New Year, New Insanity

Tags

almonds, chiles, chocolate, corn, lentils, mole, sweet potatoes, tamales

On the off chance that my prior Wednesday night baklava, candy making adventures, or Sunday layer cake baking haven’t convinced you that I’m a wee bit off my rocker, this really ought to do the trick. How many people go on impromptu solo tamales-making binges, I ask you? Tamales are the sort of thing that generally involve tons of planning and the rallying of an army of assistants, but I decided at lunchtime on New Year’s Eve eve not just to make tamales, but to start by making mole as the sauce first, which is normally considered a whole-day, once-a-year, multi-abuela job all on its own.

But the thing is, even rationally accepting how insane the idea was, I still had to do it, because while on a shopping excursion on Friday, I finally stumbled on a place in this generally foodie-positive but sadly Mexican-ingredient unfriendly city that sold fresh masa. I hadn’t had really good tamales since my last California trip, this time last year, so finally having the proper ingredients on hand, I was going to do it up right, damn it. Since it was also nearly New Year’s, I was also going to incorporate lentils somehow, as has been my habit for the past decade or so.

Tamales really are a ton of work and time, so I don’t expect anyone to try this particular recipe any time soon, but if you don’t have a ready source of really fantastic tamales, I seriously think these are worth the trouble once a year. They’re sweet and spicy and scrumptious, not to mention colorful, comforting, and festive, and unless you’re actually having them in the context of a tamales-making party, you should have at least a dozen tamales and at least a cup of mole to stash in your freezer for a few lovely effortless meals later on.

Roasted Sweet Potato, Beluga Lentil and Mole Tamales
(Adapted from Nancy Zaslavsky, Meatless Mexican Home Cooking, 1997)
Makes approximately two dozen tamales

For mole:
4 ancho chiles
4 guajillo chiles
1 chipotle chile
¼ cup golden raisins
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 small yellow onion, peeled and quartered
¼ cup toasted sliced almonds
1 ½ cup vegetable stock
½ can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
½ teaspoon kosher salt
3-4 grinds black pepper
1 ½ tablespoons peanut or olive oil
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 2-ounce disk palm sugar, grated or shaved, or 2-3 tablespoons light brown sugar

For filling:
2 large orange-fleshed sweet potatoes
Peanut or olive oil for roasting
½ cup beluga, black, or French green lentils

For masa:
1 kilo (2.2 lbs) fresh masa
1 ½ cups softened unsalted butter, vegetarian non-hydrogenated shortening, or a mixture of the two
1 cup frozen corn
2-3 tablespoons cream or vegetable stock
1 tablespoon kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper

For assembly:
2 1-lb packages frozen banana leaves, defrosted

Stem and seed the chiles, then toast them in a dry pan over medium heat until pliable, flipping often to prevent any browning. Put the toasted chiles in a large bowl or measuring cup with the raisins, cover with boiling water, and soak for 20 minutes.

Toast the onion and garlic in the same dry pan until beginning to darken slightly on each side. Place the onion and garlic in the carafe of a blender with the drained chiles and raisins and a few tablespoons of the vegetable broth. Blend until smooth, adding more broth as needed to keep the blender running. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and blend again.

Heat the oil in a medium pot with a heavy bottom and high sides, and fry the sauce for five minutes, stirring regularly. Add the chocolate, spices, sugar, and remaining broth, lower the heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to avoid scorching along the bottom and sides. Set aside to cool while preparing the rest of the tamale components..

While the chiles for the mole are soaking, preheat the oven to 425 F and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Peel the sweet potatoes, then halve them and cut into 1-inch slices. Toss them on the baking sheet with just enough oil to lightly coat them, and bake until cooked through and starting to caramelize on the bottom, around 30-45 minutes. Let cool slightly, then cut into chunks of about half an inch. At the same time, boil the lentils with ample water to cover until they are tender but not falling apart. Drain the lentils and set aside while making the masa.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream the butter and/or shortening until light. Scrape down the sides and, with the mixer running, slowly add the masa by the spoonful and continue beating until fluffy, about another 10 minutes. With a food processor or immersion blender, puree the corn and cream or stock, then whip into the masa with the salt and pepper. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap to prevent the masa from drying out.

