminiscent of guava.

If you happened to both have the foresight to freeze some rhubarb back when it was flooding the farmers markets and have a source for quince jam, you can make this recipe as-is. If one or both of those is not an option, don’t despair. This cookie can be made with any kind of good-quality jam, and it will still be well worth the effort.

Rhubarb-Quince Oat Bars
(Adapted from Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook)
Makes 24-32 bars

For the almond shortbread:
3 tablespoons ground almonds
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoons almond extract
3/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 cups (around 1 pound) rhubarb, in 1/2 inch slices
1 pinch salt
1 1/2 cups quince jam

For the streusel:
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 cups rolled oats
1 pinch salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, in 1/4 inch pieces

Toast the ground almonds in a small nonstick pan until just starting to brown and give off a warm nutty aroma. Combine the toasted almonds with the sugar and flour in a large bowl. Stir the two extracts into the melted butter, then pour the mixture over the dry ingredients and mix to create a sandy dough.

Line a quarter sheet pan with foil or parchment paper, leaving enough overhang on all sides to be able to lift the finished bars out of the pan. With your fingertips, gently press the almond dough in an even layer covering the bottom and halfway up the sides of the pan. Chill for half an hour while preparing the filling.

In a medium saucepan, combine the rhubarb, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then lower heat and cook until the rhubarb is soft and falling apart, 10 minutes or so. Remove from the heat and stir in the quince jam.

Preheat the oven to 325. Remove the bottom layer from the fridge, top with a sheet of parchment paper, weigh it down with pie weights or dried beans to prevent puffing, and bake until light gold all over and slightly brown at the edges. Remove the top layer of parchment and the weights, and let cool a bit on a wire rack.

In another bowl, mix together the brown sugar, flour, oats and salt. Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, work in the butter until a crumbly mixture forms. Spread the filling over the almond layer, then sprinkle the oat streusel over the top, completely covering the filling.

Bake the bars on the middle rack for 35 minutes or until the top is a dark golden brown and some of the filling is bubbling around the edges. Cool completely, then use the foil or parchment lining to lift the slab onto a flat surface. Using a large knife or a pizza cutter, slice into thin bars.

Notes:

Since they’re quite rich, I like to make eight vertical slices and four horizontal ones, for a total of 32 bars, but you can be more generous if you like.  If either amount ends up being too much for your needs, leftover bars freeze very well, wrapped tightly in plastic and foil or tucked into a freezer-safe bag.

If you want to make your life a little easier, albeit less interesting, just spread the almond layer with 2-3 cups of your favorite jam, perked up with the juice of half a lemon.

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Short and Sweet

In contrast to my big long rant about Cook’s Illustrated and crimes against polenta, this is going to be quick and painless, just like these cookies.

These little morsels, named for their crackly tops, are soft, fudgy, and deeply chocolatey, like individual brownies but much more sophisticated. They take almost no time to put together and can probably be made purely from the contents of your pantry right now, which makes them perfect for last-minute guests or quieting those day-before-grocery-run cookie cravings. If you need any more enabling, let me observe that summer is just around the corner, and these would make smashing ice cream sandwiches for your Memorial Day barbecue.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies
(Adapted from Chocolate Wonders in Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook)
Makes 4 dozen cookies

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons brandy

Place the chocolate and butter in a 4-cup liquid measuring cup and microwave on half power, checking and stirring every thirty seconds, until both have melted. Set aside to cool to just above room temperature.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together energetically until pale and frothy. Stir in the chocolate mixture, then the brandy.  Add the flour mixture, stirring until just combined. Cover and chill the dough 20-30 minutes to firm it up a bit.

Preheat the oven to 325 and line several baking sheets with parchment.

Using a small scoop, drop the dough onto the pans and bake until cracked and set, 12-14 minutes. Cool on the sheet until warm and firm enough to hold together when moved. Remove them to cooling racks, and cool completely.

Notes:

You don’t have to make them from super-schmancy Scharffen Berger 72% like I did, but as with anything this simple, the better the ingredients, the better the result, so try to use a good, really dark chocolate.

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Similar, but not the Same

This Sunday baking entry is not exactly unexplored territory, since I’ve already used the same base to make a mocha-flavored cookie — appropriately enough during the last round of being stuck indoors thanks to my winter curse.

Still, I wanted to share it given that my current crop of co-workers dubbed these “the best you’ve made yet”, and because, while the basic inspiration might be the same, they’re actually quite different. The other one is more snappy, with a very strong mocha flavor, while this one is a proper crumbly shortbread, dominated by butter and just kissed with coffee and chocolate. It’s an interesting example of how you can manipulate the underlying mechanics to get distinct, but equally good, results.

These cookies are also a good lesson on how one ingredient can make a huge difference in the outcome. I had my usual rush of impulsiveness during our last visit to the Asian market, and among the items I picked up was a box of rice flour.

Being gluten-free, rice flour gives baked goods a velvet tenderness that you could never get otherwise, no matter how gently you treat the dough and how carefully you avoid over-mixing.

While leaving the shortbread plain lets you focus like a laser beam on the perfection of its texture, I couldn’t resist adding a chopped-up Scharffen Berger Mocha bar, picked up during my annual crazed shopping spree at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal market. The slightly bitter edge of the coffee, coupled with the buttery plushness of the shortbread, makes for a very not-for-kids cookie.