Unfold the banana leaves and rinse the powdery residue off. If they’re not already cut in half, remove the center vein from the leaves and cut into two long strips with a pair of kitchen shears, then cut each leaf strip into 10-inch rectangles. Steam the leaves in a large steamer until they’re pliable. Tear a few of the less nice leaves, or any that have torn while processing, into ribbons for tying up the tamales.

Lay down a steamed banana leaf square on a work surface. Using an ice cream scoop, portion out a ball-sized scoop of masa, and press it into a 6-inch circle in the middle of the leaf. Over the center of the masa, pile 2-3 pieces of roasted sweet potato, a small spoonful of lentils, and a spoonful of mole. Using the bottom edge of the leaf, flip over about a third of the masa over the filling, then lay the leaf flat again. Starting at the top edge, flip over the other edge of the masa to seal in the filling, then keep rolling to enclose the tamal completely. Fold under the two open sides until they meet underneath the tamal, and use a strip to tie it securely shut. Lay the finished tamal on a cookie sheet and continue forming tamales until the masa runs out.

Lay a few of the leftover banana leaves on the bottom of a large steamer over simmering water, and fill with the finished tamales. Cover with a few more leaves, and steam for about 1 hour, adding water to the bottom as necessary. Tamales are done when the leaf pulls cleanly away from the masa. Let rest for a few minutes before serving with the remaining mole on the side.

Leftover cooked tamales will keep in the fridge for a few days and reheat well in the microwave, or they can be frozen immediately after folding and steamed later.

Notes:

If you can’t find a source of fresh masa, you can substitute the equivalent amount of reconstituted masa harina, which should be available in most supermarkets. It won’t taste quite as sweet and lovely as fresh masa, but it should still be good, especially when livened up with the pureed sweet corn.

I used banana leaves rather than corn husks as the wrapper because I could easily get the leaves at the Asian market a block away from the tortilleria that sells the masa. Tamales are traditionally made with either of those wrappers in the various parts of Mexico and Central America, so use whichever you prefer. They will each impart a slightly different flavor to the tamales but will work equally well.

Palm sugar, like the banana leaves, is commonly found in Asian markets. It’s less sweet than cane or beet sugar and has a wonderful rich caramel flavor, similar to maple sugar, which you could also use. If you don’t have either one, light brown sugar is more than fine, but start with the smaller amount and taste before adding more, because it’s significantly sweeter.

Fruity Oaty Bars

Tags

almonds, cookies, oats, quince, rhubarb

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.

The Holiday Madness is Upon Us

Tags

almonds, baci, chocolate, coconut, cookies, ganache

For a variety of reasons too personal and too mundane to relate, I have had a harder time this year summoning up any holiday spirit. I’m not quite bah-humbugging, but I’ve been decidedly meh about the post-Halloween happenings, and I’m actively participating this time in His Lordship’s annual anti-giftgiving and no-carols grinchery.

That said, something, however limited, did finally awaken over the weekend, because I stayed up on Saturday night turning the overpriced and underwhelming quinces I bought at Thanksgiving into jam, complete with sterilized jars and heat-sealing. I also brought our one box of holiday decorations up from the basement and threw together a minimalist arrangement of blue, silver and white ornaments in our front window, and filled a few vases and bowls full of the remaining ornaments and scattered them around the house.

I can probably attribute it to the fact that we had our first snowfall on Saturday — to be more precise, it was our first encounter with the evil and invasive form of precipitation known as “wintry mix”. The finger-numbing cold and the dusting of white on the ground, however momentary, were enough to flip the switch. I’m also not discounting the effects of peer pressure, since a third of the residents of our very small block had already gone Full Metal Christmas by the time we left the house on Black Friday to catch a noon matinee, and we’re at over half the block lit up and garlanded a week later.

Whatever combination of factors it was, I can’t deny that it’s really and truly happened, because I followed the jam-making and decorating spurt by getting up Sunday morning and kicking off the cookie baking, and I didn’t do it by halves, either. I came up with the most insanely ambitious use I possibly could for the leftover egg whites that had been sitting in my fridge for a week, making my first-ever attempt at a cookie that came out of nowhere a few years back and rapidly become so common on food blogs that it’s practically played out. I speak, of course, of the macaron.

I imagine at least a few people will be shocked to learn that I had never had a macaron before. It is, in fact, possible for me to miss a food fad, although I smugly pride myself on having been-there-done-that with quite a number of things years and even decades ago that people are now acting like they invented, like dulce de leche, Mexican Coca-Cola, Peking duck, panettone, and salads made of fresh fennel, whole milk mozzarella, and/or roasted beets. (Along with the exponentially amplified teen angst and the unrelieved sense of never quite belonging anywhere, there are some advantages to growing up in a peripatetic immigrant household.)

This fad, though, I let totally pass me by. In part this is because my obsession with madeleines has always been too all-consuming to permit any French cookie rivals. The love affair began in Proustian manner when I chose one in a mid-afternoon cafe stop during my first visit to Paris when I was 14, and no tuile or sable has ever been able to turn my head since. I still mourn the loss of the one bakery I ever found in the U.S. that could produce a truly acceptable madeleine, which His Lordship used to bring me during my grad school exams, making regular expeditions for these much-needed fortifications in beribboned cellophane bags. Besides my madeleine monogamy, I also disdained macarons because they seemed like too much bother for not enough payoff, and since I never had one during any of my visits to France, I would have no baseline to tell whether I had succeeded or not.

However. I had this bowlful of egg whites that had been sitting in the fridge since their corresponding yolks had gone into Thanksgiving leftovers quiches, and I had an unexpected burst of energy. I could have wussed out and made plain old macaroons, or even my beloved cacao nib amaretti, but instead my crazy holiday brain said, “Hey, why not finally try macarons?” There was no one to act as the voice of reason, so I charged forward.

More Holiday Cookies

Tags

almonds, citrus, cookies, ginger, gingerbread, spice

This is the gingerbread recipe I’ve been making since I can’t even remember when, probably college or just after.  Its origin is in a long-gone December issue of Vegetarian Times, but I’ve made so many changes along the way that at this point I think it’s fair to call it mine.

Although there are a lot of spices, the quantities are such that these are just nicely spicy instead of obnoxious.  The addition of the orange zest and ground almonds further mellows things out and sets them a step above your average gingerbread people.

The dough is supple and easy to roll and decorate, if you’re so inclined, but it makes perfectly good plain slice-and-bake cookies as well.  It also freezes beautifully and makes a ton, so if you’d like to stockpile for later use, it’s a great choice.

Birthday Pie and Sangria

Tags

almonds, apple, wine

It’s been a quite busy couple of weeks, and although I’ve been baking for two birthdays and the usual Monday scene, I’ve been too scatter-brained to take pictures, so we’re going to have to make do here.  I’ll do a bit of a round-up of the baking, then offer what you’ll have to take on faith is quite a photogenic, in addition to easy and well-received, sangria.

So first things first: His Lordship’s birthday came ’round again, and as usual there is no cake for you! because he turns up his nose at cake and demands pie instead.  Since it’s prime apple and pear season, he usually gets some variation on one or the other, and this year, I found this perfect recipe by Tartelette at exactly the right time.  Since I don’t currently have tart molds, I made it as one big tart instead, with locally-grown Cameo and Pink Lady apples baked with maple syrup instead of honey.  It was quite fabulous, especially the frangipane custard layer.  The one change I’d make next time is to slice the apples just a smidgen thicker for a more toothsome texture, even if they won’t layer as prettily as they did in the (sadly mediocre) picture above.

For the other birthday person, who thankfully does not ‘meh’ cake and asked for anything chocolate, I made dark chocolate cupcakes from the same Scharffenberger base recipe behind my uber-coconutty German Chocolate Cupcakes.

As part of the birthday celebrations, there was quite a raucous get-together for which I improvised some sangria, since I don’t do beer and the amusing set of liquor laws here makes wine readily accessible at the supermarket, but hard alcohol means an extra trip to a separate store.  By popular demand (by which I mean two people asked for it), here is the recipe:

Ice-Breaker Sangria
Serves 6-8

2 bottles inexpensive, non-oaky white wine
1/3 cup sherry
3 oranges, 1 sliced thinly and 2 juiced (preferably blood oranges, but navel or valencia are fine)
1 lemon, sliced thinly
1 lime, sliced thinly
1 eating apple, sliced thinly
1/4 cup sugar, dissolved in an equal amount of boiling water

Combine everything in a large pitcher and refrigerate for at least an hour to let flavors combine.

Serve over ice.