If you don’t have easy access to the full Scharffen Berger line (as I stupidly don’t, despite being in driving distance of the corporate candy overlords that bought them out) you could use any kind of good-quality dark chocolate bar, flavored or not. I suspect an orange-flavored one would work particularly well.

Mocha Chip Shortbread
(Adapted from Ethereal Brown Sugar Butter Cookies in Sally Schneider’s The Improvisational Cook)
Makes 48 1 x 2 inch fingers

1 cup (2 sticks) cold top-quality unsalted butter
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons rice flour
1 3-ounce Scharffen Berger mocha bar, chopped

Line a quarter sheet pan with aluminum foil.

Dice the butter into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the brown and granulated sugars and the salt, and beat on medium until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla.

Whisk together the flours and add to the creamed butter. Mix on medium-low speed just until combined, then stir in the chocolate bits.

Turn the dough out onto the foil-lined pan, and cover with a second piece of foil. Press down on the foil with your palms and fingertips to squish the dough into an even layer. (If you have a second sheet pan, you can place it over the foil and use it to get a really uniform result.) Using two forks or, better yet, a chipper, thoroughly dock the dough at even intervals.

Remove the top layer of foil and place the pan in the freezer while the oven is preheating to 325 F.

Bake until the edges are turning golden and the center looks firm, approximately 30-35 minutes. Cool the pan for 5 minutes, then carefully use the edges of the foil to lift out the shortbread. Using a serrated knife, slice the shortbread into 48 fingers 2 inches long and 1 inch wide. Set the cookies on a rack to cool completely.

The cookies will keep for weeks in an airtight container, although they’re best within a day or two of baking.

Notes:

As with all shortbread, the quality of the butter is key because there is so little to compete with it. Buy the freshest, highest-quality you can.

If you can’t find rice flour, substitute an equal amount of cornstarch, which will give a slightly different but still wonderfully delicate result. You could also just use all-purpose flour, but you’ll end up with a less satiny texture.

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Psst! Wanna Know a Secret?

About a year ago, I finally cracked the elusive secret to His Lordship’s favorite cookies, the honey, apricot and pecan ones I blogged about a few years before that. At the time, I was celebrating the fact that I was just this-close to perfection, but frankly, that last little inch of close-but-no-cigar continued to drive me insane for quite some time after.

It turns out that I was just one tiny tweak away from the goal, one change so simple it was practically staring me in the face every time I opened the cupboard. The solution was so obvious yet so cunning that I felt both dense and smug when I tried it and it worked.

Ready? Here it is:

That’s right, bread flour. All the cookies needed were a tiny bit more structure, and using a slightly higher-protein flour was all it took to achieve it. No fiddling with the formula, no experiments with adding more flour in tiny increments, just one simple substitution. With that one change, I stopped the spreading and eliminated the need for all that guesswork about exactly when to take them out of the oven. I got all the puff, body and reliability I’d been after all along, and they received His Lordship’s full, effusive, grinning stamp of approval.

I know some might be looking at this recipe and thinking, “Yeah, sure, those sound yummy enough, but they can’t really be special enough for the holidays. And are they really THAT good?”

To that I say it may be difficult to believe given the absence of chocolate, but more than one person has informed me that these are the best cookies in the world. They’re intensely butterscotchy, sweetly multidimensional thanks to the honey, and simultaneously chewy, crispy, fruity and nutty. It’s all the kinds of decadence you’d expect from a holiday cookie, with the bonus of being low-effort enough to make throughout the whole year to come.

You’ll just have to make a batch to see whether you too think these are the best in the world, but even if you ultimately decide another cookie holds first place in your heart, I promise you won’t be sorry to have this one in your repertoire.

Honey Apricot Pecan Cookies, Perfected
Makes 5-6 dozen

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
2 cups dried apricots, coarsely chopped

Melt the butter and place it and the honey in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Allow the mixture to cool slightly. In the meantime, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Once the butter is at room temperature, add the granulated sugar, egg, and vanilla, and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and stir on low until barely blended, then mix in the pecans and apricots. Cover the bowl and chill thoroughly, preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350 F, and line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Scoop out the dough with a tablespoon-sized scoop and place two inches apart on the sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes, until golden brown in the middle and a bit darker at the edges. Cool the cookies on their sheets until they’ve firmed up, then slide them onto a rack with their parchment to finish cooling.

Notes:

I made twice this amount this time, because I was snowed into the house and had nothing better to do all day, so I’ll be mailing some out as well as taking them into the office. Apart from losing a few bits of pecan and apricot out the top of the nearly-too-full mixing bowl, it worked perfectly, so feel free to scale up.

Don’t be tempted to skip the refrigeration step, though. The resting period is important for hydrating the flour and developing the full magnificence of the dough, as I’ve pointed out before. You can also scoop out the dough, pop it into bags, and freeze it to have cookies on demand.

The bread flour does an excellent job of firming up the cookie dough, but the dough should still not be allowed to get too warm.  It wouldn’t hurt to put the mixing bowl back in the fridge while waiting for a tray to come out of the oven.

The now-defunct bakery that inspired this cookie also had a variation with dried cranberries and walnuts instead of apricot and pecan. I imagine you could split the batch in half just after mixing in the dry ingredients, and get twice the festive punch out of one dough.

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