Notes:

I used California pinot grigio here, but it’s a really flexible recipe and you could use whatever strikes your fancy, including swapping red or rose for white. I’d just add two cautions: don’t use chardonnay unless it’s aged in neutral barrels, because the oak will overwhelm the fruit, and don’t waste your best wine here.  You actually want  to use the cheap, unobtrusive stuff in sangria.

If Only I Hadn’t Packed the Runcible Spoon…

Tags

almonds, quince

In starting to clear out the fridge yesterday, I found a jar of Greek quince preserves I picked up at the Middle Eastern market ages ago because I cannot resist anything quince, and didn’t have the heart to just throw it out.  Even if I don’t have time or ingredients to make a traditional pastafrola now, I wanted to try something in its general vicinity so the preserves wouldn’t simply go in the trash.

My initial idea was to process the preserves until smooth and spread them over a simple shortbread base for lemon bars, and possibly to sprinkle some kind of crumble over the top.  Then I shifted my eyes a few feet over and saw the pile of many, many Ziploc bags of nuts, and remembered that I really need to finish those off.  Instead of a plain shortbread base, I devised one incorporating toasted sliced almonds, and sprinkled the rest of the almonds on top for crunch and better eye appeal.  Because the preserves just didn’t have as much quince flavor as other brands I’ve tried (the major reason why this jar was still in the fridge), I perked them up with lemon zest and juice before spreading the filling over the pre-baked almond base.

The finished product, which I decided was more of an Italian-style crostata than a bar cookie, was not as rosy and pretty a color as I would have liked, but it was still pleasantly sticky, fruity and nutty.  It was especially nice served with a scoop of the egregiously expensive but competent Thai coconut milk gelato we picked up on Sunday from our town’s duly appointed Gelateria of Hype.

(Warning, rant ahead)

Mid-Week Baklava

Tags

almonds, honey, pastry, pistachios

I’m still writing up this week’s Sunday baking recipe, but as an appetizer, I’m putting up the baklava I made in the middle of last week.

And why did the crazy woman make baklava in the middle of the week? Because she can, darlings!

OK, truthfully, because she defrosted phyllo over the Fourth of July weekend, dreaming all kinds of big phyllo-wrapped dreams, but never actually got around to realizing any of them. Instead, I made a simple spinach, potato and feta pie for dinner on Tuesday, using one of the two individually-wrapped 8-oz sleeves in the pack. Then, looking down at the third of a roll of dough left in the sleeve, I thought, what the hell, I’ll make baklava while I’m at it.

Although I have a few legitimate Greek cookbooks, I chose the Cook’s Illustrated Best International Recipe version as a starting point because I had yet to cook out of that book despite having obtained it it nearly two years ago as a result of the temporary insanity that led me to sign up for the CI cookbook club.

In addition to roughly quartering the quantities to fit the amount of dough I had, I made a couple of modifications in terms of ingredients and technique. First, regardless of its supposed superiority over plain melting, there was no way I was clarifying butter at 9:00 pm on a work day. I also chose the more adventurous combination of almonds and pistachios over their walnut-almond mix.

The combination of almonds and pistachios worked well, because pistachios alone can be a little overwhelming in baklava, and almonds by themselves don’t have enough character to stand up to the honey syrup. The CI approach of creating three thin layers of nut filling produces a nicely flaky and cohesive pastry without the usual tendency to slide and split in half when picked up. It was nicely saturated all the way through with this quantity of syrup, but next time I might double it just to ensure a completely hedonistic experience.

Baklava is never going to be an effortless endeavor, but this was ready to bake by the time the spinach pie came out of the oven, and it makes a perfectly reasonable quantity for a small household instead of enough to feed an army. It does need to sit several hours to absorb the syrup, so you won’t be eating it until morning unless you’re an even more incorrigible night owl than I am. The reward for your evening industriousness is sticky, buttery, crisp, perfect baklava with your breakfast coffee.

Almond-Pistachio Baklava
Serves 2-6

Syrup:
5 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons honey
2 strips lemon zest
1-inch piece of cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1 pinch salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Pastry:
2 ounces sliced, unsalted almonds
1 ounce roasted, salted pistachios
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground cloves
1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 lb phyllo sheets

Combine sugar, honey, zest, and spices for the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat until sugar has dissolved, stirring or swirling the pot as necessary. Transfer to a heat-safe cup, remove the lemon peel and cinnamon stick, stir in the lemon juice, and set aside to cool.

Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position and preheat the oven to 300 F. Liberally butter the bottom and sides of a glass baking dish approximately 8 x 6 x 2.

Process nuts in a food processor until finely chopped, and transfer to a small bowl. Remove 1 tablespoon of nut mixture for the final garnish, then add cinnamon, cloves, and 1/2 tablespoon of sugar to remaining nuts.

Unroll the phyllo and cut to fit the size of the pan. Place one sheet in the bottom of the pan, and brush the entire surface with melted butter. Repeat with 9 more sheets, then sprinkle the top with one third of the nut filling. Cover the filling with 6 more individually-buttered sheets, and the next third of the filling. Repeat with another 6 sheets and the final third of nut mixture. Top with 8-10 more sheets of phyllo.

Using your flat palms, press out any air bubbles in the pastry, then brush on the remaining butter. Using a serrated knife, cut the baklava into diamonds, making sure to pierce all the way through the bottom layers.

Bake 1 1/2 hours or until completely golden, rotating the pan halfway through. Remove from oven and immediately pour all but 2 tablespoons of the syrup along each crevice, then drizzle the remaining syrup over the top. Sprinkle a generous pinch of the reserved ground nuts on the center of each piece.

Cool on a wire rack for 2-3 hours, then cover with foil and let stand 8 hours or overnight.

Linzer Torte for the Lazy

Tags

almonds, cookies, hazelnut, jam

It’s been about a billion degrees Fahrenheit with equivalent levels of humidity here, so it’s not the ideal time to be baking. Still, expectations have been created at the office for Monday morning treats, and a friend was throwing a wine tasting dinner and had asked us to bring dessert, so the oven was going to have to come on. To add a further degree of challenge, one of the guests at the dinner doesn’t eat eggs. Oh, and I also had a work commitment on Sunday.

In considering what dessert items might be relatively quick and easy, not too oven-intensive, and egg-free, I thought of a favorite and versatile base recipe for Mexican wedding cookies from the San Francisco Chronicle, clipped out and pasted into the three-ring binder that is my own personal relic of those quaint old pre-web-archive dinosaurs-roaming-the-earth days. (God, I don’t miss those days. I was not cut out for scrapbooking, as the disastrous state of that binder explosively testifies. Just try picking it up without two dozen unanchored bits of yellowing newsprint flopping out in all directions.)

The great thing about this recipe, despite the fabulous melting texture and not-too-sugary simplicity, is that you can vary the nuts according to your whim and shape it into any number of forms. Since I’ve had a random craving for Linzer Torte lately, I decided to modify the recipe in that general direction by using almonds, adding the traditional spices and lemon zest, and pushing a thumbprint hollow into each cookie that could be filled with raspberry jam after baking and before the final sprinkling of powdered sugar.

I ended up making two separate batches, because there weren’t enough leftovers after the dinner to take in on Monday. For the second batch, I experimented further to see if a combination of almonds and hazelnuts would be an improvement over almonds alone. Having run out of raspberry jam, I also substituted boysenberry.

Both batches had all the charm of the Austrian classic and were eagerly received by their intended consumers, but I think the first batch was just that bit better. I preferred the more traditional tartness of the raspberry jam, as well as the additional rustic texture from the seeds. The hazelnuts neither helped nor hurt the taste, but I did get a more refined cookie by using sliced almonds in the first than from the whole nuts in the second. The smaller, more uniform slices offered more surface area for toasting, and also gave me a head start on a very fine and even grind. The nut meal made from whole nuts was a rougher mixture of powder and slightly gritty sand. The difference is not great enough to merit a special trip to the store if you have whole almonds in the house, but do try it with sliced almonds if you’re starting from scratch or want the best possible result.

A couple of notes on methodology:

Despite the name, I find that the bowl of a 1/4 teaspoon measure is a much better tool for shaping the crater than your thumb. The hollow will be perfectly round and even, and you won’t be left digging dough from under your nails.

Also, if you don’t bake immediately after mixing, try not to use the dough when it’s too cold, since that will promote cracking along the edges. This not only makes for a less attractive cookie, but also causes fissures in the hollow that can allow jam to flow out the caldera like lava streams oozing down Kilauea’s slopes. The dough should be at room temperature, not straight from the fridge but not soft and oily either.

Linzer Thumbprints
Makes 50 cookies

4 ounces sliced almonds (1 1/4 cups), or two ounces each whole almonds and hazelnuts (just under 1 cup)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar, plus extra for dusting
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon each ground cloves and mace
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
Grated zest of one lemon, approximately 1 teaspoon

1 cup jam of choice, preferably raspberry
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Toast the nuts on a cookie sheet until fragrant, approximately 10-15 minutes. If using sliced almonds, stir periodically to ensure even browning, and remove from oven as soon as they are pale golden brown. If using a mixture of almonds and hazelnuts, remove from oven when the skins on the hazelnuts have darkened and cracked, and the meat peeking through is starting to turn gold. Set aside to cool briefly and, if desired, rub off some of the bitter hazelnut skins.

Sift the flour, salt and spices together in a small bowl.

In a food processor, blend the toasted nuts with 1/4 cup of confectioner’s sugar and 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar until finely ground. Do not overprocess or the nuts will become oily and start to produce a nut butter.

In a mixer, cream the butter and remaining confectioner’s and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then the lemon zest. Reduce speed to low and mix in the nut mixture, then the flour mixture, until combined.

Using a small scoop or a tablespoon measure, form balls 1 to 1 1/2 inch around and place 1/2 inch apart on parchment-lined sheets. Using the back of a 1/4 teaspoon measure or, if you really prefer, your thumb, gently make an indentation in each cookie, pushing halfway down to the surface of the sheet.

Bake 13-15 minutes, until just starting to brown. Remove to racks to cool completely.

To serve, mix lemon juice into the jam to brighten the flavor slightly, and fill each crater with the jam. Dust the filled cookies with a light coating of additional powdered sugar before serving.

Unfilled but dusted with powdered sugar, these will keep very well in an airtight container for days, and their flavor will even improve a little. If you’re planning on traveling with them, I suggest you take the cookies and the jam in separate containers and fill them on site before serving. Keeping the filled cookies from sliding around, flipping over or sticking to each other and smearing jam everywhere is more of an engineering challenge than you probably want to tackle.

Holiday Cookie Blogging: Pistachios and Chocolate Two Ways, plus Jam Almond Diamonds

Tags

almonds, biscotti, Cacao Nibs, chocolate, cookies, jam, pistachios

My official policy is that the holidays are not over until I say they are, and I generally don’t say they are until after my birthday at the end of January, so there’s still time for holiday cookie baking as far as I’m concerned.

Depending on how organized I am in any given year, I launch the holiday cookie baking season the weekend of Thanksgiving or the first weekend in December. As I have quite a number of people on my cookie recipient list and some of them are significant distances away, my seasonal selection has been biscotti-heavy of late, because biscotti are easy to make in large quantities, are infinitely variable, keep for weeks, and ship well. Gingerbread, amaretti, shortbread, and other dry and crispy cookies are also must-haves, although I also like to make a few more delicate offerings for strictly local and immediate consumption.

I made six different cookies this year, two of which I have already been blogged about: Meyer lemon-rosemary shortbread, and Anzac Biscuits. Three new whim-driven experiments also joined the gift boxes: two variations on a pistachio-chocolate theme, and a jam and almond diamond that was too fragile and perishable to mail out but which was a huge hit when handed out at the office.

The pistachio-chocolate biscotti came from my constant fiddling with biscotti additions, and started out as a pistachio-dried apricot version I thought would look festive for the holidays last year. Unfortunately, the apricots turned into little pieces of shrapnel after that much oven drying, so I swapped them out with dark chocolate, remembering how well my earlier walnut-chocolate chunk version had turned out. Besides tasting wonderfully exotic and adult, the bright green nuts and dark brown chocolate make for a smashingly dramatic look.

The amaretti are the result of a market failure. Last winter I discovered cacao nibs, the roasted beans chocolate is made from. Much like coffee beans, cacao nibs are crunchy and loaded with flavor, tasting like a cross between pure dark chocolate and toasted nuts. I fell fast and hard, and instantly went about looking for ways to use them. In the middle of making my own amaretti when I couldn’t find them in my neighborhood haunts and couldn’t be bothered to make a trip to the specialty store, it occurred to me that cacao nibs were nut-like enough to be swapped out for part of the ground almonds in my recipe. I tried it, and loved the sophisticated results. I later substituted hazelnuts for the almonds, since the combination of hazelnuts and chocolate is so perfectly Italian, and their stronger flavor also stood up better to the nibs. The downside is that hazelnut skins are bitter and absolutely must be removed before using them. Given that I’m feeling both lazy and extravagant this time of year, I usually end up springing for blanched hazelnuts instead of toasting until the skins split and laboriously rubbing them off with a dish towel.

Although I was willing, nay, happy to pay the usurious prices charged by Whole Foods, they were just not to be had this time, so when I got home, I considered my pantry options. Spotting the pistachios, I gave them a try and was happily surprised when I bit into the first finished cookie and discovered that, while different, it was just as good. I’m sure I’ll continue to shell out for the hazelnuts, since they are my favorite nut, but the pistachio option is one to keep. Equally delicious but half the price and none of the bother. What’s not to love?

The final cookie is a twist on the America’s Test Kitchen take on the “one dough many cookies” idea in The New Best Recipe. I’m really not a fan of the plain sugar cookie, both because I find them boring and because I have no patience for cookie cutters these days, but I had faith in the ATK people and liked the idea of the chocolate-hazelnut bar cookie alternative they suggested. Since I had just done two chocolate-nut cookies, though, I wanted to do something a bit different. I thought of spreading the warm cookie base with seedless blackberry jam and sprinkled it with roughly chopped toasted almonds instead. The buttery crust, bright fruit and caramelized nuts ended up tasting like a deconstructed Linzertorte, and their fancy, stained-glass sheen are perfect for this time of year. As I discovered when I took them to work the next morning, they are too sticky and tender to travel well, but they are so easy to throw together, please consider inviting people over for these and a cup of tea.

Pistachio Chocolate Chunk Biscotti
(Makes 4-5 dozen, depending on how thinly you slice them)

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon espresso powder
1 1/2 cups shelled pistachios
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Blend the butter and sugars together in a mixer until fluffy, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt and espresso powder and add to the wet mixture, beating again gently until just combined. Stir in the pistachios and chocolate.

Divide the dough in half and shape into two 12-inch loaves on the baking sheet. Bake until light brown and beginning to crack, about 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

Lower the oven to 300F. Slice the loaves on the diagonal with a serrated knife into 1/4 inch slices. Place the slices in a single layer on the baking sheet and bake again until toasted and golden, about 15 minutes. Turn over and bake again until crisp, an additional 10-15 minutes. If the cookies are not sufficiently dry at that point, turn the oven off and leave several hours or overnight to cool.

Notes: Thinner is absolutely better in this case, as you want crisp but not tooth-breaking cookies, so fight the urge to slice them any thicker than 1/4 inch. You could use either raw or roasted pistachios, but using raw will help preserve the beautiful green color a bit better by preventing over-toasting.

Pistachio-Cacao Nib Amaretti
(Makes approximately four dozen)

1 cup roasted, unsalted shelled pistachios
1/2 cup roasted cacao nibs
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 egg whites
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 300 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the pistachios, nibs, cornstarch and powdered sugar in a food processor and pulse until the nuts and nibs are very finely chopped.

Whip the egg whites with an electric mixer until foamy. Add the granulated sugar in a slow stream while continuing to beat until a stiff and glossy meringue forms. Beat in the vanilla.

Gently fold the nut mixture into the meringue with a rubber spatula. Scoop the batter onto the baking sheets with a tablespoon-sized ice cream scoop, approximately twenty cookies per sheet. (Since they will not spread very much, they can be spaced closer than usual.)

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cookies begin to crack slightly. Lower the oven to 200 F, leaving the door ajar to release excess heat, and bake until completely dry and crisp in the center, 30-45 minutes. The oven can also be turned off and the cookies left overnight to dry.

The cooled cookies can be kept in an airtight container almost indefinitely, and ship beautifully.

Jam Almond Diamonds
(Makes approximately 4 dozen, not including the waste along the edges)

1 1/2 cups whole almonds
2 1/2 cups (12.5 oz) unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 cup (5.5 oz) superfine sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into 16 pieces, at room temperature but still cool
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cream cheese, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups seedless jam of choice

Adjust rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

While preparing the cookie dough, bake the almonds in the heated oven until toasted and golden. Remove and allow to cool, then chop coarsely.

Mix flour, sugar and salt in a mixer until combined. With mixer on low, add butter one piece at a time, then continue to mix until mixture looks crumbly and slightly wet. Add vanilla and cream cheese and mix until dough just begins to come together.

Press the dough into an even layer in the baking sheet and bake until golden brown, approximately 20 minutes. Immediately after removing from oven, spread with the jam and sprinkle with chopped almonds.

Cool to room temperature, then cut into 1 1/2-inch diamond shapes.

Notes: You will have a fair amount of waste, since there’s no way to get perfect diamonds without creating triangles, trapezoids and the like along the edges, but I consider the waste the baker’s tax and will happily reserve it all for my personal consumption. If you want to avoid the waste and don’t care as much about a pretty shape, you can just cut the cookies into squares or rectangles instead.

Sunday Sweets Blogging: Sour Cherry Crumb Tart

Tags

almonds, cherry, pie, tart

Cranberries, rhubarb, and now sour cherries. Do we sense a theme here? I appear to have a thing for incandescently red, tart fruit, don’t I? I suppose I might as well confess that I love pomegranates and blood oranges, too. I’m sure someone with a psychology background could come up with some sordid reason for my attraction to crimson fruits, but I prefer not to examine the implications too closely and just enjoy the mood-lifting color and the tastebud-stimulating tingle.

Even if you don’t share my potentially problematic compulsion to snatch up anything red and tangy, you really ought to take advantage of the blink-of-an-eye season for sour cherries if you’re lucky enough to live in their growing area. They’re obscenely expensive for the two weeks or so that they appear, and pitting them is a pain in the ass, but their manic color and flavor are so wonderful that it’s well worth the pricetag and the trouble. If you do bite the bullet, the best way to showcase them is in a pie, or, if you’re not feeling up to working with dough, a crisp or cobbler. You want to let the fruit get top billing, with some plain and sweet dough or crumbly mixture to play the supporting role.

I went a little nuts (literally!) with today’s recipe, which combines both an almond-enhanced bottom crust and a crumbly topping, but since they’re a once-a-year treat, I thought they deserved the extra effort. As has become another habit, this recipe is an amalgam of components from several recipes: the basic almond tart dough and the almond crumble from Nick Malgieri’s How to Bake, and the filling from a Gourmet recipe for sour cherry crostata on Epicurious. The end product is humble in appearance but a shooting star in taste and texture, with a tender cookie-like crust and a crumbly and nutty top layer, sandwiching between them a zingy layer of unadorned fruit.

Sour Cherry Crumb Tart
Makes 1 9-inch tart

Almond Tart Dough
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1/2 cup finely ground almond meal
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Sour Cherry Filling
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 quart fresh sour cherries, pitted (approx. 4-5 cups)
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cold water
3 tablespoons cornstarch

Almond Crumble Topping
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup slivered almonds
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Equipment: 9-inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom

Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium for 5 minutes, or until fluffy and pale in color. Beat in the vanilla and egg yolk and beat for another 2 minutes, then beat in the almond meal. Sift the flour over the the mixture and fold in gently with a spatula, until no traces of flour remain. Place in a gallon-sized zip-top bag or sandwich between two layers of plastic wrap and press out into a disk approx. 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Melt the butter in a large nonstick skillet over moderate heat, then add the cherries and sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Lower the heat and continue to simmer until the cherries are tender but not mushy, about 6 minutes. Mix the water and cornstarch into a paste, pull the pan off the heat, and stir the paste into the filling. Return the pan to the heat and simmer two more minutes, stirring frequently. Pour the filling onto a shallow baking dish and allow to cool to room temperature.

Place the oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. While the oven is heating, prepare the topping by mixing the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, then stirring in the butter until thoroughly combined. Let sit for five minutes, then break the mixture into medium-sized crumbs with your fingers.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and press into the tart pan, making sure the bottom and sides are even and patching any cracks or holes through which the filling might ooze. If the dough heats and softens too much from working it, return to the refrigerator for several minutes, then fill with the cherries. Sprinkle the topping evenly over the top.

Set the tart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake until the dough and topping are golden and the filling is bubbling, 30-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a rack, a full hour if you can wait that long, and at least half an hour if you can’t.